Kitabı oku: «Suite Seduction», sayfa 2
“It’d be a crime to hide this,” he murmured. “Other than the curls, what else would you want to change?”
Ruthie looked down at herself and frowned. “Maybe the ten extra pounds sitting on my hips and chest that couldn’t be blasted off with dynamite?” she muttered.
This time, he didn’t chuckle. He laughed, loud and long. “You have got to be kidding. Honey, women pay plastic surgeons buckets of money to get what you’ve got!”
“I’m not an exotic dancer,” she said sourly.
“You could be,” he shot back.
Ruthie’s breath froze in her throat at the intensity in his stare. He ran his gaze over her entire body, messy hair down to her feet. She realized that within a five-minute acquaintance this man was looking at her in a way Bobby never had the entire time they were dating.
Like he wanted to devour her.
Swallowing hard, Ruthie took another bite of cake. She was sitting alone in a darkened kitchen with a complete stranger—a gorgeous stranger, granted—but she didn’t know anything about him. This interlude went against every rule her mother had ever taught her. She wondered why she didn’t care.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” she said with a self-conscious smile.
“Maybe telling me your troubles is easier than admitting them to someone who knows you well? Keep talking, I have nowhere else I’d rather be, and I’m a good listener.”
Ruthie was unable to hide the tears springing up in the corners of her eyes. Here she was in the company of this breathtakingly handsome man, and he was watching her with those soulful brown eyes, gentle, interested, sexy as hell. And she was blubbering over another guy, one she couldn’t even say she was really attracted to in the first place!
She knew better than anyone the main reason she’d attempted to move her relationship with Bobby to another level: she wanted commitment, wanted happily ever after like Celeste and Denise. Even if it was with a man who was nice instead of thrilling, sweet instead of desirable, friendly instead of hot enough to melt the clothes right off her body! Sleeping with Bobby had seemed important because it was a natural progression in a long-term relationship. There’d been no fire. No passionate sparks. Ruthie had thought being with him would be comfortable, nice, sedate. Like Bobby himself.
Seduction had seemed like a good idea. He, judging by the shocked expression on his face when she’d handed him her key, didn’t agree.
Ruthie started sniffling again, not only because of her teary eyes but also because of a bad case of springtime allergies that had been plaguing her for days. She reached up and wiped her nose with the back of her hand, not even caring that another one of her mother’s rules went flying out the window. Her fingers came away with a smudge of chocolate, and she realized she must have had a mustache over her lips. “Oh, great, I look like Charlie Chaplin, don’t I?” This time she couldn’t stop the fat tears that rolled out of her eyes, down her cheeks and landed with a plop on the butcher-block table.
The beautiful man moved his hand to her face, cupped her chin with infinite gentleness and turned her head. Forcing her to look at him, he leaned closer, so close she could smell the chocolate and champagne on his breath, and wondered if her scent was half as intoxicating as his.
“You look lovely to me. And I don’t even know your name.”
For some reason, his words made the tears come faster, and suddenly the day’s events, her loneliness and the blow to her self-confidence crashed in on her with the weight of a ton of cement blocks. “It’s Ruthie. My name’s Ruthie,” she said between sniffs.
He smiled gently and reached toward his pocket. “Here, wipe your tears, Ruth. A woman with eyes as bright and green as yours has no business crying.”
Ruthie watched him reach into the pocket of his sports coat and begin to pull out a handkerchief. It occurred to her to be slightly touched by the old-fashioned gesture, since most men she knew didn’t carry handkerchiefs anymore.
Before she could say a word, however, he tugged the white cotton fabric free, and with it came a few other objects from his pocket. She heard a clink, looked down, and saw the two items that had landed on the floor between the two stools. They were unmistakable. A key and…“Oh, God,” she wailed, “Is everyone in this hotel having sex tonight except me?”
2
IF SHE HADN’T looked so adorably indignant, Robert might have laughed again. He was unable to hide a grin, though, as she threw her crossed arms down on the table in front of her and plopped her head onto them.
Ruthie. Sweet, funny, voluptuous Ruthie. How could he ever have imagined he’d stumble onto such a vibrant woman in the darkened kitchen of a hotel? Or that she’d appeal to him so instantly, so sharply, like no other woman had in years?
For whatever reason, Robert suddenly felt like a kid on Christmas morning, who’d found his favorite gift was one he hadn’t even included on his ten page wish list!
