Kitabı oku: «The Truth About Tate», sayfa 4

Of course, she reminded herself, this was Tate Rawlins’s house—his pride and affection and comfort. J.T. was a temporary guest here, as she was at his mother’s house.

“So…” She brought her gaze back to J.T. He was sitting in an easy chair that looked as if it lived up to its name. His left knee was bent, with his foot propped on the coffee table. His other leg was stretched out half the length of the table. His jeans were soft and faded nearly white, his T-shirt was snug and worn thin, and his feet were bare.

Natalie liked the intimacy of bare feet. His were long and slender, not as dark as his face and arms, but shades darker than her own barely tanned skin. They were purely functional…and somehow appealing.

Oh, man, she needed a date. Badly.

Clearing her throat, she returned to a subject she suspected he wanted her to forget. “Can I go with you tomorrow?”

“You don’t give up, do you?”

She smiled. “That was another of my father’s lessons.”

“All right. But dress appropriately.”

“And what’s appropriate?”

“Jeans. A shirt—for you, with long sleeves. A hat. Sturdy shoes. Do you have any sunscreen?”

Her expression turned admonishing. “Look at me,” she said, and he did, his gaze sliding slowly over her face, down her throat and lower before lifting again. It made her voice sound funny and her heart beat faster, and she swore it raised her temperature by a degree or two. “Do I look as if I go anywhere without sunscreen?”

“No,” he agreed. “In fact, add a few more yards to that dress, and you’d look like the stereotypical Southern belle—fragile, pampered, delicate skin untouched by the sun…”

“I’m not sure whether I’ve just been complimented or insulted.”

“Frankly, neither am I.”

She glanced at her watch. It was after eight o’clock. She was tired, and no doubt J.T. would like a little time to himself before turning in. “I’d better get to bed if I’m getting up early. I’ll see you at five-thirty.”

He walked to the side door with her, leaning against the frame while she crossed the deck to her own door. There she looked back. “So you don’t like the dress.”

“As a matter of fact, I like it just fine.”

She smiled faintly, then sobered. “Don’t underestimate me, J.T. I’m neither fragile nor pampered nor delicate. I’m a survivor.” Or, at least, trying to be. “Good night.”

She went inside, closed and locked the door, then peeked through the curtains. For a long moment he remained where he was, motionless. Then, with a shake of his head, he went inside his own house and closed the door.

By the time Tate made it into the kitchen the next morning, the coffee was ready and breakfast was almost done. Jordan handed him a mug, already filled and sweetened, then turned back to the mass of eggs he was scrambling.

Tate wasn’t an easy riser. It didn’t matter whether he was getting up at five or noon, after two hours’ sleep or eight. He needed coffee, food and time before he was capable of any behavior remotely close to human.

He’d bet Ms. Alabama was perky and bright-eyed, he thought with a scowl as the doorbell rang. Leaving Jordan to his cooking, he went down the short hall, opened the side door, then silently swung around and headed back to the kitchen.

“And a good morning to you, too,” Natalie said cheerily as she followed. “Hey, Jordan. How was Shelley last night?”

Tate sat down with his back to the wall as Jordan grinned. “She was fine,” he said in a way that gave a whole new meaning to the word. “You have to excuse…Uncle J.T. He’s kinda cranky in the morning.”

“He’s kinda cranky in the afternoon and evening, too, isn’t he?”

He ignored the teasing and concentrated on his coffee. Usually it wasn’t hard to do, but usually Natalie Grant wasn’t standing a few feet away, a bright light in his dusky morning.

Dress appropriately, he’d told her, and she had. Her shirt was chambray, well-worn and tucked into faded jeans that fitted snugly and held a sharp crease all the way down each leg to a pair of running shoes. Her incredible hair was pulled back and caught with a glittery band, and she wore a Crimson Tide ball cap. The outfit made her look closer to Jordan’s age than his own.

He wished she was ten or twelve years younger. Of all the women he’d ever known, she was the most dangerous. He very much needed to keep his distance from her, but that was easier said than done.

“So, Jordan,” she was saying. “You’re handsome, a star athlete, you cook and do dishes, too. You’re going to make some lucky woman a very good husband someday.”

“I’m not planning on getting married,” he replied, his manner offhand. “Nobody else does. Go ahead and have a seat. You want coffee, milk or orange juice?”

