The Manning Grooms Read Free

prefer, I can contact a plumber. Naturally there’ll be an additional charge for repairs this late in the day.”
    He muttered something Charlotte couldn’t decipher, then said, “I’ll be right over.” He didn’t seem too pleased, but that was his problem. He shouldn’t have agreed to manage the apartments if he wasn’t willing to deal with the hassles that went along with the job.
    “What did he say?” her daughter asked, eyes curious, when Charlotte hung up the phone. “Is he coming?”
    “He said he’d be right over.”
    “Good.” Carrie studied her critically. “You might want to change clothes.”
    “Change clothes? Whatever for?” Surprised at her daughter’s concern, Charlotte glanced down at her business suit. She didn’t see anything wrong with it other than a little water, and in any event, she couldn’t care less about impressing the apartment manager.
    “Whatever.” Carrie rolled her eyes, returning to her homework. No sooner had she sat down than the doorbell chimed. Her daughter leapt suddenly to her feet as if she expected to find a rock star at the door. “I’ll get it!”
     
    Jason considered the whole thing a nuisance call. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what Carrie Weston was doing. The girl had arranged this brokenfaucet just so he’d have a chance to see Charlotte. The kid seemed to think that once Jason got a good look at her mother, he’d change his mind about wanting to date her. Well, there wasn’t much chance of that.
    Apparently the girl thought he was something of a player. Jason might’ve gotten a kick out of that a few years ago, but not now. Not when he was nearing middle age. These days he was more concerned about his cholesterol level and his weight than with seducing a reluctant woman.
    He probably would’ve ended up getting married if things had worked out between him and Julie, but they hadn’t. She’d been with Charlie nearly seven years now, and the last he’d heard, she had three kids. He wished her and her husband well, and suffered no regrets. Sure, it had hurt when they’d broken off their relationship, but in the end it just wasn’t meant to be. He was pragmatic enough to accept that and go on with his life.
    Jason enjoyed the company of women as much as any man did, but he didn’t like the fact that they all wanted to reform him. He was disorganized, slovenly and a sports nut. Women didn’t appreciate those qualities in a man. They would smile sweetly, claim they loved him just the way he was and then try to change him. The problem was, Jason didn’t want to be refined, reformed or domesticated.
    Charlotte Weston was a prime example of the type of woman he particularly avoided. Haughty. Dignified. Proper. She actually washed lettuce. Furthermore, she made a point of letting him know it.
    “Hi.” Carrie opened the door for him, grinning from ear to ear.
    “The faucet broke?” Jason didn’t bother to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
    She nodded, her smile as sly as a wink. “Kind of accidentally on purpose,” she explained under her breath.
    Jason was surprised she’d admit as much. “I thought that might be the case.”
    She pulled a screw from the small front pocket of her jeans and handed it to him. “It was the only way I could think of to get you here to see my mother up close—only don’t be obvious about it, all right?”
    “Carrie, is it the apartment manager?” The subject of their discussion walked into the living room, drying her hands on a terry-cloth apron.
    Not bad was Jason’s first reaction. She’d changed her hair since the last time he’d seen her; it was a cloud of disarrayed brown curls instead of the chignon she’d worn a year earlier. The curls gave her a softer, more feminine appeal. She was good-looking, too, not trying-to-make-an-impression gorgeous, but attractive in a modest sort of way. Her eyes were a deep shade of blue, as blue as his own. They were also intense and…sad, as