To Catch a Husband

Formed in 1789 by President George Washington, the United States Marshals Service is the oldest federal law enforcement agency—and in my mind, one of the most mysterious. They used to carry out death sentences, catch counterfeiters—even take the national census. According to their Web site, “At virtually every significant point over the years where Constitutional principles or the force of law have been challenged, the marshals were there—and they prevailed.” Now the agency primarily focuses on fugitive investigation, prisoner/alien transportation, prisoner management, court security and witness security.

No big mystery there, you say? When I started this series, I didn’t think so, either. Intending to nail the details, I marched down to my local marshals’ office for an afternoon that will stay with me forever.

After learning the agency’s history and being briefed on day-to-day operations, I was taken on a tour. I saw an impressive courtroom and a prisoner holding cell. Then we went to the garage to see vehicles and bulletproof vests and guns. Sure, I’m an author, but I’m primarily a mom and wife. I bake cookies and find hubby’s always-lost belt. Nothing made the U.S. Marshals Service spring to life for me more than seeing those weapons. And then I realized my tour guide wasn’t fictional. He uses these guns, puts his very life on the line protecting me and my family and the rest of this city, county and state. I had chills.

Things really got interesting when I started digging for information on the Witness Security Program. Deputy Marshal Rick ever so politely sidestepped my every question. I found out nothing! Not where the base of operations is located, not which marshals are assigned to the program, what size crews are used, how their shifts are rotated—nothing! After a while it got to be a game. One it was obvious I’d lose!

Honestly, all this mystery probably makes for better fiction. I don’t want to know what really happens. It’s probably not half as romantic as the images of these great protectors I’ve conjured in my mind. Oh, and another bonus to my tour—Deputy Marshal Rick was Mills & Boon American Romance–hero hot!

Laura Altom

Dear Reader,

This book was especially fun to write, as it’s all about crushes. Charity’s angst over whether or not Adam likes her as more than just a friend brought back fun—sometimes painful—memories of the crushes I’ve had.

My first crush was tall, blond Michael. For months I chatted and flirted with him, and when Valentine’s Day came, I was super excited about the prospect of him maybe buying me one of the student council’s fund-raising carnations. And can you believe it—it snowed and school was closed!

I was at my best friend Kristen’s, shoveling her driveway, lamenting about how I’d never know if Michael liked me, when he and his dad pulled up in a car. Instead of one of the student council’s stinky old carnations, I got a pretty crystal vase with three roses. How sad is it I don’t remember what color? Anyway, a few days later, when Michael asked me to Go With Him (going-steady lingo then) I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Charity feels the same way with Adam. Sadly, like my torrid, ninth-grade affair, Charity’s contented glow lessens when she finally takes off her rose-colored glasses.

I didn’t end up marrying my first big crush. As for Charity ending up with Adam…you’ll have to read the book and see!

Laura Marie Altom

P.S. You can reach me through my Web site at www.lauramariealtom.com or write to me at P.O. Box 2074, Tulsa, OK 74101.

To Catch a Husband

Laura Marie Altom

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For United States Marshal Timothy D. Welch and Deputy U.S. Marshal Rick Holden. Thank you for the incredible tour of Tulsa’s marshals’ office, and for patiently answering my gazillion questions.

Any technical errors are all mine.

And for Twon Beeson—even though you didn’t directly share your bubble gum story with me, I still enjoyed it very much.

And for the ladies of Girls’ Weekend 2005! Lynne, Abbey, Holly, Denise, Sandy, Pam, Katherine, Michelle, Diane—thanks for including me in your crazy-fun tradition! You all rock!!

Books by Laura Marie Altom

MILLS & BOON AMERICAN ROMANCE

940—BLIND LUCK BRIDE

976—INHERITED: ONE BABY!

1028—BABIES AND BADGES

1043—SANTA BABY

1074—TEMPORARY DAD

1086—SAVING JOE *

1099—MARRYING THE MARSHAL *

1110—HIS BABY BONUS *

Contents

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

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

“No,” Deputy U.S. Marshal Adam Logue said to the company shrink, sitting across from her in her second-story loft located in the center of Portland’s artsy Pearl District.

