Finder's Keeper (9 page)

“I don’t—”

“Do you want it back or don’t you?”

Mia shot him another of her patented death glares and jerked out the phone. It was one of those cutting-edge, one-upped-every-six-weeks by the
next
next-gen techno-phones. A far cry from his eight-year-old flip phone with the numbers worn to invisibility.

She tapped something on the screen to connect the call.

“Hi, Ma.”

Chapter Eight

Prophecies, Beards & Devil’s Bargains

“Mia Rochelle Corregianni, where have you been all day? I’ve been calling and calling.”

Her mother had jumped straight to her full name. Never a good sign. “I had some errands to—”

“Never mind that now. Zia Verna had one of her prophecy dreams.”

Mia cringed. Her grandmother’s youngest sister had been declared the family seer and every time she ate spicy food before bed, they were treated to a
prophecy
. “Ma—”

“This is serious, Mia. She had a vision. A vision of such disaster I had to call you right away to confirm it wasn’t true. Did you
break
Great-grandmother Anna Maria’s watch?”

Her stomach made a leap for her throat. She swallowed it back down to its natural position. “No, Mama, I didn’t break it.”
I lost it.

“Oh, praise Mary, Mother of God. I haven’t been able to breathe right all day, worrying that something really had happened to it and that was why you weren’t answering your phone.”

“No, I promise. The watch’s in one piece.”
Wherever it is
. “It’s probably just a false alarm. Like when Zia Verna predicted the Royals would go to the World Series three years in a row.”

Chase smothered a laugh.

“She should stay away from the sports,” her mother agreed. “Gina told me you had a date last night. Did you wear the watch? Are you bringing him to the Christening tomorrow? Is he handsome?”

“Why do I have to have a date to a baptism?”

“Don’t you want to bring your new friend to meet your family?”

Mia glanced at Chase, hunkered down on her closet floor beside her, then reminded herself that her mother was asking about Speed-dating From Hell, not Chase the Mega Hunk. “It was speed-dating technically, and just because I spend five minutes with a guy doesn’t mean I’m going to inflict the whole family on him.”

“Inflicting! Mia, really. As if we would be rude to your guest.”

“You would mob him and force him to propose to me before dinner.”

One of Chase’s eyebrows slid upward and his lips twitched.

Her mother tsked. “I don’t know where you get these fanciful ideas about our family, Mia.”

“Then how would you describe Nicky knocking cousin Jamie’s boyfriend’s knees out from under him last Easter and telling him he might as well propose while he was down there?”

“Your brother was just teasing…”

“Or two years ago when Zia Anna locked Mario and his girlfriend in the bathroom for three hours and then told everyone Laura was compromised and they’d have to marry quickly because of the baby?”

“A little joke. You always take things so seriously.”

“I’m not bringing a date, Mama.” She was too busy trying to locate the cursed watch to try to find one.

“Well,” her mother sniffed. “If that’s how you want to be.”

Chase shifted beside her and Mia looked at him. He arched an eyebrow questioningly and she remembered she was supposed to be longing for the watch—which was a challenge at the moment since she was busy wishing the thing to the deepest darkest circle of hell.

“Mama, I’m busy. Can I call you later?”

“You’re working, aren’t you?” her mother said in an aggrieved tone that made it sound like she was hooking for spare cash.

Mia’s shoulders knotted with all-too-familiar defensive tension. She forced herself to take a deep breath. “My work is very important to me.”

“Would it kill you to take a weekend off? That watch can work miracles for you,
mia bella
, but it’s running out of time. It has
never failed
. You must trust the magic. Your soulmate—”

“Maybe I don’t have a soulmate. I like being on my own. Have you considered that?”

Her mother gave a theatrically loud gasp of horror. “Mia!”

She’d known her mother would react that way. Mia didn’t know why she’d said it, daring to oppose the idea that True Love was the be all end all of the universe. Must have been the stress of the day.

She felt Chase’s eyes on her, but refused to look at him.

“I’m sorry, Ma. I’ve gotta go. See you tomorrow.” She disconnected before her mother could work up a guilt trip to keep her on the phone. Dropping the phone to the carpet, Mia thunked her head back against the wall, the muscles in her neck going limp. “I’m going to Hell for misleading my mother.”

