Chapter 4
4
“Engaged? Are you insane?” I whispered into the cool darkness as Mike yanked my suitcase from the back of the rental. Mrs. O had said goodnight and gone in to sleep. We stood in the circular driveway in front of the house. It was pitch black, only a small light by the front door lit the area. The house, from what I could see, was Tudor style, completely not what I had in mind for Alaska. A two-story, massive box of a home, with dark beams and white stucco. The front door, lit by brass sconces, was made of dark wood and recessed beneath a small covered porch. Several pairs of rubber rain boots stood in a neat row to the left of the front door. Medieval, meet tundra.
The hatchback shut with a loud thunk that disturbed the quiet. Crickets chirped and leaves stirred gently in the woods that all but obscured the house from the road. Goose bumps rose on my arms. I was expecting chilly nights, but not the dampness. I was loaded once again with my carry-on and Mike balanced himself with the two heavy suitcases. They weighed close to fifty pounds each, but he lifted them like my sister's plumbing toolboxes.
“Actually, Vi, I think I might be. It's three in the morning and I just gave a woman an ugly-ass ring to fake an engagement so I wouldn't hurt my mother's feelings.”
“Thank God.”
Mike put the bags down. Even in the darkness I could see his eyebrows go up in confusion.
I held up my left hand. “The ugly-ass ring part. Sorry, Mike, but it is ugly.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I did it on purpose. I wasn't going to give you a ring like that if it was the real deal.”
I sighed with relief. He'd put a little thought into the ring, although why he wasn't smart enough to avoid a fake engagement in the first place was still confusing. “I'm so glad you haven't lost your sense of style.”
Mike smiled. A small dimple appeared in his cheek. I'd forgotten—no, more like blocked out—that dimple. “My mom's been trying to fix me up ever since I finished my residency and moved back to Bozeman. It hasn't been too bad. But this week…” He did the whole hair rubbing thing again, his sign for frustration. “I avoid the house as much as possible. I came to Alaska to do some fishing, but I hadn't expected to be doing it practically twenty-four-seven to avoid Susan.”
“Right, Susan.”
“I really am glad you're here, Vi, and I'm sorry I didn't give you notice on the whole relationship upgrade. I didn't want to hurt my mom's feelings by telling her off. She means well, but Susan, she's literally insane. I did a six-week rotation in psych and I can officially say she's mental.”
I adjusted my bag on my shoulder. “She's not going to be in your bed, is she?”
Mike quirked an eyebrow and grinned. “ Our bed. It would be pretty crowded since you and I are sharing a room.”
I swallowed. Our bed. Oh shit. I hadn't thought this through. Over ten years, no foreplay and I was going to share his bed? Could I do this? Could I sleep in a bed with Mike without sleeping with him? I cocked my head toward the house. “Your mother doesn't believe in the whole separate bedrooms before marriage thing?”
He shot me a look that screamed, Are you kidding me? “I'm thirty years old. My mother knows I've had sex.”
“Yeah, but with me?” I thought I saw his jaw clench and his eyes flare with something, but it was dark, late, and I didn't have the energy to read into it. “I'm too tired to even think about sex. We can deal with the details of this whole”—I circled my finger around in circles—“boyfriend/girlfriend?—”
“Fiancée,” Mike corrected.
“Fine.” I felt the heavy weight of the ring. It was going to be a constant reminder of the farce I was in now. “This whole fiancée thing in the morning. It's bad enough your mother thinks we're having sex in the same house as her. I'm going to have nightmares.”
Mike made a sound like a groan and a grunt, very bear-like. At least, I hoped it was Mike. Bears weren't hibernating now and I was sure we looked like a pretty decent meal.
“You and me both.” He sighed as he lifted the bags once again and led me toward the front door. “You and me both.”
I awoke confused, not knowing where I was. The room was sparsely furnished: bed, end table with lamp, wood dresser with a vintage TV on top, the kind that had a dial on it to change the channel.
The walls were white. Wall-to-wall dark blue carpet. Navy, no-frills curtains hung at the window, their white metal blinds closed, making the room dim. The bed was king-sized and the sheets white, with a comforter that matched the curtains and the rug. It screamed bachelor male.
Alaska. Oh, yeah.
Mike's side of the bed was empty, but the comforter was thrown back and a dent in the pillow indicated he'd been there at some point. I'd gone first in the bathroom when we'd come in from the airport, then let Mike have a turn. Before he'd come out, I must have conked out. Great, the first time I actually shared a bed with Mike and I remembered nothing.
I listened carefully for any type of noise to indicate if anyone else was around, but all was quiet. No TV sounds, no street noise. No Mike.
The alarm clock on the dresser read eleven-thirty. I hadn't seen much of the house when we came in from the airport. It had been late, the rooms dark. Uncle Bob could have lived in a cave and I wouldn't have cared. Exhaustion had dulled my curiosity and my new relationship status had me sidetracked.
