"For the wedding."

My wedding was less than two weeks away and I knew that realistically not much could change in that short a time. It was more a case of hope springing eternal. After all, if the women's magazines could guarantee the loss of a bagillion pounds in one week, why shouldn't I lose a few by exercising a time or two before I said "I do"?

Still, I didn't mean for anyone to take me up on the comment, certainly not for anyone to challenge me to actually do something about it. It was more one of those rhetorical statements I tend to make, and I neither expect nor want a response.

"You need to take up jogging." Jolene Marie Luray Meister Samson looked me up and down from her desk across the aisle. "You could use it."

Just because she was beautiful and had a figure to die for was no reason to give me that condescending look. I might not be up to her standard of pulchritude, but I was hardly ugly. Curt, my one true love, seemed satisfied, and what more did I need?

"Thanks, Jo," I said dryly. "Just the encouragement I need."

She nodded, taking my words at face value. "I'll meet you in the parking lot at Bushay's tomorrow morning at six-thirty. It's still cool enough to run at that hour. We'll take the jogging trail they have through the woods. It's pretty, too. Goes beside a creek part of the way and through the woods the rest of the way."

I'm pretty sure my mouth dropped open, making me look addlepated. I couldn't decide which threw me more, the hour for the suggested run or the fact that Jolene seemed to