Sgt. Billy's Bride. Bonnie Gardner

be nice to have a job lined up right away.

      She started to try again to find someone to tow her car, but stopped when she heard the sound of a car pulling into the drive. Had Bill returned from Barney’s General Store, or had the first of the party guests begun to arrive?

      When she’d agreed to pretend to be engaged to Bill, she hadn’t known that the family was planning a party tonight. If they were really in love, she would have known that Bill had celebrated his twenty-eighth birthday alone while he’d been in Nevada on the last training exercise. It might be a birthday party, but it was too much to hope that the “engagement” would not come up.

      Still, she hoped for a miracle because it was going to be hard to lie to his friends and relatives without having her partner in crime standing at her elbow. After all, they had to be able to keep their stories straight.

      At least, for a little while.

      Darcy breathed a relieved sigh as she heard Bill call from outside. “Come open the door. My hands are full.”

      She scurried to the door and let her “fiancé” in. She had been trying to force herself to keep thinking of Bill as her intended so she wouldn’t slip up in front of his guests, but when she was alone it was hard to do. Now that she could see him again in the flesh, her breath caught in her throat. Any woman would be proud to be engaged to him. She could stare all day at his broad chest, showed off to perfection by the form-fitting T-shirt the color of Carolina blue skies. And those faded, snug jeans were bleached out in the most interesting places and made her wonder what lay beneath.

      She almost wished she really was.

      Darcy drew a deep breath and forced herself to speak. “How did that short list grow to three full grocery sacks?” she asked as she took the bag dangling precariously from Bill’s right hand and headed with it to the kitchen. “I thought you were getting milk and ice.”

      “Got two more bags in the Cherokee,” he said as he lowered the two he carried onto the kitchen table. He shrugged. “You know how it is. You see stuff you need….” He paused and grinned. “And you see stuff you don’t really need but you kinda want, and pretty soon your short list has grown a foot long.” He turned to go back to the car, but looked back over his shoulder. “I saw Earline at the store.”

      “And…?” Darcy asked, hoping the comment wasn’t prefacing bad news.

      “She’d heard the news from Lou and was already blabbing to Barney. Who knows how many other folks she’d already spread the word to by then? Don’t reckon we’ll have to make much of an announcement tonight. Pretty much everybody in the county’s gonna know.”

      Darcy sighed. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

      FOR SOME REASON everyone was late this time. Bill stood by the front window watching for the first car to arrive. The lateness of the guests, family mostly, had given him a little more time to get his story straight with Darcy, he supposed, and it saved Momma from the stress and commotion of all the kids so soon.

      Still, he couldn’t help thinking that he wanted to get this over with as soon as he could. It was one thing to stretch the truth to his mother for a good reason, but another thing to announce it to half the town. If they weren’t careful, they would find it in the local paper, and he sure wanted to prevent that.

      And was it really a white lie?

      It was one thing to let Momma think what she thought, it was another thing to carry it on as if it were true. Damn, when did life get so complicated?

      “How do I look?”

      He turned to see Darcy standing in the hallway to the back of the house.

      “I don’t have any party clothes with me,” she said, smiling apologetically. “I wasn’t expecting to be engaged quite so soon.” She struck a pose, holding her arms out and doing a slow turn. “This was the best I could do.”

      Billy whistled, long and low. If that was short notice, he’d like to see what she looked like when she was really trying.

      No. He wouldn’t. This was make-believe, he reminded himself. They were pretending for Momma’s sake.

      Darcy was wearing jeans, and he wondered if she had any other clothes. This pair was newer, and instead of a T-shirt, she had on a sweater set in a soft blue that hugged her curves, yet looked delicate and demure. How’d she manage that? And why did he keep thinking about her as if she really were his fiancée?

      “Oh, you look fine,” he murmured, shaking his head appreciatively. “More than fine.”

      “Thank you,” Darcy answered primly. “I didn’t have anything dressy with me. I thought I’d be able to send for the rest of my clothes when I got where I was going and before I needed anything special.”

      She hadn’t really thought that, consciously anyway, but she had sent most of her things ahead—to Dick’s place—and had only brought the bare minimum with her. Mother and Aunt Marianne had enjoyed shopping for the honeymoon trousseau she hadn’t really wanted, and she’d left that behind when she’d taken off. All she had were the clothes in the duffle bag she’d left in the car.

      Strange, she thought, that she’d packed enough in her bag for the trip from school in North Carolina to keep her going until she landed on her feet. Even when she hadn’t known she was going to run. Or had she?

      She had an oyster-colored linen suit, badly in need of ironing now, her best uniform left from nursing training, and some jeans and T-shirts. She certainly had packed much more than she needed for the trip to Hurlburt Field.

      “Will I pass inspection?” she asked him.

      Bill whistled again. “You will do just fine. I might have to fight the other guys off my gir—” He suddenly realized what he’d said. “I’m sorry.” Bill shrugged. “I know we’re only pretending for Momma’s sake.”

      “Apology accepted. After all, we have to make it look good.” Darcy grinned. “Feel free to fight off any interlopers you feel like. It’ll do my ego good.”

      “I don’t know about your ego, Darcy. But it’ll damn sure do mine just fine.” Bill grinned. “I don’t exactly have the reputation of a ladies’ man around here.”

      Darcy arched an eyebrow. “You couldn’t prove it by me. You sure did a good job of picking me up.”

      “Ha ha,” Bill said dryly. “I might have come to your rescue, but it wasn’t exactly on a white charger.”

      “No, just a dark green Jeep Cherokee. That was good enough for me.” Funny, she hadn’t noticed the color of the Jeep when he’d picked her up.

      Now she noticed everything.

      Like the way Bill’s chest had expanded when he’d looked at her. And the way he cared for his mother, and his wide-open face, and his green eyes and the touch of his hand…No, she couldn’t be thinking about that. It isn’t real.

      It isn’t real, she reminded herself again.

      She shook her thoughts away, and looked up at Bill, only to find herself drowning in his deep green eyes. She forced herself to look away before it was too late.

      For what?

      “What else do we have to do to get ready?” Darcy asked, though she knew they were as ready as they could be. She had to say something to change the subject. Anything. They were heading toward dangerous territory if they didn’t switch to a different topic of conversation.

      Bill shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Everything is pretty much under control for now. Lou and Earline are bringing the party. All we had to do was make sure everything was cleaned up and ready.” He smiled crookedly. Odd that they were both acting like a couple of teenagers on a first date. But then, this was more like a first date than a birthday-slash-engagement announcement party.

      At least on a first date, they would have been alone.