Before You Get To Baby...
Terry Essig
SEDUCED BY OATMEAL COOKIES?Eligible bachelor Andrew Wiseman knew how to evade commitment-hungry women. He dodged their entreaties with practiced grace, and dallied only with those who knew the rules. He never expected to be ensnared by the smell of brown sugar….THE TEMPTRESS WITHIN…Mary Frances Parker wanted a baby–and first she needed a husband. Drew had made her heart flip-flop for years, but she'd seen him avoid the traps set by other females. So she thought up the perfect plan to win him. She'd ask him exactly what he'd like–and make sure she fulfilled every requirement! After all, what wouldn't she do for a baby…and for Drew?
“So you’re going to try and snag some guy with sex?” he asked disdainfully….
“No. I intend to catch him with my sparkling personality, my scintillating wit, my impeccable good breeding and homemaking skills, to name just a few. I’m just saying that once he’s good and caught he won’t suffer.”
The whole world was just plain off kilter. His best buddy Rick’s baby sister simply shouldn’t be talking like this. Sure, she was chronologically old enough and everything, but it was just wrong for him to be here in her kitchen talking about kissing and sexual stuff. Plain wrong…
Dear Reader,
Have you started your spring cleaning yet? If not, we have a great motivational plan: For each chore you complete, reward yourself with one Silhouette Romance title! And with the standout selection we have this month, you’ll be finished reorganizing closets, steaming carpets and cleaning behind the refrigerator in record time!
Take a much-deserved break with the exciting new ROYALLY WED: THE MISSING HEIR title, In Pursuit of a Princess, by Donna Clayton. The search for the missing St. Michel heir leads an undercover princess straight into the arms of a charming prince. Then escape with Diane Pershing’s SOULMATES addition, Cassie’s Cowboy. Could the dreamy hero from her daughter’s bedtime stories be for real?
Lugged out and wiped down the patio furniture? Then you deserve a double treat with Cara Colter’s What Child Is This? and Belinda Barnes’s Daddy’s Double Due Date. In Colter’s tender tearjerker, a tiny stranger reunites a couple torn apart by tragedy. And in Barnes’s warm romance, a bachelor who isn’t the “cootchie-coo” type discovers he’s about to have twins!
You’re almost there! Once you’ve rounded up every last dust bunny, you’re really going to need some fun. In Terry Essig’s Before You Get to Baby…and Sharon De Vita’s A Family To Be, childhood friends discover that love was always right next door. De Vita’s series, SADDLE FALLS, moves back to Special Edition next month.
Even if you skip the spring cleaning this year, we hope you don’t miss our books. We promise, this is one project you’ll love doing.
Happy reading!
Mary-Theresa Hussey
Senior Editor
Before You Get to Baby…
Terry Essig
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For my daughter Andrea whose childhood
watery wedding fantasy still makes us laugh,
and my niece Betsy for all the wetland information.
May your princes be charming, your dreams reality.
And, Andrea, may your barge never sink.
Books by Terry Essig
Silhouette Romance
House Calls #552
The Wedding March #662
Fearless Father #725
Housemates #1015
Hardheaded Woman #1044
Daddy on Board #1114
Mad for the Dad #1198
What the Nursery Needs… #1272
The Baby Magnet #1435
A Gleam in His Eye #1472
Before You Get to Baby… #1583
Silhouette Special Edition
Father of the Brood #796
TERRY ESSIG
says that writing is her escape valve from a life that leaves little time for recreation or hobbies. With a husband and six young children, Terry works on her stories a little at a time, between seeing to her children’s piano, sax and trombone lessons, their gymnastics, ice skating and swim team practices, and her own activities of leading a Brownie troop, participating in a car pool and attending organic chemistry classes. Her ideas, she says, come from her imagination and her life—neither one of which is lacking!
Contents
Chapter One (#u7e4a2431-e153-5020-b69e-1f82518f1cca)
Chapter Two (#u71b7e805-06df-596f-9ac7-d391585a27cf)
Chapter Three (#ue2d73a0a-bfb2-5e83-bb71-317b7416d27f)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
“Sex.”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, ideally it should be good sex.”
“That’s what you think a guy is looking for most in a relationship?” Mary Frances Parker looked with barely concealed horror at her brother’s best friend. Clearly, Drew Wiseman was not the man she should be going to for tips on what a man looks for in a woman. “Sex? That’s it?”
“Like I said, good sex, not just any sex,” Drew continued, oblivious to her discomfort. “I mean, quantity counts and everything but quality should play a definite role here.”
“That is so totally ridiculous. I wish you could hear yourself.”
“Hey, you’re the one who came ringing my doorbell wanting to know the guy’s perspective without so much as a hello first. I’m just being honest.”
Frannie thought of her brother, due to be married in a month’s time. “So what you’re basically saying here is that Rick was ruled by nothing but hormones when he proposed to Evie? My friend Betsy’s mind and personality had nothing to do with Tom’s proposal? Sheesh. Men are so pathetic. I’m starting to wonder why I want to find one to marry in the first place.”
Her words threw Drew for a loop. Married? Frannie? Why, she was just a kid. Had he known she was in the market he’d have tailored his advice. After all, the idea of Frannie providing what every man looked for in a relationship disturbed him for reasons he didn’t want to explore. “So if we’re so pathetic and all, why aren’t you busy thinking up ways to avoid us? I mean, why would you want to bind yourself to one of us for the rest of your life anyway?”
“God only knows.” Using the tip of her index finger Frannie glumly picked up cookie crumbs from the kitchen table where she’d made herself at home. “I keep thinking they can’t possibly all be as shallow as they appear, and I do want to have a family and children.” She shrugged. “Lord knows, with my brothers, I’ve picked up enough boxer shorts dropped within spitting distance of a clothes hamper and fished enough dirty socks out from under beds to last me a lifetime, but the plain truth of the matter is men are a necessity if you want a family and babies,” she pointed out, sounding almost forlorn.
Drew sat back in his chair. Would he ever understand women? “Next you’re going to tell me your biological clock is ticking. Am I right?” He rolled his eyes in anticipation of her answer. Andrew couldn’t understand it. His friends’ biological alarms seemed to be going off in depressingly large numbers lately. Didn’t anybody get that babies were a pain? They upchucked, and they did disgusting things in their pants. They got up in the middle of the night, for God’s sake, the middle of the night.
“Well, it is,” his best friend’s little sister answered defensively.
“So let it tick, Frannie,” Andrew advised. “I mean, come on, it’s not like you’ve got one foot in the grave.” He shrugged. Drew was five years older than Frannie. He certainly didn’t feel an uncontrollable need to nest. “The world is overpopulated anyway. If you need to hear the pitter-patter of little feet all that bad, get a dog. They’ll drool, throw up and piddle on the carpeting same as any baby.”
Frannie glowered. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
“So why’d you ask?”
“Because you’re safe.”
No man liked to hear himself described as safe. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Safe? He wasn’t safe. He was lean and mean. Andrew had done time in the military. Why, he could easily produce a dozen or more guys who’d be happy to testify just how mean he could be. Safe. What was that? He never should have let Frannie in the door. The fact she’d shown up with a plate of her homemade cookies should have been an indication she was up to no good. When would he ever learn that there was no such thing as a free meal, or in this case, free cookie?
And look at this. Frannie’d been there all of ten minutes and sure enough, here he was getting all worked up. Frannie could rile him the way nobody else ever had, or in all likelihood, ever could.
Frannie sighed. “Well, it certainly wasn’t meant as an insult. Look, all I meant was that I can’t ask somebody who’s a potential mate, now can I? They’d run the opposite direction if they thought I was actively looking for a spouse. Why are men so paranoid?”
