Bringing Home a Bachelor

by Karen Kendall

  Jocelyn would simply have to accept his position gracefully, in the face of his calm, polite demeanor.

  When she did, in fact, sweep into his office dressed impeccably in a beige linen pantsuit, pearls and heels, he was ready for her. “Mrs. Edgeworth,” he said, standing and extending his hand. “How nice to see you again. To what do I owe the honor?”

  She lifted a perfectly groomed eyebrow at him and sat down in his visitor’s chair without being invited. “I’m here with a business proposition for you, Peter.”

  It was his turn to raise his eyebrows. This was unexpected, to say the least. “A business proposition?”

  She nodded. “May I be blunt?”

  “I certainly can’t think of a way to stop you,” Pete said with a disarming smile. “So, please. Speak your mind.”

  “You slept with my daughter.”

  “Uh…”

  “Don’t bother denying it. She told me.”

  Pete knew this, though he was still puzzled as to why Mel had said anything, and his expression must have reflected it.

  “I was,” she said dryly, “encouraging her to look at your…shall we say…eligibility.”

  Now he was really confused. “You were?”

  She nodded. She looked down at her clasped hands, unclasped them and began to toy with her wedding ring. “Melinda is very dear to us.”

  “That’s understandable. She’s your only daughter.” Here it comes. The demand that I stay away from her. Eligible or not. He couldn’t believe that anyone still used the word.

  “I’m not very good at—” Jocelyn broke off. “That is to say—” She frowned, looking severely annoyed. She took a deep breath.

  Pete waited.

  “I seem to hurt my daughter without even trying,” she said at last. “Without even opening my mouth, at times.”

  Pete couldn’t think of an appropriate response. He remained silent and stretched out a hand to make an infinitesimal adjustment to the stance of the bronze Longhorn on his desk.

  He couldn’t imagine what any of this had to do with him.

  “I think Melinda’s life would be very different if she were to lose, say, thirty pounds.”

  Pete lifted his eyes from the Longhorn. “She looks great the way she is,” he said.

  “Oh, Peter, stop being so polite.”

  “I’m not—”

  Jocelyn waved a dismissive hand. “Peter, what is your objective here at Playa Bella?”

  “Pardon?” He was bewildered at the sudden change in subject.

  “What is your objective as senior account manager here at this hotel?”

  “To make money, ma’am. To bring in more business.”

  She nodded sagely. “I guessed as much. And what happens if you do that?”

  “I…uh…well, I get promoted.”

  “Excellent. Well. That brings me to my business proposition. As you know, Peter, I’m on the boards of the Have a Heart Foundation, the Fresh Air Foundation for Lung Cancer Awareness, the Muscular Dystrophy Foundation, the Junior League and others. Every year we look for venues for our charity balls and other fundraisers like our Holiday Bazaar.”

  “Okay.” Pete raised his eyebrows quizzically.

  “I am prepared to steer business—a lot of business—to Playa Bella, if you will do one simple thing for me.”

  Oh, here it comes. “And what would that be, ma’am?”

  “I want you to continue seeing my daughter.”

  Pete gaped at her like a guppy.

  “Melinda has very low self-esteem. I may have contributed to that, and I’d like to help her…blossom. Grow into herself.”

  Pete continued to stare at her, flabbergasted. “Ma’am, I can’t—”

  Jocelyn raised a hand. “Hear me out. You saw an easy target in Melinda, did you not?”

  “What?”

  “She’s a bit zaftig. Plump. Not used to a lot of attention from men. Yet you told her she was beautiful, or something along those lines, and she lay down for you—”

  “No! Is that what Mel told you?”

  “Not in so many words.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, but it’s not true,” Pete said, outraged.

  “Isn’t it?”

  He cast back in his memory. Sure, he’d complimented her. How was that a crime? How was that manipulating her into bed? He hadn’t. The truth—that Mel had unzipped his pants and grabbed a good handful—he would die before sharing with her mother. He wouldn’t for the world humiliate Melinda that way. There were some things that mothers simply did not need to know.

