His Pretend Fiancee. Victoria Pade

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      “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 СКАЧАТЬ