Read Online A Date on Cloud Nine by Jenna McKnight - Free Book Online Page B

first. Changing her number hadn’t worked. She couldn’t screen every call, because she wasn’t always in the same room with the answering machine or caller ID. About the time she got used to the silent harassment, it escalated to heavy breathing. Blowing a shrill whistle into the receiver hadn’t worked, though she’d spent one night laughing and hugging herself at the thought of the scumbag writhing on the floor in pain.
    She spent hours in her glass-roofed atrium. Tending the exotic trees and plants and feeding the koi usually relaxed her, but tonight, thinking back over her day with Jake turned out to be an exercise in frustration. She wasn’t quite certain what to make of him. Sometimes friendly and polite, sometimes a chip on his shoulder. Moody? Or contemplative?
    It didn’t matter which, really. She had to complete a mission, as it were. A few weeks to get pregnant, at most. With her irregular cycle, no telling when the key dates were.
    She’d confessed she hadn’t any prospects, and then bam , Jake had shown up. No doubt about it; had to be him. And he wasn’t just a tool, a sperm donor. That would be impersonal and unfair. She felt they had a real connection. Sure, it wasn’t much yet. It needed to grow and be nurtured. She needed to get to the bottom of why he wasdriving a taxi and seemed to have abandoned any profession his degrees had prepared him for. As long as she got pregnant soon, they’d have a lifetime for all that and more. Hadn’t Elizabeth said to have faith?
    At ten o’clock, Lilly started packing up odds and ends that she didn’t want sitting around when she marketed the house, which, as part of her net worth, had to be liquidated. Everything of any monetary value had to be converted to cash. If she gave it all away too soon, she’d be destitute. She needed a legal arrangement that would allow her to sell the house but stay on until whatever else she was supposed to take on faith happened. That would take a unique buyer.
    “Elizabeth, if you can hear me, I need some one-on-one time. You know, down here? Face-to-face?”
    Unfortunately, she couldn’t shut her mind down while filling bags for the next Salvation Army pick up.
    Why was Jake in her every thought? What had he done to make her hormones sit up and take notice, other than exchanging a few words and—oh yeah—touching her arm? That might do it. The fact that she hadn’t had sex in the whole last year of her marriage probably had a lot to do with it, too.
    He couldn’t be serious about her not making passes! If he was the right one , he’d just have to get over that and get down to at least one night of the heated passion and endless lovemaking she knew she’d get with him. Too bad getting pregnant might take, oh, thirty or so such nights.
    To hell— excuse me, God, I’ll try to do better —with John. He could close his eyes or his ears or not read whatever page of her life story that’d be on.
    She called Betsy. “Abstinence sucks.”
    “Hold on,” Betsy whispered, which meant there was an overnight guest in her bed. She picked up in another room, chuckling. “So it’s finally gotten to you, huh? I knew it would eventually.”
    “Don’t sound so smug, missy. You were the one begging for a vibrator this morning.”
    “Not anymore.”
    “Yeah? Who is he?”
    “That cute paramedic from this morning, and wow , does he know a thing or two. But back to you. You want me to fix you up with one of his friends?”
    “Can you just tell me how to make a pass at a man who’s told me not to?”
    “Why bother? Unless it’s a doctor. Ooh, I’ll bet there was a cute one at the hospital.”
    “No, not a doctor.”
    “Well, who else? Andrew?”
    “Oh c’mon, he’s my brother-in-law.”
    “ Was . I’ve seen those exquisite bouquets he sends you.”
    “He’s being nice.”
    “Yeah, a hundred bucks a week’s pretty nice. I read the last card. ‘To my favorite Lilly of all. Love, Andrew.’”
    “He doesn’t