Don't Bet On Love

  SWEET DREAMS 214

  DON’T BET ON LOVE

  Sheri Cobb South

  Synopsis:

  My fair laddie…

  To win a bet that sweet but klutzy Gary Hadley will take the most popular girl at Carson High to the prom, Molly McKenzie’s brother Mark asks her to try transforming Gary into a dashing ladies’ man.

  Persuaded by a bit of brotherly blackmail, Molly reluctantly takes on the hopeless task. To her amazement, Gary turns into a first-class hunk. Will Mark win his bet, or will Molly spoil everything by falling for Gary herself?

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Molly McKenzie, have I ever told you that you’re my favorite sister?” Mark asked, following me into the kitchen and grabbing me around the waist.

  Maybe I have a naturally suspicious mind, but I had lived with my twin brother for seventeen whole years, and I recognized the symptoms. Mark was definitely up to no good.

  “I’m your only sister,” I pointed out, unimpressed. “If it’s money you want, I haven’t got any—you of all people should know that.”

  Considering the subject closed, I set to work fixing myself an after-school snack. Unfortunately, Mark wasn’t finished with me yet. As I poured a glass of milk, he leaned over the counter and snatched a cookie from my paper napkin.

  “What makes you think I want money?” he asked between bites. “All I’m asking for is one little favor.”

  I scowled at him. “That’s what I’m afraid of. Your ‘little favors’ usually turn out to be major headaches! Whatever it is, the answer is no.”

  “Oh, come on, Moll! You could at least listen, you know.”

  “Okay, I’ll listen,” I said reluctantly, leaning against the refrigerator door and taking a sip of my milk. “But remember, I’m making no promises.”

  “Okay. Today in the locker room after PE, some of us—me, Eddie, Gary, and Steve—were just talking. You know, guy stuff…”

  I groaned. “Spare me the details, please! The more I hear of your ‘guy stuff,’ the less respect I have for guys.”

  “You said you were going to listen,” Mark reminded me, snatching another cookie. “Anyway, we were talking about girls and who we’d like to take to the prom. Steve will be taking Liz, of course, and Eddie’s thinking of asking your friend Jan.” He paused. “Gary said he’d like to take…Colette Carroll.”

  “What?” The glass of milk nearly slipped out of my hand. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Well, nothing, I guess,” I said. “I mean, anybody can dream. But Gary Hadley? And Colette?”

  It wasn’t that I had anything against Gary. In fact, he was probably the least offensive of all my brother’s friends. But Colette was the reigning beauty of Carson High’s junior class, a tall, leggy brunette with a fantastic figure and a fashion-model smile.

  “Sure. Why not? Why shouldn’t Gary take her to the prom? He’s tall, he’s athletic, he’s—”

  “He’s hopeless!” I interrupted. “Look, Mark, anybody who thinks Gary has a ghost of a chance with Colette has to be seriously out of touch with reality. He may be poetry in motion on the basketball court, and he’s a perfectly nice guy, but in case you haven’t noticed, Gary can’t walk down the hall without tripping over his own two feet!”

  “So? If your feet wore size fourteen shoes, you’d probably trip over them every now and then, too,” Mark retorted. “Anyway, Eddie and Steve agree with you. They say Gary doesn’t stand a chance with Colette, but—well, to make a long story short, I’ve got twenty bucks that says my man goes to the prom with Colette Carroll.”

  “You actually laid bets on whether or not Colette would go out with Gary?” I exclaimed. “Mark, how could, you?”

  He grinned. “Easy. If Colette tells Gary to take a hike, I pay Eddie and Steve ten dollars each. If she goes to the prom with him, they each pay me ten. What’s the big deal?”

  “That is despicable!” I fumed. “It doesn’t surprise me that you, Eddie, and Steve would do something so disgusting, but I simply can’t believe that Gary would go along with it. I thought he had more self-respect than that!”

  “Oh, lighten up, Moll,” my brother said, laughing. “He’s just a young boy in love.”

  “Yeah, right. What’s your excuse?”