“Now what kind of attitude is that?” The middle-aged woman eyed him with a concerned frown before consulting her clipboard. The clipboard on which she’d somsehow managed to cram everything that’d been going on in his head. Private stuff. Stuff he’d never told another soul—so how had it ended up there?

“Mr. Logue,” Dr. Margaret Davey said, resuming her former all-business smile. “Or, Adam, if I may call you that?”

“Mr. Logue works for me.”

“All right.” She made a note on her clipboard.

Great. After that San Francisco shooting, all he needed was another mark on his record.

“Look,” he said. “If I get brownie points for allowing you to call me by my first name, that’s cool. I just—”

She wrote faster and faster.

“Did you hear me?”

She stopped. Looked up. “Sure, I heard you, Mr. Logue. My question for you is, are you hearing yourself? Because I’m sensing an enormous reserve of pent-up anger. But even more importantly—fear. Care to expand on that?”

“Well…” He leaned forward, gracing her with an acid smile. “I could tell you everything that led me here, but what’s the point? You’ve got it all there on my chart.”

“True, but I have someone else’s version. What I’m after is your own.”

“My version?” With a sharp laugh, he began. “Here goes. I fell for the wrong girl. She was shot and killed. I couldn’t do a damn thing to save her. When I saw a guy threatening to whack my brother and the woman he loves, I shot him. I was doing my job as a U.S. Marshal. Am I angry? Hell, yeah. But not at the world. Not at the system. I’m mad at myself. I’m especially pissed my dad’s behind this.” He gestured to the sparse surroundings—the gray walls, the black-leather furniture. Even the curtains were gray, blocking out a gray Portland, Oregon, day. “Even though my old man’s retired, he still plays golf with my boss. Over an afternoon of too much sun and beer, the two of them hatched this plan for me to get my head straight. So when you so cavalierly suggested I start dating again, my answer was no. Will always be—no.”

“So then there’s really no point in being here?”

“Right. Glad you finally see this my way.” He pushed himself up from the stupid, too-soft black armchair he’d spent the past thirty minutes drowning in. “I take it the boss gets the bill?”

She nodded.

“Great. Have a nice life, and sorry if I come across as rough around the edges, but I’m not a touchy-feely guy. Never have been, never will be.”

“Sit down, Mr. Logue. You’re on my time, and I still have another thirty minutes.”

He ignored her, heading for the door.

“Your boss feels that, because of what happened in San Francisco and years earlier with Angela Jacobs, you’ve become a shell of a person. A robot. Which, in turn, has affected virtually every area of your life—including your work. Would you say this is a fair assessment?”

“I’d say,” he said, fingers clenched around the cold, brass doorknob, “it’s none of your business—or Franks’. I do my job. Was cleared of any wrongdoing.”

“Fair enough.” Scribble, scribble. “More orthodox psychiatrists prefer slow, methodical treatment, but I’ve never been that long-suffering. Hence your prescription.”

“My prescription?”

“Yes, earlier, when I suggested you resume dating, it wasn’t just an idea I tossed out. I believe when a patient has fallen off their horse, they should climb right back—”

He marched across the room, planting his hands on her chair’s armrests. “Angela isn’t a freakin’horse. She’s a flesh-and-blood woman who—”

“Are you even aware you’re speaking of her in present tense? As if she’s still alive?”

At the shrink’s venomous words, Adam abruptly released her chair. Took about ten steps back, parking himself in the relatively safe back end of her office.

“Before next week,” she said, “I’ll expect you to have gone on one date. It doesn’t have to be long or elaborate. Meeting a woman for coffee will do. But, Adam, whether you believe it or not, your boss is serious about getting you help. And after meeting with you today, I must say that in my professional opinion, his concerns are valid. Now…” She cleared her throat. “I believe I’ve sufficiently explained your assignment. Do you have any questions?”

Oh—he had questions. Such as, was this invasion of his personal life even legal? And how long would he be put in the slammer for kidnapping his boss, then forcing him to sit through an hour of this asinine psychobabble?

“All right, then.” She stood and flashed him what he took as a pitying smile. “If you have no questions, I’ll look forward to seeing you next week.”

