by Diana Palmer
She’d misunderstood him entirely. Heat filled his chest. Dammit, he hadn’t been talking about temporary. Now he felt like an ass. A frustrated and angry ass.
But he could get this right. If he could report the news with bullets whizzing a hundred feet behind him, he could propose in a way that made his intentions clear: No one could predict the future, but when it came to marriage and family, he intended to give “open-ended” a run for the money.
“Listen, about tonight—”
The doorbell rang. Bullet number one. Whizzzzz.
“One of us should answer that,” Nettie said when he stood like an animal caught in a mud hole.
Reluctantly Chase stomped to the door, prepared to quickly dispatch whoever it was. A moment later, however, he was stalking back into the kitchen, carrying yet another grocery bag, this one from a specialty store in Minot. Trailing behind him was a happily chirping Lilah.
“…so I bought two pitiful-looking avocados that cost an arm and a leg—this is why I moved to California—and the parmesan cheese, but I couldn’t find the exact red wine she asked for. Oh, Nettie-Belle, you’re already cooking!” Lilah strolled to the sink, where Nettie had resumed peeling and seeding tomatoes, hoping the activity would calm her down. “Anything I can do?”
Nettie hesitated, shooting a glance in Chase’s direction. “Actually, I think we’re going to handle this on our own.”
“Oh, right, it’s a cooking lesson.” She winked at Chase. “Real men make pasta?” Grabbing a jar of cured black olives, she unscrewed the lid, plucked out an olive and popped it into her mouth. “Mmm, salt.”
“I need those for the sauce,” Nettie said.
“Okay, I’ll go home and eat potato chips. What time do you want us here, by the way?”
“Umm…” Guiltily, Nettie cast another glance at Chase.
“We’re cooking for company?” he grumbled without a shred of hospitality.
“I thought it would be more fun.” She shrugged, half apologetic, half persuasive. Chase could have sworn he heard another bullet whiz by. “It’s Nick’s homecoming.”
“Nick’s coming?”
“And Sara, of course.” Lilah reached into the jar for a few more olives. “And that cute little lawyer of yours. Nelson.”
Whiz.
Nettie confiscated the olive jar. “Colin is with Sara right now, I assume.”
“Yep. I told Chase when I came in. Colin didn’t want to go shopping, so he’s hanging out with la sheriffe. Probably learning how to spit and shoot. You don’t mind, do you?” she asked Chase.
“Mind? I’m beyond minding,” he said, “about anything.”
He and Nettie shared a long look.
“Am I interrupting something?” Lilah eyed them both speculatively. “I suddenly feel like the fifth wheel on a bobsled.”
Nettie made a face. “Bobsleds don’t have wheels.”
“Exactly.”
“You’re not interrupting anything.”
Chase crossed his arms. “Yes, she is.”
Someone knocked on the door to the mud porch. Chase closed his eyes. Whiz.
“Come in!” he shouted, crossing to the women, grabbing the olive jar and carrying it back to the other side of the kitchen to dig into it. Nick opened the door.
“Hey,” he smiled, newly returned from Chicago, where he had participated in a panel lecture about twenty-first-century agricultural techniques and the environment. “This place looks great. I ought to feel ashamed for letting it sit so long.”
Chewing an olive, Chase nodded an acknowledgement, the best he felt like doing at the moment. No one else seemed inclined to speak, either.
Nick glanced around. “Something wrong?”
Nettie shook her head and smiled. “No.”
Lilah overlapped her, shrugging. “Seems like it.”
Chase overrode them both. “Yes! Dammit, I was in the middle of proposing.”
“Proposing?” This time Lilah and Nick spoke in surroundsound.
They glanced back and forth between Nettie and Chase.
The protracted silence while Nettie wondered how much to say proved to be too hard for Lilah to handle. “Well, what did you say?” she demanded, bouncing up and down like a kid.
“I said yes,” Nettie answered and was rewarded immediately with a squeal and a huge bear hug from her sister.
On the other side of the work island, Nick approached Chase with an outstretched hand. “Congratulations.” He sounded almost as pleased as Lilah. “Good choice.”
