“Sorry.” He wasn’t sorry.
“Don’t you want to settle down? Have a wife? Maybe some kiddos?”
He knew that she worried he was going to be a perpetual bachelor like his dad. She’d said as much on several occasions. The thing was, even if that was passed genetically he wouldn’t be in danger of inheriting the trait since he didn’t share any DNA with Samuel Steele. When his dad, Sam, was a rookie in Chicago, he’d found a baby abandoned in an alley behind a crack house. Sam took the baby to the hospital and named him. He kept tabs on him as he made the rounds through foster care. When Ethan was four, Sam discovered that the foster house he was living at was abusive.
So Ethan went to live with Sam, and his dad started adoption proceedings. It had taken a couple of years, but by the time Ethan was six, he’d been adopted by the only parent he’d ever known. Their life together had been great. Sam was a great dad. He’d taken him to Sox and Bears games and gave him love and a stable home. Yes, there was always a woman in his dad’s life, and they rotated every few months. Ethan didn’t think much of it at the time, he was just so happy to have a stable home, but as an adult, he realized that his dad had been a perpetual bachelor.
Then, when Ethan was twelve, his dad had been killed in the line of duty, and he’d come to live with Nana in Whisper Lake. It had been quite a culture shock, since he’d only visited the small town a handful of times when his dad was alive and those were only quick day trips. But Nana had done her best to make him feel at home. They may not have been blood-related, but she’d always treated him like a true grandson. He owed so much to her. Not only for taking him in, but for raising a man that would adopt a baby he found beside a dumpster.
For the past couple of years, Nana had upped the pressure on him to settle down. Ethan had never been quite the ladies’ man that his dad had, but he’d also never let things get serious with anyone he dated. As soon as he felt things were moving in a commitment direction, he moved on. But that’s because he wasn’t with the one woman he wanted a commitment with.
“What about Kennedy Dawes? I heard that you’ve been seeing her?”
“I’m not seeing Kennedy, no matter how many times The Needlepoint Mafia tries to throw us together.”
“They just give little pushes.”
Nana was not a card-carrying member of the matchmaking dons knitting club, but that was only because she had arthritis. She was thick as thieves with Mrs. Chen, Mrs. Dobrinski, and Mrs. Weathersby. The four women played bridge together every Saturday.
And that made him think. “Did you put them up to this?”
“And if I did? Would that be so bad? I just want my grandson to be happy!”
He knew then at that moment that it was not going to stop. It would’ve been bad enough if the old women had done it solely on their own. But now that he knew that his grandma was behind it, he knew that the only way to stop the matchmaking madness was to start dating someone.
The problem with that was, he didn’t want to date anyone except…
An idea struck him that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of sooner. Jess wasn’t the girl that he could woo with flowers, pretty words, or promises. She wasn’t going to willingly agree to a romantic dinner with him. But, she might agree to a fake relationship, if there was something in it for her. It was the in he’d been waiting for, now he just needed the right leverage.