One Bride Too Many: One Bride Too Many / One Groom To Go

She wasn’t exaggerating. He looked around but couldn’t find a thermostat to regulate the air-conditioning.

“Maybe when you pulled the blue wire…” she said, her lips turning blue.

The whole lab was one bizarre booby trap, he realized. Marsh had gone from designing clever toys in his early days to this diabolical trap. Cole tossed the pliers on the counter. No way was he pulling another wire. The red one would probably turn the floor into a giant griddle.

“Wonder if the wiper thing works as a hand warmer,” he mused.

Tess was shivering too much to answer. The vents were sending out Arctic blasts, making a mockery of energy conservation.

“The SWAT team should be on their way. Until then, we’d better share body heat,” he said.

He stepped behind her and wrapped his arms around her. The heat generated between her back and his chest was nothing compared to the inferno where her bottom snuggled against his lap.

“I’m warm now.” She tried to squirm away.

“I’m not.”

“Well, too bad! You got us into this.”

“You wanted to preview the new line.”

“Not if it meant being freeze-dried!”

“My grandfather likes to tinker.”

“Your grandfather should be committed!”

Her teeth chattered like a pair of windup joke teeth, and he could feel a shiver ripple down her spine.

The door flew open with a bang, and they both whirled around, arms half raised in anticipation of some really tough cops.

“That’s a pretty harsh judgment, young lady.”

“Grandfather.” Cole forgot about calling him Marsh.

“I’m glad you’re taking an interest in the business, Cole.”

Marsh Bailey radiated intimidation from his razor-sharp features and cold blue eyes to the immaculate press of his silvery gray Italian suit. He was the only person Cole knew who’d never owned a pair of jeans. The man didn’t even loosen his tie on the rare occasions when he watched a public affairs program on TV. Cole instinctively put his arm around Tess’s shoulders, surprised at how square and rigid they felt.

“This isn’t a very nice way to treat one of your best customers, Mr. Bailey. The Baby Mart, which I own and operate, sold thirty-two of your inflatable play tents for Christmas last year.”

“Thirty-two. I’m impressed. That’s more than the Toy Warehouse in any of their north side stores. But that doesn’t explain why you and my grandson set off the security system. If I hadn’t been checking the surveillance screen for reception problems, you’d be looking down the barrels of some high-power firearms.”

“The timing to enter the code the second time is off.” His grandfather always made Cole feel belligerent.

“I can vouch for that,” Tess said. “I saw Cole set his watch.”

“Then it seems I owe you an apology, Miss…”

“Tess Morgan.”

Marsh never apologized. He believed the rich didn’t have to be sorry for anything. Cole had braced himself for a verbal flogging, and the old man was making nice with Tess.

“Now that you’ve seen the new line, Miss Morgan, what do you think of it?”

“The lime-green high chair won’t sell. The design is wonderful, but the color will clash with almost everyone’s kitchen. The portable potty is a stroke of genius, though.”

Marsh ran his finger over the pencil-thin mustache he’d worn for as long as Cole could remember. His iron-gray hair was clipped to within a quarter inch of his skull. It was more than coincidence that both Cole and Zack wore their thick hair semilong and their faces clean-shaven when beards would have been more convenient.

“The potty is one of my designs.” The old man actually puffed up. “The high chair also comes in sandy white for the American market.”

Cole took Tess’s hand. He’d had more than enough baby business for one night.

“About the yellow wire,” she said as he pulled her to the corridor.

“Activates the sprinkler system.” Marsh followed them through the doorway. “This has been a very satisfactory test of my new system.”

TESS SPENT the rest of the week thinking about the new Bailey line—the one Cole had handed her, not the baby stuff.

Why ask her to become involved in his love life? Either he’d had too much champagne at the reception or a Bailey built brick wall had bounced on his head. She wished he’d remained nothing but a glossy memory in the yearbook.

Or did she?

Certainly he made life more interesting. She’d been trapped by a mad inventor—well, a quirky one, anyway—and suspected of industrial espionage. Even better, she’d told Marsh Bailey what was right and wrong with his new products. Would that she could do the same for Kozy Kountry cows!

As she lolled in her oversize yellow sleep shirt, munched microwave popcorn and watched Bride of Frankenstein, Cole was wining and dining Jillian Davis, of all people. If Tess had ever had any aspiration to be a matchmaker, this would have killed it. Jillian wasn’t even on her Z list of possible dates for Cole, although, with brilliant hindsight, she had to admit her fellow kickboxer was probably his type. He thought so, anyway.

Darn, why had Marsh tried to turn the lab into the house from Dr. Zhivago? She’d been blissfully ignorant of how it felt to have Cole’s strong arms wrapped around her for real, not as a tactic to beat her at pool. She was going to remember the moment long after portable potties were forgotten in the mental haze of advanced old age.

The door buzzer aroused her from speculation about whether Cole had curly black hair on his tummy. Not that it mattered to her. Someday she’d find a man who was right for her, one who’d make analytical comments about Bride of Frankenstein while he nuzzled her throat and did other nice things.

She checked her spy hole, as she liked to call it. Cole’s face was distorted like the image in a fun-house mirror, but there was still no mistaking how cute he was. Darn again! She didn’t want him to see her in a nightshirt, and she especially didn’t want to hear about his wonderful date.

Opening the door as far as she could without taking off the chain, she peeked out at him.

“Hi. Can I come in?”

“I’m not exactly dressed.”

“You look decent to me. I really need to talk to you.”

“Your grandfather’s not going to have us arrested for trespassing, is he?”

She took off the chain and let him step into her snug little living room.

“Nice place.”

He looked at the gray and pink striped satin couch—impractical, maybe, but she loved it—and the two deep rose velvet armchairs. The rest of her furniture was salvage from relatives or thrift-shop bargains, but she liked the touch of class her good furniture gave the light beige carpeting and white walls of the bland apartment.