Catch a Mate

Catch a Mate

Gena Showalter

This book could not have been written without

Jill Monroe. (Road trip + Gena Showalter +

Jill Monroe - Sanity = Trouble.)

I’ll leave it to your imagination as to why.

To Merline Lovelace and Sharon Sala.

Thank you!

To Pennye and Terry Edwards and

Max and Vivian Showalter.

Much love!

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Epilogue

One

Do you believe in love at first sight or should I walk by again?

IN LIFE, there was only one guarantee and that, Jillian Greene hated to say, was that all men were pigs. “Will you repeat your question?” she asked her coworker and friend, Selene Garnett. “I’m positive I misheard.”

“Nope. You didn’t mishear. I asked what you would say to a man who told you to take off your panties so he could smell them.”

Jillian gazed over at Selene, a blond goddess in black leather, who was untouchable in a way that made men want to touch her. And keep touching her. Over and over again. “Is that a trick question?”

“Hardly.” Selene stood in the opening of Jillian’s cubicle, slender arms braced on the blue makeshift walls. Her hands covered the two posters Jillian had pasted up only a short while ago. One said, Where There’s a Man, There’s a Lie. The other read, Behind Every Good Man Is a Gun. “A guy said it to me last night,” Selene added. “I was so shocked, I froze.”

“Do you like this man?”

“Please.” Selene rolled her eyes. “He was a target.”

“In that case, you tell him the only way you’ll allow him to sniff your underpants is if they’ve been laced with the Ebola virus.”

“I knew you’d have the perfect reply.” Selene smiled that cool smile of hers and practically floated down the hall on a cloud of violets and jasmine, throwing over her shoulder, “Danielle owes me ten bucks.”

Oh, yes. Men were pigs.

Some were piglets, all oink and no bite. Some were swine-in-training, teetering on the edge between man and boar. Some were Miss Piggies, no explanation needed. And some were hungry hogs, devouring everything in their path.

Those, Jillian hated most.

But no matter where a guy fell on the Pigometer, Jillian didn’t let his bestial qualities upset her. Since men were oinkers, it was safe to say that she was the slaughter house. She quite happily cut the different breeds into bacon and served them to their owners on a silver platter.

It was her job and her greatest pleasure.

She (and Selene) worked for Catch a Mate. How deliciously romantic that sounded, right? Except Catch a Mate was the place women came to test their significant other’s trustworthiness. Here’s how it broke down:

Jane Doe enters the CAM office, cites three incidents that make her believe her man has cheated, then flips through a book of photos and chooses the face and form that will most appeal to her husband, boyfriend or asshole lover too cheap to fork over a ring. The woman she picks—a.k.a. the bait—is then given the man’s—a.k.a. the target’s—schedule and proceeds to “accidentally” meet him, laying on the charm. Of course, she’s wearing a hidden camera and a microphone, recording his every transgression.

Jillian was bait.

She was paid to smile, to lie. To flirt. These already attached men ate it up, too, no spoon required, proving just how disgusting they really were.

Some people (those who were guilty) might consider what she did entrapment. Some people (those who were very guilty) might consider what she did wrong. But she never kissed, touched or screwed the men, just allowed them to incriminate themselves with their own words, so her conscience was safe. Besides, there wouldn’t be a problem if her targets would simply send her on her way.

Instead, they returned her smiles, told her lies of their own and flirted back. They were willing to forget years of fidelity, sweep aside their honor and completely disrespect their lover for one supposed night of wildness.

To Jillian, they deserved what they got.

She never told her clients their men had cheated; that was her boss’s job. However, she often watched those conversations on a monitor in another room, and what she saw was heartbreaking. Tears, curses, depression. The emotions of the victims of infidelity ran the gamut, but they all had one thing in common: a ruined life. That’s why she so enjoyed taking these men down a peg or two. Because of them, their partners would never be the same.

And for what?

Married men pretended they were divorced—just to get a little booty. Engaged men pretended they were single—just to get a little booty. Boyfriends pretended they were unattached, just to—you guessed it—get a little booty. Not one of her targets had ever not tried to pick her up.

