Читать книгу Hand-Picked Husband - HEATHER MACALLISTER, Heather Macallister - Страница 6
ОглавлениеCHAPTER TWO
FACSIMILE
To: N. Barnett, Golden B
From: D. Reese, Reese Ranch
How can I stop wonying? They haven’t seen each other for two weeks. Autumn is on her way over to Yellow Rose—remember that nice lady we met and her grandson?
Debra
FAX
To: D. Reese, Reese Ranch
From: N. Barnett, Golden B
I’ve put a bug in Clay’ s ear .
Nellie
IT WAS a lovely mid-January day, cool enough so she could wear her new red suede jacket, and dry with a clear blue sky. Autumn drove through town, avoiding the tourists lining up to tour the Alamo, and entered an older residential area of San Antonio.
Yellow Rose Matchmakers was located at 10 Bluebonnet Drive, in a charming Victorian house painted yellow with white trim. A white picket fence surrounded the yard, making an old-fashioned statement among the unfenced neighboring yards.
Autumn parked her black Ford Bronco on the street next to a mailbox hand-painted with yellow roses, then went to push open the gate. Something about the act of stepping through the gate and latching it behind her made Autumn feel as though she had stepped into another time.
She’d climbed the porch steps and rung the doorbell before she stopped to consider that it was still fairly early on a Saturday morning and the agency might not be open yet, or even at all. She was just about to turn away when a shadow appeared behind the frosted-glass door and it swung open.
“It’s about time, Hector. Just because you’re my cousin’s son doesn’t mean—you’re not Hector.”
“No. Sorry.”
The woman, short and full-figured, wearing her salt-and-pepper hair in a bun, reminded Autumn of the wife of Clay’s ranch foreman. The no-nonsense tone in her voice had prompted the automatic apology.
“Well, who are you?”
“I’m Autumn Reese, from the Junior Swine Auction Education Committee.” Autumn held up a copy of the magazine-size program from last year’s auction. “I was wondering if Yellow Rose Matchmakers might be interested in contributing to the committee this year.” Autumn flipped through the program so the woman could see the ads contributors were entitled to.
“Pigs, eh?”
Autumn nodded. “Cows are by invitation only, chickens aren’t compelling, and I’m allergic to sheep.”
“I’m not so sure Miss Willie would want to be associated with pigs.”
Prepared for this reaction, Autumn whipped out a batch of adorable photos of cute baby pigs. Donated by a professional photographer, they featured pigs with wings, pigs dressed in kilts, pigs among flowers—anything to negate the image of pigs wallowing in a trough.
As had so many others, the woman cooed.
“Money donated goes to the education fund so all exhibitors receive a minimum amount for their pig at auction. The kids use the profits from selling their animals to fund their education.”
“Weeell...let’s talk. You don’t see Hector out there, do you?”
Autumn dutifully looked around. Her Bronco was the only vehicle in sight. She shook her head.
The woman muttered something in Spanish. “You try to give them a break and they let you down.” Opening the door wider, she gestured for Autumn to follow her inside.
Walking through the door, she experienced the same stepping-back-in-time feeling she’d had when she’d come through the gate, only more intense. A huge bouquet of yellow roses in a vase on the foyer table caught her eye immediately. Autumn stopped to smell them before following the woman into a parlorlike reception area.
Except for the brass plaque announcing Yellow Rose Matchmakers by the front door, there was nothing that resembled an office about the house. The only way Autumn knew she was in the right place was because framed photographs of smiling couples—presumably satisfied clients—covered the walls.
“I’m Maria Perez,” the woman said when they settled themselves on a blue velvet sofa. “Now, I don’t own this business and can’t speak for Miss Willie, but she depends on me for advice. How much money are we talking?”
“The committee will be grateful for whatever amount you care to donate. However, there are certain donor levels if you wish to be acknowledged in the program.”
Since Autumn had given this speech several times a day for the past two weeks, she took the opportunity to study the photographs as she talked and Maria looked through the program magazine. Never in her life had Autumn considered signing up with a dating agency. But there must have been two dozen wedding pictures on the walls.
