A Baby...Maybe? & How to Hunt a Husband Read online

  “As they say in the advertising world,” Clay said flippantly, “any publicity is good publicity.”

  “Publicity is over. Take the billboards down. Today.”

  “I can’t do that today. No one works on Saturday.”

  “I work on Saturday.”

  “You’re the customer, but I’m telling you right now, you’ll be sorry you didn’t go with the plan.”

  “What I’m sorry about is that I’m going to have to listen to Cathy rag on me about losing another cell phone.”

  “I can understand the cell phone issue. And maybe that’s just what you need. Time without a phone, to think, and you might reconsider the advertising campaign. When you find your phone, call me and let me know if you really want to take the billboards down.”

  “I do.”

  Clay was already back at his car. “I’ll wait to hear the final decision.”

  “I told you my final decision,” he shouted to Clay, but the man had already slammed the door shut and was heading back on the freeway.

  What was with these people? Didn’t anyone listen anymore?

  CARA ARRIVED at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport around midmorning. In her excitement and rush to leave the apartment and get to the airport, she hadn’t eaten breakfast.

  She would have had something at the airport, but her gold coins kind of wreaked havoc with the new heavy-duty security in place. Every time she walked through the metal detectors, X-ray alarm buzzers sounded. Off came the earrings, off came the brooch, off came the necklace and finally the bracelet. The buzzers still rang. Her belt was next and then her loafers.

  Finally, off came the safety pin she had used in place of the button she hadn’t time to sew back on her khakis. That final humiliation and embarrassment was almost worth having to endure when the buzzer was silent. They gave her back the button and kept the safety pin.

  It took a full ten minutes and the help of a stranger to get all the jewelry back on. By then there was no time to grab a snack.

  She’d been given cheese and crackers on the first plane, and peanuts on the second, but that didn’t do much to combat her hunger. By the time she landed, she was absolutely famished. She retrieved her luggage, then she had to wait at the car-rental counter as they processed her paperwork.

  “I’m sorry,” the rental agent said. “You had ordered an economy sedan, and we don’t have any left.”

  Cara stared at her. “What am I supposed to do?”

  The lady smiled, and in the brightest Texas accent she said, “Don’t you worry about any little thing. You have your choice—at the same price and terms as the economy car—of either a minivan or a Mustang.”

  Cara’s stomach growled. Normally she would have been embarrassed, except all she could think about was a Mustang. “Mustang,” she said before common sense told her to take the minivan.

  She signed the papers and was given a map and directions to Mama Jo’s Bar-B-Q, the restaurant where she was to meet Kate. The shuttle bus dropped her in front of the car she would call her own for the next nine days. All thoughts of food and hunger instantly fled the moment she saw her Mustang. Not just any Mustang either. A bright red convertible. This was about as close to heaven as a woman could get.

  Here she was, a meek, mild kindergarten teacher who always did for others and never made waves. A good daughter who tried to please. Now, she had run away from home, kind of, and she was going to be driving a Mustang convertible. What was happening to her? Cara didn’t even feel one little twinge of guilt for running away, leaving only the note to ease her poor mother’s mind. That almost bothered her because she should have felt guilty for not feeling guilty. But right now, all she felt was the hot smooth surface of the hood of the Mustang and this incredible excitement about the nine blissful days she’d spend here in Texas. No mother nagging her. No introductions to fixer-uppers as candidates for marriage. Just peace. And boy, did she need peace.

  She carefully followed the directions to the restaurant. She had been to Houston once before, and it was just as she remembered. Expansive. The city went on and on. She remembered what Tony had told her once, that Houston was so big, that when you finally reached the end of the city limits, you were in Dallas. If the drive she was taking to Pegleg was any indication, she figured Tony was speaking the truth.

