“I have a crazy idea.” Michael Dunnigan smiled.

“My mother will never stop matchmaking until she believes I’ve found someone,” he added.

And that made him think of me? A hopeful little flutter in the pit of her stomach gave Josie pause.

“Well, since you need a place to stay, well, I thought, what if I sort of hire you to move in with me and pretend to be my fiancée.”

That made Josie laugh. “You want me to move in with you?”

“On a purely platonic basis.” He smiled sheepishly again and she wished he would stop it. Smiling only made him more attractive.

Was she actually considering this?

“It’s a crazy idea. But I thought crazy ideas were right up your alley,” he commented.

“I don’t think it would be very wise,” she said suddenly. Sparks had already flown between them. It was a combustible attraction. An uncontrollable attraction.

“What if we make a pact just to be roommates, friends—”

“Coconspirators,” Josie confirmed.

Dear Reader,

Breeze into fall with six rejuvenating romances from Silhouette Special Edition! We are happy to feature our READERS’ RING selection, Hard Choices (SE#1561), by favorite author Allison Leigh, who writes, “I wondered about the masks people wear, such as the ‘good’ girl/boy vs. the ‘bad’ girl/boy, and what ultimately hardens or loosens those masks. Annie and Logan have worn masks that don’t fit, and their past actions wouldn’t be considered ideal behavior. I hope readers agree this is a thought-provoking scenario!”

We can’t get enough of Pamela Toth’s WINCHESTER BRIDES miniseries as she delivers the next book, A Winchester Homecoming (SE#1562). Here, a world-weary heroine comes home only to find her former flame ready to reignite their passion. MONTANA MAVERICKS: THE KINGSLEYS returns with Judy Duarte’s latest, Big Sky Baby (SE#1563). In this tale, a Kingsley cousin comes home to find that his best friend is pregnant. All of a sudden, he can’t stop thinking of starting a family…with her!

Victoria Pade brings us an engagement of convenience and a passion of inconvenience, in His Pretend Fiancée (SE#1564), the next book in the MANHATTAN MULTIPLES miniseries. Don’t miss The Bride Wore Blue Jeans (SE#1565), the last in veteran Marie Ferrarella’s miniseries, THE ALASKANS. In this heartwarming love story, a confirmed bachelor flies to Alaska and immediately falls for the woman least likely to marry! In Four Days, Five Nights (SE#1566) by Christine Flynn, two strangers are forced to face a growing attraction when their small plane crashes in the wilds.

These moving romances will foster discussion, escape and lots of daydreaming. Watch for more heart-thumping stories that show the joys and complexities of a woman’s world.

Happy reading!

Karen Taylor Richman,

Senior Editor

His Pretend Fiancee
Victoria Pade

www.millsandboon.co.uk

With acknowledgment and appreciation of Erin Negri for her

poem “Contribution.” Thank you, Erin, for the use of

your work. Thanks, too, for your brilliance, wisdom and wit.

I love you and I’m more proud of you than you’ll ever know.

VICTORIA PADE

is a bestselling author of both historical and contemporary romance fiction, and mother of two energetic daughters, Cori and Erin. Although she enjoys her chosen career as a novelist, she occasionally laments that she has never traveled farther from her Colorado home than Disneyland, instead spending all her spare time plugging away at her computer. She takes breaks from writing by indulging in her favorite hobby—eating chocolate.

MANHATTAN MULTIPLES

So much excitement happening at once!

The doors of Manhattan Multiples might shut down. The mayor and Eloise Vale once had a thing. Someone on the staff is pregnant and is keeping it a secret. Romance and drama—and so many babies in the big city!

Michael Dunnigan—Firefighter, devoted son and lover extraordinaire. This confirmed bachelor has no thoughts of matrimony—until he walks into a smoky bar and falls in love at first sight!

Josie Tate—Manhattan Multiples’ free-spirited receptionist and impressive poetess can’t imagine being tied down, but then she spends a passionate weekend with a sexy fireman and promises to be his pretend fiancée.

Allison Baker—Assistant to Manhattan Multiples’ director, this shy beauty hasn’t been herself since she went to a party and wound up living out her most romantic fantasy. What could possibly have her on edge these days?

Jorge Perez—The hottest assistant district attorney in Manhattan finally meets the woman he wants, but after their night of passion, she disappears. How fast can a man in love track down his vanishing beauty? Find out in next month’s Practice Makes Pregnant, Lois Faye Dyer (SE#1569).

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter One

“Shh! Don’t bark, Pip! You’re going to have us living in a cardboard box!” Josie Tate said to her dog as they neared the old, gray stone building where they currently shared an apartment with three friends. An apartment she and Pip were supposed to have vacated.

But did the warning have any effect on the 120-pound, tawny-coated, black-faced bull mastiff who had forced her to take him onto the streets of New York’s East Village at midnight? No, it didn’t. After one bark and Josie’s warning, Pip barked again. And this time they were even closer to the tiny basement apartment directly beneath that of the landlord.

“I mean it, Pip! Be quiet,” she begged the animal she’d adopted four months ago when she’d come across the skeletal pet scrounging for food in the trash cans on her way to work.

But again the big dog barked. Three times this round.

“Shh! I mean it!”

There was a no-pets clause in the lease and Josie had already passed the deadline the landlord had given her to get rid of the dog or move out. Waking Mr. Bartholomew now couldn’t lead to anything good. Especially not when she hadn’t yet found a place she could afford that allowed animals.

Pip seemed to have taken heed because he kept quiet as he crossed what remained of the distance with his nose to the sidewalk, as if he’d picked up the scent of something interesting.

Until he hit the top of the stairs that led down to the apartment.

Then he started to bark with a vengeance. And not the friendly bark. The warning bark he reserved for strangers.

On the other end of the leash, Josie reached the top of the steps behind her dog and finally realized that Pip hadn’t merely been barking to hear his own voice. Down below, in the shadows of the unlit stairwell, there was a man standing at her door.

She stopped short just as a light went on in the landlord’s apartment and pinch-faced Mr. Bartholomew lunged through the curtains. Then up flew the window so he could shout, “That’s it! I want you and that damn dog out of here!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Bartholomew, but there’s a man—”

“I don’t care! I need sleep!”

Pip ignored the landlord and continued to bark as Josie thought that if the man in the stairwell was dangerous she wasn’t likely to get much help from her irate landlord. But still she said, “But, Mr. Bartholomew, there’s some guy—”

“No buts. Either the two of you are gone by tomorrow or I’ll get the police to kick the whole lot of you out!”

“It’s just me, Josie,” her late-night visitor interjected as if he’d been trying to find the opportunity to get a word in edgewise.

She recognized the voice even before she looked from her landlord down the stairs again, and it was enough for her pulse to race and her mind to go blank. But not out of fear.

Pip continued to bark. Mr. Bartholomew went on ranting. But Josie merely stood there at the top of the steps, dumbfounded.

“It’s okay, boy, I’m harmless,” her midnight visitor said to Pip in a warm, friendly tone as he started up the steps.

Pip must have believed him because the bull mastiff stopped barking, tilted his big square head to one side, and quirked up an ear to stare curiously at him.

The landlord used the sudden silence to shout louder himself. “Do you hear me? I want you out!”

“Yes, Mr. Bartholomew. I heard you,” Josie finally managed to say.

“Tomorrow! Or the other three go, too!”

