The Fiance Dilemma (The Long Game #2)

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

Present day

I plunged my hand into the jam jar.

“Come on, come on, come on,” I murmured, watching some of the jam spill as I pushed further in, strawberry-red goo covering my skin all the way up to my wrist. “Don’t do this to me. Please. Come out. Nice and easy.”

“Moshie ?” Grandpa Moe’s voice reached me from the living room.

I froze, the wiggling of my fingers coming to a sudden halt. Darn it. If Grandpa saw what was currently stuck around my finger I wouldn’t hear the end of it. Furthermore, if he saw me using all the jam after I’d promised I’d bake him a cheesecake, he would—

“Moshie,” came again.

“Yes?”

“Fhere’s a moomaan in the yarhd.”

I rolled my eyes. “What?” I asked, even though I’d caught some of that. I spoke toothless–Grandpa Moe.

“There’s a woman in the yard,” he repeated, his speech now clearer, indicating he’d put his dentures back in.

I sighed as I glanced down at my desperate attempt at getting that thing off my finger. I should have gone for butter. Or oil. And I needed him distracted and away from the kitchen. “How can you be sure she’s not just passing by?”

“She’s coming up the stairs of the porch. I don’t like her.”

Well, crap. There was someone coming? “What did I tell you about being a jeeper-creeper, huh?” I said, sticking my hand out and pulling at my finger with my other hand. “They can see you watching them like some”—I exerted a little more force—“weirdo in suspenders.” The thing didn’t move an inch. I went at it again. “I know you think you’re on neighborhood watch or something, but—”

My fingers slipped, my hands sliding away from each other and knocking my elbow into the jar, sending it crashing to the floor with a loud, strawberry-red splash.

“But what?” Grandpa Moe asked. “And what was that?”

I silently cursed at the complete and absolute mess I’d made of the counter and floor and, well, me. Hands, robe, feet, all of it covered in jam while I stood surrounded by glass shards. “I just dropped something. It’s all under control.”

The doorbell rang.

Maybe not all. “Grandpa Moe?”

I heard the creaking his chair made when he plopped down.

“Moe Poe?” I called in my sweetest voice, wiping my hands on… Where were my kitchen towels? I used my robe. “Would you be a doll and get the door for me?”

“She ain’t here for me,” he said. “And I don’t like strangers. Or how she looks. And,” he added with a pause, “I’m old.”

“Being old is not an excuse for everything, you know?” I picked up several pieces of glass before carefully padding to the sink and depositing them there. “You can’t use it to get the last chocolate muffin and not the door.”

A trail of angry mumbled words traveled from the living room as I collected more glass shards and waited for a sign that the man was on the move. None followed, pushing me closer and closer to the edge of… losing it.

“Moe Poe, are you—” The doorbell rang again, startling me. A sharp pang of pain in the middle of my palm made me wince. “Shoot,” I gasped. “Stupid silly glass and stupid silly—”

The sound of the doorbell came a third time. And a fourth. And a fifth.

I closed my eyes and let out a frustrated puff of air. “Maurice Antonne Brown,” I gritted between my teeth. “If you don’t get that door, I swear I’m going to whoop your stubborn, stinkin’ butt—”

“All right, all right,” he croaked. His chair creaked. Slow and heavy steps followed. Then the sound of the front door opening, followed by a, “Mhat can I help you wifh ?”

Son of a monkey. He made me want to scream sometimes.

A female voice answered, “I’m sorry?”

“Mhat can I help you wifh ?” Grandpa Moe repeated like the absolutely insufferable man he could be. A part of me couldn’t believe he’d popped those teeth out again, but why was I surprised? Grandpa was a certified grump, and ever since he’d had a mild stroke that had me immediately packing his things and moving him in with me, his grouchiness had been at max, even now that he’d recovered almost to a hundred.

“I…” the woman started again. “I’m looking for Josephine Moore. I’m certain this is the right address. Everyone in town I talked to confirmed it.”

“And?” the old man had the nerve to say.

There was a beat of silence, then the woman said, “And I’m never wrong. And I’d hate to waste any more time, so if you don’t mind getting Miss Moore for me, I would appreciate it. I’ve been standing here for a long time, watching you eye me from the window. I don’t know if that was meant to intimidate me, but it didn’t work.” A new pause. “I’ve dealt with a lot scarier than a toothless old man in suspenders.”

I groaned. Last time someone had called him “old man,” Grandpa Moe got us on the cover of the county gazette. The black-and-white shot of him fighting Otto Higgings over a pair of oversize shears—with me standing in the middle, arms outstretched and panicked expression on my face—still haunted my dreams some nights. I’d always wanted to make it to the front page of the gazette, I just wished it wasn’t under the headline: Pruning Warfare in Green Oak. Mayor Struggles to Keep Peace.

