Wicked in Winter

by Jennifer Bernard

The next day, he volunteered for car-pool duty. Gretel’s Nissan truck was already gone when he stopped at the Noonans. Great, they could have that private conversation as soon as he dropped everyone off at their respective schools. Never had he been so efficient with the drop-offs. He was dying to know what Gretel wanted to talk to him about.

  The Wicked Brew Coffee Shop sat smack in the middle of town. Its sign featured a black cauldron, with coffee steam rising from it. The steam formed shapes—a raven, a bear, a wolf, a whale. Danny D had put up the sign when he bought the place and changed its name, and it screamed rush job. It actually drove Zander nuts that it was so badly carved.

  The Wicked Brew was an especially popular hangout for teenagers, who appreciated the free Wi-Fi. Even in the summer, the clientele was mostly locals instead of tourists. It was…funky. That was the best word for the place.

  He spotted Gretel right away, as soon as he stepped through the door, which was painted a deep royal purple. She was chatting to Danny D behind the counter. Her hair was drawn to the top of her head like a pile of fireweed fluff, with two chopsticks holding it in place. She wore a tight black top that exposed her collarbones and the tops of her shoulders. A locket dangling from a choker nestled into the divot at the base of her throat.

  All these details registered before she even looked his way.

  When their gazes locked, she gave him a little wave, then said something to Danny. He nodded and assumed her position behind the espresso machine. She came around the counter and headed his way. He noticed that she seemed…uncomfortable. Awkward, even. That was unusual for her.

  “Hi Zander. Come on back. Danny said I could have the supply room for the next half an hour.”

  “Supply room,” he murmured. “That’s a change from my bedroom.”

  “Right, and here’s another change. I’m not going to yell at you. I want to help you.” She spoke over her shoulder as she led the way down a short, very dark and cramped hallway to a storeroom at the end. The aroma of roasted coffee beans filled his nostrils as they stepped inside.

  He inhaled long and deep. He’d only had one cup so far this morning, and he usually drank at least three.

  “Oops, I forgot to ask if you want some coffee. I’ll be right back.”

  She darted out the door, while he shoved his hands in his pockets and tried to shut out the memory of her ass in those crimson velvet leggings.

  Something about her always managed to push that lust button.

  In a minute, she was back with a large mug of steaming black coffee. “Costa Rican Dark Roast, direct from the cloud forests,” she said nervously. “You know what would be fun to do? Go on a world coffee tour. Coffee beans are grown in some of the most beautiful places in the—”

  “Gretel.” He put a hand on her shoulder, trying to ground her. “What’s this all about? I know you didn’t invite me here to talk about coffee. I love it too, but we don’t have to have that convo in a supply room.”

  “Right. Right. So here’s the thing. I’ve been thinking about your situation with Susan Baker, and I want to help. I don’t want to see the Ross brothers get split apart. I know how that feels and it sucks. I grew up between two homes, or really more like multiple homes because my mother kept remarrying, and my father kept buying more houses. I would hate for the boys to have that kind of stress if there’s no need for it.”

  “Gretel.”

  She paused in her headlong rush of words. “Yes?”

  “What’s your idea? I’m open to anything. You don’t have to be nervous.”

  A nervous laugh was her response to that. When she rubbed her palms on her leggings, he tugged one of her hands free and turned it over. “You’re sweating?”

  “Happens when I get nervous. You should have seen me when I jumped off a waterfall in Hawaii. I was sweating so much—”

  “Gretel.”

  “What?”

  “Just spit it out. Imagine you’re jumping off a cliff. Just make up your mind and—”

  “Let’s get married,” she blurted out.

  “What?” He must have roared the word, because she took a quick step backwards, as if the force of his voice was a fire hose. “Sorry.” He tried again. “What?”

  Okay, that one was at least a few decibels lower.

  “What are you talking about?”

  She lifted her chin and he realized that she might be wounded by his spontaneously stunned reaction.

  “Little confused here, that’s all.”

