Last Chance for Marriage

CHAPTER ONE: CALL NUMBER

“Amy can’t stay here!”

“Why not?”

“I’ll tell you why not! Because she’s a pain in the—”

“Jake Joseph Weston! Just because you and Amy sometimes disagree…”

Jake snorted at his grandmother’s understatement and switched the phone to his other ear. Maddie only called on the old landline’s number, insisting cell phones were “unhealthy.” Jake had long ago stopped arguing with her about it. He used his cell phone for work, and simply kept the landline for home and Maddie.  Good to have during a power outage, anyway.

“…Doesn’t mean you can’t get along for a little while. Her lease on her new apartment begins the first of September.”

“That’s two months away! Look, Maddie, I’m swamped at work and I have no time to do any entertaining. She’d be bored stiff.” Tucking the receiver between his shoulder and jaw, Jake pulled open the refrigerator: two cans of beer, assorted bottles of salad dressing and one shriveled peach. He couldn’t put it off any longer. He had to order some food. Fast or fresh—anything. He slammed the door shut. “Why does she want to come to Balboa, anyway? Isn’t she teaching summer school?”

“With the schools on limited budgets, summer classes have been cut back. All the middle school cooking classes were snatched up by teachers with more seniority.”

“Can’t she stay at your house while you’re on your cruise?”

“She would, except the interior decorator I’ve hired is scheduled to start remodeling as soon as I leave next week.”

Madelyn had her excuses down pat; too pat, Jake decided suspiciously. “How come you’re so anxious to have her stay here? You wouldn’t be trying a little matchmaking, would you, Maddie?” He opened the refrigerator again and took out the peach. Turning it to the least-shriveled side, he bit experimentally, carefully avoiding a large brown spot.

Madelyn laughed lightly. “Matchmaking? Between you and Amy? Darling, give me credit for a little common sense. If something was going to develop between you two it would have happened long before now. Let her stay, dear, you have plenty of room. After all,” her voice dropped to quaver convincingly, “she helped me when I needed it.”

Jake threw away the half-eaten peach. Leaning back against the kitchen doorframe, he rubbed the tense muscles in his neck. He’d lived with Madelyn Weston from the time he was sixteen until he finished college at twenty-two. She might be a lady in every sense of the word; she might be seventy-five years old. Neither fact stopped his grandmother from hitting below the belt when she felt it was necessary. Emotional blackmail was her specialty.

He answered with strained patience. “Maddie, if you’re referring—again—to the time you broke your arm, you know you refused to come here and I couldn’t stay in Santa Barbara any longer. I was—”

“Busy at work,” Madelyn finished, “as usual.”

“I had three houses underway. I thought you understood.”

“I did understand.”

“Yeah? Then why throw it in my face constantly?”

Her tones swelled with hurt dignity. “I’m doing no such thing. I realize that at thirty you have your own life to lead. Far be it from me to complain because my only grandson—my only living relative—is so involved in his business he can only visit his grandmother a few times a year.”

“Thank you for not complaining, Maddie.”

“I’m just grateful Amy came to stay. She’s been so much help these past two years, sometimes I forget she isn’t my own flesh and blood. She’s such a sweet girl.”

“Yeah, a real saint.” Jake shook his head in disbelief when Maddie, taking his words at face value, launched into a running monologue on Amy’s virtues. Sighing, he pulled an oak chair closer and sat down, knowing from experience she wouldn’t be winding down anytime soon.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like Amy. He did. Sometimes. And he owed her a lot. If it wasn’t for her, he would have been forced to sell his business in Balboa to take care of Maddie when she’d adamantly refused to come to his beach house which had once belonged to her and his grandfather. “I’m more lonely for your grandfather there,” Maddie had said when Jake tried to persuade her.

He’d been relieved, but not surprised, when Amy volunteered to stay with his grandmother. From the day ten years ago when Amy’s father moved in next door to Maddie, the lonely teenager and the older woman had become firm friends. When Mr. Larkin remarried and moved out of state a couple of years back, Amy opted to remain in Santa Barbara. From then on, Jake’s visits to his grandmother “coincidentally” coincided with Amy’s visits to her father, thus ensuring Maddie was never alone.

Yeah, no one, Jake thought as he idly knocked chunks of mud off his work boots onto the hardwood floor, was more soft-hearted than Amy about those she cared for. But soft-hearted or not, a saint Amy wasn’t. Maddie saw her as a sweet young lady; Jake knew her better as a snub-nosed, blue-eyed tomboy with her brown hair in a ponytail and trouble up her sweatshirt sleeve.

Trouble for him, that is. Like the time she was fifteen and she’d followed him around for days, taking notes in a thick black notebook. “I’m documenting you,” she’d told him when he finally confronted her in Maddie’s living room. “Like they do chimpanzees in the wild.” He’d been wild, all right. Wild enough to shake the living daylights out of her if she hadn’t darted behind Maddie for protection.

