The Groom Wager (Wrong Way Weddings Book 1) Read online

  Any thief who knew enough technology to get into the building could probably figure out a way to get out, but here they were, trapped in the lab. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a professional burglar, and anything he might try could result in costly damage to the system.

  “There has to be a way out,” she said.

  “Not if Marsh’s damn anti-spy gadgetry works. I wish his James Bond movie collection would self-destruct.”

  “Do spies really steal plans for baby stuff?” She sounded more curious than panicked.

  “How would I know? I haven’t had anything to do with the business since Zack and I gave each other haircuts to get out of posing for the catalog.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “Wait for the baby police, I guess.”

  She laughed.

  He grinned at her. “I don’t suppose you have cell service?” he asked. His phone was showing zero bars.

  She glanced at her phone and shook her head. “No, but isn’t that a landline over there?”

  He walked over, annoyed because he’d been too rattled to notice it.

  It was dead.

  “The phone service must cut off when the doors lock,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Probably so anyone trying to steal the hiney warmer can’t call a cohort to pass on the secret design,” he said in a husky whisper. He had an odd notion that he wanted to hear her laugh again.

  “What do we do now?” she asked.

  “Good question. Let me see if I can short out the system.” Nuts to Marsh. If he ruined something, it wasn’t his fault.

  This was a lab. There had to be tools. He opened one of the cupboards under every workstation and found a screwdriver and a pair of pliers.

  “Isn’t there a security guard or something?” she asked, hovering behind him as he removed the casing from the control panel on the wall.

  “There’s a whole crew of security people, but I’d rather get out of here before anyone comes.”

  “You said we weren’t sneaking in.”

  “We weren’t.” He didn’t want to look like a dope for getting the code sequence wrong, but the jumble of bunched wires was a puzzle with no solution.

  “Look at all the colored wires. Just like a movie where the right one will deactivate a bomb and the wrong one will—”

  “It’s not a bomb.”

  “Can I pick the color?”

  “Why not?”

  “Yellow, pull out a yellow.”

  “Yellow as in no parking, no passing, and crime-scene tape.”

  “Good point. So, do you want to try the green as in go?”

  He caught a green wire snaking through a bunch of other colors and yanked it with the tip of the pliers. A shrill alarm sounded on the other side of the door.

  “Wrong wire.”

  She shrugged with a nonchalance he didn’t feel. He didn’t relish being known as the dumbest grandson.

  “Try the blue,” she suggested. “We’re locked in with all that racket in the hall. What else can happen?”

  “The walls could move in and crush us.”

  “Like Poe’s Pit and the Pendulum. You remember that story,” she said.

  He’d never read it, but then, he hadn’t had Tess as a tutor that year. She’d read Macbeth aloud, scene by endless scene, and wouldn’t let him refer to it by the name.

  She said he had to call it The Scottish Play because of the theatrical curse, and then she made him admit some of the story was exciting.

  He ripped out the blue wire. Nothing happened as far as he could tell. The door was still bolted shut.

  “Cole, does it seem a little chilly in here?” She hugged her arms across her chest.

  “Yeah, it does.”

  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 teeth chattering.

  The whole lab was one bizarre booby trap. 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 wipe 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 inhouse security team should be on their way. Until then, we’d better share body heat.” He 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.”

  “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’ 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. Tikes, which I own and operate, sold thirty-two of your inflatable play tents for Christmas last year,” Tess said.

  An amused expression lit Marsh’s face. “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-powered firearms.”

  “The timing to enter the code the second time is off,” Cole growled.

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

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

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

  “Tess Morgan.”

  “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.”

  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 semi-long and their faces clean-shaven when beards would have been more convenient.

  The old man actually puffed up. “The high chair also comes in sandy white for the American market.”

  Cole took Tess’ 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 sprinklers.” Marsh followed them through the doorway. “This has been a very satisfactory test of my new system.”

