little girl. Her mother had rocked her in that rocking chair. She’d played dress-up with dresses and hats and shoes dug out of the large trunk that sat at the foot of the bed and had played with makeup in the enormous round mirror over the dressing table that sat across the room. It had been her mother’s. Kate Asher had done her makeup and hair at that dressing table for her dates with Josie’s dad.
The trunk now held blankets and photo albums and the dressing table drawers were full of the actual makeup Josie used now, but everything in this room had memories attached to it. Lifelong memories.
And she was about to marry a guy with the intention of it being short term.
Looking at the trunk where she hadn’t even realized she’d planned to store her wedding dress and veil after her wedding, she decided that they couldn’t have an actual wedding. No gorgeous dress with a long train. No veil. No flowers. No photographs. Hell, they shouldn’t even have a ceremony.
“Do you think we could elope?”
Grant’s attention came back to her immediately. He thought about her question. “Absolutely,” he said after only a few seconds.
Wow, that hadn’t been difficult for him to decide. But Josie refused to let that bother her. She nodded. “Great. I think we should go away for the weekend, let everyone know that—well, maybe not my grandma,” she said with a frown. “But our friends, I mean. We’ll go away for the weekend saying that we’re having such a good time that we decided I should go to your seminar to help out. Then we’ll find a justice of the peace? A judge? Whatever. And when we come back we’ll tell them that we… got drunk and a little crazy, but that we’re going to see what happens.”
He nodded. “Okay. On all of it except the drunk part.”
“No?”
“I don’t get drunk.”
That didn’t surprise her. “Okay. Then we’ll just get caught up in the moment. The romance. The sex. Whatever.”
“I don’t really do that either.”
She nodded. “You’re going to have to sell it. I mean, what other story are we going to use?”
“Well, fortunately you sent me those cupcakes,” he said, the corner of his mouth curling slightly.
“Oh?”
“I acted… uncharacteristically happy and possessive about those,” he said.
“Did you?” She liked how that sounded. At least this wasn’t completely platonic. It wasn’t a business deal. It was… it was kind of a business deal. She could admit that. But they were… friends. Kind of. He was a friend helping her out with something. There was some emotion here. A lot of it was lust, maybe, but it went a little beyond that. Fuck buddies didn’t sit in urgent care. Or offer to commit insurance fraud.
“I did,” he said. “And I think that made the guys think that something was going on that was more than… anything else before.”
She lifted her brows.
He blew out a breath, tucking his hands into his pockets. He looked a little uncomfortable or… vulnerable. That’s what it was. He looked vulnerable.
Josie sat up a little straighter.
“I like you,” he finally said. He was looking at her knees. “I like you, and I feel very strangely protective of you, and I’m… addicted to something here. Something that makes me want to stay and have more. More of… whatever it is.” His eyes lifted to hers. “And yes, the men who have been my friends and partners for nine years can tell all of that.”
Okay, that was all pretty great. It wasn’t madly in love and wanting to spend the rest of his life with her, but it wasn’t I basically see you as a charity and need to make a big donation so I can sleep at night.
“So they might believe this?”
“They might.” He shrugged. “I’ll make them believe it.”
She smiled. She believed that. Grant definitely had a way of presenting his arguments. She figured he didn’t lose very often.
“Will your friends believe it of you?”
“That I ran off for a romantic weekend with the guy who has literally swept me off my feet and ended up married to him?” She gave a soft chuckle. “I should actually probably be worried by how easily they’re going to believe that.”
He gave her a little grin. “So we can pull it off?”
“I think so.”
“We can fly to Chicago tomorrow,” he said. “I can make some calls and get something arranged with a judge. The seminar is on Saturday. We can stay Sunday and… see the