A Baby...Maybe? & How to Hunt a Husband

by Bonnie Tucker

  By nine o’clock she had slipped between the quilts. Naked. With her eyes closed. She should have been able to relax, but she tossed and turned, first to the left and then to the right. One leg stuck out of the quilt. Then she flung the covers aside and lay there, naked, with the ceiling fan blowing over the top of her, cooling down her body that was flushed with heat. She had to stop thinking about that dark-haired, blue-eyed doctor covered in chicken wings. She tried to go to sleep, but the more she tried, the more elusive sleep became. Finally, she decided sleeping with one’s eyes open would just have to do, because shut-eye wasn’t anywhere nearby.

  4

  REX HAD EVERY INTENTION of finding the woman who had rained hot wings over him. His reason was simple and basic. In his opinion, she was exceptionally gorgeous. She had made every muscle—and he meant every muscle—in his body tense and harden from the second he stood up on the other side of the railing and saw her standing in front of him holding nothing more than a glass of iced tea and a few wet napkins.

  Rex hadn’t been so sucker-punch-attracted to a woman in longer than he could remember. He wasn’t about to let her get away without at least exploring the possibilities of what those feelings could mean.

  He didn’t bother to question the attraction, which may have been unusual for a guy so determined to remain single. But the desire to see her again was there and that was what he was going with now. If hard-pressed to come up with a more substantial reason, he could say with certainty that it wasn’t her eyes. Many women he knew had big brown eyes with long, curly black eyelashes. Wasn’t her breasts either. Women all over the place had bigger, lusher breasts. The kind of breasts that made the fingers on a guy like him itch with the possibility of unhooking the back of the bra and releasing the bounty to his touch. To his gaze. He could almost feel her soft skin on his fingertips, the thoughts were so real.

  Nope, those weren’t the reasons why he wanted to see her again. It was her accent that had gotten his attention. The sound of her voice was soft, but she definitely hit those consonants with a hard edge that didn’t fit her looks. He wasn’t used to that hard edge in the accent. Texas women dragged out every syllable and there was nothing about their accents could be considered a hard edge. He wanted to hear this stranger’s voice again. And he always got what he wanted. Well, most of the time anyway. He picked up the phone and punched in the numbers of the one person who he knew held the secret to the identity of the soft-looking, hard-accented woman.

  “What do you mean you don’t know who I’m talking about?” Rex laughed because he figured Kate Donetti was joking.

  “I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Kate repeated with pure aplomb.

  Surely Kate had to be joking. He tried again. “The woman you met for lunch yesterday. Who is she?”

  “What woman?”

  “You were at Mama Jo’s?”

  “Yes.”

  Rex didn’t hide his deep, frustrated sigh. The truth was, even though Rex couldn’t begin to understand the mind of an eastern woman and had no intention of ever trying, he had never before had any lady tell him no for no good reason. That being the case, he said, “Give me one good reason you can’t give me her name.”

  “It’s a secret.”

  “What do you mean, it’s a secret?” She was acting ridiculous. “Are we talking about the same lady? Long hair, slender figure, nice—” he cleared his throat “—nice features.”

  “Yes, we are.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Why not?” He couldn’t believe they were having this no-conversation kind of conversation. He expected an answer to his question, not this secrecy stuff she was dribbling out.

  “I’m telling you, she doesn’t want anyone to know she’s here. I can’t give you her name.”

  “Is she a wanted woman?” By someone other than me? “Maybe the police are looking for her?”

  “No police. Some people want her, not for what she’s done but for what she hasn’t done.”

  “Kate.” He drew out her name, trying to cajole her with his charm.

  “Rex.” She drew out his name just as long. Even longer for that matter. “If I could tell you I would, but I can’t so I won’t.” She almost sounded sorry. But not quite.

  “It’s just a damn name.” Now he was more intrigued than ever. More determined than a bulldog. He’d find out, there was no doubt about it.

  “I know that, Rex. But if I told you, I’d have to kill you.” Then she added, almost as an afterthought, “Rosey’s not going to tell you either, so don’t even try and ask her. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Rex smiled a big goofy grin. He knew exactly what she was saying and thanked her for the gift she had given him. He hung up the phone, checked his watch and got the truck keys.

  REX STOOD, fingers looped through belt loops, staring up at the dark windows of the room where the lady with no name was supposedly sleeping. His old buddy Tigger should have told him her name, but he hadn’t. Rex had always considered Tigger a friend, a man who would stand by him. Until now. He had done Tigger a favor, getting him the job at Mandelay. Retirement hadn’t been good to the guy because Tigger needed to feel useful, not put out to pasture. Rosey had needed an overnight desk clerk, so the match between Tigger and Mandelay was perfect.

  The way Rex figured, if anyone would give him the name of the woman he was looking for, it would be Tigger. Didn’t Kate direct him over here in the first place? Why would she have sent him to the B&B if no one would tell him the woman’s name?

  He had tried to explain that to Tigger, to no avail.

  “Can’t do it,” Tigger had said. “Told it was some kinda secret. Not supposed to give out her name to no one, no-how.”