  Cara finally passed the town of Stafford, and then Missouri City, and by the time she saw the second Sugar Land exit and the first Pegleg exit, she had been on the road for over ninety minutes. The excitement and anticipation pumping through her was giving way to the overwhelming hunger deep inside her. She could have sworn that she had smelled barbecue miles and miles away. It must have been traveling on a phantom cloud. Yet, as she got closer to Pegleg, the scent of cooking beef became stronger. Maybe it wasn’t just a phantom cloud.

  Cara took the correct exit and turned into the parking lot. It was like nothing she had ever seen before. The lot took up at least a city block. She had to drive around the perimeter and the aisles at least twice before a car pulled out, leaving her a space to park. She pressed a button and the convertible’s top rose up, then dropped into place. She grabbed her purse, got out of the car. There was a button on the key chain to lock the door. Remote locks—it was incredible. She couldn’t believe her luck.

  A long line of customers were giving their names to the hostess, just hoping to get a table. It took a full five minutes to get to the hostess, who told her the wait for a table would be at least another hour.

  “Do you have a phone I can use?” Cara asked.

  “Sure.” The young woman signaled her to come around the counter and pointed to the black desk phone.

  “I’m here. I made it,” Cara said when Kate answered the phone.

  “I’m about twenty minutes from the restaurant. I’m on my way.”

  The hostess smiled at Cara as she walked to the front of the counter. “There’s iced tea, soda, water and some nibblers.” The lady pointed to the table off to the side. “Help yourself, and if you want, you can wait out on the patio.”

  Cara filled a tall glass with ice and poured tea out of one of the glass pitchers. She placed a pile of spicy-hot chicken wings on a very large plate. They would never have plates that large in Erie. She dabbed ranch dressing over the top layer of wings and, satisfied the dressing had dripped through the layers of chicken, she grabbed a stack of napkins and followed several other customers outside.

  The sun shone so brightly here in Texas. Only a few fluffy cottonball-like clouds scattered here and there marred the perfection of the huge expanse of blue sky.

  When she had left Erie that morning it had been raining, the temperature close to freezing. The blue worsted-wool overcoat she had worn for the past five winters now rested in the Mustang’s trunk. Her hair, usually pulled back in a tight ponytail, hung long and curly down her back, touching below her waist.

  For the first time in months, maybe years, Cara felt free, unencumbered, and she loved every second of that feeling. She knew it would be only a matter of time before her old routine would return with a force so great it would knock her over. She had nine days. That was all. The extent of her freedom. Then back to Erie she’d go. Back to her old school, back to her old life. Best not waste her freedom by thinking about her life in Erie.

  The patio was crowded. The tables full. That didn’t surprise Cara, considering the hour-long wait. She walked around the perimeter of the patio until she found an empty spot along the decorative wrought-iron fence. She balanced her plate on top of one of the spikes on the fence so she could use both hands to wrap a napkin around the condensation of the tea glass. She sipped the tea and looked out toward the freeway. That’s when she saw the billboard.

  It was a shaped like a cow. Its eyelashes were blinking, and the udders, which seemed to be sparkling in the sunlight, were moving, too. It was so sweet. And then, as if it were a sign from above, across the cow’s side were the words Noble Sperm Bank Association.

 
Thoughtfully, Cara circled her palm over where a baby would grow. She looked at the sign again. A sperm bank. That was it. That was the answer to what she needed. It wouldn’t be an illicit affair that created a child, it would be a laboratory. Perfectly innocent, nothing about it would bring embarrassment to her parents.

  She had been thinking about having a baby for years, and now for the first time it seemed as if it could be done practically without having to marry one of Cecilia’s less-than-stellar choices. Yes, she would have to weigh the pros and cons of being a single mother. And she would—carefully. She’d get all the information first and then make a decision. An informed decision.

  She would have to ask a lot of questions. Of course, that posed the next problem. What do you ask? “Hey, I’d like to have a vial of sperm?” Or perhaps, “Brother can you spare a cup?” Would she hand over a container and say, “Fill ’er up”? Maybe that would have been good when there were full-service gas stations, but there weren’t any of those anymore. She’d bet there weren’t full-service sperm banks either. Not the kind where you could bring in your own gallon container and have them pour in the fuel, so to speak. Oh, who knew? She didn’t.

