Hired Bride (2 page)

Of course, he didn't
need
to earn a living. Everyone in this part of Texas knew that the Fortunes had been
wealthy for generations. Actually, Gwen had to give Zane points for working at all, when he could simply slide through life on old money, should he choose. Still, she and everybody else knew that executives in large companies had it pretty cushy, what with golf and tennis games during working hours, two-hour lunch breaks and secretaries up the kazoo to do the real work.

Well, that was none of her business she told herself while urging Alamo back into the tub so she could rinse away the soapsuds clinging to his coat. She worked fast, and when the suds were gone she turned the dog into the massive indoor pool room so he could shake away the water to his heart's content without spreading it all over the house.

When Gwen first started her business, she'd been in awe of some of the homes belonging to wealthy clients. For instance, Zane Fortune's home had two swimming pools, one outside and one inside. It had a tennis court and a putting green, and the grounds were lavishly landscaped. The house itself was a dream, contemporary in style, very large and professionally decorated.

Now, after almost a year of visiting luxury homes to do various chores, Gwen still admired but was no longer awestruck. She would never rub elbows with San Antonio's rich and famous, and it didn't bother her a bit. Her entire life was focused on her kids, on earning enough money to give them the necessities in the present and on trying very hard to save some for their future. It seemed, however, that whenever she accumulated any amount of cash, something came up that forced her to spend it. Gwen often worried about
how she would pay for a college education for each of her children.

With handfuls of paper towel, she hurriedly wiped up the puddles left by Alamo during his race to the front door. She also used paper towels on herself, sopping up some of the water from her clothes. Untying the ribbon that held her hair back from her face—or was supposed to—she finger-combed straying strands back into place and retied the ribbon. She had just finished doing what she could to make herself more presentable when Zane returned to the kitchen. He was wearing baggy gray sweatpants, a mismatched blue top and old tennis shoes without socks.

His apparel surprised Gwen. Now he looked very much as she did. No, that wasn't true. He was still so handsome that she found it difficult to look directly at him. It was a discomfiting feeling, one she didn't much care for. Men didn't daunt her, for Pete's sake. Not normally, they didn't.

“Oh, good, you're still here,” Zane said, and he opened the refrigerator door. “So, what would you like to drink?”

“Nothing, Mr. Fortune, but thank you. I really don't have the time to—”

“I'm only asking for a few minutes, Gwen. And for heaven's sake, darlin', call me Zane. Now, how about an orange juice? Or a soda?”

That
darlin'
had rolled off his tongue so smoothly that it never occurred to Gwen that Zane might mean something by it. And obviously, he wasn't going to let her leave without his “ten-minute” discussion, though she couldn't imagine what he wanted to talk to her about. Unless there was something else he
would like her to be doing for him as Help-Mate. He was a client, after all.

“All right,” she said, giving in gracefully, though she should already have left this house and been on her way to her next appointment. “I'll have a bottle of water, if you have it.”

“Sure do.” Zane took their drinks from the refrigerator and let the door swing shut. “Let's sit down.” He carried her water and his orange juice to the table. “Would you like a glass?”

“The bottle is fine, thanks.” Gwen took the chair that was directly across the table from the one Zane chose. He loosened the bottle cap and handed her the water.

Immediately she was uncomfortable under his intense scrutiny. He seemed to be trying to see beneath her skin. What was he hoping to do, read her mind? She certainly had no secrets. This whole meeting struck her as strange.

“Tell me what you do for your company,” Zane said.

Gwen frowned. “I'm not sure I understand what you'd like to know.”

“I'd like to know the scope of your duties. Besides bathing dogs, what else do you do?”

“Aren't you aware of the other things I do for you?”

Zane sat back, thought a moment, then looked slightly startled. “I think I'm beginning to get the picture. Besides bathing Alamo, you're the person who's been cleaning my house, tending to my laundry and dry cleaning, buying my groceries, et cetera, et cetera.”

