Chapter 3
3
HELENA
H oly mother of bachelor pads. This guy took things to the next level. I could hardly believe what I was seeing.
Isaac lived in a charming log cabin set on a steep incline for a backyard. Not very good for the fence I’d want to have for our dog someday. But the hill allowed him to have a walk-out basement. And that was where we stood right now.
“The guys come over on Friday nights,” he said. “We throw back some beers and hit a few holes.”
“You have a miniature golf course in your basement,” I said.
He stood near the small kitchen, looking around. “They’re actually putting greens. Each with a different level of difficulty.”
I felt like a moron, but I might as well ask. “What’s the difference?”
He opened his mouth and closed it again. In that one move, I knew the answer. Miniature golf was for kids and families, not guys throwing back beers on a Friday night.
“Not much difference, I guess,” he finally said.
I scanned the basement. It wasn’t anything fancy. Just the putting greens, a small kitchen, and a movie theater setup with a gigantic screen and a wraparound couch.
“I figured I’d have movie nights when I installed that,” he said, obviously noticing me eyeing it. “Turns out, mostly the guys come over to watch the game.”
The guys. He obviously spent a lot of time around his guy friends. Perfectly fine with me, but it made me wonder if I’d be able to make my own friends here. I certainly wouldn’t want to hang out while he was having boys’ night.
Come to think of it, I was kind of excited at the prospect of going for drinks with my new girlfriends. Or for dinner. Or whatever else people did around here for fun.
“You’re probably starving,” he suddenly said.
I looked over at him and the look on his face threw me for a minute. As safe and secure as his handshake had made me feel, things still seemed a little awkward between us.
I wasn’t used to people who hid all their emotions. The guy was a complete blank slate. I couldn’t tell if he was happy to have me here, annoyed about it, or ready to send me packing. Would I ever know for sure?
“Starving,” I said. “But I don’t want to be any trouble.”
He made a face at that. Well, he raised his eyebrows just slightly—if that could count as a change in expression.
“My home is your home,” he said. “I’ll see what I can scrounge up. Follow me. I’ll show you the rest of the house after lunch.”
We’d come in this way because the driveway went around to the back of the house. He parked under a deck that was next to the door that led to this area of the house, so it looked like he came in and out through the basement.
He headed up some stairs and I followed him, grasping the railing as I went. Suddenly, it hit me exactly what I’d done, and I stopped on the stairs as emotions overtook me.
Was I crazy? I’d left my home—the only home I’d ever known—to move in with a stranger. To marry him, no less. And it was possible, when he found out the truth, he wouldn’t want to marry me anyway, and I’d be left high and dry. I’d have to go back home and admit to my sister what I’d done.
My sister. She’d find out eventually too. Would she be furious? Would she even care? Probably. I was using her name, and I’d changed my appearance to look as much like her as I could. We were both blonde, but her hair was lighter, so I’d gone in for some highlights around my face right before I left, telling everyone I was just lightening up for spring.
“You coming?”
Isaac’s voice from the top of the stairs jerked me from my thoughts. I was being a big baby. A twenty-three-year-old acting like a fourteen-year-old crying over being homesick at a sleepover.
I was better than this. I was braver than this. I wanted a life of adventure, not one spent living in the same dang town where I’d been born and gone to elementary, middle, and high school. I couldn’t let the farthest I ever traveled be the suitcase college I attended a half-hour from home.
“Coming!” I called out.
I pasted a smile on my face and began walking, this time climbing twice as fast as I’d climbed before. Isaac was gone from the doorway by the time I got to the top, which made me feel a little better. My legs were actually shaking, and I definitely didn’t want him to see that.
On wobbly legs, I stepped out into the big, open room that was his cabin. It had very little furniture. Just a table near the kitchen area and a sofa with a much smaller TV near the door. Why did I get the feeling this guy spent most of his time in his basement, even when his friends weren’t here?
“I wasn’t sure what kind of sandwiches you like, so I bought a little bit of everything,” he said. “I figured I’d take you to dinner at the ski lodge to celebrate our engagement.”
