Janet Evanovich - The Grand Finale

“No!”

“Are these frustrations of yours physical in nature?” he asked.

“No.”

His voice gentled. “Want to talk about it?”

Berry sighed and pushed her curls behind her ears, leaving white flour smudges on her flushed cheeks. “No.”

What was there to talk about? She was confused and scared. Her heart told her to marry Jake, and her head told her not to rush into anything.

Jake slouched against the counter. “I hate to ruin your fun, but it’s ten o’clock. We’ve had three customers in the past two hours, and you’ve got enough pizza crusts to last through November. What do you say we call it a night?”

Berry looked up from her pounding. “It’s ten o’clock already?”

His silky voice held a teasing challenge. “If I didn’t know better, I’d guess you were avoiding going to bed with me.”

Berry dusted her hands off on her apron and tipped her nose defiantly into the air. “That’s absurd. And I’m not going to bed with you. We’re going to bed separately. I go into my bedroom, shut my door, and go to sleep. You sleep… somewhere else.”

“Where else am I supposed to sleep? You don’t even have a couch. And besides, we’re engaged, we’re adults, and we’re in love. Am I right?”

Berry nodded. All that was true.

“Here’s the problem,” she said to Jake. “We’re two entirely different kinds of people. You’re a risk taker. You’re a man who trusts his instincts. I’m more of a plodder. Look at my shoes.” Berry stared down at her feet. “I wear running shoes. A trustworthy brand. Not too cheap, not too expensive. Middle-of-the-road shoes. I’ve worn middle-of-the-road shoes all my life, and I’ve never been really sure where they were taking me until a year ago when I went back to school and bought the Pizza Place. It was really difficult to scrape the money together. I had to talk a bank into taking a chance on me. I had no collateral and no business experience, but I had confidence that I could succeed. Now, thanks to the lunch contracts, my pizza business is in the black. I made a sound business decision, I stuck by it, and I succeeded.”

“And?”

“And while that felt like the logical, sensible thing to do… marriage right now feels impetuous.”

“Okay,” Jake said. “I can appreciate your point of view. Let’s temporarily take marriage out of the equation and just get to know each other.”

“Does that involve sleeping together?”

“Yes.”

“Without the imminent threat of marriage?”

“Yes.” At least for tonight, Jake thought.

Berry opened one eye and sniffed. Someone was cooking bacon. She snatched at the digital clock on her nightstand and squinted at it. Someone was cooking bacon at five o’clock in the morning. She ran her hand through her tangled hair, wrapped a short terry robe over her University of Washington nightshirt, and shuffled out to the kitchen.

Jake waved a spatula at her in greeting.

“What on earth are you doing?” Berry asked.

“Making us breakfast. I knew the smell of bacon would get you stumbling out here.”

“It’s five in the morning. Couldn’t you get me stumbling out at seven or eight?”

“Have you forgotten what day this is? This is not an ordinary day.”

Jake poured Berry a cup of coffee and set a plate of scrambled eggs, a buttered muffin, and half a pound of bacon in front of her.

“Isn’t this the day you take your art history exam?” he asked. “I know you’ve been studying for it all week, and then you had sort of a disruptive weekend. So I thought you’d probably want to get up early and do some last-minute cramming.” He plunked her school notebook beside her plate.

There you have it, Berry thought. Good sex makes you stupid. All the blood rushes from your brain to other body parts and there’s nothing left in your head but euphoria. And whatever the price, the experience was worth it. Sleeping with Jake Sawyer was a life-changing experience. It was wow. It was yummmm. It was yes! And as if this orgasmic miracle wasn’t enough, the man had gotten up early to make her breakfast.

Suddenly there was a mental thunderclap and bolt of lightning, and Berry figured it out. They were a team. A good team. If they just worked together, there wasn’t anything they couldn’t do. They could sell pizza, invent glop, raise puppies, and love each other. Berry didn’t have to do it all alone.

Jake cocked an eyebrow at her. “You have the strangest expression on your face. Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m feeling wonderful. I’m going to eat this entire scrumptious breakfast, then I’m going to study my brains out until two o’clock, and when I come back from my exam I have big plans.”

Jake sat opposite her and forked into his eggs. “When you come back from your exam, if I’m not mistaken, you’re going to have to study economics.”

At ten o’clock in the morning the phone rang.

“It’s Dr. Pruett,” Jake called to Berry. “Good news. The ring is in Jane’s intestines. Not long now!”