Josie’s visitor was halfway up the stairs and he held out a hand for the dog to sniff. A big hand with long, thick fingers. A big, adept hand. A talented hand that she’d felt all over her body…

Pip allowed their visitor to join them on the landing, sniffing him raptly as the man aimed his gaze up at the landlord and said, “This is my fault. The dog was barking at me. Don’t punish them for that.”

“They’re out,” the landlord insisted stubbornly. “She was supposed to be gone a week ago and I’ll make sure she goes now. One way or another.”

Down went the window with a slam and the landlord disappeared behind the curtains.

“Nice. Real nice,” the midnight visitor called after him.

Josie knew she’d have to try persuading the landlord not to enforce his edicts in the morning but since there was nothing she could do about that now, her attention was all on the man who stood only a few inches away, petting her dog.

“Michael Dunnigan,” she said as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.

“That’s me,” he responded. “I’m sorry for this—I didn’t come here to cause you trouble.”

“And yet here you are,” Josie said in a questioning tone she hoped might inspire an explanation.

“And yet here I am,” he countered instead.

“Not the answer I was looking for.”

“The answer to what?” he asked.

She thought he was only playing innocent and opted not to let him get away with it by bluntly demanding, “What are you doing here?”

Michael Dunnigan shrugged mile-wide shoulders negligently and smiled a small smile. “I had sort of a crazy thought tonight and acted on impulse.”

“Ah.” Josie didn’t know what else to say to that and so merely waited for more information.

But rather than getting it, Michael Dunnigan pointed a thumb at the window the landlord had abandoned. “But I don’t think we should talk out here.”

Josie glanced up at Mr. Bartholomew’s window again, as if she expected to find him glaring at them still.

“That is your place downstairs, isn’t it?” Michael Dunnigan said then. “I knocked but no one answered.”

“It’s Saturday night. All of my roommates are gone,” Josie responded before she realized she’d just negated her best excuse not to ask him in.

He proved the point by saying, “Then can we go inside?”

She was a little worried that this was nothing but a booty call. After all, she’d done something she’d never done in her life when she’d met him—two weeks ago she’d spent the entire Labor Day weekend with him. In bed.

She still couldn’t believe she’d done it. And she’d regretted it ever since. Certainly she had no intention of repeating it. If that’s why he was here.

But since she was fresh out of reasons not to let him into the apartment, she had to agree.

“I guess we can go in,” she said with a complete lack of enthusiasm. “To talk,” she added pointedly.

Apparently he got the message because he held up both hands, palms outward as if in surrender, and said, “Absolutely. Just to talk.”

Josie led the way down the stairs, with Pip right beside her and Michael Dunnigan bringing up the rear.

“We have to get that bulb changed,” she muttered to herself as she unlocked the door, referring to the light just above the doorway that offered no illumination because the bulb had burned out and not been replaced.

Then she opened the door.

But the moment she stepped inside she was even more sorry she was bringing company with her because she’d forgotten that she’d already unfolded the futon in the living room and made it up for herself for the night.

But what could she do? She couldn’t turn around and tell the man she’d just conceded to invite in that she’d changed her mind. She was just going to have to tough this through. And it would be tough because having Michael Dunnigan in the same vicinity as a bed was not an easy thing for her even now.

“I was about to call it a night,” she said both in explanation and as a hint that she didn’t want him to stay long.

Michael Dunnigan closed the door as Josie took off Pip’s collar, wishing as she did that she had on something better than her sweat suit over her nightshirt, that she hadn’t washed off all her makeup and that she’d at least run a brush through her short bobbed hair before she’d taken Pip on his walk.

But there was nothing to be done about it now. Except to smooth her hair behind her ears once she’d stashed the leash.

“Wow, this place really is small,” Michael Dunnigan said as he glanced around.

“There are two bedrooms—two of my roommates share one of them but the other one is really just an oversize closet so only Liz uses it. I lost the toss and ended up sleeping in the living room.” She didn’t know why she was giving him so many details but the words just seemed to tumble out.

“That’s right, I remember you telling me that there are four of you living here. Plus the dog?” Michael Dunnigan asked.

“Four of us and the dog,” Josie confirmed. It was one of the very few pieces of information they’d exchanged about themselves during the three-day lovemaking marathon that hadn’t left much time—or energy—for conversation.

Josie waited for him to say something else, preferably about why he’d shown up on her doorstep since he still hadn’t given her a clue.

But he wasn’t forthcoming. Instead he moved to the wall that separated the living room from the hallway-size kitchen.

Josie and her roommates used the wall as a gallery for a mélange of pictures of friends and family and events. As Michael Dunnigan looked at each photograph in turn he was in profile to her and Josie couldn’t help taking her own concentrated look at him.

He was still drop-dead gorgeous. More gorgeous than she’d even remembered. He had coal-black hair that he wore short all over. His nose was straight and not too long, and his chin was just pronounced enough. He had high cheekbones and a sharp-cut jawline that was faintly shadowed with the hint of dark stubble.

It was a face that had demanded Josie’s attention even through the crowd of the smoky bar where she’d been doing a poetry reading and he’d been sitting in the audience. A face that had riveted her right from the start and kept her enraptured during the three days that had followed. As enraptured as the body that went with it.

The body that was six feet of broad-shouldered, hard-packed muscle that left no doubt that the firefighter was capable of carrying even a full-grown man from a burning building. Six feet of broad-shouldered, hard-packed muscle encased in a pair of tan dress slacks, a hunter green polo shirt, and a sport coat that made Josie suddenly wonder if, when he’d begun this evening, he’d dressed for a date.

“So where are you coming from?” she asked as her curiosity got the better of her.

“A date with my mother’s podiatrist,” he said without hesitation, a heavy dose of disgust in his tone.

“Another setup?” she asked. One of the few things she knew about him was that his mother was desperate for him to get married and was in relentless pursuit of finding him a wife.

“The fifth setup since I saw you last,” he confirmed.

“She’s arranged five blind dates for you in two weeks?” Josie said in amazement.

He’d finally finished with the photographs and turned to face her. The full bore of striking green eyes as vibrant as the leaves of summer was almost enough to take her breath away.

But he didn’t seem to notice as he answered her question with a complete list. “There was dinner with Mom’s hairdresser, lunch with the receptionist from her dentist’s office, brunch with the woman who delivered a package to her, coffee with the niece of a friend of her bridge partner, and dinner tonight with the podiatrist.”

Josie couldn’t help smiling. “You can say one thing—you’re eating well.”

“Actually, tonight it was tofu cuisine and I hardly ate anything.”

And if his tone was any indication, there was more than the food that he hadn’t had a taste for.

“So something about tofu cuisine gave you a crazy thought that brought you here,” she said, using the segue to maybe finally find out why he’d come when they’d both agreed at the end of that Labor Day weekend that they didn’t want any big involvement and to go their separate ways.

Michael Dunnigan smiled at her a bit sheepishly. “It wasn’t the tofu, it was the fact that I was sitting across the table from this woman whose company I was not enjoying in the least, thinking that if I had to do one more blind date I would scream, and wondering how the hell I was going to get my mother to stop.”

“And that gave you a crazy idea.”

“A really crazy idea.”

But still he didn’t tell her what that crazy idea was.

He took another look around the apartment, shook his head and said, “I can’t believe four people and a dog are crammed in here.”

Josie clenched her teeth and shrieked to let her frustration be known. “What was the crazy idea?” she said, slowly enunciating each word.

