THE HUSBAND HUNTERS Read Free Page A

every time I go on a different date’.
    ‘OK, first item,’ I said, banging the table. ‘We need to make sure that Tash understands that the word “husband” means getting committed to someone for life. And it doesn’t mean getting off with anyone else’s husband either.
    ‘ Oww!’ I yelled as Tash kicked me under the table. Tash has been known to show interest in married men before - even once having an affair with a married teacher. ‘If we’re going to find husbands, we need to be looking at men who totally aren’t out of the picture altogether,’ I told her, firmly.
    Tash replied huffily that she was going on a blind date with one of her sister’s friends next week and that he definitely wasn’t married.
    ‘Good. Well, that’s a step in the right direction,’ I replied briskly. ‘What’s he like?’
    ‘ Well, I don’t know if I will like him, but he has a floppy fringe, so that’s one good thing,’ she said. (Tash has a thing for men with floppy fringes - think Hugh Grant and Robbie from Eastenders - uurrrgghh. I’m glad our tastes in men are all different.)
    ‘ Now on to a very important point that Kazza wanted raising,’ I said. ‘We need to make sure that we never give off the impression that we are lesbians.’
    Soph looked horrified. ‘Why would anyone think that?’ she asked.
    ‘ It’s just that when I spoke to Rach’s mum the other day, she made a comment that anyone who didn’t have a boyfriend must be a lesbian,’ said Kazza. We all looked aghast at Rach.
    ‘My cousin has just come out and told her mum that she’s living with a girl she met at college two years ago,’ Rach explained hurriedly. ‘The whole family is in shock at the moment, especially my mum. She even thinks oral sex is a myth and that people don’t do it - so she’s horrified about Caroline, my cousin, and now thinks that the whole of society is falling apart.’
    ‘Let’s hope that Paul Hardman doesn’t think the same thing, else your plans are up the creek, Bee,’ Kazza said, giggling.
    ‘Yes, what on earth is all this about sudden hankerings after Paul Hardman,’ demanded Soph. ‘I thought you took one look at him and decided he could never make a Mr Darcy and that was that.’
    ‘Yeah, well, perhaps I made a bit of a hasty decision,’ I said. Along with the whole of the female population – apart from Rach’s cousin - Mr Darcy in the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice was our sex god. For months after watching it I went through life mentally dismissing anyone who hadn’t just staggered out of a nearby lake wearing a wet white shirt. As the months went by boyfriend-less, I decided I was aiming too high. Unfortunately Paul Hardman had been introduced to me about a week after watching it.
    ‘We’ll see,’ said Kazza, darkly. ‘There’s always the possibility of him turning gay.’ The girls had never let me forget that one. I’d met Billy at the local gym a year ago, as I was pretending to work out with some rather feeble weights.
    He invited me for a drink and one thing led to another. But it all went belly-up two months later when I discovered he had a crush on one of the male riding instructors at the yard.
    Since then I had virtually given up hope of finding a red-blooded male.
    ‘I’m sure it won’t be like that, when Bee gets her act together and phones him,’ said Rach, breaking into laughter. ‘But we might have to warn him that he’s set for the turn.’
    ‘Oh ha, very funny,’ I said. ‘You’ll be sorry when I get a date with Steve.’
    Steve Clark ran the livery yard where we kept our horses. He was, quite frankly, the most gorgeous bloke any of us had ever seen for a long time. Well up there in the ‘Mr Darcy’ league, in fact. We all spent most of our weekends down at the yard, usually neglecting the horses, because Steve always provided a distraction. As far as we knew he didn’t have a girlfriend, and it was not for the want of trying that we were all desperate