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Michael wandered over to handle their drinks, and Chloe jumped on the opportunity to be useful. “Is there something I can help with?”
Loretta shook her head. “No, no. Get a drink and then go on out to the patio and relax.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yep.” She grinned. “It’s all part of my strategy. I ply you with food and beverage and then I get the scoop on this happy development.”
“Oh, well…there’s not much to tell, really.”
“Are you kidding? I pride myself on keeping my finger on the pulse of all the happenings around here, but you and Michael flew completely below my radar. I have some catching up to do. I’m going to pump you both for every single little detail.”
Chloe swallowed hard and sent Michael what she knew was an anemic smile when he handed her a glass of wine. He wrapped an arm around her waist and led her out French doors to the patio. “You’re doing fine,” he whispered in her ear.
“We’re screwed,” she whispered back.
An hour later, Chloe leaned back in her chair, exhaled a small sigh of contentment, and turned to soak in the apricot-raspberry sunset. Michael had his arm draped along the back of her chair and traced intricate, meandering designs along her shoulder with his fingertip.
As screwings went, this one had been fairly painless. Conversation had flowed during dinner but nothing too pointed. Mostly questions Michael had predicted—how had they met? How had Michael popped the question? There was no way to camouflage the short time line, but the Hardings merely echoed Mrs. Waverly’s sometimes-you-just-know sentiments. Michael succeeded in turning the conversation to other topics easily enough. The colonel knew his way around a grill and didn’t mind talking technique. He’d earned the right, as far as Chloe was concerned, because he served up baby-back ribs as good as anything she remembered from her Texas barbecue days. She felt herself starting to relax.
The colonel’s voice broke into her musings. “So, when’s the big day?”
Michael’s hand froze on her back. She cast him a quick glance that probably looked guilty as sin. Oops. They hadn’t thought to set a fictional date for their fictional wedding.
“We’re still in the planning phase, sir,” Michael replied, and casually ran his fingers along the back of her neck, as if to silently say, No worries. I’ve got this.
“Hmm.” The colonel pressed his lips together as he contemplated the information. The gesture gave him a mildly disapproving look and Chloe automatically tensed in her chair. She clasped her hands together in her lap.
“I understand you two are living together?”
Uh-oh. Now they were getting down to it. “Um—”
“Yes.” Michael nodded and dropped his hand to her lap. He threaded his fingers through hers to stop her from attacking the cuticle of her thumb. “Chloe had housing at Casa Clemente through her work, but the assignment she was on recently ended and, consequently, she needed to vacate her unit. Rather than go to the time, effort, and expense of finding a short-term rental, I asked her to move in. We can put the time and money we saved into the wedding.”
“What kind of work do you do?” Loretta offered an encouraging smile as she posed the question, and Chloe recognized a softball when someone was kind enough to lob one her way.
“I’m a massage therapist. I work through an agency called Helping Hands that places me in contract assignments all over the country.”
“Sounds exciting! How long are the assignments?”
“They vary. I’ve worked assignments anywhere from three weeks to three months. That’s pretty much my outside limit. Anything longer and I get a little restless,” she admitted. “I like to travel.”
“Oh, but, now”—Loretta’s eyes shifted to Michael—“now that you’re getting married, you’ll want to look for something local, right?”
“Right.” Michael lifted her hand and placed a soft kiss on her wrist, and her idiotic heart raced, even though she knew the sweet gesture was all for show. Then he smiled at her and winked. “She’s giving up her wanderlust ways for me.”
> “Don’t give them up completely. As a marine wife of twenty-five years, I can verify you get plenty of travel courtesy of the military.” Oddly, Loretta sounded content with that state of affairs. A similar comment coming from Chloe’s mom would have been the beginning of a long lament about the difficulties of life as a military wife.
“Another reason to set the date sooner rather than later,” the colonel added. “Now, I know the men see me as a stick-in-the-mud about things like this, but I don’t endorse officers just…shacking up. It sets a terrible example. You two are engaged,” he inserted, holding his hand up for silence when Michael would have spoken, “and that’s different, but if you drag the engagement out too long, fate has a way of complicating things. I disapprove of complications. A smart person avoids them.” He punctuated the statement with a sharp look at Michael.
Loretta laughed and elbowed her husband. “I think you just called us not so smart, Stan.” She leaned close to Chloe and stage whispered, “If you do the math on our oldest boy’s birthday, you discover he came along exactly seven-and-a-half months after the wedding…and that kid was a week late.”
Heat flooded her cheeks. Babies. They’re talking about babies.
“We’re not looking to have a…uh”—Michael cleared his throat and continued—“complication anytime soon. Definitely not before the wedding.”
“Then take my advice and keep the engagement short, son,” the colonel insisted.
“I don’t think either of us is envisioning a long engagement,” Michael replied. He aimed a questioning look her way and she had to give him credit for his acting ability. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was an attentive fiancé trying to feel out his bride-to-be on this important question. “But we have my family to coordinate and—”
