by Linz, Cathie
“I didn’t approve of Mrs.Petrocelli doing that and I told her so. I stuck up for you.”
“That was nice of you.”
“It’s the least I could do. I mean, I’ve known you since you were a baby. Your sisters too. Things have changed a lot around here since those days.”
“Uh-huh.” Four steps to safety.
“Want me to open the front door for you? I hope you locked it.”
“I did.” Leena juggled the box to stick the key in the lock. That’s when the blanket slipped.
Mrs. Schmidt stared at the Remote-Control MegaMax displayed on the box and looked at Leena. “That looks like one sick puppy.”
“It’s a gift for someone else,” Leena said lamely.
“Then you should have gone for the Remote-Control Ultra MegaMax,” Mrs. Schmidt said with a wink. “Enjoy.”
Four hours later, Leena still hadn’t recovered from that episode. She also still hadn’t deciphered the instructions, which were more complicated than building the space station. She wasn’t about to ask Lulu or Mrs. Schmidt for assistance. Or Sue Ellen either.
Maybe she should have gotten the vibrating panties instead.
She’d gotten the batteries inserted properly, but no matter what buttons she pushed, it just sat there.
She had a robe on, underwear off, and was all ready for the big guy to do his satisfaction-guaranteed satisfying. Instead he was a big disappointment and she was rapidly getting out of the mood. Gee, just like real life.
Maybe the batteries were old. She had more in the kitchen. Taking the vibrator and remote with her, she left the bedroom. She got the batteries and sat on the couch to take the old ones out and replace with new.
A pounding on the front door almost rattled the vibrator out of her hands.
“I know you’re in there,” Cole said.
“Go away!”
He pounded again and the damn door just popped open, revealing her sitting on the couch. She tossed the vibrator onto the coffee table and quickly covered it with the newspaper lying there. The one with Cole’s picture in it.
“I need to talk to you,” Cole said.
“This isn’t a good time.”
“It won’t take long. Come on, Leena. Let me in.”
“Okay but—”
He was sitting next to her on the couch a second later. She tugged the robe a little closer around her. His hair was still damp from a shower and he smelled really good. She was acutely aware of the fact that she had no underwear on. Which distracted her from the fact that the remote was still on the couch between them.
She grabbed for it. Of course, that’s when the MegaMax decided to work. The newspaper shook and hummed.
Cole’s attention moved from her to the coffee table. “What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
He moved toward the paper.
“If you touch that, I will have to kill you.”
Something in her voice made him hesitate and lean back.
“You came here to talk, so talk.”
Hard for him to do when the demonic MegaMax now refused to turn off. She frantically pushed more buttons on the remote.
“Give it to me,” Cole said. “Maybe I can help.”
“No! I don’t want anyone to help! I just want to be left alone!”
“Uh, maybe we should talk another time,” he said, belatedly realizing she was not in the best of moods.
“Great idea.” She practically shoved him out the door, locking and bolting it behind him. Then she lowered the blinds.
“All right, you worthless pile of sex technology, it’s just you and me now.” Grabbing the still shaking vibrator in one hand and the remote in the other she headed for the bedroom. “Put up or shut up.”
The Remote-Control MegaMax responded . . . by dying. Just like Leena’s hope of getting any satisfaction that night, or any other night she remained in Rock Creek.
Chapter Ten
Leena hadn’t had the Monday jitters since she was in middle school. But she had them big-time the next morning. She had yet to decide how to treat Cole. She’d caught a break, sort of, last night when he’d left without discovering the remote-control vibrator on her coffee table. She was sure she would never have heard the end of it if he had found out what was under that newspaper.
But she was still faced with the dilemma of how to handle their make-out session in his kitchen yesterday. Would he refer to it? Should she? Was that why he’d come see her last night? To warn her again that he wasn’t the settling-down type?
