Before You Get To Baby.... Terry Essig

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СКАЧАТЬ It’s why we men are so darn careful. I never wanted to have to pay the price for thinking with my gonads.”

      Frannie ignored him. “I also want somebody who’s intelligent. And I wouldn’t mind decent-looking, either. I’ve given up on Mel Gibson coming to his senses, but surely decent-looking isn’t asking too much.” She grimaced. “Call me shallow, but I don’t want any frog-faced children. Breakfast is too early in the morning to have to face amphibians across the table. I’m on the short side, so in order to compensate, I’m thinking tall, too. No point in the boys being shrimpsters if I can help it. Mom always said it was as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor one, but I don’t really care all that much about money. I don’t mind pulling my fair share and contributing to the family income. But if you extrapolate a little bit here, and the playing field being equal in other ways, I mean between two guys, both being intelligent, decent-looking and now that I think about it, neither one an early balder, it should be as easy to fall for the tall guy as the short one, don’t you think?”

      Drew shook his head in despair as he tried to figure out the logic behind that bit of nonsense. Near as he could tell, he’d been insulted. Again. She might be his best friend’s little sister and as cute as a button, but she’d crossed the line. There was not a damn thing wrong with his genetic code. Not a damn thing. He had an engineering degree from Purdue University, didn’t he? You didn’t get that with peas for brain, now did you?

      And more than one woman had come on to him during the eleven years since high school. There was a small cadre of females out there who’d rate his looks higher than dog meat, Andrew thought more than a bit defensively even as he rubbed the nose that had been broken a dozen years back when he’d taken a hockey puck in the face. It might be a little crooked, but hey, if a woman expected perfection, she’d have to provide it herself. He knew for a fact Frannie had a scar down one arm from the surgery it had taken to put her arm back together after an attempt to go around the moon on the playground swing set years ago. Man, he’d almost had heart failure that day. He and Rick had been baby-sitting Frannie when she’d tried that little trick. Rick had accused a wailing Frannie of doing it on purpose just to get them in trouble. It hadn’t been the first time. Or the last. And here she was, back at it again, obviously determined to draw him into this latest batch of nuttiness.

      But he digressed. He was intelligent and decent-looking. Hadn’t Debi…Dulci…whoever, gotten all rhapsodic over his eyes? Like she’d never seen the color blue before. Drew almost snorted. Go figure. It was a simple factor of genetics. His mother had blue eyes, his father’s eyes were brown, but he obviously carried a recessive gene for blue. Drew had just as obviously gotten it. Simple. No big deal. Try telling that to Deirdre. Yeah, that was it, Deirdre.

      At least he had an eye color. Frannie’s license said brown, but that was only because they had to fit her into a category. Her eyes were this oddball color only a woman would have a name for—toffee, toast or maybe café au lait. Drew rolled his eyes. Who thought up these names anyway? he thought with a sneer. And that was just the inside part of her iris. Then there was this darker band around the edge. Dark chocolate bark or something. Whatever.

      And furthermore, even though scrupulous honesty would have him admitting that he might have just missed making the six-foot mark, any engineer in the world would tell you that a small margin of error was allowable and you’d still meet specs. At five eleven and three-quarters he was six foot plus or minus a quarter of an inch, so he claimed six feet. Totally within code and definitely un-short.

      A growl built up in his throat. “Seems to me you’re asking for an awful lot. What’s the guy going to get in return? Who’s going to marry a little bit like you? A man wants a woman he doesn’t have to worry about losing in the sheets at night. An armful, you know? Something it would take more than a spring zephyr to blow away.”

      “I am not that little,” Frannie responded stiffly.

      Ah, so she could dish it out, but couldn’t take it.

      “And there you go again,” she added. “Is sex all you think about?”

      “Me and my half of the world’s population. Yeah, pretty much.”

      Frustration rang in Frannie’s voice. “Don’t you want someone who can create a home? Do you ever worry about character, personality, intelligence, humor, for God’s sake? Don’t you want to share a good laugh with a woman you care about?”

      “Not when I’m in bed with her,” Drew fervently assured Frannie.

      Frannie threw up her hands in exasperation. “Oh, for crying out loud.” She rose and snatched up the plate of cookies she’d brought as a bribe.

      “Hey!” Drew protested.

      Frannie didn’t relent. “Nothing deeper than surface appeal matters to you,” she said. “You just said so. You couldn’t possibly care that I also bake the best oatmeal cookies in a three-state radius.”

      “Food is another basic need, right up there with sex. A man’s got to keep his strength up, after all. And they’re okay,” Drew allowed, not wanting to feed her ego. She gave him enough of a hard time as it was. “Even if they do have raisins in them. It would be too bad if they went to waste.”

      “I’ll freeze them. Take them in my lunch.”

      “All right, all right. I’m sorry, already. Put the cookies back and we’ll talk. Sheesh. Women are so sensitive.”

      “We are not.” Frannie hesitated, then reluctantly sat back down. She kept the cookies in front of her, her arms curled protectively around the plate. “So come on now, Drew, give. Seriously, what’s a guy looking for when he’s ready to settle down?”

      Drew squirmed uncomfortably in his chair. The topic had him on edge. “Look, Frannie, every guy is different in what they find attractive in a woman. Just like every woman is different. Didn’t I hear you telling Rick the other day that your friend Annie was wasting her time on some dweeb? That you couldn’t figure out what she saw in the guy?”

      Frannie thought. Okay, he had a point, but it wasn’t enough to get her to release the cookies. She wanted some guidelines here, not a cop-out. “All right, so generally speaking what’s likely to interest a guy enough to get him to the altar?” Meanly, she picked up a cookie and waved it in the air a couple of times before nibbling delicately at the brown edge.

      Damn her, Frannie knew him too well. Drew shifted uncomfortably once more. For most of the past fifteen years, ever since Drew’s family had moved to St. Joseph, Michigan, Andrew and Rick had been inseparable. Five years younger than her next oldest sibling, Frannie was obviously the family’s much-adored bonus baby. He and Rick had baby-sat Frannie too many times to count. They’d driven her to piano lessons, softball and dance. Drew had helplessly patted her back while she’d cried on Rick’s shoulder after the break-up with her first boyfriend and uselessly assured her the jerk hadn’t been good enough for her. Heck, he’d marked the seasons by the color of the rubber bands she’d picked for her braces each month at the orthodontist. Red and green in December which made her look like her teeth were growing moss, but better than the orange and black she’d favored in October.

      In all that time he’d spent watching her grow, Drew had never once realized that she’d been watching him as well. The little brat knew the edges were his favorite part. Just look at her savoring his edge.

      Drew would have to be under particularly diabolical torture before he’d admit that her cookies were, in fact, the best in town even if they did have raisins. Heck, they’d have to stake him to an anthill and disassemble his remote СКАЧАТЬ