Читать книгу His Pretend Fiancee - Victoria Pade - Страница 10

“How was the date? Didn’t you just love her?”

“Hello to you, too, Ma,” Michael said in order to avoid answering his mother’s questions when he arrived at her home at ten o’clock Sunday morning. She lived only blocks away from his brownstone in Brooklyn.

His mother was standing at the stove in her kitchen. As she did every Sunday morning, the five-foot-two compact powerhouse of a woman was making pancakes. She had on a purple velour sweat suit, elaborate makeup, and her head was still swathed from the night before in the toilet paper turban that preserved the bouffant, flipped-at-the-ends hairdo sported by every woman who went to the neighborhood salon.

“Will you take that stuff off your head?” Michael added after he’d leaned over to kiss his mother’s cheek.

Elsa Dunnigan slid golden brown pancakes from the griddle, ladled more batter onto the hot surface, and then obliged her son by unwrapping her black hair. With the exception of being slightly flat in the back it remained an undisturbed helmet.

“The date, Mikey. I want to hear about the date.”

Michael picked up the already poured glass of orange juice at his spot at the red-and-silver kitchen table and took a drink, noting as he did that there were only two place settings. Unless Michael was working, Sunday breakfast was the one meal each week that he, his mother and his younger sister always tried to have together. So again he ignored his mother’s query in favor of one of his own.

“Cindy isn’t eating with us?”

“She had to go to a bridal shower brunch in the city,” Elsa said as if the entire subject of her other child was inconsequential. But as she took a platter filled with bacon and sausages from where it was being kept warm in the oven and brought that, a dish of pancakes and another plate of fried eggs to the table, she said, “And if you don’t answer me right now I’m going to call Dr. Miranda myself and tell her you had such a fabulous time with her last night that you want to see her again tonight.”

Michael knew his mother would do just that so he stopped hedging as they both sat at the table. “The date was good and bad—the bad being the date itself and the good being that it made me realize something and take a big step.”

He’d planned this out on the way home from Josie Tate’s apartment the previous night so he knew exactly how he was going to explain the sudden turn of events.

“I don’t understand,” his mother said. “You didn’t like Dr. Miranda?”

“No, Ma.”

Elsa Dunnigan frowned at him so fiercely it made her eyes squint and nearly disappear in the lines around them.

“She’s a nice girl,” his mother insisted. “A professional woman with a thriving medical practice. She wants to get married. She wants babies. She’ll make a good wife. She can’t help it if she has sinus problems and has to blow her nose every five minutes. And those ears could be covered if she’d just let her hair grow over them. I could set her up with Cissy—now that I’ve finally smoothed the waters after you never called her back, either. Cissy could do Dr. Miranda’s hair so no one would ever see those Dumbo ears.”

Cissy was Elsa’s beautician. She wore her hair even bigger and more rock-solid than any of her clients. Michael had spent the whole blind date with her wondering how she could not notice that the style was outdated by at least twenty years. And when he coupled the hair with the nearly Geisha-like makeup, the gum popping, the honking laugh, the dagger fingernails she’d used in lieu of a fork to pick up strands of spaghetti, and the fact that they’d had absolutely nothing in common, it had not been a date he’d wanted to repeat. So he hadn’t called her again. Much to his mother’s dismay.

But actually, just the thought of that date and the date the night before pushed him to finally tell his mother the story he’d come up with to free himself from any future setups.

“I’m engaged,” he announced.

Elsa made a very unflattering sound in response. Something like “Puh!”

Clearly she didn’t believe him.

“To Dr. Miranda?” she asked facetiously.

“No, not to Miranda. I told you I didn’t like her so you’re out of luck when it comes to free callus scrapings,” Michael informed her.

“Then who are you engaged to? As if I’m buying this load of horse manure.”

“Get out your checkbook because it’s true. I am engaged,” he said, enunciating each word slowly, as if to better get it to sink in.

“To who?” his mother said the same way.

“You don’t know her,” Michael answered calmly. He knew this was risky business. He’d never been an adept liar. And his mother had always been able to see through it when he’d tried. But now he had enough at stake to make him determined to pull it off. “Her name is Josie Tate. She’s the receptionist at that Manhattan Multiples place—remember, it was written up in the newspapers a few months ago? They help women who are pregnant with more than one baby or something. You showed me the article yourself—”

“I remember. My friend Agnes’s daughter went there when she was going to have triplets,” Elsa said, conceding that she knew what he was talking about but still sounding suspicious of his claim to be engaged.

