Stand-In Bride

Michael felt queerly disoriented, as if he’d been cast out of time, out of place. For one dizzying moment, he scarcely recognized the young woman at his side. He was accustomed to the calmly bland, impassive mask Julia wore at the office. But when her face was alight and lively, as it was now, she was stunningly pretty!

As if of their own volition, his eyes traveled over her, taking in the sight of her small, firmly rounded breasts bobbing softly as she ran. He realized for the first time that her office clothes were not only loose fitting, they were a downright disguise, hiding a very shapely figure. Nor did those modest, below-the-knee skirts and sensible shoes she wore to work encourage anyone to glance at her legs.

Tonight, Michael’s gaze fixated on them, as if making up for lost time. She was only of average height, about five foot four, but her legs were long and sleek and very well shaped. He stared at the bare smooth skin of her thighs and heat flooded him.

Sweat beaded his forehead and his pulses pounded. He fell several paces behind her, but that tactical retreat only gave him a clear view of the shapely curves of her buttocks. Gulping for air, he began to conjugate Spanish verbs in his head as a very necessary diversion.

When Julia realized he’d stopped running, she paused and turned, looking back at him. By that time, Michael had his unexpected and thoroughly unwelcome lusty impulses under control.

“Leg cramp,” he explained briskly, catching up to her. Well, it wasn’t too far off.

For a while, they ran side by side in a not uncomfortable silence.

Then he said, “Julia?”

“Yes?”

“I apologize for what my uncle said to you today. After Uncle Jake lets off steam, he puts the incident behind him. I hope you can forget it, too.”

“I won’t give it another thought,” Julia promised. “You seem to get along with your uncle most of the time,” she added hesitantly. She hoped she didn’t seem presumptuous, making observations about Fortune family dynamics.

“I’ve always gotten along okay with Uncle Jake, even though he blows up at me from time to time.” Michael shrugged. “He can be demanding and controlling, but I know where he’s coming from.” He smiled wryly. “I think I’m coming from the same place.”

His flash of self-awareness surprised Julia. She tried and failed to suppress a grin.

Michael noticed. “So you agree that Jake and I are cut from the same cloth, hmm?”

“Let’s just say it doesn’t stretch the bounds of reality to imagine you using the term ‘idiotic sycophant,’” she dared to say.

“I’d never use it to describe you.”

“But it just might fit one of Jake’s assistants?” Julia suggested, sliding him a wry, sidelong glance.

“You know, it just might.”

They both laughed. She had a nice laugh, Michael noted. Warm and real. Not one of those phony shrieks or high-pitched trills. He’d always liked her laugh, though they didn’t do much laughing at the office. Lately, even smiles were scarce.

“Uh-oh,” Julia exclaimed.

She saw the group of young women heading toward them at the same time Michael did. The girls were in their late teens or very early twenties and were staggeringly drunk. They were singing and laughing loudly as they careened along the path…and then they spied Michael.

He tensed as one of them shrieked, “Oh, my God, it’s him! One of the top-ten bachelors, the one that lives right here in Minneapolis!”

The girl’s companions joined in the squealing. The scene stirred memories of the newsreels Julia had seen of the Beatles’ arrival in New York back in 1964. She glanced at Michael, who was staring at his admirers, utterly appalled.

Her protective instincts were instantly roused. Perhaps some self-preservatory instincts, too. She didn’t want to be caught in the midst of a wild and amatory throng.

She’d read that highly effective people were supposed to be proactive instead of waiting around to react. Well, here was a chance to prove how effective she could be. Julia walked right up to the girls in what she hoped was a highly proactive manner.

“Do you really think he looks like that guy in the magazine?” she asked the girl who’d first identified Michael. Before she could answer, Julia turned quickly to Michael and called out, “Denny, they think you look like Michael Fortune! Can you believe it?”

Michael stared in confusion.

“That’s my brother Denny,” Julia went on blithely. “He works in the mail room at the Fortune Corporation.”

“The mail room?” one of the girls repeated, her voice ringing with disappointment. “He’s not the Mike Fortune?”

Julia laughed. “He delivers the Mike Fortune’s mail. Is that close enough?”

“I don’t think he looks anything like Mike Fortune,” another girl declared with a disdainful sniff. “Mike Fortune looks like a millionaire. This guy—” she nodded disparagingly in Michael’s direction “—looks like he works in a mail room. You can tell.”

“Denny’s job pays benefits, health and dental,” Julia said. “And he’s eligible, too. He doesn’t have a girlfriend.” She gave them a hopeful look, inviting one of them to volunteer for the position.

That was all it took. The girls weren’t drunk enough not to realize that a guy whose sister was on the prowl for a girlfriend for him did not meet their standards.

“Tell your brother to take out an ad in the personals,” one of them said, as they giggled among themselves. “Maybe he’ll luck out there.”

“We’re holding out for Mike Fortune,” said another. “Or a Mike Fortune type.”

“I think he really does kind of look like Mike Fortune,” Julia called after them, as they hurried on their way. She’d managed to sound credibly forlorn, as the sister of a perennially dateless Denny might.

“He only looks like Mike Fortune if you’re drunk out of your mind, like Wendy is,” one of the girls shouted back.

“Wendy also thought the pizza-delivery guy looks like Tom Cruise,” exclaimed another, and they all laughed raucously.

The girls disappeared around a bend, leaving Julia and Michael alone.

“Denny?” Michael tried to look stern, but he couldn’t quite pull it off.

“It was the first name that popped into my head,” Julia confessed. “And then, somehow you became Denny.” She dissolved in laughter. “You had that glazed look in your eye and your mouth was hanging open. I wouldn’t have been surprised if you started babbling about getting your jollies from opening mail from all of Mike Fortune’s female admirers.”

“My jollies?” he repeated incredulously. Suddenly, he couldn’t stop the laughter that bubbled within him.

They were both too breathless from laughing to run, so they walked along the path, making bad jokes. “I know Mike Fortune, Mike Fortune is a boss of mine and you are no Mike Fortune,” Julia paraphrased. “You are a faux Denny.”

“I think I’d rather be a faux Denny than an idiotic sycophant,” countered Michael. “Although if Uncle Jake were to see us carrying on like this, he’d write us both off as giddy nitwits.”

“No one could ever accuse you of being either giddy or a nitwit,” Julia assured him.

“I suppose not.” Michael frowned thoughtfully, turning serious once more. “I can’t even be accused of smiling, according to my stepmother, Barbara. She told me to lighten up, that lately she could count on one hand the number of times I’ve smiled.”

“There hasn’t been much to smile about at the Fortune Corporation this past year,” Julia murmured.

“No, there hasn’t. We’ve had a series of incidents ranging from calamitous to catastrophic.” A grim and somber Michael proceeded to list them. “There was that fire set in the laboratory by an intruder who was never caught, and Grandmother Kate’s plane crash. Then my cousin Allison was stalked by some nut.”

“At least that calamity had a happy ending,” Julia replied. “Allison married her bodyguard, Rafe.”

“Marriage. A happy ending.” Michael arched his brows in that superior, sardonic way of his. “I suppose you would view it that way.”