Male Order Bride (2 page)

She sighed, her appetite semisatisfied, and decided she
would relax with her bath first. As generally happened, by the time she
got out of the bathroom her nibbling would fill her enough not to want
anything else, except some wine, perhaps. Or dessert.

As she trailed past the kitchen table, she picked up the
note from Rafe Chancellor and carried it with her into the bathroom to
reread in detail.

He was direct and creative, which appealed to her own
artistic tendencies. And original. He could possibly pull her out of
the rut of work-work-work she had buried herself in lately. And if she
sent back the card soon, they might even have a date together before
she had to fly to Atlanta for the buying trip next week.

An hour later Lacey felt emboldened enough by a glass of
wine to give George a call to find out more about this friend Rafe.
"George, this is Lacey Adams," she started, and continued without
taking a breath, "who is this Rafe Chancellor friend of yours?"

"Lacey! Good to hear from you. What do you mean who is
Rafe Chancellor? I told you all about him the other day."

"Obviously I wasn't listening closely enough," Lacey
confessed. She had run into George during one of her mad dashes out of
the house between the remodeling sessions at the new boutique. She had
been intent on stocking up on yogurt and getting to the cleaner's
before they closed that afternoon. She had probably answered George
with all the correct responses at the time, but right now couldn't
recall any of them. "What do you know about him?"

"I first met him as a major."

"Major what? Majordomo? Majorette? You know I don't know
anything about the military and ranks."

"Well, it wouldn't make any difference anyway," George
replied. "He's retired now, at the rank of lieutenant colonel."

"What's he like as a person?"

"I haven't dated him," George answered, and waited until
Lacey stopped giggling before he said, "but I have a helluva lot of
respect for the guy. He was a helicopter pilot in Nam and is a very
active, outdoorsy sort."

Lacey wanted to sneeze just at the thought of the
hay-fever attacks she had had as a youngster. Of course, she hadn't had
an attack in years, but she had also stayed indoors a lot. "Is he still
an aviator?"

"I don't know," George answered. "But I do know he was a
helicopter attack pilot."

"It must take a lot of guts to attack a helicopter with
those blades and all," Lacey responded, and smiled as she heard George
laughing. "What's he look like?"

"You're asking me to tell you what he looks like? I told
you, I haven't ever dated the guy."

"But you've seen him," Lacey persisted. "What's he look
like? Give me a mug-shot description. Pretend I'm the police and I'm
hunting for this guy."

"We-e-ll, let's see. He's tall."

"How tall? Taller than a breadbox? Shorter than the Empire
State Building? How tall is tall?"

"Huhhmm," George mumbled, and Lacey could picture him
rubbing his chin in thought. "Taller than I. Taller than you. About six
feet, at least. Probably taller, but no Wilt Chamberlain."

Lacey nodded. She liked tall men. "How old is he?"

"About my age, maybe older, maybe younger."

Somewhere around forty, Lacey decided. "Gee, George, I
sure am glad I didn't just have my house robbed and have to have you
give a description of the burglar. What color is his hair?"

"Oh, blond, definitely blond," George answered. "And he
has a mustache. And sometimes I think his feet came with spurs built
into them."

Lacey's mind flashed back to Rafe's cowboy-boot card and
the "howdy" greeting with the mention of the horses. Definitely a John
Wayne type. "What else can you tell me about him, George?"

"Well, gosh, I haven't—"

"I know," Lacey interrupted him. "You haven't ever dated
him."

"Right."

"But if you were I, would you?"

"Hell yes," George said, "or I wouldn't have told the man
about you. I think you two would have a lot in common."

With his horses and her high couture, she didn't see what.
"Tell me this, George."

"Sure, anything."

"Is Patricia there?"

"Yeah, right here beside me."

"Does she know this Rafe Chancellor?"

"Sure does, had him over for dinner just last week."

"Then let me talk to her."

