Her Fill-In Fiancé

by Stacy Connelly

  “I’d be happy to share mine,” she’d answered, her words not entirely a joke because she’d fooled herself into believing there’d been a yearning hidden in his eyes that might make the impossible possible.

  Her cheeks burned with the memory, but anger served its purpose, withering the unwanted seeds of hope that blossomed inside her simply because he’d called a few times.

  “All right. I’ll let you know if he calls again,” her cousin said, grudgingly enough to tell Sophia her feelings were still hurt. “I have to work tonight, but leave me a message when you get to Clearville.”

  As she dropped her phone back in her purse, Sophia admitted she really shouldn’t have jumped on Theresa for keeping secrets. Not when she had so many of her own.

  And certainly not when she wasn’t planning to come clean on all of them. Oh, she’d tell her family about losing her job in Chicago. And of course, she would tell them about the pregnancy. But about Jake—the truth about Jake Cameron was one secret Sophia planned on keeping.

  Yes, he was a liar and a total jerk. But that didn’t really matter.

  All that mattered was that her aunt had met Jake. She thought he was a nice guy. So who did it hurt if her family believed they were still dating? If her family thought, maybe, they were even falling in love? Was it really so bad of her to want to have one bright spot to point to? A single light at the end of the tunnel?

  No one needed to know she’d already been run over by the train.

  After the long, drawn-out days of traveling—Theresa had been right to accuse her of dragging her feet—Sophia should have been eager to have the trip behind her. She should have been grateful to escape her tiny cramped car; she should have longed for a half-hour soak in a tub instead of a five-minute shower with limited heat and water pressure; she should have been looking forward to spending the night in a comfortable, familiar bed.

  She would find all of that at her parents’ house, and yet she dreaded seeing her family, fielding all their questions and admitting to a truth that made her feel so, so stupid.

  It would have been bad enough if she were the only one affected, but she wasn’t. The child she carried would have to live with it as well, and the questions she dreaded her family asking would be nothing compared to those her child might ask six or seven years down the road.

  So maybe she could use this trip as something of a test drive, a practice run long before she had to tell her child.

  Pulling up to her parents’ sprawling white-sided farmhouse with its green shutters and wraparound front porch, Sophia cut the engine and took a deep breath. The house showed signs of a facelift. Nothing dramatic, but Sophia could see the paint was new, the old wrought iron railing had been replaced by a white wooden picket fence, and the stairs leading to the porch no longer sagged in the middle. Terra cotta flower pots filled with petunias, snapdragons and vinca lined the steps in welcome, and the huge, green lawn stretched out on either side of the house before giving way to uncultivated wilderness.

  She could think of dozens of descriptions, but only one word came to mind.

  Home.

  “Here we go, baby.”

  She patted her tummy, then grabbed her purse and climbed from the car, leaving her suitcases behind in the trunk. Big, burly brothers were good for a few things, after all. And Sophia didn’t doubt her brothers would be at the house. Sunday night dinners were legendary in the Pirelli household. Her mother always made enough food to feed an army. And over the years, between her brothers’ friends, girlfriends and later, at least in Nick’s case, family, an army of guests had frequently shown up, often out of the blue.

  And Vanessa Pirelli always greeted her guests—expected or not—with a smile and a homemade meal.

  “Spaghetti,” Sophia whispered as she walked toward the front door. “Please be having spaghetti.”

  Not only because she’d missed her mother’s spaghetti, unable to imitate the handed-down family recipe no matter how many times she tried, but because the meal was her brothers’ favorite. Her mother often joked that a bomb could go off, and none of them would drop a fork.

  Sophia hoped her mother was right, and she could drop a couple of her bombs without her brothers going ballistic. Sam, any chance you’ll save some meatballs for the rest of us…and oh, by the way, I was fired from my job. Drew, pass the milk, will you? I’m supposed to get more calcium, being pregnant and all.

  And her parents…she could already imagine the disappointment in their eyes.

