Dating by Numbers

by Jennifer Lohmann

  He reached out and took her hand in his. The truck’s heater had been off for a while, and the chill of the spring night had started to settle on her shoulders. The warmth of his hand worked magic, sending heat through her entire body and warming her down to her toes.

  “She was right. More so than she realized. Those algorithms, and my repeated failed scores, aren’t the sign of your doubts about me. They are the first sign of you realizing you love me.”

  Happiness giggled through her, though she gave him a fake scowl and asked, “Did I need to make the pretty apology?”

  “Oh, yes. I needed to hear that. I needed to know that you realized what the algorithms actually meant. It wasn’t enough for me to know it.”

  She squeezed at his hand. “I learned it. I’m still a little disappointed that math failed me and I might go back and rework the damn things until you pass, but I know it. I fell in love with a dear friend. I’m not sure there’s a better feeling than that.”

  Contented silence filled the car for a couple seconds as they both settled into their new relationship, one different from what it had been on the Saturday of their marathon date. This relationship was a new beginning. They’d been tested and they’d passed. Not yet two weeks in, and she knew in her bones that they were no fly-by-night operation.

  And with that thought, she remembered something else. “Who pays for the big date? Since we both win the bet.”

  “The bet specified three months,” Jason said, then winced as he clearly realized both what he’d said and the implications of it. “Not that I don’t think we’ll make three months. I’m already thinking past months to years, but you do like to be precise.”

  “In three months, who pays for the big romantic date?”

  “We both win, right?”

  “Yes,” she said slowly.

  “So I owe you a big romantic date and you owe me one.”

  “That’s why I’m asking. How do we decide who pays and where we go?”

  “Marsie,” he said. However she looked at him made him smile. “We don’t have to limit ourselves to one date. Since we made this bet and we both lost and both won, you can take me someplace awesome and I’ll take you someplace awesome. But that’s only one set of dates. There will be more.”

  “Right.” The implications of forever hadn’t occurred to her. She hadn’t needed to worry about one set of dates. They had hundreds, maybe thousands—she’d have to create a set of assumptions and do the calculations—of dates ahead of them.

  Suddenly, the pressure was gone. Like with their argument about her algorithm, they didn’t have to be perfect on the first try. They had time to learn, adjust and get it right the next time.

  “Ready to go inside now?” he asked, though their hands were still entwined.

  “Yes,” she said, not wanting to be the one to let go first.

  Like they could read each other’s minds, he squeezed her hand at the same time she squeezed his hand and then both said, “Ow.”

  She slipped her hand out of his and turned to the car door. He followed, standing behind her, his hand resting on the small of her back.

  Marsie didn’t bother to offer him a drink. She just led him up the stairs and into bed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  THE NEXT COUPLE weeks were a whirlwind of activity, and not just because Jason was back in her life and they were splitting nights in each other’s beds. That week she’d spend lonely and sad, and working on her grant was only the beginning. Marsie was working all the time, and Jason was always there to greet her with dinner, a drink and slippers when she was done with her marathon workdays.

  To her surprise, not only was he supporting her through her grueling workdays, but apparently he had also been planning something. After a couple days of getting home at a reasonable hour and not being exhausted, Marsie came home to find Jason there, holding a change of clothes. Her clothes.

  “I’m taking you out,” he said, holding up the two hangers.

  “I would never wear those two things together.” He was holding a pair of tight, dark red pants and a pink sparkly shirt. There wasn’t a pair of shoes in the world that could bring together those two pieces of clothing, not to mention that she would have to think especially carefully about any jewelry so that she didn’t detract from the effect of the shirt.

  He looked at the clothes he was holding and shrugged. “Okay. You have ten minutes to change into what you want to wear for a party. If you’re not ready in ten, that’s okay. I’ll grab you and take you in whatever it is you’re wearing.”

  He smiled, a sexy, knowing smile that made her weak at the knees. “Or not wearing.”

  She pursed her lips—trying to be upset, but too amused to even fake it very well—and grabbed at the hangers. “Fine. Okay. Where are we going? And did you pick out shoes?”

  “Of course I did.” He was faking being affronted about as well as she was faking being upset. He picked up a pair of black heels with chains dangling from the ankles. She’d never worn those heels, not ever. She’d bought them to wear on the night she planned to have sex for the first time with the man she was certain she would marry. But she hadn’t met that man the way she’d expected, and so the shoes had never been out of her closet.

  “I don’t know about those,” she said, taking them from his hand at the same time she took the two hangers. “They’re a bit...”

  “They’re hot. And you’ll look hot in them.” The heat in his eyes melted her insides. “You’ll look hot in a pair of pajama pants and slippers, too. If you want to wear those to a party, I’ll be there for you.”

  She started for her bedroom. “What is this party you keep talking about?”

  “It’s a surprise,” he said from behind her on the stairs.

  “It’s not much of a surprise if you’ve already told me this much,” she called over her shoulders. “Not only did you tell me about it, but you handed me the clothes.”

  “The clothes are selfish. I think you’ll look good in them.”

