Kitabı oku: «You Sexy Thing!», sayfa 2

Dylan swallowed…hard.

Then he silently berated himself for such a completely physical reaction to the woman sitting next to him. His adversary. His opposite in every way.

He didn’t know what was with him. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen an attractive woman before, much less an attractive female colleague. But attractive didn’t begin to cover Grace Mattias. In fact, nothing much seemed to be covering Grace Mattias. His gaze slid over the hot-pink clingy material of her deep-veed jacket, down, down, to where her skirt barely skimmed the tops of her delicious thighs. Legs that could rival a model’s went on and on until he found himself staring at the highest, strappiest sandals he’d ever seen in his life.

Catching himself, he snapped his gaze back to her face. Her pink, pink lips pursed as she gave him the same thorough once-over. “Actually, I think we have met, Dr. Fairbanks.”

Dylan managed to shake his head, not trusting himself to speak for fear it would come out sounding like a preadolescent squeak.

She tapped a pink-tipped fingernail against her full, luscious mouth. “Uh-huh. In fact, I’m sure of it.” She smiled, revealing nicely ridged teeth that hadn’t fallen prey to a dentist’s sander. “Though I believe I know you as Tom.”

Dylan chuckled, relaxing a bit. “Now I know we haven’t met before. I’d never have misrepresented myself as someone else….” Even as he said the words, a low alarm went off in a part of his brain that still worked.

Her smile widened as she folded her arms under her breasts, causing them to pop up even further. “Yes. As in Peeping Tom,” she finished.

Oh, shit.

It couldn’t be.

It wasn’t possible he’d blundered into another situation with the same woman twice in one day. The law of averages completely went against such an improbability.

Yet here he was. Staring at the water nymph from the shower earlier that morning.

2

DYLAN WATCHED as Grace Mattias pulled her hair back, revealing the lightly freckled, even planes of her face. “Picture me without makeup…and clothes.”

He closed his eyes tightly and uttered a pungent curse.

“Dr. Fairbanks?” A male voice said into his ear phones. “The FCC frowns on the use of such language.”

He grimaced and forced himself to face forward, well away from the provocative woman next to him and toward the radio host. How bad could it get? This was a morning show, right? Certainly there were guidelines the show had to follow. “Are we on the air?”

“Not yet.” This time it was the radio host who spoke. And Dylan didn’t like the width of his predatory grin. “But we will be in three, two, one…welcome back everybody. This is Baxter Berning on WDRT and you’re listening to America’s most popular syndicated talk show. Boy, are you ever in store for a tasty treat today. If you’ve just tuned in, don’t worry about what you’ve missed. If you’ve stuck around, then you’re about to hit pay dirt. I’d like to begin this segment by introducing two of the foremost experts in the area of sex.” He drew out the word with suggestive flair then picked up a book Dylan didn’t recognize because it wasn’t his own. Baxter introduced Grace. Then he homed in on Dylan, ignoring the copy of his book at his elbow as he leaned forward.

Bad news. Whenever they overlooked his book, it meant they were about to go off on a tangent, outside the list of acceptable interview questions Tanja had provided the producer. Worse news.

“Now let’s see if I can get this straight, Dr. Fairbanks. Am I to gather from your conversation with Gracie—can I call you Gracie?”

The redhead next to him nodded, causing all that red hair to shimmer under a warm spotlight. Then she leaned closer to her mic, almost as if about to kiss it, and said, “You can call me anything you’d like, Baxter. Just don’t call me late for bed.”

Dylan cringed. This was a doctor? He didn’t know any doctors who spoke like that. Okay, there were his parents, but for all intents and purposes, they weren’t real doctors anymore.

The host reacted. “Ooo. For my listeners, I’d like to point out that Gracie is every bit the sex kitten she sounds like. This is one interview you’ll want to check out when it airs on TV.” He leaned forward. “Anyway, back to you Dr. Fairbanks.”

“Call me Dylan, please,” he said, uncomfortably tugging on the lapels of his jacket.

“Right. Anyway, am I correct in assuming that you, um, played Peeping Tom to Gracie’s sexy victim this morning?”

Oh, God. It was one thing to have suffered through the unfortunate event in the first place. To be humiliated before a national audience was altogether different. “Not by design, I assure you,” he said, then cleared the high-pitched panic from his voice. “It was a simple misunderstanding. I mistook Dr. Mattias’s hotel room for my own, and by innocent accident let myself into her room.”

