"Get out of here before nurse Jennifer decides you need help," Rick offered. "It's too late for me, but save yourself."
"That wasn't very nice," Jennifer told him as Eric almost ran out into the street. "I do think someone should take a look at Dan Ji's arm. I think you gave him a serious bruise."
"Yudanji," he told her. "It means black-belt holder."
"Oh. Thanks for the introduction, then."
"We were in class."
She backed away from him. "Your eyes look fine."
"Funny, yours look mad. Beautiful, of course, but angry as all getout."
"I just wonder why."
Rick hadn't been lying. When they'd been in school, her eyes had never glowed with the fire that inhabited them now. All of a sudden, his mouth felt dry. If he tried to stand, he really would get dizzy.
Without makeup, wearing nothing but an old T-shirt, Jennifer looked better than any woman he could remember.
"Oh-oh, I think your pupils are dilating after all." Her voice was a bare whisper.
"That's because they like what they see."
He reached for her, pulled her toward him.
For an instant, he thought she would resist. Almost, he backed off. Then that moment passed and Jennifer pressed her lips to his.
He closed his eyes and savored the touch of her lips, the gentle play of her tongue as it met his own, and the warmth of her body.
One of her hands tangled itself in his hair while the other traced his ribs.
His traitor body twitched against her caress.
She pulled back instantly. "Oh my gosh, I forgot about that kick you took in the gut. Did I hurt you?"
Rick shook his head. "Don't you remember? I'm sort of ticklish."
His reaction had drained the magic from the moment and Jennifer didn't look likely to throw herself back in his arms.
Rick stood, slowly this time, and looked at her. He wanted to reach out for her again, but she crossed her arms underneath her breasts and stared at him like he was some sort of demon come to life.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I was trying to help you and--"
"I know. I got carried away."
"Will you lose money on your class because of my, ah, interruption?" she asked.
Jennifer's abrupt change of topic threw Rick for a moment. Then he realized she was talking about Eric. "I don't do it for the money. Tae Kwon Do is fun."
She looked at his bruised torso and the fish slowly thawing in the grass. "Fun?"
"Maybe it's a guy thing."
***
Jennifer soaped herself one more time in a desperate attempt to free herself from the clinging fish scent. Then she stood under the pounding shower for another minute letting the water beat down on her aching muscles. If she closed her eyes, she could just imagine that the water's touch was Rick's caress.
She gritted her teeth and jerked down the lever, turning off the flow. Just what had she been thinking when she'd kissed Rick?
"Cupboard looks pretty bare and I'm somehow not in the mood for fish. Want to drive to Norma's for breakfast?" Rick's voice came through the thin bathroom walls as clearly as if he was standing in the room with her. He must have heard her singing, she realized. Singing because she couldn't help her insane happiness over that kiss.
She wrapped a towel around herself. "If you let me pay my half."
The door burst open and a glaring Rick stormed into the bathroom. "Don't try to buy everything, Jennifer. You're my guest. Why don't you just accept that?"
Jennifer's hormones battled her common sense. Half of her wanted to dump the towel and throw her dripping body at him. Half was afraid he'd reject her if she did. And an impossible extra half battled back with a bit of common sense. She couldn't base her relationship with Rick on his sex appeal, much though she might want to.
"Get out of here, I'm not dressed." She held onto the towel with a death-grip, afraid if she loosened it at all, she'd throw it to the winds.
"Oh." He backed out, closing the door behind her and leaving her wondering if she had imagined the sudden desire in his eyes. "I'm paying," he growled though the closed door.
Rick had an amazing amount going for him, Jennifer realized, despite his current status in life. He was smart, good looking, and had all sorts of useful skills. Of course skills like car repair and martial arts could permanently limit him to less than his full earnings potential.
Jennifer swiped the steam off the bathroom mirror and dragged a comb through her hair. The look she gave herself left no doubt in her mind. She was in trouble.