Not if he had anything to say about it.

“BUG,” Adam complained, “you wouldn’t believe the crap she said to me. I mean, it was as if I wasn’t even in the room. I swear, the woman’s got it in for me.”

Deputy U.S. Marshal Charity Caldwell—“Bug,” as friends, co-workers and family called her because of her vast insect collection—didn’t look up from pinning the Goliathus cassicus she’d ordered off the Web. Wow, was he a beauty—the West African beetle, not Adam.

Well, Adam was a beauty, too. But not because of his gold iridescent wings. She snort-laughed.

“I’m pouring out my heart, here. What’s so funny?”

“You had to be there,” she said, attention back on her acquisition. Adam had been on this tirade for a good thirty minutes. And truthfully, though she felt for the guy, she’d heard enough. She agreed that he shouldn’t be dating—at least no one but her. Charity loved him. Had loved him ever since their first stakeout when her foot-long chili dog fell out the van window—long story—and he’d given her his.

“Where have you been lately that I haven’t?”

“Nowhere,” she said. “‘You had to be there’ is a figure of speech.”

“I knew it. While I was stuck in traffic getting to and from the shrink’s, not to mention the time I wasted there, something good went down and I missed it. Let’s hear it.”

She rolled her eyes. Shoved her obnoxiously thick glasses higher on her nose.

“Tell me…” Like some powerful, long-legged cat, he sprung from his chair, lunging at her mounting plate. “Talk, or the cockroach gets it.”

“It’s not a cockroach, and—” You’re seriously invading my personal space. For just a second she squeezed her eyes shut, breathing him in. Had any man in the history of manhood ever smelled this good? Adam’s scent was this crazy-hot mixture of everything she loved. Being outside on cold rainy days, gun powder and fast-food hamburgers. In short, he was her total package—only to him, she was just another of the guys.

Why, oh, why, couldn’t she love someone else? Why was Adam’s eternally messy dark hair such a turn-on? Why did she melt with just one look into his chocolate-brown eyes? Why did his big old toothy grin turn her stomach upside down? And the biggest question of all—why did she love him when she wasn’t even sure he realized she was a woman?

Okay, and maybe that wasn’t the biggest question, because an even more burning question was, when her biological clock was tick, tick, ticking to the point she no longer had the luxury of being choosy, why couldn’t she for once banish the guy from her heart?

“Spill,” he continued to tease, taking the mounting plate from her lap, setting it on the coffee table.

“Adam…”

“Don’t think I won’t tickle you, because you know I will.”

Before she had time to fight him, he’d wrestled her up and out of her chair, down to the floor, tickling her ribs and underarms until she couldn’t breathe from laughing.

“Stop!” she shrieked. “I’ll tell you!”

“’Bout time,” he said, breathing heavy, straddling her hips. Crossing his arms with a look of utter victory, she wiped the smirk off his face by pulling her best wrestling move, flipping him off of her and square into the recliner.

“Ouch!” he complained. “What’d you do that for?”

“You told me to spill,” she said with a sweet smile. “You just never said what.”

“Anyone ever told you you’re mean?”

“Been hearing it ever since I gassed my first water bug.”

“That is pretty harsh,” he said, leaning back against the recliner.

“My perfect sister thought so, too.” But for as long as she could remember, Charity hadn’t had a problem with any aspects of her predominantly male-oriented world—even if it meant gassing her own insect specimens. It wasn’t something she liked thinking about, but she used to be a girly girl, hanging out with her mom and big sister while her twin brother, Craig, was tight with their dad. Then Craig had died when they’d been only seven. He’d fallen out of a tree house he and their dad had built that past summer.

It had taken her father a year and another summer to recover from Craig’s death, and Charity liked to think that in large part, she’d been the reason Dad had begun to live again. Trouble was, in her heart of hearts, she knew that to her father she’d stopped being a daughter and had assumed the role of surrogate son. She’d taken up softball, stamp and bug collecting. Even as an adult, she still very much enjoyed her bugs—the hobby her father launched. The activity was calming. The camaraderie of sharing exciting new acquisitions with her dad—even if it was now mostly over the phone or Internet, seeing how he and her mom lived in Wyoming. The best part of the pastime was the order it brought to her world, where chaos typically reigned—at least where Adam was concerned.