Trying to settle her bouncing sister, Nettie whispered, “It’s temporary, remember. It’s what we talked about last night.”
Lilah pulled away. She glanced at Chase. “Right. I know. But it’s still a cause for celebration.”
Nick stepped forward. “What did you say? Temporary?”
Chase felt a ferocious scowl cover his brow. He was a split second away from kicking the two interlopers out of the house, barring the door to dinner guests and then kissing the word temporary right out of Nettie’s vocabulary. In fact…
He opened his mouth, intending to do just that, when Lilah began explaining to Nick, “They’re doing it for Colin. The grandparents are showing up next week.”
“I know. Chase told me.” Nick looked at his friend. “So you’re going to put on a show for these people?”
“And for the court, if it comes to that,” Lilah answered.
“I’m afraid you’re going to be sucked into this, too, Nick,” Nettie warned him. “I think it’s really important that we all act as natural as possible.”
“That’s right. We have to act as if this engagement is the real thing. So that means absolute commitment to the situation.” Lilah purloined the wedge of Parmesan cheese, withdrew a sharp knife from a wooden block on the counter and began cutting. “You know, I don’t think we should tell Sara that your engagement is only temporary. She has a lousy poker face. No acting technique whatsoever.” She bit into the cheese. “Yuck. Too dry.” She swallowed, then clutched her throat.
Nettie poured a glass of the blush wine she intended to serve with the hors d’oeuvres and handed it to her gagging sister. “I hate to make Sara feel like she’s been duped, but I agree with you. One stray comment and this whole thing could backfire. You know what I really hate, though?” She poured another glass and handed it to Nick.
Chase saw his private afternoon turning into a damned cocktail party. He had to intervene now and get this train back on the right track. “Listen, everyone—”
“I hate lying to Colin. I don’t want to hurt him.”
“Yeah.” Lilah sipped her wine and nodded. “But maybe now is not the time to think about the end of your engagement.”
Damn straight. Chase nodded.
“Right.” Nick frowned in Chase’s direction. “That’s putting the cart before the horse. Seems to me you ought to concentrate on what you’re starting before you try to figure out how to end it.”
Well, you don’t have to tell me! Chase felt a very male need to hit something. “All right, look, everybody—”
“Hey, open up! We’re carrying stuff!” The call came from the back door.
“Sara!” Nettie said, appearing rattled.
“It’s okay, stay calm. No one’s doing anything wrong here.” Nick reassured in an even tone that absolutely infuriated Chase. Duh, they weren’t doing anything wrong!
He gritted his teeth until his jaw hurt. This was a miserable situation, but it was his miserable situation, and he had totally lost control of it.
“Don’t tell her to stay calm,” he growled, stalking over to stand nose-to-nose with Nick.
“Why not?”
Chase put his hands on his hips. “Be…cause.”
A thoroughly obnoxious grin curled up Nick’s face. “I just meant she shouldn’t worry. We’ll handle Sara.” He indicated himself and Lilah.
“Wrong.” Chase stabbed a finger at Nick’s chest. “There is nothing to handle. My fiancée and I
have everything under control.” He glared around the room. “This is an engagement, not espionage. Got it?” This time he let his gaze linger on Nettie.
“Got it,” she murmured.
Lilah leaned over to her sister. “He must be a Method actor.”
Ignoring that, Chase strode to the door, giving instructions over his shoulder. “Colin is obviously with her, so I want to keep this as low-key as possible for the time being. We don’t even have to mention it tonight. Not until we have the details worked out.”
He’d shout news of their engagement from the rooftops if he thought Nettie was committed to a permanent union, or a decent stab at one, anyway. How the heck had a simple marriage proposal turned into a bad scene from a B movie?
Chase felt a rise in blood pressure and knew this was not the time to settle anything. He’d talk to Nettie later when the peanut gallery had disbanded. She’d realize she had misunderstood him, he’d show her the ring, and the whole situation would be straightened out. In the meantime…
With a hand on the doorknob, he turned to the expectant group. “We’re all in agreement here, right? Low-key. Underplay.”
Nods all around. Nettie spoke up. “Absolutely.”
