Tanya Michaels - Hers for the Weekend

And thank you so much, Daphne, for passing on that information.

“Daph caught me after a rough week, and I was just venting,” Piper said. “I love the actual drafting part.” And loved the feeling she got when she was in the middle of a drawing and knew it was damn good, the pride of passing a building downtown and seeing one of her suspended walkways. If things continued to go well, Piper was hoping her next review with Callahan would lead to her first project as a team leader.

But better to argue her point in a language her mom could understand. “I’ll admit to occasional work-related stress, but are you trying to tell me that marriage and motherhood are stress-free?”

Silence stretched across the phone line.

Aha! I have you there.

Then Mrs. Jamieson sighed as though this conversation epitomized her motherhood stress. “Honey, you aren’t getting any younger, and women can’t—”

Recognizing the introductory phrase of her Don’t You Hear Your Biological Clock Ticking Speech, Piper interrupted. “I’d love to chat more Mom, but…” She thought fast, determined to rescue herself from this black hole of a conversation. “I have to run because I have dinner plans.”

“You have a dinner date! With a man?”

Did she really want to lie to her mother? Piper gnawed at her lower lip. She’d already told one white lie. Besides, if it would save her from another round of “you’d be such a pretty girl if you just fixed yourself up,” why not? Her imaginary person might as well be an imaginary man.

“Yes.” Guilt over the uncharacteristic fib immediately niggled at her, but she pressed forward. “It’s a man.”

“Good heavens. I can’t believe you let me go on all this time and didn’t say anything about having a boyfriend!”

Boyfriend? She’d only meant to allude to a dinner date to buy herself some peace and quiet, not invent a full-blown relationship. “Wait, I—”

“What does your young man look like, dear?”

Piper blurted the first thing that came to mind. “Tall, dark and handsome.” Oh, very original! “Dark-haired with green eyes,” she elaborated.

“And you’ll bring him home with you for the reunion, right?”

“Well, no, I—”

“We can’t wait to meet him. I was hoping this weekend would give you the chance to get reacquainted with Charlie, but I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.”

“Charlie?” Piper would invent a dozen fake boyfriends before she let herself go down that road again. “Mom, I don’t want to see Charlie.”

Her mother’s uneasy silence made it clear that it was too late for Piper to avoid her ex-fiancé.

“You’ve invited him for dinner or something, haven’t you?” What did it take to convince people that she and Charlie were over? Not over in the-timing-just-wasn’t-right, maybe-later kind of way. Over in the stone-cold, do-not-resuscitate, rest-in-peace kind of way.

“Piper, he’s like one of the family.”

More so than she was, it would seem.

“And I don’t know why you sound so appalled whenever you mention him,” her mother continued. “Charlie Conway is a good man, and he’s the most eligible bachelor in the entire county.”

That was probably true. Handsome, funny and smart, Charlie Conway had been a fellow Rebecca native and A&M student. He’d been so sought after in high school that Piper had been surprised when he pursued her in college. He’d claimed to love her because she was so refreshingly different from the girls they’d grown up with, and he’d eventually proposed. Their engagement had been strained, however, by his decision to return to Rebecca and carry on the Conway mayoral tradition, and Piper had returned the heirloom diamond ring when she realized that the allure of “refreshingly different” had faded. The longer she’d been with Charlie, the more he’d tried to change her.

“Mom, I don’t care how eligible he is. He’s not right for me.” She’d tried to explain this before, but since she was rejecting the very lifestyle most of her family and childhood friends had chosen, they didn’t quite understand. Piper knew they were fond of Charlie—she had been, too, at one point—but she hadn’t liked the person she’d become when she was with him. “Promise me you’re not going to spend the weekend trying to throw us together.”

“Well, of course not, dear—not with this new young man in your life. We can’t wait to meet him!” her mother repeated.

“I’ll, um, see if he’s available.” Piper hated the blatant dishonesty, but not as much as she hated the thought of an entire weekend explaining why the county’s most eligible bachelor wasn’t good enough for her.

“This is so exciting,” her mom said. “I can’t wait to call everyone and let them know. Oh, and honey, if you’re going out tonight, I hope you’ll think about wearing a dress for a ch—”

Ding dong!

Piper jumped at the unexpected pealing of her doorbell. “Who—” Remembering that she was supposedly expecting a date, she swallowed the last of her question. “Gotta go now, see you this weekend. Love to Dad.”

The doorbell shrilled again as she hung up, and a familiar male voice called through the door, “Piper? You home?”

Josh. Thank goodness, because a day like she’d had called for one of two things: venting to her best friend or a Chocomel, a chocolate-covered bar of caramel-and-nougat-filled nirvana. Talking to Josh was calorie-free.

“Hey,” she greeted him as she opened the door. Joshua Weber was a co-worker who’d become her best friend after moving into her downtown Houston apartment building two years ago. “Did we have plans tonight and I forgot? I’m sorry, it’s been a horrible day, and—”

“Relax, darlin’.” His lips curved into the sexy smile that had no doubt been instrumental in seducing many women. Luckily for Piper, seduction wasn’t high on her priority list. “We didn’t have plans. I just wanted to see if you were interested in going with me for a bite to eat.”

“What, no date tonight?”

Women flocked to Josh in droves. With his long lean build, square jaw, lionlike green-gold eyes and thick hair the color of rich chocolate, he was easily the best-looking man in the apartment complex. Maybe the zip code. Or the state.

“Dating can be exhausting.” He leaned casually against the doorjamb, his posture matching his informal attire of a faded Astros shirt and jeans going threadbare at the knees. “Sometimes a guy just needs a little peace and quiet.”

“So why not enjoy dinner alone in your apartment?” Piper asked.

It was what she’d planned to do. If she had any groceries. She’d been working so many late nights that she’d once again neglected shopping. Other women in her family were prizewinning cooks; Piper barely remembered to keep her fridge stocked.

“Being with you is even better,” Josh said. “I don’t have to be by myself, but I don’t have to be ‘on,’ either. Besides,” he added sheepishly, “I burned the nice dinner I was supposed to be having alone in my apartment right now.”

She laughed. “Let me grab my purse and put my shoes back on.” As she turned, she patted her French braid to make sure it was still presentable. A few strands fell around her face, but all in all, the braid had survived the day intact.

Good thing she hadn’t yet changed from her tailored blue pantsuit into her comfy sweats. Josh probably wouldn’t think anything of going out in public wearing a sweatsuit, but the casual look worked for him. For instance, Josh’s hair always looked as though it had just outgrown that popular short and gelled style that was slightly spiky on top. Though it was still short, his hair was pleasantly rumpled with no trace of gel. Undeniably handsome when he dressed up for work or an occasionally formal date, he was somehow even more appealing in the rugged laid-back uniform of worn jeans and T-shirts.