“Juice, please.”

Natalie joined Tate at the table, bringing with her a faint hint of fragrance—something light and flowery that he didn’t recognize—but he hardly noticed. He was thinking instead about Jordan’s comment. I’m not planning on getting married. No one else does.

The last thing Tate wanted was for Jordan to get any ideas of what marriage, relationships and family were supposed to be from his own family. Lucinda hadn’t set out to have two sons with different fathers and no husbands. She’d expected to get married when she’d finished school—had certainly expected to be a wife before she became a mother. Just as he had always expected to be married before he became a father. Sometimes things just didn’t work out the way people expected.

But he still believed the ideal family included a mother and a father, married and committed before the kids came. That was what he wanted for Jordan when he was old enough. He didn’t want his grandchildren to carry on the family tradition of illegitimacy—didn’t want Jordan to give up one single dream to take on the hardships of single fatherhood. He wanted his son’s future to be every bit as normal and routine as his past wasn’t.

Jordan brought platters of food to the table, refilled both Tate’s and his own coffee and poured Natalie’s juice before sliding into his chair. They passed the food around, then ate in silence until Natalie, obviously not as comfortable with it as they were, spoke up. “When does school start?”

“In a couple weeks,” Jordan replied.

“Are you looking forward to it?”

He shrugged. “It’s not like I’ve had much time to be bored. But it’s okay. I don’t mind going back.”

“I loved summer vacations,” she said with a faint smile. “My father and I usually did some traveling—always related to his job, of course. Depending on what was happening in the world, we’d spend a few weeks in London, Paris or Rome. Of course, they were working trips—” her smile slowly slipped “—so I spent a lot of time alone in hotel rooms.”

“Jordan doesn’t get summer vacations,” Tate said sharply. “His time off from school is spent working on the ranch.”

“But at least I don’t have homework.” Under the table Jordan nudged Tate with his foot, then frowned.

Just what he needed—to be reprimanded by his sixteen-year-old son. The fact that the reprimand was deserved brought a rush of warmth to Tate’s cheeks.

Still wearing that warning look, Jordan asked, “What’s on the schedule for today, Uncle J.T.?”

“Ms. Grant wants to follow me around, so I’m putting her to work. We’re going to check fence and replace that section out by the creek.”

“I thought I’d try again to get the truck running, then go out and spray for weeds.” After sandwiching two strips of bacon between halves of a biscuit, Jordan stood up, drained his coffee, then headed for the door. “I’ve got practice at three. If you need anything from town, leave a list on the table. I should be home around the usual time, unless the coach is in a bad mood.”

After he left, Tate finished his own coffee while studying Natalie. She hadn’t eaten a fraction as much breakfast as he and Jordan had, and seemed preoccupied at that moment with separating the half biscuit remaining on her plate layer by layer. She didn’t seem to want to talk to him or even acknowledge him in any way.

So, naturally, he left her no choice. “Ready to go?”

Abruptly she dusted her hands, slid to her feet and began clearing the table. Instead of offering his help, he got a large cooler and filled it with ice and water. By the time he finished, she was ready, too, with a large bag slung over one shoulder.

“What’s all that?” he asked after he’d locked up and they’d started across the yard.

“Tools of the trade. Tape recorder, notebook, camera.” She gestured toward the materials Jordan was loading into the bed of the pickup truck parked in front of the bar. “What’s all that?”

“Tools of my trade.” He put the cooler in back, then slid into the driver’s seat. “Thanks, Jordan. See you later.”

Natalie settled in on the passenger side, putting her bag on the seat between them. After taking out a camera, she opened the lens cap, then looked through the viewfinder. “Looks like you’ve got company,” she remarked as she wiped the lens with a soft cloth.

He looked in the same direction she had and saw a lone rider on horseback coming up the driveway. “That’s Mike, our neighbor’s kid. If Jordan can’t fix the truck, she probably can.”

“Tall, plain and mechanically inclined to boot. Poor Mike.”

Tate gave her a sharp look before he drove around the bar and onto a well-used, if primitive, road that crisscrossed the ranch. “Mike is one of Jordan’s best friends. She’s a good kid, smart and sweet. She doesn’t deserve your insults.”

“I’m not insulting her. I’m commiserating with her. You were a teenage boy yourself at one time. You were handsome, a jock and, I presume, fairly popular with the girls. Was there one girl in school who wanted to be best friends with you?”

