chapter 2
THE ALARM bleated a call that could easily wake the dead. Lucy rolled over and squinted at the clock. She’d managed to sleep through twenty minutes of its racket, yet didn’t feel a bit rested. What she did feel was sore and old. She pulled herself up in bed and turned the evil alarm clock off instead of punching it, hard—the damned thing had cost her twenty-three ninety-five, plus tax. She looked around at what had been her bedroom for the last six months and once again felt poor.
Sore and old and poor...life was good.
It was a room in her Gram’s house, actually the room her mother had grown up in. It had one little window, which she had forgotten to draw the curtains on, so now the afternoon sun was making the generic white walls glow like halogen floodlights. Her private bathroom had been bigger than this room.
She kicked off the covers and stumbled over a pair of black Dr. Scholl’s sneakers, and then walked gingerly on her always aching feet to The Smallest Closet in the World!
Of course, she was reminded, as she opened its door to the half-dozen mix-and-match Wal-Mart sales rack outfits that comprised her entire wardrobe, that she really didn’t need the space.
When the FBI and the IRS had returned to Lucy’s family’s house three days after they’d taken her father into custody, it hadn’t been to tell them why they’d taken him—though they’d found out at the arraignment that he was charged with money laundering, tax evasion, extortion and, on a horrifying side note, immigrant slave labor trafficking.
No, they came for the house, the cars (including her red Mustang) and then went room by room and took anything of value. In her case she lost absolutely everything. Every piece of jewelry, cell phone, and every item of clothing and pair of shoes—even her damn socks had been designer label. She got off with the tank-top/sweatpants ensemble she’d been wearing only because she was trying to work off some of her worry on the treadmill in the home gym.
They also froze all of her father’s assets, so all her mother left with was three hundred dollars in cash, no mode of transportation, and a suitcase of clothes that were deemed to have no value.
On the other hand, Lucy’s brother Seth left the house with almost everything he owned, including some of his video games.
She stood out on the sidewalk in front of their five-hundred-thousand-dollar Spanish villa style house with her mother and brother, waiting for the taxicab an agent had taken pity on them and called.
Her mother, Lila, had had two choices as she’d stood there waiting for the taxi. They could have probably afforded to stay in a flea bag hotel overnight, and then they’d be flat broke in the morning. Or, they could take a cab to the bus station and buy three tickets to her grandmother’s place in Four Corners—a tiny town about an hour east of their home in San Bernardino.
Standing in her bedroom in Four Corners, California, she took in the blue and yellow uniform that hung in her closet (replete with a tacky sun visor emblazoned with The Golden Arches) and was reminded again that she worked at McDonalds.
Her father had rolled over on his law partners, to secure a ten-year prison sentence served in a minimum-security facility. But that deal hadn’t included Uncle Sam returning any of her father’s assets to the family, so her mother was now a cocktail waitress in nearby Barstow, and Lucy had to take the bus just to get to work every day.
That alone had been an all too humbling experience, and the only thing she clung to now was the hope that one day she’d be able to buy herself a used piece-of-shit car. That way she could drive herself to McDonalds for the next ten to twenty years.
Dreams of marrying a multimillionaire or going to a good college had gone up in smoke months ago when she’d first taken the bus to work, had missed her stop, then had scrubbed a public toilet as her initiation into the fast food service industry. She had felt that her life had gone down that toilet the instant she’d flushed it.
And now, as she pulled her uniform on (amazingly Gram always seemed to be able to get the grease stains, and most importantly, the smell of McDonalds out of her uniform), her heart sank and shrank in her chest.
Today was her eighteenth birthday.
Happy Birthday!!!
As she pulled her still long, yet not nearly radiant, hair back in a tight ponytail, she considered for the hundredth time just calling off. But truthfully she had nothing else to do, and no one to do it with. She had no friends to go out with. She’d gone from teen queen to a complete nobody in her new high school—the new girl with a mean chip on her shoulder and discount clothes on her back. Her mother was working her usual Saturday night shift, and her grandmother was busy at a church bake sale. So calling off would mean being completely alone on her birthday.
And anyway, she had already seen the ugly truth: her life was pretty much over, and working on her birthday was just one more thing she’d have to get used to.