Charity’s dad was her hometown’s sheriff, and he’d encouraged her to follow in his footsteps. And because she loved him—never again wanted to see hollow loss in his eyes—she’d done just that and made him proud. Sometimes, she feared, at the expense of her own dreams.

Don’t get her wrong, she loved her work. Her work meant the world to her. It’s just that lately she’d started wanting more. Which was where her whole baby craving came in.

The more she’d hung out with her dad and other guys, the easier it’d become. For most of her life, she felt more at home with guys than girls. Most guys, that is. Until meeting Adam. Adam bore the distinction of being the one man who made her crave being a woman. Therein lay the rub, seeing as how he thought of her as just another guy.

“Yeah,” he said. “That lady doc today? She reminded me of your sis. Lots of makeup and hair that looked like it wouldn’t budge in a stiff breeze. Could’ve been a fifty something hottie if she’d taken the know-it-all stick out of her butt.”

Charity winced. Would Adam talk like that around a real girl? Not that she wasn’t a real girl with all the requisite parts and needs, but—

“You want me to call in a pizza?”

“I thought the poor lady doctor with the stick in an unmentionable spot gave you an assignment?”

He shrugged, then reached for the cordless phone she’d left on an end table. He pressed the talk button. “Oh, man. It’s dead. Bug, how many times do I have to tell you to put the phone back on the charger?”

“Sorry. Use your cell. Better yet, call from your own apartment.”

“You know I like it more here. Besides, I’m under stress. You have to help me.”

He was under stress? Ha! He didn’t know the meaning. Staring out her fourth-floor condo’s window at a steady autumn rain, she massaged her left hand with her right.

“Okay?” Adam asked.

She glanced his way, wishing she still didn’t feel breathless from having him all over her. What would it feel like to have him on top of her for a purpose other than tickling? “Uh-huh,” she said in response to his question. “Lately, the rain seems to make me stiff. Must be getting old, huh?” She grinned, but the statement held a sad truth. No, she wasn’t ancient, but at thirty-five, if she wanted more from her life—husband, kids, house—it was time to get on with it.

From the same table where he’d found the dead phone, he grabbed a tube of pear-scented lotion her sister, Stephanie, had given her for her birthday. The only reason Charity had even opened it was because she’d run out of her usual generic brand.

He flipped open the green tube’s top, waved it under his nose. “Nice.” Glancing at the label, he whistled. “Victoria’s Secret. La-di-da.”

From her spot on the floor a few feet from him, Charity lunged for the lotion, but missed when he held it over her head. “Do you always have to be such a spaz?” she asked.

He flashed her one of his slow grins that were so breathtakingly gorgeous. They were really starting to tick her off. “As a matter of fact,” he said, squeezing a dollop of lotion into his palm. “Yes, I do have to be a spaz. Which is precisely why you love me, right?”

Why did he do this? Spout words that to him meant nothing but to her—

She lost all capacity to think when he took her hands in his. He’d rubbed his hands together first, warming the amazing-smelling lotion, then smoothing it into her skin, methodically massaging each finger until she was nearly purring from pleasure.

“How’s that feel?” he asked.

“G-good.”

“You okay?” he asked.

“Sure. Why?”

“I dunno. You seem tense.”

How would he feel if the tables were turned? If he’d loved her for as long as he could remember, then some buttinski shrink told her to start dating other men? But that was the problem. They weren’t dating, and Adam didn’t love her. So, yes. She was tense. Crazy tense. Which led her to say, “That’s good. On my hands, I mean. You can stop.”

“Sure?”

She nodded.

He released her, and once again she could breathe.

“I left my cell in the truck, so let me run out and get that and I’ll call in an order. What do you want? The usual?”

“I guess.” Look at them. They were like an old married couple—without the sex. Only, if Adam were hers, she’d want to—well, you know—every night of the week!

“You’re grinning again,” he said, pulling on a leather jacket before heading out the door. “When I get back, you’d better tell me what happened today, or else.”

