Her Fill-In Fiancé. Stacy Connelly

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СКАЧАТЬ I was.

      He did his best to deflect the rest of her family’s questions about his job and thought he’d just about turned the tide when Maddie’s young voice piped in.

      “Have you ever been shot?”

      The little girl had been tossing bits of her bun at a couple of birds, and Jake hadn’t thought she’d been listening to the conversation. When all adult eyes focused on her, she added, “You know, like on TV.”

      Instinctively, his hand moved to his left thigh. Sometimes he swore he could still feel the bullet burning beneath his flesh even though he knew that was impossible…. A soft intake of breath beside him caught his attention. Sophia straightened in realization, and he could almost hear yet another mark checked off against him for yet another lie.

      He was spared from having to satisfy Maddie’s childish curiosity when Vanessa turned on her eldest son. “Honestly, Nick, what have you been letting this child watch?”

      “I didn’t let her. I didn’t know she was paying any attention,” Nick protested.

      Thinking it was a good time to turn the conversation away from himself while he still could, Jake asked, “What about you, Vince? What do you do?”

      For the first time since he met the Pirelli family, silence fell.

      Sophia might not think much of Jake’s job, but up until recently, he’d been good at it. And he could still pick up on body language and small nuances most people missed. Like the encouraging smile Vanessa sent her husband’s way. Like the look Sam and Drew exchanged, and Nick’s brief but pointed glance at Sophia, who kept her own eyes focused on her plate. Only Maddie was immune, singing beneath her breath and turning her attention back to her gathering flock.

      Vince’s smile was wide as ever, but something less than genuine as he said, “Used to manage the grocery store in town, but now I’m retired. I get to be a full-time husband and father, much to my wife and kids’ dismay.”

      Vanessa and his sons immediately protested, but Sophia stayed stone silent at Jake’s side until she stood abruptly and practically scrambled over the picnic bench. She grabbed her glass of lemonade. “I need a refill. I’ll be right back. Can I get anyone anything from the kitchen?” She barely waited for her family to reply before backing away from the table.

      Jake stood before she made her escape. “I’ll join you.”

      She opened her mouth to demur, but he shot a quick glance at her family and the protest she would have made transformed into a smile. “Thank you, Jake.”

      “You’re welcome,” he said, wondering if he was the only one to notice how she spoke the words through gritted teeth.

      He caught her hand as they crossed the lush green lawn toward the kitchen, but it was Sophia who practically dragged him the last few yards into the house. She whirled on him the moment the door closed, secluding them in the homey kitchen.

      Her color was high and her dark eyes snapping as she bit out, “Football injury?”

      “What?”

      “The night we met, you said you were limping because of a football injury!”

      Of all the explanations he owed Sophia, that was by far the last he’d expected her to demand. He’d passed off his injury with the half-joking cliché rather than tell the truth. But the worry shining through her anger was far worse than facing the memories of the job that had gone wrong in Mexico only a few weeks before he met Sophia.

      “I wasn’t lying when I told you I was fine. I am,” he insisted, wondering if he wasn’t trying to convince himself. Physically, yes, he was healing. But how many times had he awakened in a cold sweat, grabbing at his leg, feeling the pain of the bullet buried deep inside? He thought he’d put those nightmares to rest, but they’d come back with a vengeance since he left St. Louis. Since he’d left Sophia.

      She stared up at him as if trying to see right through him and straight into all the uncertainty inside. But he’d gotten good over the years at hiding; it was part of his job, sure, but more than that, it was part of who he was. And he was pretty sure he didn’t give anything away when he repeated, “I’m fine.”

      For a moment, she looked ready to argue, the fine line between her eyebrows a dead giveaway of the stubbornness he’d caught a glimpse of a time or two in St. Louis. But then she changed tactics as she got to the point. “What are you doing here, Jake?”

      He’d asked that question as he traveled to Clearville and still wasn’t sure he’d come up with an adequate answer to satisfy himself, let alone one Sophia would accept. All he knew was that the hurt in her eyes when he’d blurted out the truth had haunted him since he’d left, and he couldn’t stand the thought of that being his last memory of Sophia. So here he was, standing in the kitchen of her childhood home, ready to give an explanation she didn’t want to hear. An apology she wouldn’t accept.

      Her crossed arms, raised chin and closed expression all told him she wasn’t going to listen to anything he had to say. Not here, not now. But he had time … if he dared to take it.

      “What am I doing?” he echoed. “I’m enjoying your family’s company. I’d expected I’d have to fight through your brothers to see you—” his eyebrow rose in question “—but for some crazy reason, they think we’re dating.”

      Evading his gaze, she focused on a wall clock shaped like a rooster. Color slowly faded from her cheeks, along with her previous fire, and Jake dropped any hint of teasing. “What’s going on, Sophia?”

      She shook her head and swallowed. “It’s like you said. My family still thinks we’re dating … for the crazy reason that I haven’t told them otherwise.”

      “Just like you haven’t told them what happened in Chicago or that you’re no longer working for the Dunworthys.” From what he gathered in passing conversations, her family had no idea Sophia had been fired … or the reason why. The Pirellis seemed to think Sophia was on paid leave while her employers vacationed overseas.

      “Yet another proud moment in my life,” she muttered. Her embarrassment and disappointment was obvious in the slump to her shoulders and downcast eyes. Jake felt his heart lurch as if urging him to do something. Uncertain what else he could offer, he quietly asked, “Do you want me to tell your family what happened?”

      Dragging her gaze from the ceramic tile that had replaced the worn linoleum floor of her childhood, Sophia stared up at Jake Cameron, a man who knew the worst and best of the secrets she still hadn’t told her family. A man who was a virtual stranger—since for all she knew everything he’d told her was a lie, a man who treated getting shot like a paper cut—and the urge to escape overwhelmed her. She spun toward the door, but her family still waited outside. The trapped, suffocating feeling she’d had as a teenager closed in on her, reminding her of all the reasons why she’d run from Clearville years ago.

      But a different edge raced along the fine blade of tension now, one she’d never felt before meeting Jake. A fear that running would never be enough until she found some place—someone—she could run to. She shoved the ridiculous thought aside and took a deep breath that teased her senses with the hint of Jake’s woodsy aftershave combined with the smoke from the charcoal—a scent more appetizing than the burgers he’d grilled.

      “Do you want me to?” he asked СКАЧАТЬ