Things were definitely looking up. Maybe he would even have reason to look back on Monica’s ridiculous offer and be thankful. It had driven him here, to this room, at just the right moment to meet someone who had knocked his socks off in less than fifteen minutes.
Someone who, he realized, was still sniffling as she kept her face buried in her crossed arms.
“No, I’m definitely not having sex tonight,” he said, confirming that fact not only to her but to himself. “And I haven’t had it in a pretty long time, either. So you’re not alone. Now, will you please stop crying?”
Her head lifted and she stared at him. Hard. “Why not?”
“Why not what?”
“Why aren’t you having sex? You’re gorgeous. You’re nice. You smell good and you don’t have bad breath. Why isn’t there some woman waiting for you upstairs?” A sudden look of understanding crossed her face. “Oh, great, you’re gay, aren’t you? That’s it. You’re gay. Somebody, just shoot me now.”
He bordered on taking offense, but since she was so obviously miserable, not to mention tipsy, he forgave her for momentarily doubting his preferences. “Not gay.”
“Married?”
“Nope.”
“Sissy mama’s boy?”
He cringed. “My mama’s a mechanic.”
“Why celibate, then?”
That seemed a very good question right now. Particularly since all he’d been able to think about since he’d first seen her licking chocolate off her fork was how much he wanted her to be tasting him.
“It’s been a long time since I met anyone I was seriously interested in.” Not three years, of course. He shuddered at the thought that she’d been unattached for so long. Were men in Philly totally blind? “Why you? Other than the obvious things like your gorgeous red hair has too much curl, and you’ve got a figure most men with stick-thin girlfriends fantasize about?”
His flattery didn’t influence her. She obviously didn’t believe it. “I’ve been busy. Working, helping the family with the business.”
“You work with your family?”
She nodded. “It takes a lot of time and energy. Not that I’m complaining—I love my family a lot. And I do have friends I spend time with.”
“But no boyfriends other than the loser who passed up the chance to spend a night with you?”
She sighed. “It’s hard to meet eligible men when you work ten hours a day, six days a week.”
“I know how that goes. My job requires a lot of travel, not much time for home and family. Not that I mind. That’s exactly what I wanted growing up. I couldn’t wait to leave home, get away from the craziness of five younger brothers, have my own quiet place, then go out and conquer the world.”
“And have you?”
He grinned. “I’m working on it.”
They fell silent. It wasn’t a heavy, uncomfortable silence between two strangers who’d had a very intimate conversation. Instead, Robert just enjoyed breathing the same air, catching the light scent of her perfume, watching the way the glints of gold in her hair caught the light. Hearing her sniffle. “You cryin’ again?”
She shook her head. “Allergies.”
“Good. I can’t stand it when women cry.”
Ruthie sighed, her shoulders drooping. “I love to cry. I rate movies by the tissue factor.”
“How depressing.”
“No,” she insisted, “it’s not. I don’t mean I like to see horror or twisted stuff that brings you down, but there’s something so moving about a real love story, doomed and destined to end in tragedy.”
“Yeah, they move me, all right,” he muttered, “right out of the theater. I like war movies.”
“Yuck. Blood and gore. Sat through half of one last year on a blind date and threw up my popcorn and Sno-Caps right onto his shoes.” She sounded very philosophical about the experience.
“Did he ever call again?”
She rolled her eyes and let out an unladylike snort.
“Well,” he said, giving his head a rueful shake, “I’ve had my fair share of bad dates, too.”
“But I bet you never got sick on your date’s shiny new penny loafers.”
“True,” he conceded. “But if he was enough of a geek to be wearing penny loafers, he deserved it.”
She raised a sardonic brow. “Are you criticizing my taste in men? Implying I date geeks?”
He shook his head and held his hands up, palms out. “No, no, you said he was a blind date, remember? Obviously the friend who set you up doesn’t know you very well!”
She smirked. “My mother set us up.”
He paused, looking at her out of the corner of his eye, silently daring her to go on.
“Okay, okay, so she doesn’t know me very well!”
His expression was triumphant. “Nobody’s mother knows them very well. That’s why mothers love their children when any sane person would have kicked them to the curb years before.”
Ruthie nodded in agreement with his reasoning, then said, “Is yours really a mechanic?”