“We’re not paranoid, we’re realistic. Women are out to get us.” Drew waved an arm out in the air. “Look at Rick. And our buddy Phil. Then let’s not forget Nate Bowman.” He threw up the other hand. “There goes Wednesday bowling, Friday night poker and the occasional drive into Chicago to see the White Sox play. They’re all too busy out picking china patterns. Meanwhile, what am I supposed to do for entertainment, hmm? None of these women stop to think about their guys’ guy relationships, do they? What is it with your sex and this commitment thing you’ve all got? Why can’t you ladies be happy without a picket fence around your tidy Cape Cod and your two-point-three precocious children?”
Drew picked up his beer and took a thirsty slug. He wasn’t positive, but he was pretty sure Frannie had just insulted him. He knew he shouldn’t ask, but it just showed how wrong she was and how on the edge he liked to live. “And just why am I safe from your machinations I’d like to know?” Not that he wanted to be the target of all that fire power. Of course he didn’t.
“Well, for one thing I couldn’t possibly live with someone who liked country and western.” Frannie bit back a laugh as Drew gaped at her. Then, restlessly, she drummed her fingers on the tabletop. “Okay, while it’s true I loathe and despise country, there’s a little more to it than just your pitiable taste in music. A woman looks for something different in a husband than a date,” she explained carefully, thinking as she spoke. Teasing Drew was fun, but if she intended to pick his brain, which she did, he deserved to know she’d thought this thing through. It wasn’t just a whim on her part. Besides, there was no harm in letting him know she’d be off the market before too much longer. Frannie scowled. As if he’d care. Why couldn’t he care? Everything would be so much easier.
Right away, Drew knew Frannie was actually serious about this current craziness. Frannie never thought before she spoke. Whatever entered her brain exited her mouth. Oh, man, he was going to have to talk to her brother Rick about this.
“For a mate, she needs somebody steady, reliable. Someone who’ll take out the trash and be able to find the clothes hamper when he undresses at night. Somebody who’ll walk the floors with her when the baby has colic. Someone who actually replaces the toilet paper—on the holder, not just sets it in the near vicinity—when he finishes off a roll.”
By God, he was insulted. He could do all those things. If he wanted. It was hardly his fault his toilet paper holder had come away from the wall a month or so ago and he’d been too busy to fix it, now was it? What else could he do but set the roll on the floor? Anyone could see that.
Drew couldn’t believe he was even having this conversation. Damn it, nobody ignited his fuse the way Frannie did. Didn’t the woman understand that the easiest way to handle colic was to not have the baby in the first place?
“Somebody you don’t mind sharing your genetic code with, you know? Everybody I know is out there sharing their genetic code. I’m telling you, every close friend I have is either married or will be by the end of the summer. You should see Sue Ellen’s little boy. He’s just too cute. I want one of those, Drew, I really do. The thing is, it took Sue Ellen three years to get pregnant, and she got married right out of college. You know, a man starts losing some of his potency once he hits his mid twenties, I figured I ought to get on the stick and find somebody now.”
“I may be twenty-nine but I’m quite sure I wouldn’t have any trouble at all impregnating anything needing impregnating,” Drew growled. “In fact it’s been my greatest fear. It’s why we men are so darn careful. I never wanted to have to pay the price for thinking with my gonads.”
Frannie ignored him. “I also want somebody who’s intelligent. And I wouldn’t mind decent-looking, either. I’ve given up on Mel Gibson coming to his senses, but surely decent-looking isn’t asking too much.” She grimaced. “Call me shallow, but I don’t want any frog-faced children. Breakfast is too early in the morning to have to face amphibians across the table. I’m on the short side, so in order to compensate, I’m thinking tall, too. No point in the boys being shrimpsters if I can help it. Mom always said it was as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor one, but I don’t really care all that much about money. I don’t mind pulling my fair share and contributing to the family income. But if you extrapolate a little bit here, and the playing field being equal in other ways, I mean between two guys, both being intelligent, decent-looking and now that I think about it, neither one an early balder, it should be as easy to fall for the tall guy as the short one, don’t you think?”
Drew shook his head in despair as he tried to figure out the logic behind that bit of nonsense. Near as he could tell, he’d been insulted. Again. She might be his best friend’s little sister and as cute as a button, but she’d crossed the line. There was not a damn thing wrong with his genetic code. Not a damn thing. He had an engineering degree from Purdue University, didn’t he? You didn’t get that with peas for brain, now did you?
And more than one woman had come on to him during the eleven years since high school. There was a small cadre of females out there who’d rate his looks higher than dog meat, Andrew thought more than a bit defensively even as he rubbed the nose that had been broken a dozen years back when he’d taken a hockey puck in the face. It might be a little crooked, but hey, if a woman expected perfection, she’d have to provide it herself. He knew for a fact Frannie had a scar down one arm from the surgery it had taken to put her arm back together after an attempt to go around the moon on the playground swing set years ago. Man, he’d almost had heart failure that day. He and Rick had been baby-sitting Frannie when she’d tried that little trick. Rick had accused a wailing Frannie of doing it on purpose just to get them in trouble. It hadn’t been the first time. Or the last. And here she was, back at it again, obviously determined to draw him into this latest batch of nuttiness.
But he digressed. He was intelligent and decent-looking. Hadn’t Debi…Dulci…whoever, gotten all rhapsodic over his eyes? Like she’d never seen the color blue before. Drew almost snorted. Go figure. It was a simple factor of genetics. His mother had blue eyes, his father’s eyes were brown, but he obviously carried a recessive gene for blue. Drew had just as obviously gotten it. Simple. No big deal. Try telling that to Deirdre. Yeah, that was it, Deirdre.
At least he had an eye color. Frannie’s license said brown, but that was only because they had to fit her into a category. Her eyes were this oddball color only a woman would have a name for—toffee, toast or maybe café au lait. Drew rolled his eyes. Who thought up these names anyway? he thought with a sneer. And that was just the inside part of her iris. Then there was this darker band around the edge. Dark chocolate bark or something. Whatever.
And furthermore, even though scrupulous honesty would have him admitting that he might have just missed making the six-foot mark, any engineer in the world would tell you that a small margin of error was allowable and you’d still meet specs. At five eleven and three-quarters he was six foot plus or minus a quarter of an inch, so he claimed six feet. Totally within code and definitely un-short.
A growl built up in his throat. “Seems to me you’re asking for an awful lot. What’s the guy going to get in return? Who’s going to marry a little bit like you? A man wants a woman he doesn’t have to worry about losing in the sheets at night. An armful, you know? Something it would take more than a spring zephyr to blow away.”
“I am not that little,” Frannie responded stiffly.
Ah, so she could dish it out, but couldn’t take it.
“And there you go again,” she added. “Is sex all you think about?”
“Me and my half of the world’s population. Yeah, pretty much.”
Frustration rang in Frannie’s voice. “Don’t you want someone who can create a home? Do you ever worry about character, personality, intelligence, humor, for God’s sake? Don’t you want to share a good laugh with a woman you care about?”
“Not when I’m in bed with her,” Drew fervently assured Frannie.
Frannie threw up her hands in exasperation. “Oh, for crying out loud.” She rose and snatched up the plate of cookies she’d brought as a bribe.
“Hey!” Drew protested.
Frannie didn’t relent. “Nothing deeper than surface appeal matters to you,” she said. “You just said so. You couldn’t possibly care that I also bake the best oatmeal cookies in a three-state radius.”
“Food is another basic need, right up there with sex. A man’s got to keep his strength up, after all. And they’re okay,” Drew allowed, not wanting to feed her ego. She gave him enough of a hard time as it was. “Even if they do have raisins in them. It would be too bad if they went to waste.”
“I’ll freeze them. Take them in my lunch.”
“All right, all right. I’m sorry, already. Put the cookies back and we’ll talk. Sheesh. Women are so sensitive.”
“We are not.” Frannie hesitated, then reluctantly sat back down. She kept the cookies in front of her, her arms curled protectively around the plate. “So come on now, Drew, give. Seriously, what’s a guy looking for when he’s ready to settle down?”
