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Authors: Susan Fox

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BOOK: Body Heat
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He clasped her hand, treating it like a delicate flower. “My pleasure, too, Virginia.”
She frowned down at his hand. “My boy, you need gloves.”
Jesse and Maura walked with her to the door. Once she was safely inside, his boss turned to him. “You called her Virginia.” Her voice was crisp again.
“She told me to.”
“Hmm. I’m not sure I like you spending so much time socializing with the residents.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Want me to tell them to get lost?”
She made an exasperated sound low in her throat. He’d heard it before. It sounded like a growl, and was damned sexy.
“Don’t be rude to them,” she said, “but don’t encourage them.”
“They like having someone new to talk to,” he pointed out. Didn’t she realize that?
“I
know
that!” Then she sighed. “Yes, they do. Especially Virginia Canfield.” Her voice went all warm and husky again, almost like she saw him as a real person, not a garden pest.
It made him bold enough to ask, “Tea tomorrow?”
She smiled, that same soft, sweet smile. “A lot of residents have visitors on Sundays, or go out to family or friends. She has no one. Her husband’s dead, her children and grandchildren live in different cities. We often have tea together on Sundays.”
“That’s nice of you.” Did Maura work Sundays, or come in specially to get together with Virginia? For the first time, he was seeing a side of this woman—beyond the snotty boss and his lingerie fantasy—that he might actually like. Which probably wasn’t a good idea.
“I’m not doing it to be nice. I enjoy it as much as she does. She’s intelligent, well-educated, well-read. Our conversations are stimulating.”
He gestured to the huge book she held. The thing intimidated the hell out of him. “Might try a smaller book next time.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s too heavy for her.”
Those stunning eyes widened. “You’re right. I never thought of that. I’d just read it and thought she’d enjoy it, but I should have bought it in paperback for her.”
How about that? She’d said he was right about something. He glanced again at the massive book, which must have hundreds of pages and millions of words. “You’re a big reader?”
“Oh, yes.” Her face glowed. “I just love books.” She shot him a dubious glance. “How about you?”
Books were his definition of hell. He wasn’t going to confess to Maura Mahoney that he had trouble making his way through a comic book. “I’m more of a movie man myself. Movies or TV.” Never needing much sleep, he spent lots of middle-of-the-night time in front of the TV. There were a few classics he’d seen half a dozen times or more. “Guess that’s not your style?”
Nope. Obviously that stuff was way beneath her, because she reacted like he’d made a rude suggestion. Her cheeks flooded with color and one hand flew to her throat. “No! Not at all.”
That blush was sexy, too, even if it did hide her freckles.
He wondered what she looked like when she was aroused. Would the heat creep through her body gradually, or would her cheeks and her breasts flush at the same time? He glanced down at the sexy rise and fall of female curves under silky gray fabric.
She crossed her arms across her chest, cradling the book in them, shielding her breasts from his scrutiny. Damn, had she caught him looking?
He glanced away. “Okay if I go across the street and get some food?”
“Is it lunchtime?” She pulled back her sleeve, baring a slender wrist as she checked her watch. “Oh, my, it’s almost two o’clock. I hadn’t realized. Sorry. Yes, of course. There’s a sandwich shop, hamburger place, pizza, fried chicken, Thai, sushi.”
She sounded almost like a waitress reciting a menu, and he was tempted to say, “BLT on toasted multi-grain, extra mayo,” but figured she wouldn’t get the joke. He’d be willing to bet she’d never waitressed, not even to pay her way through college.
“Oh, by the way . . .” She flushed again. “There’s a men’s room inside, if you want to, uh, wash up.”
“Thanks. Virginia showed me.”
“Is there anything else you need?” She glanced at his hands, hanging at his sides. “Virginia mentioned gloves.”
He shrugged. “I’m okay.”
“Let me see,” she ordered.
It took him back to a couple of the foster homes he’d lived in, where they’d inspected the kids’ hands before they could sit down at the table. He’d mostly always been sent back for a second wash.
Trying not to scowl, he held out his hands. Despite the calluses he’d built up over the years, he had a few blisters.
