LITMIR.BIZ

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by promising her coffee. Yours is far more likely to impress her than Wharton’s.”

      “Interesting,” Erik said grinning. “So, the two of you really are an item? That was the hot topic in here last night, anyway, after your cozy meal together. I suspect there’s already a pool going at Wharton’s. Grace loves a romance.”

      J.C. winced. “Whoa! We’re just acquaintances,” he insisted. “I asked her to bail me out of a jam this morning, and she’s gone along with it. I need to hurry, though, before she changes her mind.”

      “You’re in a jam that involves going for a run?” Erik asked with unmistakable confusion. “Do I even want to know? And you still haven’t explained the extra cup.”

      “If you’re like everyone else in this town, of course you want to know,” J.C. said, amused. “But I don’t have the time or the inclination to fill you in. Coffees, please.”

      Erik handed over the cups. “Okay, but you owe me more than a free office visit for Sarah Beth. My wife’s not going to be happy if I come home without details. Then, again, she’s getting together with Maddie and Dana Sue this morning. If anything’s going on, they’ll already know about it.”

      Sadly, J.C. thought, they probably would.

      * * *

      Laura was waiting outside on the front steps of her apartment building when J.C. rolled to a stop on the street. She walked in his direction, regarding him with suspicion.

      “There had better be coffee,” she said before even touching the handle of the passenger door.

      He held up a cup. “Freshly brewed, as promised.”

      “Gimme,” she said, getting into the car. She took a deep sniff. “I don’t recognize this aroma. It smells amazing.”

      “Sullivan’s.”

      “They’re not open this early,” she said, regarding him with amazement. “Who’d you bribe?”

      “Erik. I promised him his daughter’s next office visit on the house.”

      “Given what doctors charge these days, this is one pricey cup of coffee,” she said as she took her first sip. “Oh, my God, it’s worth every penny.”

      He laughed. “That’s what I think every time I take advantage of Erik’s good nature by sneaking in there before work. I think he considers the coffee to be his version of community service.”

      “I really do need to get to know him better,” Laura said. “Do you think Helen would mind if I start hanging out with her husband?”

      “She’d probably string you up a tree,” he said with conviction as he pulled up in front of an unfamiliar house.

      “Why are we here?” she asked, then remembered. “Ah, the date. Would you like me to escort you to the door?”

      “No, I think I’ll be safe enough from there to here. Just don’t drink her coffee.”

      “If she’s a real runner, she probably doesn’t touch the stuff,” Laura said. “I’m actually surprised you do.”

      “Some men have sex to start the day. Since there’s none of that in my life at the moment, I drink coffee. Seems to work,” he said right before he headed up the walk.

      Just as he reached the door, it opened and a woman came out with her red hair pulled high in a sassy ponytail. She was wearing running shorts and a tight-fitting sports top, both meant to display an awful lot of well-toned flesh. Laura glanced down at her sweat pants and ancient T-shirt and sighed. There wasn’t a woman in the world who’d buy that she was serious competition for the woman walking her way, talking animatedly with J.C. as if it weren’t practically the middle of the night. She might be up at dawn on weekdays, but most Saturdays she indulged herself by sleeping as late as she wanted. Today’s was the first Saturday sunrise she’d seen in ages.

      In the car, J.C. made the introductions, then headed for the park. As Laura had anticipated, Jan turned down the coffee and stuck to bottled water. J.C. practically gulped down a long swallow of the rejected coffee, then gave Laura an apologetic look. “Did you want this?”

      She grinned at his guilty expression. “Not to worry, I’m still savoring the first cup.”

      “Good,” he said and took another long slug of the coffee.

      “Careful there,” she said, lowering her voice. “You don’t want to choke in front of your date.”

      He glanced at her with a frown. “Was inviting you along a mistake?”

      She beamed at him. “More than likely. So far, though, I’m fascinated to see what’ll happen next.”

      Jan turned out to be a perfectly pleasant, intelligent woman who took her running seriously. When J.C. dutifully insisted on staying back with the lagging Laura, she ran on ahead, clearly determined to make it a real workout.

      “You could go with her,” Laura told him. “I’m not going to catch up. In fact, I’m thinking I wouldn’t mind sitting in the shade of that old pin oak over there for a while and enjoying the rest of my coffee. It’s a beautiful morning. It finally feels like fall.”

      He regarded her with amusement. “You really are out of your comfort zone, aren’t you?”

      “So far, you probably can’t even imagine it,” she admitted. “I don’t sweat. I don’t glow. A brisk evening walk is about my limit.”

      “Then I’m all the more grateful that you made an exception and came along this morning.”

      “I don’t think you really needed my protection. I hope it won’t destroy your ego, but I’m not getting the sense that Jan’s any more into you than you’re into her.”

      He looked surprised but not displeased by the assessment. “That’s what I thought, too, but Debra seemed so determined, it rattled me.”

      “I suppose you wouldn’t be the first couple to be pushed together by an overly zealous matchmaker, but something tells me you’re both made of tougher stuff than that.”

      He met her gaze, his curiosity apparent. “So, just for the record, why aren’t you married?”

      Laura shrugged off what had been an increasingly touchy subject with her parents the past couple of years. Even though they lived in the Midwest and would probably rarely see her children if and when she had them, they seemed infatuated with the idea of grandchildren. Or maybe they were just eager to make up for the child they’d insisted she give up for adoption when she was barely seventeen, Rob’s child. None of that was something she intended to discuss with a man she barely knew. That shameful mistake—the pregnancy—wasn’t something she liked thinking about. Nor was relinquishing her child to strangers, even though she’d known in her heart it was for the best. Her mentor back then, Vicki Kincaid, had helped her not only to see that, but to bolster her spirits when she’d been the target of her classmates’ cruel remarks.

      Instead of going into any of that, she explained, “I work with a lot of women. I don’t hang out in bars. Serenity’s a small town. There aren’t many opportunities for finding someone and falling madly in love.”

      “Have you ever considered moving to a town where there might be more prospects?”

      “Nope. I fell in love with this town the first time I came here for a job interview right out of college. Nothing’s changed my mind about wanting to stay here.”

      “And you’re not lonely?”

      She leveled a look into his eyes. “Mostly I’m content with my own company. How about you?”

      For a moment, he looked disconcerted by the question, then confessed, “From time to time.”

      “Then let me turn the tables. Why haven’t you married? You’ve admitted people are constantly

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