“Miss Willie’s never had a failure.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Maria had caught her staring. She gestured to the photographs. “These are people Miss Willie and Wanda—she helps Miss Willie out—these are people they’ve brought together. They have a gift.”
“They do?”
Maria nodded her head. “Course that was in the days before the computer, when Miss Willie hand-picked her clients. She was so good, people convinced her to become a professional matchmaker. So many people came to her, it was either turn them away or get help. That’s when Wanda came here. But then Miss Willie’s grandson convinced her to get some computers. That’s not the kind of help they need, if you ask me. Ain’t nothing been the same since we got those machines. But you know people. Always in a hurry.”
“Yes,” Autumn said slowly. “How...how does your business work?”
Maria set aside Autumn’s program and opened the huge scrapbook that lay on the coffee table. The first pages were laminated forms. “You fill these out so the computer knows what kind of person you are. Then we type all this stuff into a program Miss Willie’s grandson paid way too much for and the computer picks your perfect match—or at least the three men you’re most likely to get along with.”
“And how does the computer do?” Autumn was only making conversation, of course.
Maria shrugged and waved her hand back and forth. “Computers only know what you tell them. For example, if you tell them you don’t want nobody too short, then they won’t give you a short person even though he may be as wonderful as my Aldo, may he rest in peace.”
“Then what happens?”
Maria laughed. “What happens next is up to you.”
Autumn stared down at the application and was seriously tempted. How wonderful to date someone who didn’t think she was destined to become the next Mrs. Clayton Barnett. How wonderful to date anyone at all. Living at the ranch made it difficult to meet eligible men even without the handicap of her mother constantly all but announcing her engagement.
Besides, if she attended the Past Champion Buyers’ Ball with someone other than Clay, that would give people something to talk about.
She fingered the pages. “Do...do you screen your applicants?”
Maria looked horrified. “What kind of a place do you think this is? We don’t take just anybody.” She pointed to the form. “You got to tell us where you live, where you work, and let me tell you, we’re gonna run a credit check.” She smiled. “You interested ? We get a lot of new people this time of year because of the rodeo. Ranchers come to town and sign up.”
“I’m not sure I’d want to date a rancher.”
“Then you put that on the form.”
Autumn inhaled, seriously tempted. Before she came to a decision, the doorbell chimed.
“That must be Hector.” Maria levered herself off the sofa cushion. “Look at that.” She jabbed a finger at her watch. “Twenty-five minutes late. It’s a good thing Miss Willie isn’t here.” Maria marched toward the door, still talking. “Hector, you better knock another ten percent off, and those upstairs windows had better—you’re not Hector!”
“No, ma’am.”
Autumn’s head snapped up and she hurriedly closed the book.
“I’m Clayton Barnett and I’m here to invite you to contribute to the—”
“Pigs again? I got a pig lady in there already.” Maria hooked her thumb over her shoulder.
Hat in hand, Clay peered around the door.
As if he hadn’t recognized her Bronco parked out front, Autumn fumed as she forced a smile. “Hi, Clay.”
“Autumn. Fancy meeting you here.”
So original. “I got here first.”
“But how was I to know you were asking for a donation?” He smiled first at her, then at Maria who was clearly affected by the tall rancher and his patented aw-shucks grin. “I thought you might have been here as a client.” He walked into the parlor, his appearance making it look frilly and feminine.
The wedding portraits stopped him cold. Autumn thought they might.
“Actually, I am considering it,” she said, just to see his reaction.
There was the pop of an engine backfiring.
“Hector!” Maria stomped out onto the porch and shouted, “It’s about time you got here. Drive that truck around back.” Her voice faded as she went out to scold the tardy Hector.
Clay made a tsking sound. “Buying a donation?”
“Not at all.” Autumn opened the scrapbook again and flipped through the pages explaining about Yellow Rose Matchmakers. She blinked at the rate sheet, but then again, the agency promised to keep searching and matching until their clients were satisfied. “I’m going to sign up.”
