by Morey, Trish
She screwed up her nose. “Anyhow, that’s probably way too much information. The point I was getting to is that Marietta’s about as different from New York City as this place here is.”
She was wrong about the too much information. Mining was in his blood, it was part of who he was and what he did fourteen days straight of twelve-hour shifts. He could listen to her talk about her town’s copper history all day. Then again, he could listen to her talking about anything. Her accent matched her boots for pure country and the way her face lit up when she was talking about her home town, he could almost see it projected from the depths of her green eyes.
“I believe it,” he said. “Like chalk and cheese.” Like the world of difference between Scarlett and Kristelle, it occurred to him. And then he wondered how he could be so certain when he’d known Scarlett for all of ten minutes and they’d hardly got off to an auspicious start.
But now that he’d put the two women side by side in the same thought, his mind began to play with the germ of an idea.
A mad idea, sure, but it had possibilities.
And if it helped his lonesome cowgirl out into the bargain, everyone was a winner.
The more he mulled it over, the more perfect it became until even his coffee started tasting better.
Because he wasn’t interested in commitment, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she had a hankering to get home. What could be better? She could still be his temporary cowgirl—only for a few days instead of the few hours he’d imagined.
It could work.
Hell, it would be worth turning up with Scarlett on his arm just to see the look on Kristelle’s face.
“Anyhow,” Scarlett said, swallowing down the last of her coffee before she stood and reached for her pack. “I better get moving. Thanks for, you know, helping out and—um—well, for the conversation.” She pointed to her small pile of coins. “I’ve left the money for the coffee.”
And Mitch knew the moment was now. He’d wanted to help her and he wasn’t sure how, but he wasn’t naive enough to think that a conversation over a cup of coffee was going to magically solve all her problems. But something else might...
“Where are you headed?”
“Oh, you know,” she looked out the window longingly, and he could tell she didn’t have a clue, “I thought I’d just check out the town a bit.”
“And where are you staying?”
“Excuse me, but I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“Okay, let me put it like this. Seems to me that you need money to get home but you haven’t got a job, and I’m guessing, the way you’re lugging that pack around, that you haven’t got anywhere to stay either.”
Her green eyes opened wide with shock and indignation. “What? What’s it to you anyhow?”
“Simple,” he said, knowing he’d hit the mother lode. “Because I’ve got a proposition for you.”
Chapter Four
Scarlett laughed if only to cover up her disappointment. She’d had plenty of propositions before and she was pretty certain of what this one might entail. And there she’d been thinking he was one of the good guys. There she’d been thinking she’d almost miss him once she walked out of here. “Thanks but no thanks.”
“You haven’t even heard what I’m offering yet.”
“You think I need to? A proposition, you said. Sounds to me like you’re still looking to collect. Though I really don’t understand why you’d want to throw good money after bad.”
“After what happened before, do you really think I’d be insane enough to offer you money for sex?”
Heads at nearby tables swiveled at the S word. Conversations and clatter stopped and all ears angled closer. She scanned the faces looking at her, held out her hands in a shrug and smiled. “Can you believe it? He’s still sore because I turned him down. What’s a girl to do?”
“Good for you,” said one nodding grey-haired matron at a table nearby.
“Make him work for it, I say,” added her friend.
“Hear, hear,” said someone from another table, “make him sweat!”
Scarlett laughed and bowed a little. “Why, thank you all for the advice. I’ll be sure to do that. I’d just hate for him to think I was easy.”
“Hell, Scarlett,” he said, “I know you’re not easy.” He took her by the hand and hauled her pack over his shoulder and said, “Let’s blow this joint.”
“Have fun, you two,” called the first woman after them.
“Don’t do anything we wouldn’t.”
“Well, that leaves plenty of scope!”
The cafe dissolved into shrieks of post-menopausal laughter that followed them out onto the street.
“Why did we have to leave?” Scarlett asked, still smiling as she waved back to her new friends through the big open window. “That was just getting to be fun.”
“How was I going to negotiate anything with the entire cast of the Golden Girls listening in? I’d be toast.”
She laughed and it felt so good. He was still holding her hand, his fingers warm and sure around hers and she liked it. Liked it? She damn well near sizzled with it. It was the best she’d felt since she’d landed in Perth and called the number she’d rehearsed so many times she knew it by heart.
And look how that ended.
A sliver of fear wound its way around her stomach and pulled tight. “Hey, are you married?”
He looked down at her, his expression guarded. “No-o-o.”
The knot slipped undone and she found she could breathe again. “Good.”
“And just for the record, I’m not looking for a wife.”
“Even better. Nothing personal, but I’m not looking for a husband either.”
“Excellent,” he said, “so we understand each other.”
She wasn’t so sure about that. There was plenty she didn’t know about him, but she did know he had nothing to worry about on her part. After making a complete ass of herself over Travis, she was so not going down that road again in a hurry. In fact, it was high time she stopped doing everything in a hurry. Maybe if she took her time and seriously considered the pros and cons of things a little more before she dived—headlong—in, she wouldn’t get herself into these messes. Maybe it was time to act a bit more responsibly like her sister, with her good sense and her good job and her oh-so-sensible fiancé.
