1-900-Lover

“In fact, you’d better get two. Better safe than sorry,” Ida prophesied grimly.

Rowan managed a sick smile. Right. And better this than hungry, she tried to tell herself.

The argument might have worked, too…if she hadn’t just lost her appetite.

2

AT THIRTY-TWO and in perfect health, Will Foster found himself skating the edge of an anger-induced aneurysm, or at the very least, a massive stroke.

Doris Whitaker had screwed him again.

Not in the literal sense, of course—Will shuddered as her heavily made-up, wrinkled face flashed through his mind’s eye—but figuratively, he might as well have painted a big bull’s-eye on his ass.

The ass she was undoubtedly watching, the old perv, Will thought with an unhappy start as he strode across her yard to his truck. He cast a glance over his shoulder, and sure enough, she’d been watching him leave. Her painted lips slid into a wider smile and she twinkled her arthritic, bejeweled fingers at him.

Will forced a tight smile and waved back. “Goodbye,” he muttered through gritted teeth.

His company, Foster’s Landscape Design, had spent the better part of three summers, not to mention thousands of dollars, trying to fulfill their “satisfaction guaranteed” promise.

To no avail.

Though he knew he should simply let it go—should simply concede defeat—perversely, Will couldn’t do it. He’d get that satisfied-customer stamp of approval from her, dammit, or die trying. It was the point of it. All bragging aside, he was good at what he did. He loved his job. Loved developing a landscape, then pulling it together and seeing it to fruition. Loved getting his hands dirty, nursing blooms and watching things grow. He had a tremendous amount of respect for the codependent design of the world. The whole oxygen and carbon dioxide cycle that made plants and animals dependent on one another. It was…awe-inspiring.

Furthermore, Foster’s Landscape Design was swiftly approaching their ten-year anniversary and in those ten years, he’d never had an unsatisfied customer.

He absolutely refused to let Doris ruin that record.

His team had finished up today and, though she’d been pleased throughout the process—had approved the design herself once again—she’d decided that it wasn’t what she’d wanted after all.

Tear it out and start over.

Will had wanted to tear something out all right, but it hadn’t been the cacti she’d decided she hated. This was the third freakin’ time she’d pulled this shit. He was at his wit’s end, and quite honestly, if he wasn’t afraid she’d howl blue murder down at that country club she virtually funded, he’d be tempted to tell her to take that cactus and shove it up her—

Two loud beeps, followed by his mother screaming “Will?” into the two-way radio interrupted the uncharitable thought. Despite the fact that he’d told her repeatedly that yelling wasn’t necessary, Millie Foster, perversely, continued to do it. On purpose, he suspected, because it never failed to startle the hell out of him.

Will swore, unsnapped the combination radio/phone from his belt and dredged the bottom of his soul for an ounce of unspent patience. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut. “Mother, for the last time, you don’t have to yell.”

“Sorry,” Millie replied unrepentantly. “I just wanted to make sure that you heard me.”

“I heard you. What’s up?” Will detected a bit of laughter and catcalling in the background. He frowned. “What’s going on?”

“I just wanted to let you know that you have a dinner date tonight, so be sure and finish up in time to take a proper bath.”

Dinner date? Will thought, utterly confused. A proper bath? He hadn’t made a date with anyone. In fact, he hadn’t had a date in months. Even if he’d met someone who’d sparked any interest—which he hadn’t—he wouldn’t have had the time. Spring was the busiest season of his year, the time of year when his laughable social life was shoved to the back burner. Besides, his last serious relationship had left a bad taste in his mouth—a combination of bitter regret, bad judgment and plain stupidity—and it wasn’t a flavor he wished to sample again anytime soon.

Will frowned as the implication of this conversation finally surfaced in his muddled brain and he mentally swore—she was matchmaking.

Again.

His grim mood blackened further. Though he loved her to distraction, and he knew she simply had his best interests at heart, Will nonetheless was exceedingly weary of her meddling. “Mother, I didn’t make a date for tonight, and if you have made one for me, then you’ll be the one to cancel it. We’ve been down this road, and I’m not in the mood to backtrack. Not today.”

An exasperated huff sounded. “Don’t you want to know who it’s with before I cancel it?”

He wasn’t remotely curious. “No,” he said flatly.