  “I’m just a young boy who stands to lose twenty bucks if Gary doesn’t take Colette to the prom.” Mark beamed at me. “And that’s where you come in, sister dear.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked warily. I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted to know.

  “Well, Gary’s a good guy, but even I have to admit he’s no ladies’ man,” Mark began.

  I snorted. “You can say that again!”

  “And you obviously agree that for Gary to get a date with Colette, he’s going to need a little help…”

  “A little help?” I repeated. “That has to be the understatement of the year!”

  “…So I volunteered you,” Mark went on as though I hadn’t spoken.

  “You what?” I squawked.

  Mark gave me his most appealing grin. “Come on, Moll, have a heart. Here’s poor Gary so nuts about Colette that he can’t even talk to her without getting tongue-tied, so I thought…”

  “Forget it!” I snapped. “That’s his problem, not mine. Besides, it seems to me that you’d be better off worrying about your own prom date. Have you asked anybody yet?”

  “Nope, and I’m not going to. I’m going stag,” he said cheerfully. “I mean, why tie myself down to one girl for the whole evening?”

  “What you really mean is that no self-respecting girl would go with you,” I retorted.

  Mark bristled. “Oh, yeah? It just so happens I could have my pick of any girl at Carson High if I wanted, but I don’t. And speaking of prom dates, has anybody asked you yet?” he added slyly.

  “No, and there’s nobody I’d particularly like to go with, either,” I told him. It was the truth. There wasn’t a single guy in the junior class I was interested in. “I probably won’t go at all.”

  “Suit yourself,” Mark said with a shrug. “But just because you’re boycotting the prom doesn’t mean you can’t help poor Gary get his dream date.”

  “No! I refuse to have anything to do with this tacky scheme of yours,” I said firmly. “Poor Gary will have to fend for himself.”

  “But, Moll, I sort of promised him you’d do it.”

  I stared at him. “You had no right to promise any such thing! Anyway, I couldn’t help Gary get a date with Colette even if I wanted to. She’s in my algebra class, but I hardly know her.”

  “What difference does that make? You're a girl,” Mark pointed out. “You know what girls like in a guy. You could tell Gary how to act so Colette would like him.”

  “I won’t do it, Mark. No way, nohow!”

  I threw my paper napkin in the trash, put my dirty glass in the sink, and headed for the door. But before I reached it, Mark said, “You know, Moll, I was just thinking. It sure would be a shame if Mom and Dad found out about that speeding ticket you got last month—especially after you took such pains to pay the fine without having to ask them for money...”

  His words stopped me in my tracks. He wouldn’t tell on me—would he? I spun around and looked at my brother suspiciously, but Mark was the picture of innocence. Sapphire-blue eyes gazed at me from a cherubic face framed by curls the same golden-blond color as my own. Not for the first time, I wondered how such an angelic face could hide such a devious mind. But knowing him as well as I did, I wouldn’t put anything past him—including blackmail.

  “Look, Mark, I told you I’d pay you back as soon as I could,” I pleaded. “I’ve given you half my allowance every week, just like we agreed. If
you’ll just be patient for a few more weeks, you’ll have the rest, I promise.”

  Mark shook his head sadly. “I don’t know, Moll. Sometimes I think I should have told Mom and Dad a long time ago. I worry about your safety,” he added in a voice filled with fake concern.

  “Oh, Mark, give it a rest!” I said, scowling. “I was going thirty-five in a twenty-mile-per-hour zone. You make it sound like I was drag-racing or something!”

  “The law is the law,” Mark said piously. “Of course, if you’d just agree to help Gary Hadley…”

  I gave up. “Okay, you win.” I sighed. “What exactly do you want me to do?”

  The next day at lunch I asked Jan and Beth, my two best friends, what they thought of Gary Hadley.

  Jan looked surprised. “Gary? I don’t know,” she said. “I never thought much about him at all, to tell the truth. He’s okay, I guess. Awfully klutzy, though.”

