Читать книгу Practice Husband - Judith McWilliams - Страница 8

One

“Progress rears its ugly head,” Addy muttered as she pulled into the parking lot of the company that was so determined to acquire her land. When she’d been in high school the whole area had been gently rolling pastureland.

Addy cut the engine of her new compact, which she’d picked up from the dealer that morning, and studied the ultramodern building for a long moment. Now that she was actually here, she was of two minds about going in.

She had very fond memories of Joe. In fact, the only fond memories of the entire male sex she had from school were of Joe. If he had turned into a ruthless, money-grubbing businessman, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

Aware that she was being ridiculous, Addy unbuckled her seat belt and got out. Whatever Joe had become had nothing to do with her. She had enough problems of her own to worry about. Such as how she was going to find a man to build a relationship with.

Addy checked the front of her cream linen suit to make sure it was still spotless, hooked her brown leather purse over her shoulder and headed for the oversized double doors at the front of the building.

Pushing one door open, she stepped inside and glanced around curiously. There was a gorgeously dressed, perfectly made-up blonde sitting behind a reception desk, who made Addy suddenly feel dowdy.

The blonde gave her a practiced smile and asked, “May I help you?”

“Yes, thank you. I’d like to see Mr. J. E. Barrington.”

The blonde’s perfectly curved eyebrows lifted as if to say, “Who wouldn’t?” and asked, “You have an appointment?”

“No,” Addy admitted, “but since he’s been trying to buy my property for the past eighteen months, I assumed he’d be willing to see me if I stopped by.”

“I’ll check.” The blonde suddenly became brisk at the mention of the property. “What name should I give him?”

Addy beat down a childish impulse to say “Queen Victoria” and dutifully gave her own name.

The blonde picked up the phone, held a brief conversation with someone at the other end and then said, “Mr. Barrington can spare you a few minutes. Just go through there.” She pointed toward the door to her right. “Mr. Barrington’s office is at the end of the hall.”

“Thank you.” Addy smiled at the woman and, clutching her purse like a lifeline, headed down the hall. Despite her curiosity about Joe, she wasn’t looking forward to this interview. Whoever J. E. Barrington turned out to be, he still wanted her property and she still wasn’t going to give it to him. He’d probably get insistent, and when that didn’t work, he could well get sarcastic, and she hated dealing with sarcasm. It made her feel ten years old again. Overweight and unlovely and somehow not quite as good as everyone else. Almost as if she didn’t have the right to say no.

But you aren’t ten years old. You’re a very competent thirty-two. And you aren’t fat anymore either, she reminded herself, something that she found herself doing on an almost daily basis because, despite what her mind told her and her mirror showed her, she still felt fat on the inside.

At the end of the short hallway, Addy found herself in a reception area filled with comfortable leather chairs. Several doors led from it to what Addy assumed were offices. As she watched, one of them opened and a man in his late thirties wearing a well-cut black suit and a very conservatively striped tie hurried toward her.

“You must be Miss Edson?”

Not her Joe. Addy felt a flash of disappointment, the strength of which caught her by surprise.

“Yes, and you’re Mr. Barrington?”

The man smiled self-deprecatingly. “No, no. I’m Bill Bernette, Mr. Barrington’s executive assistant. Mr. Barrington’s office is through here.”

He lead her across the room. Knocking perfunctorily on the heavy oak door, he opened it and gestured Addy inside. “Mr. Barrington will be with you as soon as he finishes his call,” he whispered, motioning her toward a seat in front of the desk.

Addy sank down in the chair and glanced curiously at the man on the phone. A feeling of disorientation hit her as she recognized his face. It was her Joe! Her eyes swept over his short, inky-black hair, then skittered across the tiny scar high on his left cheekbone to land in the sparkling depths of his deep blue eyes.

She felt as if she’d suddenly been transported back in time at a dizzying speed, leaving her stomach behind. She watched as he nodded at her, his lips shaping a brief, impersonal smile. Didn’t he remember her? To her surprise, the idea hurt.

She remembered him. Her eyes focused on his mouth, tracing the firm contours of the dusky pink flesh. A shiver chased over her at the thought of pressing her lips against his. Of feeling them moving against hers. Of... Addy jerked her gaze away in a vain attempt to control her uncharacteristic thoughts. She watched as his hand impatiently tapped out a rhythm on the highly polished mahogany of his desktop. His long fingers were lightly tanned and the nails immaculately clean. She automatically looked for a wedding band, but didn’t find one.

