To Catch a Husband. Laura Altom Marie

door as wide as the security chain would allow. “What’re you doing here? It’s the middle of the night.”

      “Only for homebodies like you,” he said. “For normal people it’s 8:00 p.m. So? You going to let me in?”

      She closed the door to unfasten the chain, then opened it again, wishing she’d had the foresight to put on real clothes.

      Once he’d helped himself to her sofa, then flicked on the end table lamp, he asked, “What’re you wearing?”

      “It’s a nightgown.”

      “No,” he said with a wink. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was negligee. Your sis give you that to go with the Victoria’s Secret lotion?”

      “Yeah, what of it? I wouldn’t even be wearing it if all my sweats weren’t in the laundry.”

      “I’m not complaining,” he said. “Looks good on you. You should wear it again sometime.”

      “F-for you?”

      “Like friends with privileges?” He winked. “Hell, yeah!” A jab to her ribs showed her he was just joshing. So why wouldn’t her pulse slow down? “Hey, you wanna order pizza? I’m starving.”

      She dropped onto the far end of the sofa, pulling her knees up to her chest, then wrapping her arms around bare legs, wishing the ivory satin-and-lace baby-doll-styled number had a couple more yards of fabric. “Thought you had a swanky dinner date tonight with that swimsuit model?”

      “I did. But she didn’t like Ziggy’s Burger Barn, so I ended up having to take her to Swenson’s—and you know how pricey that place is. I shelled out fifty bucks a head for an ounce of beef and a few mystery green squiggly things. Oh, and there was some freaky mushroom pile, drowning in gravy and carrot sprinkles. But she didn’t like that, either. I was going to stop back by Ziggy’s after taking Freddy home, but after all that mind-numbing talk about her hair, clothes and nails, I found myself craving pizza—and you.”

      “Flattery like that will get you everywhere,” she teased, plucking ten or so insect catalogs from the sofa so he could park himself beside her. “Well? You going to order?”

      “Sure. The usual?”

      “You know it.”

      He snatched the cordless phone from the coffee table, placed an order for a large pan pizza with the works, gave his credit card number, then hung up. Wandering into the kitchen, he grabbed a bag of potato chips from her snack cabinet. For an average person, this might’ve seemed odd, but Adam ate more than anyone on earth, so chips after a swanky dinner and before pizza was pretty much his norm. After popping two Hostess cupcakes, as well, he said, “And, hey, while we’re waiting for the grub, I’ve got something I’d like to run by you.”

      “Shoot,” she said, returning to the stag beetle she’d been pinning before Adam’s interruption.

      “Here’s the deal…” He sat beside her, then reached for her hands. As focused as she’d just been on pinning her new acquisition, the shock of him again taking her hand so intimately jolted her to a whole ’nother place—the fantasyland she’d spun of the two of them. Her first instinct was to yank herself free, but instead she froze, like the last time he’d pulled this stunt, selfishly indulging in the decadence of being held. “In the middle of this date with a strange, high-maintenance woman I knew after being alone with her for five minutes I never wanted to see again, I had a great idea.”

      “What’s that?”

      “Glad you asked,” he said with a grin so potent, it took Charity a second to find her next breath. “The company shrink told me I had to date, right?”

      “Yeah.” He was still massaging her hands, flooding her with tingling pleasure.

      “Well, the doc didn’t say a thing about who I had to date—just that I had to go out with someone.”

      “And?” Charity said, blaming trace formaldehyde fumes for the dizzying heat.

      “And—you’re going to love this—so I figure, why don’t I just go out with you?”

      Chapter Two

      Charity hadn’t yet recovered from Adam’s first ludicrous statement, when he kept going. “The beauty of this plan,” he said, “is that not only do I get the doc off my back, but you’re not going to expect anything of me, right? We can hang here. Or have nice, cheap dinners at Ziggy’s. The way I see it, it’s a win/win for both of us, seeing as you’ll get free grub.”

      Charity snatched back her hands.

      “No,” she said, pushing herself up from the sofa. “I’m too busy.”

      In front of the now-dark view of Mount Hood that’d been the reason she’d forked over too much for this condo, she crossed her arms and tried hard not to give in to the knot swelling at the back of her throat.

      “Too busy?” Adam laughed, leaving the sofa to join her. “What do you do besides hang out with me?”

      “That’s the point,” she said, good and mad not only at his presumptuousness, but at herself for letting their relationship—or lack thereof—get to this level. She was tired of being his buddy. His pal. Dammit, she wanted to at least be his girl. And if she were totally honest with herself, in her wildest dreams, what she really wanted was to someday be his wife. Have his babies. “Is it so wrong of me to want more?”

      “More?” He coughed. “What’s that mean?”

      “Want me to spell it out?”

      “Might be nice.”

      “Okay. First off, do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve been on a date?”

      “No.”

      “Well, I’ll tell you. Over three years. And that’s just sad. Night after night, I sit here, listening to all your problems, Adam, and never once do I saddle you with mine.”

      “You could,” he said, grinning, landing a friendly slug to her upper arm. “You know I’d be here for you—anytime. Come on, give me a few. I’m all ears.”

      “All right, for starters, I’m around men all the time, yet they don’t see me as a woman, but just another guy. I know I’ve got to do something to change that perception, but just the thought is overwhelming.”

      “Huh?” Sitting again, he leaned against the sofa back. “Are you PMSing? You’re acting a little mental.”

      “Thanks,” she said. She was really on a roll. “That helps a lot. Okay, next problem—since you mentioned PMS—I just had a physical, and my doctor asked if I plan on starting a family. Next, she launches into this speech on how if kids are something I want in my future, I might want to get on with it. She then proceeded to point out just how drastically the odds of fun stuff like birth defects increase the older women get. Geesh, I’m only thirty-five, so I ask, aren’t women having babies at fifty? But then—”

      “Whoa,” Adam said, making a T with his hands. “Time out. You? Want babies? As in someone a foot tall calling you ‘Mommy’?”

      “Is that so hard to believe?”

      He sobered. “Not at all, it’s just…Well, I never thought of you in that way.”

      “What way?”

      “You know…nurturing. Tucking little humanoid beings in for the night. Making sure they take their vitamins in the morning, helping with homework. When are you going to have time for you? And work? Let alone me?”

      “Adam?” The laugh crinkles at the corners of his eyes had her smacking him over the head with her ladybug throw pillow. “You’re such a jerk.”

      “Sorry,” he said. “But you’ve