Head Over Heels

"What?" Justin Kane shot up from his desk, clenching the cordless phone so tight that his knuckles threatened to pop out of their skin. "Tina, you can't do this to me!"

"Oh, no? Well, I'm doing it, lover." Justin's apparently soon-to-be ex-girlfriend's voice grated over the line. "You've taken advantage of me for the last time."

"Taken...advantage?" Justin echoed like some slow-on-the-uptake parrot. She made him sound like a Class A cad--as if she'd never had a hand in defining the casual nature of their relationship. Befuddled, he shook his head. "I've never taken advantage of you any more than you've taken advantage of me."

"Then let's just say I've grown tired of the game."

"Game? Tina, wait, this isn't a game." Racking his brain for a recent list of sins he must have committed, Justin paced his efficiently organized office above the main Vancouver branch of his three CycleMania bike stores. Concern edged his confusion. He couldn't let Tina walk out on him now. The ink hadn't even been applied to the deal with Willoughby Bikes yet. He wanted that distributorship, and he needed Tina's help to get it.

"Besides," he reminded her, "I thought you liked what we have going together. I thought you liked it as much as I do."

An irritated sigh puffed over the line. "I did like it, Justin, but things change. Or maybe I should say I've changed. Do you know what this weekend means to me?"

"Of course I do. The same as it does to me. The Willoughbys are flying in tomorrow and we're taking them to Whistler." The nearby mountain resort town would serve as the picture-perfect backdrop for convincing Nathan Willoughby CycleMania would fit seamlessly into the British bike manufacturer's growing worldwide "family" of distributors. Justin had been counting on Tina's presence to help cement the image of stability the English businessman demanded.

Tina snorted, rather delicately, but a snort just the same. "Oh, yes, work's what you would think of, all right. But if you try real hard, you might come up with something else."

Justin's spine went as rigid as an aluminum bike frame. He had been trying to decipher this disconcerting new dialect of Tina-speak, and he'd wound up several thousand syllables short. What did she expect? Did Donald Trump think of his main squeeze when he was on the verge of make-or-break time?

He made a wild guess. "It's your birthday?"

"No, it's not my birthday. That was three months ago. Damn it, Justin, you're dense. You're either dense, or you just don't care."

Bafflement buffeted Justin. When had his superficial-and-just-how-he-liked-her Tina transmuted into this perplexing pod-person? Determined to keep their conversation from sinking into relationship quicksand, he focused on a poster of the Cyclone--Willoughby's pro-level, full-suspension mountain bike--that he'd framed and hung on the wall to inspire motivation.

"What then?" he asked Tina.

"It's the six month anniversary of our first date." Her tone assumed the durability of quick-dry shellac.

"Our anniversary?" Damn. He hadn't even known he should be keeping track. "I didn't think that sort of thing mattered to you."

"I didn't think so, either, six months ago. But like I said, I've changed. I'm thirty-four now, Justin. Your mid-thirties might spell fun and games to you, but my freakin' clock is ticking. I want to get married. Maybe have a baby. And I'm not prepared to wait forever for you to decide you want the same."

Justin shook his head, bewildered to the very marrow of his bones. This from the woman who, six short months ago, had declared they'd be perfect for each other because neither of them craved commitment?

"Come on, Tina, be reasonable. You can't just up and announce that you're thinking babies and marriage when all along we've both agreed that's not something either of us wants right now."

Justin refused to repeat his father's mistakes. He wouldn't mix marriage and raising a family with trying to build a business, the way his father had done with his law practice. He'd thought Tina understood and accepted that about him.

"Oh, please," she said, her disgust with him apparent. "I refuse to feel guilty for doing this. My needs have changed and yours haven't. It's that simple."

"But to break up with me now? You know Nathan Willoughby and his wife expect to meet you. How can I take them to Whistler without you?"

"Tell them I have the flu."

"And next week?"

"Tell them I fell off a cliff. I don't care. You'll think of something. You always do." She drew in a sharp breath. "Just listening to you, Justin, it's clear you don't care for me. Not in the way I need. So why should I care about this weekend? Or about whether or not you make this deal? Fend for yourself, big guy. That's what you've been doing all this time, anyway."

She hung up. Or, rather, slammed down the phone with the intent to deafen him, if the ringing in his ears was any indication.

"Tina!" Justin roared before sanity reclaimed him. After shoving the cordless phone onto its stand, he sat back down. Wearily, he scrubbed a hand over his face.

Hell, what a mess. What now? He couldn't go to Whistler without Tina. He'd look like a heel spending a carefree July weekend with the Willoughbys while Ms. Personality-Switcheroo was supposedly lying in bed with a fever. Yet, he couldn't say she'd dumped him, either. One indication that his life was a shambles and Nathan Willoughby would write him off as unreliable. He could kiss the exclusive dealership rights for Willoughby Bikes in Vancouver and the distributorship for western Canada goodbye.

Justin drummed his fingers on the desktop. He might be an ignoramus when it came to the female of the species, but he knew his business--and at this point he wasn't willing to risk it. The four month window he'd established for opening more bike stores depended on the financing the Willoughby Bikes deal would provide. He wasn't about to abandon that all-important step in his carefully constructed master life plan because Tina had sprouted maternal instincts the way most women sprouted leg hair.

Which left him with just one option to pursue.

He needed a woman to replace Tina for the weekend.

And he had to find her fast.