A Proposal for the Officer

by Christy Jeffries

  Kaleb groaned. While he’d dated his fair share of women, he’d never brought a girlfriend home—pretend or otherwise. If teasing was an Olympic sport, his brothers would win the gold medals, with Kylie tying their old man for the silver. Hopefully, Molly would come clean and tell her sister the truth by then. It would be way less painful for everyone. Or at least for him.

  Did you tell her yet?

  Kaleb’s text was in Molly’s in-box when she woke up on Tuesday morning. The digital clock on her screen was still set to military time and she tried not to deliver bad news to anyone if the word oh was part of the hour. Then she realized he must’ve been talking about last night. She hoped he wasn’t as mortified about hearing the lie as she had been telling it. Although, really, it wasn’t so much a lie as a diversionary tactic. It was unfortunate that Kaleb was caught in the crosshairs, but he was the one who’d put his reputation in harm’s way. Twice, she might add.

  I tried to, Molly wrote back. Then added, Couldn’t find the right time.

  It was the truth. If Maxine would’ve asked her about her job again, Molly would’ve probably said something. Or if her sister had made a comment about her not eating all her favorite foods—and, oh, man, had that been a challenge when she’d shoved mouthful after mouthful of salad into her mouth and then claimed to be too full for more than a small bite of anything else—she might have mentioned it. But their family didn’t get all up in each other’s business like that. They certainly didn’t talk about personal things. In fact, that whole conversation about Trevor cheating on her was more than enough failure to share in one night.

  Molly would like to think that it was a matter of respecting boundaries. So if Maxine wasn’t going to pry, then Molly didn’t want to burden her with any unnecessary knowledge.

  But maybe the Chatterson family wasn’t like that.

  Her phone chimed again and she looked at the image Kaleb had just sent her. It was a cartoon elephant up in a tree, balancing its huge, cowering body on a tiny branch with a tiny mouse below.

  She replied with a picture of what looked to be a honeycomb.

  What is that?

  Beeswax, she typed. Then added, So that you can mind your own.

  She pulled the soft, expensive sheets over her head. At least she had her sister’s apartment to herself today. She could spend the day researching healthy meal options and forming a plan to tell her sister the truth.

  A motorcycle engine revved outside her window.

  Or she could do one of those ATV tour things that Kaleb had mentioned yesterday. She’d been beyond jealous when he’d brought it up. While it wasn’t a plane, with a powerful motor, some off-course trails and the wind in her hair, it could be the next best thing. Molly did her clearest thinking when she was piloting something.

  She sat up in bed and placed a call. But the company who did the tours had a group from the senior center scheduled for that morning and Molly didn’t want to get stuck going the speed recommended by the AARP. In fact, she didn’t want to go with anyone at all. Not even a guide. She assured the man who answered the phone at Russell Sports that she knew what she was doing and only required the rental. It would also be cheaper that way.

  Surveying Maxine’s cupboards, she found a questionable-looking granola bar and pulled a couple of bottles of water from the fridge. She threw those and her insulin kit into a canvas cinch sack she could sling onto her back during the ride. Then she questioned whether she should pack something else. She didn’t want to go to Duncan’s and risk running into another gossiping biddy. However, she also didn’t want to get stuck out on some wilderness trail with only one healthy snack.

  In the end, Molly stopped off at Domino’s Deli in town and grabbed a turkey sub on a whole-wheat roll and a bag of pretzels, which looked like the least caloric option on the potato chip rack. What else did she need? It was more food than she would’ve taken on a twenty-four-hour combat training exercise. Even Kaleb would’ve been proud of her foresight.

  Nope. She refused to think about him and what he would think. Today was for her. Molly would deal with her sister and Kaleb and everyone else tonight.

  Unfortunately, by the time she’d made it back to the apartment that evening, she was covered in mud and so jacked up on adrenaline the only thing she wanted to confront was a hot shower and the last half of Pearl Harbor on the movie channel.

