Missed Connections: Stepping Out (3 page)

Her clothing was a one-eighty as well. Jeans that fit her without being too tight molded to her fine ass and long legs. Her U of O sweatshirt supported the team while hinting at the curves he’d been unable to look away from last night.

And the woman wore glasses. Red frames with purple handles that she’d pushed up on top of her head while she pinched the bridge of her nose. Glasses had always been his kryptonite with women. Nothing hotter than an intelligent sex kitten. Not that Gwen fit that bill, on the inside at least.

“God couldn’t be this cruel on a Friday,” she groaned.

He snorted. “Apparently, he can. I mean, what are the odds I’m stuck with a two-timing little witch who’s not only a cock-tease, but who also stuck me with an astronomically high bill last night?”

Her bright grin should have pissed him off, but instead she intrigued him.
This
Gwen he wanted to get to know. To get more ammunition for his sister, he hastily reminded himself.

The wattage on her mean smile increased. “I hope it hurt—bad. Three, four hundred dollars?”

“Two-fifty,” he muttered.

“Good. You cheating louse.”

“Ha. I’m not a cheater. You are.”

“Oh?” She planted her hands on her hips. “
My
fiancée isn’t pregnant. In fact, I’m not engaged, dating, or married. But you are.”

“Actually, I’m not.” He dropped that bomb with pleasure. “My sister is pregnant and engaged to the horse’s ass you were supposed to meet last night. Maybe if you weren’t so loose with your time—and other parts of you”—he added with a leer down her front—“you’d know that.”

She blinked. “Wait. What?”

“Yeah, that’s right, princess. Aaron Scott, my unfortunate sister’s fiancé, is the loser who was supposed to meet you for dinner and tricks afterward. I went in his place to save my sister the heartache.” He sneered at her, wishing she was uglier the day after and not more attractive.

“No way. That’s why I—”

Karen, the
Bend Voice
’s editor in chief, interrupted. “Hey, you two good to go?”

“Yes,” he said at the same time Gwen answered, “No.”

Karen apparently heard what she wanted. “Great. I’ll e-mail you a test question. Have your responses to me by Monday. Then we’ll talk about how you want to play this for the camera.” She turned and addressed Conlan. “I’m overseeing this. I talked it over with Ted, and he agreed.”

Ted was Conlan’s boss. If Ted had okayed Karen, Conlan had no problem accepting her input.

He nodded. “Fine by me. I’ll do my part. See if you can get your society princess to do hers.” Then he left before he said or did anything else he shouldn’t. Like spank the cheating little liar until she moaned in pleasure.

GWEN WATCHED HIM go in confusion. Conlan
wasn’t
the pregnant chick’s fiancé, but her brother? Mia should have been meeting Aaron Scott? She turned to Karen. “Exactly who the hell
is
he?”

Karen sighed. “Got off to a great start, eh? That, my dear, was Conlan Dawson, a brilliant writer at the
Insider
and an author in his own right as well. His last book sold for a high six figures in a bidding war, or so a little bird told me.”

Gwen frowned. “And his girlfriend? Lisa?”

Karen wiggled her brows. “Interested?”

“No. Yes. I mean, kind of, but not to date him. I heard he was cheating on her and thought I’d do a spread on infidelity and how to cope.” Something she knew like the back of her hand.

“Hmm. Nope. From what I know, he’s happily single. A real catch on the social scene, or so the
Insider
likes to tease. But, hell, look him up. I think we did an article on him last year for the Bend Bachelor Auction. Betty covered it.”

Karen left, and Gwen found Betty stressing about a deadline at her desk. Just a few years younger than Gwen, Betty never seemed to sit still and looked like she’d barely graduated college.

“Yo, Bets, tell me about Conlan Dawson,” she demanded, getting right to the point. Betty was all work and no play. Something Gwen could appreciate.

“Hey, Gwen. Right. Conlan Dawson.” She typed madly at her computer. “I just sent you a link I did to last year’s piece. His bio is pretty tight. Mine, of course.”

“Thanks, Bets.”

“Now I’m on deadline, so if you could—”

“Leave. Gotcha. Thanks again.”

Gwen jumped on an abandoned computer and read up on the man of the hour. Conlan Dawson. He was thirty-one, just three years her senior. He had to-die-for dark brown eyes, a healthy build—
did he
—no woman on the horizon, and hoped to be an uncle soon, since his sister had recently gotten herself engaged.

Shit.

