“Hey, Pris, you going to the retirement party next week?” Ethan asked her. The captain in charge of the B shift at Station 59 was hanging up his hat.
“I can’t. I have to attend…you know, a family event. My cousin’s wedding is coming up, and she’s having this froufrou dinner for all the bridesmaids at the Mansion.” Priscilla poked at a stump. Sparks flew out of it. “Someone douse this thing.”
“Ooo, the Mansion.” Otis strolled over with the booster line and sprayed down the stump. “I always wanted to go there. Need a date?”
Priscilla laughed. “Ruby wouldn’t like that.” Ruby was Otis’s girlfriend and about to become wife number three. “Besides, my mother has a list of eligible candidates, should I want a date to this shindig. Which I don’t.”
“Uh-oh,” Ethan said. “Sounds like your mother is still trying to fix you up.”
Priscilla cringed inwardly. It must seem to everyone else that she couldn’t get her own dates. The fact was, Priscilla didn’t want to hook up with anybody. Her job kept her plenty busy. When she wasn’t at the station, she was training for her paramedic certification. But her mother was concerned about her, worried that her only child was lonely after a nasty breakup last year.
Most of the time Priscilla refused her mother’s matchmaking attempts. But occasionally she gave in—just to keep the peace. Since all the other bridesmaids would have husbands or boyfriends in attendance at the dinner, Priscilla would probably end up agreeing to a fix-up this time.
“Why don’t you tell your mother to knock it off?” Ethan asked.
The question made perfect sense. Priscilla was not exactly shy and retiring when it came to telling people what to do. She knew she had a reputation as the C shift control freak, always trying to organize things to her satisfaction.
But telling her mother what to do was a whole different plate of deviled eggs. Lorraine Garner was an unstoppable force.
“I don’t want to hurt her feelings,” Priscilla said. “She tries so hard and she only wants me to be happy. I try to tell her I don’t want a boyfriend….” And at this point she slid a look toward Roark, who had stopped talking with Murph and was blatantly eavesdropping. Damn. “But she assumes I’m pining away because I’m not attached. Going out on an occasional fix-up is easier than arguing.”
And she didn’t want to argue with her mother. She’d been a rebellious teenager, angry at the world, and she’d hurt her parents more than she’d realized with her obstinate determination to do things her way and have her misplaced revenge. Now that she was older and supposedly wiser, she tried to be more careful about balancing her wants and needs with their sensibilities. They were, after all, the only family she was likely to have, given her dismal track record with the opposite sex.
Ethan got a roll of yellow caution tape and tied one end to a fence post. “Would your mother lay off if you had a boyfriend?”
“Sure. I mean, I think so.” When Priscilla had been dating Cory Levine the previous year and it appeared to be serious, her mother had been so happy. “But I don’t have a boyfriend and I don’t want one. Who has time, anyway? I don’t see how you newlyweds do it.” Ethan and Tony had both tied the knot during the past few months.
“How about a pretend boyfriend then?” Ethan suggested. “Tell your mom you’re seeing someone.”
“I’ve thought of that. But a fictional boyfriend won’t cut it. She’d have to meet him, approve of him and hear wedding bells before she’d stop matchmaking.”
Otis squirted the back of Priscilla’s coat with his booster line, just to be ornery. “Why don’t you take me home to meet your mama? Give her a heart attack and be done with it!” He cackled at his own humor, and Priscilla had to admit it was a little bit funny, thinking of how her parents would react if she brought home a forty-five-year-old, twice-married firefighter.
But then she sobered. Her mother’s matchmaking efforts had become a problem. She couldn’t attend any gathering without Lorraine thrusting some earnest young man at her. Some of them were very handsome and very nice. But Priscilla simply wasn’t interested in putting herself out there again right now, going through the dating rituals. The angst and uncertainty drove her nuts.
Her gaze again slid covertly to Roark. They hadn’t exactly dated; they’d slept together. Their affair had been all about stress relief, a strictly physical thing. That’s what she’d told herself, anyway.
Roark had wanted to prolong their liaison. But the intensity of their times together had frightened Priscilla. She hadn’t been able to control herself and she didn’t like that feeling. So she’d put a stop to the relationship before it had really gotten started—before they’d had a chance to get to know each other, to open up and share who they really were. She hadn’t been ready for that.
She might never be ready. She liked her life pretty well right now, living alone, answering to no one.
“Here’s an idea,” Ethan said. “Why don’t you produce a real boyfriend?”
“I can’t just materialize a boyfriend out of thin air,” Priscilla said sensibly.
“What I mean is, get someone to pose as your boyfriend. Someone impeccable. Someone your mom couldn’t possibly object to. Trot him out to meet your parents, hint around that it’s serious. Do that, and your mother will be satisfied.”
Priscilla had to admit the idea was attractive. The ploy might give her a few months of peace, anyway. “And where do you suggest I find this paragon of a fake boyfriend?” Although she didn’t want to say so out loud, she didn’t think her mother would approve of Priscilla dating a fellow firefighter. Lorraine had enough trouble with her daughter living one-third of her life in a firehouse with a bunch of men. But dating one of them?
“I have the perfect candidate,” Ethan said, his eyes full of mischief, and Priscilla felt a stab of apprehension. Who did he have in mind? What had she stepped into? “Maybe,” Ethan said, “your parents would approve of an arson investigator.”
Priscilla gulped and glanced at Roark, startled to discover that he was almost right behind her, leaning against the fence. Silently she begged Roark to put in a quick refusal. But he didn’t. He looked a little surprised at being put forward as a candidate to be Priscilla’s fake boyfriend. But not unhappy.
“Hey, that’s perfect,” Otis said innocently, having no earthly idea that Priscilla and Roark shared a bit of their past. “Who could object to Roark? He’s gainfully employed, he cleans up nice and he talks like some aristocrat. Epperson, what do you say? You want to make Priscilla’s mom a happy woman?”
Priscilla would have liked to sink into the dirt. The last thing she wanted was Roark to play any type of boyfriend, fictional or otherwise. She was still several feet from him, but she couldn’t stop her heart from racing. Her lips tingled, she was getting warm in places not mentioned in polite society and her hands itched to touch him, to muss up that perfectly groomed hair.
Priscilla looked to Roark, again praying he would say no, quickly and forcefully. But instead he wore a pensive expression, as if thinking over the proposition.
Then abruptly he smiled and looked straight at her, reminding her of a shark coming in for the kill. “I’m always willing to go the extra mile for a comrade. Sure, I’ll