  They turned into her bedroom. She was laughing as she shucked her skirt from work. “You’re incorrigible. Though, seriously, what’s the party?”

  “You’re going to get this cool grant. I think you deserve a party. So I planned you one.”

  “There were lots of other people working on this grant with me.”

  “Yup. They’re invited, too. But I didn’t pick out their clothes.”

  She threw her blouse at him. He laughed and handed her the one he’d picked out for her from the bed.

  “I’m not going to wear clothes you pick out for me very often.”

  “To be honest, I didn’t really expect that you would this time. But I figured it was worth a try. And you’re home earlier than you’ve been in a couple weeks, but still we’re going to have to rush. I figured that since I was messing with your plan for the night, I’d go right ahead and mess with the rest of your night, too.”

  “When you say it like that...”

  “When I say it like that, it’s because I love you. And I want you to enjoy your party.”

  “Okay, okay. Hand them over.” She took the shoes from him, then leaned over to adjust the straps. “Do I have time to do my hair?”

  “Your hair looks great.”

  Her hair was falling across her face as she stood up. Sleek—the look she usually hoped for out of her hair—had probably abandoned her sometime around 1:00 p.m., but from the look on his face, sleek didn’t matter. To him, she did look great. And would look great if, like he had said, she was wearing pajama pants and slippers.

  She carefully packed up the look on his face in soft material, then stored it in the back of her memories. On a rough day, when work was getting her down and she hadn’t been able to meet him for a cup of coffee, she’d pull that memory off the she
lf, relive it and she’d feel better.

  “Where is this party?”

  “I can tell you, or I can drive you there.”

  “You can just drive me there,” she said with a smile.

  Trust was this amazing thing. She didn’t pepper him with questions as they drove through the city into downtown. She didn’t worry that she wouldn’t like where they were going or who was going to be there. Jason had planned a party for her. She was certain she would enjoy it.

  And she did enjoy it. He’d picked one of her favorite restaurants for the party—not one they’d been to, but one she had mentioned several times. There was a small room in the back that you could rent, and almost all of the people who were working on the grant with her were there with their spouses, plus her boss and her boss’s boss.

  She had a couple glasses of wine, lots of delicious and surely fattening appetizers. Jason was clearly there with her, but he wasn’t around her the entire time. He knew all these people just as well as she did. He laughed and joked. Patted some of them on the back and gave a couple of the women quick hugs.

  Once, he caught her eye, and she felt the lightning flash between them.

  Spark.

  * * *

  SPARK, JASON THOUGHT as his eyes met Marsie’s over the crowd and electricity crackled through his body. This was what he had been waiting for, why he hadn’t been interested in having more than a couple dates with any of the other women.

  But what he hadn’t realized was that the intense and regenerating glow that spread through his body whenever he looked at Marsie was something he would have to be patient enough to wait for.

  This was worth waiting for. Marsie was worth waiting for. There, drinking a glass of red wine and teetering on heels that pushed her almost a head over everyone else in the room, there was his future.

  And she was bright.

  * * * * *

  You won’t want to miss

  Jennifer Lohmann’s next Superromance

  coming out in June 2018!

  And be sure to check out her other recent books!

  LOVE ON HER TERMS

  A SOUTHERN PROMISE

  WINNING RUBY HEART

  WEEKENDS IN CAROLINA

  Keep reading for an excerpt from CHRISTMAS IN A SMALL TOWN by Kristina Knight.

  Get rewarded every time you buy a Harlequin ebook!

  Click here to Join Harlequin My Rewards

  http://www.harlequin.com/myrewards.html?mt=loyalty&cmpid=EBOOBPBPA201602010003

  We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Superromance.

  You want romance plus a bigger story! Harlequin Superromance stories are filled with powerful relationships that deliver a strong emotional punch and a guaranteed happily ever after.

  Enjoy four Harlequin Superromance stories every month!

  Connect with us on Harlequin.com for info on our new releases, access to exclusive offers, free online reads and much more!

  Other ways to keep in touch:

  Harlequin.com/newsletters

  Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks

  Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks

  HarlequinBlog.com

  Join Harlequin My Rewards and reward the book lover in you!

  Earn points for every Harlequin print and ebook you buy, wherever and whenever you shop.

  Turn your points into FREE BOOKS of your choice

  OR

  EXCLUSIVE GIFTS from your favorite authors or series.

  Click here to join for FREE

  Or visit us online to register at

  www.HarlequinMyRewards.com

  Harlequin My Rewards is a free program (no fees) without any commitments or obligations.

  Christmas in a Small Town

  by Kristina Knight

  CHAPTER ONE

  SHE SHOULD HAVE changed before she got on the highway. Or off the highway onto the two-lane road leading into town. Or at any of the rest areas between Kansas City and Slippery Rock County line—she had to have passed at least twenty during the trip south.

  Camden Harris eyed the stained parking lot and the layers of bodily fluids, oil, gasoline and whatever else that covered the pavement. She swiped a hand over the miles of tulle covering her hips, creating what her mother had described as “bridal perfection” in the dress shop a few weeks earlier. She eyed the stained parking lot once again. Nothing about this gas station was bridal perfection, but then, what small-town gas station ever promised perfection? Gas stations were about utility. Getting to the next stop on whatever journey a person was taking. Camden sighed.