As if on cue, Grandpa’s chuckle drifted from the hallway. It wasn’t a cute sound. It was his I’m up to no good chuckle, and jam and mess and robe—and yes, algae-extract face mask too—be damned, that chuckle kicked me right into action. I rubbed my hands as clean as I could on my already ruined robe and sprinted to the door.

Two pairs of eyes blinked at me. Grandpa’s lips started to move around a question I didn’t want to answer, so I smiled and—gently—pushed the old man aside. Only to realize that there was a darker shade of red covering my hand. Blood, definitely not jam.

I shoved both hands in the pockets of my robe and whirled to face the woman. “Hi,” I greeted her, widening my smile. “I’m Josie. Josephine Moore. That’s me. I’d shake your hand, but… germs. How about an elbow bump instead?” I stuck my elbow out. “I hear it’s all the rage these days. With the kids and… young adults. Of the internet. Everywhere.”

The woman blinked, her eyes traveling up and down my body a few times until a strange grimace formed. “Absolutely not. Nope.” Her expression turned appalled. “What’s…” She seemed to look for the right way to formulate the question. “Why do you look like you jumped out of a Pop-Tart?”

“Oh. I, ah, was just… baking,” I explained with a laugh. I didn’t want to laugh. I wanted this night to end and a new day where there was no ring stuck to my finger to start. “I’m messy. Messy bakers are common. I didn’t catch your name, though. I’m Josie, but we’ve established that.”

The woman’s grimace dissipated. Slightly. “I’m Bobbi,” she said with a shake of her head, her blond bob barely moving around her face. “Bobbi with an i. Bobbi Shark.”

An awkward beat of silence followed. “Beautiful name,” I offered. “Would you like to come in, Bobbi?”

Her eyebrow rose. “You’re acting like this is the first time you’ve heard of me. You were supposed to be expecting me.”

It was a good thing my face mask was hiding my frown because I’d remember if I was expecting someone with a last name like Shark. But then again, it wouldn’t be the first time someone showed up at my door at an odd hour demanding something.

“Just like I tell everyone,” I said, stepping aside and opening the door wider with my shoulder. My smile had never been bigger. “Come in and we can talk as long as you need about whatever you need.” I shot a pointed look at the man to my left. “Grandpa Moe will head to the kitchen and get started on that little mess I left behind. Then he will prepare a cup of tea for us. Right, Grandpa?”

He grumbled something, but to his credit, he turned around and headed to the kitchen.

I returned my attention to Bobbi, finding a woman with no intention of stepping inside.

“Alternatively,” I offered, suppressing a sigh. “We can chat here at the door. But in that case, we can forget about the tea. I don’t think he’s in the mood for delivery.”

My joke didn’t land. I didn’t think it even registered, based on the way she was scowling. “You don’t know who I am,” Bobbi said. “And you’re inviting me in?”

I considered my answer. “Well, I don’t suppose you’re a vampire so—”

“Nuh-uh,” she interrupted. “Stop the cutesy routine.” My mouth clamped down. “Okay, one? You need to immediately stop inviting strangers into your house from this point on,” she instructed in a shockingly serious voice. “And two,” she continued, sticking a hand out and waving it over my face and chest. “Whatever this is. It’s not going to work. You won’t open the door looking like this. You won’t even glance out a window looking like this.” She huffed out a breath. “Aren’t you in politics?”

“I—” Was lost. And I had no idea what was going on. “I don’t like to think of myself as a politician. Sure, I’m the mayor of town, but it’s just a voluntary role in a place this small. Most days I don’t need to do anything at all.” Some other days, putting out a metaphorical fire shaved years off my life. Then something occurred to me. “Wait. Is this about Carmen?”

Bobbi’s brows rose. “I’m sorry, who?”

I took in the woman in front of me—her silver-gray wool coat and leather boots peeking out from under the hem. The spotless makeup, the perfect bob, the barely concealed entitlement she spoke with.

Had the Clarksons taken the fence issue so far they’d hired some big-time city lawyer?

“You’re wasting your time,” I told her. “It was just an incident. The Clarksons are wasting good money on something that can be solved with a civil conversation. It’s no one’s fault that Carmen escaped. Cows aren’t the lazy animals everyone paints them to be. They can be stealthy. And Robbie Vasquez had no way of knowing what she was doing until he installed the security cameras around the barn. He didn’t expect Carmen to be sneaking out. Much less trespassing and getting a little frisky with the Clarksons’ cattle. It’s mother nature’s call, if you ask me.”

Bobbi with an i blinked at me like I’d just sprouted a second head. Or like she was thinking about how to chop it off and get rid of it.

Oh God, was I about to be sued? Was Robbie about to be sued? A knot formed in my stomach. “Please don’t sue us. I swear the fence will be fixed.”