“Yes, there are a number of etceteras,” Gwen said
dryly. “With most of my clients, to be honest. Help-Mate was designed to assist busy people with chores they have no time to do themselves. Things a wife or husband might do if the client had a spouse with extra time.”

“Are all of your clients unmarried?” Zane asked, and took a swallow of his orange juice while looking into Gwen Hutton's lovely blue-gray eyes.

Her gaze didn't waver, though she did wonder why he kept looking at her so intently. “A few of them are married, or living with someone, but most are single.”

“Like me.” Zane took a breath, and Gwen sensed it was a preamble to something—probably his reason for delaying her departure. “Gwen,” he said, “I have a problem, and I think you just might be the answer.”

She became wary, concerned about the personal note she heard in his voice, but she said slowly, “I'm listening.”

“I'm going to ask you something, and I hope you won't be offended, but have you ever done any escorting?”

Her eyes widened, and she started to get up from her chair. “Mr. Fortune, if I've given you any reason to think—”

Holding up a hand, Zane broke in. “I'm not suggesting anything immoral or illegal. Please don't rush into an erroneous opinion before you give me a chance to explain my question.”

Gwen slowly sank back to the chair. “All right,” she said flatly. “Explain.”
And make it good, because if you don't I'll be crossing you off my client list!
It wasn't a pleasant thought. She needed every client she had worked so hard to obtain. Spent money to obtain, as a matter of fact. Advertising was costly, and she
was always grateful when a potential new customer mentioned phoning Help-Mate because he or she had seen one of her little ads.

“What I'm going to propose to you is a simple business arrangement. I need an attractive lady to escort to a wedding this weekend. I realize there are women for hire out there, but I wouldn't insult my family and friends in that manner. Here's the situation. The females in my family have decided that I should be married, or at least committed to one woman. They have taken it upon themselves to find me a wife, and I know that there'll be at least a dozen unmarried women at that wedding just waiting to pounce on me.”

“Why don't you just tell the females in your family to leave you alone?” Gwen asked, suspicion and distrust in every syllable. She had never heard a more lame story in her life. If that was Zane Fortune's favorite line, it was a wonder he got anywhere with decent women. The thing was, she enjoyed reading the society section of the newspaper and knew that Zane
did
attract decent women. So what, really, was this all about?

Zane heaved a sigh. “I wish I could do that. Actually, I've tried to do that, but it never comes off the way I'd like it to. My sisters think I'm kidding around with them, they kid back and the whole thing falls apart.

“Anyway, I came up with an idea to at least get me through the weekend relatively unscathed. Heather, my secretary, was going to attend the wedding with me, and we were going to lead everyone to believe that she and I had become an item. It's not true, of course. Heather's practically engaged. But she agreed to help me out, and then today she received a phone
call from her sister in Fort Worth. Their mother is in the hospital, and naturally Heather had to go and see her.”

“And you…you'd like me to take her place?” Gwen was still guarded, but she was beginning to believe that Zane wasn't handing her a line.

“Exactly. I'm not asking you to give up your weekend for nothing, Gwen. I'll pay you a thousand dollars if you go to that wedding with me and act as though we are
very
good friends.”

She managed not to gasp, but she couldn't prevent a weakly parroted, “A thousand dollars?”

“Make it two thousand,” Zane said quickly, reading her reaction as reluctance. “This is important to me, Gwen, and I'm willing to pay for two days of your time. Is two thousand enough?”

“Uh…yes. Two thousand is, uh, sufficient.” Was accepting money for spending time with a man immoral, even though she would be committing no definitively immoral acts? Goodness knows, she could use the money. She lived from day to day, working herself into an early grave to make ends meet, always with that nagging worry about her children's future. With a windfall of two thousand dollars…well, there was so much she could do with it, she really wouldn't know where to start.

But just what did Zane Fortune expect for so much money?

She said what she'd been thinking, keeping her voice at an even pitch though her pulse was racing. “Before I give you an answer, Mr. Fortune, tell me exactly what you expect for your money.”

