The Things We Do for Love Read Online Free PDF Page B

like an Amazon, with straight Florida surfer-girl hair. She could easily have been a model on the basis of her face. Lush dark eyebrows and eyelashes, green eyes, defined cheekbones and chin, generous mouth, a few freckles on that skin that always looked honey-colored. Yeah, he gave her a hard time about her butt, yet it was only because he knew that was the part of her body she disliked the most. He liked it. You could see her glutes, and she wasn’t all skin and bone, like her scrawny cousin.
    “I wanted to compliment you on your show yesterday,” Mary Anne said.
    He lifted an eyebrow.
    Her cheeks took on color as he watched.
    “Your advice to that girl was so good. It’s the kind of thing a lot of women need to hear.”
    “Thanks,” said Graham. This was unprecedented. And a little strange.
    “And I wanted to do you a—or ask you for—”
    She stumbled around incoherently.
    Graham said, “What do you want?”
    “I wanted to offer to set you up with Cameron.”
    “Your cousin,” he clarified.
    “Yes. She’s really nice and she directs the women’s resource center, which I’m sure you know. She’s had some counseling training, and I thought the two of you might get along.”
    Graham scratched his head. This was all so strange. “You think I can’t get a date?” he asked.
    “No.” She actually stamped her foot. A small stamp of frustration, but a stamp nonetheless. “I just thought you’d like each other. I thought you could go to Jonathan’s party together.”
    Things were getting more and more weird. “Did she put you up to this?”
    “Of course not. Cameron’s not like that. She doesn’t need male attention. She gets plenty of that without help. But she does think you’re nice, and I thought the two of you might hit it off.”
    He squinted. “Cameron…What’s her last name?”
    “McAllister. Our mothers are sisters. Cameron is really great. I know you’d like her.”
    Strangely, Mary Anne seemed every bit as desperate in her quest to unite him and her cousin as she was to earn Hale’s approval. Graham decided to forgo the “whys.” Did he want to go out with Cameron McAllister?
    He was selective in choosing dates. He sometimes had trouble getting rid of women after he’d taken them out a few times. One or two had even taken to dropping by the radio station, finding excuses to walk past hishouse—which wasn’t even in town but out in Middleburg, near Mary Anne’s grandmother’s house. It made him uneasy. He was a public figure. Like it or not, his voice and his radio show, his appearances on television and more, had made him a public figure.
    “I really don’t know her, Mary Anne,” he said. Then, added impulsively, “I have an idea. Why don’t I take you to Jonathan’s party?”
    Mary Anne appeared to be considering some serious dilemma in her mind. He could hear the wheels turning and wished he could read her thoughts.
    “I—I’d rather you took Cameron,” she said.
    “And I’d rather take you. Besides—” he lowered his voice, unable to resist “—think of the effect it will have on Hale, seeing us together. For all you know, he might decide you are more of a prize than little Angie.” Graham didn’t believe this. Hale had no interest in Mary Anne Drew, except as a source of food for his massive ego. Graham simply had to tease Mary Anne, whose face grew distinctly red at his words.
    She expected him to rise to the bait and spit back at him.
    Instead, she said, “Oh, I just don’t know,” in a way that suggested global warming or world peace might hang on the answer to her inner conflict. She said, again almost desperately, “I’m trying to do something nice for you!”
    “So go out with me.”
    “I don’t like you!” she replied. “Cameron does. Why don’t you go out with her?”
    Her behavior was incomprehensible. Graham pushed aside the little sting of that “I don’t like you!” He said, “Well, you tried. But to be perfectly honest, it