by Vanessa Vale
With one hand tightly about my waist, I felt Mike reach into his jacket pocket, then take hold of my left hand. As he lifted his head, our ragged breaths mingled and I felt him slide something on my finger. My ring finger.
I tried to yank my hand out of his grasp but it wouldn't budge, his hands too big, his grip too tight. Mike turned us both so we faced Mrs. O. She had to have seen the kiss—airport security would have it on video for playback later—but she hadn't seen the ring maneuvering as Mike's large frame had blocked her view.
“Oh, Violet. I'm so glad you're here.” Mrs. O was petite, making me, at five foot six, look like an Amazon. Her blonde hair was fairer now as she let it gracefully fade to gray. It was cut into a chin length bob that flattered her. Where Goldie would be considered voluptuous, Mrs. O was leaner, almost elegant. She wore dark jeans, a pink fleece jacket, a floral scarf about her neck and a large leather pocketbook slung over one shoulder. In her late sixties, she looked good. Too good for two in the morning. “I'm sorry I missed you; I stopped at the ladies’ room.”
“Mrs. O, how nice to see you,” I replied, hoping my voice held a warmer welcome than I felt.
Mike had not released me. In fact, now that I was here and practically glued to his side, I wasn't sure if he was going to let me go. Perhaps he was afraid I'd change my mind and hop the first available flight out of town. Hell, he’d just put a ring on my finger. I wasn't going anywhere, even if I wanted to.
“The ring. Let me see the ring!” She was nothing but smiles and kindness itself. Where was the taskmaster who forced push-ups and kicks and punches on less-than-eager eleven-year-olds?
Mike still had a firm grasp on my hand so he held it out for his mom to see. Me, too. I hadn't even seen it yet. I'd felt it. Heavy, solid. Significant.
Yellow gold, in swirling waves with several diamonds placed around, with a large round one in the center.
“It's...lovely,” she said. She was being polite.
It was awful. It was a hot mess of a ring. Whoever designed it was in Kindergarten. It was heavy, big and clunky. I was going to either get my hair caught in it or gouge someone's eye out if I wasn't careful. It was good Mike was a doctor as he could tend to any injuries, saving a poor victim hurt by the monster ring a trip to the nearest urgent care facility.
“Thanks,” I said. I could only imagine the stunned look on my face.
Growing up, I'd played with my Barbies and had many a wedding with Ken. But never once had my play included Barbie and Ken getting engaged with a honking ring because of a looming mother-in-law in the middle of baggage claim near the Arctic Circle. The bright side was when it really did happen, when I really did get engaged, it could only be better than this.
Mrs. O had that dreamy, happy, mother look going. I recognized it in the face of my own mother when Veronica and I graduated from high school, then from college. She even had that look the time she saw my first classroom as a teacher.
It didn't matter that the ring was hideous, but that Mrs. O's son, her only son, was engaged. I couldn't be sure she felt the same soft, gooey feelings for me as the fiancée, however.
Holy shit. I was Mike's fiancée! Not his girlfriend. I could be a pretend girlfriend, that wouldn't be too hard. But fiancée? I didn't know how to do that. How had this escalated?
Finally, Mike released me, reached over and took my carry-on and slung it easily over his shoulder. I wobbled where I stood, not sure if from shock or exhaustion. Maybe it was the weight of the ring pulling me to the left.
“I was just telling Vi how great she looked,” Mike told his mother.
I lifted one eyebrow in question as he was a total liar. I’d seen myself beneath the fluorescent lighting in the miniscule airplane bathroom. It had done nothing to hide the bags under my eyes, my hair that took on the quality of a bird's nest, nor the ginger ale spill down the front of my shirt. And that had been three hours ago somewhere over Canada. “Wait 'til you see me when I'm actually conscious.”
Mrs. O laughed heartily. Did she like me now because I was engaged to her son? I should have considered that when I was a kid.
Mike's smile ticked up a little bit more. “Let's get your stuff and get out of here.” Still holding my hand, with the gaudy ring pressed into my palm, Mike yanked me toward the baggage carousel.
“Fiancée?” I quietly hissed.