“Well, Josie works there. We met the Friday night before Labor Day.”

“That was the night I arranged a date with my insurance agent’s secretary,” Elsa said to let him know he wasn’t putting anything over on her.

“Yes and Sharon McKinty is one of Josie’s roommates. She took me to a bar that night where Josie was reading poetry—poetry she wrote herself.”

It wasn’t easy to come up with a whole lot of information about his new fiancée because Michael didn’t know much about her. He was just trying to sound knowledgeable with what little he had learned over Labor Day weekend.

“You went out with Sharon McKinty and ended up with someone else?” his mother asked.

As a matter of fact.

“Sharon McKinty met up with an old boyfriend and deserted me. I told you that. But I stuck around to hear more of Josie’s poetry and when she was finished we…well, we hit it off.”

That was all true. Although to say that he and Josie Tate had hit it off was something of an under-statement.

“You told me Sharon dumped you,” his mother confirmed. “But you didn’t tell me you’d met someone else.” More suspicion.

“I wanted to keep this one to myself,” he said, as if Josie had just been too good to share when in fact meeting somebody in a bar and spending three days in bed with them was hardly a story to tell your mother. Even if it had been the best three days he’d ever spent. With anyone.

But despite Michael’s best attempt to make keeping Josie a secret sound romantic, his mother said, “Why did you want to keep it to yourself? Is there something wrong with her? Won’t I like her?”

“I wanted to keep her to myself because she’s just very special.”

That was no lie. Josie Tate did seem special. Special enough that after their weekend together he’d thought that to see her again could be too great a test of the vow he’d made to himself.

Michael had only told his mother once why he was resistant to her greatest desire—that he find a wife and have a family. Elsa had discounted it as silly and promptly disregarded it, but his reasons were strong nevertheless.

As a volunteer firefighter, his father had been killed in a burning building when Michael was only twelve. Being left without a dad had been tougher on him than he’d ever let his mother know. And then, when the World Trade Center bombings had happened and so many of his brother firefighters had been lost, when he’d seen so many wives, so many children, left behind, Michael had decided that if he was going to do this job he loved, he was not going to chance leaving behind a wife or a child.

Whether his mother liked it or not.

And the pure power of his attraction to Josie that weekend had seemed like something to avoid if he was serious about it. Which he was.

“So how is this girl special enough that you met her two weeks ago and left my podiatrist last night to get engaged to her without even telling me you knew her?” Elsa demanded.

“How is Josie special?” he repeated, thinking about it as he finished his third pancake. “Well, she’s great-looking, for one thing.”

“What does she look like?”

“She has the shiniest hair I’ve ever seen. Light brown with blond streaks that make it seem kind of sunny. She wears it short—about to her chin—and it’s smooth and soft and sleek. And she has this way of brushing it behind her ears that’s…I don’t know…just so damn cute.”

“What color eyes does she have?” his mother demanded, as if this were a test.

But if it was, it was a test he could pass because he knew very well what Josie looked like. He’d pictured her in his mind’s eye a million times in the past two weeks.

“She has blue eyes. So blue—so bright blue—that they’re almost electric. Plus her skin is like cream. And she has a tiny nose—but not too tiny, just right, really. And she has good teeth—white and straight—and lips that are this natural pink that doesn’t even need lipstick. She has a great smile. And she’s thin but not too thin and—”

“So it’s all about looks?” his mother cut in, pulling him from the image of Josie Tate that he’d been slightly carried away by.

“No, it’s not all about looks,” he said. “I’m just describing her to you because that’s what you asked me. She’s also sweet and smart—she writes poetry that just blows you away. She’s funny. She has a great sense of humor. She doesn’t make big deals out of small stuff. She’s free and open and easygoing. She has a terrific outlook on life—” And maybe, even though he didn’t know a single thing about where she came from or what her goals were or anything about her family or her romantic history or where she saw herself in five years, he did know slightly more about her than he’d thought.

“It sounds like she just bowled you over,” Elsa finished for him, beginning to sound more open to this whole thing.

“She did bowl me over,” Michael agreed, realizing there was some truth to that, too. Even if he didn’t really want to admit it.

