A Baby...Maybe? & How to Hunt a Husband (18 page)

Why, they'd sat at O'Halloran's and talked most of the night away. But they'd made good use of their time. They'd devised a plan to take care of both of their mothers' nagging.

If Shannon was looking for a man—which she wasn't, she was sticking to her motto, use them and lose them—but if she was, Nate might warrant a look, or even two.

“I think you'll like him,” she said.

Silently she added,
if you met the real him.
But if things went the way they'd planned, Brigit O'Malley wasn't going to like Nathan Calder at all.

“You'll bring him by?”

“Yeah. Next weekend sometime, maybe? Let me run it by him and I'll get back to you about when.”

Shannon spent the rest of the visit basking in her successful first step. Her mother was about to learn a valuable lesson.
Be careful what you wish for…it just might come true.

Oh, yeah. Her mother wanted her to find a significant other, and Shannon was about to do just that.

Only she doubted that when her mother envisioned her riding away, duly wed, she pictured her on the back of a Harley.

 

S
HANNON
B
ONNIE
O'M
ALLEY
, who would have thought?

Shannon asked herself the rhetorical question as she stared at her reflection in the mirror.

She was rather awed by what she saw.

Oh, Shannon had realistic views of herself. She wasn't gorgeous, but she wasn't so ugly that her mama tied pork chops around her neck to get the dog to play with her when she was a baby. She was comfortably in the middle most days.

But now?

Well, who knew that the right undergarments could make such a difference? After she'd hatched her plan with Nate the other night, she'd made an emergency trip to a lingerie store to prepare for their date and had left herself at the mercy of a sales clerk.

The woman and her underwear—not
her
under wear, but the underwear the store sold—were amazing.

Panties that sucked things in.

And a bra that stuck things out—things she never even imagined she owned.

Actually, the bra was the most interesting contraption she'd ever seen. It had a little pump and she could actually inflate it until she'd achieved just the right size breasts.

Oh, they were fake breasts, but—she checked the mirror again—no one would ever know. Instead of a flat drop from her neck to her feet she had a long channel of cleavage exposed from the daring cut of her new red dress. A new red dress that would give her mother a heart attack and convince Nate's
mother that pushing for grandchildren might not be such a great idea, at least not if Shannon was the woman in the running for becoming their mother.

She backed up so she got a good look at the entire effect. Though the hemline fell to her knees, the slit up either side practically showed off her new body-sucking panties.

Oh, yeah, this was good.

She finished applying her makeup with a heavy hand and studied the results.

Yes, she believed she could convince Nate's mother she was a stripper.

No, she took that back.

Not
stripper.

If she was a stripper, she'd find the term insulting. Degrading even.

Even if she was taking off her clothes for money, she hoped she'd still retain her sense of dignity.

Exotic dancer.

Yep, that's the term she'd prefer if she was a stripper…
exotic dancer.
It sounded so much more dignified.

Her doorbell rang and she checked her watch. Nate was prompt. She liked that in a man.

She slipped on her stiletto-heeled boots and zipped them all the way to her knees, then hurried to the door.

She opened it and immediately looked to Nate's face for his reaction to his exotic-dancer date.

His slack-jawed, ogling response was just what she'd hoped for.

“I take it you approve?” she asked.

“Oh, honey, I do, but my mom will absolutely faint. She told me only floozies allowed themselves to be picked up in a bar and when she gets a look at you, she'll rest her case, but she won't rest easy. As a matter of fact, after seeing you, my mother might try to make me move back home so she can protect me.”

“Do you think you need protection?” Shannon asked with her throatiest voice. She figured if she was an exotic dancer, she'd have that kind of sexy bedroom voice and had been practicing all week.

“I don't think any man in his right mind would want to be protected from you. But I do think every man's mother would want to lock her son up rather than let a stripper like you—”

“Actually I prefer the term
exotic dancer,
if you don't mind,” she said, pleased she'd managed to keep a straight face.

She'd managed, but Nate didn't.

He burst out laughing.

“Oh, that's good. Real good. You know, you could have been an actress instead of a teacher.”

“Well, it won't be good if you laugh like that. How are we supposed to convince your mother you're head over heels in love with me if you can't stay in character?”