George handed the phone over to his wife, who eagerly
asked Lacey what the mystery was about. Lacey told her about her chance
meeting with George in the grocery store and the flowers and card.

"He's a darling man!" Patricia raved.

Lacey thought she had never met a "darling" man she liked
before, but then, Patricia tended to use that word in every other
sentence. It didn't have the same meaning for her that it did for
Lacey, who had first heard it applied to Dominick.

"So sweet and gentlemanly," Patricia continued. "Never a
cross word and treats ladies like ladies. And such diverse interests!
Whenever I turn around I'm hearing about something else he does. It
wouldn't surprise me at all to discover that his flannel shirts really
hide a Superman suit."

Lacey laughed. "He sounds intriguing. What's he look like?"

"Oh, tall, six-six at least."

Lacey smiled. For Patricia's petite under-five-foot
figure, that could translate as five-eight.

"And brown hair," Patricia continued.

"George just said it was blond."

"George is color blind. I have to match his socks. It's
light brown, maybe, or dark blond. You know."

About the color mine used to be
,
Lacey decided.
Somewhere between dishwater and ash. "
I
haven't asked, but I take it he's not married?"

"Nope, and not looking to be. He
was
married, and I think that gave him enough of a taste of it to decide he
doesn't want to get serious with anyone again—or at least not
for a very long time—and he'll be quick to tell you that. I
know," Patricia added, "because he made it clear to me, and as a
married woman I didn't really feel that point was necessarily needed."

"Perfect," Lacey said. "I'm so busy trying to get my
business established that I can't afford to have a serious relationship
now. And don't want one, after the last disaster."

"That reminds me," Patricia said. "We saw that article in
the paper about the new shop. Lovely picture of you."

"I didn't think so," Lacey answered, remembering how the
photographer had snapped the photo right as fifty million other things
had started to happen in the shop. It was difficult to try to keep a
smile on her face when one of her best clients was chewing her out over
the phone about a late deadline—something that seldom
happened to Lacey. "But thanks anyway."

"I think the two of you would have a fun time together."
Patricia continued to chatter away about Rafe. "He loves to dance and
is excellent at it. We danced at the Military Ball not too long ago. If
anything, I don't think you'll be bored with him."

Lacey was beginning to believe that much about him.

"Now, you'll have to let me know what happens, won't you?"
Patricia asked as Lacey began to hang up. "If George is going to be
matchmaking, I have to know all the details."

"I'll let you know," Lacey replied, and hung up.

She carried Rafe's note over to the kitchen table and sat
down with the self-addressed, stamped return card. She picked up a pen
and thought about what she would write. For one evening, at least, she
was certain they would have plenty to talk about. If they didn't like
each other after that, it was only one evening they each would have
invested out of curiosity.

"If you decide to return the card, all you will have to do
is write in your own handwriting, 'Give me a call sometime.'" She
reread the note. That wasn't too original. If he had gone to all of
this trouble just to ask for her permission to call, the least she
could do was give him a somewhat livelier reply.

Huhmm. In my own handwriting. No telling what that would
reveal, with her disjointed words and floppy loops and straight lines.
If he were a handwriting expert, she wouldn't give herself away with
any clues she couldn't interpret herself. Better type the message and
keep some of her mystery intact until she found out more about this
dude.

If she drove down to the post office that night and
dropped it in the slot, he'd get it the next day. And he'd also get a
hint of how devoid of men her life had been lately.

Better to keep him guessing and waiting by that mailbox,
she decided. Besides, with her design class at the community center
tomorrow evening, if he called she wouldn't be here to answer the
telephone. And that would give her an extra day to find out more about
him from other sources. She'd hold the card for a little while longer.

Lacey got out of bed excited about the new day the
following morning. She turned on the radio full blast on her drive to
the Victorian house where she had moved the boutique. The house was
more suited to her old-fashioned designs than the wedge of office space
in the Edgewater shopping mall where the shop had been. But Lacey had
worried about losing the mall traffic when she made the move to the
house.