  “You’re talking to me.” This was getting beyond ridiculous.

  “Don’t matter who you are, Doc. You ain’t gettin’ her name.” He paused. “Can tell you though, since Miss Rosey didn’t say nothin’ about not tellin’ you this. The little lady is stayin’ in that corner room on the southeast side. Second floor. She ain’t left all night.”

  So Rex, on a mission to discover her name, and anything else he could, walked outside. Tiny lights lit the path to the back of the mansion where her room would be located, and gas lamps were placed at various locations around the property to provide a measure of light in the darkness of the night.

  The only room with a balcony on the southeast corner was completely dark. There was a French door and windows wrapped around the corner, but there was not one light peeking through any curtain. He gathered small pebbles from around the grass area near the patio and halfheartedly threw the first one at the window. It hit with a light ping then dropped. He threw the next one harder, and the ones after that harder still. Lights did not come on.

  Rex, knowing Tigger and his propensity for napping, had a pretty good idea that the woman had gone out for the night and Tig had slept through the whole departure. With only two pebbles left in his hand, he took aim for one of the French doors. It hit with a fine sounding pop, then landed on the balcony. Still no response from inside.

  As he raised his arm to throw the last pebble, number eleven, the drape covering the door fluttered and was pushed aside. Her face, the face he had been waiting forever to see again, peered through the glass. “It’s about time,” he called up to her.

  She opened the door a tiny crack. “Who’s down there?”

  “Me.”

  “Me, who?”

  “You know who me is,” he said with smug confidence. “You’ve been waiting for me all night.”

  “Have I?” The door opened a little more. He could see her nose and chin. “I don’t think so,” she said with a supreme feminine haughtiness that made him smile.

  “Admit it,” he ordered with pure male smugness.

  Cara could not believe who was standing below her room. If dreams really did come true, this was it. But she’d never tell him that. “I’ll ad
mit nothing,” she said. She’d admit only to herself that she’d been dreaming of this moment since she had left the restaurant. “How did you find me?” she asked.

  “It wasn’t easy. No one will tell me your name.”

  Did she hear right? “Who did you ask?” Maybe he’d asked the wrong people.

  “What? I can’t hear you. Come outside.”

  “I can’t come outside, Dr.—Dr.— What’s your name?”

  “I’m not telling you mine until you tell me yours,” he said from below. “Come out where I can see you.”

  That made her smile. The old “I’ll show you mine, if you’ll show me yours” game. He must have really wanted to find her if he had located her without a name. A sudden warm tingle traveled up her legs and made her shiver.

  “Doctor, I have a problem,” she called down. “I’m not dressed.”

  There was silence.

  “Doctor?”

  “I’m trying to get a visual here.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “I don’t know. Help me out.” He cleared his throat a few times. “I need a little more information.”

  “I’ll try to help as best I can.”

  “So, let me get this straight. You’re wearing nothing at all?”

  “Stark naked.”

  Silence again.

  “Doctor?” she called out playfully.

  “Give me a second. A picture is forming.”

  “You go ahead and form that picture. I’ll be right back.”

  “Don’t feel the need to dress on my account,” he called after her.

  She shut the door right after she heard him say, “Hot damn.”

  “Now what?” She glanced frantically around the room. No robe. No nightgown. Only street clothes. And suddenly, even the un-teacher-like clothes she’d brought with her didn’t seem sexy enough for tonight.

  She grabbed the top sheet off her bed and wrapped it around her, tucking the end inside the material above her breasts. She looked in the mirror. Her hair was wild, all over the place and she finger-combed it back, putting it into some kind of order the best she could. Except for her shoulders, arms and face, she was completely covered. She looked like a Greek goddess, Italian style.

  Taking a deep breath, she opened the patio door and stepped outside.

  He gazed up at her and didn’t say a word. Not one single solitary word. All she heard was the rustling leaves and the lone screech of an owl. A second stretched into two. Then three. Maybe she didn’t look like a goddess. Maybe she looked more like a mussed-up schoolteacher playing dress-up on Halloween.

  “Lady?”

  “Yes,” she said softly, trying to smile, only not sure if there was anything to smile about. Maybe he was sorry he put forth the effort to track her down.

  “The visual just isn’t coming together in my mind. You better just take that off,” he called up to her.

  “Where are you?” Even though the area was fairly well lit, she couldn’t see him.

  “Here.” He came out of the shadow of the big oak growing in front of her room, its branches reached out in all directions, some hitting the roof. He waved his arm, sounding hopeful. “So you taking it off?”

  “No.”

  He reached for one of the lower branches and swung himself up, using the trunk like a ladder and the branches as rungs.

  “You can’t do that.”

  “Watch me.” He continued climbing.

  “I’m naked under this sheet.” She was getting panicky. Not because she thought he’d hurt her. But then again, she didn’t know anything about him. If Rosey and Kate wouldn’t tell him her name there must be a reason. Maybe he was married already, with ten kids and cheated on his wife—the cad.

  “That’s okay. I’ve seen naked people before.”

  “Of course you have.” Did he think just because she was from Erie that she didn’t know doctors saw naked people? “But you haven’t seen me naked.” Was that not obvious to a doctor from Texas?

