Read an Excerpt
How To Marry The Boy Next Door
By Mollie Molay Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.
Copyright © 2004 Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.
All right reserved. ISBN: 0-373-75052-8
Chapter One
The sound of footsteps in the hall outside the office area drew Rita Rosales's attention away from her computer. She frowned. A check of her watch told her she was probably the only one still at work. Because of the rash of pre-Christmas sales, everyone who'd been able to leave early had gone, hoping to cash in on the bargains.
As the magazine's research librarian, Rita had been trying to finish her research notes on Chicago politics before the Christmas spirit completely overtook Today's World magazine, but she hadn't been able to concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time. It wasn't only the approaching footsteps that distracted her. It was the framed photograph on her desk.
She kept stealing glances at the picture, which had been taken a few weeks ago at the wedding of April Morgan and Lucas Sullivan. April was a colleague and her best friend, and one thing they had in common was their ability, thanks to the fact that both had grown up with older brothers, to recognize a "Sullivan man" when they met one.
A Sullivan man was the sort who acted on the rather old-fashioned chauvinistic principles espoused by Lucas Sullivan in his notorious article "The Mating Game," published some months earlier in Today's World. Dubbed"Sullivan's Rules" by Rita and her friends, the article was still stirring up a storm amongst its hundreds of disgusted female readers.
Which only showed, at least to Rita's way of thinking, that using rational thought in the mating game, as recommended in Lucas's article, was as wrongheaded as the other pragmatic theory of choosing a marital partner solely on the basis of his or her genes, ignoring sexual attraction.
For it was Rita's theory that sexual attraction was the prime factor in any relationship, a theory she preached but hadn't been able, in fact, to practice.
She scowled at the photograph. It showed her as April's maid of honor, holding the bridal bouquet, which she'd unexpectedly caught in the traditional toss. She didn't look happy about being the one to catch the tiny pink roses surrounded by delicate maidenhair fern, and she wasn't any happier now.
Not when she was all too aware of the superstition that the woman who caught the bridal bouquet would be the next to marry - something she would have yearned for if a man to whom she was sexually attracted had come along. But he hadn't.
April and Lucas Sullivan, seemingly the two least likely people to fall in love, had been a different story. When April, the magazine's senior features editor, had countered Lucas's six old-fashioned rules for how a man should choose a mate with six lessons of her own, all intended to enlighten Lucas about real women, the two had married. Obviously, Lucas had been enlightened.
"Rita Rosales?"
Rita started. Her fingers slipped from her keyboard. In the doorway, smiling at her, stood a man. Not just any man, she thought fleetingly. Without a doubt, he had to be the most attractive man she'd ever laid eyes on. It took her a moment to recognize him.
Her dormant hormones awakened with a start as she recognized the boy she'd had a crush on back home in Sunrise, Texas. He'd been the boy next door, and she hadn't seen him since the day he'd left for college and then become a Texas Ranger almost ten years earlier.
Only, from the way he'd grown up, it was clear he was no longer a boy.
And she wasn't a lovestruck teenager, either.
"Colby? Colby Callahan?"
"Yeah," he replied as he strode into her office. "Surprised to see me?"
The hairs on the back of Rita's neck began to prickle. A sure sign that something she might not like was about to happen. "'Surprised' isn't the word for it," she muttered as she again stole a glance at the photo on her desk. Was Colby's sudden appearance somehow tied in with her having caught the wedding bouquet?
No! Nobody really believed that silly superstition, did they? Certainly not her.
But she couldn't help staring at him. The last time she'd seen Colby he'd been a tall, lanky high-school senior, the captain of the basketball team and adored by every girl at the school. Herself included.
In fact, Colby, a close friend of her four older brothers, had been the unknowing focus of her romantic interest since she was twelve. But to her youthful chagrin, the boy next door had never seemed to see her as anything other than a target for teasing.
She studied him. In place of the young Colby she remembered stood a ruggedly handsome man who, if this hadn't been downtown Chicago, could have just ridden in from the untamed prairie. Dressed in denim jeans, a checkered flannel shirt, leather vest, bolo tie, leather jacket and worn leather boots, he looked as if he'd been born in a saddle. He doffed his Stetson hat, and his lips were curved in a confident smile. His brown eyes seemed to glow from within. She noticed the familiar small scar across his chin, the result of an unplanned collision during a championship basketball game. Instead of marring his features, the scar lent him an irresistible air of mystery and even danger.
Rita glanced out through the glass partition of her office to the surrounding area. As she expected, it was entirely empty. Certainly if Tiffany, the magazine's intern, hadn't left for the day, she would have floated into Rita's office with a look that said she was more than willing to get friendly with Colby.
Her gaze fell to the photograph once more. The coincidence of Colby's showing up when the superstition surrounding the wedding bouquet was on her mind made it impossible for her to ignore the uneasy feeling that there was a power operating somewhere she had no control over.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from How To Marry The Boy Next Door by Mollie Molay Copyright © 2004 by Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.. Excerpted by permission.
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