Raye Morgan - The Hand-Picked Bride

“I had to.”

“Why?”

Jolene put a stack of napkins into the holder before answering. “Because he’s a guy.” She glanced at her friend, then toward her child. “And I know all about guys. I’ve been down that road before.”

“I know, but...” Mandy frowned, biting her lip.

She tried another vein, hoping to make it clear. “You should have seen how quickly he backed off once he thought I was married.”

Mandy’s frown only deepened. “But you’re not married.”

Jolene pushed her hair back impatiently, turning away. No, she wasn’t married. But she might as well be. “I know that,” she said quickly. “But he doesn’t. And once he heard that, he was out of here like a shot.”

Mandy raised one dark eyebrow, surveying her friend with a glint of amusement. “Maybe he’s a gentleman.”

“What?” Jolene gave her an outlandish look. Gentlemen didn’t hang around offering jobs that didn’t exist.

But Mandy smiled, liking her idea. “Sure. Once he found out you were already spoken for, he decided to back off.” She gave her friend a teasing grin. “He just couldn’t bear to tempt himself any further.”

Jolene threw up her hands. “Oh, puhlease, Mandy,” she said, though she had to admit, in her secret heart, such a scenario pleased her, too.

Mandy shook her head and flopped down on the camp stool Jolene kept behind the counter. “Well, there’s only one problem with your theory. In point of fact, he asked me if you were married. And since I didn’t know you were giving him that impression on purpose, I told him the truth.”

The two friends stared at each other, then both started to laugh.

“Oh, brother, now I feel like an idiot,” Jolene admitted, shaking her head. Her attempt at a tough shell had melted away in an instant. It hadn’t been a very comfortable fit anyway.

“So I guess maybe his job offer was on the level,” Mandy suggested.

Jolene shrugged. “Maybe.” But she turned away and began another chore, as though it hardly mattered in the end.

Mandy was silent for a while, but finally blurted out, “You’re nuts. You know very well we’re not making it. The rent is eating up all the money we make here. We need something else.”

Jolene winced, knowing her words were true enough, but hating to face facts just yet. “All we need is a couple of good days...”

“A couple won’t do it,” Mandy told her bluntly. “A month of good days might get us by. You’ve got Kevin. We’ve both got the rent to pay and food to buy. We’ve got to do something to get more cash coming in. I’m thinking about going back to the factory....”

Jolene spun to face her friend. “Oh, Mandy, no. You hated that place.”

Mandy shrugged, and Jolene knew her friend was fighting back tears. She had hated the factory, though she’d been a supervisor. The place had been a garment shop, full of immigrants who couldn’t get anything better, and the boss had pushed her to push them to the limit. Jolene knew Mandy would rather do almost anything else than go back there. Still, it was pretty clear they weren’t making it the way things were going now.

“I don’t know what else to do,” Mandy said softly.

The two of them had met a year before when Mandy had moved her pretzel machine next to Jolene’s booth. They’d quickly become good friends and they’d moved in together to save rent money from overwhelming them. Mandy was wonderful with Kevin and the three of them formed a nice little family. The only fly in the ointment so far had been Mandy’s boyfriend, Stan. Try as she would, Jolene just couldn’t hit it off with him and she really resented the way he treated Mandy. But his photography business had really picked up in the past few months, leaving him less time to hang around their apartment, so the waters were a bit calmer.

However, she had to admit it was time to face facts. They weren’t making enough money to make it from month to month. Something would have to be done. Jolene looked at Mandy’s miserable face and she threw her arms around her. “We’ll think of something,” she said, the urge to comfort sounding just a little desperate. “Just give it a few more days. Something will come up. It has to.”

Mandy shook her head. “It hasn’t so far. We’ve got to do something. And we’ve got to do it now.”

Jolene closed her eyes and hugged her friend more tightly. The image of Grant Fargo swam into her mind and she sighed. It was too bad he was so attractive. And it was very lucky such things didn’t get to her these days. She’d learned her lessons early and she knew what it was like to steel herself against temptation.

“Okay,” she said, her shoulders sagging. “I’ll think about it. But I’m not promising anything.”

Kevin, ignored too long, let out a shriek and both women turned toward him.

“They certainly start at a young age, don’t they?” Mandy muttered. And both women laughed.

Three

Grant took in the banquet room at a glance. Decorated for a baby shower, pink and blue teddy bears floated down from the ceiling and fluffy white swans cruised down the center of the long table. He nodded approvingly.

“You did a great job putting this together,” he told the tall, elegant woman standing beside him.

“Thank you, boss,” Michelle answered gravely, her green eyes and carefully coiffed auburn hair advertising her Irish heritage. “We aim to please.”

He laughed. “You aim to take over the world, and we all know it,” he teased her. “I keep thinking I’ll walk in here some morning and find out you now hold the papers on the place.”

Her smile was pleased, but she demurred. “You know I wouldn’t do that without consulting you first,” she teased back.

