Mother, Please! - By Brenda Novak & Jill Shalvis & Alison Kent Page 0,13

folded her arms and tapped her toe, considering April’s chest. April instantly regretted drawing attention to one of her most private imperfections. But she didn’t need to say or do much to attract Claire’s attention these days. Ever since her mother had learned that Gunner was joining them in Cabo, Claire had gone into emergency makeover mode. “Maybe you should get a boob job when I do,” she said. “Men love big-breasted women, and with your flat stomach and lean hips, some size up top would have a very dramatic effect.”

“No, thanks,” April said, and slid her glasses into place.

“Won’t you wear your contacts? Just for tonight?” her mother asked.

April shook her head. Her glasses went far toward killing the sexy effect of the new clothes, but they were familiar and she needed that reassurance. Especially because she still felt shivery when she remembered her brief encounter with Gunner’s warm mouth. She was beginning to worry about what he might have in store for her later. She doubted he was going to behave.

She started scraping her hair into a bun, but her mother stopped her. “Not tonight,” she said. “We’re in Mexico. Let your hair fall free.”

“Why?”

“Because it looks better that way. Come here.” Claire motioned for April to join her in the bathroom. “I want to style it a bit. You need to make more of what you have. Live a little—it won’t hurt you.”

A few minutes later, April had a bunch of dark curls tumbling down her back. “Are we about finished?” she asked.

Claire tilted her head in an assessing manner. “Are you sure I can’t talk you out of those ugly glasses?”

“Yes.”

“Will you try some eye shadow or lip gloss?”

“No.”

“Then I guess we’re finished.” Her mother twirled around in an orange-and-red, softly flowing sundress she’d accessorized with gold hoop earrings and lots of bangles. “How do I look?”

“Beautiful,” April said, and it was true. Her mother’s tan seemed much more natural in Mexico, where almost everyone else was tanned, too. And the weight she’d lost had taken her from frumpy and lumpy to sleek and sophisticated. “Are you nervous about seeing Dad?”

Her mother paused from fiddling with her hair, which she’d swept up in an elegant dramatic fashion. “Of course not. Why should I be nervous about that?” she asked. Still, April could tell that her mother was self-conscious. Claire cared about Walt. She was hurting over what had happened to their marriage.

April prayed her father still felt something, too.

GUNNER WAS STANDING near one of the two bars set up on the sand when April came down the temporary pathway from the hotel. He’d been marveling at how quickly hotel employees had managed to transform the beach into an outdoor restaurant, complete with two long buffets, more than thirty linen-covered tables and a mariachi band. He hadn’t expected to see April quite so soon, but he turned when he heard her voice—and caught his breath.

She looked slender and exotic in the flickering lamplight, and was showing far more skin than he’d ever believed she would. Her hips and hair swayed slowly as she walked toward him, and the nervous little glance she shot him made something in his stomach tighten. April was still plain, still wearing those homely glasses. But there was also a sweet innocence about her, a down-to-the-bone honesty and such clear intelligence that Gunner could no longer call her unattractive.

It’s the magic of paradise, he quickly told himself. The waves pounded the beach only twenty feet away. A perfect seventy-degree breeze stirred the palm trees. Shadows darted and moved with the lamps, concealing and distorting.

Marginally reassured, he put down his margarita and strode over to meet her—and couldn’t help bending close to press a quick kiss to the hollow beneath her earlobe. Her skin, soft as a baby’s, smelled of cucumbers and melon.

She stiffened in surprise, but he knew she wouldn’t pull away because her mother was watching.

“You’re gorgeous tonight,” he told her.

“Thank you.” She gave him a meaningful look, one that told him he was overacting, and he hid a smile at the knowledge that he wasn’t acting at all.

“Hello, Claire,” he said. “And Happy New Year.”

“I’m glad you could be here with us,” April’s mother returned. “It’s wonderful to see my daughter so excited about a man.”

April hid a cough.

“I’m looking forward to our time together, too,” he said. In more ways than one. Who would have thought a skinny, sexually repressed intellectual like April would be able to capture his attention