Anyone But You

Anyone But You Plot Summary

Introduction

Nina Askew stood at the crossroads of forty, clutching the keys to a life she'd finally chosen for herself. The divorce papers were signed, the mansion sold, and now she faced the grey walls of Riverbend Animal Control with a simple mission: find a companion who wouldn't judge her choices. She'd planned on perky—something young and energetic to match her newfound freedom. Instead, she found Fred, a melancholy basset-beagle mix with bags under his eyes and the resignation of someone who'd given up on love entirely. Fred was scheduled for execution the next morning, and something in his defeated posture reminded Nina of herself during those final years with Guy. Without hesitation, she saved him, not knowing she'd soon need saving herself. One floor below Nina's new apartment lived Alex Moore, thirty years old and fighting his own battles with expectations. His medical family wanted him to specialize, to abandon the emergency room he loved for the prestige of cardiology. But Alex thrived on chaos, on the immediate need to save lives without the politics of building empires. When Fred tumbled through his window one night, Alex discovered something infinitely more intriguing than his next career move—Nina Askew, older, wounded, and absolutely determined to keep him at arm's length.

Chapter 1: New Beginnings: A Woman, Her Freedom, and a Reluctant Dog

Nina's third-floor apartment felt like a sanctuary after sixteen years of marble floors and designer furniture that demanded reverence rather than comfort. The oak wainscoting welcomed scuffs, the overstuffed couch invited collapse, and no one cared if she stayed up until dawn watching Steve McQueen tunnel out of prison camps. Fred, however, seemed less enchanted with their new arrangements. He approached life with the enthusiasm of a tax auditor, particularly when faced with the fire escape Nina had designated as his bathroom. Training Fred to navigate the metal stairs required the patience of a saint and the ingenuity of an engineer. Nina spread rugs to cushion his landings and coaxed him with ham, whispering encouragement as he eased his bulk down two flights to the courtyard. His technique needed work—Fred hurled himself through windows with the grace of a cannonball—but he was intelligent enough to grasp the concept. More importantly, he was hers, and she was his, two middle-aged souls learning to trust again. The apartment building itself harbored its own mysteries. Norma Lynn, the seventy-five-year-old yoga enthusiast on the fourth floor, climbed stairs with the vigor of someone half her age and kept an illegal exercise bike on the fire escape. Her "younger man" Rich, a mere sixty-two, brought pizza and marathon stories in equal measure. But it was the second-floor tenant who intrigued Nina most, the one whose strange hours suggested a life lived on society's margins, someone she glimpsed only in passing shadows on the stairs. When Fred disappeared one evening, Nina's panic sent her racing down the fire escape in her pajamas, searching frantically in the locked courtyard. How could a dog with Fred's limited athletic abilities simply vanish? The answer came with a knock on her door and the appearance of Alex Moore—tall, blond, carelessly handsome, and holding Fred like a furry trophy. Fred had apparently made himself at home on Alex's couch, and Alex, rather than being annoyed, seemed charmed by the intrusion. As Nina stammered her apologies, Alex's easy grin and obvious youth made her acutely aware of every line around her eyes, every year that separated them.

Chapter 2: Forbidden Attraction: The Downstairs Doctor and the Age Gap

Alex Moore looked like trouble—the kind of trouble Nina had specifically moved to a modest apartment to avoid. At thirty, he possessed that dangerous combination of confidence and carelessness that made women forget their better judgment. When he lounged in her doorway returning Fred, his easy familiarity with both her dog and her space suggested someone unaccustomed to boundaries. Nina's carefully constructed life of books, work, and solitary movie nights suddenly felt inadequate when confronted with Alex's effortless charm and the way he made her kitchen seem smaller just by standing in it. The revelation that Alex was a doctor should have impressed her, but instead it confused everything she thought she understood about him. Guy had been a lawyer—pressed suits, important dinners, a life measured in billable hours and social climbing. Alex wore his profession like comfortable clothes, talking about the emergency room with genuine passion while feeding illegal Oreos to her dog. He lived in duck shorts and torn T-shirts, spoke of his family's pressure to specialize with the bemused tolerance of someone whose priorities lay elsewhere entirely. Their evening conversations became a dangerous addiction. Alex would appear with milk and cookies, settling on her floor with his back against her couch while old movies flickered on the screen. Nina found herself watching him more than the television, studying the line of his shoulders, the way his hair caught the light, the easy laughter that punctuated his commentary. He made her remember what it felt like to simply enjoy someone's company without agenda or performance, to laugh until her stomach hurt over Mystery Science Theater 3000 and debate the merits of Mel Gibson's explosions. But reality intruded in moments of painful clarity. When Michael, the tediously appropriate author whose memoirs she'd edited, asked her to dinner, Nina accepted partly from loneliness and partly from a desperate need to prove she could date men her own age. The evening stretched like a root canal—Michael droned about his book while eyeing Fred with distaste, and Nina found herself comparing every word to Alex's effortless wit. When Alex appeared at her door during Michael's endless monologue, wielding her bra like a fishing trophy and claiming it was a medical necessity to see it modeled properly, Nina realized she was in serious trouble.

