Making Mr. Right

“Yeah.” Cindy shared another understanding smile with Flo. “Strange as it may seem, PC, not everyone in the world functions strictly on logic,” she added. “Mallory will not be impressed when you ask her to marry you by detailing the logic behind it. You might want to mention feelings or emotion or something similar.”

He laughed. Nothing perked him up like the mention of Mallory.

“She’ll see plenty of logic on her own,” Cindy muttered under her breath. Darn him. And darn me for caring.

Flo chuckled. “I gotta get back to work. Sounds like you guys are doing just fine.” She picked up the pan with the rest of the rolls. “It’s good to see you again, Cindy. I’m glad we’ll be doing it a lot more often.”

“Thanks, Flo. Me, too.”

Flo gave a thumbs-up on her way out.

“Why do I get the feeling I’ve invited the two of you to gang up on me,” Parker asked as she closed the door behind her.

“It’s your imagination.” Cindy reviewed their list again. She didn’t need to worry about still being in love with him when all this was over. If they accomplished everything on here, he’d be a totally different man. Someone she wouldn’t recognize, let alone love. That was good, wasn’t it?

Was it the idea of him changing that made her feel so irritable and sad? Or was it that she was making him over for Mallory?

Cindy looked around her at the luxurious apartment he and Flo had christened the master suite. “I was serious, PC,” she said. “You really don’t need to do anything except bring everyone here. You’ll have the undivided attention of every unmarried female in your class.”

“I was serious, too,” he replied as passionately as she’d ever heard him. “I don’t want anyone who’s only attracted to all this.”

Not even Mallory? She clamped her mouth closed over the next question she wanted to ask. How would they know what Mallory would be interested in. Because she would be interested.

Cindy closed her eyes momentarily. She couldn’t protect him from Mallory; she couldn’t even protect him from himself. She could only do her very best for him and let her feelings for him go. They were hopeless. She’d known it as long as she could remember. It was time to start thinking of him as the brother-in-law he wanted to be.

“Then don’t worry. By the time we’re through with you, she’ll be dazzled by just you.” She forced a smile. “So where do you want to start?”

“First things first. Might as well begin at the beginning.” He leaned closer, eager to do whatever he was required. He grimaced and tapped at the word topping the list: Workaholic.

“You’ll have to do that one yourself,” she reminded him, adding, “but if it makes you feel better, I’ll remind you from time to time.”

“It’s surely a matter of concentration,” he said, causing her to shake her head. That’s what got him into trouble in the first place—concentrating too hard.

He scanned the list again from top to bottom. “Is there anything right with me?” he asked ruefully.

Her heart compressed in her chest. There is so much right with you, Parker Michael Chaney! She loved his honesty. His intensity. His dedication and determination. His genuine caring. His way of making whatever he wanted to happen happen. She released a painfully silent sigh. “The problem has always been perceptions,” she said. “Their perceptions,” she clarified. “Your former classmates. The problem has never been with you.”

“But now, fifteen years later, I have an opportunity to make a new first impression,” he said, pleased with the thought.

“Exactly.”

“I can’t tell you how badly I want to do that.” He squared his shoulders. “So I guess it’s logical... appropriate,” he amended, “to start on this one.” He underlined the second with his finger. “Clothes.” He glanced up expectantly.

“Then I guess we should adjourn to your closet.”

CHAPTER THREE

His closet was the size of her bedroom. Beside it there was another one the same size. Out of curiosity, Cindy opened that door as Parker opened the one he’d indicated was his. She wasn’t surprised to see boxes stacked inside the second one. Boxes, computer keyboards, various pieces and parts of computers. In this huge house, there had to be another place to store those kinds of things.

With an overwhelmed sigh, she closed the second door.

“What?” Parker asked. “What’s wrong?” He was standing just inside the door he had opened.

“You’ll have to clear all that stuff out for Mallory,” she warned.

A can’t-wait-for-Christmas expression spread across his face as the implication of her statement sank in. “I can handle that,” he said and she could almost see the visions of sugarplums dancing in his head.

“PC...”

He looked at her, ready to do whatever she said.

“That’s the first thing we have to change,” she said, suddenly irritated beyond belief with him.

“What?”

“You have to get rid of that eager-to-please, can’t-wait-for-you-to-walk-all-over-me attitude. Mallory’s going to swallow you up for breakfast and throw you away.”

He looked hurt.

“Every feeling you have can’t show,” she softened her tone a bit.

“Make up your mind,” he said. “A minute ago you were telling me I had to express feelings, not logic.”

“I said you had to have feelings. I didn’t say you should wear them on your sleeve. For some reason, women like to be kept guessing just a tiny bit. You have to at least play a little hard to get.” Shoot, maybe that was why she liked him. He’d kept her guessing and wishing and hoping for years. And how much harder to get could you be than madly, blindly in love with someone else?

“You can’t be so...so...eager,” she told him. “Lesson one—when Mallory says something, don’t jump as if her tiniest wish is your command.”

“So you don’t want me to clean out the closet?”

This time her sigh was frustrated because she couldn’t decide if she wanted to hit him or hug him. “Yes. Clean out the closet. But she doesn’t have to know you did it for her. Shoot, don’t do it for her. Do it for yourself! We’re going to buy you a whole new wardrobe. Maybe you’ll be using some of the space by the time this reunion comes around. Surely in this huge house you have somewhere to keep your old modems and stuff besides your bedroom.” She waved vaguely at the door she’d shut.

His expression cleared some, but there were still tiny frown lines between his eyebrows. Cindy resisted the urge to smooth it away. “Don’t take everything so literally,” she snapped. “That’s another problem. You take everything anyone says as gospel. People do say one thing and mean something else.”

The frown deepened. “What do you mean?”

“I mean...for example, when I said you’d have to clean out the closet, I was talking to you, but I was mostly thinking out loud. In fact, it’s kind of silly to clean it out until you know where all this is going to lead. Mallory may not be interested. Shoot, by the time she gets here, she may be married again.” She wanted to slap the startled look off his face.

“You think that’s a possibility?”

“I think,” she measured her response, “you shouldn’t worry. If she’s madly in love with someone else and already married again, do you really want her?”

She couldn’t bear to see the answer he might have in his eyes and turned away. “Never mind. She would have told me if she was thinking of getting married again.” She changed the subject quickly and promised herself that whatever she felt, she would not make snide remarks about Mallory again. She was her sister. Cindy did love her, even though she didn’t understand her. And she had to admit, she’d always been jealous of Parker’s reaction to Mallory. “It’s your house, and until something changes, you shouldn’t clean out the closet if you want that stuff there.”

“It is convenient,” he said.

“Then don’t clean it out.” She shook her head to clear the confusion he created every time she had one of these literal/euphemistic conversations with him. “If it gets to the point where Mallory is considering settling in here, I’m sure she’ll figure out some way to get you to move those things out herself.”

Cindy pushed past him and looked at the meager number of clothes he had hanging in his own closet. It held maybe ten suits, at least one of them dating back as far as high school—she recognized it from his and Mallory’s graduation. There was a line of white shirts and a hanger with neckties hung haphazardly over it. His clothes took up maybe two feet of the clothing rods that ran at least thirty feet on three sides of the room. The walls were lined with cedar. Built-in drawers and cabinets were interspersed between the rods and shelving of various heights and sizes. Four pairs of sneakers in various stages of disintegration perched neatly on a long low shelf obviously meant for the purpose. He had sweaters and casual knit shirts folded neatly on one stretch of shelves.