He’d gotten his share of attention from girls from the time he was about thirteen years old. He’d had girlfriends and friends who were girls. But he’d always known he could have more from his girl friends. All he’d needed to do was let them know.

“Mike may be one of Jordan’s best friends,” Natalie went on. “But that’s not all she wants to be. She’s settled for what she can have, not what she wants.”

“And you know all this about a girl you’ve never met…. How?”

“I saw the way she was looking at him in the photograph.”

“What photograph?”

“The one in your mother’s living room.” When he didn’t respond, she scowled. “The one with Jordan gazing adoringly at the Barbie doll. Sheesh, you didn’t even realize Mike was in that picture, did you? Men.”

He wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Okay, so he should have known Mike was in the picture. And, yeah, maybe he hadn’t noticed her because Barb—Shelley had grabbed his attention, or maybe just because he was so accustomed to seeing Mike. She’d practically grown up here on the ranch. But he wasn’t any more attracted—or distracted—by a pretty face than anyone else, man or woman.

But red hair and long legs… That combination could make him a goner real quick.

After a moment she withdrew the tape recorder from her bag and pressed the record button. “It’s Wednesday, August eighth. This interview with J. T. Rawlins is taking place at the Rawlins Ranch. Do you have a preference where we start?”

“How about next week?” At her prim, pursed-lips look, he shrugged. “No. Wherever you want.”

“Did you always know who your father was, or did your mother keep it from you until you were older?”

Tate flexed his fingers on the steering wheel. This was a question he could answer for both Josh and himself. His grandparents may have been ashamed, the esteemed senator in denial and his own father uncaring, but Lucinda had always been honest and straightforward. “It was never a big secret. When I started asking questions, she gave me answers.”

“What was your first question?”

“If I had a father like the other kids.” He’d seen other kids with men in their lives who played catch with them, took them fishing and taught them things mothers knew nothing about, or so it seemed, and he’d wondered why he just had Lucinda. She’d chuckled and said, “Of course you have a father. Did you think the angels just delivered you out of the blue?”

He’d been older—seven, maybe eight—before he’d started asking for details. She’d told him his father’s name was Hank Daniels and he’d been a rodeo cowboy. A married rodeo cowboy, she’d admitted when he was ten or so. It wasn’t until he’d found himself in high school and trying to convince Stephani to marry him that he’d learned the rest of the story. How Lucinda had met Hank at a rodeo in Tulsa. How he’d swept her off her feet and taken her for the ride of her life. How she’d gone on the road with him, traveling from rodeo to rodeo, falling in love, living only for the moment. How she’d told him she was pregnant, and he’d told her he was already supporting a wife back in Dallas and the last thing he’d wanted was a pregnant girlfriend to add to his troubles.

“When you understood who your father was,” Natalie went on, “what did you think?”

“You mean, was I impressed?” Tate made a scornful noise. Hank Daniels hadn’t been as impressive as Boyd Chaney, but he’d made a name for himself. He’d won championships, had made and squandered a few small fortunes. “He was an arrogant jerk who seduced my mother, had his fun, then left her to deal with the consequences alone. The fact that he wasn’t just an average jerk didn’t make him any less of a jerk.”

“Your mother was…twenty-five or so?” She waited for his confirming nod. “She wasn’t exactly…inexperienced.”

“She was twenty-five, from a dusty little podunk town, working as a waitress in a restaurant that wouldn’t have let her through the door if she weren’t part of the help. She was living in a strange place, she had no friends, no money, no self-esteem and no hope. She didn’t stand a chance against him.”

“The senator tells a different story.”

“I’m sure he does.” He spared a glance at her before steering the truck off the road. Ordinarily he checked the fence on horseback. Of course, ordinarily he didn’t do it in hundred-degree-plus heat, or with a companion intent on probing into every corner of his life. By himself, it was a quiet way to pass the time. With Natalie’s questions, it was going to be a long day.

“The senator says Lucinda was the seducer. That she targeted him from the start, that—” she looked away, obviously uncomfortable “—that she deliberately got pregnant in order to blackmail him.”

Tate’s temper flared, forcing him to grind his back teeth together. For the first time since agreeing to this idiotic charade, he was glad he had. Josh had never done anything to deserve this conversation. Did she even realize the full impact of what she was suggesting? That Josh had been nothing more to Lucinda than a calculated part of a blackmail scheme?

