Send Me No Flowers Read Online Free PDF Page A

way, you can make your mom happy and squelch those ugly impotency rumors all at the same time.”
    “Very funny,” Drew said, grimacing. “A wife is the last thing I need. I’ve got plans. Big plans. Besides, with my law practice and this stint as mayor, I’m already working seven days a week. And I like it that way. I don’t need any distractions.”
    His father had been a workaholic, too. The only difference was Ted Lavery had tried to divide himself up between his work and his wife and his son. To Drew’s regret, they’d never had enough time together as a family. His most vivid childhood memory was sitting in the window seat, watching for his dad to come home. He’d fallen asleep there more times than he could remember. Drew didn’t want to do that to a child. He didn’t want to die of a stress-induced heart attack at fifty-two like his father, either.
    “So you’re planning to stay a bachelor forever?” Charlie asked.
    Drew shrugged. “Maybe I’ll tie the knot someday—when the exciting part of my life is over. Besides I’m too young to get married.”
    “You’re thirty-four, same as me.”
    “So why don’t you get married?”
    “I will.” Charlie smiled. “Just as soon as I find a woman who cooks like your mother.”
    “This is the nineties, Dennison. Women don’t have to do all the cooking and the cleaning anymore. It’s supposed to fifty-fifty.”
    “Spoken like a man whose mother still irons his T-shirts.”
    Drew tipped up his beer. It made his mom happy to iron his T-shirts. And he just wanted her to be happy. “We’re not supposed to be talking about my mother, we’re supposed to be talking about Rachel. We have to come up with a new strategy.”
    “Rachel?”
    Drew scowled. “I mean Dr. Grant.”
    “So she’s really a knockout?”
    Drew took another swig of his beer, remembering those big brown eyes, that golden hair and those long, long legs. “She’s...not what I expected.”
    “Obviously. So it’s time for Operation Rachel. What’s the plan?”
    “I don’t know. First we need some damage control. Did you see this morning’s newspaper?”
    “No. Did I miss something?”
    Drew shoved the paper under his nose. “Can you believe that headline? Mayor Attempts To Rise To The Occasion.”
    Charlie whistled as he skimmed the article. “Sounds like she got the better of you, Mayor. She’s almost convinced me to boycott Valentine’s Day.”
    “She may have won the battle but the war is far from over. I’ve got three weeks until Valentine’s Day. That’s plenty of time to convince her that this whole idea of a boycott is ridiculous.” He tipped his head back against the cushion. “All I have to do is get her to listen to me.”
    “I’ll do what I can to help.” Charlie rubbed his chin. “But I don’t know, Lavery. I think you may have finally met your match. Care to make a little wager on it?”
    Drew drained his beer. “Fifty bucks says I make Rachel back off the boycott by Valentine’s Day.”
    “You’re on.”
    “Supper’s on, too,” Kate announced, resting against the door frame. She held up her own copy of the morning newspaper. “And since I’m a wagering woman, I’ll put fifty bucks down, too...on Dr. Rachel Grant.”
     
    THREE DAYS LATER, Gina lay stretched across the thick carpet in Rachel’s living room, her hands clasped behind her head as she stared up at the ceiling fan. “So you don’t think I could get away with a temporary insanity plea?”
    Rachel sat cross-legged on the sofa, a stack of pamphlets on one side of her, a box of Mallomars on the other. She turned the page of the glossy pamphlet in her hand. “I think you should quit fantasizing about ways to kill your husband. It’s not healthy.”
    “Maybe not, but it’s fun. Besides, Kurt cannot leave me for a stripper and get away with it.”
    Rachel looked up from her reading. “I thought you said she was a lingerie model.”
    “Whatever. He still has to pay.”
    The phone