Bachelor By Design: Bachelor By Design / Too Hot For Comfort. Kay David
the neck. Her makeup was just right, not too heavy and not too light. Her long blond hair fell like a silk curtain over her shoulders.
“Fine,” he replied, putting down his spoon.
“Blancmange is my favorite.” She flashed him a wide smile.
Blancmange. A fancy name for vanilla pudding. That was the problem. Everything with Kimberly was just so…vanilla. Trace sat back in his chair, more irritated with himself than her. She fit all his specifications, so what exactly was his problem?
He mentally ticked off his checklist for the perfect wife. She should be attractive, but not too pretty. Adept in the kitchen, as well as a neat housekeeper. A good conversationalist, but not argumentative.
Kimberly was all of these things, yet he’d almost fallen asleep over the soup course. Maybe he was just tired. It had been a rather trying day. He flexed his right foot, which was propped up on a chair, and winced slightly at the movement.
“Does it hurt?” she asked, staring down at the bulky gauze bandage on his big toe.
“The numbness is starting to wear off,” Trace replied, trying to ignore the throbbing ache in his big toe.
She shook her head as she set her spoon down and pushed her empty bowl away. “I never realized how dangerous your occupation was before. You’re lucky you only needed four stitches.”
“Five,” he corrected, shifting his foot slightly. “And I would have needed a lot more than that if I hadn’t been wearing my leather work boots.”
She smiled at him. Her Carol Brady smile that was beginning to set his teeth on edge. Funny how it had never bothered him before. But then, he hadn’t considered the possibility of looking at the smile every day across the breakfast table for the next fifty years.
Until now.
“You really should be more careful.” She meticulously brushed a few crumbs off the white linen tablecloth and into her hand. “At least your aunt was there to call the ambulance.”
“The ambulance wasn’t for me, it was for Ramon. He had a panic attack after he dropped the saw on my foot and started hyperventilating.”
“Oh, dear,” she murmured. But Trace got the feeling she wasn’t really listening. Her total attention was now focused on scraping the dried pink wax drips off the crystal candleholder.
So maybe she wasn’t all that exciting. He wasn’t looking for that in a wife. He wasn’t necessarily looking for love, either, he reminded himself. Affection, compatibility, and hopefully passion, but not love. At least not the heart-pounding, soul-searing love that had turned his older brother inside out.
Trace wanted order in his life. Stability. A family. He wanted…vanilla. Which meant he must want Kimberly. He’d probably get used to her smile. And the way her nose twitched when she chewed. All married couples had to make some adjustments, didn’t they? It was possible she might even find one or two things about him that irritated her.
The wall clock chimed eight times. Just get it over with, Trace told himself, tired of these annoying second thoughts. “Kimberly,” he began.
She looked up from the candleholder. “Yes, Trace?”
The words stuck in his throat. He cleared it, then took a deep breath. “I’d like to talk about our future.”
She leaned forward, daintily folding her hands together on the table. “Oh, I’m so glad. I’ve been wanting to talk about it for a while now, but I didn’t know how to bring it up.”
Some of Trace’s anxiety lessened. That was another thing he liked about Kimberly. She wasn’t pushy or demanding. She always waited for him to take the initiative.
“You go first,” he said graciously, wanting time to compose a proper marriage proposal.
She gave him an affectionate smile. “I never knew how I wanted to spend my life until I met you. Then we started dating three months ago, and everything became clear.” She sighed wistfully. “The first time we kissed I knew for sure.”
Trace wished he could say the same. Unfortunately, their first kiss had created more doubts in him than desire. “You did?”
She nodded. “That’s when I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life in a convent.”
He blinked. “What?”
“I’m going to become a nun,” she said, her voice quivering with happiness.
“A nun?” he choked out.
She dabbed at her watery eyes with a paper napkin. “I’ve already applied to begin my novitiate at St. Mary’s. I just wanted one last chance to say goodbye, Trace, and to thank you.”
Thank him? He frowned at his sore toe as her words echoed in his head. He’d kissed her and she’d decided to become a nun. Not exactly a glowing endorsement for his sexual prowess. “A nun,” he murmured, still rocked by her announcement.
“Are you surprised?”
“You could say that.” He looked up at her. “How long have you been thinking about becoming a…nun?”
“Since I was a little girl.” She steepled her fingers together and leaned toward him, looking more animated than he’d ever seen her. “But I didn’t want to rush into anything, so I decided to have one last fling just to be sure.”
A fling. He’d been ready to propose to this woman, and she’d considered him a fling! He shook his head, wondering where he’d gone wrong. In all the time he’d spent sizing up Kimberly as wife material, it had never occurred to him that she might not be interested. He stifled a snort. Not interested? She was about to take a vow of chastity!
“So sorry to eat and run.”
He looked up, surprised to see Kimberly standing up and donning her jacket. “You’re leaving?”
“We nuns don’t like to keep late hours.” She headed toward the front door, then paused to blow him a kiss over her shoulder. “I had a wonderful time tonight, Trace. Thank you for dinner.”
“Thank you for cooking it,” he said blankly. Then he pushed out his chair.
“No, don’t get up,” she said, holding one hand in the air. “I can see myself out. Besides, you and your toe need to rest.”
He slumped back down in his chair as she waved goodbye and sailed out the door. A few moments later he heard the roar of a car engine and the squeal of tires. Sister Kimberly had a lead foot. He vaguely wondered if nuns got speeding tickets.
Then his gaze fell on the soiled plates neatly stacked at one end of the table. Too late he realized that Kimberly wasn’t so perfect, after all. She’d left without doing the dishes.
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He couldn’t do dishes with a sore toe. Maybe he should just throw them away. He’d never really liked that daisy pattern, anyway. Too girly. He’d picked them up cheap at a local thrift store when money had been tight. Now he could afford more masculine dishes. Maybe something with cars on it.
While he pondered if he should buy glasses to match, the doorbell rang.
“It’s open,” he called, lifting his head and opening his eyes, but not bothering to get up. No reason to aggravate his toe any more than necessary. Maybe it was Kimberly, back to tell him it was all a big joke.
But he didn’t laugh when the sultry brunette walked into the room. She wore a short red silk suit that outlined a luscious hourglass figure. The kind of body a man could sink his hands into. With a conscious effort, he lifted his gaze from her full, round breasts to look at her face. He noticed her big brown eyes first, fringed with thick, dark lashes, then her pert nose and full, red lips.
This woman was no nun.
So who was she? And what was she doing in his condo? He swallowed as a curious