“My mother did not get pregnant on purpose,” he said, his jaw taut, “and she didn’t blackmail anyone.”

“He says—”

“He’s lying. He offered her money to go away, to leave Alabama and to never tell anyone about him.”

“She says he offered. He says she demanded. Who’s to say how it really happened?”

He knew, Tate thought angrily. He’d been there. He’d seen Chaney’s anger, heard his mother’s tears and the jerk’s obscene insults. He knew…but he couldn’t say, because he was pretending to be someone who hadn’t even been born at the time.

“Maybe we should change the subject,” she offered gingerly.

“Maybe I should change my mind and call the sheriff, after all.”

“Please don’t. I know this isn’t pleasant, but—”

“Then why are you doing it?”

She stared at him a moment, an evasive look in her eyes, before directing her gaze out the side window. “Isn’t it every reporter’s dream to someday write a bestselling book?”

Maybe…but that wasn’t the reason. Oh, maybe it appealed to her on that level, too, but if all she wanted was a bestselling book, why that look seconds ago? Why that hint of guilt underneath the wariness?

“I wouldn’t know,” he said at last. “I’ve never met any other reporters, except Mack Black. He covers Wildcat sports for the newspaper over in Dixon. His only dream was to play pro ball, but when he couldn’t make the cut, he settled for selling insurance and covering the local games instead.”

Her smile was tinged with relief, as if she welcomed the change of topic. “Jordan says his father could have gone pro.”

“Jordan and his father are off-limits, remember?” He looked pointedly at the tape recorder she held in an attempt to cushion it from the rough ride.

She stopped the tape, then slid the recorder into her bag. “Truth is, Jordan and Tate hold little interest for my audience, beyond the impact they’ve had on your life. I was just making conversation.”

Tate had never thought he’d be grateful to hear that he wasn’t interesting enough to hold someone’s attention, but he was. He was also a little…insulted. Okay, so being a single-father ex-jock rancher in Oklahoma wasn’t exactly exciting. It wasn’t the dullest life in the world, either, and at least he could be proud of what he did. He didn’t destroy lives, refuse to acknowledge his own son or manipulate everyone like puppets the way Chaney did, and he didn’t force his way into other people’s homes or coerce them into doing things they didn’t want to do, like Ms. Alabama. He certainly had no interest in broadcasting the private details of other people’s lives to anyone with the price of a book in his pocket.

“That’s one of the problems I have with you,” he said laconically. “I can’t tell when you’re making conversation and when you’re interviewing. Though it’s real easy to tell when you’re evading.” A glance at her showed a flush creeping into her cheeks. She blushed easily for someone who’d chosen to earn her living intruding in other people’s private business. But maybe she was fine with snooping into other people’s lives. Maybe it was only when the questions were turned back on her that she got uncomfortable. And he had one more question he really wanted to ask.

“Tell me something, Natalie. Why are you mixed up with this book?”

Chapter Four

A particularly rough spot jarred Natalie’s teeth and made her grab hold to keep her seat. It also gave her the chance to consider her answer. As usual, there were degrees of truth she could offer. She wanted a shot at the bestseller lists. She wanted to prove she could write two hundred thousand words as opposed to fifteen hundred. She wanted the legitimacy an acclaimed book would bring her. To rebuild her reputation. To regain her self-respect. To replace those awful memories of her disastrous journalism career with critical acceptance.

She wanted so much she didn’t know where to start.

“I love to write,” she said at last, “and I loved being a reporter. But news stories have a short life. Most people never even look at bylines. The articles that fill the papers every day might as well be anonymous for all the attention people pay. But a book—especially one on someone as important as Senator Chaney—will be around forever. People will remember it, and they’ll remember my name. It’ll make a difference.”

Her father would be impressed, and she would be vindicated. That was what she wanted most.

J.T. wore a look of distaste that suggested the difference wasn’t worth making, in his opinion. “And it’ll make you rich and famous, won’t it? And don’t all writers want to be rich and famous?”

That argument, at least, she could take lightly. Having money was always better than not having money, and name recognition was great, but they were merely added bonuses to the success she wanted. “You say that as if it’s a dirty goal. Isn’t everyone in business looking to make money? To be successful? Do you raise cattle for the pure pleasure of it? Is money not a consideration in your dealings?”

