Dear Cupid (6 page)

Kate tried to ignore him as he turned his back to dig in a drawer for a spoon. He had a very nice back, with smooth, golden skin over well-honed muscles. The man must do nothing but work out at the gym and lie around the swimming pool all day to get a body like that.

“Hang on. I’ve got some notes downstairs.” He turned to her and whispered, “I’ll be right back,” then spoke once more into the phone. “Who did you say was doing makeup on this one?”

She scowled as Mike took his cereal and left the room, talking about fireballs, peeling skin, and soot-covered robots.

“Now why is it,” Jim said in his slow, West Texas drawl, “I get the feeling this Mike fella ain’t exactly thrilled with this here remodeling project?”

“Don’t be silly.” Kate waved a hand through the air. “He’s dying to have his house remodeled. Why else do you think he hired me?” She tried not to fidget while Jim studied her. Hopefully her knack for decorating would weigh in her favor.

“I don’t know ...”  he mumbled, shaking his head.

“Trust me, Jim, everything will be fine.” Although maybe she should make Mike pay for the remodeling up front, just in case the second half of her plan—the actual matchmaking part—didn’t go too well. When Jim continued to look doubtful, she searched for a way to reassure him. “Do you remember when you and Linda were dating and you asked for advice?”

“Yeah.” Color crept up Jim’s neck even as he smiled.

“When I told you to stop being so polite and just toss Linda over your shoulder and carry her off to bed, you trusted me enough to do it, right?”

“Scariest damned thing I ever did.”

“But it worked, didn’t it?”

“Yeah.” His neck got redder. “Of course, you knew all along that’s what Linda wanted me to do.”

“Not exactly,” she admitted. Her suggestion had been an educated guess, but then what woman wouldn’t want some big, sweet guy like Jim to toss her over his brawny shoulder and play a little caveman? “I’m just good at guessing what attracts people to each other. Which is why I’ve made a career of advising people in such matters. This situation is no different, except that Mike came to me in person for advice on how to catch a wife.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jim looked intrigued. “Smart guy.”

 “Maybe.”

“One thing, though.” Jim’s frown returned. “How will remodeling a kitchen help him catch a wife?”

“It just will,” she said with more conviction than she felt. Truth was, she’d come up with the remodeling project as a form of poetic justice for Mike threatening Linda’s business, since paying Jim would indirectly pay Linda as well. Although having a fabulous, newly remodeled and redecorated house certainly wouldn’t hurt his marriage potential.

“It’s not that I doubt you when it comes to giving advice on dating,” Jim said. “I just don’t get how the two things relate.”

“Jim, I’m telling you, this situation between me and Mike is no different than when you and Linda were dating.”

He studied her a moment before his face lit up. “Oh,” he said, glancing toward the stairs and back again. “You mean, you and he ... Oh.”

“No!” She held up a hand at the conclusion Jim had drawn. “I didn’t mean that at all. I meant, you just have to trust me.”

“Uh-huh.” He grinned. “I get it. And here Linda didn’t even tell me you were dating. ‘Bout time too.”

“I’m not dating him,” she said in desperation. “I’m not.”

“Are you saying Linda doesn’t know?”

“I’m saying there’s nothing to know.”

He winked at her. “Don’t worry, I can keep a secret. If you don’t want Linda to know yet, she won’t hear it from me.” Turning, he gestured toward the wall. “So, how much of this thing do you want me to take out?”

Kate opened her mouth to make further denials but closed it in defeat. Once Jim got an idea in his bull head, she knew arguing was futile.

So, instead, she turned her attention to the remodeling project. For a spur-of-the-moment idea, opening up the kitchen had definite merit, she decided as Jim gathered enough measurements to work up a bid.

“So,” she asked a few moments later, “how long do you think a project like this will take?”

“Shoot, once I get a crew over here, we can knock this puppy out in six or seven days.”

