One Bride Too Many: One Bride Too Many / One Groom To Go

“I don’t want to talk about it. What are you watching?”

“Bride of Frankenstein.”

“That about sums up my evening.”

“That bad?” She had this terrible guilt-producing reaction—glee.

“Have some more popcorn,” she offered.

“No, thanks. We had a big dinner, surf and turf at Trocadero’s.”

“You do a first date right. Didn’t she like it?”

“I guess she did. That’s not the problem.”

“What is?”

She stopped the VCR. She owned the tape and could watch it anytime. Truth to tell, he looked so glum the date had to have been interesting…to her.

“We went back to her apartment afterward.”

“Horrors,” she said dryly, not at all sure she wanted the intimate details.

“For coffee and lemon bars.”

“Exactly what I thought,” she lied.

He was dressed in tan pants and a black knit shirt that highlighted rippling muscles and dark, broody eyes. If Jillian had blown the date with Cole, her head had to be stuffed with sawdust.

“She slipped into something more comfortable—a fuzzy white robe shorter than my undershirts and fur-ball slippers that went plop, plop, plop.”

“A girl has to relax sometime. So you had coffee and dessert. She can’t make drinkable coffee? Her lemon bars were sour and soggy?”

“No, they both were perfect.”

“Of course, perfect. Why are you here, Cole? Do you have something to complain about?”

“You’ve never been to her place, right?”

“Right, she’s only an acquaintance. I hardly know her at all.”

“She has wall-to-wall…” He took a deep breath. “Stuffed animals.”

“Stuffed as in taxidermy?”

“No, the kind kids play with—plush bears and giraffes all over the furniture, dogs and kittens in wicker chairs, a duck, a whale, even a fuzzy turtle. There wasn’t any place to sit without an avalanche of toy animals plummeting down on my head.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“No.” He shook his head solemnly. His hair tumbled in spikes over his forehead, and she wanted to comb them back with her fingers. Maybe that was the point of the styling.

“When we got to her door, she warned me to be quiet so we wouldn’t wake the babies.”

“I didn’t know she was a single mother.”

“She isn’t. She’s a loony who talks baby talk to inanimate objects. Baby talk!”

Tess laughed…and laughed some more. Even when her ribs started to ache, she couldn’t stop laughing at the expression on his face.

“I knew nobody could be as perfect as she seems,” she said by way of explanation when his glum expression finally dulled her mirth.

“I didn’t come here for sympathy,” he said caustically. “I’m calling in your marker. You still owe me some introductions.”

“Some! I understood one before we played, and you met Jillian in my store. She counts.”

“I didn’t get any help from you.”

“I vouched for you.”

“Whatever that means. You still owe me.”

“If you’re serious about this…”

“Dead serious.”

“Then you have to give me some idea of the kind of person you’d like to meet. And why!”

“I’m not into lists.”

“Or explanations?”

“Object—matrimony. Isn’t that enough? I’d just like to meet some nice women.”

“Nice meaning pure, untouched, unsullied, sweet, virtuous, kind, generous…”

“You talk too much!”

He moved so fast she didn’t have time to protest…or time to enjoy the quick kiss he planted on her parted lips.

“Just serve me up a smorgasbord of eligible women. I’ll do the rest.”

Sure, she should sell him to her friends so he could break their hearts Bailey style.

5

HE COMPILED the list. Actually, he cheated a little by picking Zack’s brain. They agreed on the basics—a sense of humor, pleasant personality and appealing looks. Truth to tell, they both favored lush breasts and a backside that didn’t sag or spread, but what man didn’t? Cole could have included lips like Tess Morgan’s on his wish list, but he prudently decided to omit physical attributes.

He shouldn’t have kissed her. Friends didn’t smooch, especially not when the male friend wanted the female friend to find dates for him, a chore not to her liking. That was strange. Women he knew were usually so eager to play matchmaker, he’d assumed it was genetic.

He hadn’t planned to drive all the way to the Rockstone Mall on Monday when he had a full crew to supervise at the site, but he needed to make a trip to a home and garden superstore. He decided to run into the mall first, ask Tess to lunch, pick out what his crew needed, then eat and give her the list she insisted was necessary. What could be more efficient? He wouldn’t be making a special trip through heavy workweek-morning traffic just to see Tess.