“Hey, c’mon! Hurry up, already! I’ve got two half-gallons of ice cream you’ll be able to drink through a straw if you don’t—”
Chase opened the door to his son and, he hoped, future sister-in-law. She wrinkled her face in disgust. “’Bout damn time.” She glanced at Colin, who stood beside her, weighed down by a smaller grocery bag. “Oh, sorry, kid. Remember what I told you about bad language.”
Colin nodded as he walked past Chase into the kitchen. “Toilet mouths wind up with their sorry butts in a sling.”
“Right.”
“Sara!” Nettie shook her head.
“What?” Sara dumped her bag on the counter with the rest of the food and then reached down for Colin’s.
“You spent too much time with Uncle Harm, that’s what,” Lilah said in disgust.
Bemused by the comment, Sara shrugged. She pulled a container of mocha-almond-fudge ice cream out of the sack, followed by a carton of a flavor called fresh summer peach. “So what’s the big celebration tonight? We already had a housewarming.”
Nettie took the ice cream to the freezer. “Nick wasn’t here, though.”
Looking up, Sara noticed her old nemesis across the room and curled a lip ungraciously. “Thought I saw your truck. Back from the big city, huh?”
“That’s right. And looking forward to heading out again as soon as I find a good excuse.”
“Is that what we’re celebrating?”
Lilah poured a couple more glasses of blush wine. “Of course not. We’re celebrating Nettie and Chase.”
“Li…” Nettie cautioned, nodding pointedly at Colin.
Chase cleared his throat.
Sara glanced between the two of them. “What about Nettie and Chase?”
Unable, apparently, to contain her enthusiasm—or to recall a conversation that took place only two minutes ago—Lilah faced her sister and bounced up and down on her high-heeled sandals. “Chase proposed to Nettie. They’re getting married!” She squealed like a debutante with a new Nordstrom’s card.
Nettie opened her mouth in a disbelieving O.
Sara’s eyes bugged wide at the news. Lilah grabbed her arm and shook it. “Isn’t that great?”
Sara nodded. “Yeah.” Slowly a wide smile spread across her face. “Yeah, it is.” She didn’t bounce like Lilah, but when the other woman embraced her, Sara hugged back. “So when did this happen?”
“Just before you got here.” Nick strolled over to pick up a glass of wine. “I think it calls for a toast.”
“Nick!” Nettie gave him a pleading look. He and Lilah had promised to help, not dig a hole for Nettie and Chase to jump into!
“Oh, right,” Nick said, remembering Colin, who was all eyes and ears. “We’d better get juice for you.”
Distressed, Nettie turned to Chase. He shrugged, but his eyes narrowed in assessment. No two people could be this lame. Lilah and Nick were clearly working their own agenda. With little effort, they had just turned a “phony” engagement into the real thing.
He smiled.
Colin wore a huge grin as Nick poured him a tumbler of cranapple and then clinked glasses with him before raising his goblet in a toast.
“To Nettie and Chase.” Then, including Colin, Nick added, “And family.”
“To family,” Lilah and Sara repeated.
Moving forward, slipping a hand around his fiancée’s waist, Chase accepted the wine Lilah poured for him. Nettie appeared absolutely stupefied. He looked around at the others as they beamed, truly happy and blithely ignoring his orders to keep the “temporary” engagement under wraps. And Colin was in the middle of it all, a bit dazed, but clearly enjoying the hoopla.
Nothing today had gone according to Chase’s plan. On the other hand, what was that saying? All roads lead to Rome.
Yes, indeed, he thought, raising his glass. “To family.”
“So where are you planning to have the wedding?” Sara asked. “Because, you might not have thought about it, but the jail’s available.”
Lilah choked on her wine. “The jail! Are you joking?”
“No. Hey, it happens to be a good idea. It’s where they met. They could have a theme wedding.”
“Ohhh.” Lilah snapped her fingers. “Of course. I read about theme weddings all the time in Martha Stewart Living. Nettie can wear something from the Vera Wang penitentiary collection.”
Sara scowled. “Sarcasm is a sign of weakness.”
