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“Try three and you have no intention of calling her, do you?” Damn. Sometimes she wished Nate wasn’t such a pleasure to look at. Even after being friends with him for over two years she still had a gut-punch reaction to seeing him sometimes. Like now. His light brown hair was medium length. He didn’t go in for some of the more fashionable looks but kept a regular haircut, a little longer on the top than the sides. His eyes were hazel and changed color with his emotions or what he was wearing. Right now, he wore a sky-blue, short-sleeved T-shirt with Devil’s Rock Airport and their logo—the rock it was named for—imprinted on it. So his eyes were blue today, not quite like the sky but close. He was long and lean, wore jeans like he’d been born to wear them, and wore running shoes.
He was no cowboy, although she’d taken him riding before and he wasn’t bad, considering he didn’t manage it often. No, he was a private airplane pilot, and a successful one as far as she could tell.
God, he was cute. No, he was hot. Really hot. Unfortunately.
Sometimes she wished she hadn’t put him so firmly in the friend zone. She was human. She’d wondered more than once what it would be like to have Nate as a lover. But Nate was simply too tempting. He was a player, and Damaris didn’t date players. Damaris had been burned badly by a very tempting player. Hell, Warner had been a philanderer of the first order. At least Nate wasn’t that bad.
“I need a favor,” Nate said, ignoring her question.
“Sure.” She leaned on her shovel. “What is it?”
“I need you to be my girlfriend. And maybe my fiancée.”
She couldn’t have heard him right. “You need what?”
“A girlfriend. Then a fiancée. Possibly.”
“And you want me? Are you crazy?”
“Not for real, so don’t freak out. Just for a while. Until I can figure something out to satisfy her.”
She leaned her shovel against the wall and put her hands on her hips. “Nate, what in the hell are you talking about? And who is ‘her’?”
“Let’s go sit down and I’ll tell you.”
Thoroughly mystified, she followed him out of the barn to the bench that sat beneath the big live oak by the corral. It was a gorgeous April day, beneath a blue, cloudless sky. A little cool and not terribly humid, which was a bonus any time of year in central Texas. “Okay, talk,” she said as they took a seat.
“It’s about Grandma.”
“Your grandma Kershaw?” She’d met her before. Several times, in fact. Enough to be really fond of her. Nate’s grandmother was quite a character and beloved in the community.
“She’s the only one I have. Of course, Grandma Kershaw.”
“What about her?”
“She wants me to get married. Before she dies.”
“Your grandma is dying? Oh, Nate, I’m so sorry.”
“She’s not dying. But she was just diagnosed with AFib and she’s freaking out.”
“That’s serious, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but it can be controlled. It’s not likely she’s going to keel over any day. At least, I hope not. But she is ninety-two, so I guess she’s feeling old on top of this new diagnosis. She’s always been healthy as a horse.”
“She thinks she’s dying so she wants you to get married.”
“You got it. I tried to convince her she’s not dying but she keeps saying she’s ninety-two and at her age you can’t tell.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “Which isn’t an unreasonable thought, unfortunately. She wouldn’t answer her phone so I went over there to see if she was okay.” His eyes met Damaris’s and she could see the worry in them. “She was crying, Damaris. I’ve never seen Grandma cry. Ever. And worse, she wasn’t crying about the diagnosis. She was crying about me.”
“But…she can’t expect you to just up and marry someone. She’s bound to know you aren’t serious about anyone. You never even go out with a woman more than once or twice.”
“That’s a slight exaggeration. But it’s one reason I thought of you. She knows you and really likes you. She knows we’ve been friends for a long time. It’s not much of a stretch to convince her we’re in love.”
“You realize this idea is completely insane, right? Besides, why me?”
He looked annoyed. “I just told you. Besides that, it wouldn’t be fair to anyone who might develop feelings for me.”
“I have feelings for you. I feel like you’ve lost your freaking mind.”