Bobbi’s eyes closed, then she muttered. “This is my worst nightmare.”

“Is that a yes or a no? Because I promise you, Miss Shark, there’s no need to—”

“You,” she interjected. “This. Cattle. Cows named Carmen. Fences. Barns. This… weather. The fresh air. The fact that I haven’t seen a Starbucks since leaving the airport. All of it.” My lips fell open, but she stopped me with a finger. “You have no idea what’s going on or why I’m here, and I was assured you’d been briefed and were on board with all of it. I have written confirmation of it. I can show you the emails, I could swear you’re cc-d on all of them.”

The emails?

The—

An image was triggered, flashing behind my eyelids. A memory.

Bobbi continued, “I thought my last relationship was toxic, but clients are worse than an egomaniac partner who thinks they’re doing you a favor by gaslighting you.” She pulled her phone out of her coat pocket and began tapping the screen. “He’s going to hear about this. This is going to set us back a whole day, if not two. Such a waste of time.”

He’s going to hear about this.

He.

I swallowed a lump of dread. My words all but croaking out of me. “Who are you, exactly?”

The tappety-tap of her nails came to a stop. She gave me an impressed look. “I’m a PR strategist. An expensive one at that. You would know if you’d read the emails.” She seemed to think of something. “You guys get internet here, right? Like, I know this is remote, and there’s”—she looked around—“trees and mountains and nature and, you know, cabincore or whatever. But you guys get internet here. Right?”

I wished we didn’t, if I were being completely honest.

That way I’d have an excuse to feed this PR strategist who could have only been sent by one man. Him.

Andrew Underwood.

It would excuse me for blatantly ignoring Andrew’s latest attempts at communication. Something other than I was hoping to work out the courage to read those eventually. Or something other than sorry, I can’t sit through one more Zoom call with you and your assistant while he pretends to take notes because we’re just awkwardly staring at each other. Or—

“… your father.” Bobbi’s words brought me back to the conversation.

Because I’d spaced out. And she’d been talking. Most likely about why she was here and who had sent her and why. A possibility crossed my mind. “Wait. Andrew’s here?”

Bobbi waved a hand casually. “No. He’s too busy to deal with stuff like this.”

Stuff like this.

Stuff like what?

My head twirled with all the possible answers to that question and I—

“I don’t think you’re really listening to me, Josephine,” Bobbi declared.

She wasn’t wrong.

“So I guess I’m briefing you, then,” she said with a sigh. “Again.” She touched her temple for an instant. “There’s a problem. Well, actually, you are the problem.”

I flinched.

“You have a colorful past,” she continued. “I’m not shaming you for all those engagements, believe me. It wouldn’t matter if you weren’t Andrew’s daughter. Or if you hadn’t showed up at the worst possible moment.”

“He called me,” I croaked. “I didn’t show up. If anything—”

“Adalyn gave him no choice,” Bobbi countered. My stomach dropped at the reminder of the ultimatum Adalyn gave Andrew when she found out we were sisters. No one had known, much less expected, that the woman he’d sent to Green Oak on a philanthropic assignment would turn out to be my sister. Not Adalyn, and certainly not me, as happy as I was to call Adalyn a friend by the time the news hit. “He handled it all poorly, in my professional opinion. And now, one year later, in an attempt at redemption or whatever he’s intending, he’s made everything worse by talking about you and this place to Time magazine.”

The piece had come out last week. I wasn’t sure how he’d made anything worse, but I did know my name was included in a four-page article dedicated to Andrew Underwood’s life and business accomplishments. I also knew how the journalist who had penned it had referred to me.

A misstep .

Bobbi continued. “And just like I said it would happen, someone was curious enough to dig around about you and turn this whole affair into the soap opera no one needed. It’s not reflecting well on Andrew. It’s a threat to his image, his business, and everything that’s at stake with his retirement around the corner.” She paused. “You are the threat, by the way.”

The words left me in a strange breath. “I am?”

“You are Andrew’s misstep,” Bobbi explained, repeating the term that journalist had used.

I paled under my algae mask, hearing those words spoken aloud.

“He swept you under the rug for decades, which is not unheard of. You’d be surprised to learn about the children big personalities keep under wraps. But he—”

“I’m—” I shook my head. “I’m no one’s nothing. I’m just—his daughter.”

“And now everyone knows he abandoned you, Josephine,” Bobbi answered with a certainty that made me flinch back a step. “This sweet, small-town girl who lost her mother at seventeen and had to fend for herself while her dad made millions in Miami.” Her hand rose in the air again, now drawing a wave in front of me. “This sweet, small-town girl whose father’s absence damaged her so deeply she’s been relentlessly and fruitlessly searching for that love somewhere else. This sweet, small-town girl, who’s charmed not one, not two, not three, but four very distinct men, who she dropped like sad, lame, lukewarm potatoes. On their wedding day.” Her tone went dry. “It’s like you were written in a room, really. I’m appalled at how such a clever man couldn’t see how this would harm his image and threaten his legacy.”