Drew squirmed uncomfortably in his chair. The topic had him on edge. “Look, Frannie, every guy is different in what they find attractive in a woman. Just like every woman is different. Didn’t I hear you telling Rick the other day that your friend Annie was wasting her time on some dweeb? That you couldn’t figure out what she saw in the guy?”
Frannie thought. Okay, he had a point, but it wasn’t enough to get her to release the cookies. She wanted some guidelines here, not a cop-out. “All right, so generally speaking what’s likely to interest a guy enough to get him to the altar?” Meanly, she picked up a cookie and waved it in the air a couple of times before nibbling delicately at the brown edge.
Damn her, Frannie knew him too well. Drew shifted uncomfortably once more. For most of the past fifteen years, ever since Drew’s family had moved to St. Joseph, Michigan, Andrew and Rick had been inseparable. Five years younger than her next oldest sibling, Frannie was obviously the family’s much-adored bonus baby. He and Rick had baby-sat Frannie too many times to count. They’d driven her to piano lessons, softball and dance. Drew had helplessly patted her back while she’d cried on Rick’s shoulder after the break-up with her first boyfriend and uselessly assured her the jerk hadn’t been good enough for her. Heck, he’d marked the seasons by the color of the rubber bands she’d picked for her braces each month at the orthodontist. Red and green in December which made her look like her teeth were growing moss, but better than the orange and black she’d favored in October.
In all that time he’d spent watching her grow, Drew had never once realized that she’d been watching him as well. The little brat knew the edges were his favorite part. Just look at her savoring his edge.
Drew would have to be under particularly diabolical torture before he’d admit that her cookies were, in fact, the best in town even if they did have raisins. Heck, they’d have to stake him to an anthill and disassemble his remote control before his very eyes. The problem was, he’d only had a handful before Frannie’d gone into her snit. Previous to that it had been a long dry spell of nothing but store-bought. The injustice of it sang through him. Drew wracked his brain for something Frannie would consider worthy.
“Okay,” Drew finally said. “I’ll tell you what. Leave the cookies here. Brain food, you know, and I’ll think about it. I’ll come over to dinner some time in the next few weeks and we’ll talk.” He raised a hopeful eyebrow.
Frannie eyed him with disgust. Man, Drew gave her no credit at all. He still thought of her as a gullible twelve-year-old who’d fall for the old Tom Sawyer’s I’m-having-such-fun-whitewashing-this-fence-but-if-you-pay-me-enough-I-might-let-you-do-it-instead gambit. He and Rick had used that ruse whenever her mom had assigned them a task to be done while they baby-sat her. Pitiful. Absolutely pitiful. She crossed her arms over her chest.
“Half a dozen cookies now, the rest on delivery of the goods, no later than this weekend or the deal’s off. And I’m not cooking for you. I’ll pay my own way, but we’re going out.”
Damn, but she was a tough little negotiator. You had to respect that about her. He and Rick had taught her well with all their stupid pranks. He had nobody to blame for this but himself. “You want to talk about this in a restaurant? Where anybody and their brother can listen in? You know how close tables are in those places.”
Frannie thought about that and nodded. “All right, I’ll cook. In fact, we’ll grill. You bring the steaks and the wine. I’ll do the salad, bread and dessert.”
Drew scowled. Evidently he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was. He also suspected it was probably the best deal he was going to get, so he nodded his head in agreement. “Okay. I’ll get back to you when I’ve…what?” Frannie was vehemently shaking her head and frowning.
“This Friday. My place. Seven o’clock.”
“Frannie,” he explained patiently, “This Friday is part of March Madness. Intercollegiate basketball play-offs, you know? Rick made me kick money into a pool thing he started. Frankly, I don’t think Villanova can do it, but it was all there was left and you never know so I…now what?”
“No excuses. This Friday, seven o’clock, or no cookies. If you’re good maybe I’ll let you check the score once or twice.”
“Man, you’re a pain.” But Drew really, really wanted those cookies. He was a scientist. He’d taken several different types of chemistry. He still had lab nightmares all these years later. One thing Drew knew for sure, he could weigh and measure with the best of them. But when he attempted cookies, no matter how carefully Drew doled out the ingredients, they simply didn’t hold a candle to Frannie’s. Actually, it was a major point of frustration for him as he’d seen her in action in the kitchen. Frannie would have flunked chem lab, any science lab, that was for sure. She just sort of threw things together. And whatever it was always turned out well. “All right, all right. This Friday. But I get a dozen cookies up front.”
“Eight.”
“Ten.” Drew casually inched his hand toward the cookie plate.
Frannie cradled the plate more closely. “Nine.” She started counting them out.
“Okay. I think I read somewhere that for attracting a mate, we’re all operating on a subconscious instinctual level. We only think we’ve gotten civilized over the eons.”
“If you’re trying to tell me men still operate on caveman level, I’m not all that surprised. I will not, however, take it kindly if one of them tries to conk me on the head and drag me home by the hair.”
Drew snorted. “You haven’t got enough hair to get a good grip.”
Frannie patted her short crop of curls protectively. “Short hair is easy to take care of as well as very stylish.” She sniffed disdainfully. “Shows how much you know about fashion.”
“Guys like long. We don’t care if it’s fashionable or not.” Drew gathered his booty in front of him.
Frannie covered her plate with plastic wrap and rose. “If you don’t care about what’s in, why is your hair so carefully mussed up today, in that bedhead style guys are so into right now?”
Drew sat back, disgusted. “You asked, I answered. Leave my hair out of it. How big is your waist?”
“My waist?”
Drew waved away her puzzled look. “Never mind. We’ll get into it come Friday.” If he couldn’t get any more cookies out of her right now, he wasn’t going to waste his ammunition.
“What about my waist?” Frannie wanted to know.
“Friday,” Drew reiterated and shooed Frannie out the door so he could enjoy his treat in peace. Women. Go figure. Tell them what they want to know and they argue. Drew shoveled a cookie up and into his mouth feeling slightly aggrieved. Now he had to spend the next few days thinking up ways for a member of the opposite sex to trap one of his own. Talk about disloyal. He’d sold out to the enemy with barely a whimper. A handful of cookies was all it had taken. Disgusted, he crunched down hard on another one. “Well, too darned bad. They’re all grown men. They can fend for themselves. If one of them gets caught, he probably deserves it for being so stupid as to fall for all those female ploys.”
Frannie drove home proud of herself. She’d started the process. Subtlety was lost on a man like Drew—actually on most men, she decided as she signaled a left turn and left his street behind. You had to hit them over their hard, fat heads to get their attention. She’d done that.
“Ought to be interesting to see what he comes up with,” she told herself as she turned again, right this time. Frannie came up to a red light, drummed her fingers as she waited. “At least I’ve got him thinking about marriage. That’s something.” She accelerated as the light changed. “And if he still refuses to open his eyes and see what’s right in front of them, I swear I’ll use whatever he tells me to find myself somebody who will appreciate me. See if I don’t, the unappreciative bum.” Frannie pulled into a spot in front of her neat little frame one-story. “And I’ll tell you something else. When and if that man does wake up, he’s going to have some serious making up to do. Serious making up.” And she sniffed in self-righteous justification as she walked up her front walk.
Late Friday afternoon she was still sniffing at regular intervals at the male population’s thick-headedness in general, one Andrew Wiseman’s in particular. “Wiseman, hah!” Frannie spat as she pounded the sofa-back cushions back into shape in anticipation of his arrival. Setting the scene was important, after all. “There’s a misnomer if ever there was one. Blindman is more like it. Andrew Stupid-head has a certain cachet as well.” The sofa beaten into submission, Frannie surveyed the room, hands on her hips. Even if it was on a subconscious level, she wanted Drew to see the kind of home she could create.
