Chapter Three
Okay, after we established that I wasn’t offering money for sex, and insulting him for that matter because really? Fifty? After all that and my explanation of what I needed, we were left with him staring at me over the bed of his truck, appearing to weigh his options while I walked Ralph in a tiny strip of grass by the road.
“You haven’t left yet,” I said, coming back to stand on the other side.
“Don’t take that as a yes,” he said.
“So it’s a no?” I asked. My stomach growled loudly and I clapped a hand over it.
He huffed out a breath and rubbed at his eyes, looking miserable. I felt bad for him. No one should lose their job.
“I’d have to stay overnight?”
“Well, I’ve already driven five hours, and there’s another two ahead, so yeah, I’m not making the return back tonight,” I said. “I’ll stay at my aunt’s house. There are three bedrooms there, you’d be safe.”
He appeared to ignore my wit.
There was a long pause, and then he shook his head as if knocking loose the logical thinking. “I have to hit the pavement, sorry. I have bills—”
“A hundred?” I blurted. “Two hundred?”
He looked at me and then blew out a breath. “Lady—”
“Three—hang on,” I muttered, turning on my heel and diving into the car for my wallet. Shit, shit, shit. I needed this. The guy couldn’t have been more perfect for my jacked-up plan if I’d written it specifically for him. My win was right there; I could taste it, feel it. I could sell this crap to Carmen with him by my side, and as messed up as that was, I was about to sell my soul to find out. Or at least, a large portion of my wallet. I pulled out all the travel money I’d liberated from the ATM on my way out, clenching the bills like captive little flags. “Six hundred and change,” I said, a little breathlessly. “It’s all I have.”
He looked at me dumbfounded. “You’re crazy. You don’t even know me.”
“I’m desperate,” I said, feeling a little choke pulling at my vocal chords. “And I have a gut feeling about you.”
A gut feeling? Anything like intuition? No. More like delirium from hunger and onset panic.
“Shit,” he muttered, turning in a circle, clasping both hands behind his head as if the action might keep it from exploding.
“Please,” I said, holding out the money. “It’s one day. Less than that, even.”
His eyes dropped to the bills waving in the breeze, and he shut them for half a second.
“I’ll—do it.”
My lungs exploded, letting out my breath in one gush. “Thank—”
“Five hundred,” he said, waving off my hand. “I’m not taking the last of your cash, you’re on the road for Christ’s sake. And come on, put that shit away, quit waving it in the parking lot like a loon.”
“Deal,” I said. Really? Like I had some kind of negotiation power. But hot damn and holy shit balls, I had me a Michael. “Oh, by the way, your name is Michael McKnight.”
He pulled a face. “What, the other cheesy stage names were all taken?”
“Sorry, it’s documented,” I said, pointing behind me to the envelope on my front seat. “Can’t change it now.”
“Well, come on,” he said. “Follow me to my place.”
His place. Hang on. Visions of Lifetime movies played in my head. “Say what?”
Nick gave me a double take. “You asked me if I had a suit. I can promise you it wouldn’t be in my truck.”
“Good point. So—”
“So I’m not leaving my truck here,” he said. “And unless you want me going reeking of old grease, I’m taking a shower.”
I licked my lips and cursed my ridiculous options. “So I’m following you to your place.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said, slamming the door with a multitude of creaks.
* * *
The doubts that winged around my head like a flurry of butterflies as I followed Nick someone-or-other down a twisty road, didn’t disperse when we pulled up to a double-wide trailer up on cinderblocks. What was I thinking? Asking a strange guy to come with me to Charmed for the reading of a will. What if Aunt Ruby was secretly hoarding money and leaving it all to me and they handed it to me in a giant laundry basket (because that’s where she would keep it) and then he mugged me and stole my rental car and left me on the side of the road with nothing but Ralph and my empty laundry basket? What if he was a serial killer that preyed in unsuspecting diners, cooking and killing his way across the country?
Nick got out and gestured for me to follow him in. Uh, no. I rolled down my window.
“Give me fifteen minutes, and I’ll be ready,” he said.
I gave him a thumbs-up. “Cool.”
He looked at me funny. “You don’t have to wait in the car.”
