have my own event-planning company. We do kids’ parties, adult parties, corporate events, whatever anyone needs.”
“What a great job.”
“I enjoy it a lot.”
His mind was still spinning. Bob Rondell, longtime friend and ex-roommate, a good-looking successful guy who loved conspiracy theories, had one about a dating site he’d joined in San Diego. He was convinced the company employed hot women, put up their profiles, and had them show up on two or three chaste dates per new enrollee, to boost the site’s cachet and to keep the men eagerly paying steep monthly dues in case the next date worked out better. At the time Justin had chalked up the theory to Bob’s bruised ego.
But … he’d heard other rumors of deceptive practices on dating sites. It could happen. Justin had learned to trust his instinct when it told him something was worth probing further. Just not here, now, with his ears on fire, his nose running and his toes going numb.
“Well, enjoy your date.”
She looked rueful. “Coffee in your kitchen sounds more fun.”
“The offer stands for another time.” He backed into the street a few steps, keeping their eye contact going, and then turned and did everything he could to amble casually up to his back door when every frozen cell in his body was begging him to run as fast as he safely could.
Was it spring yet?
Inside, still enjoying the mental picture of Candy’s body beckoning in purple and black, but feeling bad for the guy she was going to meet with all the excitement of someone facing jail time, he let himself warm up for a few minutes, turning over the meager facts. Nothing substantial to go on. But … an article exposing fraud of any type was always fascinating to readers, and it wouldn’t do any harm for him to check further.
He hauled out his phone and dialed Bob in California with fingers still clumsy from the chill. Would he ever get used to winter in this place? He missed surfing the most. Maybe he should take up cross-country skiing. Supposed to be a good enough workout that you didn’t mind so much being flash-frozen.
“Bob, hey, it’s Justin. What’s going on?”
“Sitting on my balcony in a swimsuit, getting some sun, enjoying a good book and a beer. You?”
Justin made a noise of disgust. “Up to my testes in ice.”
“Ha! Dude, I knew you’d get hammered there. Serious winter. Come home, the living is still easy.”
“Nah, I like it so far. Except for the cold.”
“Right, and that’s only a mere eight months of the year. I lived in Boston and nearly died. Wisconsin is worse.”
“Don’t need to hear it, I’m living it.”
“I’m telling you … How’s the book coming with Troy?”
“We’ve made a good start.”
“Yeah? I can’t picture the two of you doing anything but goofing around drinking beer.”
“We’re working. We have deadlines, we have to.” He put icy fingers under his arm to try to thaw them. “Listen, are you still signed up at that dating site?”
“CalDates? No-ho-ho-ho.” He chuckled out the syllables. “Waste of good money. I told you my theory.”
“That’s why I’m calling.” He outlined the situation with Candy, her odd behavior and his completely unfounded suspicions.
“One question. Is she hot?”
“Let’s just say hers is the only house on the block without snow.”
Bob snorted. “Then yes. I bet you anything she’s working for this friend of hers who owns the site. Probably whoever comes in, he’s matched up with her in whatever disguise he seems to want, and bingo, she walks in and he’s thinking ‘look at this chick, this is the site for me!’ Then she disappears after a couple of dates. ‘It’s not you, it’s me. No, really.’
“After that, he keeps striking out, but the memory of that first hot woman keeps him renewing the charges. I’m telling you, men are simple. Lonely men are even simpler. ‘Do I have a hope of getting laid again someday? I’ll keep paying.’”
Justin made a noncommital sound and switched his hands so the other one could have hope of getting feeling back. He wasn’t sure he liked hearing men classified as simpletons, though he admitted one glance at Candy dressed the way she was today, and he’d been having some pretty simple thoughts: Me want that.
“You know they did some study of chickens pecking at levers. One group always got food when it pecked. Pretty soon those birds got full and stopped. One group never got food from pecking. They gave up, too, pretty quick. The third group sometimes got food, sometimes didn’t. Those guys never stopped pecking. See what I mean?”
“Uh …”
“Dude, men are the same. Give us a little hope, a few dates with a fantasy babe, and we’ll keep trying forever. It’s brilliant when you stop to think about it.”
“Brilliant.” He was even more uncomfortable now. The chicken story was a little close to home when he thought about his relationship with Angie. For every week she was horrible to him, there was one he was in, and yeah, he kept pecking that lever for way too long. “Well, thanks, I’ll stay in touch.”
“You do that. And visit. You’ll crack by March at the latest. Government there will be handing out free straitjackets by the end of the month, I’m telling you.”
“We’ll see.” Justin said goodbye and hung up, chuckling and shaking his head. Bob the Man. Full of it, on many levels.
However, as much as Justin was skeptical of his friend’s theory, it wouldn’t hurt to check out Milwaukeedates.com. He missed the journalistic rush of adrenaline as worthwhile stories emerged under his digging, and would like to keep that part of his career going in Milwaukee. Uncovering a dating-site scam wouldn’t earn him a Pulitzer, but it could be a solid foot in the door in this new city. Once he got enough details and felt a story was possible he could put together a proposal and see who bit.
Only one problem as far as he could see.
If he was investigating Ms. Graham’s involvement, he couldn’t ask her out with anything more in mind than coffee and information. While where she was concerned, his mind was full of a whole lot more than that.
3
CANDY GOT INTO HER CAR and slammed the door, trying not to stare at Justin’s very nicely put-together body making its way cautiously over his icy driveway. Oh, my goodness. She hadn’t been affected that much by a man in … well not since she’d met Chuck in her senior year at University of Wisconsin Stevens Point. He’d sat behind her in their British Novel class and kicked the back of her chair until she got so annoyed she’d turned around to tell him to knock it off—and encountered the world’s most winning grin and a note waved in her direction: I just fell in love with the back of your head. Meet me for coffee after class?
She