Michael Dunnigan smiled again, obviously enjoying this. “It occurred to me that my mother is never going to cease and desist until she actually believes I’ve found someone.”

And that made him think of me?

A hopeful little flutter in the pit of her stomach gave Josie pause.

Yes, she had liked Michael Dunnigan. A lot. Yes, she’d been attracted to him. A lot. But she hadn’t been kidding Labor Day weekend—she was strictly against getting involved with anyone, so she’d nixed any idea of a relationship developing between them. Which, for his own reasons, he’d been in favor of. So why was she feeling flattered and hopeful that he’d connected finding someone with her?

She tamped down the very notion.

“Okay,” she said to prompt him. “Your mother is never going to cease and desist until she believes you’ve found someone. That seems logical.”

“It does, doesn’t it? I don’t know why it took me so long to realize it. Anyway,” he went on, “that was when I started to think about the bind you said you were in to find another place to live and I thought that if you hadn’t already done that, what if we solved each other’s problems?”

“You’ve lost me,” she confessed.

“Well…” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “Remember, I warned you that it was crazy.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, I thought, what if I sort of hire you to move in with me and pretend to be my fiancée?”

That just made Josie laugh.

“Okay, so it’s a crazy and funny idea,” he said. But he wasn’t laughing along with her. He was just waiting for her to stop.

So she did. And that was when she said, “You want me to move in with you?” as if it just had to be a joke.

“On a purely platonic basis,” he was quick to add. “Of course my mother wouldn’t know it, but you’d have your own room—rent free—plus use of the rest of the place. Which includes a small yard the dog could go out into. You’d have to play the part of my fiancée when my mother came around or if I needed your attendance at something, but the reality would be that we’d just be roommates. And the beauty of it is that if my mother believes I’m engaged to you, I could get her off my back.”

“That really is a crazy idea,” Josie said.

He smiled sheepishly again and she wished he would stop it. Smiling put lines at the corners of each of his eyes and deep grooves bracketing his supple mouth, and only made him more attractive.

“We could tell my mother that since we really just met we’re going to have an extended engagement,” he continued as if this were actually a possibility. “And who knows how long we could draw it out? No matter how long it is, it’ll give me a break.”

He sounded like he needed one.

Certainly she needed a place to move to…

Josie could hardly believe that last thought had gone through her head.

Was she honestly considering this?

“It’s crazy,” she repeated. Only now what seemed even crazier than his idea was the fact that she might be thinking about doing it.

“I thought being a little crazy was right up your alley,” he commented then, as if he liked that about her.

She’d never considered herself crazy. Spontaneous. Free-spirited. Adventurous. Those were all things she remembered of her parents. Things she liked to keep alive in herself. And even if some people—like Mr. Bartholomew—considered what she did on the spur of the moment or on a whim crazy, what was important to her was that she found her actions reasonable. Or enjoyable. Or beneficial to someone.

Moving in with Michael Dunnigan, pretending to be engaged to him, would be beneficial to him, a little voice in the back of her mind pointed out. It would also be beneficial to her….

“Have you been drinking?” she asked suddenly, wanting to make sure this wasn’t some inebriated lark that he would regret when he sobered up.

“Drinking with Miss Tofu? Are you kidding? She ordered me a shot of some thick green stuff—wheat grass juice of something—but there was definitely no liquor in it. It might have tasted better if there had been.”

She purposely hadn’t invited him to sit down. Or sat herself for that matter. But now he perched a casual hip on the arm of an easy chair as if he were right at home anyway.

Then he said, “It wouldn’t be all that complicated. An occasional meal with my family. Holidays. A wedding or a reunion or a birthday here and there. And you wouldn’t always have to go to everything with me. Sometimes I could just say you had to work or you didn’t feel well or something else came up. The rest of the time we’d go our separate ways. Date. Do our own thing the same as any roommates. Plus my shifts run twenty-four on, twenty-four off, so every other day—and night—you’d have the place to yourself. And think how happy you’d make Mom,” he finished with another of those smiles that weakened Josie’s knees.

And that was the biggest problem with this idea, she thought when it happened. Sparks had already flown between them. She already knew there was an attraction between them. A combustible attraction. An uncontrollable attraction. The kind of attraction that had landed her in bed with him for the most passionate, the most mind-boggling sex she’d ever experienced. How could she now move in with him, be in close proximity to him, play at being in a romantic relationship with him, and keep it platonic?

“I don’t think it would be very wise,” she said in response to her own misgivings.

Which he seemed to read like an open book. “Because of Labor Day weekend. I know, I’ve thought about that. It was pretty fantastic and it would be hard…difficult to avoid the temptation to repeat it. But we’ve already agreed that that isn’t what we want and so far we’ve stuck to it. We haven’t seen each other again. And believe me, I’ve thought about calling you. So I think that if we make a pact just to be roommates, friends—”

“Coconspirators.”

“Okay, coconspirators and partners in crime, and we really put our minds to it, we can keep Labor Day weekend in the past and stay this new course for the future.”

Josie didn’t have time for a rebuttal because there was a loud pounding on her door just then.

She crossed back to it and opened it, too lost in her own thoughts to ask who it was first. But even so she was surprised to find Mr. Bartholomew standing outside in the stairwell. Still looking furious.

“Here,” he said, shoving a sheet of paper at her. “I called my lawyer—”

“At midnight on a Saturday night?”

“If I can’t sleep, neither can anyone else!” the paunchy man in the undershirt snarled. “My lawyer says to put in writing that you’ve broken the lease and either you get out or I can evict you, your dog, and the rest of the occupants of this apartment. So there it is. You’re gone tomorrow or else. Legally.”

Josie had no idea if he was bluffing or not but the landlord turned tail and stormed up the stairs, leaving her with a handwritten paper saying just what he’d told her it said.

So much for trying to cajole him into letting her stay a little longer.

She closed the door but remained facing it for a while, staring at it and considering her options.

She could get rid of Pip.

But she loved the big bull mastiff and she wasn’t going to do that.

She could gamble that Mr. Bartholomew couldn’t really evict her the next day and that maybe she could find a place for them before he actually could throw them out.

But if she was wrong he could very well kick out her three roommates, too, and that wasn’t fair. Besides the fact that she honestly could end up on the street because if the landlord did evict her suddenly she doubted a hotel or the YWCA could let her in with a dog.

Or she could take Michael Dunnigan up on his offer.

She could move into his brownstone, live rent free, and pretend to be his fiancée.

Actually, it didn’t seem as if she did have any options.

“Do you absolutely, positively guarantee that this will be a purely platonic arrangement?” she heard herself say before she’d even turned around to face Michael Dunnigan again.

“I absolutely, positively guarantee it. You’ll never even see me without a shirt on.”

Josie closed her eyes as if that might keep her from seeing the image that came into her head at just the mention of him bare-chested. The image of him in the kitchen between lovemaking sessions over Labor Day, eating out of a carton, nothing on but a pair of boxer shorts, his V-shaped torso a work of art…

“I don’t even want to see you without shoes and socks,” she said almost as if she were in pain.

“Okay. Not even without shoes and socks,” he agreed.

Josie opened her eyes and took a deep breath, sighing it out resolutely. “All right,” she said softly. “I guess we can give it a try since I don’t have anywhere else to go. But just for the record, I’m not happy about lying to your mother.”