Have good manners. “I’m good.”
He started to laugh and shake his head, and something in me—maybe it was the overwhelming hunger gnawing at my belly—but something stopped caring about manners.
“You think I’m coming into your house?” I asked. “I think I learned not to do that around age six.”
One eyebrow went up. “Seriously?”
“As you pointed out, I don’t know you.”
He leaned against the bed of his truck and crossed his arms over his chest. They were good arms.
“Lady, I’m about to get in a car with you for an overnight trip to a town I’ve never heard of, to stay in some old house with someone so delusional she has to pretend to have a husband,” he said. “If anyone should be afraid, it’s me.”
Heat—and not the good kind—flooded my face. “I’m not delusional.”
“Look,” he said, holding up his hands and pushing off his truck toward his house. “If you’d rather sit out here in the heat, be my guest.”
He disappeared behind a screen door and another solid one, and I looked around. Nothing but land and trees and an old motorcycle that had seen better days. No other houses—or trailers—nearby. To his credit, the trailer was neat and he’d put a row of shrubs in front. And some sort of fern hung by the door on one of those plant stands. So he did care about where he lived, made an effort to keep it nice. Kept a fern alive. No spare toilet parts lying around the yard.
Maybe it was a little bit rude to ask him to trust me and then basically accuse him of being untrustworthy.
“Okay,” I muttered, not really feeling okay as I stepped out of the car. I glanced back at Ralph. “If I die, good luck to you out here.”
I rapped on the screen door, thinking I was probably too late. He was likely already—
The inside door opened and there he stood, still in his jeans but shirtless. A towel slung over one shoulder. Dear God.
“Um,” I managed, pointing toward inside.
“Come on,” he said, stepping aside as I pulled open the screen door. “No dog?”
“Well, I didn’t think you’d want me to bring him in,” I said.
“Won’t he be thirsty?”
“Believe me, he’s eaten and drank better than I have today,” I said.
“Ah, that’s right,” he said. “The hamburger that never was.”
“Yeah, let’s not mention that,” I said, my stomach growling loudly on demand.
“All right, I’ll be out in a minute,” he said, strolling down the hall, his jeans riding low as he started to unbutton them. He turned around with the top one undone. Holy Jesus. “There’s a bag of chips on the counter. Help yourself.”
That was the ticket to pull my eyes off his buttons.
As soon as the bathroom door closed and I heard water, I pounced on the bag that was waving to me from the kitchen. Sour Cream & Onion Ruffles. Oh, man. It’s like he knew the mother ship was coming. I unclipped, unfolded, and stuffed as many as I could fit into my mouth. Just in case he was a quick showerer.
And then, as my blood sugar stabilized and I could see straight, I looked around.
It was nice.
Not fancy nice like expensive things, but clean, tidy, a little sparse like a man lived there alone, but a man who took care of his stuff and cared about appearance. The furniture, on closer inspection, was really nice. Leather. Wood. Almost out of place in a trailer, but maybe leftovers from a previous life. Like possibly divorce victims.
A table of framed photos was the only really personal touch. One of himself with another man, smiling and holding up fish. A brother? The others were mostly of a little girl with dark hair and the same chocolate eyes, at various ages. Some with him, some not. And one school photo of her, probably around sixteen or so. She was a jaw-dropping beauty, that was for sure, and looked just like him. Could be a niece, but that many photos of her screamed daughter. Which fit with the divorce theory. So a teenaged daughter—how the hell old was he?
Hottie cooking Nick as a dad—that did take down the serial killer angle a bit. Not that serial killers couldn’t have families. In fact, most of them probably did, but I was choosing the route most likely to leave me in one piece.
I never heard the water shut off.
“Good chips?”
I whirled around with a yelp, hand to mouth to cover my chewing, and sidestepped to return the bag to the counter.
“Sorry,” I mumbled around a mouthful as I clumsily clipped it back. And then I paid attention.
Nick was walking through the room in a towel. Dripping wet. Hair slicked back. Did I say dripping wet?
In a towel.
I almost forgot how to swallow. Apparently, having the delusional crazy lady in his house didn’t scare him too badly.
He grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge, set one on the counter for me, and headed back to the bathroom.
“Not a problem,” he called back. “I told you to eat.”
A blow dryer came on and back off again.
“So I assume this is your daughter in the pictures?” I asked, resting on a bar stool. “Or a niece?”
There was the tiniest of pauses. I’d breached his personal space. Well, hell, he shouldn’t have invited me into it.
“That’s my daughter, Addison,” he said, the sound of something spritzing—cologne, maybe—coming from the bathroom.
God, he was going to smell good, and I smelled like Ralph.
“She’s beautiful,” I said. “How old is she?”
“Just turned eighteen,” he said. “About to graduate.”
“Holy hell, eighteen,” I said. “Then you’re—”
“Old?” he finished, his voice farther away. Possibly in his bedroom, getting more naked. I needed to stop.
“You said it, not me,” I called out.
“You have kids?” he called back. “Besides your dog?”
“No,” I said. “And Ralph’s not mine, either.”
“You stole a dog?”
I rolled my eyes, not that he could see it. “I’m dog sitting for my neighbor while she’s—somewhere.”
I heard those words as they flew out into the room. I might as well have rented a billboard that read DESPERATE PATHETIC LOSER next to my photo. I could even add his “delusional” to it and draw an arrow.
“God, that sounded sad—” I muttered under my breath as I stood, turned, and nearly smacked right into him. Sweet mama of all that is holy.
My gaze took the trip while my jaw fell to the floor. Black on black with no tie. Looking like he’d just stepped out of a magazine. I licked my lips as my mouth went dry, and felt every blood cell in my body head south when his gaze dropped to watch me do that, and then take a little trip of its own.
Oh, hell no. Breathe.
“You look really nice,” I said, backing up a step for safe space, and clearing my throat.
“Thank you,” he said.
Don’t think I didn’t notice that he failed to return the compliment. But hey, drive five hours with a horse and see how fresh you look, Mr. Bond.
“I don’t think I ever got your name,” he said.
I held out a hand. “Lanie Barrett. And you’re Nick?”
He took my hand with a slow grin that I knew instinctively would be my downfall.
“Michael, now,” he said. “Michael McKnight.”
* * *
It got weird in the car. I know, it was already weird in like five hundred different ways, but two strangers sitting in the car together with almost two hours left to go suddenly felt a little awkward.
“Should we do some homework?” he said, raking fingers through his hair.
Good, he was searching too.
“Great idea,” I said, relieved. “So. We’ve been married about two years—”
“About?”
I blinked. “What?”
“You don’t know when?”
“Um, well, I’m just going off when I told Aunt Ruby—”
“Have you ever been married?” he asked.
I blew out a breath. “No.”
“Well we need more than an ‘about’ or no one will buy that,” he said. “When’s our anniversary?”
I chuckled. “I don’t think anyone is going to ask us that.”
“You want to take that chance?”
I looked at him sideways. “Wow, you’re really taking this job to heart, aren’t you?”
He met my gaze. “If we’re going to this much trouble, seems like we should do it right.”
I nodded toward the envelope now resting on the dash. “There’s a marriage certificate in there. I don’t remember the date I picked.”
“Already forgetting our anniversary,” he said, shaking his head as he reached for the envelope. “Honeymoon must be over.”
“So have you ever been married?” I asked.
“Didn’t we already cover that?”
“No, you said you had a daughter, but last I checked, a ring wasn’t required for that.”
“Rings,” he said, pointing at me.
I held up mine. “Check.”
He glanced over at it. “Nice fake.”
I frowned. “How can you tell?”
“And mine?” he asked, ignoring the question.
I gave him a look. “It’s not required.”
“It is for me.”
“Excuse me?” Seriously? Out of all the strangers I could have picked up for this, I had to pick a diva?
“Come on,” he said. “You started this game. Play it out. What’s a twenty-dollar ring at Wal-Mart?”
“It’s not a game,” I said, popping my neck. This guy was making me tense.
“Okay.”
“I started it to make my aunt happy,” I said. “She did everything for me, and all she wanted was to see me taken care of.” I felt the tell-tale burn behind my eyes and I blinked back fast. “When she got sick, it seemed like the kind thing to do.”
