Bet Me

Copyright © 2004 by Jennifer Crusie Smith.

ISBN 0-312-30346-7

For
Monica Pradhan McLean

 Because her price is above rubies

Which she knows how to invest,

And because every book she writes is a diamond

My T
hank
s To

Meg Ruley

for selling this book against my better judgment and for being right again,

Jen Enderlin

for buying this book against my better judgment and for being right again,

St. Martin
's Press

especially
John
Sargent, Sally Richardson, Matthew Shear, Kim Cardascia,
John
Karle, and
John
Murphy, for being supportive beyond the call of publishing (and a big kiss to Sally for matchmaking the movie option),

Mollie Smith

for improving my Web site, organizing my business records, critiquing my book, and illuminating my life,

Val Taylor

for working with me again even though I promised her I'd never rewrite this one,

The Ladies of XRom

especially Jo Beverley for coming up with the pumpkin couch,

The Cherries

for critiquing the first scene, researching recipes, putting up with my moaning, and being Cherries, and

The
Nantucket
Beach
Patrol, Police Department,

Fire Department, and Cottage Hospital Emergency Room Staff,

whose speed and skill ensured that this wasn't a posthumous book. (If you're going to have an asthma attack in the surf, I strongly recommend you do so in
Nantucket
.)

Women's total instinct for gambling is satisfied by marriage.

—Gloria Steinem

Once upon a time
, Minerva Dobbs thought as she stood in the middle of a loud yuppie bar,
the world was full of good men
. She looked into the handsome face of the man she'd planned on taking to her sister's wedding and thought,
Those days are gone
.

"This relationship is not working for me," David said.

I could shove this swizzle stick through his heart,
Min thought. She wouldn't do it, of course. The stick was plastic and not nearly pointed enough on the end. Also, people didn't do things like that in southern
Ohio
. A sawed-off shotgun, that was the ticket.

"And we both know why," David went on.

He probably didn't even know he was mad; he probably thought he was being calm and adult.
At least I know I'm furious
, Min thought. She let her anger setde around her, and it made her warm all over, which was more than David had ever done.

Across the room, somebody at the big roulette wheel-shaped bar rang a bell. Another point against David: He was dumping her in a theme bar. The Long Shot. The name alone should have tipped her off.

"I'm sorry, Min," David said, clearly not.

Min crossed her arms over her gray-checked suit jacket so she couldn't smack him. "This is because I won't go home with you tonight? It's Wednesday. I have to work tomorrow. You have to work tomorrow. I paid for my own drink."

"It's not that." David looked noble and wounded as only the tall, dark, and self-righteous could. "You're not making any effort to make our relationship work, which means ..."

Which means we 've been dating for two months and I still won't sleep with you
. Min tuned him out and looked around at the babbling crowd.
If I had an untraceable poison, I could drop it in his drink now and not one of these suits would notice
.

"... and I do think, if we have any future, that you should contribute, too," David said.

Oh, I don 't,
Min thought, which meant that David had a point. Still, lack of sex was no excuse for dumping her three weeks before she had to wear a maid-of-honor dress that made her look like a fat, demented shepherdess. "Of course we have a future, David," she said, trying to put her anger on ice. "We have
plans.
Diana is getting married in three weeks. You're invited to the wedding. To the rehearsal dinner. To the
bachelor party.
You're going to miss the
stripper,
David."

"Is that all you think of me?" David's voice went up. "I'm just a date to your sister's wedding?"

"Of course not," Min said. "Just as I'm sure I'm more to you than somebody to sleep with."

David opened his mouth and closed it again. "Well, of course. I don't want you to think this is a reflection on you. You're intelligent, you're successful, you're mature. . . ."

Min listened, knowing that
You're beautiful, you're thin
were not coming. If only he'd have a heart attack. Only four percent of heart attacks in men happened before forty, but it could happen. And if he died, not even her mother could expect her to bring him to the wedding.

"... and you'd make a wonderful mother," David finished up.

"T
hank
you," Min said. "That's so not romantic."

"I thought we were going places, Min," David said.

"Yeah," Min said, looking around the gaudy bar. "Like here."

David sighed and took her hand. "I wish you the best, Min. Let's keep in touch."

Min took her hand back. "You're not feeling any pain in your left arm, are you?"

"No," David said, frowning at her.

"Pity," Min said, and went back to her friends, who were watching them from the far end of the room.

"He was looking even more uptight than usual," Liza said, looking even taller and hotter than usual as she leaned on the jukebox, her hair flaming under the lights.