  “Right. I should have led up to it more, but I got nervous and—” She tugged her hand away. He’d forgotten he was holding it. “I went into some online forums and learned a few things about what child services departments pay attention to. Basically they look for red flags, right? Falling grades, acting out, signs of abuse, that sort of thing. But there’s also a preference for two-parent households. It makes sense because raising kids is hard. Two people have more to offer than one. So a one-parent household, like you, is going to be under more scrutiny. Following me so far?”

  “Yes, but—”

  She held up a hand. “Let me finish, or you’re going to make me too nervous. If you’re married, that’s one less thing they can use against you, in case they’re looking for things to use against you.”

  “But who’s going to believe that I suddenly got married?”

  “Susan Baker already thinks we’re in a serious relationship. It’s the logical next step.”

  Logical? None of this was logical. The whole concept was ridiculous. And yet, the idea of informing Susan Baker that he wasn’t just a single dude raising his brothers on his own…was kind of tempting.

  Slowly, almost to himself instead of to her, he said, “I could always tell her that we were already engaged when she stopped by, but we were keeping it secret until we told the boys.”

  Gretel clapped her hands as her face lit up. “That’s brilliant! A secret engagement! How romantic.”

  “No no no, that just slipped out, I’m not onboard with this yet.” Was he actually considering this? It was such a bad idea. Or was it? God, he didn’t know.

  This time, Gretel didn’t look offended by his resistance. “I know, it’s unfair because I’ve been thinking about it for a few days now, so I have a head start. Here’s the thing. I know that Susan Baker liked me. That’s understandable, because I’m such a delight and all-around charmer.”

  When he didn’t laugh, she got serious again.

  “But I never told her specifically what our relationship is. Neither of us did. So we can say that it’s anything we want. Why couldn’t we have been secretly engaged? It would explain why I knew where you were the day of the car-pool crash. It would explain why I was so upset.”

  He rubbed at his temples, where a persistent hammer-tacker throb had set in. “But…marriage…or a fake marriage…I don’t know…”

  “No. It couldn’t be fake. It has to be real. Like, registered with the State of Alaska real. You know she’d check. I only met her briefly and I know she’d check.”

  “Oh, she’d definitely check.” He picked up the mug of coffee from the shelf where Gretel had set it down. But he was afraid to take a sip in case she said something else outrageous and he spewed it everywhere. “So it would be in name only. Just a formality.”

  She twisted her face to the side. “I don’t think that would work either. Everyone has to believe we’re really married. The Noonans, your brothers, Bethany, my family. Everyone in Lost Harbor. Otherwise, she’ll know. And that would be worse than not doing it at all. We can’t look like cheats.”

  His head was literally spinning. Or maybe the room was doing the spinning. Or maybe the entire world.

  “You want to marry me?” he asked flatly. “Why? None of this is your problem.”

  “Well, guess what? It’s not just for you. I have my own reasons.”

  “Then I need to know those reasons, like now. We need complete and total honesty here. This is my brothers we’re talking about. My family
.” He drilled her with a stare borrowed directly from his unit commander. No one could withstand that.

  “Fine. I have a couple reasons. One, to get my parents off my back and show them I’m serious about that. Two—okay, this is the main one. Once I get married, I’ll have instant access to a fund my mom set up for my honeymoon. She says it has almost a hundred thousand dollars in it. I would offer to split it with you but I need it to pay a debt.”

  “What sort of debt? This sounds sketchy. If there’s anything sketchy, I don’t want to be involved because of my brothers.”

  “Are butterflies sketchy?”

  “What?” Why did every word out of her mouth confuse him even more?

  “Back when I had bank accounts and credit cards from my father, I pledged a pretty substantial donation to a butterfly sanctuary. I wanted them to be able to stand up to my father’s company.”

  He blinked at her. This was definitely a side of Gretel he hadn’t known about.

