Kill the Competition

by Stephanie Bond

  “It wasn’t fancy.”

  “Neither is heaven.”

  “Oh?” She raised her brow. “When were you last there?”

  Curse Makes Viscount the Most Unmarriageable Man in England

  Who Will Take This Man?

  by Jacquie D’Alessandro

  October 2003

  [London, England] Word is out! Philip Ravensly, Viscount Greybourne, is the victim of a curse, making him completely unmarriageable. Despite all attempts by Meredith Chilton-Grizedale, the Matchmaker of Mayfair, to find him a suitable bride, he remains unwed. Then the viscount begins viewing her as a potential mate…

  Lord Greybourne stepped in front of her. His brown eyes simmered with anger, although there was no mistaking his concern. Reaching out, he gently grasped her shoulders. “I’m sorry you were subjected to such inexcusable rudeness and crude innuendo. Are you all right?”

  Meredith simply stared at him for several seconds. Clearly he believed she was distraught due to the duke’s remark, which cast aspersions upon Lord Greybourne’s…manliness. Little did Lord Greybourne know that, thanks to her past, very little shocked Meredith. And as for the validity of the duke’s claim, she could not fathom that anyone could so much as look at Lord Greybourne and have a doubt regarding his masculinity.

  Lowering her hands from her mouth, she swallowed to find her voice. “I’m fine.”

  “Well, I’m not. I’d have to place myself firmly in the category of ‘vastly annoyed.’ ” His gaze roamed over her face and his hands tightened on her shoulders. “You’re not going to faint again, are you?”

  “Certainly not.” She stepped back, and his hands lowered to his sides. The warm imprint from his palms seeped through her gown, shooting tingles down her arms. “You may place me firmly in the category of ‘females who do not succumb to vapors.’ ”

  He cocked a brow. “I happen to know that is not precisely true.”

  “The episode at St. Paul’s was an aberration, I assure you.”

  While he did not appear entirely convinced, he said, “Glad to hear it.”

  Clearing her throat, she said, “You came to my defense in a very gentlemanly way. Thank you.”

  A wry smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “I’m certain you don’t mean to sound so surprised.”

  Indeed, she was surprised—stunned actually—although she had not meant to sound as if she were. But she’d have to reflect upon that later. Right now there were other, bigger issues to contemplate.

  Unable to stand still, Meredith paced in front of him. “Unfortunately, with the duke’s news, we must now re-categorize our situation from ‘bad’ to ‘utterly disastrous.’ Your bride is well and truly lost, thus doing away with our plan for you to marry on the twenty-second, and my reputation as a matchmaker is in tatters. And with your father’s ill health, time is short.” Her mind raced. “There must be a way to somehow turn this situation around. But how?”

  “I’m open to suggestions. Even if we are successful in finding the missing piece of stone, my marrying is out of the question without a bride.” He shook his head and a humorless sound escaped him. “Between this curse hanging over me, the unflattering story in the newspaper, and the gossip Lord Hedington alluded to circulating about my ability to…perform, it seems that the answer to the question posed in today’s issue of The Times is yes—the cursed viscount is the most unmarriageable man in England.”

  Unmarriageable. The word echoed through Meredith’s mind. Damnation, there must be a way—

  She abruptly halted her pacing and swung around to face him. “Unmarriageable,” she repeated, her drawn out pronunciation of the word in direct contrast to her runaway thoughts. She stroked her jaw and slowly nodded. “Yes, one might very well christen you The Most Unmarriageable Man in England.”

  He inclined his head in a mock bow. “A title of dubious honor. And one I’m surprised you sound so…enthusiastic about. Perhaps you’d care to share your thoughts?”

  “Actually I was thinking you exhibited a moment of brilliance, my lord.”

  He walked toward her, his gaze never wavering from hers, not stopping until only two feet separated them. Awareness skittered down her spine, and she forced herself to stand her ground when everything inside her urged her to retreat.

  “A moment of brilliance? In sharp contrast to all my other moments, I suppose. A lovely compliment, although your stunned tone when uttering it took off a bit of the shine. And brilliant though I may be—albeit only for a moment—I’m afraid I’m in the dark as to what I said to inspire you so.”