Mike glanced over his shoulder at Mrs. O who was a few steps behind us. He lifted our joined hands to his lips, kissed my knuckles. “Later,” he replied, a little louder, and grinned wickedly.
I flushed. I couldn't help it. His mother had to think I wanted to toss myself at him. From the heat of the kiss she and half of Alaska had witnessed, she could only surmise that was just the warm-up of things to come. Oh, boy. “You are such a—”
“Oh, look.” Mike pointed to a big black suitcase as Mrs. O came to stand next to us. “Is that one yours?”
Wow. Mike was unbelievably good at deflection, because that was definitely not my bag. A suitcase was one thing. An engagement was something else entirely. There was a reason he'd upped the ante since he'd called me at Goldilocks. I had little doubt the reason stood beside us. I had to wait to get him alone to find out why he was going to such lengths to protect his mom.
Miraculously, it only took us a few more minutes to collect my luggage, exit the parking garage and get on the way through the darkness to...somewhere. The air was cool and damp, as if it had rained earlier in the day. It was colder than Montana at night, but not by much. The streets were quiet, businesses closed.
“I thought it was light here all the time,” I said.
“Almost, it's dark for just a few hours. It'll be light by four,” Mike commented.
“Are you all right back there?” Mrs. O asked. “I could have sat in the back.”
As if. Mike's rental car had to be the smallest car ever made. It was a two-door hatchback that was close in size to the kid's ride-on toy cars my school had on the preschool playground. A little cardboard pine tree dangled from the rear-view mirror emitting enough woodsy scent to distract a bloodhound.
It was almost comical how we were wedged in.
“I had no idea you'd bring two suitcases. Are you sure you have enough room?” Mike asked. His head actually touched the ceiling of the car, his shoulders hunched, with his knees up under the steering wheel even with the seat pushed back as far as it would go. Behind it was my second suitcase, since only one fit in the very back with the hatch closed. My carry-on was in my lap and my knees were jammed into the back of the passenger seat. I was getting claustrophobic just thinking about it.
There was no way I’d ask Mrs. O to sit back here.
“Sweetheart, I thought you were getting this car replaced,” Mrs. O said to Mike.
Mike's eyes met mine in the rearview mirror, his face green from the glow of the dash. “We got to the airport early with the hopes of trading it in,” he told me. “No luck. There aren't any rentals left in the area that are bigger. I've tried two other times in the week I've been here. I'm stuck with this clown car.”
“You might be stuck in this clown car,” I replied. It was an apt description and extremely funny. Mrs. O thought so.
“Violet, you're going to have so much fun up here. It's a full house, but that's to be expected. My brother Bob's retiring from the Air Force. He's been stationed up here at Elmendorf for years.”
“Yeah,” Mike added. “Mom decided we should celebrate and make a family reunion out of it. My uncle divorced when I was a kid, never remarried, never had kids, but he's got a big house, so we're piled in there.”
“So at the house for the reunion is your uncle, your mom...” I started, but didn't know more.
“My dad, who said he'd see you in the morning, by the way. He goes to bed at nine and doesn't do late nights.”
I nodded my head. Good thing, the car was too small to fit him, anyway.
“My cousin, Banks, is here, along with his wife, Trish, their son, Alex, and Uncle
Bob's ex-wife's nephews, Jean-Luc and Marc.”
What had I gotten myself into? It was a circus and I was going to be performing in the center ring in about six hours. Maybe the clown car would come in handy.
“That's a lot of people.”
“Then there's Susan next door, who's such a sweetheart,” Mrs. O tagged on.
Mike arched an eyebrow at me in the mirror.
“Susan?” I asked, playing naïve.
“Bob's neighbor. Recently divorced. A lovely woman. I thought she might be a great match for Mike, but before I could invite her to more than one dinner, Mike surprised me with your engagement. I had no idea.”
Clearly, Mike hadn't told his mom about Susan's nocturnal bedroom visits.
“I told you, Mom, we were going to surprise you when we got home. But you forced my hand by pushing Susan on me. I'm a one-woman guy.”
Mrs. O lifted a hand and waved at Mike, as if wiping away his comment. “I think it's sweet, and so considerate of you to bring Violet up because she missed you so much.”
