Her Fill-In Fiancé

Sophia sighed. Little had she known.

Walking toward the back of the house, she expected to find some member of her family—her parents would never dream of eating out on a Sunday night. But the comfortable kitchen, with its oak cabinets, matching table and chairs and green gingham accents, was empty.

Sophia turned in a circle, feeling somewhat lost in her childhood home, until the sound of laughter rang in the distance. With a glance at the back door, she smiled despite the churning in her stomach. Of course. The weather was perfect for a barbecue, and grilling outdoors was the one chance her mother had in getting someone else to cook a meal.

Plastering on a smile, Sophia opened the back door and stepped out onto the porch. “Hey, everybody, I’m home,” she announced, preparing for the usual enthusiastic greetings that never failed to disguise the worry and question in her family’s eyes.

Shouts of “Sweetheart!” “Squirt!” and “Fifi!” rang out, the last despised nickname coming from Sam, who called her that only to annoy her.

But one voice she never expected to hear spoke quietly in her ear. “Hello, Sophia.”

Speechless, she turned and gazed into Jake Cameron’s amber eyes.

Chapter Two

Jake Cameron. Here. At her parents’ house. With her family. Wearing—was that her mother’s apron? Sophia blinked hard, twice, but when she opened her eyes, Jake still stood mere inches away, his expression serious despite the frilly white apron covered by pink potbellied pigs.

She was dreaming. Her foolish, foolish wish of having Jake accompany her to her parents’ house had slipped into her subconscious, where she was too vulnerable to keep the ridiculous hope at bay. That was the only possible explanation. She was still asleep at some by-the-highway hotel, her face smashed into a cheap pillow, having a doozy of a nightmare. The breeze carried the scent of charcoal and the sounds of her family’s greetings, but none of it was real.

Jake even looked as he always did in her dreams—too tempting for her peace of mind and too good to be true, she thought, her hungry gaze taking in rugged features that had become breathtakingly familiar in such a short time. The setting sun burnished his brown hair, bringing out the highlights in the slightly shaggy strands, and turning his skin to gold. Faint lines fanned out from his whiskey-colored eyes, hinting at a smile that could flash lightning quick or start her body on a slow burn with sexy, seductive deliberation.

If she closed her eyes, she could still feel the heated promise of his lips against hers in intoxicating kisses that made her forget the harsh lessons of the past. But she didn’t need to close her eyes because she was already asleep. Sophia was sure of it …

Until Jake reached out, trailed his fingers down the all-too-sensitive inside of her arm and took her hand. Her heart slammed in her chest, hard enough to stop its beat and steal her breath, and Sophia knew this was happening, this was real. Because nothing—not a dream, not a nightmare, not a figment of her imagination—could affect her like this.

Nothing but living, breathing, flesh-and-blood Jake Cameron could make her feel this way.

Sophia jerked her hand from his as she choked out in a whisper, “What—what are you doing here?”

Before Jake had the chance to answer, Sam bounded up the back steps to the small landing. “We didn’t know you’d be bringing company, but hey! More the merrier!” Sam slapped Jake on the back hard enough to knock a smaller man aside, but Jake absorbed the blow with little reaction. Her brother dropped a kiss on her cheek as he brushed by. “Good to see you, Fifi. And about time, too.”

Sophia could barely manage a response to her brother’s greeting. She’d imagined dozens of scenarios where she had a chance to confront Jake Cameron and let him have it for lying to her. In those somewhat vengeful daydreams, she was sharp, clever and cutting enough to bring him to his knees. Never, though, in any of those scenes had she pictured a moment like this.

“Let me guess,” she said, a hint of hysteria creeping into her voice, “the apron was Sam’s idea.”

Jake glanced down at the parade of pigs. “He said it was the only one.” His knowing look told Sophia he hadn’t believed it for a second, but then again—

“Takes one to know one,” she muttered beneath her breath, but not so quietly that Jake didn’t still hear, judging by the muscle tightening in his jaw.

As the screen door slammed shut behind Sam, Sophia gradually became aware of the rest of her family. Nick and Drew had apparently been in the middle of a supposedly touch football game, judging by the grass stains on Drew’s jeans and the ball tucked beneath Nick’s arm. Her father stood at the grill Jake had abandoned and her mother and Nick’s daughter, Maddie, had been sitting beneath the gazebo off to the side of the yard.

