Hopefully he’d win, she thought as she headed toward the kitchen, because she was waging that battle herself and didn’t appear to be headed for a victory. Maybe he had enough willpower and self-control for both of them.
Other than a little morning chit-chat with Gram, neither of them spoke as they ate breakfast and headed off to work—with him driving her truck again. But after ten minutes on the road with fifteen more to go, she couldn’t take it anymore. “Why are you mad at me?”
He didn’t look at her. “I’m not mad.”
“You’re not happy.”
His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “That was no practice kiss.”
“I know it wasn’t. I was trying to give us a reason not to talk about it.”
“Oh. So you don’t think we should talk about it?”
“I thought guys hated talking things out.”
He drummed his fingers on the wheel. “I just don’t want you getting any ideas, that’s all.”
Getting any ideas? Emma was speechless for a moment, unable to believe he’d actually said that. “Since I was walking away from you when you spun me around and kissed me, I’d say
you’re
the one getting ideas.”
“Of course I’m getting ideas. You’re hot and I’m not dead. But I know enough not to confuse lust with anything else.”
She snorted and looked out her window. “Oh yes, Sean Kowalski. Your amazing kisses have made all rational thought fly out of my besotted brain. If only you could fill me with your magic penis, I know we’ll fall madly in love and live happily ever after.”
The truck jerked and she glanced over to find him glaring at her. “Don’t ever say that again.”
“What? The madly in love or the happily ever after?”
“My penis isn’t magic.” His tone was grumpy, but then he smiled at the windshield. “It does tricks, though.”
“The only trick your penis needs to know for the next three and a half weeks is
down boy.
” How the hell had she gotten herself into this conversation? “To get back to the point, if you think I have any interest in a real relationship with a guy who thinks he’s a better driver than me just because I have breasts, you’re insane.”
“It’s not because you have breasts. Women don’t drive as well because they lack a magic penis.”
She turned toward the passenger door, letting him know with her body language she had no interest in talking to him anymore. “Why didn’t I tell Gram I was dating Bob from the post office?”
He laughed at her. “You’ve met the Kowalskis. You were doomed the minute you said the name out loud.”
Doomed, she thought, glaring at the passing scenery. That was a good word for it.
“Oh, what a lovely home!”
Sean pulled into his aunt and uncle’s driveway and killed the engine. “Thanks, Cat. My cousin Joe bought it for them after his horror novels started landing on the
New York Times’
bestseller list on a regular basis.”
“It’s big, which must come in handy with all those grandchildren.”
All those grandchildren she was about to meet, Sean thought, resisting the urge to beat his head against the steering wheel. He wasn’t too worried about Steph, Joey and Danny, but Brian and Bobby were loose cannons. To say nothing of Aunt Mary.
The introductions didn’t go too badly. His uncle’s gruff humor put Cat at ease and his aunt was warm and welcoming, even though Sean knew she had serious reservations about the whole thing.
“I’m Bobby,” a young voice piped up and it seemed like everybody but Cat sucked in a breath at the same time. “Guess what?”
“What?” Cat said, seemingly oblivious to the frantic hand gestures being waved in Bobby’s direction.
“Sean’s my cousin. He got out of the army a long time ago and he lives with Emma and he’s going to marry her.”
Joey, Mike’s oldest boy, laughed and put his arm around his little brother to not-so-subtly start dragging him away. “They have telephones in Florida, dummy. Mrs. Shaw already knows that.”
Lisa stepped forward before Bobby could argue. “Now that you kids have all said hello to Mrs. Shaw, you can go to the basement and play your game.”
Bobby jumped up and down. “Sean bought us Rock Band for the Wii and all the instruments, so we’re going to have a Rock Band Tournament of Doom.”
Sean hadn’t known he bought the kids a bunch of video game crap, but he couldn’t very well argue the point. No doubt Mike and the rest would just put it on his tab.
Luckily, Cat and Aunt Mary seemed to hit it off pretty easily and—since Cat didn’t seem in imminent danger of asking Mary outright if his and Emma’s engagement was real—Sean started to relax.
They all went out to the backyard, where the women took over the chairs on the deck and the men gathered around the grill. It wasn’t time to start cooking yet, but gathering around the cold grill was better than sitting with the women.
“Mary’s been a wreck about this for days,” Leo said, for once managing to lower his voice so the whole neighborhood wouldn’t hear him.
“I know she didn’t want to do this.” Sean watched the women laugh at something Cat said. Or, more specifically, he watched Emma laugh. “I’ll make it up to her somehow.”
They talked about the usual stuff. The Red Sox. How deep into summer vacation they’d get before Lisa’s grip on her sanity started slipping. Evan’s new truck, which he’d bought in white because Terry said not to buy a white one because they were impossible to keep clean. How Evan and Terry’s marriage counseling was going.
Joe nudged Sean’s arm. “I swear, I could tell time by how often Emma looks at you just by counting off the seconds.”
Sean resisted the urge to turn and look. “She’s nervous, that’s all.”