He nodded ruefully. “She and my father are in the auto repair business back home in North Carolina.”
“Southern boy,” she said as she stuck her fork in the last third of the cake and helped herself to another bite. “I guess that explains the good manners, the handkerchief and all. But no accent?”
“New York eventually wore it away.”
Robert reached out to help himself to more cake, and accidentally tangled his fork with the tines of hers. “Sorry.”
“If we were down to the last bite, you’d have to fork-duel me for it. But I think there’s enough left for both of us,” she said with a huge grin as she disentangled their utensils.
When she truly smiled, she did so with her whole face, not just those beautiful lips. Robert watched her, awed by the transformation genuine amusement brought to her already pretty features. Her eyes sparkled. A pair of adorable dimples turned up in her cheeks. He had forgotten how much of a sucker he’d always been for dimples—had been since his first crush on the freckled, dimpled, toothless Doreen Watson in second grade. Now he was reminded with such sudden, raw joy that he simply didn’t know what to say. He merely smiled back, memorizing her features, as though afraid this entire interlude might be a figment of his imagination brought on by one too many vodka tonics and might disappear at any moment.
From outside, Robert heard a few horns beeping. The flash of a blue strobe from a police car passing by the window spotlighted the far wall of the room. Distracted, he looked around. The kitchen was immaculate, reminding him of his original purpose. He’d completely forgotten why he’d come snooping while he’d talked with Ruthie. Amazing. A woman who could actually make him forget about his job, albeit only for twenty minutes or so.
Ruthie finally broke the comfortable silence that had once again fallen between them. “So, I suppose you like sports.” Her voice held a note of resignation.
He nodded. “You?”
She shook her head mournfully. “Nope.”
“What about music?” he asked, immediately recognizing her bid to see just what they might have in common, other than the cajones to sneak into a private hotel kitchen and raid the dessert cabinet.
Her eyes brightened. “I love country-western!”
He cringed. “My father nearly disowned me when I was nine and told him I hated country and liked New-Orleans-style jazz.”
A gentle smile and a look of tenderness crossed her face. “My father and I used to sing along to Broadway albums when I was growing up. He had a wonderful voice.”
“Had?”
She nodded. “He died when I was in high school.” Her voice broke, and she gave her head a quick shake, then reached for the bottle of champagne.
“So,” Robert said, trying to move past the awkward moment, “what else? How about books?”
He could have predicted her answer before she said it. “Romances. You?”
“Techno-thrillers.”
“I get tired thinking about picking up one of those two-ton hardbacks,” she said with a frown. “Do you think those guys get paid by the word?”
Since he’d sometimes wondered the same thing, he nodded. “Seems possible.” Instead of being depressed at their conflicting personalities and tastes, Robert found himself thoroughly enjoying their banter.
“Kids!” she exclaimed and he almost heard the “aha” she didn’t utter. “Growing up with all those younger brothers, you must love children!”
He gave a vehement shake of his head. “Growing up with all those brothers made me never want to have children.”
Her shoulders sagged. “Really? Maybe you just think you don’t want any.”
He shuddered. “Ruthie, I practically raised my younger brothers while our parents were getting their business off the ground. Snotty noses, diapers, chicken pox, bad dreams, never-ending fistfights. Believe me, I did all the child-rearing I ever want to do before my eighteenth birthday.”
She looked at him, studying his face as if testing his sincerity, then a disappointed frown marred her brow. She studied her own hands, suddenly quiet and pensive. “I can’t remember a time when I didn’t dream about growing up and having lots of children.”
Lots? He couldn’t even fathom the possibility of one. It did seem critically important to her, though. What she wanted for her own future really wasn’t any of his business, he supposed. She was an absolute stranger to him; he might never see her again after this one unusual night. But he couldn’t stop a feeling of regret over their completely discordant dreams for their futures.
“I hope your dream comes true one day, Ruthie.” He hoisted the bottle and held it up for a toast. “To your future babies. May they all be female so you don’t have the nightmare of raising lots of little boys like I did.”
She nodded, grabbed the bottle, and took a liberal sip.
“So, where were we?” he mused. “Ah, yes, what could we possibly we have in common that we can talk about now?”
She squared her shoulders. “What about the weather?”
“I think we’ve moved a little beyond talking about the weather, Ruthie. After all, I already know the details of your sex life, and you saw a condom fall out of my pocket.”