  He stopped midclimb and gave her a heart-stopping smile. “We can remedy that.”

  She shook her head, her hair a massive wave of tangles and curls shifting across her back and shoulders. She wasn’t good at the verbal bantering that came so easy to some women, and it showed when he let out a belly laugh. “You’re cute, you know that?”

  She shook her head again.

  “You look like a deer caught in the headlights.”

  “That’s not good. Don’t think I want to remind you of Bambi.”

  “How about Bambi’s older, sexy sister?”

  She smiled back at him. “Much, much better.”

  When he had reached the thickest branch that was level with her balcony, he straddled it, leaning his back against the trunk. The light in the room behind her was enough illumination to see his eyes and the smile on his lips. If it had been lighter, she would bet his eyes would be laughing at her. “Why did you come up here?” she asked.

  “Would you have gone down there?” He nodded toward the ground.

  “Not in this.”

  “But that—” he pointed to her sheet “—has such possibilities.”

  “Really? I’m almost afraid to ask.”

  “You’ll find out when I get to know you better.”

  “Are you sure that’s going to happen?” Maybe she wasn’t so bad at bantering after all. “Because I might say no.” Not likely.

  “That’s a possibility, but I love a challenge.”

  “I’m a challenge?” That surprised her. She’d never thought of herself that way.

  He crossed his arms over his chest. His muscles bulged under his cotton shirt and he seemed to relax against the trunk. “Do you know why no one will tell me your name?” he asked.

  She shook her head. She wasn’t about to tell him that because if he wasn’t a wife cheater, he could be an ax murderer. Or both.

  “I asked Kate because I saw her waiting for you at the restaurant. She wouldn’t say. I asked old Tigger downstairs, and he had instructions from Rosey that no one was to give out your name. Why is that?” He was smiling, but the grin was dead-on serious.

  Hmm, if he could find her without her name, then her mother and family could probably find her, too. If they knew where to start looking. That was a scary thought.

  “Maybe you’re a serial killer who hasn’t been caught yet. But they know you are, and if you killed me, then it would look bad for Pegleg. So, not only are they trying to protect me, they’re saving the name of their town.”

  “Me?” His voice practically squeaked. A sure sign of guilt in her book. “You can’t believe that.”

  “I don’t know. Are you going to kill me?” she asked.

  “With kindness. Among other things.”

  Her eyes squinted at him. “A knife?”

  His mouth opened and no words came out. Finally he said, “You’re kidding, aren’t you?”

  “Absolutely not,” she answered with great dignity. “I don’t know you.”

  “I could say the same for you.” He retorted. “How about this. Let’s start to get to know each other better. Hi,” he said. He leaned forward, his arm outstretched, his fingers only a foot away from the balcony. She held on to her sheet as best she could, leaning over the railing, reaching toward him, finally feeling her fingertips brush over his, and he captured her hand and held on. Air caught in her lungs and she couldn’t exhale. His touch did that to her.

  “What’s your name?” His voice husky. Sexy. Urging.

  “What’s yours?” she whispered back.

  He let go, leaned back again, his spine returning to its resting place against the trunk. “You go first.”

  She shook her head.

  His stare was turning her on. She almost didn’t recognize the feeling, it had been so long, but once she did, that got her even more excited. Moisture had already formed at the juncture between her legs, and now the unfulfilled ache deep in her belly made her want to cry out about the injustice of it all.
That this man who she didn’t know, and would never see again after this week, would make her feel the way he made her feel.

  “So, pretty lady, you won’t tell me your name. And I won’t tell you mine unless you go first. So we’re at an impasse.”

  “Seems that way.”

  “I can deal with that.” He looked at her, smiling. “Great-looking sheet. Love the way it fits you.”

  She softly laughed. “You don’t think the color is all wrong?”

  “White goes great with your hair. Nice hair, too.”

  She ran her fingers through the tangles. “Thanks,” she said. “I’m glad the tousled look appeals to you.”

  His gaze was downright sexy. “There’s a lot about you that appeals to me.”

  There, he did it again. How was she supposed to answer something like that? She wasn’t prepared for this smooth-talking cowboy with the glib tongue.

  “Let’s cut to the chase,” he said. “Are you married?”

  “Are you?”

  “Can you answer just one question with a simple yes or no? What’s the big deal here. First no name, and now marital status is—”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no? No, you’re not married, or no, you can’t answer a simple question?” He nodded and didn’t look happy. “You must be married. Your husband doesn’t know you’re here and that’s why no one would tell me your name.”

  “I’m not married.”

  His face went from irate to nonchalant, which made her want to laugh, but she couldn’t. “I knew that.”

  “Of course you did.” He didn’t know anything. “Are you?”

  “Married? No. No kids either. That I know about. Or that claim me.”

  “Me neither. But, maybe soon. I’m hopeful.”

  That look came across his face again. The look of a predator out to defend his woman. She liked that. “Are you engaged?” he asked.

  “No, much to the horror of my mother. She’s trying her best to lure them in.”

  “Are you here to land yourself a husband?”