“That’s not nerves.”
“I think I know her better than you do.”
Joe laughed. “You’ve known her a week.”
“Ten days.”
“Hate to burst your bubble, but I’ve known her longer than ten days. Not well, but I’ve run into her at Mike and Lisa’s. Not that it matters. That look on a woman’s face is pretty universal.”
“There’s no look.”
“Oh, there’s a look,” Kevin said.
“There might be a look,” Leo added.
“Mike and I can’t see,” Evan added. “We’re facing the wrong way. We could turn around, but she might wonder why we’re all staring at her.”
Even though he figured his cousins were pulling his leg, Sean angled his body a little so he could see her in his peripheral vision.
Okay, so she was looking at him. A lot. But Joe and Kevin were still full of crap because there was no
look.
The glances were too quick to read anything into, never mind the kind of message they were implying she was sending.
He watched her watching him for a while, and then Aunt Mary told them to get the meat ready so they could fire the grill. Since his cousins made for more than enough chefs stirring the soup and he needed a break from the visual game of tag he and Emma were playing, he grabbed a beer and made his way to the big tool shed. It was the unofficial Kowalski man cave, where females feared to tread. Even Aunt Mary would just stand outside and bellow rather than cross the threshold.
It smelled of the old motor oil dripped onto and soaked into the wooden floor and the stack of wood next to the old woodstove meant to ensure that, even in the cold months, there was a place a man could go for a few minutes of peace and quiet. The walls were lined with shelves of old mason jars containing nuts and bolts and screws and washers and all the other debris a good tool shed collected over time.
Sean cracked open his beer, flipped on the ancient radio and perched on one of the bar stools somebody had probably lifted from Jasper’s. He was too wound up to sit still, though, so he set down his beer and got up to investigate the current project, which appeared to be rebuilding the snowblower’s engine.
He was in the process of using gasoline and a wire brush to clean some gunked-up bolts when the door opened and his uncle walked in. “Hey, Uncle Leo.”
“Thought I might find you out here.” He inspected Sean’s work and nodded in approval. “I’ve been teaching the boys to turn a wrench here and there. Steph used to help me out sometimes, too, but now her thumbs are too busy with that texting crap to twist a bolt.”
“I should ask her how to run this damn phone I bought. I can do phone calls with it, but that’s about it.”
Leo grabbed another brush and pulled up a milk crate next to Sean. “So how you doing?”
“Not bad, I guess, considering what I let myself get dragged into.”
“No, son. How are you
really
doing?”
Sean shrugged and grabbed a rag to wipe off some diluted gunk. “I’m doing okay. Lot of guys—and women—had it worse than me over there. I was lucky and now I’m out, no worse for wear.”
“Thought about what you’re going to do when this charade of yours is over?”
“Probably the same thing I planned to do before this charade started. Get a job pounding nails somewhere until I figure out where I want to land.”
“Your aunt’s got it in her head you and Emma have chemistry.”
Sean snorted and stood to stretch his legs and reach his beer. “Between deployment and being sucked in by Typhoon Emma, I haven’t had a chance to sow my wild oats in a good, long time. Trust me, right now I’ve got chemistry with a telephone pole.”
The last thing he wanted was chemistry with Emma Shaw—especially chemistry strong enough for other people to notice.
“Leo?” Aunt Mary yelled from outside. “Are you in that damn shed again? Is Sean in there with you? It’s time to eat.”
“Oops.” Sean wiped his hands the best he could on a semi-clean rag. “Busted.”
“Listen, if you need to talk about…anything, you know where to find me.”
“Thanks, Uncle Leo.” He put out his hand, but instead of shaking it, Leo used it to pull him in for an awkward hug and a slap on the back.
“I’m proud you served, but I’m damn glad to have you home.”
Sean would have said something, but his throat had tightened up on him so he just gave the old man’s shoulders a squeeze and nodded.
“Sean Michael Kowalski!”
“You better go,” his uncle said, releasing him, “before she gets her wooden spoon and storms my castle.”
It was almost the end of the evening before Cat managed to get Mary alone in the kitchen. If she didn’t know better, she’d almost think Sean’s aunt was avoiding her.
“Wonderful meal, Mary.”
The other woman spun around, clutching a box of aluminum foil. “Oh! You startled me. And thank you, though the boys did most of it.”
“I’ll have to beg that marinade recipe from you.” Cat leaned against the counter and crossed her arms. “So why are my granddaughter and your nephew pretending to be engaged?”
Clearly caught off guard, Mary was silent for a few seconds. Then her expression cleared. “They’re not pretending. He asked her to marry him and she said yes. That’s engaged.”
Mary went back to dividing up leftovers and Cat narrowed her eyes at the woman’s back. The question hadn’t surprised Mary at all. She hadn’t wanted to know why Cat would think that or what would possess her to ask such a thing. Obviously there was a conspiracy afoot.
“Okay,” she said after a moment’s thought, “why are they pretending they’ve been in love and living together for over a year?”
