The Misconception
Authors: Darlene Gardner
THE MISCONCEPTION
By Darlene Gardner
Copyright 2011 by Darlene Gardner
Cover art by Paige Gardner
Publishing History
Paperback edition: Dorchester Love Spell 2002
All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Darlene Gardner.
Chapter 1
The newspaper in Harold McGinty’s hands shook so hard the words on the page swam in front of his eyes like shivering sperm.
So much for taking his mind off the promise he’d made to lend his less-than-studly body out as a breeding machine.
“Attention ladies and gentleman. . .”
The crinkling of the newspaper pages all but drowned out the tinny voice being broadcast into the airline waiting area. An elderly woman, her hair arranged in tight, white curls around her small head, glared at Harold over an open book while pressing a gnarled finger to her lips.
“Shhhh,” she hissed.
Just my luck, Harold thought. A retired librarian who can’t let go of the job.
With difficulty, he folded the paper into fours, ripping it right across the science page’s feature story about the sexual reproduction habits of orangutans.
From what little Harold had been able to decipher of the dancing print, the males of the species skipped from female to female, haphazardly implanting their seed before going on their merry way.
Which was sort of like what Harold had been contracted to do, except his mission involved a singular, human female.
“. . . begin boarding for Flight 707 to Washington D.C. in ten minutes.”
Flight 707. That was his flight. The one that would fly him straight into the womb of the unknown.
He smoothed back the few hairs on his head, belatedly realizing his sweaty palms were dark with newsprint. But maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. His remaining hairs were as black as ink. If some of the dark print transferred to his shining scalp, maybe that would make him look less bald. More virile.
The white-haired woman pointed to his head, tsk tsking in her whispery voice.
Harold looked quickly away. Her disapproval was already hard to stomach. What if she guessed that he was at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport because he was being flown nearly seven hundred miles to be paid to have sex with a woman he’d never met.
Oh, gosh. What had he been thinking when he’d agreed to the scheme? Sure, he could use the money to pay for the premium telescope with the wide-angle eyepieces he visited weekly in the electronics superstore. But the contract clearly stated she wouldn’t pay him the bulk of the money unless his sperm hit the jackpot.
Who did he think he was anyhow? Super Stud? Able to impregnate willing women with a single spurt?
An overabundance of brain cells, unfortunately, didn’t translate to an instructional experience in bed. His performance had been so miserable the last time he’d engaged in horizontal activity that the woman involved had never deigned to speak to him again.
“Mac? Mac McGinty?”
The deep voice cut into his thoughts, and he raised his still-quivering chin to a chiseled Adonis of a man with thick dark hair and friendly brown eyes. Something about the slash of his high cheekbones and the long slope of his nose was vaguely familiar, but Harold couldn’t place him.
“That is you, isn’t it, Mac?” The man was as imposing as a 747, but he was dressed in a well-cut, double-breasted gray suit that screamed success. He had a black garment bag slung over one arm and a matching leather briefcase in his hand. “We were on the football team together at Ridgeland High.”
Harold squinted, trying to see past the muscles to the man underneath. He’d been the brains of his graduating class at Ridgeland, but he was sorely lacking in brawn. The only way he’d gotten close to the crushing excitement on the football field was by talking the coach into letting him act as student manager.
Most of the players either teased him for failing to grow past five feet four or they ignored him. Only one had treated him like a teammate.
“Cash Jackson?” Overwhelmed by surprise, Harold stood up. His eyes were at the level of the middle button on the big man’s suit. He looked up. And up. And even farther up. Finally, he focused on a row of straight, white teeth, which were bared in a grin.
“Yeah, buddy, it’s me. But everybody still calls me Jax.” The man mountain clapped Harold on the back with one of his big hands, which caused Harold to pitch forward and almost fall. “How long has it been since high school? Ten years? Twelve?”
“Fourteen,” Harold answered while he tottered.
Jax laid his garment bag and briefcase down and lowered his big body into a seat. Once Harold regained his equilibrium, he figured he might as well do the same.
Leveling the playing field, they used to call it in high school. Except, when Harold sat down, Jax still topped him by nearly a head.