  “I think we can agree that Lady Sarah marrying Lord Weycroft places us both in an awkward situation.” At his nod, she continued, “Well then, if you are The Most Unmarriageable Man in England, and it seems quite clear you are, the matchmaker who could marry you off would score an incredible coup.” She lifted her brows. “If I were successful in such an undertaking, you would gain a wife, and my reputation would be reinstated.”

  He adjusted his spectacles, clearly pondering her words. “My moment of brilliance clearly remains upon me as I’m following your thought process, and what you’ve described is a good plan. However, I cannot marry unless I am able to break the curse.”

  “Which a brilliant man such as yourself will certainly be able to do.”

  “If we are able to locate the missing piece of the Stone of Tears. Assuming we are successful, whom did you have in mind that I would marry?”

  Meredith’s brow puckered, and she once again commenced pacing. “Hmm. Yes, that is problematic. Yet surely in all of London there must be one unsuperstitious woman willing to be courted by a cursed, gossip-ridden viscount of questionable masculinity who will most likely fill their homes with ancient relics.”

  “I beg you to cease before all these complimentary words swell my head.”

  She ignored his dust-dry tone and continued pacing. “Of course, in order to ensure the reinstatement of my reputation, I must match you with just the perfect woman. Not just any woman will do.”

  “Well, thank goodness for that.”

  “But who?” She paced, puzzling it over in her mind, then halted and snapped her fingers. “Of course! The perfect woman for The Most Unmarriageable Man in England is The Most Unmarriageable Woman in England!”

  “Ah. Yes, she sounds delightful.”

  Again she ignored him. “I can see the Society pages now—England’s Most Unmarriageable Man Weds England’s Most Unmarriageable Woman—and praise to Meredith Chilton-Grizedale, the acclaimed Matchmaker of Mayfair, for bringing them together.” She pursed her lips and tapped her index finger against her chin. “But who is this Most Unmarriageable Woman?”

  He cleared his throat. “Actually, I believe I know.”

  Meredith halted and turned toward him eagerly. “Excellent. Who?”

  “You, Miss Chilton-Grizedale. By the time Society reads tomorrow’s edition of The Times, you will be the Most Unmarriageable Woman in England.”

  Woman Married for Just Six Disastrous Hours Stuns City With Murder Case Involvement

  Kill the Competition

  by Stephanie Bond

  November 2003

  [Atlanta, GA] Belinda Hennessey moves to Atlanta to escape all memories of her six-hour marriage. Her new friends are a hoot—they pass time spent in traffic writing an advice book on marriage and men. But the new job is murder—literally. When a dead body turns up at the office, Belinda fears for her life. Luckily, she’s already acquainted with Officer Wade Alexander…

  The police cruiser’s blue light came on, bathing Belinda’s cheeks with condemning heat each time it passed over her face. The officer was male—that she could tell from the span of his shoulders. And he wasn’t happy—that she could tell from the way he banged his hand against the steering wheel. Since the cruiser sat at an angle and since her left bumper was imbedded in his right rear fender and since his right signal light still blinked, he apparently had been attempting to change lanes when she’d nailed h
im.

  The officer gestured for her to pull over to the right. When traffic yielded, he pulled away first, eliciting another sickening scrape as their cars disengaged. She followed like a disobedient child, and despite the odd skew of her car and an ominous noise that sounded like potato potato potato (probably because she was hungry), managed to pull onto the narrow shoulder behind him. The driver side door of the squad car swung open, and long uniform-clad legs emerged. Belinda swallowed hard.

  “Whip up some tears,” Libby said.

  “What?”

  “Hurry, before he gets back here.”

  “I can’t—owww!” She rubbed her fingers over the tender skin on the back of her arm where Libby had pinched the heck out of her. Tears sprang to her eyes, partly from the pain and partly from the awfulness of the situation. She tried to blink away the moisture but wound up overflowing. She was wiping at her eyes when a sharp rap sounded on her window.

