by Linda Howard
Leah Street entered and took her neatly packed lunch out of the refrigerator. She had a sandwich (turkey breast and lettuce on whole wheat), a cup of vegetable soup (which she heated in the microwave), and an orange. Jaine sighed, torn between hate and envy. How could you like someone who was so organized? People like Leah, she thought, were put on earth to make everyone else look inefficient. If she had thought, she could have packed her own lunch instead of having to make do with peanut butter crackers and a diet soda.
“May I join you?” Leah asked, and Jaine felt a twinge of guilt. Since they were the only two people in the snack room, she should have asked Leah to sit down. Most people at Hammerstead would simply have sat down, but maybe Leah had been made to feel unwelcome often enough that she felt she had to ask.
“Sure,” Jaine said, trying to infuse some warmth into her voice. “I’d like the company.” If she were Catholic, she’d definitely have to confess that one; it was an even bigger whopper than saying her father didn’t know anything about cars.
Leah got her nutritious, attractive meal arranged and sat down at the table. She took a small bite of the sandwich and chewed daintily, blotted her mouth, then ate an equally small spoonful of soup, after which she blotted her mouth again. Jaine watched, mesmerized. She imagined the Victorians must have had the same table manners. Her own manners were good, but Leah made her feel like a barbarian.
After a moment Leah said, “I suppose you saw that disgusting newsletter yesterday.”
Disgusting was one of Leah’s favorite words, Jaine had noticed.
“I assume you mean that article,” she said, because it seemed pointless to dance around. “I glanced at it. I didn’t read the entire thing.”
“People like that make me ashamed to be a woman.”
Well, that was going a little too far. Jaine knew she should leave it alone, because Leah was Leah and nothing was going to change her. But some little demon inside—okay, the same demon that always prompted her to open her mouth when she should keep it shut—made her say, “Why is that? I thought they were honest.”
Leah put down her sandwich and gave Jaine an outraged look. “Honest? They sounded like whores. All they wanted in a man was money and a big … a big…”
“Penis,” Jaine supplied, since Leah didn’t seem to know the word. “And I don’t think that was all they wanted. I seem to remember something about fidelity and dependability, sense of humor—”
Leah dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “Believe that if you want, but the entire point of the whole article was sex and money. It was obvious. It was also vicious and cruel, because just think how it made men who didn’t have a lot of money and a big … thing—”
“Penis,” Jaine interrupted. “It’s called a penis.”
Leah pressed her lips together. “Some things aren’t meant to be discussed in public, but I’ve noticed before you have a potty mouth.”
“I do not!” Jaine said heatedly. “I admit I swear sometimes, but I’m trying to stop, and penis isn’t a dirty word; it’s the correct word for a body part, just like saying ‘leg.’ Or do you have an objection to legs, too?”
Leah gripped the edge of the table with both hands, holding so tightly her knuckles turned white. She took a deep breath. “As I was saying, think how it made those men feel. They must think they aren’t good enough, that they’re somehow inferior.”
“Some of them are,” Jaine muttered. She should know. She had been engaged to three of the inferior ones, and she wasn’t thinking about their genitals, either.
“No one should be made to feel that way,” Leah said, her voice rising. She took another bite of sandwich, and Jaine saw, to her surprise, that the other woman’s hands were shaking. She was genuinely upset.
“Look, I think most people who read the article thought it was funny,” she said in a conciliatory tone. “It was obviously meant to be a humorous piece.”
“I don’t feel that way at all. It was filthy, ugly, and mean-spirited.”
So much for conciliation. “I don’t agree,” Jaine said flatly, gathering up her trash and depositing it in a can. “I think people see what they expect to see. Someone who’s mean expects others to be just as mean, the way people with dirty minds see smut everywhere.”
Leah went white, then red. “Are you saying I’m dirty-minded?”
