by Lisa Wells
“There’s no reason for you and Kinley to be fussing over me.” She tried to sound unruffled. What would she say if he asked why she kissed him back so fervently?
He sighed. “You’re wrong. Despite you saying otherwise, I’m the reason you bumped your head. So that’s my reason to worry over you. You’re Kinley’s friend. That’s her reason to worry about you.”
Adeline turned away from him. “I give you both permission to stop worrying about me.”
“That’s not how it works.”
He was right. It wasn’t how it worked. She knew only too well how this would work. She gleaned her experience on the inner workings of relationships from the six foster families she had before Dottie.
Jack and Kinley would woo her into a feeling of belonging in their family. Then, Adeline would do something stupid and they’d both decide she was more trouble than she was worth. They’d both stop worrying about her. They’d stop caring.
“Thanks for checking on me. As you can see, I’m alive. Now, I’m going back to bed. Good-bye.” She stepped around him and opened her front door.
Jack didn’t move. “Not so fast. We need to talk.”
“About what?”
He gave her a goofy smile. “About our engagement.”
“Fuck.” The expletive was out before she could stop it. The man was tampering with her sanity this morning. “You’re absolutely right. I don’t know what I was thinking.” On the drive home from Dottie’s, Adeline made a decision about Jack. Family trumped friendship. Dottie was family. Adeline needed to put all her energy into helping Dottie remember their good times.
Her and Jack’s gazes locked.
His eyes crinkled to slits. “That sounds cryptic.”
She gave a half shrug. “My bad. I was going for obvious.”
His gaze ransacked her from head to toe. “For someone who overslept and should be well-rested, you look like hell. Have you been crying?”
“Maybe.”
He walked into her living room and sat down in her oversized, pink chair. “Why?”
She followed but didn’t sit. “Please say you didn’t tell Kinley we decided to go through with the fake fiancée plan.”
He cocked his head. “Why wouldn’t I tell her?”
“Because I’m no longer available to fill the role.” Not wanting to see his reaction, she turned and walked away.
“What?” The word sprinted after her.
“You heard me,” she said loudly, plopping a new pod in the Keurig and hitting the start button. She left the kitchen as he was about to come through the door.
“Would you stand still and talk?” he said loud enough that her neighbors probably heard him.
The amount of nervous energy she was producing could probably run a power plant. “I don’t know what else there is to talk about,” she said, stopping long enough to throw a glance back at him.
He came up behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder. “How about, why aren’t you available?”
She shrugged off his touch. She didn’t want to think. “I need to brush my teeth.” She turned and hurried to the bathroom, willing her brain to not think.
He followed and stood by the door while she brushed her teeth. “Did you get a boyfriend between yesterday morning and this morning?”
Hell. She was going to have to think. She finished brushing. “Dottie is…she has cancer. I can’t be sidetracked with you.” She’d meant to say Dottie is dying, but the words got stuck in her throat. Fresh tears burned the back of her eyes. If she said the words out loud, it made them more real.
“Who’s Dottie?”
“My final foster mom.”
“I’m sorry,” Jack said, sounding genuinely distressed. “I wouldn’t want to distract you from something so important.”
“Thanks.” When Alice told Adeline that one day soon she’d no longer have someone to call family, all of Adeline’s childhood feelings of fear and abandonment resurfaced. Like every time one of her foster moms would sit her down and tell her she couldn’t stay with them anymore.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Jack asked.
She wished she could say yes. But, what could he do? She didn’t want to lose Dottie. Especially before Dottie remembered their good memories. “Go finish the coffee while I get dressed.” She heard the faint sound of her phone dinging from her bedroom. She shut the door on Jack. Would it be a text from Kinley saying thanks for helping her brother out? How much would she hate her when she learned otherwise?
Chapter Twelve
Jack stood on the other side of the bedroom door, feeling at a loss. After dragging his feet on Kin’s idea of who she thought the perfect woman was for his plan, he’d jumped in full force while watching Adie sleep.
It was probably for the best Adie was calling a halt to their charade. He had no idea how he and Adie would have pulled it off anyway. His bosses would take one look at the two of them and surmise it was a fraud. They weren’t the type to assume truth. When they did an audit on a company, they made a practice of assuming fraud and only changed their minds when the lack of red flags proved them wrong.
They’d do the same with the relationship between him and Adie. No way was he the first partner-hopeful who’d tried to pull this stunt. Kinley was the creative one in the family—not him. His idea had to be as old and worn out as manual tax preparation. They’d be wary.
He absently walked into the kitchen and went through the motions of making coffee. Why hadn’t he thought of all of this before asking her?
“You’re still here,” she said, walking back into the kitchen, wearing a pair of form-fitting jeans and a sweatshirt, holding her phone. The slightest hint of jasmine wafted in the air as she passed.
“Where did you think I would go?” He took his coffee and sat down at the kitchen table. A table for two. Covered in a white lace tablecloth.
She picked up the other cup of coffee and sipped. “I thought maybe you’d sneak out while I was changing since there was nothing in it for you to stay.” She took a seat at the table.