“I’m not happy about it, either. But she won’t listen to me when I explain why I can’t get married and have kids right now.”

Funny, but after their Labor Day weekend together, Josie had had the impression that he simply hadn’t wanted to be tied down. But something in what he’d just said made her think there was more to it than that.

Of course she’d said basically the same thing to him and she had reasons that ran deeper, too.

But it was too late to get into all of that now so she let it lay and finally turned away from the door.

“I guess we have a deal then,” she said, looking at that oh-so-handsome face and hoping they really could abide by their pact.

He smiled again, a thousand-watt grin that made her doubt her own willpower already. “So, will you marry me?” he said, joking.

Josie rolled her eyes. “Well, I’ll make it look like I will, anyway.”

“Good enough.”

“I guess I’ll have to move in tomorrow,” she said with a nod back at the door where Mr. Bartholomew had just appeared and disappeared. “How are you going to explain to your mother that you went out with her podiatrist on Saturday night and have a live-in fiancée on Sunday?”

“I’ll make up something. She’ll be so thrilled she won’t pay attention to too many details.”

“So when do you want me?” Poor choice of words. “I mean, what time do you want me to move in?”

“Anytime. Do you need a truck or something for furniture?”

“I only own what I can fit into my car.”

“That works. I’m fully furnished.”

Somehow that sounded like a double entendre but since he’d let her slip of the tongue slide, she didn’t comment on his.

“So, I guess that’s it,” he added. “I’ll see you when you get there tomorrow.”

“I’ll have to pack my stuff and load the car so it probably won’t be until the evening.”

“Whatever. I’ll be there,” he assured.

He got up from the arm of the chair and headed for the door himself.

But before he reached it, he paused near enough to Josie for her to smell the scent of his aftershave. Near enough to bend and, with a warm brush of his breath against her ear, say, “Want to seal our engagement with a kiss?”

Josie gave him a withering look that made him laugh this time.

“Just kidding,” he assured as he straightened and went the rest of the way to the door.

But with one hand on the knob he smiled at her yet again and said, “Thanks for this. You don’t know what a relief it is to think that I’ll be free of my mother’s matchmaking.”

“It’s a relief to me to have somewhere to go with Pip,” she admitted.

Although that wasn’t completely true.

Because while it was a relief to know she finally had a place to live peacefully with her dog, she was still worried about who she’d be living with in that place.

And as Michael Dunnigan finally left she had to wonder if she hadn’t just exchanged one set of problems for another.

Chapter Two

“How was the date? Didn’t you just love her?”

“Hello to you, too, Ma,” Michael said in order to avoid answering his mother’s questions when he arrived at her home at ten o’clock Sunday morning. She lived only blocks away from his brownstone in Brooklyn.

His mother was standing at the stove in her kitchen. As she did every Sunday morning, the five-foot-two compact powerhouse of a woman was making pancakes. She had on a purple velour sweat suit, elaborate makeup, and her head was still swathed from the night before in the toilet paper turban that preserved the bouffant, flipped-at-the-ends hairdo sported by every woman who went to the neighborhood salon.

“Will you take that stuff off your head?” Michael added after he’d leaned over to kiss his mother’s cheek.

Elsa Dunnigan slid golden brown pancakes from the griddle, ladled more batter onto the hot surface, and then obliged her son by unwrapping her black hair. With the exception of being slightly flat in the back it remained an undisturbed helmet.

“The date, Mikey. I want to hear about the date.”

Michael picked up the already poured glass of orange juice at his spot at the red-and-silver kitchen table and took a drink, noting as he did that there were only two place settings. Unless Michael was working, Sunday breakfast was the one meal each week that he, his mother and his younger sister always tried to have together. So again he ignored his mother’s query in favor of one of his own.

“Cindy isn’t eating with us?”

“She had to go to a bridal shower brunch in the city,” Elsa said as if the entire subject of her other child was inconsequential. But as she took a platter filled with bacon and sausages from where it was being kept warm in the oven and brought that, a dish of pancakes and another plate of fried eggs to the table, she said, “And if you don’t answer me right now I’m going to call Dr. Miranda myself and tell her you had such a fabulous time with her last night that you want to see her again tonight.”

Michael knew his mother would do just that so he stopped hedging as they both sat at the table. “The date was good and bad—the bad being the date itself and the good being that it made me realize something and take a big step.”

He’d planned this out on the way home from Josie Tate’s apartment the previous night so he knew exactly how he was going to explain the sudden turn of events.

“I don’t understand,” his mother said. “You didn’t like Dr. Miranda?”

“No, Ma.”

Elsa Dunnigan frowned at him so fiercely it made her eyes squint and nearly disappear in the lines around them.

“She’s a nice girl,” his mother insisted. “A professional woman with a thriving medical practice. She wants to get married. She wants babies. She’ll make a good wife. She can’t help it if she has sinus problems and has to blow her nose every five minutes. And those ears could be covered if she’d just let her hair grow over them. I could set her up with Cissy—now that I’ve finally smoothed the waters after you never called her back, either. Cissy could do Dr. Miranda’s hair so no one would ever see those Dumbo ears.”

Cissy was Elsa’s beautician. She wore her hair even bigger and more rock-solid than any of her clients. Michael had spent the whole blind date with her wondering how she could not notice that the style was outdated by at least twenty years. And when he coupled the hair with the nearly Geisha-like makeup, the gum popping, the honking laugh, the dagger fingernails she’d used in lieu of a fork to pick up strands of spaghetti, and the fact that they’d had absolutely nothing in common, it had not been a date he’d wanted to repeat. So he hadn’t called her again. Much to his mother’s dismay.

But actually, just the thought of that date and the date the night before pushed him to finally tell his mother the story he’d come up with to free himself from any future setups.

“I’m engaged,” he announced.

Elsa made a very unflattering sound in response. Something like “Puh!”

Clearly she didn’t believe him.

“To Dr. Miranda?” she asked facetiously.

“No, not to Miranda. I told you I didn’t like her so you’re out of luck when it comes to free callus scrapings,” Michael informed her.

“Then who are you engaged to? As if I’m buying this load of horse manure.”

“Get out your checkbook because it’s true. I am engaged,” he said, enunciating each word slowly, as if to better get it to sink in.

“To who?” his mother said the same way.

“You don’t know her,” Michael answered calmly. He knew this was risky business. He’d never been an adept liar. And his mother had always been able to see through it when he’d tried. But now he had enough at stake to make him determined to pull it off. “Her name is Josie Tate. She’s the receptionist at that Manhattan Multiples place—remember, it was written up in the newspapers a few months ago? They help women who are pregnant with more than one baby or something. You showed me the article yourself—”

“I remember. My friend Agnes’s daughter went there when she was going to have triplets,” Elsa said, conceding that she knew what he was talking about but still sounding suspicious of his claim to be engaged.

“Well, Josie works there. We met the Friday night before Labor Day.”

“That was the night I arranged a date with my insurance agent’s secretary,” Elsa said to let him know he wasn’t putting anything over on her.

“Yes and Sharon McKinty is one of Josie’s roommates. She took me to a bar that night where Josie was reading poetry—poetry she wrote herself.”

It wasn’t easy to come up with a whole lot of information about his new fiancée because Michael didn’t know much about her. He was just trying to sound knowledgeable with what little he had learned over Labor Day weekend.

“You went out with Sharon McKinty and ended up with someone else?” his mother asked.

