Wife for Hire Read Free Page A

won’t be a burden or an embarrassment.”
    â€œDoes that mean you still want to be my wife?”
    â€œI suppose so. As long as I don’t have to iron.”
    â€œI’ve hired a house keeper. She’s a little old, but she seems capable enough. She answered an ad I ran in a Philadelphia paper.”
    Now that it was settled, Maggie felt a rush of excitement. She was going to live in Vermont, and she would have time to write her book. Her eyelid had almost entirely stopped twitching, and the soles of her feet practically buzzed with the desire to get moving.
    â€œWhen would you like me to start my wifely duties?”
    â€œHow soon can you get packed?”
    She thought about it for a minute, calculating what had to be done. She had to notify utilities, the phone company, the newspaper boy. It might take a while to sublet her apartment, but she could put it in the hands of a realtor. “A week.”
    A week seemed like a long time to Hank. She could change her mind in a week. She could find another job. She could fall in love and get married to someone else. “I’m kind of in a rush to get a wife on board,” he said. “Do you suppose we could shorten that to tomorrow?”
    â€œDefinitely not.”
    â€œYou aren’t one of those stubborn redheads, are you?”
    She hated being called a stubborn redhead—mostly because she knew it was true. “I’m not a stubborn redhead,” she said. “Tomorrow is totally unreasonable.”
    â€œOkay, day after tomorrow.”
    â€œI’ll need three days minimum.”
    â€œFine,” Hank said. “Three days.”

Chapter 2
    It was raining when Maggie and Hank reached the Vermont state line at four in the afternoon. Two hours later Hank left the smooth superhighway running north-south and turned onto a secondary road. The secondary road quickly narrowed, winding its way around foothills, slicing into the heart of tiny towns and national forestland.
    Water sluiced off the side of the shoulderless road, and rain ran in rivulets down the windshield of the old maroon pickup. Maggie anxiously squinted through the steamy windows, eager to take in all of Vermont.
    It didn’t matter that it was pouring buckets, that the sky was leaden, that the pastureland had been churned into viscous mud by the holsteins standing in small, sullen herds. It was all new and wonderful to her. No MarkowitzCoat Factory, no little brick houses with jalousies, no one watching from parted drapes to see what crazy Maggie Toone was up to.
    â€œAre we almost there?” she shouted over the clattering engine and drone of rain on the roof.
    â€œTwo miles down this road and we’ll be in Skogen. Then it’s just three miles farther.”
    They hit a pothole and Maggie braced herself against the dashboard. “I think you need new shocks.”
    â€œI needed new shocks a year ago.”
    â€œAnd do you think the motor sounds funny?”
    â€œValves,” he said. “The valves are shot.”
    â€œI should have brought my car.”
    â€œWe’ve been all through that. You drive a sports car. No one’s going to think you’ve turned me into a paragon of virtue and hard work when you go zooming around in a flashy red toy.”
    Houses stood back from the road with increasing regularity. They passed a forbidding yellow brick building labeled Skogen Elementary School, and suddenly they were rattling down Main Street with its large white clapboard houses and tidy lawns.
    It was a classic New En gland town, dominatedby the Skogen Presbyterian Church, its white wooden spire punching heavenward through the rain. Big Irma’s General Store was on the right, hunkering behind two gas pumps and a sign advertising live bait and fresh pies. Then came Keene Real Estate, Betty’s Hair Salon, Skogen Sandwich Shop, Skogen First National Bank and Trust. That was the extent of the town.
    The business district