Finding Mr. Perfect. Nikki Rivers
steadfastly ignoring the urge to look over at the coffee shop. She ran her hands through her windblown chin-length brown hair, trying to comb out the knots with her fingers, then took her time picking a piece of lint off her black suit jacket. But the pull from those blue eyes was stronger than the will to not embarrass herself again.
She gave in and turned her head—and found herself nose to nose with the beefcake in denim.
Oh, those eyes. They were enough to make a girl shiver.
“Lost?” he asked.
“Of course not,” she said, using haughtiness to keep the shivers away.
The beefcake leaned his head farther into the car to look at the slip of paper taped to her dash. “That the address you’re looking for?” he asked.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but, yes, it is.”
“Then you might not be lost yet, but you’re on your way.”
“Excuse me?”
“You made a wrong turn.”
The last thing Hannah wanted to do was ask him for help, but she was already running late. She looked at her watch. The Walkers expected her for lunch and it was after one. She sighed. “Would you mind giving me directions, please?”
“That might be kind of hard to do, considering your bad sense of direction. Tell you what, I’ll show you the way.”
She thought he was going around to get into the passenger seat and she totally panicked. “I—I don’t think that will be necessary,” she yelled out the window. “I’d really rather you didn’t get into—” she broke off when he plopped himself down on the hood of the Granny’s Grains station wagon. Apparently, he had no intention of getting into the car.
“Make a U-turn,” he yelled.
She stuck her head out the window. “Are you insane? Get off my car.”
He rapped his knuckles on the logo emblazoned on the hood. “Doesn’t look like it’s really your car. Looks like it belongs to Granny’s Grains. So unless you’re Granny—”
“Save it. I’ve heard that same joke several times in several different ways all the way up from Chicago. I’m late. So if you would please—”
Behind her a car honked. And then another. She closed her eyes and groaned. Nice entrance. Holding up traffic in a town with such a low crime rate might be transgression enough to make the front page of the local paper. Mr. Pollard would not be pleased. Behind her, the honking started again so she set her jaw, stepped on the gas and made the U-turn, all the while hoping that the beefcake would fall off in the process.
He didn’t.
Instead he’d turned into a talking hood ornament. “Full speed ahead,” he commanded loud enough for her, and probably the whole town, to hear.
Hannah slunk down in the seat and started to drive, hoping to remain as inconspicuous as possible. Fat chance with the local hero waving and yelling at just about everybody they passed. Bad enough she’d had to drive all the way from Chicago in a bright red station wagon with the company logo displayed prominently in several places, now she had to arrive to meet the Walkers with the local beefcake perched on the front of the car like it was a float in the homecoming parade. She felt like she was hanging onto the last of her professional dignity by her very short, ratty fingernails.
Luckily, they’d only gone a few blocks when he yelled for her to pull over. She checked the address taped to her dash. Yes. This was it.
The house was large, its narrow clapboard siding painted lemon-yellow. The shutters on the windows that reached nearly to the ground were painted white, as was the trim. And there was a huge porch stretched low across the front with a swing swaying gently in the early June breeze.
“Perfect,” she murmured again. Just the kind of house Hannah had always dreamed about. It was even better than the one Lissa had grown up in.
“Want me to carry your cereal for you, sweetheart?”
While she’d gaped at the house, Hannah had nearly forgotten all about him. He was leaning in the passenger window this time.
“No, thank you,” she said stiffly as she got out of the car. She was glad she’d worn the black tailored pantsuit and the gorgeously tailored white shirt she’d borrowed from Lissa. It made her feel professional enough to put the beefcake in his place. He was draped attractively against the car, showing no sign of leaving. “I don’t think I’ll get lost between the front sidewalk and the front door,” she told him. “You can go now.”
She didn’t wait to see if he did. This was too exciting a moment to let him spoil it. Okay, so maybe this wasn’t a real scientific research study, but Lissa had been so right. It was going to be quite an adventure—getting to know the family that was going to represent not only Super Korny Krunchies but also her fondest fantasy.
It wasn’t until she was standing at the Walkers’ front door, ready to ring the bell, that she realized that she wasn’t alone.
He was lounging there next to the door, his wide mouth quirked into a grin, his blue eyes glittering.
“Look, do you mind?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart,” he said while his gaze wandered suggestively down to her mouth. “That depends on what you’re asking me to consider.”
“I’m asking you to consider leaving.”
“I already considered it. I decided not to.”
Hannah groaned. This was ridiculous. The Walkers were her ideal family. She couldn’t show up at their front door with this lunatic—albeit very attractive lunatic—at her side.
“Aren’t you going to ring the bell?” he asked. Before she could stop him he reached past her and rang it himself.
Hannah was trying to decide if she could manage to disappear before anyone came to the door, when it opened.
“Hi, Ma,” the beefcake said. “What’s for lunch? I’m starved.”
2
BY THE TIME HANNAH HAD met Kate Walker, her husband Henry, and Henry’s older brother, Tuffy, who lived with the Walkers, she was starting to recover from the shock of finding out that her beefcake hood ornament, aka Danny Walker, was a member of Granny’s Grains Great American Family. It helped that he’d disappeared right after introductions. She knew it was probably very un-Great American Family of her, but Hannah fervently hoped Danny was having lunch elsewhere.
Mrs. Walker led her through a bright, charming living room and a dining room with crystal candlesticks and real flowers on the table to the kitchen at the back of the house.
It couldn’t have been better if Hannah had dreamed it up herself. The cupboards were painted white and the walls were papered in tiny blue flowers. There were blue gingham curtains at the windows and needlepoint on the walls of a spacious alcove that held a big oak table already set for lunch. Something was bubbling merrily in a pot on the stove and the aroma was enticing enough to make her mouth water.
“This place is for you, Miss Ross,” Uncle Tuffy said as he pulled out a chair for her then bowed in a courtly fashion.
“Thank you, Mr. Walker,” she said as she took it.
Tuffy chuckled delightedly. “I’m not Mr. Walker,” he said. “Henry there—he’s Mr. Walker. I’m Uncle Tuffy.”
“Then, thank you, Uncle Tuffy,” she said.
He grinned and Hannah tried not to think of lawn ornaments. He was short, slightly built and wiry, except for a rather large potbelly that strained the buttons of his red plaid shirt. With round cheeks above a whiskered chin and white hair that stood out in wispy tufts from his pink scalp, he looked like a gnome. All he needed