I arched an eyebrow. Missed him? What on earth had he said to his mom? That I was sitting around waiting for him to call? This wasn't high school. Mrs. O thought little enough of me as it was. I didn't need her to think me desperate and clingy before we even got to the house. Two could play this game.
I leaned forward as best I could, my stomach pressed into my carry-on. “Between us girls, Mrs. O, you know how men are. Blaming their loneliness on us. I could hear how he pined for me when we talked on the phone every day, all but begging me to come since he was all alone. And it's only been a week!”
Mrs. O sighed. Mike gave me the evil eye in the rearview mirror.
“The biggest ones fall the hardest,” Mrs. O commented.
Turning into a dark driveway, Mike replied, “Oh good, we're here.”
Chapter 4
“Engaged? Are you insane?” I whispered into the cool darkness as Mike yanked my suitcase from the back of the rental. Mrs. O had said goodnight and gone in to sleep. We stood in the circular driveway in front of the house. It was pitch black, only a small light by the front door lit the area. The house, from what I could see, was Tudor style, completely not what I had in mind for Alaska. A two-story, massive box of a home, with dark beams and white stucco. The front door, lit by brass sconces, was made of dark wood and recessed beneath a small covered porch. Several pairs of rubber rain boots stood in a neat row to the left of the front door. Medieval, meet tundra.
The hatchback shut with a loud thunk that disturbed the quiet. Crickets chirped and leaves stirred gently in the woods that all but obscured the house from the road. Goose bumps rose on my arms. I was expecting chilly nights, but not the dampness. I was loaded once again with my carry-on and Mike balanced himself with the two heavy suitcases. They weighed close to fifty pounds each, but he lifted them like my sister's plumbing toolboxes.
“Actually, Vi, I think I might be. It's three in the morning and I just gave a woman an ugly-ass ring to fake an engagement so I wouldn't hurt my mother's feelings.”
“Thank God.”
Mike put the bags down. Even in the darkness I could see his eyebrows go up in confusion.
I held up my left hand. “The ugly-ass ring part. Sorry, Mike, but it is ugly.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I did it on purpose. I wasn't going to give you a ring like that if it was the real deal.”
I sighed with relief. He'd put a little thought into the ring, although why he wasn't smart enough to avoid a fake engagement in the first place was still confusing. “I'm so glad you haven't lost your sense of style.”
Mike smiled. A small dimple appeared in his cheek. I'd forgotten—no, more like blocked out—that dimple. “My mom's been trying to fix me up ever since I finished my residency and moved back to Bozeman. It hasn't been too bad. But this week…” He did the whole hair rubbing thing again, his sign for frustration. “I avoid the house as much as possible. I came to Alaska to do some fishing, but I hadn't expected to be doing it practically twenty-four-seven to avoid Susan.”
“Right, Susan.”
“I really am glad you're here, Vi, and I'm sorry I didn't give you notice on the whole relationship upgrade. I didn't want to hurt my mom's feelings by telling her off. She means well, but Susan, she's literally insane. I did a six-week rotation in psych and I can officially say she's mental.”
I adjusted my bag on my shoulder. “She's not going to be in your bed, is she?”
Mike quirked an eyebrow and grinned. “Our bed. It would be pretty crowded since you and I are sharing a room.”
I swallowed. Our bed. Oh shit. I hadn't thought this through. Over ten years, no foreplay and I was going to share his bed? Could I do this? Could I sleep in a bed with Mike without sleeping with him? I cocked my head toward the house. “Your mother doesn't believe in the whole separate bedrooms before marriage thing?”
He shot me a look that screamed, Are you kidding me? “I'm thirty years old. My mother knows I've had sex.”
“Yeah, but with me?” I thought I saw his jaw clench and his eyes flare with something, but it was dark, late, and I didn't have the energy to read into it. “I'm too tired to even think about sex. We can deal with the details of this whole”—I circled my finger around in circles—“boyfriend/girlfriend—”
“Fiancée,” Mike corrected.
“Fine.” I felt the heavy weight of the ring. It was going to be a constant reminder of the farce I was in now. “This whole fiancée thing in the morning. It's bad enough your mother thinks we're having sex in the same house as her. I'm going to have nightmares.”
