Her Perfect Stranger

by Jill Shalvis

  IN HIS DUMBEST MOVE since decorating his high-school math teacher’s house with toilet paper after a particularly rough test, Mike followed Corrine.

  Not that he easily kept up with her on the freeway; the woman was a holy terror, dodging through traffic left and right, making him wince.

  She wasn’t going to her condo.

  It took less than thirty minutes to arrive in a lovely, quiet little suburb where there were white picket fences and pretty yards with flowers and SUVs and children playing—a world away from the military childhood he’d had.

  Having spent the past ten years in Russia, in the teeming, overcrowded cities there, he was experiencing quite a culture shock.

  Corrine got out of her car, ran up the walk of one exceptionally pretty house and embraced an older couple. There was a beaming smile across her usually solemn face.

  And he understood.

  She’d come home. Interesting, as he’d never thought of her as the family type. But then again, he’d never thought he’d find himself chasing down a woman he couldn’t get out of his head.

  Well, meeting her family ought to do it, really. That should bring on both hives and the need to run far and fast.

  He was counting on it, anyway.

  He parked and got out, not sure of his next move, or even what he really wanted. Maybe for Corrine to acknowledge she’d been unfair to him back there in her office. Or maybe for her to tell him what the hell they had, because he’d feel better if he could somehow label this whole thing.

  He knew the exact moment she sensed him; she stiffened and turned, then frowned. He imagined she growled as well, but he was, thankfully, far enough away that he could only hear the birds chirping and the light breeze rustling the trees in the yard.

  Oh, and his own nerves. He could hear those loud and clear.

  A glutton for punishment, he moved closer.

  “From work,” she muttered over her shoulder, obviously in response to her mother’s question. “He’s my pilot. No, don’t look at him, maybe he’ll go away.”

  “Corrine Anne!” Her mother looked shocked and horrified. “That is no way to greet a guest!”

  Now Corrine looked directly into Mike’s eyes, her own gaze filled with dread, resignation. Fear. Everything he was feeling.

  There! he thought. We’re in this together, baby.

  “Hello,” said the man who he assumed was Corrine’s father. He thrust out his hand. “Donald Atkinson.”

  “Dr. Donald Atkinson,” Corrine corrected. “My father.” She gestured to the petite, dark-haired woman next to her, who was watching Mike closely, brimming with curiosity. “And this is my mother. Dr. Louisa Atkinson.” She smiled sweetly. “And now you can go.”

  This was going to require finesse. “We need to talk, Corrine.”

  “Actually, Mike, we don’t.”

  “I know you’re mad at me, but—”

  “Not here. I’m…busy. Really busy.”

  “Why do you keep running?”

  “Running?” She nearly gaped, then seemed to remember their audience and slammed her mouth shut. “I never run. Now go away, Mike.”

  “Of course he can’t go away, darling,” her mother said, stepping forward and reaching out a hand to Mike. “He hasn’t even come inside yet.”

  He took her hand immediately, expecting a handshake, but found himself pulled into her warm arms for a welcoming hug. “Well,” he said, at an utter loss. Held tight in her embrace, he finally settled for patting her back uncertainly. “Uh…nice to meet you, Dr. Atkinson.”

  “Oh, just Louisa.”

  “Mom.” Corrine didn’t look like a commander at the moment, nor the lover who’d rocked his world; she looked like a peeved daughter. “He doesn’t belong here.”

  Louisa shot her daughter a long look. “I raised you better than that.” She smiled at Mike. “We don’t stand on formality here. Come in.” She slipped an arm through his and led him toward the front door. “So you work with my daughter? All the things you people are doing up there in space, it just blows my mind. Did you get the solar panels to work properly? And what about that complicated computer communications system? What a shame, the troubles, this close to launch. Well, let’s not think about that now, hmm? Donald, honey, get the door, will you? And Corrine, put on a pot of water, please. Now, Mike.” She squeezed his hand. “Tell me all about yourself. Where are you from? I find that all of you astronauts have such fascinating backgrounds. Corrine’s included,” she said with a delighted little laugh.