  As Cole was wining and dining Jillian Davis, Tess lolled in her oversized yellow sleep shirt, munched microwave popcorn, and watched Bride of Frankenstein.

  If she’d 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 yogi was probably his type. He thought so, anyway.

  Damn, 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 when they’d share body heat for long after portable whisk-away potties were forgotten in the haze of advanced old age.

  The door buzzer sounded and broke her from her thoughts about whether Cole had chest hair or not. Not that it mattered. 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 peephole.

  Cole’s face was distorted like the image in a fun-house mirror, but there was still no mistaking how cute he was. Damn 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 cozy little living room.

  “Nice place.” He stared at the gray-and-pink chevron print couch— impractical, maybe, but she loved it—and the two deep rose velvet armchairs.

  The rest of her furniture was salvaged 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.

  “Are we in trouble for sneaking into the lab?”

  “We didn’t sneak.”

  “Of course not, but I’ll pass up any more tours of Bailey Baby Products, not to sound ungrateful or anything.” She didn’t want to hear about his date, but eventually she’d run out of inane chatter.

  “Next time you set me up,” he said, plopping down on the couch, “I’d prefer it’s with someone you know better.” He dipped into the metal mixing bowl of popcorn without invitation.

  “Help yourself.”

  “Oh, do you mind?”

  She didn’t mind sharing her popcorn. She strenuously objected to arranging dates for him.

  “You may remember, I didn’t set you up with Jillian. You engineered that.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “So, you didn’t have fun?” She couldn’t pretend to be sorry. There was something about Jillian that was too perfect.

  “I don’t want to talk about it. What are you watching?”

  “Bride of Frankenstein.”

  “That about sums up my evening.”

  “That bad?” She had this terrible guilt-producing reaction—glee. “Have some more popcorn.”

  “No, thanks. We had a big dinner, surf and turf at Trocadero’s.”

  “You do a first date right. Didn’t she like it?”

  “I guess she did. That’s not the problem.”

  “What is?” Tess stopped the movie. Truth to tell, he looked so glum the date had to have been interesting.

  “We went back to her apartment afterward.”

  “Horrors,” she said dryly, not at all sure she wanted the intimate details.

  “For coffee and lemon bars.”

  “Exactly what I thought.”

  He was dressed in tan pants and a black knit shirt that highlighted rippling muscles and dark, broody eyes. If Jillian had blown the date with Cole, her head had to be stuffed with sawdust.

  “She slipped into something more comfortable—a fuzzy white robe shorter than my undershirts and furball slippers that went plop, plop, plop.”

  “Those are called mules.”

  “Seriously?”

  “A girl has to relax sometime. So, you had coffee and dessert. She can’t make drinkable coffee? Her lemon bars were sour and soggy?”

  “No, they both were perfect.”

  “Of course, perfect. Why are you here, Cole? Do you have something to complain about?”

  “You’ve never been to her place, right?”

  “Right. She’s only an acquaintance. I hardly know her at all. We did yoga together in college.”

  “She has wall-to-wall...” He took a deep breath. “Stuffed animals.”

  “Stuffed as in taxidermy?”

  “No, the kind kids play with—plush bears and giraffes all over the furniture, dogs and kittens in wicker chairs, a duck, a whale, even a fuzzy turtle. There wasn’t any place to sit without an avalanche of toy animals plummeting down on my head.”

  “You’re exaggerating.”

  “No.” He shook his head solemnly. His hair tumbled in spikes over his forehead, and she wanted to comb them back with her fingers. Maybe that was the point of the styling.

  “When we got to her door, she warned me to be quiet so we wouldn’t wake the babies.”

  “I didn’t know she was a single mother.”

  “She isn’t. She’s a loony who baby talks to inanimate objects.”

  Tess laughed...and laughed some more. Even when her ribs started to ache, she couldn’t stop laughing at the expression on his face. “I knew nobody could be as perfect as she seems.”

  “I didn’t come here for sympathy,” he growled. “I’m calling in your marker. You still owe me seven introductions.”

