Just Pretending

by Myrna Mackenzie

  He pulled her to him with a gentle tug. “I was…pre sumptuous in coming here to help you with your investigation. You never really needed my help, after all. You’ll find your answers.”

  Gretchen dredged up a smile from somewhere. “Don’t underestimate yourself, Hannon. You have a way of getting people to open up. Women, especially, seem to remember things, little bits of conversations, that they had forgotten until you start jogging their memory. Wasn’t it Lily Mae who, when you were questioning her the other day, finally remembered Raven telling her that he never gave up what was his?”

  David smiled. “I believe the lady was trying to make a point. She was digging for information on you and me, trying to see if I felt the same way about what was mine.”

  Gretchen’s eyes widened. She sucked in her breath. “Well, nevertheless, I—”

  “I’ll miss you when we’re done,” he said, pulling her to him, kissing her lips. “We’re not done yet, Gretchen.”

  She let out the air she’d been holding in, studied the man in front of her, and realized just how lucky she’d been to have him show up in this town. Professionally and personally. “No, we’re not done yet,” she whispered, feathering her lips across his, opening to invite him inside.

  But apparently they were done for now. The doorbell rang at that instant, and David growled low in his throat as he let her go.

  When she opened the door, her friend Karen was standing there. The woman let out a squeal.

  “Gretch,” she said, throwing her arms around Gretchen. “Guess what? I was on my way to Helena to visit my mother and my car nearly ran out of gas just outside White horn. I figured it had to be fate, and besides, I don’t see you nearly enough. It seemed like too good an opportunity to stop and say hello in person. I tried to call you earlier but you must have been out on a case or something. So, here I am.”

  The words came out on a long breathless rush the way they always did with Karen. Her face was glowing and pretty with enthusiasm and Gretchen couldn’t keep from smiling in spite of her disappointment at having her time with David cut short. She hugged her friend and stepped back from the doorway.

  “Come on in,” she said. “You remember David?”

  Karen’s eyes were like blue stars. “Gretch, how could any woman with eyeballs in her head forget David? The man is better than double chocolate pudding topped with whipped cream and sprinkles,” she said, giving David a sisterly hug. “I just got finished telling his aunt so myself. I’m staying at the Big Sky for the night,” she explained. “I must say everyone at the B and B was full of talk when I mentioned your engagement. They seem very enthusiastic about getting you into the family, Gretch. In fact, no one could talk about anything else. You’re creating quite a stir.”

  Gretchen’s heart plum meted through her body, knowing that this was the first anyone at the Big Sky had heard about the engagement. She hazarded a tentative look at David who was grinning broadly. Wicked man. How were they going to explain their way out of this one?

  “It’s the badge,” he conceded solemnly. “And the attitude. My mother is just happy that I’m settling down with a woman who can protect me from potential villains.”

  For a moment Karen looked startled. Then her eyes twinkled. “Gretchen really is going to have to put a leash on you,” she said. “A man who can grin and tease and look like you do is almost too much man to handle. How are you going to deal with him, Gretch?”

  Gretchen smiled sweetly. “Hand cuffs,” she said calmly.

  David raised one brow. “For you or for me?”

  Karen chuckled. “This is going to be one interesting marriage. I can’t wait for the ceremony itself. Have you set the date?”

  Gretchen’s heart began to hammer. This bet had been a bad idea altogether. “Not yet,” she said, looking to David for backup.

  “We don’t want to be rushed,” he said, his voice low. “Gretchen and I want to have time to go slowly, to let our relationship simmer…and burn…and bubble over until the time is totally, completely right. Until we just can’t wait to be together,” he said, gazing directly into Gretchen’s eyes, his own expression one of unveiled lust.

  For a moment Gretchen felt as if everything in the room had dropped away until there was only this man, this feeling, this moment.

  “Whoa,” Karen said, fanning herself with her hand. “I can see why you were finally forced to give in and change your mind about marrying, Gretchen. I—I suppose I should have called before I just barged in.”

