The Husband Project

She’d been tempted to rip up his card, but common sense had made her hesitate. Why start from scratch if she could get a referral? And she wouldn’t have to talk to Logan himself; he’d said himself that his office nurse could help...

She’d just dialed the last digit when Susannah’s blond head appeared around the edge of Alison’s half-closed of fice door. “Rita said you were asking about—Oh, sorry. Want me to come back later?”

Susannah’s timing, Alison thought testily, couldn’t possibly have been worse. She started to put the phone down.

Before she could break the connection, however, the line clicked and a low-pitched Southern drawl said, “Obstetrics and Gynecology Associates.”

What a tongue twister. Somebody ought to have-had better sense. Hastily Alison put the phone back to her ear. “I’m sorry. Wrong number.” She hung up without waiting for a response. “I’m finished, Sue. Have a seat.”

Susannah flopped down in the big wicker chair. “I kept a list of the calls I took for you and what I did about them—or mostly, what I didn’t do.” She handed a sheet of yellow paper to Alison. “The majority said their business could wait till you were back in shape.”

Alison ran her eyes down the list. No big problems jumped out at her. “Thanks, Sue.”

Susannah swung around and draped her legs over the chair’s arm. “My pleasure. I also wondered.... You know the painting that was vandalized at the Dearborn Museum?”

Alison frowned. She remembered only vaguely—but her foggy recall made sense; Susannah had mentioned it at Flanagan’s when Alison’s pain was at its worst. “What about it?”

“The artist is coming to town to inspect the damage, and of course as the museum’s official public relations person I’ll have to be there. I wondered, if you don’t have another obligation, if you’d go with me.”

“Why? I’ve never been part of the Dearborn campaigns.”

“Moral support,” Susannah said firmly.

“Nobody can possibly think it’s your fault, can they?”

“Of course they can. I’m the one who suggested that instead of a guest book they hang a plain white canvas and let visitors write their comments with markers. So when the board starts looking for a scapegoat, and remembers that I encouraged the patrons to write on things—”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Since when did that prevent clients from yelling? A week from Saturday, five in the afternoon. Can you go?”

“I think so.” Alison reached for her calendar. “That night’s the first Chicago Singles meeting, so I’d have to go directly from the museum to Coq Au Vin. But maybe I can talk to the museum director about hosting an event for the stupid singles club.”

“Better quit calling it that,” Susannah advised, “or you’ll slip one of these days. I can see it now, on some morning interview show on television... Are you going to have gift certificates for membership?”

“Hadn’t thought of it.”

“If you do, I might get one for our painter friend.”

“He’d think it was a personal apology for the additions to his canvas.”

“You’re probably right.” Susannah yawned. “Kit tells me you and Logan Kavanaugh not only connected—pardon the pun—at the hospital but you spent a whole hour tête-à-tête on her terrace.”

“Did she?” Alison buried her face in a folderful of blank paper and did her best to sound entirely uninterested.

“So what’s going on there?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

“Come on, Ali. Don’t tell me you’re just going to add him to your string of male pals.”

“Not on your life.”

Susannah sat up with the grace of a ballerina, grinning broadly. “Aha! Now we’re getting somewhere. If you don’t want to be friends with the man, it must mean you’re seriously attracted to him.”

Alison put the folder down with a snap and looked levelly at Susannah. “You know, Sue, my life was a whole lot less complicated before both you and Kit went nuts and fell in love.”

“Mine, too, but it was much less fun. So when are you going to see him again?”

“I’m not.”

“Really?” Susannah rose slowly. “Then why were you calling him at the office just now? I heard the receptionist answer. That’s a terrible name for a medical practice, don’t you think?”

Alison choked.

“And why, instead of admitting it, did you hang up on the poor woman when I came in? What, I wonder, didn’t you want me to overhear?” Then Susannah smiled like an angel and walked out without waiting for an answer.

The thinness of the stack of messages waiting for her on Rita’s desk had been a mirage; the fact was that every client Alison possessed—including some she hadn’t heard from in a year—called in the next week. Caught between too much work and the lingering effects of her surgery, Alison even considered installing an air mattress in her office. The main reason she didn’t was that she couldn’t find time to call the store and arrange a delivery.

She yawned as she climbed the steps to the main floor, carrying the final draft of yet another letter to be personalized and sent out to a mailing list of hundreds. She’d leave it on Rita’s desk to be taken care of in the morning, and then she was going home.

Used to the bright lights in her office, Alison was startled by the dimness on the main floor. She’d known it was late, of course—she’d drawn the curtains over her office windows hours ago, and the stillness of the entire brownstone had told her everyone but she and the calico cat. had departed. Still, she’d expected the last bit of twilight to still be trickling through the windows at the head of the stairs. Instead, there was only the yellow light which spilled from the entrance porch through the beveled glass panels around. the front door.

She flipped the hall lights on and crossed toward Rita’s office. A shadow moved on the steps outside, and Alison’s heart jolted. Tryad’s hours were clearly posted on the door; why would anybody be lurking outside now? A public relations office wasn’t even the sort of business she’d expect to draw the attention of any self-respecting burglar...

But if she was wrong about that...there she stood, spotlighted in the hallway.

She dived for the switch to kill the lights. Her eyes were slow to readjust to the dimness, and she’d managed to convince herself that she’d been startled by the movement of a tree branch in the breeze when a face pressed against the glass. The bevels distorted the image, so it wasn’t her eyes so much as the way her stomach tightened which told Alison who was outside. She unlocked the door, pulled it open, and looked up at Logan Kavanaugh.

“So you are here,” he said. “I saw lights on in the basement and then that sudden flash up here, and I suspected it would be you.”

“Congratulations. Does finding me make you eligible for a prize?” She didn’t move aside.

“Are you going to invite me in?”

“Any reason I should? Business hours are—”

“Looks to me like your business hours are about like mine—whatever it takes to get the job done.”

He did look tired, she thought. There was a network of fine lines around his eyes. She stepped back from the door. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“If it’s already made.”

“It won’t take a minute. Believe me, you don’t want to drink the tar that’s left in the pot.”

Logan shrugged. “I’ve no doubt had worse.” He followed her down the stairs and into the big kitchen next to her office.

Alison dumped the glass carafe, rinsed it, and started a fresh pot brewing. “So what brings you here?” She didn’t look at him. “No, don’t tell me. I bet you’re so shaken at being done with work at this hour—my goodness, it’s only eight o’clock!—that you’ve decided to take me on as a patient after all.”