Parents Wanted!. Ruth Dale Jean

shrugged. “A week, maybe ten days.”

      She gritted her teeth.

      “So what do you want me to do?” he pressed.

      “I want you to wait for it! I want what I want!”

      “Yeah,” he muttered, “you want what you want when you want it. This time it ain’t gonna happen.”

      She changed her tactics. “Then we’ll just have to cope, won’t we?” But she said it very sweetly.

      He practically growled at her, then turned abruptly and disappeared through the open door. He nearly bumped into Mayor Rogers, who was entering.

      “Matt!” she called after him. “Matt, I want to talk to—”

      But he was gone. She entered, shrugging. “I’ll track him down later,” she said cheerfully. “In the meantime, I’m delighted to find the two of you together.”

      John waved her toward a seat. “How so, Madame Mayor?”

      “Because now I’ll only have to say this once.” She took a seat and reached for the carafe of coffee on John’s desk, poured some into a foam cup. “I’d like you both to come to my house Friday night for a kind of dinner party.”

      John groaned. “You know how I hate that sort of thing.”

      Her sunny smile didn’t waver. “You’ll like this one. It’s a barbecue in the backyard.”

      John hurrumphed. “What’s the occasion?”

      “No occasion. I just enjoy breaking bread with a few of my favorite people now and again.” She turned to Laura. “Can you make it?”

      “Of course.” She wouldn’t miss a social occasion at the mayor’s house. Not only did she like Marilyn, but keeping abreast of the social scene in Rawhide was part of her job.

      “Good.” Marilyn grinned. “Because I’ve also invited the new city planning director, who just happens to be available.”

      Laura’s first impulse was to groan, but then she asked herself, why not? Why not let the mayor play matchmaker? Laura wasn’t doing too good a job of it on her own. After three years of widowhood, she was feeling somehow... lonesome.

      Not that she wanted anything more than casual friendship. To love wholly and freely was to take an enormous risk. She’d lost one love; she wouldn’t risk losing another.

      She smiled. “I love meeting new people,” she said. “Now if you’ll both excuse me, I should get back to work before the boss realizes I’m goofing off.”

      John waved her away. “You do that.” Before she was even out the door he was talking to Marilyn. “Did you happen to see that little scene at the picnic between my grandson and the banker’s ditzy daughter?”

      “As a matter of fact, I did.”

      Laura stepped through the door, half closed it and paused. A quick glance around showed her that no one was in sight. If she just happened to bend down to retie her shoelace...

      John: “There was no call for her to dump him in public.”

      Marilyn: “I think Matt can stand up to the strain. He’s better off without her, John, and you know it”

      John, sighing: “You got that right. But I worry about little Jessica. She needs a mother in the worst way.”

      Marilyn: “Not that kind of mother. It’s very perceptive of you to figure that out, though.”

      John: “I didn’t figure out nuthin’, it hit me in the face. Dammit, Marilyn, someone ought to fix Matt up with a nice girl who’ll be a mother to that child—”

      Laura thought that no nice girl in her right mind would waste her time with a ladies’ man like Matt Reynolds, even if Jessica was a nice little girl. Why, he’d probably been through every woman in town already, and he still—

      April Forbes rounded the corner heading for her receptionist’s desk. She stopped short at the sight of Laura kneeling beside the boss’s half-closed door. “Everything all right?” she asked.

      “Fine, just fine.” Laura shot to her feet, her cheeks burning. “I just had to—” She pointed to her foot. “—shoelace, you know—gotta get back to work.”

      And she rushed out, leaving April staring after her. The new planning director’s name turned out to be Roger Reedy and he turned out to be a pleasant, if bland-looking, man in his mid-thirties. “I know you two will get on like gangbusters,” the mayor said when she introduced them. “Just go on out back to the deck—you’ll know everyone, Laura—and introduce Roger to anyone he hasn’t met.”

      The doorbell rang at that moment so Laura nodded and led Roger away. She’d been in the mayor’s home a couple of times before, so she knew her way around.

      Sure enough, she recognized all those who’d arrived before her: John, of course, plus the president of the chamber of commerce and his wife, the superintendent of schools and his wife, the fire chief and his wife.

      John was manning the barbecue when she led Roger up to him and began the introductions.

      “We’ve met,” John said, shaking hands. “So how’s it going at city hall, Rog, old boy?”

      Roger launched into an earnest explanation but Laura wasn’t listening. Instead, her attention was drawn like a magnet to the man just pushing open the sliding-screen door.

      Matt. Why should this surprise her? He was, after all, the newly crowned Citizen of the Year.

      Their glances crossed paths, circled back and held. He looked great in crisp khaki trousers and a baby-blue Henley shirt, which was not to say he didn’t look equally great in his usual uniform of jeans and work shirt. But he’d gotten a haircut and he looked sleek and commanding as he stood there in the open doorway.

      He started toward her, or maybe he was heading for his grandfather. She’d never know because Marilyn appeared behind him and called his name. He stopped instantly, turning toward her.

      Marilyn had a stranger with her. a tall, impressive thirty-something woman dressed all in black, her black hair pulled back in a tight bun. There was a strength about her face that was hardly traditional but she was intensely striking, Laura thought.

      Marilyn’s voice carried clearly. “Matt, I’d like you to meet Meredith Zink. She’s new in town and I’m trying to help her meet a few people.”

      Matt took the hand the woman offered. “And what brings you to our fair city, Meredith?” he inquired.

      “I’m an attorney,” she said crisply. “I’ve just joined the law firm of Lowe and Winkler. Perhaps you know of them...?”