Bridegroom On Her Doorstep

She jerked to face him. “And you’re an expert on women?”

His knowing smile was his answer.

She yanked on his hold. “Well, I’m not trying to attract your type!”

“Honey, when it comes to what men want in a woman, I’m the only type.” He let her go and reached around behind her head, slipping several pins from her hair. The stuff began to unwrap from its tight coil.

“What do you think—”

“Shut up and pay attention.” He tugged the hair gently until it came loose and cascaded down her back. “Shake it out.”

She stared at him as though he was speaking some bizarre foreign tongue.

When it became obvious she wasn’t computing his command, he gripped her shoulders and turned her around. He released her to brush his fingers through the hair. The texture was lush and silky against his fingertips. The brown locks were longer than he’d thought, reaching several inches past her shoulders.

Her hair swirled and swayed in the breeze as he turned her to face him and reached for the top button of her shirt. He had it halfway undone before she slapped his hand away. “That is enough of your expert handling! I can unbutton my own clothes.”

He stepped back to allow her more space and gave her a dubious look. “Do it then. Your dress code is right out of the Temperance League handbook.” That might be true, but at the moment his attention was drawn to her hair, buffeted by the breeze. The stuff he’d dismissed as “dull brown” sparkled with auburn highlights in the setting sun, disquieting him. Taking her down a peg had him a little unsteady.

The blasted button he’d halfway dislodged opened in the stiff, sea breeze, and the Oxford cloth wagged in the wind, tormenting him with flashes of soft, pale flesh. His intention to make fun of her shifted abruptly to an uncomfortable masculine arousal. He took another step back, not to give her personal space, but to place her out of reach.

These small changes in her appearance suddenly felt like a cunning come-on. Irritated, he reminded himself that he had made those changes to annoy and ruffle her, not to turn himself on. Mentally shaking himself to get his head on straight, he indicated her with a dismissive wave. “You’re never going to get an applicant to accept your husband position unless you sell yourself.” His voice sounded gruff in his ears. He was sorry he’d started his I’m-such-an-expert prank. He didn’t know who was suffering more, her or him. “A smart woman shows a sexy hint of what the man’s getting.”

Jen tossed her head, all the better to show off that shiny, velvety hair. Did she know what that little act of defiance did to him? “You think I should do a striptease,” she demanded, eyes flashing. “Are you suggesting all men carry their brains in their trousers?”

“Don’t kid yourself, darling.” Darling? He’d never called a female darling in his life. He cleared his throat, forging on with the lesson, though it had lost any semblance of entertainment. “Men are visual creatures.” Too damn true! He flinched as her flapping blouse caught the wind and billowed to expose the lacy edge of her bra. He forced his gaze to her sparking eyes. “You can offer all the dental, medical and retirement benefits in the world, but if you don’t give out a little T and A you’ll bomb.”

“That shows how much you know!” she shouted. “Marriages based on mutual betterment are formed every day. My parents, as an example, are a fine-tuned machine. They have the same goals and values, are a stable couple and they’ve never been mushy or gooey over each other.”

“Seeing you, I don’t doubt it.”

Her face tightened, her eyes glimmering with hurt. Though she was to blame for his discomfort and frustration, Cole experienced a stab of guilt for that last dig. It had been unfair. But it drove him crazy how she could stand there and be so sterile about something so fraught with intimacy and emotion as marriage.

She blinked back threatening tears, her expression turning obstinate. “I don’t know why I’m bothering to tell you this, but if you insist on emotionalism, my grandmother and grandfather’s history proves my point. Grandma was a widow with two small boys and no income. Grandpa was a widower with a farm to run. They got married out of mutual need. To make a long story short, they had four more children. One was my dad. And somewhere along the way, they fell madly in love. Grandma and Grandpa became the gooiest couple I’ve ever seen.”

She shoved wind-tossed hair out of her face, her features rebellious. “So, for your information, Mr. Noone, love can grow between two people with mutual beliefs and goals, if they work at it. I think that kind of love is much more—more trustworthy, more genuine than blind, irrational hysteria! Besides, I…” She hesitated, then shook her head. “That’s all I intend to say on the subject.”

He wondered what she’d left unsaid, but shrugged it off. “You seem to have it all figured out.”

She eyed him with obvious skepticism, as though she didn’t believe he was convinced. “I’m not a person who does things without great thought.”

“And you’re planning to have children with this man?” That was a question he hadn’t expected to ask. But now that he had, he was curious about the answer.

Her lips parted with shock at his bluntness, but she regained herself and nodded. “If it’s any of your business, yes. I want children.”

He couldn’t believe it. Here she was advertising for a husband to gain a promotion, and she had the temerity to suggest she planned to bring children into the scheme, too? “How deluded can you be?” he demanded. “An educated, intelligent, successful man is not likely to defer his career to become your wife and nanny. Maybe you’d better stick to men of retirement age who’ll be willing to stay home with junior. Or find some terminally employment-challenged guy who can’t hold on to a good job.”