The Dating Game

Chapter Two

Mattie stood in the driveway, catching her breath. After a minute she got into her Jeep and turned the key. The engine made a sick “rew-rew” sound but didn’t get any further than that.

“Come on, baby, not now,” Mattie said. She turned the key again, whispering to the cantankerous ten-year-old vehicle. It didn’t turn over. It just let out a high-pitched moan like a donkey refusing to make that last trek back up the Grand Canyon.

Clearly, a little Jeep revenge for missing that last tune-up and oil change, since money had been so tight lately. What she wouldn’t do for a Jiffy Lube and a miracle.

“Damn!” Mattie smacked the steering wheel, but that didn’t do anything more than hurt her palm. She dug in her backpack and found her cell phone. Within a few seconds she was connected with her best friend.

“Hey, Mattie. Are you surviving okay?” Hillary’s voice traveled across the line, upbeat and positive as always. She could picture Hillary sitting at her desk at the Lawford Insurance Company, blond and fit, zipping through her day with the same enthusiasm she gave all her friends.

“Yes, but not on the show I thought.” Mattie gave Hillary a quick rundown of what had happened. “Now they want me to stay and be on Love and the Average Jill.”

“I saw the previews on the news this morning. Looks like a great one.” Hillary laughed. “And they asked you to do it? For real?”

“Yep. They’ve even got what I assume is a whole room of bachelors waiting for me, too. They said something about fifteen men. Fifteen! I don’t think even Cleopatra had that many at once.”

“Sounds like fun to me. A bachelorette party made in heaven.” Hillary laughed. “So why aren’t you in there?”

“Because that’s the last thing I need right now. I’m not interested in falling in love or getting married, especially in front of a bunch of cameras. I’m here to raise money for the Lawford Girls’ Soccer League. That’s why I wanted to go on the Survival Show. I bet this one’s “prize” is true love. I need cash for the league, not a man.”

“I love your altruistic spirit, Mattie, but you should think of yourself. How long has it been since you went out on a date?”

“What does that have to do with this?”

“Uh, excuse me? Did you not just tell me you’re standing in front of a mansion filled with gorgeous men who want to date you?”

“Yeah, but—”

“But nothing, girlfriend. If you have any brains at all, which I know you do, you’ll get back in there and get yourself one of the hot guys inside.”

“Hillary—”

“Don’t ‘Hillary’ me. You know I’m right. You’ve become a virtual hermit, pouring all your time into those girls’ teams. Now, I know what you’re going to say, so don’t interrupt me. The girls need you and the league needs you. Everybody gets to have you but you.” Hillary let out a sigh. They’d had this argument at least three times in the past six months, with Hillary always trying to get Mattie to go to a bar or a singles club or some other crazy thing that would take her focus away from her job and her girls.

She wasn’t going to do that. Mattie Grant needed a man about as much as a monkey needed a second tail.

“Right. That’s why this is a bad idea.”

“No, that’s why this is a perfect idea! It’s going to be on TV, so you can get plenty of publicity for the league. And if you stick it out, the exposure can help you get the money you need to get it back up and running, plus keep you employed. What’s not to like about it?”

“The dating part,” Mattie said, toying with the steering wheel of the silent, recalcitrant Jeep. “That’s not what I had in mind when I signed up for Survival of the Fittest. I was supposed to be out in the woods, trying to choose between poisonous and nonpoisonous wild berries, not standing in a mansion choosing a mate with all the forethought of picking a doughnut out of a box.”

“I’m saying this as your best friend, Mattie. You need a man. A nice one, preferably. And now you have fifteen at your beck and call.” Hillary laughed. “You are the envy of the entire female population of Lawford. So enjoy it while you can.”

“I’d rather be out building fires and roasting wild game.”

“If you’re lucky, you’ll get to do a little fire building still.” Hillary laughed again, then said goodbye, with a second admonishment to Mattie to get back in there and get herself a man to go with that money.

Hillary was right about one thing. It had been a while since Mattie had been on date. That didn’t make her a hermit, just—

Okay, maybe it did.

