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“I was hooked as soon as my grandmother taught me when I was six.”
“Is there a competitive canasta league in Chicago?”
She laughs. “Not that I know of.”
“Then where do you play?” I suddenly feel like I must be the most boring person in the world. I don’t knit, I don’t perform tantric acts, and I don’t play old time-y card games.
“At my grandmother’s nursing home. There are eight of us and we play every Sunday afternoon. I’m the only person under eighty.”
“Maybe you could teach me sometime.”
She winks while giving my arm a slight squeeze. “Maybe. If you playyourcards right.”
And just like that I realize Cami might be more than someone to help me make Eva jealous. She’s a lovely woman in her own right. And who knows, she might really be someone I could be with for the long term.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
PAIGE
My peanut butter cookies are a hit and they’re going fast, so I go up to the buffet table to grab one before they’re gone. Fielden catches up with me. “Hey.” He sounds uncertain as to what my reaction to him might be. Smart man.
“Fielden, hello.”
“I’m sorry about yesterday,” he says. “I’m really nervous being on a show like this, and I’m afraid it’s bringing out some unexpected behavior.”
“Like acting like a total oaf?” I have no intention of making this easy for him.
“That bad, huh?” My bobbing head prompts him to add, “The last woman I dated was only into me for my credit card. She was fine that I wasn’t around a lot.” He sounds hurt, and rightly so if that’s really the case.
I pick up a cookie and break it in half. Handing him a piece, I say, “Dating is hard, but you can’t judge every woman by your last relationship.”
He suddenly looks sheepish. “I guess I’m just afraid my perfect woman isn’t out there.”
“If the criteria you shared with me last night is what you really expect, she might not be.”
Shifting from one foot to the other, he confesses, “I don’t work as much as I claimed to. I only said that hoping you’d be disappointed with how busy I am.”
“Because your last girlfriend didn’t care?”
“Yeah.” Fielden bites into his cookie and makes the appropriate yummy sounds. “This is really good.”
“County fair winner four years running,” I brag.
His expression morphs from sugar bliss to thoughtful. “I don’t think your job is easier than mine.”
“You’ve got that right,” I tell him. “You don’t know rough until you spend your days in front of twenty-eight seventh graders. Trying to keep them quiet long enough to learn math should be an Olympic sport.”
His face contorts in sympathy. “That must be murder.”
“Thirteen-year-olds are full of enough drama and hormones to re-sink theTitanic,” I tell him. “Seriously, I’d take one measly serial killer over that any day.”
Fielden smiles playfully. “I’m in corporate law. The slimiest characters I deal with are government officials and insider traders.”
“I’d take a killer over either of those.” I’m only semi-teasing.
“Lawmakers and billionaires are our biggest enemies. There’s too much temptation to use that kind of power for their own gain.”
I suddenly realize that Fielden might really be a good guy. “Is that why you went into corporate law? To control the power mongers?”