  * * *

  On Wednesday morning, Molly awoke to another text from Kaleb.

  We’re grilling chicken tonight, but I don’t know what the sides will be. I’ll let you know as soon as I can, but make sure you check your levels before you get here. Maybe bring a snack just in case.

  Molly almost threw the phone across the room. She didn’t know what annoyed her more. The fact that he was bossing her about food choices again or his assumption that she still hadn’t talked to Maxine.

  It didn’t help her mood that the sweet vanilla scent of the cookies baking downstairs had permeated the apartment. And she couldn’t have any. Probably ever again. Ugh. She needed coffee.

  She sat up in bed and checked her blood levels, giving herself a morning dose of the longer lasting insulin. Then she weaved her way to the kitchen in nothing but her dingy gray Air Force Academy T-shirt and a loose pair of running shorts she had to roll up at the waist to stay on her hips. Turning on the coffeemaker, she caught her reflection in the microwave glass and yanked on her rubber band to adjust her sloppy ponytail from the side of her head to more of a forty-five-degree angle.

  Molly had just set a fresh K-Cup to brew when a knock sounded at the door. She figured it had to be Maxine taking a break from the shop downstairs and sighed. They might as well get this talk over with.

  When she swung open the door, Molly wasn’t braced for the shock of seeing Kaleb on the small landing, holding a brown bag from Duncan’s Market.

  Molly looked past him, down the stairs toward the bakery below. He followed her gaze and—without her asking the question on the tip of her sleepy tongue—he said, “Yes, your sister is down there, and yes, she saw me come up.”

  Her caffeine-deprived brain was still a little fuzzy, so she scratched at her head, then froze, realizing how her hair must look. She crossed her arms, then uncrossed them to tug the hem of her shorts down so it wouldn’t look like she wasn’t wearing anything below, before crossing her arms again. “What are you doing here?”

  “Now, now. Is that any way to greet the man you’re dating?”

  Her reflexes shot to life and she whispered, “Get in here,” before snatching the front of his T-shirt and yanking him inside.

  The problem came when she didn’t sidestep quickly enough and the solid muscular wall of Kaleb’s chest crashed into her, forcing him to wrap an arm around her to steady them both. The cotton of his shirt was soft and worn under her fingers, and when she took a steadying breath, she inhaled the lemon and cedar scent of his soap.

  He wiggled his eyebrows and said, “This greeting’s more like it.”

  “Huh?” His hand slid lower until it cupped the rounding curve just below her waistband and her palms instinctively moved up over his pecs toward his wide shoulders.

  “Definitely more like the kind of reception I would expect from my girlfriend.”

  Girlfriend? He had a girlfriend? His heavily lidded eyes were staring intently at her lips and it suddenly dawned on Molly that he meant her. She banged her big toe into the hardwood floor as she hopped backward.

  “Don’t worry.” She held her palms up. “I’m going to tell Maxine this morning so we don’t have to do that whole dating charade thing tonight.”

  “Too late,” he said, then strode past her and set the bag on a kitchen counter.

  “What do you mean, too late?” She tried to get her breathing under control as he pulled groceries out. “And what are you doing?”

  He held up a carton of eggs. “I’
m fixing you breakfast. What does it look like I’m doing?”

  That didn’t explain anything at all. But she certainly wasn’t going to turn down a free meal. “Did I miss something?”

  “Yeah. You missed your opportunity to tell your sister the truth.”

  “Dinner isn’t until six.” She looked at the clock on the microwave. “I have all day to tell her.”

  He propped up an electronic tablet on some sort of holder and began tapping the screen. “Not anymore, you...” He was so intent on whatever he was doing he didn’t finish his sentence.

  Molly waved a hand in front of his face. His only response was to sigh and look up at her.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “I had my assistant, Angela, send me a video on how to make an omelet and the Wi-Fi at Duncan’s was spotty this morning so I need to watch it again to make sure I bought all the right ingredients.”

  “Kaleb!” Molly had to restrain herself from banging her head against the cabinet in frustration. “I meant what is going with us?”