At Sophia’s arrival, though, everyone charged en masse, giving Jake little time to reply and Sophia less time to prepare. She’d barely made it down the back steps when her mother and niece reached her, Vanessa hugging her shoulders while seven-year-old Maddie wrapped her skinny arms around her waist. “Sophia! It’s so good to see you. I’ve missed you.”

Wrapped in a cloud of cinnamon-scented warmth, Sophia swallowed hard. “Missed you too, Mom.”

Vanessa Pirelli pulled back, her green eyes taking quick inventory of her only daughter. Sophia instinctively stiffened as she waited for the questions to cloud her mother’s expression with worry. Was she okay? Was she in trouble? Had she fallen in with the wrong crowd again?

To Sophia’s surprise, and for the first time in years, disappointment failed to dim the light in her mother’s eyes. Not until her mother included Jake in her happy gaze did Sophia fully understand why. “Wasn’t it sweet of Jake to surprise you like this?”

“It’s a surprise,” she agreed, avoiding the “sweet” description when it came to Jake Cameron.

Her fault, of course, for letting the deception go on as long as she had. Was there some ugly, painful stone in her dismal love life he’d somehow left unturned? He was headed for disappointment. She’d spilled her heart to him already.

She’d foolishly felt she owed him the truth—that she was being unfair to start any kind of relationship without telling Jake about the child she carried. Turned out she didn’t owe him at all. He was already getting paid, and how unfair was that?

She felt Jake’s intense gaze on the side of her face, as if his golden eyes gave off as much heat as the man himself, but she refused to glance his way. Struggling for normalcy in front of her family, Sophia focused on her niece. She cupped the girl’s dimpled chin in her hand and exclaimed, “Maddie, I think you’ve grown a foot since I saw you last!”

“I’m starting third grade soon! I’ll be in Mrs. Dawson’s class,” the tiny, girlish version of her big brother said, her whole body practically vibrating with excitement. In Clearville’s small elementary school, first and second grades were housed together in the same classroom. Entering third grade was an enormous step.

“You’re one of the big kids now!” Sophia exclaimed. “Practically all grown up!”

“It’s amazing how fast kids change when you aren’t around to see it,” Nick drawled, shifting the football to his other hand to draw his daughter to his side.

Sophia had to give him credit; she might have actually believed the casual comment was nothing more than that if she didn’t know better. But she did. Her oldest brother still blamed her for taking off to Chicago and for the fallout she hadn’t intended to cause.

But any defense Sophia might have made collapsed at the combination of love, pride and well-disguised worry that mingled in his gaze as he looked down at his daughter. “She’ll be in college before I know it.”

Sophia’s heart clenched in sympathy for what Nick had gone through since his wife left, in guilt for her part in Carol’s desertion, and in a newly realized panic knowing she’d be feeling that same love, that same pride, that same worry soon for her own child. Like Nick, she too would be alone.

Sophia swallowed hard, and it had to be her imagination that Jake stepped closer as if sensing her thoughts and offering his silent support.

Crazy, she thought. If Jake could read her mind, he’d run the other way. Because she was still mad at him. Really, really mad.

Mad enough to haul off and hit him. Mad enough to throw herself into his arms, close her eyes, and pretend the Jake Cameron she’d met in St. Louis was the real Jake Cameron …

“Hey, Jake!” Her dad waved a barbecue fork in their direction. “How ‘bout you take over here and give me a chance to hug my little girl?”

“You got it, Vince. Be right there.”

Trying to keep her jaw from dropping at the warm welcome embracing Jake, Sophia shot him a sidelong glance he caught front and center. He stepped closer until she had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze. She’d lived with older and much taller brothers her entire life; she was used to their overwhelming breadth and height.

But with Jake, it was … different.

Intimidating and at the same time thrilling in ways she wished she could forget.

“I’ve missed you,” he murmured, his deep voice tripping over nerve endings and raising goose bumps across her skin.

