Before You Get To Baby...

Frannie thought. Okay, he had a point, but it wasn’t enough to get her to release the cookies. She wanted some guidelines here, not a cop-out. “All right, so generally speaking what’s likely to interest a guy enough to get him to the altar?” Meanly, she picked up a cookie and waved it in the air a couple of times before nibbling delicately at the brown edge.

Damn her, Frannie knew him too well. Drew shifted uncomfortably once more. For most of the past fifteen years, ever since Drew’s family had moved to St. Joseph, Michigan, Andrew and Rick had been inseparable. Five years younger than her next oldest sibling, Frannie was obviously the family’s much-adored bonus baby. He and Rick had baby-sat Frannie too many times to count. They’d driven her to piano lessons, softball and dance. Drew had helplessly patted her back while she’d cried on Rick’s shoulder after the break-up with her first boyfriend and uselessly assured her the jerk hadn’t been good enough for her. Heck, he’d marked the seasons by the color of the rubber bands she’d picked for her braces each month at the orthodontist. Red and green in December which made her look like her teeth were growing moss, but better than the orange and black she’d favored in October.

In all that time he’d spent watching her grow, Drew had never once realized that she’d been watching him as well. The little brat knew the edges were his favorite part. Just look at her savoring his edge.

Drew would have to be under particularly diabolical torture before he’d admit that her cookies were, in fact, the best in town even if they did have raisins. Heck, they’d have to stake him to an anthill and disassemble his remote control before his very eyes. The problem was, he’d only had a handful before Frannie’d gone into her snit. Previous to that it had been a long dry spell of nothing but store-bought. The injustice of it sang through him. Drew wracked his brain for something Frannie would consider worthy.

“Okay,” Drew finally said. “I’ll tell you what. Leave the cookies here. Brain food, you know, and I’ll think about it. I’ll come over to dinner some time in the next few weeks and we’ll talk.” He raised a hopeful eyebrow.

Frannie eyed him with disgust. Man, Drew gave her no credit at all. He still thought of her as a gullible twelve-year-old who’d fall for the old Tom Sawyer’s I’m-having-such-fun-whitewashing-this-fence-but-if-you-pay-me-enough-I-might-let-you-do-it-instead gambit. He and Rick had used that ruse whenever her mom had assigned them a task to be done while they baby-sat her. Pitiful. Absolutely pitiful. She crossed her arms over her chest.

“Half a dozen cookies now, the rest on delivery of the goods, no later than this weekend or the deal’s off. And I’m not cooking for you. I’ll pay my own way, but we’re going out.”

Damn, but she was a tough little negotiator. You had to respect that about her. He and Rick had taught her well with all their stupid pranks. He had nobody to blame for this but himself. “You want to talk about this in a restaurant? Where anybody and their brother can listen in? You know how close tables are in those places.”

Frannie thought about that and nodded. “All right, I’ll cook. In fact, we’ll grill. You bring the steaks and the wine. I’ll do the salad, bread and dessert.”

Drew scowled. Evidently he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was. He also suspected it was probably the best deal he was going to get, so he nodded his head in agreement. “Okay. I’ll get back to you when I’ve…what?” Frannie was vehemently shaking her head and frowning.

“This Friday. My place. Seven o’clock.”

“Frannie,” he explained patiently, “This Friday is part of March Madness. Intercollegiate basketball play-offs, you know? Rick made me kick money into a pool thing he started. Frankly, I don’t think Villanova can do it, but it was all there was left and you never know so I…now what?”

“No excuses. This Friday, seven o’clock, or no cookies. If you’re good maybe I’ll let you check the score once or twice.”

“Man, you’re a pain.” But Drew really, really wanted those cookies. He was a scientist. He’d taken several different types of chemistry. He still had lab nightmares all these years later. One thing Drew knew for sure, he could weigh and measure with the best of them. But when he attempted cookies, no matter how carefully Drew doled out the ingredients, they simply didn’t hold a candle to Frannie’s. Actually, it was a major point of frustration for him as he’d seen her in action in the kitchen. Frannie would have flunked chem lab, any science lab, that was for sure. She just sort of threw things together. And whatever it was always turned out well. “All right, all right. This Friday. But I get a dozen cookies up front.”

“Eight.”

“Ten.” Drew casually inched his hand toward the cookie plate.

Frannie cradled the plate more closely. “Nine.” She started counting them out.

