If I Only Had A...Husband (The Bridal Circle #1) Read online

  “Want to earn some extra money?”

  “Sure.” Dumb question.

  “Penny’s been having a bit of trouble with her schoolwork this year. I thought maybe you could give her some help.”

  Help her? Talk to her? Sit with her? The idea was as terrifying as it was inviting. “I suppose, ” he said.

  Would he be able to breathe, though? What would he wear? Not these old jeans and shirts that he wore to work in the gardens here. She’d see the holes in the knees and the mismatched buttons.

  “I hate seeing her struggle like she does,” Mr. Donnelly added. “She spends so much time on her work and it doesn’t seem to help, then she gets upset. I hate seeing her cry.” He fixed Brad with a sharp gaze. “I don’t want her crying over her schoolwork any more. And I’m willing to pay you to make sure she doesn’t.”

  Brad looked back at him, trading steely glance for steely glance. “She won’t cry over her grades again, sir.”

  The man sighed, his gaze softening. “I’m just a silly old man, I know,” he said. “If Penny’s mother was still alive, she’d know how to handle the tears. But I don’t. I just can’t bear to see her cry.”

  Brad swallowed hard. “I know what you mean.” His voice was rough and uneven as he fought against opening a sliver of his soul. “And I won’t let you down. I’ll take care of Penny.”

  It had been a promise and he always kept his promises.

  The trailer door opened and Brad turned around. It was Carl, Penny’s crew chief. He dragged his hefty frame into the stuffy trailer, shaking his head as he closed the door behind him.

  “Man, it’s hot in here,” the man said. “What happened to the air-conditioning?”

  “It broke,” Brad said. “That’s why I’m working here instead of Aunty Em.”

  “Better you than me. First call I’d make would be to the repairman.”

  “I imagine Penny already did.” Brad went over to get the job list he’d made up, then stopped. “I’m kind of puzzled about something. How come a beautiful woman like Penny isn’t married?”

  Carl shook his head. “Why don’t you ask me something easy like why dogs bark or why the sky’s blue? Damned if I know.”

  “I don’t think this Alex’s the one for her,” Brad said.

  “Don’t recall her asking my opinion.”

  But Brad wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easy. “You’ve worked for her since she left modeling. You’ve got to have some idea.”

  The older man shrugged, then gave a half smile. “My Millie says that Penny’s always been trying to prove something.”

  “Prove something?”

  “Yeah, that she’s as good as everybody at stuff.”

  Brad sighed. “Yes, I can see that.”

  “You want my advice? You go for it anyway,” Carl said.

  Brad frowned at the other man. “Go for what? You mean Penny?” He laughed. “No, no. I wasn’t asking because I was thinking of myself. I travel light and I travel fast. No commitments to slow me down.”

  Carl took the job list from Brad’s hand. “Then all these questions, they’re just for some scientific study?”

  “I like her,” Brad said. “She’s a friend.”

  “Uh-huh.” Carl grinned as he walked over to the door. “Ain’t no such thing as a man and woman being friends.”

  Still grinning, he left, letting Einstein into the trailer at the same time. What was this, Brad wondered, Grand Central Station ? The cat promptly marched over to sit in front of the fan.

  “I’ve got it figured out,” Brad said.

  The big orange tabby flopped on his side and flicked the tip of his tail.

  “It’s easy to see the situation here. Penny’s always felt that people looked down on her because she had trouble in school. So, she must feel that by dating Alex everyone will respect her more.”

  Einstein’s tail went motionless and his unblinking yellow eyes stared at Brad.

  “Am I right or am I right?”

  The cat just stared.

  “One flick of the tail for yes, two for no.”

  Einstein’s tail flicked twice.

  Making a face, Brad shook his head. “What do you know?” he said. “If you were so smart you wouldn’t be in Chesterton. You’d be in Egypt or Thailand. One of those places where they worship you guys as gods.”

  “You talking to cats now, boy? Sad. Real sad.”

  Brad looked up. Aunty Em stood in the doorway with a pitcher in her hand.

