Package Makes Perfect: A Fake Dating Small Town Romance (Green Valley Heroes Book 6)

Chapter 1

When someone bangs on my front door at eleven at night, they deserve to see me in my boxers. I do not put clothes on for unannounced late-night guests. Preferably, the sight of my overly hairy chest will encourage them to be on their way. Who knows when I might transform into a werewolf? Or maybe Sasquatch?

If people want to avoid a front row seat to my disinterest in manscaping, then they should visit at a more reasonable hour.

And I’m certainly not stomping down my stairs in my underwear because I expect this visitor to be any sort of lady with a scandalous invite. I might date around, but my phone number is not on any booty-call lists.

So, no, I’m not putting any money on this person—who disturbed me when I was seconds from sleep—being a woman in search of a night of passion.

More likely, one of my cousins got too drunk to drive home, and my house is closer to the bar than theirs. Not the first time my couch has been used to sober up.

Another round of pounding makes the windows shake.

“I’m coming!” I shout at the belligerent guest. Probably Daren. He has the most ham-handed fists of us Kraut boys.

When I unlock the dead bolt and wrench the door open, I discover my guess was close and yet nowhere near correct.

Robin Dunn stands on my front step, her fist raised for another round of aggressive knocking.

Robin is my cousin Daren’s girlfriend, and from the scowl on her face, I’m guessing this isn’t a friendly social call.

“Did you know?” Her question drips in accusation as she stares me down.

And getting stared down by Robin Dunn is no laughing matter.

I’m not a small man. I hit and surpassed six feet by the time I was in ninth grade, and my body is equal parts muscle and muffins. Donner Bakery is my weakness and the reason I veer more toward dad bod than six-pack. I know I take up space in a room.

But right now, Robin has me feeling about the size of a chipmunk.

She shouldn’t be able to do that. The physics just aren’t in her favor.

The woman is maybe five-five, and her job—fixing airplane engines—has given her muscle. But I take up at least three times the space she does and have to tilt my chin far down to meet the set of furious blue eyes in her pale, heart-shaped face. Her scowl shouldn’t intimidate me.

So, why do I have the sudden urge to beg for her forgiveness?

“Know what?” I know the response is wrong even as I say it, but I have nothing else to offer.

Her scoff rings through the humid night air, and I watch her pace away from me. Robin’s agitated movements are punctuated by the rough way she plunges her fingers into the tangle of mahogany curls around her face.

My annoyance at the unexpected wake-up call fades as I take in her distress.

Something is wrong, and my gut twists at the thought of Robin hurting.

When she moved to town a year ago to be with Daren, I liked her immediately. The aviation mechanic is a force of passion and happiness, who brings no end of joy to our formerly male-dominated family gatherings.

And someone hurt her.

“Robin—”

She cuts me off, “Did you know he was cheating on me?”

The question is so ludicrous that I gape for a count of five. Then, I huff a disbelieving chuckle.

Daren, cheat on Robin? No fucking way.

Kraut men do not cheat. If anything, we might be too focused on monogamy. My father and uncle are hopeless romantics, to the point that they started their own wedding planning business. Which is ironic because the men in my family are unlucky in love. They both lost the women they had devoted themselves to, and none of their sons can seem to find a woman, no matter how hard we all try.

Daren is the exception. He stumbled into a dive bar in Chicago, where a curly-haired former army aircraft mechanic was serving drinks and sassy smiles. He fell for her immediately and went to the bar every day for months to flirt until she fell too.

Daren would never cheat on Robin.

But when she continues to stare at me, my humor evaporates.

“He’s not,” I say, completely sure of my statement.

Daren is wild for Robin.

The real problem is why she thinks he’s stepping out on her.

Suddenly, I’m pissed. Furious actually.

Who the hell would tell her such a shitty thing? What asshole thinks it’s okay to cause this kind of drama in the middle of a happy couple?

I need to know so I can punch them in the stomach. Maybe break their nose for good measure.

“Who told you he’s cheating on you?”

Robin continues to watch me, no sign of relief on her face. She doesn’t believe me, which means someone really did a number on her.

The gossip mill in Green Valley can be brutal.

“Give me your word, Arthur,” she says, voice low and cold. “Swear to me you didn’t know.”

I don’t give my word lightly, but in this case, I don’t bother hesitating. “I swear I didn’t know because he’s not. Someone lied to you. Who was it?”

Robin chews on her bottom lip, one hand still tangled in her hair. And again, she ignores my question.

“I believe you.”

Relief rushes through me. “Good. Now, tell me, who’s spreading this shit around town?”

Robin ignores my question. “I believe you didn’t know.”

She spins away from me, marching down my front walk.

As if I could let her leave after that.

“Robin! Wait!” On bare feet, I jog after her, catching her wrist before she steps off the curb. “Look at me. Come on. Daren wouldn’t cheat on you. He loves you. Tell me who told you. We’ll straighten this out.”

Robin stands still, even as her body vibrates with tension, finally returning her hellfire glare to me. “You want to know? Then, get in the car.”

I mutter curses at the stubborn woman, then pull myself together. “Can I put some clothes on before we drive God knows where?”