  “Sorry, I thought we had the kind of fake relationship where we don’t explain things to each other.”

  She closed her eyes and counted to five. When she opened them, he had his hands on his hips, one brow raised as if he needed to ensure her full attention. “I guess I deserve that. But I said I was going to talk to Maxine and come clean. I would’ve texted you the all clear afterward.”

  “And I said it was too late.”

  “But you didn’t say why.”

  “Because I had to spend the entire day yesterday trapped on a white-water raft with all of my family, answering questions about you. Questions I didn’t necessarily know the answers to, but had to make stuff up as I went along so that I could keep your secret safe.”

  “I’m really sorry about that.” She tried to make an apologetic face. “But at least you got to go white-water rafting.”

  “Molly,” he growled, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “Aren’t you paying attention?”

  She nodded, then slowly shook her head. “But I’m trying to.”

  “My family now thinks we’re dating. On Monday night I simply didn’t correct them. But yesterday I actively engaged in, well, I hate to use the word deception, but it’s the only thing that fits.”

  “Oh.”

  “Then, this morning, my mom told me that my eyes lit up whenever I talked about you and that she was so glad I’d finally met someone I was interested in because she worries about me working too much.”

  A tingling of warmth started in her toes and spread up to her torso. “Your eyes lit up when you talked about me?”

  His neck turned a charming shade of pink as the muscles near his jaw line pulled tighter. “No, it was probably only the river water. I had my contacts in. Anyway, my point is that my family now thinks there’s something between us and I’ve never lied to them before.”

  “But we’re not dating.”

  “We are now. This—” he gestured to the groceries on the counter “—is a breakfast date. I’m told that women think it’s very romantic when men cook for them.”

  “But you didn’t ask me.”

  “Did you ask me when you told Maxine we were dating?”

  “I didn’t tell her! She assumed.”

  “However, you didn’t correct her.”

  “You didn’t correct your family, either.”

  “Which is why I’m not going to make liars out of us.” He smiled in triumph, as if he’d just masterminded some great escape.

  “I don’t get it. Are we or are we not pretending we’re dating?”

  “We’re not pretending anything. We don’t have to. You’re not in town long, I’m not in town long. We’ll go on a few dates—in a strictly platonic sense—and then, when we leave Sugar Falls, we say goodbye.”

  “We do?”

  “Yes.” He began cracking eggs into a bowl. “You hate long-distance relationships.”

  “I also hate being told what to do. Even by someone who is strictly platonic.”

  “Well, too bad.” He unlocked his phone and pulled up her text messages. “You said it yourself. You owe me.”

  She took a gulp of coffee, but without the half-and-half to cool it down, it burned her tongue. “I know what I said.”

  His tablet, phone and smartwatch all chimed simultaneously. “I forgot I have a video chat in half an hour.”

  “You’re going to take a conference call over here?” She smirked, her eyes narrowing. Kaleb acted like he was the one doing her the favor, but she bet the real reason he came over here was to get some work done without his family bothering him. “While we’re on a date, Cupcake?”

  “Cupcake?”

  “Isn’t that what we call each other?”

  “No. We call each other by our names. Because we’re grown-ups.”

  “Well, I’m going to go take a shower, Cupcake. Let me know when my omelet’s ready.”

  Chapter Six

  That evening, Kaleb stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror at his sister’s house. Molly and her family would be here in less than an hour and Kylie’s words about his taste in clothing were coming back to haunt him. Not that he was trying to impress anyone, but when Molly had answered the door this morning in her T-shirt and short shorts, Kaleb had been tempted to kiss her right there on the spot. Then she’d pulled him toward her and it was all he could do to remind himself that this whole dating plan they’d come up with wasn’t supposed to be serious.