“The details of my nonexistent sex life,” she retorted, “and thank you so much for reminding me!” She rolled her eyes. “For your information, I was talking about the seasons. Are you a summer man or a winter one?”
“Summer. Definitely. Sandy beaches, bright blue sky, waterskiing, deep-sea fishing. Give me ninety and sunny any day.” He had a sudden purely delightful mental image of lying on a beach, sipping a fruity rum concoction, watching Ruthie walk toward him from the water, wearing a tiny bikini that barely covered the full, lush curves of her breasts.
He glanced at her, to see if she’d caught the brainless, besotted expression he felt sure must be on his face.
She looked like she wanted to slug him. “Winter,” she practically snarled. “Nothing compares to snuggling up in your very softest angora sweater, sipping hot chocolate with marshmallows in front of a roaring fireplace at a beautiful mountaintop ski resort.”
Sweater? No, no. That definitely wasn’t part of the fantasy. “Better than lying on a beach, listening to the gentle surf, feeling someone rub oil into the hot skin of your back?” he asked, his voice growing husky as he fantasized aloud.
She sighed. “Only if there’s a gorgeous young waiter dressed in a loincloth bringing me free piña coladas—and Solarcaine by the case since I would turn red as a lobster in forty-five seconds flat.”
“Ever heard of beach umbrellas?”
“Ever heard of sun poisoning?” she shot back. “I’m a dermatologist’s poster child.”
“No risk of sunburn when lying on a hammock beneath a palm tree in the early evening.”
She wasn’t teased out of her mood. “Just mosquitoes.”
Robert shook his head ruefully, admiring her stubbornness, her honesty, even if it was a bit inspired by champagne. “I give up. You’re right. We have nothing in common.”
Instead of looking pleased that he’d agreed with her, Ruthie frowned deeply. He heard her sigh and watched her shoulders slump again. “I guess not.”
They both extended their forks toward the cake at the same instant. “There’s always chocolate,” he said with a smile.
“Oh, yes,” she agreed. “We’ll always have chocolate.”
Between the two of them, they killed off the first bottle of champagne and did some damage to the second in the next hour. Robert didn’t remember when he’d laughed so hard, all the while shifting in his seat as he reacted physically to the gorgeous redhead fate had thrust right under his nose.
He’d never dated a redhead. He’d never dated a curvy bundle of dimpled femininity. His women, in the past, had tended to be more the corporate shark type. Not by preference, he suddenly realized, but merely by circumstance.
His brothers had been telling him for years to get the hell out of New York before he found himself married to one of the piranhas he’d been dating. Robert didn’t worry. He had no intention of marrying anyone. His job was too important to him—and too demanding—to try to find time to share his life with a family. Dating piranhas helped make sure he was never tempted.
He’d never taken a woman home, of course, knowing the full Kendall clan was enough to frighten off anyone. More than that, he’d never met a woman he’d wanted to bring to North Carolina. But some members of his family had met one or two girlfriends when they’d come to visit him.
“Find a nice southern girl,” his mother had said after one disastrous dinner during which his date had picked at a salad, complaining the dressing was too rich to be fat free, then gone on to tell Robert’s father he was crazy to eat red meat these days. “One who is gentle of heart, but has blisters on her hands,” his mother had counseled, “who isn’t afraid to laugh instead of titter. A lady who can occasionally be unladylike.”
One whose eyes are the most amazing shade of green, who’s completely inept at hiding whatever she’s feeling at a particular moment. Ruthie would be a lousy poker player, he realized. Then again, Robert had never really cared for poker.
With her zany personality, he imagined she wouldn’t be much of an office person, either. He didn’t know what Ruthie did for a living, but he would bet his last dollar it had nothing to do with finances, executives, or business.
He was about to ask her when she slid from her stool and tried to push her feet into her emerald-green pumps. “This was the color my dress was supposed to be,” she explained ruefully.
“It would have looked beautiful on you.”
She winced as she slipped the other shoe on. “Shouldn’t have taken them off. Now they’re killing me.” She leaned against the table and bent forward to adjust the shoe, giving Robert a clear view of the deep cleavage revealed by her dress. The fact that he knew he shouldn’t look didn’t stop him from staring, nearly choking on a mouthful of air he suddenly felt incapable of drawing into his lungs.
“Time to shuffle off,” she said.