As a matter of fact.

“Sharon McKinty met up with an old boyfriend and deserted me. I told you that. But I stuck around to hear more of Josie’s poetry and when she was finished we…well, we hit it off.”

That was all true. Although to say that he and Josie Tate had hit it off was something of an under-statement.

“You told me Sharon dumped you,” his mother confirmed. “But you didn’t tell me you’d met someone else.” More suspicion.

“I wanted to keep this one to myself,” he said, as if Josie had just been too good to share when in fact meeting somebody in a bar and spending three days in bed with them was hardly a story to tell your mother. Even if it had been the best three days he’d ever spent. With anyone.

But despite Michael’s best attempt to make keeping Josie a secret sound romantic, his mother said, “Why did you want to keep it to yourself? Is there something wrong with her? Won’t I like her?”

“I wanted to keep her to myself because she’s just very special.”

That was no lie. Josie Tate did seem special. Special enough that after their weekend together he’d thought that to see her again could be too great a test of the vow he’d made to himself.

Michael had only told his mother once why he was resistant to her greatest desire—that he find a wife and have a family. Elsa had discounted it as silly and promptly disregarded it, but his reasons were strong nevertheless.

As a volunteer firefighter, his father had been killed in a burning building when Michael was only twelve. Being left without a dad had been tougher on him than he’d ever let his mother know. And then, when the World Trade Center bombings had happened and so many of his brother firefighters had been lost, when he’d seen so many wives, so many children, left behind, Michael had decided that if he was going to do this job he loved, he was not going to chance leaving behind a wife or a child.

Whether his mother liked it or not.

And the pure power of his attraction to Josie that weekend had seemed like something to avoid if he was serious about it. Which he was.

“So how is this girl special enough that you met her two weeks ago and left my podiatrist last night to get engaged to her without even telling me you knew her?” Elsa demanded.

“How is Josie special?” he repeated, thinking about it as he finished his third pancake. “Well, she’s great-looking, for one thing.”

“What does she look like?”

“She has the shiniest hair I’ve ever seen. Light brown with blond streaks that make it seem kind of sunny. She wears it short—about to her chin—and it’s smooth and soft and sleek. And she has this way of brushing it behind her ears that’s…I don’t know…just so damn cute.”

“What color eyes does she have?” his mother demanded, as if this were a test.

But if it was, it was a test he could pass because he knew very well what Josie looked like. He’d pictured her in his mind’s eye a million times in the past two weeks.

“She has blue eyes. So blue—so bright blue—that they’re almost electric. Plus her skin is like cream. And she has a tiny nose—but not too tiny, just right, really. And she has good teeth—white and straight—and lips that are this natural pink that doesn’t even need lipstick. She has a great smile. And she’s thin but not too thin and—”

“So it’s all about looks?” his mother cut in, pulling him from the image of Josie Tate that he’d been slightly carried away by.

“No, it’s not all about looks,” he said. “I’m just describing her to you because that’s what you asked me. She’s also sweet and smart—she writes poetry that just blows you away. She’s funny. She has a great sense of humor. She doesn’t make big deals out of small stuff. She’s free and open and easygoing. She has a terrific outlook on life—” And maybe, even though he didn’t know a single thing about where she came from or what her goals were or anything about her family or her romantic history or where she saw herself in five years, he did know slightly more about her than he’d thought.

“It sounds like she just bowled you over,” Elsa finished for him, beginning to sound more open to this whole thing.

“She did bowl me over,” Michael agreed, realizing there was some truth to that, too. Even if he didn’t really want to admit it.

“Anyway,” he added, getting back to his preplanned speech, “We’ve spent some time together since Labor Day but I wanted to keep it—to keep her—to myself. So I didn’t tell you about it. I went on the rest of those dates you set up to see if I still might find someone I liked better. But last night I was sitting across from your podiatrist wondering why I was wasting my time. Thinking that Josie is who I want to be with. The only person I want to be with. And that I needed to do something about it no matter how short a time we’ve known each other.”

That was a mixture of lies and truth. He hadn’t seen anything of Josie Tate since Labor Day weekend—that was a lie. But he had compared every other woman since then to her. And even with the little he knew about her, every other woman had still come up short, so that part was true. No, it hadn’t convinced him to propose for real. But sitting across from the podiatrist, not enjoying himself in the slightest, had made him think about Josie Tate. It had inspired the idea to solve both her housing problem and his mother problem by suggesting the fake engagement.

“So you left my podiatrist and went and asked this other girl to marry you?” his mother said.

“I didn’t just leave your podiatrist. I took her home. But then I went to Josie’s place and… Well, we’re engaged and she’s moving in today.”

Elsa’s eyebrows arched at that. “Two weeks is all you’ve known this girl and you’re engaged and she’s moving in with you?”

“That’s right.”

His mother pushed her nearly empty plate away and seemed to mull that over before she said, “You’re serious? You’re getting married?”

“Not anytime soon,” Michael was quick to say. Maybe too quick. “I mean, we’ve fallen head over heels but we did just meet. We want to take some time to really get to know each other before we actually get married. A long engagement—that’s what she wants, that’s what I want.”

“I don’t think you should count on that. If this girl works every day with mothers-to-be and new babies, she’s bound to start wanting a baby of her own.”

There was a note of optimism in his mother’s tone that let him know she was not only coming to believe him but that she was beginning to warm to the idea of his whirlwind romance.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. If we come to it,” Michael said. “For now, we both just want to settle in together and honestly get to know each other.”

“And she’s a good girl? Not some fly-by-night who’s taking advantage of you or will disappear with your credit card and your furniture while you’re at work?”

“Sharon McKinty introduced us and you arranged the date with her,” Michael pointed out.

“Did Sharon vouch for her?”

“Sharon vouched for us both—she told Josie that I’m a stand-up guy from a good family with a mother who has big hair—”

“I don’t have big hair. I have a lot of hair.” Elsa defended herself from his teasing.

“Uh-huh,” Michael said sarcastically before he continued. “And Sharon told me that Josie is the best roommate she’s ever had, that she’s the kind of person who takes in stray animals, donates blood, volunteers at the soup kitchen, brings coffee to the homeless guy on the corner every morning, and would give her last dime away if she thought somebody needed it more than she did. I don’t think I have to worry about her running off with my furniture or my credit card.”

“And you love her and she loves you?”

That one made him very uncomfortable. “We got engaged last night, didn’t we?” he said as if that was answer enough.

Apparently it was because his mother said, “It must have been love at first sight.”

Certainly it had been attraction at first sight. He hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off Josie that night at the bar. In fact, he’d been almost mesmerized by her. But that wasn’t important now. Now they were only going to be roommates and friends—that was something he needed not to forget.

“When do I get to meet her?” his mother asked then, finally sounding convinced and happy about the fact that Michael had found someone.

“Maybe in a day or two. Let’s let her get moved in and—”

“Tomorrow,” Elsa decreed. “We’ll have dinner. I’ll cook.”

“I’d need to check with Josie. I don’t want you giving her the bum’s rush, Ma. She’ll be around a long time.”

“I have to meet the girl who’s going to be my daughter-in-law, don’t I?”

“You will. Believe me, you will.”

“Tomorrow. See if we can meet tomorrow,” Elsa insisted forcefully.

Michael took a deep breath and sighed it out with resignation. His mother was nothing if not persistent. And pushy. Which was why, he reminded himself, he’d felt the need to concoct this plan in the first place.