  Somehow Mike found himself up the steps, through the front door and sitting in a charming, warm, open living room with a cup of hot tea in his hands.

  Corrine paced the length of the room, pausing every five seconds or so to give him a glare that he would have sworn amused her mother all the more.

  It should have been awkward, showing up here unannounced and uninvited, but it felt right. And as he opened up for the first time in a long time, he decided Corrine was just going to have to get used to it.

  “Oh my goodness,” Louisa said, shaking her head after he’d told her a little about himself. “All those years in Russia. What a wonderful experience! I went there for a conference, several years ago now, and I found it to be one of the most beautiful yet haunting places on earth. How lucky you are, to receive that heritage from your mother.”

  And just that simply, Mike fell in love. He couldn’t help it; he had no defenses against a mother, any mother. His had been gone for so long, and his world had always been lacking in any maternal presence or influence whatsoever. But Louisa crossed all barriers and entered his heart.

  He looked up and caught Corrine’s eye. She’d gone still, and now she was looking at him with something new, something he couldn’t place. “What?” he asked softly, but she only shook her head.

  And yet her irritation at having him there seemed to diminish. When her parents left the room, ostensibly for cookies, Mike knew it was to give them some privacy.

  “You like them,” Corrine said with a sigh. “I couldn’t have imagined you here, holding a teacup, making nice. But here you are.”

  “I couldn’t have imagined you here, either. But here you are.”

  “And here we are.”

  “Yeah.” He reached out and touched her hand, wanting, needing, yearning for so much it hurt, and yet he didn’t have the words. “What now, Corrine?”

  “That depends.”

  “On?”

  “On why you’re here. Why are you really here, Mike?”

  He opened his mouth, but as he didn’t have a clear answer for that, or at least one he understood enough to explain, he closed it again.

  Looking oddly deflated, she pulled back.

  “What did you want me to say?” he asked in turn.

  “That’s just it,” she whispered with a heartbreaking sigh. “I don’t know, either.”

  12

  NO DOUBT ABOUT IT, Mike’s presence in her family home scared Corrine, really scared her.

  He looked good here, comfortable. Confused, she took a walk. Unsatisfied, she ended up in her parents’ garden, where she found her father showing off his prize roses to Mike.

  Both of them were hunkered down in the dirt, their backs to her, admiring the growth of a flower.

  It was a contradiction in terms, these so very masculine men surrounded by such sweet, feminine beauty, and yet that was one of the things she loved so much about her dad.

  He didn’t fit into a type. She stood there, rooted by a sudden realization.

  That was why she liked Mike as well.

  Oh, God, it was true. He was an astronaut, which meant by definition he should have been cocky, arrogant and in possession of a certain recklessness. A wild adventurer.

  He was those things, but he was also so much more. And watching as he reached out now and touched the tip of a blooming rose with such joy, with his entire face lit up, made her heart tighten.

  The reason for being one half of a couple had alw
ays escaped Corrine, mostly because she’d never wanted to be half of anything. She’d certainly never wanted anyone able to veto her decisions, or God forbid, make them for her.

  And yet her parents were a couple, a solid one, and for years they’d managed to work things out with an ease that Corrine always admired but never understood. They were both well-educated overachievers, stubborn as hell, and single-minded, so really, their success was one big mystery.

  A mystery Corrine suddenly, urgently needed to solve.

  SHE WAITED UNTIL dinner time, when she found both her parents together in the kitchen. Her father was chopping vegetables. Her mother was standing over him, shaking her head. “You’re not cutting diagonally, dear. You need to—”

  “I think I know how to cut a tomato, Louisa.”

  “No, obviously you don’t. You have to—”

  “Louisa, honey? Either let me be or order take-out.”

  “Take-out sounds wonderful.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Donald said, smiling when his teasing wife laughed at him.

  “How do you do that?” Corrine asked, baffled by the mix of temper and affection. “How do you fight over a tomato and still love each other?”

