Love's Nine Lives by Cara Colter

Author:Cara Colter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Justin looked at the worn dry-cleaner’s sign. In his line of business, it was not one of the Hunter’s Corner establishments that he had to frequent with any regularity. In fact, the last time he had been there had been for Harry Burnside’s last wedding, seven years ago. No, make that eight. Harry was single again, another reminder of why being there was not the greatest plan.

Relationships complicated the nicest of lives.

Though when Justin tried to come up with what was so nice about his own life, at this moment, he drew a blank. He didn’t really have a life. He worked hard, came home, watched TV, went to bed.

Even the home part of the equation seemed unsatisfactory of late. He was aware suddenly that his house didn’t have any character. It had no warmth and no charm. It looked faintly sterile and unfriendly. It didn’t welcome him when he got home from work. The maddening part of it all was that his house—and his life—had contented him perfectly just a short while ago.

He looked at the jacket he was having cleaned and frowned. Was it the same jacket he’d worn at Harry’s wedding? Maybe that was bad luck, given how Harry’s marriage had ended.

Justin snorted at himself. He reminded himself who he was. He was a man who dealt in practicalities, not luck. Renegade thoughts about home-decor dissatisfaction did not reflect who he was either! Still, he studied the jacket hanging from the peg in his truck. It was a nasty shade of blue with a faint herringbone pattern in it. It would be a shame if it was that ugly and unlucky.

The truth was, he wouldn’t be caught dead in it if it wasn’t his only sports jacket. Shopping was out of the question. There was no menswear store in Hunter’s Corner, plus shopping, especially for clothing, was only for truly momentous events. Truly momentous events were delegated stingily—weddings, funerals, christenings—and the poetry reading did not begin qualify.

And he was a man who knew, since he’d kept himself awake most of last night debating the question of whether he should try to get a new jacket.

Still, he didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings by dressing wrong, so Justin hoped to hell Fred knew what he was talking about.

It occurred to him, as he hopped out of his truck and retrieved the jacket, that he had not been this nervous about a date for a very long time.

Of course, he had not been on a date for a very long time.

“It’s not a date,” he told himself. A date might qualify as a momentous occasion, especially in his life.

If the poetry reading needed a label, Justin thought the word experiment might do nicely. He conceded an experiment was not such a bad idea at this point in his life.

So when was the last time he had been nervous about a rendezvous with the female of the species?

He distinctly remembered sixth grade. It had taken him a week to ask Rhonda Staltwelder if she’d go to a movie with him.

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