Should she take the first step and assure him that it was nothing? Act like a woman of the world instead of one who’d had her heart bruised and broken before coming to Rock Creek? Not that she was still pining over Johnny, but she sure wasn’t looking for any more romantic entanglements. And Cole was as entangled as a guy could get.
The bottom line was that there were certain similarities between Johnny and Cole. Both men were good-looking charmers. Both had commitment issues.
Nope, she definitely was not in the market for romantic entanglements. She just wanted to get her modeling mojo back and get out of town ASAP.
Before she did something foolhardy like having sex with Cole.
Leena arrived at the animal clinic a few minutes early and was greeted by Mindy at the back door. Good. There was safety in numbers. Cole couldn’t say anything with Mindy present.
“Have you heard the news?”
Leena’s heart stopped. “What news?” Had Mrs. Schmidt told everyone about the MegaMax? Or had Skye talked about finding Cole and Leena making out in his kitchen? Or had both R-rated news flashes hit town?
“Cole was listed as one of the state’s sexiest bachelors,” Mindy said.
Leena sagged with relief. “Yeah, I heard that.”
“You did it, didn’t you?”
Did it? With Cole? Yeah, almost but not quite. Had Skye been talking? She was hardly the quiet type. Odds were Skye had talked.
“You’re the one who nominated him, right?” Mindy said.
Realizing that Mindy was referring only to Cole’s new sexiest-bachelor-in-PA status, Leena let out the breath she’d been holding and simply shrugged. She had no desire to discuss the ad.
Instead she opened the clinic and chatted with the clients about their pets. They all had stories to tell.
“Sarge and Gunny work together.” Tina Demato smiled and shook her head at the two terriers lying at her feet. “Gunny is afraid of heights, so he moves a chair over to the kitchen counter. Then Sarge jumps up on the chair and the counter to get any food that I might have left out. I couldn’t believe it until I saw it with my own eyes.”
“My Doberman Dobie ate my fiancé’s engagement ring last year,” Tony Kreutz said. “I brought him right in and Cole saved him. Saved the ring too.”
Leena preferred the dog stories to the phone calls from women looking to meet Cole. He refused to take any of them, making her write down messages instead. Payback for her putting him in the newspaper.
After the first twenty, she told the women that he’d just eloped and was no longer on the market.
“Then his picture shouldn’t be in the paper. That’s false advertising,” one disgruntled seductress wannabe complained.
Leena was happy to keep busy. When she wasn’t answering the phones or welcoming the clients, she “redecorated,” hanging up posters on the waiting room wall—a yellow HOT TEMPERATURES CAN BE FATAL TO YOUR DOG on one side and a blue DON’T LEAVE ME IN HERE—IT’S HOT! on the other. She placed an adorable framed print of golden retriever puppies in the middle. She’d found everything just sitting in the storage room, waiting for her to make the place look better.
She couldn’t do much about the gray plastic chairs in the waiting room or the standard venetian blinds on the front window. But, thanks to the thrift shop, she’d added a nice valance in shades of yellow and blue that spruced things up. And she’d moved the local no-kill shelter donation station up to the reception area
where clients checked in and out, which made it more visible and thus increased the spare change dropped in it.
Yeah, she liked getting things accomplished. It prevented her from dwelling too much on Cole and the mutual seduction scene in his kitchen yesterday. She’d felt the sexual chemistry brewing between them, but she was still surprised by how fast things had gotten out of control—hard and wild and raw. She got all hot and bothered thinking about it, so she tried not to.
Having completed her “redesign” of the waiting room, Leena spent the rest of the day avoiding Cole by working on the accounts payable files. While doing so she couldn’t help noticing how great her latest manicure looked; she loved the burgundy-toned nail color Mai over at Mai’s Nails had selected for her. She also couldn’t help noticing how many outstanding invoices there were. And how many file folders were marked with his notes—“Pays with fresh stuff from garden” or “Pays with snowplowing.”
How did the man ever expect to get ahead with that kind of attitude?
She paused to run her fingers over Cole’s handwriting before catching herself. She was getting all sappy. Next she’d be writing his name hooked with hers and putting little hearts around it.