This time he surveyed the situation before he barged into the Baby Mart. A blue-haired grandmotherly type was paying for some clothes at the counter, much better choices than the silly cow stuff. He should’ve been warned off Jillian when she took his caustic comment seriously and actually bought those dumb-looking quilts. Come to think of it, Tess owed him for helping her get rid of them.

The clerk looked about seventeen, round-faced with blunt-cut dark hair. No doubt Tess survived by using less expensive part-time help when she could. It was the only way a small business could make it today. He had the financial head in the partnership with Zack, and he was in awe of Tess’s success. Just keeping the door open in a retail store was a major accomplishment, and the Baby Mart seemed to be thriving.

“Can I help you, sir?”

The employee was prettier than the sum of her parts, too young for him, but…

“Cole, I didn’t expect to see you today. He’s not a customer, Dawn.” Tess shooed the young girl away.

“Have to make another trip to Builder’s Supply.” Not that he hadn’t bypassed a dozen sources closer to their construction site. “I thought maybe we could grab lunch. I have the list.”

“Okay, I guess.”

He’d expect the same degree of enthusiasm if he asked her to bait a hook with a live worm.

“Let’s go.” He stepped halfway behind the counter, took her hand and started to lead her out of the store.

“Wait, I need my purse.”

“No, you don’t. I’ll buy.”

“My comb…”

“Be serious, you look great.”

It was true. If he didn’t know her from way back as prim and proper Tess, he’d be fooled by the way her glossy reddish-brown hair fell forward on her shoulders and her lips formed a sultry pout. She looked like a good time waiting to happen.

He’d be glad when this wife hunt was over. He didn’t much like the way it made him feel to assess women as if they were beauty pageant contestants.

“I’ll be right back after lunch, Dawn,” she called as he steered her out of the store.

He drove from the mall parking lot to another equally crowded one at Builder’s Supply. Cole was impatient with traffic and in a hurry to get back to work.

“Just as I remembered.” He nodded at a little lunch wagon with a red-striped awning that sold spicy Italian sausages on hard rolls. “We can shop, eat and talk about the dates you’re arranging for me.”

To her credit, she waited patiently while he matched some trim for the twelve-unit condo he and Zack were building. After he loaded it on his truck, they walked to the lunch wagon, then carried paper sacks and disposable drink containers to the patio tables adjacent to the store’s garden center.

“Just like Trocadero’s—their parking lot, that is,” she teased.

“Wait until you taste the lemon-pepper mustard. This is more fun than fancy food with Jillian.”

His face suddenly felt hot. Why shouldn’t it? They were picnicking beside a couple of acres of asphalt paving that simmered under the intense heat of the noonday sun.

“I’ll test it.” She peeled the paper wrapping on the sourdough bun and dipped the end into a little cup of sandwich spread.

He watched, fascinated by her technique. Her tongue curled out and touched the yellowy mustard, then she savored the little dab with slow relish.

“You’re right!” She smiled impishly. “I can feel the buzz all the way to my toes.”

She bit into the sausage and roll with so much gusto he forgot about eating his sandwich until she finished and was sipping daintily at a cola.

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

“Do you want mine?” he asked.

“No, thank you. I just wondered why you’re not eating.”

He wondered himself. It’d been six hours since he grabbed a bowl of cereal for breakfast, and he was usually famished by noon.

“I’ll show you my list first,” he said.

He had to stand up to extract the folded yellow legal-pad paper from the left pocket of his jeans. Frowning skeptically, she watched him so closely he almost checked to see if he was unzipped.

“This is pretty silly,” he grumbled, sitting back on the flimsy plastic chair. He took a huge bite of sausage and roll, vigorously chewing it to mask his discomfort.

“Not at all. I have some people in mind. In fact, I have the list in my purse, but you didn’t give me time to get it.”

“Why bring your list to work? You weren’t expecting me.”

Her cheeks heated up, and he remembered how much he used to enjoy baiting her. He didn’t quite manage to hide a grin when she picked up one of the paper napkins and scrubbed at her mouth, removing the last trace of lipstick.

“Did I get all the mustard?” she asked.

“All but a tiny dab here.” He tweaked the end of her nose with his finger.

