One Plus One Makes Marriage Read online

  PRAISE FOR MARIE FERRARELLA—AUTHOR OF SEVENTY-FIVE SILHOUETTE NOVELS!

  Letter to Reader

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Books by Marie Ferrarella

  Books by Marie Ferrarella writing as Marie Nicole

  About the Author

  Letter to Reader

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Copyright

  PRAISE FOR MARIE FERRARELLA—AUTHOR OF SEVENTY-FIVE SILHOUETTE NOVELS!

  “Marie Ferrarella is a charming storyteller who will steal your heart away.”

  —Romantic Times magazine

  The Baby Came C.O.D. (SR #1264):

  “Marie Ferrarella pens another winner.... As usual, Ms. Ferrarella finds just the right balance of love, laughter, charm and passion.”

  —Romantic Times magazine

  “This is a hilarious, slapstick read.... It will leave you in stitches while wanting more.”

  —Rendezvous

  Do You Take This Child? (SR#1145): “The strong romantic flavor...will win the hearts of romance fans everywhere.”

  —Romantic Times magazine

  Father in the Making (SR#1078): “Lively, heartwarming characters make this poignant romance...a read to cherish.”

  —Romantic Times magazine

  Wanted: Husband, Will Train (SE#1132): “This is an irresistible, sparkling and sometimes funny story. Absolutely delightful.”

  —Rendezvous

  “Taking a classic plot and adding her own humor and passion, Ms. Ferrarella gifts readers with a grand romance.”

  —Romantic Times magazine

  Dear Reader,

  Silhouette welcomes popular author Judy Christenberry to the Romance line with a touching story that will enchant readers in every age group. In The Nine-Month Bride, a wealthy rancher who wants an heir and a prim librarian who wants a baby marry for convenience, but imminent parenthood makes them rethink their vows....

  Next, Moyra Tarling delivers the emotionally riveting BUNDLES OF JOY tale of a mother-to-be who discovers that her child’s father doesn’t remember his own name—let alone the night they’d created their Wedding Day Baby. Karen Rose Smith’s miniseries DO YOU TAKE THIS STRANGER? continues with Love, Honor and a Pregnant Bride, in which a jaded cowboy learns an unexpected lesson in love from an expectant beauty.

  Part of our MEN! promotion, Cowboy Dad by

  Robin Nicholas features a deliciously handsome, dutyminded father aiming to win the heart of a woman who’s sworn off cowboys. Award-winning Marie Ferrarella launches her latest miniseries, LIKE MOTHER, LIKE DAUGHTER, with One Plus One Makes Marriage. Though the math sounds easy, the road to “I do” takes some emotional twists and turns for this feisty heroine and the embittered man she loves. And Romance proudly introduces Patricia Seeley, one of Silhouette’s WOMEN TO WATCH. A ransom note—for a cat!—sets the stage where The Millionaire Meets His Match.

  Hope you enjoy this month’s offerings!

  Mary-Theresa Hussey

  Senior Editor, Silhouette Romance

  Please address questions and book requests to:

  Silhouette Reader Service

  U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

  Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

  Marie Ferrarella

  ONE PLUS ONE MAKES MARRIAGE

  In the memory of Miss Anne J. Nocton,

  who took a shy, awkward fifth grader and made her see

  her own potential.

  Thank you.

  Books by Marie Ferrarella

  Silhouette Romance

  The Gift #588

  Five-Alarm Affair #613

  Heart to Heart #632

  Mother for Hire #686

  Borrowed Baby #730

  Her Special Angel #744

  The Undoing of Justin Starbuck #766

  Man Trouble #815

  The Taming of the Teen #839

  Father Goose #869

  Babies on His Mind #920

  The Right Man #932

  In Her Own Backyard #947

  Her Man Friday #959

  Aunt Connie’s Wedding #984

  †Caution: Baby Ahead #1007

  †Mother on the Wing #1026

  †Baby Times Two #1037

  Father in the Making #1078

  The Women in Joe Sullivan’s Life #1096

  ‡Do You Take This Child? #1145

  The Man Who Would Be Daddy #1175

  Your Baby or Mine? #1216

  **The Baby Came C.O.D. #1264

  Suddenly...Marriage! #1312

  ‡‡One Plus One Makes Marriage #1328

  Silhouette Intimate Moments

  *Holding Out for a Hero #496

  *Heroes Great and Small #501

  *Christmas Every Day #538

  Callaghan’s Way #601

  *Caitlin’s Guardian Angel #661

  ‡Happy New Year—Baby! #686

  The Amnesiac Bride #787

  Serena McKee’s Back in Town #808

  A Husband Waiting To Happen #842

  Angus’s Lost Lady #853

  Silhouette Special Edition

  It Happened One Night #597

  A Girl’s Best Friend #652

  Blessing in Disguise #675

  Someone To Talk To #703

  World’s Greatest Dad #767

  Family Matters #832

  She Got Her Man #843

  Baby in the Middle #892

  Husband: Some Assembly Required #931

  Brooding Angel #963

  ‡Baby’s First Christmas #997

  Christmas Bride #1069

  Wanted: Husband, Will Train #1132

  Silhouette Yours Truly

  ‡The 71b., 2oz. Valentine

  Let’s Get Mommy Married

  Traci on the Spot

  Mommy and the Policeman Next Door

  **Desperatety Seeking Twin...

  The Offer She Couldn’t Refuse

  ΔFiona and the Sexy Stranger

  ΔCowboys Are For Loving

  Silhouette Desire

  ‡Husband: Optional #988

  Silhouette Books

  In The Family Way

  Silhouette Christmas Stories 1992

  “The Night Santa Claus Returned”

