Her Minnesota Man (A Christian Romance Novel) (21 page)

"Exactly." Laney's reply was punctuated by a rubbery squeal as the Buick peeled out of the parking lot.

Jeb's mouth worked, but shock appeared to have paralyzed his vocal chords.

"Don't worry." Laney picked up the soiled tablecloth and walked past him. "I told them to back off."

"
Laney.
" He caught her arm like a shipwreck victim grabbing for something to keep himself afloat. "You're talking about the women who turned me into a pink rabbit!"

She pressed her lips together a second too late; the guffaw that slipped past them earned her an indignant look from Jeb. But how could she help laughing when she recalled how the Graces had stuffed seventeen-year-old Jeb with his favorite strawberry-rhubarb pie before requesting a "small favor"? Only after securing his promise had they revealed that they needed a tall person to wear the fuzzy pink rabbit costume they'd rented for an Easter party at a local nursing home.

The worst of it was that a full-page photograph of Jackson Bell, Easter Bunny—with a smiling elderly woman hanging on each of his long, pink arms—had somehow found its way into the high-school yearbook.

"I'm sorry," Laney managed through quivering lips.

"Yes, I can see that," he said dryly. "Now stop laughing and promise you'll save me from the Graces."

"Like I said, I already took care of it." Which was why she felt free to laugh at him now. He was just so cute: six feet and five inches of terrified male trembling at the prospect of three little old ladies foisting a fiancée on him.

"Although I can't help wondering who they had in mind," she added.

Jeb shuddered like someone who'd just had a snowball pushed under his collar. "Forget it."

Laney gave him a break and changed the subject. "Are you going fishing today?"

"Yeah. If you're okay here, I'll go toss another bag of minnows into Clear Lake."

"Try attaching them to hooks and lines before you toss them," Laney said archly. "I'd love some walleye fillets for supper."

He smiled. "I think I can promise you some, as long as you're not picky about whether I get them directly from the lake or buy them at a store." His smile faded as he caught one of her curls and twined it around his finger. "Come with me," he urged in his deepest, smokiest voice.

Gazing up at him, Laney tried to swallow and found her mouth had gone dry. When had Jeb's lean face, always dearly familiar, become so attractive? And why was that raspy voice of his suddenly so beguiling? It made her feel odd and shivery, and she had a wild desire to lay her palm against his unshaven jaw and—

"I can't," she said, averting her face to hide her sudden confusion. "I'm expecting Sarah Jane Swenson any minute, and I have a dozen other things to do here today."

He gave her curl a light tug and let it go. "See you later, then."

Just a few minutes after he left, Sarah Jane arrived to pick up the four dozen lemon tartlets and an equal number of chocolate-dipped gingersnap cookies Laney had made for a fundraising dinner Sarah Jane's mother was giving.

"I owe you one." Immaculately attired in black dress pants and a burgundy silk jacket and dripping with gold jewelry, Sarah Jane watched Laney slide the single-serving tarts into sturdy white bakery boxes. "You really should let me pay you, though." Pushing back her lush fall of chestnut hair, she smiled her cheerleader smile.

"No, I'm happy to do this," Laney said. "Children's charities have always been dear to my heart."

That was certainly true, but it wasn't the only reason she'd volunteered to provide desserts for this dinner. She'd hoped that the people who sampled her baked goods would like them enough to visit the Three Graces Tearoom for more.

Only there was no longer any point in drumming up new business for the tearoom, was there?

"Are you okay?" Sarah Jane asked. "You look like you're about to cry."

Laney started to protest that she was perfectly fine, but Sarah Jane's coffee-brown eyes were glowing with friendly concern, and Laney had never been much of an actress, anyway.

"I'm a mess," she admitted on a sigh.

"If you need a listening ear, I could spare half an hour," Sarah Jane said.

Laney hesitated. It was a kind offer, but her current troubles weren't ones she could discuss with Sarah Jane. Still, half an hour of pleasant conversation with another woman might do wonders for her mood.

"I could do with some girl talk," she admitted.

"Good." Sarah Jane gracefully shrugged out of her silk jacket. "Why don't you make us a pot of tea?"

Laney had already consumed enough tea to float Jeb's canoe, but she put a kettle on to boil.

A short while later, sitting across a table from Sarah Jane and sipping tea for politeness' sake, she took a third piece of buttery shortbread so Sarah Jane wouldn't feel like a pig for having eaten two. She was well aware that she carried a few extra pounds on her hips; she attributed every one of them to her "Minnesota Nice" upbringing.

"I hear Jackson's in town," Sarah Jane said as she stirred milk into her second cup of tea.

"Yes. He just finished a concert tour, and he wanted some peace and quiet."

The band's heading back to L.A., but I need to come home.

When was he planning to tell her what was going on? Something was happening with the band; that much was obvious from his reaction to the phone call from his manager. But she had a feeling there was more.

"He'll find plenty of peace and quiet in pokey old Owatonna," Sarah Jane said with rueful humor.

Laney nudged the cookie plate toward her. "Try the gingersnaps," she said absently.

"We've never really talked much, have we, Laney? I wonder why." Selecting a cookie, Sarah Jane grinned suddenly. "You wouldn't believe how I envied you back in high school."

Laney had just raised her teacup to her lips; she set it down so abruptly it was a wonder her saucer didn't crack.

"You envied
me
?" she squeaked. "Sarah Jane, you were the most beautiful and popular girl in school. You were even a model student. I wanted to hate you, but you just kept on being nice to me. Do you have any idea how annoying that was?"

Sarah Jane dismissed the question with a tinkly laugh and a wave of one beautifully manicured hand. "Aren't teenagers awful?"

"
I
was," Laney said. "But you were disgustingly perfect."