The sick feeling brewing in her belly deepened as she continued to read. His mother had passed away five years ago, leaving him with Lisa—said sister—and his father, Bruce. They’d been in Bend for the past thirty-five years, and his father owned a popular ski shop in town. As Karen had stated, Conlan was a best-selling author and wrote a popular advice column for the daily paper. Hell, she used to read it just to see what “Con” had to say. Despite being a man, he’d had some valid points.

“The jerk was telling the truth.” She didn’t know how to feel about that.

An alarm on her phone reminded her to get home to join Mia and her boyfriend, Trent, for dinner.

On the way home, she tried to stop thinking about Conlan—an impossible feat. Because now that she knew he wasn’t the bad guy in her watered-down drama, she kept remembering how good he’d smelled. How he’d felt beneath her when she’d kissed him in the bathroom.

How big he’d been between his legs… Oh boy. Not a great time for her libido to wake up. For five long months, she’d been in denial that she’d ever date again. Now she wanted to sex up a man who couldn’t stand her. For good reason, but still. Just because he wasn’t an obvious cheater didn’t mean he didn’t have bad qualities.

“He can’t forgive.” She tallied up other less than stellar attributes about the man, trying to turn him into someone she shouldn’t want. “He’s too superficial, more into a woman’s breast size than who she is inside.” He had been fascinated with her chest over dinner. “He’s sneaky. Instead of confronting me about possibly having an affair with his sister’s fiancé, he tricked me into dinner.” She ignored the fact she’d done the exact same thing.

Yet the more she thought about him, the more miserable she felt. She had to work with the guy, and she couldn’t stand the thought he assumed she would have slept with Aaron Scott—the father of his sister’s unborn child. Just thinking about it made her feel skeevy.

She parked her car. Upon exiting she found Mia waiting for her by the door.

“Oh my God. You aren’t going to believe this.” Mia chattered excitedly as she pulled Gwen inside. “So I was telling Trent about your revenge date.”

“I don’t know that I’d call it revenge. And why the heck are you telling Trent?”

“I heard that,” Mia’s boyfriend said from the kitchen.

“Come on. I tell Trent everything.” At the frown Gwen shot her, Mia amended, “Almost everything. It’s not as if you told me not to tell him.”

“Fine. So what’s this big news?”

“Come on. I’ll let Trent tell you.”

Mia’s wide grin warned Gwen she wasn’t going to like it—whatever
it
was. After today’s big surprise, she could do without more bad news.

Trent brought a steaming pot of something mouthwateringly appetizing to the table.

“Oh man. Is that your clam chowder?” Gwen asked as she quickly washed her hands, then sat down at the kitchen table.

“It is.” Trent grinned. He owned a successful soup and sandwich shop on the west side, and Gwen lived for the days he brought dinner. For that alone, she’d forgive Mia’s blabbing.

“My favorite.”

“I know.”

Trent ladled them all soup, then sat with them and stared at Gwen, his shit-eating grin annoying her to no end. “Ack. Just tell me already. What do you know that I don’t?”

“Sorry for staring,” Trent apologized while Mia tried to hide her smile. “I’m just trying to put Conlan’s description of his hooker date over your face.”

“
Hooker
?”

Mia broke into gales of laughter.

“Will kiss for food?” Trent teased. “Couldn’t resist. Get this, Gwen. We live in a very small world. Conlan Dawson happens to be a good friend of mine. He stopped in for lunch today and went off, telling me all about this woman who tried to sleep with his sister’s fiancé. Then I get home, and Mia starts telling me about your date and some creep you met at Donton’s. Not that I’m a math major, but I put two and two together.”

His scrutiny started to bother her, even as she wolfed down his amazing soup. “What?”

“I just don’t see ‘hooker’ all over you. Or home wrecker. Or cheap-ass bitch.”

“I hate guys who use the
b
word,” she muttered, flushing.

“Or trollop,” he continued in good humor. “Loser. Skank. Cheating who—”

“I get it. Enough already.”

Mia snickered. “You have to admit, this makes for one hell of a blog post. We’ll call it ‘A Case of Mistaken Identity: Call Girls Part One.’”

“Shut it.”

Mia and Trent shared more laughter, and even Gwen had to see the humor in the situation.

“How was I supposed to know he wasn’t the fiancé? And you.” She turned to Trent. “I can’t believe you’re okay with my date. After all, this Aaron guy was hitting on Mia, not me.”