“Anyway,” he added, getting back to his preplanned speech, “We’ve spent some time together since Labor Day but I wanted to keep it—to keep her—to myself. So I didn’t tell you about it. I went on the rest of those dates you set up to see if I still might find someone I liked better. But last night I was sitting across from your podiatrist wondering why I was wasting my time. Thinking that Josie is who I want to be with. The only person I want to be with. And that I needed to do something about it no matter how short a time we’ve known each other.”

That was a mixture of lies and truth. He hadn’t seen anything of Josie Tate since Labor Day weekend—that was a lie. But he had compared every other woman since then to her. And even with the little he knew about her, every other woman had still come up short, so that part was true. No, it hadn’t convinced him to propose for real. But sitting across from the podiatrist, not enjoying himself in the slightest, had made him think about Josie Tate. It had inspired the idea to solve both her housing problem and his mother problem by suggesting the fake engagement.

“So you left my podiatrist and went and asked this other girl to marry you?” his mother said.

“I didn’t just leave your podiatrist. I took her home. But then I went to Josie’s place and… Well, we’re engaged and she’s moving in today.”

Elsa’s eyebrows arched at that. “Two weeks is all you’ve known this girl and you’re engaged and she’s moving in with you?”

“That’s right.”

His mother pushed her nearly empty plate away and seemed to mull that over before she said, “You’re serious? You’re getting married?”

“Not anytime soon,” Michael was quick to say. Maybe too quick. “I mean, we’ve fallen head over heels but we did just meet. We want to take some time to really get to know each other before we actually get married. A long engagement—that’s what she wants, that’s what I want.”

“I don’t think you should count on that. If this girl works every day with mothers-to-be and new babies, she’s bound to start wanting a baby of her own.”

There was a note of optimism in his mother’s tone that let him know she was not only coming to believe him but that she was beginning to warm to the idea of his whirlwind romance.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. If we come to it,” Michael said. “For now, we both just want to settle in together and honestly get to know each other.”

“And she’s a good girl? Not some fly-by-night who’s taking advantage of you or will disappear with your credit card and your furniture while you’re at work?”

“Sharon McKinty introduced us and you arranged the date with her,” Michael pointed out.

“Did Sharon vouch for her?”

“Sharon vouched for us both—she told Josie that I’m a stand-up guy from a good family with a mother who has big hair—”

“I don’t have big hair. I have a lot of hair.” Elsa defended herself from his teasing.

“Uh-huh,” Michael said sarcastically before he continued. “And Sharon told me that Josie is the best roommate she’s ever had, that she’s the kind of person who takes in stray animals, donates blood, volunteers at the soup kitchen, brings coffee to the homeless guy on the corner every morning, and would give her last dime away if she thought somebody needed it more than she did. I don’t think I have to worry about her running off with my furniture or my credit card.”

“And you love her and she loves you?”

That one made him very uncomfortable. “We got engaged last night, didn’t we?” he said as if that was answer enough.

Apparently it was because his mother said, “It must have been love at first sight.”

Certainly it had been attraction at first sight. He hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off Josie that night at the bar. In fact, he’d been almost mesmerized by her. But that wasn’t important now. Now they were only going to be roommates and friends—that was something he needed not to forget.

“When do I get to meet her?” his mother asked then, finally sounding convinced and happy about the fact that Michael had found someone.

“Maybe in a day or two. Let’s let her get moved in and—”

“Tomorrow,” Elsa decreed. “We’ll have dinner. I’ll cook.”

“I’d need to check with Josie. I don’t want you giving her the bum’s rush, Ma. She’ll be around a long time.”

“I have to meet the girl who’s going to be my daughter-in-law, don’t I?”

“You will. Believe me, you will.”

“Tomorrow. See if we can meet tomorrow,” Elsa insisted forcefully.

Michael took a deep breath and sighed it out with resignation. His mother was nothing if not persistent. And pushy. Which was why, he reminded himself, he’d felt the need to concoct this plan in the first place.

But that still didn’t keep him from feeling guilty for perpetrating this sham on her.

He just didn’t know what else to do to get her to back off.

“Tomorrow,” he conceded. “I’ll see if you can meet Josie tomorrow.”

Elsa sat back in her chair, looking pleased. “Good. Tomorrow night for dinner,” she said with as much finality as if Michael had agreed to it.

“I don’t know about a whole meal. Why don’t I just bring her by for a few minutes the first time?”

