Mission: Marriage

“What?” he asked, unwilling to allow her to read his mind. “What’s not it?”

She was still laughing. “Relax, Thomas, it’s okay. I promise that I’m not about to ask you to father my baby.”

“You’re not?”

Her eyes sparkled, but she bit her lip and her laughter came to a hiccupy end. “No. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Or make you think I was completely crazy—again. Oh, God…no. I’d never ask a stranger. And certainly not someone like you.”

“Someone like me?”

“You’re a multidater, remember? Practice makes perfect and all that? You’re a player. Right? You’re not looking to settle down any time soon, if ever?”

“Oh. That. Yes. Right.”

She nodded. “Exactly. And I don’t want anything to do with men like that. So you’re quite safe from me. What I want is a family, so I want to find someone stable, responsible, someone who wants the same thing. You’re entirely unsuitable.” She grinned at him in a way that despite his apprehension spiked his nervous interest even more.

“Let me get this straight: you want to find someone to have children with?”

She nodded. “Yeah. But not just that. I want what everybody has—a family. Not much to ask, is it? Everybody’s doing it without much effort. I’m talking about getting involved in a serious, stable relationship that eventually might involve having a family. Not just finding someone to impregnate me.”

She said the last sentence as if it were something totally unthinkable, but he wasn’t convinced. It certainly didn’t sound like she was looking for a love match.

“Okay.” He leaned back, not feeling much more comfortable knowing he was “unsuitable.” “And if I’m neither genetic material nor husband material, how is it that I come into this?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” she asked, impatient. “You know everything about this. I have to go through the dating process to find someone. You can help me cut down on the dreadful part.”

“I’m not following. How would I help you through it all?”

She leaned toward him again, her eyes sincere. “It’s simple. I’ve never really dated in my life. I want you to teach me how to. What the rules are, how to behave, what to do when, how to read men, what they want and what they mean…it’s all a mystery to me. Additionally, I don’t trust my own judgment anymore. Men aren’t the same on a first date and two years into a marriage. Maybe there are hints. Clues. You know.”

“I see,” he managed to get out.

“You’re probably thinking about what’s in it for you. I’d hire you, as a consultant. We hire consultants all the time at work. I’ll pay you what they’re being paid. Which is a small fortune, by the way. And I suppose you could look at this as a learning experience too. You’d get to see things from the woman’s point of view.”

“I don’t want your money.”

“If you agree to do this, I will pay you. I’m not asking for a favor, I’m asking to hire you. I need your expertise. This is serious business to me, not a game.”

He shook his head, feeling disoriented. “Why me?”

She was leaning toward him, excitement in her voice and her face. “You know what you’re doing, don’t you? You know the dating scene, what’s done and what’s not done. You have insight into the male mind that I lack.” She fell silent for a moment before adding: “Will you do it?”

He was pretty close to speechless. “I…don’t know.”

She shrugged, but there was disappointment in her eyes that he didn’t like seeing. “You don’t have to make up your mind right this minute, of course. You can think about it for a while if you want.”

“I still don’t understand why you’re asking me. Why you think I’m the perfect man for this job. I’m sure you know some single men who could give you hints. Any men, for that matter, they all were single once. Husbands of your friends, perhaps?”

Her gaze traveled over him, and he felt himself still wriggling on her hook. “Well, you are perfect for this, aren’t you? It’s kind of written all over you. And the way you had the nerve to pull that stunt on our blind dates—a perfect example of supreme confidence. I was impressed.” She suddenly laughed. “It was touch and go for a while if I would scream the house down, but I was impressed. And you look like the perfect example of the serial dater—handsome, smooth, suave…”

“Thank you,” he tried to interrupt her, very much aware that the tone of her voice was not conveying any positivism toward these supposedly positive traits, and not really up to hearing more.

She continued. “Commitment-phobic, right? Not even looking for the right woman? Right?”

He nodded reluctantly. She had him pegged pretty well.

“See, you’re a player, even if you don’t know that word. Perfect for me. I bet you’re a businessman, aren’t you? Wheeler and dealer, right? The Dow index gets your blood pressure rising, doesn’t it?”

“The Dow index…?”

