Those Christmas Angels (Angels Everywhere #5)(87)

They’d been into the game for about ten minutes when Peter sent her another message. This might be a stupid question but are you…single, married, whatever?

He’d asked her.

Beth’s relief was instantaneous. Single.

Me, too. Age?

Is this an interrogation? she typed back.

Sort of. Do you mind?

Not really. She didn’t, because in the process she was learning more about him.

I’ll tell if you will.

All right.

I’m edging toward thirty, he typed. Which is one reason my family is after me to meet someone.

Me, too. Her heart really started to pound then. Perhaps that candle her mother had lit in church was working. Perhaps, in some quirky way, her prayer had taken effect.

Peter was single; she was single.

He lived in Seattle and she lived in Seattle.

He was close to her age and a professional, just as she was.

This almost sounded too good to be true.

My family says it’s time I met someone, she typed next.

They do? He seemed as astonished as she felt—as if he, too, was finding this a bit too coincidental. Eerie, even.

A moment later, he typed, What’s wrong with you?

Well, he was direct enough, but she’d been pretty honest with him, too. She toyed with the idea of telling him she’d been married and divorced, and then remembered Heidi’s advice. It wasn’t necessary to blurt out everything on the first date—even if this wasn’t exactly a date.

I spend too much time playing computer games. She smiled as her fingers skipped effortlessly over the keyboard.

I’ve got the same problem, came his reply.

Silly though it was, Beth felt sure they were both smiling. Their conversation went on for another hour, and she was shocked to realize the game had become secondary.

That night when Beth crawled into bed and drew the blanket over her shoulders, she fell into an easy, peaceful sleep. She woke with a feeling of expectation, as if something wonderful was about to happen. Keeping her eyes closed, she tried to hang on to that sensation for as long as she could, afraid reality would chase it away.

The phone rang while she dressed for work. Call display told her it was her mother.

“Hi, Mom,” she said, answering the phone while fastening an earring.

“You sound happy.”

“I am—well, kind of.”

Her mother’s hesitation was brief. “Does this have anything to do with the man you met on that computer game you’re always playing?”

Beth found it hard to believe she’d actually mentioned Peter to her mother. She’d done it on impulse—a bad impulse—hoping to shut down a barrage of veiled criticism and heavy-handed encouragement. Normally her mother would be the last person she’d tell. “We haven’t even met, Mom,” she finally confessed. “At least not in the flesh.”

“What’s the holdup?”

“He hasn’t suggested we meet outside the game,” Beth said, which in her opinion was a perfectly logical explanation. In her mother’s generation, the men always did the asking. She figured this was an excuse even her marriage-obsessed mother would accept.

“Then you suggest it.”

So much for that. “Mother!”

“I’m serious,” Joyce said. “Why beat around the bush? You’re a woman who knows what she wants. Now go and get it.”

Beth thought about asking Peter. Why not? One of them had to break the ice. “I’d like to meet him but I don’t want to appear forward.”

“Marybeth, you don’t have much time. Maybe he’s shy. Maybe he’s waiting for you to bring it up. Show a bit of initiative, will you? It’s later than you think.”

“Trust me, Mother, Peter isn’t shy.” She knew this from the way he attacked their enemies on WoW.

“Then why wait?”

Beth nibbled on her lower lip. “I don’t want to rush into anything.”

“But it’s already December twentieth. Christmas is right around the corner.”

This wasn’t making sense. “Why is it so important that Peter join us for Christmas?” Beth asked, beginning to have some suspicions.

“It isn’t important…Well, in a manner of speaking it is. Your father and I have this wager.”

“Mother!” Her parents constantly made small bets with each other. Most of the time Beth found this habit of theirs amusing. Not now, though. Not when their wager was about her. “You’d better tell me everything.”

“Okay…” Her mother inhaled deeply. “Last Christmas, your father said that at the rate you were going you’d never remarry.”

“And you disagreed with him.”

“Of course I did! Marybeth, you have no idea what an attractive young woman you are. You should be happy.”

“I am happy,” she insisted.

“I disagree. You just think you are.”

Beth rolled her eyes, knowing it wouldn’t do any good to argue.

“You should be dating,” her mother continued.

“And getting married and becoming a mother.” The litany was a familiar one.

“Yes,” Joyce Fischer said. “I hate the idea that you’ve got nothing more pressing to go home to than that darned computer game.”