Man of the Month (Willowdale Romance Novel) (3 page)

SCOOTER WOUND around Jeanne’s ankles as she dashed through her house to find her ringing cell phone. She sent a wish out to the universe that it wouldn’t be Sam, but sure enough, when she grabbed her phone, she saw his name on the screen. She frowned. The banquet had been a long night of busting her butt while turning on the charm, and now she was in her grumbling, unwinding mode. Plus, it was ten o’clock.

Strike one, Sam.
She flopped on the couch and answered the phone.

“Hello?” She gathered Scooter in her lap and stroked his head.

“Hi, Jeanne? This is Sam. Your friend Brad called and said you might want to catch dinner with me. Sound cool?”

Sounds fool
. “Yeah, Brad told me. For some reason he’s just dying to set me up.” She rubbed her kitty’s ear, maybe a bit too hard. He ran off. She kicked her feet up on the couch and started massaging her arch, which was killing her after a night of running around with a smile plastered on her face, refilling coffee cups and clearing dirty plates. It would be nice to have a boyfriend to rub her feet after a long night like this. Not in a foot fetish way, of course. She’d better warn Brad against that.

Sam piped up on the end of the line. “So, do you want to catch dinner in Whitesville? Chez Chef is great.”

She paused and set her feet on the floor, wondering what Brad would do if she didn’t follow through with this. Then she remembered she had to do this. Not for Brad, but for her sake.

“Sure.” Although most restaurants couldn’t beat the menu she and Brad created at Elegant Eats. Their good cooking took the fun out of going out to eat. Dinners out were almost always a disappointment. “Let’s meet there, say seven o’clock on Friday?”

Silence for a moment. “Do you think you could pick me up? It’s a long ride on my bike. Especially at night.”

Right. The bike boy. “You don’t use a car at all?”

“Nope.”

“Never?”

“Not for a while.”

Wow. He’s really green
. “Um, sure. Give me your address.” She jotted it down, lied and told him she was looking forward to their date and, with a bad feeling in her gut that had nothing to do with the hangover still chasing her two days later, hung up the phone. Scooter didn’t come out from under the couch for an hour. She wished she could do the same.

JEANNE PUT on the first thing she pulled out of her closet and didn’t bother blowing out her hair or slipping into her fanciest Victoria’s Secret matching bra and panties set. No way
that
was going to happen tonight.

She drove into Whitesville and almost turned back a few times. But she’d never live it down. And then she’d have to go through this nonsense all over again.
You might have a nice time
, she told herself. Brad might be onto something. She had to do something to shake him out of her thoughts—even if that meant not only going on a blind date, but picking him up as well. The whole thing stunk of desperation.

She pulled into the driveway and rang the doorbell for Sam’s lower apartment. Her heart pounded, not in giddy anticipation, but in knee-knocking fear. She had no idea who was going to open that door.
Think positive, think positive.
She really needed to revisit some of her self-help books, or possibly write one.
So You Love Your Best Friend: Dating Advice For Dumb, Dumb Women.

“Hang on,” she heard Sam call, as the sound of footsteps came toward her.

Jeanne clutched her purse and held her breath.

The door opened, and there stood a man who was the total opposite of Brad—blond hair, an inch or two under six feet, and a bit stocky in a solid, I’ll-take-care-of-my-woman-and-knock- back-a-coupla-six-packs-on-the-weekend way. The Anti-Brad. Maybe that’s what I need.

“Sorry, I was just finishing up a game on my X-Box.” He buttoned up the dress shirt he was wearing over a “Farmers Do It In The Dirt” tee-shirt. He patted his chest. “Won that in a dart tournament.” Sticking out his hand, he introduced himself. “I’m Sam.”

“Hi. I’m Jeanne,” she said, shaking his hand and peeking past him for a glimpse into his apartment. Which was a mistake. With bed sheets for curtains and a ping-pong table in the middle of his living room, she didn’t want to look any further.
Well, men are usually hopeless decorating fools without a woman. Can’t hold that against him. It’s genetic.
“A video game, huh?”

He tucked his shirt into his jeans. “Yeah, you play?”

“No. No, I don’t.” She gulped. “Shall we head to the restaurant?” she suggested, before he could invite her in for a drink. Or a video game.

He shrugged. “Let’s do it.”

They walked to her car, and she wondered if she was supposed to open his door since she was picking him up? Or would he open the driver’s door for her? But he headed for the passenger side and waited for her to unlock the car, so she just climbed in and thought about the ways she could make Brad pay. Because she didn’t just have a bad feeling about this, she had total confidence this night was going to fizzle like fireworks in a downpour.

