Leigh Michaels - The Husband Project

So Alison had inherited the club—a project she still thought was Susannah’s craziest idea yet. But one of Chicago’s finest restaurants had agreed to host and sponsor the club, and now there was no backing out; Tryad’s reputation was on the line, and Chicago Singles would succeed, or else.

She opened the folder, and within minutes she was buried in her work. Even if her heart wasn’t entirely in the project, Alison had to admit that the more deeply she became involved in the singles club, the more possibilities there were.

She didn’t realize how long she’d been working till she stood up to get a notepad from the storage closet out in the hallway and had to grab the corner of her desk to keep from falling. She was light-headed, and there was a nagging ache in her lower back and a sharper one near the half healed incision.

“So much for the idea that you don’t need rest breaks any more,” she told herself dryly as she evicted Tryad’s calico cat from her comfortable nest at one end of the white wicker love seat. The cat glared and stalked off, tail high, and Alison lay down, wriggling around until she found a comfortable position.

The love seat was hardly conducive to naps—but then she didn’t intend to sleep, only to rest for a few minutes. Kit had installed a chaise longue in her office, and Susannah had selected an overstuffed couch, but Alison had deliberately chosen the wicker love seat and matching chair because—white they were cozy and inviting with their feminine, frilly cushions—they were not so comfortable that visitors sat around just to chat.

Her brain kept on ticking, rattling off promotional possibilities for the Chicago Singles. She loved her work, so much that it didn’t feel like a job at all most of the time. And she was comfortable with her life. Of course she wanted a child, and she’d continue to explore her options—but she must have been nuts to have gone off the deep end, that day on Kit’s terrace. She must have still been in shock from her surgery—and from her fear of never having a baby—to have reacted so idiotically.

She hoped Susannah never heard about the incident. She was the one who specialized in crackpot ideas and who seldom thought them through to the obvious consequences. She’d have a good laugh about Alison—practical logical Alison—asking a doctor to help her have a child... and asking on the spur of the moment, without even a thought for the outcome.

Her eyelids drooped, and her mind began to spin.

She didn’t know what sort of a party it was at first. She couldn’t hear anything, and everything seemed to be in black and white. Like an old home movie, that was it.

Slowly the picture cleared, like a projector coming into focus. Now she could see people, party hats perched on their heads, their mouths moving but making no sound. They seemed to be watching her, she glanced down and realized she was carrying a cake, balancing it carefully in both hands. A birthday cake from the looks of things, since there was a fat candle glowing in the center...

A single candle. She looked up eagerly, her eyes searching for the child the birthday cake must belong to. But the crowd of party-goers was dense. Suddenly, however, the group shifted, and people stepped aside to make room for her. At the end of the aisle they’d formed was a high chair, and in it sat a small child, romper-clad and wide-eyed, with a tuft of dark hair sticking straight up. Alison smiled and stepped forward, tripped over her own feet and went sprawling. The candle snuffed out an instant before Alison’s face smashed the thick white icing...

She jerked awake and lay back against the cushions, breathing hard. “Talk about Freudian,” she muttered finally, and pushed herself into a sitting position.

Yes, she’d been acting bizarre that day on Kit’s terrace. It had been little short of insane to blurt out her wishes that way, and particularly to Logan Kavanaugh. When the only experience the man had of her was a sick, argumentative woman who’d left him with a sore and bleeding lip—well, it was no wonder he hadn’t been eager to cooperate. She must have been deranged not to see that before she’d so thoroughly embarrassed herself.

But the fact she’d been crazy to bring it up to him didn’t mean it was a crazy idea. Granted, she’d have been better off to think it all the way through first and do a little more research before choosing a doctor. But the longing was real; she still wanted a child. And the facts hadn’t changed; all her arguments made just as much sense now as they had in the first burst of enthusiasm.

She’d been tempted to rip up his card, but common sense had made her hesitate. Why start from scratch if she could get a referral? And she wouldn’t have to talk to Logan himself; he’d said himself that his office nurse could help...

She’d just dialed the last digit when Susannah’s blond head appeared around the edge of Alison’s half-closed of fice door. “Rita said you were asking about—Oh, sorry. Want me to come back later?”

Susannah’s timing, Alison thought testily, couldn’t possibly have been worse. She started to put the phone down.

Before she could break the connection, however, the line clicked and a low-pitched Southern drawl said, “Obstetrics and Gynecology Associates.”

What a tongue twister. Somebody ought to have-had better sense. Hastily Alison put the phone back to her ear. “I’m sorry. Wrong number.” She hung up without waiting for a response. “I’m finished, Sue. Have a seat.”

Susannah flopped down in the big wicker chair. “I kept a list of the calls I took for you and what I did about them—or mostly, what I didn’t do.” She handed a sheet of yellow paper to Alison. “The majority said their business could wait till you were back in shape.”

Alison ran her eyes down the list. No big problems jumped out at her. “Thanks, Sue.”

Susannah swung around and draped her legs over the chair’s arm. “My pleasure. I also wondered.... You know the painting that was vandalized at the Dearborn Museum?”

Alison frowned. She remembered only vaguely—but her foggy recall made sense; Susannah had mentioned it at Flanagan’s when Alison’s pain was at its worst. “What about it?”

“The artist is coming to town to inspect the damage, and of course as the museum’s official public relations person I’ll have to be there. I wondered, if you don’t have another obligation, if you’d go with me.”

“Why? I’ve never been part of the Dearborn campaigns.”

“Moral support,” Susannah said firmly.

“Nobody can possibly think it’s your fault, can they?”

“Of course they can. I’m the one who suggested that instead of a guest book they hang a plain white canvas and let visitors write their comments with markers. So when the board starts looking for a scapegoat, and remembers that I encouraged the patrons to write on things—”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Since when did that prevent clients from yelling? A week from Saturday, five in the afternoon. Can you go?”

“I think so.” Alison reached for her calendar. “That night’s the first Chicago Singles meeting, so I’d have to go directly from the museum to Coq Au Vin. But maybe I can talk to the museum director about hosting an event for the stupid singles club.”

“Better quit calling it that,” Susannah advised, “or you’ll slip one of these days. I can see it now, on some morning interview show on television... Are you going to have gift certificates for membership?”

“Hadn’t thought of it.”

“If you do, I might get one for our painter friend.”

“He’d think it was a personal apology for the additions to his canvas.”

“You’re probably right.” Susannah yawned. “Kit tells me you and Logan Kavanaugh not only connected—pardon the pun—at the hospital but you spent a whole hour tête-à-tête on her terrace.”