Practice Husband

Unfortunately, if she believed the letters she’d received over the years from her single girlfriends, men like that were scarcer than the proverbial hens’ teeth.

And even if by some miracle she did run across a man who fit her requirements, it wouldn’t do her any good. She wouldn’t have the vaguest idea how to go about attracting his attention. And that was the crux of her problem. She squarely faced the fact. She didn’t know. She didn’t know how to attract men, how to talk to them, how to relate to them on any level. She had absolutely no experience to fall back on. As far as she was concerned, they might as well be another species entirely.

“Good, then we’re decided.” Sister Margaret chose to take Addy’s silence as agreement. “You’re going to return home to Hamilton, find a husband and have some children to brighten my old age. Eastern Pennsylvania will be pretty, with fall coming,” she offered as an added inducement.

A reluctant smile flickered in Addy’s deep brown eyes. If only it were as easy as that. Of course, to her aunt, it probably was. Her aunt didn’t seem prey to the self-doubts that had always haunted Addy.

“I’ll make your plane reservations this afternoon.”

Addy blinked. “This afternoon! What’s the rush?”

“You aren’t getting any younger, and if you wait for a good time to go, you’ll never leave. This place is always in the middle of a crisis.”

Sister Margaret turned to leave and then stopped, clicking her tongue in annoyance. “I almost forgot why I came over here in the first place. A letter came for you in the mailbag.” She pulled a long white envelope out of her pocket and handed it to Addy.

Eagerly, Addy looked at the return address, hoping for a letter from a friend, and then grimaced.

“Bad news?” Sister Margaret asked.

“No, just old news. It’s from that law firm that wants to buy the property that Mom and Dad’s house sits on. Remember, I told you about their offer. They say they have a client that wants to build a factory or some such on it.”

“Are you still adamant about not selling?”

“Yes. I grew up in that house, and even though Mom and Dad are both dead and I haven’t lived there since I graduated from high school, I still think of it as home. And if I sell it, I won’t belong anyplace.” A feeling of panic swirled through Addy.

“All the more reason to get yourself a husband. People should belong to other people, not to a place,” Sister Margaret said as she left.

I should be so lucky, Addy thought ruefully, wishing she had inherited even a tenth of her aunt’s self-assurance.

She leaned back against the examining table and ripped open the envelope, extracting the single sheet of paper. As she’d suspected, it was another offer to buy her property, virtually identical to the ones she’d been receiving for the past eighteen months. The only thing that changed was the price they were offering.

Addy frowned as she peered closer at the scrawled signature at the bottom of the page. No, one other thing had changed—the signature. Instead of being signed by a lawyer named Blandings as all the other ones had been, this letter was signed by the president of the company who wanted her land, one J. E. Barrington.

“J. E. Barrington,” she muttered. Joseph Barrington? Could J. E. Barrington be her Joe Barrington? Not that Joe had ever been hers. In fact, when they were children, Joe hadn’t appeared to belong to anyone. She couldn’t remember ever seeing anyone attending a school function with him. Or standing on the sidelines during sporting events rooting for him. He’d always seemed to be alone, both physically and mentally.

But despite his aloofness, Joe had had a kinder side. A side Addy had discovered when she’d been in the second grade. She’d been standing on the playground after school crying because two boys from the fifth grade had taken her beloved doll and were beating its head on the pavement, saying that fat people didn’t deserve dolls.

As if in answer to her tears, Joe had emerged from the school building and come to her rescue. He’d bloodied the nose of one of her tormentors, chased them both off and then told her that crying never helped anything. Only action solved problems.

After the incident, Joe had taken to walking her home after school, which had effectively ended the vicious teasing she’d endured. Not only that, but she’d acquired a friend. A prickly one, but the fact that he had never once referred to her being fat had made him absolutely perfect in her eyes. Their friendship had lasted until he’d gone away to college and they’d lost touch.

She glanced back down at the signature. Could it be Joe? Had Joe managed to build up a company from nothing? It was certainly possible, she conceded. If ever there was a person who had the will to succeed, it was Joe.

Thoughtfully, she shoved the letter into her pocket. Instead of writing a reply turning down their offer as she usually did, she would go to see this J. E. Barrington in person when she got back to Hamilton, she decided. It would be interesting to find out exactly who he was.

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.