Until It Gets Real (The Paradise #3)

Chapter 1

“I need a boyfriend,” Lottie whispered seductively as she threw a long leg over the bench beside the picnic table and sat down close to Knox. “Are you game?”

What was wrong with this woman? She had appeared to be kind of sweet at his brother’s wedding when she introduced herself as Charlotte Johnston.

Maybe he heard her wrong.

“Would you repeat that, please?” he asked.

“Do you need to get your hearing tested?” Her voice went from silky smooth to as rough as forty-grit sandpaper.

“I hear just fine—most of the time,” he answered and then realized what day it was. “April Fools.”

“I’m serious as a…” she started.

He held up a palm and butted in before she could finish. “You are a pretty good actor, but I’m not falling for her joke.”

His thoughts went back to Spanish Fort, where Aunt Bernie, the matchmaking queen of north Texas, was already hard at work attempting to set him up with blind dates every weekend.

The Universe might have just plopped a good situation down into his lap, but then again, this was most likely the workings of Bernie.

She could be very manipulative, and she and Lottie had spent time together at his brother Tripp’s wedding.

Lottie flipped her straw-colored braids over her shoulders, nudged him, and crossed her heart with her finger. “This is no one’s idea but mine, and it’s not an April Fool’s joke. I promise.”

“Yeah, right,” Knox said.

“No one put me up to it.”

Knox shook his head. “Not happening, and I still don’t believe this is anything but another attempt to fool me.”

“I just need a boyfriend for six weeks, and then we’ll go our separate ways.”

“Are you talking about a fake boyfriend?” Knox asked.

“Of course. What did you think I meant?”

“You need to be clear when you sit down beside a man and whisper sweet nothings in his ear that sound desperate and more than a little bit scary.”

She threw up her palms. “You should have known what I was asking without me having to say it. It’s a simple yes or no answer. Bernie told me that you weren’t seeing anyone, so I figured you would be a good guy to ask.”

So, Bernie was at the core of the whole thing after all.

“Good God!” she hissed in a whisper. “Did you really think I was asking for real?”

“Yep, I did,” Knox answered. “Why do you want a fake boyfriend? Why not a real one?”

She dropped her hands back to her lap. “I’m damn sure not interested in all the bells and whistles of falling in love and getting married, even if I did catch the bride’s bouquet. I just need a boyfriend, and not a real one.”

“Again, why?” He felt a little spark at her touch, but then she was an attractive woman with all those curves and big brown eyes.

“You aren’t stupid, are you?” she barked.

“Last time I checked, I could still add two and two without using my fingers to count,” he shot back. “And I still smell a really stinky April Fool’s joke.”

Was Aunt Bernie trying to play matchmaker on the sly?

“I’m the only woman carpenter here,” Lottie answered with a long sigh.

“Like I said, no one put me up to this. Are you going to answer me or not? And for your information, I haven’t even talked to Bernie since the wedding.

But she did tell me all about her matchmaking business and website, and said she would fix me up for free.

I told her I wasn’t interested, and we went on to another subject. ”

“So, why do you need a boyfriend so badly that you’d ask an almost complete stranger to pretend?” Knox asked.

“I’m here to work, and when the rest of the crew begins to arrive in a few days, all the single guys will begin to hit on me. I’m tired of it, and them. They’re all good workers or Uncle Jack wouldn’t have hired them, but…” She let the sentence hang without finishing it.

“But what?”

“On the last job, they had a betting pool going as to who would spend the night in my trailer first. I have two rules on the job. I don’t date coworkers, and not even Uncle Jack gets to call me Charlie,” she said. “Do I need to explain any further?”

“Yep, you do,” Knox said. “If I’m going to commit to a long-term fake relationship, I should know your whole dirty past.”

“I’m not asking you to marry me,” she snapped. “Would you please answer me and stop beating around the bush?”

Knox chuckled. “Are we having our first fight before I even get a good-night kiss?”

“What makes you think…”

Knox leaned over and whispered softly, “All of the guys will need to believe that we are together. They can spot a fake a mile away. Are you ready to do a good job of pretending, or do you want to call it off right now?”

Lottie cupped his face in her hands and brushed a kiss across his lips. “Is that good enough?”

“It’s a start,” he said with half a shrug, even though he could feel and practically see the sparks shooting all around them. “Now, say the words.”