  Her insides churning, her steps had slowed to a shuffle as she crossed the porch. The hoped-for aroma of simmering tomato sauce and garlic bread didn’t immediately tease her senses as she opened the front door and stepped inside. Sophia sniffed, but she couldn’t smell anything cooking at all. Nor did she hear the usual sounds of a Pirelli dinner, the clink of glasses, the scrape of silverware against china, the arguments between Nick and Drew over sports, the arguments between Sam and everyone over anything.

  The updates to the outside of the house continued inside. The hardwood floors gleamed beneath a new coat of stain and faintly striped wallpaper brought out the floral patterns in the chintz sofa and armchairs. But the focal point of the room, a family portrait hanging above the red brick fireplace mantel, remained.

  Taken several years ago, the portrait showed her three brothers in back. Nick, the oldest, was in the middle, flanked on either side by Drew, who shared Nick’s dark coloring, and by Sam, the only blond-haired one in the bunch. Her parents were seated in front of the boys—her father, an older, leaner version of his sons, his thick dark hair sprinkled with gray and laugh lines around his dark-brown eyes, and her mother, as petite as her husband and sons were tall, her chestnut hair cut in a sleek bob to frame her round face and green eyes. Sophia sat front and center, her dark hair longer back then, smiling at the camera with all the confidence of an eighteen-year-old kid ready to conquer the world.

  Sophia sighed. Little had she known.

  Walking toward the back of the house, she expected to find some member of her family—her parents would never dream of eating out on a Sunday night. But the comfortable kitchen, with its oak cabinets, matching table and chairs and green gingham accents, was empty.

  Sophia turned in a circle, feeling somewhat lost in her childhood home, until the sound of laughter rang in the distance. With a glance at the back door, she smiled despite the churning in her stomach. Of course. The weather was perfect for a barbecue, and grilling outdoors was the one chance her mother had in getting someone else to cook a meal.

  Plastering on a smile, Sophia opened the back door and stepped out onto the porch. “Hey, everybody, I’m home,” she announced, preparing for the usual enthusiastic greetings that never failed to disguise the worry and question in her family’s eyes.

  Shouts of “Sweetheart!” “Squirt!” and “Fifi!” rang out, the last despised nickname coming from Sam, who called her that only to annoy her.

  But one voice she never expected to hear spoke quietly in her ear. “Hello, Sophia.”

  Speechless, she turned and gazed into Jake Cameron’s amber eyes.

  Chapter Two

  Jake Cameron. Here. At her parents’ house. With her family. Wearing—was that her mother’s apron? Sophia blinked hard, twice, but when she opened her eyes, Jake still stood mere inches away, his expression serious despite the frilly white apron covered by pink potbellied pigs.

  She was dreaming. Her foolish, foolish wish of having Jake accompany her to her parents’ house had slipped into her subconscious, where she was too vulnerable to keep the ridiculous hope at bay. That was the only possible explanation. She was still asleep at some by-the-highway hotel, her face smashed into a cheap pillow, having a doozy of a nightmare. The breeze carried the scent of charcoal and the sounds of her family’s greetings, but none of it was real.

  Jake even looked as he always did in her dreams—too tempting for her peace of mind and too good to be true, she thought, her hungry gaze taking in rugg
ed features that had become breathtakingly familiar in such a short time. The setting sun burnished his brown hair, bringing out the highlights in the slightly shaggy strands, and turning his skin to gold. Faint lines fanned out from his whiskey-colored eyes, hinting at a smile that could flash lightning quick or start her body on a slow burn with sexy, seductive deliberation.

  If she closed her eyes, she could still feel the heated promise of his lips against hers in intoxicating kisses that made her forget the harsh lessons of the past. But she didn’t need to close her eyes because she was already asleep. Sophia was sure of it…

  Until Jake reached out, trailed his fingers down the alltoo-sensitive inside of her arm and took her hand. Her heart slammed in her chest, hard enough to stop its beat and steal her breath, and Sophia knew this was happening, this was real. Because nothing—not a dream, not a nightmare, not a figment of her imagination—could affect her like this.

  Nothing but living, breathing, flesh-and-blood Jake Cameron could make her feel this way.

  Sophia jerked her hand from his as she choked out in a whisper, “What—what are you doing here?”

