His Pretend Fiancee

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 it no matter how short a time we’ve known each other.”

That was a mixture of lies and truth. He hadn’t seen anything of Josie Tate since Labor Day weekend—that was a lie. But he had compared every other woman since then to her. And even with the little he knew about her, every other woman had still come up short, so that part was true. No, it hadn’t convinced him to propose for real. But sitting across from the podiatrist, not enjoying himself in the slightest, had made him think about Josie Tate. It had inspired the idea to solve both her housing problem and his mother problem by suggesting the fake engagement.

“So you left my podiatrist and went and asked this other girl to marry you?” his mother said.

“I didn’t just leave your podiatrist. I took her home. But then I went to Josie’s place and… Well, we’re engaged and she’s moving in today.”

Elsa’s eyebrows arched at that. “Two weeks is all you’ve known this girl and you’re engaged and she’s moving in with you?”

“That’s right.”

His mother pushed her nearly empty plate away and seemed to mull that over before she said, “You’re serious? You’re getting married?”

“Not anytime soon,” Michael was quick to say. Maybe too quick. “I mean, we’ve fallen head over heels but we did just meet. We want to take some time to really get to know each other before we actually get married. A long engagement—that’s what she wants, that’s what I want.”

“I don’t think you should count on that. If this girl works every day with mothers-to-be and new babies, she’s bound to start wanting a baby of her own.”

There was a note of optimism in his mother’s tone that let him know she was not only coming to believe him but that she was beginning to warm to the idea of his whirlwind romance.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. If we come to it,” Michael said. “For now, we both just want to settle in together and honestly get to know each other.”

“And she’s a good girl? Not some fly-by-night who’s taking advantage of you or will disappear with your credit card and your furniture while you’re at work?”

“Sharon McKinty introduced us and you arranged the date with her,” Michael pointed out.

“Did Sharon vouch for her?”

“Sharon vouched for us both—she told Josie that I’m a stand-up guy from a good family with a mother who has big hair—”

“I don’t have big hair. I have a lot of hair.” Elsa defended herself from his teasing.

“Uh-huh,” Michael said sarcastically before he continued. “And Sharon told me that Josie is the best roommate she’s ever had, that she’s the kind of person who takes in stray animals, donates blood, volunteers at the soup kitchen, brings coffee to the homeless guy on the corner every morning, and would give her last dime away if she thought somebody needed it more than she did. I don’t think I have to worry about her running off with my furniture or my credit card.”

“And you love her and she loves you?”

That one made him very uncomfortable. “We got engaged last night, didn’t we?” he said as if that was answer enough.

Apparently it was because his mother said, “It must have been love at first sight.”

Certainly it had been attraction at first sight. He hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off Josie that night at the bar. In fact, he’d been almost mesmerized by her. But that wasn’t important now. Now they were only going to be roommates and friends—that was something he needed not to forget.

“When do I get to meet her?” his mother asked then, finally sounding convinced and happy about the fact that Michael had found someone.

“Maybe in a day or two. Let’s let her get moved in and—”

“Tomorrow,” Elsa decreed. “We’ll have dinner. I’ll cook.”

“I’d need to check with Josie. I don’t want you giving her the bum’s rush, Ma. She’ll be around a long time.”

“I have to meet the girl who’s going to be my daughter-in-law, don’t I?”

“You will. Believe me, you will.”

“Tomorrow. See if we can meet tomorrow,” Elsa insisted forcefully.

Michael took a deep breath and sighed it out with resignation. His mother was nothing if not persistent. And pushy. Which was why, he reminded himself, he’d felt the need to concoct this plan in the first place.