  “Instead I got cut off and I couldn’t give them anything. Last I heard, they were considering taking the purchase offer but I think there might still be time. It’s funny because I hadn’t even thought about that fund because I had no intention of getting married, but now…” She shrugged. “There’s an actual reason to.”

  “Kind of a weird reason. Two weird reasons, if you count Susan Baker.”

  Gretel rolled her pretty eyes. “My mother’s been married three times. My father is on his fourth wife. I haven’t exactly had good role models when it comes to marriage. I’m not even sure I believe in it. But if I can help someone by getting married, then maybe it does have a purpose.”

  “You don’t believe in marriage?” He had to ask. If they were going to do this, he needed to know what it meant to her. He hadn’t given a ton of thought to marriage himself—too busy, really. But he’d always assumed that someday he’d fall in love the way his parents had, and then he’d get married.

  “I said I’m not sure. I didn’t, before. I was pretty cynical about it because I witnessed so many marriages firsthand that were basically business arrangements. I mean, I’ve personally seen four prenups with my own eyes. How many unmarried twenty-five-year-olds who aren’t lawyers can say that?”

  He wasn’t sure what to say to that. He’d never seen a prenup except on TV. “My parents were married for thirty-five years, never had a prenup, died still happy with each other, far as I know. They had their rough times, but they liked being married.”

  “Well, in my experience, that doesn’t happen very often. The point is, marriage is kind of a…partnership. Both people have a goal, and the other person helps them reach the goal.”

  “That’s beautiful,” he said dryly.

  “That’s practical.”

  He snorted. “You don’t have a practical bone in your body.”

  She planted her hands on her hips. “You don’t know everything about my bones.”

  He couldn’t stop his gaze from dropping down her body, doing a complete sweep of her petite build and delicate curves. True, he didn’t. But he wanted to.

  And how would this “marriage” fit in with that?

  Complete honesty, he reminded himself. “What about sex?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She hadn’t even thought about that part of it? “Would this be the kind of marriage where you have sex, or the kind that’s just on paper?”

  “I already said it can’t be just on paper.”

  His eyebrows climbed up his forehead. If he was understanding this right, they might be headed for the bedroom. And to the actual bed, for once. This just got more and more surreal—and also more appealing.

  “I mean, I’m pretty sure we’d both enjoy that part,” Gretel said, sounding totally reasonable. “Just based on, you know, all the kissing.”

  “All the kissing,” he repeated. His cock twitched. He’d been hoping “all the kissing” would lead to something more, but he hadn’t imagined it happening this way. “What if we don’t?” When she looked confused, he added, “Enjoy it?”

  “Oh. I hadn’t thought about that,” she confessed.

  “If we don’t enjoy it, and we’re married and stuck with each other, what then?”

  “Look, one thing I learned from my father, and it’s not necessarily a good thing, but it comes in handy sometimes. Everything is negotiable. All we have to do is put it all out there on the table and hammer out an agreement. Off the top of my head, if we get married and then discover that we can’t stand each other and don’t want to have sex—then we don’t. I’ll stay for enough time to make it look legit, then I’ll leave town. No one would be the least bit surprised. It’s kind of what I do.”

  He was already shaking his head. “No, that would make it look like I was being too reckless with my brothers’ well-being.”

  “We’ll make sure it doesn’t look like that. If anything, we can make it look like you’re protecting your brothers by dumping me.”

  He squinted at her, trying on for size the idea of dumping her. It didn’t really compute. “Did this whole idea come from Bethany? Didn’t she and Nate pretend to be together before they actually got together?”

  “Wow, you heard about that?”

  “Abby told me.”

  She shrugged. “That was totally different. It was fake. This won’t be fake. If you want, we can put our own private asterisk next to it. Marriage with an asterisk. Or ‘marriage’ in quotes.” She demonstrated the quote marks with her fingers. “We’ll be committed to each other, for better or worse, but we can say it’s for a limited amount of time. I was thinking three years because Jason will be sixteen by then.”

  Oh my God. She’d lost her damn mind. “An expiration date. Good to know.”

