Have Bouquet, Need Boyfriend by Rita Herron Read Free Book Online Page A

waist.

    Nerves bunched in her stomach, and Rebecca panicked. Like a fool she
    swung around, ducked inside the door, crouched against a stack of
    magazines and pretended she hadn’t seen him.

    Thomas frowned. He could have sworn Rebecca had seen him, but she’d
    ducked inside the bookstore as if she wanted to avoid him. Why?

    After all, she’d left that hurried message on his answering machine
    saying she’d contacted her insurance company and her agent had assured
    her his car would be taken care of. He’d run from the shower, dripping
    wet, to reach the phone, but she’d babbled the message in seconds and
    hung up as if she was afraid she might actually have to talk to him.
    He’d simply wanted to assure her that he received the message.

    Why was she avoiding him? Did she think he was a big ogre?

    It wasn’t as if he’d never been rejected before. He had. Dozens of
    times. Mostly because he’d always been Mr. Nice Guy, every girl’s best
    friend or brother figure, and women liked the bad-boy types. Except, in
    this little town, the women had been especially friendly.

    Of course, here pickings were slim. Half the townspeople had never left
    Sugar Hill. The half who’d stayed had married each other in high school
    and were now in the throes of mortgage payments, pregnancy, diapers,
    babies and small-town life with its lack of arts

    and entertainment. Either that or they were entrenched in divorce. Both
    comprised the population of his patients.

    He wasn’t sure which were more dangerous, the frustrated housewives,
    divorcees or hopeful singles faced with choosing mates from the same
    male pool they’d known since grade school. The limits of the small-town
    life.

    Hormones and husband hunting were running rampant.

    He waved to several patrons, chuckling at the raised eyebrows when they
    saw him driving the lemon-yellow car. Wiley Hartwell was a character,
    his used-car business a perfect extension of the outlandish man himself.
    What kind of man was his brother Bert?

    From what he’d heard, he couldn’t imagine the two men being at all similar.

    Just like Rebecca and that sister of hers. Suzanne. The pretty brunette
    at the wedding.

    Though Suzanne had a great pair of legs and would turn any man’s head,
    something about Rebecca stayed with him.

    Her innocence. She possessed a genuine sweetness that had been missing
    in most of the women he’d dated the past few years.

    He ran a hand over his face, reminding himself not to start caring about
    her as he pulled into the clinic drive. He would be leaving soon. No
    time for attachments.

    Taking a quick look at the Victorian house Hannah Hartwell had rented to
    house her practice, he couldn’t help but mentally compare the
    old-fashioned structure to the modern women’s center in Atlanta. Painted a

    pale yellow, the white gingerbread trim gave the Sugar Hill office a
    picturesque look, something his patients had commented on more than
    once. Patients claimed the building had a calming effect. Yet the
    cutting-edge technology and latest medical equipment and techniques in
    the modern facility in Atlanta were comforting in a different way.
    Medicine was about saving lives and the latest in technology, not hominess.

    He parked in the shade, Wiley’s reminders about the sunlight fading the
    new paint job on the Mustang rattling in his head, then grabbed his
    medical bag and hurried inside, hoping to clear his appointments by
    lunch so he’d have time to stop by the bookstore for a minute. If he
    intended to convince Rebecca to introduce him to her father, he’d have
    to do so soon. Her grandmother’s surprise party was in just a few days.
    He couldn’t let the opportunity slip by without doing something.

    Rebecca spent the morning tagging books for the after-Christmas sales
    and inventorying the results of the year’s profits. The rush of women
    buying holiday craft books and cookbooks seemed endless. She’d half
    expected the women in Sugar