Page 75 of The Marriage Deal
“Yes.”
She gives a little jump on the balls of her feet as she squeals, “In an hour!”
It’s so dang cute, I almost smile. Almost.
Instead, I say again, “Yes.”
Lilah’s hands fly to her hair, fingers curling into the waves against her scalp. “Oh, my God. What are we going to do?”
I watch my fake fiancée panic for a whole minute before I say low, “Lilah, calm down.”
“I can’t calm down. My fake fiancé’s mom is on her way to stay in the same house as me!” Her hands slide from her hair to cover her face as she groans. “I don’t even share a room with you. She’s going to know this is a sham and everything will be ruined.”
“About that…”
She peeks through her fingers. “About what?”
“Sharing a room.” Her hands drop as mine lift in a gesture that is wholly placating. “Hear me out, yeah?”
She nods, but says nothing.
I continue, “My mother is an intuitive woman and I’m a thirty-six-year-old man who wouldn’t be marrying a woman I hadn’t confirmed I was sexually compatible with.” Damn, now I feel heat inmycheeks. I clear my throat. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“You want me to share a room with you?” Her words are hardly more than a whisper.
I scrub my hand down my face. “If we’re dancing around each other as we’ve been, not sharing a room, she’s going to know something is off. This changes nothing, Lilah.”
Lilah frowns, but she nods. “Okay.” She keeps nodding. “Okay.”
“She’s going to be here in an hour.”
My words spur her into action. One moment she’s standing in front of me in the kitchen. The next, she’s racing down the hall screaming about clean sheets and getting my ass in gear to move her stuff from her room into mine.
Before I know it, I’m hot on her trail with Senior hot on mine. I see flashes of Spook through it all. I draw the line at calling the poor thing Spookers.
She bosses and I take orders, bringing her things into my room and tucking it all away as though she’s always been here. It’s crazy, because as I hang the last dress in my closet beside my shirts, it feels like she always has.
29
THE LONG ANSWER
LILAH
Shana Alder is the kind of woman who feels good. I thought I’d be anxious and unsettled to meet my fake fiancé’s mother, but as soon as Briggs opened the door and she waltzed through to throw her arms around me and pull me into her chest, I instantly felt welcomed into her heart. A heart I learned throughout the night is utterly gigantic.
She strokes a hand with fingers bound by stacked rings of gold down the length of Spookers, who has made her lap his spot on the deck. The sun bowed to the moon long ago, but conversation is still going strong.
“He always did love the land,” she tells me with a small smile touched by the past. “Before he started tinkering with tech, I thought he’d end up back on a farm.” She sighs as she looks out over the rolling hillsnow mostly concealed by the blanket of night. “I don’t know why I never imagined he’d end up here.”
“Probably because I never came here,” Briggs says from where he sits close beside me, his arm thrown over the back of my seat. When he’d first sat down like that, my heart had fluttered. I’m not sure it ever stopped even hours later.
“Before this house was Daniel’s, it was your grandfathers. He was a good man.”
“I know.”
“He would have wanted you here.”
“Know that, too.” Briggs’ words are gruff, but they are wrapped in undeniable emotion.