She winced. “You should have said something. I didn’t think . . .” A frown creased her forehead and he guessed she wasn’t used to supervising the garden help. “I’ll give you money for gloves.” She kept staring at his hands.
He was damned sure she rarely saw grime and calluses. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he said, “I’m okay.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Her gaze switched to his face and the frown line deepened. “You may think you’re being macho, but I’m not impressed.”
“Not trying to impress you.” He kind of was, but he wasn’t about to let on. He also enjoyed winding her up.
“I didn’t mean it that way!”
Those ocean eyes glittered with annoyance and he decided to let her alone. “Gloves would be great. Twenty bucks ought to do it. I’ll bring back the change.” While she was being semi-civil, he said, “Got a place I can put my jacket? Don’t want it to get wet.”
“I’ll take it.”
He retrieved it from the corner where he’d tossed it. “Thanks.” He watched to see if she’d treat his prized leather like a dead rat. Instead, she draped it neatly over top of the book with more respect than she’d shown Jesse himself.
She headed in and he waited a moment, then guessed he was supposed to follow. He trailed a few steps behind, down a couple of corridors and into a small room that must be her office. There were filing cabinets and bookshelves laden with binders, everything as orderly as he would expect. No photographs or personal stuff except for an orchid with a spray of vivid purple blossoms. That plant didn’t go with her prissy style, but he’d just bet Ms. Warm Honey had a sensual side beneath all those buttons.
Behind her desk was a courtyard window. She could watch him any time she pleased. Fine. He was a hard worker with nothing to hide. Nothing but the fact that she turned him on something fierce.
Her back still to him, she placed the book neatly on a stack of a half dozen atop a cabinet and hung his jacket on the back of a chair, spreading it with gentle fingers, almost caressing it. He imagined those fingers on his own skin, and shivered.
She went behind the desk, turned around, and jumped a foot in the air, pressing her hand to her throat. “I didn’t know you were there. You sure walk quietly.”
“Sorry. Thought you meant for me to come and get the money.”
“I was going to bring it to you.”
He shrugged.
She glanced around nervously, making it clear she didn’t want him in her office. What did she think? He was going to punch her out? Steal her purse? Rape her?
His jaw clenched and he forced himself to relax it. This woman knew he’d beaten up on Gord Pollan. Made sense she’d be scared. He shouldn’t take it personally. He stepped back so he was just outside her door, in the hallway.
Keeping an eye on him, she picked up her phone and punched a button. “Gracie, could you get twenty dollars from petty cash?”
She waited a moment, then said, “Good. I’m going to send Mr. Blue out to you. Would you give it to him, please?”
Another pause. “You’re welcome,” she muttered dryly.
She directed him to the cute redhead at the reception desk, where he passed a pleasant couple of minutes. Gracie, just like Fred and Virginia, made him feel welcome. She also made it clear she wouldn’t say no if he asked her out.
He thought about that as he walked out of the building. She was pretty, curvy, nice, funny. Had curly hair, huge, sparkly eyes, and arched eyebrows like Lucille Ball, his all-time favorite comedienne. Maybe he’d ask her for pizza and a movie one night. If he could only get his mind off Maura Mahoney.
Maura hated movies; he’d bet she hated pizza, too, and she’d think
I Love Lucy
was slapstick and unsophisticated.
Who the hell wanted to be sophisticated anyhow? Cussing under his breath, Jesse crossed the street in search of a burger.
 
Now reminded that it was past lunchtime, Maura realized she was hungry. She had a tendency—learned from Agnes and Timothy—to get so involved in a task that she forgot about mundane matters such as meals.
The Cherry Lane dining room closed at two o’clock, so she was too late to join the seniors. Staff at the residential facility were given one meal a day as part of their benefits package, and encouraged to mingle with the residents. The seniors enjoyed a break from each other’s company, and Maura truly enjoyed talking to them. Growing up with parents who’d been forty-eight and fifty when they adopted her at age six, she was more at ease with older people. The seniors were the closest thing she had to friends.