“I was in the shower,” Grace clarified.

Dylan jerked to gape at her. She didn’t have to share that. He cringed and prayed Diana wasn’t listening to the show in San Francisco.

“Uh-huh. I’ve heard of wanting to get a peek at the competition, Doc, but this is fantastic.” The host sat back, dragging his mic with him. “So tell us, does the female sex doc look as good out of her clothes as in?”

Dylan’s collar felt like a tightening noose as he slanted another gaze Grace’s way. Oh, boy, did she, his own body responded. But to Baxter he said, “I’m afraid I didn’t get a good look.”

“Didn’t get a good look,” the host repeated. “Now that’s the biggest load I’ve ever heard. Are you human, man? I mean, just look at her. That’s a piece even the Pope would look twice at. You can’t tell me you didn’t take advantage of the prime opportunity and devour that tight little body with your eyes.”

“If that was a compliment, thank you, Baxter.” Grace’s voice practically purred in Dylan’s ears.

He hit his chin on the mic. “I’ll be the first to admit that Dr. Mattias is…attractive.”

“Trust me, you’re not the first, and you won’t be the last, Doc.”

Grace laughed, a throaty sound that made the swirling in Dylan’s stomach slink lower. “I’m afraid you’re making Dylan uncomfortable, Bax. If you’d read his book, and believe me, I have, then you’d know that he doesn’t buy into the whole chemistry theory. He believes the human anatomy was designed solely for reproduction purposes and that only within the confines of a monogamous relationship—”

“Marriage,” Dylan corrected, regaining his bearings, and unendingly grateful his colleague had shifted the conversation back to solid ground. If they stuck to their books and medical terminology, he’d be fine.

She smiled at him. “All right, then, marriage. As I was saying, Dr. Dylan believes only within the bonds of marriage should sexual, um, attraction be explored.”

The host’s gaze bore into Dylan. “Does that mean you’re still a virgin, Doc?”

He nearly choked. “No. No, of course not.”

The shock jock snapped his fingers in front of his microphone. “Then you’re one of those, oh, what’s the term they’re throwing around like yesterday’s paper? I got it. A born-again virgin. Are you a born-again virgin, then?”

Dylan hated the term, though by the host’s definition, he suspected his situation fit within the wide parameters. “No comment.”

“Come on, Doc, just look at her. Are you telling me that you don’t just totally want to bang her brains out? Whip out ol’ George and get down to introductions? For crying out loud, Gracie is a walking wet dream.”

Explicit pImages** flashed through Dylan’s mind. Visions of Grace standing under the shower stream, the water sluicing over her womanly curves, her nipples hard and begging for attention, her thighs warm and wet with an altogether different moisture.

Get it together, Dylan. Now was not the time or the place to explore his most untoward thoughts of the woman next to him.

He cleared his throat. “Don’t get me wrong. As I point out in Chapter Four of my latest book, Reaching New Heights—Advice on How to Obtain Ultimate Sexual Pleasure, attraction between a man and a woman plays an important role when they first meet. But it’s a mere pebble in the foundation of a solid, fulfilling relationship.”

The host made a face, obviously not getting the response he wanted. He opened Grace’s book and flipped through the pages. “Seems yours and the sex doctor’s beliefs are completely contrary then.” He grinned at Grace. “It says here that you suggest your patients go out on sexual safaris.”

“Some patients,” Grace said, straightening her headphones, then fluffing all that red hair back around them. “Those without a dark, painful sexual past who are merely in need of finding themselves…sexually. An awakening of sorts, if you will.”

Sexual safari? Dylan thought. It was only when the voices in his headphones went silent that he realized he’d made the remark aloud.

“You were saying?” the host asked.

Yeah, he was saying. Dylan sat up a little straighter, speaking into the mic at an angle as he looked at Grace. “Define sexual safari, Dr. Mattias.”

“I’m crushed you haven’t read my book,” she said, giving him a playfully sexy little pout that made that…feeling slide even lower. “A sexual safari is where I recommend the patient respond to basic, fundamental human need. No asset-probing, spouse-hunting, car-perusing behavior allowed. Rather, the patient is encouraged to act on urges society has taught us to ignore or suppress in the name of pseudomorality and human decency.” She smiled. “In essence, I tell these particular patients to act with their hearts rather than their heads.”

