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By renowned local Romance Novelist Jacqueline DeGroot

Want a great romance read for your days at the beach? Here’s an excerpt:

Chapter One

Mmm . . .beans for breakfast

This is by far the strangest diet I have ever been on. Yesterday I had triple chocolate frozen yogurt and a bowl of red and green vegetables for breakfast, shrimp and sausage links for lunch, ham slices and low fat milk for dinner, and a bowl of green beans for a late night snack. Today, I started with a bowl of pinto beans and a bowl of oatmeal and I can’t wait for lunch, as it’s turkey slices with bacon and a fresh orange.

The diet regimen Tess and Cat gave me is called the eleven-day diet or something like that, but it’s really fourteen days—the last three days being free days. This is my second cycle so it’s almost been a month now. The first eleven days I lost ten pounds but gained three back on the free days. That’s not too shabby as far as diets go, but tomorrow starts my free days and this time I am not going to go hog wild and eat freely just because I can. With luck and will power, I will drop twenty of the thirty pounds I’ve targeted in only three cycles. Of course exercise has helped. I know, I said I wouldn’t, but I did.

The girls are making it easy for me. Most days they collect me at 7:30 and we ride over to the island. Bundled up to beat the band we walk from the pier to the beginning of Bird Island, or until our noses freeze, whichever comes first. I am amazed at the difference—I have finally lost my belly.

On a man it’s called a beer gut, or a paunch, and they swagger with it out front, tucking their belt under it with pride, oblivious to astonished stares because they look six months pregnant. On a woman it’s called a belly and when it makes itself known, it’s the beginning of a timeworn battle with support hose, girdles, and constricting spandex. For the first time in years I do not have to wear a girdle or slimming underwear. It is so nice to breathe freely, to actually be able to take a full, deep breath again.

Tessa and Cat are on their way over for lunch and they say they have a surprise for me. Their last surprise was this diet, and although I wasn’t thrilled at the time, I can appreciate how hard it was for them to broach the subject and launch me into this very strange food odyssey. The four little meals a day, which thankfully, allow for one glass of wine, haven’t been all that hard to take. Of course, I fill the biggest wine goblet I have—to the very rim. Interestingly enough though, I am finding that lately I can’t even finish it. I also have more energy and a niggling desire to have sex, which confounds me, as I’m not sure how to begin this process again. But I’m working on it—in a selfish, one-sided kind of way—if you get my drift.

The doorbell rings and I run to answer it. I can’t wait for my surprise.

“I know you said noon, but we thought we’d come a little early, we just couldn’t wait!” Tessa said, waving a newspaper in front of her face.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“A hoot is what it is,” she replied.

“Or a motive for murder,” Cat mumbled, following her in. Then she added, “Just remember this was her idea, not mine . . .”

“What?” I asked, trying to take the paper from Tessa’s hand. She hid it behind her back. “No, not yet. Let’s have lunch first since there is the distinct possibility that you will kick us out when you hear what we’ve done.”

“Again, it’s not really we. Remember that when you go for your gun,” Cat said and then asked, “It is locked in a gun case without bullets so we can have a head start, right?”

I was starting to get a frisson of worry inching up my spine. “What have you done? You didn’t put a personal ad in the paper on my behalf did you?”

Almost immediately there was an awkward pause. Both of them hesitated in their stride toward the back of the house where the kitchen was, and looked askance at each other.

“Tessa! Cat!”

Tessa turned around and walked backward, still keeping the paper behind her back. “Not exactly.” She broke into a huge grin and winked at Cat who was putting her purse on the counter.

“Cat, tell me what’s going on. And please, please don’t tell me my picture’s plastered on that paper with a Man Wanted sign over my head.”

“Sit, sit. While I pour the iced tea Tessa will fill you in.” Cat went to the fridge and took out the pitcher of tea I had made that morning, rounded up the prerequisite yellow paper packets, and the bowl of sliced lemons I’d left on the counter.

“You will be pleased to know that we did not place a classified ad for you,” Tessa began.

“But . . .” I urged her to continue, waving my hand frantically.

“But we answered one!” she practically sang out.

“Oh no!” I moaned as I sank into a chair and let the breath I’d been holding whoosh out of me. “Oh no,” I repeated. Visions of toothless geezers rotated in my mind, one with wisps of white hair over each ear, one with a severe comb over, and one with a ridiculously bad toupee.

“No, it’s all good. Wait ‘til you see.” Tessa pushed the newspaper in front of me but held her hand over the bulk of it. Words were gushing out of her at warp speed so I knew she wasn’t about to let me read this for myself.

“He lives in Charlotte. He’s fifty-nine. He’s a professional and he wants a wife, a fabulous wife. He’s very picky so he’s hired this woman from New York to interview women who have all the necessary qualifications. It’s like a casting call. And guess what? You’ve been asked to audition! Someone’s going to be calling you tomorrow!”

“What?” I was clearly flummoxed.

“We responded on the matchmaker’s website, answered all the questions, checked all the appropriate boxes, and wrote a little something. And yesterday, we got an email back. He or one of his assistants is going to call you here—tomorrow! And, they’re bypassing the matchmaker’s screener. He wants to talk to you directly!” Cat, who up to now had been fairly laid back about this, was now becoming something akin to a squealing teenager. “You’re in!”