She gritted her teeth and started up the car.
Give him a chance. He’s into the environment.
“So, I found the best recycled shopping totes that keep your food cold hours after shopping. They come in all these cute designs. Have you tried them?” She used her fake nice voice, usually reserved for drunk, friendly businessmen at rowdy banquets.

They motored down the road, and he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “Uh
 . . .
no. Can’t say that I have.”

“Right. Probably tough to use with the bike. That’s impressive. Really. What made you decide to give up the car?”

He smoothed his hand down his thighs. “Probably when a repo man twice my size showed up to take it.” He laughed.

Her car rumbled onto the shoulder of the road. “Repo man? Oh? Oh, right. Yeah.”
Environment my butt, Brad
 . . .
She steered the car back onto the pavement. “That would do it for me, too. So you’re not, like, trying to cut down on carbon emissions by using a bike or anything?”

He shook his head and laughed. “No, I’m trying to hang in there until I find a job and can get another car.”

No car and no job.
She wondered if she’d be able to run Elegant Eats herself. Because she was going to kill Brad.

By the end of the meal, she’d learned how to overcome the intricacies of gutting a deer, and the step-by-step way to mount its head at home, taxidermist be damned. But at least when the check arrived in its little black leather folder, he pulled out his wallet and tossed his credit card on top—even if it did take a minute or two before he made the move.

“So, do you want to grab a drink?” he asked, letting his gaze travel from her eyes to her mouth and then farther south.

She wrapped her arms across her chest. “I’ve got
 . . .
this
 . . .
thing tomorrow, and it’s a long drive back home.”

He frowned. “Right. I understand.” He shrugged. “At least you don’t have to do it on a bike.”

“That’s for sure.” It was starting to feel like a three-day-long date.

The waiter came back to the table and squatted down next to Sam. “Sir, there seems to be a problem with your card. I tried running it through twice, but it was declined both times.”

“Ah. Sorry, dude. Happens sometimes.” He reached for his wallet again as he surveyed the check. He pulled out a few slips of paper and a couple bills. He shuffled through them. “I’ve got eight dollars, and a ten-dollar winning scratch off.” He pushed it toward the waiter.

The waiter stared at the pile. “You’re thirty-eight dollars short, assuming we’d take the scratch off. And I can’t recall us taking that as tender.” He gave Jeanne a strained smile.

Sam’s eyebrows scrunched together. “Why wouldn’t you take the scratch off? Same thing as cash.”

Jeanne reached for the bill. “I’ve got it.” She pulled out her credit card and slid it to the waiter.

He gave her a relieved look and dashed to the register.

Sam rubbed his eyes. “That’s embarrassing. I’m sorry. Next time I’ll get it for sure.” He yawned and stretched. “Or maybe it’ll have to be the time after that. Give me a little while to get on my feet. You sure you don’t want to grab a drink? Come back to my place?”

She thought about running from the restaurant, but remembered she had to drive Sam home. She shook her head. “I’m sure. I’ve got that
 . . .
”

“Thing. Yeah, I remember.”

To her credit, when she drove him home, she did slow the car down so he could get out, but she sure as hell didn’t turn off the engine.

BRAD GOT TO work early—yep, on a Saturday—because hell, he wasn’t sleeping anyway. No, he’d been wondering if Jeanne had kissed Sam goodnight. If she’d laughed at his jokes and curled her hair around her finger like she did when she thought something was really funny. He balled his fists but reminded himself this had been his idea, and it was for the best, right?
Right.

He popped open his laptop and did a search for businesses within sixty miles of Willowdale. Potential new clients. Ten new clients in this economy might be hard to find, but he wasn’t going to let Jeanne down. They’d both invested all their savings into Elegant Eats
after quitting their jobs at The Hideaway to chase down this dream. And while they had been busy in the last six months, they weren’t quite meeting the goals spelled out in their business plan. And he hadn’t exactly mentioned that to her.

Brad popped open the fridge and grabbed a jug of chocolate milk. He chugged it straight from the bottle and settled back on his stool. He could probably use something stronger at the moment, but he had a rule about drinking beer before noon, and he’d reached his six-drink-a-week maximum the night before wondering how Jeanne’s date was going.

He frowned at the books.
Damn
. Since he’d taken a few business classes during his three semesters in college, Jeanne let him handle the money, and far as she knew, everything was as sweet as her peach pie. With her culinary training, she handled the bulk of the food prep and menu creation, though he enjoyed that part of it, too. They’d both agreed it had been a perfect match. He couldn’t let this fail.