Or there was the time when she persuaded him to try a sugar-free apple pie she’d made. Unsuspectingly, he wolfed the pie down and then discovered the sugar substitute she’d used was a natural laxative. Okay, maybe she hadn’t done it on purpose and maybe he could look back on both incidents now and smile. The bottom line was that, all too often, Amy caused his gut to churn with frustration. And right now, with his contracting business taking off, he didn’t have time for an emotional bellyache.

Convincing Madelyn, however, was another story. As she rattled on, his gaze absently roamed the room, sharpening abruptly at the sight of a black banana buried beneath a pile of dishes on the opposite counter. “Big help”…”no trouble”…”a darling girl” crackled into the air as he stretched an arm out to investigate. Pulling back the banana’s limp peel, he groaned. Black all the way through, damn it.

Disappointed, he returned the phone to his ear.

“…And at least she’ll inspire you to get your place in order. I’m sure it’s a pigsty,” Madelyn concluded on a deep breath.

Jake looked with rueful respect at the phone in his hand. How did she know these things?

“Can she stay?” Maddie persisted.

Jake opened his mouth to say no. Amy would disrupt his life. He’d bet on it.

“As a favor to me?” his grandmother added quietly.

Yeah, Maddie knew how to fight dirty. “Send her down next week,” he said, acknowledging defeat.

“Thank you, dear. I’m sure you two will have a wonderful visit.” Madelyn paused. “Oh, and one more thing…”

Jake stiffened. Here it comes.

“…If Amy needs your help—”

“What! I don’t have time to help her with anything!”

“I’m not saying she will, dear, just that she might. She has an interesting little plan in mind. She’s so creative!”

“She’s a pain in the—”

“Goodbye, dear.”

The phone clicked in his ear, and resignedly Jake dropped it on the counter. He stood, stretched and opened a cupboard by his head, brightening at the sight of a dusty red box in the corner. Did bouillon cubes go stale? he wondered.

* * *

A week later, Amy sat at Jake’s kitchen table holding a chipped mug. She gently swirled the cup, watching as darker specks in the muddy liquid sank repeatedly to the bottom while pieces of green onion floated stubbornly at the top. She looked at Jake, seated across from her.

“You made this yourself?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yeah. Fast food gets old. I’ve been cooking for myself more lately. And I knew after your drive down this morning, you’d want something warm and soothing.”

He was right, Amy decided. She did want something warm and soothing. She wanted a hot bath, the chance to change out of her grubby gray sweat suit, and a long nap.

What she didn’t want was whatever he had concocted in this mug.

She slowly lifted the cup to her lips. Steam—smelling faintly of, was it chicken?—tickled her nose. She took a cautious sip, swallowed warm salty water and a piece of onion, and forced a smile. Her students had made worse, she told herself bracingly. If she took tiny sips she might be able to drink the whole thing.

After all, Jake was doing his best to welcome her. He’d made the mystery drink, he’d stayed home on a workday, and the brief tour he’d given her of the wood-framed, two-story bungalow showed he’d cleaned up. The living room was dusted and his downstairs bedroom straightened. In the guest bedroom upstairs he’d piled sheets, yellowed with age but fresh, on the tarnished brass bed. The kitchen was only slightly cluttered, and the one bathroom—a converted pantry boasting a blue, claw-footed bathtub—reeked of disinfectant.

Yes, Jake was doing his best to make her comfortable. More importantly, he obviously had the housework under control.

Which meant, Amy decided as she took another sip, that Madelyn Weston had a lot to answer for. Maddie might be the kindest person Amy had ever met; she might be as honest as the day was long. Neither fact stopped her from bending the truth when she felt it was necessary. Avoiding the issue was her specialty.

“Jake needs my help keeping house this summer?” Amy had asked the older woman days ago as she helped her pack for Maddie’s cruise. “You’re positive he didn’t invite me to stay because he feels obligated or pressured because I’ve been staying with you?”

“Darling, he’s thrilled to have you visit.” Catching sight of Amy’s skeptical expression, Madelyn had amended, “Well, maybe not thrilled, but certainly happy.”

“He said he was ‘happy’ about it?”

Madelyn’s voice was muffled as her tall figure, draped in a vibrant blue-and-green silk kimono, burrowed through the rainbow of clothes in her closet. “Maybe not those exact words, dear. You know Jake.”

Amy’s skepticism deepened. Yes, she did know Jake. And not once during the past ten years had he ever looked happy to see her. Resigned? Yes. Happy? No.

“You did tell him my plans for the summer, didn’t you, Maddie?” Amy persisted, trying to catch her gaze. “About how I’m changing my ‘school teacher’ image and looking for a potential husband?”

“I think I mentioned something about it, darling,” Madelyn answered vaguely. “Even if I didn’t, Jake is sure to notice you’ve changed.”