But that still didn’t keep him from feeling guilty for perpetrating this sham on her.

He just didn’t know what else to do to get her to back off.

“Tomorrow,” he conceded. “I’ll see if you can meet Josie tomorrow.”

Elsa sat back in her chair, looking pleased. “Good. Tomorrow night for dinner,” she said with as much finality as if Michael had agreed to it.

“I don’t know about a whole meal. Why don’t I just bring her by for a few minutes the first time?”

It was as if Elsa hadn’t heard him. “Dinner here at seven,” she dictated. “I’ll even get wine.”

His mother got up and went to the drawer beside the sink where she took out a tablet and a pen and began to make a list that Michael had no doubt was for groceries she would go to the store and buy before the day was over in spite of everything he’d said about checking with Josie first.

But he knew better than to waste any more effort on trying to slow the runaway train that was his mother. And as he stood and started to clear the table all he could think was, You don’t have any idea what you’ve gotten yourself into, Josie Tate….

He just hoped she really was as easygoing as he’d said she was, as easygoing as she’d seemed.

Because it was the only way she was likely to get through this.

It was seven o’clock Sunday evening before Josie was completely loaded up and ready to go. The trunk and rear seat of her small vintage sedan were crammed full of her clothes and belongings, and Pip was sitting regally in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead, patiently awaiting his ride while she said goodbye to Sharon.

“You’re sure about this?” asked the only one of her three roommates she was close to.

“Hey, I spent a whole weekend with this guy on your say-so that he wasn’t a psycho,” Josie joked. “Are you telling me now that he is?”

“No. For the two years I’ve worked for his mother’s insurance carrier, I’ve been listening to the woman brag about him and he’s anything but a psycho. He’s a decorated firefighter and I think the Boy Scouts gave him some kind of award, too. If I hadn’t met up with T.J. that night and he hadn’t apologized, I might have given Michael Dunnigan a go-round myself. But just because he’s not a psycho doesn’t mean you should be moving into his place and pretending to be engaged to him.”

“Remember, don’t blow this if you talk to his mother,” Josie warned, wondering if she should have been quite so honest with her friend.

“Believe me, his mother does all the talking,” Sharon assured her. “But still, actually moving in with him? And acting as if the two of you are getting married? That’s pretty weird.”

“It’ll be okay. Besides, old sourpuss Bartholomew didn’t give me any other choice. He’s even up there at his window now, making sure I’m leaving,” she added with a poke of her chin at the building behind her friend.

“Maybe we could have hidden Pip,” Sharon suggested.

Josie laughed at that. “Where? How?”

Sharon shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. This whole thing just doesn’t seem fair.”

“It’s more fair than getting you guys all evicted because of Pip and me. Don’t worry about it. Now that I have somewhere to go, it isn’t a big deal.”

“Yes, it is a big deal when it means you’re going to have to play at being engaged to accomplish it. When you’re going to pull the wool over the eyes of Michael Dunnigan’s mother, of all people. Everything with that woman is a big deal. She’s a steamroller in panty hose. You might start out only pretending to be engaged, but before Elsa Dunnigan is through, you’re liable to find yourself married with ten kids. And if she finds out this is just a scam? I don’t even want to think what she might do.” Sharon ended with wide eyes to emphasize the terror of just considering that possibility.

But Josie just laughed again. “Come on. She can’t be that bad.”

“She can and she is. I wouldn’t want her for even a pretend mother-in-law. That night that I went out with Michael I kept looking at him, thinking that he might be gorgeous but I wouldn’t go near him for anything but a one-nighter because nothing is worth putting up with that woman more than I have to at the office.”

“If she’s that horrible why did you agree to go out with her son in the first place?” Josie challenged.

“I was mad at T.J. and I wanted to teach him a lesson. But I’m telling you, Josie, I thought my mother was a pain in the neck, but Elsa Dunnigan has her beat by a mile.”

“I won’t be living with his mother,” Josie pointed out.

“No, you’ll be trying to live platonically with a guy who’s already swept you off your feet and into his bed. On top of the whole mother thing. It’s like double jeopardy.”

“What happened between Michael and me over Labor Day is history. I only slept with him because… Well, it was just a bad weekend for me. The anniversary of my parents’ death is always dicey. But what happened before won’t happen again.”

“I know you needed comfort and solace and forgetfulness that weekend, but still, Michael Dunnigan is some pretty powerful stuff. I don’t know if you can just blame that three-day marathon on being bummed out. Or trust that not being bummed out will make you immune.”

“Determination not to repeat that marathon is what will make me immune. And it will help that we’ll be going our separate ways. He’ll be completely out of the house every other day. Believe me, nothing is going to happen between us again.”

Sharon didn’t look convinced. Or sound it when she said, “Whatever you say.”

“I say it’ll be just fine,” Josie said with conviction.

And by then she honestly believed it would be. She’d thought long and hard about this situation since the man in question had left the previous night. And, in spite of his appeal, there were two very large roadblocks to her ever wanting to get seriously involved with him. And neither of them had anything to do with his mother.

In the first place, Josie had no intention of changing her own unencumbered lifestyle.

And in the second place, Michael’s job was the cure for even contemplating any kind of involvement with him whatsoever.

No matter how attractive he was, how sexy, how funny or fun or intelligent or charming or well put-together, Josie had one steadfast rule—she was absolutely not going to let herself get involved with a guy in a high-risk profession. She knew firsthand the devastation that could be wreaked if the worst occurred in life, and although she realized that anyone could have any kind of freakish accident at any time, being connected to someone who courted danger through their work was more risky than she could bear. Which meant that Michael Dunnigan was one very off-limits man.

“I should get going,” she told Sharon. “I still have to unpack all this stuff when I get there.”

Sharon nodded her resignation. “You’ll call me this week?” her friend said.

“I will. Maybe we can meet for lunch one day.”

“Good. And you know, if this doesn’t work out, you can always find Pip a nice home and come back.”

“It’ll be fine,” Josie repeated.

“Or, if the temptation gets to be too much, you could stay there on the nights Michael works but leave Pip there and spend the night here with us on Michael’s days off.”

“There’s an idea,” Josie said, thinking that might actually be something she would do if the attraction to Michael started to get the best of her. Certainly she would do that before she would repeat Labor Day weekend.

She and Sharon hugged then.

“I’m going to miss you, though,” Sharon said, sounding on the verge of tears. “I hate that you won’t be here to make me your famous chai tea when I come home stressed.”

“I can probably talk you through making it yourself in an emergency,” Josie joked again, this time somewhat feebly.

Their hug ended and Sharon leaned over to the window beside Pip. “’Bye, puppy,” she said to the large animal. “Be a good boy and don’t get your mom into any more trouble.”

Pip had turned his head toward her when she’d first spoken to him and he gave the window one lick as if it were Sharon’s face. Then he went back to staring straight ahead.

“Damn Bartholomew,” Sharon muttered as she straightened. Then, to Josie, she said, “Drive safely.”

“I will.”

Josie headed around the front of the car to the driver’s side. “I’ll talk to you this week,” she called as she got in behind the wheel.

Sharon moved back from the curb, waving as Josie pulled out into the street.

“Here we go, big dog, another of life’s adventures,” she announced to Pip as she drove away.