Why would he have done that? “You don’t have a very high opinion of me, do you?”
“I don’t have a very high opinion of many people,” she said.
The response tugged at his heart. Growing up as an orphan obviously hadn’t been easy. Her walls had walls and those walls had fire-breathing dragons guarding them. “I’m not going anywhere.” This girl brought out the protector in him. He wanted to stand up to the bullies in her world and thrash them for causing her pain.
“Well you should.”
“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked.
She expelled a breath and held out the phone to him, showing him a text. “I can’t get my lease renewed. They’ve sold the place.”
“That’s inconvenient, but what does it have to do with us?”
She gave a humorless laugh. “At first, I didn’t think it would affect our plan. I’ll move. No big deal. But sometime around two a.m., I decided the owners selling this place is the universe’s way of telling me I need to move back home. Be closer to Dottie.”
Jack wasn’t big on signs from the universe. Black and white numbers, black and white answers, were his comfort zone. But he couldn’t argue with what the universe was telling her. “Of course, you should move close to Dottie. I know nothing could drag me away from my mom if she was fighting cancer. How far away does Dottie live?”
“Three hours.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and forced a smile. “Don’t spend another moment worrying about the deal you made with me. Go. Do what you need to do.” He wasn’t entirely sure he’d even play out this ludicrous plan anyway. If and when he did, when that was over, he’d look Adie up and ask her out on a date.
Her fingers tapped out a staccato rhythm on the tabletop. “It’s not that simple,” she said, rubbing away a tear that dropped on her cheek.
“I’m sure it is all very complicated. But, you don’t have to do it a
lone. I’m willing to help in any way I can.”
“It’s not that.” Adeline glanced down at her coffee. “The cancer is messing with Dottie’s brain. It’s aggravated her Alzheimer’s. The only thing she remembers about me is how once-upon-a-time, I let her down in a monumental way by breaking a promise to her.”
He reached out and squeezed her hand. “I’m sure it wasn’t all that bad.”
Adeline moved her hand out from under his. “Trust me, it was. Anyway, I recently told Alice, her wife, to please tell Dottie, during one of her few lucid moments, that I’ve been accepted at the culinary school in Paris.”
He swallowed hard and pulled his hand back. “And have you been?” There’s no way they could pull off his plan if she up and left to go to Paris.
She glanced at him beneath lowered lashes and grimaced. “Not yet. But I’m hoping to get the letter anytime. Anyway, my hope was that by telling her that, proving to her I’m keeping my current promises, that I’ve grown into a woman who can be trusted, it will be a big enough catalyst to help her remember our good times more often. The times I lived up to the sacrifices she made for me.”
“That sounds like a reasonable hope.”
She gave him a searching look. “Do you really think so? Do you think it might work?”
He nodded. “I really think it could.”
“God, I hope so. I don’t want Dottie to hate me. I have to find a way to bring back the good memories. And I have to do it quickly.”
“Then, what’s the problem? You have a plan, execute it.”
“What if she figures it all out? Discovers I haven’t been accepted? Especially, if fall comes and I’m still living there. When her brain isn’t betraying her, she’s smart. I was never able to get a lie past her.”
“Then don’t move back home.”
Adeline gave him a look of defeat. “Is that just me not wanting to do the right thing? Justifying my selfishness.” She jumped up, walked to her refrigerator, and took out eggs.
“What was your promise to her?” he asked gently.
She turned and looked at him. “I promised her I’d do all of the things she’d planned on doing before she was saddled with raising me. I ruined all of her dreams.”
He shook his head. “Did someone make her give up her dreams to be your foster mom?”
“Sort of.” Adie gave him a sad smile. “She took me in out of guilt. She was supposed to be a temporary placement, and then they couldn’t find me a permanent placement, so I was going to go and live in a group home, and I begged her not to let that happen.”
He tried to read her thoughts. “What if this afternoon you got word that you were accepted into the culinary school? Would you go?”
Adeline rubbed her arms. “I don’t want to leave her, but it may be the nicest thing I can do for her.”
“Why is that?”
“Seeing me hurts her. If I’m here, I’m not strong enough to stay away. I’ll continue to visit her in the hopes she’ll remember. If I leave and go to Paris, she won’t have weekly moments of remembering the bad times about me. I’d be gifting her with peace for her final months here on earth.”
“She’s why you’re busy every Saturday night?”
“She’s my weekly date.”
“Would Dottie want you to give up on trying to help her regain her good memories of you? Wouldn’t she say bring on the pain, if in the end, she has her precious memories of you back?”
“I like to think so. But I have no way of bringing the memories back other than keeping my promise to her.”
It was time to change tactics. “I have an idea.” A dumb ass idea, but an idea. And so freaking selfish it wasn’t even funny.
She took a bowl out of the cabinet and cracked several eggs into the pink glass dish. “I’m listening.” She took a pan down from the rack hanging over her kitchen island, turned on the stove, and added some butter. She whisked the eggs with one hand, while reaching for the bread and putting slices in the toaster. She seasoned the eggs. “What kind of idea?”
