Husband Wanted (2 page)

“Spring break is less than a week away,” Alice cried.

“It was sort of a spur-of-the-moment thing,” Frannie said, feeling on the verge of a major panic attack. She shook her head at their shocked looks. “It’ll never work. I don’t know how a refined lady of the manor is supposed to act.”

“Oh, stop!” Blair said. “You have impeccable manners.”

“If you’re that concerned,” Walter said, “my housekeeper can help you out.”

“Trust me,” Blair said. “You’ll need a small makeover, but once I get you out of that uniform and in proper attire, you’ll look like a million bucks.”

Frannie surprised them with a chuckle. “It all sounds great, guys, and I really appreciate the offer, but there only one problem,” she said. “Where am I going to find a husband?”

Clay Coleman took a sip of his black coffee and studied the blueprint in front of him. It was a simple two-story frame house with a small front porch and a deck along the back. It resembled a box. He’d built a dozen just like it because they were cheap.

Someone knocked on the door, and Clay glanced up as his father stuck his head through. “You got a minute?”

Clay tried to keep his expression neutral. He hadn’t seen his father in at least a month, maybe longer. In fact, he’d gone out of his way to avoid him. “What do you want?”

“Just a minute of your time,” the older man said, coming into the room. “Your secretary wasn’t at her desk so I decided to show myself in.” He took a seat in one of the worn leather chairs facing his son.

Clay was thankful his secretary, a cute twenty-three-year-old, was taking a late lunch. His father had a penchant for pretty women and would have embarrassed the poor girl with his blatant flirting. Clay would have had to apologize afterward. It had been that way for as long as he could remember.

“You’ll have to make it quick,” Clay said. “I’ve got an appointment in ten minutes.” He rolled up the blueprint because he didn’t want his father to know his business.

“This won’t take long,” Walter said. “So, how’ve you been, Son?”

Clay was in no mood for idle chitchat. “Why don’t we cut the small talk and get right to the reason for your visit?”

Walter clasped his hands together and leaned forward, anchoring his elbows on his knees. “Are you going to be mad at me for the rest of your life?”

“I’m not mad,” Clay said, although in all honesty he couldn’t think of a better word to describe how he felt toward the man. Maybe disappointed was the word he was looking for. Extremely disappointed.

“You never come by the house. Haven’t been by in months. Not since—” He paused as though trying to count in his mind just how long it had been.

“Not since I threw your second wife out,” Clay supplied for him.

Walter held his hands out as though surrendering. “I made a mistake.”

“A very costly one.”

“I was lonely.”

Clay thought of his mother, who’d been lonely all her married life. She had never grown accustomed to her husband’s philandering, but good breeding and a lot of patience had allowed her to turn a regal head to it all. She’d simply gone about the business of living her own life, finding pleasure in raising her son and performing volunteer work. The two of them had been very close.

“What do you want?” Clay repeated.

“I hear you applied for a loan at the bank a few days ago,” he said. “So you could buy that tract of land north of town.”

Clay scowled in response. “So much for confidentiality,” he muttered, annoyed that his business dealings had reached his father’s ears. “Okay, so I applied for a loan. So what?”

“I have a better offer in mind. I know you’d love to get your hands on the property along the river. It has been in the family for years, but there’s no sense in me hanging on to it till I die when you could make a fortune building luxury homes. You could turn it into a gated community if you like.”

Clay crossed his arms over his chest and regarded the man. He’d lost weight. Clay wondered if he was sick. “Why would you do that?” he asked, knowing how tight with a dollar his father could be. At least he was until his second wife had come along, and then he’d been only too glad to empty his pockets.

“You’re my son. I’ve already willed it to you, but I may as well hand it over to you now. I’ve been foolish to hang onto it, but you know how I get sometimes.” He paused. “Your mother accused me of being stingy more than once, if you’ll remember.”

Clay remembered. He’d never been a generous man, but when the gold digger had moved in he’d lost his head, hiring a decorator and contractor from Atlanta to renovate the house, put in a tennis court and pool, and upgrade the stable out back.

