The Billionaire's Temporary Bride (Scandal, Inc #3)(29)

"What does that mean? I make a good first impression."

Charlotte laughed. "You're wearing a custom tailored suit, and a five hundred dollar shirt."

"Is it too casual?" Jack laughed and shook his head. "Everything will be fine. Maybe you had forgotten, but I'm the baby of my family, and everyone treats me like a kid too." He opened his door and stepped out into the cool October air. "Let's meet the parents."

Charlotte took a deep breath and followed him to the walkway. The rain was starting to pick up a little as it fell over her shoulders, and she wondered what it would do to the Italian wool of Jack's suit.

Charlotte's dad was standing at the top of a ladder, leaning over the roof of the porch, holding a hammer in one hand and a large, stuffed witch on a broomstick in the other. He turned as she and Jack approached the steps. Charlotte felt a rush of embarrassment as she watched her dad clamber down the ladder to greet them.

It had only been a few months since Charlotte had last been home, but she was surprised by how much older her father looked than she remembered. It seemed like the wisps of brown hair on top of his head had thinned in the time they'd been apart, and more gray was starting to work its way back from his temples. He still wore the same pair of glasses he had worn since she was a kid, the ones with horn-rimmed frames which now looked hip but were gloriously uncool when he had first brought them home two decades earlier.


"This is going to be fun," Jack said quietly.

"Shut up," Charlotte whispered, elbowing him in the side. "And play nice."

"Bean!" her father exclaimed. "Your mother and I thought you weren't getting in until later this evening. I would have married you off long ago if I had known it would get you to visit."

"We made good time," Charlotte said. Her father dropped his tools onto the soggy lawn and hugged her.

"This must be Mr. Coburn," her dad said.

"Please, call me Jack," he said. He smiled and held out his hand. "You have a beautiful home, Mr. Crowley. It's great to finally meet you."

"Mr. Crowley was my father's name. Call me Dr. Crowley," her dad said.

Charlotte watched Jack's expression go blank as he tried to figure out whether or not her dad was kidding.

"Well, then I take it back. You can call me Congressman Coburn," Jack said, without his characteristic handshaking smile.

Charlotte's face burned with embarrassment. This is a disaster, she thought.

Both men suddenly burst into laughter. Jack's eyes widened in surprise as Charlotte's dad pulled him by the hand into a surprise hug.

Charlotte sighed in relief. So far, things seemed to be going surprisingly well. She wondered how long that would last.

"Bean never mentioned you were a doctor," Jack said.

"He has a doctorate in English Literature," Charlotte said. "It's not exactly the same thing is it, dad?"

"Just don't tell the medical board, and we should be fine," her father replied. He tried to hold back his grin. "Jack, you can call me Peter, Pete or Doc if you like."

"Dad's a high school English teacher," Charlotte added, "and no one has ever called him Doc."

"Doesn't mean we can't start now," her dad said.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Pete," Jack said. He looked back to Charlotte for instructions on what to do next. It started to dawn on her that for once, in Wisteria, Jack was the one out of place. As awkward as she felt bringing him to her childhood home, he must have felt totally out of his element . Maybe she'd finally have a chance to catch him by surprise instead of letting everything happen the other way around.

Pete cleared his throat. "Your mother is inside making preparations for dinner. Jack, before you pop in to meet her, if you don't mind, I could use a hand with a few of the final touches outside. Are you any good with a hammer?"

Jack looked up into the storm clouds. "Why don't I just change ou—"

Before he could finish, Charlotte answered for him. "He'd love to help. In fact, on the way over he was talking about how much he enjoys getting his hands dirty."

That was good enough for Pete. He slapped a hammer into Jack's hand, and coaxed him up the ladder. Jack tossed his wet coat down to Charlotte with a smirk that showed he knew he'd been played.

"You have over a dozen of the same one," she reminded him.

Jack smiled and balanced the hammer on a ladder rung while he rolled up his sleeves. He hammered two nails in and hung the top portion of the witch, then he did another and another as the wind picked up. Charlotte and her father watched Jack concentrate on hanging the witch and arranging her broom in a way that made her appear to be flying.

Jack looked good on top of that ladder. He looked effortlessly masculine with his forearms bared and a hammer in his hand. If it weren't for the shiny shoes and the silk shirt, he wouldn't have looked out of place at all. Once he had the witch posed in full flight, he took a few steps down the ladder and looked up, shaking his head in disapproval.

"Looks good enough to me," Pete called up.

"If I move it a little to the left, that big poplar tree by the sidewalk won't block the view for trick-and-treaters," Jack said. Charlotte wondered if he really cared what the witch looked like or if he was just trying to impress her dad.