I am to women fighting over me, please, don’t get yourselves into an uproar. There’s no need.”
“But you deserve someone special,” Eden said with a warm smile.
“To hell with that. We need to get you off the market so all the single women quit trying to glom onto our guys after you’re done with them,” Livi said with a wicked laugh.
“Not necessary.”
“Why?” Alexia shifted in her chair and angled her head to give him a narrow look. “Are you seriously involved with someone?”
Taylor opened his mouth to offer an affirmative before making the mistake of looking into Alexia’s eyes. Damn it. He couldn’t lie. Not to her. Not when he cared.
“I am seeing someone,” he said instead, sidestepping the truth enough that guilt danced right on by. After all, he’d had a great view of a sexy blonde when he’d rolled out of her bed two weeks ago. There was the other blonde working the counter at the pizza place a few weeks back who’d provided dessert along with extra pepperoni.
Hell, he’d seen at least a dozen women in the past couple of months. On the low side, but the mission had meant he was gone for ten days.
“You’re dating someone?” Alexia clarified, her narrowed eyes echoing the doubt in her tone. “Seriously dating someone?”
Taylor only hesitated for a heartbeat before widening his smile.
“Serious as a heart attack.” That was about what it would take for him to date anyone seriously.
“Taylor...” Livi leaned close, her new-mom instincts obviously smelling the lie. “You’re telling us that you, the perpetual bachelor, are seriously dating a woman? As in, you’ve gone out with her more than twice, you’ve had a conversation that lasted longer than fifteen minutes and you’d consider introducing her to your mother.”
Why did she have to bring his mother into it?
Taylor’s mom had pounded the virtue of truthfulness into him from a young age. But four years of special ops training, nine in the Navy and six days as a prisoner of war should help him overcome that little issue.
So he did what he’d learned so well to do.
He lied.
“Sure am.”
After exchanging looks with the other women, Alexia smiled.
“Good,” she said.
“Good?” Whew. He lifted his beer, surprised that it’d gone that easy.
“Yes, good,” Alexia said with a smile. “You can bring her to the bonfire Saturday night.”
Taylor was fast, but he couldn’t think of an excuse before Sage reached over to give him a hug.
“Just go with it or they’ll be fixing you up with every single woman they know,” she whispered into his ear. “Agree and escape.”
Run? The idea went against everything in him, against his every belief. Then he looked at the eager faces of the women around him, saw the questions and doubts in their eyes.
“Sure. No problem.” Before anyone could call him on that, he lifted his beer. “First, a refill and then I’ll give her a call.”
Turning on the heel of his boot, he did something he’d never thought possible. He ran.
And wondered, where the hell he was going to find a fake girlfriend?
* * *
“CATARINA MARGARITE.”
Middle-naming her?
Chin sinking until her shoulders damn near cupped her ears, Cat Peres winced. Crouched down on the side of her mother’s house next to the crawl space access, she slid her eyes to the left then the right.
Nobody in sight.
Slowly, as if the slightest shift of her hair would alert the world, she turned her head to the east then the west.
Nobody there, either.
Thank God.
Cat was a strong woman. A brave woman.
She’d spent one windy winter working the high beam. She had a black belt in karate. And she made her living intimidating big, burly men sporting power tools.
But the sound of her middle name ringing out from her childhood home? It sent a cold chill down her spine.
She wasn’t ashamed of that.
She might be strong and brave, but her mother was a scary woman.
Unwilling to risk a repeat, she shot to her feet. Hammer still in hand, she sprinted up the cement steps and yanked open the screen door. Even as she made a mental note to oil the hinges, she dashed across the kitchen, her sneakers sliding on the wet tiles. Arms pin-wheeling, she struggled to keep her balance.
“Holy crap.”
“Catarina,” her mother snapped. “Watch your mouth.”
“Right. Sorry.” Pulling a face, Cat stopped in the doorway between the tiled kitchen and carpeted living room to take off her slick shoes. “I didn’t realize you’d mopped.”
“It’s Thursday.”
Thursday? Already? Cat grabbed the cell phone out of the back pocket of her jeans and pressed her thumb to the home button. Freakin’-A. It really was Thursday.
Laundry was done on Monday, dusting on Tuesday, bathrooms Wednesday and floors Thursday. Cat knew the other days got their own chores, too, but she’d managed to block those out. Another few years living on her own and maybe she’d forget the rest, too.
Sliding her thumb over the screen, she started to pull up her schedule as she moved into the living room.
“Clean your tracks,” her mother instructed as soon as her foot hit the carpet. Cat sighed and, still reading her phone, did an about-face toward the broom closet.
“You can’t do a proper job with that phone clutched in your fist,” her mother called out, proving once again that her X-ray vision could see through walls.
Rolling her eyes, Cat slipped the phone into her pocket and got to work removing evidence of her slide across the floor. As she mopped, she went over the schedule, trying to figure out how she could be in San Diego and El Cajon at the same time. She was overseeing four jobs next week, two small enough that she could set up the crew and go, but as lead carpenter on one and job supervisor on the other, her presence was sort of vital. She wished Marco would get his act together and schedule these jobs right. She had no problem calling the San Diego couple and rescheduling, but then she’d have to listen to another one of Marco’s fanatical customer relation lectures.
Debating, she tucked the mop away.
“Hey, Mom? Is tonight Aunt Ceecee’s book