It was as if Elsa hadn’t heard him. “Dinner here at seven,” she dictated. “I’ll even get wine.”

His mother got up and went to the drawer beside the sink where she took out a tablet and a pen and began to make a list that Michael had no doubt was for groceries she would go to the store and buy before the day was over in spite of everything he’d said about checking with Josie first.

But he knew better than to waste any more effort on trying to slow the runaway train that was his mother. And as he stood and started to clear the table all he could think was, You don’t have any idea what you’ve gotten yourself into, Josie Tate….

He just hoped she really was as easygoing as he’d said she was, as easygoing as she’d seemed.

Because it was the only way she was likely to get through this.

It was seven o’clock Sunday evening before Josie was completely loaded up and ready to go. The trunk and rear seat of her small vintage sedan were crammed full of her clothes and belongings, and Pip was sitting regally in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead, patiently awaiting his ride while she said goodbye to Sharon.

“You’re sure about this?” asked the only one of her three roommates she was close to.

“Hey, I spent a whole weekend with this guy on your say-so that he wasn’t a psycho,” Josie joked. “Are you telling me now that he is?”

“No. For the two years I’ve worked for his mother’s insurance carrier, I’ve been listening to the woman brag about him and he’s anything but a psycho. He’s a decorated firefighter and I think the Boy Scouts gave him some kind of award, too. If I hadn’t met up with T.J. that night and he hadn’t apologized, I might have given Michael Dunnigan a go-round myself. But just because he’s not a psycho doesn’t mean you should be moving into his place and pretending to be engaged to him.”

“Remember, don’t blow this if you talk to his mother,” Josie warned, wondering if she should have been quite so honest with her friend.

“Believe me, his mother does all the talking,” Sharon assured her. “But still, actually moving in with him? And acting as if the two of you are getting married? That’s pretty weird.”

“It’ll be okay. Besides, old sourpuss Bartholomew didn’t give me any other choice. He’s even up there at his window now, making sure I’m leaving,” she added with a poke of her chin at the building behind her friend.

“Maybe we could have hidden Pip,” Sharon suggested.

Josie laughed at that. “Where? How?”

Sharon shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. This whole thing just doesn’t seem fair.”

“It’s more fair than getting you guys all evicted because of Pip and me. Don’t worry about it. Now that I have somewhere to go, it isn’t a big deal.”

“Yes, it is a big deal when it means you’re going to have to play at being engaged to accomplish it. When you’re going to pull the wool over the eyes of Michael Dunnigan’s mother, of all people. Everything with that woman is a big deal. She’s a steamroller in panty hose. You might start out only pretending to be engaged, but before Elsa Dunnigan is through, you’re liable to find yourself married with ten kids. And if she finds out this is just a scam? I don’t even want to think what she might do.” Sharon ended with wide eyes to emphasize the terror of just considering that possibility.

But Josie just laughed again. “Come on. She can’t be that bad.”

“She can and she is. I wouldn’t want her for even a pretend mother-in-law. That night that I went out with Michael I kept looking at him, thinking that he might be gorgeous but I wouldn’t go near him for anything but a one-nighter because nothing is worth putting up with that woman more than I have to at the office.”

“If she’s that horrible why did you agree to go out with her son in the first place?” Josie challenged.

“I was mad at T.J. and I wanted to teach him a lesson. But I’m telling you, Josie, I thought my mother was a pain in the neck, but Elsa Dunnigan has her beat by a mile.”

“I won’t be living with his mother,” Josie pointed out.

“No, you’ll be trying to live platonically with a guy who’s already swept you off your feet and into his bed. On top of the whole mother thing. It’s like double jeopardy.”

“What happened between Michael and me over Labor Day is history. I only slept with him because… Well, it was just a bad weekend for me. The anniversary of my parents’ death is always dicey. But what happened before won’t happen again.”

“I know you needed comfort and solace and forgetfulness that weekend, but still, Michael Dunnigan is some pretty powerful stuff. I don’t know if you can just blame that three-day marathon on being bummed out. Or trust that not being bummed out will make you immune.”

“Determination not to repeat that marathon is what will make me immune. And it will help that we’ll be going our separate ways. He’ll be completely out of the house every other day. Believe me, nothing is going to happen between us again.”

Sharon didn’t look convinced. Or sound it when she said, “Whatever you say.”

“I say it’ll be just fine,” Josie said with conviction.