Then she thought about Tara’s history teacher fiancé, Simon, for a moment. Hmmm, well, maybe she didn’t especially want one of those, exactly, but she could do responsible if she really set her mind to it, she was sure.
Meanwhile this man’s hand was warm around hers, his fingers long. Was it sensible to be holding hands with a man you barely knew? Maybe not, but she could hardly expect to get this sensible thing down pat in one shot.
“This should do.” He pulled her down next to him onto a bench outside the information center, where there was not a golden girl in sight and no risk of their conversation being overheard except in meaningless snatches in passing. He released her hand to let her pack down onto the ground.
“Jesus, that thing’s enormous, I thought backpackers traveled light. What the hell have you got in there?”
She shrugged as he settled back down alongside her and cursed the lack of interest on eBay. “You really don’t want to know. So tell me, Mr. Mitch deal-or-no-deal, what exactly is this proposition of yours?”
He looked at her, at her startlingly red hair and her green eyes and a mouth that made words sound too cute to be real and wondered if he was making the biggest mistake of his life. Then again, life had been pretty dull lately and it was a hell of a way to go. “I was right about you needing money to get home, wasn’t I?”
She stretched her long legs out and stuck her hands in her jeans pockets and looked out at the traffic. “Maybe.”
“That’s okay, I don’t need the details. That’s your business. All I need is a favor.” And something to distract me from those legs.
Clad in denim with cute little
rips in all the right places and ending in those fancy cut leather boots, they were long and lean and the best thing he’d seen since he’d eyeballed them unwrapped back at Bella’s. And while he told himself her legs weren’t the reason he was asking her to do him a favor, he sure wouldn’t object to seeing them unwrapped again sometime soon.
Maybe he would.
And that was a worry when he was supposed to be doing this to help her out.
So much for being altruistic.
“So what’s the favor…? Earth calling Mitch?”
He looked back up, wondering just how long he’d been missing in action thinking about little tears in jeans that opened when she moved and revealed a tiny glimpse of tan skin beneath. “Yeah, here’s the plan. I need a temporary girlfriend, or someone to act as my girlfriend. Just for a few days. For a wedding I have to attend this weekend.”
“So why do you need a pretend girlfriend?”
“Because it’s my ex getting married.”
“Well, that’s a no brainer. Just don’t go.”
“Not possible. She’s marrying my best mate.”
“Ah.” This time she nodded. “But I’m sure he’d understand if you choked, given he’s marrying your ex and all. He’d probably rather you weren’t there anyhow.”
‘Yeah, you’d think so, wouldn’t you? Trouble is, he’s asked me to be best man.”
She sat up. “What the hell? And you said yes?”
“Only because he didn’t tell me who he was marrying before I agreed to do it.”
She stretched back out again. “Wow. So does this guy have it in for you or something?”
“No, like I said, he’s a mate.” And Robbo was. They’d met at university and done two years of engineering together before Robbo had decided that he preferred counting things to building them and switched to accounting instead. He still worked for a mining company, but his place was firmly behind a desk in the big city head office.
“Yeah, I can see that. A good mate, clearly, because in case you hadn’t noticed, he’s marrying your ex.”
“I had actually noticed that.” And he couldn’t really blame Robbo for jumping at the chance, because Kristelle was really something to look at and Robbo had never had much luck in the female department. He must have thought all his Christmases had come at once when she’d knocked on his door bemoaning Mitch’s failings.
“Okay, so let me see if I’ve got this straight. You’re stuck with going to this wedding, because you’re the best man, only he’s marrying your ex and you don’t want to go alone because you don’t want to look like some kind of loser?”
Good grief. So maybe this wasn’t his best ever idea. “Thank you for your succinct and incisive assessment, but can we drop the loser angle? Maybe I just don’t want her to think I’m available.”
“Why? You think she’s still got the hots for you or something? Then why would she marry someone else?”
Who knew? “Look, Kristelle and I were together a couple of months all up—most of the time with me on shift so we didn’t get to see that much of each other. And it was it good at first but it clearly wasn’t going anywhere, so I suggested a break.”
“And let me guess. She didn’t take it well.”
He thought back to the tears, the melodrama, the breast beating and the incessant ‘whys.’ “Yeah, you could say that.”
She nodded. “So you think she’s marrying your friend to get back at you.”
He shrugged. “I know it sounds crazy.”
“Maybe they really love each other. How long have they been together now?”
“Three months.”
“Wow. She is a fast worker.”
“Oh yeah.”
“So basically you don’t trust her or her motives.”
He thought back to her final words. ‘You’ll be sorry. I’ll make you sorry.’ At the time he’d thought nothing of it. She was angry. She’d get over it. Hell, it wasn’t like they’d ever professed undying love for each other.