“You’re staying here in the hotel?” he asked, figuring she was but wanting to get more information from her.
She nodded. “I don’t have to, since my apartment’s only a few miles away. But I should take advantage of the free room, especially after so much champagne.”
Ruthie reached for the green handbag lying on the table. As she pulled the strap of the bag, she wobbled on her high heels, pulling too hard and spilling the bag, and its contents, all over the floor. “Oh, rats,” she muttered as she bent over to retrieve her belongings.
Robert froze. She hunched right in front of him, between her vacant stool and his knees, and the images that ran through his brain would have given quite a shock to colleagues who considered him a responsible, conservative man.
She rested one small hand on his thigh to steady herself, refreshing in her complete unselfconsciousness, yet utterly devastating to his composure. He watched, focusing on those fingers pressing into the gray fabric of his slacks. It took her forever, it seemed, to retrieve her comb, lipstick, room key and a bundle of netting filled with birdseed.
Robert’s mouth felt like it contained a cup of sawdust. He couldn’t swallow. Couldn’t breathe without thinking about it. He had the most intense longing to watch her hand move higher, stroking his leg, pulling him down to kneel on the floor with her. Or better yet, to bring her to her feet, then lower her onto the top of the sturdy, butcher-block table. The memory of the pale skin of her thighs above the lace of her white stockings returned with gut-clenching intensity.
Get real, Robert! You’ve known the woman an hour!
She was vulnerable, depressed, and had consumed more champagne than she should have. No way would he take advantage, even if the sparkle in her eye while they’d talked had told him, without words, she was attracted to him, too.
No. Tonight would be about chocolate cake and laughter and champagne. His hands on her body, her lips on his mouth, her scent filling his head and her sighs of pleasure would all come another night. No question about it.
“Yours, I believe?” she said as she pulled herself up, still using his knee for leverage. He didn’t know what she meant until she dropped the condom on the table with a smirk. “Even though you say you don’t need it, I don’t suppose we ought to leave it here on the floor for the staff to find!”
He shook his head. “Maybe not.” He glanced down. “See the other room key down there anywhere?”
He didn’t spot it right away, but Ruthie apparently did. She pointed to the foot of the table. “Right there. I would offer to get it, but I’m wobbly enough on these stupid shoes and don’t think I could manage bending over again! Although, I don’t have to worry about being embarrassed if I fall on my fanny right in front of you, do I? I mean, you’ve already pretty much seen me at my worst.”
“This is your worst? Piece of cake!”
They both looked over at the remains of the decimated chocolate cake resting on the table and laughed in unison.
Sliding off his stool, Robert stooped down to retrieve the key, not even thinking about how close she stood. He found himself practically kneeling at her feet, his face level with her right hip. His mouth was close to her body, close enough that he could see her dress ruffle with his every exhalation. He swallowed hard.
As if he wasn’t distracted enough by the sight of her hip and the tempting curve of her sweet backside just inches from his face, she chose that moment to turn toward him. “Having trouble?” she asked, leaning over to look down at him.
He stifled a groan. Oh, yeah, he was having some serious trouble. Trouble breathing. Trouble swallowing. Trouble thinking about anything except that she now stood directly in front of him and if he leaned forward he could press a hot kiss onto her stomach. Elsewhere. Everywhere.
She’d taste sweet—chocolate and champagne and the joy that was the essence of her.
“Do you need help?”
He definitely needed her help. But not now, not this soon, not with her in mourning for a newly ended relationship with another man. At least, he hoped it was ended.
Tomorrow, however, was another story. He’d camp out in the lobby of the hotel, if he had to, to find out who she was and where she lived. Suddenly, the upcoming months filled with business trips to Philadelphia seemed much more appealing.
“Did you find your key or not? I could have sworn I saw it there by the table leg,” she said, her tone concerned.
The key. Monica’s room key. He felt it with the tips of his fingers and quickly palmed it. Still kneeling, he slowly shifted his gaze upward, until his eyes met hers and locked. He knew his expression revealed too much of what was going on in his head and the rest of his body. There was no hiding it. There would definitely be no hiding it when he stood up, considering the uncomfortable tightness in his trousers.
She understood. Her cheeks suddenly suffused with color. Her mouth fell open as she pulled in a deep breath. He heard the rustling of her dress as she moved her legs close together and Robert had to close his eyes to shake the image of her clenching those pale thighs.
