Fiancé In Name Only

“You know what I mean.”

Of course she did. Terry had been saying pretty much the same thing for the last two years. She just didn’t understand that Kelly was too determined to avoid pain to ever take the kind of risk she was talking about. Loving was great. Losing was devastating, and she’d already lost enough, thanks.

“Yeah, I do, and I appreciate the thought—”

“No, you don’t,” Terry said.

“You’re right, I don’t.” Kelly glanced at her friend and smiled to take the sting out of her words. “Honestly, you’re as bad as Gran.”

“Oh, low blow,” Terry muttered. “She’s still worried?”

“Ever since Sean died and it’s gotten worse in the last year or so.” She focused on the paints even while she kept talking. “Gran’s even started making noises about moving back here so I won’t be lonely.”

“Oh, man.” Terry sighed. “I thought she loved living in Florida with her sister.”

“She does.” Kelly crouched down to paint in the faces of three other pumpkins. “The two of them go to bingo and take trips with their seniors club. She’s having a great time, but then she starts worrying about me and—”

Her cell phone rang and Kelly stood up to drag it from her jeans pocket. Glancing at the caller ID, she sighed and looked at Terry. “Speak of the devil...”

“Gran? Really?” Terry’s eyes went dramatically wide. “Boy, her hearing’s better than ever if she could catch us talking about her all the way from Florida!”

Kelly laughed. With a wince of guilt, she sent the call to voice mail.

“Seriously?” Terry sounded surprised. “You’re not going to talk to her?”

“Having one conversation about my lack of a love life is enough for today.”

“Fine.” Terry held up both hands in surrender. “I’ll back off. For now.”

“Thanks.” She tucked her phone away and tried not to feel badly about ditching her grandmother’s call.

“But,” Terry added before she went back into the coffee shop, “just because you’re not interested in a permanent man...”

Kelly looked at her.

“...doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a temporary one. I’m just saying.”

After she left, Kelly’s brain was racing. A temporary man. When she went back to her painting, she was still thinking, and as an ephemeral plan began to build in her mind, a speculative smile curved her mouth.

Three (#u8f4e1428-6768-512e-98fe-456fb719e4eb)

Micah hated cooking, but he’d learned a long time ago that man cannot live on takeout alone. Especially when you’re in the back end of beyond and can’t get anything but pizza delivered.

He took a swig of his beer and flipped cooked pasta into a skillet with some olive oil and garlic. Adding chopped tomatoes and sliced steak to the mix, he used a spatula to mix it all together. The scent was making him hungry. Most people would think it was way too early for dinner, but Micah didn’t eat on a schedule.

He’d been wrapped up in his book for the last several hours, hardly noticing the time passing. As always happened, once the flow of words finally stopped, he came out of his cave like a grizzly after six months of hibernation.

“Hi.”

Micah turned to look at the open back door. It was late afternoon and the cool air felt good. Of course, if he’d known he’d be invaded, Micah would have kept the door shut. Too late now, though, since there was a little boy standing there, staring at him. The kid couldn’t have been more than three or four. He had light brown hair that stuck up in wild tufts all over his head. His brown eyes were wide and curious and there was mud on the knees of his jeans and the toes of his sneakers. “Who are you?”

“I’m Jacob. I live there.” He waved one hand in the general direction of the house next door. “Can I go see my pumpkin?”

The sizzling skillet was the only sound in the room. Micah looked at the kid and realized that he was one of the crew who made so much noise in Kelly’s garden. That still didn’t explain why the kid was here, talking to Micah. “Why are you asking me?”

“Cuz Kelly’s not here so I have to ask another grown-up and you’re one.”

Can’t argue with that kind of logic. “Yeah. Sure. Go ahead.”

“Okay. What’re you doin’?” Jacob came closer.

“I’m cooking.” Micah glanced at the boy, then, dismissing him, went back to his skillet. “Go look at your pumpkin.”

“Are you hungry, too?” The boy gave him a hopeful look.

“Yeah, so you should go home,” Micah told him. “Have lunch.” What time was it? He looked out the window. The sky was darkening toward twilight. “Or dinner.”

“I hafta see my pumpkin first and say good-night.”

That was a new one for Micah. Telling a vegetable good-night. But the boy looked so...earnest. And a little pitiful in his dirty jeans with his wide brown eyes. Micah didn’t do kids. Never had. Not even when he was a kid.

He’d kept to himself back then, too. He’d never made friends because he wouldn’t have been able to keep them. Moving from home to home to home kept a foster kid wary of relationships. So he’d buried his nose in whatever books he could find and waited to turn eighteen so he could get out of the system.

But now, staring into a pair of big brown eyes, Micah felt guilt tugging at him for trying to ignore the kid. The feeling was so unusual for him he almost didn’t recognize it. He also couldn’t ignore it. “Fine then. Go ahead. Say good-night to your pumpkin.”

“You hafta open the gate for me cuz I’m too little.”

Rolling his eyes, Micah remembered the gated white-picket fence Kelly kept around her garden patch. She’d told him once it was to discourage rabbits and deer. Even though the deer could jump the fence with no problem, she wanted to make vegetable stealing as hard as possible on them.

With a sigh, Micah turned the fire off under his skillet, and said goodbye to the meal he’d just made. “All right.” Micah looked at the boy. “Let’s go then.”

A bright smile lit the kid’s face. “Thanks!”

He hustled out of the kitchen, down the back steps and around to the side of the house.

Micah followed more slowly, and as he walked, he took a second to appreciate the view. All around him fall colors exploded in shades of gold and red. The dark green of the pines in the woods beyond the house made them look as if they were made of shadows, and he idly plotted another murder, deep in the forest.

“I could have some kid find the body,” he mumbled, seeing the possible scene in his mind. “Freak him out, but would he be too scared to tell anyone? Would he run for help or run home and hide?”

“Who?”

Coming back to the moment at hand, Micah looked at the child staring up at him. “What?”

“Who’s gonna run home? Are they scared? Is it a boy? Cuz my brothers say boys don’t get scared, only girls do.”

Micah snorted. “Your brothers are wrong.”

“I think so, too.” Jacob nodded so hard his hair flopped across his forehead. He pushed it back with a dirty hand. “Jonah gets scared sometimes and Joshua needs a light on when he sleeps.”