  “The saddest thing is that he answered.” Brad got to his feet, then took her arm to help her in. “What are you doing out here anyway?”

  “Just thought I’d see how you were getting along.” She came around over to the chair and sank into it, putting the pitcher on the desk. “Brought you some lemonade. Thought you were probably dying of thirst by now.”

  “Just about.” He found a bag of paper cups under some catalogs on top of a file cabinet “Want a glass, too?”

  “Sure.” She waited until he’d filled two glasses and returned to his seat behind the desk. “So, what have you found out?”

  He paused, glass at his lips, and stared at her. “About what?” he asked.

  She made a face. “About Alex? What else? You were on surveillance yesterday, weren’t you?”

  He took a long drink of the lemonade before he answered. It was cold and refreshing, but just the mention of Alex’s name left a bad taste in his mouth. “I didn’t find anything out. I watched his house for a bit and then he drove away.”

  “Didn’t you follow him? Lordy, boy, you sure aren’t good at this. Haven’t you ever watched any TV?”

  “Penny was there,” he explained.

  “She made you? Damn.” She took a sip of the lemonade and then stared thoughtfully into the glass for a long moment. “I never thought you’d be so incompetent.”

  “I’m not incompetent,” he replied sharply. “I just think we have a better chance of talking Penny out of this relationship, rather than digging up dirt on Alex.”

  “We’ll never do it,” Aunty Em said. “She’s got this crazy notion about the man she’s going to many. And Alex fits the bill.”

  “What’s her crazy notion?” He was almost afraid to ask. “The man she marries has to speak ten languages.”

  “What!”

  “I told you it was crazy, but she’s got it fixed in her mind for some dang reason. And you know Penny. She’s not going to budge.”

  Brad felt his stomach twist with worry. “I don’t suppose we could give Alex the ten-language test.”

  “He’d probably pass it.”

  “Then I guess we’d better dig up some dirt.”

  “But don’t do it from here. I swear she knows everything that goes on around this place. Sometimes I think she’s got more bugs hidden than I do.” Aunty Em got to her feet. “Dang, it’s hot in here. Can’t imagine what happened to the air conditioner. It was working fine yesterday.”

  “It was?” That was odd. He went over to the window unit to take a closer look. “The plug’s partially pulled out.” He pushed it in and cool air rushed into the room.

  “Imagine that,” Aunty Em said and settled back into the chair. “So, now you can go investigate Alex and I can take care of the office.”

  Dorothy walked about twenty feet, going from her air-conditioned car into an air-conditioned building, but that was enough to break a sweat on her brow. It was awful this afternoon. Maybe she should move to London, not Paris. London was cooler, wasn’t it? But it was rainy, too. Did she want lots of rain that would make her hair go frizzy?

  She closed her eyes. A little cottage with a mass of flowers in the tiny side yard. An apartment on the Seine, looking out at the Arc de Triomphe. A villa in the south of France, in the wine country.

  “Hi, Dorothy. Hot enough for you?” a voice said.

  She opened her eyes. She wasn’t in the south of France or the north, either. No, she was in Chesterton. Indiana, where the conversation
always revolved around the weather. Still she smiled at the receptionist who manned the front desk for her shared office space.

  “Another couple hours of this,” Dorothy said, “and you’d better not go out in heels.”

  “Tell me about it,” Nancy agreed. “My sister-in-law went to the grocery store on Sheridan and her heel sunk about two inches into the blacktop. Twisted her ankle.”

  “Wow. Gotta be careful. Any messages?”

  “Not really.” Nancy handed her a stack. “Just the usual two or three thousand.”

  “Thanks,” Dorothy said.

  “Real estate business must be good, huh?”

  “It would be if all these messages were sales,” Dorothy replied with a laugh.

  “Oh, and you’ve got a guy in your office,” Nancy said with a wink. “A hunk. He said he wanted to make a few calls on his cell phone so I said he could wait for you there.”

  “Okay. No problem.”

  She went down the hall to her office, flipping through the messages, then stopped as a man’s deep voice rumbled softly out toward her. Brad?

