Angel In Disguise

The crowd loved it. Sunny thought they made a perfect pair.

“Okay, what’s it going to be, folks? Do you see Kevin and Jacy ‘walking on the beach’ after a hot game of ‘volleyball’?”

“Oooo,” the audience reacted. They had Sunny’s vote.

“Or do you see Sunny ‘backpacking’ as she ‘mountain climbs’ with Frank? Or Sunny ‘backpacking’ as she ‘camps and explores’ with Pete?”

Sunny cringed as she heard far more people screaming her name and Pete’s. Hot color crept up her neck. Please, God, get me out of this.

“A match for Sunny and Pete gives them a clear win. Otherwise we go into our tie-breaker. Okay, folks, time to cast your vote. Do it now.”

Sunny heard her team chanting Pete’s name and thought of the windsprints and laps those girls would get.

When the scoreboards behind her and Pete registered the win, her heart sank. She didn’t know how she was going to get out of this, but she was not going camping with a stranger.

Pete couldn’t remember ever letting his sister down, but there had to be a first for everything. He wasn’t doing the date.

“I can’t do it, Meggy,” he said, his arms folded, ready for the inevitable wheedling debate. “That wasn’t part of our deal.”

“I know. I don’t expect you to.”

That surprised him. From babyhood, she’d expected him to leap tall buildings if that was what it took to get her way.

“I’d like to help you out, but…”

“It’s okay. A promise is a promise. I said you wouldn’t have to do the date if you won, and you won’t.”

“You won’t get into trouble?”

“It doesn’t matter. I can always get another job.”

Guilt was an awful thing to swallow. This was the best job Meggy had ever had. She loved this job.

“Who would have thought we’d get a woman who wanted to cook for her dates?” she muttered. “Ridiculous!”

Well, not from a man’s point of view. That is, if he actually wanted a date.

She sighed, brave disappointment on her face. “That’s it, then.”

If he screwed this up for her, could he forgive himself? Probably not.

“I guess no job’s perfect.” She sighed again.

It was only one date. He could do it. Drawing an extra deep breath, he said, “Okay, you win, but don’t expect me to bail you out again. This is the last time, understood?”

“You’ll…do the date?” She looked stunned.

No wonder. He felt stunned. Already he could kick himself for rescuing her again. “What do I have to do?”

“I can’t believe this,” she whispered. A tear welled in her eye. “You haven’t dated since…”

“Don’t start. Just tell me what I have to do.”

“Thank you, Pete,” she said in a shaky voice as a tear dropped on her cheek.

“Darn it, Meggy, stop that.” She knew he couldn’t stand tears. He rubbed the tear away with his thumb.

She sniffed and gave him the watery smile she’d perfected as a toddler. “We’d better go meet the guy who plans the dates.”

He followed Meggy down one hallway and then another, wondering what other guy would feel sick to his stomach knowing he had a date with a gorgeous redhead. A real, honest-to-goodness date. Time alone with a woman when you weren’t sure what you were going to say or what was going to happen?

From junior high on, he’d been paired with Lisa. He’d never had to plan where they were going or what they’d do. Well, that much wouldn’t change. Dream Date would take care of the planning.

He knew they were getting close to the meeting room when the girls’ basketball team spotted him and started up that stupid “Pete, Pete, Pete” thing again. The piercing whistles came from the tallest girl. Pete had to respect the way she could whistle with her fingers in her mouth. He’d have given a baseball card to be able to do that when he’d been a kid.

In a conference room Sunny sat on a short sofa, showing more leg than she wanted if you judged by the way she shifted around, tugging at that little skirt. As far as Pete was concerned, she might as well give in gracefully. Those were truly great legs.

As he entered the room, the first thing he noticed was the change in Sunny. Her wide-eyed, admiring expression was the one he usually got from women these days. Even if it was only The Face she liked, it was better than her earlier reaction. The change seemed strange. Stranger still was the fact it mattered.

Sunny felt like an idiot, giving Pete her warmest smile, but with twenty-eight years of practice, she knew what to do when life threw her a curve. As long as she had to do a televised date with this guy, she’d make the best of it. All she had to do was act as if Pete were the answer to a single girl’s prayer. He was probably used to that role. It was only TV, and she’d played “pretend” all of her life.

As he settled into the love seat beside her, Pete’s arm touched hers lightly, briefly. Just one touch, but tingles radiated along her arm. It was all she could do to keep from rubbing the sensation away. Her heart raced, but it had to be from nerves, not awareness.

“Sunny Keegan,” she said, extending her hand.

“Pete Maguire,” he responded, taking hers. His hand was slightly callused, a working man’s hand, and his handshake was confident, firm, just right.

Sitting slightly sideways, he slid his arm along the low-backed cushion behind her. His scent was exactly the way she liked men to smell, faintly of soap and woodsy aftershave, not that he was leaning too close or coming on to her. Any man Pete’s size took a little more than his share of the room.

He seemed almost shy, but that only proved he was an even better actor than she was, for certainly he knew what those bad-boy eyes did to a woman. Who could ignore eyes like that? The way they crinkled at the corners when he smiled, they could steal her heart away and make her glad they had. Heaven help her if she let herself fall for another handsome charmer.

A bubbly, balding man introduced himself as the date coordinator. “You guys!” he exclaimed, beaming at them. “You’re something else. Looks like your date will have to be a two-parter.”

“Two-parter?” Pete echoed, sounding startled. “You mean go out twice?” Disbelief filled those blue eyes.

Sunny didn’t know what he was so upset about. A guy with Pete’s looks didn’t come on a show like Dream Date because he needed a date. He probably wanted to get noticed by someone in show business. You’d think he’d be happy with more TV exposure.

“Most of the time we send our couples to a restaurant or a resort for their dream date,” mused the coordinator, “but it will take a couple of dates to reflect your preferences. There’s the backpacking, the camping…”

“We can skip that part,” Pete muttered.

“The home cooking…”

“A restaurant’s good,” Sunny said. “In fact, I’d love a restaurant!”

“Well, yes, but we’ve got to do the home-cooking thing.”

“Not for me we don’t,” Pete said flatly. “I can have pot roast some other time.” One corner of his mouth tilted. “With Mom in her backyard.”