Marrying Mister Perfect (13 page)

They finished the tour of the lower level in
the bowling alley. Lou hung back with him as the kids kicked off
their shoes and raced around on the highly polished wood in their
socks, sliding
Risky Business
style.

“So how’s the
process
going?” Lou
asked as they watched Emma and TJ hurling themselves down the lanes
in the bowling alley like an indoor slip n’ slide.

“It’s pretty good actually.”

It was bizarre and confusing, but something
stopped him from complaining about the show. Like it would be wrong
to mention the women to Lou—which made no sense. He hadn’t
hesitated to tell her about them the few times they’d managed to
find time to talk on the phone in the last week.

Be normal, Jack. This is Lou.

He grimaced. “You had Angela pegged. The one
who kissed me as soon as she saw me. She wasn’t here for the right
reasons.”

“The swimsuit model?”

“No. The lawyer.”

Lou smiled, a small secretive smile he wasn’t
sure he’d ever seen before. How could she have changed so much in
the last ten days? “So you kicked her to the curb, eh? And the
swimsuit model?”

“Katya.” Jack felt his cheekbones warm.
“She’s still here.”

Lou made a small tsking sound. He knew he was
courting Kelly’s disapproval, but Katya made him feel important.
She looked at him like he’d hung the moon—like he actually deserved
to be Mr. Perfect. There was no denying it was heady stuff having a
woman who looked like that looking at him the way she did.

Lou propped her elbows against the wet bar
behind her. The pose and that dress put everything on display and
Jack had to remind himself he had no urge to ogle his best friend’s
breasts. No matter how well they filled out that dress.

She tipped her head to the side. “So you
really think in six weeks you could propose to one of those
women?”

She had to ask the question he’d been trying
to avoid asking himself for the last week, didn’t she? The idea of
proposing to
anyone
in five weeks was flat out ludicrous,
but he’d agreed to play along.

“I don’t know. I definitely want to, you
know,
continue with the process
.” When she looked askance at
him, he shrugged. “That’s what Miranda keeps yapping at me when I
don’t seem
engaged in the moment
. She’s all
go with the
process, Jack
and
don’t get ahead of your emotions,
Jack
. She seems to think it’s a foregone conclusion that I’m
going to fall head over heels in love in the next month and a
half.”

“She probably thinks if she repeats it enough
times, you’ll start believing it.”

There was an edge to her voice he hadn’t
expected. Was she mad at him? At Miranda? Or could that be
jealousy?

Jack mentally kicked himself. What was he
thinking? Had he been totally brainwashed by the show? He was
always reading voices and looking for ulterior motives now—and
assuming everyone woman on the planet wanted him or wanted
something from him. A week of trying to figure out which women were
playing him and which were being played by the producers was
messing with his brain. He’d even started thinking
Lou
had
ulterior motives.

“Can we talk about something other than the
show?” he begged. “Anything else. I’d just like one day when we
aren’t
talking about the public circus my lovelife has
become.”

Lou was silent for a long moment. “Don’t you
have a date to get to?”

“Not until tomorrow morning. I’m base jumping
with Piper in the morning and then I can have a late lunch with you
and the kids before your flight and my evening at the symphony with
Missy and Marcy.”

Lou’s eyebrows flew up, telegraphing her
shock. “You’re going to the symphony? Mr. Rolling-Stones-or-Nothing
is actually going to sit through Beethoven? I’m gonna have to watch
that episode to believe it.”

He shrugged, but he felt a flush creeping up
his neck. “It’s romantic.” Or so they told him.

“It’s cliché.”

“Lou.” Her name came out as a growl.

“Fine. No more
Marrying Mister Perfect
talk. Would you like to hear about the wild and wonderful world of
kitchen renovations instead?”

“Yes, please.” Jack dragged over a bar stool
and settled himself, relieved to be talking about something so
normal as fixing up their pathetic excuse for a kitchen. “Did the
second contractor actually come through with an estimate?”