Chase settled down beside her, stretching his legs alongside hers, their shoulders just brushing. “You weren’t even remotely uncomfortable with me eavesdropping on your half of that conversation, were you?”

Mia rolled her head to the side to meet his bright blue gaze. “Should I have been?”

“No, no. It’s just…there’s no awkwardness in you. You’re so much yourself. It’s…unusual to see someone so comfortable in her own skin.”

Mia gave a soft huff that would have been a disbelieving snort if she had more energy.
No awkwardness?
Please. She was all thumbs and elbows. She didn’t know who he was seeing when he looked at her, but it wasn’t the real Mia. She wasn’t comfortable in her skin, she was defensive of it. Protective against everyone who seemed to want to stretch it into a different shape.

“So you need a date for a baptism, huh?”

“Mmm,” she hummed vaguely in the affirmative.

“Is this a Sadie Hawkins thing or should I take the hint and ask you?”

“What?”

“Would you do me the honor of accompanying me to—” Chase flashed a knee-melting smile. “Where are we going?”

“It’s my niece’s Christening.”

“What time should I pick you up?”

“On your bike?”

“Don’t knock riding on the handlebars until you’ve tried it. What time?” His face was close, his blue eyes impossible to look away from.

“The Christening is at two with a command performance at family dinner afterward with the cast of thousands.” A slow flush crept up her neck. Was he really asking her out? This smooth-talking demi-god? “Trust me, you don’t want anything to do with it.”

“And neither do you. Which makes it perfect.”

“Perfect?”

“You’ll be surrounded by your family, wracked by guilt. What better time to find the watch? What do you bet I’ll have a read on it inside five minutes?”

Of course. Finding the watch. She must be more tired than she thought if she was imagining this genetic anomaly of physical perfection would be asking her out. “Do you ask all your clients out?”

“Special circumstances.”

Mia told the obnoxious part of her that turned to mush at the warm look in his eyes that he wasn’t saying she was special. Just defective when it came to finding the watch. “So I’m wracked with guilt. Then what? You take off to find it?”

“Actually, I have a proposal for you.”

Mia’s suspicious nature tried to rise up at the glint in his baby blues, but she was too exhausted to work up much skepticism. “What kind of proposal?”

“You need someone to run interference with your family at this Christening, right? Well, it just so happens, I could use a…let’s call it a romantic beard of my own.”

“You’re gay?”

“Sweetheart, I have
all
the hetero tendencies.”

“So this beard…?”

“A fake girlfriend. For reasons I won’t go into, I need to convince a few friends that I’m seeing someone more seriously than I usually do.”

The idea that he went through women like Kleenex wasn’t a stretch for her imagination. “Why me? I’m not one of those cool nerds.”

Chase’s eyes lit with merriment. “There are cool nerds?”

“You know, the Comic-Con nerds who know all that pop-culture sci-fi stuff. That whole nerd chic thing. I don’t own a television and I’ve never played a video game. Lots of people think science nerds are all really techy, but I’m not. I’m just awkward. I don’t know that I’d be a good fake girlfriend.”

“You’ll be perfect.”

“Why?”

“You’re available and you’re breathing. Besides, you’re a genius right? How hard can being my fake girlfriend be?”

“I’m a terrible liar. Awful. Appalling. Horrendous.”

“You missed your calling as a thesaurus. But it’ll be easy. Trust me. And you can’t tell me it isn’t efficient.”

God, that word again. It was going to kill her. “So you’ll pretend to be my boyfriend for the Christening if I’ll pretend to be your girlfriend….”

“…at an event in the near future. It’ll be painless, I promise. Probably a backyard barbeque or something similar that reeks of suburban bliss.”

Mia hesitated, feeling inexplicably queasy at the idea of faking a relationship with the man beside her. Logically, it was an excellent idea. So elegant in its simplicity she should have been jealous of him for thinking of it first. Using Chase as her fake boyfriend would get her family off her back and put him in touching range during the time when she was most likely to actually want the watch back.

