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

  Which is exactly why Rex had stayed in the tree. If he had gotten onto her balcony, that sheet wouldn’t have stayed on her. It would have been on the floor with them on top of it, using the sheet the way a sheet was intended to be used. For lovin’.

  His fingertips itched with the desire to touch her, to feel her, to smell her. Last night, when she let him touch her hair, he’d gotten hard. Excited over hair? He had, and the sensation had been very uncomfortable. He wanted to do it all over again. Only more.

  He would have gone back this morning if he’d had the time. He definitely planned on climbing that tree again tonight. He figured he’d move a little closer to the balcony this time and see how she took his advancement. He didn’t want to move too fast now, didn’t want to scare her.

  Rex waved at the old regulars sitting on the porch waiting for him to unlock the door. Tigger—the traitor—was there, acting as if he was some superior being, having information the others didn’t know but wished they did.

  Rex parked in the employee lot at the back of the building, then walked around to the front. All the men had keys and could go inside without waiting for him, but they never did.

  “You’re late again, Doc,” Tigger said, tapping his watch with his finger. “You go back and see the little lady after you left me at the office last night?”

  He heard snickers from the other men, which meant Tigger didn’t keep Rex’s evening adventures a secret for long. Rex did what he had to do when it came to the old guys, he ignored them.

  He held the door open for them as they shuffled inside. “You know everything, Tig. Did I?”

  “I’ll never tell. Your secret’s safe with me.”

  That was a joke and they both knew it. “The only safe secret seems to be the lady’s name.”

  “What you say?” Tigger held a hand to his ear.

  “Get inside.” As frustrating as the men were, Rex loved each and every one as family.

  “You need to get your damn watch fixed,” Jasper Carter told him, hustling to make sure he got his favorite chair. “You’re late gettin’ here.”

  “No, I’m not,” Rex said. They had the same argument every week. He had expected the men to take it from there, and start their bickering, the same bickering they did every Sunday, only this day, they stood around in a half circle looking at him. “What?” he asked.

  “Who is she?”

  “Who is who?”

  “The girl you was chasin’ when you got caught up in the tree with your pants down yesterday,” Jasper said.

  “What are you telling them?” Rex turned to Tigger. “I didn’t have my pants down.”

  “I ain’t told them nothin’.” Tigger turned to his friends and winked.

  “I did,” Barbara said as she walked into the office.

  “Where have you been?” Rex asked.

  She glared at him, as if to say, “Who are you to ask me where I was?” But she didn’t say that, she only said, “It’s none of your business. I called in sick. That’s all you need to know.”

  Tigger coughed.

  The men shuffled toward their chairs.

  Rex said, “My mother’s going to fire you, Barbara.”

  She didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to. The look she sent him said it all.

  Barbara left the reception area and walked toward the back of the building. Rex turned on the lights and computer, then went into the small kitchen to brew a pot of coffee. Cathy had Sundays and Mondays off, and always urged him to do the same. Or at the very least take Sunday off. He couldn’t though. Livestock and ranchers worked seven days a week, and he worked the same hours as his clients.

  Besides, if he closed up on Sundays, the old men sitting in his waiting room would have to find somewhere else to park their asses and argue. Frankly, Rex would miss them. Except for Tigger. Right now he’d like to punish the old guy and ground him from the office for a week.

  But he wouldn’t. The old men meant a lot to him. They also had a stake in his business. In LuLu to be exact. LuLu the prize bull. The bull that had been owned by one Jeb Stevens, formerly of Montana and lately of Miami Beach. The bull that had gone on the auction block and sold for seven hundred fifty thousand dollars—if he said three-quarters of a million dollars, it made LuLu sound even more valuable. The bull that Rex now owned in partnership with his father and the seven men in his waiting room, who all had staked their retirement savings on LuLu and the semen he’d produce. Not because they thought the bull was a great bargain. Hell no. They all thought Rex had paid too much. But they believed in Rex, believed in his dream, and wanted Rex to succeed. If it took some overpriced bull to do that, well, then that’s what it took.