“Sorry.” He crossed his heart. “It won't happen again.”

“It had better not. It's not just that I'm worried you'll blow the charade with your mom. That would be
your
problem, after all. It's that I need to know you're going to be able to convince my mom when we meet her tomorrow.”

“I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to look as good as you do.”

“I'm going to take that as a compliment.”

“You should. But can I point out that Shannon isn't a very good stripper name.”

“Oh, I thought about that. When I dance—I'm an exotic dancer, not a stripper, I'll thank you very much to remember that—I use the stage name Roxy.”

“Oh, Roxy is good.” He laughed. “I think you're having just a little too much fun with this.”

Shannon drank in the sight of him—and oh what a sight it was. Nate had that Cary Grant-ish sort of look—the kind that was born for a business suit, but could as easily carry off just jeans and a T-shirt.

She wondered what he'd look like in a tux.

She tried to picture it.

Oh, yeah, Nate Calder would look mighty fine in a tux. His shoulders were broad and the jacket would hang ever so comfortably from them.

As a matter of fact, she thought she'd tuck quite comfortably under those arms, given a chance. Not
that she expected to be wrapped in Nate's arms, not unless it became necessary as part of their act.

But if she did get tucked into Nate's arms, she thought she'd fit well.

Wrapped in Nate.

The mental image of him holding her so tightly that she could hear his heart popped when he said, “So let's go. We don't want to be late for my mother's dinner. Though I hope you heeded my warning and ate something already. My mother might be known for her lobbying for grandbabies, but she's not known for her cooking—especially her pot roast.”

“That bad?” Shannon asked.

“Worse.”

Nate's Harley was parked outside her apartment building waiting in all its regal splendor. “Oh, wow, this is a great bike.”

He puffed up. “It's a classic. A Fatboy. I can't believe how lucky I was to find one.”

He handed her a silver helmet. “Will it mess up your hair too much?”

“No. There are advantages to short cuts. I'll just spike it back up when we get off.”

“Then let's go.”

Climbing on the back of a motorcycle wearing stiletto heels was more difficult than Shannon had imagined. She used Nate's shoulder to steady herself.

He stood and pressed down on the starter.

The engine turned over, but didn't catch.

He did it again.

And again.

Nate turned around and offered her a sheepish grin. “Sorry. I just got my license, and I haven't quite got the hang of some parts of motorcycle riding yet.”

“Would you be insulted if I offered to start it?” Shannon asked.

She didn't want to hurt his feelings. Despite their bravado, men tended to have rather fragile egos. “I've been riding motorcycles since high school. I dated Johnny Palmer, the school's resident bad boy and he taught me.”

That wasn't all Johnny had taught her. One night when he got a bit too presumptuous and Shannon had slugged him hard in order to convince him that no meant no, she'd learned to hitchhike because Johnny had up and left her on the side of the road.

“You ride motorcycles?” Nate asked.

“I don't own one, but I do know how to ride.”

“Can you start one in those heels?”

She grinned. “Let's see.”

Nate climbed off the bike and stood next to it as Shannon slid up into the driver's seat.

She stood and pressed on the starter. The motorcycle hummed to life with a Harley's belly-rumbling sound.

“There you go,” she said, her voice loud in order to be heard over the noise.

“Why don't you just drive?” he asked.

“Are you sure?”

She peeked at his face and he seemed serious. Most men she knew wouldn't be caught dead buzzing around town on the back of a motorcycle driven by a woman.

Women might have come a long way, but Shannon had found that not all men had.

“Sure I'm sure. I tend to stall it…a lot. And mom will have a fit if we're late. But maybe later you could give me some lessons?”

Oh, Shannon could think of a lesson or two she'd like to give Nathan Calder, but she didn't share that bit of information with him.

Their dates were completely for show. They were cohorts, nothing more. And of course, she wasn't looking for more. She wanted to revel in her chick-flick-watching, hairy-legged, single status.

Not that her legs were hairy tonight. The dress was too high-cut for that. But as soon as they'd derailed their mothers' wedding plans, she was going back to not shaving…at least not too often.

“Let's go,” he said.

