Read Her Minnesota Man (A Christian Romance Novel) Online
Authors: Brenda Coulter
Hiding her amusement at his manly exasperation, Laney paused to finger the sleeve of a wonderfully supple black leather jacket. "Well, that's good, isn't it? You'll be able to tie your shoes without bothering to bend over."
"Heartless female." When she didn't respond, he nudged her shoulder with his elbow. "Come on. Let's go have some fun."
"I'm
having
fun." She shrugged away from his touch and checked the jacket's price tag. Jeb was disgustingly rich, but Laney's practical soul balked at
needless
overspending. "Oh, good. These are on sale." She flipped through the rack to see if they had his size.
"I don't need a new jacket." He leaned one shoulder against a mirrored wall and thrust out his bottom lip like a sulky six-year-old at bath time.
Laney sighed. "Jeb, your jacket looks like it's been fought over by a pack of wild dogs."
A hovering sales associate coughed into his fist. Probably to cover up a laugh, Laney decided as the slightly built, elegantly dressed older man ran a practiced eye over Jeb's lean frame. He selected a jacket and removed it from its hanger, holding it out to Jeb.
Jeb went statue-still and his eyes narrowed ominously. When Laney pinched the back of his arm to discourage him from firing up the Death Stare, he acknowledged defeat with a heavy sigh.
"Just go ring it up," he said to the salesman.
They hauled their purchases out to the parking lot and stowed them in the SUV. Then they returned to the mall, where they rode the indoor roller coaster and piloted World War II fighters in flight simulators. For supper, they gnawed on Tony Roma's famous baby back ribs. After that, they headed up to Level 4 and the theatres. Laney won their traditional coin toss—heads for a chick flick and tails for an action-adventure film—and chose a romantic comedy.
"Stop pretending you didn't like it," she said two hours later as they exited the theatre. Prodding Jeb's side with a playful finger, she added, "I heard you laughing."
When she tried to poke him again, he arched away from her, lightning-quick, and captured her misbehaving hand.
"I might have laughed once or twice," he said, tightening his grip as Laney tried to pull free. "But that actor put me off my popcorn."
Laney ceased struggling. "Why?"
"He looks like the veterinarian," Jeb said sourly.
Laney considered that. "Maybe. But Luke's cuter."
Jeb stopped walking to glare at her. "He wouldn't be so cute if I had broken his nose like I wanted to."
Hiding a smile, Laney glanced pointedly at the large hand engulfing her own. "Squeeze harder," she said. "One of my fingers isn't quite numb yet."
His gaze shifted to their joined hands and he reacted with patent sur
prise, instantly releasing her.
"Did I hurt you?" he demanded.
She laughed and resumed walking. "You're not capable of hurting me, Jeb."
"I hope you never find out how wrong you are."
This time it was Laney who halted. "What's that supposed to mean?"
He opened his mouth, but then seemed to change his mind about tendering an explanation.
"Forget it," he said. "You know talking about the veterinarian always makes me—" He shook his head.
"Turn into an animal?" Laney suggested sweetly.
He raised his hands like claws and bared his teeth.
Laney squealed and scrambled away from him. She leaped onto a descending escalator and grinned when she heard a low-pitched growl immediately behind and above her.
She had no idea what he'd been trying to tell her a minute ago. Just because she'd known him forever didn't mean she always understood him. But even at his most inscrutable, Jeb was still a more satisfying companion than any of the men she'd considered building a future with.
Never one to stand still on an escalator, Jeb walked down a few steps. Turning suddenly, he asked, "Are we still good for tomorrow night?"
So he hadn't forgotten that. "You're serious about going to the singles' group?" Laney asked.
He frowned. "Didn't I say I'd go?"
"Yes." And he never broke his word. "But it will include a Bible study, Jeb. Are you positive that you—"
"I'm positive. It's part of our plan, remember?"
"I suppose." She still wasn't sure how she felt about his plan.
"And lightning didn't strike me yesterday morning when I walked up the church steps," he added. "So I figure it's safe to go back."
He glanced over his shoulder. They were nearing the bottom of the escalator, so he turned away from Laney to step off.
She stared at his broad back and wondered what she was arguing about. If Jeb was willing to accompany her to church and to the singles' Bible study, then they ought to go. Yesterday's service had soothed her jangled nerves; surely at some point her rebellious heart would turn back to God.
Maybe Jeb's heart would begin to soften, too.
As he drove her home in a familiar, comfortable silence, Laney mulled over the other part of his plan. At supper, he had insisted that her search for a husband
shouldn't be a stressful process. According to him, all she had to do was make friends with a few guys who shared her interests and values, and then just sit back and wait to see if one of those friendships blossomed into something more.
Sit back and wait? She didn't have time for that. Anyway, what was Jeb doing dispensing romantic advice when his guitars meant a hundred times more to him than any woman he had ever dated?
"Sit back and wait," Laney grumbled. "Hah."
Changing lanes on the freeway, Jeb spared her a glance. "Are you muttering at me?"
She turned an accusing look on him. "Sit back and
wait
, Jeb? That's your best advice?"
He frowned at the road. "What's wrong with that advice?"
Laney sighed. "Nothing at all, Jeb, if I wanted to catch a speckled trout. But I want to get married, and that means I'm going to have to
do
something."
"Like what?" he challenged.
She folded her arms and looked out her window.
