Bridegroom On Her Doorstep

Bridegroom On Her Doorstep
Renee Roszel

The ad had appeared. She'd interviewed the candidates. Jennifer Sancroft was close to selecting a husband who would help secure a vital promotion.But when she met Cole Barringer all the potential candidates paled in comparison to this sexy bachelor. The solution was obvious….Cole was dead against Jen's crazy, half-baked marriage scheme! Marry for convenience rather than for love–no way! So how come it was Cole walking with her down the aisle…?

“Tell me again why you’re interviewing for husbands?” Cole prodded.

Her cutting glare could have drawn blood from a lesser man. Even Cole felt its jab. She turned away. “Oh, right,” he drawled. “It’s that career move. What job could be so all-fired important that you’d make this mad dash to snag a husband?”

“You have some nerve!” She kneaded her temples as though trying to ward off a headache. “You don’t know me! You don’t have any right to presume anything about me!”

“I know plenty of women like you. Only a guy with nothing going on between the ears would agree to some half-baked marriage scheme.”

“Then you’d be perfect for the job!” she cried, her eyes a blink away from tears.

“So where do I get in line?” That crazy question came out of nowhere. The shock on her face was no more staggering than the shock Cole felt from hearing the inquiry in his own voice.

It’s the countdown to the Big Day: the guests are invited, the flowers are arranged, the dress is ready and the sparks between the lucky couple are sizzling hot.…Only, our blushing bride and groom-to-be have yet to become “engaged” in the bedroom!

Is it choice or circumstance keeping their passions in check? Read our thrilling miniseries WHITE WEDDINGS to find out why a very modern bride wears white on her wedding day!

Bridegroom on Her Doorstep

Renee Roszel

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

To:

Doug and Randy

How about a hug?

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE (#ua8211a8d-98f4-5a36-9522-446a8d836c66)

CHAPTER TWO (#u6016015f-043e-559a-8395-f8f0bdff75e4)

CHAPTER THREE (#u896a696e-a92a-589d-a099-25d42b75be0d)

CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ONE

WHAT caught Jennifer Sancroft’s eye—and her breath—wasn’t the majestic view of the Gulf of Mexico. It was the powerful flex of muscle in the stranger’s back and shoulders, even two hundred feet away impressively conspicuous. She noticed him immediately. Tall, tanned and shirtless, he slathered white paint on a picket fence separating a manicured lawn from a pristine beach.

Her engine coughed and the car shuddered. Forcing her gaze away from the hunky vision, Jen turned off the engine of her mid-size rental car. Now that she no longer looked at the man, her brain let her in on the complication he could present. “How am I supposed to hold discreet interviews for a husband with some blue-collar hunk lurking around?”

Ruthie Tuttle, Jen’s assistant, had pushed open her car door and leaned halfway out. With Jen’s muttered comment she hunched back inside and turned around. “Did you say something, boss?”

Jen shook her head. “No, I was thinking out loud.” She indicated the bare-chested man in the distance. “I hope he was only hired for the weekend. I don’t need anybody scaring away my applicants.”

Ruthie glanced in the direction of her boss’s wave, her serious expression changing to curiosity, then fascination. Her lips parted in a silent “Oh” that spoke volumes.

“Well, well…” Ruthie finally said, with a lewd grin. Jen had never seen such a lustful expression on her assistant’s freckled face. Annoyed with herself for feeling exactly the way Ruthie looked, she lightly elbowed the woman in the ribs, prodding her out of fantasyland.

“Tuttle! You have a perfectly nice husband. Close your mouth!”

Ruthie cleared her throat, her violet gaze sliding to her boss. “Just ’cause I’m tied to the porch, doesn’t mean I can’t bark!” She looked at the painter, her gaze lingering. “Didn’t I mention the leasing agent said there might be a maintenance guy on the property?”

“No,” Jen said, experiencing a rush of aggravation. “You did not.”

“Oops.” Ruthie’s grin refused to dim as she surveyed the stranger. “Just between you and me, he is a great example of prime guy maintenance!”

Jen glowered at her assistant. So what if he was prime? That didn’t make him any less of an impediment to her plans. She shifted her gaze away to stare, unseeing, at her hands, clutching the steering wheel. Why couldn’t things ever run smoothly? The corporation-owned property she’d rented for the next three weeks was somewhat isolated for her peace of mind, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, and this was the only property available. The accounting firm’s presidency had opened up so abruptly, she’d been forced to make some quick—possibly even rash—decisions.

She didn’t dare hold husband interviews in Dallas. The word would surely get back to the firm that she wasn’t actually on her honeymoon. Exposed as a liar, she would lose her chance at the top job of the conservative firm—not to mention she would be so disgraced she’d have to leave the state to find a job!

No! She wouldn’t let that happen! She’d worked too long and hard for Dallas Accounting Associates, given the company her body and her soul for a decade. She deserved the presidency. To get it, she planned to move heaven and earth if she had to!

“That painter had better not get in my way,” she muttered. “I have less than a month to find, and marry, an appropriate husband. I don’t need some hulking hired hand stomping all over my timetable in his size-twelve boots!” She looked at her assistant, a stocky, curly top, ex-marine. “I might have to sic you on him, Tuttle.”

Ruthie gave a quick, surprised laugh. “He’s pretty big, boss. I’ll need more marines.” She pressed her lips together and frowned as though having a dark thought. “Or I could call my in-laws to come on down and join us. They could chase anybody away.” She grinned wryly. “Case in point, if my mother and father-in-law—or as I like to refer to them, the Wicked Witch of Wichita Falls and Toad-man—hadn’t decided to invade the happy Tuttle abode for an extended visit, you’d never have talked me into taking three whole weeks away from Ray and the kids.” She shook her head and eyed heaven. “Considering the thousands of my-son-could-have-done-much-better glares you saved me from suffering through, boss, I owe you big.”

Jen unclenched a fist from the wheel and patted her assistant’s arm. “Let’s call it even, Ruthie. I need your ability to keep a schedule and a confidence.” She took a quick scan of the place, on the secluded stretch of beach. “Considering we’re so isolated here, and considering I’ll practically be propositioning a steady stream of single, heterosexual men, I might need your proficiency in the martial arts.” Jen unlatched her door and stepped onto the gravel drive. “Speaking of men, I’m going to find out what’s what with that painter.” She slammed the car door and marched across the lawn toward her quarry.

Concentrating on the tall stranger who seemed oblivious to the fact that she’d driven up, Jen tromped toward him. As she stormed along the lawn, she hardly noticed the two-story brick house with its white trim, or the window boxes brimming with red geraniums. She tramped past a white cottage trimmed in blue, off to her left. More window boxes, overflowing with vivid reds, yellows and greens, went virtually unseen.

Jen was by nature a positive, confident and logical person. At the moment, however, she was less than her usual efficient self. She was on a tight timetable and more than a little angry. She would not be passed over for the promotion she deserved! Not this time! The tang of the sea rode in on the breeze but went virtually unnoted. Jen’s senses were wholly focused on the all-important task ahead of her. It was going to be difficult enough to do what she had to do without an audience. Ruthie could be trusted, but the stranger was a major question mark.

A six-and-a-half-foot-tall question mark!