He refreshed their coffees, considering his next words. “Move in with me and continue pushing Dottie with your presence.”
“Move in with you?” she said quietly, taking cheddar cheese out of the refrigerator and grating it over the eggs. She slid half of the scrambled eggs on each plate along with a slice of toast. She pushed one plate toward him, then grabbed forks and the butter before walking to the table.
He followed and sat down. “Well?”
“Have you lost your ever-lovin’ mind?” she said, before sitting down and taking a bite.
He grinned. There was the blurter he met two nights ago. He took a bite of his eggs and chewed slowly. They were delicious. “Didn’t you say you’re unemployed?”
“Yes, but—”
“I work too much and eat like crap. If you moved in with me, you could be my personal chef. I’d pay you. And you wouldn’t have to rush your decision about what to do where Dottie is concerned.”
“I can’t live with you.”
“Why not? I have a spare bedroom.”
She shook her head hard. “It’s a ridiculous idea. I suppose you would expect me to be your pretend fiancée only with benefits now that I’d be living with you.”
He could see the indecision in her eyes. “Only if you want to. But it’s not a condition of my offer.”
“Which part?”
“Both.”
“So, I can just live with you and cook for you?” Her words came out high pitched.
“It’s as simple as that.” He could practically see her brain spinning. He needed to back off and give her time to stew on his offer. “How does your head feel this morning?”
She blinked. “It’s fine. I’m fine. All of the fuss was over nothing.”
“Nothing?” Her dismissal of her value made him angry. “I would never describe you as nothing. You’re definitely something. And to be honest, while you slept the other night, I decided you were someone I would like to get to know better.”
His friends called him a player when it came to women. He wasn’t a player. He simply didn’t give relationships enough time to stick before he moved on. A woman couldn’t mess with your brain if you didn’t give them enough time to bewitch your heart.
Spending the summer with Adeline would be more time than he normally allowed himself to stay in a relationship, but if he went in ahead of time knowing she planned on walking away by moving to a different country, he should be fine.
“I have to cook for you and in return, I can live with you until I’ve decided what to do about Dottie and Paris?”
“That about sums it up.”
“Can I bring my pink chair and my pots and pans with me?”
He grimaced. “The pink chair? Really?”
She gave a curt nod. “Absolutely. It’s comfy, and it makes me happy.”
“Well if it makes you happy, fine. The pink chair can come.”
“And my pots and pans?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Then we have a deal, Jack Foster.”
“You can’t bail and go to Paris in the middle of being my pretend fiancée.”
“I promise I won’t bail.”
“In that case, Ms. Adeline Rigby, we are now officially pretend-engaged.”
He held out his hand and they shook on it. “There’s one caveat to all of this.”
“What?” She tugged her hand out of his.
“If Dexter doesn’t like you, the deal’s off.” Sure, his gut was telling him that this was a grand idea, but his gut could deceive him.
“Who’s Dexter?”
Jack grinned like a kid on the last day of school. “A purebred Neapolitan Mastiff I’m keeping for a friend who is deployed in the military.”
“What’s a Neapolitan Mastiff? It sounds like an ice cream.”
“A big-ass dog.”
“What’s not to like about me?” Adeline cocked her head. “Unless you’ve taught him to not
like rescues?”
Chapter Thirteen
Jack left Adeline’s feeling much better than he had on his mad drive to her place that morning. On the way there, he had replayed the night before over and over in his head like an old black and white movie. What if she was dead? And it was his fault; like it was his fault that his dad died, and Kinley had to grow up without a dad.
The relief he’d experienced when she opened the door looking grumpy and sexy had nearly sent him to his knees. And once he’d recovered, he knew without a doubt, he wanted to get to know Adeline Rigby. With or without a pretend engagement.
His phone rang. “Hello.”
“Hey. We’re getting ready to board our flight. You were supposed to call me when you left. Did you forget?” his sister said.
“Of course I didn’t forget. I’m just now leaving.” He could hear Ian in the background telling her it was none of her business how long Jack stayed at Adeline’s.
“Really? You’ve been there for over an hour? What were you doing?” Again Jack heard Ian chastising Kinley for being too nosey.
He thought about teasing her and saying they had sex, but Adeline would probably break his vocal cords with a karate chop if he did. “She fixed me breakfast, and we talked.”
“About what?”
“Nothing important.”
“You spent an hour at her house, a woman who stood you up for a date, and you expect me to believe you talked about nothing important?”
Jack grinned. “If you must know, we talked about her moving in with me.”
He heard Kinley sputtering before he disconnected the phone call.
…
Three days later, Adeline and Jack stood outside his top-floor condo, her brain still spinning over how fast he had made everything happen.
Adeline wasn’t sure if he always moved that fast, or if he was afraid she’d change her mind if he gave her too much time to think about the deal they had brokered.
“Are you ready for this?” he asked, moving Adeline’s treasure box from under one arm to the other and slipping the key in the lock. He was wearing a pair of dark jeans, crisp white T-shirt, and leather boat shoes. On the surface, a very casual look. But Adeline was willing to bet his shoes alone cost more than her gross monthly paycheck.