And by then she honestly believed it would be. She’d thought long and hard about this situation since the man in question had left the previous night. And, in spite of his appeal, there were two very large roadblocks to her ever wanting to get seriously involved with him. And neither of them had anything to do with his mother.

In the first place, Josie had no intention of changing her own unencumbered lifestyle.

And in the second place, Michael’s job was the cure for even contemplating any kind of involvement with him whatsoever.

No matter how attractive he was, how sexy, how funny or fun or intelligent or charming or well put-together, Josie had one steadfast rule—she was absolutely not going to let herself get involved with a guy in a high-risk profession. She knew firsthand the devastation that could be wreaked if the worst occurred in life, and although she realized that anyone could have any kind of freakish accident at any time, being connected to someone who courted danger through their work was more risky than she could bear. Which meant that Michael Dunnigan was one very off-limits man.

“I should get going,” she told Sharon. “I still have to unpack all this stuff when I get there.”

Sharon nodded her resignation. “You’ll call me this week?” her friend said.

“I will. Maybe we can meet for lunch one day.”

“Good. And you know, if this doesn’t work out, you can always find Pip a nice home and come back.”

“It’ll be fine,” Josie repeated.

“Or, if the temptation gets to be too much, you could stay there on the nights Michael works but leave Pip there and spend the night here with us on Michael’s days off.”

“There’s an idea,” Josie said, thinking that might actually be something she would do if the attraction to Michael started to get the best of her. Certainly she would do that before she would repeat Labor Day weekend.

She and Sharon hugged then.

“I’m going to miss you, though,” Sharon said, sounding on the verge of tears. “I hate that you won’t be here to make me your famous chai tea when I come home stressed.”

“I can probably talk you through making it yourself in an emergency,” Josie joked again, this time somewhat feebly.

Their hug ended and Sharon leaned over to the window beside Pip. “’Bye, puppy,” she said to the large animal. “Be a good boy and don’t get your mom into any more trouble.”

Pip had turned his head toward her when she’d first spoken to him and he gave the window one lick as if it were Sharon’s face. Then he went back to staring straight ahead.

“Damn Bartholomew,” Sharon muttered as she straightened. Then, to Josie, she said, “Drive safely.”

“I will.”

Josie headed around the front of the car to the driver’s side. “I’ll talk to you this week,” she called as she got in behind the wheel.

Sharon moved back from the curb, waving as Josie pulled out into the street.

“Here we go, big dog, another of life’s adventures,” she announced to Pip as she drove away.

At least that’s what she hoped the feeling she was having was—excitement for a new experience, a new adventure. Better that than feeling excited over getting to see Michael Dunnigan again.

Josie looked at all of life as an adventure. She liked to keep things free and easy. She liked to try new and different foods. She liked to meet new people. She liked to pick up on the spur of the moment and go somewhere without having anything planned, without knowing where she was going or what she was going to do or when she would come back. She liked to change jobs. To have new experiences. All of that excited her. Thrilled her. The same way it had excited and thrilled her parents.

But anything dangerous, anything life-threatening—that was something else again. And that was where she was different from her parents.

But then she’d lived through the consequences of their thrill-seeking. And they hadn’t.

When Sharon had introduced her to Michael Dunnigan that Friday night before Labor Day, Sharon hadn’t told her he was a firefighter. If she had, Josie would likely not have said more than a brief hello to him—that’s how adamant she was about steering clear of anyone who was into anything high-risk.

But as it was, Josie hadn’t learned what Michael did for a living until late in their weekend together. And the moment she’d discovered it, their encounter had turned temporary in her mind. Because if there was one thing she knew for certain, it was that she didn’t want any permanent connection to anyone who did things that could be life-threatening.

Attachment issues—that’s what a psychologist she’d once dated had said about her—that she had attachment issues.

But Josie liked to think of it as independence. She was proud of how self-sufficient she was. She certainly didn’t see anything wrong with maintaining that independence and self-sufficiency.

And if she was particularly adamant about steering clear of anyone who put themselves, their entire life, on the line every day? She considered that a lesson life had taught her at a young age.

“So you and I are only going to be friends, Michael Dunnigan,” she said out loud, as if that would make it an irrefutable fact.

Pip went from angling his blunt black nose up at the small gap she’d left in the window so he could enjoy the smells along the way, to looking at her as if he wasn’t buying that for a minute.

