His Wife for a While (2 page)

"Why did he do it, Aunt May?" Ben could hear his growing frustration leaking into his question, but he couldn't help it. This ridiculous situation had him feeling pretty damned desperate.

"The auctioneer was only trying to do his job," Aunt May explained.

Ben shook his head. "I'm not talking about that guy. I mean Granddad. Why is he taking all this…" he lifted his hands in a grand, sweeping motion "…away from me?"

May looked at him for a long moment before she spoke, and when she did, her voice was hushed, almost a whisper. "It wasn't his intention to hurt you."

"Aunt May, he's not only hurting me, he's cheating me." His voice had a matter-of-fact quality to it. "Cheating me out of everything I've worked for all of these years."

"Oh, Ben." The two little words were brimming with sympathy and compassion. "Please don't talk like that. To tell you the honest truth, I don't know what he was thinking. John Reed was my brother, but for the life of me I never could quite figure him out."

Ben's gaze swept the shop, taking in the colorful displays of fruits and vegetables, jars of golden honey, jams and jellies and nut butters, and the fresh baked goods that were homemade by a local Amish family. The familiar scent of apples and cinnamon did nothing to calm him.

"Forced marriage." His tone was just as incredulous now as it had been over two weeks ago at the reading of his grandfather's will. "This kind of crap hasn't been done for a hundred years." Then he murmured, "Pardon my language."

May only offered an empathic nod.

"If I don't comply with that idiotic clause…" Ben rubbed at the tension building in the muscles at the back of his neck. "If I don't get married by next week, my orchard is going to be auctioned off." He pointed vaguely toward the door. "That pack of apathetic lawyers in town is going to sell my land to the highest bidder and give the profits to a list of charities that's longer than my arm."

Ben knew it was unfair of him to blame the lawyers who were handling his grandfather's estate. Hell, he didn't even know them. But the need to lash out at someone or something was strong, and at the moment Ben didn't care to deny it.

Pressing her lips together, May evidently couldn't think of a proper response. His aunt looked as helpless as he felt.

"This land has been in our family for five generations." Stress fueled Ben's frustration. "And now that it's time for the orchard to be passed on to me, I'm going to lose it all. All because of a willful, old coot!"

May's spine straightened with affront. "I want to remind you that the man you're calling an old coot was your grandfather. I won't have you talking about him that way. You were just a baby when your father died, and your grandfather saw to it that you and your mother were taken care of. And then after your mother passed, he raised you the best he could."

"I know. I know, Aunt May," Ben relented. "I owe you and Granddad everything. I do know that." He planted a fist on his hip. "But why this?" he asked. "Why force me to get married?"

May shrugged. "Maybe John wanted you to have someone you could share all this with. Maybe he wanted you to have a wife and children of your own so you could experience the same happiness he'd found with your grandmother and your mother."

Ben thrust his hands up into the air, his eyes imploring. "But why the time frame of twenty-one days? I had no objection to marriage. I would have settled down one day. Eventually, I would have found myself a wife and had a few kids." He shook his head and sighed. "But all that takes time. And I've been spending all of mine building up Reed's Orchard."

"Maybe your grandfather noticed that too."

A disgusted sound burst from the back of Ben's throat. "But, Aunt May, how am I supposed to get a woman to the altar in such a short time? I mean, I don't see it happening unless I toss some stranger over my shoulder, caveman style, and carry her off to the church. And all that would do is get me arrested."

After a moment of silence, his aunt pointedly reminded him, "Time's getting shorter every day."

"You think I don't know that? This situation is impossible, I'm telling you." Ben ran a hand over his jaw. Then his tone lowered as though he were speaking to himself. "What could Granddad have been thinking?"

May rested her elbows on the counter and leaned forward. "John was a loving and caring man. He provided for his family. He went to church regularly. He was an upstanding citizen." She tucked a wispy strand of gray hair back into place atop her tightly teased beehive hairdo. Styles may have changed over the years, but May staunchly maintained that what was good enough for girls of the B-52s was good enough for her… besides, she claimed the do made her look taller, and everyone knew looking taller meant looking thinner. Then she would invariably bring up Lady Gaga. The woman's tabloid habit certainly kept her abreast of things. "But I must admit that at times he could get some quirky notions into his head."

A small chuckle rumbled in her ample chest before she continued. "Remember the time... you were just a boy… when your grandfather found that clay pot shard on a plot of ground he bought off
Duck Neck Road
?"

Although Ben knew the place his aunt spoke of, there was a well-developed grove of apple trees there now, he shook his head, unable to recall the particular incident.

May didn't bother to contain her grin. "Well, John was certain he'd come upon a great archaeological find. He contacted the community college, but they weren't interested. So he called some of the universities in
Philadelphia
. Two professors came out to have a look-see, but in the end they told John it was nothing, that he should just go ahead and plant his trees." May leaned back, resting her chubby forearm on the nearby window sill. "John wouldn't listen to the experts, though. He decided to excavate himself. He didn't know a thing about digging up ancient relics, but he dug just the same."

