Emilie Richards - Mail-Order Matty

New to e-book, a classic romance from USA Today bestselling author Emilie Richards…

At nearly 30, Matty Stewart answered a birthday dare that took her straight to the Bahamas—and into the arms of a mail-order husband. Damon Quinn was looking for a mother for his infant daughter, and after a career in pediatric nursing, Matty loved holdinga baby she could call her own, but she wanted more. The truth was, she wanted Damon, so now she had to be daring one more time in hopes of making Damon want her, too.

Originally published 1997

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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CONTENTS

Cover

Back Cover Text New to e-book, a classic romance from USA Today bestselling author Emilie Richards… At nearly 30, Matty Stewart answered a birthday dare that took her straight to the Bahamas—and into the arms of a mail-order husband. Damon Quinn was looking for a mother for his infant daughter, and after a career in pediatric nursing, Matty loved holdinga baby she could call her own, but she wanted more. The truth was, she wanted Damon, so now she had to be daring one more time in hopes of making Damon want her, too. Originally published 1997

Title Page Mail-Order Matty Emilie Richards www.millsandboon.co.uk

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

PROLOGUE

Matty Stewart was well educated, mature and unfailingly responsible. She was also a wide-eyed adolescent when it came to resisting the siren call of champagne, particularly when her best friends were in charge of the bottle.

“Come on, Matty. A swallow for every year of your life.” Liza Fitzsimmons crooked a finger sporting a fire-engine-red nail that was longer than the brown hair that spiked her elegant head. “I’ve been counting. That was sixteen. Only sixteen.”

“Sweet sixteen and never been…” Felicity Brown wrinkled her forehead in concentration. “Never been…”

“Never mind what I’ve never been.” Matty giggled, and the sound alarmed her. Matty was not a giggler. Not a giggler, not a whiner, not a woman of extremes. She was just Matty, plain, intelligent, dependable Matty, who had turned twenty-seven that morning and been turned down for promotion that afternoon.

“Here goes…” Liza filled Matty’s glass again. “Seventeen and counting.”

Matty had never developed a tolerance for alcohol. In high school her small circle of friends had been “good girls,” relentlessly dedicated to keeping their heads in the unlikely case any “good boys” lost theirs. By the time she was in college, she was too busy caring for her invalid father to frequent fraternity parties or to sit for hours over pizza and pitchers of beer. And afterward, his comfort and happiness during the final years of his life were far more important than sowing her wild oats. But tonight there was no longer any reason to be good.

Which was why she was fast getting tipsy.

“Drink up now,” Liza insisted. “You’re not nearly done.”

The sensible part of Matty was off duty today or sleeping soundly. The champagne was cheap but effective. It had nearly silenced the memory of her supervisor’s voice regretfully explaining that once again a choice administrative position at Carrollton Community Hospital had gone to someone with less seniority but more guts. “Everyone likes you, Matty,” she had said, without quite meeting Matty’s eyes, “and that’s the problem. You get along too well. You compromise when you should confront. You give too much of yourself and don’t ask enough in return.”

Now Matty wrapped her fingers around the glass, sturdy, capable fingers with blunt trimmed nails and skin scrubbed so clean she sometimes wondered if her fingerprints would survive into middle age. She lifted the glass to swallow the contents, then thrust it out again. “More…”

“Thata girl…”

“You ever been sloshed, Matts?” Felicity, who worked in the hospital’s public relations department, was two years younger than Matty and Liza, with a yard of golden blond hair and eyes as blue as an Oklahoma sky. Coming to Minnesota as a teenager had softened the edges of her Tulsa accent, but the champagne was honing them again.

“To firsts…” Matty shook her head and thrust out her glass at the same time. The simultaneous movements almost un-did her.

“I like the sound of that. Firsts,” Liza said.

“Your firsts are definitely over,” Felicity told her. “S’nuthin’ you haven’t done.”

Liza patted Matty’s knee. “But Matty’s a different story, aren’t you, baby?”

“What first shall I try next?” Matty managed a smile by making sure she wasn’t doing anything else at the same moment. Smiling seemed easier now than it had that afternoon. She could almost pretend away her failures and loneliness. She was with her best friends, in the living room of the brick house she had lived in since her birth, and the champagne seemed to be opening up a world of possibilities.

“Travel? Distant exotic places?” Felicity laid an index finger against her soft pink lips.

“Flashy clothes and fast cars?” Liza closed one eye as if to see her friend better. “Dye your hair?”

“Sex?” Felicity said.

Matty sputtered and set her glass on the coffee table. “With whom?”

Liza wiggled her eyebrows. “Funny you should ask.”

“The question seems rev…rev…relevant.” Matty made a stab at dignity.

Liza drew a scrap of paper from her pocket and reclined regally against a stack of cushions they had removed earlier from the sofa and armchairs. The tiny living room was beginning to resemble the site of an orgy instead of the neat, uncluttered quarters of three of Carrollton Community’s most reliable staff members. White cartons of partially eaten Chinese takeout dotted the floor amidst birthday cake crumbs, discarded champagne bottles and wadded napkins. Soft rock rumbled softly from an outdated stereo system, and candles melted into wax pools on unmatched china saucers.

“I shall acquaint you with his attributes.” Liza waved the sheet of paper.

“Singles ads.” Felicity wrinkled her snub nose.

“Not quite…” Liza snapped her t’ s with military precision. “Carrollton Alumni News.”

Matty could feel her eyelids drooping. Sober and wide-eyed, she was nobody’s ideal vision of American womanhood. She had a long, almost rectangular face ungraced by one outstanding feature. Had the beauty mavens of the world united to establish an average by which to judge young women, Matty would have set their standard. Nothing about her was too large or too small, too long or too short, too wide or too thin. Her hair was dark blond—dishwater blond, to be exact—her skin neither rosy nor sallow, her eyes neither clearly green nor brown. Her body was much the same, small-breasted and wider at the hips, with legs Lloyds of London would never have to insure and feet one size too large to look sexy in flirty little sandals.