Threaten his legacy.

Now my cheeks flamed. My whole body did, the skin under my robe warming up by the second. “That couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“Can’t it?” Bobbi asked with a shrug. “Maybe you should have a listen to a podcast called Filthy Reali-Tea. Season three, episode twelve, minute eighteen. They dissect the whole thing in detail. It’s shockingly insightful. It’s also the reason why I’m here.”

I blinked. “What—” The gust of air that came out of me cut the words off. “What podcast?”

“One with two million weekly listeners,” she said. “If you count all platforms, including video.” My mouth fell open and she shot me a glance I didn’t understand. “Would you move to Miami?” I swayed on my feet, starting to feel dizzy. “Seeing how tonight is going, I really think you should. You need me more than I thought you would. I won’t help you pack, though. Unless that gets us on the first flight out of this place. It’d be temporary, and the old man could come, although I’d prefer he doesn’t. We’ll put you in a nice condo and have you attend events and public outings with Andrew. Weather the storm. Show a united front.”

Bobbi’s voice turned into a high-pitched buzz drilling my ears. I brought my hands to my head. My temples. I patted my cheeks, trying to feel whether my skin burned. But I felt nothing. Was I burning? Was this a fever dream? I felt so… overwhelmed. So… on the verge of doing something extremely stupid. Like… pulling at my robe with a scream and darting in the direction of the woods. Away from this conversation. Even if that would mean I’d be trail-running butt naked in the middle of the night. I—

“What’s that?” Bobbi gasped, snapping back with a near shriek. “Why did no one tell me about that?”

I blinked the PR strategist back into focus, following the direction of her gaze straight to my hands. Christ. “It’s just jam. Maybe some blood from a cut, but—”

“No,” Bobbi huffed. “Not that.” She pointed at my ring finger. “That.”

“Oh,” I whispered. “That’s just my engagement ring. It’s not—”

“Why did no one tell me you’re engaged again?”

Again? “Because—”

“Hold on,” she interjected. “Shut up. Wait.” Her eyes closed and then she did something I wasn’t prepared for. Bobbi cackled. She laughed. It wasn’t a nice sound. It sounded rusty, and slightly… evil. “This changes everything.”

I was so tired. So done. So… “What does?”

“This,” she said, lifting my hand. “Sucks for him, but this is excellent news. For us. You, me, Andrew, my job. This mess.”

My mind searched for a way to explain to this woman that this was nothing but a misunderstanding. That this was one of my old engagement rings that was stuck on my finger. Not a new one. That sometimes I did silly things like trying them on again out of… nostalgia? Loneliness? Stupidity? And that when I was stressed, my fingers and ankles swelled and, well, rings got accidentally stuck. But I was overwhelmed past my limit. I’d already been before she got here, if the jam was any indication of how bad my problem-solving was when I panicked.

And now this woman thought I was engaged? Again. For a fifth time. And that it somehow changed everything.

I… Oh God. I was going to be sick. I needed time to think. I—

My attention caught on something behind her.

Not something. Someone. A man. Standing at the end of the driveway.

We must have caught his attention too, because his head turned. His hair was a disarray of shades of dirty blond, and I could make out a pair of glasses resting on the bridge of his nose. He stepped forward, his face coming under the light from the street.

“Matthew?” I heard myself say.

Bobbi glanced over.

“Who’s that? Your fiancé? Great. He should be here for this conversation anyway. How do you feel about a big wedding?” she continued, bending her mouth into a big smile. “We’ll make a splashy announcement. No expense spared. Out of Andrew’s pocket. Daddy to the rescue. There’s nothing people love more than a wedding. A reformed villain walking the bride down the aisle straight to her happily ever after. And boom, PR bomb deactivated. Father-daughter bond strengthened. Reputations saved. Crisis averted. Irritating podcasters silenced. No relocation of anyone anywhere. Bobbi wins and returns to civilization undefeated.”

Time seemed to stop for a second.

PR bomb deactivated. Father-daughter bond strengthened. Reputations saved. Crisis averted.

Then something in me clicked into place.

My hand rose in the air, and to everyone’s surprise—mine, Bobbi’s, and definitely Matthew’s—I yelled at the top of my lungs, “Hi, baby!”

Matthew’s head reared back, and I prayed he’d just go along with it. He knew me. Who I was.

“Love of my life!” I called even louder. “You’re finally back!”

As I said, I wasn’t exactly great at problem-solving when under stress.