The host emitted a low whistle. “Baby, let me go get my camouflage underwear and oil my elephant gun.”

Dylan ignored him, instead locking gazes with the woman next to him. “So you counsel your patients to have one-night stands. Promote promiscuity. Is that what you’re saying, Dr. Mattias?”

“No. I encourage these particular patients to cut loose at least once in their lives so there are no relationship-ruining ‘what ifs’ and ‘what could have beens’ later on in life. I counsel them to connect with their sexual selves, learn what pleases them without the heavy complications serious relationships entail. You know, the whole, ‘will he think I’m too fat,’ ‘am I pleasing her’ scenario. If you set out to please yourself and yourself alone, then you’re in a much better position to know what pleases others, either in that relationship, or in the one that will stand the test of ‘until death do you part.’ And even you have to admit, Dr. Dylan, that sexual satisfaction is an important element in any healthy marriage.”

“Yes, but only within the bonds of matrimony. As for the other, growing sexually aware of yourself, there are better, more…principled ways to go about achieving that goal. And abstinence, or delaying acting on that purely physical, animal attraction makes for an even sweeter, more satisfying experience, wouldn’t you agree…Gracie?”

The host fanned himself with Grace’s book. “And tell me, Dr. Hottie, do you go…man-hunting often?”

For a long moment Grace held Dylan’s gaze as if she was unable to look away. He noticed the lick of pure, undiluted sensuality in the velvety brown depths of her eyes. The telling dilation of her pupils. Finally she smiled, then slowly looked toward their host. “I think I’ll follow my colleague’s lead and answer a demure ‘no comment.”’

“Oh, don’t go coy on me now, baby,” Baxter crowed. “We have a caller on line four. John, you’re on. Do you have a question you’d like to ask one of our guests?”

“Am I on the air?”

“Yes, sir, you are. Shoot away.”

“Okay, um…I’m having a problem and I was, you know, hoping one or both of your guests might be able to help me with it.”

The host sighed heavily into the mic. “John, if it takes you this long to get to the point, no wonder you’re having problems.”

Dylan leaned toward his own mic. “Go ahead, John.”

“Yes, well, um, my wife and I have been married for five years now and…”

A long silence ensued.

“And,” the host prompted.

“And, well, I’m lucky if we have sex once a month. There, I said it. What can I do about it?”

Dylan opened his mouth to ask for more details, but Gracie’s voice, sounding infinitely less like a porn star’s and more like a professional, filled his ears. “Were you two sexually active before you were married, John?”

Dylan grimaced. “With all due respect, Dr. Mattias, I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything. The fact is that they are married, and they’re currently experiencing…marital difficulties.”

The host laughed. “Yeah, I’d say not getting any is a marital difficulty.”

Grace looked at him, a flash of something he couldn’t identify lighting her eyes. “I wasn’t going to suggest that the couple regress back to the time before their marriage, Dr. Dylan. I was merely trying to ascertain whether or not they’d found themselves individually, sexually, before they took their business in front of a priest or a pastor or a rabbi.” She turned her head away from him. “John, do you and your wife have any kids?”

“Um, no.”

“So there’s no reason you can’t turn your entire house into a sexual playground then, is there?”

“Sexual playground?”

“Yes, John. This is what I suggest you do. First of all, you’ll want to talk to your wife. Find out what her secret fantasy is. If she hasn’t shared it with you in the five years you’ve been married, this may take some time. But once you do find out, act on it. Transform your house to reflect this fantasy. Cater to her every whim. Let her know that her emotional and sexual happiness mean as much to you as your own desire to, in our honorable host’s words, get some.”

Chuckles filled Dylan’s ears as he sat back, grudgingly impressed with the advice, though her immediate rejection of his own opinion stung like a son of a bitch. While he wouldn’t have suggested the construction of a “playground,” sexual communication was always important, making her basic advice sound.

Baxter came back, “Sounds like good advice to me. Thanks for calling, John. And good luck with the old lady.” There was a tiny click. “We’re going to break for a minute or two to let the sex doctor’s advice sink in. We’ll be right back to ask our guests where they stand on masturbation. You won’t want to miss that. I sure don’t.”