Amy raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “Jake? Notice I’ve changed? He still sees me as a bumbling teenager.” She refolded a velvet skirt Maddie had stuffed into the case and laid it neatly on the growing pile of clothes. “Besides, I don’t care if he notices. I do care if, from some misguided protectiveness, he interferes with my plans.”

Madelyn’s silver-gray eyes widened in surprise. “Darling, Jake would never interfere. He’ll probably help.”

Amy paused in her packing to consider the novel idea. “Jake? Do you really think so?”

“Of course he will, dear,” Maddie said firmly. “He’s changed. He’s very easygoing now.”

Thinking about Maddie’s last remark, Amy grimaced. Maddie’s wrong, she thought. Jake never changes except to grow browner and tougher. Looking over the rim of her cup, she studied the man opposite. His skin was a smooth golden brown, accentuating the darker chestnut of his lashes, brows, and the crisp curls on his head. Years of working in the sun had etched tiny lines at the corners of his teasing gray eyes. His nose was bluntly masculine, his mouth cleanly cut.

Beneath his navy t-shirt, the powerful muscles in his neck, shoulders and arms were sculpted into rock hard curves by almost a decade of manual labor. He was just under six feet tall, but his lean hips and broad shoulders gave an illusion of greater height.

Characteristically, his square jaw jutted forward unrelentingly as it had ever since Amy mentioned paying rent a little earlier. The words were barely out of her mouth before he cut her off. The discussion, he stated firmly, was closed. Amy was a guest and guests did not pay rent.

He’s easygoing, all right, she thought wryly. As easygoing as a brick wall. However, one thing she had learned while living with Maddie was: you don’t go through brick walls, you go around them. Whether Jake liked it or not, this guest would earn her keep, possibly by helping with the housework and the cooking. She took another sip of her salty drink. Hopefully, all the cooking.

“Do you like it?”

Jolted from her thoughts by Jake’s deep voice, Amy stared at him blankly. “What?”

“Do you like the drink? I made it with bouillon cubes.”

“Oh.” Bouillon? Well… not poisonous anyway. Amy looked down at her cup. Empty, thank goodness. “It was… interesting. The onions were a nice touch.” She put the cup down. It was time to tackle another issue, and she might as well get it over with. “Jake, I have a problem.”

His silver-gray eyes, so like his grandmother’s, fastened on her intently. “Yeah? What’s up?”

“In two months, on September first, I’m going to be twenty-five years old.”

Studying her, Jake raised a surprised brow. Hard to believe she was almost twenty-five. She looked more like seventeen than twenty-four. Partly because she was such a shorty, only about five one, and partly because her brown hair was escaping the bun she’d secured it in. It tumbled around her pale face in a curly mass. Her bare pink mouth didn’t have a hint of a smile, and her blue eyes looked anxious as she met his gaze.

“Yeah, so?” he answered.

Amy leaned forward. “So, by the time women reach twenty-five, they outnumber single men by over seven million!” Having dropped her bomb, she slouched back and waited for his reaction.

He gave it to her. “So?”

“Jake! Don’t you see? I’m going to be an outnumbered single woman! How will I—a Life Skills teacher at a small middle school—ever find someone to marry? There are only four men at the school where I work. One is the custodian and he’s at least sixty-five. Two of them, the boys’ coach and the mathematics teacher, are already married, and the last one is the principal, who must weigh over three hundred pounds. And he’s a rude, overbearing man whom I wouldn’t marry if you paid me.”

“The fat principal wants to marry you?” Jake asked, hiding a grin.

“No, he doesn’t want to marry me! I just mean I wouldn’t marry him even if he did.”

Jake sat forward in his chair. Surely, she wasn’t serious about all this. Was she? “Now, let me get this straight. You’re going to be twenty-five in three months—”

“Two months.”

“In two months. Right?”

Amy nodded. “Right.”

“And you’re afraid if you don’t get married before then you never will?”

“I’m saying my chances will decrease to about five percent.”

Jake stood up and went to refill his cup as Amy watched anxiously. Turning, he leaned his hips against the oak counter. “Well, Amy, I can see that you certainly have a problem.” He took a taste of his bouillon drink.

Amy breathed a sigh of relief. “I knew you’d understand.”

“Oh, I understand all right. The problem is—you’re crazy.”

“Jake!”

“Come on, Amy,” he said in exasperation. “Lots of people are waiting until their thirties, or even forties, before marrying these days. You can’t believe that unless you get married by twenty-five, it probably won’t happen.”

“It’s true.” When he lifted a skeptical brow, Amy stood up determinedly to grab her straw bag from a nearby chair. “Okay, I’ll prove it to you.” Slamming the large bag on the counter near Jake, she pulled out a red hardback and thrust it into his hands. “Here. It’s a little outdated—early 2000s—but Maddie swears by it.”