Satisfied with the room check, she started down the short hall to her bedroom. “Obviously, I must have a very perverse nature to find the man this appealing. But I’ve got to make my play now before somebody else snaps him up. He’s within shouting distance of thirty, for heaven’s sake, he should be more than ready to settle down. I’d always planned to be the one standing in front of him when he woke up. Where the heck did that silk teddy go? Ah, there it is and my…yes, got that too.” She headed out of the bedroom and into the bath.
“Well, I just can’t wait any longer,” Frannie said as she reached in to turn on the shower. “His social life is too darn active and he still treats me like I’m his little sister. Not after tonight,” she vowed as she stepped into the steaming stall. “Not after tonight.”
Drew fidgeted out on Frannie’s front stoop before he rang the bell. He checked his fly, made sure his shirt was tucked in and even checked his hair in the reflection in the front door’s small inset decorative glass pane. Disgusted with himself, Drew poked the buzzer. It was just Frannie, for God’s sake. Still, for some odd reason he’d felt compelled to go home after work for a quick shower, his best jeans and a clean shirt. When he’d stopped at the supermarket to pick up the steaks he’d had the most inexplicable, ridiculous urge to pick up a bunch of flowers. Now what had that been all about?
Drew shook his head as Frannie opened the door. A couple of the guys at work had been passing around some kind of bug. Maybe he was coming down with it. That could be why he felt so weird, couldn’t it? Look at Frannie, she hadn’t fussed, for God’s sake. She was covered from neck to below her knees in some kind of voluminous apron thing. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear an apron before,” he said as he dubiously studied the object. She was all but drowning in yards of fabric but then again, she was a little bit of a thing.
“I had a conference with a parent after school,” Frannie blatantly lied. All was fair in love and war, after all. Not only had there been no conference, she’d never have worn the tight, short skirt hiding under the apron to school at all. She taught second grade. If Drew thought about it once he got a gander, he’d realize that with all the floor work she did with such young children any kind of skirt, let alone this abbreviated version, would be fairly impractical. But Drew’s thoughts rarely ran along the mundane or everyday practicalities of living. If it didn’t have to do with recycling sludge, it got no more than cursory notice. She figured she was safe. “I didn’t have time to change from my good clothes if we were going to eat on time, and I do have a tendency to be a bit messy in the kitchen.” Truth was, she’d put the skimpy hug-your-rear thing on just to bother Drew.
Frannie was sloppy when she baked. He’d have hated her for a lab partner, true enough, even though her product was worth the mess. It was a logical explanation and Drew nodded. Then Frannie turned around and walked in front of him. Holy cow! Thank God he was still holding the beer he’d bought instead of drinking it, Drew thought. He’d have choked for sure. He sputtered anyway. “Uh, it was a conference with a mother, right?”
“Hmm?” Frannie rolled her hips even more with her next step. The contrast between the loose apron and the peeks he got at her snugly encased rear with each step she took had been carefully checked for effect in the mirror. She hoped he swallowed his tongue. Look at him standing there in those tight jeans and that white knit shirt with the camel-colored stripe right across his pecs. He’d done that on purpose. Everybody knew light colors made you look bigger and that horizontal strip was nothing but a blatant attempt to draw attention to the breadth of his chest. Well she’d noticed. A long time ago, she’d noticed. Frannie wasn’t the slow one here.
“What is that thing supposed to be under there, a skirt? It’s missing the whole bottom half if it is.” He stared at her butt and cleared his throat. “A mother conference, right? Not a father conference?” Drew inhaled much-needed oxygen. “They let you wear stuff like that around little kids? Oh, boy.”
“Drew, this skirt is no shorter than a pair of shorts and you’ve seen me in those before. Surely you knew I had legs.”
“Well, yeah, but…” He gave up.
Dinner was eaten in a not-quite-companionable silence. Drew was on edge, like he was on a first date or something, but couldn’t understand why. By the time dessert was produced Drew was sure he was coming down with something. He’d been feeling hot ever since Frannie had finished fussing in the kitchen and taken off the apron thing. Of course, Frannie had had him going in and out of the cold grilling the damn steaks and everybody—other than Frannie evidently—knew that wasn’t good for you. He tried to remember if he’d ever seen her dressed up before. Frannie tended to live in jeans or shorts and an oversize T-shirt. But surely, in all those years, there must have been some other occasion when she’d gussied herself up when he’d been around.
Eighth-grade graduation, Drew remembered. A white dress with a big sash and daisies in her hair.
Frannie’s body had changed since eighth grade. Big time, it had changed.
Andrew had sighed in relief when he’d seated her. The table hid that cute little rear he’d had no idea she had. But his relief was short-lived. Taking the chair across the small table from Frannie he was faced with her, um, Frannie’s um…well, chest.
And what a fine chest it was. Nicely delineated and showcased by a snug, thinly knit sweater. Drew had a hard time not staring. Surely that hadn’t cropped up overnight. He wasn’t just getting sick. Those two handfuls had taken a while to appear. He’d evidently been out of it for quite some time if he was just noticing now that Frannie was a woman. Damn it, he didn’t want to think of Frannie as a woman. She’d been like a sister to him for years. Suddenly he felt awkward around her. It wasn’t right for him to be noticing her chest. Not right at all.
“…other night.”
“Hmm? what?”
Frannie sighed and set a nice big warm chunk of gingerbread slathered with real whipped cream in front of Andrew. “Are you feeling okay, Drew? You’ve been in your own little world most of the night.”
Drew grabbed her hand before she could retreat. “Feel my forehead, will you, Frannie? It’s warm, right? I feel hot. I think I’m running a temperature.”
Dutifully, Frannie felt his forehead with the back of her hand. Then, just to be mean she brushed a lock of hair back off his brow. His answering little shiver pleased her. “No, you don’t feel overly warm. Must be something else. I’ll check the thermostat, but I know it’s set at seventy.”
Drew didn’t think he could stand watching her hips swing in that excuse for a skirt. “No, that’s all right. I’m okay. Sit down. Let’s talk.”
So Frannie sat. She also deliberately leaned slightly forward and pressed her arms together. Color rose on Andrew’s cheeks as cleavage popped.
He cleared his throat. “So, anyway, I, uh, thought of something.”
Frannie gave up torturing him and dug into her gingerbread. “The waist thing?”
“Right. That. Now, as I recall, waist measurement is supposed to be a certain percentage of the hip measurement in order to attract a guy.”
“What?”
“Yeah, seriously. Sixty percent, I think, but it could have been seventy. Whatever, it was important to a guy who’s looking for someone who can successfully support a pregnancy. On a subconscious level, of course.”
“Of course.” Even on a subconscious level, men made no sense. “So it doesn’t matter how thin or fat you are so long as your waist-to-hip proportion falls into the right category?”
Andrew thought about it. “I guess. I mean, it’s not like I’m a sociologist or anything.”
No, it wasn’t like he was a sociologist or anything. Drew Wiseman was an environmental engineer, and a darn good one at that. Fifteen years ago, when he’d first started coming around, Frannie had been nine and in the third grade. Drew had been fourteen and starting high school a year ahead of schedule. Skinny and small, he’d needed a friend, and her brother had taken the new kid under his wing. In exchange, Drew had seen Rick through four years of math, chemistry and physics. Oh yeah, Drew was bright and he’d been unfailingly tolerant of Rick’s little sister. For Frannie, Drew had just been sort of…there, another male in her life trying to tell her what to do, just like her four brothers.
Drew’s growth spurt had come late, not until seventeen. Girls matured earlier than boys and Frannie had been a bit advanced anyway. Her hormones had kicked in right around that same time. She’d noticed him all right and had harbored secret hopes for twelve long years. Secret hopes she’d never told another soul, certainly not her brothers, who’d have teased her unmercifully.
Well, a dozen years later, she was seriously considering giving up. Drew seemed hopeless, although she thought there’d been a few positive signs tonight. Still, the bottom line was Frannie wanted a family. Time to go to plan B.
