The Hand-Picked Bride

“Personal information,” he added, glancing at her and then down at the paper he had before him on the desk.

Something in his voice put her on notice. “What?”

Ignoring her question, he stared hard at the paper and began. “Uh, let’s see. Are you married?”

She frowned, uneasy and not sure why. “I think you know the answer to that one. My friend Mandy said you’d asked her.”

He looked up. “Mandy runs the pretzel machine?”

She nodded, her silvery eyes watching him steadily.

He smiled quickly and picked up his pen, jotting down a mark. “Okay. We’ll move on, then. Is the little boy—Kevin is his name, isn’t it? Is he your only child?”

She nodded again, and he made another mark on the paper.

“Are you seeing anyone special right now?”

Her frowned deepened and her suspicions grew. “What does that have to do with how well I can handle marzipan?” she asked him.

His smile was suave and reassuring. “Nothing. Nothing at all. These are just questions on a psychological profile. They mean nothing.”

She smelled a rat, but she had to admit, his smile was persuasive and she found herself on the verge of smiling back. “Then why bother with them?” she murmured.

He shrugged disarmingly. “Like I say, it’s a profile. We like to know what kind of people our employees are.” He tapped the desk with the pencil. “You didn’t answer the question. Are you seeing anyone special?” And his gaze held hers as though he would read more in her silver eyes than she would tell him with her lips.

Slowly, reluctantly, she shook her head.

He noted her reply on the paper and moved on, but his eyes were alight with satisfaction. “Okay. Now—would you say you’re the kind of woman who, uh, works best with a lot of people around, with light support and supervision, or on her own?”

She hesitated. This actually sounded like it might be a legitimate question for a profile. “I’d say probably somewhere between the last two,” she said, and he nodded.

“Would you say you’re the kind of woman who likes walks on a moonlight beach, a good game of tennis, or dancing the night away at nightclubs.”

They were swerving into suspicious territory again, but there was something about the sneaky way he was doing it that made her want to laugh.

“I’m the kind of woman who likes to stay home and play with my son,” she told him candidly. “And that’s about it.”

“Okay.” He nodded. “Then how about this. Do you go for men of action, or the strong, silent type?”

Now she knew it was a hoax. How did he even have the nerve? “What?” she said, on the verge of laughter.

He spoke quickly as though he wanted to get his question in before she got up and walked out on him. “Okay, make it multiple choice. Would you prefer a man of action, the strong silent type, a sensitive poet, or the caring, compassionate and deeply loving, father of an eleven-year-old girl?”

She was shaking her head, holding back her laugh.

“Who happens to be very handsome and even funny, when you get him in the right mood,” he added, humor gleaming in his dark eyes.

The jig was up. She knew he wasn’t serious. He was going to ask her out, wasn’t he? And yet, she couldn’t help but be a little flattered by it. After all, he was a very attractive man. Still, she was going to have to set him straight.

“Now you sound like something on the dating game,” she told him, trying to be stern. “Bachelor number one or bachelor number two?” She threw up her hands. “Who cares? I’ll pick none of the above, thank you.” Her gaze met his calmly. “The truth is, I don’t date.”

Somehow he didn’t look convinced. “Never?”

She shook her head. “No, never.”

He leaned forward on the desk and gazed at her earnestly. “But what if you met that great guy with the daughter and you hit it off right away and—”

She frowned and broke into his question. “Listen, am I here for a job or is this all a ploy just to get a date?”

“A date?” He had the gall to look puzzled by her reaction. “Oh, wait. You think I...”

Yes, she did, and she’d decided it was time to put an end to this. Rising, she reached for her bag. “I’m sorry, but I won’t go out with you. And I would advise you to find a new pickup line. This one really stinks.”

He was laughing at her. She could see it in his eyes, but she couldn’t for the life of her see why he would find this amusing.

“I think there must have been a misunderstanding...” he began.

She sighed. It looked as if she was going to have to be explicit. “That’s just the point,” she told him sweetly. “You see, I never planned to go out with you. That’s not why I came.”

He blinked. “Well, that’s good,” he said, his voice almost too hearty. “Because I never planned to ask you.”

“Oh, come on,” she began, but a small hint of unease began to tickle deep inside. After all, nothing up to this point had made much sense, had it?

“Seriously, I didn’t bring you in here to ask you out on a date.”

“And he’d better not,” said a chirpy voice from behind her. “Because that would mean that he would have to stand me up. And I get ugly when I get stood up.”

Jolene hadn’t noticed the door opening, but she whirled to behold a pretty young woman with long black hair and bangs that barely cleared her huge blue eyes leaning in the doorway. Grant rose, coughing delicately into his hand in a way that Jolene later realized could only have been to hide his grin.

“Uh, Jolene Campbell, this is Kim Mancini—my date for this evening.”

“Your...”

“Yes. As a matter of fact, Kim and I have been dating for about three months now. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

“Uh-huh.” Kim nodded her head perkily. “We met at my cousin’s wedding. I fell in the swimming pool and Grant pulled me out by my hair.” She giggled. “Isn’t that romantic?”

“Very,” Jolene agreed with a weak smile.

Grant rose from behind his desk and came around quickly, as though to get between the two women before things got messy. “Well, I guess we’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning,” he said, shaking Jolene’s hand and smiling in a way that said clearly the interview was over. “How would eight do? I’m glad you’ve decided to join us.”

Jolene managed to salvage a smile before she turned to go. When she glanced back as she closed the door, she saw Kim melting into Grant’s arms, and the blush that had begun creeping up her neck a few minutes earlier made a major surge up and over her cheeks. She took a very deep breath and made her escape to the parking lot.

Humiliation? That was too wimpy a word for what she was feeling. She fell into the driver’s seat of her car and let out a silent scream before starting the engine. If only there was a way to rewind life and do it over.

Four

“You can imagine what a fool I felt like,” Jolene sighed as she talked to Mandy later that evening, as the two of them shared hot cocoa on the couch. Kevin was in his bed, sound asleep, the two women were both in pajamas, talking softly in the dim lamplight.