Gina Wilkins - Surprise Partners

He really knew very little about her, he mused, studying her across the table as a server set their desserts in front of them. He’d always considered himself pretty good at drawing people out, but Lydia was a definite challenge. He liked her, but he simply didn’t know what made her tick. Yet.

She picked up her dessert fork and glanced at him, catching his eye. “Is something wrong, Scott? You’ve been a bit distracted this evening.”

Smiling apologetically, Scott shook his head. “Sorry. I’m afraid it’s been a long day. You mentioned that you have a sister?”

“Yes. Larissa.”

“Is she older or younger than you?”

“Two years older.” Lydia wrinkled her nose again in a manner that Scott found appealing. “And she never lets me forget it. She’s been bossing me around all my life.”

He grinned. “Then you should be able to understand why a half-hour telephone conversation with my sister was all I needed to top off an already stressful day. She’s decided my life needs changing and she’s the only one qualified to arrange it.”

“Oh, that does sound familiar,” Lydia agreed with a soft groan. “Larissa’s gotten so pushy lately that I’ve been ducking her calls—which I hate doing because I’m really extremely fond of her.”

“Same here. I’m crazy about Heather, but she’s fully earned her nickname of Heather the Hun.”

Lydia laughed softly at the nickname. “How much older is she?”

“Four minutes,” Scott answered glumly.

Her eyebrows rose. “Twins?”

He nodded.

“Interesting. I wouldn’t have thought a twin would consider herself an older sibling, even with a four-minute birth advantage.”

“‘Advantage’ is the right word. Although with Heather’s personality, it probably wouldn’t have mattered if I’d been the firstborn. She’d still want to tell me what to do.”

Lydia swallowed a bite of cheesecake and reached for her coffee cup. “Somehow I don’t see you as the type to let your sister give you orders.”

“I don’t,” he concurred. “But sometimes I get kind of tired of the battle.”

Again, Lydia’s sigh sounded empathetic. “It does get tiresome, doesn’t it?”

Dipping into his rich chocolate dessert, he nodded, pleased to find someone who understood what he’d been going through lately. “What sort of things does your sister nag you about?”

“Larissa and I are very different. She’s artistic and creative and flamboyant. Very social. She would like for me to be more like her, I think.”

Scott found it hard to imagine quiet, reserved Lydia McKinley having a flamboyant sister. It made him wonder about the rest of her family, if she had any—something else they had never discussed in their business-only conversations. Maybe talking about his own sister would draw her out more about her life.

“Heather is a dynamo,” he began. “She sets her sights on something and doesn’t give up until she accomplishes whatever she wants to do. It’s made her very successful in her advertising career, but sometimes she doesn’t know when to stop. My friend Cameron calls her harmlessly terrifying.”

“‘Harmlessly terrifying.’” Lydia repeated the phrase thoughtfully. “That describes my sister perfectly.”

“Heather’s getting married in June and she’s deliriously happy about it. She’s marrying a doctor she met last year—Steve Carter, a nice guy who seems crazy about her in return. Now she’s decided that I should be as happy as she is.”

“She’s trying to fix you up with someone?” Lydia put down her fork and lifted her hands to her temples. “That’s exactly what Larissa’s been up to lately! Every time I hear from her she has someone new she wants me to meet.”

“So does Heather. I think she’s paraded every unattached woman she’s ever met in front of me during the past few months. And she can’t stand the women I’ve dated. I can’t seem to convince her that I’m not ready to get seriously involved with anyone right now. I’m working toward a partnership in the law firm, and that means long hours at the office. It doesn’t leave me time to do justice to a relationship. I’ve tried to tell her I have plenty of time to start a family once I’ve got my career on track, but she thinks just because she’s ready to settle down, I should be, too. She’s really carrying the twin thing a bit too far.”

“My sister’s doing the same thing to me. Larissa set up housekeeping a few months ago with a really great guy she says is her ‘soul mate.’ Now she’s looking for mine. I’m half-afraid to even meet her for lunch lately. Two of her invitations have turned out to be ambush blind dates, and the men she’s chosen for me have been—well, not what I would have chosen.”

“You, too?” Scott rubbed a hand against the back of his neck. “Heather asked me to fix her clogged sink a couple of weeks ago. She ‘just happened’ to have a friend there when I showed up. I barely made it out still single. I’m surprised they didn’t have a minister there to dispense with the formality of courtship.”

Lydia laughed. She had a very pretty laugh, Scott noted absently. She didn’t use it often enough.

“I think it’s all this Valentine’s Day foolishness,” she murmured, glancing expressively around the restaurant at all the hearts-lace-and-cupids decorations. “I’m hoping Larissa will ease up when this sappy, greeting-card event is behind us.”

Struck by the comment, he agreed. “That’s probably what’s making Heather so determined right now. Everywhere you look, all you see is hearts and flowers and stuff, and it’s been that way for weeks. It’s no wonder she thinks everyone else should be as obsessed by romance as she is.”

Lydia nodded in agreement, making her brown, smoothly bobbed hair sway around her chin. She sipped her coffee, apparently deciding she’d made her point about the contagious pervasiveness of the Valentine’s Day fever.

Since the personal conversation had been going so well to that point, fueled by their mutual frustration with their sisters’ matchmaking efforts, Scott risked carrying it further. Now was his chance to get to know more about Lydia—just to satisfy his natural curiosity about her, of course, he assured himself. “So you aren’t interested in hooking up at the moment, either?”

“If by ‘hooking up,’ you mean getting seriously involved with someone, the answer is no, not now. I’m working toward my doctorate degree, which I should receive in May. I’m looking for a full professorship for the fall, and I have résumés at universities in several other states. There are several research projects I want to complete during the next few years to keep my career on target. The last couple of men I dated grew very impatient with my focus on my work, but I’m just not interested in changing anything for now.”

“Sounds a lot like my career agenda. We really do have a lot in common, don’t we?” he asked, reaching out to pat her hand companionably with his.

Looking suddenly flustered, Lydia pulled her hand away and picked up her fork again. “Matchmaking sisters and workaholic tendencies? It’s not exactly a lot.”

That probably was all they had in common, Scott silently conceded. But even those similarities made it easier to consider her a friend, if only on a casual basis.

Apparently deciding they’d shared enough personal information, Lydia turned the conversation back to their usual subject. “Did you have any more questions about the polymerase chain reaction technique?”

“Oh, I’m sure I’ll think of several more questions eventually. I just can’t come up with any at the moment.”

“Feel free to ask any time. And I’ll get you a copy of that laboratory contamination article I told you about.”