“Okay. I think I read somewhere that for attracting a mate, we’re all operating on a subconscious instinctual level. We only think we’ve gotten civilized over the eons.”

“If you’re trying to tell me men still operate on caveman level, I’m not all that surprised. I will not, however, take it kindly if one of them tries to conk me on the head and drag me home by the hair.”

Drew snorted. “You haven’t got enough hair to get a good grip.”

Frannie patted her short crop of curls protectively. “Short hair is easy to take care of as well as very stylish.” She sniffed disdainfully. “Shows how much you know about fashion.”

“Guys like long. We don’t care if it’s fashionable or not.” Drew gathered his booty in front of him.

Frannie covered her plate with plastic wrap and rose. “If you don’t care about what’s in, why is your hair so carefully mussed up today, in that bedhead style guys are so into right now?”

Drew sat back, disgusted. “You asked, I answered. Leave my hair out of it. How big is your waist?”

“My waist?”

Drew waved away her puzzled look. “Never mind. We’ll get into it come Friday.” If he couldn’t get any more cookies out of her right now, he wasn’t going to waste his ammunition.

“What about my waist?” Frannie wanted to know.

“Friday,” Drew reiterated and shooed Frannie out the door so he could enjoy his treat in peace. Women. Go figure. Tell them what they want to know and they argue. Drew shoveled a cookie up and into his mouth feeling slightly aggrieved. Now he had to spend the next few days thinking up ways for a member of the opposite sex to trap one of his own. Talk about disloyal. He’d sold out to the enemy with barely a whimper. A handful of cookies was all it had taken. Disgusted, he crunched down hard on another one. “Well, too darned bad. They’re all grown men. They can fend for themselves. If one of them gets caught, he probably deserves it for being so stupid as to fall for all those female ploys.”

Frannie drove home proud of herself. She’d started the process. Subtlety was lost on a man like Drew—actually on most men, she decided as she signaled a left turn and left his street behind. You had to hit them over their hard, fat heads to get their attention. She’d done that.

“Ought to be interesting to see what he comes up with,” she told herself as she turned again, right this time. Frannie came up to a red light, drummed her fingers as she waited. “At least I’ve got him thinking about marriage. That’s something.” She accelerated as the light changed. “And if he still refuses to open his eyes and see what’s right in front of them, I swear I’ll use whatever he tells me to find myself somebody who will appreciate me. See if I don’t, the unappreciative bum.” Frannie pulled into a spot in front of her neat little frame one-story. “And I’ll tell you something else. When and if that man does wake up, he’s going to have some serious making up to do. Serious making up.” And she sniffed in self-righteous justification as she walked up her front walk.

Late Friday afternoon she was still sniffing at regular intervals at the male population’s thick-headedness in general, one Andrew Wiseman’s in particular. “Wiseman, hah!” Frannie spat as she pounded the sofa-back cushions back into shape in anticipation of his arrival. Setting the scene was important, after all. “There’s a misnomer if ever there was one. Blindman is more like it. Andrew Stupid-head has a certain cachet as well.” The sofa beaten into submission, Frannie surveyed the room, hands on her hips. Even if it was on a subconscious level, she wanted Drew to see the kind of home she could create.

Satisfied with the room check, she started down the short hall to her bedroom. “Obviously, I must have a very perverse nature to find the man this appealing. But I’ve got to make my play now before somebody else snaps him up. He’s within shouting distance of thirty, for heaven’s sake, he should be more than ready to settle down. I’d always planned to be the one standing in front of him when he woke up. Where the heck did that silk teddy go? Ah, there it is and my…yes, got that too.” She headed out of the bedroom and into the bath.

“Well, I just can’t wait any longer,” Frannie said as she reached in to turn on the shower. “His social life is too darn active and he still treats me like I’m his little sister. Not after tonight,” she vowed as she stepped into the steaming stall. “Not after tonight.”

Drew fidgeted out on Frannie’s front stoop before he rang the bell. He checked his fly, made sure his shirt was tucked in and even checked his hair in the reflection in the front door’s small inset decorative glass pane. Disgusted with himself, Drew poked the buzzer. It was just Frannie, for God’s sake. Still, for some odd reason he’d felt compelled to go home after work for a quick shower, his best jeans and a clean shirt. When he’d stopped at the supermarket to pick up the steaks he’d had the most inexplicable, ridiculous urge to pick up a bunch of flowers. Now what had that been all about?