The sound of commercials filtered through the headphones and Dylan followed everyone’s lead in taking his off. The host, so tuned in to him and Grace only moments before, was conversing with the producer, leading him to believe his entire interplay with Grace was for entertainment purposes only.

“So where do you stand on the topic of masturbation, Dr. Dylan?”

He shifted to find Grace Mattias crossing her long, long legs and smiling at him suggestively.

Despite his best intentions, Dylan couldn’t help grinning at her. He pushed the microphone away to make sure this little encounter wasn’t used for ammunition when the commercials were over. “Oh, beyond a doubt, it leads to blindness.”

Her instant laughter was spontaneous, warm and contagious. He laughed along with her, his muscles relaxing at the release of some of the tension between them. But he recognized that a whole different kind of tension had just shot up a notch.

“You probably already know where I stand, anyway, seeing as you read my book.”

She nodded. “So long as it’s not used instead of sex, your marital partner doesn’t know about your extracurricular activities and it doesn’t involve sex toys, you’re all for it.”

“In moderation,” he added.

“And with the ultimate amount of discretion.”

“Very important.”

“So you don’t think the act of, um, watching…your significant other bring herself to climax can be…sexual stimulating?”

Dylan stared at her. An image of one amazingly sexy and gloriously naked Gracie Mattias stretched across a king-size bed, her thighs open, her engorged womanhood clearly in view, flashed across his mind. Her pink-tipped fingers first cupped her breasts, plucking at her erect nipples, then slid down the toned length of her stomach, toward—

He shook his head, banishing the erotic thought from his mind. “I think masturbation is an intimate matter best kept between one’s hands…and oneself.”

“Okay, guys, we’re back in ten seconds,” the producer said, indicating their headphones.

Dylan carefully readied himself and repositioned the mic in front of his mouth, wondering if he’d be able to even think of the word masturbation again without connecting it to one wildly sexy Gracie Mattias.

GRACIE STEPPED OUTSIDE and took a deep, satisfying breath of the polluted New York City air. The smell of car exhaust mingled with the scents emanating from a nearby diner and the crisp scent of fallen leaves. If she tried hard enough, she imagined she could make out the slight tang of the ocean not far away.

A drop of water landed on her upturned forehead. Another on her chin. She opened her eyes to realize that it wasn’t the ocean she smelled, but an impending rainstorm. Ah, an unseasonably warm autumn day in New York City. In a matter of seconds, it would probably start pouring. But she couldn’t bring herself to care. She felt…electrified somehow. So vividly alive. Her skin tingled with excitement. She was gloriously aware of every sweet nuance that made her human. The feel of her breasts pressing against the thin tank top under her jacket, the skirt hugging her hips and bottom, made her feel every inch a woman.

The downpour began.

She hailed a taxi then climbed in, laughing when she found herself soaked straight through.

She shrugged out of her jacket, told the driver which hotel, then settled back in the seat. “Take the scenic route through the park. I’ve always loved the park.”

“Lady, do you know what kind of traffic we’re going to run into this time of day?”

She smiled at him in the rearview mirror. “Yeah.”

Right now she couldn’t care less if it took her two hours to get back to her hotel room. Rick was out running errands for her, the radio talk-show host had asked her for her phone number and she’d just experienced one of the more stimulating challenges of her life in the shape of one super-sexy Dr. Dylan Fairbanks.

An image of Dr. Dylan crowded out all other thought and she smiled. Just thinking about him made her hungry for an unnamable something. She didn’t try to name the feeling. She didn’t want to. Not yet. She wanted to enjoy the curious warmth spreading through her belly and settling between her tingling thighs.

She stuck her hand into her purse and fished out an extra-large packet of peanuts, compliments of the hotel. While the salty morsels couldn’t hope to satisfy her recently awakened hunger, they could at least satisfy her stomach.

She absently crunched on the nuts. Professionally speaking, she couldn’t have asked for a better setup. Rick had agreed, telling her postinterview that her choice of attire had worked wonders on the host, distracting him even while she drove each of her points home with a solid rubber mallet. No, she hadn’t expected Dr. Fairbanks to be there. But given his expression when he first spotted her sitting next to him, she guessed that he hadn’t, either. And when she realized he’d been the one to accidentally walk in on her in the shower that morning…well, suddenly this tour wasn’t half as boring as it had been.

Of course, a few of her racier comments later on in the show would have singed her mother’s eyebrows. Had her mother been listening. Which Gracie doubted. But Dylan’s choked reactions somehow had been more satisfying.