She headed for the kitchen and put together a tray with leftover salads, a whole-wheat roll, and a glass of club soda, then returned to her office. As she nibbled, she thought ahead to dinner with her parents. Over the years, they’d always given her a birthday present, but it was rare for the three of them to be together. Agnes, the archaeology prof, was usually away at some dig in the summer, but since she’d turned seventy, she’d been spending less time traveling and was showing a disconcerting tendency to be more domestic and maternal.
Maura realized that, distracted by the unexpected arrival of Jesse Blue, she never had phoned to make sure it would be just the three of them for dinner. She was reaching for the phone when Gracie popped through the doorway.
“Maura, I’ve been hunting but I can’t find Jesse’s file anywhere. It’s not in any of the filing cabinets under any kind of name that makes sense. I could call Louise, but . . .” She trailed off.
“No, this is her big day, becoming a mom.” A pair of adoptive parents had found out they were pregnant themselves, and backed out on an adoption at the last minute. Offered the sudden opportunity, Louise and Don had rushed off to the teenage mom’s hometown to bond with her and be there for the birth. “But if she does happen to call in, don’t forget to ask her about Jesse.”
“Not likely I’d forget about him!”
Maura gritted her teeth as Gracie headed off. The girl ought to have better sense. Jesse Blue was trouble with a capital T, and that rhymed with B, and that stood for Blue. She hummed a few bars from
The Music Man,
then glanced at the leather jacket. Yes, she had a suspicion they had trouble, right here in Cherry Lane.
She glanced into the courtyard. He had come back, toting a bag with the McDonald’s arches. She shuddered at the thought of all that cholesterol. He would die young. She gave a small chuckle. If not of hardening of the arteries, then on that motorcycle. Or maybe he’d continue his life of crime. Street racing? Was Gracie right about that? It fit better than shoplifting. And, though street racing was indeed dangerous, obviously Jesse hadn’t hurt anyone or he’d be in jail rather than sprawling on the grass outside her window.
He opened the bag and got to work on a hamburger, accompanying it with French fries and a drink. When he glanced toward her window, she ducked back.
She picked at her own healthy, boring lunch. Across the desk, his jacket was a foreign object, all black and masculine hanging on the spare chair, very much a contrast to the spray of purple orchids on the bookcase beside it. The plant had been an impulse buy, one gray day when she’d been feeling just a touch lonely and depressed. The vivid color had struck her fancy, as had the exuberance of the tall curving stalk with its dozen blooms, and the shape of the flowers with their butterfly-wing petals and full, pouty mouths.
She wandered over to mist the plant and couldn’t resist stroking Jesse’s jacket, confirming her earlier impression that it was excellent quality leather. Buttery smooth under her fingers. Just like the couch and chairs in her parents’ sitting room. While Timothy didn’t care about his surroundings, Agnes, who roughed it on field trips, liked her creature comforts at home. Thanks to a sizable inheritance, she had the money to indulge herself.
Hmm. Maura had been assuming Jesse was poor, but maybe he was a spoiled rich kid, with his expensive leather and his classic motorcycle. Or maybe a woman had bought him the toys. A lover. Maybe a rich older woman. A Mrs. Robinson, sleek and sophisticated and sexy. Smoking a cigarette held in one of those long holders, crooking a finger and beckoning Jesse over for a little afternoon delight.
She glanced into the hallway, checking that it was deserted, then bent to inhale. No cigarette smoke, but yes, of course there was a hint of perfume, more flamboyant than subtle.
She abandoned the Mrs. Robinson scenario and imagined Jesse with a curvy, vivacious blonde draped all over him. The girl would be wearing a skin-tight mini-skirt and a low-cut leopard-print top. In that outfit she’d be all hips and breasts, curly peroxided hair, and a toothpaste-ad smile. Yes, that would be Jesse Blue’s type of woman. Her IQ would probably be right around her bra size, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. She’d seen the horror on his face when Virginia Canfield handed her
The Time Traveler’s Wife,
and when Maura asked if he liked to read.
BOOK: Body Heat
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