paunch.
When the door opened, Julia had jerked to attention. She stepped in front of Zach to shout at the vanishing intruder. “I told you to never do that again.”
Fire flared inside, and the only things that stopped Zach from running after the man were Julia’s fingers now tangled in his T-shirt.
“What the hell is going on?” he demanded again.
She pressed her free hand to her head as if trying to keep her brains from spilling out. “One thing at a time. Just…sit down and I swear I’ll explain.”
It took everything in him to ease away. Two steps brought him to the small dining table, and he settled into the wooden chair on one side.
He fought down a growl as she took the second chair and jammed it under the front doorknob.
Unbelievable fury roiled in Zach’s gut.
Somehow, he kept his cool as she turned to face him. Tear lines streaked her cheeks, but she straightened her spine. “I was in the bathroom at Rough Cut and overheard some women gossiping. There’s a rumour going around Heart Falls that I’m having an affair with Brad Ford.”
Even as pissed off and in hyperprotective mode from everything that had happened over the last few minutes, her words floored Zach. “Someone thinks you’re having an affair with your boss? The guy who just got married a month ago and who is obviously and stupidly in love with Hanna?”
His disbelief must’ve rang clear because Julia nodded. “Isn’t it absurd? But you know what small town rumours are like. Somebody’s going to find something to prove it—the fact I came to Heart Falls to mentor under him because we met each other a couple years ago at the EMT training center could be enough to get some people to believe.”
Okay, Zach hadn’t known that part. It added a layer of concern to the situation. Not that he thought she and Brad were doing anything wrong, but it would give the mean-spirited gossips something to chew on. “So you kissed me…?”
A little bit of her bravado faded. “I kind of panicked. I heard them talking, and the only thing in my brain was to make sure the rumours don’t continue. And maybe if I had a boyfriend already, that would stop the stupidity in its tracks.”
He wasn’t sure if the fact she picked him for this honour was a good thing or an insult.
Being a glass half-full kinda guy, he went with it being a good thing. “You’re saying I’m a convenient boyfriend?”
She hurried to explain, stepping forward to finish even as she wiped her eyes and tried to pull herself together. “Temporary boyfriend. It’s just for a short time. My trainee position is done at the end of October, and then I’ll be gone. But yeah, if people think we’re together, they won’t think I’m fooling around on the side with Brad.”
This was getting messy. “Yeah, I can see how all that works. Great. Fine.” He met her gaze straight on. “What about your sisters? And my friends? What are we going to tell them?”
She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, and in spite of the tension in the room, he had to admit to being slightly charmed. She was damn cute.
The impulsive thing had caught him off guard, but her heart was in the right place and considering his long-term goals, being offered guaranteed time with the woman had to be counted as a win.
Julia’s nose twitched. “Umm. I haven’t thought about that. Like I said, I didn’t really think any of it through. I just reacted. I was doing triage before the situation bled out.”
“Yeah, I can see that. But we have to come up with a different spin to the story. Because as much as my friends love me, if they think I screwed around then dumped you, I’m the one who’ll be bleeding.”
She looked confused. “You won’t be dumping me. And I won’t be dumping you. It’s just a little… I don’t know, a short-term thing.”
“Short-term?” He eyed her, making sure he didn’t let his gaze linger too long where it shouldn’t. “Yeah. You mean like a one-night stand? Because I can see your sisters hanging me by my nuts if I had the crassness to try.”
Her cheeks flushed. “We’re not having a one-night stand. The whole point of this is to make it look as if we’re involved enough that Brad is clearly out of the question.”
“Great. We’ll fool around from now until the end of October when you