  Her words seemed to serve as an alarm to David. He took in a breath, allowed the desire to drain from his expression and smiled reassuringly at Karen.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “I’m afraid I tend to forget myself where Gretchen is concerned. And please, don’t apologize for anything. You’re not barging in. Anyway, I was just on my way to take Goliath for a walk. Why don’t the two of you visit while I do that? I’ll see both of you later.”

  He dropped a light kiss on Gretchen’s lips before retrieving Goliath’s leash and taking him out the door.

  “Gretch, how can you stand letting him go for even a few moments?”

  It was difficult, Gretchen admitted, watching him go, but she was just going to have to get used to it. In just a few days she was going to have to let him go forever.

  “I can’t believe the entire town thinks that we’re engaged now,” Gretchen whispered, her voice worried as she and David left their cars and walked toward the station the next morning.

  “Believe it,” David said with a slow, lazy smile. “When I went home to change this morning, the entire family was waiting for me, wearing their best smug smiles. My mother has been patting me on the head all morning, as though I’d just told her I’d won the Nobel prize. My sister berated me over the phone before I left for work today for not telling her that I was getting married. Then she told me that she wanted to hug me for choosing you.”

  “And I finally had to take the phone off the hook last night,” Gretchen said in amazement. “I can’t believe how many people care whether or not I get married.”

  “They love you, sweet heart.”

  She looked up at him and her heart took a long plunge off a high and rocky peak. He was such a caring man. After Karen had gone last night, he’d made long, slow love to her. He’d made very sure that she’d found pleasure in his arms. He’d taken care of Goliath and brought her break fast in bed before he’d left her this morning. “I grew up in a house where break fast was very important,” he’d told her. “You need this.” And he’d sat there and watched her eat every bite. Like a husband—or maybe a fiancé.

  “Admit it,” he whispered near her ear, after an elderly couple crossed the street to offer their congratulations. “You’re having fun and so is everyone else.”

  She was. There was something about making everyone so happy with a little news, even erroneous news, that made her feel good. For a split second, she wondered whether she could ever get used to this, if she could ever be a happily married woman. But even the thought sent a thread of panic spiraling through her. She smothered her thoughts.

  “Maybe we’re having fun and maybe everyone else is, but our engagement is a lie,” she said.

  “But not a mean-spirited one,” he maintained. “No one’s being hurt. And when I get ready to leave, we’ll tell everyone that we’ve decided to just remain best friends. They’ll spend all their time hoping we’ll get back together and even that can be fun for some of them. Lily Mae will eat it up. Until then, let’s enjoy our freedom.”

  And he turned her toward him, slid his arm behind her back and lifted her lips to his in a dipping, searing kiss.

  Her feet left the ground, she pressed her palms to his chest to balance herself, and then she forgot everything except the heat of David’s touch, the soap-and-man scent of him, the pleasure of his mouth against hers.

  When he finally pulled back slowly and balanced her on unsteady legs, a round of applause could be heard from across the str
eet.

  “David, how are you going to keep your mind on the business of keeping the peace if you’re thinking about kissing Gretchen all the time?”

  David raised his head and grinned. “Kissing Gretchen clears the fog out of my mind,” he said in a low teasing voice.

  “Then kiss her again,” the man called with a whoop of laughter.

  But Gretchen, not to be outdone, wasn’t about to let David call all the shots. She stood on her toes until she was almost eye-to-eye with David, looped her arm around his neck and slanted her lips to his own.

  “Now,” she said when her head was spinning and she had pulled back from the temptation of David, “I’m more than ready to face a day’s work.”

  “If you should feel the need to do that again anytime today, love, feel free. Go right ahead and press your body against mine,” David said as they entered the station. “Could make for an extremely interesting day.”