Because Joe wasn’t married, or because he didn’t wear one? Addy felt a shimmer of uneasiness at her curiosity. Her intense reaction to him wasn’t like her, and it worried her. Jet lag, she told herself, dredging up the first excuse that came to mind and trying hard to believe it.

“Good God!” The exclamation cut through her thoughts and she glanced up, to find her gaze snared by the glittering sparks in his eyes.

“Addy? Is that really you?”

Addy winced at his incredulous tone. “Did I look that bad that you don’t believe the improvement?”

“Improvement?”

She stated the obvious. “I’m not fat anymore.”

He took her comment as an invitation to look at her, and Addy felt her skin tighten as his hot, blue gaze slowly wandered over her. She could feel her breasts tightening as his gaze lingered on them.

“No,” he agreed, “you’re not fat anymore.” His eyes narrowed. “In fact, you look downright skinny. What have you been doing to yourself?”

Addy blinked at his description. No one had ever called her skinny in her life. It wasn’t an idea she could relate to, so she ignored it.

“I’ve spent the last four years with a bunch of nuns trying to save the world,” she said self-mockingly.

“From what I’ve seen of the world, you’re lucky to still be in one piece. The world generally takes exception to being saved.”

“Not my part of it. I work with children, and they’re darlings no matter where you find them.” Her voice unconsciously softened.

“Teacher?” he guessed.

Addy felt a stab of disappointment that he didn’t know. A feeling that she told herself was ridiculous. She was nothing more than an old school friend. There was no reason why he should have kept up with her life. She hadn’t kept up with his.

“I’m a pediatric nurse-practitioner.”

“As well as the owner of a parcel of land that we need.”

His reference to her land brought Addy back to reality with a thump.

“We really need that land, Addy.”

“You really need that land,” she corrected. “I already have it, and I intend to keep it.”

Addy watched as his eyes narrowed, showing a line of fine wrinkles at the corners. As if he laughed a lot. Her gaze dropped to the firm set of his jaw, and she mentally rejected the idea. He probably just spent a lot of time outside in the sunlight.

“Addy, be reasonable.” His plaintive words echoed through her mind, dislodging old memories. He must have said those exact same words to her hundreds of times when they were children. The familiar sound of them served to dispel the strangeness of her reaction to him. Suddenly, he was simply Joe. Her childhood friend.

She grinned at him, inexplicably feeling carefree. “If memory serves me right, your idea of being reasonable means that I do exactly what you want.”

Joe shrugged, and Addy watched in fascination as his powerful shoulders moved beneath the perfection of his custom-tailored suit In some strange way, his highly civilized clothes didn’t make him seem civilized. They actually seemed to make him more ruggedly masculine, as if their purpose was to highlight the difference between the way he really was and the way he wanted people to perceive him.

“I really need that land Addy,” he said. “Our present plant has reached capacity, and we need to expand to meet the increasing demand.”

“Demand for what?” Addy asked, curious about what he did.

“Computer chips.”

“Oh,” Addy said, “You’re one of them.”

“One of who?”

“One of those fanatics who want to put computers everywhere. Do you know they’re even putting the blasted things in libraries?” she said in remembered outrage. “They’re getting rid of card catalogues and making you use computers, and half the time they don’t even work.”

Joe grinned at her, giving her a glimpse of his gleaming, white teeth. “You may look a lot different, but you haven’t really changed. You can still divert a conversation quicker than anyone I know.”

Addy felt her spirits rise at the warmth of his smile. A smile that was echoed by the sparkle of humor in his eyes.

“But the fact remains that I need your land.”

“I know you want it, but I want it, too. It’s...” Addy struggled to explain her feelings. “That house is all I have left of my folks. I grew up there. All my memories are there. If I sell it and you raze it, they’ll all be goue.”

“Your memories aren’t in the house, they’re in your mind. And nothing I or anyone else can ever do will destroy them. Be grateful you’ve got happy memories. to cherish.”

His voice took on a bitter tinge, and Addy suddenly remembered overhearing her mother and her friends whispering about the disgraceful way Joe’s mother drank.

“Why don’t you simply build your plant somewhere else?” Addy ventured. “I can’t own the only vacant tract in town.”

“Yours is the best,” he insisted. “The location is perfect. Every other site that’s available had big problems. Our engineers—”

Joe paused as his assistant stuck his head in the door and said, “You asked me to tell you when Hodkins over at the bank called. He’s on the line now.”

“Addy, would you mind waiting a minute while I take this call?” Joe asked as he reached for his phone. “It’s important.”