  Anyway, all this worrying was silly. Why worry about that now? First things first. She’d go in, she’d ask questions, she’d get the information. After she had the information, she’d leave the sperm bank with her head held high—because there was nothing embarrassing or degrading about using a sperm bank—go back to her hotel room and mull over the pros and cons. She’d even sleep on it for a night or two and then tell them yes.

  Cara checked to make sure her plate was still balancing on the railing, and it looked fine. She bent down to get a piece of paper and a pen out of her purse to write down the Noble Sperm Bank’s phone number and address. That’s when she heard a very deep masculine voice utter a very naughty word.

  She straightened up to give that deep voice a talking-to, the way she would to her students. There were certain words a person didn’t say in mixed company. When she did, she came face-to-face with a pair of sky-blue eyes and a head and shoulders covered in chicken wings. She glanced down at the railing. “You knocked down my wings,” she said.

  “I don’t think so, lady.”

  “They were right here. And now they’re on you. Where did you come from?”

  “Right there.” He pointed to the grass on the other side of the patio. “Minding my own business. I was bombed.”

  “Yes, you were,” she said. She didn’t know what else she could say except, “But I didn’t do it. At least, not on purpose.”

  He cast her a doubtful glance.

  “I didn’t.” She had to catch her breath. When he stood in a full and upright position he was tall. She figured that out because the patio was a little bit above ground level and he towered over her. Then she notice a cell phone in his hand and the cell phone seemed kind of flattened.

  “I didn’t touch your telephone,” she stated, pointing to the crunched accessory, being held together by only a few wires.

  “I know that. I was down here looking for the phone when I got pelted.” He reached down to the ground and brought up her plate. He held it out to her. “I believe this is yours.”

  She scrunched up her eyes, and her lips had contoured themselves into a pained expression. She held out her hand. “I believe it is.”

  He handed her the greasy plate stained with barbecue hot sauce and ranch dressing. She picked off several blades of grass and dropped them on the ground.

  “I believe these are mine, too.” She plucked one wing out of his hair, then another and another. He did nothing to help her. Just stood there, his lips set in a sardonic leer. She had to pause a moment before she went for the shoulders. Touching him with her fingers made the muscles in her belly jump around, do a dance, make her kind of queasy. Which was strange since her hands and her belly were pretty far apart. The nausea had to be from lack of food. That was probably it. Although it didn’t account for her shallow breathing and inability to fill up her lungs.

  She took a wing off his shoulder. His muscle tightened beneath her touch. He rotated them, which sent several chicken wings plunging downward.

  There was one on top of his belt buckle. She reached for it, but he brushed her hand away, taking care of that area himself.

  “I’m so sorry,” Cara said softly. “I’ll be happy to…”

  “I can do this one myself.” He may have said that, but he made it sound like a challenge.

  “I was going to say I’d be happy to pay.”

  “Of course you were. That’s what I was thinking you were going to say.”

  “Well, I was.”

  “The food was yours, not mine.”

  “I meant for the cleaning bill.”

  “Don’t be silly.” His voice, deep and kind of gravelly, made her want to lean forward, closer, made her wish he’d talk in longer sentences. She didn’t detect much of a Texas accent.

  He was looking beyond her, waving at people. She heard a few comments like, “Way to go, Doc,” and “Did you miss your lips?” This man, the doc, waved and took the teasing all pretty good-naturedly considering she had clobbered him with food and everyone knew red sauce never washed out of anything.

  Cara peeled the napkins off the side of her tea glass. Although they were thin and would hardly do any good, she still reached out again, brushed his stained shoulders with the limp wet napkins. Not one of her better ideas, she realized too late, after the splatters had spread into smears and the napkins tore into gross little pieces.

  “I’m so sorry.” She barely could get the words out. “I just want to crawl into a hole and die of embarrassment.”

