He reaches out and touches the top of my hand. His palm is warm and soft, and he takes it away too quickly.
“I got there and hated it,” I say around the lump in my throat. “But I was too proud to call home and tell Gramma that. And . . . she died before I could.”
“Shit.” He stands, and I think he might reach for me. I hold my breath. “I’m sorry, Sophie.”
I exhale. “It’s fine.”
It’s not fine. It won’t ever be fine. I left her. I made a bad decision after a terrible decision, mostly out of pride. I was so freaking stupid, and the regret I feel about that gnaws at me every day.
“You know what you need?” Holden asks.
“Yes,” I say quickly. “A knight in shining armor with five grand. Do you know what you need?”
He opens his mouth but snaps it shut. Slowly, his eyes widen to the size of dinner plates. A smile that doesn’t instill confidence in me spreads across his cheeks too. “Actually, I do. I need . . . a wife.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
HOLDEN
Sophie holds my gaze for a long second. “Well, good luck with that.”
“Yeah . . .”
My throat goes dry as my mind begins to take itself seriously. Too seriously. So seriously, in fact, that it starts to run certain scenarios in which we both could come out with what we need with nothing but a . . . wedding.
It occurs to me that this idea has been percolating in the back of my mind for a few days. Here and there, little blips of imagery would filter through my brain about what life might be like, being married to Sophie. I thought it was just a giant what-if game, like brains are known to play.
But maybe it’s not that. Maybe it was trying to tell me something.
To marry her.
I shake my head in the hope that the movement will jolt some sense into me. But when I stop, the same visions are running through my head.
She turns toward the sink and raises the window. Cool air blasts into the room. I wonder if it’s really that chilled or if my body temperature is just abnormally high as I think about . . . marrying Sophie Bates.
I gulp.
“That air feels good, doesn’t it?” she says.
Her back is to me. Her shoulders are rigid. I wonder if she’s thinking what I’m thinking, because there’s a definite stress in my back that’s making me stand tall too.
Shit.
I clear my throat. “Sophie?”
“Yeah?”
“I have a crazy idea.”
She takes a deep breath. “Why does the sound of that terrify me in a very real way?”
“Well . . .” I plant my hands on the counter as I watch for any kind of tell as to what she’s thinking. “I think I might have found a way to solve both of our problems.”
She spins around and grabs the edge of the sink behind her. Her jaw is set. “You are out of your freaking mind if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking.”
I hold a hand in front of me. “It could work. Think about it.”
The longer I think about it, the more I think it could. It would. And the deeper my belief in the possibilities of this admittedly crazy idea, the more energy flows through my veins.
I walk toward her slowly. Each step I take causes her chest to rise and fall quicker. Mine too.
“Look, I know this sounds insane,” I say carefully. “But think about it.”
“Think about what, exactly?”
“You need a knight in shining armor and five grand, right?”
She nods, narrowing her eyes.
“And I need a wife.”
Something about the way this comes out snaps her out of her haze. She comes alive with a laugh.
“You. Are. Out. Of. Your. Damn. Mind.” She squares her shoulders to mine. The sweetness of the wine on her breath, mixed with the disbelief on her face, makes me grin. “This isn’t funny.”
“No, it’s not.”
“You do realize you’re insinuating that I could be your wife, right?”
“I do.”
“You’re nuts, and you’re even nuts-er if you think you are my knight in shining armor.”
She marches to the counter behind me. After swiping up my glass and the empty wine bottle, she stomps across the kitchen. Looking me straight in the eye, she tosses the bottle into the trash.
“Did you stop at the bar on your way home?” she asks.
“This town has a bar?”
“Good point. Did you do drugs, then?” She places the glass in the sink. “Because there’s something seriously wrong with you, Doc.”
I shouldn’t laugh. I know it. There’s really nothing funny about this . . . except watching her be so defiant. Fuck it if she isn’t pretty when she’s fired up.
She narrows her gaze at my outburst.
I stick my tongue in my cheek. “You know, Jessica was much nicer about it when I asked her to marry me.”
“Because she probably liked you.”
“Oh, like you don’t like me.”
She snorts in disgust, but it’s not real. We both know it. “I suppose in Jessica’s defense you probably never repossessed her engagement ring and ate it in front of her before.”
I laugh again. “If I knew how much that was going to haunt me, I would’ve let you keep it.”
“As you should’ve.”
The air between us moves as if it has absorbed some of the energy blasting between us. Because there is energy—something comfortably electric between Sophie and me that I can’t deny.
And that’s why this marriage of convenience could be the ticket.
“That’s why this could work, Sophie.”
“Why? Because you owe me a ring?”
I ignore her attempt at deflection. “No. Because we get along. We have a history and friendship and a certain built-in trust level.”
She places a hand on her hip and blinks as if she’s bored.
“And we both . . . like my grandpa?” It’s the first thing that pops in my head. “And we enjoy spending time together.”
“We do?”
“Yes, we do. You know it. We have fun together.”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re not totally terrible to be around, but I don’t know that I’d go all out and say you are fun.”
“Yes, I am. You smile the whole time we’re together. Or most of the time,” I say when she opens her mouth to argue. “See? It’s the perfect, or as perfect as we’re going to find, setup. I’m not going to have my feelings hurt if you yell at me for leaving my socks on the bathroom floor.”
“Ha! I’m not doing your laundry.”
“Good, because I have a system and I quite like it.”
This seems to calm her down. She crosses her arms over her chest, but the panic in her eyes fades. I’m afraid to say anything else and ruin the progress I think I just made.
The more I think about this, the more perfect this crazy idea becomes. It would be a symbiotic relationship, a mutually beneficial situation in which we would both come out smiling on the other side. That never happens.
But it could.
If Sophie will marry me.
Holy shit.
“I bet you at least got down on one knee when you asked Jessica to marry you,” she teases.