“Oh. Dear. God.” I slumped even further into the seat. “I don’t believe this, you’re joking right? Why would you do this?”

“No. This is no joke. This multi-millionaire, who’s supposedly way too handsome, and way too busy to find his own wife, wants to talk to you!”

“What the hell did you tell him?”

“The truth,” Tessa said, and looked at me with her head tilted to the side and her eyebrows arched high as if even suggesting they’d lied was beyond the pale.

“Well, maybe . . .” Cat interjected.

I grabbed the paper from Tess and sat up to read it. Key phrases from the ad they’d answered jumped out at me:

Mature and emotionally ready for a lifetime commitment
Marriage to a compatible mate is the ultimate goal- there can be no impediment to marriage
Prefer someone close in age. Mid-fifties to early sixties
Looking for well-educated, sophisticated, yet down-to- earth individual
Someone who loves to travel and who is active
Must be attractive
Must have a great sense of humor
Please no whackos
Screening by email
Phone interview for fifteen finalists
Blind date for five chosen women
Romantic inclinations essential/sexual compatibility a must—forward thinking in this regard mandatory
Picture required
No cost to apply

“I am hardly the fabulous wife this man has in mind.”

“Oh yes you are!” Tessa replied. “Yes, you are. You’re beautiful. You’re the right age. You’re educated, sophisticated, and down-to-earth. Well, you don’t love to travel exactly, but you don’t hate it, you’re active—now at least. And you have a great sense of humor. The sexual compatibility thing will just have to work itself out, but we’ve kind of left him wanting there.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! What’s that?” I hollered. “Exactly what did you tell him?”

Cat had the decency to look contrite. Tessa looked down at her hands.

“Well?”

“We uh, kinda . . . told him that you used to be a stripper.”

“You what!”

“Well you said that you worked at a topless bar to raise money to stay in college that one time. But had to give it up on the very first day when one of your clients, namely Dale, forced you to quit and marry him. We thought telling him that you had been a stripper once was a more interesting past and would show you had a forward thinking mind with regard to sex.”

I groaned. I could not believe my best buds were doing this to me! “What picture did you use?”

Tessa hopped up and down on her seat. “That’s the best part, the one taken at my wedding reception. Remember how flattering that one was? You were wearing that really slimming sheath dress and you and Roman were dancing, both in profile, and he was smiling at you with a sexy grin and you were laughing and smiling up at him. You never would tell me what he said to you to make you laugh so hard, and he absolutely refuses, saying, ‘It was a private conversation, if you don’t mind.’ Are you ever going to tell me what it was he said to you that day?”

I was defeated in more ways than one right now, so I mumbled my answer hoping they wouldn’t hear it. “He said, ‘I can feel your quim shivering against me, you naughty girl.’ Can you blame me? For five minutes there, I was dancing with sex personified.”

Tessa snorted. “Been there, done that. It’s almost as if you have no choice when that man holds you in his arms. The juices just flow. Quim, huh? I wonder if that’s European slang for the whole labial area or for the clit itself. I’ll have to ask him about that.”

“Don’t you dare! And don’t tell him that I told you what he said. I mean it Tess! I’ll never be able to face the man if you do.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll go online as I am incredibly curious.”

“Meanwhile,” Cat said, “we have to get you ready for this interview tomorrow.”

“Why is it so important? I don’t need a rich, handsome, man of the world. I just want Joe Schmoe.”

“Let’s just try this one out shall we? If nothing else, it’ll be good practice.” These were Cat’s words of wisdom, but I wasn’t at all ready for this. I wanted to lose ten more pounds before being thrown to the wolves.

“Do you even know this man’s name?” I asked.

“The email said a Mr. Philip Camden would be calling. So I Googled him. Would you like to see his picture?” Tessa asked with a huge all-knowing smile.

“No. Absolutely not. I’ll do far better on the phone if I haven’t seen his picture. I can imagine him as Daffy Duck, and that way, I’ll have the upper hand.”

“Trust me, he’s no Daffy Duck. He’s Sean Connery, Roger Moore, and Rutger Hauer all rolled into one.”

“That combination doesn’t even sound good to me,” I said reaching for the picture. “Oh let me see the damned thing!”

I snatched the paper from her and looked down. “Oh dear God.” An older version of that stunning Swedish-looking Chaps model you see in all the high-class magazines stared back at me. Only his blonde hair was a bit shorter and had steel grey threads liberally mixed throughout. But the blue of those eyes, the full arrogant lips, the high, chiseled cheekbones, and the scruffy two-day beard were exactly the same. He was a beach bum from the 70s dressed in Armani and I could practically smell the Chaps cologne as if this was a scratch-and-sniff photograph.

“He’s really quite marvelous isn’t he?” Tessa said with a broad grin.

Cat picked up the folded newspaper and began fanning her face. “Believe me, I’m perfectly content with Matt, but there’s something about this man, something primal. Just looking at him makes you want to be touched in all those special places.”
“You got that right,” I blew out in long exaggerated syllables. And I felt a ridiculously delicious tingle go throughout my entire body. “What time did you say he was calling tomorrow?”