Not allowed. She couldn’t afford to lose sight of her main goal—regaining her modeling mojo. She also couldn’t afford to have her heart broken again.
Sue Ellen stared down at her Blizzard and wondered where the coach was. He said he’d meet her at four at the Dairy Queen and here it was a quarter after four and no sign of him. The coach valued punctuality.
Had she done something wrong? Something to upset him? They’d gone out to see a movie at the Tivoli over the weekend and everything had seemed fine. He’d kissed her at the end of the evening and fondled her breast just as he always did. No change. Nothing new.
Not that she wanted something new. She was perfectly happy with the coach. She’d totally forgotten about the vibe she’d felt when Donny had wiped chocolate from her mouth.
Another ten minutes passed before she saw the coach pull into the Dairy Queen parking lot. “Sorry I’m late,” he said as he slid into the seat across the table from her.
“That’s okay. I hope you don’t mind that I got my Blizzard without you.”
“That’s fine. They’ve got too many calories for me. I’ve got to start watching my weight.”
Sue Ellen instantly lost her appetite. “Me too.”
This was where the coach was supposed to jump in and say that she was perfect just as she was. Instead he said, “Maybe you should join me in running a few laps around the track at school.”
She shoved her Blizzard away.
“Something wrong?” the coach asked.
Sue Ellen shook her head. She wasn’t ready to have the talk with him just yet, but she realized that talk was going to come at some point in the next few weeks. The where-is-this-relationship-going talk. She needed to lose some weight first.
She also needed to figure out how to use the Remote-Control MegaMax. Hey, if it was good enough for her model sister, it was good enough for her. And orgasms burned up calories, didn’t they? Did sex with a vibrator count? Because it didn’t look like she was going to have sex with the coach anytime in the near future.
He was a gentleman. That’s why he didn’t push her into going to bed with him. That or he thought she was too fat to see naked.
She eyed the Blizzard, wanting it so badly that it almost hurt. Her mouth was dry. Her heart was racing. Not because of the coach but because of the smooth ice cream concoction. She was a Blizzard addict. She had to have it.
Her hand reached out. She caught the disappointed look he gave her and instantly returned her hand to her lap, gripping her fingers together.
“Something wrong?” he asked again.
Sue Ellen shook her head.
“What do you think about running laps with me?”
“Okay.”
Sue Ellen was having two conversations at once—one with the coach and one with herself. The one with herself was the more interesting of the two.
Why don’t you tell him the truth? Tell him you want to run laps as much as you want a root canal. Why can’t you stick up for yourself? You’re such a doormat. He walks all over you.
He does not, she answered herself. He’s concerned about me. About my health.
Why doesn’t he ever take you out somewhere nice? Why do you hang out at the Dairy Queen?
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“For what?”
“Heading to the track now.”
“Right now?”
“Sure. No time like the present, right?”
As Sue Ellen followed him out of the Dairy Queen, she cast one last longing look at her half-finished Blizzard. The present wasn’t looking all that great and she was beginning to have doubts about the future as well.
“I’m glad you decided to join us,” Skye said as Leena accompanied her sister to belly-dancing class after work that evening. The cinder-block walls of the Rock Creek Community Center, like the town, looked a little worse for wear.
Leena had decided it was time to face Skye head-on rather than avoiding her and living in fear of what she might say. There was no way Skye could know for sure how intimate Leena and Cole had been when she’d interrupted them yesterday. It’s not as if they were rolling around naked on the floor or anything—though that would have happened a few minutes later, probably.
Besides, Leena needed to work off steam after spending the day with her own version of McDreamy. The workday. When she should have been focusing on work. Not on how hot Cole was. Not on the curve of his lips or the downward slant of his bedroom eyes. And certainly not on the fly of his faded jeans.
That was a real no-no.
