Free A Baby...Maybe? & How to Hunt a Husband by Bonnie Tucker Page A

looked like a Greek goddess, Italian style.
    Taking a deep breath, she opened the patio door and stepped outside.
    He gazed up at her and didn’t say a word. Not one single solitary word. All she heard was the rustling leaves and the lone screech of an owl. A second stretched into two. Then three. Maybe she didn’t look like a goddess. Maybe she looked more like a mussed-up schoolteacher playing dress-up on Halloween.
    â€œLady?”
    â€œYes,” she said softly, trying to smile, only not sure if there was anything to smile about. Maybe he was sorry he put forth the effort to track her down.
    â€œThe visual just isn’t coming together in my mind. You better just take that off,” he called up to her.
    â€œWhere are you?” Even though the area was fairly well lit, she couldn’t see him.
    â€œHere.” He came out of the shadow of the big oak growing in front of her room, its branches reached out in all directions, some hitting the roof. He waved his arm, sounding hopeful. “So you taking it off?”
    â€œNo.”
    He reached for one of the lower branches and swung himself up, using the trunk like a ladder and the branches as rungs.
    â€œYou can’t do that.”
    â€œWatch me.” He continued climbing.
    â€œI’m naked under this sheet.” She was getting panicky. Not because she thought he’d hurt her. But then again, she didn’t know anything about him. If Rosey and Kate wouldn’t tell him her name there must be a reason. Maybe he was married already, with ten kids and cheated on his wife—the cad.
    â€œThat’s okay. I’ve seen naked people before.”
    â€œOf course you have.” Did he think just because she was from Erie that she didn’t know doctors saw naked people? “But you haven’t seen me naked.” Was that not obvious to a doctor from Texas?
    He stopped midclimb and gave her a heart-stopping smile. “We can remedy that.”
    She shook her head, her hair a massive wave of tangles and curls shifting across her back and shoulders. She wasn’t good at the verbal bantering that came so easy to some women, and it showed when he let out a belly laugh. “You’re cute, you know that?”
    She shook her head again.
    â€œYou look like a deer caught in the headlights.”
    â€œThat’s not good. Don’t think I want to remind you of Bambi.”
    â€œHow about Bambi’s older, sexy sister?”
    She smiled back at him. “Much, much better.”
    When he had reached the thickest branch that was level with her balcony, he straddled it, leaning his back against the trunk. The light in the room behind her was enough illumination to see his eyes and the smile on his lips. If it had been lighter, she would bet his eyes would be laughing at her. “Why did you come up here?” she asked.
    â€œWould you have gone down there?” He nodded toward the ground.
    â€œNot in this.”
    â€œBut that—” he pointed to her sheet “—has such possibilities.”
    â€œReally? I’m almost afraid to ask.”
    â€œYou’ll find out when I get to know you better.”
    â€œAre you sure that’s going to happen?” Maybe she wasn’t so bad at bantering after all. “Because I might say no.” Not likely.
    â€œThat’s a possibility, but I love a challenge.”
    â€œI’m a challenge?” That surprised her. She’d never thought of herself that way.
    He crossed his arms over his chest. His muscles bulged under his cotton shirt and he seemed to relax against the trunk. “Do you know why no one will tell me your name?” he asked.
    She shook her head. She wasn’t about to tell himthat because if he wasn’t a wife cheater, he could be an ax murderer. Or both.
    â€œI asked Kate because I saw her waiting for you at the restaurant. She wouldn’t say. I asked old Tigger downstairs, and he had