  She could chance that whatever gas was left in the tank of her car would get her where she was going—although the red needle was precariously close to the E marker—or she could get out.

  Knuckles rapped sharply against the window beside her, causing Camden to jump in her seat. An older man wearing a faded Slippery Rock Sailors ball cap and an old gray hoodie with grease-stained jeans stood beside her car.

  “Fill it up?” he asked. His voice held the gentle twang of the Ozarks that she remembered from childhood summers spent at her grandparents’ dog school just outside Slippery Rock. “I’m guessing you want the high-octane stuff,” he said, not waiting for her to answer as he grabbed the nozzle from the machine at his back.

  Camden rolled down her window. “Thank you. I didn’t realize gas stations still offered full service fill-ups.”

  “Most people do it themselves. You had the look of a desperate woman, though, and I’m guessing that dress and my concrete wouldn’t mix well.”

  The older man pulled a squeegee and a bottle of window washer fluid from a receptacle on the side of the gas pump and began washing her windows. In the stark lighting from the overhead bulbs, she realized she’d hit about a million insects on the drive down, and that the light rain storm she’d passed through around Springfield had left a thin coating of dust and spots on her windshield.

  “Thanks, again,” she said, and opened her phone. She’d gotten this far on her own, but now that she was in town, she would need help finding the old farm. She knew it was vaguely west of town, but other than that, she had no clue how to get to her grandparents’ place. How ridiculous was that?

  She was a twenty-seven-year-old woman, had been successfully navigating the Kansas City streets since she was sixteen, had managed to find her way around both Chicago and Atlanta on her own. But she had no idea how to get to her grandparents’ farm in a town tinier than the neighborhood surrounding her parents’ Mission Hills mansion.

  Camden entered the address from her phone into the car’s navigation system and waited.

  “We don’t get many cars like this one around Slippery Rock. Not even in the summer when the tourists come to town,” the older man was saying as he finished cleaning the windshield. The gas pump clicked off, and he plopped the squeegee and bottle of cleaning fluid back into the side bin. “Passing through?”

  Camden handed the man her credit card and shook her head. “Visiting for a while.”

  “I’ll be right back,” he said and hurried inside to ring up her purchase.

  “Address not found,” said the voice of the Australian man she’d chosen for her car’s navigation system. Usually she liked the voice she’d dubbed Thor, but this time she didn’t like what he had to say.

  Camden entered the address again, and while she waited, looked up her grandparents using one of those online address finders. The same address she had in her phone popped up on her screen just as Thor told her, again, that the address didn’t exist.

  “You’re just messing with me now, aren’t you?” she said.

  “Nope, it really is thirty bucks on the nose,” the gas station attendant replied, passing her card and the receipt slip through the window.

  Camden cringed. “Sorry. I
was just talking to Th—uh, my navigation system. It says my destination is an unknown address.”

  The older man shook his head. “Happens all the time down here. Those computer maps focus a lot on the big cities, but you get into the rural routes and they don’t know whether they’re coming or going. Where are you?”

  Camden blinked. “Where am I what?” She was in her car. At the gas station. Unless she’d fallen asleep at the wheel and was dreaming all of this while in some weird comatose state in a hospital. She pinched the back of her hand. Nope, that hurt. She was awake, all right. Awake and wearing her wedding dress at what was probably the last full-service gas station in the entire world.

  “Where you going?”

  “Oh, of course. Harris Farms.” Camden began reciting the address from her phone, but the older man cut her off.

  “Sure, Calvin and Bonita’s place. You’re gonna continue on this road till you hit the grocery store. At the light you’ll turn south for a couple of blocks before taking Double A Highway West out of town. You’ll turn back north a few miles out when you see the county road sign, then follow 251 until you get to their lane. Can’t miss it. Bonita bought Calvin one of them big mailboxes a few years ago, in the shape of a collie. I swear you could fit a small child in that thing.” He tapped the roof of her car. “Nope, we don’t see many cars like this one around town. You have a nice evening, ma’am.”

  Camden’s mind swirled with the information the older man had offered up. Straight to the grocery store, follow that road to the highway, follow the highway to the county road that would lead to the farm. She could handle this. Camden put the Porsche in Drive and waved to the older man as she pulled back onto the road that led through Slippery Rock.

  Just as he’d said, a few blocks on, the grocery store stood on the corner with a flashing red light. Camden flicked her blinker on and turned toward what she vaguely remembered as Slippery Rock’s downtown. The old brick buildings looked familiar, but the large grandstand area was new. Several of the buildings appeared to have recently constructed roofs or walls, probably cleanup from the tornado that had nearly ripped the little town apart last spring. She came to a stop sign, and hanging on the pole was a sign for the highway the older man had mentioned. With an arrow pointing to the right. The only problem was the other sign, the one that read One-Way Street, with an arrow pointing the opposite direction. Maybe there was an outlet.