With her jaw clenched, she gives a quick nod.

Not completely sure she won’t leave without me, I hightail it back to my house, jogging straight to the laundry room, where I pull on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, then snatch my phone off the charger in the kitchen. When I hear the car engine starting, I grab my boots and run out the door.

Robin is already shifting into first when I fling myself into the passenger seat. The car rocks with my weight, and I jerk the seat belt into place.

While we speed through town, I shove my feet into my boots and tie the laces.

With the state she’s in, it might have been better if I had taken the wheel. But Robin always insists on driving, even when she wears her hearing aid. Without the device, her left ear doesn’t pick up much, and the partial deafness makes communicating difficult. With it, she’s said sound still feeds to her differently than she’s used to, and it can be frustrating.

There’s already enough putting her on edge tonight.

“Where are we going?”

“His house,” is her curt reply.

And I can’t help noticing how she said his, not my or ours.

After a moment, she gives me a little more. “I told him I was going to visit my mom this weekend.”

We park in the street, a short way past her driveway. On the gravel stretching toward their house, I spot Daren’s truck.

Another car I vaguely recognize sits beside it.

“That’s Carmichael Hayworth’s Ford.” Even I can hear the hope in my voice.

Maybe Robin saw the strange vehicle and jumped to conclusions. My cousin could easily be hanging out with some guys, shooting pool on the table I helped carry into their basement a few months ago.

“Carmichael has a sister. Trinity.” Robin relays the fact in a deadpan voice that twists my insides tighter.

Robin Dunn talks big, loud, and in your face. Hearing her speak in this frigid monotone gives me possessed-by-a-poltergeist vibes.

“It’s Carmichael,” I insist. “They’re friends.”

It must be. This can’t be what she thinks.

Daren couldn’t have screwed up this badly. Not with Robin. My brain can’t fathom it.

She doesn’t look at me, her eyes fixated on her front door. “Call him. Ring the doorbell. Do whatever you need to do to prove me wrong. Because hell knows I wish you could.”

With that discomforting permission, I pull my cell out of my back pocket and dial Daren’s number. After three rings, he picks up.

“Hey, coz,” Daren says, voice easy. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

The familiar teasing tempts me to relax. I get no end of shit from my family about my insistence on never staying out past ten. Normally, I’d come back with a retort, but I can’t fake joking when Robin sits beside me, gripping the steering wheel as if she wants to jerk the unmoving car off the side of the road.

I grunt. “Stressful day at work.” Not a complete lie.

A house on my mail route got a new dog. A big one that barks like my truck is a threat to its life. The thing almost jumped the rusty chain-link fence to get at me. If the owner were someone else, I might hope they plan on taking the animal to obedience training. But the guy who lives in the house is a member of the Iron Wraiths. Those motorcycle guys get off on people in town being afraid of them. He’d probably laugh if the dog took a bloody chunk out of me.

“Can’t get to sleep. Wanna grab a drink?”

This is some juicy bait I’m laying in front of him. My cousins are always trying to get me to join all-night drink-fests. To bend my rigid bedtime. I’ve never given in. This is the ultimate test.

If Daren turns me down . . .

“Damn. Rain check? I’m busy tonight.”

That’s shocking enough, but then I hear it. A small yet distinct noise in the background.

A feminine giggle.

My eyes snap to the driveway again, where Daren’s car sits. My last hope is that someone picked him up and he’s not at home right now. That my cousin found his way to a house party and that was just another partygoer.

But wouldn’t he have invited me to join?

There’s one way to find out.

“You with Robin? Maybe she wants to get drunk with me.” Somehow, I keep my voice sounding disinterested, even as the woman next to me flinches.

Daren clears his throat, and I recognize the tell. He’s about to lie to me.

“Yeah, man.” He clears his throat again. “That’s her. But we’re busy. Know what I mean? Anyway, I gotta go. Can’t keep my lady waiting.”

The call ends, along with my hope that this was all a misunderstanding.

My thoughts churn and mix and collide, a roiling mess I struggle to put in order. One phrase comes through as clear as a neon sign in a dark window.

How could he?

Daren and Robin are everything. Not perfect, but close enough. The relationship I always hoped for. A partnership I could try to model mine after. I wished I could find a woman who looked at me like Robin looked at Daren.

My cousin had found love with an incomparable woman.

And he threw it all away.

He’s throwing it away. Right now. With Trinity Hayworth.

While I come to terms with the absolute fuckup that is Daren Kraut, Robin releases her death grip on the steering wheel and leans into the backseat of her SUV. There’s a sound of rustling plastic, and the oddness of the noise surprises me enough to speak.

“What are you going to do?”

If she asks me to go in there and beat the shit out of him, I’ll be across the lawn in the next second. I consider doing it without her request, but I don’t want to leave Robin alone.

She straightens in her seat, clutching a plastic bag with the Piggly Wiggly logo on it.

“First, I’m going to go crack these two dozen eggs all over the inside of his beloved truck.” She kicks open her door and climbs out of the driver’s seat, only to lean back down and meet my eyes. The blue of her irises boil. “Then, I’m going to crash their party and get my shit.”