Chapter 3: Crossing Boundaries: From Friendship to First Kiss

Guy's unexpected visit should have been simple—collect insurance information, exchange polite conversation, leave. Instead, her ex-husband arrived with a mission: convince Nina that her experiment in independence had run its natural course. He surveyed her apartment with the condescension of someone cataloguing failure, noting the modest furnishings and Fred's presence as evidence of a life gone astray. When Nina mentioned Alex, Guy dismissed him with cruel precision—a thirty-year-old neighbor obviously too young to be anything but an amusing diversion, certainly nothing to threaten a real man's claim. The sting of Guy's casual cruelty sent Nina to desperate measures. She scrawled "Help!" on Fred's collar and sent him down the fire escape, hoping Alex might play along with whatever story she concocted. She needed Guy to see her as desirable, not as the pathetic divorcée he clearly imagined her to be. When Alex burst through her door in Daffy Duck shorts and a backward T-shirt, demanding to know about Fred's collar, Nina threw herself into his arms with theatrical desperation. What happened next obliterated every calculation Nina had made about managing her attraction to Alex. His mouth on hers wasn't gentle or tentative—it was claiming and urgent and absolutely devastating. She'd kissed one man in her entire adult life, and Guy's kisses had been perfunctory things, prelude to predictable encounters. Alex kissed like a man who'd been thinking about it for months, like someone who intended to memorize the taste and texture of her mouth. When he pulled her toward the couch, Nina's last coherent thought was that she'd never wanted anything as much as she wanted him to keep touching her. The sound of the door closing as Guy left barely registered over the rush of blood in Nina's ears. Alex's hands mapped her body with surgical precision, and when he pushed her T-shirt up to cup her breast through her bra, Nina cried out at the shock of pleasure. She'd forgotten—or perhaps never known—that desire could be this immediate, this consuming. Only the sudden bloom of blood on her bandaged hand broke the spell, Alex's medical training overriding passion as he assessed the damage to her stitches. As he gently rewrapped her wound, Nina struggled to process what had just happened and why every nerve in her body was screaming for him to finish what they'd started.

Chapter 4: Vulnerability Exposed: Passion and Body Insecurities

The Incredibra hung from Nina's hands like a battle flag—scarlet lace engineered to defy gravity and time, to transform ordinary mortal flesh into centerfold fantasy. Charity had insisted every woman needed one, but Nina stared at her reflection with growing uncertainty. At forty, her body told the story of decades lived in real time, not airbrushed perfection. Everything was softer now, lower, more human than the twenty-somethings Alex typically dated. The bra promised miracles, but Nina wasn't sure she believed in miracles anymore. When the Crock-Pot finally fell—an accident Alex had predicted for weeks—it shattered more than just glass. Nina watched blood seep from the slice in her palm with detached fascination, the thin red line becoming a steady flow that turned her kitchen sink into a crime scene. The walk to Riverbend General passed in a dreamlike haze of pretty evening light and gathering dizziness, Nina clutching a blood-soaked dish towel to her stomach while trying not to think about how dramatically she was bleeding. The emergency room chaos should have been overwhelming, but Alex's presence transformed everything. Gone was the careless boy in duck shorts—this Alex moved with absolute authority, giving orders in a voice that carried without shouting, his hands steady and sure as he examined her wound. Nina watched him work with something approaching awe, seeing finally the doctor his family wanted to reshape, the healer who thrived in crisis. When he smiled down at the sobbing girl on the next gurney, offering comfort while issuing commands, Nina felt something shift permanently in her chest. Later that night, as Alex appeared with beer and easy conversation, Nina struggled to reconcile this new understanding with her careful categorization of him as too young, too unfocused, too risky. He'd saved her hand with the same casual competence he brought to everything else, but she'd seen the moment of terror in his eyes when he'd first seen her bloodied shirt. The way he'd looked at her—not as an older woman indulging a younger man's whim, but as someone precious who'd been hurt—made Nina wonder if she'd been protecting herself from the wrong dangers entirely.