“Good.” She nodded, silently praying he meant six or seven
consecutive
days, not one day a week for six or seven weeks, like he’d taken to repair the back deck of the cabin.

“Well, that ought to do it,” Jim said, putting away his tape measure and notepad. They both looked around for signs of Mike.

“You go on,” Kate said. “I know you have a crew working over by the golf course. I’ll stay and wrap things up here.”

“Uh-huh.” Jim’s grin held a wealth of sexual innuendo. “I can take a hint. Just one thing,” he added as she walked him to the front door.

“What?” she asked warily.

He glanced toward the stairs and lowered his voice. “Go easy on him, Kate. I mean, this dating stuff is hard enough on a guy without you women pouring on the torture.”

“Jim,” she said with supreme patience, “I am not dating this man.”

“Right.” With a chuckle, he ambled off.

“Arrgh!”
she growled in frustration and all but slammed the door.

Pacing the living room, she waited for Mike to come upstairs so she could go over the rest of her plans. At the opposite end of the house from the kitchen, she caught a glimpse of the master suite. The spacious bedroom offered a stunning view of the lake, and had its own access to the deck and pool below. The furniture, however, left much to be desired. A king-sized water bed, chest of drawers, and single chair were all she saw in her one brief glance. A vision of Mike lying naked in the middle of the water bed sprang a little too easily to mind, so she turned away and resumed her pacing.

Ten minutes passed.
He does plan to co
me back upstairs, doesn
’
t he?
She paced for another five minutes, feeling more dejected by the moment. After all, she knew she wasn’t as attractive and exciting as she once had been, but was she this completely forgettable?
Maybe I should go looking for hi
m.

Not at all comfortable snooping through his house, she headed gingerly down the stairs. Before she reached the bottom, she caught the clicking sound of a computer keyboard. It was a familiar, comforting sound—one that often kept her company during the long hours of the night when she worked on her column or answered the endless flood of e-mail she received. She smiled, wondering what Mike would think if he ever found out he’d hired Cupid to help him find a wife—not that she planned to tell him. Her rocky job situation was none of his business.

On the bottom floor, she discovered a hall leading to two bedrooms. One was empty, but the other held a jumble of weight-lifting equipment. Closer to the stairs was a large, open room. The wall of glass revealed the back patio with its glistening swimming pool, barbecue grill, and neglected flower pots. But the room itself was what drew her attention. It was the only room in the house that didn’t look Spartan. In fact, it looked very lived-in, like a big boy’s dream room. Mobiles of spaceships dangled from the ceiling, while posters from
Star Wars, Back to the Future, and Jurassic Park
covered the walls. Built-in shelves held an array of detailed models, awards, and books on animation.

She stared about her, remembering the conversation she’d just overheard. All of her assumptions about Mike being a lazy but rich beach bum slowly vanished as she realized he was in fact a special effects artist. A special effects artist who obviously loved what he did enough to ignore the rest of his house, and probably his life.

The clicking of keys started again, making her turn. She found Mike hunched over a computer keyboard. Not that she could see the keyboard for all the papers and books, videotapes, and computer disks piled on the desk and spilling onto the floor. To his side sat a drafting table with pencil drawings scattered across its surface. More drawings hung from thumbtacks in the wall, creating a cartoon storyboard. Oblivious to the clutter, Mike stared at the glowing screen as if in a trance.

Kate’s temper, always quick to spark, ignited. “What are you doing?”

Mike jumped so hard he knocked his cereal bowl off the desk. The remnants of Fruit Loops and milk spilled over a stack of notes. Cursing, he grabbed a T-shirt from the back of his chair to sop up the pastel-colored milk. “
Jeez,
you could warn a guy when you come into a room.”

“Well, excuse me,” she tossed back sarcastically.