Trent’s smile faded, and he turned to Mia. “Is that right?”

She blushed. “Come on. I told you what happened at Sam’s.”

“Apparently I missed the part about some jackass
flirting
with you.”

“Then you must not have been listening when I told you about the loser at the buffet table.” Mia started to sound angry, and Gwen knew a throwback to an earlier argument was coming. Mia had a problem with what she called Trent’s “lack of focus on her issues.”

In other words, he was a typical guy who heard maybe fifty percent of what Mia rattled on about on a daily basis. God love her, Mia liked to
talk.

“Before you two get started,” Gwen interrupted. “Trent, give me the lowdown on Dawson. He seems like a jerk.”

“He’s not. Conlan’s a good guy. Truly. You have to feel for him. His sister’s boyfriend is a complete dick. I’ve met Aaron.” He spared a glare at Mia. “And I can’t stand him. Even worse, he’s the father of her kid. So any way you look at it, she’s stuck with him for life.”

Mia shook her head. “Not necessarily. A lot of guys will bail if they don’t have to pay support. She could draft up some kind of contract to get rid of him.”

Gwen nodded. “Good point. If his character rings true, he’ll take a deal like that.”

“I never would.” Trent shook his head. “Especially if it were mine and Mia’s baby.”

Mia’s eyes grew wide. “Oh. Wow.”

Trent smirked. “Getting scared?”

“Of commitment? No. A baby? You bet your ass.”

Gwen laughed. “And you say I have issues.”

Trent and Mia answered together, “You do.”

“No, guys. Tell me how you really feel.”

Mia slurped more soup before saying, “Well, this whole situation happened because you wanted to teach the ass-hat a lesson.”

“One well deserved,” Trent muttered.

“True,” Mia agreed. “But still. Lying to Conlan, then him lying to you, it’s kind of ironic.”

“Not to mention it makes for awkward work at the
Bend Voice
,” Gwen said.

“Oh?” Trent stared from Gwen to Mia.

When Gwen explained her new work situation, Trent started laughing all over again. “This is too funny to be anything but real. God. You and Conlan working together on its own is a recipe for disaster. You two are the most controlling people I know.”

“Amen,” Mia said.

“Then to think you hate each other because you both thought the other was a cheater… Actually, it kind of fits. Your ex stepped out on you, and Conlan’s did the same to him.”

Mia blinked. “Wow. It’s like you two are fated to get together. That’s if you don’t kill each other first.”

Gwen felt even worse about perpetrating her scheme, hearing how Conlan had similarly suffered from a broken heart. “You’re not making me feel any better.”

“Really? Eat more soup.” Trent nodded to her nearly empty bowl. “I brought plenty.”

“If only soup could cure my hate-hate relationship with Conlan.” She sighed and spooned more of the good stuff.

Mia pointed at her. “Buck up, little buckaroo. Ten’ll get you twenty once you start working together, he’ll fall for your charm and massively amazing writing talent. Before you know it, you’ll be best friends. Heck, maybe he’s already starting to mellow.”

“You never know,” Trent said. “Conlan’s a laid-back guy, not the type to hold a grudge.”

Which made her feel a lot better. Gwen planned to apologize the next time they spoke, most likely tomorrow, when they talked about the upcoming TV show.

Pleased about their possible détente, she scrolled through her e-mails and read one Karen cc’d her on, an introduction to Conlan’s work. She read his recent advice column and saw red. His advice to the lovelorn didn’t show him as an easygoing guy at all. The patronizing diatribe came from a man trying to make a point about loose women with little care for marriage and commitment. But that last line he’d aimed at her:
And to all you men out there, a word of advice. Never trust a female wearing a rose-print dress.

Chapter Three

Dear TAO (Taken Advantage Of),

Your feelings of belittlement and tale of betrayal remind me of an unfortunate date I recently experienced. I took a woman out to dinner. She wore a pretty rose-print dress, and though she’d overdone the eyeliner something fierce and had teased her hair God knew for how long, I appreciated that she’d taken the time to dress for me.

Then she not only hit on me, thinking I was engaged to a pregnant woman, she stiffed me with a nearly three-hundred-dollar dinner bill.

What can you do when life—or a woman with loose morals—hands you lemons? You make lemonade by warning others how to avoid female predators.

Those alley cats strutting their stuff are firmly in the wrong. Here’s how you can avoid falling into the trap I wandered into. Be wary, be safe, and be cautious, my friend.