  “Yeah, but klutzy in a cute sort of way,” said Beth. She always tried to find something nice to say about everybody.

  “Nobody ever accused him of being good-looking, that’s for sure,” Jan went on.

  “No, but he’s not really ugly, either,” Beth put in.

  “If he asked one of you to the prom, would you go?” I asked.

  Frowning, Jan said, “Hmmm. That’s a tough call. It would depend on who my other prospects were. Actually, I’m sort of hoping Eddie will ask me.”

  “Well, I’d go with Gary,” Beth said. “He may not be handsome from an objective standpoint, but I think he’s sweet.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Jan added. “You’ve already got a date.”

  Beth beamed. “Yeah, Chris is coming home from college that weekend. He’s even going to rent a limo so we won’t have to ride in that run-down pickup of his! Isn’t that cool?”

  “Don’t change the subject,” I ordered. Then, trying to sound casual, I asked, “Do you think Colette Carroll would ever consider going to the prom with Gary?”

  There was a moment of stunned silence, and then Jan began to laugh. “Good grief, Molly! What kind of a question is that?”

  “Well, do you?” I persisted.

  “Absolutely not,” Jan stated, tossing her long red hair for emphasis. “Colette Carroll wouldn’t be caught dead with Gary Hadley!”

  My sentiments exactly. Turning to Beth, I asked, “What about you?”

  She twisted one light brown curl around her finger, obviously struggling to find something positive to say. “Well—it’s not that I don’t think Gary is good enough for Colette, or anything. But she’s so pretty and popular that she’s sure to have dozens of offers, and—”

  “We get the picture, Beth,” Jan interrupted. “Just answer the question yes or no.”

  “Well—no,” Beth admitted.

  I heaved a sigh. “That’s exactly what I told Mark. But does he ever listen to me? Oh, no!”

  “What does Mark have to do with it?” Beth asked, puzzled.

  “My idiot brother bet two of his friends twenty dollars that Colette would go to the prom with Gary,” I said.

  “You’re kidding!” Jan rolled her eyes. “What a stupid waste of money!”

  “Just what would you consider a smart waste of money?” Beth challenged Jan. “I think it’s sweet that Mark has so much faith in his friend.”

  “You wouldn’t think it was so sweet if he’d volunteered you to turn Gary into Colette Carroll’s dream date,” I said bitterly.

  “He didn’t!” Jan gasped.

  I nodded. “He did.”

  “And you actually agreed to do it?” Jan asked, incredulous.

  “I had to.” I sighed. “I still owe Mark twenty-five dollars for that traffic ticket I got last month. He said if I didn’t pay up right away, he’d tell Mom and Dad about it—unless I helped him win his bet.”

  “And is Gary aware of this bet?” asked Beth.

  “Yup.”

  “Well, maybe Mark was just teasing you,” Beth suggested. “I mean, he can’t expect you to work miracles!”

  “Oh, can’t he? You obviously don’t know my brother,” I said wearily.

  “Cheer up, Molly,” Jan said, patting my hand. “You know how guys are—it was probably just a lot of meaningless locker-room talk, and Mark’s forgotten all about it by now.”

  Feeling a little better, I asked, “Do you really think so?”

  Both Beth and Jan nodded vigorously, and Beth said, “I’m sure you don’t have a thing to worry about.”

  I certainly hoped they were right!

  CHAPTER TWO

  All afternoon I thought about what Jan and Beth had said, and by the time I got home from school, I’d almost convinced myself that I had nothing to worry about. After all, the prom was still two months away, and there were plenty of other things going on between now and then. For one thing, we’d be getting our class rings any day now, and Mark, Gary, and the other basketball players would be kept busy for several more weeks with end-of-season games. Mark might be a few minutes older than me, but he wasn’t all that different from the two-year-old I sometimes baby-sat. He had a short attention span, and it didn’t take much to distract him.

  But when Mark got home fifteen minutes later, I discovered that it was going to take more than a class ring or basketball games to make him forget about his latest scheme.