“You’re kidding.” Clay sat on the sofa next to her.
Autumn scooted over. “Why? They screen the applicants, you fill out a detailed profile, and the computer fixes you up. Very efficient.”
He studied the profile forms. “I don’t know... these forms ask a lot of questions. You might not want some guy you date to know the answers. That’s always assuming that the computer can possibly match you to anyone.”
“Of course it’ll find a match!”
He leaned back and grinned. “I don’t know, Autumn. Your bio is likely to freeze that computer right up.”
She glared at him. “Anyone matched with you would demand a refund!”
“Anyone matched with me would give the Yellow Rose ladies a bonus.”
He was insufferable.
“Prove it,” she challenged him. “Sign up.”
Laughing, he shook his head. “I don’t need to prove anything.”
But Autumn did. If she showed up at the ball with another man, that would be good, but if both she and Clay came with others, it would be great. “Dare ya.”
It was a taunt from their childhood.
Clay raised an eyebrow.
“I dare you to bring your match to the Champion Buyers’ Ball.” Autumn was counting on his competitive streak where she was concerned.
For a moment, she didn’t think he’d agree, then he slowly nodded. “Okay. But only if you’ll do the same.”
Autumn stuck out her hand and grinned. “Deal.”
They were shaking on their deal when Maria returned.
She was more than happy to sign them up. “Fill out these forms, front and back.” She sat Autumn and Clay at a table in one of the offices. “You going to want a video?”
“You didn’t mention a video,” Autumn pointed out.
Maria waved her hands. “Don’t get me started on videos. I don’t like ’em. People don’t look good in videos. The camera makes them nervous. Besides, the machine isn’t working. My cousin, Ramon, is fixing it.”
“We don’t need a video,” Clay assured her.
“Good.” Maria smiled at them. “Holler if you have questions. I’m going to check on Hector and make sure he cleans all the way into the corners on those windows. And as long as he’s up there, he should clear out the gutters.”
“Hector is going to wish he hadn’t taken this job,” Clay said as Maria hurried off.
“Hector should have been on time. Speaking of which, we’re going to have to hurry if we don’t want to be late to the meeting.” Actually, they probably would be late, but Fred Chapman was notoriously lax about starting on time.
“This doesn’t look like it’ll take much time to fill out.” Clay was already halfway down the first page.
Autumn was stuck on the weight question. Should she put her actual weight or the weight she planned to be before the first match? “Wait until you get to the hard questions.” Weight wouldn’t be a hard question for Clay. He was a nice triangular shape. So was Autumn, only the triangle was more inverted than she liked.
“What hard questions?”
She looked at him. “Politics? Religion?”
“I just put yes.”
Autumn rolled her eyes. “You’re supposed to tell what your politics are and which religion.”
“Okay, ndb and Texas.”
“What is ‘ndb’?”
“None of your... business.”
“Clay! Just put conservative.”
“I’m not all that conservative.”
“Okay, try this.” Autumn thought a moment. “You’re at a Dallas Cowboys game and the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ is being played by the Texas A&M University Marching Band. The man next to you refuses to stand, citing freedom of speech. What do you do?”
“I’ll freedom-of-speech him to his feet!”
Autumn pointed to the blank on the form. “Conservative. And Texas isn’t a religion.”
He looked at her in mock outrage. “Don’t you go saying that around just anybody.”
“Be serious.”
“I am.”
“Remember that the computer only knows what you tell it,” she said, quoting Maria.
“So what are you putting down?” He turned her paper before she could stop him. “Hey—under Sports you put no.”
“I don’t like sports.”
“Yes, you do. You ride, you rope, and you were a pretty fair barrel racer.”
“My barrel-racing days are past and the rest is work, not sport. Besides, I don’t want some man who’ll plop down in front of a big-screen television, click to a football game and call it a date just because he sprang for imported beer.”
Clay eyed her. “Have you had dates like that?”
She turned her paper back around. “Never more than once.”
“So, what kind of dates do you like?”
The overly casual tone caught her attention. She blinked.