  Before Jake had the chance to answer, Sam bounded up the back steps to the small landing. “We didn’t know you’d be bringing company, but hey! More the merrier!” Sam slapped Jake on the back hard enough to knock a smaller man aside, but Jake absorbed the blow with little reaction. Her brother dropped a kiss on her cheek as he brushed by. “Good to see you, Fifi. And about time, too.”

  Sophia could barely manage a response to her brother’s greeting. She’d imagined dozens of scenarios where she had a chance to confront Jake Cameron and let him have it for lying to her. In those somewhat vengeful daydreams, she was sharp, clever and cutting enough to bring him to his knees. Never, though, in any of those scenes had she pictured a moment like this.

  “Let me guess,” she said, a hint of hysteria creeping into her voice, “the apron was Sam’s idea.”

  Jake glanced down at the parade of pigs. “He said it was the only one.” His knowing look told Sophia he hadn’t believed it for a second, but then again—

  “Takes one to know one,” she muttered beneath her breath, but not so quietly that Jake didn’t still hear, judging by the muscle tightening in his jaw.

  As the screen door slammed shut behind Sam, Sophia gradually became aware of the rest of her family. Nick and Drew had apparently been in the middle of a supposedly touch football game, judging by the grass stains on Drew’s jeans and the ball tucked beneath Nick’s arm. Her father stood at the grill Jake had abandoned and her mother and Nick’s daughter, Maddie, had been sitting beneath the gazebo off to the side of the yard.

  At Sophia’s arrival, though, everyone charged en masse, giving Jake little time to reply and Sophia less time to prepare. She’d barely made it down the back steps when her mother and niece reached her, Vanessa hugging her shoulders while seven-year-old Maddie wrapped her skinny arms around her waist. “Sophia! It’s so good to see you. I’ve missed you.”

  Wrapped in a cloud of cinnamon-scented warmth, Sophia swallowed hard. “Missed you too, Mom.”

  Vanessa Pirelli pulled back, her green eyes taking quick inventory of her only daughter. Sophia instinctively stiffened as she waited for the questions to cloud her mother’s expression with worry. Was she okay? Was she in trouble? Had she fallen in with the wrong crowd again?

  To Sophia’s surprise, and for the first time in years, disappointment failed to dim the light in her mother’s eyes. Not until her mother included Jake in her happy gaze did Sophia fully understand why. “Wasn’t it sweet of Jake to surprise you like this?”

  “It’s a surprise,” she agreed, avoiding the “sweet” description when it came to Jake Cameron.

  Her fault, of course, for letting the deception go on as long as she had. Was there some ugly, painful stone in her dismal love life he’d somehow left unturned? He was headed for disappointment. She’d spilled her heart to him already.

  She’d foolishly felt she owed him the truth—that she was being unfair to start any kind of relationship without telling Jake about the child she carried. Turned out she didn’t owe him at all. He was already getting paid, and how unfair was that?

  She felt Jake’s intense gaze on the side of her face, as if his golden eyes gave off as much heat as the man himself, but she refused to glance his way. Struggling for normalcy in front of her family, Sophia focused on her niece. She cupped the girl’s dimpled chin in her hand and exclaimed, “Maddie, I think you’ve grown a foot since I saw you last!”

  “I’m starting third grade soon! I’ll be in Mrs. Dawson’s class,” the tiny, girlish version of her big brother said, her whole body practically vibrating with excitement. In Clearville’s small elementary school, first and second grades were housed together in the same classroom. Entering third grade was an enormous step.

  “You’re one of the big kids now!” Sophia exclaimed. “Practically all grown up!”

  “It’s amazing how fast kids change when you aren’t around to see it,” Nick drawled, shifting the football to his other hand to draw his daughter to his side.

  Sophia had to give him credit; she might have actually believed the casual comment was nothing more than that if she didn’t know better. But she did. Her oldest brother still blamed her for taking off to Chicago and for the fallout she hadn’t intended to cause.

  But any defense Sophia might have made collapsed at the combination of love, pride and well-disguised worry that mingled in his gaze as he looked down at his daughter. “She’ll be in college before I know it.”