Frannie smiled to herself. Putting plan B into motion had the plus of making Drew squirm as she asked personal questions. It also had the added advantage of letting him know she was soon to be off the market. Maybe, just maybe, it would wake him up to the positive gem that had been right under his nose all these years. Oh yes, she intended to enjoy this.
Chapter Two
The following Saturday night, Andrew settled in to try and watch the Final Four with his buddy Rick. The March Madness Collegiate Basketball Tournament, he’d decided, was a guy thing. Imagine kicking somebody out at half time. So he’d yelled a bit. Heck, he’d learned everything he knew about sports from Frannie’s brothers, the prime bit of information being all referees needed glasses. Frannie should be used to it. She was just on edge, Drew surmised. After all, how could you disturb the neighbors when Rick had assured him every household in the country was tuned in? The neighbors were no doubt watching the same game, disparaging the same referees. Frannie, who’d grown up in a house full of males, who could yell and criticize the umps with the best of them, was forgetting her roots. That was all.
“Your sister’s gone wacko,” he informed Rick as they settled onto Rick’s living-room sofa, each with his own steaming bag of microwave popcorn and a beer. Andrew dragged a section of old newspaper over to the beaten-up end table and set his beer on that. Coasters were for girls and the day Evie talked Rick into using them was the day he and Rick stopped being friends.
“I’m serious,” he said when Rick merely grunted at his diagnosis of his sister. Drew had sort of bought into this sports as appropriate male entertainment thing, but Rick needed to understand that some things, his sister’s mental deterioration, for example, took precedence over basketball.
“Shh, I don’t want to miss the tip-off.”
“She came by my place last week. Knowing I’d just come back from being out of town, she brought homemade cookies. The woman’s devious, I tell you. Devious. She knew I’d be weak. She knew I’d do or say just about anything to get my hands on those cookies. They were fresh out of the oven, Rick. They were still warm. You should have smelled them.”
“Hang on just a second.” Rick gestured at the screen with a disgusted hand motion. “Aw, man, did you see that? What was that guy, sleeping standing up?”
“Honest to God, all the woman talked about was this bizarre husband hunt she’s on. She gave me less than a week to do a bunch of research for her. Otherwise she was going to freeze the rest of the cookies all for herself.” Drew was getting incensed all over again just thinking about it.
“Hell,” Rick grunted. “You’re good at research. You no doubt did a great job, so quit your bellyaching.”
Drew slanted a disgusted look at the television. Honest to God, who could care about basketball just then? Another crime he could lay at Frannie’s doorstep. She’d ruined the sport for him. “I don’t think you’re really listening here, Rick. I’m telling you, she’s dead serious about this garbage. I’ve never seen anybody so focused. That general, you know, what’s-his-face Schwartzkopf should have been half as focused during Desert Storm. They’d have pulled the entire war off in a day and a half.”
Rick jumped to his feet, both hands in his hair. He pulled them straight out leaving his hair standing straight out in spikes on either side of his head. “Charging on Gonzaga? I don’t think so! The Wisconsin player wasn’t set. He wasn’t set, ref. Where’s the instant replay? I want to see the instant replay. Do you believe that?”
Andrew’s eyes flicked to the TV screen. “Twenty-four was set.”
“Hey, remember me? I’m the one taught you everything you know about sports. I’m telling you, he wasn’t set.”
“Yeah, he was. Sea foam and apricot, Rick. I’m telling you, she’s already got the damn colors picked out for the wedding. And what kind of colors are those, anyway? Some guy’s going to go into a tux shop and ask for a sea-foam-green cummerbund? Or even worse, ‘I’d like an apricot cummerbund and matching handkerchief, please.”’ Andrew rolled his eyes at both the play on the screen and the painful mental image. “Like it’s not bad enough you have to wear patent leather shoes with a tux. Hell, it’s bad enough you have to wear the tux at all. If you have to get married, what’s wrong with being comfortable? Jeans and sneakers, something that’s not going to literally choke you while you put the proverbial noose around your neck.”
Rick watched the TV intently. He didn’t sit until the end of the replay. “It might have been charging,” he admitted grudgingly. “Maybe.” He flicked a glance at Andrew. “Now would you kindly shut up about Frannie and her fictitious wedding plans? I’m trying to watch a game here. It’s not like anybody’s asking you to wear an apricot cummerbund.” Rick leapt back to his feet. “He stole the ball! Look at that, would you? He’s going all the way. Two points, yes!”
Drew was just pushing himself off the sofa to turn the television off and force Rick to listen to him when the doorbell rang. Rick’s eyes didn’t even flicker. Drew sighed and went to answer it himself.
He smiled and nodded recognition. “Ladies. What an unexpected treat. Come on in.” Somebody had to play host after all. It was obvious Rick wasn’t up to the task. “Uh, Evie, was Rick expecting you?” After his last frustrating half hour trying to get Rick’s attention, Drew wondered if Evie knew what she was up against. In fact, Drew briefly considered telling Evie her fiancé should come with a label—Rabid Sports Nut.
“Hey, Drew,” the vivacious redhead said as she sailed into the entrance hall, Frannie following in her wake. “Is he here?”
Evidently Evie wasn’t expected. This should be interesting. “Yeah.” Drew jabbed a thumb in the direction of the living room. “In there. Follow the noise.”
Evie crinkled her nose and laughed when she heard a whistle blow, the roar of a crowd and the bellowing of her fiancé.
“Put on your glasses, ref.”
“The tournament isn’t over yet?”
“Ah, no. Not yet. They’ll be down to two teams after tonight. Only one more game.”
“Hallelujah.” And Evie planted herself right in front of the television. “Hi, lover.”
Rick leaned to one side, then the other. “Hey, I can’t—oh. Evie. How’s it going, sweetie?” Rick’s eyes shifted from his fiancée to the corner of the screen left unblocked by her body and back to his fiancée. He sighed, picked up the remote and clicked the TV off.
“The wrong guys were winning anyway,” he announced philosophically.
Drew’s eyes goggled as Rick stood and with a strained smile, gave Evie a kiss and asked, “What’s up?” Must be true love, was all he could figure. Scary.
“Frannie and I were out doing wedding stuff. We figured we’d stop by and get your opinion on a few things.”
Rick gazed longingly back at the television. “Just a few things?”
Evie held firm. Start as you mean to go on. “Yes. I’d like your input on the color scheme, floral arrangements, the men’s tuxedoes, why you have this need to always be on top—just a few little things like that.”
Rick was still lovingly stroking the remote control with his thumb. “Uh-huh, uh-huh, sure babe, whatever you want. You know that.”
Drew stifled a laugh and whispered to Frannie, “This could get interesting.”
Frannie flushed. She grasped Drew’s arm and tugged. “Let’s you and I go in the kitchen. Give them a little privacy.”
“Not on your life,” he shot back quietly. “What’s wrong with the man being on top, I’d like to know? I kind of like it myself.” Then more loudly, “Hey, Evie, about the men’s tuxes, basic black, right? I mean, since I’ve got to wear one—”
Frannie stomped on his foot. “Hush, this is none of your business.” She tugged harder, but it reminded her of the last time she’d had to move the refrigerator to clean behind it. Just about impossible. She braced herself and yanked again. Drew barely budged. She was going to need reinforcements, just as she did for the refrigerator. “Come on, Drew.”
“Don’t sweat it, Drew. Black is fine. For the jacket and pants,” Evie said.
The hair on the back of his arm stood up. Planting himself more firmly against Frannie’s surprising strength, Drew quickly questioned, “For the jacket and pants? What does that mean? What else is there? I mean, the shirt’ll be white. Dress shirts are always white. And the cummerbund. Black, right?”
“Welll…” Evie hesitated and Drew panicked.
“I was kind of thinking…”
God save him from women who thought. “What? What were you thinking?”
“Well, you know how men’s formal shirts have those rows of ruffles down the fronts?”