Clay had just gritted his teeth and said nothing, until his so-called stepmother had sneaked into his room one night in her nightie and made it plain she didn’t harbor any maternal instincts toward him. He’d escorted her out and begun locking his door before bed. And planning how to get rid of her. It wasn’t until their accountant showed him what his father had spent that he’d finally put his foot down. He’d very quietly paid the woman off, then driven her to the airport in Savannah, but there was no rectifying the damage between him and his father. Two days later, he’d moved out. That had been almost eight months ago.

“What’s in it for you?” Clay now asked. “What do you expect in return?”

Walter looked offended. “I’ve already told you, the land is yours. Everything I have is yours, whether you want it or not. Heavens, most children are only too happy to take from their parents.”

“I do pretty well on my own. I don’t need your money.”

“But you’re itching for that land.”

“Not if there are strings attached.”

Walter sighed heavily. “I’ve never been able to slip anything past you. I
do
need one small favor.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

Walter paused. “Do you remember Frannie Brisbane?”

“Frannie Brisbane?” Clay suddenly had a picture of a high school girl with reddish-gold hair who wore her dresses too short. “You mean the girl who got pregnant in high school and ended up giving the kid away?”

“That’s the one,” Walter said. “She’s all grown up now, but she has a serious problem.”

Clay gave his dad a knowing look. The man hadn’t changed one iota, he’d managed to replace one airhead with pretty legs for another. “And you’ve offered to come to her rescue,” he said dully. “How gallant of you.”

“It’s not what you think. But, yes, I’ve offered to help, and that’s where you fit in.”

The following day, Clay Coleman walked into the Griddle and Grill and took a seat at the counter. Frannie, who was in the process of taking an order almost dropped her ticket pad when she saw him.

“Well, if it isn’t Clay Coleman,” she said, once she had turned in her order. “Lord, I haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays.”

“Hello, Frannie,” he said stiffly. “You got any coffee back there?”

She nodded, taking in the changes that time had carved into his face. He was still a handsome devil. She’d shared a biology class with him in her junior year of high school, sat right next to him as a matter of fact, and it had taken all her willpower to concentrate. She’d nursed a crush on him for years back then. Unfortunately, he hadn’t looked twice at her.

Frannie poured a cup of coffee and set it before him. “I just made it,” she said. “You’ll have to go straight to Brazil to find any fresher. ’Course, that’s a lot of trouble for one cup of coffee. Expensive, too, when you consider the plane fare,” she added with a smile that he did not return. She was rambling, something she often did when she was nervous. She closed her mouth and bit her bottom lip, as though it were the only way she knew to stop it.

Clay nodded. She was obviously trying to be friendly. “Next time I go to Brazil, I’ll look into it.” He hooked an index finger through the handle of the coffee mug and raised it to his lips.

Frannie noted his hands; big and brown, his fingers long and tapered, nails clean and neatly trimmed. “Would you like to see a menu?” she asked at last, deciding he wasn’t much of a conversationalist. In a way, it was just as well. She had too much on her mind, what with her daughter scheduled to arrive in a few short days, and her in a tizzy trying to prepare. “Our special today is chicken fried steak.”

“I’m not here to eat,” Clay said. He took another sip of his coffee, his blue eyes studying her from over the rim of the cup. He set his cup down. “I’ll come straight to the point,” he said. “I hear you need a husband.”

At first, Frannie thought she’d misunderstood. Once it sank in, she realized Walter must’ve told him about her problem. “You?” she said. It came out sounding like an accusation.

“You have a problem with that?”

“No, of course not,” she sputtered. “It’s just—” She paused. He really was too handsome for his own good, with that dark hair and blue eyes that could only be described as startling.

“He could be a movie star with those good looks,” her mother had said when she’d seen a picture of him in his football uniform in the school yearbook. He’d been captain of the team as well as class president. Unfortunately, Frannie had never watched him play football. She’d spent her free time working. And when she’d learned he’d been accepted to Duke University, she’d envied him, because it was the same week she had decided to quit school and take a full-time job.