She didn’t understand it, either. She was cute, sure, but not drop-dead gorgeous. Average height, a decent figure she worked very hard to maintain, long, curly black hair, big blue eyes, slightly rounded cheeks and dimples. God, she hated those tiny, innocent schoolgirl dimples.

Without a doubt, she was nothing special in the looks department. However, if a man thought she was going to ride him like a carnival pony, it didn’t matter what she looked like. She suddenly represented every sex fantasy he’d ever indulged.

Bastards. Jillian had worked for CAM for six years now; she’d started when she was only twenty-one. From day one, she’d gained a perverse satisfaction in nailing a man’s ass to the wall and saving a woman from further heartbreak. That sense of fulfillment had only grown over the years.

But, uh, speaking of nailing male ass…she glanced at her wristwatch and pushed out a sigh. She should have met with her boss thirty minutes ago; instead, she’d watched Anne enter her office with a tall, blond specimen of deliciousness. Jillian had gotten only the barest glimpse of him, but it was enough of a glance to know he was tanned and muscled and wearing jeans that hugged a perfectly squeezable butt.

She might think—know!—guys were pigs, but she wasn’t blind and she liked to look. Looking was all she allowed herself anymore, so when she looked, she really looked. X-ray vision that saw past clothes, past all hint of decency.

Sometimes she reminded herself of a window-shopper, gazing inside the store with her nose pressed to the glass, never actually buying the pretty, overpriced merchandise because she knew that she’d later experience buyer’s remorse.

Why fork over hard-earned cash when the item in question undoubtedly would be stolen, tainted, stained or ripped to shreds?

Once (or twice) she’d allowed the “salesman” and his sweet, sweet sales pitch to convince her to purchase, but each of those occasions had ended at the return booth. Yep, the few boyfriends she’d permitted herself over the years had all failed CAM’s test, which was especially pathetic since they knew what she did for a living. Finally, she’d cut up her credit cards (so to speak).

She sighed. What depressing thoughts. She needed to think about something else. Like her boss. Which, incidentally, led her straight back to Cute Ass. He and Anne had closed the office door and no sound had emerged since. Not even pressing her ear against the shuttered glass wall had proven useful. And yes, she freely admitted to spying. To her, there was nothing wrong with listening to private conversations, opening someone’s desk drawer, sneaking a peek through their wallet, glove compartment, whatever.

Sneakiness was the best way to learn about people. To learn the truth about them, anyway.

Sipping her coffee, Jillian leaned back in her chair and cast her boss’s door another glance. She had an assignment tonight and she always met with Anne to outline a strategy beforehand—as if it took more than a push-up bra and an I’m-so-innocent-but-I’m-not-wearing-any-panties smile to stir a man’s interest. Still. She was due at the scheduled rendezvous point in four hours and she had yet to look at photos of her target.

As her feet tapped impatiently, her black spiked heels clicked into the floor tile of her very blue, very plain cubicle. Besides her posters, she had no personal items here, no pictures of family. She liked to keep business, business and—what did she care about her cube? She wanted to know what No-Nonsense Anne and Cute Ass were talking about. She wanted to know what they were doing.

“Did you see the guy Anne escorted into her office?”

At the sound of the husky feminine voice, Jillian pivoted in her seat. Georgia Carrington stood at the opening of Jillian’s cube, the fragrance of vanilla and sugar wafting from her. Rich, silky red hair framed exquisitely delicate features.

Georgia had gentle cheekbones, a dainty nose, almond-shaped green eyes and flawless skin. Her body was a smorgasbord of naughty curves, and right now those curves were encased in a strapless, barely-there red sheath dress. Men became slaves to their hormones whenever Georgia approached, so it was no wonder she was CAM’s most popular choice of bait.

That hadn’t always been the case, though. Jillian had known Georgia since grade school, when Georgia had been a gangly, freckled kid. Everyone else had teased her unmercifully, but Jillian had recognized a kindred spirit when she saw one—two girls against the rest of the world.

But it hadn’t been an official friendship until Thomas Fisher called Georgia a speckled carrot-head. Jillian had socked him in the nose, Georgia had bandaged her hand, and they had been best friends ever since.