When she didn’t answer right away, Clay tapped the paper. “It’s number fourteen on the list.”
“Oh.” Maybe he just wanted dating pointers. “I like dates with an activity and then going someplace for coffee or a meal afterward. I don’t like dinner, then a movie. I like the movie first.”
“So...you still try to eat the jumbo tub of popcorn so you can get a refill and make yourself sick?”
Autumn smiled with remembered embarrassment and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “I’m not sixteen anymore.”
“No.” Clay’s answering smile faded. He cleared his throat and stared down at his paper. Autumn did the same. They worked in silence until Clay let out a low whistle. “I see potential problems here.”
“Where?”
“Page three, the part about describing yourself. That’s where people will cheat.”
“Why? Why go to all this trouble and cheat?”
“Maybe ‘cheat’ is the wrong word. What I mean is, they’re going to put down the character traits they’d like to have, rather than the ones they actually do have.”
“But we wouldn’t do that.”
“No way.” Clay shook his head. “We’ll be completely honest.”
They looked at each other.
“When we finish, you can read mine and I’ll read yours,” Autumn said.
“Deal.”
Finishing took longer than they thought. Autumn was very conscious that Clay would be reading her descriptions of such topics as her favorite way to spend an evening, her idea of a perfect day, her pet peeves and her goals and ambitions.
He completed his form before she did, probably because he wasn’t trying to thmk of alternate answers for pet peeves. Autumn’s current pet peeve was Clay.
Now as for goals and ambitions... Autumn realized her life’s goal had been to convince people that it wasn’t carved in stone that she would settle down, marry Clay and merge the ranches.
She’d gone to law school because, yes, the law, as it pertained to ranching, had interested her when she’d studied ranch management, but even more because the length of study required would take her away from San Antonio for several years.
She glanced at Clay, wondering how he stood it. Since he had no brothers or sisters, he’d known his whole life that he would live on the Golden B and run it after his parents retired. The only choice available to him had been whom he’d run it with, and even that had been taken away from him.
Autumn stared at the personality profile, but she was remembering her seventeenth birthday. Clay and his parents had come for dinner. Autumn’s present had been her first car, a used one, and they had gone to the garage after dinner so Clay could check out the engine.
It was one of those clear, cold nights when every sound carried for miles. Both their fathers had stepped out onto the porch to smoke their cigars. They’d been talking and Autumn hadn’t paid attention until she heard her name and Clay’s.
The men had been discussing repairs to the fencing between their properties on the east pasture.
“You know, we could just leave it,” Hank Barnett had said. “We’re going to be mingling stock eventually. Might as well start now and use the money eisewhere.”
Ben, Autumn’s father, gave a loud crack of laughter. “We’ll be mingling stock in more ways than one!”
Hank joined him, then added, “I hope those two kids don’t get their hormones all to jumpin’ and quit school before they finish.”
“Autumn’s got a good head on her shoulders. She’ll keep Clay in line.”
“Clay’s almost eighteen. It’s not her head he’s concerned with!”
Autumn had been horrified. Clay was staring under the hood of her car with an unnatural intensity and she knew he’d heard, as well. Neither one of them said anything, so they both heard her father’s next words.
“Clay’s a fine boy. I’ll be proud to claim him as a son-in-law.”
Autumn’s heart had pounded so hard that she missed the exact words said next, but the gist was clear: the two families assumed that she and Clay would eventually marry and were planning on a merger of the two ranches. From the tone of the conversation, it was clear that this was a long-held assumption.
She and Clay had stared at each other before Clay had carefully closed the car hood. Nothing had been the same between them after that.
Autumn could hardly blame him. He was the only son, bound by tradition and economics. He ought to be able to choose his wife instead of having one forced on him. She didn’t want to be forced on anybody. She wanted Clay to have a choice, and she wanted one, too.
But he was a Texas gentleman through and through. There was no way he’d marry first and make it look like he’d jilted her. No, it was up to Autumn to find someone and free Clay from his obligation. The problem was that she hadn’t found anybody she could contemplate marrying yet.
