A Baby...Maybe? & How to Hunt a Husband (10 page)

C
ARA KNEW
she was in a situation of her own making. It wasn't as if Dr. Rex Noble had been hiding what it was his company did or the services he provided. The cow and bull billboards right there on the freeway had stated in no uncertain terms exactly what their services were, for heaven's sake. She felt so foolish. She was a gullible dreamer who had seen only what she wanted to see and had missed the obvious.

Now she could only hope her facial expression said,
Bull sperm is exactly the kind of sperm I've been looking for all my life.
But gazing at the beauty of his face only rammed home the intensity of what it was she really wanted. And this wasn't the place she'd get
that.

She wished he were ugly. Then she wouldn't care what he thought about her and her mix-up. Instead, he was to die for. And she had a funny feeling he knew it. He could have sold not only sperm but anything he wanted to sell with those chiseled features of his.

As far as Cara was concerned, he could have been selling cat food with recipes on how to cook it. She'd have been right there in line to buy enough cans to fill her basket, and she'd not only cook it, she'd eat it with a smile. All Rex would have had to say was, “Ooh, this is good, baby, give it a try.”

When she'd walked through the door, she'd thought she'd be able to go to a picture book and find some
man who had the looks and personality that she liked and that she'd want to pass on to her child. And she had, but his sperm wasn't for sale. That meant she would have to win it honestly.

How? First, by assuring him she wasn't the flake that she no doubt appeared to be.

“Here's what I had in mind,” she said, and paused for inspiration.

“Yes?”

Rex. Great name. Rhymed with sex. She let out a breath and wished she could start peeling off her clothes, she was that hot. When she tried to speak, it came out as a squeak, so she cleared her throat and tried again. This time it was a little better. “I really like it in Pegleg. I've visited here before, you know.”

“No, I didn't.”

“I came several months ago to see Tony. And Kate. Both of them.”

“Tony's quite a guy.” He held up a Donetti's Irish Pub and Sushi Bar matchbook for her to see. “Kate, too. Even if they did keep your name a secret.”

“That's what friends are for.” She smiled at him, and her brain finally leaped into action.

Her smile nearly made Rex start unbuckling his belt, but that would have been jumping the gun. Cara was coming on to him, which was fine. It wasn't as if he hadn't been coming on to her from the moment he climbed the tree. He was glad she found him attractive. He returned her smile. “Friends that are loyal. Loyalty means a lot.”

“They're great,” she practically gushed, leaning forward, allowing him to see the plump tops of pink breasts. He had seen more last night, but last night she wasn't aware of what she had revealed. Right now, she was showing her assets on purpose, and he liked that. Liked it a lot.

Man, she was pretty. She had scooted a little closer
to the conference table. He followed suit, leaning over, coming a little closer to her, too. He could breathe in her soft, spicy floral perfume, something he hadn't smelled on any other woman before. Made him want to put his lips along the silky skin of her neck and inhale her sweet scent.

As fast as his common sense had left him, it returned. He leaned back in his chair and away from her magical spell. She looked a little confused, as if it took her a minute to register that he wasn't falling for her charms. Only she'd be wrong. He had fallen for her, head over heels, the moment he'd stood up in front of Mama Jo's covered in chicken and seen her standing there. He was afraid that he'd rip off her clothes and take her on the conference table. That wasn't the way he wanted it to be. He wanted to get to know her, to win her over with his personality and charm. But she didn't know it yet. He watched her expressions go from flirtatious to confused, to what he thought looked like hurt. He didn't want her hurting.

She slowly pulled away from the table, leaving nothing behind but that spicy scent, and settled back into her own chair, ramrod straight.

“I haven't eaten at Tony's restaurant yet,” she said, her voice low and husky, “but I'm told the food is wonderful. He raises the beef himself, feeds it some kind of special food he mixes himself.”

“I know all about it. Who do you think gave him his first cow and bull to breed?”

“You?”

“Yes. He breeds Angus. My LuLu is a Galloway. Those are pictures of Galloways out in the lobby.”

