Good Girls Do

by Linz, Cathie

  “Walt had nothing to do with me being here,” Sister Mary said as she joined them. “Luke was the one who called me.”

  “Luke?” Julia couldn’t hide her surprise.

  “That’s right.”

  Walt frowned. “Since when have you and Luke been so close?”

  “Oh get over yourself, Walter,” Sister Mary was clearly aggravated with him.

  He looked affronted. “All I did was ask a simple question.”

  “With a lot of innuendo behind it. Don’t you have something better to do than stand around taking credit for things you didn’t do?”

  “No.” Walt’s face turned red as he belatedly realized what he’d just said. “I mean, of course I do. And I’m going to go do them right now.”

  “Smart move,” Sister Mary said. “I’ve got to be moving along as well.”

  “I’m going to go help Sister Mary serve meals to the needy in Rock Creek,” Angel told Julia.

  “I have to work today,” Julia said apologetically.

  “I understand.” Sister Mary patted her hand. “I believe there’s someone right here in Serenity Falls who needs you more than he lets on.”

  Julia still had an hour before she had to be at the library so she had time to swing by Maguire’s to see Luke. She had so many questions. What had Sister Mary meant? Why had Luke called her in?

  Maguire’s appeared to be closed, which she should have realized because they were only open for lunch and dinner. A sign by the door listed their hours as noon to eleven p.m., but she saw someone moving around inside.

  She tested the door. It was open.

  “Hello?” she called out.

  “What do you want?” The irritated question came from Tyler, who was opening a can of paint.

  “I was looking for Luke.”

  “He’s upstairs.” Tyler jerked a thumb toward a doorway at the back of the bar.

  Julia walked through the open door and up the flight of scuffed wooden steps. The door at the top was slightly ajar.

  She knocked, which pushed the door wide open, revealing Luke working out in gym shorts and no shirt in front of a punching bag.

  She just stood there, frozen, fiercely reminding herself that drooling over a guy was so tacky. But she was only human, and he was pure muscle packed into a powerful package—the hardened ridges of his chest and six-pack abs. The sheer physical impact of him was enough to take her breath away.

  As if sensing her presence, he suddenly swiveled to face her—a man ready to confront danger. Was that from his days as a Marine? Or was there another reason for his response?

  “Sorry.” She laughed nervously. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you. Tyler told me you were up here and . . .” She had to stop to draw in air. “Uh, I can come back later.”

  “I wouldn’t think a woman who throws Pop-Tarts at her sister would be afraid of a guy and his punching bag.”

  “I’m not afraid. And don’t leave out facing the maddening hordes of the press.”

  “Right.”

  “Which is what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Are you gonna get riled up?”

  “What?”

  “Because if you’re gonna get riled up, you might as well put one of these on.” He unlaced a boxing glove. “Here, give me your hand. These will probably be way too big on you, but it’ll give you the idea . . .” He bent his head to fasten the glove on her hand. As he did so, she noticed the way his dark hair covered his nape. She also noticed he was tanned all over. Then he strolled back to the punching bag and braced it against his hip and shoulder. “Okay, come on, take a swing or two.”

  “No, I . . .”

  “Pretend the bag is one of those reporters. Or Sue Ellen . . . Whoa . . .” He took a step back at the unexpected force of her punch. “Hold on there, tiger. Keep your wrists straight.” He gave her a few more tips ending with, “Aim through the bag, not at it.”

  “That sounds like Zen boxing.” She took his suggestions, however. They worked.

  “I gotta tell you,” Luke admitted with a wicked grin, “there’s something about a librarian and a punching bag that makes me hot.”

  “You were hot when I got here.” Right. Why not just tell him you want to have sex with him? “I mean you were working up a sweat . . . Yes, well, uh, I really must be going now.”

  “Wait a second. You never told me why you came here in the first place.”

  “Oh. I wanted to thank you for sending Sister Mary over to handle the situation at my house. The one with the llamas, I mean.”

  “What makes you think I did that?”

  “She said you called her.”

  “God save me from chatty nuns,” Luke muttered.

  “Well, you saved me. That was nice of you. Why did you do it?”

  “Simple. Because I want to have sex with you.”

  Chapter Seven

  Julia blinked at him. “Yes, well . . .” Brilliant. That was a brilliant, totally bumbling response.

  “Yes, you want to have sex with me, too? Great. Let’s get started.”

  She put her hand out, forgetting for a moment that she still had the boxing glove on it. Which meant it accidentally rammed into Luke’s stomach.

  The air left his body with a rush. Damn. Sucker-punched by a librarian. It was humiliating.

  “I’m so sorry.” She yanked off the glove and dropped it to the floor. “I didn’t mean to hit you like that. Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

  “Town bad boy KO’d by local librarian,” Algee noted from the doorway behind them. “News at eleven.”

  Bracing his hands on his knees, Luke lifted his head and glared at the big guy. “Very funny.”

  “Help him,” she appealed to Algee. “He’s hurt.”

  “I doubt that,” Algee said. “Embarrassed, yeah. You sucker-punched the guy.”

  “That’s not what happened,” Julia denied.