“Aren’t you finished with that thing yet?” Clay complained. “I’m telling you, none of this matters if a person doesn’t like the way you look. Within thirty seconds, you’ll know if it’s a go, or a no go.”
Autumn gave him a disgusted look. “We don’t all judge people by your shallow standards.”
“It’s a fact of life.” He plucked her paper from between her fingers. “You don’t need to worry about it, by the way.”
“Why not?”
Clay looked up from reading her profile. In a heartbeat, his expression changed from looking at her as a childhood friend to the way a grown man looks at a woman he desires.
As her eyes widened, Clay’s lids lowered slightly and his gaze scorched over her. To her acute embarrassment, Autumn felt her cheeks heat.
A corner of Clay’s mouth twitched and he went back to reading her profile.
There’d been a compliment in there somewhere, but she wasn’t comfortable with that sort of compliment from Clay. She was comfortable with verbal jabs and sarcastic remarks from Clay. She was comfortable competing with Clay. She was comfortable ignoring him. How did he expect her to ignore a look like that?
“What is this ‘sentimental, serious and tolerant’ garbage?” Clay scoffed.
That was more like it. “I am sentimental, serious and tolerant.”
“Where’s stubborn?”
“I am not stubborn. I’m focused.”
Clay snorted. “And ‘sensitive’? You don’t have a sensitive bone in your body.” He erased and changed some of the personality traits she’d checked off. “You turn this in and you’ll be matched with a dadgum poet.”
Autumn narrowed her eyes and grabbed for Clay’s profile. Just what wondrous traits had he given himself ?
“‘Affectionate’? Explain to me how a man who gave me a timing belt one Christmas can be described as affectionate?”
He looked puzzled—and a little hurt. “But you needed a new timing belt, and you’d spent all your money on Christmas presents. I didn’t want you to get stranded on the road somewhere between here and Fort Worth.”
He’d done the replacement himself, she remembered. And it had been a relief not to have to worry on the drive back to school. “That’s being considerate,” she allowed. “I’m changing affectionate to considerate. Now, where’s arrogant?”
“Hey!”
But Autumn’s attention had been caught by something else. For his dreams and goals, Clay had simply written that he wanted to make sure he maintained the family’s ranch so he could leave it to his children.
And really, what other goal could he have? Yet if Autumn didn’t get out of the way so Clay could find a wife, then he’d never have children.
She skimmed over the rest, made a few alterations, her eyebrows rising when he described his ideal mate. “You’re looking for a woman who’s not afraid to ‘work hard, play hard and love hard’?”
He shrugged. “I thought it was kind of catchy. A lot better than a ‘life partner’.”
That was what she’d written. “I was trying to find a way to say that I don’t want a man who’s going to boss me around.”
“I think we’ve got that covered by mentioning that you’re strong-willed and independent.”
“You can’t put that. I’ll either get a wimp or a Neanderthal.”
“Well, no, actually, I said you wanted a man who wasn’t afraid to be a man and to let you be a woman.”
“Give me that!” Autumn stretched across the table and tried to grab the paper from him.
Laughing, Clay easily held it out of her reach.
That was how Maria found them. “You two finished?”
“Yes,” Clay said.
“No,” Autumn said, and retrieved her profile.
She erased Clay’s macho comment and rewrote “life partner”.
“You’ll be sorry,” he murmured as they handed Maria their forms.
“Okay,” Maria said. “I got to type all this information into the computer. You can pick up your matches on Monday.”
“Monday?” Autumn didn’t want to wait until Monday.
“There’s just me in the office today and I’m off at noon. I’ll type as fast as I can.”
“Did you check off ‘impatient’ on the personality profile?” Clay asked.
Autumn glared at him.
“Thank you, ma’am.” Clay stood. “Monday will be fine. We’ve still got that meeting to go to, Autumn.”
Right. Autumn checked her watch. They were going to be at least twenty minutes late. Even worse, they would arrive at the same time. She sighed, then brightened when she visualized everyone’s faces when she showed up at the Buyers’ Ball with someone other than Clay.
