Barbara Dunlop - Hitched For The Holidays - Hitched For The Holidays / A Groom In Her Stocking

Whatever the cost, she had a boyfriend, at least for the duration of her dad’s visit.

There had to be a better word than boyfriend. Lover, partner, significant other? Nothing quite described their nonrelationship.

She drove away, behind schedule and seriously short of time, and wondered if she’d ever before seen eyes as blue as his.

ERIC RAN a couple of extra miles after work, but still felt as though his brain were full of cobwebs. He wanted to sidestep any little committee chores his mother had lined up for him, but was the price of Mindy’s help too high?

He wasn’t ready for a new relationship, but keeping Mindy at arm’s length was harder every time he saw her. The impulse to take her in his arms and let nature take its course got stronger all the time. But he’d felt that way about Cass not very long ago, and he’d been as wrong about her as a man could be.

Sure, sometimes bachelor life was lonely after working hours, but he had friends and interests to keep him occupied. He didn’t need a new best buddy who expected him to become a son-in-law.

If he’d been free earlier in his office when Mindy had called, he would’ve cheerfully helped her orchestrate a breakup her father would believe. But when she walked into his examining room, he hadn’t wanted an abrupt end to their tentative relationship. He’d had a flash of inspiration. They could trade favors and make both parents happy. It was a spur-of-the-moment idea but seemed reasonable. An “I help you, and you help me” kind of thing.

After the run he scrubbed himself hard under a tepid spray. He hadn’t moved away from frigid Iowa winters to shiver in a cold shower, but his body chemistry had a way of reacting to Mindy that was totally at odds with his intentions. He was usually indifferent to women whose pets he treated, but he’d gone beyond his normal professionalism with Mindy. She turned him on, and the lukewarm water didn’t do much to cool down his involuntary interest in her.

She’d already put him off his stride. After her un-scheduled appearance at his office, he’d called Mrs. O’Brien’s St. Bernard Bozo instead of Beau Geste. He’d forgotten what a foul disposition Sugar Baby had until the cat punctured his latex glove with her needle-sharp teeth.

He never gave more than ten seconds thought to what he wore, but this evening he stood in his walk-in closet in white briefs and couldn’t make up his mind. If he really were courting a woman—what a corny, old-fashioned word—he’d wear his navy blue blazer and gray dress slacks. That outfit was sure to be a father-pleaser, especially to a man who probably slept in his wing tips, but what message would it send to Mindy? What if she were interested in him, and this was her way of attracting his attention.

“Yeah, right,” he said skeptically.

He knew a come-on when he saw one, and he wasn’t getting any signals from her. Was that why he had this strange feeling about their deal? Was it because she was more immune to his dubious charms than he was to her very real attractions? Or maybe he should be flattered. He didn’t need enough reforming and reorganizing to interest her. Wayne might be biased, but Mindy apparently went for men she could make over. Cass had tried that with him, and he didn’t want Mindy or any other woman trying to change him.

He yanked an old pair of jeans and a black knit turtleneck off the hangers. Hopefully wearing them wouldn’t send any messages one way or the other.

He got to Mindy’s house twenty minutes late because he belatedly remembered to stop for a bottle of wine as an offering for Wayne.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said when Mindy opened the door.

“No problem. I’m doing lemon-pepper chicken and marinated vegetable kabobs on the grill, nothing very fancy.”

Since his usual bachelor fare ran to omelettes or salads and submarines from the supermarket deli, it sounded elaborate to him.

“I was expecting leftovers from Mountain Monty’s.”

She laughed lightly, an altogether pleasing sound. “Dad had steak and eggs for breakfast, then polished off the last of the leftovers for lunch. Apparently his low cholesterol diet is on vacation.”

“I heard that, young lady,” Wayne said from the couch where he was lounging with his foot resting on a mound of pillows. “I’ll go to the store with you tomorrow and cash some traveler’s checks so you can stock your kitchen.”

“Dad, you don’t have to buy groceries. I make a good living.”

This had the ring of an old argument. Eric presented the wine to Mindy and ambled into the living room to sit opposite the patriarch in a high-backed Boston rocker.

“How’s your ankle?”

“Fine as long as I treat it with RICE. That’s rest, ice, compression and elevation.”

Eric knew that. He’d done enough track and field sports even before he got to college to be familiar with trainer’s lingo, but he was here to be the deferential suitor. From where he sat, he could see Mindy in the kitchen struggling with the cork in his bottle of wine.

“Let me,” he offered, walking over to her.

The nice thing about having the living room and kitchen as one large room was being able to see her as she worked. The bad thing was Wayne had a front-row seat to watch them together. Eric remembered his deal and moved up to her intending to carry out his end.

“Something smells nice.”

He nuzzled the back of her neck, soft and fragrant under her short-cropped sable hair. It seemed natural to wrap one arm around her waist, which looked slender and sexy in a long black skirt with big splashy yellow, red and green flowers. Her midriff-baring yellow top rode up so his arm was circling warm silky flesh. He should’ve braved an icy cold shower.

“I need to put the chicken on,” she said, pulling away.

“I’ll help you.”

He picked up a tray of foil packets and followed her down the hallway between the back rooms. They walked out through sliding glass doors onto a small flagstone patio, where she had a propane gas grill and a round white-metal table with two matching chairs and umbrella.

“This is nice,” he said.

“Except for having neighbors so close I can’t use the grill without attracting people who want to give me cooking advice.”

She kept her eyes averted. So far she hadn’t looked directly at him, not even when she answered the door.

“You know,” he said softly, “if you want your father to buy our act, you’re going to have to gaze longingly into my eyes.”

They both laughed self-consciously.

“I’ve had some second thoughts,” she admitted as she carefully laid the packets of chicken on the barbecue, still not meeting his eyes.

“And?”

Was she going to let him off the hook? Did he want her to?

“This is terribly unfair of me, expecting you to give up your free time like this.”

“Can’t complain about the eats.”

“Really, Eric, we can call this off right now. I’ll still help as much as I can with your committee, but I can’t ask you to—”

“Mindy,” he interrupted, even though he didn’t know what he wanted to say.

“You’re so busy,” she went on.

“When I agree to a deal, I keep my word,” he said, trying to sound resolute and committed.

“But I feel like I’ve trapped you into this.”

She kept fussing with long kabobs of potato, onion, mushroom and colorful yellow, red and green peppers.

“Look at me.”

He wanted to talk to her face, not the back of her head.

She looked at him over her shoulder, just long enough for him to see miniature bolts of green lightning in her intriguing hazel eyes.

“Enough fussing,” he said. “The food is fine.”

She turned and faced him squarely, then reached up and straightened the collar on his turtleneck. One minute she was willing to let him back away from their bargain, and the next she was fixing his shirt. The woman just couldn’t leave him alone. He took her hands in his and stared so intently she dropped her eyes.