you like me to escort you to the door?”
“No, I think I’ll be safe enough from there to here. Just don’t drink her coffee.”
“If she’s a real runner, she probably doesn’t touch the stuff,” Laura said. “I’m actually surprised you do.”
“Some men have sex to start the day. Since there’s none of that in my life at the moment, I drink coffee. Seems to work,” he said right before he headed up the walk.
Just as he reached the door, it opened and a woman came out with her red hair pulled high in a sassy ponytail. She was wearing running shorts and a tight-fitting sports top, both meant to display an awful lot of well-toned flesh. Laura glanced down at her sweat pants and ancient T-shirt and sighed. There wasn’t a woman in the world who’d buy that she was serious competition for the woman walking her way, talking animatedly with J.C. as if it weren’t practically the middle of the night. She might be up at dawn on weekdays, but most Saturdays she indulged herself by sleeping as late as she wanted. Today’s was the first Saturday sunrise she’d seen in ages.
In the car, J.C. made the introductions, then headed for the park. As Laura had anticipated, Jan turned down the coffee and stuck to bottled water. J.C. practically gulped down a long swallow of the rejected coffee, then gave Laura an apologetic look. “Did you want this?”
She grinned at his guilty expression. “Not to worry, I’m still savoring the first cup.”
“Good,” he said and took another long slug of the coffee.
“Careful there,” she said, lowering her voice. “You don’t want to choke in front of your date.”
He glanced at her with a frown. “Was inviting you along a mistake?”
She beamed at him. “More than likely. So far, though, I’m fascinated to see what’ll happen next.”
Jan turned out to be a perfectly pleasant, intelligent woman who took her running seriously. When J.C. dutifully insisted on staying back with the lagging Laura, she ran on ahead, clearly determined to make it a real workout.
“You could go with her,” Laura told him. “I’m not going to catch up. In fact, I’m thinking I wouldn’t mind sitting in the shade of that old pin oak over there for a while and enjoying the rest of my coffee. It’s a beautiful morning. It finally feels like fall.”
He regarded her with amusement. “You really are out of your comfort zone, aren’t you?”
“So far, you probably can’t even imagine it,” she admitted. “I don’t sweat. I don’t glow. A brisk evening walk is about my limit.”
“Then I’m all the more grateful that you made an exception and came along this morning.”
“I don’t think you really needed my protection. I hope it won’t destroy your ego, but I’m not getting the sense that Jan’s any more into you than you’re into her.”
He looked surprised but not displeased by the assessment. “That’s what I thought, too, but Debra seemed so determined, it rattled me.”
“I suppose you wouldn’t be the first couple to be pushed together by an overly zealous matchmaker, but something tells me you’re both made of tougher stuff than that.”
He met her gaze, his curiosity apparent. “So, just for the record, why aren’t you married?”
Laura shrugged off what had been an increasingly touchy subject with her parents the past couple of years. Even though they lived in the Midwest and would probably rarely see her children if and when she had them, they seemed infatuated with the idea of grandchildren. Or maybe they were just eager to make up for the child they’d insisted she give up for adoption when she was barely seventeen, Rob’s child. None of that was something she intended to discuss with a man she barely knew. That shameful mistake—the pregnancy—wasn’t something she liked thinking about. Nor was relinquishing her child to strangers, even though she’d known in her heart it was for the best. Her mentor back then, Vicki Kincaid, had helped her not only to see that, but to bolster her spirits when she’d been the target of her classmates’ cruel remarks.
Instead of going into any of that, she explained, “I work with a lot of women. I don’t hang out in bars. Serenity’s a small town. There aren’t many opportunities for finding someone and falling madly in love.”
“Have you ever considered moving to a town where there might be more prospects?”
“Nope. I fell in love with this town the first time I came here for a job interview right out of college. Nothing’s changed my mind about wanting to stay here.”
“And you’re not lonely?”
She leveled a look into his eyes. “Mostly I’m content with my own company. How about you?”
For a moment, he looked disconcerted by the question, then confessed, “From time to time.”
“Then let me turn the tables. Why haven’t you married? You’ve admitted people are constantly throwing candidates in your direction.”
“None of them stuck,” he said. “And I learned a long time ago that marriage isn’t for me.”
“Trial and error?” she asked, suddenly getting it.
He smiled. “You could say that.”
“It must have been a pretty awful breakup.”
“You have no idea.” He waved her off. “Enough of that. It’s depressing.” He stood up. “And enough lollygagging, Ms. Reed. We’re going to finish this run, even if we have to do it at a snail’s pace.”
“I can run faster than a snail,” she protested, reluctantly getting to her feet and tossing her empty coffee cup into the trash.
“You’ll need to prove that before I’ll buy it,” he said. “Go. You set the pace.”
She forced herself to jog along, pushing herself to go much faster than she wanted to but mindful that she’d never break any speed records.
“Okay, you’ve matched a turtle,” J.C. admitted when they’d finally made their way around the lake and back to the car.
“I appreciate the recognition,” she commented wryly. “Where do you suppose Jan is?”
“Making her third loop, I imagine,” he said. “I know she passed us twice. Didn’t you see her wave?”
“You mean through my blinding tears?” she asked, only half kidding.
He nudged her in the ribs as he gave her a bottle of cool water. “Come on. It wasn’t that bad. You did it. Accomplishing something new should be giving you a huge adrenaline rush.”
She gave him a sour look as she sipped the water. “I’ll be sure to let you know when that kicks in.”
* * *
J.C. was barely behind his desk on Monday morning when Debra came stalking into his office, her expression radiating indignation.
“What