  LuLu was fed organically grown grain. No impurities had ever passed the bull’s lips. The cattle on Rex’s ranch were fed the same mixture. All top-quality beef and first-rate breeding stock. Now, Tony Donetti was breeding Angus cattle for his own restaurant, and he also used the same mix of feed. It was superior feed for superior beef.

  An Angus was an Angus, but LuLu was a Galloway. Before he had come into Rex’s possession, LuLu had sired hundreds of championship stock cattle. Rex had had him about a year now, and the bull was well on his way to topping that record. Not the old-fashioned way though, but through the artificial insemination process.

  Not that Rex prevented LuLu from having his way with a cow. LuLu just wasn’t interested in cows. He was a million-dollar—or damn close to it—gay bull. Which didn’t matter to anybody as long as he had what it took to produce championship calves for those willing to pay the price.

  Jasper, Tigger and the rest of the guys were all sitting around, chewing the fat along with their tobacco and pretending they had nowhere to go, nothing to do. Everyone knew, however, they were there in the waiting room for one reason and one reason only. To protect their bull and make sure there would be a return on their investment while they were still around to enjoy it.

  Only today, they were seeming to get a big kick out of Rex and the mystery lady—a mystery to everyone but Tigger, that is.

  After the coffee finished brewing, Rex put the pot on the warmer in the waiting area. The men slowly creaked out of their chairs and took their place in line for a little jolt of caffeine to keep them going.

  Rex sat in Barbara’s chair to start working. He checked the calendar. None of the three appointments either Barbara or Cathy had scheduled canceled, which meant he was booked for most of the day. The first was with a woman, Cara Romano, a name he didn’t recognize. The other two, Herman Jakes and Georgiana Rodgers, he had done business with before.

  “Hey, boys, we’ve got us a new lady coming to visit.” There weren’t many women ranchers in the area. Georgiana, widow of Roger, had recently turned the ranch that had run in the red during Roger’s lifetime to pure black when she started breeding Galloway cattle using Noble semen, so they knew her.

  As far as the prospect of a new lady went, all he got was abstract grumbling from the old men. They were more interested in the woman over at Mandelay than anyone coming to talk about semen.

  Still, Rex let them know, “A new customer means more profit, boys.”

  “True, true,” Clyde, always the philosopher, agreed. “Tigger said she wore a sexy dress. I forget what that means.”

  “Get out.” Roy chopped him on the shoulder.

  “It’s been a long time,” Clyde whined.

  “Time for my nap.” Ted Clark placed his already-empty coffee mug on the table next to him, slumped in his chair with his bony shoulders against the wall and covered his face with his Stetson. “Wake me if anything exciting happens.”

  He said that every week, and the boys had yet to wake him.

  Barbara came up behind Rex, slapping him on the back. “Get up outta there, that’s my chair.”

  “This is your chair? Are you sure? I think it forgot who you were. Chair, this is Barbara, she works here, full-time on a temporary basis.”

  “Rex, dear, I was sick yesterday.” The
pink-haired lady smiled sweetly, then slid her gaze over to Tigger, who watched her the same way that LuLu eyed the semen machine.

  “I heard some interesting news last night,” she said to Rex.

  “We all know about Rex climbing the tree to that young lady’s room,” Pete said.

  “That’s old news,” Barbara scoffed.

  “Old already?” Rex didn’t know whether to be happy or disappointed. “How did you now about that?”

  She shook her head in disgust. “Everyone knows about what a fool you made of yourself over that girl. She’s not even from Texas. What are you thinking?”

  He was thinking that while he couldn’t find “that girl’s” name, everyone knew about him climbing the tree. Go figure.

