Yours to Keep by Shannon Stacey

trying to keep the lies to a minimum.”
    The grin only widened. “Who says it’s a lie?”
    She rolled her eyes and tried to step back—really needing to put a little space between them—but he held her close. “We’re going to be late.”
    “No, we’re not. But don’t you think we should at least have a practice kiss first?”
    Almost against her will, her gaze focused on his mouth. Yes. Yes, they should. “If Gram asked I was going to tell her you have a thing about public displays of affection.”
    “This isn’t public. This is your— our —home.”
    “Public as in with an audience.” She needed to look away from his mouth, especially since it was getting closer, but she couldn’t.
    When his face got close enough so she registered his intent, she raised her gaze to his, but it was too late. Before she could react, his lips met hers, his hand still on her back to hold her close, and she closed her eyes.
    Practice. That’s all it was. And if her body started tingling and her fingers itched to run through his hair, and her body wanted to melt against his…well, that just boded well for a month of pretending they were into each other, didn’t it?
    The jolt of heat that ran like an electrical shock through her body could be an unwelcome complication, but she’d worry about that later. Like maybe when she wasn’t too busy thinking about pushing him back onto that soft, girly bed he’d complained about and proving women liked it a little harder, too.
    It took every ounce of self-control she could muster not to whimper in protest when his lips left hers. She wanted to take his head in her hands and drag his mouth in for another kiss. Maybe slip her hands under the back of his T-shirt so she could glide them over the warm flesh of his back and feel his muscles twitch under her fingertips.
    “Not bad for a practice kiss,” he said in a casual voice that pissed her off. No way could he have felt nothing while her senses sizzled like a drop of water on a hot, oiled skillet.
    “And the Oscar goes to,” she muttered when he winked and walked out of the room.
    She was about to swear and take a kick at the coffee table leg when she spotted him in the full-length mirror on the closet door standing ajar. He’d stopped just outside in the hall and she watched his reverse image as he pulled at the fly of his jeans, no doubt adjusting for the evidence he wasn’t as unaffected as he wanted her to think he was. Then he rolled his shoulders and kept walking.
    Despite the fact both of them being affected would be an even greater complication, Emma was smiling when she met up with him again in the front hall.
    “We can take my truck,” he told her in a terse voice that made her have to smother a bigger and much more smug smile.
    “No, we can’t. I have the extended cab and it might rain. We can’t throw Gram’s luggage in the bed to get wet.”
    “I’m driving.”
    She paused halfway out the front door. “Excuse me?”
    “You drive like a girl.” He held out his hand, presumably for her keys.
    “You’re an ass.”
    “We can stand here and argue about it. I’m sure your grandmother will understand.”
    “A sexist ass, no less.”
    He grinned and snatched her keys out of her hand before she could react. “Next time, you might want to actually meet the man you’re going to marry before you tell your family about him. Get in the truck. Honey. ”

Chapter Five
    Catherine Shaw, who preferred to be called Cat, stepped off the plane in Manchester and quickly retrieved her luggage. It was good to be back, if only temporarily. There was a time she might have thought it was good to be home, but she considered herself a Floridian now.
    It had cost her a little extra to fly into New Hampshire, rather than to Logan Airport, but Emma was picking her up and she didn’t want her granddaughter bothered with Boston, even if her fiancé was driving.
    They’d arranged to meet by the small food court and she spotted Emma