His answering grin faded as his thoughts took in their past together. “You’re a good friend, Michelle. You know I never would have made a success of this place without you,” he told her solemnly. “Without you and Tony giving me moral support when our dad died, I never would have taken this on. I wouldn’t have had the guts.”

She smiled and patted his arm. “Don’t exaggerate, darling,” she told him in a motherly tone. “You always had more guts than all the rest of us put together.” She shook her head when he looked about to speak and turned to another topic. “By the way,” she mentioned casually. “How is your brother these days?”

“Tony?” Grant gave a quick thought to his once irascible older sibling. “Tony, as usual, could use a life.”

Michelle flashed a smile in his direction, but she didn’t pause as she counted out the change for the cash register. “Couldn’t we all?” she murmured.

He leaned against the counter, watching her with a thoughtful frown. “No, I really mean it about Tony. You and me, Michelle, we’re not the marrying kind. We’ve been there and done that and learned to avoid it. We know how to have our fun without entanglements and commitments. But Tony...” He grimaced. “Well, he’s got the kid and all and it’s making him nutty. He’s like a mother hen these days.” His frown deepened as he remembered his brother coming to the door in an apron with huge red apples painted all over it the last time he’d appeared unannounced at his door. “Damn it all, he needs a wife.”

Michelle nodded as she filled a bin with nickels, putting them in neat stacks. “Is there anyone on the horizon right now?” she asked him.

Grant shook his head. “Naw. He doesn’t even date. His whole life is wrapped up in his daughter, Allison. Ever since Mary died...” He glanced at Michelle, aware that he was treading on dangerous ground when criticizing his brother’s response to his wife’s death two years before. “Well, for the first year or so, you could understand it. I mean, Mary was wonderful and I think, if he hadn’t had Allison to take care of, he might have died, too. You know? His life just seemed to come to a stop.”

Michelle’s green eyes clouded. “Yes,” she said softly. “I remember.”

Grant nodded. “But now it’s time to move on. He needs a new woman in his life. That would turn things around, get him back in gear. If only I could find him someone...” His eyes brightened. “You know, I saw this girl the other day...” His voice trailed off as he thought of her.

Michelle looked up curiously. “What girl?”

“Hmm?” He met her gaze and realized he’d left her hanging. “Oh, this girl at the Farmers’ Market. I tried to hire her as a pastry chef but she turned me down.” He nodded slowly, thinking hard and coming to a decision. “You know, now that I think about it, she’d be perfect for Tony.”

“Who? This girl at the Farmers’ Market?”

“Why didn’t I realize this before?” He grew more excited about the idea as more details came to him. “She’s cuter than heck and she can cook and she’s got a kid, too.”

“Grant...”

He threw out his arms, amazed at how obligingly accommodating life could be. “I mean, how perfect can you get? They could have one of those...what do you call them? Blended families.”

Michelle laughed, looking as though she was tempted to give his dark hair an affectionate ruffle. Luckily she held back the impulse, but her tone was teasing. “Whoa there, pardner. Don’t you think you’re getting the cart before the horse? They haven’t even met yet and you’ve got them knitting booties together.”

He gazed at her earnestly. “What do you think, Michelle? What would happen if I tried a little matchmaking? Come on, you know Tony almost as well as I do. What do you think?”

Michelle hesitated, shaking her head as she studied his face. “I knew Tony once,” she admitted softly. “But ever since he came back from college with Mary on his arm...”

“Oh, come on. That was years ago.”

She raised a wise eyebrow. “Exactly my point.”

She began refilling saltcellars on the tables and he followed her, reaching out to open one for her. “So he got married and broke up that old gang of ours,” he murmured, handing her the empty container. “That doesn’t erase all those years growing up in the canyon and chasing each other around Lincoln Elementary.”

She turned to go to the next table, but a smile was beginning to tease the corners of her mouth.

He noted it and grinned, adding another recollection he knew she would share. “Or going to Mary Engle’s birthday party and ending up in her fishpond.”

She managed to force back her giggle but she couldn’t resist adding her own memory. “Or taking the bus down Lake Avenue from Eliot Junior High to go to the Rose Bowl Café for orange freezes,” she remembered reluctantly as she poured out another stream of white crystals.

He nodded his approval as he dropped into a chair right under where she was working. He had her now. He was going to need some expert female advice if he were going to match his brother up with a wife, and Michelle was the best manipulator he knew. “Or ditching high school,” he went on, adding another memory to lure her in, “piling into Tony’s old Chevy and heading down to Chavez Ravine to watch the Dodgers play in the World Series.”

“Gosh, we really did have fun in those days,” Michelle agreed, smiling broadly at last. Looking down at him, she shook her head. “Remember the beach parties at Lacuna?”

He nodded and rose, snagging a thorn-shaved white rose from the vase on the table and tucking it behind her ear. “Cruising Hollywood Boulevard with a car full of kids on a Saturday night?”

She grinned, touching the rose but leaving it where he’d put it. “Staying up all night on the sidewalk on New Year’s Eve to watch the Rose Parade?”