  “No?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “The boxing glove on my hand accidentally collided with his stomach.”

  Algee grinned. “Not a move Rocky Balboa would approve of.”

  Julia couldn’t help smiling back. “I don’t think Sylvester Stallone has anything to fear from me.”

  “Not sure the same thing is true for Luke here though.” Algee jerked a thumb in his direction.

  “He doesn’t have anything to fear from me, either,” Julia maintained.

  “Hey, people, I’m standing right here,” Luke reminded them, his aggravation obvious.

  “Bent over,” Algee added with a grin.

  Luke immediately straightened, his posture military upright. His glare was equally pure Marine with a bit of FBI mixed in.

  “I’ve got to go, or I’ll be late for work,” Julia hurriedly said.

  “You go ahead,” Algee said. “My store doesn’t open for another hour yet. I’ll stay here and look after Luke.”

  Algee waited until she’d left before turning to Luke. “Looks like she’s your kryptonite.”

  Luke frowned and wiped his face on the towel he’d grabbed from a nearby chair. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know. Superman and kryptonite. It’s his one weakness. Every superhero has one, you know. A weakness of some kind.”

  “Trust me, I’m no superhero. Far from it.”

  Algee ignored his caustic comment. “Sometimes their weakness is their own mortality. Under the costume, Batman is only human. Ditto for Spiderman. Both have to protect their secret identities at all cost.”

  Luke knew all about protecting secrets. He’d had to do plenty of that in the course of his undercover work. Had to do it growing up, as well. Protect might be the wrong word to use in that case, though. It was more like being forced to keep secrets because no one would believe the truth, so what was the point in revealing it?

  Even now he was still tied up by secrets, and once again they involved his dad. To get his inheritance, he had to stay silent about the terms of the will and the fact that he ha
d to remain here for six months.

  Stuck. Incarcerated. A prison term. But one made more interesting by the belly-dancing librarian with a mean right hook.

  She’d caught him unprepared today. It wouldn’t happen again. No way was she his kryptonite, his one weakness. Not in this lifetime.

  Angel walked into Maguire’s and paused to blink at the darkness in comparison to the bright November sunshine outside.

  “What is it with people today? The place isn’t open yet,” an extremely irritated male voice growled. “Not for another ten minutes.”

  Angel smiled and studied Tyler for a moment. Normally she wouldn’t try to read his aura without permission, feeling she didn’t have the right to tune in to other people’s energies without their permission. But there was something so compelling about this man, something that spoke to her soul.

  There was a deeper shade of blue in his aura that indicated loneliness, and also black, which seemed to act as a shield of protection from outside energies. A man who had secrets.

  She’d seen a similar aura around Luke.

  But she wasn’t here to interpret their energy fields. She was here for a much more pragmatic reason.

  “I hear that you’re an excellent handyman.”

  Tyler shrugged and kept painting the trim.

  “I was wondering if you could help me with a project. The thing is, I can’t pay you. Not with money that is. But I could barter with you.”

  “Barter?”

  Angel nodded, aware of the door opening behind her but not paying much attention to the newcomer. “You know, perform a service for you.”

  “What kind of service?”

  “Whatever you’d like. Aura reading? Tarot card reading? Or massage maybe? I’ll bet it’s been a long time since you’ve had a good massage, right? I don’t consider it bragging to say that I can make you feel like a new man.” She wiggled her fingers. “It’s all in the hands, you know. And having the touch. I can give you such pleasure . . .”

  Angel paused at the sound of a thump behind her. She turned to find a stunned postal worker standing there, a pile of mail dumped on the wooden bar.

  “Are you okay?” Angel asked in concern. “Did you drop the mail? I’ll bet your back is aching because of that huge bag you’re carrying. I can help . . .”

  The woman shook her head and backed away from Angel as if she were warding off the devil.

  “Well, if you change your mind, let me know . . .” Angel cheerfully waved at her before returning her attention to Tyler. “Now, where were we?” She tapped a fingernail on her bottom lip. It felt slightly chapped—her lips, not her fingernail. Which reminded her that she needed to get more of her favorite all-natural lip balm.

  “You were offering to make a new man of me,” Tyler prompted.

  “Not that there’s anything wrong with the present one,” she hurriedly assured him. “I wouldn’t want you to think I was passing judgment on you or anything.”

  Tyler shrugged. “You wouldn’t be the first.”

  “No, really. I’m very much against that sort of thing.”

  “What sort of thing?”

  “Being judgmental. Some people might think it unusual that you Rollerblade in the middle of the night, but I don’t. Really I don’t.”

  “I Rollerblade when I can’t sleep.”

  “I have some excellent homeopathic remedies for insomnia you might want to try.”

  “Rollerblading works for me.”

  “And that’s fine, too. After all, the middle of the night is an excellent time for reflection and meditation. It’s so nice and peaceful. On a clear night like last night, you can see the stars.”

  “I don’t look up much.”

  “Why not?”

  “Don’t see the point.”

  “So you like to keep your focus on terra firma. You must be a Capricorn. I’m an Aquarius myself.”

  “I thought asking someone’s sign went out as a pick-up line a decade or two ago.”