“I mean it,” she said decisively to convince him. “Friends. Roommates. That’s it.”

And if she already knew that wasn’t going to be an easy thing to pull off because the man had hardly been out of her thoughts at all in the two weeks since they’d parted ways?

Well, she liked a challenge, too.

Maybe not quite as much as she liked Michael Dunnigan, but still…

“I should probably be grateful if he has a dragon lady for a mother,” she said to Pip. “Maybe it’ll help cool me off to him.”

But dragon lady or no dragon lady, Josie really was bent on being nothing but friends and roommates with Michael Dunnigan. No matter what it took.

Because even if she wasn’t determined to remain unattached to any one person, even if she wasn’t fiercely protective of her independence, any man whose job put her in a position where, on the turn of a dime, she might be abandoned again the way her parents’ deaths had abandoned her, was not the man for her. No matter what.

And since the closer she got to Michael’s house, the closer she got to Michael, the more butterflies took wing in her stomach and the more eager she felt, she thought that maybe it would be a good thing if his mother really was a dragon lady.

Because she just might need all the help she could get to turn herself off to Michael Dunnigan.

It was dusk by the time Josie arrived at Michael’s brownstone. Luckily she found a parking spot right across the street so she didn’t have to double park to unload her car.

But once she’d maneuvered the sedan between the truck and the station wagon at the curb and turned off the engine, she didn’t rush out of the vehicle. Instead she sat there and studied the place she remembered from the last time she’d been here.

Ten steps edged by a black wrought-iron railing led up to the double-door entrance of the stately two-story brown brick building. The entrance was sheltered by an arched overhang decorated with pilasters that ran along either side and ended at two ornate brackets that connected each pilaster to the frieze.

There were twin carriage lamps on the pilasters and another inside the uppermost curve of the arch. All of them were lit to welcome her and more light shone through the ovals of beveled glass in the center of each dark walnut door.

To the right of the entrance was a large bay window that Josie remembered well. Both the front door and the window were in the living room. She and Michael hadn’t been able to contain themselves long enough to get to his bedroom the first time they’d made love so they’d ended up barely getting through the door and onto the floor just below that bay window.

The memory flooded through Josie’s mind unexpectedly and caught her off guard. The memory of tearing each other’s clothes off while mouths clung together. Of urgent, exploring hands. Of bodies colliding in hungry need…

Not a good thing to think about, she knew, and she worked to block the memory, the images, the recollection of sensations and feelings and things that made her crave reliving it all.

Then Pip offered a distraction by whining to let her know he wanted out of the car now that it was no longer moving.

Josie took a deep breath, sighed and said, “Okay. I guess you’re right. We’re home. For better or worse.”

She attached Pip’s leash to the metal loop on his harness but left him sitting there as she got out of her side of the car. Then she went around to the passenger door to let Pip out that way.

With his blunt nose to the ground, Josie led the bull mastiff across the street that ran in front of the row of nearly identical homes. As if he’d been there before, Pip promptly climbed the ten steps to Michael’s brownstone.

Michael must have been watching for them because before Josie could ring the bell, the door opened and there he was.

“Oh. Hi,” she said a bit dimly.

Even though he hadn’t dressed up for her arrival he was freshly shaved. The heady smell of clean mountain-air-scented aftershave drifted to her nostrils as she took in the sight of him in a plain white T-shirt that was tight enough to hug his chest, shoulders and biceps and the sweatpants that let her know there were muscular thighs hidden inside them.

In fact, not only couldn’t she keep from taking in the sight, one look at him made her heart skip a beat and she thought that it might have been better if he had dressed up. Maybe slacks and a shirt would have hidden more and given her a break. But as it was, his clothes seemed like a scant barrier between her and that body she remembered all too well.

“Welcome to your new home,” he said in response to her greeting, stepping aside to allow her and the dog inside.

But Josie hesitated.

Somehow she hadn’t thought that being there again, with him, would bring so much to the surface. But suddenly she was having difficulty not thinking about Labor Day weekend. About repeating it…

Roommates, she reminded herself. Nothing but roommates…

Roommates who usually provided their own annoyances. Like stinky tennis shoes. Cupboard doors left open. Drinking out of the milk carton. Dirty dishes in the sink. The toilet seat left up.

