“You know, the qualities in a woman that you can’t live with.”
“Why don’t we focus on the good? The attributes that I’m attracted to?”
“Because attraction is what gets you in trouble. Attraction is what caused Miss Texas to leave her thong on your living room floor.”
Ugh. She sounded like such a harpy. She knew that even before she saw the look on his face and consciously softened her tone.
“I don’t mean to be a nag. Really, I don’t. It’s just that sometimes it helps if you work backward.”
She wasn’t going to pressure him. That was the fastest way to suck all the fun out of the bet. This was supposed to be fun, not an exercise in browbeating.
She was prepared to change the subject when he said, “Anyone I date has to be comfortable with the fact that I don’t want to get married and I don’t want kids. I don’t want anyone who thinks they can change my mind. That’s a deal breaker. It’s what started things going south with Dorenda. She was Miss Independent for the first couple of months. Then she started in with the five-year plan, which eventually turned into an ultimatum.”
Anna realized it was the first time she’d ever been on Dorenda’s side. Who could blame her for wanting more? Especially when it involved more Jake. But she wasn’t going to argue with him. This anti-marriage/anti-family stance was new. Or at least something that had developed during the time that they were apart. Probably the reason he’d been involved in his string of relationships. Jake had grown up in a single-parent household. His mom had left the family when Jake was in first grade.
One night before they left for college, when she and Jake were having one of their famous heart-to-hearts, he’d opened up about how hard it had been on him and his brothers when their mom left the family.
Yet he’d never mentioned that he didn’t want to get married.
Actually, though, when she thought about it, it was a good thing he was being so up front about everything. That’s just how Jake was. He knew himself, and he was true to himself. Maybe if Hal had been more honest with both of them, they might have avoided a world of hurt.
So yeah, considering that, Jake’s candid admission was a good thing.
Now, her mind and its deductive reasoning just had to convince her heart that was true, because she hated the thought of Jake ending up alone years down the road.
* * *
“So you want someone who is family-oriented, funny, kind, honest and smart,” Jake recapped as he pushed the shopping cart down the canned goods aisle in the grocery store. “You don’t want to date a doctor, because of Hal. So what about looks? What’s your type?”
Anna stopped to survey a row of black beans lined up like soldiers on a shelf.
“I thought we agreed that we weren’t going to concentrate on the physical. That’s where we get into trouble. We need to get past that.”
“What? Should I disqualify a guy if he is good-looking?”
She quirked a brow at him as she set two cans in the otherwise empty cart. “I’d love to hear your idea of a good-looking guy.”
He scowled back at her. “I don’t know. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say. I have no idea what makes a guy attractive to a woman.”
“I was just teasing, Jake. You know you’re my ideal. If I can’t have you, then...”
She made a tsking sound and squeezed his arm as she walked farther down the aisle to get something else on her list.
If he didn’t know her so well, he might’ve thought her harmless flirtation had started a ripple of something inside him. But that was utterly ridiculous. This was Anna, and that’s why he couldn’t put his finger on the something she’d stirred. Maybe it was pride, or actually, more like gratitude that pulled at him. He looked at her in her scrubs that were a little too big for her slight frame. Her purse, which she’d slung across her body, proved that there were curves hidden away under all that pink fabric.
He averted his gaze, because this was Anna. Dammit, he shouldn’t be looking at her as if she was something he’d ask the butcher to put on a foam tray and wrap up in cellophane. As the thought occurred to him, he realized his gaze had meandered back to where it had no business straying.
He turned his body away from her and toward the shelf of black beans Anna had just pored over. He didn’t know what the hell to do with canned black beans, but he took a couple of cans and added them to the cart as he warred with the very real realization that he didn’t want to fix her up with just anyone. Certainly not most of his buddies, who if they talked about Anna the way they talked about other women he’d have no choice but to deck.
“Excuse me.” Jake looked over to see a small, silver-haired woman holding out a piece of paper. “Your wife dropped this list.” The woman hooked her thumb in Anna’s direction at the other end of the aisle. “I’d go give it to her myself, but I’m going this way.”
My wife?
Jake smiled at the woman and started to correct her, to explain that he and Anna weren’t married, but the words seemed to stick in his throat. He found himself reaching out and accepting the paper—a grocery list—and saying, “Thanks, I’ll give it to her.”
She nodded and was on her way before Jake could say anything else.
Hmm. My wife.
He tried to see what the woman saw—Anna and him together...as a couple. But in similar fashion to not being able to look at her curves in good conscience, he couldn’t fully let his mind go there.
It wasn’t that the thought disgusted him—or anything negative like that. On the contrary. And that brought a whole host of other weirdness with it. The only way around it was to laugh it off.
“You dropped your list,” he said as he stopped the cart next to her. “The nice lady who found it thought you were my wife.”
Anna shot him a dubious look. “Oh, yeah? Did you set her straight?”
She deposited more canned goods into the basket and then took the list from his hand.
“No. I didn’t. I need bread. Which aisle is the bread in?”
She let the issue drop. He almost wished she would’ve said something snide like, That’s awkward. Or, Me? Married to you? Never in a million years. Instead, she changed the subject. “Do you want bakery bread or prepackaged? And why don’t you know where the bread is?”
He certainly didn’t dwell on it.
“I don’t know. I guess I don’t retain that kind of information. Grocery shopping isn’t my favorite sport.”
“I can tell,” she said. “And if you don’t pick up the pace, you’re going to get a penalty for delay of game. I’m almost finished. Where’s your list? Let me see if I can help move this along.”
“I don’t have a list,” he said. He knew he should make an off-the-cuff comment about her, his pretend wife, being the keeper of the list for both of them, but it didn’t feel right.
Since when had anything ever not felt right with Anna?
“I keep the list in my head,” he added.
“And of course, you’re out of everything. Here, I can help. We’ll just grab things for you as we go by them.”
She pulled the shopping cart from the front end and turned the corner into the next aisle.
“Do you want cereal?” she asked.
Before he could answer, a couple a few feet away from them broke out into