She’d be a nervous wreck if she had to pretend to be married to him. “You just don’t look the type,” she said.

“What type?”

“The . . . uh . . . marrying type.” In fact, he looked to be exactly what he was, a confirmed bachelor. She knew there’d been women in his life but word had it that nothing serious had ever come of the relationships. Still, she’d been envious of those women and wondered what it’d be like to arrive at a party on his arm. Or be kissed by him at the end of the night.

Clay looked back at her for a full minute. He’d forgotten how green her eyes were. Not just your average run-of-the-mill green, but the color of emeralds. His gaze fell to her breasts. Her figure was still as good as it had been in high school. She’d developed ahead of the other girls, a fact that had not gone unnoticed by the male population. There’d been speculation as to whether her breasts were real or her bra was padded. Some guys had claimed they had firsthand knowledge. Clay figured they were full of hot air. In all the time he’d known Frannie, she’d never given him a come-on. She’d acted like a lady, despite the rumors, despite the fact that she’d worn the shortest, tightest skirts at Hanahan High.

“This isn’t the time to be picky, Frannie,” he said, knowing they had little time to put a convincing act together. “As I see it, I’m doing you one helluva favor by agreeing to go along with this harebrained scheme in the first place.”

He was still as cocky as she remembered. “Why
are
you doing it?” she asked.

“I have my reasons. Besides, it’s only for a few days. I can go along with anything for that length of time. Do you want a temporary husband or not?”

She quickly mulled it over. She didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that he was indeed doing her a favor by agreeing to play the part of her husband. Not only was he one of the few eligible bachelors in town—most men her age were either married or ugly as a chicken coop.

“You’re right, I don’t have long,” Frannie said, at the same time trying to keep from sounding desperate. “I’m moving into your father’s house tomorrow.”

“I’ll be ready by the time the curtain goes up,” he said, wondering what it was that had prompted his father to help her. She wasn’t at all flashy, a quality his father found hard to resist in women. In fact, she looked as if she belonged in one of those health commercials advertising cereals that tasted like tree bark and pine straw. She wore very little makeup, but she had the kind of skin that didn’t require it.

“We’ll need to exchange information about each other,” Frannie said after a moment.

He looked suspicious. “What kind of information?”

He was as skittish as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockers, she thought. No wonder he’d managed to stay single all these years. “Just general stuff; such as birthdays, favorite colors, what you like to eat. If we’re supposed to be married, we should know these things about each other.”

Clay decided it made sense. “Okay, when can we coordinate?”

“I’m working a double-shift today. We could meet after I get off work this evening. Say around ten o’clock. Unless that’s too late.”

“Ten is fine. Your place?”

She hesitated. She knew her little house would pale in comparison to the mansion in which he’d been raised, but it wasn’t as if she had anything to prove to him. She only cared what her daughter thought. “I should probably give you my address?”

“I know where you live,” he said, remembering what had been scrawled on the wall of the boys’ bathroom with a Magic Marker.
For a good time
,
see Frannie Brisbane
,
11 Apple Tree Lane.
He’d borrowed paint remover from his shop class and taken it off, then wondered why he’d cared one way or the other. Maybe his reasons had been self-serving. His father showed little respect for women. Clay was determined not to be like him.

He slid off the stool and placed two dollar bills on the counter. “I understand you’ve been writing to your daughter.” Frannie nodded. “What’d you tell her about us?”

Frannie blushed even before she said it. “That we were madly in love.”

He wasn’t going to show.

Frannie checked the old-fashioned clock on the mantel and saw that it was approaching ten thirty. Clay Coleman had obviously changed his mind about participating in her little charade. Not that she blamed him. Anybody with half a brain could see that it was a cockamamie scheme.

She sighed heavily. It was what she deserved after having lied so shamelessly to Mandy. Now, she had a choice. She could come clean with the girl or think of a reason to keep her from coming to Hanahan.

There was one other option. She could pack her bags and sneak out of town in the middle of the night, before folks found out what a dang fool thing she’d done. But her personal business would be all over town by then. News such as that traveled like stink on a skunk.