“Fine,” his mother replied. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t have seen the need to meddle—”

Ha! Will thought.

“But,” she sighed, and a curious, almost ominous quiver had entered her voice. “I just thought that, given this ph—phone bill, that desperate m-measures should be t-taken.”

More guffaws, more laughter from her end, and he could have sworn he heard his brother, Ben, say, “Hell, yeah! An inflatable woman would have been cheaper.” But that couldn’t possibly be right, Will thought, thoroughly confused, because it didn’t make any sense. And his phone bill? What was wrong with his phone bill, and what did that have to do with her finding him a date?

Will developed an eye twitch. He shoved the key in the ignition and started the truck. “Make sense, Mom. What are you talking about? What’s wrong with my phone bill?”

“Nothing…if you don’t mind that it’s five times more than last month.”

“What?” But that would make it—Will did the mental calculation and blinked, astounded—right at a thousand dollars. His jaw all but dropped.

“You sound surprised, dear,” she continued blithely. “I guess you didn’t realize how long you spent t-talking to y-your 1-900-Lover.” She dissolved into a fit of whooping, wheezing laughter that made his face burn. “At any rate, a real date would have been cheaper, which is why I can’t in good conscience call Rebecca Hillendale and cancel on your behalf. There are times when a mother simply must intervene.”

For the first time in his life, Will Foster knew what it felt like to be literally struck dumb. Not dumb as in he couldn’t speak, but dumb as in stupid, as in he had a brain, but couldn’t for the life of him make it function. Several thoughts swirled simultaneously through his head, but they were disjointed and dim, and he lacked the cognitive ability to put them in any sort of order, much less get them out of his mouth.

The best he could figure out, somehow—and God only knew how—1-900-charges, presumably for phone sex—had ended up on his phone bill. Apparently—and much to his immediate, unwarranted humiliation—his mother had broadcast this at the office—where she’d seemingly forgotten that she worked for him—and then had taken it upon herself to find him a date.

Meanwhile, Rebecca Hillendale was a humpbacked harpy with the disposition of a constipated porcupine and he’d rather die a slow painful death or have his testicles removed with red-hot pincers than to sit through a meal with her. These were the thoughts roiling through his tortured mind, but when he finally managed to speak, it was in short staccato sentences devoid of any emotion except outrage.

“Mother, I’ll be there in a minute.” Will slipped the transmission into reverse, backed into the street, then dropped the gear shift into drive. The truck shot forward. “Nobody leaves.”

“But—”

“Nobody leaves.”

AN HOUR LATER Will’s mind was in order, but his temper was not.

According to the phone company, the calls Will insisted that he hadn’t made, had, in fact, been dialed from his number. Curiously, during hours that he was at work. Another look at the bill—at the dates the calls were placed, specifically—had shed a new light on the situation.

The calls had coincided with his nephew’s visit.

Scott, his sister’s eldest son, typically spent every spring break with Will. Usually Will put him to work, but a four-wheeler accident the week before Scott’s visit had foiled that plan. Scott had been forced to spend the holiday playing catch-up on his studies, and Will had decided it would be shitty to cancel the kid’s visit simply because he’d lose the labor.

Given the make-up work situation, he’d had to plead with his sister for the ungrateful brat to even come, and now as thanks, Scott had put him in a horrible position—he’d left him with a whopping thousand dollar phone bill and the unhappy task of telling his sister that her child had been having phone sex on Will’s watch.

Which led him to his present errand.

Before he called his sister and shared that little tidbit—before he paid the bill, even—he intended to directly contact the author of his misery—the phone sex operator. Over the top? Probably. But what the hell—his normally sedate life had been knocked off-kilter today and he had to do something proactive to put it back on the right path. He couldn’t help it. It was all part and parcel of being a professed control freak. Will took exception to the unflattering term, but couldn’t deny his nature. He liked to do things his way, liked having his way, and ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time he could say with confidence that his way was the right way.

Will’s first impulse had been to call the 1-900 line, but he’d quickly changed his mind. The unscrupulous witch wasn’t bleeding another friggin’ nickel out of him. Instead, he’d called a P.I. buddy to do a little snooping for him. The best Will had hoped for was a toll-free line, but what his friend had found had been considerably better. A name and address, and, wonder of wonders, a local one at that. What were the odds?