  It had been, as David said, an interesting day. Gretchen had talked to Reba at the lab and been told that since they were almost finished with a backlog of work, she could expect the results on her hair and skin samples very soon. She and David had rescued a woman whose car had rolled over and ended up in a ditch. They’d also taken some good-natured ribbing about their engagement, but it had been fun and freeing to be able to show her attraction to him without worrying about what people would think.

  Now they were settling down to a relaxed dinner at the Hip Hop before heading for home.

  “Nice ring, Gretchen,” Emma said as she came over to the table with her coffeepot. “When are you going to get married?”

  David looked at Gretchen’s flustered expression. He felt a little bad for having dragged her into this situation, but not too bad.

  “We thought…next spring,” he said suddenly, delighting in Gretchen’s wide-eyed shocked gaze. “I always liked June.”

  She turned those delicious green eyes on him. “Why wait until June?” she asked in a low, sultry tone. “When May is so much…fresher.”

  The sound of chairs shifting sounded through out the diner. David risked a glance away from Gretchen and noticed that they’d snagged the attention of almost everyone in the place. He could tell from the way Gretchen’s eyes shifted slightly that she’d noticed the same thing. Dinner had never been conducted so silently at the Hip Hop, he’d just bet.

  “May is good,” he agreed with a lazy smile. “Even better than June, really.”

  “Oh, Gretch, look how he went along with you on that. Isn’t that sweet? I love a romantic man,” one woman in the fourth booth proclaimed. “You’ll have the wedding here in White horn, won’t you?”

  David raised one brow.

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Gretchen agreed, lowering her lashes to hide the amusement he knew he’d find there if he only looked in her eyes. “Karen and Pamela will come and all my family. And the bridesmaids will all wear sea-green. It’s my favorite color.”

  David grinned at the game she’d entered into so gamely.

  “It suits you,” he assured her. “Turns your eyes that misty green I can’t resist. Those eyes of yours make me feel sort of wild and untamed, Gretchen.”

  David leaned closer, gazing into those bewitching eyes, and Gretchen parted her lips just a breath. The teakettle clock on the wall ticked loudly in the ensuing fascinated silence. A robber could have come in and walked off with everyone’s dinner right then and no one would have stopped him. Or even noticed that he was there, so intent was every diner on the scenario at Gretchen and David’s table.

  David finally keyed in on the silence. He shook his head to clear his mind. “As for the wedding day,” he continued with some effort, “I have friends with musical backgrounds. We’ll hold the ceremony at the Big Sky with dinner and dancing afterward. We’ll open up the gardens, set tables up around the lake if you like.”

  “I like,” she answered softly. “And I’ll like it even better if you wear a black tux. You look sinfully handsome in black and white,” Gretchen told him in a low, provocative voice.

  “Wear something sexy,” David whispered, reaching across the table to cup his hand around her neck and pull her closer to him. “I don’t care if it’s white. Just sexy.”

  Someone dropped a glass. It shattered, and Gretchen jerked upright.

  David drank in a long gulp of air. He shook his head and grinned at the other customers, tossing money down onto the table to pay for their meal.

  “Well, this has been enjoyable. Great seeing everyone,” he said cheerily as he rose and reached for Gretchen’s hand. “But now it’s time to get the lady back home to her bed. Good night.”

  She blushed, and it was a precious sight even though he knew the heat in her cheeks would embarrass her. Gretchen prided herself on being strong and tough.

  “Good night,” she said to Emma and to those who were calling their farewells. David held open the door and she stepped outside.

  The door had barely floated shut behind them when she looked up at him, both brows raised.

  “Well,” she said, “that was certainly entertaining for everyone, wasn’t it?”

  David laughed and then he indulged himself by doing exactly what he wanted to do and what everyone else wanted him to do, too. He picked Gretchen up, swung her around and kissed her.

  Her mouth was cool and sweet. She kissed him back.

  “It was certainly entertaining for me,” he agreed.

  “But now it is time to go home,” she whispered, her breath feathering over his lips in a honeyed caress. “The day is over.”

