Designer Genes (3 page)

Why had she
ever taken that ridiculous job? She was no public relations expert, no matter
how much Roger had wanted his wife to have a glamorous profession. The very
idea of duping men attending conventions into sitting through a fake seminar,
then accompanying her to the clinic to “donate” in exchange for a tiny payment
to their favorite charity, was distasteful if not downright fraudulent.

Well, maybe it
hadn’t been so wrongful most times. But on the day she learned—after the deed
was done--that the hotel had accidentally spiked the men’s punch, she should
have fought harder for some sort of remedy. She
had
confronted the
clinic director, who’d ordered her to keep her mouth shut.

“Do you expect
us to destroy all those beautiful, eager-to-please sperm?” he’d demanded. “That
would be a crime against nature.”

The next day,
after a sleepless night, Buffy had resigned. And it might all have faded into a
minor incident had Roger not insisted they use the same sperm bank soon
afterwards for their own needs. He’d been dazzled by the fact that, as an
ex-employee, she received a fifty percent discount.

Disaster had
followed. Thanks to her threat of a lawsuit, the clinic had provided Carter’s
address, his occupation and his age, which was thirty-three, five years older
than she was, but no photograph. So what kind of guy was he?

Buffy had
never personally known an auto mechanic, aside from the supervisor at the
Mega-Mall Auto Center. She didn’t think he counted. He wore a suit, for one
thing, and once when he’d tried to find the hood release on her car, he’d had
to call for assistance.

She searched
her memory again. According to the records, she’d recruited three men the day
she’d met Carter Murchison. One had been Chinese. The second was named
O’Flaherty and she recalled him as having red hair and freckles. The third man
remained a tall, brown-haired question mark.

Buffy groaned
and kicked off her shoes, which pinched. She wore them only because, during
their five years of marriage, Roger had drummed into her the importance of
always looking your best.

No doubt his
latest sweetheart, Yoko the Japanese lingerie model, always looked her best.
Especially in bed.

Never mind about
that. What mattered now was Allie.

Resting one
arm atop the seat, Buffy gazed at her daughter. The baby slept in angelic
innocence, her little cheeks pink even by moonlight.

Although Buffy
had wanted a baby, she hadn’t been prepared for the tempest of feelings that
swept through her the moment the nurse laid Alison in her arms. The tiny thing
was so helpless. So cuddly. So filled with the promise of birthday candles and
Christmas joy and prom dresses to come.

The distant
thrum of a truck drew Buffy back to the present. Too many things had gone wrong
for her precious little girl in the past six months. This man Murchison had
better not let them down. If he did, Buffy would, well, do something drastic.

Even if it
required breaking a fingernail.

*

As the tow
truck rumbled along the highway, Carter sorted through his impressions of the
board meeting he’d just left. There were, he felt, two major issues at stake.
First, how were the townspeople supposed to raise five million dollars to
rebuild the school?

And second,
what if Billy Dell Grimes really did kick Mazeppa out of his laundry room and
send her to live with Carter?

Mazeppa had
showed up in Nowhere Junction about ten years ago. People said she was
distantly related to several of the town’s founding families, but no one knew
which ones, so everyone chipped in to help her out. It seemed only neighborly,
despite the fact that, with her sharp tongue, she could be a real pain in the
butt.

Carter didn’t
need her hanging around criticizing his every move. Not that he begrudged
shelter to a homeless woman, but he liked doing things his own way and at his
own pace.

That was what
made him such a good mechanic. It might take him a while to fix a carburetor,
but when he did, it stayed fixed.

Ahead, Carter
spotted a sleek black shape by the side of the road. He’d gone nine miles out
of town, not ten, but he figured Buffy Arden must have gauged her distance by
the Nowhere Junction sign.

Since the
highway was too narrow and the shoulders too soft for him to turn the tow truck
around, he drove on toward the entrance to the Lazy Snake Ranch half a mile
farther. As he passed the car, a woman yelled, “Hey, are you blind?”