“I saw him,” Jillian said now. She set her coffee aside, lifted a pen and tapped it against the armrest of her chair. “Who is he and why’s he here?” A client, perhaps? But they only dealt with women. Unless…did he suspect his wife was a lesbian? That was a possibility, though what woman would prefer a female to that prime, grade-A quality meat, she didn’t know.

“Maybe Anne decided to give up her stance on the merits of self-gratification and take a lover.” Georgia sashayed around the desk and plopped onto the edge, crinkling papers and files. The hem of the red dress rode up her thighs and revealed several inches of tanned, firm flesh.

Jillian shrugged. “Maybe he’s her sister’s brother-in-law’s cousin’s uncle and he’s here to borrow money.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I want a piece of her sister’s brother-in-law’s cousin’s uncle. I almost slid out of my chair when he walked past me.”

Jillian, too, had experienced a very feminine reaction: breathlessness, beaded nipples, quickened pulse. It had been a long time since she’d been intimate with a man and, well, the scent of sin—that’s the only way to describe it—had followed this one, lingering in the air long after he’d stepped into the boss’s office and shut the door.

“I thought you had a boyfriend,” Jillian said, trying not to frown at the image of Georgia and Cute Ass. Together. Naked.

A dark, haunted glint entered her friend’s eyes but was quickly extinguished. “I did.” Georgia sighed. “I do.”

“Problems?”

With a dismissive—forced?—laugh, Georgia waved her hand through the air. “Of course not. Things are the same as they’ve been for the last several weeks. Wyatt tells me I’m beautiful and asks me to marry him every single day. And every single day I tell him I’m still thinking about it.”

“If you have to think about it, he’s not the man for you.” Jillian didn’t think he was the man for Georgia, anyway. He treated her like a queen, sure, lavishing endless compliments on her physical beauty. But where were his compliments on her witty mind and kind heart?

“I’ve heard your argument against him a thousand times, counselor, so no need to rehash the case. I just want to be sure we’re forever, that’s all.” She sounded miserable.

“We could put him to the CAM test again.” Every woman who worked here ended up putting her man to the test. Only two had passed. Wyatt and some guy Selene had dated—and later dumped when she found him in bed with another man.

“He’d just pass again. Since he knows what we do for a living, he’s always suspicious of pretty women who approach him.” Georgia crossed her legs and her skirt rode all the higher. “No more talk of Wyatt. I want to discuss, in minute detail, Anne’s possible new lover. He has to be a superhero. Pleasure Man or something like that, able to cause orgasm with a single glance. No ordinary man could have charmed his way into a private meeting with Frigid Anne.”

Jillian eagerly returned to the topic of Cute Ass. “Did he look at you when he passed you?” she asked pensively, replaying his hallway stride through her mind, step by sexy step. “Did he give you any sign of interest?”

Georgia’s forehead furrowed and her red brows drew together. She blinked in dawning confusion. “No. He didn’t.”

“He ignored me, too,” Selene said as she strode past Jillian’s cube, head bent over a file. “Danielle, too.”

“He didn’t look at me, either,” Jillian assured Georgia. Hadn’t cast a single glance in her direction, actually, and she had been making plenty of noise as she’d struggled to pick up her jaw and draw in even a molecule of air. It wasn’t that she thought she was entitled to male appreciation or anything like that. But to completely ignore the women of this office as if they were nothing more than asexual beings…maybe he was gay.

“What a waste if he’s gay,” Georgia said, confirming her thoughts.

It was telling, really, that neither one of them thought there was a chance in hell he was so devoted to a wife or girlfriend that he failed to notice other women. It wasn’t even a possibility in their minds.

“But I didn’t get the gay vibe,” Georgia added. “Did you?”

“No.” So if he wasn’t gay, what was he? Jillian didn’t like mysteries (they sucked), hated working puzzles (they blew), and wanted to spit on surprises (they both sucked and blew). Maybe that was one of the reasons she enjoyed working at CAM. Every night, the outcome was the same. The target cheated. End of story.

Okay, so that was a little sad.

“Do you think he’s blind?”