“At least my business doesn’t hurt anyone.”

“The cows you’ve raised that have wound up as the main course at the local burger joint might argue that point with you.”

He scowled at her before bringing the truck to a stop near a barbed-wire fence. She climbed out more slowly than he did, stepping a few feet away from the truck, then turning in a slow circle. The sky had lightened to a pale blue, with only the thinnest streaks of clouds on the horizon. There was no dew on the grass, no breeze rustling through the trees. Lack of rain had turned the grass yellow and much of the foliage brown. The air literally shimmered with heat, sapping her energy, making her long for air-conditioning, a comfortable chair under a ceiling fan and a tall glass of iced tea, and the day hadn’t even begun.

He didn’t give her much of a reprieve. Resting his arms on the side wall of the truck bed, he faced her. “So you want to be rich and famous. You want to make a difference, and you think writing a tasteless book on a classless, ego-maniacal jerk will accomplish that for you.”

She mimicked his position, arms resting on faded blue paint. Though only the width of the truck separated them physically, ideologically they were miles apart. He didn’t like what she was doing. Period. No ifs, ands or buts about it. Well, sometimes she didn’t like what she was doing, either, but there was no denying that the Chaney offspring—especially the illegitimate son whom no one had known existed—would give the book the extra oomph it needed to go from successful to wildly successful. There was an audience for a serious biography of a powerful politician. There was a mega-audience for a serious biography that dished all the dirt on said politician and his family in the past half century.

“Thank you, J.T., for displaying such willingness to trash my work when you’ve never read anything I’ve written besides a letter or two,” she said politely.

He wanted to ignore her sarcasm. She could see it in the shifting of his gaze and the twitch of a muscle in his jaw. After a couple of deep breaths, he asked, “You ever repaired a barbed-wire fence?”

Prepared for the subject change, she shook her head.

“I didn’t think so. We’re gonna have to replace the posts in this stretch. These wooden ones have lasted longer than they should have, but it’s time for some new ones. Grab those gloves there—” he nodded toward a pair of leather gloves tucked next to the water cooler “—and let’s get started.”

As he pulled on his own gloves, she leaned inside to pick up the second pair. They were sized for a woman’s smaller hands—Lucinda’s, she guessed—and tried to imagine any woman of Boyd Chaney’s wearing work gloves and…well, working. The image wouldn’t form. His six ex-wives were all pampered little socialites, born not only with silver spoons but also nannies and nursemaids to care for their every need. The most strenuous job any of them faced was choosing which priceless gems went best with which designer gown.

“Your mother must have been a breath of fresh air to Senator Chaney,” she remarked as she circled the truck to stand beside J.T.

“How so?”

“She was intelligent. Independent. Capable. She didn’t require someone to take care of her.” Though she hadn’t turned down Chaney’s money. Whether she’d blackmailed or he’d bribed, she’d taken a sizable sum of his money with her when she’d left Alabama. Not that Natalie faulted her for it. Whether the pregnancy was accidental, as she claimed, or planned, as Chaney insisted, the simple fact remained that she had been pregnant, and if her son couldn’t have a father, he at least deserved a father’s support.

“Are you suggesting that none of the former Mrs. Chaneys are intelligent or capable?”

“Every one of them can plan a party for five hundred with a day’s notice, but they can’t fix their own meals, pay their own bills or launder their own clothes. Take away their money, their servants, their advisors and their drivers, and they’d be at an utter loss. But Lucinda lives on a ranch. She raised two sons and a grandson without a man’s help. She cooks, cleans and presumably—” she held up her gloved hands “—helps out with the chores when necessary. She’s capable.”

After a moment’s narrowed look, he turned to the fence. He hadn’t resisted asking a couple of questions, but he was apparently determined to hold to his promise to not discuss his mother with her. That was all right. Natalie wasn’t going anywhere yet. He might change his mind. And if he didn’t…she’d find a way.

The wood posts he’d mentioned were rough and silvered with age. Three lay broken on the ground, barbwire still attached, and a half dozen more tilted at precarious angles. “Looks like a herd of elephants came through here,” she remarked.

His grin was wry. “Close. It was our neighbor’s buffalo. They’re not the smartest animals in the world. Give ’em a choice between walking through an open gate or a section of fence, and they’ll take the fence every time.”

“Buffalo…like in Dances with Wolves?”