Chapter 5: Misguided Ambitions: Sacrificing Happiness for Security

The cardiology position represented everything Alex had never wanted—prestige without passion, security without satisfaction. But standing in the hospital cafeteria with his father's offer hanging in the air, Alex found himself calculating the salary against Nina's expectations, weighing his happiness against her security. She'd been married to Guy Adams, a name that meant money and status in Riverbend. How could he ask her to trade down from marble foyers to secondhand furniture, from important dinner parties to pizza on apartment floors? His father's certainty that Nina would expect children stung worse than the career pressure. "We were hoping Alex would have children," the older Moore had said with painful directness, and Alex had watched Nina's face close down, watched her retreat behind polite smiles while his family dissected her fertility like a medical condition. Max had tried to deflect with drinks and subject changes, but the damage was done. Nina wore forty like an apology, and Alex's family was determined to make her pay for every year. The house on Lehigh Terrace appeared like a ghost of Nina's former life—elegant, expensive, exactly the kind of place Guy would have chosen. Alex's father presented it as a gift, a way of ensuring Nina's comfort, but Alex saw it as a trap. He was morphing into Guy without realizing it, making decisions for Nina's supposed benefit without consulting her actual desires. The cardiology schedule left him exhausted and irritable, too tired for movies or jogging or the easy intimacy that had defined their early days together. The night Nina finally exploded, her fury was magnificent and terrible. She accused him of trying to recreate her marriage to Guy, of caring more about his own insecurity than her happiness. "I love you, you jerk," she'd said, and the words hit harder than any criticism of his choices. She'd left him standing in his father's living room, surrounded by the wreckage of his good intentions, while Max offered his own brutal assessment: "God knows what's going to save you." Alex realized he'd been so busy trying to prove he was worthy of Nina that he'd forgotten to be the man she'd fallen in love with.

Chapter 6: Breaking Point: When Past Patterns Threaten True Connection

The morning after Nina's departure stretched endlessly, punctuated by Alex's futile attempts to reach her by phone. Her locked window felt like a physical blow—she'd shut him out completely, barricading herself against his apologies and explanations. He canceled the house contract with savage satisfaction, told his father exactly what he thought of cardiology, and returned to the emergency room like a man coming home from exile. But none of it mattered if Nina wouldn't let him explain, wouldn't give him a chance to prove he'd learned from his spectacular failure. Max found him at his lowest point, sprawled in his apartment nursing a Coke and his wounded pride. "She called me a jerk less than twenty-four hours ago," Alex complained, but Max had no sympathy for his timing concerns. The older brother's own revelation—thirty-six years old, burned out, and utterly alone—served as a warning Alex couldn't ignore. Max had poured everything into his career and had nothing to show for it but empty apartments and meaningless conquests. "If I had Nina," Max said with devastating honesty, "I'd grab her and go to a beach somewhere and just watch the sun come up and go down forever." Meanwhile, three floors up, Nina wrestled with Charity's manuscript and Jessica's publishing crisis. The book that had started as memoir had transformed into erotic fiction, complete with explicit love scenes and a heroine who learned from her romantic disasters. Jessica's horror at the genre shift would have been comical if Nina's job hadn't hung in the balance, but even professional catastrophe paled beside the ache of missing Alex. She'd gotten what she claimed to want—independence, freedom from a man's career ambitions—and it felt like punishment. Charity's observation cut to the bone: Nina and Alex had both sabotaged their relationship from the same fear. Neither believed in unconditional love. Alex couldn't trust that Nina would love him without the trappings of success; Nina couldn't trust that Alex would love her despite the evidence of age. They'd thrown away happiness because they couldn't believe they deserved it, couldn't believe the other person saw past their carefully constructed defenses to the vulnerable truth beneath.

