The Dating Game. Shirley Jump

with two choices: get the story or get another job.

      Now he wasn’t going to leave. He had too much at stake to back out.

      “Well,” Larissa said. “I’m sure she’s just a little nervous. She’ll be back.” Though the hostess didn’t sound as sure as her words.

      David hoped Mattie would return. Having the star run out just before the show began would leave it a tad dead in the water. And would totally mess with his own plans to expose the reality show—and its competitors—for the crock of lies they really were. Happy endings and true love between strangers, matched up with an eye on ratings. Yeah, right. In the end, he’d expose the faux lovey-dovey characters as nothing more than people who were focused only on themselves…and the cash prize, of course.

      Mattie Grant, however, wasn’t at all what he’d expected. He’d thought he’d be stuck here for a week with some washed-up beauty queen with nothing on her mind but marriage. He hadn’t been looking forward to that.

      But Mattie…well she wasn’t a beauty queen. Though she had a killer smile, long blond hair and eyes the color of green gems. Okay, so she was a beauty. Just not a pageant kind of girl. She didn’t even seem the high heels type. And that made her interesting, more so than he wanted to admit.

      He’d felt a spark—hell, a jolt—when they’d shaken hands. It was something he’d have to ignore, because involving his heart or any other part of his body in this show was not in the plan.

      He wasn’t that kind of guy. He was good at staying uninvolved, uncommitted. In his twenty-eight years David had learned that even the people he thought could be trusted always kept something hidden, some nugget of truth they secreted away from others. It was far easier, he’d discovered, to pour himself into his work—the work of uncovering those lies—than to open himself up to others.

      The door opened and Mattie came back in, a little paler than before. “My Jeep won’t start. I need a few tools to clean off the plugs and wires to get it going again, but Stone Man doesn’t seem to be anywhere around.”

      A woman who fixed her own car? David gave her a smile of appreciation.

      “Stone Man?” Larissa asked.

      “The butler.” Mattie swung her backpack onto her shoulder. “You know, forget it. I’ll walk. It’s only seven or eight miles back to my apartment.”

      “No, wait. Don’t go,” Larissa said, stepping forward. She seemed to be crafting a plan as she spoke. “You’re already here. Plus, you signed the release when you sent in your application, so you agreed to participate then.”

      Mattie put up her hands. “Not on this show. I signed up for Survival of the Fittest. If you people don’t have plans for building a lean-to in the rose garden, then I’m outta here.”

      “I don’t think you’re on the wrong show,” Larissa said, coming up and taking her arm. David thought it looked more like a vise grip than a friendly touch. She withdrew a walkie-talkie from the evening bag at her arm and pushed a button. “Get in here. We have a…new twist.”

      “There’s no twist,” Mattie said, extricating herself from Larissa’s grasp. “I’m not doing this show. I don’t want to get fixed up or married. I want to prove my survival skills.”

      Larissa didn’t give up easily. She draped an arm over Mattie’s shoulders as if they were old friends and confidantes. “Mattie, isn’t that what dating’s all about? Survival of the Fittest?”

      When Mattie opened her mouth to protest again, Larissa turned toward David. “Don’t you agree?”

      And then he knew for sure what Larissa was doing. Somehow, Mattie had been sent to the wrong address. Rather than try to find the real bachelorette, Larissa was working with what she had—a woman who seemed to truly fit the words Average Jill. Everything from Mattie’s tennis shoes to her backpack fell into that category, and yet there was something about Mattie Grant. Maybe the way she held herself or the defiant spark in her eyes. Mattie was as far from average as a woman could get.

      Mattie Grant also didn’t seem the type to follow the rules.

      He smiled. He couldn’t have latched on to a better story if he’d tried.

      “Well, David?” Larissa prompted, clearly trying to get him to take sides. “Don’t you agree?”

      Mattie scowled at him. David lobbed a grin her way, to show her that he had good intentions. She didn’t return the volley. “I agree,” David said to Larissa. “Dating is very much like a game sometimes. Sort of like doing crossword puzzles in ink.”

      “A man who likes a challenge, huh?” Mattie said.

      “Always.”

      “With crosswords, you’re only competing against yourself. Are you afraid of losing?”

      “Never.” David took a step closer to her. “Are you afraid of playing this game?”

      Mattie’s direct green gaze met his. “Not at all.”

      There was fire in her words—and a fire in his gut that hadn’t been there five minutes ago. David cocked a grin at Mattie. A challenge indeed.

      The doors burst open and a chubby guy in a beige golf shirt and khaki pants, wired up to a walkie-talkie ear piece and cell phone, headed into the room. He held a large order of fries in his free hand. Twin globs of ketchup dotted the front of his shirt like crimson buttons. “What’s up, Larissa?” He halted, took a long look around the room, then blinked twice at Mattie. “Hey, who’s this? Where’s Miss Indiana?”

      “This is Steve Blackburn, one of the producers for Average Jill,” Larissa explained. The she turned to Steve. “I don’t know where Miss Indiana is, but this,” she said, “is Mattie Grant.”

      “Who? What? This is going to totally mess—”

      “When I saw her, I realized Mattie is the perfect Average Jill,” Larissa went on, interrupting him. “A lot more perfect than a former beauty pageant winner.”

      “Oh, no, I’m not,” Mattie said, backing away. “I told you, I’m supposed to be on Survival of the Fittest.”

      Steve withdrew a fry from the bag. “What do you do for a living?”

      “I chair the Lawford Girls’ Soccer League and coach two of the girls’ teams. But I do not date fifteen—”

      “Nice PR potential with that. Philanthropy angle and all that,” Steve said, wagging the fry at her. Larissa murmured agreement. Then he turned to David. “So, you think she’s pretty?”

      “Definitely.” Mattie had a natural beauty, unmarred by makeup or a frou-frou hairstyle. She had an unfettered, what-you-see-is-what-you-get-and-if-you-don’t-like-it-tough look about her.

      That interested him. On a purely reportorial level, of course.

      “Good. Get over there and stand next to her.” Steve gestured between them, using the fry as a baton. “Go on, she won’t bite. Will you?” He looked at Mattie.

      “Of course not! What kind of person do you think I am?”

      “I auditioned some of those girls trying out for Survival. They were a little, ah, hard core.”

      David crossed to Mattie, as he’d been told. He figured it wasn’t a huge hardship to stand beside her and get a closer look at those bright green eyes. “Looks like we’re a twosome.”

      “Not for long.” Mattie scowled.

      The producer and Larissa stood together, conferring. “We get a dress on her, she won’t be so bad,” Steve said.

      Mattie put up her hands. “I’m on the wrong show. Aren’t you people listening to me?”

      The producer’s phone jingled and he answered it, juggling food and electronics and managing to