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for letting my mother talk me into this."
    Nora leaned against the wall. "Your mother is amazing. She doesn't look a day over forty. She's in great shape."
    "Tell me about it." Straightening, she walked over to the water fountain and took a drink. Then she stepped aside so Nora could take a turn.
    The fitness club, which was popular with the downtown San Francisco work crowd, was filling up, although Friday nights tended to be slower than the rest of the week. Most people probably had dates, she thought with sigh. She picked up a complimentary towel and wiped the sweat off her face.
    She was not only out of shape, she was also out of sorts. Bored, restless, frustrated were only a few of the words that came to mind whenever someone asked her how she felt. Of course, she didn't express those words aloud. She simply said she was fine and kept her private anguish to herself, a trait she had learned early on from her mother. Caroline didn't confide in anyone, and to a certain extent Joanna didn't either. The only one who had even an inkling of the misery she had been in since her boyfriend dumped her and her father died was Nora.
    As Nora turned away from the drinking fountain, Joanna tossed her a towel, Nora missed, and the towel landed at the feet of an incredibly tall and muscular man. He picked up the towel and handed it back to Joanna as she stared at him in amazement.
    Good Lord, the man's muscles were huge. His round, bulging pecs glistened with sweat or some kind of body oil. He wore a tight tank top and a pair of small shorts that emphasized his other bulges. He was the most incredible specimen of a male she had ever seen. Pure brawn.
    Nora cleared her throat, and Joanna realized she was staring.
    "Uh, thanks," Joanna said.
    His eyes drifted over her body. She hadn't had a man look at her that way in quite some time. She wondered what she would do if he asked her out.
    Nora would say go for it. A new man was just what she needed to take her mind off her problems. But this man was not her type. She dated intellectuals, thin men with glasses and faraway looks and hair that needed cutting and clothes that needed fitting. This man didn't need clothes, period. Maybe she ought to expand her horizons.
    "Why don't you give me a call?" he said.
    "Maybe," Joanna prevaricated.
    The man reached into a tiny pocket in the back of his shorts and pulled out a card. "I could whip you into shape in no time," he said with a smile as he continued down the hall with an arrogant swagger.
    She looked at the card. "Hawk Cunningham, personal trainer. I guess he didn't want my body after all."
    "He wanted your body all right."
    "Yeah, as a before picture. Now I'm thoroughly depressed."
    "Don't be," Nora said. "Personally I've never liked a man who has bigger breasts than I do."
    She laughed. "True.  But I'm not sure what my type is anymore.  I thought it was David, but that obviously didn't work out." In the past five years she'd dated a variety of men. One had been too short, the other too tall; one too studious, another too boring; one talked incessantly about global warming and another had spent one very long dinner hour describing the different types of bacteria she was putting into her mouth with each bite of food. She'd thought she'd hit the jackpot when she'd met David Richardson, a professor of English literature at Stanford. Unfortunately he'd turned out to be as big a jerk as the rest of them.
    "David was an idiot.  And he wasn't for you."
    "I thought he was."
    "No, you picked him because he was safe, just like the others. You knew exactly what you would get. It was a no-risk situation.  You're not very adventurous when it comes to men."
    "What do you want me to do -- date an ax murderer?"
    "I want you to date an interesting, exciting man, not some scrawny professor who cares more about his research than his girlfriend, and thinks having a good time is spending the evening at the library."
    "I like the library," Joanna