Swirling the wine in her glass, Lilah rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
“Well, I still say—”
When the phone rang, Chase kissed Nettie’s temple. “Good luck,” he murmured, hating to let go of her. At the first opportunity, he would take her aside, just the two of them, to talk.
“Hello.” Grabbing the phone in the kitchen, he had to stick a finger in his ear to hear above the noisy argument behind him. “Nelson! What’s up, man? Are you coming to dinner tonight, too? What? I can’t hear you? Who’s coming over? Who—Wait a minute.” Covering the mouthpiece of the phone, Chase called out, “I’m not dressing like Wild Bill Hickok, Sara. Can you guys keep it down for a minute? Nelson’s on the line, and I can’t hear.”
Lilah and Sara continued the theme-wedding debate, but at lower decibels.
“Okay, Nelson, shoot.” Chase listened as his attorney filled him in on the status of the custody case. His stomach began to churn and sweat tickled his upper lip. “I thought you were going to make sure we had some advance notice.” He paused. “Yeah, well, I’m not talking about two weeks. Anything over two hours would be fine.” His sarcasm was unmistakable. “Yes, I understand spontaneity is the point, but you’re my lawyer. Aren’t you supposed to fight for my rights? I know you’re not that kind of lawyer, will you stop saying that!”
The talking in the kitchen ceased. All heads turned toward Chase. Breaking away from the others, Nettie came to stand by his side. Without knowing what had him so riled, she put a hand on his shoulder. Her touch was surprisingly strong, affirming; it communicated support not suppression, but Chase found himself relaxing almost against his own will.
“Sorry,” he said, to the people watching him and into the phone. “I think I need a blood-pressure pill.”
“You have high blood pressure?” Nettie murmured, sounding concerned.
“Only when I’m talking to Nelson.” He offered a quick reassuring smile to Colin and shot a pleading look at Nick.
Taking his hint, the three adults started talking to Colin at the same time.
Chase pulled Nettie into his arms, amazed by the immediate comfort of having her so near. “All right,” he said into the phone. “Tell her we’ll expect her around seven.”
With his arms resting casually on the small of her back and his chin settled on the top of her head, he murm
ured for Nettie’s ears only, “We’re having company for dessert.”
Dinner was not quite as festive as Nettie had planned. The mood in the little cottage changed considerably when Chase announced that a social worker would be arriving later in the evening to “evaluate” him. Everyone but Colin understood the significance of the meeting. Chase and now Nettie, too, would be scrutinized. All the adults at the table seemed to share their nerves and apprehension. Only Colin, in fact, ate with gusto, somehow managing to maintain a running monologue about dead outlaws between noisy slurps of spaghetti.
Nelson arrived late, between the salad and pasta courses, and he, too, appeared distracted by concern, so as soon as the last noodle had been twirled, Sara took Colin outside to ride the tractor lawnmower, leaving the others to speak freely.
“We all need to be on the same page,” Nelson said, eyeing them over his steepled fingers. “Being engaged is a good thing, a very good thing. But the timing is suspect. I think it’s important to point out tonight that you two—” he nodded to Nettie and Chase “—began to have strong feelings for each other prior to finding out about Colin.”
“I can vouch for that,” Nick said. “I’ve known Chase for fifteen years, and I saw him falling for Nettie the first night they met.”
Chase looked surprised. And sheepish. He literally squirmed in his chair.
“And Nettie called me a couple of weeks ago absolutely besotted.” Lilah grinned. “I haven’t heard her like that since…” she faltered. “In a long time.”
“I—” Nettie started to protest, but Lilah had, after all, only spoken the truth. Still, she shot her sister a quelling glare.
Chase cocked a brow. “Come on. I’ll confess if you confess.”
Nettie felt four sets of eyes upon her. Her blood heated. Without a chance to speak with Chase alone since his proposal, she felt like a ship being tossed at sea. Nelson wanted them to be “on the same page?” She wasn’t sure they were reading the same book!
Addressing herself to Chase only, she said, “I take the fifth. For now.”
Nick and Lilah grinned. Chase gave her a look that promised he’d weasel a confession from her later.