Berry smiled. Everything in her life was turning out right. She’d probably ace her art history exam. She didn’t know why she was bothering to study. “You sound like an expectant father, waiting for your spaniel to deliver a healthy one-carat ring.”

Jake shook his head in amazement. “Two months ago if anyone had told me I’d be this worried over a dog, I’d have told them they were crazy.”

“She’ll be fine.”

His eyes watched her intently. “Something strange is going on here. That was my line last night. Now you’re reassuring me.”

“That’s because I feel fine.” She shook her pencil at him for emphasis. “Not everyone can be a successful pizza tycoon.”

“That’s what’s important to you, huh? Being a pizza tycoon?”

Berry buried her nose in her art book. “Nope. I don’t give a fig about pizza. It’s the success part.”

Jake stared at her for a moment, lost in thought. He nodded slightly, as if he understood, and kissed her lightly on the top of her head. “I don’t give a fig about pizza, either. Nevertheless, I shall now descend to the bowels of the Pizza Place and work my fingers to the bone fulfilling lunch contracts. Do you know why I’m going to do this?”

“I can hardly wait to hear.”

“I got rid of your ladies for the express purpose of getting you into the sack, and now that I’ve boinked the pizza tycoon I have to pay the piper.”

Berry gave the door to the Pizza Place a shove and staggered to the counter where Jake was working. “One more slide of sixteenth-century bucolic splendor, and my eyes will fall out of my head.”

Jake wiped his hands on his apron. “Tough exam?”

“I don’t know. My mind is numb.”

“Good thing you only have one more exam.”

“Yeah, good thing.” Her attention was diverted by a yelp from the corner of the small restaurant area. “Jane!”

The little black dog was confined in a playpen. She hopped up and down at the sight of Berry. She wagged her tail and made excited puppy sounds and rolled on the plastic playpen mat.

Berry rushed over and hugged Jane. “She remembers me. She’s so smart!”

“Not only is she smart, but she’s also empty, if you know what I mean.”

“What a good dog.” Berry laid her cheek against the silky black head. “It was so clever of you to get rid of that ring.”

Jake delivered a salad and a hamburger to the table nearest the playpen. “Come here, Goldilocks. I made you some supper, and then you’re excused to go upstairs and study.”

“Yum, I’m famished.” She plopped the puppy back into the playpen.

“No more upset stomachs?”

“Nope. All gone. I’m fine. Never been better in my whole life.”

Jake stiffened. “Great. I suppose that makes you real happy.”

“Yup.” She munched on a carrot stick and watched Jane attack a rope dog bone.

He gave it his best shot, Jake thought, but in the end she had to get rid of the ring to feel good. And he was almost out of time. He was hopelessly in love and he was running out of time.

“This playpen is a great idea,” Berry said.

“I borrowed it from my sister. She’s one of those family-type people.”

Now what? Berry wondered. All of a sudden he sounds absolutely cranky. She ate the last bite of hamburger and stabbed a lone chunk of raw broccoli from her salad bowl. “Well, that was terrific. Guess I’ll go hit the books now.”

Jake bent over a wad of pizza dough. Whump. He smacked it with the rolling pin.

Wow, Berry thought, I’ve never seen him whack pizza dough around like that. Maybe he’s cracking under the strain of fatherhood. Maybe he isn’t ready to have puppies. Boy, wouldn’t that be the pits? Here I am all set to go off and start researching baby food, and Jake gets cold feet. Well, if that’s the problem, we’ll work it out together. We’re a team. She smiled at a scowling Jake and hummed as she went through the door.

Several hours later Berry was startled out of her studying by stomping and thumping on the stairs. Jake swung the collapsed playpen around the corner and unceremoniously tumbled a squirming puppy onto the rug. “Damn, I didn’t think I was going to make it. This dog didn’t want to hold still.”

Berry closed her economics book and stood at her seat by the table. He was still cranky. Can’t blame him, she decided. He’s had a long day. Up at five to help me study. Worked making pizza for twelve hours. And somewhere in between he’s had to be responsible for Jane.

Rrrrf, Jane squeaked, running in circles, chasing her tail.

Well, all that was about to end, Berry thought. He could relax now. She’d take care of Jane. She’d show him they could be a team and raise puppies by the hundreds. She grabbed Jane and kissed the top of her head. “Has the puppy eaten?”