She shook her head in confusion. “What?” Was this some weird joke, or had she just woken up in the Twilight Zone?
He gave her a patient smile. “Sweetheart, you must still be out of it. Your parents were filling me in on the wedding plans. I know you wanted it to be a surprise, but it’s only a couple of days now. It sounds just as remarkable as I knew it would be.”
She was wrong. This wasn’t a hallucination. This was a nightmare. Anger blazed to life in her stomach, quickly spreading up through her chest. She clenched her hands into fists.
“Why didn’t you bring this young man home sooner, pumpkin?” her father asked. “I can tell he’s going to fit right in with our family.”
Was that supposed to be a good thing?
“And he’s got a cute patootie,” her grandmother added. “I think you kids call it an ass.”
“Gram!” Megan protested in shock.
Josh laughed, his hand pulling her closer. “Funny, Megan was saying the same thing today in the airport.”
Megan’s jaw dropped as she glared at him in disbelief.
Gram shook her head. “For the life of me, I don’t know why you would call someone’s back end an ass. Especially a cute one. Don’t you kids know that an ass is a donkey?”
Megan didn’t take her gaze off Josh for a moment, her temper about to blow. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing—”
Before she realized what was happening, he cupped her cheek and kissed her, his lips soft but insistent. She put her balled hands on his chest with the intention of pushing him away, but her heart began to race in spite of itself, and she leaned closer, inexplicably drawn to him as her anger bled out and her hands relaxed. His muscles were firm below her fingertips and her knees began to weaken, but the arm he’d looped around her back held her up. If this was a dream, she decided she wasn’t ready to wake up.
Josh lifted his face, looking slightly dazed for a moment before he turned toward her family, still holding her in his arms. “Sorry,” he murmured. “I just love her so much I can’t stop myself sometimes.”
Megan gaped at him as if she’d just had a lobotomy. The way her brain felt at the moment, it probably wasn’t too far off.
“He doesn’t look like a donkey,” her grandmother said in a smug tone.
“Aww . . .” her mother cooed. “That’s so precious. Your wedding is going to be the talk of the summer at the country club.”
Megan was speechless again, but this time for an entirely different reason. What had just happened?
The door to the garage opened, and Megan turned to see her older brother filling the opening, a duffel bag in his hand.
“Get a room,” he groaned with a grin.
“Kevin!” She broke free from Josh’s hold and ran to her brother, throwing her arms around his shoulders.
“Hey, squirt!” He dropped his bag and wrapped his arms around her back, lifting her several inches off the ground as he swung her in a circle.
“Kevin! Put her down!” their mother shouted. “If you break her leg, she’ll never be able to walk down the aisle on Saturday!”
He put her down and playfully tugged a lock of her hair. “I’m not going to break her leg. I already did that when we were kids. No point in doing it again.” Kevin picked her up again and swung her for several seconds more before setting her on her feet. He gave her a mischievous grin, then winked.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, surprised by how happy she was to see him.
“Rumor has it that my baby sister is getting married. I took leave so I could put the fear of God into your fiancé,” he said. He narrowed his eyes on Josh, his voice taking on an air of authority. He had been teasing before, but not now. This was one of the reasons why Megan had never brought her boyfriends home when she was in high school and college. Kevin loved to intimidate any male who got within ten feet of her. But then, he’d always had a way of intimidating anyone. The Marines seemed like a natural fit for him. “So are you finally gonna introduce me to the man you’re marrying in three days?”
Her brother’s words sobered her. “Actually . . .” She took a breath for strength, her stomach knotting equally with nerves and irritation. “There’s something I need to tell all of you—”
“Sweetheart,” Josh said, glancing at her brother, then giving her a strained look. “I know you’re still irritated with me over our argument at the airport in Seattle, but there’s no reason to drag your family into it.”
She shot him a glare. Who was this guy, and what in the hell was his endgame? One thing was for sure—she wasn’t about to find out in front of her mother.
Gritting her teeth, she marched toward him and grabbed his wrist, her nails digging deeper than necessary as she tugged him to the doorway. “He’s right. I’m still pissed at him, and we need to get this straightened out.”
“Megan!” her mother shouted after her. “You’re being incredibly rude.”
But Megan ignored her as she climbed the stairs and dragged him into her room. It wasn’t until she shut the door behind them that she realized she was still holding onto his wrist. She dropped it as though he were on fire.
“What the hell is going on?” she demanded. “Is this some kind of sick joke?”
He shook his head. “No! It’s a giant misunderstanding.”
“Misunderstanding? A misunderstanding is when you order french fries and get onion rings. The fact that my parents think a stranger is my fiancé is not a misunderstanding. It’s a disaster. How could you let this happen?”
His face froze with fear. “Please tell me that you remember sitting by me on the plane.”
“I remember that part.” She rubbed her hand over her forehead as if to banish the lingering headache. “You sat down and I accused you of being a terrorist. Then I made fun of the flight attendant and stole your drink.” She cringed in embarrassment. “Everything else is fuzzy after that.”
“You don’t remember getting off the plane?”
“No.”
“The flight attendant was going to call security, so I helped you off. I had to carry you over my shoulder because you couldn’t walk, and I got the impression that security wasn’t going to help you find your mother. The flight attendant had it in for you.”
Think, Megan. Think.
She scrunched her eyes shut to remember how she got into this situation. “I vaguely remember telling her she couldn’t have your babies. Then you dragged me away.” She glanced up, putting her hands on her hips. “While I appreciate you for helping me not get arrested by a federal marshal, that doesn’t explain how you ended up here. As my fiancé.”
He raised his hands in surrender, his eyes pleading with hers, and damned if her breath didn’t catch. Her pulse quickened just at the sight of him. Of course, it didn’t help that their kiss was so fresh in her memory.
“You couldn’t walk and you were talking nonsense, so like I said, the only way I knew how to get you out of the terminal without leaving our bags behind was to carry you over my shoulder. But people thought I was abducting you, so I told them that you were my fiancée.” He heaved out a sigh of frustration. “Your family heard me and thought I was Jay. And then I got stuck.”