She couldn’t have asked for a better way to prove her theories than going nose-to-nose with one of the country’s premier masters of sexual inhibition.

A delicious shiver began just below her earlobes and traveled down to her toes. She stretched her feet out as far as they could go, then reached into her monster bag and fished out Dr. Dylan’s book. Nowhere to be found was a photo of him. Only a very brief bio outlining his professional experience. Which was impressive indeed. She had expected him to be a fiftyish, balding, overweight guy in glasses who got into spouting off about morality because he didn’t have a chance in hell of leading a more interesting life. But the real Dr. Dylan Fairbanks…well, he had turned out to be sexier than sin.

She remembered the way he had looked at her. Both this morning at the hotel, then at the station when they had indulged in off-air conversation. Something about him seemed to sizzle. He had an almost visible red aura that tempted her closer, made her want to see if all his professional doctrines could be put to better use with sexual expertise.

Her chewing slowed.

Was he a hypocrite? She’d run into her share of alpha males who preached to her about values with their mouths, while seeking her leg under the table with their hands. Behavior that always earned the offending male a meeting with the sharp prongs of her fork. She stuffed the book back into her bag next to a copy of her own. She didn’t think Dr. Dylan was that type. To the contrary, he appeared to adamantly believe every last word he’d written in his sexually repressed book. She leaned her head against the seat and stared up at the skyscrapers through the back window. Looking at the rain coming down that way seemed somehow surreal, magical.

Her cell phone chirped in her purse. She let it ring.

“Hey, lady, you gonna get that or what?”

“I was thinking or what.” Despite her response, she brushed the salt from her hands, then fished the noisy piece of plastic out. Rick, the display read. She punched the talk button. “I’m paying an arm and leg for a taxi drive through the park, Rick. This had better be good.”

“You should have told me you wanted to see the city. I could have gotten you on one of those Grayline Tours, or whatever they’re called. Anyway, this is good. More than good. I just got a call from the radio station. You’re not going to believe this. The number of callers was through the roof. Among the highest they’ve ever received.”

She slipped her shoes off, indulging in a wide smile. “Really?”

He laughed. “All that education and that’s the best you can do? You disappoint me, Dr. Mattias.”

“Hey, I’m enjoying the moment.”

“As well you should. I, of course, took the liberty of passing on the news to your publisher. They’re very happy.”

“Sure they are. More money for them.”

“More money for you.”

Grace’s smile slipped. The rain clouds soaking the city seemed to descend from the skies and settle around her shoulders.

Money had dictated so much of her life. Which were the best schools for her to attend? What latest designer was the most fashionable? Whose children were the best to be seen with? Her parents had tried to drill into her from a young age that money and success were all that mattered in life. She had spent much of that same life determined to prove them wrong. She’d dyed her hair green when she was eleven. Hung around with the “out” crowd. Majored in courses designed to make her mother’s lips disappear with disapproval.

She was well into her teens before she realized she was behaving like a spoiled little rich girl. Worse, she was committing a sin as bad as her parents’ by practicing reverse discrimination.

Since then, she had striven to base her judgments solely on the individual or the situation, not the balance of his or her bank account.

And she’d discovered that her major in human sexuality was something she enjoyed purely for the sake of enjoyment. Not because her parents choked whenever she discussed her studies at the dinner table.

She cleared her throat. “This isn’t about money, Rick. It never was.”

A heartbeat of a silence. “Then increase my salary. I won’t mind.”

She laughed and ran her toes along the sensitive bottom of her other foot.

“Enjoy your ride through the park, Gracie.”

“I fully intend to.”

She pressed the disconnect button and started to slip the phone back into her bag. Then she changed her mind and dialed her mother’s number. A glance at her watch told her it was past eleven. After brunch with the church ladies. Before lunch at whatever auxiliary meeting.

“Mattias residence.”

“Hõla, Consuela. It’s Grace. Is Mom around terrorizing the place?”

A soft giggle, then, “Just this morning she sez to me, ‘Consuela, I found wrinkle in bedspread. Completely unacceptable behavior. From now on make beds twice.”’