  “Just because we’re in a pub doesn’t mean I was trying to pick you up. Not today, anyway. Who knows what the future might hold? At the moment I’m just trying to help my daughter.”

  “By picking me up?”

  “No, by trying to exchange your skills for those I have. I am hopeless with home repairs. Not that I haven’t tried, because I believe you should be open to new experiences. I’ve even read some of those Time-Life books, you know the ones with all the diagrams and pictures and direct titles like Electricity or Plumbing. But things didn’t work out. One time I actually flooded the entire kitchen because I did something wrong with the shut-off valve.”

  “Sounds like you forgot to turn it off.”

  “That may have been it. Anyway, are you interested?”

  “In?”

  “In fixing Julia’s leaky bathtub faucet. As I said in the beginning, I can’t pay you in a monetary fashion, but . . .”

  Tyler held up his hand to stop her explanation. “I’ll stop by when I can.”

  “That would be wonderful. Thank you so much. If you let me know ahead of time, I’ll make some granola bars for you.”

  “You don’t have to feed me.”

  “So you’d prefer the massage then?”

  “We’ll wait and see how things go.”

  “An excellent plan. Thank you, Tyler. It’s been nice chatting with you. I really feel like we’ve made a connection.”

  “I don’t do connections.”

  The sadness in his aura made her heart ache, but she didn’t say anything. Sometimes there was no way of making something right. She knew that all too well.

  Luke saw Sheriff Norton walk in to Maguire’s but didn’t take much note beyond that until the town’s lawman said, “You know that soliciting is not allowed here in Serenity Falls, right?”

  “Someone handing out flyers advertising free video rentals or something?”

  “By soliciting, I was referring to the world’s oldest profession, as in prostitution. We don’t allow that sort of thing here.”

  Luke raised an eyebrow. “And you’re telling me this because?”

  “Because someone overheard a woman soliciting one of your patrons earlier today.”

  “What patron?”

  “Tyler.”

  “He’s not a patron. He’s doing some work for me.”

  “Either way, soliciting isn’t allowed.”

  “So I can kick those Girl Scouts out if they come around selling cookies?”

  Sheriff Norton fixed him with a stare.

  “Who was the woman?” Luke demanded.

  “The llama lady.”

  “Julia’s mother?”

  The sheriff nodded.

  “That’s almost the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Comes in second to Walt wanting to measure the height of a guy’s grass.”

  “Now there’s no need to take that tone of voice with me, son.”

  “Bud, you’re only ten years older than I am, so don’t go trying to get all paternal on me.”

  Adele interrupted them, bursting out of the kitchen. “Here, Bud, try the sweet potato fries. I used something new on them.”

  Bud removed his hat and his face turned all red. “It’s, uh, real good to see you, Adele.”

  “You, too, Bud. Here, have a fry.”

  She held it to his lips.

  Luke observed all this with a frown. Was he hallucinating, or was Adele actually flirting with the sheriff?

  Fine by him, if it distracted the lawman from continuing this ridiculous line of questioning.

  What was it about small-town law enforcement that made them so territorial and insular? He’d run into the problem before during his time with the agency. Some local badges had bristled at having the Feds show up. Others had worked well with him.

  He couldn’t see Norton working well with him, but he’d seen worse. None that had warned him about prostitution, however.

  “Remember what I said,” Sheriff Norton told Luke when he left half
an hour later, having eaten a meal specially prepared for him by Adele.

  Luke confronted her as soon as he left, following her into the kitchen. “What’s with you and the flatfoot?”

  Adele sighed. “I’ve been trying to get that man to notice me for two years now, ever since his wife up and left him for an aluminum siding salesman.”

  “I’d say he noticed you.”

  Adele perked up. “You think so?”

  Luke regretted having said anything. No way he wanted to get into any kind of discussion about personal relationships with Adele, or anyone else for that matter.

  So he just shrugged, snagged a handful of fries, and headed back to the bar. At least there, most folks stayed out of his face.

  But when Julia showed up a few hours later, he decided that having her in his face might not be such a bad thing. She had a fire in those eyes of hers. She still looked like an ad for L.L. Bean with her tidy wool sweater and jeans, but the expression on her face was ballistic.

  She placed both hands palm down on the bar as if slapping down a challenge. “Someone is spreading rumors about my mother.”

  “So I’ve heard.” He set down the glass he’d been wiping.

  “Who is it?”

  “Like I pay attention to that kind of thing? Although I have to say that having the sheriff pay me a little call about it was unexpected.”

  Julia frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “He wanted to let me know that prostitution and soliciting are frowned upon in these parts.”

  Julia marched clear around the corner of the bar and right behind it to stand before him, a spitfire. “No one accuses my mother of something like that,” she growled.

  Luke never knew that a growling librarian could turn him on so fast. There were so many unexpected angles to her—like that belly-dancing thing.

  “Nothing happened.” Tyler said as he joined them. “Just a misunderstanding.”

  “Yeah, this town excels at those,” Luke noted.

  “Your mom said she needed me to help her with a project,” Tyler explained to Julia. “But she couldn’t pay me with cash and offered her services instead. Like massage. In a barter situation.”