“I do not tell a boyfriend, fake or real, that I love him unless I mean it.” Lottie’s eyes flashed with aggravation.

He nodded toward the three framers standing down by the lake. “They probably think we are fighting. Does this mean that we’ll have to make up before morning?” Knox teased.

“It does not!” she growled.

“Well, I’m disappointed. Seems like setting my trailer to rocking a little bit is what we really need to do if we’re making up after this argument.”

She cupped his cheeks in her hands and looked deeply into his eyes.

“That kiss is us making up, and it was for the guys standing out there. They are all married, but before long, five more guys will be here to put the cabins in the dry. Then roofers and siders will be here right along with them, and then the Wednesday evening after that, the drywall fellows and painters will start coming in to get things ready for the finish carpenters. Not all of them have a partner, and they all give me hell.”

“Why do you stay with it?” Knox got lost in her brown eyes.

“I love what I do. Uncle Jack has this business organized so that the six cabins will be up and ready for the people who’ve already purchased them to move in by our deadline.

Then we all go to a project out around El Paso where we will be building minimansions in a gated community.

If I have a boyfriend, it makes things easier for me. ”

“Log cabins to crystal chandeliers, but I probably won’t be headed out west for that job. I wouldn’t even be here if Walter hadn’t fallen and broken his wrist. He should be back for those minimansions.”

“Yep,” she answered and dropped her hands.

“That means this is going to be a short relationship, right?” he asked.

She nodded.

Knox rubbed his chin. “Do I have to defend your honor? I’d hate to mess up my hands and lose my job. Or worse yet, get my pretty face all torn to shreds.”

“I can take care of myself,” she answered. “What makes you think you are pretty?”

A wide grin spread across his face. “A woman as gorgeous as you wouldn’t ask an ugly man to be her boyfriend.”

She air-slapped him on the arm. “Any more questions?”

“Just one. What if I want to have a long-distance fake relationship even when this job is done?” Knox’s mind raced ahead past the six weeks. He could keep Aunt Bernie from her matchmaking indefinitely that way.

“Fine by me, and if we decide to go our separate ways, then we’ll have a very public breakup,” Lottie answered.

“Okay, then.” Knox’s blue eyes twinkled. “I will be your fake boyfriend. Do I sign a contract?”

“Since you are kin to Bernie, your word is good enough.” She stood up with the grace of a ballerina, dropped a kiss on the top of his head, and headed back to her trailer.

“Whew!” Knox uttered under his breath. “What have I done?”

He had told his brother, “I will have to get a fake girlfriend,” when Tripp teased him about being next in line for Bernie’s matchmaking business.

The old gal had already found mates for all seven of the Paradise sisters and both of his brothers, Brodie and Tripp, and she had half the population within a thirty-mile radius dating one another.

But Knox was determined that when he got ready to settle down, he would pick his own woman with no help from the meddling queen of Spanish Fort, Texas.

Aunt Bernie wasn’t really related to him or his brothers at all.

Explaining the social dynamics of everyone at the Paradise back in Spanish Fort would take a book the size of one of the romance novels that his stepmother, Mary Jane, was famous for writing.

There were seven sisters, a half brother, an adopted sister, and then Tripp and Knox, who were shirt-tail kin.

Aunt Bernie was related by blood to the sisters, but from the beginning, she had declared that the adopted sister, Ivy, and three Callahan brothers were also kinfolks.

It didn’t take Brodie, Tripp, or Knox long to figure out that what she said was the law.

One of the other guys that arrived on-site at the same time as Knox eased down onto the bench across the table. “Hey, I’m Thomas Lopez. Looks like you and Lottie were having a disagreement. Did y’all get it figured out?”

“I hope so, but I hear that you are all three married, so you know how that goes,” Knox said with a chuckle. “Lottie said that she’s worked with y’all before. Just how good is she?”

“Jack’s crews all work together like a well-oiled machine,” Thomas said, “And believe me, Lottie is one of the best framers you will ever work with. I’d have to say the only one who is better is Walter, and that’s because he’s been doing this so long that he can step in and help with anything from foundation to finish carpentry.

We’re sure going to miss him this time around, but he’s supposed to be back with us when we go to El Paso.

Next week, we’ll have the first cabin ready for the next group coming in from a site down south, and most of them aren’t married, so the whole feel of the place changes. You ever worked with a woman before?”