At least that’s what she hoped the feeling she was having was—excitement for a new experience, a new adventure. Better that than feeling excited over getting to see Michael Dunnigan again.

Josie looked at all of life as an adventure. She liked to keep things free and easy. She liked to try new and different foods. She liked to meet new people. She liked to pick up on the spur of the moment and go somewhere without having anything planned, without knowing where she was going or what she was going to do or when she would come back. She liked to change jobs. To have new experiences. All of that excited her. Thrilled her. The same way it had excited and thrilled her parents.

But anything dangerous, anything life-threatening—that was something else again. And that was where she was different from her parents.

But then she’d lived through the consequences of their thrill-seeking. And they hadn’t.

When Sharon had introduced her to Michael Dunnigan that Friday night before Labor Day, Sharon hadn’t told her he was a firefighter. If she had, Josie would likely not have said more than a brief hello to him—that’s how adamant she was about steering clear of anyone who was into anything high-risk.

But as it was, Josie hadn’t learned what Michael did for a living until late in their weekend together. And the moment she’d discovered it, their encounter had turned temporary in her mind. Because if there was one thing she knew for certain, it was that she didn’t want any permanent connection to anyone who did things that could be life-threatening.

Attachment issues—that’s what a psychologist she’d once dated had said about her—that she had attachment issues.

But Josie liked to think of it as independence. She was proud of how self-sufficient she was. She certainly didn’t see anything wrong with maintaining that independence and self-sufficiency.

And if she was particularly adamant about steering clear of anyone who put themselves, their entire life, on the line every day? She considered that a lesson life had taught her at a young age.

“So you and I are only going to be friends, Michael Dunnigan,” she said out loud, as if that would make it an irrefutable fact.

Pip went from angling his blunt black nose up at the small gap she’d left in the window so he could enjoy the smells along the way, to looking at her as if he wasn’t buying that for a minute.

“I mean it,” she said decisively to convince him. “Friends. Roommates. That’s it.”

And if she already knew that wasn’t going to be an easy thing to pull off because the man had hardly been out of her thoughts at all in the two weeks since they’d parted ways?

Well, she liked a challenge, too.

Maybe not quite as much as she liked Michael Dunnigan, but still…

“I should probably be grateful if he has a dragon lady for a mother,” she said to Pip. “Maybe it’ll help cool me off to him.”

But dragon lady or no dragon lady, Josie really was bent on being nothing but friends and roommates with Michael Dunnigan. No matter what it took.

Because even if she wasn’t determined to remain unattached to any one person, even if she wasn’t fiercely protective of her independence, any man whose job put her in a position where, on the turn of a dime, she might be abandoned again the way her parents’ deaths had abandoned her, was not the man for her. No matter what.

And since the closer she got to Michael’s house, the closer she got to Michael, the more butterflies took wing in her stomach and the more eager she felt, she thought that maybe it would be a good thing if his mother really was a dragon lady.

Because she just might need all the help she could get to turn herself off to Michael Dunnigan.

It was dusk by the time Josie arrived at Michael’s brownstone. Luckily she found a parking spot right across the street so she didn’t have to double park to unload her car.

But once she’d maneuvered the sedan between the truck and the station wagon at the curb and turned off the engine, she didn’t rush out of the vehicle. Instead she sat there and studied the place she remembered from the last time she’d been here.

Ten steps edged by a black wrought-iron railing led up to the double-door entrance of the stately two-story brown brick building. The entrance was sheltered by an arched overhang decorated with pilasters that ran along either side and ended at two ornate brackets that connected each pilaster to the frieze.

There were twin carriage lamps on the pilasters and another inside the uppermost curve of the arch. All of them were lit to welcome her and more light shone through the ovals of beveled glass in the center of each dark walnut door.

To the right of the entrance was a large bay window that Josie remembered well. Both the front door and the window were in the living room. She and Michael hadn’t been able to contain themselves long enough to get to his bedroom the first time they’d made love so they’d ended up barely getting through the door and onto the floor just below that bay window.

The memory flooded through Josie’s mind unexpectedly and caught her off guard. The memory of tearing each other’s clothes off while mouths clung together. Of urgent, exploring hands. Of bodies colliding in hungry need…

Not a good thing to think about, she knew, and she worked to block the memory, the images, the recollection of sensations and feelings and things that made her crave reliving it all.

Then Pip offered a distraction by whining to let her know he wanted out of the car now that it was no longer moving.

Josie took a deep breath, sighed and said, “Okay. I guess you’re right. We’re home. For better or worse.”

She attached Pip’s leash to the metal loop on his harness but left him sitting there as she got out of her side of the car. Then she went around to the passenger door to let Pip out that way.

With his blunt nose to the ground, Josie led the bull mastiff across the street that ran in front of the row of nearly identical homes. As if he’d been there before, Pip promptly climbed the ten steps to Michael’s brownstone.

Michael must have been watching for them because before Josie could ring the bell, the door opened and there he was.

“Oh. Hi,” she said a bit dimly.

Even though he hadn’t dressed up for her arrival he was freshly shaved. The heady smell of clean mountain-air-scented aftershave drifted to her nostrils as she took in the sight of him in a plain white T-shirt that was tight enough to hug his chest, shoulders and biceps and the sweatpants that let her know there were muscular thighs hidden inside them.

In fact, not only couldn’t she keep from taking in the sight, one look at him made her heart skip a beat and she thought that it might have been better if he had dressed up. Maybe slacks and a shirt would have hidden more and given her a break. But as it was, his clothes seemed like a scant barrier between her and that body she remembered all too well.

“Welcome to your new home,” he said in response to her greeting, stepping aside to allow her and the dog inside.

But Josie hesitated.

Somehow she hadn’t thought that being there again, with him, would bring so much to the surface. But suddenly she was having difficulty not thinking about Labor Day weekend. About repeating it…

Roommates, she reminded herself. Nothing but roommates…

Roommates who usually provided their own annoyances. Like stinky tennis shoes. Cupboard doors left open. Drinking out of the milk carton. Dirty dishes in the sink. The toilet seat left up.

Those were all things that made roommates unappealing. So maybe if every time she started to notice what she shouldn’t be noticing about Michael, she thought about the grossest, most disgusting thing a roommate had ever done, it would turn her off to even him…

Toenail clippings on the coffee table—that had been the worst. So that was what she would think about.

Toenail clippings. Toenail clippings. Toenail clippings…

It helped. At least enough to get her through the front door.

“Are you okay?” Michael asked as she belatedly stepped inside.

He was smiling a confused sort of smile and there were two creases between his full eyebrows that let her know he’d seen her hesitancy.

“It’s just a little strange,” she told him.

“I know. For me, too. But I think that will go away.”

It’ll go away if I imagine you leaving toenail clippings on the coffee table….

“Anyhow,” he said then, “I thought we could put the dog out back so we can keep the door open while we bring in your stuff.”

“We?”

“I’m not going to let you do it alone,” Michael informed her.

That was nice. And above and beyond the call of duty for a mere roommate. But Josie was a little concerned with the precedent it might set if he acted like a boyfriend. So she said, “You really don’t have to. It’s only clothes and some boxes. There isn’t furniture or anything. I like to keep encumbrances to a minimum.”

“Well, I can’t just sit and watch.”

No, that definitely wouldn’t be an improvement. Not when she could almost feel those penetrating green eyes on her every time he looked her way. Not when they turned the heat up on her whole body.

