considered the whole thing a nuisance call. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what Carrie Weston was doing. The girl had arranged this broken faucet just so he’d have a chance to see Charlotte. The kid seemed to think that once Jason got a good look at her mother, he’d change his mind about wanting to date her. Well, there wasn’t much chance of that.
Apparently the girl thought he was something of a player. Jason might’ve gotten a kick out of that a few years ago, but not now. Not when he was nearing middle age. These days he was more concerned about his cholesterol level and his weight than with seducing a reluctant woman.
He probably would’ve ended up getting married if things had worked out between him and Julie, but they hadn’t. She’d been with Charlie nearly seven years now, and the last he’d heard, she had three kids. He wished her and her husband well, and suffered no regrets. Sure, it had hurt when they’d broken off their relationship, but in the end it just wasn’t meant to be. He was pragmatic enough to accept that and go on with his life.
Jason enjoyed the company of women as much as any man did, but he didn’t like the fact that they all wanted to reform him. He was disorganized, slovenly and a sports nut. Women didn’t appreciate those qualities in a man. They would smile sweetly, claim they loved him just the way he was and then try to change him. The problem was, Jason didn’t want to be refined, reformed or domesticated.
Charlotte Weston was a prime example of the type of woman he particularly avoided. Haughty. Dignified. Proper. She actually washed lettuce. Furthermore, she made a point of letting him know it.
“Hi.” Carrie opened the door for him, grinning from ear to ear.
“The faucet broke?” Jason didn’t bother to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
She nodded, her smile as sly as a wink. “Kind of accidentally on purpose,” she explained under her breath.
Jason was surprised she’d admit as much. “I thought that might be the case.”
She pulled a screw from the small front pocket of her jeans and handed it to him. “It was the only way I could think of to get you here to see my mother up close—only don’t be obvious about it, all right?”
“Carrie, is it the apartment manager?” The subject of their discussion walked into the living room, drying her hands on a terry-cloth apron.
Not bad was Jason’s first reaction. She’d changed her hair since the last time he’d seen her; it was a cloud of disarrayed brown curls instead of the chignon she’d worn a year earlier. The curls gave her a softer, more feminine appeal. She was good-looking, too, not trying-to-make-an-impression gorgeous, but attractive in a modest sort of way. Her eyes were a deep shade of blue, as blue as his own. They were also intense and … sad, as though she’d withstood more than her share of problems over the years. But then, who hadn’t?
Her legs were attractive, too. Long and slender. She was tall—easily five-eight, maybe five-nine.
“She’s not bad-looking, is she?” Carrie asked in a whisper.
“Shh.” Jason slid back a warning.
“Mom, this is Dr. Jason Manning, remember? Our apartment manager,” Carrie said, her arm making a sweeping gesture toward her mother.
“Hello.” She stayed where she was, her fingers still clutching the apron.
“Hi. You called about the broken faucet?” He took a couple of steps into the room, carrying his tool kit. He’d have a talk with Carrie later. If this took more than a few minutes, he might be late for the Lakers play-off game. It was the fifth game in the series, and Jason had no intention of missing it.
“The broken faucet’s in the kitchen,” Charlotte said, leading the way.
“This shouldn’t take long.” Jason set his tools on the counter and reached for the disconnected faucet. “Looks like it might be missing a screw.” He turned pointedly to Carrie, then made a show of sorting through his tool kit. “My guess is that I have an identical one in here.” He pretended to find the screw Carrie had handed him, then held it up so they could all examine it. “Ah, here’s one now.”
“Don’t be so obvious about it,” Carrie warned in a heated whisper. “I don’t want Mom to know.”
Charlotte seemed oblivious to the undercurrents passing between him and Carrie, which was probably just as well. He’d let the kid get away with it this time, but he wasn’t coming back for any repeat performances of this handyman routine.
“I should have this fixed in a couple of minutes,” he said.
“Take your time,” Carrie told him. “No need to rush.” She walked up behind Jason and whispered, “Give her a chance, will you?”
True to his word, it took Jason all of thirty seconds to make the necessary repair.
“The bathroom faucet’s been leaking, hasn’t it, Mom? Don’t you think we should have him look at that, too, while he’s here?”
Jason glanced at his watch and frowned. If the kid kept this up, he’d miss the start of the basketball game. But he decided he had little choice: pay now or pay later. He gave Carrie the lead she was hoping for. “Or it’ll need fixing tomorrow, right?”
“Probably.” There was a clear glint of warning in the fifteen-year-old’s eyes.
Charlotte turned around and glanced from one to the other. Crossing her arms, she studied her daughter, then looked at Jason as if seeing him for the first time. Really seeing him. Apparently she didn’t like what she saw.
“Is something going on here I don’t know about?” she asked.
“What makes you say that?” Carrie said with wide-eyed innocence.
Jason had to hand it to the girl; she had the look down to an art form.
“Just answer the question, Caroline Marie.”
The mother wasn’t a slacker in “the look” department, either. She had eyes that would flash freeze a pot of boiling water.
The girl held her own for an admirable length of time before caving in to the icy glare. She lifted her shoulders with an expressive sigh and said, “If you must know, I took the screw out of the faucet so we’d have to call Jason over here.”
Once again Jason glanced at his watch, hoping to extract himself from their discussion. This was between mother and daughter—not mother, daughter and innocent bystander. He hadn’t meant to let Charlotte in on her daughter’s scheme, but neither was he willing to become a full-time pawn in Carrie’s little games. No telling how many other repair projects the girl might turn up for him.
“Why would you want Dr. Manning here?” Charlotte asked with a frown.
“Because he’s a good-looking man and he seems nice and I thought it would be great if you got to know each other.”
It was time to make his move, Jason decided. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be leaving now.”
“You purposely broke the faucet so we could call him down here?” Charlotte gestured