If by “or else,” he meant he’d tickle her again? Charity would gladly take her chances.

SATURDAY NIGHT, Frederika, a Puerto Rican swimsuit model Adam met Friday afternoon while she was doing a promo thing at his favorite sporting goods store, glowered across the table at him. “Are you on purposefully trying to ruin our evening?”

“Um, no,” he said, putting down his menu. It’d been two days since his shrink-mandated order to find himself a date. He’d done just that, and look, on his very first try, not thirty minutes into the evening, already it was a disaster. “Why?”

“First,” she said, slapping down her menu, as well. “You show up dressed like…” With exaggerated Latin flair, she waved her hands. “A hobo—”

“A hobo?” He glanced down at his jeans and T-shirt. “This is one of my best tees. I even ironed it.” Sort of. Seeing how he’d yanked it out of the dryer while it’d still been warm.

“And this place…” she said with a roll of her tongue, eyeing Ziggy’s red walls lined with sports memorabilia and the light fixtures that’d been rigged from basketball halves. She probably wasn’t much into the all-sports radio blaring, either. “Could you no have afforded better? And now, you tell me we must have beer with dinner, not wine? And your car was…how you say? Fill-thee.” Her speech’s grand finale was a theatrical shudder.

“Sorry,” he said, nose back in his menu. Cheese-burger or ribs? Tough call.

“You should be sorry. Do you know how lucky you are to be with me? I could get another man just like that.” She snapped her fingers. “I deserve better. You show me good time or I’ll call my brother Rico. He tell you how to treat a woman.”

Adam inwardly groaned.

“Well?” his date said, lifting razor-thin eyebrows. “You ready to take me to a nice place?”

Where Adam wanted to take her was straight back to her apartment, but a vision of his glowering shrink made him try to please.

“ADAM?” Charity opened her door as wide as the security chain would allow. “What’re you doing here? It’s the middle of the night.”

“Only for homebodies like you,” he said. “For normal people it’s 8:00 p.m. So? You going to let me in?”

She closed the door to unfasten the chain, then opened it again, wishing she’d had the foresight to put on real clothes.

Once he’d helped himself to her sofa, then flicked on the end table lamp, he asked, “What’re you wearing?”

“It’s a nightgown.”

“No,” he said with a wink. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was negligee. Your sis give you that to go with the Victoria’s Secret lotion?”

“Yeah, what of it? I wouldn’t even be wearing it if all my sweats weren’t in the laundry.”

“I’m not complaining,” he said. “Looks good on you. You should wear it again sometime.”

“F-for you?”

“Like friends with privileges?” He winked. “Hell, yeah!” A jab to her ribs showed her he was just joshing. So why wouldn’t her pulse slow down? “Hey, you wanna order pizza? I’m starving.”

She dropped onto the far end of the sofa, pulling her knees up to her chest, then wrapping her arms around bare legs, wishing the ivory satin-and-lace baby-doll-styled number had a couple more yards of fabric. “Thought you had a swanky dinner date tonight with that swimsuit model?”

“I did. But she didn’t like Ziggy’s Burger Barn, so I ended up having to take her to Swenson’s—and you know how pricey that place is. I shelled out fifty bucks a head for an ounce of beef and a few mystery green squiggly things. Oh, and there was some freaky mushroom pile, drowning in gravy and carrot sprinkles. But she didn’t like that, either. I was going to stop back by Ziggy’s after taking Freddy home, but after all that mind-numbing talk about her hair, clothes and nails, I found myself craving pizza—and you.”

“Flattery like that will get you everywhere,” she teased, plucking ten or so insect catalogs from the sofa so he could park himself beside her. “Well? You going to order?”

“Sure. The usual?”

“You know it.”

He snatched the cordless phone from the coffee table, placed an order for a large pan pizza with the works, gave his credit card number, then hung up. Wandering into the kitchen, he grabbed a bag of potato chips from her snack cabinet. For an average person, this might’ve seemed odd, but Adam ate more than anyone on earth, so chips after a swanky dinner and before pizza was pretty much his norm. After popping two Hostess cupcakes, as well, he said, “And, hey, while we’re waiting for the grub, I’ve got something I’d like to run by you.”