"I had my faults, Laney, believe me. And I did envy you."

"Why?"

"Because I had a huge crush on Jackson."

Laney still didn't understand. "I was never his girlfriend, Sarah Jane."

"Maybe not, but he treated you like a princess. He even called you that, didn't he?"

"Still does." Laney shrugged. "It's because the first time we met, I was wearing a princess costume, complete with a sparkly tiara." She smiled, savoring the memory. "He was eleven. He said I looked dumb."

"Well,
eleven
. At that age, they're still putting frogs down your back to show how much they like you. But Jackson was plenty attractive in high school. That high-voltage stare and that thrilling voice." Sarah Jane shuddered delicately. "Oh, I envied you, all right. Because 'just friends' or not, that intriguing bad boy would have done anything in the world for you."

Yes, he would have. That was his maddening gratitude. Believing himself unworthy of her friendship, Jeb had never stopped trying to compensate her for it. Sometimes he'd seemed almost desperate to make her happy, as if he feared she might abandon him just as his mother had.

Things sure had changed since those days, she reflected bitterly. Now Jeb
wanted
her to abandon him. But he knew she wouldn't do that, so he meant to find a nice man to distract her while he quietly slipped out of her life.

Oh, she could just strangle him!

"I know he went out with other girls," Sarah Jane went on. "He even asked
me
out once. I said no because I knew he wanted only one thing from those other girls, and after he got it he always ran straight back to your side."

Profoundly embarrassed, Laney shifted on her chair and cleared her throat meaningfully.

"Sorry." Sarah Jane waved that elegant hand again. "Too much information, right? But why was he was so relaxed with you and so edgy with everyone else? I swear, every time I saw you sitting with him at lunch I thought of that fable about the child who pulled the thorn out of the lion's paw."

But Laney had never succeeded in pulling the thorn from Jeb's paw. She'd been trying for years to ease his suffering, to convince him that his parents had rejected him because of deficiencies in themselves, not in him. But he persisted in believing he was unworthy of anyone's love or respect.

The blockhead. If only she could hug him hard enough to squeeze all of that stupidity out of him.

"Laney?"

Her gaze, which had drifted to the windows, jerked guiltily back to Sarah Jane. "Hmm?"

"Tell the truth." Speculation gleamed in Sarah Jane's brown eyes as she leaned forward, inviting a confidence. "Haven't you ever wondered if there could be something more exciting than friendship between the two of you?"

Laney felt a hot flush spread across her cheeks. "I've wondered about it," she confessed. "Just lately."

For an instant she panicked and wished she could unsay the words and even
unthink
them. When had she turned into one of those women who sighed over Jeb's masculine appeal?

That night at Willie's, he'd looked at her in a way that had made her heart beat faster. And just now when he'd left her to go fishing, she'd felt the same breathless wonder.

What was happening here?

"My, my. Look at her eyes go all dreamy." Sarah Jane's tone was softly mocking, but there was no meanness in it. "So you've gone and fallen in love with him."

"No," Laney protested, but then honesty compelled her to amend that answer. "I mean, I've loved him since I was nine years old." She struggled to shape her thoughts into words. "But
lately
something has felt different. Sometimes when I look at him
 
.
 
.
 
." She faltered. How could she express her feelings when she wasn't even sure what they were?

Sarah Jane dabbed gracefully at her mouth with her napkin. "You're having romantic thoughts about him."

Laney nodded slowly.

"And you're wondering if it's the same for him."

Recalling the way Jeb had looked at her that evening at Willie's, Laney nodded harder.

"But you don't know how to find out."

"Exactly." Relief shuddered through Laney. If Sarah Jane understood all of that, surely she'd have some good advice to impart. "So what should I do?"

"It's very simple," Sarah Jane said. "Just kiss him."

"Kiss
Jeb
?" She couldn't possibly kiss Jeb. Not on the mouth. Not the way she had kissed the three men she'd talked herself into falling in love with.

Sarah Jane loosed another peal of her bubbly laughter. "If the thought of kissing him repulses you, Laney, why are we having this conversation?"

"It doesn't repulse me. It just
 
worries me. What if he doesn't like it?"

"He's a man," Sarah Jane said dryly. "He'll like it."

"All right." Laney nodded again. She'd do it. If Jeb didn't like it, she'd find some way to laugh it off.

"Well, then." Sarah Jane lifted her teacup and swung it toward Laney in a toast. "Good luck!"

"Wait!" Laney said, panicking. "I don't know how to do it!"

Sarah Jane's perfect eyebrows rose halfway to her hairline. "You've never kissed a man?"

"Of course I have. But Jeb's a foot taller than me. What am I supposed to do, order him to stand still while I drag a stepladder in front of him?"

"You're right," Sarah Jane said decisively. "You need a plan."

A plan. Yes. She definitely needed one of those.

"Make sure he's sitting down," Sarah Jane said. "And then when the moment's right, just walk over to him and swoop in for your kiss."

Laney stared into her teacup and tried to picture herself doing that.

"Now let's think of a romantic set-up." Sarah Jane tapped her bottom lip with a slim finger. "Maybe a candlelight dinner."

No. Jeb never balked at taking Laney to elegant restaurants, but he'd didn't love the soft music and candlelight the way she did. She tried to think of something he would enjoy.

She could ask him to take her fishing, she supposed, but he'd be at one end of the canoe and she'd be at the other, and flinging herself at him in hopes of achieving lip-lock could tumble them both into a freezing lake.

"I'll give it some thought," she said.

"All right, but be bold," Sarah Jane advised. "Subtlety is wasted on men."

Bold. Okay. Somehow she'd grab Jeb and kiss him until he stopped being shocked and started wondering why they'd never thought of kissing before. And then together they might discover that what they'd felt for each other all these years had evolved into—