Want You Back by Karen Whiddon

with him.”
    Monica actually looked disappointed. “That’s what everyone who called this morning wanted to know. If you really were going to the picnic with Jake.” Horrified, Jenny snapped open her eyes. She’d been right, the town gossips were at it again. “What did you tell them?”
    “That I didn’t know.”
    Jenny let out a sigh of relief. “Good. No harm done then.” She glanced at her watch, weighing the possibility of telling Monica about her plan now. She decided to wait until later. Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten all day. “It’s lunchtime. Have you eaten yeti’”
    With a grimace, Monica indicated the now quiet
    phones. “I could barely get to the ladies’ room. I haven’t had a chance.”
    After lunch. She’d tell Monica after lunch. “Let’s eat, then. All this weirdness has made me hungry.” “What about the flowers?”
    In all of the activity, Jenny had forgotten about the flowers. “What about them?” She shrugged. “They’re beautiful, but there are too many. I can’t work with my office full of them, so maybe I’ll donate them to the nursing home.”
    “Don’t forget that Donald was here.”
    Donald. The photographer for the paper. “I’ll call him after lunch and ask him not to print anything about them.”
    Satisfied, she dug her wallet out of her purse and handed Monica a twenty. “Lunch is on me. Go pick something up and bring it back.”
    A gleam in her eyes, Monica grabbed the money. “Even Chinese?” she asked with an innocent expres sion. Monica loved Chinese food. Ever since the new Chinese restaurant had opened in town, she’d been bugging Jenny to go with her. Never having had Chi nese food, Jenny had never been able to bring herself to try it.
    About to decline, Jenny eyed the hopeful look on Monica’s face and sighed. She couldn’t disappoint her, not after the morning she’d had. “Even Chi nese,” Jenny agreed reluctantly. “Just get me some thing simple, okay?”
    “Sweet and sour chicken,” Monica whooped. “You’ll love it, I promise.” She hurried out the door before Jenny could change her mind.
    Left alone, Jenny savored the blissful quiet. She sat at the reception desk, oddly reluctant to go back to her office. She wasn’t up to facing the room full of flowers. She also needed to call Jake—something she dreaded.
    Before she had time to chicken out, she looked up his number in the paperwork he’d filled out and picked up the phone and dialed. Crossing her fingers and closing her eyes, she prayed his answering machine would pick up. She’d much rather talk to a machine than Jake. Machines didn’t talk back.
    She wasn’t so lucky. Jake answered on the second ring.
    Evidently he’d been waiting for her call. As prim and proper as Jenny had become, he knew she would feel obligated to call and thank him for the flowers. Even unwanted flowers.
    He’d seen the newspaper. One of the painters brought it in to him, grinning from ear to ear. Living in a third world country for the past two years, Jake had forgotten how fast gossip traveled in a small American town. He wondered how Jenny was taking it. He even wondered how Howard was taking it.
    When the phone finally rang, Jake leapt for it. He was gratified to hear Jenny’s husky voice as she briskly thanked him for the flowers.
    “You’re welcome, pumpkin.” He tossed in the endearment simply to ruffle her. Even an affronted Jenny was better than the perfectly businesslike per sona she affected most of the time when she spoke to him.
    To his disappointment, she didn’t react.
    “However, these flowers are not appropriate. First, I did nothing to warrant a thank-you on such an elaborate scale.”
    She sounded like somebody’s elderly maiden aunt. And still, he wanted her. Disgusted, Jake ran a hand through his hair. He wondered if she’d be brave enough to mention the potential for gossip the flow ers created.
    “Ah, but you’re forgetting about our