Mike made a sound like a groan and a grunt, very bear-like. At least, I hoped it was Mike. Bears weren't hibernating now and I was sure we looked like a pretty decent meal.
“You and me both.” He sighed as he lifted the bags once again and led me toward the front door. “You and me both.”
I awoke confused, not knowing where I was. The room was sparsely furnished: bed, end table with lamp, wood dresser with a vintage TV on top, the kind that had a dial on it to change the channel.
The walls were white. Wall-to-wall dark blue carpet. Navy, no-frills curtains hung at the window, their white metal blinds closed, making the room dim. The bed was king-sized and the sheets white, with a comforter that matched the curtains and the rug. It screamed bachelor male.
Alaska. Oh, yeah.
Mike's side of the bed was empty, but the comforter was thrown back and a dent in the pillow indicated he'd been there at some point. I'd gone first in the bathroom when we'd come in from the airport, then let Mike have a turn. Before he'd come out, I must have conked out. Great, the first time I actually shared a bed with Mike and I remembered nothing.
I listened carefully for any type of noise to indicate if anyone else was around, but all was quiet. No TV sounds, no street noise. No Mike.
The alarm clock on the dresser read eleven-thirty. I hadn't seen much of the house when we came in from the airport. It had been late, the rooms dark. Uncle Bob could have lived in a cave and I wouldn't have cared. Exhaustion had dulled my curiosity and my new relationship status had me sidetracked.
If I hadn't had to pee, I would have rolled over and thrown the blanket over my head for a few more hours.
I needed to make an appearance at some point, and I thought it better to do it on my own terms than to have Mike walk in and see me like this. Throwing back the covers, I rummaged through my open suitcase on the floor, found some clothes and locked myself in the en suite bathroom.
It was a flashback to 1980. Mud brown tub, toilet and sink. One entire wall—floor to ceiling—was a mural of a fall foliage mountain scene; yellowed Aspens, snowcapped peaks, babbling brook. It was an in-your-face reminder of the locale. It was so retro that it had gone full circle from being cool to being ridiculous to being cool all over again.
I stood there staring at the super-sized image; stunned I hadn't even noticed it the night before when I'd brushe
d my teeth. Looking in the mirror, I barely squelched a scream. My usually sleek dark hair was like straw, sticking up every which way. My makeup was long gone. Dark circles under my eyes indicated my long day and late night. I was a hot mess, all right. It was a good thing I was already engaged to Mike. He couldn't back out now, regardless of what I looked like. Hell, Crazy Susan had to look better than this.
Rummaging through my toiletry case, I found my shampoo, conditioner, razor and other shower paraphernalia, placed it on the tub rim and turned on the water. I stepped under the hot spray and got busy preparing myself for my role of fiancée extraordinaire. Mrs. O, nor Susan, would believe Mike and I were engaged if my legs weren't shaved.
I had my back to the spray, my head tilted up to rinse out the conditioner, when the metal slide of the shower curtain startled me. My eyes darted open and there, staring at me with probably an equally surprised expression, was a tall, voluptuous woman somewhere in her early thirties. It was easy to confirm she was a natural blonde since she stood there completely naked, one hand still on the white plastic curtain.
“Who the hell are you?” she asked, her voice high-pitched.
For a weird moment, I had a silly thought that maybe I was the one to ask that question.
“Um, Violet,” I replied, the steam from the hot water swirling around me. “How did you get in here? I locked the door.”
For just such situations, I thought.
She casually shrugged. “I have my ways.” Her eyes raked down my body, assessing. This wasn't a look of interest, but of scoping out the competition. “I'm Susan. I thought you were somebody else.”
“I figured,” I said sarcastically as I wiped water out of my eyes. So this was Susan. This was the woman who had Mike so scared he had to drag me to the wilds of Alaska.
I wanted to cover my nakedness, but there was nowhere to go and my washcloth wasn't going to cover much. It wasn't that often, okay never, that I had a conversation in the buff and I felt awkward. Perhaps Susan was a member of an Alaskan nudist colony. “Who were you looking for?”