“Take it any way you like.” Jaine went back to her office before their little disagreement escalated into open warfare. What was wrong with her lately? First her neighbor, and now Leah. She didn’t seem able to get along with anyone, not even BooBoo. Of course, no one got along with Leah, so she didn’t know if that should count, but she was definitely going to make a bigger effort to get along with Sam. So he rubbed her the wrong way; she had evidently been doing a good job of rubbing him the wrong way, too. The problem was, she was out of practice in getting along with men; since the breakup of her third engagement, she had been off men in a big way.
But what woman wouldn’t be, with her history? Three engagements and three breakups by the time she was twenty-three wasn’t a good track record. It wasn’t that she was dog food; she had a mirror, and the mirror reflected a slim, pretty woman with almost-dimples in her cheeks and an almost-cleft in her chin. She had been popular in high school, so popular that she had gotten engaged to Brett, the star pitcher on the baseball team, in her senior year. But she had wanted to go to college and Brett had wanted to give baseball a shot, and somehow they had just drifted apart. Brett’s baseball career had been a nonstarter, too.
Then there was Alan. She had been twenty-one, fresh out of college. Alan had waited until the night before the wedding, rehearsal night, to let her know he was in love with an ex-girlfriend and he had only gone with Jaine to prove he was really over the ex, but it hadn’t worked, sorry, no hard feelings.
Sure. In your dreams, bastard.
After Alan she had eventually become engaged to Warren, but maybe she had been too gun-shy by then to truly commit herself. For whatever reason, after he asked and she said yes, they both seemed to pull back and the relationship had kind of died a slow death. They had both been grateful to finally bury the thing.
She supposed she could have gone ahead and married Warren, despite the lack of heat on both their parts, but she was glad she hadn’t. What if they had had children, then split? If she ever did have children, Jaine wanted it to be in a solid marriage, the kind her parents had.
She had never thought the demise of her engagements was her fault; two had been mutual decisions, and one had definitely been Alan’s fault, but… was something wrong with her? She didn’t seem to inspire lust, much less devotion, in the men she had dated.
She was jerked out of her unhappy thoughts when T.J. stuck her head in the office door. T.J. looked pale.
“A reporter for the News is here talking to Dawna,” she blurted. “God, you don’t think—?”
T.J. looked at Jaine; Jaine looked at T.J.
“Ah, hell,” Jaine said in disgust, and T.J. was so upset she didn’t even demand her quarter.
That night, Corin stared at the newsletter, reading and rereading the article. It was filth, pure filth.
His hands were shaking, making the little words dance. Didn’t they know how this hurt? How could they laugh?
He wanted to throw the newsletter away, but he couldn’t. Anguish gnawed at him. He couldn’t believe he actually worked with the people who had said all these hurtful things, who mocked and terrorized—
He took a deep breath. He had to control himself. That was what the doctors said. Just take the pills, and control yourself. And he did. He had been good, very good, for a long time now. Sometimes he even managed to forget himself.
But not now. He couldn’t forget now. This was too important.
Who were they?
He needed to know. He had to know.
seven
It was like having the Sword of Damocles hanging over her head, Jaine thought gloomily the next morning. It hadn�
��t dropped yet, but she knew it would. The “when” depended on how long it took Dawna to spill the beans that she had gotten the list from Marci. Once Marci’s identity was known, they might as well all start wearing signs that said, “I’m guilty.”
Poor T.J. was worried sick, and if Jaine had been married to Galan Yother, she would probably have been worried sick, too. How could something that had been innocent fun between four friends have turned into something that might break up a marriage?
She hadn’t slept well, again. She had taken more aspirin for her sore muscles, soaked in a hot tub, and by the time she went to bed, she was feeling much more comfortable. Fretting about that darn article kept her awake long past her usual bedtime, and woke her before dawn. She positively dreaded getting the morning paper, and as for going to work—she would rather wrestle another drunk. On loose gravel.
She drank coffee and watched the sky lighten. BooBoo had evidently forgiven her for waking him again, because he sat beside her washing his paws and purring whenever she absently scratched behind his ears.