Drew was getting a very bad feeling here. “Yeah? Maybe we could just wear plain white shirts. I don’t see why that wouldn’t work, do you, Rick?” He turned to his best friend, hoping for salvation but finding only a wicked grin.
“It’s only for a few hours, old buddy. Whatever she’s got in mind, it’ll only hurt for a little while. Promise.”
Frannie huffed, “Honestly, what a couple of babies.”
“I’ll make a deal,” Evie said. “No ruffles on the shirts, just tucks…”
“Tucks?”
“Tucks,” Evie repeated firmly. “In exchange for which you will, without complaint, wear a cummerbund that matches the bridesmaids’ dresses.
“Take it,” Rick advised. “It’s a good deal. Think of it as the fee us guys have to pay to get exclusive rights.” He gave his fiancée a sick smile. “We’re both going to live.”
Then he whispered quietly, “Just agree, will you? The quicker they’re satisfied, the quicker we can get back to the game.”
Drew took a deep breath. “Okay, so what’s the color scheme?” He wasn’t at all sure he really wanted to know.
“Well, I really, really love pink, you know…”
“Pink?” Drew exploded.
Frannie rolled her eyes.
Evie patted her hair. “But I think it would clash with my hair so Frannie and I have decided on lettuce.”
“Lettuce? That’s a color?”
Frannie patted Drew’s arm. She’d all but given up on dragging him out of the room. “A very pale green, Drew. Nothing too threatening, just green. Evie and I thought that since her hair was red, we should surround her with its complementary color, green. The wedding pictures are going to be gorgeous.” No need to tell him pink had never really been in the running. It had only been thrown in to make the green sound good by comparison.
“Evie’s beautiful no matter what she wears,” Rick declared loyally.
“Very good, dear,” Evie said and kissed him soundly. “That got you two extra brownie points.”
Rick hitched up his jeans. “Yeah? How many do I need for another round of me on top?”
“You were listening.”
“I always listen to you, sweetheart.”
It was difficult to feminize a snort, but Evie managed. Frannie was impressed.
“Okay, so lettuce is a girl word for green, right? I can live with green.”
“For heaven’s sake, Drew, your masculinity will survive.” Frannie gave him a hard tug, caught him by surprise and actually moved him. “Now, come on.”
“No, Frannie, wait. This is a learning experience. I want to hear more about this point thing.”
She pulled again, gained another few inches. “We are not going to stand here and listen in like a couple of voyeurs while they discuss the merits of…whatever. Remember my virgin ears. Now come on!”
Frannie finally got Drew into the kitchen. “Here, sit down.” She pulled out two chairs from the kitchen table, pushing him into one. “I’ve done some figuring. Tell me what you think.”
Drew rested his head on his hands. “About what?”
“I went out and bought a tape measure.”
“Yeah?” Drew was thirsty. He thought about getting up and checking the refrigerator for another beer but it seemed like an awful lot of effort.
“Yes. So I measured. My waist is twenty-four inches. I wasn’t too sure exactly where to get the hips, but I figured take the biggest measurement, right?”
He forgot about the beer. “Uh, sure.” Twenty-four-inch waist? That was pretty good, he thought. His own was ten inches larger. Man, he wouldn’t miss spanning Frannie’s waist with his two hands by much. Should he ever get the urge to try, that was.
“And that would be thirty-seven.”
“Thirty-seven?” Thirty-seven what? Oh, hips. That’s what they’d been talking about. Wow. He could hardly wait to hear the math on that.
“Yeah, so anyway, I divided it out and got sixty-five percent. That’s pretty good, don’t you think? You said you thought it was between sixty and seventy percent and I got dead center. But the thing is…”
Drew pulled out a pen from the checkbook in his pocket and did some quick calculations on a napkin from the napkin holder. Sixty-four-point-eight-six percent rounded off to sixty-five, all right. “Hmm? What thing?”
“Well, do you know anything about the bust?”
Staring at Frannie blankly, Drew asked, “What?”
“Didn’t it say anything in your reading about ideal bust measurements? You know, bust-to-waist or bust-to-hip ratio?”
Man, he was dying here. Sixty-five percent waist-to-hips ratio and she wanted to talk breasts?
“Uh…”
“I’m a thirty-six C. How does that sound?”
It sounded fine to him. Better than fine. How in heck could he not have noticed a C-cup right under his nose all this time? “Thirty-six? C?”
Frannie sat up straight, smoothed her hands down the sides of her chest, an act that pulled her snug knit shirt even more tautly across her breasts. “I was always under the impression that most men were interested in a woman’s chest. I mean they certainly stare at it enough. But all you’ve said so far was this waist-to-hip thing. So I was just wondering.”
Drew swallowed. Hard. When had Frannie started wearing tight tops? A man would have to be dead—or very involved in avoiding lettuce wear—what was wrong with khaki, for God’s sake?—not to notice Frannie’s chest in that shirt. “Uh—” he grabbed the first piece of trivia he could recall and was extremely grateful he could even remember his name, let alone a bit of trivia “—I think I read somewhere that average is good.”
Frannie pouted a bit at that. “Average?” Women spent an awful lot of time and effort to make an impression and appear unique. Bummer.
“Extremes of anything are bad. Somebody eight feet tall, man or woman, is going to have trouble finding a mate just like somebody who’s really, really fat or super anorexic looking. So, if you put bust size into that context I guess that would mean that like, flat as a board or—” Drew made an exaggerated gesture in front of his chest “—you know, humongo, your breasts precede you by three feet, well that wouldn’t be good. But C, well that’s right in there. At least that’s what I would assume.”
“B is average. C is better than average but still not overboard,” Frannie decided.
Drew was more than happy to accept her word for it. In fact, it was so disconcerting to think of little Frannie as even having breasts, he cast around for another topic. “Symmetry. I remember that now. Symmetry’s important. The closer you are to being perfectly symmetrical, the better looking you’re perceived.”
Frannie looked down, a V forming over her brows. “I’m symmetrical. One on each side. It doesn’t get much better than that.”
Drew got up and went to the refrigerator. He was going to need that beer after all. He couldn’t take much more of this. “I’m talking about your face, not your…you know.”
“Oh. Well, same goes. One eyebrow, one eye, half a nose, half a mouth on each side. I pass.”
“It’s the side part in your hair that throws everything off.” He came back to the table, raising a hand to wave off her objections. “Just kidding. Just kidding. Here’s the thing. We all think we’re symmetrical but if you ever took a picture of your face, cut it in half then flip-flopped the half that’s left so both sides were exactly the same and printed it out, supposedly we wouldn’t even recognize ourselves.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Drew shrugged. “Fine. I’ve got a digital camera. Come over tomorrow. I’ll take your picture and we’ll try it.”
Frannie slapped the table top. “Done. I’m absolutely positive I’m symmetrical.”
By the time Frannie and Evie left, Drew and Rick had missed the last of the ball game. It was okay by Drew as they managed to pick up the score on the late-night news—Drew’s team was still in there, and he had more important things to discuss with Rick anyway. He picked up beer bottles and carried them from the living room to the kitchen, tossing them into the recycling basket. Rick followed with the empty popcorn bowls.
“I think she’s really serious about this, Rick.”
“I keep telling you, man, you’ve got to pick your fights especially when it comes to women. So we wear green cummerbunds for a few hours, even pastel green ones. Next time you want a night out with the guys, you’ve got leverage. I wore lettuce for you, babe, that’s what you say and off you go. They can’t say anything because it’s the truth. Weddings are important to women. Don’t ask me why, they just are. To the guy, it’s a means to an end. But women are born planning the big day.” Rick shrugged. “Go figure.”
“Rick, could you stay with the program here? I’m not talking about your wedding. That was just a little detour we took because Evie and Frannie showed up at the door. If you don’t care that you’re going to look like an idiot, then neither do I. I was just taken by surprise is all. I’m talking about your sister. Frannie. Remember her? She’s coming over tomorrow so I can take her picture and put it into the computer to check on her facial symmetry. I mean she’s serious.”
