Menu for Romance

door, she could see only the corner of the wardrobe that stood behind his desk.

Though she gulped, her lungs wouldn’t fill with air. What more sign did she need to prove Major did not return her feelings and that it was time for her to move on?

Dazedly, she backed out through the door and somehow ended up at the elevators. When she’d voiced her resolution, it hadn’t seemed like it would be hard—at least not this hard. But as her mother would say, a goal that’s easily attained doesn’t bring the satisfaction that comes through sacrifice, hard work, and sometimes even tears.

She held her breath to keep the tears at bay, staring out over the darkening city as the glass elevator descended. She refused to go through the pain she’d experienced in college. At least she was fairly certain that Major wasn’t about to marry one of her closest friends as Brent had.

Back in her office, she sat down to work on her report—after all, the more she could get done now, the less she’d have to take home over the weekend. But the tinkling laughter of the mystery woman continued ringing in Meredith’s head.

Who was she? What was it about this other woman that caught Major’s attention—what quality Meredith didn’t have?

Okay, stop. She had to concentrate on the report. See, this was why it was good she didn’t have a relationship with someone she worked with. If she got this distracted by his having a conversation with another woman, what would she be like if Major actually returned her feelings—if they were dating?

Her head started throbbing, so she turned to grab a soda out of the mini-fridge. She’d just laid her hand on the neck of the last bottle when the Styrofoam carryout box caught her eye. Major’s bold scrawl across the top of it sent chill bumps down the back of her neck:

Meredith—sorry I keep missing you. Hope you enjoy. I think this is one of your favorite meals.

M O’H

A raft of tears flooded her eyes, but she blinked hard to make them go away. She jumped when her cell phone buzzed against her waist and began trilling her general ringtone. An unfamiliar number scrolled across the screen.

With a deep breath, followed by clearing her throat, she clicked the appropriate button and pressed the device to her ear. “This is Meredith Guidry.”

“Well, hello there, Meredith Guidry,” came a deep voice. “This is Ward Breaux. You didn’t answer the e-mail I sent earlier in the week, so I figured I’d give you a call.”

Yeah, she’d been meaning to get around to reading that e-mail. “Hey, Ward. I guess you want to talk about my house, huh?”

“That wasn’t my primary reason for calling, no.” The humor that filled his voice conjured an image of him towering over her, giving her that grin and looking at her with flirtatious eyes. “I was hoping I could take you out for dinner tonight.”

“Tonight?” Thursday. Dinner with the other unmarried adult cousins and siblings. “I can’t tonight. I already have plans.”

“Tomorrow then.”

She pulled the phone away, stared at it in astonishment, and put it back to her ear. “Hold on. Let me check my calendar.” She already knew what it would show her. No event tomorrow night that she needed to be at—the event planners were doing that—which meant that her Friday night might include going upstairs to watch a movie with Anne and George if they weren’t going out.

“Am I freaking you out by moving too fast?” Ward’s voice tingled on her skin like ice chips followed by a warm shower.

“No—not at all.” She was freaked out by someone she’d only met four days ago calling her and asking her out for a date, since it had never happened to her. She tried to swallow the knot of nerves blocking her air passage. “It looks like I’m free tomorrow night.”

“Great. Why don’t I pick you up at your office—say around five thirty? Or is that too late for a Friday evening?”

Meredith pulled a pen from under the untidy stack of papers beside the computer and started drawing question marks on the back of a legal pad. “Sure. Five thirty. Here. Sounds fine.”

“I hope you like jazz music. I know the greatest little club down on the river. I thought maybe we could get dinner in downtown and then drive over to Town Square, stroll along the Riverwalk, and then sit and have coffee and listen to some jazz.”

The word JAZZ appeared in big, bold letters under her pen. “I love jazz. And if you’re talking about the Savoy, I’ve been wanting to go there since they opened.”

“Excellent. I’ll see you at five thirty tomorrow evening, then. I can’t wait.”

“Me, too.” She repeated his “Bye-bye now” farewell and hung up. She tapped the phone to her chin and glanced around the office, looking for some confirmation of what had just occurred.

Aside from the fact that for the last three months she’d been trying to think of some way to invite Major to go to the Savoy with her, she was excited about tomorrow night. The idea of going out with someone she didn’t know the first thing about—well, she knew he was a contractor, so didn’t know the second thing about—frightened her a little. But not as much as the blind dates Jenn wanted to set her up on.

Besides, if she was going to end her single status by this time next year, how else did she expect that to happen?

She leaned back in her chair and stared up at the ceiling. “Lord, please let him be a nice, normal, Christian guy—with no weird fetishes or obsessions. And if You could keep him from getting distracted by an attractive woman while we’re on our date, I would so appreciate it.”

Chapter 7

Major filled the thermal carafe with chicory-flavored dark roast, covered the platter holding warm croissants, strawberries and raspberries, bacon, shelled hard-boiled eggs, and a large ramekin of honey butter— everything he’d watched Meredith pile onto her plate the last time he’d seen her at one of her father’s prayer breakfasts—and added them to the rolling service cart. Preparing a meal for someone he was mad at always helped him overcome the feelings and approach the situation in a positive frame of mind.

The silverware rattled against the porcelain plates when the cart’s wheels bumped over the threshold of the freight elevator. He checked his watch again: 7:53. As long as she hadn’t decided to come in early this morning, he should be able to get everything set up on the small conference table in her office before she arrived.

With a grinding squeal and an unnerving bounce, the elevator stopped on the fifth floor. He swiped his security card on the reader beside the door directly across the hall. Dark quiet enveloped the smaller-scale kitchen—the place Alaine Delacroix decided would be just perfect for the cooking segments on her midday news show. The segments Meredith had never told him about.

He rubbed his tongue against the backs of his teeth. Maybe Meredith had a good reason for why she’d failed to tell him she’d volunteered him to do a weekly cooking demonstration in addition to his regular job. His full-time job at which he worked nearly fifty hours a week—even longer when gearing up for big events, like the upcoming Hearts to HEARTS banquet.

The soft wheels of the cart whispered across the wood floor in the executive dining room and hallway. Meredith’s office door stood open, and the lights were still off. Good. She wasn’t here yet.

He glanced around as he raised the dimmer switch to bring the lights up. The dark wood along the curved juncture of wall and ceiling, copper ceiling tiles, cream walls, and dark-wood floors made the room look like a Boston cream pie. His stomach rumbled. But the rest of the office—he cringed. Unkempt stacks of paperwork sat on her desk. She’d obviously done some work at the small round table, too, because the vase of bright pink flowers sat near the far edge, as if shoved aside.