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mean, they are going to be suspicious. But we can make this look real. It isn’t going to be that hard. We already hang out most weekends.”
    â€œSure,” she said, “but you go home with other girls at the end of the night.”
    Those words struck him down. “Yes, I guess I do.”
    â€œYou won’t be able to do that now,” she pointed out.
    â€œWhy not?” he asked.
    â€œBecause if I were with you and you went home with another woman, I would castrate you with nothing but my car keys and a bottle of whiskey.”
    He had no doubt about that. “At least you’d give me some whiskey.”
    â€œHell no. The whiskey would be for me.”
    â€œBut we’re not really together,” he said.
    â€œSure, Chase, but the entire town knows that if any man were to cheat on me, I would castrate him with my car keys, because I don’t take crap from anyone. So if they’re going to believe that we’re together, you’re going to have to look like you’re being faithful to me.”
    â€œThat’s fine.” It wasn’t all that fine. He didn’t do celibacy. Never had. Not from the moment he’d discovered that women were God’s greatest invention.
    â€œNo booty calls,” she said, her tone stern.
    â€œWait a second. I can’t even call a woman to hook up in private?”
    â€œNo. You can’t. Because then she would know. I have pride. I mean, right now, standing here in this garage taking lessons from you on how to conform to my own gender’s beauty standards, it’s definitely marginal, but I have it.”
    â€œIt isn’t like you really know any of the girls that I...”
    â€œNeither do you,” she said.
    â€œThis isn’t about me. It’s about you. Now, I got you some things. But I left them in the house. And you are going to have to...hose off before you put them on.”
    She blinked, her expression almost comical. “Did you buy me clothes?”
    He’d taken a long lunch and gone down to Main Street, popping into one of the ridiculously expensive shops that—in his mind—were mostly for tourists, and had found her a dress he thought would work.
    â€œYeah, I bought you clothes. Because we both know you can’t actually wear this out tonight.”
    â€œWe’re going out tonight ?”
    â€œHell yeah. I’m taking you somewhere fancy.”
    â€œMy fancy threshold is very low. If I have to go eat tiny food on a stick sometime next month, I’m going to need actual sustenance in every other meal until then.”
    He chuckled, trying to imagine Anna coping with miniature food. “Beaches. I’m taking you to Beaches.”
    She screwed up her face slightly. “We don’t go there.”
    â€œNo, we haven’t gone there. We go to Ace’s. We shoot pool, we order fried crap and we split the tab. Because we’re friends. And that’s what friends do. Friends don’t go out to Beaches, not just the two of them. But lovers do.”
    She looked at him owlishly. “Right. I suppose they do.”
    â€œAnd when all this is finished, the entire town of Copper Ridge is going to think that we’re lovers.”

Three
    A nna was reeling slightly by the time she walked up the front porch and into Chase’s house. The entire town was going to think that they were... lovers . She had never had a lover. At least, she would never characterize the guy she’d slept with as a lover. He was an unfortunate incident. But fortunately, her hymen was the only casualty. Her heart had remained intact, and she was otherwise uninjured. Or pleasured.
    Lovers.
    That word sounded...well, like it came from some old movie or something. Which under normal circumstances she was a big fan of. In this circumstance, it just made her feel...like her insides were vibrating. She didn’t like it.
    Chase lived in the old family home on the property. It