She trudged downstairs and poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot her grandmother had made fresh before she’d gone out. She was tempted to just drink it black. There would be no more apropos symbolic gesture for the turn her life had taken. But the mere thought of coffee without cream and sugar made her want to gag. So she made her coffee just as she always did—some milk and three sugars—and stood leaning against the worn metal and Formica kitchen counter, taking in the tattered yet spotless old kitchen, and the lonely silence of the house. Even her loser brother had friends in Four Corners, and he was staying the night with one of them as she sipped her coffee.
Another thing she’d lost that he hadn’t.
~*~
The bus ride from San Bernardino to Four Corners had only been the first of many trips she had taken on a bus. Though all buses looked alike, they certainly didn’t smell alike. Some smelled of feet and body odor. Some smelled of industrial strength air freshener (the driver’s halfhearted attempt at masking the stench. But that usually just made the bus smell like lilac scented gym socks).
But there was one driver—her name was Shirley—who actually kept her bus spotless, and Lucy always took a seat close to the front on the days she’d catch her bus.
Shirley talked to anyone and everyone, her curiosity seemingly boundless. The best part for Lucy, though, was that Shirley would just let you sit there in silence as she happily drove and chatted up others. Yet somehow she made you feel as if you were in on the conversation.
Today Lucy caught Shirley’s bus and she happily took her usual seat, fading into the scenery as Shirley told a rather old man with a wrinkled radish for a nose that her petunias were shriveling on the vine. “It’s just not natural,” she continued, pushing a large frizzy strand of her red hair out of her eyes. “I water them three times a week. I even have one of those Miracle Grow attachment doohickeys.”
Mr. Radish Nose scratched his ginormous red nose and then asked, “Are they in direct sunlight?”
“Well, of course they are!” Shirley smiled. “I read the packet the seeds came in.”
“Well, that’s true for out east. But for the climate out here the sun’s just too harsh. And though pretty and hearty, those things fare better in the shade in these parts.”
Shirley made a little humph noise, and then straightened her shoulders. “Makes sense.” She smiled into her rearview mirror at Mr. Radish Nose. “I’m off in two days, so I’ll go ahead and transplant them to the other side of the house. There’s a good shady spot right beneath my kitchen window.”
Mr. Radish Nose nodded his head in agreement.
Lucy smiled and caught Shirley’s bright green eyes looking at her. “Gotta work on your birthday, huh?”
Lucy’s jaw dropped and she shook her head. “How did you...?”
Shirley smiled knowingly as she smoothed her dark red hair back again into the little flip she’d styled it into. “When you’ve been doing this as long as I have, you can just tell. And the look on your face invariably means it’s your birthday, and you have to work.”
“You’re amazing. You should be on TV.”
Shirley gave a honking laugh. “I’d sure as blazes be better at it than that god awful Dr Phil.” She shook her shoulders with a chill. Lucy knew what would come next. “And that Oprah’s gotta know there’s a studio apartment waiting for her in hell for exposing the world to that lunatic.”
Shirley hated Dr. Phil with every ounce of her rather substantial, curvy body.
She pulled the bus over and said, “This is your stop, birthday girl.” And sure enough, as Lucy got out of her seat, waved goodbye to Shirley and then half tripped down the three little steps of the bus, there she stood under the Golden Arches.
She sighed. “Now my birthday is complete.”
~*~
McDonalds was bombarded with customers, and not the usual Saturday night crowd. This was pure chaos and mayhem, and at first Lucy was glad for it. The busier it was, the faster the time would fly by. But her assignment tonight (the grill) had her stuck over a hundred patties of scorched meat, and her hands and arms got burnt by the overly sizzling grease.
When it’s really busy, management will turn up the heat on the grill—to hell with corporate’s rules and regulations for the cooking of their prized beef patties. Management just wanted the burgers done and out the door with the customer.
End of story.
About an hour into this hot, smelly mess of special meat, she was coated with sweat and grease, and she had all sorts of tiny red welts all over her arms.
“Lucy!” Greg, her night shift manager yelled, though he was standing right beside her.
She looked up at him unenthusiastically—she no longer jumped in surprise at his all-too-often sudden outbursts. “Yeah, Greg?”
Greg was on the cusp of turning thirty, his hair was starting to recede, and he always looked like he was constipated. “Go to the cooler and get two containers of the Special Sauce...” He plucked the spatula from her hand. “I’ll watch the grill.”
“Okay.” She turned and started to walk away when Greg hollered again.
