Page 18 of Lush Curves

“And… and dinner with me is a good reason?” Annie asked. “A good reason to take one of your days?”

“Princess.” His voice was low and sultry and warm. “Dinner with you is thebestreason that I can think of.”

“Oh.” Annie wasn’t sure if she wanted to drop to the floor in a boneless swoon, or in the painful throes of a lethal goddamn heart attack. “Oh…”

“Yes. Oh. Now – I’ll pick you up at seven. OK?”

“OK,” she whispered. “That’s perfect.”

“I know it is, princess. It willallbe perfect.”

And for the first time since he’d asked her out, Annie really, truly believed that it all would be.

All of it.

**

“OK, hold up.” Sarah Matthews shook her head, her auburn curls shining in the weak winter sunlight. She carefully set down her cup of coffee on the kitchen table. “Why are you working Friday night? I thought you’d sworn to never work nights again…especiallyat the weekends.”

“Yes,” Annie said reluctantly, suddenly wondering what the hell she’d been thinking when she’d answered Sarah’s casual question ofso what are you doing this weekend, Mom?with a bald-faced lie.

The logical thing to do, of course, would have been to sayoh, nothing much, honjust as she always did, instead of panicking like a teenager and blurting out an easily-refuted lie. Butthen, of course, her daughter would have invited her over for dinner, or to watch a movie, or to go for lunch and then shopping, and then Annie would have had to accept,thenon the day in question, she’d have had to get on the phone and fake a cough and babble about being sick.

So really, it was lie to Sarahnow, or lie to Sarahlater… because the one thing that Annie wasnot going to dowas tell her daughter that she was going for Chinese food with a hot young doctor.

No way. No how.

Nuh-uh.

Whyshe wasn’t about to break her neck telling Sarah – and Jax, who was standing right over there making a fresh pot of coffee – about Sam was blindingly obvious. Why tell them about one pathetic little pity date? Annie had no damn illusions about where this was going – it was going preciselynowhere, and that’s where it was going, because it couldn’t go anyplace else. She and Sam had no future; they were totally incompatible; they had zero things in common.

She reminded herself that this date was just a sweet distraction from the grind and loneliness of her day-to-day life. A lovely evening that she’d revisit in her mind when she felt fat and undesirable and over-the-hill.

It was destined to be a memory, something that she looked at in the rearview mirror as she moved farther away from it every day, every hour, every minute. It was never going to be anything to look forward to, or plan a future with.

She reminded herself that she was OK with this. Or, if she wasn’t right this second, she soon would be, because she had no choice.

For now, though, she had to get Sarah and Jax off the whole damn topic, mostly because she swore that her daughter and future son-in-law had psychic powers… mostly Jax. The man might lack school smarts by his own admission, but Annie had learned fast and early that he was smart as all hell in many,manyother ways. Mostly in reading people; mostly when they were evading or hiding something.

“Yes,” Annie repeated now, with more confidence. “I did say that I’d never work a weekend night-shift again, honey. But Christmas is coming, and I want to save up a bit extra this year.”

“Why?’ Sarah asked. “Have you got something special planned?”

“Maybe,” Annie said, trying to sound mysterious, even as she realized that she now had to come up with a special Christmas present or event.Goddammit, lying was a spiral, wasn’t it, one that just kept going south – fast. “But I can’t say too much about that.”

“Ohhh-kaaay.” Sarah narrowed her blue eyes, the same clear shining eyes that her mother had, the ones that always saw way more than people wanted to show. “Unless you’re not telling us the truth?”

“About what?” Annie faltered, terrified of what she’d given away just by breathing.

“About why you really need the money.”

“Uh… why else would I?”

“You hurting for cash, Mom?” Sarah said softly. “You need a hand?”

“What?” Jax snapped to attention even as he poured some milk into Sarah’s second coffee. “You need some money, Annie?”

Oh, Lord. Now he’s in on it.

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