So why this uneasiness? Why was she almost disappointed by his suggestion? It wasn’t like she’d had her heart set on dating him for real. He was all wrong for her. All slick surface and smooth talking. Mia preferred substance and depth. She would have said no if he’d asked her for real. Wouldn’t she?

But this wasn’t a real date. It was a handy ruse. And it just might work.

“Deal.”

Chapter Nine

The Morning After Symphony

It had seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Mia paced in front of the bay window, waiting for Chase to arrive for their first “date” and wallowing in regret. She’d agreed to Chase’s plan in a moment of weakness, but during a long night of tossing and turning, she’d had plenty of time to itemize, rank and color code all the ways in which introducing Chase to her family was a Very Bad Idea.

Her family would notice the lie. They would never believe she would go for Chase, or that he would go for her. And even if they did, she wouldn’t be able to pull it off. The lies. God, her heart turned to stone just thinking of it. Falsifying a relationship. One of them would slip up and reveal something about how they met and then her entire family would know she’d lost their magic trinket.

And if they did believe her… That was almost worse.

Her relatives were like baby ducks. They would imprint on him as The One and harass her for the rest of her life with
whatever happened to that lovely Chase boy, Mia?
She wasn’t sure their hope that she had finally found someone, when she so obviously hadn’t, was going to be any less painful than their constant disappointment over her solitary state.

She would just tell him thanks, but no thanks. She would have canceled already—she had a speech prepared and everything—but she realized this morning she didn’t have his phone number and calling Karmic Consultants and asking Karma to break her date was a level of embarrassment she wasn’t ready for yet.

So she paced, and waited, and mentally rehearsed her brush off. She’d have to keep her wits about her. The man was slippery. If she wasn’t on her toes, he had an alarming way of getting her to agree to things.

Mia tugged at the collar of her stretchy charcoal gray dress. It was a turtleneck style that covered her from wrists to knees, but she hadn’t been thinking of modesty when she put it on. Her only priority was covering her throat and chest so her family wouldn’t notice she wasn’t wearing the watch on the chain her mother had strung for her to dangle it between her boobs like a fishing lure.

She fidgeted with her clutch, frowning out the front window into the gray rainy afternoon. Was he biking here? In this weather? Maybe that was a good thing. If he was drenched, she could tell him she simply couldn’t bring him to the church like that. No need for pretty speeches that could get garbled on their way out of her mouth.

Or better yet, maybe he wasn’t coming anymore. He wasn’t late, but he
felt
late because she’d been agonizing over this afternoon all morning and had been ready for twenty minutes.

This was a terrible idea. What did she really know about this guy? She’d met him twenty-seven hours ago and she hadn’t exactly been at her best during those hours. He could be the world’s hottest serial killer for all she knew, hypnotizing his victims with his easy charm and abnormally symmetrical features.

Okay, that might be a touch extreme. The most likely scenario painted him as a con artist, not a murderer. But should she really be bringing possible con artists into her family home? Introducing him to a collection of the most gullible people ever put on the earth? They believed in a magic watch, for Christ’s sake. There was no telling what damage he could do over cannelloni.

An old rust-pocked Subaru station wagon pulled into the visitor parking and Mia snapped to attention, forgetting to breathe for a moment as she stared out the front window. Was that him?

Chase straightened out of the driver’s side and Mia nearly moaned. Yep, he was just as freakishly attractive as she’d remembered. His crisp white dress shirt was untucked and open at the collar, framing the richly tanned column of his throat. A dark blazer hugged his muscular shoulders, falling open as he shoved back one side to tuck his hand into a front pocket as he strolled toward her door. Strutted, more like. A peacock in wolf’s clothing. His jeans were dark blue and looked brand new—not a ragged edge in sight.

The man cleaned up
nice
. Dammit. It would have been so much easier to send him packing if he’d shown up to take her to the Christening in an obnoxious shirt and holey faded denim.

Not that she would let his appropriate attire faze her. She had a plan. A speech.

Mia crossed to the door and flung it open, catching Chase with his hand hovering halfway to the doorbell. His bright white teeth flashed out from his tanned face in a lightning-strike smile. “You ready?”