“Grab a bag of sandwich lettuce too.”
She nodded her head and waved that she’d heard him, but she didn’t bother to look back at him. She stayed close to the wall as she navigated further back into the bowels of the fast food restaurant. Twenty-three workers ran around like computer animated chickens with their heads chopped off, with no rhyme or reason, and just barely missed running right into each other.
She yanked open the cooler door, almost getting bowled over by an acne pocked kid named Gibson, and then slipped into the cool, clammy embrace of the walk-in cooler. If it wasn’t for the smell—an overtaxed refrigeration unit, fresh and rotting vegetables and fruits, the grease that coated every square inch of the store, and of course the mildew of refrigeration moistened cardboard boxes—she would enjoy the temperature dip.
Plus the unit itself made a white noise that blocked out all other noises. So it was kind of peaceful.
She stood there for a lovely moment and let the cold envelope her—and forgot that she was this Lucy now, and let a flash of her old life, the old radiant and amazing Lucy, warm her. She tried not to take a breath. This lasted for exactly ten seconds, and then she had to take one. That alone snapped her back to reality, and she started to move toward the shelves she needed to pull stock from.
First the bag of leaf lettuce. In most McDonald’s stores even the lettuce is pre-shredded and the tomatoes pre-sliced. All so everything about the burgers you buy are exactly like the burgers you get in any other McDonalds, anywhere you go.
Gram had said it’s called the Socialization of America. That it’s a real thing, and that’s why it’s taught in almost every college in the land. But since she wasn’t going to college...or anywhere else...she’d decided not to give the lettuce and tomatoes at McDonalds much thought.
The large plastic tubs of Special Sauce were only around five pounds apiece, yet they were not only physically cumbersome, but always rather slick and hard to hold onto.
She set down the bag of lettuce, picked up two jars of sauce—arranging them so her arms and her chest were holding them snugly in a pincer—and then grabbed the lettuce again. She pushed against the cooler door, yet it didn’t give a bit.
Nothing unusual. The door was notorious for sticking. So she put some muscle into pushing against it, but it still wouldn’t budge.
Shit! I’m so not getting trapped in the walk in cooler on my freaking birthday! I’m...she pushed against the big metal door with all her might...Just...she pushed again, really putting her back into it....Not!
The door swung open and she stumbled out, her arms full and her feet suddenly slipping-sliding beneath her. She skated and spun across the floor, amazingly missing all the other McDonalds workers, and crashed with a rather loud thud into the opposite wall. Her feet slipped out from under her and she dropped to the fetid tile floor with a sickening crunch.
~*~
“Hey, Lucy...wake up!” The guy’s voice was so familiar, yet it felt as if she hadn’t heard it in years. Her eyes snapped open—Jeff Haas knelt over her. His smile was wide and his eyes so pretty and happy to see her. Then she realized she was laying on the ground...correction, on the tiled floor of Mrs. Henderson’s Spanish class, and everyone from her old school—her old life—was clustered around her. Afternoon sunlight drizzled in sparkling rays through the large unadorned windows. The light played against Jeff’s cheek and made his eyelashes shine.
She felt tears well up in her eyes. She was so glad to see them all and the looks of worry etched on their faces. Had that all been just a bad dream?
“Sorry, Lucy,” Jeff said, running his fingers softly over her forehead. “I was just trying to surprise you for your birthday. You kinda jumped and fell down when you saw it.”
“Saw what?” She was so confused, and her head was spinning.
“Your gift.” Jeff’s smile was so bright and warm she couldn’t help but smile back at him.
Mrs. Henderson prodded her way through the assembled students and stooped down to look her hard in the eye. “The school nurse is on her way, and she’s called your father.”
“Daddy?” The thought of him coming there made her heart tap-dance in her chest. There was nothing she wanted more than to see him. That realization, that he was on his way, made it undeniably true. All of that—the FBI/incarceration/moving to Gram’s/working at McDonalds mess—had really all only been a really horrible, really annoying dream. And now that she thought of it, her head really did hurt. She’d probably hit it when she fell.
“See, Lucy. Everything’s fine. Your dad’s on his way, and it’s still your birthday.” Jeff’s wide smile turned shy and his brow did that sexy furrow thing it does when he’s unsure of himself. “So, you ready for your gift?”