  “No, you don’t,” he countered.

  “You’re right.” She balled what was left of the napkins and put the mess on the plate, crowning the pile of dirty wings. “It seemed like the nice thing, the right thing to say, though.” She gave him her best smile as she did a “I’m a woman, I don’t care what you think” half shrug. She’d seen it done on TV many times. It looked good.

  “Very nice.”

  “Thank you. Can I ask you a question?” she said.

  “Ask away.”

  “What were you really doing down there?” She picked up her glass of iced tea. The glass was wet and her hands were sticky. She wiped the moisture from the sides of the glass. Her hand shook a little and that surprised her. She couldn’t possibly be nervous, could she? With a man? That would be silly. “Were you trying to look under my skirt?”

  “What? Do you think I’m stupid?”

  She shrugged.

  “If anyone is being stupid, lady, it’s you.”

  “That’s not a very nice thing to say.”

  “Well, you’re not wearing a skirt.”

  “Oh.” She grinned at him. “I’m on vacation.”

  “And I was on a mission. Which I had already told you about.” He waved the broken phone. “My assistant would have killed me if I lost another one.”

  Rex hadn’t needed to be showered with chicken, hot sauce and ranch dressing, thank you very much. Then again, in front of him, separated only by an iron railing was one stunning-looking female, and if he had to be hit on the head with chicken, she was the one he’d like to be doing it. For once, he would consider thanking Cathy and her constant pestering that had sent him back out looking for his lost cell phone.

  The lady on the patio was small. Very small. But after a cursory gaze down her figure, he decided she wasn’t small everywhere. Not where it counted. Her brown hair looked mighty thick and heavy and hung down past her waist. Strands of hair fell over her shoulders, covering her breasts. She flipped it behind her by shaking her head and using the back of her wrist—the only part of her hand not covered in sauce. When she did that, the sun reflected off the gold around her wrist, neck and ears, almost blinding him with its brightness. All the jewelry seemed to made of coins that jangled with her movements. If the coins were real and not the hollow cheap stuff
you could buy at the five-and-dime, then the gold had to weigh more than she did. He was impressed by her ability to stand straight and not be weighed down by hair and jewelry.

  And that hair. When she tossed it all behind her, revealing her breasts and all the gold, he had to admit that he liked that. A lot. It was nice. Real nice. The curls, not her breasts. Although her breasts, from what he could tell by their shape under the sweater, were something he could be real comfortable with exploring further. They looked mighty good, too.

  Her small nose was straight except at the tip where it turned up very slightly. Her chin was rounded and at this moment quivering, as if she was trying not to laugh. Her brown eyes were big, almond-shaped and fringed with black lashes so long they almost touched her eyebrows.

  She tilted her head a little to the right, squinted against the sun, and then her lips moved and she spoke, which by itself wasn’t unusual, since lips did move when people spoke.

  However, her lips— Man-oh-man, how did a guy put into thought what his body signaled when he watched those lips move? How did he describe a basic need and desire? If he could have grabbed her, lay one on her, and suck the living daylights out of those full pink lips he would have. And if he did that, she’d let him and she’d like it and beg for more. Then again, so would he.

  “Where are you from?” he asked.

  “I’m not from here.”

  He didn’t need her to tell him that. Her hair, long and mostly straight, gave that away. Pegleg women were known for their big hairdos, not anything as natural as what this lady had crowning her head.

  “Where?”

  “East.”

  “As in Louisiana?”

  “No, east.”

  He wasn’t stupid. “Louisiana is east.” Females. This one was ornery, but sexy as all get-out. So he set a smile on his face, one he hoped reeked of friendliness and not lust, and tried to picture her naked. He made no apology for that either. He was, after all, first and foremost, a guy. A guy who could tell that the woman standing there looking so cute was very interested in him. “I was wondering,” he started, his accent getting a little thicker, a little more Texas, “Miss Person From the East…” His voice trailed off when the lady turned away from him and waved at Kate Donetti.