Free A Baby in the Bargain by Victoria Pade

had a bit more of a business feel, and the fact that it was already taking place on a Friday seemed to call for at least that much reserve.
    “Seven-thirty is fine. I’ll meet you there.”
    “Great.”
    And why it suddenly seemed like they’d just been on a date, Jani didn’t know. But standing in the parking lot in the early darkness, looking up at Gideon, the question of kissing flashed through her mind as if that’s exactly what they’d been doing.
    Kissing?
    Of course not. It was out of the question.
    But still her gaze went to his mouth. To his full lips.
    And she wondered...
    She just couldn’t help it.
    She wondered what kind of kisser he might be. Good? Bad? Mediocre? Dry? Wet and sloppy? Just right...
    She’d never know.
    Of course she’d never know.
    But somehow, deep, deep down, a little part of her regretted that.
    Which was ridiculous, she told herself.
    “Okay then...” she said, realizing only in that moment that Gideon had been staring at her, too. Much the way she’d been staring at him...
    But probably not with thoughts of kissing.
    He doesn’t like me.
    Although he wasn’t looking at her as if he didn’t like her...
    Still, this was going nowhere because it had nowhere to go, so she said, “Friday night. Seven-thirty.”
    “Preliminary paperwork in hand,” he added, his voice slightly deeper, slightly quieter than she’d ever heard it, as if he were reminding himself of their business together.
    Then he said, “See you then,” and went around to the driver’s side of his sports car, getting in only after he glanced across the top to make sure Jani had gotten into her sedan.
    She waved, knowing she had no reason to have continued to watch him, and turned to look out her windshield while she started her engine.
    Another glance in his direction found him looking straight ahead while he did the same, and Jani took that as her cue to put her car into gear and leave.
    And yet as she drove through rush-hour traffic to get back to Denver, her mind wasn’t really on the slow-moving, bumper-to-bumper crawl that got her onto the highway.
    It was still on Gideon Thatcher.
    And her curiosity about what kind of a kisser he might be...

Chapter Five
    “I t’s a dinner meeting, not a dinner date. I’ll be paying and putting it on my expense account,” Jani insisted to her cousins.
    Livi and Lindie had dropped by her house on their way to a movie Friday evening to ask what she’d learned at her doctor’s appointment that afternoon.
    But they’d come in on Jani getting ready for her seven-thirty dinner with Gideon and accused her of prepping for a date.
    “The soup cans say you’re lying,” Livi said, pointing to the empty metal containers that Jani had her hair wrapped around as it dried from the quick shampoo she’d done in the shower when she’d rushed home.
    “Homecoming junior year of high school. Prom that same year. The Sweetheart Dance when we were seniors,” Lindie added. “Those are the times you went to the trouble of using soup cans to make the waves of your hair bigger, so they’re softer and sleeker and—”
    “Sexier—that’s what you said,” Livi finished her sister’s sentence. “Why do you want to be soft and sleek and sexy for a dinner meeting? ”
    “I just wanted a little different look, okay? Without the damage of the heating tools. I remembered the soup cans and thought I’d try them again, that’s all. I told you guys the same thing I told GiGi and the boys—Gideon Thatcher is one of those people in the hate-the-Camdens camp. Top it off with the fact that I’ve taken myself out of the dating pool and put myself on the mommy track, and all you have here is a dinner meeting. ”
    One she was looking forward to, but still nothing more than a meeting—that’s what Jani had been telling herself since she’d set it up.
    “GiGi says he has green eyes,” Livi prodded. “Reggie had green eyes. You’re a sucker for green eyes....”
    “I’m a sucker