He blew out a long breath and looked at the list of twenty potential clients he was going to call. The front door of their office opened with a jingle of the bell that Jeanne insisted on hanging for Feng Shui purposes. Seriously. The sound of it startled him, and he wondered who was coming in. Two hours had passed since he’d gotten there, but it was only seven in the morning. Jeanne didn’t usually come in until eight-thirty or nine.

But sure enough, there she was. That vanilla rose perfume of hers told him so even before she stepped into the kitchen. She jumped when she saw him.

“I didn’t think you’d be here.” Then her face morphed from surprise to anger. “Because if I knew, I would have immediately wrung your neck. Boiled you in oil. Stabbed you to death with the potato peeler.” Her voice came out in a surprisingly evil whisper. “The old rusty one out in the display cabinet that I bought for your birthday.”

“Kill me with the peeler?” He chuckled nervously. “Wouldn’t that take a while?”

She arched an eyebrow. “Exactly my thought.”

His hands went up. “Huge blow to our business, killing the co-owner. Let me guess, this is about last night?”

“Yes. Last night and eco-friendly Sam.”

His heart quickened. Just how friendly did Sam get with her? Was he going to have to punch him out? “Yeah. What happened?” He tried to sound calm.

She sat on a stool and folded her hands in her lap and looked as mad as she had the time he’d promised to take her pecan pies out of the oven while she dashed off to the store.

Burnt pecans smell bad. Real bad.

She cocked her head. “Should I start with having to pick him up because he doesn’t have a car?”

He grabbed the empty milk jug and launched it into the nearby garbage can. “I told you he rode a bike.”

“Because his car was repossessed.”

“Oh. Ouch.”

She nodded. “Don’t worry. He’ll try to get one when he gets a job.”

That sounded familiar. Had his brother mentioned that? “But other than that, how’d it go?” He braced his hands on his thighs.

Her toe started tapping. “I learned a lot about deer hunting.”

He flinched and rubbed the back of his neck, wondering if she really would wring it.

“And deer gutting.”

“I’m so sorry, J.”

“Don’t you ‘J’ me. And if you were really sorry, you’d give me $65.”

“For what?”

“For the bill I had to pay when his credit card was declined.”

He ran his hand down his face. “Oh, damn.”

“And now you know why I don’t do blind dates. And won’t do blind dates ever again.”

He stood up and walked to her, bracing his hands on the counter on either side of her. She leaned back, so he moved closer.

“Now come on,” he said, lowering his voice. “You can’t give up on man-of-the-month after the first month. You promised. I thought he was a good candidate.” So why was there a zing of guilt zipping through him? “I’ll find someone better next month. I promise. I’ll look into his background more.” He stepped back and held his arms open for a hug. “Forgive me?”

She hesitated and then stood up and folded herself into his arms. Which was really like throwing gas on the fire in his heart. He needed to find another guy and fast, before he backed out of this resolution, too. Sharing Jeanne was harder than he’d imagined.

He let her go and missed the feel of her against him. It was just like pulling off a warm blanket before you’re ready to haul your sorry self out of bed.
Dude, don’t think about bed when she’s this close.
He clapped his hands together. “So, I’ve got twenty potential clients to call. I’m working on the Elegant Eats resolution, too.”

“You don’t waste any time.” She opened the fridge and pulled out the cake left over from the holiday party they’d catered for the bank, cutting herself a big slice.

“What do you think about approaching Sarah O’Hara for some work? I bet she does plenty of entertaining in that mansion of hers.”

“Silly, boy, you can’t be the biggest fish in town if you’re willing to settle for a small town’s best.”

“True. Too bad. She could introduce us to a lot of people.” He considered telling her about the discrepancy he’d found in the accounting books. The one that showed them actually losing nine thousand dollars instead of ending the year in the black. You drop one zero by mistake in the cost column, and your world is upside down. Ten new clients wasn’t just an ambitious idea for a resolution. It was a must-do to keep their business alive.

Jeanne tilted her head and looked at him, like she was questioning what was on his mind. She knew him too well.

He forced a grin. “Why are you here so early, anyway?”

JEANNE CHOSE her words carefully.
Because I was up all night wishing I’d been out with you? Because the worst date in the history of Carson County only made me want you more?

“Wanted to get an early start on the day. I thought I’d drop off free pies to some of the diners outside Willowdale for their Sunday crowd tomorrow, let them sample the wares. It would bring in a nice chunk of change to have some standing orders, and maybe that would drum up some business, too. There are at least a dozen diners along Antique Alley, and I’m sure Rita down at The Jelly Jar wouldn’t mind giving her ovens a break. Kate said Delores Owens at the Kissin’ Cousins diner a few towns over might be interested, too.”