“I had a baby rabbit that had the same markings.”

“They're something. Look around the room here. The result of fine breeding and championship stock.”

“They're amazing.” She glanced at the wall to her
left. Hung from chair-rail height to the ceiling were blue ribbons, trophies, plaques and a pair of stuffed bull's balls. She turned away when she realized what they were, her face heating. Maybe she wasn't as sophisticated as she had thought. “I'm impressed.”

“It's a top honor,” Rex said, the pride in his voice as large as the bull's stuffed organs.

“I think I was talking about the trophies.”

Rex glanced at the trophy in question. “That's what I was talking about, too.”

Okay, so they both were lying. What else was new? She fanned the corner of the catalog. “I'd like one, you know.”

“A bull?”

“I was thinking of a sweet little cow. Like the one on the milk cartons. Or on your billboard. That's why I'm here.” She leaned forward again, but this time it looked natural, as if she was really excited about her plan, although the pose still gave him a mind-boggling view of her breasts. “I'd like to pick out a really nice cow, then inseminate her with sperm from your prize bull—” She hesitated.

“LuLu,” he prompted her.

“LuLu. And then my cow would have her own beautiful little calf.” The woman's eyes actually went all misty.

Rex blinked. This cock-and-bull—or cow-and-bull—story sounded pretty fishy to him. “Where would you put it?”

“On my farm. I want to buy a farm like Tony's, only smaller, I mean really, really smaller.” For a second, Rex could glimpse a bit of worry mixed in with her enthusiasm.

“We call Tony's
farm
a ranch,” he said.

She tilted her head slightly. “I thought a ranch was for horses.”

“Cattle, too. At least here in Texas. And I'm guess
ing, and it's only a guess, mind you, in Pennsylvania, too.”

Her lower lip stuck out a little. “You're making fun of me, aren't you?”

“Now, why would I do that?”

“Because I'm from the city and don't know a farm from a ranch, so you think I'm dumb.” She sniffed.

“That's not true.” Again he moved forward, the table edge cutting into his ribs. He wanted to feel closer to her, he liked being close to her, and for the first time, it scared him. He felt almost out of control when it came to her, and he had from the moment he saw her. Otherwise he never would have been climbing trees. Sure, she was beautiful. She had skin the color of peaches, and hair that looked like silk. Her fingernails were long and tapered, her hands smooth. “I'm not making fun of you. Teasing maybe, but never making fun.”

“Thank you,” she said softly, lowering her gaze, staring at his extended arms, his hands only an inch away from hers. Her fingers stretched out, the tips a fraction of a space from his. And just as quickly, she balled them into fists and moved them away from him.

That was good, he thought, because if something like the perfume she wore, which was so faint that he could barely smell it, was strong enough to entice him and make him want to nuzzle her neck, sink his lips into that soft skin, he needed to know he was having an equally strong effect on her.

He watched her brown eyes, already big, widen even more. Her lips parted, her tongue peeked out, then outlined them, leaving a moist trail behind. He raised his hand, then stopped himself when he realized he had been about to follow where that tongue had been.
Fool,
he called himself.
Idiot.
He didn't know her really, not yet.

But boy, did he want to touch those lips of hers.

He tossed Donetti's matchbook across the table, where it slid off the opposite end, landing on the carpet below. He put his wayward hand under his thigh, rendering it useless against what his male instinct was urging him to do. He had to settle for a knee that was rubbing against her knee. Lucky knee. “Believe you me,” he said, “it never occurred to me you were dumb.”

“Well, good.” Her body relaxed and her shoulders lifted. She gathered that hair, that thick, glossy hair, and threw the whole mass behind her, where it landed over the back of the chair like a waterfall. He'd never seen hair like hers before and he had a longing to dig his fingers right through it. Last night hadn't been enough. He needed more. Much more. For the life of him he didn't know why.

“I'm not dumb. I'm a schoolteacher.”