David wouldn't have treated Liza so callously. He'd have been afraid to; she'd have dismembered him.
Gotta be more like Liza
, Min thought and started to flip through the song cards on the box.

"Are you upset with him?" Bonnie said from Min's other side, her blond head tilted up in concern. David wouldn't have left Bonnie, either. Nobody was mean to sweet, little Bonnie.

"Yes. He dumped me." Min stopped flipping. Wonder of wonders, the box had Elvis. Immediately, the bar seemed a better place. She fed in coins and then punched the keys for "Hound Dog." Too bad Elvis had never recorded one called "Dickhead."

"I knew I didn't like him," Bonnie said.

Min went over to the roulette bar and smiled tightly at the slender bartender dressed like a croupier. She had beautiful long, soft, kinky brown hair, and Min thought,
That's another reason I couldn't have slept with David
. Her hair always frizzed when she let it down, and he was the type who would have noticed.

"Rum and Coke, please," she told the bartender.

Maybe that was why Liza and Bonnie never had man trouble: great hair. She looked at Liza, racehorse-thin in purple zippered leather, shaking her head at David with naked contempt. Okay, it wasn't just the hair. If she jammed herself into Liza's dress, she'd look like Barney's slut cousin.
"Diet
Coke," she told the bartender.

"He wasn't the one," Bonnie said from below Min's shoulder, her hands on her tiny hips.

"Diet rum, too," Min told the bartender, who smiled at her and went to get her drink.

Liza frowned. "Why were you dating him anyway?"

"Because I thought he might be the one," Min said, exasperated. "He was intelligent and successful and very nice at first. He seemed like a sensible choice. And then all of sudden he went snotty on me."

Bonnie patted Min's arm. "It's a good thing he broke up with you because now you're free for when the right man finds you. Your prince is on his way."

"Right," Min said. "I'm sure he was on his way but a truck hit him."

"That's not how it works." Bonnie leaned on the bar, looking like an R-rated pixie. "If it's meant to be, he'll make it. No matter how many things go wrong, he'll come to you and you'll be together forever."

"What is this?" Liza said, looking at her in disbelief. "Barbie's Field of Dreams?"

"That's sweet, Bonnie," Min said. "But as far as I'm concerned, the last good man died when Elvis went."

"Maybe we should rethink keeping Bon as our broker," Liza said to Min. "We could be major stockholders in the Magic. Kingdom by now."

Min tapped her fingers on the bar, trying to vent some tension. "I should have known David was a mistake when I couldn't bring myself to sleep with him. We were on our third date, and the waiter brought the dessert menu, and David said, 'No, t
hank
you, we're on a diet,' and of course, he isn't because there's not an ounce of fat on him, and I thought, 'I'm not taking off my clothes with you' and I paid my half of the check and went home early. And after that, whenever he made his move, I thought of the waiter and crossed my legs."

"He wasn't the one," Bonnie said with conviction.

"You
think?"
Min said, and Bonnie looked wounded. Min closed her eyes. "Sorry. Sorry.
Really
sorry. It's just not a good time for that stuff, Bon. I'm mad. I want to savage somebody, not look to the horizon for the next jerk who's coming my way."

"Sure," Bonnie said. "I understand."

Liza shook her head at Min. "Look, you didn't care about David, so you haven't lost anything except a date to Di's wedding. And I vote we skip the wedding. It has 'disaster' written all over it, even without the fact that she's marrying her best friend's boyfriend."

"Her best friend's ex-boyfriend. And I
can't
skip it. I'm the maid of honor." Min gritted her teeth. "It's going to be hell. It's not just that I'm dateless, which fulfills every prophecy my mother has ever made, it's that she's crazy about David."

"We
know"
Bonnie said.

"She tells everybody about David," Min said, thinking of her mother's avid little face. "Dating David is the only thing I've done that she's liked about me since I got the flu freshman year and lost ten pounds. And now I have no David." She took her diet rum from the bartender, said, "T
hank
you," and tipped her lavishly. There wasn't enough gratitude in the world for a server who kept the drinks coming at a time like this. "Most of the time it doesn't matter what my mother thinks of me because I can avoid her, but for the wedding? No."

"So you'll find another date," Bonnie said.

"No, she won't," Liza said.

"Oh,
t
hank
you"
Min said, turning away from the over-designed bar. The roulette pattern was making her dizzy. Or maybe that was the rage.