"Exactly." He sounded annoyingly smug, but then his tone gentled. "Princess, don't make yourself crazy over this."
He was right; she was working herself into a frazzle. She did dumb things like that when she was tired. And she'd been tired a lot lately, thanks to the stress that was preventing her from getting any truly restorative sleep.
Jeb tuned on the radio and found her favorite station, which happened to be playing a Haydn piano sonata he'd learned in college. As his long fingers fluttered against the steering wheel in the remembered patterns, Laney shifted to a more comfortable position and closed her eyes. The next thing she knew, Jeb was tickling her ear and urging her to wake up because they were home.
She insisted on helping to carry the shopping bags into his house. She ended up at his kitchen table, alternately yawning and snipping sales tags off the new garments while he made hot cocoa.
"Where do I keep the marshmallows?" he asked as he set a fragrant mug of chocolate in front of her.
"You don't have any. But this is fine."
After taking a few cautious sips of the steaming, darkly sweet beverage, Laney reached for the scissors and another crisp new shirt to divest of tags. Jeb remained at her side, towering over her like a silent sentinel.
"Jeb, you're hovering," she said with a touch of fatigue-induced irritation.
"Just making sure you don't fall asleep and drown in your chocolate," he returned calmly. He pulled her jacket off the back of a chair and held it out for her. "Come on. I'll walk you home."
She took one last sip from
the
mug and got to her feet. "I think I can cross two driveways and a small patch of grass without assistance," she grumbled.
"Mm-hmm." He captured her groping right arm and guided it into a sleeve. She managed to insert her other arm, and then he settled the jacket onto her shoulders and turned her around.
"
I know you left your porch light on, but I still
don't like you going into a dark house alone."
As he gathered her hair to lift it free from her collar, the warm brush of his fingers against her neck shot tingles of comfort through Laney. Sighing, she closed her eyes and sagged against his chest.
"Wake up, princess."
Patient hands grasped her shoulders and eased her upright again.
"I'm awake." She spoke with conviction, even though her eyes were still closed. "And as for me going into that dark house alone, what do you think I do when you're not here?"
"I try very hard not to think about what you do when I'm not here."
The grim note in his low-pitched reply opened Laney's eyes and touched off the fuse of her resentment.
"If
it bothers you to
think of me being
alone
, that's just too bad
," she snapped. "
I don't have the energy to feel sorry for you. I'm too busy trying to come to terms with your unilateral decision to abandon everything we—"
She stopped, appalled by
her har
sh words and by the stark pain in Jeb's eyes.
What was she doing? She might be suffering from exhaustion brought on by weeks of worry-filled, sleepless nights, but that was no excuse for attacking Jeb.
She shook her head at him, her lips shaping a soundless and grossly insufficient
I'm sorry
as she backed away.
"Laney." His gravelly voice had dropped to its deepest register. "Princess. We talked about this."
And they were going to talk about it some more, but not tonight. While she regretted lashing out at him, at the moment she was too upset to discuss his ridiculous plan to help her "get settled" before disappearing from her life so she could "move on."
Best friends didn't move on. Best friends stuck together and talked things through and worked things out.
Except when they were bone-weary and frustrated half out of their minds, in which case they called it a night so they could recover their good sense before resuming the struggle to work things out.
Laney grabbed her bag and fled.
"No, wait." Jeb caught the kitchen door as she tried to close it.
She kept going. He followed her onto the porch and stopped the screen door, too. He reached for her arm, but she twisted away and broke into a run.
"Laney!"
"Not now," she
called
over her shoulder. "Not tonight."
She thought he'd fallen back
, b
ut when she
'd
reached her door and was fumbling to fit her key in the lock,
he grasped her arm and turned her around to face him.
"You said you understood!" he accused in thunderous tones. "You said you'd be okay. You said—"
"I said what you needed to hear!"
Jeb released her arm.
Laney winced as she imagined her shrill words echoing off every nearby house and tree.
"What I needed to hear,"
Jeb
repeated in a hollow voice that told her she'd pricked his masculine pride.
His chest was rising and falling as rapidly as her own, even though they had run only a few yards. T
he frigid night air turned their harsh breaths into silvery ice crystals;
in the pool of light on her porch
they faced each other like two wary, winded dragons breathing smoke.
Somewhere a dog barked. Stirred by the light breeze, a few dry, fallen leaves scraped noisily against the sidewalk. When one of Laney's corkscrew curls blew across her face, Jeb raised a hand and smoothed it back.
"I never meant to hurt you, princess."
But he had. And what was
worse, he was hurting himself.
Maybe she couldn't stop him from pushing the rest of the world away, but she wasn't about to let him shut
her
out of his life. He needed her, the impossible man, needed her to accept him and love him and discourage him from constantly waging war on himself. Why didn't he get that?
Blasting him with her own version of the Death Stare, Laney had the satisfaction of seeing him flinch. But then his chin jerked up and his expression hardened.
She wasn't surprised. Wrapping himself in a protective coat of anger had always been Jeb's way of dealing with emotions that bewildered him.
Frustrated beyond bearing, Laney just wanted to be alone. She reached for the doorknob, but Jeb captured her wrist in a firm grip.
"Here," he said roughly, pressing a velvet jeweler's box into her palm. He scowled down at her for a moment, and then he groaned and pulled her into his arms and hugged her hard.
"Don't go in there and cry
." H
is unsteady breath tickl
ed
her hair. "Promise me you won't."