Deciding to take advantage of the interruption, Addy got to her feet. She needed to think about what Joe had said and she found it hard to do it when he was just a few feet from her. Somehow, the sight of him did strange things to her thought processes.

“Of course not, Joe. I promised a friend I’d drop by this morning, and it’s almost noon now.”

“But we haven’t reached an agreement.”

“I’ll give you a call this afternoon,” Addy said and then escaped. She had the feeling that people didn’t reach an agreement with Joe. They gave in to him. The very forcefulness of his personality would tend to wear down the opposition.

She gave the surprised-looking Bill a quick smile as she hurried down the hall, breathing a sigh of relief when she was out of the building. Kathy should be able to tell her all about Joe. Addy unconsciously sped up at the thought. Kathy had always known all the gossip when they were in school together.

“Addy!” Joe stuck his head out of his office and glanced around the deserted reception area.

“She went that-a-way.” Bill gestured toward the exit. “Would you like me to see if I can catch her?”

“Fat chance you’d have of getting her to do anything she didn’t want to. She was always the most aggravating, stubborn kid....”

Bill stared thoughtfully in the direction Addy had gone. “I don’t know about that, but she sure turned out spectacularly.”

A shaft of anger lanced through Joe at Bill’s bemused expression.

“Leave her alone!” Joe’s harsh command surprised them both. He hadn’t meant to say it. He’d thought it, but he hadn’t meant to say it.

“I’m trying to negotiate with her for her land,” Joe added, to rationalize his order. “I don’t need any complications from you chasing her.”

“It’s only a complication if I catch her.” Bill chuckled and then hastily sobered at Joe’s scowl.

Bill held up his hand in a gesture of surrender. “Sorry. I won’t make one move until after you’ve finished the negotiations. What about your phone call?”

“Dammit! I left him hanging when she bolted.” Joe hurried over to the phone. Addy was still the most aggravating woman he’d ever met.

“Barrington here,” he said.

“Good morning, Mr. Barrington. This is Sean Hodkins. You asked me to let you know when the bank reached a decision on the loan David Edwards applied for?”

You mean I bribed you to let me know, Joe thought cynically. “I take it you have news?”

“Yes, the bank turned him down. The loan committee felt that his company was already badly overextended, and that young Mr. Edwards didn’t have a viable plan for turning his family’s company around.”

Joe bit down on the sense of exultation that filled him. At long last, after years of waiting and planning, he was finally going to be able to exact revenge on the Edwards family for what they had done.

“You did as I asked?” Joe kept his voice level with an effort.

“Yes, sir. Exactly as you said. When Mr. Edwards came out, I offered him your business card and told him that your company was looking to invest excess profits and preferred to do it locally. I suggested he contact you.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he was glad someone was able to make a profit in business because he sure didn’t seem to have the knack.”

“Did he take the card?” Joe demanded.

“Yes, although he didn’t look at it. He just stuffed it into his pocket. Poor man, I’m afraid the committee’s rejection was a real blow to him.”

If so, it was one of the few blows that had ever landed in David Edwards’s charmed life, Joe thought grimly. But that was about to change. He was about to experience how the rest of the world lived.

“Wait until tomorrow and then give him a call and remind him of what you said,” Joe ordered. “By then he should be more receptive to the idea.”

“Oh, I will,” Hodkins said earnestly. “It would be a shame if the Edwards Corporation were to fold. Why, that plant’s been here since my great-grandfather’s time. And young Mr. Edwards seems like such a nice man.”

“Give me a call if you hear anything else.” Joe cut him off. He didn’t want to hear David Edwards’s praises sung. He knew better.

Joe hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair as a sense of satisfaction filled him. It had taken him his entire life to reach this point, but he was finally here. Within months, sooner if he were lucky, the Edwards Corporation would belong to him. His mouth tightened. As it should have all along.

And with Addy’s land... An unconscious smile curved his lips as he thought of her. Who would have ever thought that she would turn out as she had? Once in a while over the years he’d caught sight of a redhead in a crowd and he’d thought of her, wondering where she was and what she was doing. But never in his wildest flights of imagination had he ever thought that she’d look so infinitely alluring.

What would it be like to take her in his arms? he wondered. To kiss the soft lusciousness of her full mouth. To nuzzle her neck and to cup the weight of her breast in his hand. To...

No! With a monumental effort, he clamped down on the erotic images his mind insisted on playing. Addy was strictly out of bounds, he told himself. Anyone who had spent the last four years of her life helping out a group of nuns was not the type of woman who would be interested in an affair.

