Manhunting by Jennifer Crusie Page A

this lake, too, kiddo. We are both, so to speak, in the same boat.”
    “Yes, but this afternoon, I will be pursuing my plan while you go rot in the azaleas.”
    “We don’t have azaleas,” Jake said. “What are you doing this afternoon?”
    “Shopping in town with Donald Prescott, who is a stockbroker and possibly the man of my dreams,” Kate said.
    “No, he’s not,” Jake said.
    “Excuse me,” Kate said, “but I will determine my own dreams. You, by the way, are not in them.”
    “He’s not a stockbroker,” Jake said. “You really can pick them.”
    “He says he’s a stockbroker,” Kate said.
    Jake looked at her sadly. “Do not believe everything men tell you, dummy,” he said. “He’s a scout for Eastern Hotels. He’s here to hire Valerie away from Will.”
    Kate blinked. “What’s Will doing about it?”
    “Praying that he hurries up,” Jake said.
    “Aren’t they engaged?”
    Jake snorted. “Who told you that fairy tale?”
    “Valerie.”
    Jake closed his eyes. “Well, I warned him.”
    “What?”
    “Forget Will and Valerie. Explain to me this plan of yours so I can avoid it.”
    “You’re not even in the running,” Kate said. “I’m looking for someone tall, successful and distinguished.”
    “I’m tall,” Jake said.
    “You slump,” Kate said. “Forget it.”
    “So tell me again why you came here of all places?”
    “My best friend sent me. She thought it was a great idea. She, of course, is not here and has never been here, so she didn’t realize I’d end up on a lake with a bozo like you.”
    “And this friend is an expert on men?”
    “Jessie? Good heavens, no. She dates even bigger losers than I do.” Kate surveyed him critically. “She’d like you.”
    “On that note,” Jake said, “I am going to sleep. Wake me up when it’s time for your date with Donald.”
    “I certainly will,” Kate said. “It’s going to be wonderful, and I don’t want to miss a moment.”
     
    At two, Kate met Donald and Penny and a new friend of Penny’s named Brian, and they all drove into town together.
    The town was wonderful.
    Donald was awful.
    He was tall, looming over her in his designer suit. He was distinguished, his cologne discreetly exclusive, his hair cut strand by strand by a trendy stylist. He was successful, everything about him shrieking designer labels and money. He was detached, reserved and worldly. And he was, above all, what Kate would once have called discerning.
    By the end of the afternoon, she had acquired a different, unprintable adjective for him.
    They went first into a store called The Toby’s Corners Shop. It was crammed floor to ceiling with gifts and souvenirs in colors Mother Nature never made, and Kate drew back, her good taste offended by the cheapness of it all. Penny picked out a pink stuffed dog with a tag around his neck that said “Toby,” and Brian bought it for her. She hugged him to thank him, and he closed his eyes in ecstasy and hugged back.
    Donald was patient while they looked through the store, although he told them firmly in a voice that carried from one end of the place to the other that the store was just an overpriced tourist trap. The little old man who ran it looked wounded, so Kate bought Jessie a neon-purple T-shirt that said “Somebody Went To Toby’s Corners And All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt,” and an ashtray for her father that looked like a dog leaning against a tree.
    “I really love your shop,” she told the old man to make up for Donald, and he smiled at her and thanked her and told her about how he and his wife had been running it for almost two years now, to help with their retirement.
    Donald waited with ill-disguised patience by the door.
    Then they went into The Corners Art Gallery and looked at walls hung with garish landscapes. Kate tried hard to think about all the work that had gone into the paintings instead of about how bad they were. Donald examined the paintings closely. “Amateur