Test Drive (The Bachelor #1) (8 page)

"Everyone has noticed a change in you." She crossed her arms and continued her evaluation. "Your father is really happy about that."

My automated smile dimmed as soon as the look on my father’s face at lunch the other day flashed through my mind. I had hoped he would take it serious, but I probably didn’t deserve anyone’s praise, not yet at least. We grabbed the trays and headed back to the porch where my parents seated at the table.

"Beth! It’s a pleasure to see you. Thank you for coming." The old man smiled with real happiness before turning to me. "I am glad you could make it the whole two hundred feet over here, son." His voice held more sarcasm than I’d like to hear, but I brushed it off for my mother’s sake.

"Oh Wyatt, hush up. Don’t go running him off when he is finally here," my mother scolded him.

"Dear, I was just saying that the boy could make it over more often, he just lives next door." My dad shrugged his shoulders and started serving himself with the meal.

It took everything I had not to get up and leave. He always managed to find a way to embarrass me in front of company. He couldn’t pass up the opportunity to say how his poor, useless son could never make it to lunch. I was more embarrassed that Beth had to hear this nonsense, especially when she was looking so beautiful at the table seated across from me.

My father tried to talk about work, but my mother quickly hushed him in favor of learning more about his assistant—his very beautiful assistant.

"Beth, are you from this area?"
Good call, Mom.
I wanted to know that answer as well.

She spilled quite a few details that I hadn’t known. She was originally from Maine, which struck me as odd. She talked about how much better the weather was here and that when her parents had moved to the beach in Florida, she had decided to move south as well. Beth said that her parents were both in the weather related industry. Her mom was a meteorologist for a TV station, and her dad had run a Search and Rescue team with the Coast Guard. Beth was from a small town and said that she was happy to be out of there.

Her eyes seemed relieved when she said that, and I wondered what else might have gone on prior to her leaving.

"Do you fly much?" my mother asked.

"Not unless I have to. I’ve seen too many bad endings to flights."

My mother and father both laughed at her confession. "Well, Andrew down there is afraid of heights. How odd is it that you both work for a company that does nothing but fly people from place to place?"

They continued laughing, and Beth and I sat looking at each other. I shrugged and said, "That just goes to show you how good we are at our jobs." I winked at her.

She reached for her goblet of freshly squeezed lemonade and took a big gulp. My mother slid her chair back and excused herself from the table. She was only gone for a moment before she returned with dessert. "My goodness, Mother, this looks incredible." In her hand was a perfect loaf of the lemon pound cake with gooey blueberry sauce dripping down the sides. We all oohed and ahhed over the dessert, and I wasn’t shy when I sliced off a huge piece for myself.

I watched as Beth took her first bite. She locked her lips over the bite and slid the fork out of her mouth before closing her eyes and massaging the food in her mouth. It was sort of a fetish of mine to watch someone taste something that I knew was good. Not like a freaky fetish, but it did give me some insight to their personality. My mind roamed to what else she might have that reaction towards.

Damn, I had to get this search under control. I had already
"test drove"
some new people, and from what I could tell I was beginning to be too picky for my own good. I still didn’t know what or whom I wanted. Thankfully so far I had been able to control this task to what my brain was thinking instead of what my body was feeling.

After lunch was over, Beth and I offered to clear the table and join my parents on the patio for cocktails. We made a pretty good team. I scraped the food into the trash, and she stacked the plates in the dishwasher. We boxed up the leftovers and cleaned up around the kitchen. We didn’t really speak, but I did
accidentally
bump into her a time or two.

This different side of Beth was very attractive. She seemed to be unimpressed with my money or stature, which was a good thing I guess. I wasn’t sure how she felt about me to be honest. Maybe she didn’t feel anything.

I grabbed a beer out of the fridge, and we headed outside. The day was beautiful, and the sun beating down on the glistening pool was like an invitation to go for a swim. I took off my shirt and sat down at the table where my parents were talking about going to the Bahamas. I knew they wouldn’t. My father never left the company for more than a day or so. It bugged the hell out of my mom that he didn’t spend more time with her.

"It is sweltering out here," Beth said, fanning herself with her hand. "I wish I had brought my bathing suit." She laughed, but the idea had crossed my mind several times already to get her into a swimsuit.

"Actually, darling, we have a few swimsuits that might fit you. We had bought them for our niece, but she hasn’t been by to use them.

Beth sucked in a deep breath. It was obvious she was just making conversation, but you couldn’t say "no" to my parents' hospitality.

"Yeah, I will show you where they are. I would like to take a swim myself." I stood and motioned to the pool house across the pool. She lifted her eyebrows and slowly stood. Mother headed back inside to get another pitcher of sangria, and we headed off to change.

The pool was beautifully decorated with plants and trees lining the walkways. The palms leaned over the pool creating a nice area of shade from the beating sun. The pool house wasn’t huge, but trying to move around the floats and lawn chairs was tricky. I reached into the cabinet housing the swimsuits and grabbed a few for her to choose from. I was instantly excited to see the options. One was a black two-piece with silver pieces linking the top together. Another was a beach scene string bikini in a sunset color pallet. The last was an olive green halter-top bikini. I could see her smooth tan skin in that one the best. I held it up, and she reluctantly grabbed it. We stood in the steamy room standing face to face. She looked kind of shaken up. She was much shorter than my towering six foot two frame. Her face only came up to my shoulders. I could picture her laying her head down on my chest and me wrapping my arms around her.

"Are you going to give me the room to change?" Her words slashed through my little fantasy like a knife, and I quickly turned to leave the room. If she were a different woman, any other woman for that matter, I would have laid a kiss on her that would have left us both spinning, but she was different.

