His Pretend Fiancee

But the moment she stepped inside she was even more sorry she was bringing company with her because she’d forgotten that she’d already unfolded the futon in the living room and made it up for herself for the night.

But what could she do? She couldn’t turn around and tell the man she’d just conceded to invite in that she’d changed her mind. She was just going to have to tough this through. And it would be tough because having Michael Dunnigan in the same vicinity as a bed was not an easy thing for her even now.

“I was about to call it a night,” she said both in explanation and as a hint that she didn’t want him to stay long.

Michael Dunnigan closed the door as Josie took off Pip’s collar, wishing as she did that she had on something better than her sweat suit over her nightshirt, that she hadn’t washed off all her makeup and that she’d at least run a brush through her short bobbed hair before she’d taken Pip on his walk.

But there was nothing to be done about it now. Except to smooth her hair behind her ears once she’d stashed the leash.

“Wow, this place really is small,” Michael Dunnigan said as he glanced around.

“There are two bedrooms—two of my roommates share one of them but the other one is really just an oversize closet so only Liz uses it. I lost the toss and ended up sleeping in the living room.” She didn’t know why she was giving him so many details but the words just seemed to tumble out.

“That’s right, I remember you telling me that there are four of you living here. Plus the dog?” Michael Dunnigan asked.

“Four of us and the dog,” Josie confirmed. It was one of the very few pieces of information they’d exchanged about themselves during the three-day lovemaking marathon that hadn’t left much time—or energy—for conversation.

Josie waited for him to say something else, preferably about why he’d shown up on her doorstep since he still hadn’t given her a clue.

But he wasn’t forthcoming. Instead he moved to the wall that separated the living room from the hallway-size kitchen.

Josie and her roommates used the wall as a gallery for a mélange of pictures of friends and family and events. As Michael Dunnigan looked at each photograph in turn he was in profile to her and Josie couldn’t help taking her own concentrated look at him.

He was still drop-dead gorgeous. More gorgeous than she’d even remembered. He had coal-black hair that he wore short all over. His nose was straight and not too long, and his chin was just pronounced enough. He had high cheekbones and a sharp-cut jawline that was faintly shadowed with the hint of dark stubble.

It was a face that had demanded Josie’s attention even through the crowd of the smoky bar where she’d been doing a poetry reading and he’d been sitting in the audience. A face that had riveted her right from the start and kept her enraptured during the three days that had followed. As enraptured as the body that went with it.

The body that was six feet of broad-shouldered, hard-packed muscle that left no doubt that the firefighter was capable of carrying even a full-grown man from a burning building. Six feet of broad-shouldered, hard-packed muscle encased in a pair of tan dress slacks, a hunter green polo shirt, and a sport coat that made Josie suddenly wonder if, when he’d begun this evening, he’d dressed for a date.

“So where are you coming from?” she asked as her curiosity got the better of her.

“A date with my mother’s podiatrist,” he said without hesitation, a heavy dose of disgust in his tone.

“Another setup?” she asked. One of the few things she knew about him was that his mother was desperate for him to get married and was in relentless pursuit of finding him a wife.

“The fifth setup since I saw you last,” he confirmed.

“She’s arranged five blind dates for you in two weeks?” Josie said in amazement.

He’d finally finished with the photographs and turned to face her. The full bore of striking green eyes as vibrant as the leaves of summer was almost enough to take her breath away.

But he didn’t seem to notice as he answered her question with a complete list. “There was dinner with Mom’s hairdresser, lunch with the receptionist from her dentist’s office, brunch with the woman who delivered a package to her, coffee with the niece of a friend of her bridge partner, and dinner tonight with the podiatrist.”

Josie couldn’t help smiling. “You can say one thing—you’re eating well.”

“Actually, tonight it was tofu cuisine and I hardly ate anything.”

And if his tone was any indication, there was more than the food that he hadn’t had a taste for.

“So something about tofu cuisine gave you a crazy thought that brought you here,” she said, using the segue to maybe finally find out why he’d come when they’d both agreed at the end of that Labor Day weekend that they didn’t want any big involvement and to go their separate ways.

Michael Dunnigan smiled at her a bit sheepishly. “It wasn’t the tofu, it was the fact that I was sitting across the table from this woman whose company I was not enjoying in the least, thinking that if I had to do one more blind date I would scream, and wondering how the hell I was going to get my mother to stop.”

“And that gave you a crazy idea.”

“A really crazy idea.”

But still he didn’t tell her what that crazy idea was.

He took another look around the apartment, shook his head and said, “I can’t believe four people and a dog are crammed in here.”

Josie clenched her teeth and shrieked to let her frustration be known. “What was the crazy idea?” she said, slowly enunciating each word.

Michael Dunnigan smiled again, obviously enjoying this. “It occurred to me that my mother is never going to cease and desist until she actually believes I’ve found someone.”

And that made him think of me?

A hopeful little flutter in the pit of her stomach gave Josie pause.

Yes, she had liked Michael Dunnigan. A lot. Yes, she’d been attracted to him. A lot. But she hadn’t been kidding Labor Day weekend—she was strictly against getting involved with anyone, so she’d nixed any idea of a relationship developing between them. Which, for his own reasons, he’d been in favor of. So why was she feeling flattered and hopeful that he’d connected finding someone with her?

She tamped down the very notion.

“Okay,” she said to prompt him. “Your mother is never going to cease and desist until she believes you’ve found someone. That seems logical.”

“It does, doesn’t it? I don’t know why it took me so long to realize it. Anyway,” he went on, “that was when I started to think about the bind you said you were in to find another place to live and I thought that if you hadn’t already done that, what if we solved each other’s problems?”

“You’ve lost me,” she confessed.

“Well…” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “Remember, I warned you that it was crazy.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, I thought, what if I sort of hire you to move in with me and pretend to be my fiancée?”

That just made Josie laugh.

“Okay, so it’s a crazy and funny idea,” he said. But he wasn’t laughing along with her. He was just waiting for her to stop.

So she did. And that was when she said, “You want me to move in with you?” as if it just had to be a joke.

“On a purely platonic basis,” he was quick to add. “Of course my mother wouldn’t know it, but you’d have your own room—rent free—plus use of the rest of the place. Which includes a small yard the dog could go out into. You’d have to play the part of my fiancée when my mother came around or if I needed your attendance at something, but the reality would be that we’d just be roommates. And the beauty of it is that if my mother believes I’m engaged to you, I could get her off my back.”

“That really is a crazy idea,” Josie said.

He smiled sheepishly again and she wished he would stop it. Smiling put lines at the corners of each of his eyes and deep grooves bracketing his supple mouth, and only made him more attractive.

“We could tell my mother that since we really just met we’re going to have an extended engagement,” he continued as if this were actually a possibility. “And who knows how long we could draw it out? No matter how long it is, it’ll give me a break.”