“What did she tell you it was?”
“She was kind of hinting around that maybe you could pretend to be the boyfriend.”
“That almost sounds sane.” He gave a short laugh. “The plan’s now evolved into me moving in with her and pretending to be her fiancé for an entire month.”
She didn’t meet his eyes. “Maybe she did mention that, too, but she laughed, so I thought she was kidding.”
“Nope.” Sean folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the house. He should go back in and see if there was any blueberry cobbler left. Emma Shaw was nothing but a weird blip on his radar and he should forget her. But it didn’t seem she was a forgettable woman. “So what’s her deal, anyway?”
“Her grandmother kept talking about selling the house because she’s afraid it’s too much for Emma. Emma doesn’t want a different house, so she made up a guy.”
“Making up a guy would almost be normal. She made up an imaginary life for me. That’s not normal.”
“It’s a really nice house.” He just looked at her until she laughed and shrugged. “Okay, it’s crazy, but—”
“But it’s all out of love for her poor, sweet grandmother. Yeah, I got that part.”
The look she gave him let him know she hadn’t missed his less-than-flattering tone. It was a look that probably would have cowed him if he had to live with her, sleep beside her and depend on her for a hot meal. But he didn’t, so he grinned and gave her a wink.
She blew out a breath and then her face grew serious. “Emma’s parents were killed in a car accident when she was four, on their way to do some Christmas shopping. Cat and John—her grandfather, who died about ten years ago—were watching Emma. When the state police gave them the bad news, they didn’t even consider giving her up. They were all she had and, as their friends enjoyed their empty nests and started traveling and retiring, the Shaws started all over with a grieving four-year-old.”
“I’m sure they’re nice people, Lisa, but come on.”
“Cat tried to hide how much she wanted to go down to Florida with her friends, but Emma knew. And it took her an entire year to convince her it was okay to go. And even then, every time they talked on the phone, Cat talked about moving back to New Hampshire because Emma was alone and the house was too big for one person and there was too much lawn to mow and this whole list of stuff. So Emma made up a man around the house and Cat was free to enjoy her book clubs and line-dancing classes.”
Sean was going to point out the rather significant difference between lying about having a boyfriend and asking a stranger to move in for a month, but his aunt stepped outside and closed the slider behind her.
“I knew I’d find you out here.” She smiled to let him know she wasn’t offended he’d try to sneak a few quiet minutes away from his own welcome-home dinner. “What are you two talking about?”
“I ran into a friend of Lisa’s today,” he told her, enjoying the way Lisa’s eyes got big and she started trying to communicate with him by way of frantic facial expressions behind her mother-in-law’s back. “Emma Shaw.”
“Emma Shaw… Oh! The one who does the landscaping, right?” Lisa nodded. “She’s such a nice girl, but I haven’t seen her in ages. Not since I ran into you two at the mall and overheard you talking about her engagement. How are she and her fiancé doing?”
Lisa opened her mouth, but closed it again when Sean folded his arms and looked at her, waiting to see how—or even if—she was going to get out of the conversation without lying outright to Aunt Mary.
“I…think they’re having some problems,” she finally said. Nice hedge, if a bit of an understatement.
“Oh, that’s too bad. What’s her fiancé’s name? I meant to ask that day, but you started talking about some shoe sale and I forgot.”
It was a few seconds before Lisa sighed in defeat. “Sean.”
“Isn’t that funny,” Mary said, smiling at him before turning back to her daughter-in-law. “What’s his last name? Maybe I know his family.”
That was a pretty safe bet.
“She told her grandmother she was dating our Sean,” Lisa mumbled.
When his aunt pinned him with one of those looks that made grown Kowalski men squirm, Sean held up his hands. “I had nothing to do with it. I didn’t even know.”
“How could you not know you were engaged?”
“I was in Afghanistan. And I met her for the first time a few hours ago.”
Her eyebrows knit. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s nothing, really,” Lisa said. “She didn’t want her grandmother to worry about her, so she told her she had a boyfriend and Sean’s name was the first one that came to mind.”
“That’s crazy.”
Sean grinned at Lisa. “Told ya.”