Destined to Love

1

San Jose, California 1994

Her hair was a disaster.

Josie had tried to tame it in the dressing room, but the rain and wind had wreaked irreversible damage during the dash from her car to the building. The largest can of hairspray in the world couldn't plaster down the spiked clumps of black hair she now had sprouting from her scalp.

She'd forgotten to bring her power lipstick, the deep wine-rose color that said "That's right, I've got lips and I'm not afraid to use them." So much for first impressions. Now she was bound to come across as meek and homespun--two things she definitely was not.

Perspiration was beginning to bead on her upper lip, and as Josie sat on a velvet-covered stool, alone in a bare, twenty-by-twenty room, with hot lights beating down on her from every direction, she was struck by the oddest impulse: to stand up and do a Gene Kelly impersonation on the hardwood floor.

Okay, so she was having a hard time taking this whole thing seriously. What kind of man searched for the woman of his dreams in the library of a video dating service, anyway? And with the way she looked at the moment, she had to be some poor soul's nightmare, not perfect date material, as her friends were so fond of telling her.

Her friends. This whole thing was their fault. If Yvette, Linda, and Vickie hadn't gotten themselves happily married in the past three years, they wouldn't be all over her to do the same. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride--she had heard the damn saying so many times, she felt as though it were tattooed across her forehead.

"Just relax, Dr. Reed, and tell me your heart's desire."

Josie started at the sound of a woman's voice. She hadn't been aware that anyone else was in the room. A small face peeked out through the distant shadows at her and smiled, and Josie silently congratulated herself for not making use of the hardwood floor. It would have been embarrassing to have someone witness that.

"Dr. Reed? Your heart's desire?"

"How about Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise ... and just a touch of Clint Eastwood?"

Wishful thinking. After living among the male species for twenty-eight years, Josie Reed knew that such a man did not exist.

She squinted into the bright lights, which were looming over the videocamera she was suppose to spill her guts to, and licked her dry lips. If she didn't get at least one decent date from this ridiculous lark, she was never going to hear the end of it from those happily married friends of hers.

The woman continued to smile out from behind the tall tripod and camera. "Nervous?"

Josie adjusted her position on the stool and tugged on the lapels of her emerald-green jacket. "A little, I suppose."

"Your first time?"