  Pausing at her half-open door, she could see she was right. It was Brad, but why would he be calling from here? She paused a moment, torn between giving him the privacy to finish his call and knowing she had the right to enter her own office. Trouble was, his voice carried awfully well.

  “I want a thorough check,” he was saying into his phone. “Payment records, existing debt, any problems in the past. The whole schmear.”

  Penny had said things didn’t seem to be going well for Brad, but the man in her office didn’t sound as if he were down on his luck. No, he seemed confident and comfortable giving orders. She took a step into the room and closed the door softly behind her.

  “I’ll call you back in a day or two for the results.” He said a curt goodbye, then broke the connection. As he slipped the phone into his pocket, he must have sensed her presence because he spun around. “Dorothy.”

  “Hi, there,” she said with a grin and walked around to her desk. “Don’t tell me. You want to buy a house and aren’t sure if your credit’s any good.”

  A smile slipped easily onto his face and he leaned back in his chair. “Actually, I want to sell a house. My uncle’s old place. That’s why I’m here.”

  “Oh, yeah? That big Italianate house on Second Street? That place is gorgeous. Run-down, but gorgeous.”

  “Maybe even bring in a decent commission for you,” Brad said.

  “Maybe,” she agreed.

  “Matt Harris has the keys if you want to take a look at it and figure out the asking price.”

  “I’ll do that. Nancy can get the keys from Matt’s office for me, I’ll take a walk through the house tomorrow morning, and work up some figures for you by early next week.” She made a note on her calendar and then let a silence settle over the room for just a moment. “Who are you running a check on?”

  He frowned. Someone who hadn’t seen him operate at an executive level might have been impressed. She wasn’t and kept up her stare.

  “Alex,” he finally said.

  “Alex?” That wasn’t what she had expected. Alex? The milquetoast poet of Chesterton? A million questions danced in her head. “Why? Are you some kind of spy or private investigator or something?”

  Brad grimaced. “No, but Aunty Em thinks she is. She’s rooked me into trying to find some dirt on him. She’s convinced Alex is all wrong for Penny.”

  “Well, he is,” Dorothy agreed. “I’m glad someone else sees that, too. You need any help, you just ask me.”

  “I will,” Brad said and got to his feet. “Do I need to sign any papers about the house?”

  “Not until I work something up. I’ll give you a buzz when I’ve got something ready.”

  She walked with him to her door, relief making her almost light-headed. If anybody could make Penny see the light, it would be Brad. He would keep Penny from making a terrible mistake.

  He’d opened the door, but before he could leave she threw her arms around him, giving him a big hug. “I’m really glad you’re back.”

  His arms came around her. Tightly for just a moment. “It’s good to be back,” he told her. “It really is.”

  Dorothy let him go, watching with a smile as he winked at a grinning Nancy and left the building, then she turned back toward her office, her smile deepening. She’d always known. Even way back when they were kids and everyone thought Brad loved her, she’d known he only had eyes for Penny. He’d only made friends with her to be close to Penny. It hadn’t bothered her at all; she rather liked being a part of his secret. And now she was again.

  Brad was going to save Penny from Alex. That was the greatest thing she’d ever heard. The most romantic thing that had happened in Chesterton since Penny had put extra sandwiches in Brad’s lunch.

  Dorothy’s smile faded slightly. That was probably why things hadn’t worked out with her and Toto. Between Penny and the sandwiches, and Brad saving Penny from Alex, Chesterton’s quota of romance had been used up.

  The note on her calendar caught Dorothy’s eyes and an image of Hal Corrigan’s house briefly appeared in her mind. The commission on that sale would be enough to get her to Paris where romantic things happened all the time.

  Penny felt as if she must have melted away twenty pounds in the day’s heat. Normally, that would have left her dragging, but she was so pleased that she’d found a way to keep Brad away from Dorothy that even the heat wasn’t bothering her. Okay, so it was a little mean to loosen the plug on the air conditioner, but she hadn’t known it would get this hot today. And he was young and healthy.

  She pulled open the trailer door and stopped. Cold air rushed out at her. It matched the cold clutch of fear that took hold ot her stomach. She took a step inside and found Gran sitting at the computer, looking at pictures of various badges on the computer screen.

