Just Three Dates
by David Burnett
Publication date: July 1st 2017
Genres: New Adult, Romance
by David Burnett
Publication date: July 1st 2017
Genres: New Adult, Romance
BLURB
Should you only marry for love?
Since breaking with her last
boyfriend, Karen has refused to trust any man her age. For the past three
years, she has not dated the same one twice, and only one in ten has received
even a goodnight kiss as she turned him away. Karen is an artist. She follows
her feelings, lives in a cluttered loft, and gushes over vivid sunsets.
Mark still dreams about his
almost-fiancée, and his date book has been empty since he threw her out a week
before he’d planned to ask for her hand. His friends call him the “Ice Man,”
since he seldom smiles, especially at a woman. A math professor at the College,
logic guides his behavior, he loves order, and an elegant proof is a thing of
beauty.
Both Karen and Mark have all but
abandoned hope of ever falling in love, and, left on their own, these opposites
would never attract. So, their mothers become matchmakers, entangling them in a
series of dates, extracting promises that they will go out together three
times, suggesting that, in the absence of love, a “marriage of convenience” is
a live option.
If you like heartwarming stories
based on true-to-life behaviors, with complicated relationships and a
less-than-certain outcome, you will enjoy Just Three Dates!
Buy Links: Amazon / Barnes & Noble
—
EXCERPT:
“You
need a wife.”
The
waiter had just refilled his glass, and, as Mark Stuart raised it to his lips,
taking a deep drink of water, his mother spoke, causing Mark to gag. He plunked
the glass onto the table, snatching the napkin from his lap and covering his
mouth, barely preventing the liquid from spewing out. Then he lifted his head
to see his mother sitting back in her chair as if prepared for a fight.
Mark’s
eyes met hers. He now understood her dinner invitation, why his father had not
accompanied them to the restaurant, and the reason she had chosen the
Plantation House, with its tuxedoed waiters, soft music, and thirty-dollar
midday entrees—a place only a woman like Elizabeth Stuart would have selected
as the scene for a confrontation concerning her son’s need for a wife.
Surely,
he would not make a scene, not here, not in public, not as he had each time she
had broached the subject in the past.
That
was, without a doubt, what his mother would be hoping.
His
eyes stayed fixed on hers as he took a deep breath, internally debating his
response. Mark placed his knife and fork across his plate and reached for his
glass—a goblet of wine—this time, taking a long, slow sip, returning the glass
to the exact spot from which he had lifted it. Then, he rested one forearm on
the table and leaned forward, primed to meet his mother’s attack.
Her
hand quivered and a few drops of water sloshed over the rim as she lifted her
glass for a drink, but she did not look away.
“Tell
me, Mother, why do I need a wife?”
He
almost smiled as her head snapped up, surprise written on her face. His
question was uncharacteristic. Generally, he led with a denial.
“Mark,
we’ve been through this so many times.” She sighed as she reached out to pat
his hand. “You need a wife to help you in your career. A college is not solely
an educational institution, you’ve seen that for yourself. It’s social. It’s
political. You’re a brilliant mathematician, Mark, but if you want to be a
department head, or president of a university, you must do more than teach and
write papers. You’ll be expected to attend parties and dinners, court donors.
You’ll always be expected to bring someone with you, a date, perhaps, but
preferably your wife.
“If
you do need a date, well, you are twenty-nine years old and practically all of
your friends are married. You’ll soon find yourself recruiting your sister to
be your date.”
She
held up a hand as he began to respond. “Moreover, you’ll be expected to give
parties and dinners, and you know nothing about such things. You need a wife
who can help you.”
She
paused, apparently waiting to hear his rebuttal. It would have been one she had
heard before—his assertion that teaching was a noble calling, that he was happy
to have received that call, and that he had no ambitions beyond the classroom.
But
Mark knew she would counter each of his arguments and the back-and-forth would
continue until they both were tired and angry, neither daring to mention the
woman he had almost married—the real reason he had no interest even in dating,
much less in marriage.
So,
today, he did not rise to her challenge. He waited.
Seeming
to take his silence as agreement, his mother continued.
“You’re
lonely.”
Mark
shook his head.
“Yes,
you are. You live alone, you dine out by yourself. You love photography, you
love hiking, and they are both solitary pursuits. You depend on me, your
father, and your sister to listen when you want to talk. We love to see you,
Mark, but, as I said, Emily is getting married, soon she’ll be busy with a
family of her own. And your father and I, we’re getting older…” She opened her
arms, palms up, as though her point should be obvious. “You need a wife.”
Again,
Mark did not respond. His mother smiled, a jungle cat sensing a win. Still, she
pounced for the victory move. “It’s expected, Mark. People will think something
is wrong with you if you aren’t married.”
“You’re
afraid they’ll think I’m gay?”
“If
they thought that, it might be different, but you’re not,” his mother rolled
her eyes, “so they will think you’re weird, or antisocial, or that you’re so
disgusting no one will have you. Mark, you need a wife.”
Argument
was pointless. His mother’s mind was made up and, knowing her, she had a plan
of some kind, a plan he might as well hear now. In any case, he had not even
dated in over three years so agreeing with her would not send him hurtling
toward the altar.
“You
may be right.”
Buy Links: Amazon / Barnes & Noble
Author Info
David Burnett lives near
Charleston, South Carolina, where he walks on the beach almost every day and
photographs the ocean, the sea birds, and the marshes that he loves. Three of
his four books are set in Charleston, and he has always enjoyed the Carolina
beaches.
David enjoys photography and has
photographed subjects as varied as prehistoric ruins on the islands of
Scotland, star trails, sea gulls, and a Native American powwow. He and his wife
have traveled widely in the United States and the United Kingdom. During trips
to Scotland, they visited Crathes Castle, the ancestral home of the Burnett
family near Aberdeen, and Kismul Castle on the Isle of Barra, the home of his
McNeil ancestors.
He reports that he went to school
for much longer than he wants to admit, and he has graduate degrees in
psychology and education. He and his wife have two children and a blue-eyed cat
named Bonnie.
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