Even her fellow members of the Dallas Cat Rescue League called her a busy-body rescuer. Well, she did what she had to do. What she had to do was figure out a way to save Rick--from himself. Even if it meant staying with him longer than the one night she'd at first planned.
She owed it to him, she told herself as she critically eyed the outfit she'd selected. If Rick could rescue her and all of her cats, the least she could do was return the favor.
Unfortunately, her outfit selection made her wonder whether she was more interested in helping him, or in satisfying her own libido. After the way she'd kissed him that morning, Rick would take one look at her and decide she had ulterior motives. The cut-off shorts were bad enough but the little spaghetti-strap top hardly left anything to the imagination.
She toyed with the idea of changing, then figured, what the hell. Rick had said they were driving. That meant sweating in his oven of a truck in the middle of August during a typical Dallas heat wave. Let Rick think what he wanted. Jennifer wouldn't wear extra layers of clothes just to spare him a little embarrassment.
"You look good," Rick told her when she emerged from the bathroom.
Jennifer let the warmth of his compliment wash over her. Her girlfriends always told each other how great they looked and how crazy guys were not to notice, but they said it even when they looked like something the cat dragged in. Rick wouldn't waste his breath on idle conversation. He liked the way she looked.
The feeling was mutual.
Rick had changed into a clean but faded pair of jeans that didn't show any signs of paint or car grease but his black T-shirt advertised a brand of art-deco computer coffee. On a normal guy, it would have looked nerdy. She didn't think Rick could look like a nerd on a dare. She let herself enjoy a slow stare. "You look pretty good yourself."
"Yeah? Well, if we've got the compliments out of the way, let's get a move on it," Rick said. "I'm starving."
He turned and headed for his door narrowly missing the punch she threw in his direction. So much for her warm feelings.
The ride was as hot and miserable as she'd expected. At least it was short.
To Jennifer's surprise, everyone at the diner knew Rick and most of them stopped by to say hello. She'd thought neighborhood diners like Norma's were relegated to old situation comedies and small towns. That a place like this existed within two miles of where she'd lived for the past year surprised her. What else might she have missed?
It wasn't until they were driving back to Rick's converted fire station that she had a moment to ask some personal questions. Time to start helping Rick.
"Did you ever finish high school?"
He shook his head. "Never seemed critical."
Useful skills and no education. One of her sorority sisters had admitted to knowing how to type. The poor girl had spent her first three years out of college trying to escape the secretarial pool. Jennifer’s own history degree, coupled with seven years working as a well-paid gopher for her father, had ruined her employment options. Rick's practical skills and lack of education would make for a pretty skimpy resume.
"But Rick," she said patiently, "education is important."
"I'm more interested in doing things than I am in taking classes on how other people do them."
If she remembered rightly, Rick had been the only student in their school who had taken both auto shop and honors calculus. Not only that, he'd gotten A's in both. With his grades, he could have g
otten a college scholarship. He probably still could.
Rick dismissed the idea as soon as she tried it out. "I could probably get started in the rodeo circuit too. If I wanted to go broke breaking my ribs. Somehow I don't feel the compulsion."
He parked in the street outside his garage, under the same tree as yesterday. The shade was welcome, but unfortunately, the tree hosted a flock of birds. Jennifer suspected that every one of those grackles had contributed to the truck's bespeckled appearance. If not, they looked anxious to start.
She decided she had to do something about that. If Rick showed up for an interview driving this bird-crudded truck, the only job he'd be considered for was bouncer at a bar. Before she got started on his vehicle, though, she needed to do something about his own appearance.
She was trying to help him, she rationalized. That was all. She most certainly was not looking for an excuse to get him to take his shirt off again. That would be merely a side benefit of her plan.
"Have you always kept your hair long like that?"
***
Rick wrapped the towel around his shoulders and wondered what had happened. One moment he'd been enjoying a quiet breakfast at Norma's. The next, hunks of his hair were falling around him like black snow.