“Presents!” She chimed as she sat up fast and felt her head throb with a burning pain. “Are you kidding? I’m all about the presents.”
“Okay,” Jeff said, and then turned and grabbed up something in his arms. When he turned back to her, Lucy cooed sweetly. In his arms was the cutest little golden retriever puppy. It was one of the few things she’d never been allowed to have. Her father was allergic.
But her smile hastily faded as she really looked at the little golden bundle of boundless joyful energy. It was dead. Not only was it dead, but it was missing an eye and blood was dried in a thick line from its mouth all the way across its chest.
But it was looking right at her, panting with its little puppy tongue hanging out, and its tail wagging.
“How do you like your gift?” Jeff said.
~*~
Lucy clawed and screamed her way out of the dream, her eyes opened wide and her head scalded with pain. She reached up to hold her head, but then her arm joined in on the pain-a-palooza. She was pressed up against the stained stucco wall, the greasy tiles cold and hard against her body.
At first everything else was a blur. Odd shapes hovered around her, and she heard voices. They were all talking about her. The only thing that was clear was a blackness that snaked around the periphery of her blurred vision. It faded into the din as she heard someone say, “I saw her come barreling out of the cooler.”
“Yeah, well, I think she was stuck in there,” said someone else. “I’ve had that happen before.”
“And don’t forget Brad and his pickle mishap. That shit was all over the floor.”
Gradually everything came into focus, and she felt cold and sticky, on top of the pain in her head, shoulder and arm. There was a tangy, sweet, totally nauseating smell. She looked down at herself and saw she was covered in special sauce. It dripped from her hands, was splattered over the black slacks she’d bought on sale at Wal-Mart, and had plastered her McDonalds polo shirt to her chest. She knew without looking that it was dripping from her chin, and a glob ran cold and wet down the lobe of her right ear.
“Shit Lucy!” Greg stood over her, eyes wide and his hands on his hips. He looked pissed. “Look at the mess you made.”
The pain in her head turned to a hot annoyance as she looked up slowly into Greg’s eyes. “Mess I made?” Her voice was low and strangely even sounding. “You sent me after too many things at once—”
“You should’ve made two—”
“I got stuck in there because you never had the latch on the door fixed, and I slipped because there was—” She looked over to the floor in front of the walk-in cooler. There were even some pickle slices shining green against the sandstone red tile. “Pickle juice on the floor!”
When she looked back up at Greg she saw him gulp.
She was about to point her finger at him and tell him her father’s lawyers were going to sue the shit out of him, and McDonalds, and the company that designed such a faulty latch, when the pain in her arm suddenly sparked to life again and raged like a bonfire. It sapped her words out of her head and replaced them with raw pain.
There was a long, cold silence, and then Greg said, “We’ll call an ambulance to take you to County.” His voice was thin and very polite.
A hospital! And doctors and tests and needles and...
“I’m fine!” she snapped, and Greg’s head jerked back at the force of her words. Seeing the sudden effect of her voice, she forced a fake smile on her face and pulled herself—though cringing at the nagging pain—up off the tile floor.
“I’m fine,” she said again, this time with smooth sweetness. All she wanted was to get the hell out of there, and go home. Her birthday had already been heinous enough; she’d rather not tempt fate anymore. And she wasn’t about to spend the night in the emergency room.
“I don’t know.” Greg was returning to form. And once Greg got it into his head about something, he always forced the issue. His beady eyes squinted down at her. “I think you should go to the hospital and get checked out.”
“I...am...fine!” That annoyed heat was back in her voice as she rounded on Greg, and practically spit each word at him. “I didn’t black out,”—which was a lie—“so I don’t need to go to a hospital!”
Her voice ricocheted off the walls like a shotgun blast. Greg’s eyes bugged out and then he cleared his throat. “You’ll have to sign a waiver,” he croaked.
“Fine...whatever.” She shifted her weight and almost fell back into the wall. She was dizzy, yet still on her feet...with the help of her hand gripping the wall. “Can you call my Gram to come drive me home?”
No way was she making it to the bus stop, not to mention all the way home, like this.
~*~
People whirled by in blurred colors and shapes as Lucy sat alone in the booth closest the side entrance. That’s where Gram would pick her up. It wasn’t the main entrance to McDonalds, so it was where the least amount of people could see her.