“Come on, Detective Carrington. You can do better than that. He didn’t have a Seeing Eye dog or a cane. Nor did he stumble or need Anne to lead him.” She thought about it for a moment. “My guess is he’s so self-absorbed, he didn’t realize anyone else was in the building.”

“Oh, no doubt you’re right. What an ass!” Discussion over in her mind since that made Cute Ass a jerk and unworthy of their time, Georgia pushed to her feet and twirled. “So…do you like my new outfit?”

“You look like a slut. I love it.” Jillian grinned. “Do you have an assignment tonight?”

Returning her grin, Georgia plopped back onto the desk. “Nope. This outfit is for Wyatt. After last night’s assignment…” Her full, red lips curled in revulsion. “I may not go into the field again. I sat next to my target—at a coffeehouse, of all places—and the slimy bastard immediately tried to talk his way into my pants. Your dad has to be a thief. That’s the only way to explain those stars in your eyes. Gag! He’s married, for God’s sake, and had just celebrated his sixteenth wedding anniversary.”

“Let me guess. He claimed he’d just gotten a divorce, the loneliness was almost more then he could bear and a pretty girl like you could sure ease the pain in his heart.”

“Bingo.”

“Men can’t be trusted,” Jillian muttered with an appalled shake of her head; black curls swished in every direction. “Did you tell him to go fuck himself?”

Georgia rolled her eyes. “I wish. I wanted to tell him who and what I was, but couldn’t bring myself to break the rules.”

Telling a target the truth could lead to panic—and panic from a target could be a dangerous, even life-threatening, thing. “So what did you do?”

“I made sure he won’t be getting in anyone’s pants for a while, maybe not even his own.”

Jillian patted her friend’s knee in approval. They’d both taken self-defense lessons after joining the agency, courtesy of Anne. Anne refused to pay for bodyguards—they were too expensive—so the girls were on their own when in the field. Jillian actually preferred it that way. She didn’t want to rely on a man/lying piece of swine for her safety. Her Mace acted as her hired muscle, bringing down the strongest of opponents.

“Anne showed his wife the video earlier and the woman burst into tears. I know because I stupidly watched on the screen in the conference room.” Georgia expelled a slight puff of air, as dainty as the woman herself. She drummed her perfectly manicured nails against the desk.

Jillian didn’t mention that she’d seen the wife, too, just as the woman was leaving the office. Those tearstained cheeks had almost made Jillian cry. Poor thing. She had a tough road ahead of her.

Victims were always told the day after the evidence was gathered. No reason to put it off and prolong the torture. The criers always caused Jillian’s chest to ache. The punchers—well, they might hate her and the other bait now, but they’d thank them later.

Still. Maybe she and Georgia needed to start coming in late the day after an assignment.

“I despise that part of the job, you know?” Georgia said. “Just once, I’d like to see a happy ending, a man who doesn’t care about a pretty face. A man who’s happy with what he has at home, even if she’s gained weight or acquired a few wrinkles.”

“Me, too, but we both know the odds of that happening. And women are better off learning the truth now instead of later,” Jillian said, her tone firm with conviction. After all, she should know. Years ago, her dad had cheated on her mom and her mom hadn’t known, hadn’t suspected at all. But little Jillian had known—her dad had taken her to the neighbor’s house to “play with the cat.” She’d chased that stupid tabby all the way into the bedroom and gotten an eyeful.

Her dad hadn’t explicitly asked her to keep quiet, but he had to have known she would never speak of it to her mom, too afraid her parents would split.

The guilt of not telling her mother had eaten at her.

A few months later, the knowledge had become too much for her to bear and she’d confided in her older brother and sister. They had begged her not to tell Mom, not wanting to cause their parents’ divorce, either. So she’d kept quiet. Again. Pretending her dad really was going to the grocery store when he sneaked next door.

She’d been the only seven-year-old with an ulcer.

About six months after that, her mom flew off to visit her sister. But then Evelyn decided, for whatever reason, to come home early. That’s when she found Jillian’s dad in bed with the neighbor. Her mom had been shocked and devastated, and the truth had finally spilled from Jillian.