What then happened wasn’t her fault. She was standing at the sink rinsing out her cup when the kitchen light in the house across the way flicked on and Sam walked into view.
She stopped breathing. Her lungs seized, and she stopped breathing.
“Sweet baby Jesus,” she croaked, and managed to inhale.
She was seeing more of Sam than she had ever thought she would; everything, in fact. He stood in front of the refrigerator, stark naked. She barely had time to admire his buns before he took a bottle of orange juice from the fridge, twisting off the top and tilting it to his mouth as he turned around.
She forgot all about his buns. He was more impressive coming—no pun intended—than he was going, and that was saying something, because his butt was severely cute. The man was hung.
“My God, BooBoo,” she gasped. “Take a look at that!” The fact was, Sam looked pretty damn good all over. He was tall, lean in the waist, hard-muscled. She wrenched her gaze north just a little and saw that he had a nice, hairy chest. She already knew he had a good face, if a bit battered. Sexy dark eyes, white teeth, and a good laugh. And he was hung.
She pressed a hand to her chest. Her heart was doing more than pitter-pattering; it was trying to sledgehammer its way through her sternum. Other parts of her body were joining in the excitement. In a moment of insanity, she thought about running right over to audition as his mattress.
Oblivious of the tumult going on inside her, as well as the heart-stopping view across the way, BooBoo continued licking his feet. His priorities were obviously a real mess.
Jaine gripped the sink to keep from folding in a limp heap on the floor. It was a good thing she was off men, or she really might have charged across the two driveways and right up to his kitchen door. But off men or not, she still appreciated art, and her neighbor was a work of art, hovering somewhere between classic Grecian statue and porn star.
She hated to do it, but she had to tell him to close his curtains; it was the neighborly thing to do, right? Blindly, not wanting to miss a moment of the show, she reached for the phone, then paused. Not only did she not know his number, she didn’t even know his last name. Some neighbor she was; she had lived here two and a half weeks and still hadn’t introduced herself to him, though if he was any kind of a cop, he had found out her name. Of course, he hadn’t rushed over to introduce himself, either. If it hadn’t been for Mrs. Kulavich, she wouldn’t have known his first name was Sam.
She wasn’t stymied, though. She had written down the Kulavich’s phone number on the pad by the phone, and she managed to tear her gaze from the spectacle next door long enough to read it. She punched in their number, and belatedly worried that they might not be awake yet.
Mrs. Kulavich answered on the first ring. “Hello!” she chirped so enthusiastically Jaine knew she hadn’t woken them.
“Hi, Mrs. Kulavich, it’s Jaine Bright, next door. How are you?” Social niceties had to be observed, after all, and with the older generation that could take a while. She was hoping for ten or fifteen minutes. She watched as Sam killed the bottle of orange juice and tossed the empty.
“Oh, Jaine! It’s so nice to hear from you!” Mrs. Kulavich said, as if she had been out of the country or something. Mrs. Kulavich was evidently one of those people who talked in exclamation points when she was on the phone. “We’re fine, just fine! And you?”
“Fine,” she answered automatically, not missing a minute of the action. Now he was getting out the milk. Eewwh! Surely he wasn’t going to mix orange juice and milk. He opened the milk and sniffed it. His biceps bulged as his arm lifted. “My, oh, my,” she whispered. Evidently the milk didn’t pass muster, because he jerked his head back and set the carton aside.
“What was that?” Mrs. Kulavich said.
“Uh—I said fine, just fine.” Jaine wrenched her attention from its wayward path. “Mrs. Kulavich, what is Sam’s last name? I need to call him about something.” That was an understatement.
“Donovan, dear. Sam Donovan. But I have his number here. It’s the same number his grandparents had. I’m so glad, because that way I can remember it. It’s easier to get older than it is to get wiser, you know.” She laughed at her own wit.
Jaine laughed, too, though she didn’t know at what. She groped for a pencil. Mrs. Kulavich slowly recited the number, and Jaine jotted it down, which wasn’t easy to do without looking at what she was writing. Her neck muscles were locked in the upright position, so she had no choice but to look through the kitchen window next door.