The globs of special sauce on her chin and ear were easy enough to remove. She’d tried unsuccessfully to clean the special sauce from her shirt; the goop had soaked into the fabric. She could have asked if someone had a shirt they could loan her, but she was so tired, and her arm was throbbing incessantly. She sat in the booth and shivered as the air conditioning made the special sauce cold on her chest.
She was glad though. Glad that at least that that had been the worst of it. Her birthday had delivered pain and degradation in spades. Now all there was to do was go home and take a long hot shower, and then crawl into bed.
One of the blurs of movement stopped right in front of her, and she looked up to see a beautiful couple in a lover’s embrace, kissing like it was the end of a big budget romantic comedy.
She closed her eyes. At least someone’s getting it right. But when she opened her eyes again they stared down at her with mirrored expressions of revulsion on their faces.
Their faces...so familiar...oh crap!
Lucy’s ex-boyfriend, Jeff Haas, and her ex-best friend, Tara Minger, stood clutching each other, the looks of shock and horror clear and nightmarish on their faces. But Tara didn’t remain shocked for long. And with a practiced and horribly malicious smile, she held her perfectly manicured hand to her chest—the chest that had magically grown two cup sizes in six months, and clad in a thin silk sweater that looked like it had been woven onto her body by the demented monks of Playboy Magazine.
“Lucy Hart...is that really you?” She turned her head and made with a faux embarrassed bat of her eyes lashes. “Omigod! I so thought you were just some homeless person.”
Cold tingles ran down her arms, and her heart literally fluttered in horror. The only thing that warmed her was the burning sensation that had bloomed across her face. She took a breath, ready to say something, but then she got a look at Jeff.
Jeff’s face wasn’t cruel, like Tara’s. No, the look on Jeff’s face knocked the air out of Lucy’s lungs and made each beat of her heart painful. It was pity she saw in her ex-boyfriend’s eyes. And as he looked away from her and then slowly shuffled away to the ordering counter, she could well imagine what he was thinking.
How did she let herself get like that?
I can’t believe I wanted to sleep with that.
Thank god I didn’t...oh thank god...
Tara stood there, lean and strong and so well dressed. Her hand on her hip, her long shiny blonde hair tossed with practiced perfection as she pursed her lips.
“Lots has happened since you left.” She gave a happy little laugh. “Did you really have to leave town on a freaking bus?”
Lucy felt the weight of the world pushing down on her, and that at any moment she would be pulverized into the vinyl seat of the booth. Please, she prayed, tears welling up in her eyes. Pulverize me now...
“Oh well,” Tara chirped. “Back to the real world. I’m captain of the cheer squad now, and we’re so ready to go to state. I mean, I’m not knocking your leadership skills, but I know this is going to be our best year ever!” The manic cheerleader intensity in her voice spiraled in the air and practically dripped sparklers and confetti. But then her voice dropped to a smooth, robust growl.
“And if you didn’t catch the show, Jeff’s mine now.”
Even though she hadn’t let herself contemplate Jeff in months, she felt this horrible pang of despair at Tara’s words, and the cruel curl of her freshly glossed lips.
She gritted her teeth and forced down the sob that was trying like hell to burst free from her lips.
We were friends...how can you be so mean?
She learned that from the master, an inner voice said. You reap what you sow.
Tara leaned down closer to Lucy and the friendly smile evaporated. “And unlike you, I take care of my man’s needs.” Her eyes sparkled and the curl came back to her lips—she was enjoying herself.
Tara’s voice pitched into a dangerous whisper. “And I’ve been taking care of his needs since the night your daddy got arrested.”
Lucy stared hard into Tara’s eyes, and the heat in her face moved suddenly to inside her head. She sat up and glared into Tara’s big, pretty eyes.
“Well then, he’s all yours,” She moved forward until their faces were almost touching. “But did he tell you what I had him doing when the FBI crashed the party?”
Tara’s eyes opened wide and her mouth turned into a grim line. “What do you mean?” She stood up straight again and glowered down at her.
“Just...if Jeff really is yours, then he’ll tell you what we were doing that night.” She smiled even though her head throbbed and her arm screamed for mercy. “And if he really is all yours, then he’ll let you do it to him too.”
Tara huffed and folded her arms over her surgically enhanced chest. “Why would I want to play one of your tired old games? I already said I’m satisfying all his needs.”