“Oh, man.” Mike lifted the once-white T-shirt, which he’d won from his favorite radio station for knowing the answer to the morning movie trivia, and stared at it in disgust. And people wondered why he wore so many Hawaiian shirts. At least with them, stains didn’t show. Even if he accidentally washed one with something red, who could tell? “I loved this shirt,” he moaned.

“Do you realize I’ve been waiting for you upstairs for half an hour?”

Confused by the whip crack in her voice, he glanced at the clock readout on his computer screen and wanted to kick himself. “Oh, Kate, I’m sorry. Really. I meant to come right back upstairs, but I needed to get this one email off and—”

“S-sorry!” she stuttered, as if trying to come up with something scathing to say. As words failed her, color flooded her cheeks and fire sparked in her eyes.

“I guess I got sidetracked,” he offered with a sheepish grin.

Her eyes narrowed. “Has it occurred to you that
this
”—she flung a hand toward the room at large—“might be the reason you aren’t married?”

The comment confused him enough that he glanced about the room, trying to see it through her eyes. Most of it looked fine to him, except for the work area, which was admittedly its usual mess. “You mean because I’m a slob?”

“No! Because you’re already married—to your work!”

“Oh, that.” He breathed a sigh of relief that she hadn’t said anything about remodeling his workroom. There were, after all, certain lines a man simply could not be expected to cross. And a workroom was sacred ground.

“If you’re serious about wanting to get married,” she said, “the first thing you have to learn is that some sacrifices have to be made. When a husband continually puts his career first, how can he expect his marriage to last? Nothing can survive that kind of neglect.
Nothing!
”

“I realize that,” he ventured cautiously, worrying for one terrifying moment if she were about to cry for some bizarre reason. She remained dry-eyed. “But, has it occurred to you that working hard is one of the ways a man shows his family he loves them?”

“God, I hate that excuse!” She balled her fists. “And that’s all it is. When a man works eighty hours a week, it doesn’t make his wife feel loved. It makes her feel ignored. And you!” She jabbed a finger toward him. “Are the worst. You’re not even married yet, and you’re already putting your work before your wife. Or did you think I could do this on my own? Just go out and hit some poor, unsuspecting woman over the head, drag her back here, and install her in your bedroom and kitchen while you stayed down here happily playing with your computer?”

“Whoa. Wait a second.” He held up his hands. “I have no intention of neglecting my wife.”

“Oh, yeah? Prove it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Prove it,” she repeated. “Right now. Turn off the computer and spend one day, one whole day, without doing any work.”

He thought of the sketches he’d just promised to email the director for the futuristic robot he’d been hired to create. A year didn’t seem long enough to pull off the project, yet he only had three months remaining before the film went into final editing. All of the groundwork had been done, the major decisions made, but the actual animation process had barely begun.

One look at Kate’s face, though, and he knew that if he said no, he’d lose any chance he had with her. His choice was that simple—pleasing Kate or getting the sketches emailed on time.

“All right,” he said slowly, telling himself that one day wouldn’t make that much difference. He could make up one day. Cringing, he hit the keys to save and close the file. Then he picked up the phone and called the director’s mobile line. “Hey, Stan, this is Mike. About those sketches—I’d like to play with them a bit more and get them to you tomorrow.”

“Is there a problem?” Stan Kelly asked, then hollered at a key grip to move a boom stage left, not stage right. In the background, Mike could hear the special blend of noise unique to a Hollywood soundstage. Hammers banged while crew members shouted and actors ran through their lines.

“No problem,” Mike said when Stan came back on the line. “I’d just like to smooth out a few rough edges.” As he spoke, he glanced at Kate and noticed her wide-eyed look of disbelief. “I’ll be sure and get them off to you first thing in the morning.”

“Fine. I’ll tell the art department to expect them tomorrow.” Before the line went dead, Stan resumed yelling at the key grip.

Mike exhaled sharply as he set down the cordless phone. The idea of taking a day off left him feeling a bit lost. He glanced at Kate. “Well, I’m yours for the day. What are you going to do with me?”