Jennifer brushed her hand against his naked back and a new blizzard of dark hair descended to the floor. "Most girls would kill to have hair as thick as yours," she told him.
"I hated it when I was a kid."
"I didn't." Her voice sounded a little sad.
Hera, one of Jennifer's cats, discovered a game that involved hunting hunks of his hair through the house. Rick watched the cat and tried to avoid looking in Jennifer's eyes. All those years ago, he'd hurt her and he hadn’t even realized it. Knowing that made him feel small, even with the perspective of years. He'd focused so hard on his own hurts, he'd never realized he could cause her pain.
Welcome to the human race, Rick, he told himself.
"Earth to Rick," Jennifer said.
"Oh, sorry. I was just thinking I can get a haircut at any of a dozen shops on Jefferson for six bucks. I just lose track of how long my hair gets."
"I don't mind." Jennifer ran her fingers through his hair, selected a hank, then snipped it off. "It makes me feel useful."
Rick wished he could be honest about how good Jennifer's hands felt running through his hair. If he was, though, Jennifer would go screaming out of his place like a cat on fire.
She stood to his side, inspected her work, then leaned forward to tug the comb through the knotted mass of hair on the top of his head.
Jennifer couldn't have any idea what the sensation of her breast against his shoulder did to him. Rick casually rearranged the towel he'd draped over his waist to hide any overly revealing bumps. If all haircuts were like this, he figured he could stand one every day. As far as he could remember, his hair had never done much for him before. Today, that had changed.
"Finished," Jennifer finally announced. She sounded a little breathless to him, and he wondered if she had experienced some fraction of the sensual pleasure he had. He hoped so.
The pleasant daydream of finishing what they'd started a decade before wouldn't leave him. From Jennifer's response to his kiss, he knew she wasn't totally averse to his touch.
He glared at himself in the mirror. "Too pretty," he announced.
Jennifer's face crumpled for a moment. "I'm sure--"
"Just kidding," he added quickly. She still held the scissors in her hands.
Jennifer didn't look reassured.
"Really," he added. "Not even your haircut could make this face pretty."
"I think you look very professional," she told him.
He inspected himself more carefully. His hair was shorter than he usually wore it. "Maybe. But the new black eye keeps me from looking too much like a bank president, thank God."
She said nothing, but her fists tightened.
"I really do appreciate the chop," he quickly added.
Jennifer only looked slightly mollified. "Do you have the entire day off? I don't want to keep you from doing your job. I mean, if you have to work weekends."
About six months ago, Rick had turned day-to-day operations over to Eric. He'd spent plenty of time working eighty- and ninety-hour weeks already. "I pretty much work when I want to," he admitted.
"Oh." Clearly Jennifer didn't approve. "I find it important to work regular hours."
"I'm not much interested in that sort of rat race."
Jennifer's face showed a war between confusion and resolve. Finally resolve won out. "If you found something you really loved, you wouldn't feel that way."
He nodded slowly. Once he had enjoyed the hectic pace of work, of building a business from a crazy idea everyone said could never make a dime. He still imagined taking that dream to a higher level, but he knew how unlikely that was. It was one thing for a high school dropout to create a multimillion dollar Internet business. It was another to imagine that same dropout running a major media conglomerate. It was a crazy dream.
"Maybe you're right," he told her. "But I'm not going to worry about it today. It is a Saturday, after all."
Rick stood and dusted off the rest of his hair. "I'm going to grab a shower, then I'll sweep up this mess. Make yourself at home. There's soda in the 'fridge."
"Have you thought about wearing khakis rather than jeans all the time?" Jennifer asked as he started to turn away.
He stopped and stared at her. Cutting his hair was one thing. Revamping his wardrobe was something else. "No."
***
Jennifer watched Rick stomp toward his bathroom. The knotted muscles in his strong back and shoulders let her know that she'd definitely pushed too hard and too fast. It was a pity, too. Things had been going so well before she'd overreached with the khakis idea.