“He dropped it off yesterday and while it is
more money, it’s also really gorgeous. I think you’re really going
to like it.” From the way her eyes lit, he knew they’d be going for
the second, more expensive estimate. “He says kitchen renos tend to
get like a ninety percent return on your investment when you
sell.”

“Since when are we planning to sell?”

Lou looked away, her eyes tracking the kids
in their antics. “Emma, don’t hit your brother in the head with a
bowling pin,” she called.

He stood and shifted to stand next to her,
laying his arm along the bar at her back, but she still avoided his
eyes. “Lou? Why are we selling?”

She spoke suddenly, rushing the words out,
“What if she doesn’t live near you? What if you want to move to be
closer to her? I just think you need to be considering resale
value, that’s all.”

Jack had thought about those questions, but
he figured he’d deal with the problems if and when they arose.
Honestly, he hadn’t really expected to fall head over heels in love
with anyone, so he hadn’t wasted much time worrying about the
aftermath of the show. Lou obviously had.

Katya didn’t seem the type to want to live in
the Chicago suburbs, but Marcy…

There was no sense worrying about it now.

“Let’s not borrow trouble, okay?” Normally he
would have tugged on her ponytail and given her a smile, but today
there was no pony tail, no easy smiles. He settled for catching her
hand and squeezing it gently. “For today can it just be you and me
and the kids? No show. No girls. No looming proposal deadlines.
Just us.”

Finally, Lou looked at him. Her eyes were
shadowed, but she smiled gently. “Sure. I can do that.”

Chapter
Thirteen

On Sunday morning, Lou woke in an enormous
canopy bed, nearly falling off the edge to avoid the two children
sprawled spread-eagle in the center. Neither Emma nor TJ had been
able to sleep in the palatial rooms the show had assigned them.
After their first attempt at bedtime failed, Jack and Lou relocated
both of the kids to the same room, right next to hers, but Lou
wasn’t surprised they’d both ended up crawling in with her in the
middle of the night. Neither of them had ever slept well away from
their own beds.

Lou stroked the tangle of Emma’s baby-fine
dark curls back from her forehead. Whose bed were they going to
crawl into when Jack married his new wife? They’d gotten in the
habit of going to her room, rather than his, because he was often
on call at night.

Would whoever Jack chose mind the invasion?
Would the kids feel comfortable going to their new mommy for
midnight cuddles to chase away the nightmares? And why did the
thought of them running to someone else for comfort feel like such
a betrayal? She wanted them to settle easily into their new life,
didn’t she? She wanted their happiness with all her soul. She
couldn’t be jealous of Jack’s new wife just because the kids might
like
her.

Lou slipped out of bed, careful to tuck the
covers back in around TJ and Emma where they sprawled in blissful
oblivion. She trailed her fingers over the duvet, trying to engrave
this moment into her memory. Who knew how many more mornings like
this they would have before she was out of their lives?

She just couldn’t imagine it. She couldn’t
imagine not being the one who knew the right lunches to pack and
the right way to make grilled PBJs.

And she couldn’t imagine how any of those
women in the house next door could possibly love these two kids a
quarter as much as she did. She was their mother in everything
except fact. Whenever she stopped to actually think about how much
she loved them, it seemed like her heart had gotten a little
bigger, with just a little more room for them, since the last
time.

Lou quickly dressed and brushed her teeth.
Under Kelly’s orders, she took a few extra minutes to fuss with her
hair and slap on a few make-up touches, thinking the entire time
about how her life was suddenly slipping away. She felt so
helpless. It all came down to Jack.

Lou wasn’t sure she could wait for Kelly’s
plan to work. Jack had seemed… different at first when they arrived
the day before, but as the day went on, they’d fallen into their
usual pattern and she had completely failed to seduce him. Talking,
playing with the kids, pizza for dinner and then a movie in the
massive screening room with all four of them piled haphazardly on
the couch. Hardly the stuff passionate affairs were made of.

Kelly had filled her head with tips about
holding his gaze just a little too long, trailing her fingers along
the neckline of her dress to draw his attention to her assets, and
speaking soft and low to engender a sense of intimacy—but whenever
Lou tried to implement the advice, she felt like an idiot. Kelly
wanted her to unleash her inner sex goddess, but Lou still wasn’t
sure she had one.