The next morning, her mom tried to kill herself.

A familiar rage kindled inside of Jillian, images of her bleeding and unconscious mother flashing through her mind. She’d been the one to find her. Not her brother, Brent. Not her sister, Brittany. Not her dad. She’d been the one to cry over her mom’s bloody—Jillian quickly shoved those memories away before she punched a wall. She didn’t like thinking about those worry-filled weeks, her mom teetering between life and death.

Needless to say, she hadn’t spoken to her dad since. Her mom had divorced him and he’d taken off. He still called Jillian about once a week, but she never picked up. Brent, the easygoing contractor, and Brittany, the tenderhearted stay-at-home mom, begged her almost daily to forgive him, but she just couldn’t. Maybe one day, she thought…. No. Never, she decided in the next instant. There was simply too much pain there.

“Without us,” she said now to Georgia, teeth clenched, “women would be lost in a world of lies, thinking their men loved and respected them.”

Georgia pondered those words for several minutes, then shrugged. Her body glitter caught the light, making her bare shoulders shimmer. “Maybe believing the lie is the only key to happiness.” Today was the first time she’d ever voiced doubts about their profession.

Anything to do with Wyatt and his marriage proposal?

“So where are you going tonight?” Georgia asked before Jillian could question her. “You look like a cheap hooker.”

“Thank you,” Jillian replied with a genuine smile. She wore a skintight white tank top with a low V-neck for ultra cleavage, a barely-there jean skirt with a frayed hem, a thick silver belt and tall black boots. Her hair was a wild, untamed mass of curls, her makeup heavily applied.

At the moment, everything about her screamed “saddle up and take me for a ride.” But then, the man she was supposed to “catch” later apparently liked his women dressed that way. The trashier the better, or so his girlfriend, who dressed like a dime-store prostitute herself, had said.

“I’m going to The Meat Market,” Jillian explained. No lie, that was the name of the nightclub situated in the pulsing heart of downtown Oklahoma City. It was supposedly the place for prowling singles.

Her target’s live-in girlfriend said her man had been visiting the club for weeks. For “beer.” Jillian believed that one-hundred percent—if beer was the new name for T & A. If the guy was simply throwing back a few cold ones, why couldn’t he take his girlfriend with him? Why did he leave her at home and insist she stay there?

Anne had suggested the girlfriend follow the guy herself before resorting to bait, but the woman had shut down that idea immediately. Jillian thought she knew why. It was one thing to believe your man was cheating; it was quite another to actually witness it yourself, live and in person. Plus, the girlfriend could be spotted and the guy could alter his behavior accordingly.

The door to Anne’s office suddenly jerked open, startling her. Surprising Georgia, too, who gasped.

Jillian jolted upright as Anne stuck out her head. She caught a glimpse of the woman’s graying hair and stern, wrinkled features before Anne called, “Jillian. Get in here ASAP. I’ve got some bad news for you.”

She disappeared without another word, but left the door open.

O-kay. Jillian’s heart skipped a beat. She flicked Georgia a nervous glance, and it didn’t help that her friend was wide-eyed and openmouthed. Hands beginning to sweat, she eased to her feet.

“Bad news,” Georgia said quietly, her attention veering between Jillian and the door. “She’s usually abrupt, but that was…”

“Maybe my case has been reassigned,” Jillian said, hopeful.

“Maybe.”

Georgia didn’t sound convinced and deep down Jillian wasn’t, either. Shit. Shit! More than going over her assignment tonight, Jillian had hoped to talk to Anne about making her a partner, or—what she really wanted—selling her the business outright.

She’d tried to broach the subject a few times already, but each time Anne had been busy and had shooed her away with a promise of “later.”

There was no one better equipped or readier to take over than Jillian. She’d been here forever (it sometimes seemed) and had many wonderful ideas, if she did say so herself, about taking CAM to the next level. Like a counseling center for victims of infidelity, support groups and even a Web site dedicated to warning women about particular men. Sort of an Internet Wall of Shame, appropriately dubbed the Swine Whine, with ratings of just how high on the Pigometer certain individuals ranked. Oklahoma’s most unwanted.