Fury at her reaction as much as at his words reared, and Sophia sucked in a breath, sharp retort at the ready. But before she could say a single word, Jake caught the back of her neck, his fingers tunneling in her dark hair, and pulled her into a quick, hard kiss.

She barely had the chance to register his taste, to respond to the press of his mouth against hers, to relive the memory of the kisses they’d shared in St. Louis. Kisses that slipped beneath her defenses, exploited her weaknesses …

She drew in a second breath as she pulled back, still ready to blast him with her temper, still furious, but Jake had already stepped away.

“Jake, I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to have you here.” Vanessa Pirelli’s warm smile left no room to doubt the sincerity of her words.

Seated across from Sophia’s mother, Jake worked on a smile of his own. The casual meal around the picnic table was nothing like the formal family dinners in the Cameron household. Her welcoming acceptance should have made it easier, but the whole experience of holding hands while saying grace, passing rolls across the table like lobbing softballs and carrying on four conversations at one time seemed like something out of a storybook.

And of course every story had its villain, a role Jake had been fully willing to accept when he showed up unannounced at Sophia’s home. But instead of hurling accusations, her family had greeted him with open arms—literally—leaving him feeling off-balance and unprepared. He’d been ready to face the Pirelli family’s anger; their approval was unexpected … and undeserved.

Still, he said, “I’m glad to be here, Mrs. Pirelli.”

Glad to see for himself that Sophia had a family who loved her, who would be there for her and her child in a way only family could be. She might not have told them about the baby yet, but it was obvious Sophia’s child would have three doting uncles and one set of grandparents to spoil him rotten and to be there for anything he needed.

“Oh, now, didn’t I tell you to call me Vanessa?” Sophia’s mother reminded him.

“Yes, ma’am, you did.”

His evasion didn’t get by the older woman, and her eyes crinkled in a smile, small lines forming at the corners, giving him a glimpse of how beautiful Sophia would look as she matured. Only Sophia certainly wasn’t smiling at him now.

Sitting stiff and silent at his side, Sophia’s body language told him loud and clear she didn’t share in her mother’s welcome. But not even her anger and the obvious emotional walls stopped him from noticing the way her dark hair curled behind her ear to perfectly frame her delicate features. Or the way the afternoon breeze picked up the fresh vanilla scent of her skin. Or the heat of her body inches from his.

When she reached out to pass the potato salad and brushed her arm against his, every hair on his body seemed to stand at attention—thousands of tiny divining rods guiding him to the woman at his side. A woman he’d told himself a hundred times since leaving St. Louis he was better off staying away from. Yet here he was, sitting by her side like a man who’d been out in the desert too long and yet somehow thought he could ignore the temptation of taking a drink.

He hadn’t even made it five minutes before kissing her, Jake thought wryly, unable to resist putting his memory to the test to see if Sophia’s lips truly were as sweet and soft as he recalled. Even that brief taste told him what he’d already come to suspect in the days since he left St. Louis: memories were no substitute for the real thing. The real thing he’d found in Sophia …

Jake shoved the thought aside. He wasn’t some starry-eyed romantic. He didn’t believe in love at first sight. He wasn’t sure he believed in love at all.

His only experience with the painful emotion had been Mollie. At the time, he’d certainly thought he loved her and trusted she felt the same. But that day at the hospital, she’d made it more than clear how she really felt about him.

You aren’t a family man, Jake. You don’t have any idea what it’s like to be part of a family, but that’s what I need. That’s what Josh and I both need.

And that was what Sophia needed, too.

She needed her family to rally around her, and if playing her boyfriend made this reunion a little easier on her, well, he could fill in for now. He could take on the part until she found someone better suited. Much like Mollie had.

Slipping back into a role that had become too familiar too fast in St. Louis, Jake returned Vanessa’s smile. “Sophia’s told me so much about you, and I couldn’t wait to meet you all.”

“You’ll have to make sure Sophia shows you around while she’s here. Last time she was home, she didn’t do much more than hide away in her room.”

“Sam!” his mother admonished, but whatever the reason for the sudden silence that fell over the table, Sam seemed as ignorant of its cause as Jake.

“What?” the youngest of the Pirelli brothers asked. “I’m just saying.”

“Can you blame her?” Drew slugged his younger brother on the shoulder. “She was probably hiding out from you.”