And part of her resented the fact that she
had to pretend to be someone else, someone sexier, in order to
attract his attention. Why couldn’t she just be herself?

Oh right, because he was never interested in
you as you are.

She just wasn’t confident that he would ever
see her as a potential lover.

If the makeover wasn’t going to change the
way he saw her, she needed to tell him the truth. Maybe not the
truth about how she felt about him, but at least the truth about
how she didn’t want the kids and her home and the life they’d built
together yanked out from under her. They had to be able to work
something out. She had no idea what, but there had to be something.
She didn’t know why it had to be all or nothing.

Lou slipped quietly out of the room, leaving
the kids sleeping, and went to look for their father. She heard
heavy footsteps and hurried down the hall after them.

“Jack?”

She pulled up short as she came around the
corner, seeing instead a massive crewman with a black headset and
three walkie-talkies clipped to his belt. “He’s on a date,” the
crewman reminded her. “You need something?”

Of course. He was off jumping off cliffs to
create a false sense of intimacy through near-death experiences.
How could she have forgotten? Lou mentally scrambled for a
plausible reason she would be looking for him. “Breakfast?”

“Right. Chef’s over at the chick house doing
omelets and stuff. Or there’s pastries and fruit and stuff on a
buffet where craft services set up over on the east terrace.”

There was no way in heaven or earth she was
going to the women’s mansion for breakfast, no matter how gourmet
the chef. The muffins and fruits sounded great, but she couldn’t
leave the kids alone. “Is there any way we could have a plate
brought up for me and the kids?”

“Lady, this ain’t no hotel. We don’t do room
service.”

Great. Now the crew guy thought she was a
diva—like he didn’t get enough of that from the “chicks.” She
smiled her most non-diva smile. “I’m sorry. I didn’t introduce
myself. I’m Lou, Jack’s, ah, sister-in-law.”

She waited with a big smile plastered on her
face until he grunted, “Dave.”

Lou would count that grunt as a victory. No
matter how small. “I don’t mean to be trouble, Dave. I just don’t
want Emma and TJ to wake up in a strange house and not be able to
find me.”

The crew guy’s stop-being-a-pain-in-my-ass
expression eased. “No problem. I gotta be up here to make sure none
of the chicks sneak over to leave love notes while Dr. Jack’s out.
You want I can keep an ear out for ‘em. I’ve got three of my own at
home.”

“Would you?”

He actually gave her a reluctant smile.
“Here, take one of these.” He unclipped a walkie and shoved it at
her. “Keep it on channel five. We’re not using that one for crew
chatter. I’ll call you if the kids need anything.”

Lou took the walkie and squeezed his hand
once before letting go. “Thank you, Dave. I won’t be long.”

After the excitement of the day before and
the restless night, the kids would probably sleep a while longer,
but she hurried anyway, down the hallway and down the stairs. She
got a little lost, going out the wrong door twice before she
finally found a terrace occupied by a white tent and cafeteria
tables groaning under the weight of food platters. She’d just fill
a couple plates for her and the kids and they could have a floor
picnic in the room when they woke up.

Lou grabbed a couple plates, surprised to
find they were china rather than paper, and began stacking them
with pastries and melon slices.

“Lou!” She looked up at the click of high
heels on the terrace flagstones as Miranda swept forward and
plucked and apple off the table. “I almost didn’t recognize you.
You look fabulous!”

Her gaze raked over Lou’s post-makeover
outfit of a light fitted blouse and khaki shorts. It wasn’t glamour
girl, but it was a long way from Mom Jeans. “I thought you’d be
running the date with Jack.”

Miranda rolled the apple between her hands.
“Most of the actual dates are coordinated by field producers and
segment producers. I like to be here where I can oversee
everything. The only hands-on stuff I still do myself is the
confessional footage. I love it.”

“You seem to be good at it. I’ve never seen
Jack open up like he does with you.”

Miranda grinned. “It’s a gift. How are you
enjoying your visit?”