Drew shook his head as Frannie opened the door. A couple of the guys at work had been passing around some kind of bug. Maybe he was coming down with it. That could be why he felt so weird, couldn’t it? Look at Frannie, she hadn’t fussed, for God’s sake. She was covered from neck to below her knees in some kind of voluminous apron thing. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear an apron before,” he said as he dubiously studied the object. She was all but drowning in yards of fabric but then again, she was a little bit of a thing.

“I had a conference with a parent after school,” Frannie blatantly lied. All was fair in love and war, after all. Not only had there been no conference, she’d never have worn the tight, short skirt hiding under the apron to school at all. She taught second grade. If Drew thought about it once he got a gander, he’d realize that with all the floor work she did with such young children any kind of skirt, let alone this abbreviated version, would be fairly impractical. But Drew’s thoughts rarely ran along the mundane or everyday practicalities of living. If it didn’t have to do with recycling sludge, it got no more than cursory notice. She figured she was safe. “I didn’t have time to change from my good clothes if we were going to eat on time, and I do have a tendency to be a bit messy in the kitchen.” Truth was, she’d put the skimpy hug-your-rear thing on just to bother Drew.

Frannie was sloppy when she baked. He’d have hated her for a lab partner, true enough, even though her product was worth the mess. It was a logical explanation and Drew nodded. Then Frannie turned around and walked in front of him. Holy cow! Thank God he was still holding the beer he’d bought instead of drinking it, Drew thought. He’d have choked for sure. He sputtered anyway. “Uh, it was a conference with a mother, right?”

“Hmm?” Frannie rolled her hips even more with her next step. The contrast between the loose apron and the peeks he got at her snugly encased rear with each step she took had been carefully checked for effect in the mirror. She hoped he swallowed his tongue. Look at him standing there in those tight jeans and that white knit shirt with the camel-colored stripe right across his pecs. He’d done that on purpose. Everybody knew light colors made you look bigger and that horizontal strip was nothing but a blatant attempt to draw attention to the breadth of his chest. Well she’d noticed. A long time ago, she’d noticed. Frannie wasn’t the slow one here.

“What is that thing supposed to be under there, a skirt? It’s missing the whole bottom half if it is.” He stared at her butt and cleared his throat. “A mother conference, right? Not a father conference?” Drew inhaled much-needed oxygen. “They let you wear stuff like that around little kids? Oh, boy.”

“Drew, this skirt is no shorter than a pair of shorts and you’ve seen me in those before. Surely you knew I had legs.”

“Well, yeah, but…” He gave up.

Dinner was eaten in a not-quite-companionable silence. Drew was on edge, like he was on a first date or something, but couldn’t understand why. By the time dessert was produced Drew was sure he was coming down with something. He’d been feeling hot ever since Frannie had finished fussing in the kitchen and taken off the apron thing. Of course, Frannie had had him going in and out of the cold grilling the damn steaks and everybody—other than Frannie evidently—knew that wasn’t good for you. He tried to remember if he’d ever seen her dressed up before. Frannie tended to live in jeans or shorts and an oversize T-shirt. But surely, in all those years, there must have been some other occasion when she’d gussied herself up when he’d been around.

Eighth-grade graduation, Drew remembered. A white dress with a big sash and daisies in her hair.

Frannie’s body had changed since eighth grade. Big time, it had changed.

Andrew had sighed in relief when he’d seated her. The table hid that cute little rear he’d had no idea she had. But his relief was short-lived. Taking the chair across the small table from Frannie he was faced with her, um, Frannie’s um…well, chest.

And what a fine chest it was. Nicely delineated and showcased by a snug, thinly knit sweater. Drew had a hard time not staring. Surely that hadn’t cropped up overnight. He wasn’t just getting sick. Those two handfuls had taken a while to appear. He’d evidently been out of it for quite some time if he was just noticing now that Frannie was a woman. Damn it, he didn’t want to think of Frannie as a woman. She’d been like a sister to him for years. Suddenly he felt awkward around her. It wasn’t right for him to be noticing her chest. Not right at all.

“…other night.”

“Hmm? what?”

Frannie sighed and set a nice big warm chunk of gingerbread slathered with real whipped cream in front of Andrew. “Are you feeling okay, Drew? You’ve been in your own little world most of the night.”

Drew grabbed her hand before she could retreat. “Feel my forehead, will you, Frannie? It’s warm, right? I feel hot. I think I’m running a temperature.”