She'd cut his hair shorter than she'd planned because she had enjoyed the sensation of his hair in her hands, of his powerful body so close to hers. Still, she had to admit that she'd done a good job. If he'd just dress appropriately, Rick could pass for a bank vice president. He would look way better in a suit than Jim Dorfman did. Obviously, though, a change of that magnitude was a fantasy.
People were a lot like cats, she concluded, only not as cute of course. You couldn't push them too fast. You had to ease them into success rather than force it on them.
She remembered back to when her father had decided to quit smoking. He'd tried the cold turkey plan every New Year’s day for years without any success. It was only when he'd adopted a gradual approach, along with a sort of twelve-step program, that he'd finally been successful.
She snapped her fingers. That was what Rick needed. A twelve-step program of self-improvement. She could develop it for him. Of course she'd start him off on it without telling him. Once he saw how well things were working, she'd fill him in. With a twelve-step plan, she could ease him from the world of unskilled semi-poverty to the levels of success he deserved.
She caught a look at her face in the mirror and grinned. A twelve-step program to Rick's success. Brilliant.
Rick had told her to make herself at home and she decided to take him literally. In the room that had become her temporary bedroom, she found an unused spiral notebook. Humming to herself, she clicked open a ball-point pen and hunched over the book. Step one was where Rick was now. Step twelve was where he would be incredibly successful. So what were the steps in between?
Three minutes of staring at the blank sheet of paper didn't help.
Athena rubbed against Jennifer's leg and then hopped into her lap and started the purr engine cats use when they want to help people think. For the millionth time, Jennifer wondered how anyone could avoid loving cats.
For some reason, thinking about cats brought her friend Carla to mind. Carla was a font of advice on how to improve men. If Jennifer could get Carla to help out with the twelve-step program, she could help Rick and, at the same time, work on curing Carla of her impossible attraction to men like
Harry.
She stretched for the phone, barely managing to reach it without disturbing Athena, and dialed.
As she listened to the distant ring, she jotted down her first idea. Step One--make Rick feel comfortable with looking good.
Jennifer stared at the line on the notebook, then crossed out looking good. There was no trick to Rick looking good. He did that without any effort at all. Over the cross-out she wrote looking professional.
It didn't take long to come up with a list of things she could do right away. Some would take longer. She'd have to let Rick wear his jeans for at least a while.
A vagrant thought of making Rick lose his jeans crossed her mind. In that fantasy, she definitely didn't replace them with khakis--or anything else.
After a few minutes, Rick emerged from the bathroom. Fortunately for Jennifer's ability to concentrate, he'd put back on his clothes.
"Mind if I use the computer?" he asked her.
"Huh-uh" she said shaking her head. "I'm just jotting down some ideas so you won't bother me at all."
Rick flipped a switch and sat down. Half a minute later, Google flashed on the screen. Jennifer had learned to associate that logo with her father's money-losing day-trading. She told herself not to watch but felt like one of her own cats being teased by a dangled string.
She stared at Rick’s strong hands for a minute as he lost himself in whatever Web site he was visiting. Then she got an idea. Step Two: wean Rick from the Internet so he'd have more time for work and self-improvement. Web surfing was such a time waster!
When he pulled up a picture of a woman wearing nothing but a bathing suit and a colorful layer of tattoos, Jennifer decided she'd had enough. "I'm going to work in the dining room."
Rick looked up from the picture. "Suit yourself."
All right, maybe the woman had a body to die for. Still, could Rick be the kind of guy who actually wanted a woman who would pierce her body and get stuck with tattoo needles?
She was still looking at the words Step Three on her note pad when the doorbell rang.
Jennifer collided with Rick at the front door. How could he move so quickly?
"It's for me," she told him.
Rick nodded, gesturing for her to open the door.
Truth about Cats Page 4