I looked over at him. He was standing in front of the fridge, door open, pulling packages out of a crisper tray.
“Ski lodge?” I asked.
I started walking toward him, figuring I could make my own sandwich. I wasn’t going to have him wait on me. After all, he’d said my home was his home.
“It’s the only place in town to get alcohol,” he said.
“We don’t have to go somewhere that serves alcohol.”
He closed the fridge door and turned to face me. My gaze was scanning the various sandwich meats he’d set out. This guy had the makings of a charcuterie board, minus the board.
“It’s not the alcohol,” he said. “It really is the nicest place in town. With ski season winding down, it’s not as busy as it has been the past couple of months. Most of the locals stay away until spring, although there are a few who plant themselves on a barstool and hibernate there for the winter.”
He went over to the bread box and opened it, pulling out a loaf of bread. Then he set it on the table before going to the cabinet and extracting two paper plates. I, meanwhile, got to work undoing the twist tie on the bread. My hand was still shaking.
“My sister said this town is going through some serious growing pains.”
“Helena?”
I looked up in response to him saying my name. I loved hearing my name in his deep voice. He’d never said it before?—
Oh, shit. I almost clamped my hand over my mouth when I realized what I’d done. My sister. I was supposed to be her. Daphne was the one who had all the conversations with him about the town.
“She’s done some heavy-duty research,” I rushed to say. “I always joke that she should be a journalist. Or a private investigator.”
“You and your sister went through a lot,” he said. “Going through a divorce brings siblings together, I guess.”
This was where I had to call on what I’d found out while reading through their previous messages. I felt bad about that, but I needed to know what they’d discussed so I didn’t ask questions that would give me away.
“I’m sorry you didn’t have that,” I said, and I meant more than just a sibling.
He didn’t have two parents—divorced or otherwise—who raised him. He never knew his father, who died when he was a teenager, but his dad’s mother raised him and made sure his mom had enough food on the table and all the basics they needed to survive. Isaac had opened up about that in an email a couple of weeks after he and Daphne started chatting.
“And that’s why I want at least two kids,” he said. “Maybe more. I want the big family I never had.”
I had a lump in my throat. Just how many kids was he talking? I could see having three, tops, but really, one or two was ideal.
I hoped my job would give me the flexibility to work from home—if I could ever get anyone to hire me—but the thought of having four or five children running around this cabin exhausted me.
What was I thinking? The chances that I’d have four or five kids with him were pretty slim. It wasn’t etched in stone that I was going to end up married to this guy, and that was tough, considering every time I looked at him, my heart swelled a little. It was even more powerful than the way I’d felt when I looked at his picture.
But he might decide, once he found out the truth about who I was, to head to Philadelphia and convince my sister to marry him like she’d originally promised. Then I’d be an aunt to the zillions of kids he was hoping to have.
I needed to steer the conversation away from my sister. Talk of my sister meant we were talking about me. Pretend me, anyway. The me that was supposed to be at home while Daphne hung out here with the guy she’d promised to marry.
“So, what do you think?” I asked.
He’d grabbed a loaf of bread and put two slices on his own plate, preparing to make a sandwich, but now he looked up at me. “Think of what?”
“Of the development in this town. Are you against it or do you like it? More places to shop, right?”
“I have a feeling the shops will be geared toward tourists until we get more locals in town,” he said. “So it’s not going to help me much. I’ll still be driving to Adairsville for most of what I need.”
Adairsville. That was the town he’d mentioned earlier that was fifteen minutes or so from here. I’d have to go there to get anything I needed. Groceries. New clothes. Makeup. Diapers, when someday we had kids.
That idea filled me with warmth. For just a few days, I’d let myself buy into the fantasy that this was going to be my life. He’d chosen me, not my sister. There wouldn’t be a moment when he realized he’d invited the wrong sibling into his house. A sibling who’d lied to him. We’d live happily ever after with diapers and groceries we’d bought in the next town over.
I found myself buying into the fantasy more with every second that passed.