He rose to his feet slowly, as if someone was pushing down on his shoulders from above. They stood, toe to toe, and he marveled at how petite she was, the top of her head only reaching his nose, even though she wore high heels.
“Meet me for breakfast,” he urged, trying to find something to say, something else to do with his mouth so he wouldn’t give in to the urge to lean forward and lick the chocolate off her lips.
She hesitated, biting the corner of her mouth. “I have a meeting here in the hotel in the morning.”
“Lunch then. Better yet, why don’t you meet me back here tomorrow night at midnight? I’ve heard this place serves a pretty wicked cheesecake.”
“They do,” she said with a tiny smile. “But I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“Why not?”
He watched regret cross her features as she took a step back, pulling her pocketbook up to her chest as if using it as a shield. “Look, I said a lot of things tonight, things I should never have said to a stranger. I’m not normally like this. Tonight was brought on by champagne and a good heaping helping of self-pity. But tomorrow, when I remember all of this, if I remember all of this, I’m going to feel like an idiot.”
“So we can both feel like idiots together.”
She shook her head. “If you see me tomorrow, if we bump into each other in the elevator, please pretend tonight never happened, let me think I imagined or dreamed it all, because it would be too humiliating to know it was true.”
He could see by the determined set of her chin that she meant it. Of course, there was no way Robert was going to let that happen. But there was no point arguing about it tonight. She’d find out soon enough that when he found something he truly wanted, he could be relentless in pursuit of it.
And now he very much wanted her.
RUTHIE LEFT HER dream man at the entrance to the restaurant. He went one way, toward the elevator, and she headed toward the lobby. Part of her was relieved he’d agreed to forget tonight had ever happened. Another part was sad she’d ever asked him to. She had a feeling it was just as well she didn’t know his name. He’d never mentioned it, and she’d never thought to ask. If she had, she might have been tempted to peek at the registration records for his room number. “No, Sinclair. You’re swearing off men starting right now,” she muttered as she rounded the corner next to the front desk.
“Swearing off men?”
Ruthie glared at her cousin, Chuck, who’d obviously heard her comment. Chuck, Celeste and Denise’s only brother, worked as the night front desk manager. He’d left the wedding shortly before Ruthie had, so she didn’t ask him what happened after she’d slipped out. “Yes. You’re all a bunch of heartbreakers!”
“Guess ya didn’t have such a great time at Celeste’s wedding, huh?” Chuck replied. A goofy grin creased his face and he suddenly looked like the surfer dude he wanted to be. Chuck didn’t exactly match the hotel’s clean-cut image, with his shoulder-length, bleach-blond hair, tanned complexion, and perpetual lazy grin. “So’dja catch the flower thing or what? I had to leave early and didn’t see that part.”
“No, I didn’t catch the bouquet. Thank goodness.”
He shrugged. “I thought you old single chicks dug that, you know, getting your hopes up and all.”
Ruthie leaned across the three-foot-wide expanse of polished oak that made up the front check-in desk and grabbed a fistful of her cousin’s shirt. “Old? You think I’m old?”
He grimaced and held his hands up protectively. “Nah, not old. I mean, it’s not like you’re pushin’ thirty or anything!”
“You’re on a roll now, Chuckie,” she snarled. “Why don’t you dig yourself in deeper?”
He suddenly looked shocked. “Oh, man, Ruthie, you’re thirty? When did that happen?”
Ruthie sighed in exasperation. “Chuck, sweetie, remember when you were six and you ruined my twelfth birthday slumber party because you kept coming to the door of my room and trying to throw spitballs at my friends? And I told you I was going to make you eat six of them, one for each year I’d had to suffer with you on the planet?”
The head bobbed, slowly. A grin creased his face. “Yeah, and I hit Denise in her head and she ran crying to your mom.”
Ruthie had forgotten that. “Okay, so it wasn’t all bad.”
He snorted a laugh. “She sure was ticked. So why’d ya mention that?”
She explained slowly. “I was turning twelve. You were already six. Uh, how old are you now, Chuck?”
He hesitated for a moment longer than anyone should have when asked that question. “Twenty-three next month.”
She waited, watching the wheels churn behind the bright blue eyes. Saw him calculate. “Oh, yeah, right,” he finally said with the lazy nod. “See, I toldja I didn’t miss it.”