“I didn’t get any on my nose!”

“Are you absolutely sure of that?”

“Not without a mirror,” she grudgingly admitted, “and, of course, I don’t have one because I don’t have my purse. Okay, let’s see it.”

She reached toward the sheet of paper he still held in his left hand.

“Don’t laugh,” he cautioned, not that she could be intimidated.

“I lost my sense of humor when you dazzled me with your pool hall prowess,” she complained.

He handed over the list, not sure whether to be embarrassed by the characteristics written in a dark scrawl with a thick-leaded carpenter’s pencil.

“Am I reading right?” she asked. “Number four is inexperienced?”

“Maybe a bad word.” He felt six inches high.

“No, I get your meaning. You want to be able to teach her a thing or two.”

“Not exactly!” He choked.

“Chew your food.”

She didn’t want to do this, so she was making him suffer, another thing Tess did very, very well.

“Are you sure you didn’t copy this from a medieval handbook for husbands?”

“Let’s just say, if her little black book has fewer pages than mine, I’ll be happy.”

“Like that wouldn’t apply to every unmarried woman I know.”

Was it possible sweet little Tess was nurturing a grudge for all the times he’d provoked her in high school? She was certainly stomping on his list with hobnail boots. He wasn’t going to give her any more ammo by revealing his grandfather’s horror of tainted women.

“You’re not making this easy for me,” he mumbled.

“Sorry. We both want this to be over. I like requirement number nine—family oriented. I adore mine, especially Erika and Erin.”

“Your nieces, right?”

“Yeah.” When she smiled without the snide expression, her face lit up. “Here’s a practical one. You like to be outdoors, so naturally you would enjoy a woman who shares your interest.”

“I’m glad you approve,” he said dryly, wrapping the uneaten portion of his bun so she wouldn’t notice. Anyone could lose his appetite once in a while.

“Several of the names on my list qualify so far,” she said.

“Who?”

“Let me compare your list with mine and decide who’s perfect for you. Then I’ll see if any of my friends are interested in meeting you.”

“I don’t want a perfect woman. Someone like you would be fine.”

“Thanks a lot…I think.”

Whether from the heat of the day or internal combustion, her cheeks were glowing sunburn-red.

“I didn’t mean it as an insult.” Dang, had he made her squirm this much in high school? He chugged the rest of his root beer, which he didn’t like and didn’t remember ordering. “By someone like you, I meant a nice, attractive woman with interests of her own and not a whole lot of dating experience.”

“How do you know I haven’t dated multitudes of men since you knew me in school?”

“I don’t know. Sorry.” A guy does know, he thought, trying not to let her see his smugness. “Why are you making this so complicated?”

“I have too many possibilities on my list—friends, sisters of friends, cousins of friends, friends of friends, customers, friends of customers, relatives of…”

He laughed defensively. “That narrows it down to all the eligible women in the greater Detroit area.”

“Not quite, but I have at least a dozen good prospects. I’ll mull it over, then negotiate.”

She stood and brushed crumbs from the lap of her short, swingy, flowered skirt, forcing him to notice those spectacular legs again.

“Negotiate, as in union contract?”

“You have to realize, some of my friends may not be interested in meeting you.”

He did the wrong thing—he laughed.

“I have to get back to work,” she said forcefully. “By the way, I do want to thank you again for letting me preview the new product line. It was quite an experience.”

“One I’m trying to forget,” Cole muttered.

TESS WENT BACK to work seriously considering signing up for a yoga class. Nothing she’d learned in the self-assertive discipline of kickboxing had helped when Cole showed up at the store without warning for the second time. She was embarrassed to remember her pounding heart and racing pulse.

He’d startled her. That could be the only possible explanation for her purely involuntary adrenaline rush.

Instead of working on the next week’s work schedule, she laid Cole’s list and hers side by side on her desk in the back room. The numbered lineup of unattached friends spilled over onto the back of her page, even though she’d printed their names in ant-size letters. She flipped the paper and put her own name at the bottom of the list in tiny, barely legible script. She belonged in this anthill, too.

Cole would get his fill of the eager and the eligible. Meeting Mr. Right was the Mount Olympus of dating, and the older a woman got, the harder it was to scale up to where the Greek gods were hiding.