“Sounds like Mom all right.” All too much like Mom. A woman with a formidable education who had traded a career for her husband and daughter…and counting wrinkles in bedspreads. Gracie had never needed to look beyond her own mother for the reasons why she never wanted to marry. Her identity was too high a price to pay for a pair of warm feet to cuddle up to in bed at night. She’d always told herself she’d get a dog if she felt the need for constant companionship. Her parents’ marriage was proof positive that men asked for too much and gave up too little. It was enough to pick up her own socks. She didn’t want to have to pick up a husband’s, as well.

She leaned back and smiled, watching the vivid colors of autumn in Central Park sweep by as Consuela filled her in on a punctuation-challenged litany of her mother’s recent complaints. All of them nitpicky issues that probably would never have entered her mind if she looked beyond her house and husband and had a career of her own.

Consuela finally sighed, indicating she’d vented as much as she was going to that day. “You want you should talk to her?”

Gracie hesitated then bit her bottom lip. Not because she didn’t want to talk to her mother. But because the view outside her window was absolutely breathtaking. Only in New York could you blink your eyes like Samantha on Bewitched and move from city chic to abundant nature so quickly. She sighed. “Yeah, put her on. I haven’t done my bad deed for the day yet. I figure making her late for lunch should do it.”

Consuela told her to hold the line.

Grace trailed a finger down the steamed inside of the taxi window. Once, when she’d been home for spring break in her second year of college, she’d had the temerity to ask her mother if she’d ever achieved an orgasm. Despite her ongoing attempts to shock both her parents to the point of sputtering, she’d asked the question out of curiosity. Her parents had never seemed to share a physical closeness. They spent more time apart than together. And when they were together, they seemed occupied talking about which party to attend and who they should be seen with. The only time Gracie saw her mother actually touch her father was when she was picking invisible lint off his jacket before they left for social events. Even then, she did it in such a way so that no more than her fingertips brushed the material. When Gracie’s course material had concentrated on sexual frigidity, it was only natural that Gracie thought of her mother. Only natural that Gracie would want to apply her recently acquired knowledge to everyday life.

Her mother’s answer to the orgasm question had been the only time Grace had been slapped.

“Good heavens, Consuela, can’t you even see to the simple task of asking who it is?” Gracie heard her mother’s voice come over the line, followed by, “Hello?”

“Hi, Mom.”

“Gracie!” A fumbling of the phone. “Consuela, it’s Gracie.”

Gracie didn’t want to cause any more trouble for the good-humored housekeeper by pointing out to her mother that Consuela and she had already spoken, but it took mammoth effort.

“Hi, darling. What a surprise it is hearing from you. You’re never up this early.”

“I’m working, Mom. I’m on that promotional tour, remember? I did a radio interview this morning in New York.”

“Oh! Yes, of course. I must have forgotten.”

Gracie tucked her chin into her chest and bit her lip. She wasn’t sure if her mother actually did forget half the details of her only child’s life, or whether she preferred to ignore them.

“So are you nervous? No, pretend I didn’t ask that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you nervous. Besides, you have that radio show you do every week. Why would you be nervous?”

“Actually, Mom, this was a different format, so I was a bit nervous. It’s over though, so I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself.” Gracie turned her head, watching as a young mother fastened the hood of a child’s raincoat. She smiled wistfully. Had her mother ever stood out in the middle of a downpour completely unprotected to make sure she had her coat fastened securely? Not that she could remember. Sounded like something she’d have the nanny or housekeeper see to.

She blindly reached again into her monster purse. Bypassing the bag of peanuts, she instead slid out a copy of her book. “Have you received the book yet?”

“The book…oh, right! I’m sure we have. In fact, I’m positive that we have. It must be around here somewhere. Why just this morning I’m sure I saw Consuela sneaking a peek between the covers.”

Ah, the self-protective reversion to “we” that her mother fell back on when she couldn’t quite face things on her own. Gracie wondered exactly who “we” encompassed. Her mother and her father? The entire household? Or the entire city of Baltimore? Gracie slowly ran her finger over the raised lettering, wondering at the hypersensitivity of her fingertip. “And you? Have you read it, Mom?”

A pause. Then a sigh. “No, dear, I’m afraid I haven’t. And I don’t think I will, either, if it’s all the same to you.”

“It isn’t all the same to me, Mom. I sent that copy especially for you. Not Dad. Not Consuela. It…” She sat up then straightened her skirt. An impossible task given its shortness. “It would mean a lot to me, Mom. I’d really like your input.”