Addy was the type who would expect a declaration of undying love, followed by a marriage proposal. Something he had no intention of offering, because no matter how wild the sex was in the beginning, it invariably cooled, leaving a man trapped in a stale, boring relationship.

Far better to keep Addy as a friend. And she was his friend. The thought brought a feeling of pleasure in its wake. They might not have seen each other in years, but they shared a history that went back to grade school. Not only was she his friend, but he trusted her. In fact, she was one of the few people in the world that he did trust.

No, he repeated, Addy was his friend and sex would screw that up. Sex was easy to come by if that was all a man wanted. Friends were a lot more precious. He reached for the pile of papers he’d been working on with a feeling of anticipation that hadn’t been there before Addy’s reentry into his life.

“Addy?” A short woman in her early thirties peered out through her screen door. “Is that really you?”

Addy chuckled at Kathy’s incredulous tone. “Yes, so open the door and let me in.”

Kathy hurriedly shoved open the screen. “Sorry, I was kind of... How on earth did you lose all that weight?” she blurted out.

“It just kind of happened,” Addy said, as disconcerted by the sight of Kathy as her friend apparently was by her. Kathy had always been impeccably turned out in an appropriate outfit, whatever the occasion. Yet now she was wearing a pair of jeans that were frayed around the legs and a sweatshirt that looked as if it had been caught in the middle of a food fight.

Curious, Addy followed Kathy through the littered hallway into a bright, sunny kitchen. The source of the food splotches on Kathy’s clothes was immediately apparent. A toddler was sitting in a high chair, happily smearing what looked like applesauce into his brown hair.

Addy chuckled at his beatific expression. “That, I take it, is Jimmy?”

“The one and only, and don’t encourage him. His father already spoils him rotten. Have a seat.” Kathy shoved a pile of dirty laundry off a chair onto the floor.

Addy sat down.

“When did you get back?” Kathy demanded.

“Last night. Hi, Jimmy.” Addy smiled at the little boy. To her delight, he smiled back and tossed her a spoonful of applesauce. Fortunately, his aim wasn’t very good and it hit the table instead.

“You always did have a way with kids,” Kathy said. “Remember when our mothers would volunteer us to baby-sit in the church nursery? You could always get the screamers to shut up. Want some coffee?”

“No, I want some information.”

Kathy ducked as Jimmy again flung applesauce in her direction. “How about motherhood isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?”

Addy laughed. “Few things are.”

“Marriage is.” Kathy’s face took on a dreamy cast. “Jim is a fantastic husband. Now that you’re home, we’ve got to find you one.”

“I’m willing to consider any and all offers.”

Kathy blinked. “What?”

“I said that I would like to get married, and I’m willing to consider all options.”

Kathy stared at Addy in suspicion. “Are you making fun of my match-making tendencies?”

“No, I’m hoping to use them. I’d like to have some kids of my own.”

Kathy glanced around the disheveled kitchen and shuddered. “On your head be it. How can I help?”

“Do you know any eligible bachelors?”

Kathy pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Let’s see. There’s Bart Dandridge, but I think we’d best stay away from him.”

“Why?” Addy asked curiously.

“One of the partners in Jim’s law firm handled his divorce and, according to him, Bart’s wife claimed he beat her up a couple of times. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but...”

“I’ll pass on Bart,” Addy agreed.

“There’s Tom, who’s a bachelor friend of Jim’s,” Kathy said slowly. “He’s pretty nice, but he does tend to drink a little too much. Jim had to represent him in a drunk-driving charge last month.”

“Forget Tom. I don’t expect perfection in a husband, but I do want sobriety.”

Kathy sighed. “Addy, you’ve left it till very late. The good ones have long since been snapped up. Although...” Kathy’s admiring gaze ran down the length of Addy’s trim figure. “You look a lot better than any wife I know. Including myself.”

“Thanks,” Addy muttered, squelching her instinctive urge to make a self-deprecating response.

“Tell you what, I’ll ask Jim when he gets home from work tonight. Maybe he can think of someone I can introduce you to.”

Jimmy suddenly tossed his bowl on the floor and started to howl.

“Be quiet, brat.” Kathy’s loving tone belied her words as she took a wet cloth and scrubbed the applesauce off him. When he was reasonably clean, she set him on the floor and turned back to Addy.

“It might help if I knew what you are looking for in a husband.”

Addy blinked as an image of Joe’s features floated through her mind No. She purposefully banished them. Joe was not husband material. At least, not for someone as inexperienced as she was. She ignored the irrational sense of loss that filled her.