Those were all things that made roommates unappealing. So maybe if every time she started to notice what she shouldn’t be noticing about Michael, she thought about the grossest, most disgusting thing a roommate had ever done, it would turn her off to even him…

Toenail clippings on the coffee table—that had been the worst. So that was what she would think about.

Toenail clippings. Toenail clippings. Toenail clippings…

It helped. At least enough to get her through the front door.

“Are you okay?” Michael asked as she belatedly stepped inside.

He was smiling a confused sort of smile and there were two creases between his full eyebrows that let her know he’d seen her hesitancy.

“It’s just a little strange,” she told him.

“I know. For me, too. But I think that will go away.”

It’ll go away if I imagine you leaving toenail clippings on the coffee table….

“Anyhow,” he said then, “I thought we could put the dog out back so we can keep the door open while we bring in your stuff.”

“We?”

“I’m not going to let you do it alone,” Michael informed her.

That was nice. And above and beyond the call of duty for a mere roommate. But Josie was a little concerned with the precedent it might set if he acted like a boyfriend. So she said, “You really don’t have to. It’s only clothes and some boxes. There isn’t furniture or anything. I like to keep encumbrances to a minimum.”

“Well, I can’t just sit and watch.”

No, that definitely wouldn’t be an improvement. Not when she could almost feel those penetrating green eyes on her every time he looked her way. Not when they turned the heat up on her whole body.

Besides, she reasoned, the sooner she unloaded her car and could lock herself in her own room—away from Michael and his effect on her—the better. So she conceded. “Okay. Thanks, I’d appreciate the help.”

“Good. Then let’s get the dog out back.”

Michael led the way across the living room that was decorated sparsely in brown leather and oak, to the swinging door that connected the kitchen and dining room. The back door was between the two and after Josie had removed Pip’s leash, the big dog was only too happy to go out to investigate his new domain.

Then Josie and Michael retraced their steps and began the process of getting her moved in.

Her room was to be the one across the hall from his and she advised him to just leave the boxes on the floor there and the clothes on the double bed with the white chenille spread.

He did as he was told and with the exception of a comment here and there, they worked without saying much.

By shortly before nine they were finished, but rather than Michael saying a simple good-night and leaving her to her own devices, he said, “How about a glass of wine to toast our new living arrangement while we sort through the details?”

“The details?”

“I always think sharing space goes better if you talk about some things up front.”

Josie was a free-and-easy kind of person, which was how she approached everything, so she’d always just addressed the details of living with other people when they cropped up. But if he liked to set ground rules at the start, she was okay with that, too. The wine, on the other hand? She wasn’t too sure about the wisdom in that.

“I have to work tomorrow so maybe I should pass on the wine,” she said.

“Come on, one glass isn’t going to do any harm,” he insisted, not waiting for her to decline a second time before he headed out of her room.

There were two sets of stairs leading from the second level—stairs with a beautifully carved oak banister that descended into the living room, and much plainer, more serviceable steps that led to the kitchen. It was the kitchen stairs that Josie followed Michael down, trying not to notice his to-die-for derriere as she did.

While he poured two glasses of the Riesling, Josie let Pip in and filled the water bowl she’d brought with her from one of her boxes in the bedroom.

“Where shall I put this?” she asked Michael, holding up the dog dish.

“How about alongside the counter near the door? That should be out of the way enough to keep us from spilling it.”

Josie placed the bowl where Michael had suggested and then turned back to him to accept the wine.

“Here’s to us,” he said, touching his glass to hers with a little clang.

“To us,” she said tentatively, trying hard to keep her perspective when it would have been so easy for all of this to seem romantic.

They each sipped the golden liquor and then Michael went to what looked like an old, scarred teacher’s desk that he used as a kitchen table. He pulled out one of the four mismatched chairs that surrounded it, motioned for her to sit, and took a second chair for himself.

“You must have a lot of details to discuss,” Josie said as she joined him.

“A few details and something else,” he said mysteriously. Then he launched into the details.

“First of all, here are housekeys,” he said, sliding a set from the center of the table to a spot right in front of her. “They’re for the front door and the dead bolt, and the gold-colored one works the lock on the back door—although I never use mine and I don’t know when you would, either.”

“I guess it’s good to have one, anyway.”

Then he said, “Bathrooms.”

“Always a touchy subject,” she agreed.

“Since I have one in my bedroom it’ll be mine and the one off the upstairs hall can be yours. The downstairs lav, of course, can be used by both of us and by guests, if that’s all right with you.”