Untouchable.

I stood so long trying to replay the whole encounter in my head that she beat me out of the dressing room. I slid the trunks on and hurried out the door in time to see her dive off the diving board and into the cool blue water. Without shoes the concrete burned into my feet so I hurried over to the board and stood waiting for her to surface. I could see her lean body shimmering through the bottom of the pool, and when she came up for air, she was all the way across the pool.

I dove into the freezing cold water and made my way to her on the other side. The water felt so good on my sun burnt skin. I opened my eyes underwater, and I could see her getting closer. I resurfaced inches from her face, and she squealed, "Oh my gosh!"

"Sorry," I said, rubbing the water off my face. She dipped lower in the pool and drenched her hair in water. I didn’t step back and neither did she. "This feels so good," I said.

"Yeah, I needed to cool off . . . from the sun I mean." She turned around to look back at my parents. When she saw their eyes on us, I knew the moment was over. She waded to a shady spot on the edge of the pool and started talking to my parents about how nice the water felt. My mother offered her another glass of wine, and she willingly accepted it. I dunked my head under water, and my eyes resurfaced with the heavenly sight of Beth coming out of the pool. The olive green bikini clung to her curves, and her hair slipped over her shoulder revealing a very tan, very smooth back. So many dirty thoughts ran through my mind.

Beth hurried back to the water to escape the burning cement with two glasses of wine. The sweet liquid went down easy. I tried to pull off a toast, "To a hot day and a cool pool." But she responded with an eye roll and continued to sip her beverage.

Okay, I get it. She didn't really know me. All I am is the boss’s lazy son, but I could be different. Hell, I was already changing, and maybe if I could show her, I might actually interest her.

Beth gulped down her drink and set the glass on the side of the pool. She made one last trip to the diving board, and I watched her gracefully dive in. She swam underwater to the other side of the pool and exited without so much as another glance at me. I covered my chest with my hand signaling the sharp knife had penetrated my chest, but she continued to walk in the opposite direction towards the shack housing her clothes. I could see through one of the windows as she dried her hair with a towel and patted the soft cloth on her shoulders and face.

Her eyes darted over to me, and once again I was busted. What can I say? I am not the type to hide my attempts to
woo
a woman. I want whomever I am with to feel like she is the only one I could be staring at. Beth, however, glared at me like some peeping Tom and shut the wooden blinds blocking out any view. It wasn’t like I was watching her change.

Rejected! Nice, Drew.
My losing streak was starting to get to me.

I hopped out of the pool and went over to my parents' table carrying the empty glasses with me. The water dripping off my arms splattered onto the table as I reached for the picture of wine. "Honestly Andrew, have you no manners? You couldn’t have changed before showering us with your pool water?"

I reached for a handful of the chips and salsa my parents were sharing and said, "Beth is in there right now. Not like we can both change at the same time."

"That’s right," my father said sternly. "Beth is a
very
nice girl and a hard worker. Don’t you go messing that up." He snapped the newspaper back open and disappeared behind the gray shield.

"And how would I do that, Father?" I knew what he was thinking already, but my father had a way of spinning things that had happened in my life into something I caused instead of something I had to work through.

"Boys, I won’t have you fighting in front of company," my mom said in a stern voice, cloaked in a wide smile she was flashing to our guest. Beth was coming out of the pool house in her beautiful sundress. Her wet hair crinkled into loose curls, and I wondered if that was her natural hair type.

"Beth, will you be joining us for dinner? We are so happy to have you here." My mother swooned over our guest. I would love to be able to say that my mother’s sugary sweet personality was fake and that I didn’t constantly roll my eyes when she spoke, but that wasn’t the case. My mother was the most perky, loving person I had ever met, which must be why I am so irresistible.
Okay.
Well, I thought I was until I met this assortment of women who kept resisting my charm.

That daunting reality smacked me in the face like a sledgehammer every time my eyes met with the unimpressed, uninterested Beth.
You know what that meant? Challenge accepted.

AFTER BETH HAD TURNED
down my mother’s dinner proposal and politely left the premises, I realized my date with Claire was this evening, if she managed to clear her schedule. I sent a text message to find out where and if we would be seeing each other this evening.

Claire responded, "Yes, I am free for dinner tonight. I was wondering how you’d feel about coming to my place for dinner? I have a few recipes I want to test on you. ;)"

The winking smiley face at the end hit the mark. My thoughts had been diving deep into the gutter thinking about all the things I’d like her to test on me. "Sounds great! Just send me the address and what time you want me there." The words in my head sounded so different from the words I quickly swiped on the screen.

She sent me the address and said eight thirty, which gave me some time to chill for a minute before I finished getting ready. "What to wear to her house?" I said aloud. My closet was full of suits and dressy clothes, but this was just to hang out and eat some, probably amazing, food.

I settled on jeans and a gray fitted T-shirt from Abercrombie. I checked myself out in the mirror a few times, before deciding that, "Yeah, I look good!"

I bounded down the stairs and out the side entrance hoping to escape any further questioning by my parents. My father hadn’t let the fact that I had obviously found his secretary attractive and that I was bound to screw up a good thing for the company.
Thanks Dad!

When I arrived at Claire’s apartment building, I found it a little sketchy. The neighborhood was really quiet, void of street lights or any lights for that matter. There was an eerie glow coming from the building’s entrance. I almost developed a fear of the dark just sitting in my car deciding whether or not to get out. I began to wonder if the power was out. I checked the address again and it was exactly right.