Free Male Order Bride by Carolyn Thornton Page B

lucky
to be able to get away and leave the responsibilities behind with them.
Of course, sometimes I let them buy for me."
    He nodded. "Sounds like you have quite an operation."
    She shook her head. "Not that big. Just select in the
kinds of things I sell. I just moved to a new location for my
boutique," she explained, "on the Back Bay. I design originals on
orders and market a select line of clothes that I think are a little
different from what you'd find in a department store."
    He laughed. "Somehow you don't strike me as
department-store quality."
    She blushed. "Thank you. I like my designs to stand out."
    "Is that one of yours?" he asked. "That dress you're
wearing?"
    Lacey glanced down as if she had forgotten what she had
put on that morning. "Yes, it is."
    "Very lovely," he said, meaning it. "I noticed you when
you walked up to the ticket counter. I had no idea I'd be so fortunate
as to get the seat next to you," he said, smiling, laughing to himself.
"The color attracted me. What do you call that shade?"
    "Blue."
    He laughed. "I thought you fashion designers had strange
and inventive names for colors and didn't call a zigzag a zigzag or a
spot a spot."
    "We don't call zigzags zigzags," she said, laughing with
him. "We call the pattern herringbone. And spots are dots."
    "Oh," he said, nodding grandly. "I'll have to remember
that. Amazing what you can learn sitting next to someone on an
airplane." He turned and smiled at her.
    "Actually," she said, "I don't go in for all those cutesy
titles for things. I like to call a spade a spade and an ace an ace.
People can relate to the simpler things much better. When they don't
understand something, they tend not to buy it."
    He liked that attitude—straight, up front, open.
Not at all like his sitting and talking with her right now, as if he
had no idea who she was. "Have you done this sort of thing long?"
    "I've had my own business about two years," she said, "but
I've been working with clothes and designs and fashion merchandising
since college." She didn't add how long ago that was, but guessing, he
put her in her early thirties or possibly late twenties. She carried
herself with assurance and maturity, but there was something intangibly
youthful about her as well. She would blend well with any age group. He
found himself wondering how Angela would like Lacey.
    "How about you?" she asked.
    "Oh," he said, searching quickly for a reply. He hadn't
wanted to focus the discussion on his business. All he wanted was to
know about her. He'd have to be careful and not give so much away that
she'd get a hint of who he really was. "I'm a traveling salesman," he
said, thinking that was the broadest term he could use for his work. In
effect he
was
a salesman. He sold himself. He
sold other people's ideas with his marketing research and consultation.
And he was involved in so many different kinds of enterprises that it
would be hard to describe what he did. But if he told her his usual job
title, the "marketing consultant" might give him away. He wasn't sure
what George had told Lacey about him.
    "Then you must travel a lot also."
    "It comes in spurts," he answered. Quick! Get the subject
back on her. "How do you like New York?"
    "Love it!" she said, smiling. "I get so filled up with
ideas there I can only take three or four days at a time, then I have
to come home to recharge. Living on the Gulf Coast has its advantages
in being so restful after the pace of New York."
    He nodded. He had spent enough time in the Big Apple to
know what she meant. "Wonderful place to visit, but I agree. I like the
country atmosphere of Biloxi."
    Lacey frowned. "I never thought of Biloxi as the country,"
she said. "I think of it more as the beach, but I suppose it does have
a lot of wide-open spaces, once you get away from the beach."
    Careful
, he warned himself.
You
almost gave yourself away
. "I live a little way out," he
said, "so I tend to think of my few acres as the country."
Time
for a subject