Hand-Picked Husband

A corner of Clay’s mouth twitched and he went back to reading her profile.

There’d been a compliment in there somewhere, but she wasn’t comfortable with that sort of compliment from Clay. She was comfortable with verbal jabs and sarcastic remarks from Clay. She was comfortable competing with Clay. She was comfortable ignoring him. How did he expect her to ignore a look like that?

“What is this ‘sentimental, serious and tolerant’ garbage?” Clay scoffed.

That was more like it. “I am sentimental, serious and tolerant.”

“Where’s stubborn?”

“I am not stubborn. I’m focused.”

Clay snorted. “And ‘sensitive’? You don’t have a sensitive bone in your body.” He erased and changed some of the personality traits she’d checked off. “You turn this in and you’ll be matched with a dadgum poet.”

Autumn narrowed her eyes and grabbed for Clay’s profile. Just what wondrous traits had he given himself ?

“‘Affectionate’? Explain to me how a man who gave me a timing belt one Christmas can be described as affectionate?”

He looked puzzled—and a little hurt. “But you needed a new timing belt, and you’d spent all your money on Christmas presents. I didn’t want you to get stranded on the road somewhere between here and Fort Worth.”

He’d done the replacement himself, she remembered. And it had been a relief not to have to worry on the drive back to school. “That’s being considerate,” she allowed. “I’m changing affectionate to considerate. Now, where’s arrogant?”

“Hey!”

But Autumn’s attention had been caught by something else. For his dreams and goals, Clay had simply written that he wanted to make sure he maintained the family’s ranch so he could leave it to his children.

And really, what other goal could he have? Yet if Autumn didn’t get out of the way so Clay could find a wife, then he’d never have children.

She skimmed over the rest, made a few alterations, her eyebrows rising when he described his ideal mate. “You’re looking for a woman who’s not afraid to ‘work hard, play hard and love hard’?”

He shrugged. “I thought it was kind of catchy. A lot better than a ‘life partner’.”

That was what she’d written. “I was trying to find a way to say that I don’t want a man who’s going to boss me around.”

“I think we’ve got that covered by mentioning that you’re strong-willed and independent.”

“You can’t put that. I’ll either get a wimp or a Neanderthal.”

“Well, no, actually, I said you wanted a man who wasn’t afraid to be a man and to let you be a woman.”

“Give me that!” Autumn stretched across the table and tried to grab the paper from him.

Laughing, Clay easily held it out of her reach.

That was how Maria found them. “You two finished?”

“Yes,” Clay said.

“No,” Autumn said, and retrieved her profile.

She erased Clay’s macho comment and rewrote “life partner”.

“You’ll be sorry,” he murmured as they handed Maria their forms.

“Okay,” Maria said. “I got to type all this information into the computer. You can pick up your matches on Monday.”

“Monday?” Autumn didn’t want to wait until Monday.

“There’s just me in the office today and I’m off at noon. I’ll type as fast as I can.”

“Did you check off ‘impatient’ on the personality profile?” Clay asked.

Autumn glared at him.

“Thank you, ma’am.” Clay stood. “Monday will be fine. We’ve still got that meeting to go to, Autumn.”

Right. Autumn checked her watch. They were going to be at least twenty minutes late. Even worse, they would arrive at the same time. She sighed, then brightened when she visualized everyone’s faces when she showed up at the Buyers’ Ball with someone other than Clay.

CHAPTER THREE

FAX

To: Debra Reese, Reese Ranch

From: Nellie Barnett, Golden B Ranch

Dear Debra,

Clay is in a very good mood. How’s Autumn?

Fingers crossed, Nellie

FACSIMILE

To: Nellie Barnett, Golden B

From: Debra Reese, Reese Ranch

Dear Nellie,

Everything’s sunny here. She acts like she’s got a secret. Do you suppose this is IT?

Holding my breath,

D.

AUTUMN weighed arriving when the Yellow Rose opened on Monday morning and appearing overeager with the desire to nail down a contribution from them before Clay could. Beating out Clay won.

Promptly at nine o’clock, Autumn turned down Bluebonnet Drive and parked her Bronco. In her rearview mirror, she saw a red pickup truck pull close to the curb behind her. Clay. It figured.