Rick started the hot water after emptying the unpopped kernels into the trash and shaking out the leftover salt from the bowls they’d been forced to use once the girls had shown up. He dropped the bowls into the filling sink and added a healthy squirt of soap. “Will you quit worrying? Nobody’s going to marry Frannie. She’s a midget for one thing and for another, she still wears a retainer on her teeth at night so they don’t go crooked again. Where’s the fun French-kissing a mouth full of plastic?”
“But—”
“Quit your worrying, will you? It’s not going to happen.”
Andrew blew out a breath and went to check the living room for any more litter. He found an almost empty bag of chips and another beer bottle that had rolled under the sofa. Man, he felt like Cassandra. At least he thought it was Cassandra. One of those gods or goddesses who was always predicting gloom and doom and having nobody listen.
Rick had everything washed and upside down on the drainboard by the time Drew got back into the kitchen. He was already swabbing down the countertops although he acted as though there’d been no time lapse in their conversation. “Anyway, if you’re all that worried about Frannie, why don’t you marry her yourself? I’d trust you with her.” Rick shrugged. “I’d feel sorry for you, but I’d trust you. We’ve been brothers in all but fact for years. Might as well make it real. At least with Frannie you’d know what you were getting.”
The beer bottle dropped out of his hand. Drew winced as he heard it break. At least he’d been standing over the recycling bin when he’d dropped it. “What?” he finally gasped. “I didn’t hear what I thought I heard, did I?”
Rick threw the sponge into the sink where it landed with a sodden plop. “You heard me, all right. You’d be perfect for each other. You already know each other’s flaws. I never understood this aversion you have to marriage. What’s the big deal? The drive to create family is a basic instinct, man. Basic. Evie says so. You got something wrong with you is what.”
Drew crushed the chip bag in his hand before dropping it in the trash. He only wished it had been Rick’s head. “You’re the mental one, not me. Anyone with a brain can look around and see that the institution of marriage has severe cracks in its foundation and you’d be a fool to enter the building when it could fall down around your ears at any second. Yet there you go merrily on your way. Well, I’ll be the first one to laugh and say I told you so.”
“Evie and I are going to be very happy together,” Rick got out through gritted teeth. “I happen to believe I’ll be the one saying I told you so. Why the hell are you so cynical anyway?”
“Man, open your eyes and look around, would you? Look at my parents. Twenty-eight years, Dad goes into some kind of midlife crisis, has an affair with this woman at work—not even a particularly good-looking woman, which is what really killed Mom—and poof, the whole marriage blows up. Wife number two didn’t trust him, with reason since he’d cheated on Mom with her, so that relationship fell apart. He’s seriously talking about taking the plunge yet again with some chickee twenty years younger than he is. Think about it. I’ve got those genes in me. I could do that. Is that what you want for Frannie? Where would she be if I started cheating on her a few years down the road?”
Rick snorted. “A whole hell of a lot better off than you. Frannie doesn’t take crap from anybody, man. She’d take you for everything you had. You’d be the one doing the hurt dance, especially after I got done breaking your face.”
“Oh, and that’s supposed to reassure me?” For lack of anything better to do, he pulled the trash bag out of the cabinet, knotted it off and relined the can.
“Look, all I meant was that Frannie can take care of herself. Hell, you and I are the ones who taught her how. And you should have more faith in yourself. What are you, some victim of your genetic code? You can learn from your father’s mistakes, you don’t have to repeat them.”
“You’re right. Nobody in their right mind would cheat on Frannie. I’m still not marrying her. Remember how close I came with Jayne only to find out she was using me to get through Physics down at Purdue? And then there was Nancy. She didn’t want a BA, all she was interested in was an MRS. So long as it was with somebody she thought was going to make enough money to support her in the style she thought she deserved. Permanent relationships are not exactly my forte.”
Rick threw up his hands in exasperation. “All right, all right. I still think it’d be better for Frannie to marry somebody I know and trust since she’s so het up about this. Remember that video we rented from the place that specialized in old movies? Rosemary’s Baby? Scary stuff. What if she ended up with somebody like that? But I can’t hogtie you and force you to the altar. What about this? School will be out for the summer in a few more weeks. Offer her a summer job. She needs one anyway. Let her work in your office. That way you can keep an eye on her.”
The mere idea had Andrew reaching for another beer. It looked like he’d be walking home or camping out on Rick’s sofa. He’d had enough to make getting behind the wheel of a car iffy and it was all Frannie’s fault. “No way. You hire her.”
“I’m not the one all upset and worried over nothing like an old mother hen.”
Now his buddy had gone too far. Andrew gritted his teeth. “I am not acting like a mother hen.” For crying out loud, how had Rick managed to keep his total lack of intelligence so well hidden? All these years Drew had never even suspected how totally lacking in perception his friend was. Sure the guy had had some trouble in advance placement calculus, but a lot of guys had. Drew had never even suspected.
Drew forced his clenched fists to relax. The temptation to use them on Rick was incredibly strong. One of them had to be mature here, however, and by obvious default, the task was falling to him. “Listen, Rick, this idea of yours is a good one. You could get her a job at that snooty highbrow law firm of yours. She’d be safe enough there. Bunch of white-collared highly educated mostly married geeks. Can’t even understand them when they start in on that legalese mumbo jumbo. What could happen?”
Rick sat down at the kitchen table and ran his hand through his hair. “Let’s see. Where do I begin? Winkley, one of the senior partners, just had divorce papers served on him. Fourth wife. Obviously never played baseball as a kid or he’d have realized three strikes is all you need to be out. Anyway, word is she’s claiming physical abuse. Frannie’s tough, but she’s also kind of naive, you know? Winkley’d eat her for breakfast. Then I’d have to punch him out. He’s a partner, so I’d lose my job. And it’s a law firm, so he’d also sue my ass.”
“Four? You’re kidding.”
“Kid you not. And Forter’s into women’s underwear. Caught sight of them in the john last week. All satiny with lace. Frannie doesn’t need anybody whose underwear is prettier than hers.”
“Jeez louise.”
Rick nodded wisely. “Yeah. Sick.”
“She can’t work there. God only knows what else is going on you haven’t uncovered yet.”
“No place for a second-grade school teacher,” Rick agreed. “Want me to microwave another batch of popcorn?” he asked, drumming his hands on the table.
Drew waved the offer away. “Nah, I’m okay.”
Drew leaned against the counter silently for a moment thinking hard, then gave up. It was obvious Rick wasn’t going to take his concerns seriously. It was up to Drew to save Frannie from herself. If Drew hired her for the summer, sure she’d go home covered with dirt at the end of the day, but at least it was real dirt rather than the metaphorical variety. And as far as Drew knew, not a single guy in his group was into women’s underwear.
Chapter Three
“Wow. That’s amazing.”
Actually, it was. “Yeah.”
“Who’d have thought?”
Not him, that was for sure.
“So, does this mean neither one of us are likely to ever get married?”
Drew scratched his head as he studied the digital composites in front of him. “Yours isn’t as bad as mine,” he felt compelled to point out.
Frannie pointed to Drew’s picture. “I never realized quite how crooked your nose was. I mean, I always knew it took a bit of a turn, but…”
“Never mind, Frannie, I get the idea,” Drew said. So his nose took a slight left hook halfway down his face, she didn’t have to rub it in, did she?
“It’s just that you assume your face is the same on both sides, you know? But look. I wouldn’t even recognize myself as me from this.” She pointed to the image where Drew had taken one side of her face and, using its mirror image, made a whole. “Pretty amazing.”