R
amona Garcia was two things to Gwen—a reliable, loving baby-sitter and a good friend. The baby-sitting had come first, and the friendship had developed because Ramona and Gwen had so much in common. Very close in age, they were both widows with small children—Ramona had two little ones and Gwen had three. In one way, however, Ramona was more fortunate than Gwen. Ramona's husband had left her a sizable insurance policy, which, while it didn't make her a wealthy woman, certainly made her life easier than Gwen's. Ramona had invested the insurance money in an annuity with monthly draws, and she supplemented that income with childcare in her own home. When Gwen became a steady customer, Ramona stopped taking in other children. At that point her income had become satisfactory.

Gwen had often asked herself why she had permitted her husband Paul to procrastinate on buying life insurance, but in her heart she knew the answer to that question as well as she knew anything: Paul simply had not been a worrier or a planner. Like many people with happy-go-lucky personalities, Paul had enjoyed today and rarely thought of tomorrow.

At any rate, Gwen had been left with a mortgaged house, two cars and a boat with monthly payments, and no income beyond a modest monthly social se
curity check. If her parents hadn't helped her out financially after Paul's fatal accident, Gwen would have lost the little she did have. Her father had stepped in and sold the boat and one of the cars, eliminating two of her debts, and he had made the payments on her mortgage and the other car for two months. By then Gwen had pulled herself together and faced her situation; she could not live off her folks indefinitely. It was time she shaped up and started supporting herself.

Her biggest hurdle to finding a job that paid enough to support herself was her lack of training. Before meeting Paul, she had been in college to become an art teacher, and though she was talented in many art forms, there weren't a lot of jobs for wannabe artists out there. She had wished many times that she had the abilities to work as a secretary, but wishes didn't produce income. She had begun working two and three minimum-wage jobs at a time and still never made enough money to keep her head above water. Besides, with that kind of work schedule she'd rarely seen her kids, and she'd hated it that strangers were raising Mindy, Ashley and Donnie.

Her next attempt to pay her own way had been to quit all of her jobs and start a home business. She had shopped yard and garage sales and bought things that she could fix up and sell for a higher price. She had a natural knack for spotting a good piece of furniture hiding beneath layers of old paint, and the best part of that business was that whenever she left the house, her kids could go with her. She made money too, but it wasn't steady money, and after a few months she'd finally had to admit that what she was doing could only be a sideline venture. She
had
to come up with something that brought in money on a regular basis.

By that time her garage was crammed with furniture that needed restoring, and she usually worked at night, after the kids were in bed, finishing pieces that could then be sold. During those quiet hours Gwen had racked her brain for a solution to her financial quandary, and gradually the concept of Help-Mate had taken shape. It had excited her.

Getting the company started had taken time and money; the time she could provide herself, but not the money, and she had approached her parents for a loan. Jack and Lillian Lafferty had thought her idea a good one, and had agreed to loan her the money to get started. Gwen had vowed to pay back every cent her generous parents had ever given or loaned to her, and now, a year later, she was trying very hard to keep that vow. Some of the two thousand that she would receive from Zane Fortune was going to them.

After completing her appointments on that fateful day, Gwen drove to Ramona's house to pick up her kids.

Ramona met her at the door, and her expressive dark eyes became concerned. “Gwen, you look so tired. Come in and sit down for a few minutes. The kids are playing in the backyard and are fine.”

Gwen followed her friend to the kitchen, and Ramona brought two glasses of iced tea to the table before asking, “Gwen, is something wrong? You look a little pale around the gills.”

Sighing, Gwen took a drink of her tea. “I agreed to do something today that's been bothering me ever since.” She stared broodingly out the kitchen window and watched her kids and Ramona's running and playing in the fenced yard. She was incredibly lucky to
have found Ramona, and they were both lucky because their kids got along so well.