Chapter 7: Unconditional Surrender: Finding Courage in Nakedness

The revelation that Alex was sacrificing his calling for her sake broke Nina's heart in ways she hadn't expected. Max's casual mention that Alex hated cardiology, that he was choosing prestige over passion to give Nina the "rich life," forced her to confront an uncomfortable truth. She'd spent months protecting herself from the risk of loving someone who might leave her for someone younger, never considering that her own fears might drive him to become someone he wasn't. Nina stood before her bedroom mirror and took inventory with brutal honesty. Gravity had claimed its victories—her waist was thicker, her breasts lower, everything softer than it had been at twenty-five. But this was the body that had carried her through forty years of living, the body Alex claimed to want. The Incredibra lay discarded on her bed, its engineering marvels suddenly seeming like a monument to self-deception. She gathered it up and handed it to Fred, watching his ecstatic scramble toward the door with something approaching relief. The fire escape felt different under her bare feet as she climbed down to Alex's window. The night air raised goosebumps along her arms and legs, but underneath the nervousness was a strange sense of freedom. She was done hiding, done apologizing for the passage of time, done letting fear make her choices. When she climbed through Alex's window in nothing but her trench coat, Max's rapid exit brought a smile to her lips. Some conversations required privacy. Alex's reaction when she dropped the coat was everything she'd hoped for and feared to believe. The hunger in his eyes was real and immediate, not the careful kindness of someone making allowances for age. When he told her to take off the bra and she refused out of habit, his response was gentle but firm: turn off the lights, but lose the armor. They made love with a desperation born of almost losing each other, and when Alex whispered "I want you naked now" in the darkness, Nina finally understood that he meant exactly what he said—all of her, without conditions or concealment.

Summary

In the quiet aftermath of passion, Nina lay against Alex's chest listening to his heartbeat and marveling at the simplicity of happiness. They'd nearly destroyed something precious through mutual distrust—she by refusing to believe in love that didn't require perfection, he by trying to prove worthiness through sacrifice rather than authenticity. Fred's wedding appearance in the confiscated Incredibra would become legendary among their friends, a symbol of the absurd lengths people go to hide their true selves from those who love them most. The lesson Nina learned at forty wasn't about recapturing youth or settling for less—it was about the courage required to be completely known by another person. Love, it turned out, wasn't about meeting someone's expectations or maintaining impossible standards. It was about finding someone who saw past your defenses to the person you were always meant to be, someone who chose you not despite your flaws but because of your wholeness. In Alex's arms, Nina discovered that the best love stories begin not with perfect people but with imperfect souls brave enough to trust in grace.

About Author

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Jennifer Crusie

Crusie maps a vibrant exploration of romantic relationships, interweaving humor with insights into gendered storytelling. Her work often delves into the narrative styles influenced by her background in feminist criticism and literature, fostering tales that are both engaging and thought-provoking. With a knack for crafting wacky romantic plots that radiate humor and warmth, she draws inspiration from literary icons like Georgette Heyer and Dorothy Parker. Crusie's debut novella, "Sizzle", set the tone for a prolific career marked by novels such as "Welcome to Temptation" and "Crazy for You", which reflect her focus on contemporary romantic dynamics. Her collaboration with Bob Mayer in books like "Agnes and the Hitman" exemplifies her skill in blending romance with adventure, underscoring the gender storytelling differences she originally intended to dissect academically.\n\nIn delving into Crusie's bio, readers uncover her transition from academia to becoming a bestselling author, sparked by her interest in how gender influences storytelling. This shift was not merely a career change but a profound method of connecting with readers who appreciate narratives that challenge conventional storytelling. By adopting her maternal grandmother's maiden name as a pseudonym, Crusie forged a distinct literary identity that resonates in the romance genre. Her numerous accolades, including the RWA Rita Award for "Getting Rid of Bradley", attest to her success in appealing to a wide audience. Through her books, readers not only experience the joy of her engaging plots but also gain insight into the complexity of modern relationships, making her work both entertaining and intellectually stimulating.

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