“I didn’t recognize you at first. You’re bigger.” That, Harold thought, was an understatement. Harold didn’t remember his muscles being so developed. Even the cloth of his expensive suit didn’t hide them. All the female eyes that hadn’t been turned in Harold’s direction before Jax sat down, and quite a few envious male ones, were riveted on them. “Much bigger.”
“I work out with weights,” Jax said, as though that explained everything. If Harold took up weight training, all it would get him was tired.
“So, Mac,” Jax continued, using the nickname Harold had so revered in high school. It had made him feel like one of the guys, as though he really fit in with a bunch of jocks. The problem was that Jax was one of the precious few people who’d ever called him Mac. “What have you been doing with yourself?”
“I’m a biochemist at a research testing facility for a pharmaceutical company in the greater Chicago area.” Harold waited for Jax’s eyes to glaze over the way most people’s did when he told them what he did for a living.
Jax let out a low whistle. “I always knew that brain of yours would take you to high places, Mac.”
Harold’s chest puffed out. He’d impressed the one-time star of the Ridgeland Lantern football team. Not for anything would he reveal that the job wasn’t quite what he’d dreamed of, especially the salary part.
“How about you, Jax? The last I heard you were at the University of Michigan on a football scholarship. Then I lost track of you.”
“Yeah, well, football didn’t work out the way I thought it would.” Jax’s smile was firmly in place. “I found out fairly early in the game I didn’t have quite what it takes to make the pros.”
Harold’s eyes widened. After his high school experience, he’d lost interest in the game. But he’d been sure that Jax, with his imposing musculature and grace, had hooked on with an NFL team somewhere.
“So what did you do?” Harold asked.
“Improvised. I’m sort of a, well, an entrepreneur.” Jax paused. “A businessman.”
“Is that why you’re going to D.C.? Because you have business there?”
“Exactly.” Jax sat back in his seat. “Why are you headed there, Mac?”
The question brought vividly to mind Harold’s trembling sperm. The anxiety that had temporarily receded when Jax showed up came back like a charging linebacker. Harold couldn’t possibly confide his reason for going to the nation’s capital to Jax, a man whose sperm would no doubt rather fight than quit.
Quit.
As soon as the word entered Harold’s mind, he knew that’s what he was going to do. He weighed one hundred and twenty pounds, for Pete’s sake, with muscles that had the consistency of corned-beef hash. He could live without the deluxe telescope that provided glimpses of the heavens if it meant putting himself through hell to get it.
Not that having a strange woman waiting in D.C. for him to make love to her was hellish.
But Harold had to face facts. He could barely perform with a woman he knew. How was he going to fare with a stranger who wanted his deposit far more than she’d ever want him? How would he feel if she took one look at him and went sprinting in the opposite direction?
“I’m not going.” Harold was so relieved, he nearly shouted the words.
Jax’s brows drew together. “But you have a boarding pass.”
Harold glanced down at the stiff piece of cardboard he was tip-tapping against the side of a hand. His boarding pass. He’d completely forgotten he was holding it.
“We will now begin boarding for Flight 707 to Washington D.C.,” the loudspeaker voice rang out. “Anybody traveling with small children or needing assistance can now board.”
“That is a boarding pass, isn’t it?” Jax asked.
“Yes.” Harold nodded. He couldn’t very well deny it when he held the truth in his hands. “Yes, it is. But I’ve decided not to go.”
“There must have been some reason you were going.”
“There is. I mean, there was.”
The loudspeaker once again cut into the low buzz of conversation in the airport terminal. “We’re continuing boarding Flight 707 to Washington D.C. Passengers holding seats in rows 12-19 may now board.”
Jax didn’t bother to rise, telling Harold he was probably holding a first-class seat. Harold briefly wondered exactly what kind of entrepreneur Jax was before more pressing matters thrust the thought from his mind.
“I tell you, Mac, you’re not making much sense. But it’s your life, buddy. Can I let someone know you’re not coming? I mean, there won’t be anyone waiting for you at the airport, will there?”
Harold thought of the woman who would surely be standing in the designated waiting area when the passengers from Flight 707 deboarded. He winced. She’d stated in her correspondence that she’d chosen Harold after a rigorous examination of all the candidates who had applied. It didn’t seem quite right to leave her standing there, holding a sign bearing the name of a man who would never show.