“I’m sorry.” Lea lowered her voice. “I don’t know you at all. I shouldn’t judge you. My ex was all these things. And, I admit again, I may have drunk one too many glasses of wine during the footsie session.”

“If you were with your ex for years, he can hardly have been much of a commitment-phobic or a serial dater.”

She narrowed her eyes and stared into her glass. “That’s what you think. All that time, and he was never ready to move in together. Oh, he moved into my apartment, more or less, but he kept his and I wasn’t allowed to move so much as a toothbrush in there.” She swirled the wine reflectively, staring into the dark red liquid, then looked up at him with a faint smile. “I made a mistake. Or on second thoughts, maybe it wasn’t a mistake at all. Anyway—I started pushing. I started mentioning settling down to one place, that there was no point in wasting rent on two apartments when we only used one.”

This sounded familiar. “Did you mention having children? That sends a lot of men fleeing in the other direction if they aren’t ready.” It had once sent him halfway across the world. It wasn’t something he was proud of, but he remembered the feeling of panic and dread at the thought of getting trapped in a relationship. He could sympathize with her ex in that area.

She shook her head. “I thought about mentioning having a family, but I never did. But he may have read my mind. He had an affair, that he knew I would find out about, and was extremely relieved when I told him to get the hell out of my life.” She drew patterns on the outside of the wineglass with a fingernail. “I’m guessing he’d been wanting to dump me for a while but never had the guts. So he did something that was guaranteed to make me dump him.”

“What a jerk,” Thomas said, disgusted. Even he would never have stooped to a lousy trick like that. “That’s pretty low. I’m sorry.”

There was a flash of cynicism in her eyes. “You wouldn’t do the same in his situation?”

“No. If I wanted out of a relationship, I’d make a clean break before jumping beds.”

She shrugged, and he had the feeling she didn’t believe him. “Anyway, I’m not telling you all this to get pity, Thomas. I’m over him. I guess the only thing I’m not over is my own stupidity, to have clung to him for so long.”

“Well, there’s a reason love is associated with the heart and not the brain.”

“I don’t think we’d been in love for a long time,” she mused. “If ever. We were just used to each other. In hindsight, we probably stayed together so long because it was the simplest thing, not because we were particularly happy together.” She shrugged. “Anyway, he was a stockbroker. For years, my emotional well-being hinged on the Dow index. I could check the Net before going home from work, and know what kind of an evening was ahead. But you’re not him—I’m sorry I made that crack.”

“It’s okay.”

“So, what’s your answer? Will you be my consultant?”

Thomas leaned forward to see her face better, wondering why he hadn’t already said no. “First tell me, in practical terms—what exactly is it that you want me to do?”

“There are a few things. First, help me find suitable men. I’d like to avoid more blind dates like tonight, and I’m not really sure how to go about it, how to screen them to avoid the worst riff-raff. I’d also like you to help me get through the first few dates, sort of give me hints on what to do, what not to do.” She shrugged. “Be there for me to ask stupid questions that my girlfriends can’t answer. Just help me get confident. Get my dating legs.”

“Dating legs?” He had sudden visions he had no business seeing. “What are dating legs?”

“You know, like sea legs.”

“Oh.” Dizziness again. The effect the woman was having on his balance system was remarkable, and unlike her, he didn’t have the excuse of too much alcohol.

“Like, tonight. I didn’t even know what to do when James started acting like an eight-footed octopus. I was busy enough worrying about having to kiss him at the end of the evening.”

“Maybe you worry too much about how things are supposed to be. Just let it come naturally.”

“That’s the point!” she said. “I don’t know what comes naturally. It doesn’t come naturally to me. I know that may be hard for you to understand, since this is all probably just second nature to you, but it’s a complete mystery to me.”

He nodded. “I see.”

“Will you help me?” she asked. “Just say yes or no, I’m not pushing. No explanation needed if you don’t feel like it.”

She expected him to say no. It was obvious from the way her shoulders had slumped when she’d asked the question.

And of course he would say no. What else could he do? If nothing else, she would skin both him and Anne if she found out he’d been sent to chaperone her—and then kept his identity from her while she told him some of her deepest secrets and innermost feelings, thinking she was safe confiding in a stranger what she could not confide in friends.