  “Forty years of practice.” Her father grinned. “You going to marry Mike and learn how?”

  “No!”

  Louisa sighed. “Well, darn.”

  “Mom, I didn’t invite him here.”

  “But he followed you.” Her mother sent her a dreamy look. “He loves you, you know.”

  “What?”

  “He’s head over heels. Ga-ga. Fallen off the cliff.”

  Corrine felt the color drain from her face, but managed a perfectly good laugh. “You’ve been dipping into the cooking sherry.”

  “No, really. He—” At the elbow in her ribs, Louisa glared at her husband, who gave her a wordless glance. Whatever unspoken communication they’d shared, Louisa went quiet on the matter. But she did manage to get the knife from him and push him toward the door.

  “I can tell when I’m not wanted,” he said, kissing his wife on the cheek before he went.

  “Why did you argue with him over the knife, Mom? He was just trying to help.”

  “Oh, I know.”

  “But you kicked him out.”

  “Kicked him out… Oh, honey.” Louisa laughed. “You think I hurt his feelings. Trust me, I didn’t. It’s just that he always cooks, and he’s worked an eighty-hour week already. The poor man is dead on his feet, but he didn’t want to leave me alone to do the work. It’s just a little game we play, that’s all.”

  Corrine glanced at the swinging double doors where her father had vanished, and knew the mysteries of cohabiting were still escaping her. “A game.”

  “Yes.” Louisa set down the knife and smiled easily. “Of love.”

  Mike poked his head in the kitchen. “Can I help?” He moved to the cutting board and picked up the knife Corrine’s mother had just set down. “I’m good at slicing veggies,” he said, following Louisa’s diagonal cuts.

  Corrine’s mother positively beamed. “What a handy man you are.” She shot Corrine a telling look, pointing at Mike’s back and mouthing the words, Loves you.

  Corrine rolled her eyes and turned away, but that lasted no more than a second before she had to crane her neck and stare at him. He was the same person he’d always been: the same dark hair and darker eyes; the same long, leanly muscled body that made her mouth water; the same here-I-am attitude that both drew and annoyed her at the same.

  So why was she looking at him in such a different light here in the house where she’d been raised?

  “Louisa.” Donald stuck his head back in the kitchen and waved a checkbook. “Babe, this thing is a mess. I can’t figure out how much money is in here.”

  “Look at the bottom line, hon,” Louisa said, pulling more salad makings out of the fridge.

  “Which bottom line? You have three of them here.”

  “Oh.” Louisa straightened, lettuce in one hand, a beet in the other. “Well, the first is in case the check I lost clears the bank. If I lost it before I wrote it, which is entirely likely, then that wouldn’t be necessary. Hence the second number.”

  Donald sighed. “And the third?”

  “Why, that’s what we’ll have when my automatic deposit comes in tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But what do we have today?”

  “I just told you, it’s either—”

  “Never mind!” He withdrew his head and vanished.

  Louisa grinned. “Perfect.”

  “Why is annoying him to distraction perfect?” Corrine asked, confused beyond belief.

  “I just bought his birthday present.” Louisa grinned. “And if he wasn’t so annoyed, he’d have found the check entry. He would talk me into giving him that present early, no doubt about it. Now he’ll toss the checkbook aside and give up.” She laughed. “Secret kept.”

  “Louisa!” Donald bellowed from the other room. “I’m going out to chop wood!”

  “Good Lord,” Louisa murmured. “I meant to have that nice young man down the street do that before your father tried it himself. Last year he nearly lost his fingers.”

  Mike set down the knife. “I’ll go help him.”

  “Bless you,” Corrine’s mother said fervently, giving him a quick hug.

  Corrine watched pleasure dance across Mike’s face as he hugged her back, far more easily this time.

  Why was he still here, damn him?

  “He’s a wonderful man,” her mother said when he was gone. “Shame on you for keeping your feelings to yourself.”

  Out the kitchen window Mike reappeared, walking toward her father.