  “Uh-oh,” Carole whispered. “He looks pissed.”

  An understatement. The officer was scowling, his dark hair hand-ruffled, his shadowed jaw clenched. Belinda zoomed down the window and waited.

  “Is everyone okay?” he barked. Bloodshot eyes—maybe gray, maybe blue—blazed from a rocky face.

  “Y-yes.”

  “Then save the tears.”

  She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  Libby leaned forward. “My friend is late for an important meeting, Officer.”

  He eyed Belinda without sympathy. “That makes two of us. I need your driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance, ma’am.”

  Belinda reached for her purse, which had landed at her feet. “I’m sorry, Officer. I didn’t see you.”

  “Yes, ma’am, these big white cars with sirens really blend.”

  He glanced at her license, then back at her.

  “It’s me,” she mumbled. The worst driver’s license photograph in history—she’d been suffering from the flu, and for some reason, wearing a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt had seemed like a good idea. She was relatively certain that a copy of the humiliating photograph was posted on bulletin boards in DMV break rooms across the state of Ohio.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  He circled around to record the numbers on her license plate, then returned to his car, every footfall proclaiming his frustration for inexperienced, un-photogenic female drivers. He used his radio presumably to report her vitals. She’d never been in trouble in her life, but her gut clenched with the absurd notion that some computer glitch might finger her as a lawless fugitive—kidnapper, forger, murderer.

  The crunch of gravel signaled the officer’s approach. She opened her eyes, but the flat line of his mouth caused the Berry Bonanza with calcium to roil in her stomach.

  “Do you live in Cincinnati, Ms. Hennessey?”

  “No, I moved here two months ago.”

  A muscle worked in his jaw as he scribbled on a ticket pad. “I need your address, please.”

  She recited it as he wrote.

  “You were supposed to obtain a Georgia driver’s license within thirty days of moving here.”

  His tone pushed her pulse higher. “I didn’t know.”

  He tore off one, two, three tickets, then thrust them into her hand. “Now you do.” He unbuttoned his cuff and began rolling up his sleeve. “I need for you ladies to move to my car, please.”

  Belinda gaped. “You’re hauling us in?”

  The officer looked heavenward, then back. “No, ma’am. You have a flat tire and at this time of day, it’ll take forever for your road service to get here.”

  She pressed her lips together, thinking this probably wasn’t the best time to say she didn’t have a road service. Or a cell phone to call a road service.

  He nodded toward the cruiser. “You’ll be safer in my car than standing on the side of the road.”

  “I…thank you.”

  He didn’t look up. “Yes, ma’am. Will you pop the trunk?”

  While the women scrambled out of the car, Belinda released the trunk latch, but the resulting click didn’t sound right. She opened her door a few inches, then slid out, bracing herself against the traffic wind that threatened to suck her into the path of oncoming cars. The toes of her shoes brushed the uneven edge of the blacktop, and she almost tripped. Her dress clung to her thighs, and her hair whipped her cheeks. The rush of danger was strangely exhilarating, strangely…alluring.

  Then a large hand clamped onto her shoulder, guiding her to the back of the car and comparative safety. “That’s a good way to become a statistic,” he shouted over the road noise.

  She tilted her head to look into reproachful eyes, and pain flickered in the back of her neck. Tomorrow she’d be stiff. “This is very nice of you,” she yelled, gesturing as if she were playing charades.

  He simply shrugged, as if to say he would’ve done the same for anyone. Dark stubble stained his jaw, and for the first time she noticed his navy uniform was a bit rumpled. He frowned and jerked a thumb toward the cruiser. “You should join your friends, ma’am.”

  At best, he probably thought she was an airhead. At worst, a flirt. She pointed. “The trunk release didn’t sound right.”

  He wedged his fingers into the seam that outlined the trunk lid, and gave a tug. “I think it’s just stuck.” Indeed, on the next tug, the lid sprang open. He twisted to inspect the latch as he worked the mechanism with his fingers. “The latch is bent but fixable.” He raised the trunk lid and winced. “I assume the spare tire is underneath all this stuff.”