Jake had already figured out that Sam was the joker, Drew something of a peacemaker, while Nick—Nick he had yet to figure out. The eldest Pirelli brother obviously adored his daughter and got along well with the rest of his family, but Jake sensed a tension between Nick and Sophia, a distance the family clearly talked around, as they did the absence of Maddie’s mother.

“So, Jake, what is it you do?” Sophia’s father asked as he dug in to the potato salad.

He knew from what Sophia had told him that Nick was a veterinarian, Drew a custom-home builder and Sam a mechanic. But Jake didn’t know what she’d told her family about him.

Buying some time, he took a huge bite of the hamburger he’d piled high with lettuce, cheese, avocado and tomatoes. The flavors exploded against his tongue, tasting better than anything he’d had to eat since—since the last meal he shared with Sophia.

They’d gone to a barbecue place not far from her cousin’s house. It had been the final time Sophia looked at him without suspicion, anger and distrust filling her expression. He’d told her the truth the next day, but he had no idea if she’d told her family about his occupation.

Unfortunately, Sophia didn’t seem the least bit inclined to jump in and save him. She was focused on her own burger, sans any toppings, a preference he remembered from a hot dog she’d ordered at a Cardinals game. Almost embarrassed, she’d confessed, “What can I say? I have boring tastes.”

Jake hadn’t found anything at all boring about Sophia Pirelli, and he’d declared her a hot dog purist. Laughing in response, she’d comically piled every condiment known to man on the hot dog he’d purchased while he made a big deal about covering hers with a napkin to maintain its pristine, natural state …

“Um, Jake,” Sophia finally prompted. “My dad was asking about your job.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Jake swallowed the last of the huge bite he’d taken. “My mother would be appalled by my manners.”

“Mom’s always appalled by our manners,” Sam interjected, clearly unconcerned as he grabbed a cherry tomato from the salad bowl and popped it into his mouth.

Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Isn’t that the truth?”

“Anyway,” Jake began after he’d stalled as long as he could and hoping he’d picked up correctly on the slight disapproval in Sophia’s voice when she mentioned his job. “I’m a private investigator.”

“Seriously? That must be so cool,” Sam declared.

“Yes, Jake, tell Sam how cool your job is,” Sophia said, a challenging lift to her eyebrows.

He was still scrambling for something to say that would appease her brothers’ curiosity without further alienating Sophia when Vince asked his daughter, “Why is now the first we’re hearing of this? Sophia, why didn’t you tell us what Jake does for a living? For all we knew, he could have been an accountant.”

Sophia picked at the sesame seeds on her hamburger bun and complained, “What’s wrong with being an accountant?”

“Other than being totally boring?” Sam asked before turning back to Jake. “What was your most interesting case?”

Jake didn’t have to even think about it. “That would have to be the case that took me to St. Louis.”

Sophia’s head snapped toward him, her dark gaze pleading, as if she expected him to blurt out the whole story to her family right there at the dinner table. Any why not? he thought with regret. That was pretty much what he’d done to her …

Sam leaned forward. “What happened in St. Louis?”

Reaching out, Jake lifted Sophia’s hand from the picnic table and entwined her fingers with his own. “That’s where I met your sister,” he murmured.

The worry eased from her expression, and was it his imagination or had her eyes softened just a little? Despite the elbow-to-elbow contact at the table, her family seemed to fade away, leaving just the two of them and the spark that had ignited between them the moment they met, an attraction that made it easy for Sophia to trust him, an attraction that made it so easy for Jake to lie to her.

He didn’t know which of them flinched first, but the break in contact as Sophia’s hand fell to her side made Jake feel like some vital part of him had been ripped away, leaving behind only scars as reminders of all he’d lost. Because of his lies and because of the truth he’d been asked to find.

Dammit, Sophia, I’m sorry, he thought, staring at her downcast profile as if he might will her into accepting his apology. Sorry I’m not the man you thought I was.

He did his best to deflect the rest of her family’s questions about his job and thought he’d just about turned the tide when Maddie’s young voice piped in.

“Have you ever been shot?”