  “I need to tell you about a call I got yesterday from my dear friend Irma, who talked to her friend Jamie, who just happens to be first cousin to none other than Chad Ottaway from the Ottaway Ranch in Tucson. Isn’t this a coincidence?” She was all excited. “Did you hear?”

  “Hear what?” Tigger asked.

  “Where’s your hearing aid?”

  “I hear fine.”

  “Then listen. Did you hear what happened at the Ottaway Ranch yesterday?” She poked Rex in the chest.

  “I was busy yesterday, fielding phone calls because my receptionist, that being you, wasn’t here. So no, I didn’t hear anything.”

  “Well.” Barbara made sure she had everyone’s attention, ignoring the jab about her not-so-great work habits, and focusing on Tigger, she said in a know-it-all voice, “The semen—courtesy of none other than Tony Donetti’s big bull, Rufus—was hijacked.”

  “Yesterday?” Clyde asked.

  “Tony?” Rex couldn’t believe it.

  The others got loud and vocal, calling for the FBI, CIA, army, navy and every other military branch, including the Texas Rangers, to be brought in on the case and capture the person who was hijacking the semen. “But for the grace of God and semen go I,” Tigger said. “This is war. Arm yourselves.”

  The old men shouted out a hearty amen.

  “Calm down, everyone.” Rex shuffled through the stack of mail until he found Proliferation, the cattle breeding industry magazine. There was an article in there about this very subject.

  What happened to Tony could affect them, too. No longer were cattle rustlers stealing the old-fashioned way by rounding up calves and branding them with a competitor’s mark before herding them onto a waiting truck. Now they’d gone high-tech. They intercepted frozen semen through the mail, or hired a mole to infiltrate an operation and walk away with hundreds, if not thousands, of vials. Stealing the frozen semen of championship bulls like LuLu and starting their own breeding production would be cheap to start and could earn them millions down the road, considering each straw of semen could fetch upward of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

  So far he had been lucky and had avoided these modern-day rustlers. But he didn’t know how much longer his luck would hold out. Not if Tony was getting robbed. This brought everything too close to home.

  WHEN CARA APPROACHED the Noble Sperm Bank her first thought was that it was a mistake. This couldn’t be a clinic or a medical office. Maybe she’d been watching too much TV and that’s why she thought sperm banks were supposed to be in big medical centers. She certainly hadn’t expected the entrance to be an ornate picket fence, with wide-open gates to allow a car to drive through.

  She hadn’t expected the building to be a one-story white structure, with ten windows along the front that were framed by forest-green shutters. A porch, painted white like the building, went from end to end. A double door was in the middle, green like the shutters, and on each side of the door were five rocking chairs, vacant, swaying gently in the slight breeze. She almost sighed at the rocking chairs. So maternal. She wondered if mothers who had success with the sperm bank brought their babies back and sat on the chairs, nursing the infants. If she lived here, she’d do that. The whole environment was so peaceful, so beautiful. Even though it wasn’t what she’d expected, it was perfect.

  Cara drove to the gravel area that said Guest Parking. The lot was almost full, mostly with pickup trucks, some old and decrepit-looking, some shiny and new. She was surprised to see that every truck and car had its windows rolled down. The Mustang’s top was down, but she pressed the button to return it to its closed and locked position. When she got out of the car she locked the doors behind her. That’s what she always did and she didn’t think visiting a town like Pegleg was going to change that. Just because everyone else around wasn’t careful about their belongings didn’t mean she could let down her guard or become careless.

  Cara removed the clip she had kept her hair in for the drive and brushed it out, refreshed her lipstick and powder and put on the long-sleeved sweater that matched her pink shell. She touched her earrings, patted down her necklace and finally jiggled the bracelet. She frowned at it. One of the gold brackets that framed a coin was empty and pulled away from the bracelet. The idea that one of the coins was gone upset her. It wasn’t just a missing coin. It was a missing piece of her heritage. She checked the rest of the bracelet as best she could and thought it seemed secure, but she wasn’t sure.