Ramona sat down and sipped her own tea. Finally she said, “Well, are you going to tell me what you did, or are you going to just sit there and let me die of curiosity?”

That brought a smile to Gwen's lips. Ramona was a very pretty young woman, but like herself, Ramona hadn't dated since her husband's death. They talked about men every so often, though, and both of them felt the same way. Their kids came first, but if some really great guy should stumble into their lives, neither of them was against a second marriage. However, they weren't actively seeking a man, and sometimes they giggled together over some guy's bumbling efforts to make time with one or the other of them.

Gwen was grateful that she had a friend like Ramona, someone in whom she could confide her innermost thoughts. Today she definitely needed to do some confiding.

“I'm sure you recall my mentioning that Zane Fortune is one of my clients,” Gwen said quietly.

“Yes. What about it?”

“I met him today.”

Ramona's eyes got big. “You did? Is he as good-looking in person as he appears to be in photos?”

“He's even better looking in person. But that's neither here nor there, Ramona. He asked me to do something that…” Gwen frowned, then went on. “He offered me two thousand dollars to attend a wedding with him this weekend.”

“You're kidding!” Ramona frowned too. “Why on earth would Zane Fortune have to pay a woman for a date?”

Gwen groaned. “You just hit the nail on the head. I agreed to take money for going out with a man. Ramona, there are names for women who do that.”

“Oh, but surely he doesn't expect…” Ramona's voice trailed off, and she weakly added, “Does he?”

“I asked him point-blank what he expected for his money, and he made it sound… Well, let me explain how this all came about.” Gwen related the incident with Alamo, then how Zane Fortune had offered her the business deal.

“He said that the most I would have to do was to act a bit love-struck, and maybe hold his hand.”

Ramona sat back, appearing dumbfounded. “That is the strangest thing I've ever heard.”

“Yes, isn't it?” Gwen agreed. “I asked him why he didn't simply tell his female relatives that he didn't want a wife, and he said that he'd tried but never quite made the grade. Apparently he doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Ramona, I admit that I saw dollar signs when I agreed to his request, and you know how badly I need the money, but would I be selling myself? It's been driving me crazy since the moment I left his house.”

Ramona held up her hands. “Let's look at it this way. You're in the service business, and wouldn't this just be another service? Gwen, with his looks, position and money, Zane Fortune could have any woman he wanted. I don't think he would have to pay for any sort of hanky-panky. But if he is one of those men who does pay for it, wouldn't he go to a professional?”

“I…suppose so. Actually, I'm not worried about his motives or morality, I'm worried about mine. Just how far would I go for money? There has to be a point
where a decent woman says no. Did I go past that point today by agreeing to accept money for two days of my time?”

“Two days?”

“Yes,” Gwen said with another sigh. “It's a two-day wedding party at the Fortunes' Double Crown Ranch. Big doings, apparently. Nothing at all like any event I've ever attended.”

“It might be fun,” Ramona exclaimed, startling her friend. “Gwen, you haven't done anything just for fun since you lost your husband. I think you should stop worrying, and go to that wedding and enjoy yourself.”

“You really feel that way?”

“Yes, I do. Gwen, you know you're a respectable woman and so do I. Apparently Mr. Fortune wants an uninvolved escort, and since he talked about needing an attractive woman to play the part, I think he paid you a very nice compliment. And as you said, you could certainly use the money. I believe that if you turn down his proposal, you'll regret it for a very long time.”

“I have thought of that,” Gwen said. “Maybe I just needed a pep talk. Usually I'm pretty optimistic and open to new ideas, but this one really threw me for a loop. Are you sure you approve?”

“Of course I approve. Now, let's do something else fun and figure out what clothes you should take with you.”

Before they discussed clothes, Gwen needed to ask one more question. “Will you be able to watch my kids for the whole weekend? I'll pay double, Ramona.”

“I'll watch the kids and you don't have to pay me double, for heaven's sake. In fact, let's call this week
end a trade-off with no money involved.” Ramona grinned. “Maybe something exciting will happen to me one of these days, and I'll need a baby-sitter.”