She simply nodded, and let him crawl onto the bike.

Nate's arms wrapped around her stomach. The top of his right hand grazed the bottom of her enhanced breast. Shannon found herself wishing there wasn't a balloon full of air separating her breast and his hand. She'd like his hands—

She cut off the thought. She wasn't in a real relationship with Nate. They were conspirators. Associates. Despite his Cary Grant-ish looks, she had to remember that.

“Here we go,” she called as she pressed the pedal, put the Harley in first gear and took off down the street, ready to begin the game.

“M
OM
,
we're here,” Nate called as he opened his parents' front door and walked into the living room with its lime-green walls and slate-gray carpet.

Over the years Nate had gotten used to his mother's loud color choices and rarely gave them a second thought. He actually kind of liked things bright and a bit wild. But he saw the surprised look on Shannon's face and wondered if she preferred something more sedate.

No, she didn't look like the sedate type in that dress. She looked like a pin-up girl…a fantasy woman.

Not that she looked like
his
fantasy woman. No, she looked like every man's fantasy. That dress—

He forced himself to concentrate on the job at hand, which was convincing his mom to lay off the wife-and-baby stuff.

Shannon's dress was a means to an end, that's all.

“Mom? Dad?” he called. “They must be in the kitchen.”

Shannon stood and nervously smoothed some invisible wrinkle in her skirt.

Gone was the illusion of an exotic dancer named Roxy, and in her place was an art teacher who was feeling nervous.

“What's wrong?” Nate asked softly.

She sighed. “They're not going to like me.”

“They're not going to like me dating a stripper.”

That was the plan. His parents wouldn't like her, her parents wouldn't like him. No more marriage talk.

“Exotic dancer,” she corrected, as if she'd been doing it for years.

Then, softer, she added, “People normally like me.”

“Shannon-me-love,” he said, using Mick's pet name for her, “we don't have to do this. Come on, it was a crazy idea anyway.”

This was supposed to be fun, but Shannon didn't look as if she was having fun. Not at all.

She gave herself a little shake and said, “No, no, I'm okay. Just chalk it up to a case of stage fright. It's not a crazy idea…well, maybe it is. But we have crazy mothers, and it's sort of like fighting fire with fire…fighting their craziness with a crazy plan of our own.”

She straightened and smiled at him. “Let's go.”

“Shannon, really you don't have—”

“Come on, big guy. Roxy never misses an entrance.”

She smiled and Shannon the art teacher was re
placed by a stripper—an exotic dancer, he corrected himself—named Roxy.

“You're sure you can pull it off?” he asked.

“You just watch and learn, biker-boy.” She patted his cheek. “I'm going to show you how it's done. Don't forget, you'll be putting on your own performance tomorrow.”

He turned and heard noise coming from the kitchen. “Well, I'd say it's show time.”

His mother rounded the corner.

“Nate,” she said, spying him, her face one big happy smile…until she spotted Shannon.

The smile disappeared rather abruptly and was replaced by something that looked as though it could be called terror.

But Nate would give his mother credit, she held out her hand, stuck a fake-looking smile on her face, and said, “You must be Nathan's new friend.”

Shannon took the hand and shook it a bit too enthusiastically. “Oh, it's so nice to meet you, Mrs. Calder. I mean, most guys don't take me home to meet their moms even after we've been dating for a long time, but Nate here, he's brought me on a first date. You know, the minute he walked into the bar, I knew he was something special.”

“Ah, yes, the bar,” his mom said, just as his father walked into the room.

“Paul, this is Nate's friend—”

Nate was pretty sure he heard a tone akin to horror as she said the word
friend
.

“—uh, dear, I'm not sure I caught your name.”

Shannon laughed, a throaty sort of laugh that made a man's thoughts turn to sex.

Raw, hot, steamy sex.

Nate wondered if it was part of her act, or just her normal laugh. He couldn't tell and wasn't about to ask. He preferred to think it was part of the act.

“Shannon, ma'am. Shannon O'Malley, although at work I go by Roxy.”

“At work?” his mom asked.

“Yeah. My boss, he says Shannon doesn't give a man the right sort of mental image, and mental images are our specialty.”