Lucy leaned back, exhausted but feeling the old satisfaction she’d get from manipulating other’s lives. “Well, every need but...that one.”
Raw anger drew a hard blank stare on Tara’s face. It made Lucy feel just a tiny bit better. Impoverished, working at McDonalds, covered in special sauce, she could still knock someone down a peg or two. But then Tara’s smile came back, and it wasn’t fake. She was suddenly very happy.
“Too bad your convict father left you so high and dry you have to work in a grease pit like this.” She flipped her golden locks as she turned to walk over to where Jeff stood mute, and still red-faced embarrassed. “You used to be so pretty.” She stopped and slowly peered over her shoulder at Lucy, her smile brilliant. “Have a nice life, you dumpster-diving freak!”
~*~
Gabriel hadn’t slept much all week. He had entirely too much on his plate, and far too many concerns whirled around in his mind. Ever since Delia concocted her plan, things had gone all wrong. The instant she unveiled her scheme to him, to hire some woman to play the part of his secret fiancée, his mother declared that she knew he was hiding something—and she correctly guessed that it was a girl.
Thus, procuring a false fiancée became not just an insane idea, but seemingly their only option.
But Gabriel didn’t have the contacts or the expertise in such covert, dishonest, and probably illegal enterprises. That was why he’d hesitantly enlisted the aid of his most trusted advisor and friend, his Uncle Dante.
Though Dante was his father’s brother, he had always taken Gabriel’s side in matters, even encouraging his brother to relinquish the CEO position at Enoch Industries to Gabriel in the last year. When Dante had inadvertently found out about Delia, he’d raged at Gabriel for such poor judgment, and for endangering everyone he held dear, including Delia.
He was also a lawyer, Gabriel’s lawyer, not to mention the head of Enoch Industries legal division, so covert wrangling and deception were nothing new to him.
Yet above all else, Dante was his uncle, and his closest ally.
That said…he was currently having a hard time overlooking his uncle’s abrupt loss of his senses. He hadn’t expected Dante to go out trolling for potential brides-to-be, but he had never imagined he would recruit someone of such low character to subcontract to.
“Francis?” Gabriel groused, his gaze burning a hole through his uncle. “Of all the scum-of-the-earth degenerates you could have reached out to, you picked him?”
They were in Dante’s office at Enoch industries. The walls were painted a warm brown that was almost a peach. The furnishings were antique art deco, with clean lines carved out of rich woods. And though not cluttered, the entire room was used—photos of family and friends, Dante’s law degree, Chamber of Commerce awards, a few pieces of avant-garde art, even a pewter wolf sitting on its haunches, muzzle raised as if baying at the moon.
Dante raised one eyebrow in mock surprise. “He is loyal to me.”
“Loyal! Are you joking? My entire life I have heard about him cheating on his wife, cheating on his taxes, and every other possible dubious act. I just can’t believe he isn’t in prison yet.”
“You confuse loyalty to one’s spouse with loyalty brought on by fear.”
It was Gabriel’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”
Unflappable and smooth as usual, Dante smiled and spread his hands out. “Just that committing dalliances in your marriage has little to do with how reliable you are to those you fear.”
“Fear…Francis fears you?” Gabriel was astonished. Certainly his uncle was of the most dangerous breeds of attorney’s—a real shark—but how that mental prowess translated to being able to intimidate a bottom feeder like Francis was unclear.
“Believe me,” Dante mussed, “between what I know about him, and how I have…punished him in the past, he will do anything I tell him to.”
A chill ran up Gabriel’s spine as he stared into Dante’s eyes. Obviously there was still much he didn’t know about his uncle. And from the cool satisfaction in his voice as he came right out and said he’d “punished” Francis, he wasn’t anxious to find out what he was missing. The image of his uncle wielding a whip or a switchblade made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
Gabriel cleared his throat and finally looked away from his uncle. “I just hope he can find a viable candidate. She will have to be cultured as well as beautiful.”
“And she’ll have to be a good actress.”
Gabriel laughed bitterly. “Because pretending to be my fiancée will be such an unpleasant experience.”
“That too,” Dante replied, apparently not getting the sarcasm in his nephew’s voice. Or maybe he actually believed playing the part of Gabriel’s fiancée would be an arduous task. “But mostly to fool the rest of the family...specifically your mother and father.”
The two men locked gazes for a moment, and then grumbled: “Especially her.”