  Sophia’s heart clenched in sympathy for what Nick had gone through since his wife left, in guilt for her part in Carol’s desertion, and in a newly realized panic knowing she’d be feeling that same love, that same pride, that same worry soon for her own child. Like Nick, she too would be alone.

  Sophia swallowed hard, and it had to be her imagination that Jake stepped closer as if sensing her thoughts and offering his silent support.

  Crazy, she thought. If Jake could read her mind, he’d run the other way. Because she was still mad at him. Really, really mad.

  Mad enough to haul off and hit him. Mad enough to throw herself into his arms, close her eyes, and pretend the Jake Cameron she’d met in St. Louis was the real Jake Cameron…

  “Hey, Jake!” Her dad waved a barbecue fork in their direction. “How ’bout you take over here and give me a chance to hug my little girl?”

  “You got it, Vince. Be right there.”

  Trying to keep her jaw from dropping at the warm welcome embracing Jake, Sophia shot him a sidelong glance he caught front and center. He stepped closer until she had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze. She’d lived with older and much taller brothers her entire life; she was used to their overwhelming breadth and height.

  But with Jake, it was…different.

  Intimidating and at the same time thrilling in ways she wished she could forget.

  “I’ve missed you,” he murmured, his deep voice tripping over nerve endings and raising goose bumps across her skin.

  Fury at her reaction as much as at his words reared, and Sophia sucked in a breath, sharp retort at the ready. But before she could say a single word, Jake caught the back of her neck, his fingers tunneling in her dark hair, and pulled her into a quick, hard kiss.

  She barely had the chance to register his taste, to respond to the press of his mouth against hers, to relive the memory of the kisses they’d shared in St. Louis. Kisses that slipped beneath her defenses, exploited her weaknesses…

  She drew in a second breath as she pulled back, still ready to blast him with her temper, still furious, but Jake had already stepped away.

  “Jake, I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to have you here.” Vanessa Pirelli’s warm smile left no room to doubt the sincerity of her words.

  Seated across from Sophia’s mother, Jake worked on a smile of his own. The casual meal around the picnic table was nothing like the
formal family dinners in the Cameron household. Her welcoming acceptance should have made it easier, but the whole experience of holding hands while saying grace, passing rolls across the table like lobbing softballs and carrying on four conversations at one time seemed like something out of a storybook.

  And of course every story had its villain, a role Jake had been fully willing to accept when he showed up unannounced at Sophia’s home. But instead of hurling accusations, her family had greeted him with open arms—literally—leaving him feeling off-balance and unprepared. He’d been ready to face the Pirelli family’s anger; their approval was unexpected…and undeserved.

  Still, he said, “I’m glad to be here, Mrs. Pirelli.”

  Glad to see for himself that Sophia had a family who loved her, who would be there for her and her child in a way only family could be. She might not have told them about the baby yet, but it was obvious Sophia’s child would have three doting uncles and one set of grandparents to spoil him rotten and to be there for anything he needed.

  “Oh, now, didn’t I tell you to call me Vanessa?” Sophia’s mother reminded him.

  “Yes, ma’am, you did.”

  His evasion didn’t get by the older woman, and her eyes crinkled in a smile, small lines forming at the corners, giving him a glimpse of how beautiful Sophia would look as she matured. Only Sophia certainly wasn’t smiling at him now.

  Sitting stiff and silent at his side, Sophia’s body language told him loud and clear she didn’t share in her mother’s welcome. But not even her anger and the obvious emotional walls stopped him from noticing the way her dark hair curled behind her ear to perfectly frame her delicate features. Or the way the afternoon breeze picked up the fresh vanilla scent of her skin. Or the heat of her body inches from his.

  When she reached out to pass the potato salad and brushed her arm against his, every hair on his body seemed to stand at attention—thousands of tiny divining rods guiding him to the woman at his side. A woman he’d told himself a hundred times since leaving St. Louis he was better off staying away from. Yet here he was, sitting by her side like a man who’d been out in the desert too long and yet somehow thought he could ignore the temptation of taking a drink.