“Just what do you do, Shannon?” Nate's father asked.

Nate stood back, waiting for the shoe to drop.

Shannon grinned. “Why, I'm an exotic dancer. Didn't Nate tell you?”

“What?” his mother gasped.

His father didn't say anything. He just stood, looking from Nate back to Shannon.

“An exotic dancer,” Shannon repeated.

“A stripper,” Nate explained.

Shannon elbowed him…hard. “I told you I don't care for that term. It sounds dirty. I do what I do because I'm good at it, because I need to earn a living. It might not be the Rockettes, but it's not raunchy.”

“A stripper?” his mom said weakly.

“It's a nice place, ma'am. The owner, well, he doesn't let anyone mess with the girls. He looks after us. Hey, we even get medical insurance, and you know how expensive that can be. My friend Candy—her real name is Patricia, but the boss says that doesn't create a good mental picture either, so she's Candy at work—why, she's got two kids. Her deadbeat husband left her, and doesn't pay child support or anything. So she works the morning shift—”

“Strip joints have a morning shift?” Nate's dad asked.

“Ours does,” Shannon said, her head bobbing as she nodded. “Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”

“Uh,” Nate's mom said. “Dinner is ready, so why don't we all go in and sit down?”

Nate took Shannon's arm, and they followed his parents into the dining room.

“You're doing great,” he whispered.

“Yeah, I am,” she whispered back and shot him a grin.

Nate could see his mother's immediate baby plans fading fast. She would never want a stripper for her grandchild's mother. Yep, Shannon was doing a great job, playing the stripper to the hilt.

But as the meal went on, Nate realized things weren't going quite the way he planned.

Shannon went on talking about the strip club,
about Candy and her two kids, about Marcy, the exotic dancer who was working her way through grad school. She wove intricate tales that had the entire family hanging on her every word.

Hell, Nate hardly noticed the charbroiled nature of the roast his mother served, or the huge lumps in the mashed potatoes. He was as caught up in Shannon's stories as his parents were.

“Why,” she said, leaning across the table, exposing cleavage Nate hadn't noticed at the bar the night they met—and he was man enough to always notice cleavage, so how had the fact that Shannon had some escaped his notice?—“one night, I was up doing my number and was down to just panties and tassels, when this guy comes in and jumps up on stage. Now, my boss, he doesn't let anyone bother us, and no one is allowed on stage, so Bruno—he's our bouncer. I asked once and his name really is Bruno, which seems a bit too stereo-typical to me, but it's his last name, not his first. His first name is Kyle, which isn't bouncerish at all. Anyway, Bruno—he'd kill me if I called him Kyle—he jumped up and grabbed the guy before he could touch me. And the guy lunges forward and makes a grab anyway, but all he grabs is a hand full of tassel, which means I was left there exposed…”

She paused for a moment, and if Nate didn't know it was an act, he'd have sworn she was truly
embarrassed by the incident, as if it had really happened.

“Oh, dear, what did you do?” his mom asked.

“Well, of course, I covered myself. I mean, I strip, but only to tassels and panties—we don't strip all the way—and here I was one tassel shy of a complete outfit. And then, this guy he tosses me up his jacket, and before you know it, there was a pile of jackets and shirts at my feet. I just picked one up, slipped it on and finished the dance. You should have seen my tips that night.”

“Why, the men were gentlemen,” his mom said, a note of approval in her voice.

If Nate didn't know better, he'd have thought his mom was almost impressed.

“Most of the guys who come in are gentlemen. Sort of lonely. Part of the job is going out between sets and visiting them. Most of them are just happy to have us there, talking to them. I feel sort of bad for them.”

Man, she was playing this as the stripper-with-a-heart, not the heartless stripper.

Nate glanced at his mom. She'd always been a soft touch, and one look at her face told him that she'd fallen for Shannon's—aka Roxy's—story.

“Dear, I never thought of it that way. Why else would a man go to someplace like that? Of course he goes because he's lonely.”

Nate could swear he heard his mother sniff.

Shannon had his mother believing that not only
was she a stripper, but that she was a stripper with a heart of gold, dancing to help a bunch of lonely, sweet gentlemen.

