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Bridegroom On Her Doorstep
By Renee Roszel Harlequin Enterprises Limited
Copyright © 2002 Harlequin Enterprises Limited
All right reserved. ISBN: 0373037252
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! Tension intensified her hostility for this outsider who dared intrude on her secret itinerary. It was bad enough that Ruthie had to know. Putting up with her sidelong looks of disapproval was plenty to deal with. She didn't need some stranger blundering around in her private business. She didn't think she could cope with one more person looking at her like she was a fool or worse - crazy.
It was nobody's business how she found a mate but her own! She'd trusted her heart once and fallen madly in love with ...
Tony. She stumbled at the recollection, but caught herself. Even after four years it still hurt just to think his name.
Tony Lund had been hired at Dallas Accounting Associates as her immediate superior. From the first time the elevator doors opened and he'd stepped onto her floor, she had been lost. He was handsome, suave, brilliant, with a mystical way of knowing exactly what to say to make her feel wonderful. Even his casual smiles as they passed in the hallway sent her into fits of dizzy euphoria.
It had taken six months for Jen to catch Tony's eye - as a woman rather than a mere work colleague. That magical moment had come at the company Christmas party. She'd taken excessive pains with her clothes, at last dressing for a man rather than for success. She'd had her hair restyled and highlighted and devoured makeup hints in slick women's magazines. Before Tony she'd been completely preoccupied with her career; suddenly she found herself giddily playing all the feminine games to get Tony to notice her. By Christmas he had a reputation for being a lady's man, but Jen hated gossip and ignored the stories.
New Year's Eve had been their first official date. Tony was the epitome of gentlemanly, and was worldly enough to sense her reticence at moving too quickly to intimacy. After all, he was her boss, though there were no strict rules against dating a co-worker. Jen loved her job, or had loved it until a newer, brighter love swept into her life.
Tony. Even with her concern about getting physically involved too quickly, one month after they'd begun to date, Tony confessed his love for her. Though ultra-conservative and cautious, Jen was on the brink of giving up everything for him that she'd held so dear - her career and her virginity.
Feeling cherished and desired, Jen dwelled in a perpetual pink haze of love. All she wanted in the world was to be Tony's wife and the mother of his children.
On Valentine's Day, Jen had been the happiest woman in Texas. Wearing a new dress she could hardly afford, she felt like a giddy teenager. She'd been ready for Tony to pick her up for what she knew would be a romantic, life-changing evening, when the phone rang.
It was her mother, tearfully calling from a Fort Worth hospital. Jen's favorite Aunt Crystal had been in a car accident and was in a critical condition. Rushing to the hospital, distraught and in tears, Jen caught Tony on his cell phone and canceled their date. He'd offered to come to the hospital, but she'd told him it wasn't necessary.
That Valentine's Day ended tragically when Jen's aunt passed away. Deep in the night, broken up with grief, Jen found herself driving back to Dallas toward Tony's apartment, needing his comfort and closeness. She had made the decision to give him her most precious gift, her unqualified, physical love - an affirmation of life. She would be his completely, and he would be hers - lovers, soul mates, forever.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Bridegroom On Her Doorstep by Renee Roszel
Copyright © 2002 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