  As soon as she got back to Erie, she’d take everything to a jeweler, get it all appraised and make sure all the coins were securely fastened. Until she did that, she knew she probably shouldn’t be wearing her entire heritage at once. Right now though, she had to, because she was sure the coins were going to bring her luck. She just wasn’t sure which piece of jewelry would bring her the most luck, and she was afraid that if she left one at Mandelay, that would be the piece that she would have needed.

  Even if she convinced these people she would be a fit and loving mother without a spouse, she still had her own family to contend with. That, she thought as she rubbed the coins on her wrist, would take all the luck each coin could give.

  With her head held high, doing her best to look worldly and sophisticated, Cara walked up the steps, opened the door and jingled into the lobby of the Noble Sperm Bank Association and came to a stop so suddenly that every coin clashed ferociously against the next and her heart was pounding even louder than her jewelry.

  It was him. Her cowboy. Sitting over there near the pink-haired lady. Could he be the doctor? She quickly glanced around the room, taking in the elderly men. Tigger was there, too, kind of drooling at her, holding a cup. They all held little cups, held out kind of expectantly. Could all those old men be donors?

  “Oh, no.” The words slipped out before she could stop them. She couldn’t help it. Right now she felt as if she were a peach on the receiving end of a paring knife.

  If this was the crop of sperm she had to choose from, the pickings were not good at all. In fact, some of her mother’s selections were starting to look good by comparison. And that was something Cara thought she’d never have to say.

  6

  SOMEWHERE IN THE BACK of Cara’s mind she remembered, albeit dimly, that she’d been determined to act sophisticatedly northeastern. Worldly and knowledgeable. Although her knees had almost buckled out from under her, she said, “Fancy meeting you here, Doctor.” All the manners her mother had drilled into her came to the fore.

  So, standing very straight, she smiled as she walked toward him. What if he’d volunteer to be her sperm donor? That thought almost brought her to a halt again. Then everything would be so right in her world. The very idea of him with his hand covering his male member and doing what it took to relieve himself in a cup…why, the thought sent flames rushing through her. She could hardly breathe. As if those blue eyes of his held some magnetic force, which she was sure they did, she moved toward him, not able to stop the forward motion despite her thoughts about him. She didn’t know that wanting to help him donate sperm was what a prospective mother-to-be should be thinking about.

  She took notice of the expressions that had crossed his face. First he’d seemed surprised to see her, then almost joyful. But no
w he was frowning. She’d just walked in. How could she possibly have disqualified herself for motherhood in such a short time? Surely the memory of a few piddly little chicken wings couldn’t have that effect.

  Then there was last night. When the top of her sheet fell down, did that disqualify her? Maybe he thought she had done it on purpose and she was promiscuous. She wasn’t. And her thoughts a moment ago, he couldn’t possibly know what she was thinking.

  Could he?

  She stuck out her hand and said, “Cara Romano.”

  Rex grabbed her hand and held on. He could not believe his good fortune. Cara Romano and his mystery woman were one and the same. She had never said a word about breeding Galloways.

  “And you are?” she asked, not even attempting to remove her hand. He wanted to tell her he was her dream come true. Instead, he told her his name.

  “You couldn’t tell me last night?”

  “You didn’t either.”

  She scowled at him. Such a beautiful scowl. Except the way he figured it, after last night, she should be sending him looks of lust. This wasn’t going the way he’d imagined it would go when he would see his mystery woman again. Cara. Beautiful name.

  If he had been writing the script, she would have said something along the lines of, “Oh, my dream lover, I have missed you so. The hours spent away from you were agony.” Or, even a more neutral, “You handsome, sexy devil, let’s go to my house and count my coins.”

  Instead, she had a look of terror and shock on her face—a face even more beautiful than he’d remembered from yesterday. And if he’d heard her correctly, the words of passion she’d uttered when she walked through the door and saw him, were, “Oh, no.”