“Really.” He didn't care what she did for a living. All he could think about right now was the difference between hair that had been shampooed and left alone versus hair that had been teased and lacquered with maximum-hold hair spray.

“I really liked Pegleg when I first visited. Then when I went home to Erie, all I could think about was how much I wanted to get back here and visit again.”

“I'm glad you wanted to come back,” he said.

“Me, too. But what struck me most,” she said softly, looking at him all innocent-like underneath those long thick eyelashes she had, “was how cute the cows were.”

He stopped himself from laughing. He cleared his throat and hoped he looked serious. “Cute?”

“Just absolutely precious,” she gushed. “And I tried and tried to figure out a way—a reason to come back and stay in Pegleg, at least for the summers—and finally it dawned on me.”

“You did?” he asked. “It did?” She was confusing him.

“Cows.” She lifted her shoulders and brought them back down with a beautiful sigh, as if that one word,
cows,
explained it all. It explained nothing.

She must have sensed his skepticism, because she said, “It's the Erie winters,” as if he should have known that. “They're positively wicked.”

He'd never been farther east than Chicago, and that had been in the spring, but he agreed with her. “Snow and ice.” Even he knew that. It had snowed in Pegleg, oh, about twenty years ago. A momentous event. It had to have been if he still remembered.

She looked at him as if she expected more. More of what, he didn't know. But he tried. “That white stuff.”

“Absolutely.” She glowed. “More than you can possibly imagine. So I thought and thought.”

“You did all that thinking. During the snow?”

“During recess.”

“I don't understand.” She had lost him. Again.

“You know, when the kids go outside and play. Only they couldn't because of the snow. So we tried to think of summertime games, and we came up with the cow game.”

In his mind, the only game Cara was serving up was a mass of confusion. “What's the cow game?”

“Moo-moo.”

“Am I supposed to know this?”

She at least had the decency to blush. “No. It's like Go Fish, only instead of saying ‘go fish,' they say, ‘moo-moo.' It's a lot more fun.”

“What does this go-fish-moo-moo have to do with cows and bulls?”

Now she was looking at him as if he were dense. “It made me long for Pegleg and to have my own cow.”

“Of course.” He grabbed her knee and squeezed. “I shoulda known.”

Even though he heard her breath catch when he touched her, and that gave him a bit of satisfaction if he did say so himself, she didn't lose her train of thought. If she ever even had one in the first place.

“But then I thought…” She went on without skipping so much as a beat, although she did place her hand on his, which made him catch his breath. She took it away, too quickly in his mind. “…what could I possibly do on a teacher's salary that would let me stay in Pegleg, at least during the summer?”

“Why summer?”

“Because that's when I have vacation. I teach, remember?” She didn't sound exactly exasperated, but she definitely was talking to him as if he had less than a full set of brain cells.

“Are you saying you're not going to live here the rest of the year?”

“I'm from Erie.”

“People move from where they're from all the time. What does that have to do with anything?”

“I have a job. I have responsibilities.” She paused. “My parents are there. Remember, my mother?” She lowered her voice, “She is going to have a cow, no pun intended, of course.”

Understanding almost dawned on him. “Of course. But it was bad, you know.”

“The pun or my mother?”

“Both, but I'm talking about your mother.”

“You can't imagine.”

“Your mother has driven you to raising cattle.”

“One cow,” she corrected him. “Plus one calf. So—” She leaned forward again. “So, can you help me? Because—”

Ted's voice scratched through the intercom. “Your one o'clock is here.”

“Ask him to wait. Offer him a drink. I'll be there soon.” He wasn't anywhere near finished with Cara. “Go on.” He nodded at her.

“Because I can't do it without your services. See—” and she gazed at him so earnestly he couldn't help but believe her “—I can't afford to buy and feed both a bull and a cow.”

“No?”

“Oh, no, and certainly not for the length of time it might take them to do the natural thing.” Her cheeks turned a pretty shade of pink. “So I'm only going to buy a cow.” She sounded triumphant. “And if you supply the sperm—” she whispered the word
sperm
“—then everything will be perfect.”