  Fortune’s Children

  ‘Forgotten Honeymoon

  †Baby’s Choice

  ‡The Baby of the Month Club

  **Two Halves of a Whole

  *Those Sinclairs

  ΔThe Cutlers of the Shady Lady Ranch

  ‡‡Like Mother, Like Daughter

  Books by Marie Ferrarella writing as Marie Nicole

  Silhouette Desire

  Tried And True #112

  Buyer Beware #142

  Through Laughter And Tears #161

  Grand Theft: Heart #182

  A Woman of Integrity #197

  Country Blue #224

  Last Year’s Hunk #274

  Foxy Lady #315

  Chocolate Dreams #346

  No Laughing Matter #382

  Silhouette Romance

  Man Undercover #373

  Please Stand By #394

  Mine by Write #411

  Getting Physical #440

  MARIE FERRARELLA lives in Southern California. She describes herself as the tired. mother of two overenergetic children and the contented wife of one wonderful man. The RITA Award-winning
author is thrilled to be following her dream of writing full-time.

  Dear Reader,

  In One Plus One Makes Marriage, I have the opportunity to share with you a little of one of my passions—old movies. The heroine was raised in the movie business and thus has a clear view of reality while still believing in the magic of life—and love. It’s a lesson she finally manages to pass on to the hero, but not easily. Therein, hopefully, lies the entertainment.

  This book is rather special to me. It marks my seventy-fifth book with Silhouette. I remember the exact moment I sold my very first book to Silhouette. I was in the shower. My agent called to tell me the good news, and it was like getting a reprieve from heaven. I was seven months’ pregnant with our second child, and my husband had been laid off for thirteen months from a very depressed aerospace industry. The wolf was not at our door yet, but he was circling the area. Thanks to Silhouette and you, he never arrived. I’ve been writing for Silhouette for fifteen years now, and I still feel as if I’m in the honeymoon stage of a wonderful marriage. So far, I’ve had seventy-five “children”—how’s that for a world record?—and a world full of neighbors to come and enjoy them with me.

  All my love,

  Chapter One

  “I’ve never seen such a wonderful collection of photographs. And all autographed, too.”

  Staring at the uniquely decorated wall for a moment, the small, matronly woman’s gray eyes became as round as a child’s, lighting up her face and adding color to the almost-translucent, sagging skin. Wrinkles and stiffness, the outward heavy signs of her advancing age, magically faded. Like twin beacons breaking through a thick fog, her eyes scanned the back wall of the shop again, picking out familiar, well-loved faces of movie stars, many long gone except for the miracle of celluloid. She sighed in what sounded to Melanie like ecstasy.

  The reaction pleased Melanie. Melanie McCloud had hammered in every single nail herself that supported the 126 photographs, painstakingly recreating Aunt Elaine’s old parlor.

  Her shop, Dreams of Yesterday, now had the atmosphere of a cozy room, where someone could seek refuge from a frantic world for an afternoon—the way she had so often in Aunt Elaine’s parlor, she remembered fondly. It was there that the photographs had originally hung. Most of them were personalized with a salutation from a movie star, and some had short notes, all directed to her late aunt.

  Melanie smiled to herself as she silently watched the woman next to her. The woman’s excitement grew in direct proportion to her recognition of the various celebrities. It was her first time in the shop, and she didn’t know where to look first, afraid of missing something in her scattered, shotgunlike approach to viewing the photographs.

  “Oh, look, there’s Rita Hayworth.” She sighed again, beaming. Without being fully conscious of it, she patted her own strawberry-tinted hair as she commented, “Such a beauty.” Turning her head a fraction of an inch, the woman spied another star. “And Tyrone Power. My mother was just crazy about him. Oh, and Errol Flynn.” Standing on her toes, she looked closer at the inscription, then blushed over the risqué message written in a bold hand across the actor’s bare chest.

  Melanie bit her tongue to keep from laughing. That particular photograph, one of her aunt’s treasures, was not for sale, but she knew her aunt would have gotten a kick out of having people see it. As a matter of fact, she would have insisted they see it. She was proud of the. fact that the handsome actor had come on to her in print.

  The elderly woman paused and turned toward Melanie, astonishment mingled with the joy of discovery. That was half the fun of owning a place like this—seeing the way people reacted to items that she had, for the most part, taken for granted while she was growing up.

  Scarlet nails fanned out as the woman touched Melanie’s arm in instant, intimate camaraderie. “Tell me, my dear, where did you get all these wonderful things, and who is Elaine?”