It was Robbo who’d explained that as soon as Mitch had left Perth and gone back to the mines, Kristelle had turned up on his doorstep in tears needing comfort. And finding it, apparently, though Mitch had stopped Robbo short before he could tell him all the gory details. And it was Kristelle who’d apparently begged him not to tell Mitch they were together so as not to upset him. Like hell. More likely so she’d have Robbo wrapped around her little finger before Mitch could warn him to run like hell.
No. He didn’t trust her one little bit. “Not entirely.”
“But what can she do? She’s marrying someone else.”
“That’s just it. I don’t know if she’d try anything, but I sure wouldn’t put it past her. The simple fact is she’ll have less opportunity than if I turn up alone.” He looked at her. “Think of your role as insurance.”
She screwed up her nose. “I’m not sure I can do insurance. It sounds awfully dull.”
“Then think of it as being a guard dog.”
She smiled. “Now that I can do.”
He looked at her with new admiration. “I always wanted a red headed Rottweiler. So—will you do it then?”
“What’s in it for me?” she asked, but she was smiling and he had a good feeling about this.
“You’re doing me the favor. You name your price.”
Was he for real? “Okay.” She stuck up her chin. If he wanted a pretend girlfriend for a few days, it was going to cost him. “If I’m going to even think about this—just think about it, mind—I’m going to want fifteen hundred dollars on the table. Cash. Paid in full the day after the wedding.”
He didn’t even blink. “Done. Plus expenses of course. So you’ll do it?”
“Um.” Had he really said ‘done’? Could she really have the funds to go home in just a few days’ time and all she had to do was pretend to be someone’s girlfriend? It was that simple? Hope, that fragile bubble of hope, that had been dashed and bruised and battered by today’s disappointments, peeled itself off the floor and sucked in air.
“Oh, and you’ll need something to wear for the wedding of course. Unless you’ve got something suitable in your backpack.”
Suitable for a wedding? Now, that was funny.
“Nope. Nothing suitable for a wedding,” she said, with a straight face. “Absolutely nothing.”
“Okay.” He looked at his watch. “We’ll go shopping tomorrow. So, what else do you need to know? Will you do it?”
It was all happening so fast. She liked fast. She thrived on fast. But it was her downfall too, she’d learned. Things looked so good on the surface, she didn’t bother with the details. She had to learn to bother with the details. And there was one detail that was unsaid, and sizzlingly unsettling, and it couldn’t stay that way.
“What about sex?” she asked. ‘Will that be expected as part of the pretend girlfriend deal too?”
“We’ll have to look like a couple. You’ll have to share the villa they’ve booked for me.”
“So that’s a yes?” Damn, did she sound too hopeful?
“Sex is actually outside this arrangement.”
“So, that’s a no?”
He smiled and that killer combination of blue eyes and smiling mouth almost did her head in. “That’s not what I said.”
Oh hell. What was that supposed to mean?
“So what’s it to be Scarlett?”
“Hang on a minute, I have to think about this.” She squeezed her mouth and her eyes tight shut, the cogs in her mind spinning around, putting the brakes on the Hell yes! response that she was renowned for. If she was going to be more responsible she was going to have to stop doing that. She was going to have to seriously think about this. Think about the pros and cons and what could possibly go wrong, because sure as God made little green apples—if she didn’t, something would.
Pro, she thought: it was quick easy money, quicker than even Bella’s had promised to be. And it was all expenses paid. Bonus.
Pro: she wouldn�
��t even have to confess to Tara that she’d been sacked from a brothel. Yes!
Pro: she’d get to spend the next few days with a guy who came with an electric touch that made her toes curl. All that rampant electricity. All that masculine heat. Just remembering how he’d felt naked and next to her sent her pulse tripping all over again.
Oh hell. She turned her mind to the cons before she’d talked herself into it on the pros alone.
Con: she’d jumped before at the chance for quick easy money, and look how that had turned out.
Con: she didn’t really know this guy. He could be an axe murderer for all she knew. Why should she believe his story about a jilted lover and her need for revenge when he could be packing an axe?
Con: if she ended up dead, Tara would never forgive her. Oh, maybe that should be a pro?
Con: she’d get to spend the next few days with a guy who came with an electric touch that made her toes curl. All that masculine heat. Ooh, but that was a pro too. Then again...
“Excuse me?”
She was still tossing up whether spending more time with this guy was a pro or a con. She didn’t appreciate the interruption. She didn’t bother opening her eyes. “What?”
“What are you doing?”
She cracked open her eyes and peeked up at him. “What do you think I’m doing? I’m thinking.”
“So why’s it taking you so long?”
“Because I’m weighing up the pros and cons. Making a sensible decision. I always jump into things and it always goes wrong. This time I’m determined to do the right thing.”
“Fine,” he said, “just keep in mind that the wedding is Saturday.”
“That’s three whole days away.” She closed her eyes again.