“Sure.”

“I won’t even go into yours upstairs so feel free to keep whatever you want in the vanity or the medicine cabinet—I’ve already cleared them out for you.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m not a stickler when it comes to food. My mother keeps me well stocked with leftovers and casseroles and you’re welcome to eat anything that looks good to you. But if you buy yourself something special and don’t want me to touch it, just put your name on it and I’ll know not to—”

“I’m not a stickler about that, either,” she said. “You’re welcome to anything I bring in, too.”

He paused before he went on and it let Josie know that the next point wasn’t as easy a detail as the others had been.

“I was also thinking that maybe it would be better if we made a rule against bringing dates home,” he said then, broaching the topic gingerly.

“I hadn’t thought about that,” she said honestly, instantly taking a dislike to the idea that he would be dating at all, let alone that he might bring another woman home. The way he’d brought her home…

Michael smiled again, looking slightly sheepish. “I don’t think I could handle you and some guy…”

Okay, that helped.

“Besides,” Josie offered, “we shouldn’t run the risk that one of us could have someone here when your mother happened to show up.”

“That, too,” he agreed. “Which brings me neatly to the something else I needed to talk to you about.”

“Does that mean we’re done with the details?” she asked, teasing him slightly.

He smiled a smile that went straight into her bloodstream and made it run quicker.

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Only a little. I didn’t know you were a detail man.”

“Really? And I thought you did,” he countered with a voice full of innuendo.

She knew he’d been referring to the small but important details of making love to her, and she’d walked right into it. But still, just the insinuation was enough to make her think of tiny kisses that had traced the entire outer circles of her ears. About an index finger that had trailed down the inner side of her ankle, along the arch of her foot and around of each of her toes. About the tip of his nose dipping into the hollow of her throat, using her collarbone as a guide to her naked shoulder and the perfect spot for soft kisses…

“Behave yourself,” she said, unsure whether the warning was more for him or for herself. “So what’s the ‘something else’ you had to talk to me about?” she asked to put this conversation more on the up-and-up.

Michael’s smile turned into a grin that made her wonder if he somehow knew the path down which her mind had wandered. But he didn’t say anything about that. Instead he complied with her demand to know what the something else was. “I announced our engagement to my mother this morning,” he said.

“Ah. How did that go over?”

He took another drink of his wine and shrugged before he said, “She was suspicious at first, but then she warmed to the news. The problem is, she wants us to go to her house for dinner tomorrow night so she can meet you.”

“Why is that a problem?” Josie asked.

Michael smiled again, dimpling up for her in a way that was like putting a hairdryer to an ice cube when it came to her resolves. “I was afraid you might have plans or not want to meet her so soon,” he confessed.

“No, I don’t have any plans. And since I’ll need to meet your mother sooner or later, it might as well be sooner.”

“So I can let her know we’ll be there?” he said, sounding relieved.

“Sure.”

“Well, you made that easy. Thanks.”

For a moment Michael studied her as if she were too good to be true, and the warmth of those vibrant green eyes was like basking in spring sunshine.

It was also the way he’d looked at her at times over Labor Day weekend.

Just before he’d kissed her.

And once again a rash of memories flooded her mind and tormented her.

Only this time even thinking about toenail clippings wasn’t enough to stop it and she knew she had better retreat to the solitude of her own room before the torture got any worse.

“If that’s all you wanted to talk about, I should go upstairs and put some of those clothes into the closet so I can get to bed tonight,” she said suddenly.

It seemed to surprise him somewhat because his eyebrows arched and pulled together at once, as if he wasn’t quite sure what had brought that on. But how could he know, after all, when Josie was likely the only one of them thinking about kissing.

She stood and took her empty glass to the dishwasher before he guessed what was going through her head.

“Yeah, I’d better give my mother a call before I forget about it,” he said to her back, sounding a bit baffled.

“I’ll let you get to that, then,” she said, tapping her thigh twice as a signal to Pip to follow her from the corner where the big dog was lying.

“I probably won’t see you again before I go to bed, so good night,” she said, when the mastiff was by her side.

“If you need anything—”

“I’ll find it,” she assured him, calling Pip to follow her and leaving Michael sitting at the kitchen table.

But even as she climbed the stairs to the upper level again she was still thinking about kissing him.

About him kissing her.

And there was one very big problem with that.

She wasn’t only thinking about it in the past tense.