“Not all the guys go there because they're lonely, Mom,” he felt obliged to point out.

“Of course that's why they go,” his mother said.

“The poor men just don't know how to interact with women,” Shannon, the armchair psychiatrist, said.

“Well, maybe we should start some sort of support group. Men who visit strippers—”

“Exotic dancers,” Shannon corrected.

“Exotic dancers,” his mother agreed. “We could see if we could find a therapist, and you could take brochures to work and hand them out to the men. We could teach them how to deal with women in the real world. How to meet nice girls.”

“Hey, we're nice girls,” Shannon said.

“Why, of course you are, dear. But you're already dating Nathan, and the one girl's in grad school—between that and work, she doesn't have time for a relationship—and the other one has young children and a nasty ex. The gentlemen at the club have problems. We need to introduce your friends to men who don't have too much emotional baggage of their own—someone who can help them deal with theirs. We can—”

“Mom, you'll put the club out of business if you reform all its customers and save all its dancers,”
Nate said. He gave Shannon a little kick under the table.

“Nate's got a point,” she said. “My boss is a nice guy and runs a clean club, but I don't think he's nice enough to let us lose all his business for him. I'm sure he wouldn't allow me to pass out brochures.”

“I guess you're right,” his mom said with a sigh. “But I think I'll talk to some people in town about setting up a support group, anyway. We won't target just your club, that should work, shouldn't it?”

“I—”

“Honey,” Nate's dad said, “I think you're putting Shannon on the spot. This is her first dinner with us, after all. There'll be more.”

“You're right, Paul. Shannon, we'll talk about this later, next time you come. Right now, let's talk about dessert. I made Nate's favorite, key lime pie.”

Nate forced himself to smile as his mother looked at him expectantly. “Great.”

Great. Just great.

His mother had implied she expected to see Shannon at dinner again, which meant she liked her.

His mother liked Shannon in spite of the fact she thought she was Roxy, the exotic dancer.

And, in addition, they were having his
favorite,
key lime pie, for dessert.

Nate hated key lime pie.

 

“…Y
ES
, M
OTHER
.” Shannon sighed heavily, on purpose, so that the sound would carry over the telephone wires.

“I heard that, young lady.”

“Heard what?” Shannon asked, though she knew the answer. It was better to play this out. After all, her mother had to believe she was reluctant to bring Nate over to the house.

“That sigh,” her mom said, right on cue. “Is it so much to ask that I meet this man? You said last week you'd talk to him about stopping in.”

“Talk to him. I didn't say we'd stop in for sure. If you just wanted to meet him that would be one thing, but you want a wedding and you're assessing his ability to play the groom—that's another thing entirely.”

“Now, Shannon, you know that I only want what's best for you and—”

“Have you talked to Kate this week?” she asked.

If she was really trying to get out of bringing a man to meet her mother, she'd try to sidetrack her.

“You're changing the subject,” Brigit accused.

Shannon was glad her mother couldn't see her broad smile. It was useful to know someone so well, especially when trying to put one over on them.

“No, no I'm not,” she denied. “I just wondered if you'd talked to her.”

“No.” Her mother's voice was laced with sus
picion. “I was going to call her after I talked to you.”

Shannon smiled. Her strategy was to keep her mother off balance and she had a bombshell all ready to drop and topple her. She fired. “It seems Cara's in Texas.”

“Cara's in Texas?”

“Yes.”

“Now, why do you suppose she's down there? Are you saying you think it's something to do with her mother? That Cecilia sent her down there? Maybe she thinks Cara will have luck finding a cowboy. Goodness knows the girl wasn't finding a man here in Erie.”

“If Mrs. Romano is taking this bet as seriously as you are, I wouldn't be surprised if they're up to something.”

Shannon didn't add that she didn't think Cara would be any more happy about this bet than she was.

“After all,” she continued, “if they tried something in Erie, you'd certainly find out. But Texas…that's a big state. Who knows what the two of them have cooked up.”

“Well, I suppose I'd better call Mary Kathryn—”

“Kate,” Shannon corrected her mother.

“Kate,” her mother said with a sigh. “I'll call her and see if she knows just what's going on.”