“Lie to her?”
“Make her happy,” I huffed. “Give her peace of mind.”
“I’d rather know the truth,” he said.
“Well, I’ll keep that in mind if you contract a terminal illness in the next twenty-four hours,” I barked.
“Just sayin’,” he said.
“So yell if you see a friggin’ Wal-Mart,” I continued. “We’ll get you all official.” I felt the need to stop and do some jumping jacks. Something to shake it off. Shake him off. He was getting under my skin. “You never answered me, by the way.”
“About?”
“Marriage.”
He sighed and reached into his coat pocket before pulling out a silver ring and holding it up with his finger and thumb.
“What’s that?”
He cut me a look. “That’s a yes.” He slid it on his finger, and promptly slid it back off as if it burned, then put it back into his pocket. “Remind me when we get there.”
“All that grief, and you had one all along?” I noted the change in his eyes, however. Glazed. One check mark in the getting-to-know-my-fake-husband category.
“Last-minute thought just in case,” he said, looking out the passenger window.
“So how long were you married?” I asked.
“Seven years,” he said, not looking my way.
I felt my eyebrows lift. “That’s not chump change,” I said. “That’s—”
“Ancient history,” he said. “So how long till we’re in this Charming place?”
Okay, check-check. Ex-wife and daughter off-limits.
“Charmed,” I corrected. I glanced at my GPS but I already knew by the exits we were passing. I could make this drive in my sleep. “And about an hour and a half.” Ralph whined in the back seat and turned in a circle. “You can’t possibly need to go again,” I said. “And stay on that towel. Don’t you mess up this car.”
“This car?” Nick asked. “This isn’t your car, either?”
“It’s a rental,” I said. “They think I’m coming from California, so I couldn’t drive mine.”
I felt the stare.
“Don’t judge,” I added.
“It can’t be helped,” he said. “You’re certifiable.”
“How nice,” I muttered.
He started to laugh and rubbed at his face. “I don’t know what’s crazier about this day. That I got fired, or that I’ve ended up in a car pretending to be the spouse of a pathological liar.”
“Hey!” I said, backhanding him in the chest. Which only made him laugh harder.
“Is there anything real about you?”
I frowned as those words sank into me. For one second, I could swear I felt Aunt Ruby in the car with us, repeating those same words. Intuition.
* * *
We got to Carmen’s office, a small building in the larger town of Goldworth, just outside of Charmed. My heart started to race as I pulled the keys and put them in my bag.
Deep breaths. You can do this.
“You all right?” Nick asked.
I met his eyes briefly. “Yeah. Just—I don’t know. I never knew I’d have to compete for the house. And weirdly, it didn’t matter until I found out about my cousins getting it. They couldn’t possibly have good intentions for it. So now it’s like—”
“You’d be letting her down,” he said.
I nodded, feeling the tears brimming again. “No, no,” I said, leaning my head back. “No crying allowed right now.”
He pulled down my visor and slid the mirror open. “Here, fix yourself up.”
I faced forward again and gave him a sideways look. There was a reason I didn’t hook up with guys who were prettier than me.
“I look that bad?”
“No, you look beautiful, actually,” he said. “But if we only drove from the airport, you might want to freshen up.”
Damn, this guy was more on point with this charade than I was.
“True,” I said, swiping under my eyes and digging for my makeup bag. “So, we good with all the details?”
We’d finally gone over the major points. Anniversary—May twelfth. Likes and dislikes—I love food and hate rap music. I’m afraid of fireworks. He loved reality TV and hated butterscotch. No major phobias. We both loved coffee and met in a coffee shop. Keepin’ it real.
“I think so,” he said.
I touched up my eyes and slapped on some powder and gloss. Refastened all the fallen hairs while Nick nicely took Ralph on a walk.
“Shouldn’t be long,” I said to Ralph as he jumped back in looking sad. I cracked the windows. “Then I’ll bring you to a big yard you can run free in. Terrorize the squirrels.”
“We gonna be able to stay there if—” Nick met my eyes. “Things go the wrong way?”
I hadn’t thought of that, but of course we could. Shit.
