The Manning Grooms: Bride on the Loose / Same Time, Next Year

Three

He’d kissed her. He’d actually kissed Charlotte. An hour later, Jason still had trouble taking it in.

Oh, he’d kissed plenty of women in his day. But this time, with this woman, it was different. He didn’t know how he understood that, but he did. He’d realized it long before he’d touched her. Perhaps because she was so different from what he’d assumed. He’d figured she was dignified, straitlaced, unapproachable. Then, as soon as he’d told her about basketball rules, she’d kicked off her shoes and was cheering as enthusiastically as he was himself. What a contrast he found in her. Prim and proper on the outside, a hellion waiting to break loose on the inside.

She intrigued him. Beguiled him.

At some point during their evening together—exactly when, he couldn’t be sure—he’d felt an unfamiliar tug, a stirring deep within. The feeling hadn’t gone away. If anything, it had intensified.

What they’d shared wasn’t any ordinary kiss, either. Perhaps that explained it. They’d communicated on an entirely different level, one he’d never known before. It seemed their spirits—the deepest, innermost part of themselves—had somehow touched. He shook his head. He was getting fanciful.

No, this wasn’t the kind of kiss he’d had with any other woman. He’d never gone so slowly, been so careful. Although she’d acted blatantly provocative, urging him to deepen the contact, he’d resisted. That same inner voice that had said Charlotte was different had also warned him to proceed with caution. He’d sensed how fragile she was, and the urge to protect her, even from himself, had been overwhelming.

Jason wasn’t generally so philosophical. He didn’t waste time deliberating on relationships or motivations. He wasn’t sure what he was thinking right now. His reaction to Charlotte was unwarranted—wasn’t it? Although it’d been a nice kiss, it wasn’t so spectacular that his whole world should be turned upside down.

Yet it was—flipped over completely.

Jason felt almost giddy with sensation. These feelings weren’t logical. It was as if God had decided to play a world-class trick on him.

Jason considered himself too old for romance. He didn’t even know what romance was. Pure foolishness, he thought sarcastically. It was one of the primary reasons he’d never married, and never intended to. He wasn’t a romantic kind of guy. A pizza and cold beer while watching a football game interested him far more than staring across a candlelit table at some woman and pretending to be overwhelmed by her beauty. Flattery and small talk weren’t for him.

And yet … he remembered how good Charlotte’s arms had felt around his neck. She’d held her body so tightly against his that he could feel her heart beat. It was a closeness that had transcended the physical.

By the time she’d left, Jason felt heady, as if he’d had too much to drink. He didn’t understand her rush, either. He hadn’t wanted her to leave and had tried to come up with a reason for her to stay. Any reason. But she’d quietly slipped out of his arms and left before he could think of a way to keep her there. If he was witty and romantic he might’ve thought of something. But he wasn’t, so he’d been forced to let her go.

Jason started pacing, the Lakers game forgotten. He needed to clear the cobwebs from his head. He wasn’t any good at analyzing situations like this. All he knew was that he’d enjoyed holding Charlotte in his arms, enjoyed kissing her, and he looked forward to doing it again.

He sank down in front of the television, surprised to find the basketball game already over. Stunned, he stared at the credits rolling down the screen. He didn’t even know who won. He waited, hoping the camera would scan the scoreboard, but it didn’t happen.

He had a bet riding on the outcome of the game. Nothing major, just a friendly wager between brothers. Nevertheless, high stakes or low, it wasn’t like Jason Manning to be caught without a final score.

The phone rang and Jason hurried to the kitchen to answer it.

“Hello,” he said absently, keeping his eye on the television, still hoping to learn the final outcome.

“I knew I never should’ve picked the Nuggets,” Rich muttered.

“You mean the Lakers won?”

“By eight points. Where have you been all evening?”

“Home,” Jason returned defensively. “I had company. A tenant stopped in to chat.”

“During a play-off game, and you didn’t get rid of them?”

Actually Jason hadn’t intended to tell his brother even that much, but Rich had a point. Jason wasn’t one to sit around and shoot the breeze when he could be watching a game. Any kind of game.

“It was business,” he explained, unnecessarily annoyed. He felt mildly guilty for stretching the truth. Charlotte’s original intent had been to apologize and tell him she’d changed her mind about moving. That was business. Staying the better part of two hours wasn’t.