  “And the night is beginning.”

  She didn’t answer, and that in itself was the answer. The one he wanted. All in all, it had been a wonderful day, and there was only more to come.

  Gretchen listened to the comfortable sound of her steps and David’s clicking together against the sidewalk. It was late as they made their way back to the station so that she could pick up some paperwork she’d left there. It was later still as they stepped back through the doorway onto the sidewalk. They’d spent much of their day piecing together the testimonies of all the people they’d inter viewed about Raven, rearranging the information, jotting down scenarios they might have missed. Something just didn’t quite fit and she meant to find what it was. But for now, they’d put that behind them for the day. David was heading for his car and she was heading to hers. As if they were going to their separate homes. And they were. But in a little more than an hour he’d be with her again. He’d claim that he’d come to walk Goliath, and he would do that, but then he’d also come to her bed.

  Gretchen shivered at the thought, vaguely uneasy at how deeply David always seemed to affect her. She’d enjoyed that scene at the Hip Hop way too much. It had been fun and fast and wild and so very David. She hoped that she’d get over him easily when he left.

  I will, she promised herself. She’d always done whatever she’d had to do. This time would be no different.

  “Goodbye, Gretchen,” he said, drawing out her name in that slightly sensual way he had as he kissed her once, hard, and moved away, stepping off the sidewalk.

  “Goodbye,” she said softly, barely resisting the urge to touch her lips.

  He had turned away, she was pulling her keys from her pocket, ready to step off the sidewalk just as he had, when he turned to smile at her once more.

  A scraping sound came from above and David looked up. Instead of the smile she saw his eyes turn dark and dangerous.

  “Gretchen, move!” he yelled, and then before she could act, he launched himself at her, snagged her around the waist and rolled with her to the ground, cushioning her fall with his body. As her teeth clamped together in a sharp clack inside her head, she heard a loud crack.

  She looked to where she had been standing and saw a large rock smashed in two on the concrete.

  “Go back inside,” David whispered, whisking her off him as he leaped to his feet and raced for the back of the building where the fire
escape was located.

  She struggled to stand and ran for the fire escape herself, keeping David in her sights.

  David threw himself up the metal stairs and scrambled to the top, not worrying about the noise he was making. At other times he could run as silently as a cat, but here he had a need for speed and no time to worry about being careful.

  Someone had tried to hurt Gretchen, damn it, and that someone was going to pay.

  He cleared the fire escape, swinging onto the tarpapered roof. In the distance, he could see someone—a small adult or a kid—scurrying over the rooftops. David threw on some speed, leaped the few feet from one roof to the other and cut the distance in two.

  The noise of his footsteps getting closer had the man turning to look over his shoulder, stumbling, scrambling to get back up, and taking off again, swinging over the side of a roof.

  In the short time he had, David skidded on the tar paper, made it to the spot where the guy had disappeared and vaulted over the side himself. Sliding down one railing and then the next, he made it to the first floor platform, jumped over the side and dropped lightly to the ground. The mop-topped, black-haired man jumped on him. David tossed him over his shoulder but the wild-eyed heavily muscled attacker landed on his feet. Butting David with his head, he knocked him off-balance, pulled out a knife, and slid the blade into his hand, aiming to throw it. David feinted, and the knife missed, but his move was enough to give the man some time. Snatching up the knife and sliding into the street, the thug threw himself into a car and took off.

  David could only watch the car skid away.

  A clicking behind him caught his attention and he turned to see Gretchen clearing the last steps of the fire escape.

  He frowned and she put her hands on her hips. “Don’t even mention the fact that I didn’t hide in the station, David, if you know what’s good for you. You know I couldn’t do that.”

  He dragged in air, and nodded curtly. “Did you recognize him?”

  She shook her head. “Never saw him, and that car he took belongs to Joe, one of the ushers at the movie theater. I try to tell people to lock their cars, but this is White horn.”