The little girl had been tossing bits of her bun at a couple of birds, and Jake hadn’t thought she’d been listening to the conversation. When all adult eyes focused on her, she added, “You know, like on TV.”

Instinctively, his hand moved to his left thigh. Sometimes he swore he could still feel the bullet burning beneath his flesh even though he knew that was impossible…. A soft intake of breath beside him caught his attention. Sophia straightened in realization, and he could almost hear yet another mark checked off against him for yet another lie.

He was spared from having to satisfy Maddie’s childish curiosity when Vanessa turned on her eldest son. “Honestly, Nick, what have you been letting this child watch?”

“I didn’t let her. I didn’t know she was paying any attention,” Nick protested.

Thinking it was a good time to turn the conversation away from himself while he still could, Jake asked, “What about you, Vince? What do you do?”

For the first time since he met the Pirelli family, silence fell.

Sophia might not think much of Jake’s job, but up until recently, he’d been good at it. And he could still pick up on body language and small nuances most people missed. Like the encouraging smile Vanessa sent her husband’s way. Like the look Sam and Drew exchanged, and Nick’s brief but pointed glance at Sophia, who kept her own eyes focused on her plate. Only Maddie was immune, singing beneath her breath and turning her attention back to her gathering flock.

Vince’s smile was wide as ever, but something less than genuine as he said, “Used to manage the grocery store in town, but now I’m retired. I get to be a full-time husband and father, much to my wife and kids’ dismay.”

Vanessa and his sons immediately protested, but Sophia stayed stone silent at Jake’s side until she stood abruptly and practically scrambled over the picnic bench. She grabbed her glass of lemonade. “I need a refill. I’ll be right back. Can I get anyone anything from the kitchen?” She barely waited for her family to reply before backing away from the table.

Jake stood before she made her escape. “I’ll join you.”

She opened her mouth to demur, but he shot a quick glance at her family and the protest she would have made transformed into a smile. “Thank you, Jake.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, wondering if he was the only one to notice how she spoke the words through gritted teeth.

He caught her hand as they crossed the lush green lawn toward the kitchen, but it was Sophia who practically dragged him the last few yards into the house. She whirled on him the moment the door closed, secluding them in the homey kitchen.

Her color was high and her dark eyes snapping as she bit out, “Football injury?”

“What?”

“The night we met, you said you were limping because of a football injury!”

Of all the explanations he owed Sophia, that was by far the last he’d expected her to demand. He’d passed off his injury with the half-joking cliché rather than tell the truth. But the worry shining through her anger was far worse than facing the memories of the job that had gone wrong in Mexico only a few weeks before he met Sophia.

“I wasn’t lying when I told you I was fine. I am,” he insisted, wondering if he wasn’t trying to convince himself. Physically, yes, he was healing. But how many times had he awakened in a cold sweat, grabbing at his leg, feeling the pain of the bullet buried deep inside? He thought he’d put those nightmares to rest, but they’d come back with a vengeance since he left St. Louis. Since he’d left Sophia.

She stared up at him as if trying to see right through him and straight into all the uncertainty inside. But he’d gotten good over the years at hiding; it was part of his job, sure, but more than that, it was part of who he was. And he was pretty sure he didn’t give anything away when he repeated, “I’m fine.”

For a moment, she looked ready to argue, the fine line between her eyebrows a dead giveaway of the stubbornness he’d caught a glimpse of a time or two in St. Louis. But then she changed tactics as she got to the point. “What are you doing here, Jake?”

He’d asked that question as he traveled to Clearville and still wasn’t sure he’d come up with an adequate answer to satisfy himself, let alone one Sophia would accept. All he knew was that the hurt in her eyes when he’d blurted out the truth had haunted him since he’d left, and he couldn’t stand the thought of that being his last memory of Sophia. So here he was, standing in the kitchen of her childhood home, ready to give an explanation she didn’t want to hear. An apology she wouldn’t accept.

Her crossed arms, raised chin and closed expression all told him she wasn’t going to listen to anything he had to say. Not here, not now. But he had time … if he dared to take it.

“What am I doing?” he echoed. “I’m enjoying your family’s company. I’d expected I’d have to fight through your brothers to see you—” his eyebrow rose in question “—but for some crazy reason, they think we’re dating.”