DEBBIE MACOMBER
Be My Valentine
CONTENTS
MY FUNNY VALENTINE
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
MY HERO
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
Coming Next Month
MY FUNNY VALENTINE
One
Dianne Williams had the scenario all worked out. She’d be pushing her grocery cart down the aisle of the local grocery store and gazing over the frozen-food section when a tall, dark, handsome man would casually stroll up to her and with a brilliant smile say, “Those low-cal dinners couldn’t possibly be for you.”
She’d turn to him and suddenly the air would fill with the sounds of a Rimsky-Korsakov symphony, or bells would chime gently in the distance—Dianne didn’t have that part completely figured out yet—and in that instant she would know deep in her heart that this was the man she was meant to spend the rest of her life with.
All right, Dianne was willing to admit, the scenario was childish and silly, the kind of fantasy only a teenage girl should dream up. But reentering the dating scene after umpteen years of married life created problems Dianne didn’t even want to consider.
Three years earlier, Dianne’s husband had left her and the children to find himself. Instead he found a SYT (sweet young thing), promptly divorced Dianne and moved across the country. It hurt; in fact, it hurt more than anything Dianne had ever known, but she was a survivor, and always had been. Perhaps that was the reason Jack didn’t seem to suffer a single pang of guilt about abandoning her to raise Jason and Jill on her own.
Her children, Dianne had discovered, were incredibly resilient. Within a year of their father’s departure, they were urging her to date. Their father did, they reminded Dianne with annoying frequency. And if it wasn’t her children pushing her toward establishing a new relationship, it was her own dear mother.
When it came to locating Mr. Right for her divorced daughter, Martha Janes knew no equal. For several months, Dianne had been subjected to a long parade of single men. Their unmarried status, however, seemed their sole attribute.
After dinner with the man who lost his toupee on a low-hanging chandelier, Dianne had insisted enough was enough and she would find her own dates.
This proved to be easier said than done. Dianne hadn’t gone out once in six months. Now, within the next week, she needed a man. Not just any man, either. One who was tall, dark and handsome. It would be a nice bonus if he was exceptionally wealthy, too, but she didn’t have time to be choosy. The Valentine’s dinner at the Port Blossom Community Center was Saturday night. This Saturday night.
From the moment the notice was posted six weeks earlier, Jason and Jill had insisted she attend. Surely their mother could find a date given that much time! And someone handsome to boot. It seemed a matter of family honor.
Only now the dinner was only days away and Dianne was no closer to achieving her goal.
“I’m home,” Jason yelled as he walked into the house. The front door slammed in his wake, hard enough to shake the kitchen windows. He threw his books on the counter, moved directly to the refrigerator, opened the door and stuck the upper half of his fourteen-year-old body inside.
“Help yourself to a snack,” Dianne said, smiling and shaking her head.
Jason reappeared with a chicken leg clenched between his teeth like a pirate’s cutlass. One hand was filled with a piece of leftover cherry pie while the other held a platter of cold fried chicken.
“How was school?”
He shrugged, set down the pie and removed the chicken leg from his mouth. “Okay, I guess.”
Dianne knew what was coming next. It was the same question he’d asked her every afternoon since the notice about the dinner had been posted.
“Do you have a date yet?” He leaned against the counter as his steady gaze pierced her. Her son’s eyes could break through the firmest resolve, and cut through layers of deception.
“No date,” she answered cheerfully. At least as cheerfully as she could under the circumstances.
“The dinner’s this Saturday night.”
As if she needed reminding. “I know. Stop worrying, I’ll find someone.”
“Not just anyone,” Jason said emphatically, as though he were speaking to someone with impaired hearing. “He’s got to make an impression. Someone decent.”
“I know, I know.”
“Grandma said she could line you up with—”
“No,” Dianne interrupted. “I categorically refuse to go on any more of Grandma’s blind dates.”
“But you don’t have the time to find your own now. It’s—”
“I’m working on it,” she insisted, although she knew she wasn’t working very hard. She was trying to find someone to accompany her to the dinner, only she’d never dreamed it would be this difficult.
Until the necessity of attending this affair had been forced upon her, Dianne hadn’t been aware of how limited her choices were. In the past couple of years, she’d met few single men, apart from the ones her mother had thrown at her. There were a couple of unmarried men at the office where she was employed part-time as a bookkeeper. Neither, however, was anyone she’d seriously consider dating. They were both too suave, too urbane—too much like Jack. Besides, problems might arise if she were to mingle her social life with her business one.
The front door opened and closed again, a little less noisily this time.
“I’m home!” ten-year-old Jill announced from the entryway. She dropped her books on the floor and marched toward the kitchen. Then she paused on the threshold and planted both hands on her hips as her eyes sought out her brother. “You better not have eaten all the leftover pie. I want some too, you know.”
