Nancy Robards - How to Marry a Doctor

“Well, I mean it would be hot if it wasn’t you .”

“What do you mean if it wasn’t me ?”

She shot him a mischievous smile that warmed up her whole face.

“You’re messing with me, aren’t you?” he said.

“Yeah. I am. It’s fun. Oh, I forgot to tell you that Cheryl is a major animal lover. I’m not surprised she wanted to stay home with the cat, but it would’ve been nice if she could have given you a little more notice.”

“Ya think? Where are you going, dressed like that?”

Anna blushed and crossed her arms in front of her, suddenly seeming self-conscious again. It was one of the things he found most endearing about her.

“I’m not going anywhere. I bought some new clothes and I was trying them on so I could figure out what I wanted to wear on my date with Joseph. He texted me today and asked what I was doing next Wednesday. So I figured I needed to decide what I was going to wear. What do you think of this dress? I wasn’t so sure, but Emily talked me into getting it.”

She put her hands back on her hips and struck a pose. The tags were dangling under her arm and he had an urge to suggest she take it back and exchange it for something a little more modest. Something that didn’t make her look like such a knockout.

“It’s, uhh... It looks great.”

Maybe a little too great for a first date with a guy like Joseph Gardner. He and Joe had been roommates in college while Jake was doing his undergraduate work. Joe lived in Dallas now. He was a friend, a good guy, really. That’s why he’d decided to fix him up with Anna.

And that was why his own attitude about the dress confused him.

“In fact, since you’re dressed, why don’t you give it a test run and wear it to the jazz festival with me tonight?”

Anna groaned and shook her head. “No, Jake, I really wasn’t up for doing anything tonight—”

“God, you’re so boring.” He smiled to let her know he was just kidding. “Besides, since you fixed me up with a dud, don’t you think you owe it to me to not let this extra ticket go to waste?”

She sighed and cocked her head to the side. She smiled at him. He could see her coming around.

“In fact, if we leave now, we will have just enough time to grab something to eat and get over to the pavilion for the first act.”

She shook her head. “Jake, I took my makeup off when I got home from work. Can you give me a couple of minutes to fix myself up?”

She looked so good he hadn’t even realized she didn’t have any makeup on. Her skin was clear and her cheeks and lips looked naturally rosy. Standing there with her auburn hair hanging in loose waves around her shoulders... And with just the right amount of cleavage showing, he couldn’t imagine that she could make herself any more beautiful.

Something intense flared inside him. It made him flinch. His instinct was to mentally shake it off. When that didn’t work he decided to ignore it, pushing it back into the recesses of his brain where he kept all unwelcome thoughts and memories and other distractions that might trip him up or cause him to feel things that were unpleasant.

It was mind over matter.

Right now, what mattered was him getting his head on straight so that they could get to dinner and the jazz festival.

“You look fine,” he said. “Besides, it’s just me.”

“Yeah, you and the hundreds of other people that will be at the jazz festival. You don’t want them looking at you and wondering, Who’s that homely woman with Jake Lennox?”

Homely? How could she see herself that way? It didn’t make sense.

“Darlin’, you are a lot of things, but homely isn’t one of them.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Okay. Okay. You don’t have to lay it on so thick. Let me get my sandals and we can go.”

When she turned around to walk back into the bedroom, his eyes dropped to her backside which swayed gently beneath the fabric of her dress.

What was wrong with him?

Nothing.

Just because Anna was his friend and it had never really registered in his brain that she was an attractive woman, didn’t mean she wasn’t or that he couldn’t appreciate her...from afar.

From very far away. If he knew what was good for him.

But why now?

Why, in the wake of this bet, did it feel as if he was seeing her for the very first time?

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