Gwen smiled. “You've got yourself a deal, my friend.”

 

Gwen was glad she had talked to Ramona about Zane Fortune's proposition. If nothing else, it had made her realize that the issue of her own morality hadn't been the cause of her reluctance at all. She'd never been a Goody Two-shoes, after all. She'd been pregnant when she and Paul got married, which was the reason she hadn't finished college.

So what she had really done, after leaving Zane's home yesterday, was hide her true concerns behind questions about right and wrong. That had been much easier to do than face what had really been bothering her: spending two days with Zane Fortune, meeting his family and friends, and pretending that she and Zane were lovers.

She faced it squarely the next day while getting ready for Zane to pick her up. She had already driven her kids over to Ramona's, each of them with a small overnight bag, then had returned home and started working on herself. It was no small task to turn herself into a lady of some leisure. While she filed and polished her short fingernails, and gave herself a pedicure, she worried about whether she would be able to fool anyone into thinking that a man like Zane Fortune would find a woman like her attractive. And if she were to believe Zane's story to the letter, she was going to be under a lot of scrutiny. From people who were millionaires, yet! Probably not one woman she
would meet at that wedding had ever done her own fingernails or given herself a pedicure.

But all that aside, Gwen's biggest worry was Zane himself. He was too good-looking, too rich, too sure of himself. She'd never met anyone even remotely similar before, and there was some part of her that was uncomfortably drawn to the glamorous appeal Zane exuded. Gwen was positive that her pragmatic side would never let her actually fall in love with anyone like Zane Fortune, but was it strong enough to prevent her from developing a silly, futile schoolgirl crush on the man?

She couldn't deny the possibility, and it bothered her so much that she dialed Ramona's phone number. “How are the kids doing?”

“You should be getting ready instead of worrying.”

“I am getting ready, but I just realized something. Last night I talked about morality versus money and that wasn't what was eating at me at all. I—I'm afraid of Zane Fortune.”

“Oh, God, there's something you didn't tell me. Do you think he's a pervert, or something?”

“Ramona, no!” Gwen was appalled that she'd given her friend such a horribly false impression. “The truth, Ramona, is that I'm going to be spending two days with the most incredible man I've ever met, and what if I…well, end up liking him?”

“Well, think about this,” Ramona said wryly, “What if
he
ends up liking you?”

“Oh, he wouldn't! I mean, how could he?”

“For heaven's sake, Gwen, are you deliberately looking for a reason to drive yourself crazy? In the first place you might not like him at all. In the second, why are you so positive that he could never like you?”

“I just know it. Compare his life-style to mine and you'll know it too.”

“Because he's rich and you're not? So what? Gwen, I think that what you're really afraid of is meeting his wealthy family and friends. You're as good as any of them, and don't you dare act like you're not.”

“What if I can't pull it off?”

“Good grief, you're the most creative person I know. Create a persona for yourself that will knock everyone's socks off, Zane Fortune's included.”

Gwen glanced at the two dresses hanging on the closet door that she'd thought would be best for the charade Zane had hired her for; she hadn't yet decided which one to wear for the wedding today. Although they were both pretty dresses, neither of them would knock anyone's socks off.

But she had one in her closet that just might do that. “Create a persona for myself, hmm?” she murmured, more to herself than to Ramona.

“And make it a noticeable one. Now hang up and get to it. I'll be on pins and needles till you get back tomorrow, and you'd better have some darn good stories to tell me.”

“'Bye, Ramona,” Gwen said absentmindedly, and put down the phone. Hurrying to the closet she took out a plastic bag, then removed the bag and studied the dress it had protected for well over a year. She was pleased to smell no mustiness but rather the faint scent of her favorite perfume; she had dropped several sachets of the fragrance into the bag when she'd put the dress away. Next she reached to the top shelf of the closet for a shoe box, and in it were the stunning high heels that went with the dress.