To Catch a Husband. Laura Altom Marie

is pretty harsh,” he said, leaning back against the recliner.

      “My perfect sister thought so, too.” But for as long as she could remember, Charity hadn’t had a problem with any aspects of her predominantly male-oriented world—even if it meant gassing her own insect specimens. It wasn’t something she liked thinking about, but she used to be a girly girl, hanging out with her mom and big sister while her twin brother, Craig, was tight with their dad. Then Craig had died when they’d been only seven. He’d fallen out of a tree house he and their dad had built that past summer.

      It had taken her father a year and another summer to recover from Craig’s death, and Charity liked to think that in large part, she’d been the reason Dad had begun to live again. Trouble was, in her heart of hearts, she knew that to her father she’d stopped being a daughter and had assumed the role of surrogate son. She’d taken up softball, stamp and bug collecting. Even as an adult, she still very much enjoyed her bugs—the hobby her father launched. The activity was calming. The camaraderie of sharing exciting new acquisitions with her dad—even if it was now mostly over the phone or Internet, seeing how he and her mom lived in Wyoming. The best part of the pastime was the order it brought to her world, where chaos typically reigned—at least where Adam was concerned.

      Charity’s dad was her hometown’s sheriff, and he’d encouraged her to follow in his footsteps. And because she loved him—never again wanted to see hollow loss in his eyes—she’d done just that and made him proud. Sometimes, she feared, at the expense of her own dreams.

      Don’t get her wrong, she loved her work. Her work meant the world to her. It’s just that lately she’d started wanting more. Which was where her whole baby craving came in.

      The more she’d hung out with her dad and other guys, the easier it’d become. For most of her life, she felt more at home with guys than girls. Most guys, that is. Until meeting Adam. Adam bore the distinction of being the one man who made her crave being a woman. Therein lay the rub, seeing as how he thought of her as just another guy.

      “Yeah,” he said. “That lady doc today? She reminded me of your sis. Lots of makeup and hair that looked like it wouldn’t budge in a stiff breeze. Could’ve been a fifty something hottie if she’d taken the know-it-all stick out of her butt.”

      Charity winced. Would Adam talk like that around a real girl? Not that she wasn’t a real girl with all the requisite parts and needs, but—

      “You want me to call in a pizza?”

      “I thought the poor lady doctor with the stick in an unmentionable spot gave you an assignment?”

      He shrugged, then reached for the cordless phone she’d left on an end table. He pressed the talk button. “Oh, man. It’s dead. Bug, how many times do I have to tell you to put the phone back on the charger?”

      “Sorry. Use your cell. Better yet, call from your own apartment.”

      “You know I like it more here. Besides, I’m under stress. You have to help me.”

      He was under stress? Ha! He didn’t know the meaning. Staring out her fourth-floor condo’s window at a steady autumn rain, she massaged her left hand with her right.

      “Okay?” Adam asked.

      She glanced his way, wishing she still didn’t feel breathless from having him all over her. What would it feel like to have him on top of her for a purpose other than tickling? “Uh-huh,” she said in response to his question. “Lately, the rain seems to make me stiff. Must be getting old, huh?” She grinned, but the statement held a sad truth. No, she wasn’t ancient, but at thirty-five, if she wanted more from her life—husband, kids, house—it was time to get on with it.

      From the same table where he’d found the dead phone, he grabbed a tube of pear-scented lotion her sister, Stephanie, had given her for her birthday. The only reason Charity had even opened it was because she’d run out of her usual generic brand.

      He flipped open the green tube’s top, waved it under his nose. “Nice.” Glancing at the label, he whistled. “Victoria’s Secret. La-di-da.”

      From her spot on the floor a few feet from him, Charity lunged for the lotion, but missed when he held it over her head. “Do you always have to be such a spaz?” she asked.

      He flashed her one of his slow grins that were so breathtakingly gorgeous. They were really starting to tick her off. “As a matter of fact,” he said, squeezing a dollop of lotion into his palm. “Yes, I do have to be a spaz. Which is precisely why you love me, right?”

      Why did he do this? Spout words that to him meant nothing but to her—

      She lost all capacity to think when he took her hands in his. He’d rubbed his hands together first, warming the amazing-smelling lotion, then smoothing it into her skin, methodically massaging each finger until she was nearly purring from pleasure.

      “How’s that feel?” he asked.

      “G-good.”

      “You okay?” he asked.

      “Sure. Why?”

      “I dunno. You seem tense.”

      How would he feel if the tables were turned? If he’d loved her for as long as he could remember, then some buttinski shrink told her to start dating other men? But that was the problem. They weren’t dating, and Adam didn’t love her. So, yes. She was tense. Crazy tense. Which led her to say, “That’s good. On my hands, I mean. You can stop.”

      “Sure?”

      She nodded.

      He released her, and once again she could breathe.

      “I left my cell in the truck, so let me run out and get that and I’ll call in an order. What do you want? The usual?”

      “I guess.” Look at them. They were like an old married couple—without the sex. Only, if Adam were hers, she’d want to—well, you know—every night of the week!

      “You’re grinning again,” he said, pulling on a leather jacket before heading out the door. “When I get back, you’d better tell me what happened today, or else.”

      If by “or else,” he meant he’d tickle her again? Charity would gladly take her chances.

      SATURDAY NIGHT, Frederika, a Puerto Rican swimsuit model Adam met Friday afternoon while she was doing a promo thing at his favorite sporting goods store, glowered across the table at him. “Are you on purposefully trying to ruin our evening?”

      “Um, no,” he said, putting down his menu. It’d been two days since his shrink-mandated order to find himself a date. He’d done just that, and look, on his very first try, not thirty minutes into the evening, already it was a disaster. “Why?”

      “First,” she said, slapping down her menu, as well. “You show up dressed like…” With exaggerated Latin flair, she waved her hands. “A hobo—”

      “A hobo?” He glanced down at his jeans and T-shirt. “This is one of my best tees. I even ironed it.” Sort of. Seeing how he’d yanked it out of the dryer while it’d still been warm.

      “And this place…” she said with a roll of her tongue, eyeing Ziggy’s red walls lined with sports memorabilia and the light fixtures that’d been rigged from basketball halves. She probably wasn’t much into the all-sports radio blaring, either. “Could you no have afforded better? And now, you tell me we must have beer with dinner, not wine? And your car was…how you say? Fill-thee.” Her speech’s grand finale was a theatrical shudder.

      “Sorry,” he said, nose back in his menu. Cheese-burger or ribs? Tough call.

      “You should be sorry. Do you know how lucky you are to be with me? I could get another man just like that.” She snapped her fingers. “I deserve better. You show me good time or I’ll call my brother Rico. He tell you how to treat a woman.”

      Adam