Juggling the book in one hand, Jake set his cup down to turn the book over. Etched in white, the title “Last Chance for Marriage” made him blink while the subtext following made him roll his eyes. “How to Find A Mate Before It’s Too Late!” he read aloud, then gave a snort of disgust. “This thing’s ancient,” he muttered, flipping it over to see the faded author photo on the back. “This is your proof? An old book?”

“ By Doctor Joan Potocki. She’s still working and is highly respected in her field.”

“Well, excuse me. By big deal Doctor Joan Potocki. What does this have to do with anything?”

Amy tapped the book significantly. “In this book I learned all the pitfalls a woman faces when looking for a husband after the age of twenty-five. The biggest problem is the shortage of men.”

“What a bunch of bull.”

“It is not! According to research from when this was published, the dating pool gets more competitive as women get older. It’s probably worse now with dating apps and everything.” Amy grabbed the book away, opened to the first chapter and began reading a marked passage. “This is primarily because of the higher death rate among males. In fact, by age twenty-five, there are already more women than men.”

Pausing, Amy lowered her voice to add ominously, “From then on it’s a losing battle.” She slammed the book shut.

“Oh, my God!”

“Jake, you can’t argue with facts. The research I’ve been doing on the internet shows almost everything the book discusses is still true! And the shortage of men isn’t the only problem. What with the economic recession, the increase in divorce, religious calling—whatever—the leftover single men sometimes don’t want to get married.”

“Okay, okay.” She was serious about all this stuff. Studying her intent face, Jake raked his fingers through his hair. “Supposing that’s true. So what? There must be thousands, probably millions, of women who don’t want to get married, either.”

“Maybe there are. But I want to get married. I want someone to share my life with, someone with whom I’m compatible.”

His eyebrows drew together as he frowned. “But isn’t it kind of calculating to hunt for a husband?”

“No. Lots of people do it. Not everyone is happy with casual hook-ups. Marriage—or at least a committed relationship is still the prime motivation most people have for using dating apps. But they just don’t appeal to me. Do they appeal to you?”

“Hell, no.” Jake almost shuddered. “Not that I’ve ever tried them,” he added, trying to be fair.

“And I’m not being calculating.” Amy added. “All I’m trying to do is increase the odds that something wonderful will happen. By getting out there. Meeting people. And by looking for a man with my head instead of just my emotions, maybe I can avoid some of the heartache my father and mother went through.”

Turning away, she sat back down at the table. Tracing the grain running through the wood, she avoided his gaze as she added, “I’ve only told Maddie this, but Mom and Dad didn’t get along. He almost seemed relieved when she died, and, well, he and I have never been close, either, no matter how I try. I know they say you can’t miss what you’ve never had, but believe me, I’ve missed not having a family.”

Jake frowned. He knew Amy had lost her mother when she was fourteen. He’d been sixteen when both his parents had died in a car crash. Between him and Amy, though, Jake decided he’d been the luckier. He’d had Maddie. In his opinion, Amy’s father was straitlaced and cold, unable to respond to Amy’s impulsive warmth. The hugs and kisses dispersed so freely by Madelyn on a grieving and sometimes withdrawn grandson had been non-existent in the Larkin household.

Unsure what to say, he studied her as she sat with her lips pressed firmly together and her hands clasped in her lap.

She glanced up, and meeting his gaze, smiled faintly. “Don’t look so worried. I wasn’t exactly unhappy growing up. It’s just—well, I like people, Jake. That’s why I was so glad to have Maddie living next door. I pretended she was the grandmother I didn’t have. And when you came to visit her…well, sometimes I pretended you were my family, too.” A slight flush rose in her pale cheeks.

Jake swung his chair backward, straddling it as he sat down next to her. Reaching out, he covered her smooth little hand with his. “We think of you as family, too, Amy.”

Amy smiled tremulously at him. “Thanks, Jake. And that’s another reason I want to find someone soon—why I don’t want to wait too long. I want kids and I want them to know Maddie. Don’t you think she’d be a wonderful great grandmother?”

“Yeah, the best. She’s always liked kids.”

“And I could go it alone. Lots of women do. But surveys say kids are happier growing up with two parents. Evidence shows they are more likely to thrive—academically and emotionally. Married women and men are typically happier, too, than those going solo. They feel their lives are more meaningful. Less lonely.” She paused. “I don’t want to be lonely, Jake.”

His clasp tightened. “I get that.”

Amy nodded. “I know you do.” She turned her hand upward to clasp his. “So you’ll help me?”

“Sure, I’ll—” He broke off, snatching his hand away as a sudden thought struck. “Oh, my God!” He jumped up, knocking over his chair.

Amy’s eyes widened with alarm. “Jake! What is it?”

“You’re not hoping to marry me, are you?” he demanded hoarsely.

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