  “Regardless,” Jocelyn said imperiously. “What happened at the wedding reception isn’t really my concern. It’s what happens next. Melinda will be crushed if you don’t call her, and you weren’t planning to, were you?”

  “Yes, I was going to call her, as a matter of fact!”

  Jocelyn lifted her eyes heavenward. “Of course you were, Peter. Of course you were. And now you’ll be sure to do so, hmm? Because I can bring you hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of business.”

  Pete felt his blood pressure rising to dangerous levels. Never in his life before had he felt the urge to punch a woman.

  “And you’ll get that promotion,” she continued. “And Melinda will gain some self-esteem, and I’ll feel as if I’ve done something to make things up to her. And everything will be rosy.” She smiled.

  “I will be calling her, Mrs. Edgeworth,” Pete said, “but not because you’ve asked me to and not because you’re offering me this bizarre ‘business proposition’ of yours. Are we clear?”

  She gave him her cobra smile. “You don’t have to admit it to yourself, Peter, if it makes you uncomfortable. Few human beings can acknowledge their true motives for doing things. Tell yourself whatever you need to, darling.”

  She was truly chilling. Pete marveled at her.

  She stood up and slid the handle of her Chanel bag over her arm. “Now. Of course I’m not asking you to marry her. You’ll have to let her down easy at some point.”

  “Oh?” Pete said, struggling to keep a lid on his temper. “And how do you suggest that I do that, since you’ve got this all planned out?”

  “Peter,” she said with heavy tolerance. “I’m not a monster, after all…”

  Yes, you are.

  “…that’s up to you. You’re an innately kind human being—”

  Which is more than you are!

  “—I do credit you with that—so I trust you to do things gently and humanely.”

  “Well, aren’t you a peach.” He was sorely tempted to pick her up bodily and throw her out of his office. Had he really eaten this woman’s oatmeal-raisin cookies as a child? Had he really never seen this side of her? No wonder Richard’s posture always looked stooped, his expression faintly browbeaten and vague, as if he lived in an alternate reality.

  “I realize that you’re angry with me right now, Peter. But do think it over. And if, as you claim, you were going to call my daughter anyway, then what do you have to lose? You can keep your integrity and make lots of money for your hotel at the same time.” She produced her bloodless smile again. “I can tell you’re itching to say no. To defend your honor. To throw me out. Aren’t you?”

  Pete took a deep breath, his jaw tight, and said absolutely nothing. He didn’t trust himself to be polite, and that unnerved him. He was always polite. He never lost his temper—that was his father’s domain, and Pete had sworn he’d never go there, would never be like him.

  She shook her head, still smiling. “All right, then. Let me put it this way. If you can’t do it for yourself—if you can’t do it for me—then do it for Melinda. Because you and I both know that she deserves better than a one-night stand.”

  The witch! Pete felt his mouth drop open again. How had she managed to turn the tables on him so neatly? How had she set him up to look like a bad guy if he refused her unethical offer?

  Jocelyn Edgeworth patted his shoulder and he recoiled from her touch. Then she turne
d on her heel, blew him a kiss and walked out of his office with his balls in her designer pocketbook. Damn the woman! Was there any way out of this dilemma?

  * * *

  “NO, MRS. TEMPERLEY,” Melinda said patiently, “I can’t really change the message on your cake at this stage.”

  “Why not?” Mrs. T. was in her early sixties, but looked no more than fifty thanks to a gifted surgeon, a strict yoga regimen and a blissful disregard for anyone but herself.

  “Because the fondant is dry and so is the butter-cream we used for the letters.”

  “Can’t you pick them off and start over?”

  “No, I’m afraid I can’t do that without ruining the cake.”

  Mrs. Temperley’s botoxed lips turned down at the corners. “But I wrote a poem for Stan, and I want it inscribed on his cake.”

  “Can you recite the poem instead as you give him the cake?”

  Mrs. T shook her head.

  “Then how about writing it down in a card?”