  Speaking of which, their official first date this morning hadn’t gone exactly according to plan. Well, the omelet part did at least. He’d no more than plated the vegetable-filled eggs when Molly’d come out of the bathroom wearing athletic leggings and a sweatshirt so loose the oversize neck draped to the side, leaving a tan shoulder bare. Well, bare except for the pink bikini strap tied behind her damp, wavy ponytail.

  She smelled like the coconut-mango smoothies he used to get when he was a kid vacationing in Hawaii for real with his family, as opposed to the forced kind they now endured as adults. Kaleb had been tempted to draw her in closer to see if her skin tasted as good as it smelled. Instead, he’d doused the flames of attraction by handing her a plate and a stack of papers he’d printed out that morning.

  “I thought you could look over these while I’m on my conference chat,” he’d said. She rolled her eyes as he set up his laptop on one end of the table, and at some point between his conference call with his lawyers in the Tokyo office over the Japanese production rights to his latest game and his brainstorming session with his writing staff about the possibility of giving one of his video characters their own cartoon show, Molly had taken off.

  He’d been wearing his headset and pacing back and forth in the small living room when she’d given him a discreet wave, pointed toward the stairs and made a gesture with her two fingers indicating she was going downstairs. He’d assumed she was going to hang out with her sister, but after an hour, he’d discovered she’d left him a note on the back of the diabetic menu plan Angela had emailed him this morning.

  Thanks for the “date.” And for bringing up white-water rafting. I’m going to spend the day on the river. M.

  In the past, when a woman he was dating was annoyed that he wasn’t paying her enough attention, she pouted or started a fight. However, Molly hadn’t looked the least bit annoyed. Actually, when she’d left, she’d looked pretty carefree and a little relieved. Just to be sure, he’d sent her a text apologizing for being occupied with his business calls, and she’d replied with a thumbs-up emoji. Clearly, neither one of them were expecting candlelight and roses out of this relationship.

  So then why was he standing here in his sister’s bathroom suddenly concerned with his appearance? It wasn’t like he was back in high school, wearing pimple cream and his back brace under a Battlest
ar Galactica T-shirt?

  The doorbell sounded over the barking of his brother Bobby Junior’s six-month-old goldendoodle and his five nieces and nephews. Or was it seven now? Did Kylie’s brother-in-law’s kids count as honorary Chattersons? Kaleb braced his hands against the counter and reminded himself that no matter how good Molly might look out there, they were only dating—in a strictly platonic sense—for eight more days.

  Besides, she was probably more worried about whether he’d slip and bring up her diabetes than whether he was wearing some fancy collared shirt.

  What was he so worried about, anyway? Kaleb was a global leader in a multi-billion-dollar industry. Surely, he could handle one crazy family dinner.

  He ran a hand through his hair, then made his way toward the living room, dodging a Nerf football, shaking off a puppy sniffing his pant leg as if it was about to mark its territory and stepping over his twin nieces working on something called “tummy time.” Through the cluster of men standing in the corner discussing the best bull pens in the major leagues, he caught a view of the open kitchen where Molly was thanking his father for the plastic cup the older man just handed her. Knowing that whatever frozen concoction his dad was serving was most likely on her discarded list of high sugar foods to avoid, he sprang into action.

  “Hey, you,” Kaleb said when he put an arm around Molly’s shoulder, somewhat out of breath after the obstacle course of kids and pets he’d had to wade through to get to her. His approach must’ve lacked the finesse he’d intended because her body jerked back just enough to slosh the fruity liquid around in her cup.

  She frowned in response.

  “Oh, great. Strawberry daiquiris. My favorite,” he exclaimed, prying the beverage from her hand and taking a huge gulp before whispering in her ear, “You’re not supposed to drink stuff like this.”

  “And you’re supposed to be my fake date, not my endocrinologist,” she whispered back.

  “Not fake,” he mumbled, then took another sip. “Platonic.”

  “So, Molly,” Kylie interrupted them, her eyes sharp and focused as though she was ready to pounce on the merest hint of tension between them. “I know you’ve already met Kaleb, the black sheep of our family. But let me introduce you to the rest of the Chatterson clan.”