Page 7 of Misadventures With My Fake Fiancé

“Ellen, are you sure?” Goldie asked.

Ellen nodded as she bit her lip. “He bought new shoes.” Her eyes filled with tears.

“She's sure,” Jane replied, placing her hands on her hips in that pissed off woman stance.

I'd never seen either Jane or Goldie so serious before.

“Stupid men,” Goldie grumbled, shaking her head. “If you're going to cheat, buying shoes is a complete giveaway.”

She had a good point. No man I knew bought shoes for themselves on their own. There had to be another woman.

“He hasn't cheated. Yet. But she's got him in her sights and it's only a matter of time.”

Jane and Goldie nodded their agreement.

“That woman's going down,” Goldie told Ellen. I wasn't sure what they had in mind, but the looks on their faces indicated a murder and a body tossed off a remote cliff.

“Violet!” I heard through the phone. I put it back up to my ear. “Sorry, Mike. Small emergency.”

“So will you do it?”

“What?” I'd forgotten what we'd talked about. I was still trying to figure out what DEFCON ONE meant outside of national security. “Oh, yeah. Um...” Mike needed help.Myhelp. I wasn't sure if that meant fawning all over him or if I had to kill this Susan woman for him. Could Alaskan bears eat a body before it was discovered? Did it really matter? A hot guy needed me.

Goldie and Jane were with Ellen in the lingerie section and I saw they were intensely debating the merits of several items, I guessed for the purpose of luring back her husband. Unless the roof blew off the building, I wasn't going to disturb them.

I took a deep breath and jumped off the deep end. “Fine. I'll help.”

Mike sighed with relief. “That's so great, Vi. It's too late for you to leave today, so I'll book a flight for tomorrow. Give me your email for the ticket confirmation.”

I told him.

“Great. Then I'll pick you up at the airport.”

“Okay, but Mike, we need to figure out how I'm supposed to pretend the girlfriend part.”

Mike paused. “If being with you now is anything like high school, there may not be much pretending.”

Which is exactly what I was worried about. It would be easy for my mind to put on an act, but I knew my hormones would be going for the real deal.

3

“How come you got so much luggage to go to Alaska, Miss Miller?” Zach West, Jane's seven-year-old son, asked me the next day on the way to the airport. One suitcase was on the backseat beside him, the other in the storage area. I did have a lot of luggage. Going into battle, one had to be prepared. I didn't know what to expect, so I packed everything in my girlfriend arsenal: lacy bras to long underwear. Summer seduction in the Tundra, even when it was just pretend, required a lady to be ready for anything.

Jane had volunteered to drive me, mostly to get the scoop on my Alaskan adventure. She and Goldie had been so preoccupied with Ellen's DEFCON ONE situation, and getting her all geared up to keep her husband's eyes focused solely on her, that I had been able to slip out at the end of my shift before they could grill me.

It had been strictly intentional on my part because Goldie was meddlesome enough in my real relationships, or lack of. I didn't need her giving advice on a pretend one. Pretend, it seemed, was something I could do. Mike had all but begged me to help him.

I had no doubt Jane was a spy for Goldie and would report back any juicy tidbits of information. But, sadly, I didn't know anything new. I’d received the ticket confirmation an hour after Mike had hung up. That's it. No other contact. Which made me linger over his parting words.There may not be much pretending.

What had he meant by that? That he still felt something for me after all these years? That it would be obvious to all of his family that I wasn't really his girlfriend? That he was a really bad actor? I had no idea. Fortunately, a seven-year-old sat in back in his booster with a strange ceramic garden gnome in his lap and I couldn't divulge any R-rated, or even PG-13 guesses.

“Alaska has funny weather like here in Montana,” I told Zach, eyeing the gnome. “I have to bring lots of different things to wear: raincoat, shorts, long pants, rain boots, jacket. All kinds of stuff. Plus, I packed my waders in case I go fishing.”

“Did you forget your pajamas?” he asked. “You always have to wear your pajamas.”

Jane smirked as she kept her eyes on the road. It was early afternoon, the sun bright in the blue sky, the windows down to let in the fabulous weather. My first flight would take me to Seattle to savor a lengthy layover before catching the late flight to Anchorage. I wouldn't get in until after one in the morning. It was going to be a long day.

“I packed my pajamas,” I told him.

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