Blind Date Disasters & Eat Your Heart Out

herself in life unless everyone around her was happy. Yes, that left her wearing the proverbial doormat on her head that said Take Advantage of Me Because I Can’t Say No, but it happened to look good on her, if she did say so herself. “I’m not too busy for you, Mom, but-”

“Good, because he’s the catch of the year, and-”

Cami tuned her out, her attention drawn by a noise coming from the living room. Her master carpenter. Her gorgeous master carpenter.

The man who hadn’t given her a second look.

Was she, at twenty-six, losing all appeal? So maybe she carried a few extra pounds, but she hadn’t had time for exercise since…since, well, she hated exercise.

But even if she had the time, which she didn’t, and even if she worked out seven days a week, which she didn’t, she’d still have too many darn curves.

So really, all she had going for her was her hair and her own teeth. That had to count for something.

“Lulu says he loves the Tahoe region and he’s thinking of relocating here permanently, seeing that his stock portfolio is worth more than her retirement fund.”

Cami hadn’t had a date in…well, forever. Sad state of affairs, really.

Even sadder was the fact she was sitting here, without pants, actually considering it.

It was just one night. With a computer geek, which meant he had to be at least semiintelligent. “Mom-”

“And I bet he has all his hair.”

“Mom-”

“Because he’s blond. It’s really hard to pull off a blond toupee.”

“Mom, stop. I’ll do it.”

“And he has all his- What? You will? You really will?”

“Yes, but this is the last time. The real last time. Got that?”

“Absolutely. Probably.”

Cami could only sigh. And hope he indeed had all his hair.

TANNER WAS STILL leaning over the set of plans when his new boss came racing through the back door. Strange, since he would have sworn she was still in the town house, but even stranger, her cat took one look at her and hissed.

She was already dressed, in a pale green business number that showed a set of legs well worth a double take. There was makeup on her face, and her hair had been taken care of, piled on her head in some artful manner.

Pretty quick for a female, especially one who looked as she did, all blond and buxomy and naturally tousled.

That kind of natural look took women forever in the bathroom to achieve. Tanner knew this because, one, his mother had been both blond and beautiful, and in his memory of her, she’d never taken less than a lifetime to get ready to go anywhere, and two, in his wayward youth, he’d worked his way through plenty of blondes of his own.

At thirty-two years old, he had higher standards now.

Usually.

Skidding to a halt between the kitchen and the living room, she stared at him, clearly shocked to find him still there. “Oh,” she said, blinking huge chocolate eyes that suddenly seemed…different.

“Yep. Still here.” He wondered what she’d done, exactly, because though a sexpot was a sexpot, it was almost as if she was a completely different person.

“Oh,” she said again, ignoring her cat, who walked away from her, tail switching back and forth in annoyance.

Very strange.

“Did you forget I was here?” he asked, her reaction reinforcing his earlier thought-he was working for a woman missing a few marbles.

“I…yes. Yes, I guess I did forget.” She bit her full lower lip and looked at him, as if she’d never seen him before.

She was sleepy-eyed and pouty-lipped and could have just bounced out of bed, if not for the fancy clothes. He had a feeling she always looked that way, that she knew how to get exactly what she wanted by showing off her tall, lush body to her advantage.

In his dubious maturity, the one that came with preferring steady income over a hot babe to look at, he took a big mental step backward.

First of all, he was finally at work doing a job he loved after a year from hell fraught with family tragedy. He needed the work.

Not to mention, Cami Anderson was living in a great fixer-upper that he badly wanted to get his hands on. In fact, he was practically salivating at the opportunity. This particular town house complex was over a century old, and though it had been sorely mistreated by age and neglect and the severe weather of the Sierras, it had the potential to be brought to its former glory.

With his help.

Running a hand over the scarred, original wood flooring, he smiled. Yeah, definitely, beneath the abused material was a foundation based on character and strength. Personality.

And he couldn’t wait to dig in-with or without the nutty lady.

“Um…” She continued to gnaw on her lower lip. “Why are you here again exactly?”

Tanner laughed, but when she didn’t so much as smile, his humor faded.

Ah, hell, she had lost a few marbles. “To work,” he said carefully. “Remember?”

“Work.” She nodded. “Well, if you’ll excuse me a moment.” And before he could so much as move, she took her made-up self down the hall. Toward what he knew to be the bedroom.

Again.

Was there another exit that hadn’t been on the set of plans he’d studied and memorized? Or had she crawled out her window to come around?

“Nutty to the bone,” he muttered, shaking his head and returning to the plans.

DIMI MOVED down the hall and barged into Cami’s bedroom, her face serious and intent as always. “First,” she said to Cami, who was still dressing.

Or attempting to.

“First, I need my lipstick back. Stop stealing it and buy your own.”

Cami ignored her twin, who’d obviously let herself in-again-and tried to zip up the trousers she’d just found. Man, she really needed to stop eating doughnuts for breakfast.

Wincing, she lay flat on the bed and sucked in a breath. The pants closed, barely, though she wouldn’t be able to so much as sneeze all day.

“And second…” Dimi let out a rare grin. “Oh, baby, major hunk alert in your living room.”

Cami managed to find a shoe. Breathless, she looked up. “What?”

Dimi gestured down the hall. “Don’t look now, but you’ve got a really amazing-looking guy out there. He’s wearing a tool belt and a killer smile, to boot.”

“Yeah.” It wasn’t something Cami thought about often, because it was stupid. But when it came to men, she was actually jealous of her sister. Dimi was her identical twin, but somehow she seemed far more put together than Cami could ever hope to be. Prettier.

More likely to get lucky.

As a result, Cami rarely told anyone, especially any date she might be lucky enough to get, that she was a twin. Didn’t say a lot for her confidence in herself, but it was a fact. “Oh, damn.”

“What?”

Cami held out her shoe, which had a suspicious-looking lump in it, one that smelled like…Craning her neck, she glared at Annabel.

From her perch on the dresser, the cat blinked innocently.

“Ugh,” Dimi said, wrinkling her nose. “Dump the cat. But the guy, let’s not dump him. Did you know that he