“It’s still my house in theory,” I said. “I have a key. It’ll happen.” I took a deep breath and blew it out. “It’ll be fine.”
Nick gave me a long look and then blinked away as he pulled the ring out of his pocket. He slid it onto his finger, his jaw twitching as he did so. One hand landed at the small of my back as he turned me.
“Let’s go do this,” he said.
I stopped short. “Why are you doing this?”
He looked down at me, jaw twitching again. “Because I’m recently unemployed, and I need the five hundred bucks,” he said. “You think your life is sad?”
Weren’t we a pair.
I nodded. “Let’s do this.”
There was a one-story elevator ride, and then we were outside the door embossed with Carmen Frost, Attorney at Law. And then fingers were on my top button.
“What are you doing?” I whispered, batting his hands away.
“Relax,” he said, returning to the scene of the crime. His fingers brushed the tops of my breasts as he unbuttoned the top button of my blouse. And arranged the flaps to lie there sexily. Heat rushed to my face as our eyes met. My fingers. Some other places. “You look too uptight. Remember, we’re married. We’re in love. We’re comfortable with each other.” He nodded toward the door. “And she’s your old friend. She’ll know if you’re aren’t.”
Great. More to worry about. “True.”
“It’s a game,” he said. “Think of it like that. Points we need to score. We’re a couple.”
“We’re a couple,” I echoed.
“You should walk in there totally at ease with the world. Like you’re getting more sex than anyone in that room.”
My jaw dropped open and a belly laugh sprang forth from pure shock.
“That’s it,” he said, opening the door in the middle of my laugh.
Oh, he was good. Walking into a room full of the enemy—not Carmen, but the five other people clustered together on all the comfortable furniture—with a laugh on my lips and a blush to my skin, that was genius. And instantly made me feel I had this.
“Lanie,” Carmen said, warmly but not with the excited hug that she brought the last time. She couldn’t, with a room full of legalities, I knew that. She couldn’t take sides. She’d already told me too much.
“Hey, Carmen,” I said, nearly tripping over my tongue when Nick interlaced his fingers with mine. I cleared my throat and smiled at the cousins. “Bryce, Treena, good to see you again.” They smiled and fidgeted on the sofa with their clueless spouses. Bryce, the oldest, was balding and sweaty and looked to need a fresh shirt soon. Gross. The fifth woman, I didn’t recognize. She was younger—wait—yes I did. She was at the funeral. The others weren’t. She was the homely younger woman with the frizzy blond hair that I’d assumed might be the maid Aunt Ruby hired.
“Hi,” I said, extending my unlaced hand to her. “I’m Lanie.”
“I know,” she said, chuckling as she took my hand in her limp fish one. Ugh. “I’m Alicia, the baby.” She rolled her eyes as if that was cute. “Eight years younger than Treena. We probably never met as kids.”
Well, since I’d barely met the other two, and they were a few years younger than me, probably not. Making her, what? Twenty-two? Yikes. She hadn’t inherited good genes.
“Oh, okay,” I said. “Well, nice to meet you.” Nick squeezed my hand, and I remembered that whole couple thing. “This is my husband, N—Michael.”
Balls. I almost blew it in the first sentence.
He shook hands all around, looking totally at ease in his own skin. In that suit. Good God, he could be a rich jet-setter just as easily as he flipped burgers.
“This will be a quick meeting,” Carmen said, sitting on the front of her desk instead of behind it. She looked so together, with her blond hair pulled back loosely in a professional barrette, her simple form-fitting chocolate brown dress perfectly matching the strappy heels on her pedicured feet. My feet wanted to hide just looking at hers.
Nick pulled up the one remaining chair and gestured for me to sit while he stood behind me, hands on my shoulders. Damn good thing he knew how to play this game, because I was an epic fail.
“A lot of the outcome of this reading depends on you, Lanie,” Carmen was saying.
“What?”
She smiled and blinked away, putting on some cheater glasses and opening a folder.
What did that look mean? Just what she’d told me, right?
“I’ll begin,” she said.
There was a lot of legalese. Small stuff. Personal stuff that went to me, which touched me even though I expected it. I was basically her daughter in every sense except blood, so anything sentimental was not a surprise. The cousins had to be wondering why they were there. Except if Bryce already had plans for the land, then he knew. Sneaky little shit.