If I hadn't had to pee, I would have rolled over and thrown the blanket over my head for a few more hours.
I needed to make an appearance at some point, and I thought it better to do it on my own terms than to have Mike walk in and see me like this. Throwing back the covers, I rummaged through my open suitcase on the floor, found some clothes and locked myself in the en suite bathroom.
It was a flashback to 1980. Mud brown tub, toilet and sink. One entire wall—floor to ceiling—was a mural of a fall foliage mountain scene; yellowed Aspens, snowcapped peaks, babbling brook. It was an in-your-face reminder of the locale. It was so retro that it had gone full circle from being cool to being ridiculous to being cool all over again.
I stood there staring at the super-sized image; stunned I hadn't even noticed it the night before when I'd brushed my teeth. Looking in the mirror, I barely squelched a scream. My usually sleek dark hair was like straw, sticking up every which way. My makeup was long gone. Dark circles under my eyes indicated my long day and late night. I was a hot mess, all right. It was a good thing I was already engaged to Mike. He couldn't back out now, regardless of what I looked like. Hell, Crazy Susan had to look better than this.
Rummaging through my toiletry case, I found my shampoo, conditioner, razor and other shower paraphernalia, placed it on the tub rim and turned on the water. I stepped under the hot spray and got busy preparing myself for my role of fiancée extraordinaire. Mrs. O, nor Susan, would believe Mike and I were engaged if my legs weren't shaved.
I had my back to the spray, my head tilted up to rinse out the conditioner, when the metal slide of the shower curtain startled me. My eyes darted open and there, staring at me with probably an equally surprised expression, was a tall, voluptuous woman somewhere in her early thirties. It was easy to confirm she was a natural blonde since she stood there completely naked, one hand still on the white plastic curtain.
“Who the hell are you?” she asked, her voice high-pitched.
For a weird moment, I had a silly thought that maybe I was the one to ask that question.
“Um, Violet,” I replied, the steam from the hot water swirling around me. “How did you get in here? I locked the door.”
For just such situations, I thought.
She casually shrugged. “I have my ways.” Her eyes raked down my body, assessing. This wasn't a look of interest, but of scoping out the competition. “I'm Susan. I thought you were somebody else.”
“I figured,” I said sarcastically as I wiped water out of my eyes. So this was Susan. This was the woman who had Mike so scared he had to drag me to the wilds of Alaska.
I wanted to cover my nakedness, but there was nowhere to go and my washcloth wasn't going to cover much. It wasn't that often, okay never, that I had a conversation in the buff and I felt awkward. Perhaps Susan was a member of an Alaskan nudist colony. “Who were you looking for?”
Mike might be afraid of her, but I wasn't.
Susan continued to hold the curtain but put her other hand on her hip. It only accentuated her incredible figure. Playboy -worthy breasts, narrow waist, trim hips and a trimmed— “My boyfriend, Mike.”
Wow. Other than the fact that Susan had picked a lock, undressed, and hoped to surprise Mike in the shower, she was a good catch. Most women would give their right arm for a body like hers. Most men would put up with almost anything to see a body like hers naked. Unfortunately, her charms were lost on me, and my escape route was blocked.
“That's interesting, because I know Mike, and he's my fiancé.” I held up my left hand and showed her the ring, even wiggled my fingers a bit to get the point across. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined I would be glad to have that ring on my finger. But I was. Thrilled, in fact.
It was catty, it was bitchy, and I didn't care.
Susan got the point because her mouth fell open, then closed with a click of straight white teeth. She took another look, longer this time, at my body. “Well, I'm not sure what Mike could see in you.” She looked pointedly at my B-cups. “A man like him prefers them a little bigger.”
“It's what you do with them that counts,” I replied tartly. Now wasn't the time to put Mrs. O's karate moves to use, no matter how much I wanted to kick Susan's perfect ass.
If I didn't know about Mike's complete disinterest in the woman, I would have believed her lie. She was good. Really good. And a real bitch. I'd like to think I was just pretending to be one. Regardless, I was mad. I was wet, I was naked and I was with a crazy woman. Okay, I could up that statement to crazy bitch and no one would argue. My shower fantasy had never played out this way before.
I yanked the shower curtain out of her grip and climbed out of the tub, water dripping onto the bath mat. “If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to finish in private. Mike is obviously not here, so you might want to check the kitchen.” I had absolutely no idea where Mike was, but the kitchen was as good a place for her to go as anywhere. As long as it wasn't in my shower. Or bathroom. “Tell him his fiancée pointed you to him.”
Susan pursed her lips and stared at me for a few moments, stooped to pick up her clothes she'd clearly stripped off, and stomped out of the room, her fake double D's barely moving.
I slammed the door behind her, contemplating the marvel of modern plastic surgery.