She stabbed at the paper with the pen point, obliterating her name. What had she gotten herself into?

Anyway, she said she would set him up, and she would, and why had Cole wrapped his sausage and bun instead of eating it? Did being with her zap his appetite, or was it the prospect of an endless string of blind dates? More puzzling, why was he gung ho to have her help him meet women when he didn’t have the slightest bit of trouble getting acquainted with them wherever he went? She didn’t buy his excuse about not finding nice women on his own.

She could keep him supplied with a new date every night of the week and double book him for lunch and dinner on the weekend. She’d begin with friends from high school. They’d at least know him by reputation—the Bailey twins’ legacy had endured at least until Tess’s class graduated, if not longer.

Lucinda deserved to sit on a jellyfish on her tropical paradise honeymoon. If it weren’t for that ludicrous dress, Tess’s bow wouldn’t have been caught in the trunk and Cole wouldn’t have paid the least bit of attention to her. Now she was really stuck—matchmaker to a man of many conquests.

She flipped the sheet, wrote her name above contestant number one, then blacked it out letter by letter.

The phone interrupted her as she turned the n in Morgan into an inky square.

“Baby Mart, how may I help you?” she automatically answered.

“Ms. Tess Morgan?” The woman spoke with diligently cultivated culture.

“This is she.” She couldn’t say, “Yeah, it’s me,” to this voice.

“This is Dorothea Danzig, Mr. Marsh Bailey’s personal assistant. Mr. Bailey would be honored if you would attend a reception to launch the new catalog this Saturday evening.”

“Me?” So much for outclassing the classy voice on the other end of the line.

“You are the owner of Baby Mart?”

“Yes, I am.” She said that satisfactorily, hardly a gasp of astonishment in her businesslike response.

“Cocktails from seven to nine in the Windsor Room of the Sherman Arms Hotel, then dinner at nine. May I add your name to the guest list, Ms. Morgan? Mr. Bailey will provide transportation, of course.”

“I’d be very pleased to attend.” Did that sound all right, or was there a little wheeze in pleased?

“Splendid. Your limo will be there at 6:30 p.m., if you’ll be so kind as to give me your home address.”

Home address? Yes, she had one! She gave it triumphantly.

She was going to ride in a limo, a limo as in prom night, wedding…funeral procession!

“You may, of course, bring an escort if you like. I believe you’re a friend of Mr. Bailey’s grandson, but it’s completely optional whether you choose to invite someone. The event is black tie.”

Tess repeated the date and time, scribbling them on the margin of her list as the call ended.

Was it because she’d liked the portable potty? Or because lime green reminded her of lizards, pond scum and diet lime soda? More likely, Cole’s grandfather was trying to use her to entice his grandson into taking an interest in the business. The Bailey men were leading her on a flimsy rope bridge over very sticky quicksand. She could only hope her common sense was an adequate safety net.

GETTING DATES for Cole proved as easy as locating a free cat. Friday night was a snap. Tess had gotten reacquainted with a classmate, Jordan Collins, who’d recently moved back to the area. She was on the thin side, but Cole hadn’t made a point about size or shape.

“I had a huge crush on Cole in high school,” Jordan admitted when Tess called her that evening after work. “But didn’t everyone? He was so adorable in a naughty sort of way.”

“Certainly not me,” Tess lied.

Saturday was even easier to book. A real friend, Margo Hendricks, volunteered when Tess groused to her over lunch on Tuesday. She’d never met Cole, but a longtime relationship with a live-in boyfriend had fizzled a few weeks earlier.

“I hate all men, and I hate blind dates even more,” Margo said. “But if I do this for you, we’ll be even for all the time you spent listening to me sob about Rick.”

“You’ll be perfect,” Tess declared.

She didn’t have a free minute to tackle a really serious problem until Friday. What should she wear to a reception at the Sherman Arms? She took a long lunch break and covered the stores in the mall, deciding she really couldn’t afford five hundred dollars for a midnight-blue evening gown shimmering with a touch of deep violet even though it made her look thin and feel like glamour personified.

After work she resorted to desperate measures—she went to her sister. Karen agreed to loan anything she owned in exchange for Tess keeping Erika and Erin overnight sometime soon so she and Duke could relive their wedding night at Martino’s Resort and Spa.