  A sheepish flush crawled over her as she surveyed the brimming contents. “I’ll empty it.”

  He checked his watch. “I’ll help. Anything personal in here?”

  She shook her head in defeat. Nothing that she could think of, and what did it matter anyway?

  But her degradation climbed as he removed item after item that, in his hands, seemed mundane to the point of intimate—a ten-pound bag of kitty litter, a twelve-pack of Diet Pepsi, a pair of old running shoes with curled toes, an orange Frisbee, a grungy Cincinnati Reds windbreaker, a Love Songs of the ’90s CD, two empty Pringles Potato Chips canisters (she’d heard a person could do all kinds of crafty things with them), and two gray plastic crates of reference books she’d been conveying to her cubicle one armload at a time.

  Her gaze landed on a tiny blue pillow wedged between the crates, and she cringed. Unwilling to share that particular souvenir of her life, she reached in while he was bent away from her and stuffed it into her shoulder bag.

  “I’ll get the rest of it,” he said.

  She nodded and scooted out of the way. “Can I help with—”

  “No.” He looked up at her, then massaged the bridge of his nose. “No, ma’am. Please.”

  Glad for the escape, Belinda retreated to the cruiser, picking her way through gravel and mud, steeling herself against the gusts of wind. The girls had crowded into the backseat, so she opened the front passenger door and slid inside, then shut it behind her. The console of the police car was guy-heaven—buttons and lights and gizmos galore. The radio emitted bursts of static. No one said anything for a full thirty seconds.

  “How much are the fines?” Carole asked.

  She gave up on her hopeless hair and pulled out the three citations signed by—she squinted at the scrawl—Lt. W. Alexander. After adding the numbers in her head, she laid her head back on the headrest. “Two hundred and twenty-five dollars.”

  “Ooo,” they chorused.

  Ooo was right.

  Class Reunion Reunites “Perfect” Couple Can Love Survive Bad ’80s Cover Band Music?

  Where Is He Now?

  by Jennifer Greene

  December 2003

  [Michigan] Teen toasts of the town reunite! Man Most Likely to Succeed Nick Donneli and Most Popular Jeanne Cassiday brace themselves for their class reunion. It’s time to discover who still has bad hair, to see who really became a doctor…and to figure out if they can have another chance
at love. It’s true that sometimes maturity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be…but sometimes love really is better the second time around…

  “Boots.”

  The sudden masculine voice shocked her like a gunshot…but that voice wrapped around her old nickname—the nickname only one man had ever called her—punched her right in the heart and squeezed tight.

  It took only a second for her to turn around, but in that second, she saw the round clock with the white face on the far wall. The photographs of old cars—so many they filled one wall like wallpaper. The red leather couch, the red stone counter—furnishings that seemed crazy for a garage, but then, what the Sam Hill did she know about mechanics and garages? She also saw the pearl-choking Martha drop her aggressive stance in a blink when it finally became obvious that Nick Donneli really did know her.

  “Mr. Donneli,” Martha said swiftly and sincerely, “I’m terribly sorry if I misunderstood this situation. I was trying to protect you from—”

  “I know you were, Martha, and you’re a wonderful protector. But the lady thinks she’s looking for my father instead of me. That’s what the source of the confusion is.”

  “I see.” Martha obviously didn’t.

  Jeanne didn’t either. She was pretty sure she’d get what was going on in a second. Or ten. But she needed a minute to breathe, to gulp in some poise, to lock onto some sense somehow.

  Only damn. Temporarily her heart still felt sucker punched. Her pulse started galloping and refused to calm down.

  He looked just like he always did. More mature, of course. But those dark, sexy eyes were just as wicked, could still make a girl think, Oh, yes, please take my virginity; please do anything you want, I don’t care. He still had the cocky, defensive, bad-boy chin. The dark hair, with the one shock on his temple that wouldn’t stay brushed. The thin mouth and strong jaw, and shoulders so square you’d think they were huge, when he wasn’t that huge. He just had so damn much personality that he seemed big.

  He was. So handsome. So in-your-face male. So take-on-all-comers wolf.