  “It’s negotiable.”

  He let out a long laugh. “Negotiable” and “marriage” were two concepts he’d never put together like this before.

  An impatient frown creased her forehead and she bit her lower lip. “Look, it’s just a thought. You can say no right now. I won’t be offended. I was thinking that it’s a way we can both get something we want. That’s all. But if the idea is really that repulsive to you—”

  “Repulsive?” He came toward her and caught her hands in his. “It’s not repulsive, for fuck’s sake. Nothing about you is repulsive, not even close. I’m honestly…touched that you thought of this. I’m honored. So don’t go getting it all twisted, okay?”

  She gave a little sniff and a nod. Had he really hurt her feelings with his wary reaction? He cupped her chin in his hand and lifted it so their eyes met. “Do you believe me?”

  Her lips quirked—or one corner, anyway. “I’m trying to decide.”

  “It’s just…I’m trying to think about this rationally. Pros and cons. Logistics. Details. But it’s kind of hard when you’re two inches away from me and looking so fine and smelling so sweet.”

  Now the other corner lifted as well. There was that dazzling Gretel smile.

  “So here’s what I’m thinking.” His voice dropped to a growl because she just turned him on, every bit of her. “We have a little time before Susan Baker gets back from Kodiak. Let’s make the most of it.”

  “How?” Her turquoise eyes skimmed back and forth, scanning his face.

  “Let’s do some speed dating. Like a courtship on speed. We’ll get to know each other—a lot better than we already do. We’ll kiss. If that goes well, we’ll make out. If that goes well, we’ll have sex. If that goes well, then—and only then—will we talk about this again.”

  Her tongue did that thing where it ran between the seam of her lips and drove him crazy.

  “And then?” she croaked.

  “Then we’ll decide.”

  “What if we run out of time? What if she comes back?”

  “If she does, we’ll wing it. But I’m not worried. It’s winter, and the flights to Kodiak get canceled all the time. With the forecast over the next couple weeks, she’s probably stuck there for a while.”
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  Her skin was so soft against his hand, and he could feel the rapid beating of her pulse under his fingers. Was she scared? Nervous again? Happy?

  “I’m not used to thinking about marriage as a business deal,” he said softly. “I don’t think it will be, for me. It has to be…something. Do you understand?”

  Slowly, she nodded. “You want to see if we would actually get along together.”

  “Yes. It’s for your sake, too. I don’t want you to get stuck in a situation that isn’t good for you. I’m not always the easiest guy to live with. Just ask my little brothers.”

  “Oh, I’ve already heard. And seen it, with my own eyes.”

  He laughed.

  A question struck him. “Would you move into our house? What about the Noonans?”

  “Abby’s a lot better. She doesn’t need me as much anymore. She can actually lift her arms over her head and drive. And they’re right next door, so I can still help out when they need it. I already thought about all this and we can’t let Susan Baker surprise us. I’d have to move in—or at least make it look like I’ve moved in. I don’t know. It’s—”

  “Negotiable,” he finished along with her.

  They smiled at each other. Perfectly in tune. Weird.

  Chapter Seventeen

  And that, Gretel realized as she got back to work, was the most honest conversation she’d ever had with a man about a relationship. She was great at breakups—those were easy compared to this. She always poured on the sweetness and light, soothing the guy’s wounded ego until he felt proud about how great he was handling the end.

  Working out the nitty-gritty of an actual relationship? Totally new experience.

  Yet another one brought to her by Lost Harbor, Alaska.

  Danny D was in a lousy mood, muttering about the oncoming series of storms predicted for Misty Bay and the entire Aurora Peninsula.

  “Surf’s up in Molokai,” he kept saying. “Winter storms, they’re the best for the waves. Not here, man. Here they mean get your shovel, baby.”

  “I love the winter storms!” His scathing glance made her dial back the perkiness. “If you need a couple days off, I can fill in. You can hang out in your summer fantasyland.”