She needn't have worried. Even in those cramped quarters
Lacey had built her reputation in the short two years she had built up
the business. The customers had followed her to her new location and
brought more clients with them.

Lacey's business offered just enough of a unique variety
to appeal to a wide-ranging clientele. Her main love—and the
reason for the boutique's success—was original design. Each
carried her label and trademark of lace, even if the lace could only be
seen on the hemline of the garment's petticoat. Her penchant for
designs had grown out of a love for clothes and a collection of hats
she had begun accumulating as a child. Whenever she had traveled she
had bought a hat to remind her of the places she had
seen—straw hats from the Caribbean islands, a Nova Scotia
fisherman's sou'wester hat or a frilly lace bonnet from Paris. Then,
for one of her design projects in school she had created an original
outfit to match a hat. That was when she had realized what pleasure and
satisfaction designing gave her. She had worked for other people until
two years ago, when she had taken the gamble and gone into business for
herself.

Now she had her own shop specializing in her designs. She
also offered a service of recreating designs from pictures or
descriptions a client would give her. She was able to afford the
services of several housewife seamstresses who worked out of their
homes whenever Lacey gave them an order. Since she had moved to the
Victorian house, Lacey had added an array of accessories and a
selection of other clothes which expressed her flair for dressing. The
trip to Atlanta next week was for the purpose of expanding her boutique.

Together with her manager, Lacey had arranged the rooms of
the house to have a cluttered, attractively cozy feel to them so that
customers could almost get the same kind of excitement in shopping one
would get in rummaging through an attic. Lacey even had one room set
aside for antique garments she occasionally found at estate sales and
secondhand shops. She had spent months at country auctions searching
for old trunks and armoires in which to display her original designs.

Lacey was a powerhouse of activity where her business was
concerned. This was her baby, her life, the essence of her self. She
often worked eighteen-hour days, seven-day weeks. When she wasn't in
the boutique working directly with her clients, she was at her drawing
board at home, thinking up new designs. She didn't have time to date,
and in fact preferred not to, since her experiences lately had been
less than exciting. When the man of her love life appeared, if ever, it
would be when she least expected it, in the most unlikely of places.
She didn't want to meet him in a singles bar.

Take this Rafe Chancellor
, she
thought while driving home for a quick lunch and a check of the mail.
He might not be what she was looking for, but he had
style—just judging by his flowers and note. That was
something she hadn't found too often in the men of her acquaintance.
Now that she thought about it, she hadn't ever found it in anyone to
her satisfaction.

She really should send that postcard back that afternoon,
just out of curiosity to find out who he was. But she wanted to check
him out a little further first. She could call her friend Amy, who was
married to an army sergeant. If Rafe was retired military, chances were
they would have heard of him, since Keesler Air Force Base was the
local hangout for all the military within range of the PX. Right after
lunch she would call her.

Lacey turned into her driveway, parked the car and walked
across the street to check her mailbox. It was jammed with catalogs
which she received from around the world and often used as a spark for
some of her more imaginative designs. Junk mail again, she sighed,
until she came to the letter from Rafe Chancellor. Smiling, she raced
into the house anxious to see if this contained details of that
mysterious Phase Three he had omitted in the previous note. Maybe it
would list Phases Five, Six and Seven, continuing where his flowers and
card had left off yesterday.

When she entered the house, the first thing she saw was
his flowers. At least she had to hand it to him for being romantic in
his pursuit. It was like having a secret admirer, but instead of
guessing who the admirer was, she was guessing what he was like, and
getting only bits and pieces of his personality through people who knew
him.

And the flowers! A woman never could get too many of
those, if they were given in the right spirit, and not the way Dominick
used to bring her roses. The bouquet of Rafe's demonstrated a
thoughtful side of his character, or maybe just a calculating
characteristic. Whatever the motive, he was definitely a man worth
investigating further. She tore open the letter.