Mary practically flinched and Cat watched the tips of her ears turn a darkish pink. “Sean’s been a part of your granddaughter’s life for a long time.”
Though it was artfully done, Cat could tell Mary was skirting around the truth. “How long ago did Sean get out of the army?”
“Oh, he’s been out awhile. Would you care for more cobbler? I swear I made enough to feed the entire neighborhood.”
“No, thank you. Have Sean and Emma been living together for a year and a half?”
“It’s been…oh, I don’t know. I can barely keep track of my own four kids and all the grandkids.”
She was good. Very good. “We hadn’t even left the airport yet and I knew they weren’t a couple. Or if they were, they hadn’t even been dating long enough to get to second base. What I haven’t been able to figure out is why?”
Mary turned to face her and leaned back against the counter with a sigh, her arms crossed. “If Emma felt a need to invent a relationship with Sean—and I’m not saying she did—maybe she thought
you
couldn’t be happy until
she
was happy.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” Or maybe it did.
Thinking back on their many telephone conversations, Cat realized she may not have done a very good job of hiding how much she worried about Emma. She was always asking her about the house and if she’d had the furnace checked and admonishing her not to clean the gutters alone or climb a ladder or…a hundred other things. And she’d probably said the big, old house was too much for Emma more than once.
And, looking back, maybe she
had
relaxed a little when Emma told her she was dating a really nice guy. Once Sean had supposedly moved in, she’d probably stopped using their time on the phone to fret and had talked about herself and how much she was enjoying Florida instead.
Cat sighed and shook her head. “You must all think I’m a pathetic, doddering old woman for my granddaughter to feel a need to put everybody through this.”
“No, we don’t think that at all.” She looked sincere. “Emma loves you and she didn’t want you worrying about her. Obviously it got out of hand. But for what it’s worth, I think Sean’s very attracted to her.”
Cat thought about that for a minute. “Emma’s definitely attracted to him.”
“They make a lovely couple, and I wouldn’t mind seeing Sean settle down. I’m tired of worrying about that boy.”
“If I tell them I know they’re lying, Sean will leave and go back to whatever he was doing before.”
“He hadn’t had a chance to do anything yet. He hasn’t been out of the army very long and he was going to stay over Kevin’s bar until he figured out what to do with his life.” Mary paused and then smiled. “I think it’s a very good idea not to let on you know.”
“This could be fun.”
Mary Kowalski’s smile spread into a grin that rivaled her sons’. “Oh, it will be.”
“Have you two set a date yet?”
Mrs. Kowalski’s question sent Emma’s iced tea rushing down the wrong pipe and she coughed until Sean pounded her on the back—maybe a little more enthusiastically than was required.
“No, we haven’t,” Sean answered while she attempted to clear her throat. “Nothing wrong with a long engagement.”
“But not too long,” Gram said. “I’m ready for some great-grandchildren.”
“I wouldn’t mind a grandnephew or niece, either,” Mrs. Kowalski added.
Emma wasn’t sure, but she thought Sean might have stopped breathing. “We’ll think about it.”
“Hey,” Mike interjected, “you could get married while Mrs. Shaw’s home from Florida! A justice of the peace and a big, rented canopy. Couple of barbeque grills.”
Emma was afraid Sean was going to chuck his glass at his cousin—who was obviously enjoying himself—so she laid her hand on his arm. It twitched under her fingers, but she turned her attention to Mike. “I don’t really want a burgers-in-the-backyard kind of wedding.”
“What kind of wedding do you want?” Mary asked.
“A big one,” Emma said. “They take a long time to plan.”
“And to save up for,” Sean added.
“I bet Stephanie would love to be a bridesmaid,” Terry said with an angelic smile.
Emma squirmed on the inside, though she did her best to hide it. Sean’s family was brutal. They were doing their part in the deception, but they were having way too much fun with it, too.
They were all on the back deck, watching the kids play a very unstructured, rules-free game of badminton. It should have been a relaxing end to a fabulous meal, but all Emma could think about was getting the hell out before she had a total nervous breakdown.
“I still have a stack of bridal magazines and catalogs,” Keri said. “We’ll have to get together and have a wedding planning party.”
They were diabolical, every last one of them. “Maybe. This is my busy season at work, but…maybe.”
“Of course she’ll make time,” Gram assured Joe’s wife, while reaching over to pat Emma’s knee. “Weddings are so exciting!”
“You know what’s exciting? The Red Sox bullpen,” Leo said in that loud voice of his, and Emma wanted to jump up and kiss him for changing the subject as the women rolled their eyes and the men started talking over each other.
Twenty minutes later, Gram yawned and Emma jumped on it like a starving woman jumping on a cheeseburger. “It’s been a long day. We should probably get going.”
Cat chattered about Sean’s family all the way home, while Emma slumped in her seat, thankful the ordeal was over. They’d survived and now she was exhausted.
When they finally parked in front of the house, Gram went in while Emma and Sean took their time gathering the army’s worth of leftovers Mary had sent home with them.