Ignoring Jason’s bad mood, Rich chatted on, replaying the last half of the fourth quarter in which the Lakers had made an “amazing” comeback. While his brother was speaking, Jason glanced at the list of his tenants’ phone numbers, which he kept by the phone for easy reference. The way his eyes immediately latched on to Charlotte’s name, anyone might think it had been circled in red. He was so distracted by reading her name over and over in his mind that he missed most of what Rich was telling him.

When the conversation with his brother ended, Jason couldn’t recall more than a few words of what they’d said. Just enough to regret that he hadn’t been watching the game. Just enough to wish he’d thought of something that would’ve prompted Charlotte to stay.

Without a second’s deliberation, he reached for his phone and dialed her number. Carrie answered before the first ring had been completed. She must not have recognized his voice, because she got Charlotte without comment.

“Hello.”

“Hi,” he said, feeling gauche. “The Lakers won.”

“I know.”

Apparently their kiss hadn’t deranged her the way it had him. She must have gone back to her apartment, plunked herself down and watched the rest of the game, while he’d been walking around in a stupor for the past hour.

“I was thinking,” Jason began, “about dinner tomorrow night. That is, if you’re free.”

“Dinner,” she repeated as if this was a foreign concept. “What time?” she asked a moment later.

“Six.”

“Sure.”

His mood lightened. “Great, I’ll pick you up then.” He replaced the receiver and glanced around his kitchen, frustrated by how messy it was. He hated housework, hated having to pick up after himself, hated the everyday chores that made life so mundane. Every dish he owned was dirty, except the ones in his dishwasher, which were clean. It didn’t make sense to reload it while there were clean dishes he could use in there.

Needing something to occupy his mind, he tackled the task of cleaning up the kitchen with unprecedented enthusiasm.

Jason’s eagerness to see Charlotte again had waned by the following afternoon. A good night’s sleep and a day at the clinic had sufficiently straightened out his brain. He’d behaved in a manner that was completely out of character. He couldn’t even begin to figure out why.

Charlotte was a woman. There wasn’t anything special about her. No reason he should be falling all over himself for the opportunity to take her out. He’d missed the last half of an important basketball game because his thoughts had become so tangled up with her. That would’ve been devotion enough for any woman in his life—only she wasn’t in his life, and he intended to keep it that way.

Furthermore, Jason wasn’t that keen on Charlotte’s teenage daughter thinking he’d fallen in with her scheme. He could see it now. Carrie would give him a brilliant smile and a high-five when he arrived. The girl was bound to believe she was responsible for Jason asking Charlotte out. She might even try to slip him some of the money she’d offered him earlier. The whole thing had the potential for disaster written all over it.

If a convenient excuse to cancel this date had presented itself, Jason would’ve grabbed it with both hands.

The way his luck was going, they’d probably run into his parents, and his mother would start hounding him again about getting married. He’d never understood why women considered marriage so important. Frustrated, he’d asked his mother once, and her answer had confused him even more. She’d looked at him serenely without interrupting the task that occupied her hands and had casually said, “It’s good to have a partner.”

A partner! She’d made it sound like he needed a wife in order to compete in a mixed bowling league.

His parents weren’t exactly throwing potential mates his way, but they’d let it be known that they were hoping he’d get married sometime soon. Jason, however, was intelligent enough not to become involved in a lifetime relationship just to satisfy his parents’ wishes.

Whatever craziness had prompted him to ask Charlotte out to dinner had passed during the night. He’d awakened sane and in command of his usual common sense.

As the day went on he found himself actually dreading the date. The two of them had absolutely nothing in common. He’d go through with this, Jason decided grimly, because he was a man of his word. Since he told her he’d be there by six, he would be, but snow would fall at the equator before he gave in to an impulse like this again.

She was dressed completely wrong, Charlotte realized as soon as Jason arrived. Not knowing what to wear, she’d chosen a navy blue suit, not unlike the one she’d worn to the office. She’d attempted to dress it up a bit with a bright turquoise-and-pink scarf and a quarter-size silver pin of a colorful toucan. Jason arrived in jeans, sweatshirt and a baseball cap with a University of Washington Huskies logo on it.

“Hello,” she said, forcing herself to smile. A hundred times in the last hour she’d regretted ever agreeing to this date. Jason had caught her off guard when he’d phoned. She hadn’t known what to say. Hadn’t had time to think of an excuse.

Now she was stuck, but judging by his expression, Jason didn’t seem any more pleased than she was. He frowned at her until she was so self-conscious, she suggested changing clothes.