“That brings us to the last two major things,” Carmen said, addressing the room as a whole and not making eye contact with me. I felt chilled all of a sudden.
“Ruby Barrett had significant financial holdings, made up mostly of some smart investments and CD’s. Her life insurance took care of her burial expenses, as you know.” I knew that because I made all the arrangements. What did these people know? “So once her holdings were liquefied and the medical bills paid, the amount is substantial.”
“What kind of substantial?” Bryce asked.
What a weasel. Maybe ten grand, dude. Take a breath.
“To the tune of eight hundred thousand dollars,” Carmen said.
I sat forward, Nick’s hands dropping free. “Excuse me?”
Carmen just nodded.
“That’s—that’s impossible,” I said. “I would know if she had that kind of money.”
“It wasn’t in her bank account, Lanie,” Carmen said. “It wasn’t usable money, it was—”
“Hidden really damn well,” I finished, patting my face. “Holy shit.” Treena snickered, and I turned to face her. “What? Did you know about it?”
All three of them held up their hands and shook their heads.
“Okay then,” I said. “Shock value justified. I mean, I was on her account and paid all her bills at the end. She had thirty-five dollars left after that.”
Carmen nodded again. “Like I said, this was totally separate.” She took a deep breath. “Okay, so next up. The house.”
I sat back in the chair and blew out a breath, actually comforted by Nick’s cool fingers returning to my shoulders and moving to the back of my neck, which had to feel like a million degrees.
“And actually, the money and the house go together as a package deal,” Carmen said. “Bryce, Treena, Alicia, this is the part that involves you.”
I laid my hand on my bag, it holding the fraudulent marriage certificate at the ready. My scalp started to sweat.
“Ruby wrote this part in her own words, and I’m to read them out loud,” Carmen said, licking her lips and recrossing her legs. “The house and the money go to Lanie and her husband,” she read from the folder. “Provided she can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that she is indeed married.”
I nodded, pulling the envelope from my bag.
“She told me she was,” Carmen continued. “But I know my Lanie, and I know what she’d do to make her old Aunt Ruby happy.”
My eyes filled with tears, and I didn’t fight it this time. I blinked them free.
“I hope it’s true, because I want love in her life. She did a lot of pretending in her youth, a lot of avoiding, and that’s not something to play pretend with.” Nick squeezed my shoulders and I shut my eyes tight. She was killing me. “Love is everything. Nothing is worth anything without that. Not even a few bucks and a rambling, creaky old house,” Carmen read, a smile pulling at her lips in spite of the stark attempt at professionalism.
I laughed through my tears and swiped them away. The words hurt, but on the other side it felt good to hear Aunt Ruby talking to me again. Nick took my hand and held it there, and I thought screw Bryce and Treena and Alicia-the-baby. We were selling this. My childhood home was mine. The money was shocking and probably would be nice once I got my head wrapped around it, but honestly the house was more important.
“So I’m putting this condition on things, Lanie,” Carmen read. “Prove it to me. Prove it to Carmen, to the powers that be. That you are happily married to your soul mate.”
I held out the document with a prayer in my head.
“Live in the house together for three months,” Carmen continued, not looking up.
My hand froze between us. What?
“I know that involves moving, and job issues, and all that,” Carmen read, her voice going a little weak. “I know it’s inconvenient, and maybe you’ll have to figure some things out, and maybe you’ll hate me. But life and love are not to be taken lightly, my girl.”
I couldn’t breathe as Carmen looked up at me finally, and I felt the cold again for a whole different reason as Nick’s hands left my shoulders and let go of my hand.
“Three months,” Carmen read. From memory. She fucking knew. “And if that can’t be done or you fail, then at the end of three months, the house and the money go to my brother’s children, Bryce, Treena, and Alicia Clark. To be divided equally.”
Tears fell freely from my eyes as I saw everything slip away. Everything that mattered that I didn’t even know mattered. There was no way. Not for me. Not for Nick. What was she doing? What was she thinking?
“What the fuck was she smoking?” I choked.