  “No. I want it on the caaaake,” she whined.

  They both looked at the confection that Melinda had spent hours on, creating a miniature golf course complete with trees, water and even a sand trap. She’d sculpted a marzipan bag of clubs, too, and lined the edges of the cake with little yellow golf tees. On the surface of the water, Mel had written, as instructed, “Happy Birthday, Darling Stanley, from BB with tons of love and kisses.”

  There was simply no way that she was going to redo the cake for the crazy woman. Mrs. T wanted changes with every order. She was a valuable repeat customer, but she was also a colossal pain in the patooty.

  Mel caught Scottie’s eye and mouthed a plea for help. He finished arranging a tray of cookies in the bakery case and came over, wiping his hands on his apron. “How long is the poem, Mrs. Temperley?” he asked.

  “It’s only about six lines.”

  “Hmm.”

  Mel had an inspiration. “What if you typed it on a small card, and we stuck it to the front of the cake and then iced a pretty frame for it? Would that work?”

  “Well,” said Mrs. T, toying with her overly plump bottom lip, “I guess so.” She waited a beat. “But can you type it? I don’t have time to run home and do that before my nail appointment.”

  “Sure,” Melinda said. “No problem.”

  “Great. I’ll pick it up in an hour, then.”

  And so Mel found herself using a script font on her computer, typing up BB’s Ode to Stanley, her husband.

  Just one night on the back nine,

  And you were so fine

  But I had no clue

  That I’d marry you!!!

  But all these years later

  You’re still my Gator

  We still burn up a golf cart,

  Happy Birthday, dear heart!

  Well. Mrs. T wasn’t going to win any prizes for her poetry, that was for sure. It sounded as if she had once had her own sexcapade. And now Mel couldn’t rid her mind of the unwelcome image of BB and Stanley butt naked in a golf cart, either.

  Her mind flashed to a naked Pete instead. What if I want to flirt with you, honey? What if I ask you what you’re doing on Saturday?

  She printed out the “poem,” such as it was, and carefully cut it into a small rectangle that she could affix to the cake. So BB’s “One-Night Stan” had ended up becoming her husband…

  Mel allowed herself a brief fantasy of herself and Pete walking down the aisle. In her vision, she wore a size four Narciso Rodriguez gown, which was about as likely to happen as Pete proposing to her the next time she saw him.

  She cringed as she remembered her silly, preteen fantasies about marrying Pete. On the awful day that she’d burped right in his face, she’d had everything worked out: a ballroom strewn with pink rose petals; the ceiling full of pink balloons with silver ribbons dangling from them. The tables were covered with pink cloths and studded with silver candelabra. Even the candles in those were pink. The twelve-year-old Mel had decided that white was boring.

  Her gown, the most important part of the scenario besides the groom, was exactly like Princess Di’s, but pink.

  The twenty-five-year-old Mel shuddered. That overblown, overfestooned dress had been bad enough in cream silk. She knew that now. But back then…

  She’d been daydreaming, calculating whom she’d invite to her Big Day—definitely not mean Tiffany Smythe or her snotty sidekick, Heather Delaney—when Pete and Mark had trudged into the house, back from football practice, sweaty and intent on reaching the jar of oatmeal cookies in the kitchen.

  Mark ignored her. Pete said, “Hey, Mel. How’re you doing?” and winked at her.

  The wink was fatal. Her stomach seized up, and her lungs felt filled with tar. She opened her mouth but no sound came out. She could see herself reflected in the shiny oven door, looking like a brain-damaged guppy.

  Pete crammed an oatmeal cookie into his own mouth and raised his eyebrows, expecting an answer.

  Fine. Say “fine,” you moron! But she couldn’t.

  She was thankful that Mark had buried his head in the refrigerator, probably in search of cold milk.

  Pete munched and waited, the corners of his eyes crinkling in friendly amusement.

  Mel pressed her front teeth onto her bottom lip and got the “f” out for “fine.” She was engaged in a mighty struggle with the “i” when the nervous burp rumbled up her throat and burst like a gunshot into the air.