She thanked Mrs. Kulavich and said good-bye, then took a deep breath. She had to do this. No matter how it hurt, how it would deprive her, she had to call him. She took another deep breath and dialed his number. She saw him cross the kitchen and pick up a cordless. He was standing in profile to her. Oh, wow. Double wow.
Saliva gathered in her mouth. The damn man had her all but slobbering.
“Donovan.”
His deep voice was rusty, as if he wasn’t truly awake yet, and the single word clipped with irritation.
“Um … Sam?”
“Yeah?”
Not the most welcoming of responses. She tried to swallow and found it was difficult to do when her tongue was hanging out. She reeled it in and sighed with regret. “This is Jaine, next door. I hate to tell you this, but you might want to … close your curtains.”
He wheeled to face the window, and they stared at each other across the two driveways. He didn’t dart to the side, or squat out of sight, or do anything else that might indicate embarrassment. Instead, he grinned. Damn, she wished he wouldn’t do that.
“Got an eyeful, did you?” he asked as he walked to the window and reached for the curtains.
“Yes, I did.” She hadn’t blinked in five minutes, at least. “Thank you.” He pulled the curtains together, and her whole body went into mourning.
“My pleasure.” He chuckled. “Maybe you can return the favor sometime.”
He hung up before she could reply, which was a good thing, because she was speechless as she closed her blinds. Mentally she smacked her forehead. Duh! All she would have had to do at any time was close her own blinds.
“Yeah, like I’m stupid or something,” she said to BooBoo.
The image of taking her clothes off for him shook her—and excited her. What was she, an exhibitionist? She never had been in the past, but now … Her nipples were hard, standing out like raspberries, and as for the rest of her … Well. She had never gone in for casual sex, but this sudden lust for Sam the jerk, of all people, floored her. How could he go from jerk to tempting just by taking off his clothes?
“Am I so shallow?” she asked BooBoo, and considered the idea for a moment, then nodded. “You betcha.”
BooBoo meowed, evidently in agreement.
Oh, dear. How could she look at Sam again without remembering how he looked naked? How could she meet him without blushing or letting him see that she had a ma
jor case of the hots for his body? She was much more comfortable having him as an adversary than she was seeing him as an object of lust. She preferred her lust objects at a safer distance … say, on a movie screen.
He hadn’t been embarrassed, though, so why should she? They were both adults, right? She had seen naked men before. She just had never seen Sam naked before. Why couldn’t he have had a beer belly and a shriveled wiener, instead of rock-hard abs and an impressive morning erection?
She began drooling again.
“This is disgusting,” she said aloud. “I’m thirty years old, not a teenager screaming over … whoever it is they scream over now. I should at least be able to control my saliva glands.”
Her saliva glands thought differently. Every time an image of Sam popped into her head, which was about every ten seconds—she had to enjoy the image for about nine seconds before she banished it—she would have to swallow. Repeatedly.
She had left for work early yesterday morning, when Sam had been leaving at the same time. If she left at her regular time today, he should already be gone, right?
But he’d said he was on a task force and kept irregular hours, therefore he might leave at any time. She couldn’t time her departure so it didn’t coincide with his; she would have to carry on as usual and keep her fingers crossed. Maybe tomorrow she would be able to face him with more composure, but not today, not with her body revved and her saliva glands working overtime. She should just forget about it and get ready for work.
She stood in front of her open closet door and found herself in a dilemma. What did one wear when she might meet her neighbor whom she had just seen naked?
Thank God for the scrape on her knee, she finally decided. It was pants or long skirts until the knee healed, which prevented her from sashaying out in the black, above-the-knee sheath with spaghetti straps that she usually wore to parties when she wanted to look sleek and sophisticated. The black sheath made a statement, something along the lines of “Look at me, don’t I look sexy,” but was definitely inappropriate for work. The scraped knee saved her from a major faux pas.