Hero For Hire
Page 23
“What about the restaurant? Lots of your customers know you were engaged to Raymond.”
She shrugged. “We live in Washington, D.C., where today’s scandal lands in tomorrow’s recycling bin. Heck, there’s probably more disbarred lawyers than garbage men in this area. Lots of my customers have been involved in their own scandals. They’ve learned to cultivate convenient short-term memories. What about you? Your business?”
He smiled. “It’s what we call good P.I.P.R.”
She wrinkled her nose in thought “Piper?”
“No. P.I., private investigator. PR, public relations. The phone will be ringing off the hook tomorrow. Now all I need is a new office to house that phone.”
“Do we have to go back tonight?” Sara wondered if it sounded as much like a whine to him as it did to her.
He stretched his arms out over his head, laced his fingers together and flexed his muscles. “’Fraid so. Life goes on.”
She girded her courage to ask the one question that had haunted her all weekend. “What about us?”
“Us? As in you and me? Together? Forever and ever, amen?”
Sara felt herself blushing. She turned onto her side, propping her elbow on the bed and her head on her fist. “I wasn’t asking about a lifetime commitment, not quite yet. Just how we were going to fit into each other’s lives.”
“Well…” He turned over onto his side, and mirrored her position so that they were face-to-face. “You’re going to have to let me cook every now and then. I really enjoy it and I’m pretty good, even if it’s not quite gourmet fare.”
“I agree only if you let me buy a new tank and fish for your new office wherever it ends up. I feel very responsible for the destruction of the last aquarium.”
“Okay. So far so good, wouldn’t you say?”
“Here comes the acid test.” She winced in anticipation of an unacceptable answer. “I have to work lots of weekends. I almost never get Friday off. What are you going to do on Fridays?”
He pondered her question for only a moment “Well, back in the old days, if I wasn’t working on a case, I’d stay home and watch ’The X-Files.’ But now—” his smile grew “—maybe Mike can teach me some of the finer points of bartending. I could pinch-hit on Friday nights at the Blackwater Café. Maybe…help out.” He began to peel the robe from her shoulder. “Anything I can do to make some extra brownie points with the owner.”
She toyed with the sash of his robe. “Sounds good to me.”
He leaned toward her, brushing his lips across her bare shoulder. “Just one more question.”
“What?”
“Do you have a TV in the bar?”
eISBN 978-14592-6830-2
HERO FOR HIRE
Copyright © 1997 by Laura Beard Hayden
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Table of Contents
Cover Page
Table of Contents
Excerpt
Dear Reader
Dedication
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Copyright