“Smart and beautiful. Sam doesn’t have any idea what he’s missing out on.”

Her eyes widened, and she looked down. “So, I’ll be making pies all day.”

“Your cherry is to die for.”

Her face must have been turning just as red.

“The pie. Your cherry pie. Pecan’s real good too.” He hopped off the stool. “It’s a great idea. I think instead of calling these potential clients, we just show up with samples.”

She finished her cake and licked the fork, thinking. She caught him watching as her tongue slid up the metal tines. She lost her breath for a moment and set down the fork.

He cleared his throat and turned to the sink and rewashed some dishes that were sitting out to dry.

“What about an open house?” she asked.

He wiped his hands on his jeans and turned around. “If you’re going to be this productive after a bad date, I might not try so hard to find a decent guy next time.”

She snapped him with her towel. “I’m going to hit the store and buy some supplies. Anything you want me to pick up?” She had to scoot out of there as soon as possible to forget the way he’d been watching her. To forget the way it made her feel.

“I’ll come with you.” He gave her half a grin. “I’ve got some ideas for a few great appetizers I’d like to whip up for these potential new clients.”

How could her heart still ping-pong in her chest after all this time? Just from that smile? Just from the way his eyes swept over her? She followed him out to his truck, and he held open the door for her and she hopped in. Now, showing up on a blind date and finding someone like Brad? Nice. Would she ever find someone like him? She sighed and dropped her head against the seat.

He looked at her. “You’re not still fretting over that date are you?”

“Something like that.”

He squeezed her knee. “Don’t worry. I won’t let you down. I’ll find someone for you.”

SHE GRABBED a cart at the Save More grocery store, and they strolled to the produce aisle.

“So what’s on your list?” he asked.

“Cherries, of course. Pecans, brown sugar.”

He laughed, and the sound curled up inside her like a cozy cat. “No. I meant your ideal man list.”

She stopped to examine the sweet potatoes so she wouldn’t have to face him, because she really just wanted to say,
Your clone.
“I’m certainly going to add good credit to the list.” She plopped a few sweet potatoes in a plastic bag and set them in the cart.

He scratched his head. “Not sure I can do a credit check on potential dates.”

She grabbed a handful of cherries. “Okay. Employed. Don’t care what he does, but he should be passionate about it, you know? The way you—we—love food and catering. Not everyone would give up a secure management position like you did to follow a dream. Someone like that.”

He wrapped his fingers around her arm and stopped her in the middle of the aisle. His hand was soft and warm and belonged on more interesting places than her arm. “Hey, you ditched the head chef job to give this a try. Give yourself some credit.”

She frowned. “We’ll see how smart that was. Maybe this guy should have something a little more secure than I’ve got.”

Brad got an uncomfortable look on his face. “Okay. Go on.”

She grabbed three bags of cherries and set them on the scale. “Tall.”

He rubbed his thumb over his chin. “How tall?”

This interrogation was making her feel like she’d been hauled in to the police station. Shrugging, she set the fruit in the cart. “Your height is good.”

“Most guys aren’t six foot four. Six foot okay?”

“Sure.” If a sketch artist were drawing her dream date, it’d turn out looking an awful lot like the guy in front of her. She waved him off. “Just someone nice. Doesn’t matter.” Because this wasn’t going to work—settling for chopped liver when she really wanted the filet mignon.

Brad took her by the shoulders. “I’ll find you someone great. I promise.”

They were pretty much silent the rest of the trip, going through their shopping list, dashing off to grab this or that, doing their best not to brush up against each other.

After they checked out, she asked Brad for a ride to the diner. “I promised to meet the girls for lunch. I’ll get a ride back to work.”

A gust of snow swirled around her feet as she climbed into the car.

“No problem.” Brad seemed almost relieved by the request.

As they drove along the bumpy road that always seemed to need a new paving job, Jeanne dreamed about how nice it would be if this were all real—if they were a couple, coming home from the store with plans to whip up a feast later that night. She imagined they’d never even get to the pies. Then the truck hit a giant pothole, jerking her back to her senses.
Stupid reality.

Brad pulled into the Jelly Jar parking lot. “Okay. I’ll go make a few calls looking for Mr. February. Unless you give me a do-over on January? Want me to set up a date for next weekend?”

She hopped out and glared at him. “You really want to see what I could do to you with that potato peeler? And don’t think I’ll be coming around with the iodine afterward, either.”

He grinned at her, and she knew he could probably get away with anything, thanks to that smile.