  Corrine forced herself to turn away. “He’s a pest.”

  Louisa laughed. “Okay, hon. If that’s how you want to play this thing. Just tell me he’s not an adventurous, intelligent, gorgeous man and I’ll believe you.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Okay, he’s adventurous.”

  “And intelligent.”

  “Yes.”

  “And gorgeous.”

  “Mom, please.”

  “And gorgeous,” Louisa repeated.

  “Okay, fine.” Corrine sighed. “And gorgeous.”

  “He’s a keeper, Corrine.”

  A keeper. Her heart tugged. “Yeah, about that. Keepers. I don’t understand something.” She drew a deep breath. “You and Dad. What keeps you together? You should have killed each other by now.”

  “Why? Because we’re two strong-minded, strong-willed people?”

  “Well…yeah.”

  “That doesn’t mean we can’t make peace over such simple things as making dinner and paying the bills.”

  “It just seems…” Corrine once again glanced out the window. Watched Mike’s muscles bunch and flex as he raised the ax over his head and brought it down, perfectly splitting a log in two.

  Every hormone in her body reacted, but that was physical. Would she still want in him in forty years? “Hard,” she said, no pun intended. “It seems hard.”

  Louisa looked shocked and more than a little annoyed. “I can’t believe we didn’t show you better than that, after all these years.”

  “You’re telling me this is easy?”

  “Of course not! But it’s beautiful anyway, and worth all the work.”

  “You work at it?” she asked doubtfully. What she’d seen so far didn’t seem like work so much as…good luck.

  “Goodness, darling.” Louisa let out a little laugh. “I think I’m insulted that you have to ask. Yes, we work hard. You can’t believe such a loving relationship comes naturally.”

  “It does in the romance novels,” Corrine muttered, taking another quick peek at Mike. He straightened and pulled off his shirt, tossing it aside before once again lifting the ax.

  Oh. My. God.

  Muscles. Skin shining with
sweat. She purposely looked away. And this time, she wasn’t going to take another sneak peek!

  “Phooey,” Louisa was saying. “Nothing this good comes easy. It takes compromise.” She picked up the paring knife again. “Give and take. And after so many years, it just keeps getting better and better.”

  “It does?” What was this silly hope that sprang through Corrine at that? What did it matter if marriage was wonderful? She wasn’t planning on trying.

  Was she?

  Oh God. She was. She was planning on exactly that. Putting a hand to her suddenly damp forehead, she sank to a chair.

  “Corrine? Corrine, honey, what’s the matter?” Her mother dropped the paring knife and rushed over. “You look terribly pale.”

  “Oh, Mom. It’s…it’s…”

  “What? It’s what?” She knelt down and gripped Corrine’s knees. “Are you going to be sick? Do you need a bucket?”

  “Yes, I think I do.” Corrine gulped, but then managed a hysterical laugh when her mother turned to leave. Grabbing Louisa’s wrist, she shook her head. “No, it’s not that kind of sickness. It’s my heart, you see.” And she rubbed the ache that had settled there the day she’d met Mike and had never, not once in all these months, gone away.

  “Oh, dear Lord. You’ve got heart problems? You didn’t tell me! We’ll get a second opinion. Your father—”

  “Mom, it’s…” She took a big gulp of air. “It’s love. I think I’m in love with Mike. I just realized it, just now, and it’s making me sick.”

  “Oh, darling!”

  “Don’t look so excited,” Corrine warned, pointing a finger at the joy scrambling across her mother’s face. “This is a terrible thing. I actually—” she pressed both hands to her heart now “—I actually want forever with him.”

  Louisa’s eyes filled. “Oh, baby.”

  “Don’t you dare cry.”

  Louisa sniffed and wiped a tear from her cheek. “I’m not.” Then a sob escaped and she slapped a hand over her mouth. “Really, I’m not.”

  “Mom!”

  “I can’t help it,” Louisa cried. “It’s just that I’m so thrilled for me. He’s just what I always wanted in a son-in-law.”

  “No! Mike can’t know!”