  “Seven? My count is six. You met Jillian in my store. She counts as one.”

  “I didn’t get any help from you.”

  “I vouched for you to her.”

  “Whatever that means. You still owe me seven dates.”

  “Six.”

  “Fine, six dates.”

  “If you’re serious about this...”

  “Dead serious.”

  “Then you have to give me some idea of the kind of person you’d like to meet and why.”

  “I’m not into lists.”

  “Or explanations?”

  “Object—matrimony. Isn’t that enough? I’d just like to meet some nice women.”

  “Get me a list.”

  “Nice. That’s the primary requirement.”

  “By nice do you mean pure, untouched, unsullied, sweet, virtuous, kind, generous...virginal?”

  “Now you’re getting the picture.” With that, he planted a kiss on her cheek and zoomed out the door.

  5

  Cole compiled the list.

  Actually, he cheated a little by picking Zack’s brain.

  They agreed on the basics—a sense of humor, pleasant personality, and attractiveness. Cole could have included lips like Tess Morgan’s on his wish list, but he prudently decided to omit physical attributes.

  He shouldn’t have kissed her. Even if it was just on the cheek. Friends didn’t smooch, especially not when the male friend wanted the female friend to find dates for him.

  On Monday he realized he needed to make a trip to Lowe’s, and just his luck, there was one near the Shops at Rockstone. He decided to swing by the outdoor shopping center after he picked up the supplies his crew needed, then ask Tess out to lunch and give her the list she insisted on.

  What could be more efficient? He wouldn’t be making a special trip through heavy workweek-morning traffic just to see Tess.

  This time he surveyed the situation before he barged into Tikes. A grandmotherly type was paying for some clothes at the counter, making much better choices than the silly cow stuff.

  Come to think of it, Tess owed him for helping her get rid of those quilts.

  The clerk looked like a teenager, round-faced with blunt-cut bangs. “Can I help you, sir?”

  “I’m looking for—”

  “He’s not a customer, Dawn.” Tess shooed the young woman away. “Cole, I didn’t expect to see you today. What are you doing here?”

  “Have to make another trip to Lowe’s.” Not that he hadn’t bypassed a dozen sources closer to their construction site for building supplies, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. “I thought maybe we could grab lunch. I have the list.”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  He’d expect the same degree of enthusiasm if he asked her to bait a hook with a live worm.

  He stepped halfway behind the counter, took her hand, and started to lead her out of the store. “Let’s go.”

  She grabbed for her purse hanging from the back of a chair. “I’ll be right back after lunch, Dawn.”

  “Have fun,” Dawn said as Cole steered her out of the store.

  “How about the Lunchbox?” he suggested, waving at a food truck with a red-striped awning that sold spicy Italian sausages on hard rolls located near the park adjacent to the shopping center. “We sit outside and talk about the dates you’re arranging for me.”

  “Sure.” She shrugged.

  They walked to the food truck and carried paper sacks and disposable drink containers to the wrought iron patio tables.

  “Just like Trocadero’s—their parking lot, that is,” she teased.

  “Wait until you taste the lemon-pepper mustard.”

  “To die for?”

  “Absolutely,” he grinned. “Eating sausage sandwiches with you is far more fun than fancy food with Jillian.”

  “Flattery will get you nowhere. I’m not setting you up on any more than six dates.” She studied him with narrowed eyes.

  His face suddenly felt hot. Why shouldn’t it? They were picnicking under the intense heat of the noonday sun.

  “Okay,” he said numbly, so fascinated by her he’d agree to just about anything.

  She peeled the paper wrapping on the sourdough bun and dipped the end into a little cup of mustard. Her tongue curled out and touched the yellowy mustard, then she savored the little dab with slow relish.

  He watched, enchanted with her technique.

  “You’re right.” She smiled impishly. “I can feel the buzz all the way to my toes.” She bit into the sausage and roll with so much gusto he couldn’t help staring. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

  “Huh?” He blinked.

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