“Don’t grow warts worrying about it,” Jason said sarcastically. “There’s plenty.”
Jill’s gaze swiveled from her brother to her mother. The level of severity didn’t diminish one bit. Dianne met her daughter’s eye and mouthed the words along with her.
“Do you have a date yet?”
Jason answered for Dianne. “No, she doesn’t. And she’s got five days to come up with a decent guy and all she says is that she’s working on it.”
“Mom…” Jill’s brown eyes filled with concern.
“Children, please.”
“Everyone in town’s going,” Jill claimed as if Dianne wasn’t already aware of that. “You’ve got to be there, you’ve just got to. I told all my friends you’re going.”
More pressure! That was the last thing Dianne needed. Nevertheless, she smiled serenely at her two children and assured them they didn’t have a thing to worry about.
An hour or so later, while she was making dinner, she could hear Jason and Jill’s voices in the living room. They were huddled together in front of the television, their heads close together. Plotting, it looked like, charting her barren love life. Doubtless deciding who their mother should take to the dinner. Probably the guy with the toupee.
“Is something wrong?” Dianne asked, standing in the doorway. It was unusual for them to watch television this time of day, but more unusual for them to be so chummy. The fact that they’d turned on the TV to drown out their conversation hadn’t escaped her.
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They broke guiltily apart.
“Wrong?” Jason asked, recovering first. “I was just talking to Jill, is all. Do you need me to do something?”
That offer alone was enough evidence to convict them both. “Jill, would you set the table for me?” she asked, her gaze lingering on her two children for another moment before she returned to the kitchen.
Jason and Jill were up to something. Dianne could only guess what. No doubt the plot they were concocting included their grandmother.
Sure enough, while Jill was setting the silverware on the kitchen table, Jason used the phone, stretching the cord as far as it would go and mumbling into the mouthpiece so there was no chance Dianne could overhear his conversation.
Dianne’s suspicions were confirmed when her mother arrived shortly after dinner. And within minutes, Jason and Jill had deserted the kitchen, saying they had to get to their homework. Also highly suspicious behavior.
“Do you want some tea, Mom?” Dianne felt obliged to ask, dreading the coming conversation. It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that her children had called their grandmother hoping she’d find a last-minute date for Dianne.
“Don’t go to any trouble.”
This was her mother’s standard reply. “It’s no trouble,” Dianne said.
“Then make the tea.”
Because of her evening aerobics class—W.A.R. it was called, for Women After Results—Dianne had changed and was prepared to make a hasty exit.
While the water was heating, she took a white ceramic teapot from the cupboard. “Before you ask, and I know you will,” she said with strained patience, “I haven’t got a date for the Valentine’s dinner yet.”
Her mother nodded slowly as if Dianne had just announced something of profound importance. Martha was from the old school, and she took her time getting around to whatever was on her mind, usually preceding it with a long list of questions that hinted at the subject. Dianne loved her mother, but there wasn’t anyone on this earth who could drive her crazier.
“You’ve still got your figure,” Martha said, her expression serious. “That helps.” She stroked her chin a couple of times and nodded. “You’ve got your father’s brown eyes, may he rest in peace, and your hair is nice and thick. You can thank your grandfather for that. He had hair so thick—”
“Ma, did I mention I have an aerobics class tonight?”
Her mother’s posture stiffened. “I don’t want to bother you.”
“It’s just that I might have to leave before you say what you’re obviously planning to say, and I didn’t want to miss the reason for your unexpected visit.”
Her mother relaxed, but just a little. “Don’t worry. I’ll say what must be said and then you can leave. Your mother’s words are not as important as your exercise class.”
An argument bubbled up like fizz from a can of soda, but Dianne successfully managed to swallow it. Showing any sign of weakness in front of her mother was a major tactical error. Dianne made the tea, then carried the pot over to the table and sat across from Martha.
“Your skin’s still as creamy as—”
“Mom,” Dianne said, “there’s no need to tell me all this. I know my coloring is good. I also know I’ve still got my figure and that my hair is thick and that you approve of my keeping it long. You don’t need to sell me on myself.”
“Ah,” Martha told her softly, “that’s where you’re wrong.”
Dianne couldn’t help it—she rolled her eyes. When Dianne was fifteen her mother would have slapped her hand, but now that she was thirty-three, Martha used more subtle tactics.
Guilt.
“I don’t have many years left.”
“Mom—”
“No, listen. I’m an old woman now and I have the right to say what I want, especially since the good Lord may choose to call me home at any minute.”
Stirring a teaspoon of sugar into her tea offered Dianne a moment to compose herself. Bracing her elbows on the table, she raised the cup to her lips. “Just say it.”
Her mother nodded, apparently appeased. “You’ve lost confidence in yourself.”
“That’s not true.”