She took in a deep breath and looked again at the mansion. It was only a week. Surely she could last.

And besides, who said she had to fall in love, anyway?

David had watched Mattie Grant’s mad dash from the room with sympathy. If he’d had a choice, he wouldn’t be here, either, sacrificing himself on the reality TV altar, all to save his skin.

Actually, he’d had a choice, more or less. He could have kept his idea—which had seemed so sane at two in the morning when he’d concocted it after watching too many infomercials on how to get rich on hair removal products—to himself. But once he’d shared it with his editor, he’d been left with two choices: get the story or get another job.

Now he wasn’t going to leave. He had too much at stake to back out.

“Well,” Larissa said. “I’m sure she’s just a little nervous. She’ll be back.” Though the hostess didn’t sound as sure as her words.

David hoped Mattie would return. Having the star run out just before the show began would leave it a tad dead in the water. And would totally mess with his own plans to expose the reality show—and its competitors—for the crock of lies they really were. Happy endings and true love between strangers, matched up with an eye on ratings. Yeah, right. In the end, he’d expose the faux lovey-dovey characters as nothing more than people who were focused only on themselves…and the cash prize, of course.

Mattie Grant, however, wasn’t at all what he’d expected. He’d thought he’d be stuck here for a week with some washed-up beauty queen with nothing on her mind but marriage. He hadn’t been looking forward to that.

But Mattie…well she wasn’t a beauty queen. Though she had a killer smile, long blond hair and eyes the color of green gems. Okay, so she was a beauty. Just not a pageant kind of girl. She didn’t even seem the high heels type. And that made her interesting, more so than he wanted to admit.

He’d felt a spark—hell, a jolt—when they’d shaken hands. It was something he’d have to ignore, because involving his heart or any other part of his body in this show was not in the plan.

He wasn’t that kind of guy. He was good at staying uninvolved, uncommitted. In his twenty-eight years David had learned that even the people he thought could be trusted always kept something hidden, some nugget of truth they secreted away from others. It was far easier, he’d discovered, to pour himself into his work—the work of uncovering those lies—than to open himself up to others.

The door opened and Mattie came back in, a little paler than before. “My Jeep won’t start. I need a few tools to clean off the plugs and wires to get it going again, but Stone Man doesn’t seem to be anywhere around.”

A woman who fixed her own car? David gave her a smile of appreciation.

“Stone Man?” Larissa asked.

“The butler.” Mattie swung her backpack onto her shoulder. “You know, forget it. I’ll walk. It’s only seven or eight miles back to my apartment.”

“No, wait. Don’t go,” Larissa said, stepping forward. She seemed to be crafting a plan as she spoke. “You’re already here. Plus, you signed the release when you sent in your application, so you agreed to participate then.”

Mattie put up her hands. “Not on this show. I signed up for Survival of the Fittest. If you people don’t have plans for building a lean-to in the rose garden, then I’m outta here.”

“I don’t think you’re on the wrong show,” Larissa said, coming up and taking her arm. David thought it looked more like a vise grip than a friendly touch. She withdrew a walkie-talkie from the evening bag at her arm and pushed a button. “Get in here. We have a…new twist.”

“There’s no twist,” Mattie said, extricating herself from Larissa’s grasp. “I’m not doing this show. I don’t want to get fixed up or married. I want to prove my survival skills.”

Larissa didn’t give up easily. She draped an arm over Mattie’s shoulders as if they were old friends and confidantes. “Mattie, isn’t that what dating’s all about? Survival of the Fittest?”

When Mattie opened her mouth to protest again, Larissa turned toward David. “Don’t you agree?”

And then he knew for sure what Larissa was doing. Somehow, Mattie had been sent to the wrong address. Rather than try to find the real bachelorette, Larissa was working with what she had—a woman who seemed to truly fit the words Average Jill. Everything from Mattie’s tennis shoes to her backpack fell into that category, and yet there was something about Mattie Grant. Maybe the way she held herself or the defiant spark in her eyes. Mattie was as far from average as a woman could get.

Mattie Grant also didn’t seem the type to follow the rules.