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And if you’re nervous about your clothes, I’ll deal with that.”

      She looked at him sideways. “How, exactly are you going deal with my clothes?”

      “I’ll buy you some new ones.”

      “No way. I buy my own stuff. But even if I maxed out my credit cards getting a whole new wardrobe, well, I still wouldn’t know which frickin’ fork to use.”

      He swung his feet to the floor and canted toward her in the chair. “So we’ll get you a coach. A few days in Houston beforehand should do it.”

      “Um. Travis, I’m not really understanding what exactly you’re up to here.”

      “I just said. You’ll have time. A whole week to get ready after you’re back on land, plenty of time to buy the clothes and work with the coach.”

      “The coach,” she repeated blankly.

      “Yeah, the coach. Someone who’s an expert on all that stuff—on the clothes, the makeup, the…use of the silverware, whatever. By the time you meet my mom, you’ll be more than ready.”

      “More than ready for…?”

      “Everything.” He smiled. It wasn’t a very sincere smile.

      She rubbed her temples with the tips of her fingers. Really, he was making her head spin. “Travis, cut the crap. What exactly are you trying to talk me into?”

      He glanced away, and then back. “Before I get too specific, I just want to know you’ll keep an open mind about the whole thing, okay?”

      “Yeah, well. Before I can keep an open mind, I need to know what I’m supposed to be keeping an open mind about.”

      He hoisted his feet back up on the chair again. “It’s like this. I want you to help me get my mom off my back.”

      She followed. Kind of. “You mean about all the, er, suitable young women, right?”

      He nodded. “I need you to be my date—for a week, including Thanksgiving.”

      “You think if you bring a date, your mom will stop trying to fix you up?”

      He pulled a face and scratched the back of his head. “Well, yeah. For a while. If my date was…more than just a date.”

      “What do you mean, more than just a frickin’ date?”

      “Okay, it’s like this. I want you to pretend that you’re my fiancée.”

      Travis didn’t find the look on Sam’s face the least bit encouraging.

      She swore. Colorfully. And then she jumped up from the chair, strode around the table to him—and slapped him upside the back of the head.

      He shoved her hand away. “Ouch! Knock it off.”

      She gave a disgusted snort. “Have you lost your mind?”

      He put up both hands to back her off. “Look. It just…slipped out when I was talking to her, okay?”

      “It? What?”

      “She was all over me, pressuring me, going down the list of all the women she wants me to meet. And then you came down from the deck and I, well, all of a sudden, I was saying I already had a girl. I said you were my girl and we were engaged.”

      Sam did more swearing. And then she returned to her chair, grabbed the back of it, spun it around and sat down in it front ways that time. “What have you been smoking?”

      “Not a thing. You know that. And can you just think it over? Please? Don’t say no without giving it some serious consideration. You get the coach and the clothes to help you change up your life. And I have a few strings I can pull, too, for you. To make sure you get the job you want.”

      She had her arms folded good and tight across her middle by then. “There’s just one teensy problem.”

      “What?”

      “It’s a big wonkin’ lie.”

      “I know that, but it can’t be helped.”

      “Sure, it can. Call your mom back. Tell her you lied and I’m not your girl after all. And when you want a girl, you’ll find her yourself.”

      “Sam, come on…”

      She pressed her lips together, blew out a breath—and flipped him the bird.

      But he refused to give up. The more he thought about it, the more this looked like a solution to his problem.

      A temporary solution, yeah. But still. Even temporary was better than no solution at all.

      “Look,” he said. “You do this for me, I figure it’s good for up to a year of peace and quiet on my mother’s part.”

      “Why don’t you just talk to your mother? Tell her how you feel, tell her you want her to back off and mind her own business.”

      “You think I haven’t? It doesn’t matter what I say, she thinks she’s doing the right thing for me. She thinks it’s for my own good. And when my mother thinks what she’s doing is for the good of one of her children, there’s no stopping her. There’s no getting her to see the light and admit that she’s got it all wrong.”

      “But making up some big old lie is not the answer. It’s…just not you. You’re a straight-ahead guy. No frills and no fancy footwork. I’ve always liked that about you.”

      He laid it right out for her. “Sam, I’m desperate. I need a break from this garbage. I need to be able to go home for once without having a bunch of sweet-faced Texas debutantes in their best party dresses lined up waiting to meet me. I need to be able to call my mom without being beat over the head with all the women she wants to introduce me to.”

      “Maybe if you just gave it a chance with one of them, you’d find out that—”

      “Stop. Don’t go there. You know I’m not up for that. I had the love of my life. She died. And I already tried it with the woman who could never take her place.”

      “But it’s been years and years since you lost Rachel. And just because it didn’t work out with Wanda doesn’t mean there isn’t someone else out there who’s right for you.”

      He gave her a really dirty look, and then he glanced away. “You’re starting to sound like my mother. I don’t need that.”

      “Travis, I only—”

      He turned to meet her eyes again. “Help me out, Sam. Help me out and I’ll help you out. Win-win. You’ll see. You can have the new life you’ve been dreaming of. All you have to do to get it is a little favor for a friend.”

      Chapter Two

      A week and a day later, Sam entered the lobby of Houston’s Four Seasons Hotel.

      She wore a gray pantsuit with a white blouse and black flats. Not exactly glamorous. But hey. At least it was something other than coveralls, steel-toed boots and a hard hat.

      Unfortunately, her hair was being really annoying that day. It was only an inch long, for cripes’ sake. But still, it insisted on curling every which way.

      Her makeup? She wore none—and not because she hadn’t tried. Three times, she’d applied blush, lip gloss and mascara. She’d picked those up the day before at Walmart in an effort to look more pulled-together for this big adventure she probably shouldn’t have let herself be talked into in the first place. Each time she put the makeup on, she’d had to scrub it right off again. It just didn’t look right on her. So in the end, she decided to go without.

      The Four Seasons was about the fanciest hotel in Houston. She’d expected old-fashioned elegance. But the lobby was modern. The furniture had clean, trendy lines. The carpets were in black-and-white geometric patterns. There was also bright

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