But Leena hadn’t been able to help herself. Which was why she was here. To help herself. To regain some control. Back in Chicago she’d visited the ritzy health club Oprah belonged to at least three times a week.
No wonder she’d never been able to afford a bigger apartment. She’d spent so much money on clothes and accessories and the health club that there wasn’t much left over.
Since returning to Rock Creek, Leena had fallen into some bad habits: inhaling Cool Ranch Doritos, Hostess Ding Dongs, and Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia frozen yogurt. Not all in the same bite, of course. That would be yucky.
As yucky as lusting after the boss? her inner critic demanded in a snotty voice reminiscent of one of the meanest contestants on America’s Next Top Model.
Lusting was legal. There was no law against lusting. No law against acting on that lust either.
Okay, right, there was no law requiring her to say no. But there was a little something known as common sense. Leena needed her paycheck as her ticket out of town.
So she couldn’t afford to fall into bad habits. She needed to resume her modeling regime, which meant exercising. Belly dancing burned off four hundred calories, or so Sue Ellen had told her before hauling her in here.
There was only one problem. Well, there were many, but only one pertaining to belly-dancing class.
“I’m really not dressed for this,” Leena said, looking down at her tailored black pants and plain white T-shirt.
“I brought something for you. Your T-shirt is fine.” Sue Ellen reached into a huge leopard-print bag and pulled out a pair of pink floral leggings. “I’ve kept them with me in case you ever wanted to join us.”
Leena knew she’d look like Laura Ashley wallpaper if she wore those. If only she had her yummy Eileen Fisher workout clothes with her. But she’d left them in the storage unit back in Chicago, figuring there’d be no use for them here in Rock Creek.
I used to have a life.
The thought hit Leena hard.
And she’d get that life back, she vowed. Fake it till you make it. That was her motto before and it was still her motto now.
Leena quickly changed in the bathroom and returned to find Skye—looking slim and athletic in a cropped T-shirt and black yo
ga pants with a coin-covered scarf wrapped around her hips—making some hip moves that Leena doubted she could ever manage in this lifetime or any other.
“Leena, you know several of the people here,” Skye said, not pausing in her moves as she went on with the introductions. “You’ve met Nancy Crumpler, Cole’s aunt. And Lulu. And this is my grandmother Violet.”
A Betty White clone in a powder blue jogging outfit came forward to shake hands. “My granddaughter Julia went into labor at your place of employment.”
“On my first full day at the job.” Leena nodded. “Not something I’m likely to forget.”
“Yes, well the Wright women do have a certain reputation for walking a little on the wild side. Except for me,” Violet added modestly.
“Don’t kid yourself,” Skye said, finally stopping her hip swivels before turning to face Leena. “Violet is just as infamous as the rest of us. She was almost arrested for frog assault.”
“You assaulted a frog?” Leena stared at Violet. She looked like such a sweet white-haired old lady.
“No, she assaulted a bad guy with a frog,” Skye said. “Fred the Frog, to be exact.”
“I caught him,” Sue Ellen bragged.
Leena frowned. “The bad guy?”
“No, silly. The frog. Remember how I used to catch them from the creek out behind the trailer park—I mean, the mobile home community?”
Leena nodded.
Skye proudly pointed at Violet. “But it was my grandmother here who was the real star of the confrontation.”
“Along with Fred the Frog,” Sue Ellen said.
“Fred who? Who are you all talking about? My hearing-aid battery died again.” This complaint came from an elderly woman wearing purple sweatpants and T-shirt.
“This is Fanny Abernathy,” Skye said, raising her voice to continue the introductions. “She lost her hearing using power tools without proper ear protective gear.”
“And who are you?” Fanny asked Leena.
Sue Ellen leapt in to answer for her. “This is my famous sister Leena, the plus-size model.”
“You don’t look plus-size to me,” Fanny said, giving Leena the once-over. “I saw a story on Access Hollywood , or was it Entertainment Tonight? One of those shows. Anyway, they had a three-hundred-pound American model working in Paris. She was plus size.”