  It was evident by the look on the woman’s face that she thought Elaine was in an enviable position, to have known so many great stars.

  “Elaine was Elaine Santiago, my great-aunt.” There was pride in her smile. There was little that Melanie loved more than reminiscing about her aunt.

  “Was?” A tinge of disappointment entered the woman’s voice.

  Melanie nodded. “She died a little over two years ago. But she left me her collection of memorabilia.” Melanie gestured around the shop. “About half of all this was hers.”

  The rest Melanie had gone out of her way to acquire for this little shop in Bedford, California, like the large shipment that had arrived just this morning, thanks to a successful afternoon at a Hollywood memorabilia auction. She couldn’t wait until she closed up tonight, so that she and Joyce, her partner, could go through everything. Not just to see if it was all there, but just to enjoy it.

  The woman looked at the wall again, still overwhelmed by the wealth of photographs hanging on it. “She was a big movie fan?”

  That was putting it mildly, Melanie thought. Aunt Elaine had crammed her head full of colorful stories and a myriad of trivia by the time she was old enough to read. Aunt Elaine was a walking font of information and she never forgot anything.

  “The biggest. She worked at MGM in the wardrobe department for years, then went over to Paramount Studios, where she went on to become a makeup artist.” For someone like Aunt Elaine, the job had been a dream come true. And everywhere Aunt Elaine went she made entire platoons of friends. She believed it was her mission to leave everyone’s life a little brighter for knowing her. In Melanie’s opinion, she succeeded beyond her wildest dreams.

  “In her time she knew them all. Everybody loved Aunt Elaine. That was what they all called her, Aunt Elaine.” And that was what she’d tried to be, everyone’s aunt. The thing about Elaine Santiago was that she truly cared about people. And everyone knew it. “She always seemed to know when someone had a problem, and she was always willing to lend a sympathetic ear. No one could keep anything from her. She was exceptionally easy to talk to.”

  Melanie grinned, remembering one of her aunt’s favorite stories. “Burt Lancaster once said to her that she could probably get a stone to talk. She had that way about her.”

  The greatest compliment Melanie had ever received was when someone had compared her to her aunt. Her mother had put a slightly different spin on it, saying that she could coax words out of a mime, but it was one and the same, Melanie mused. She and Aunt Elaine loved people, all manner of people.

  A hint of envy entered the gray eyes. “She must have been a remarkable woman.”

  She’d get no argument from Melanie. “She was, in every sense of the word.” Melanie still missed her fiercely. She knew a part of her always would.

  “Melanie, you want to come here a second?” Joyce Freeman’s raised voice broke apart the easy tempo of the conversation. When Melanie turned in her direction, Joyce gestured with a touch of urgency that was underscored by the frown on her small mouth. “I think someone here wants to talk to you.”

  There was a nervous note in Joyce’s voice. So what else was new? Joyce wasn’t happy unless she was worrying about something. Melanie gave the woman at her side an encouraging smile.

  “You’ll excuse me?” she murmured, beginning to back away. “Feel free to browse as long as you like. I’ll be back to answer any questions in a minute. Maybe two,” she amended as she glanced again in Joyce’s direction and saw the depth of her best friend’s frown. Even from across the shop, it looked pronounced.

  It undoubtedly had something to so with the tall man who was standing beside her. Melanie lengthened her stride, hurrying over while still giving the impression of taking her time. She could feel the man’s scrutiny as she drew closer. Curiosity began to sprout.

  “Something the matter?” She directed the question to Joyce, who looked positively ready to leap out of her skin.

  There was confusion in Joyce’s dark brown eyes. She didn’t really care for change in general and absolutely abhorred th
e unknown. The unknown was standing at her side in the form of a very tall, very somber-looking man with charcoal gray eyes and the darkest shock of black hair Melanie had ever seen.

  Hair, she thought, that looked like velvet. The kind of velvet found on the inside of a really expensive jewelry box used to hold valuable, well-loved rings. For a second, looking at him, Melanie couldn’t help wondering if his hair felt as soft as it appeared.

  Without thinking, she almost reached out to touch it before she caught herself. Would that have made the man’s frown retreat? Or merely deepen?

  Melanie’s eyes shifted back to her friend’s face. There was no relief evident at her approach. If anything, her expression of concern had intensified. Now what? Melanie tried to shrug off the tiny kernel of concern that was beginning to root within her. It was all probably nothing. Just Joy’s way.

  They complemented each other that way, Melanie thought. Joy, in direct contradiction to her nickname, worried about inventories and bills, about things that might happen and things that didn’t happen, while Melanie, with what Joy dubbed her terminal optimism, went along assuming the best would somehow manage to push its way through any dark obstacles that stood in its path.

  Melanie absolutely refused to spend her time worrying. She firmly believed that if something was going to go wrong, it would happen without her obsessing about it, and if it didn’t go wrong, then worrying that it might would have been a waste of energy and time. She made Joy crazy, especially since most of the time she was right.

  Joyce licked her lips. She slanted a nervous look at the man. “I’m afraid he thinks something is the matter.”