  “What are you doing?” Penny asked.

  The old woman didn’t even glance Penny’s way. “Surfing the Net. Brad showed me how.”

  Penny looked around. She and Gran were the only ones here. Rats. She came up behind her grandmother and watched as she flipped through some web page selling investigative equipment. Oh, great. That’s all Gran needed—a source on the web to buy her stuff from. But then Penny looked closer at the computer and frowned.

  “How’d the computer get that fast?” she asked.

  Gran shrugged. “Brad said something was set wrong.”

  Brad again. Penny sank onto the corner of the desk. “Where is he, anyway?”

  “Gone.”

  Penny’s heart fluttered and she wasn’t sure if it meant she was happy or sad.

  “Went to see about putting his uncle’s house up for sale.”

  “Oh.” He hadn’t left town yet. Not that she didn’t want him to. She wouldn’t be able to relax until Dorothy—

  Damn. “What Realtor was he going to use?” Penny asked.

  Gran frowned over her shoulder. “I don’t know. Dorothy, I would imagine. Why?”

  “Oh, no reason.” She took a deep breath, hoping her agitation didn’t show in her eyes or voice. “Hey, I just remembered a call I forgot to make. I’ll be back in a little while.”

  She hurried out the door and back into her truck, putting it in gear and squealing out toward the road. Damn that Brad Corrigan. She should have known he would manage to spend time with Dorothy somehow. Damn her own belief that she was smart enough to trick him. She had never managed to get the better of him and never would.

  She turned a corner, then hit the brakes as she saw the flashing lights at the railroad crossing ahead. Double damn. A train, and at a crossing that sometimes got blocked for an hour. She picked up her cell phone and dialed Dorothy’s number.

  “Chesterton Realtors.”

  “Hi, Nancy. Is Dorothy in?”

  “That you, Penny?” Nancy asked. “She’s on the other line. Want to wait?”

  “Sure.” Not much Penny could do unless the tra
in—which turned out to be a slow-moving freight—suddenly sped up. “Hot enough for you?”

  “I hope you’re not wearing high heels.”

  “Ah, I’m working,” Penny said. “So I’m wearing my boots.”

  “You know my sister-in-law Jenny?” Nancy continued. “She was walking across the grocery store parking lot and got her heel stuck in the asphalt. Twisted her ankle real bad and has to use crutches.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “It could be worse. Jenny’s mad because it’s her right ankle and it hurts too much for her to drive. She has to get other people to drive her around.”

  “Sounds like a bummer,” Penny said. “I wouldn’t—”

  Wait! What a perfect idea!

  “Oh, Dorothy just hung up,” Nancy told her. “I’ll put you through.”

  “And I just remembered something,” Penny said quickly. “I gotta run. I’ll call Dorothy later.”

  She put the truck into gear and made a U-turn, heading for the drugstore on the south side of town. An elastic bandage, some crutches, a pained look on her face, and she’d be all set. A sprained ankle was perfect, absolutely perfect!

  “So, did you peek in his windows?” Aunty Em asked.

  Brad sighed and concentrated on slicing the tomatoes for the salad. “No, I didn’t look in Alex’s windows,” he said. “I didn’t want to get arrester. I figured that would slow up the investigation.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” the old lady said. “But you could go through his garbage. That’s not illegal.”

  Brad ignored the suggestion. “You know, it’s just possible that he has nothing to hide,” he remarked.

  “Baloney. Everybody’s got something to hide.”

  Everybody? Did she think he was hiding something? Brad heard the pickup come up the lane. “Here’s Penny now.”

  He put the salad on the table as he went to the screen door to look out.

  “About time,” Aunty Em grumbled as she pulled the broiler pan out of the oven. “Tell her to get her butt in here for dinner if she wants to eat before her meeting.”

  Penny had pulled the pickup to a stop, but was slow in getting out. He frowned and went out onto the porch. Maybe she was tired. It had been awfully hot today. Maybe she—Good gracious, she was on crutches!