“You don’t know what pleasure is until you bask in one of their heart-shaped hot tubs,” Karen enthused.

“I can’t decide which dress to wear,” Tess said, trying not to imagine Cole rising up in a cloud of mist and leading her to a bed covered in black satin sheets. “I’ll have to take some home.”

“Come back tomorrow. It isn’t as if Royal Oak is as far away as the moon.”

“Can’t. Have to work in the morning. Then get my hair done.”

“A French twist, have it piled up in a French twist.”

“Maybe.” It was a good idea, but if she gave her big sister any encouragement, Karen would want to choose everything from eye shadow to toenail polish.

By Friday evening, Tess still hadn’t decided. Five of Karen’s best dresses were spread out on her bed, and she’d just taken off a sixth when the door buzzer summoned her. She slipped into a short pink robe and hoped she didn’t have a visitor who expected to come inside.

Why was she not surprised to see Cole’s image in her spy hole? Was this part of his blind-date ritual, reporting to her on the state of the date?

She opened the door a crack.

“I’m not dressed.”

“I don’t mind.” He sounded sheepish but adamant.

“Good or bad date?”

“Maybe a few suggestions so you can do better next week.”

“I didn’t enlist for the duration of the war!”

“You didn’t enlist at all. You were drafted. Got any popcorn?”

“I’m not dressed for company.” How could she resist his pathetic smile? “Oh, come in.”

“I’ll pretend you’re at the beach. Guess you’d have to take off more for that. Would you be more comfortable if I took my shirt off?”

“Don’t!”

“Just kidding, not that I have much sense of humor left after that date. I thought she was going to attack me with a steak knife.”

“Oh, dear. Let me put some popcorn in the microwave. You’re kidding about the knife, right?”

“I took her to a place that specializes in steaks. She doesn’t eat meat.”

“That’s not unusual.” She set the timer, conscious of Cole hovering near the sleeve of her robe.

“She doesn’t wear leather, she doesn’t step on bugs and she only eats salad made with produce that comes with six different labels guaranteeing no chemicals were used in producing it. She made the waiter bring an empty bag from the kitchen. The lettuce flunked.”

“It’s smart to be careful about what you put in your body.”

Tess felt defensive. After all, he was the one insisting she find dates for him. Could she help it if there were no perfect women on the dating circuit?

“I have no problem with vegetarians, but when I order a twenty-five-dollar porterhouse, I don’t want it seasoned with sarcastic remarks.”

“She lectured, huh? No need to be testy about it with me.”

The popcorn bag inflated, and she tried to guess the moment when the kernels were through exploding but not yet scorched.

“Why do you want popcorn if you’re stuffed with prime beef?”

“I didn’t eat most of it. There’s more.”

“It gets worse?”

“Jordan likes to purify her mind through abstinence—no drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, chocolate…”

“Good for her. She sounds like a great marital candidate.”

“No sex.”

“Oh. Are you sure…I mean, you want someone who doesn’t sleep around.”

“No sex, period.” He looked grim.

“Come on, you’re making that up.”

“Except, of course, we do have to consider the future of the human race, so a weekend schedule is acceptable—after marriage, of course.” He started pacing, hands hooked in his pockets.

“Jordan was pretty intense in high school, now that I think about it. Made straight As, worked as a candy striper at the hospital. Now she has a good job in the insurance industry.”

“She probably spends her days denying payment for doctor-ordered treatment. I won’t go into her health care theories except to say they involve a lot of yogurt. She has naturally curly hair and…” She followed his pacing into the kitchen, then put out her arms like a crossing guard to stop him.

“And she weighs ninety pounds with her pockets full of nails.” He slumped over a kitchen chair.

“Maybe you’re making snap judgments because you really don’t want any blind dates.” She stood over him feeling like a prosecutor with a guilty defendant.

“Untrue. And I’m not being picky. I can’t have a long-term relationship with a woman who calls me a Jack the Ripper of sweet-faced bovines.”

“Speaking of that, did I thank you for helping me unload the comatose-cow quilts?”

“No, and don’t change the subject. She really did call me a serial cattle killer, and she was pointing a steak knife at me when she said it.” He pointed at her little wooden rack of knives on the counter.