Martha Janes’s smile was meager at best. “Jack left you, and now you think there must be something wrong with you. But, Dianne, what you don’t understand is that he would’ve gone if you were as beautiful as Marilyn Monroe. Jack’s leaving had nothing to do with you and everything to do with Jack.”
This conversation was taking a turn Dianne wanted to avoid. Jack was a subject she preferred not to discuss. As far as she could see, there wasn’t any reason to peel back the scars and examine the wound at this late date. Jack was gone. She’d accepted it, dealt with it, and gone on with her life. The fact that her mother was even mentioning her ex-husband had taken Dianne by surprise.
“My goodness,” Dianne said, checking her watch. “Look at the time—”
“Before you go,” her mother said quickly, grabbing her wrist, “I met a nice young man this afternoon in the butcher’s shop. Marie Zimmerman told me about him and I went to talk to him myself.”
“Mom—”
“Hush and listen. He’s divorced, but from what he said it was all his wife’s fault. He makes blood sausage and insisted I try some. It was so good it practically melted in my mouth. I never tasted sausage so good. A man who makes sausage like that would be an asset to any family.”
Oh, sweet heaven. Her mother already had her married to the guy!
“I told him all about you and he generously offered to take you out.”
“Mother, please. I’ve already said I won’t go out on any more blind dates.”
“Jerome’s a nice man. He’s—”
“I don’t mean to be rude, but I really have to leave now, or I’ll be late.” Hurriedly, Dianne stood, collected her coat, and called out to her children that she’d be back in an hour.
The kids didn’t say a word.
It wasn’t until she was in her car that Dianne realized they’d been expecting her to announce that she finally had a date.
Two
“Damn,” Dianne muttered, scrambling through her purse for the tenth time. She knew it wasn’t going to do the least bit of good, but she felt compelled to continue the search.
“Double damn,” she said as she set the bulky leather handbag on the hood of her car. Rain drops spattered all around her.
Expelling her breath, she stalked back into the Port Blossom Community Center and stood in front of the desk. “I seem to have locked my keys in my car,” she told the receptionist. “Along with my cell.”
“Oh, dear. Is there someone you can get in touch with?”
“I’m a member of the auto club so I can call them for help. I also want to call home and say I’ll be late. So if you’ll let me use the phone?”
“Oh, sure.” The young woman smiled pleasantly, and lifted the phone onto the counter. “We close in fifteen minutes, you know.”
A half hour later, Dianne was leaning impatiently against her car in the community center parking lot when a red tow truck pulled in. It circled the area, then eased into the space next to hers.
The driver, whom Dianne couldn’t see in the dark, rolled down his window and stuck out his elbow. “Are you the lady who phoned about locking her keys in the car?”
“No. I’m standing out in the rain wearing a leotard for the fun of it,” she muttered.
He chuckled, turned off the engine and hopped out of the driver’s seat. “Sounds like this has been one of those days.”
She nodded, suddenly feeling a stab of guilt at her churlishness. He seemed so friendly.
“Why don’t you climb in my truck where it’s nice and warm while I take care of this?” He opened the passenger-side door and gestured for her to enter.
She smiled weakly, and as she climbed in, said, “I didn’t mean to snap at you just now.”
He flashed her a grin. “No problem.” She found herself taking a second look at h
im. He was wearing gray-striped coveralls and the front was covered with grease stains. His name, Steve, was embroidered in red across the top of his vest pocket. His hair, which was neatly styled, appeared to have been recently cut. His eyes were a warm shade of brown and—she searched for the right word—gentle, she decided.
After ensuring that she was comfortable in his truck, Steve walked around to the driver’s side of her compact car and used his flashlight to determine the type of lock.
Dianne lowered the window. “I don’t usually do things like this. I’ve never locked the keys in my car before—I don’t know why I did tonight. Stupid.”
He returned to the tow truck and opened the passenger door. “No one can be smart all the time,” he said cheerfully. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.” He moved the seat forward a little and reached for a toolbox in the space behind her.
“I’ve had a lot on my mind lately,” she said.
Straightening, he looked at her and nodded sympathetically. He had a nice face too, she noted, easy on the eyes. In fact, he was downright attractive. The coveralls didn’t detract from his appeal, but actually suggested a certain ruggedness. He was thoughtful and friendly just when Dianne was beginning to think there wasn’t anyone in the world who was. But then, standing in the dark and the rain might make anyone feel friendless, even though Port Blossom was a rural community with a warm, small-town atmosphere.
Steve went back to her car and began to fiddle with the lock. Unable to sit still, Dianne opened the truck door and climbed out. “It’s the dinner that’s got me so upset.”
“The dinner?” Steve glanced up from his work.
“The Valentine’s dinner the community center’s sponsoring this Saturday night. My children are forcing me to go. I don’t know for sure, but I think they’ve got money riding on it, because they’re making it sound like a matter of national importance.”