  It was the most awful sound in the history of the planet—until Pete’s loud laugh. “S-sorry,” he managed, as Melinda’s face flash-fried.

  The rose petals in her ballroom withered. Her gown wilted and rotted like a cabbage rose in the sun. The balloons popped, and the pink tablecloths went up in flames, charred beyond recognition.

  Please, God. Take me now. Pull me through the floor and put me out of my misery. Please…

  But the Almighty didn’t seem to hear her.

  Mark chose that moment to pull his head out of the fridge. “Good one, Bug-Eyes. Was that a burp or a fart?”

  Only her brother could have made the moment more calamitous.

  Aghast, Melinda turned and fled, her pink and silver dreams destroyed forever.

  Total humiliation had obliterated her crush on Pete. She’d never allowed herself to think of him that way again.

  Until now.

  You idiot. Mel got out her set of piping tips and mixed up some more butter-cream icing to make a frame for BB Temperley’s ridiculous Ode.

  Pete could easily find her work number, today was Thursday, and he’d shown no signs whatsoever of calling about this Saturday, or any of the other three hundred sixty-four options in the calendar year.

  Mel couldn’t say she was surprised, no matter what charming things he’d said to her at the wedding breakfast. She let out an involuntary sigh.

  As always, her mother had been right.

  11

  BY FRIDAY, PETE’S FINGERS itched to dial Mel’s bakery and tell her what a vicious wolverine she had for a mother. He got as far as keying in the number and chewing on the end of the phone’s antenna, but he couldn’t make himself hit the Send button. He found himself hitting the Off button instead.

  Because Melinda would be mortified at her mother’s actions. And if she had low self-esteem already, how would she feel to know that her mother had bribed a man to ask her daughter out? It was simple.

  Mel would be devastated.

  And Pete couldn’t do that to her.

  Worse, he couldn’t even call his best friend, Mark, and vent about the situation, since Jocelyn was also Mark’s mother. And because Mark had already threatened to rip off his head and crap down his throat if he so much as laid a hand on Melinda’s arm, much less her more luscious and private parts.

  Which got Pete to thinking about those again, which filled him with lust as well as frustration and anger.

  In desperation, he called his buddy Dev instead, and asked his advice over choros and escabeche de pescado at
a favorite Peruvian restaurant.

  Dev looked hungover, which was no big surprise since he owned a restaurant/bar. Even his dark, spiky hair looked today like it had no energy and was only standing up on his head by sheer virtue of the amount of product smeared into it. He ran a hand down his unshaven face and blinked a couple of times. “Let me get this straight.”

  Pete waited.

  “You banged Mark’s sister at the wedding reception?”

  “I did not bang her. We—”

  Dev waved his fork in the air. “Right, you made mad, passionate, multicolored, many-splendored luuuuv. Whatever. You bumped uglies, and you like her enough to want to call her. But Mama Grizzly is demanding that you call her, and even sweetening the pot if you do.”

  “Right.”

  Dev put down his fork and picked up his ice-cold Dos Equis beer instead. He held the bottom of it to each eye for a couple of seconds, then took a swig and set it down. He gazed at Pete across the table as the melted condensation ran from his eyelids. He spread his hands, palms up. “Dude, I don’t see the problem.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t see the problem!” Pete stared at him.

  “I mean that it’s a win-win situation,” Dev said, with Satan’s own reasonableness.

  “It’s not!”

  “It is. You say you were going to call her anyway. Right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And this way you even get paid to call her. So freakin’ call her, dude!”

  “You’re advising me to do something completely unethical. You realize that, don’t you?”

  “Not at all. I’m advising you to do what your heart tells you to do anyway,” Dev said. “The other part is just gravy. Extra. Manna from heaven that’s dropped into your lap, like a drunk, horny girl at the tail end of the party.”

  “Dev, you’re so immoral…”

  “Not true, my man,” he protested. “I’m amoral. There’s a difference.”