Yes it was. Pretty. And amazing. Drew traced the image with his forefinger. And not all that far off. He’d have recognized her from the shot. He took another look at his own composite and grimaced. Talk about unsymmetrical. Maybe he’d be the one who never got married. Maybe the women who’d pursued him had been more impressed by the uniform he’d worn and hadn’t gotten around to taking a good look at his face. Who understood women, after all? He should feel relieved. Heck, he did feel relieved. Absolutely he did. Then Drew took another look at Frannie with her hair all loose and curling around her face and the dimple she swore she didn’t have peeking out at him.
“Hell,” he said.
“Don’t take it so seriously,” Frannie advised. “I’ll just have to work a little harder at this than I thought, that’s all. Besides, if you’d just let me take an extra minute to comb my hair the way I wanted to I probably wouldn’t look like such a wild woman in the pictures. But no, you’re always in such a rush. Anyway, it’s my problem, not yours.”
Drew turned away to put the digital camera back in its box. He cleared his throat. “So,” he began, “speaking of your, uh, problem, have you taken a job for the summer yet?”
“Not yet,” Frannie responded thoughtfully but with a small smile. “But I’ve got some good prospects.”
Drew turned back. Hope that he wouldn’t have to have her around driving him insane all summer warred with the fear that anything Frannie had come up with was bound to be crazy. Possibly dangerous as well. The woman worked with seven-and-eight-year-olds for a living, for crying out loud. What did she know about protecting herself from the wolves and weasels of the world? “Oh yeah? What kind of prospects?”
“Well, for one, you know that billboard you see off on the right side of the road just before you get downtown?”
Drew thought for a minute. “The one advertising the Venetian Festival? Frannie, that’s an old advertisement. Venetian Nights are over.”
“No,” Frannie said, her exasperation evident. “Why would I be interested in that one?”
With Frannie, who knew? Her brain was, to be kind, different, but Drew was just bright enough to keep that tidbit to himself. Come on, now, who picked their future spouse by shopping billboards?
“I’m talking about the one for the dentist.”
Drew wracked his brain. “The we’re-there-’cuz-we-care-How’s-your-bite one?” he asked carefully. It was a totally dippy ad. He sank down into his computer chair, bracing himself.
“Yeah. What about it?”
Frannie leaned forward eagerly in the chair she’d taken. “So I know we haven’t done the symmetry test or anything, but he was kind of cute, don’t you think?”
Now she thought he went around checking out guys? He didn’t think so. He did remember the hygienist on the far left had been kind of fat, but that was about it. “I really couldn’t say, but I don’t like the way this conversation is headed. You’re after the dentist, right? With nothing more to go on than a four-foot-wide billboard smile. Frannie, he could be married. He could be a pervert. He could be into women’s underwear, for crying out loud, like this guy Rick knows.”
Frannie sat forward in her chair, fascinated. “Rick has a friend who wears ladies’ lingerie? Who? Tell me it’s Bill McCain. I always thought he was kind of strange.”
“Never mind. My lips are sealed.”
Frannie laughed and shrugged. She’d get it out of Rick later. “Anyway, I’ve got an appointment for an interview set up for this week. If he’s wearing a wedding ring or has family pictures on his desk, I’ll know not to waste my time there and politely turn the job down.”
“And if he’s single, you take the job and he turns out to be an idiot, then what?”
She moved her shoulder in a gesture of dismissal. “Nobody said this was going to be easy. I can’t really expect to hit it right on the first try, after all. But if I don’t try at all…And, I’ll have made more money than teaching summer school. I need a break from the kids anyway. This’ll be good for me.”
Aha! Drew jumped on that. “You want to get away from children? I thought the whole point of this operation was to get you with child.”
“It is. I do want babies of my own. But I want them one at a time. Twenty-five at once can get to be a bit much. Especially when it’s raining and they’ve had indoor recess three days in a row.”
Drew shuddered. It didn’t bear thinking about.
“Anyway, I’ve also been going through the phone book looking at dentists’ advertisements. You wouldn’t believe how many ads have pictures. I thought I’d call some of the better-looking ones to see about setting up interviews.”
Drew simply stared. My God, the woman was a menace. Rick was wrong, Frannie was a danger to herself and everyone else, but by the time Rick realized it, it would be too late. Frannie could find herself engaged to a silk-panty-wearing weirdo. Women and their stupid biological clocks. Like the world would really suffer if a few of those alarms were left to ring until the battery wore out.
Well, it looked like it was up to him to take charge here. Which was, no doubt, exactly what Rick had hoped for, darn his hide.
He sighed. “Listen, Frannie, since you’re so determined to go through with this, I’ll tell you what. I’ve got some nice guys working for me. Guys who’ll play straight with you.” God help them. “I always put on some seasonal help. You might want to consider coming with me for the summer instead of the dentist.”
Frannie eyed him uncertainly. Something was wrong. This was too easy. She might have to rethink this whole thing. Did she want a guy who was so easily led? “You really want me to work for you this summer?”
Drew feigned nonchalance. “It could work for both of us. You could meet some of my engineers. They’re good guys.” Not that any of them would look too hot blown up larger than life on a billboard, but Frannie didn’t need to know that. “And you could genuinely be of help. Looks like I’m going to have a lot of wetlands to put in. Couple of sewage-processing plants and a pig farm for sure want their yucky stuff naturally purified. Maybe a couple of septic fields as well.”
Frannie’s nose crinkled. “Pigs? Sewage?”
“Hey, I’m an environmental engineer. This is what I do. The stuff’s got to go somewhere. You flush the john and it doesn’t just magically disappear. Pigs don’t just turn into bacon, you know. There’s a lot of by-product while they’re growing into pork roasts. Didn’t you just do Earth Week with your second-graders? Didn’t I come in and talk to them about the importance of wetlands in recycling wastes? I’m one of the good guys, lady, and I’m giving you a chance to be on my team for the summer.” Digging in muck ought to keep her out of trouble. And eau de swine was particularly hard to get rid of. Wouldn’t be too many guys come sniffing around once Frannie started smelling like a sow, now would there? “Come on. Let’s go into the kitchen, see what we can dig up. I’m hungry.”
Damn shame about her smelling like a pig, though, Drew thought as Frannie breezed by him. She sure smelled good right now. Like chocolate and vanilla with a smidge of some kind of flower mixed in. Lilac or something. Weird combination if you stopped and thought about it. But on Frannie, it worked. Frannie was like that, Drew mused. What would be strange for somebody else was just right for her. Bizarre.
“You got any brownie mix?” she asked. “I could whip some up.”
Drew sighed with anticipated pleasure. “Yeah, I’ve got a box.” Frannie made some darn fine brownies. Drew had never quite been able to pull the skill together. The edges were burnt or the center was gooey. Something always went wrong. “I’ve also got lasagna noodles and ricotta. Maybe you could make a pan of that too?”
She snorted. “Sure, why not? I get to make everything. What’s in it for me, buster?”
“I don’t have your touch,” Drew defended as they entered the kitchen. “And I’m going to make something. I’ll make…”
“What? Exactly what will you make?”
“Salad,” Drew proclaimed triumphantly. “I’ll make some salad.”
She didn’t look all that impressed.
“And garlic bread.” He upped the offer.
“You’re also doing the dishes.”
He sighed, but nodded acquiescence. It was still a good deal and probably the best he’d get. Frannie was nobody’s pushover. No doubt came from being the only girl in a household filled with older brothers.
Thirty minutes later Frannie was layering a main dish of spinach lasagna. A pan of brownies was on top of the refrigerator, cooling, hopefully out of range of a certain twenty-nine-year-old with sticky fingers still unable to delay gratification.
Damn, those brownies smelled good. The smell of hot chocolate literally hung in the air in a rich perfume. Drew inhaled deeply, then moved to get the milk from the refrigerator. He pulled a hotpad from a nearby drawer.
“They’re for dessert,” Frannie said when she saw what he was doing.
“Some now, some later,” Drew said.
“You have to eat the good stuff first,” Frannie insisted.
“I’m not one of your second-graders, Frannie,” Drew shot back. “I think I can take a little personal responsibility for my own well-being.”
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