“Well... He has to be willing to work and to like kids and to be clean. And a nonsmoker.”

“You forgot a good lover,” Kathy said. “Believe me, great sex can cover a multitude of other deficiencies.”

What kind of lover would Joe be? Addy wondered, and then flushed when she realized where her thoughts were headed.

“I wouldn’t know,” Addy said primly.

Kathy stared at her friend in shock. “Don’t tell me you’re still a virgin!”

“I’m never going to tell you anything about my sex life, because it’s none of your business.”

Kathy chuckled. “Ah, hit a nerve there, did I? Tell me, do you still know anyone from around here?”

“Just Joe.”

Kathy frowned. “Joe? Joe who?”

“Joe Barrington.”

Kathy’s mouth dropped open. “Just Joe! Are you out of your tiny little mind, woman? That man isn’t just anything. How on earth did you ever meet the town’s most eligible bachelor?”

“Is he?” Addy asked curiously.

“Is he what?”

“A bachelor?”

“Yup. No woman has ever managed to tie him down. And believe me, it hasn’t been for lack of trying. Now, spill it. How did you meet him?”

“He rescued my favorite doll.”

“What?”

Addy laughed at Kathy’s confused expression. “I was in the second grade, and he must have been in about the fifth. It seems like I’ve known him forever.”

“Yeah, but that was then. This is now. Now, he moves in entirely different economic circles from the likes of you and me. His last girlfriend was some model who was regularly decorating the pages of Vogue.”

“What’s his present girlfriend do?” Addy tried to make the question sound casual.

Kathy shrugged. “According to local gossip he hasn’t replaced her yet. Of course I can’t guarantee it. Joe is not a man who socializes much. In fact, he doesn’t socialize with anyone around here at all. You might find that he doesn’t even remember who you are.”

“He remembered.” Addy felt a great deal of satisfaction at the words.

“You’ve seen him already?” Kathy asked avidly.

“That’s where I just came from. His company wants to buy my parents’ property.”

“Oh, so that’s it. I heard talk that he might be planning to expand. Are you going to sell to him, Addy?” Kathy suddenly looked serious. “The town could sure use the jobs. Too many young couples have to move away because there’s no work for them here. I...” she broke off as Jimmy toddled back into the room holding a can of soda that he was dribbling down the front of him.

“Blast his father!” Kathy muttered. “If I’ve told Jim once, I’ve told him a hundred times, not to leave half-empty cans of soda sitting around. Now I’ll have to give the little monster a bath.”

Addy got to her feet. “I’ll leave you to it.”

“You don’t have to go,” Kathy said. “It won’t take me long.”

“Thanks, but I still need to check with the realty company that handled the lease on the house for me while I was gone. I just wanted to touch base with you first.”

Kathy gave her a warm smile. “I’m glad you did, and I’m even more glad that you’re thinking about marrying and staying this time. I’ll give you a call later.”

“Thanks.” Addy picked up her purse and let herself out.

With a last wave at Kathy, Addy climbed into her car and headed toward the realty office, her mind full of what Kathy had said. So Joe was a bachelor, apparently one of the very few around. A sense of discouragement filled her, but she refused to allow it to grow. She’d known from the first that her goal wouldn’t be easily reached. Addy pulled into the turn lane and waited for the traffic to clear.

If only she had a little more experience at interacting socially with men. But wishing couldn’t change the facts. Her mirror might tell her that she was slender, but in her mind she still felt fat. Fat and unattractive. When a man tried to make small talk with her, she froze. She mumbled awkward comments at random and the man invariably drifted away to find someone easier to talk to.

But how was she supposed to go about getting experience talking to men? she wondered in despair. Most women learned the skill in junior high school. She turned left as the light changed.

What she really needed was a brother who could give her good advice on what men liked and didn’t like. But she didn’t have a brother. Or even a cousin. But there was Joe, she thought, as the memory of his championship of her during their school years came to mind. He had been very kind to her back then. But was he still kind? Kindness and big business seemed an unlikely combination.

Besides, he was a very busy man. That much had been obvious from her brief visit this morning. Why should he take the time to help her learn how to relate to men?

Because he wanted to buy her property! The need wasn’t all on her side. Joe wanted something too. He wanted her land and, while she really didn’t want to sell, Kathy was right. It was selfish of her to hang on to the past when so many people could benefit by her letting go.

She could offer to sell him the house if he would help her learn the skills necessary to get a husband. If Joe agreed... A surge of excitement filled her. It was certainly worth a try. After all, the worst thing that could happen would be that he’d say no.