He would say no—and with luck they’d never see each other again and the problem would be solved.

“Yes,” he heard himself say instead. “I’ll help you.”

What had she done?

After showering and putting on one of the oversized T-shirts she liked to wear to bed, Lea grabbed the sleeping cat from the sofa and carried her to the bedroom. She needed the companionship. The satisfied sound of the cat purring always made her feel better. It calmed her down. Most of the time, it also helped her think more clearly. There was probably a medical explanation for this. If not, there should be.

Uruk hardly woke up during the transfer, just opened her mouth and yawned once, before curling up again at the foot of the bed in an identical position from the one she’d just been removed from. Lea checked the Caller ID on the phone sitting on the bedside table, and saw that Anne had called several times. It was too late to call her back now. She’d drop by tomorrow and tell her matchmaking friend all about the updated definition of “dreadful.”

Feeling too jittery to go straight to bed, Lea walked barefoot to the window and rested her forehead against the cool pane. Tonight really had happened, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it, now that the exhilarating effects of having been rescued from a horror date had worn off.

She’d asked a stranger—a very attractive stranger—to teach her to date.

The effects of the wine were also wearing off—and already she wasn’t sure she’d be very pleased with herself in the morning. Apart from everything else, she must have come across like a pruny old spinster, desperate to find a man. She whimpered and knocked her head softly against the window a few times. Why had he agreed, anyway? Out of amusement? He must have better things to do with his time.

He seemed nice. Very nice, she admitted. She’d felt an instant attraction to him, attraction of the kind she had been determined to ignore since he was way outside the parameters she’d set up for what she wanted.

But he’d agreed to help her. And she needed help. That much she’d learned from half an hour with James the Footsie.

She pulled the cat from the foot of the bed and settled her on the second pillow. Uruk was about the only single female she knew—so she’d have to suffer through the single-girl-talk that Lea’s girlfriends no longer seemed to comprehend.

“You know, Uruk, if my plan succeeds, you’ll be exiled from the bedroom again,” she told the cat. “As it is, I’m just adding to my growing spinster image by talking to my cat, but since nobody is here to hear it, it’s fine.”

Uruk blinked a few times, then her eyes stayed wide open as she glared at her mistress. “I know,” Lea said, bribing the cat with a tummy rub. “You don’t like being moved around in the middle of the night when you’re fast asleep. I’m sorry. But I needed to talk.”

The apology was sufficient. Uruk’s eyes closed and purring commenced again. She squirmed around to better accommodate the tummy rub and stretched out a paw to gently draw a claw over Lea’s wrist.

“Did I do the right thing, do you think?” Lea whispered. “It’s pretty unlike me to approach a stranger like that. He probably thinks I’m nuts. I mean, I think I’m nuts to have done that.”

What had induced her to be so impulsive? Excitement of the moment, probably. Compared to the stunt Thomas had pulled in the restaurant, it hadn’t seemed so far out to enlist his help. Not until she’d seen the astonished—and alarmed—look on his face when she’d told him what she needed.

She could feel Uruk’s body vibrate with the purring. The fluffy white fur on her belly was softer than anything in the world. Except perhaps a baby’s downy hair.

“Sometimes, Uruk,” she whispered, “a woman has to do what a woman has to do. We have a mission, and we’re going to get there. And anyway, it doesn’t matter what Thomas thinks of me, does it? Not at all. He doesn’t matter at all, does he? He’s just the means to an end.”

The cat purred on and refused to take sides. Lea sighed and rolled on her back, staring up at the ceiling.

If only his eyes weren’t quite so blue.

CHAPTER THREE

“DON’T ask,” were the first words out of Lea’s mouth when Anne yanked the front door open the following afternoon. She’d promised her friend to drop by after work and give a report on how last night’s date had been. She’d be needing an apology instead. Where had they found that guy? Thanks to them, she’d had to do all of today’s calculations at the office through the depressing mist of a hangover.

Then she noticed that Anne’s brow was thunderous, an aura of disapproval radiating from her. She was even tapping her foot. “Hey, what’s wrong? You’re scowling at me.”

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