because we know each other well doesn’t mean people will suddenly believe we’re getting married. We’re not even dating.”
“What would you call this? Tonight?” He glanced around, the two of them sitting at their table like at least five other couples in his direct line of sight right there in the dining room.
“Thursday night dinner at Maggie’s.”
“But it could be a date. No one looking at us would think otherwise.” He continued to push, curious to see that her initial shock had worn off.
Was his argument working?
Because for reasons that didn’t make a single lick of sense, now that he had it in his head to propose to Aisha—even as a temporary solution—he wasn’t backing down.
“Even if I buy that, and I’m not saying I do—” she held up a hand to stop him from interrupting “—no one will believe we’re engaged. What would your family say? Your sister, who actually is engaged and who knows what that state looks like. Your extended family. Your deputies. They’ve seen you at work every night for the past six months. How did we magically begin a courtship that’s ready for marriage?”
“You’re at the office helping me a lot. They’ll think something blossomed that way.”
“Blossomed?” It was her turn to lift an eyebrow, one she used on him like a deadly weapon. “What actually happened to you today? Because if you don’t come clean soon, I’m calling Daria to ask her if you were hit in the head.”
“I wasn’t hit in the head. I’m fine.”
Only he wasn’t, which was the weirdest thing. And, oddly enough, he felt like he’d been hit in the head. Hard. To the point the world looked entirely different from when he’d woken up that morning.
“Trey. What you’re talking about is insanity. We’re friends. We spend a lot of time together. How is anyone going to believe we suddenly fell in love and decided on a spring wedding?”
She was right. Empirically, Trey knew that. So why did the image of her in an ivory gown, clad over that slim, graceful frame, suddenly fill his thoughts and tighten his body painfully under the table? He hadn’t looked at her in that way for years.
By design. Aisha Allen was a beautiful woman, one who’d grown even more so as she’d aged into herself. She was warm and competent and caring. She ran an amazing psychology practice and she was bright and confident in her work and in her life. And she was gorgeous. He’d figured that out when they were fourteen and had gone diving in the local watering hole. She’d let down her hair, curls springing around her face before coming to rest on her shoulders, and he’d been hooked.
It was that day he’d had thoughts about his best friend that he had no idea what to do with. Over twenty years later, he still didn’t know what to do with them so he’d buried them. And he’d left them buried so they couldn’t come out and ruin the very best thing in his life.
He’d missed her every single day she’d been away in New York. All that distance had nearly killed him, even as he’d known it was the best thing for her. More than that, it had been the right thing. She’d needed to go away and find herself. Find a world bigger than Roaring Springs, so when she came back she’d know she was home.
So she’d stay forever.
He’d dated while she was gone and in the time since and he hoped she did the same. As he’d reminded himself earlier, it was the one area they sort of had an undiscussed truce not to mention. But since they didn’t mention those things, he felt he had carte blanche to push his agenda.
Aisha was the key to putting Barton Evigan out of his mind for the next few months. An engagement was the ammunition he needed to squelch the man’s shot at winning the election. And it was the path to changing perceptions of Sheriff Trey Colton in Bradford County.
And if he had to keep those thoughts hidden—the ones about his lingering attraction that gripped his insides with a tight, unrelenting fist—then he’d do it.
He’d been doing it for as long as he could remember and he was good at it. A world champion grave digger of emotions. He’d kept his feelings buried this long, and he could do it longer. As long as he needed to, in fact.
Reelection was only three months away.
How hard would it be?
* * *
Aisha had finished her plate of enchiladas and her second margarita and she was still as heartsick as the moment Trey had laid his idiotic notion of a fake engagement on her. Only now she could add indigestion into the mix.
A fake engagement? Had she somehow woken up in a Sunday afternoon couch movie? Because who suggested those things? Certainly not by-the-book Trey Colton.
Never him.
Which made the fact she was actually considering his cockamamie suggestion scary as hell.
And wildly exhilarating.
Engaged to Trey? It was like every fantasy she’d ever had, coming true over chips and salsa. She’d sat there, staring at him, and he’d popped out with that proposal. Or sort of one. Which still had her blood pumping and her brain a bit fuzzy two hours later.
What was in that margarita?
Only as they walked back up through town, meandering their way toward their cars still parked at her office, she had to admit to herself that her fantasy had holes. Big ones.
For starters, they weren’t in love. Or he wasn’t. Her long-suppressed feelings weren’t the basis for a successful engagement. Or fake engagement. A faux-gagement? Continuing down this path was only going to lead to heartbreak.
But it would help him.
That acknowledgment had swirled in her mind since his proposal and it was the one piece in of all this she couldn’t effectively fight. It was actually the only thing.
What would her mother think? Or Tanisha? Or Trey’s family. It was all well and good to say the two of them knew the lay of the land, but if they went around telling everyone the situation was fake, somehow the news would leak back to Evigan and all their maneuvering would be lost. Which meant the only alternative was lying to their loved ones.
Her mother wouldn’t understand. LaShanna Allen was so supportive over so many things, but when it came to Trey Colton she had a blind spot. Her mother had never made it a secret that she wanted Aisha to end up with Trey and no amount of protests that the two of them weren’t meant to be together had deterred LaShanna. Telling her mother she was engaged to Trey would start a veritable storm of emotion the woman might not recover from. And when the inevitable breakup came—hello, because it was all fake!—Lord deliver her from the wrath.
Aisha was still so deep in her thoughts she barely registered Trey’s motions until he was on top of her. His arms wrapped around her and he half walked beside her, the move looking for all the world like two lovers who couldn’t keep their hands off each other as they walked. It was only when he shoved her into the alcove doorway of a small wine bar that was still in high swing for an August evening that she realized he wasn’t testing out his fiancée theory.
“Trey?”