“Big shaggy creatures?” he teased. “A little on the ill-tempered side. Not much to look at, but damn good eating.”

“Can we see them? I’ve never seen one in person before.”

“Maybe. If I have time to track them down.”

“Why don’t you have any?”

He scowled as he began removing the remains of the nearest broken post. Her job, she figured, was going to be as helper—handing him tools for cutting the wire, holding back lengths of wire that wanted to curl around him, hauling off the old posts. Girly jobs that any idiot could handle.

“For starters,” he said when she’d almost forgotten her question, “I raise cattle, not buffalo. Second, they’re ugly and smelly and don’t stay put. Third, they require about six times more pasture than the same number of cows. Fourth, a proper fence for buffalo is pipe—at least two inches in diameter or bigger—and costs a fortune. Fifth—”

“You’ve gotten used to being the most stubborn and headstrong critter on the place.”

For a moment J.T. just looked at her, then he laughed—a rich, deep chuckle that sounded honest, masculine and entirely too inviting. “Cute.”

“I have a way with words.”

“Who’s talking about words?”

His murmur raised a sheen along her skin that had nothing to do with the morning heat. It made her stomach knot, her throat go dry, and made her feel breathtakingly weak. He wasn’t the first Chaney to compliment her, or to give her that look with brown eyes all dark, sleepy and sexy. He certainly wasn’t the first who’d sought to manipulate her into doing what he wanted…but he was the first to stand a chance. He was the first to make her muscles taut with no more than a look—the first who could leave her at a loss for words with such a simple, innocent remark.

He was the first to entice her. Not that it mattered. He’d made it clear enough that all he wanted was her out of his life permanently.

“How’d you get this job?” he asked as he wrestled the post from the hard earth.

It wasn’t the first time she’d been asked the question. Hell, she’d asked it herself when Chaney had announced his choice. Why her? There’d been plenty of other writers who wanted a shot at the book—people who’d written other well-received biographies, reporters who’d followed his career for more years than she’d been alive. Why choose a onetime, up-and-coming young reporter whose career had hit the skids, for such an important project?

The senator had given her his trademark good-ole-boy campaign smile and replied in his thickest Alabama drawl, “Honey, I haven’t answered to anyone since my sweet mama died fifty-some years ago. I make decisions. I don’t justify them. So do you want the job or not?”

Naturally she’d accepted it. But others had continued to ask the question—and to find some less-than-savory answers.

With a creak from the wood and a grunt from J.T., the post came loose and he pulled it out. Natalie looked from him, sweat dotting his face, to the hole in the hard ground. “How are you going to dig holes for the new posts?”

“Did I forget to tell you? That’s your job. There’s a post-hole digger in the back of the truck.”

“Okay. Gee, that should only take me—” she glanced at the section of fence “—oh, a week or so. You must be enjoying my company to want to keep me around so long.”

“You’re being evasive again.” He removed his hat, laying it on the pickup’s seat, then stripped his T-shirt over his head and tossed it inside, too.

Natalie tried not to stare and hoped she didn’t look as dazed—hungry? lustful?—as she felt. He was so nicely muscled, so tanned, so mouth-wateringly tempting. There wasn’t an ounce of excess fat on his body, not one inch of skin that her fingers didn’t itch to touch. Could his skin possibly be as smooth and warm and soft as it looked, his muscles as hard and sculpted as they appeared?

Swallowing hard, she looked away and fixed her narrowed gaze on the fence. It didn’t help much. She could still see a blur of brown skin and faded denim in her peripheral vision. She still knew he was half-undressed, beautiful and within easy reach.

This was silly. It wasn’t as if she were an innocent young virgin, overwhelmed by her first up-close sight of a hard male body. She’d seen him like this just yesterday, and had seen totally naked men plenty of times before. Hell, she’d been intimate with her share of them…though, admittedly, not in a long time. A very long time, her body reminded her.

Flustered, she searched for a distraction. A question—he’d asked her something, hadn’t he? How’d you get this job? It wasn’t her favorite question, but it was a good one for tamping down a highly inappropriate attack of lust. “If I—” Her voice was husky, making her stop and clear her throat. “If I tell you I was chosen for this job based on my past job performance, would you believe me?”

Apparently unaware of her sudden hormonal overload, J.T. went back to work. “Do I have any reason not to?”