He hoped,
profoundly, that Buffy Arden’s car had done nothing worse than throw a spark
plug and that she would soon be on her way.

*

The man must
be a complete idiot. The sports car was the only vehicle for miles. How could
he miss it?

As the tow
truck dwindled into the night, Buffy’s spirits plummeted. She’d held up all
these months for Allie’s sake, through the divorce proceedings and the news
that Roger’s fashion design firm verged on bankruptcy. Also through the
shocking revelation of Allie’s paternity after he insisted on a DNA test. Also
through this tedious cross-country drive, staying at cheap motels and trying
not to dwell on the future.

Now she
dissolved into tears. She hugged herself as she rocked in the front seat,
trying to avoid any noise that would wake her daughter.

Why had she
thought she could drive out here and dump the truth into Carter’s lap? What did
she expect—that for the first time in her life a man would act like a decent
human being?

She had a
broken-down car and nobody to call except this total stranger who was likely to
throw her out the minute he learned why she’d really come. The only people she
could count on were her mother and sister in California, and neither was in any
position to ride to the rescue.

Slowly she got
a rein on her emotions. Buffy Arden wasn’t some wimp who needed rescuing. To
heck with Carter Murchison and Roger Arden and every other man who tried to
grind her down. She had her wits, her daughter and a credit card that would
keep reality at bay until she found a job.

Buffy fumbled
with the latch of her purse and felt around for a tissue. In the dark, she
couldn’t find one, so she blew her nose on a baby wipe instead.

An engine
rumbled behind her. The tow truck was coming back!

Her luck had
changed already.

*

As he
approached the sports car, Carter wished he had one of those fancy tow trucks
that hoisted a vehicle onto a flatbed. He had a feeling this Buffy person might
sue him over the few scratches her overpriced car was likely to suffer on its
way into town.

Well, he was
who he was and he drove what he drove. If she didn’t like it, she could call
some mechanic from Groundhog Station and see how far that got her.

He parked on
the shoulder in front of the car, careful to keep two tires on the pavement.
Behind him, a car door slammed.

In the side
mirror, he watched a woman march toward him. “What happened?” she demanded when
she came within speaking distance. “Did you finally figure out there wasn’t
another sports car stuck down the road?”

“I had to turn
around.” As she reached the open window, he had his first clear look at the
woman’s green eyes and blonde hair. It formed a bell around her face, which was
oval except for the determined jaw. He didn’t suppose she resembled a movie
star, but there was a glow about her.

He hadn’t
forgotten her in a year and a half. Heck, he wouldn’t have forgotten her in a
century and a half.

She was the
woman who’d haunted his dreams ever since he got back from Los Angeles. What
was she doing in Texas?

*

Carter’s
explanation for passing seemed sensible, Buffy had to admit. She could see that
the tow truck was too big to turn around easily.

But she wasn’t
feeling rational. Not while she was standing this close to the man.

How had she
managed to put him out of her mind? His masculine aura of motor oil and soap
could punch the daylights out of Roger’s designer aftershave. And where did he
get those broad shoulders? Were they making implants for those now, too?

He definitely
wasn’t the sort of person she wanted to hit with the blunt truth. She ought to
break the news to him gently--preferably after he fixed her car, to allow a
quick escape if he got angry.

“Okay, I
forgive you,” she said.

“For what?”
Gray eyes fixed on her face.

“Driving past
me a minute ago.”

“I explained
that.” He sat calmly in his seat, while Buffy clung to the door handle to keep
from sinking into the soft soil.

“And I forgave
you.”

“There’s
nothing to forgive,” he said with that same maddening steadiness.

It felt like a
test of wills, and maybe it was. With her car broken, he had her at a
disadvantage. “Whatever,” she said. “Now do I have to hook up my car to the tow
truck myself, or will you help me?”

“First I have
to get out,” he said, “as soon as you step back. Otherwise I might bump you
with this door.”

“Oh.” Buffy
hated the way he kept one-upping her, so she stood there a moment longer. Then
she sauntered toward her car, as if moving had been her idea.