  “Here he is!” Mark announced, bursting into the den where I sat struggling with my algebra homework. “The newest Casanova of Carson High School—and what a guy! Gary Hadley!”

  A moment later, the newest Casanova of Carson High appeared in the doorway—and tripped over the low step leading down into our sunken den.

  “Watch out!” Mark warned about two seconds too late.

  “Sorry about that,” Gary mumbled, awkwardly recovering his balance.

  I looked at him with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. He was even less attractive than I had remembered: six and a half feet tall and rail thin, with an unruly mop of thick, reddish-brown hair that was much too long, and a beak of a nose supporting the ugliest glasses known to mankind. Gary Hadley didn’t need a girl to transform him; he needed a magician!

  “Hi, Molly,” he said, squirming uncomfortably under my examination. “Mark said you could get me in shape for the prom. Do you really think Colette might go with me?”

  “Do you believe in miracles?” I countered.

  “It’ll take a miracle, that’s for sure,” Gary said with a sigh. “Anyway, thanks for your help.”

  “Save your thanks for Mark,” I said curtly. “It was his idea, not mine.”

  “I’m starving,” Mark cut in. “Do you want anything to eat, Gary?”

  “No thanks, but I could use something to drink, if it’s not too much trouble,” Gary said.

  “No problem,” Mark assured him. “Molly will help me, won’t you, Moll?”

  Smiling at me with clenched teeth, Mark grabbed my arm and hauled me out of the room and down the hall to the kitchen. Once there, he dropped any pretense of brotherly affection.

  “Is it asking too much for you not to be rude?” he snapped angrily.

  “Who’s being rude?” I asked, lowering my voice to match his. “I simply told him the truth, that’s all.”

  “Well, you could be a little nicer, you know. After all, Gary’s a friend of mine!”

  “Oh, he is, is he?” I asked, raising my eyebrows in mock surprise. “It seems to me that if he really were your friend, you’d be trying to talk him out of this crazy scheme instead of encouraging him!”

  “What’s crazy about it? Gary just needs some pointers on how to get his girl, that’s all. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing, if it were anybody else. But look at him, Mark! Surely even you can see that he’s hopeless!”

  A slight sound interrupted us, and we both whirled around guiltily to find Gary standing there, shuffling his huge feet uncomfortably. I tried to judge from his expression whether he’d heard my last remark, but his eyes, distorted b
y the thick lenses of his glasses, were impossible to read.

  “Sorry to take so long,” Mark said, making a quick recovery. “Do you want soda or iced tea?”

  Gary chose soda, and I began to fill a glass with ice, more to avoid conversation with him than from any desire to play hostess. Unfortunately, my brother was wise to my tactics.

  “The way I see it, we’ve still got two months before prom night,” Mark said. “That should give you plenty of time to prepare. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you guys alone to work out the details.”

  Before I could argue, Mark made a quick exit.

  “I thought he was starving,” I muttered under my breath.

  I filled Gary’s glass with soda, then returned the bottle to the pantry. When I came back, Gary was leaning against the kitchen counter with his arms folded, eyeing me intently.

  “You really don’t want to do this, do you, Molly?” he asked.

  All right, I thought. If he’s going to be frank, so am I.

  “No, Gary, I don’t,” I said.

  “Then why did you agree to it?”

  “Blackmail,” I said grimly. “Mark paid a speeding fine for me, and he won’t let me off the hook until I pay him back.”

  “Gee. I didn’t know that. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I sighed.

  “Maybe if I talked to Mark…”

  “Absolutely not,” I said firmly. “This is between my brother and me. I’m not going to drag you into our family squabbles.”

  Gary smiled a little at that. “Don’t look now, but it seems like I’m already in.”

  “Maybe so,” I admitted, forcing a smile of my own. “I don’t have anything against you personally, Gary,” I went on. “It’s just the principle of the thing. The very idea of betting money on whether or not a girl will go out with a guy is—well, tacky, to say the least.”

  Gary nodded sheepishly. “I guess maybe you’re right. But the bet wasn’t my idea, you know. It was Mark’s.”