"What did he find?" Ben asked.

"Dirt."

Ben was helpless against the smile that curled the corners of his mouth. "I do remember when he lost all that money."

May nodded, laughing at the memory she, too, obviously remembered well.

"He'd had a dream," Ben said. "Granddad was certain he knew the winning lottery numbers. He was going to be a millionaire. He played a hundred dollars a day for nearly a month before he gave up."

"And that stubborn man never did admit defeat," May added. "He simply grumbled about the whole setup being fixed. Of course it wasn't fixed. He'd just dreamed the wrong numbers, is all."

There was a moment of silence as both Ben and May thought about some of John Reed's other odd exploits. Ben had loved his grandfather dearly, but he did have to admit that there were times when the man was slightly off kilter. And this forced-marriage deal was simply another one of those times. But on this particular occasion, his grandfather's peculiarities were going to cost Ben everything.

"Like I said," May finally commented, "sometimes John got some funny notions into his head. But don't go thinking you can fight the will. Having John Reed declared incompetent would be impossible, because he was as sane as Solomon." She hooted before she added, "Too bad he wasn't as wise."

"My lawyer agrees with you," Ben said. "About fighting the will, I mean. He says there are too many people here in Kemblesville who would testify to Granddad's 'soundness of mind.' Besides, the legal fees alone would force me to mortgage the orchard, or worse, sell some acreage. Which would defeat the whole purpose, anyway; so I don't see how I can win in this situation." He inhaled deeply. "I really don't believe Granddad was incompetent, Aunt May. If he had been, he couldn't have kept Reed's Orchard going all these years. I guess he was just..." His voice trailed off as he searched for the correct adjective to describe John Reed.

"Quirky?" May provided.

Ben closed his eyes, his head slowly bobbing up and down.

He perched his hip on the counter, hung his head and rubbed the knuckle of his index finger back and forth across his bottom lip in contemplation. Finally, he said, "Well, Granddad's eccentricity is sure to ruin me this time. I can't for the life of me think of a way out of this one."

"Looks pretty cut and dried to me," May said, her tone blunt and to the point. "You need to find a wife."

"That's easy for you to say." He lowered his hand to his thigh, swiping several times at an imaginary piece of lint on the soft cotton of his khaki work trousers. "You're not the one who has to approach some unsuspecting woman and ask her to pledge herself to me." After a moment, he added, "For better or for worse."

"Well, I think you need to start doing some approaching," May advised.

"I know, I know. I've been thinking about it."

She pursed her lips. "Action is what's called for here, not thinking."

The stress from the looming time constraint put an involuntary shortness in his tone as he snapped, "I'll do something."

Immediately, Ben was flooded with a sense of remorse. He had no business taking his frustration out on his great aunt. Her suggestions were only meant to help him, were only offered out of her concern for him, he realized that.

"I'm sorry, Aunt May," he said. He watched her eyes soften.

"I know it's not easy. If you don't mind my asking, though, what
do
you plan on doing?" Then, she grinned impishly. "Or rather, who do you plan on asking?"

He slid his weight back until he was sitting on the wooden counter and then he rested his arm on top of the cash register. "As a matter of fact," he slowly began, "I do have a couple of ideas about who might…"

He let the rest of the sentence trail when he heard the hinges of the side door leading to the offices squeak open.

"Excuse me."

Ben's gut tightened at the sight of Chelsea Carson, but he was pleased when that was his only reaction. There had been a time when he would have turned as red as a ripe McIntosh and would not have been able to look her in the eye. However, years had passed since he'd made such a fool of himself in front of her, and over the course of those years the acute embarrassment he felt when he came face to face with
Chelsea
had ebbed to a fleeting tinge of chagrin.

"Hi,
Chelsea
," May called.

Ben watched
Chelsea
's mouth pull into what he'd describe as a "near smile" which was the only kind she had ever displayed in his presence, and she nodded a cordial greeting toward May.

"Trouble with the accounts?" he asked.

"Oh, no." She shook her head. "No trouble. The books are in perfect order."

He would have been surprised if she'd said anything else.
Chelsea
was a whiz at anything to do with numbers. Ben remembered plenty of times when his grandfather touted her as his "right hand" when it came to keeping the books straight. If
Chelsea
chose to be withdrawn, sometimes she could be downright standoffish around him, then that was her prerogative. She did her job and did it well, and Ben realized he had no right to ask for more than that.

"Could I see you in my office?" She gestured over her shoulder with an out-stretched thumb.

His brow raised quizzically. She'd never sought him out before, but then she'd always gone over the books with Granddad. Now that the old man had passed away, however, Ben thought that maybe it was only natural for her to seek him out. But something in her tension-rigid shoulders and the subtle anxiety in her eyes warned him that another dilemma was about to be revealed.

"I'll be there right away," he told her. He heard the weariness in his voice and it aggravated him. "Right away," he repeated, this time with a bit more fortitude.