Besides, she reasoned, the sooner she unloaded her car and could lock herself in her own room—away from Michael and his effect on her—the better. So she conceded. “Okay. Thanks, I’d appreciate the help.”

“Good. Then let’s get the dog out back.”

Michael led the way across the living room that was decorated sparsely in brown leather and oak, to the swinging door that connected the kitchen and dining room. The back door was between the two and after Josie had removed Pip’s leash, the big dog was only too happy to go out to investigate his new domain.

Then Josie and Michael retraced their steps and began the process of getting her moved in.

Her room was to be the one across the hall from his and she advised him to just leave the boxes on the floor there and the clothes on the double bed with the white chenille spread.

He did as he was told and with the exception of a comment here and there, they worked without saying much.

By shortly before nine they were finished, but rather than Michael saying a simple good-night and leaving her to her own devices, he said, “How about a glass of wine to toast our new living arrangement while we sort through the details?”

“The details?”

“I always think sharing space goes better if you talk about some things up front.”

Josie was a free-and-easy kind of person, which was how she approached everything, so she’d always just addressed the details of living with other people when they cropped up. But if he liked to set ground rules at the start, she was okay with that, too. The wine, on the other hand? She wasn’t too sure about the wisdom in that.

“I have to work tomorrow so maybe I should pass on the wine,” she said.

“Come on, one glass isn’t going to do any harm,” he insisted, not waiting for her to decline a second time before he headed out of her room.

There were two sets of stairs leading from the second level—stairs with a beautifully carved oak banister that descended into the living room, and much plainer, more serviceable steps that led to the kitchen. It was the kitchen stairs that Josie followed Michael down, trying not to notice his to-die-for derriere as she did.

While he poured two glasses of the Riesling, Josie let Pip in and filled the water bowl she’d brought with her from one of her boxes in the bedroom.

“Where shall I put this?” she asked Michael, holding up the dog dish.

“How about alongside the counter near the door? That should be out of the way enough to keep us from spilling it.”

Josie placed the bowl where Michael had suggested and then turned back to him to accept the wine.

“Here’s to us,” he said, touching his glass to hers with a little clang.

“To us,” she said tentatively, trying hard to keep her perspective when it would have been so easy for all of this to seem romantic.

They each sipped the golden liquor and then Michael went to what looked like an old, scarred teacher’s desk that he used as a kitchen table. He pulled out one of the four mismatched chairs that surrounded it, motioned for her to sit, and took a second chair for himself.

“You must have a lot of details to discuss,” Josie said as she joined him.

“A few details and something else,” he said mysteriously. Then he launched into the details.

“First of all, here are housekeys,” he said, sliding a set from the center of the table to a spot right in front of her. “They’re for the front door and the dead bolt, and the gold-colored one works the lock on the back door—although I never use mine and I don’t know when you would, either.”

“I guess it’s good to have one, anyway.”

Then he said, “Bathrooms.”

“Always a touchy subject,” she agreed.

“Since I have one in my bedroom it’ll be mine and the one off the upstairs hall can be yours. The downstairs lav, of course, can be used by both of us and by guests, if that’s all right with you.”

“Sure.”

“I won’t even go into yours upstairs so feel free to keep whatever you want in the vanity or the medicine cabinet—I’ve already cleared them out for you.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m not a stickler when it comes to food. My mother keeps me well stocked with leftovers and casseroles and you’re welcome to eat anything that looks good to you. But if you buy yourself something special and don’t want me to touch it, just put your name on it and I’ll know not to—”

“I’m not a stickler about that, either,” she said. “You’re welcome to anything I bring in, too.”

He paused before he went on and it let Josie know that the next point wasn’t as easy a detail as the others had been.

“I was also thinking that maybe it would be better if we made a rule against bringing dates home,” he said then, broaching the topic gingerly.

“I hadn’t thought about that,” she said honestly, instantly taking a dislike to the idea that he would be dating at all, let alone that he might bring another woman home. The way he’d brought her home…

Michael smiled again, looking slightly sheepish. “I don’t think I could handle you and some guy…”

Okay, that helped.

“Besides,” Josie offered, “we shouldn’t run the risk that one of us could have someone here when your mother happened to show up.”

“That, too,” he agreed. “Which brings me neatly to the something else I needed to talk to you about.”

“Does that mean we’re done with the details?” she asked, teasing him slightly.

He smiled a smile that went straight into her bloodstream and made it run quicker.

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Only a little. I didn’t know you were a detail man.”

“Really? And I thought you did,” he countered with a voice full of innuendo.

She knew he’d been referring to the small but important details of making love to her, and she’d walked right into it. But still, just the insinuation was enough to make her think of tiny kisses that had traced the entire outer circles of her ears. About an index finger that had trailed down the inner side of her ankle, along the arch of her foot and around of each of her toes. About the tip of his nose dipping into the hollow of her throat, using her collarbone as a guide to her naked shoulder and the perfect spot for soft kisses…

“Behave yourself,” she said, unsure whether the warning was more for him or for herself. “So what’s the ‘something else’ you had to talk to me about?” she asked to put this conversation more on the up-and-up.

Michael’s smile turned into a grin that made her wonder if he somehow knew the path down which her mind had wandered. But he didn’t say anything about that. Instead he complied with her demand to know what the something else was. “I announced our engagement to my mother this morning,” he said.

“Ah. How did that go over?”

He took another drink of his wine and shrugged before he said, “She was suspicious at first, but then she warmed to the news. The problem is, she wants us to go to her house for dinner tomorrow night so she can meet you.”

“Why is that a problem?” Josie asked.

Michael smiled again, dimpling up for her in a way that was like putting a hairdryer to an ice cube when it came to her resolves. “I was afraid you might have plans or not want to meet her so soon,” he confessed.

“No, I don’t have any plans. And since I’ll need to meet your mother sooner or later, it might as well be sooner.”

“So I can let her know we’ll be there?” he said, sounding relieved.

“Sure.”

“Well, you made that easy. Thanks.”

For a moment Michael studied her as if she were too good to be true, and the warmth of those vibrant green eyes was like basking in spring sunshine.

It was also the way he’d looked at her at times over Labor Day weekend.

Just before he’d kissed her.

And once again a rash of memories flooded her mind and tormented her.

Only this time even thinking about toenail clippings wasn’t enough to stop it and she knew she had better retreat to the solitude of her own room before the torture got any worse.

“If that’s all you wanted to talk about, I should go upstairs and put some of those clothes into the closet so I can get to bed tonight,” she said suddenly.

It seemed to surprise him somewhat because his eyebrows arched and pulled together at once, as if he wasn’t quite sure what had brought that on. But how could he know, after all, when Josie was likely the only one of them thinking about kissing.

She stood and took her empty glass to the dishwasher before he guessed what was going through her head.

“Yeah, I’d better give my mother a call before I forget about it,” he said to her back, sounding a bit baffled.

“I’ll let you get to that, then,” she said, tapping her thigh twice as a signal to Pip to follow her from the corner where the big dog was lying.

“I probably won’t see you again before I go to bed, so good night,” she said, when the mastiff was by her side.

“If you need anything—”

“I’ll find it,” she assured him, calling Pip to follow her and leaving Michael sitting at the kitchen table.

But even as she climbed the stairs to the upper level again she was still thinking about kissing him.

About him kissing her.

And there was one very big problem with that.

She wasn’t only thinking about it in the past tense.

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