The man
uncoiled from his truck. With a backward glance, she gauged him at around six
feet, but they must have been Texas feet, because he looked taller than
California men who claimed to be the same height.

“Do you do this
a lot?” she asked, trying to keep up a conversation as he strode over to assess
the situation.

“Fix cars?
Yes, ma’am.”

She felt like
an idiot. “I mean, rescue ladies in distress.”

“You don’t
look like you’re in too much distress to me.” Carter popped the hood. “What did
you say it was doing?”

He had no
business giving her the third degree. “Who cares what it’s doing? It won’t run.
There’s your tow truck, so tow me!”

“If we can
start the motor, it might spare your paint a few scratches.” Flicking on an oversize
flashlight, he examined the smoky interior.

The man hadn’t
tried to flirt with her. Buffy frowned. Did that mean he didn’t care for the
way she looked?

As Roger had
emphasized, she was barely five foot six and had a tendency to gain weight if
she smelled French cooking. And her hair required a gallon of conditioner to
tame the split ends.

But she worked
hard not to be plain. Maybe the man just couldn’t see her very well in the
dark.

As Carter
closed the hood, Buffy edged into the flashlight beam. “Did you figure out
what’s wrong?”

He started to lower his
arm, but she nudged his wrist upward to keep her face in the light. There
certainly were a lot of muscles in his wrist, she noticed.

“What’s the
matter?” he asked.

“That was
my
question.”

“I mean, how
come you’re holding my hand?”

“That isn’t
your hand, it’s your arm,” she pointed out.

He weighed her
comment. “There must be some state in which that answer makes sense, but it
isn’t Texas.”

He appeared as
unimpressed as ever. Well, no wonder. She hadn’t repaired her makeup for hours,
and the flashlight beam was forcing her to squint. With a shrug, Buffy let go.
“Sorry for the confusion.”

“You are one
strange lady.” Carter switched off the flashlight with one hand and, with the
other, lifted his baseball cap and shoved back his thick brown hair. A shock
near the crown twisted upright, defying gravity.

“We’re
discussing my car, not my personality,” she said. “Did you figure out what’s
wrong?”

“Sure,” he
said without hesitation. “You fried the engine.”

“Is that a
technical term--‘fried’?”

“Ma’am, you
can’t run these things without oil.” Apparently Carter figured he’d covered the
subject because he turned to hook the car to his truck.

“Stop!” Buffy
cried. “You can’t do that!”

He paused.
“You told me to tow it.”

“My daughter
Allie’s in the back.”

He scratched
his head. Buffy had never seen a man scratch his head in perplexity before. It
was rustic and endearing. “You can either leave her in there or put her in my
truck.”

“Your truck,”
she said.

“Better get on
with it, then.” He didn’t offer to help. So much for chivalry.

As she went to
retrieve Alison and the safety seat, Buffy wondered if coming to Texas had been
the biggest mistake of her life. Well, the second biggest. Her marriage still
ranked first.

*

In the truck
cab, the woman’s presence infused the air with delicate scents and emotional
undercurrents. Carter struggled not to let his body follow its natural tendency
to react.

Pretty she
might be, but this lady had a mouth on her. Maybe that kind of sharp talk got
things done in the city, but around here it made people itchy. He certainly
felt itchy—in all kinds of places that it wasn’t polite to talk about.

Since they
were riding along together, he figured they ought to be talking. That’s what
they’d do if she lived around here. They’d chew over the school situation and
speculate about what Willie and Billy Dell Grimes were going to call their new
baby, since they’d named the last three Adam, Eve and Abel, and the next likely
choice was Cain. He’d heard folks were taking bets on that score, although
Pastor O’Rourke said it was a sin to gamble.

Anyway, he had
no clue what you talked about with a shiny lady from L.A. He could hardly
mention that he thought he’d met her before. It seemed preposterous.

He decided to
try a safer topic. “That’s a cute little girl you have there.”

”Do you like
babies?” she asked.

Carter stared
at the road as he drove and gave the matter the serious thought it deserved. “I
don’t dislike them,” he concluded.