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However, as much as Justin was skeptical of his friend’s theory, it wouldn’t hurt to check out Milwaukeedates.com.
He missed the journalistic rush of adrenaline as worthwhile stories emerged under his digging, and would like to keep that part of his career going in Milwaukee. Uncovering a dating-site scam wouldn’t earn him a Pulitzer, but it could be a solid foot in the door in this new city. Once he got enough details and felt a story was possible he could put together a proposal and see who bit.
Only one problem as far as he could see.
If he was investigating Ms. Graham’s involvement, he couldn’t ask her out with anything more in mind than coffee and information. While where she was concerned, his mind was full of a whole lot more than that.
Candy got into her car and slammed the door, trying not to stare at Justin’s very nicely put-together body making its way cautiously over his icy driveway. Oh, my goodness. She hadn’t been affected that much by a man in…well not since she’d met Chuck in her senior year at University of Wisconsin Stevens Point. He’d sat behind her in their British Novel class and kicked the back of her chair until she got so annoyed she’d turned around to tell him to knock it off—and encountered the world’s most winning grin and a note waved in her direction: I just fell in love with the back of your head. Meet me for coffee after class?
She had, coffee that lasted through her free hour, her En-trepreneurship class, too much homework time, dinner and the next five wonderful years. During all that time, and in the last year of horrible grief, Candy had hardly looked at another man.
Oh. Well. There was that guy she’d met at the bachelor party she organized last year. And the father of the little girl who had the Barbie birthday party a couple of years before that. And the cute guy who helped her ver-r-ry attentively at Best Buy when she was getting Chuck a new TV for his birthday.
But those men were either spoken for, or she was, so she’d been friendly, and left it at that. Now, gulp, she was free. And if Justin had recently moved, maybe there wasn’t a girlfriend in the picture, unless he’d left one on the beach in California.
Candy turned on the engine, shivering—not from eighteen degrees as much as from Justin. Maybe he was only being neighborly, but her female instincts told her he’d been more than that; the excitement of possibilities had been buzzing in the air between them. Look how she’d jumped to make it seem the whole multiple-dates thing was just a favor to Marie.
Candy hadn’t wanted him thinking she was desperate for a man, but obviously she’d also wanted him to know she hadn’t been swept away by anyone yet. Hint, hint.
She wanted to cancel her date tonight with Ralph, knock on Justin’s door and see what talking to him felt like, even though common sense told her this was a temporary thrill.
No matter how wonderful Justin turned out to be, odds were he’d end up just a friend in the long run.
Though, mmm, the idea of what could happen in the short run was enticing. Maybe Justin would turn out to be the person Marie prescribed to banish Candy’s ghosts of Valentine’s Day romantic failure.
Oof.
Pull back, girl. She was getting ahead of herself, which was a good trait when she was planning an event and imagining everything that could go right or wrong, but not so good when she bulldozed ahead, making assumptions and decisions based on factors she couldn’t control. After all, Justin said he wanted her to come over because he was cold, maybe that was all there was to it.
And romance with a neighbor could be complicated. Candy had inherited her late grandmother’s house here in Shorewood four years ago, bless Grandma, which meant Candy had been able to put her savings toward starting up the party business.
But it also meant she wasn’t ever planning to move. Having an ex-boyfriend across the street could be awkward.
One other uneasy thought: Candy had waved hello to Justin a few times, but today was the first time he’d approached, when she was dressed like the kind of person she wasn’t. If that was all that attracted him, they had little hope of hitting it off. Her usual look—sweats and fuzzy slippers, glasses and no makeup—would make him run.
