by Kate Davies
He heard the laugh again. For some reason, it nagged at the edges of his memory, and he looked around, trying to identify the source. A striking Latina woman sat at a table halfway across the restaurant, her companion obscured by a menu. She glanced in his direction and then leaned towards the person on the other side of the table, a devilish grin on her face.
He turned away, watching the table via the angled mirror over the counter. Whatever was going on, it sure looked interesting.
Suddenly, she stretched out her hand and snatched the menu away from the person sitting across the table. Tom angled his head slightly to get a better view. Definitely female, definitely young, with her red-brown hair caught up in a casual ponytail. Even through the mirror Tom could see the dark flush creeping up her neck and the startled look on her heart-shaped face.
Heart-shaped face? He whipped around, just in time to catch a glimpse of Jessica Martin flinging herself below table level.
Yes, it was getting more interesting by the minute.
“You are such a coward.” Ana’s voice was tinged with amusement.
“I needed something out of my purse,” Jessica shot back.
Of course, since her purse was on the seat next to her, the excuse was flimsy at best. She really needed a minute to regroup. Bad enough that he was here, worse that Ana had noticed him, and hideous that he had spotted her. And she knew he had. In the brief moment before she dove for cover, recognition had flared in his eyes.
And now she was sitting in the middle of a full restaurant with her head stuck under the table. Life just kept getting better and better.
“You don’t need your purse. You need to get laid.”
“Ana.” Jessica nudged her friend’s foot “Shut up.”
“I’m serious. You need some between-the-sheets action, and he looks like just the guy to give it to you.”
“I swear, Ana, if you don’t knock it off…”
Ana’s foot swung forward and tapped her on the shin. A glance to the side of the table confirmed that two very masculine shoes were visible. Grimacing, Jessica slid back up onto her seat. She pasted a smile to her face, which apparently had burst into flames judging from the heat radiating from her cheeks.
“Hello, Tom.”
“Drop something?” His face was perfectly calm with just a hint of teasing glinting in his eyes.
“Napkin,” she said. Ana snorted. Jessica shot a death-ray glance her direction. “So, what brings you here?”
“Pizza,” he replied.
Jessica could feel herself flushing even brighter. Damn her Irish complexion.
“Why don’t you join us?” Ana asked, smiling up at Tom. Jessica kicked her under the table.
Tom glanced at Jessica, then back at Ana. “Thanks, but I’m just taking a Zeus home. It should be ready any minute.”
“Too bad. But you can wait here until it’s done, right?”
No, of course he can’t.
“Sure,” he said, sliding onto the bench seat next to Jessica. “Thanks for the invite.” He held out his hand to Ana. “Tom Cameron. I work at Summit.”
“So I hear.”
Tom slid a glance at Jessica. “Really?” He turned his attention back to Ana. “It appears you have the advantage.”
“You might say that.” Ana grinned at him. “Ana Lopez. Nice to meet you.”
Jessica inched slowly toward the inside corner of the booth, trying to put as much space as possible between herself and Tom. God forbid they should accidentally brush shoulders, or bump elbows, or suddenly find their thighs pressed together from knee to hip.
As it was, her body was hyperaware of his presence—had been from the moment she realized he was in the restaurant. She could feel little quivery sensations radiating from the vicinity of her stomach. Not unpleasant, but not conducive to intelligent conversation either. At least Ana and Tom were carrying on a lively conversation quite well without her input. Which wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
“So, do you like working at Summit?” Ana asked, hands folded primly on the tabletop.
Jessica rolled her eyes. Ana was physically incapable of leaving the reporter side of her personality at home.
“Of course.” Now that sounded like the Tom Cameron she knew—brusque, clipped, to the point.
“I bet the kids drive you crazy, huh?”
“Actually, they’re the best part of the job.”
Ana widened her eyes, glancing from Jessica to Tom and back again. “Really? Even doing all the discipline, dealing with the problem kids?”
“Oh, yeah. Especially the problem kids. Some of these kids have lives you can’t even imagine. I figure I might be the best part of their day. Gives me something to live up to.”
“Interesting,” Ana murmured. “They’re lucky to have you.”
She flicked a quick glance at Jessica, eyebrows raised and lips pursed. Then her attention returned to Tom, a huge smile on her face as she asked another question.
Jessica closed her eyes briefly. Ana was all but pasting a best-in-show ribbon on Tom’s chest. Yes, he was attractive. Yes, he was interesting. But they worked together, for heaven’s sake. And Ana knew she had taken herself off the market until she had a full-time contract. If only her friend would take a hint and stop trying to throw them together.
With a start, she realized that Ana was standing up. “Where are you going?” she asked, an edge of desperation lacing her voice.
“Just the ladies’ room,” Ana replied, smiling innocently.
“I’ll go with you,” Jessica said quickly. She turned to go, remembering too late that Tom Cameron was currently blocking her only exit route.
Ana laughed. “No, stay. I’ll be back in no time. You two chat a little bit.” And with a final grin, she headed for the restroom, leaving Jessica and Tom alone.
It seemed Ana was determined not to take that hint.
Jessica shifted slightly, a move she regretted as her leg came into much closer contact with Tom’s. Even through her jeans, she could feel the heat radiating from his body. His thighs were firm and well-muscled, filling out his dress slacks nicely. God, what would he look like in jeans?
She wasn’t sure whether that was something she really wanted to see—or something she probably shouldn’t.
Clearing her throat, Jessica turned sideways in the narrow booth. Now their thighs weren’t touching, but her knee was bumping his, and she had a full-body view instead of the little side-glances she’d been tossing his way since he sat down.
He was just sitting there, impassive look on his face, although that spark of amusement lingered deep in his eyes. The silence stretched between them, accentuated by the sounds of the restaurant around them—glasses clinking, children shouting, the soft rumble of conversation punctuated by laughter.
She took a deep breath. “Look, I’m really sorry about—”
“Nothing to apologize for,” he replied.
“Still, Ana shouldn’t—”
“What, ask me to join you? I didn’t mind.” He smiled, inclining his head toward the front of the restaurant. “I’d rather sit for a while than stand at the counter like an idiot.”
“Oh, you’re not an idiot.” Jessica blurted out.
“Gee, thanks. I appreciate it,” he said, the spark of amusement getting stronger by the second.
Jessica sighed, shaking her head. “No, I’m the idiot.”
Tom reached over and took her hand, his thumb stroking across the back of it gently. “Nobody at this table is an idiot, okay? Just relax. I’m not going to bite.”
“Too bad.”
Jessica looked up, startled, into the amused face of her best friend, who had chosen this precise moment to return from her bathroom break.
Flustered, she tugged her hand from Tom’s grasp and slid even farther into the corner of the booth. The blush was back on her face with a vengeance.
“Um...we were just...I was just...it’s not what you…”
Ana ignored her, turning he
r full attention to Tom as she sat down again. “So tell me some more about Summit, Tom.”
“No, I don’t want to monopolize the conversation any more than I already have. What about you? What do you do?”
Jessica laughed, ridiculously grateful for the change in subject. “What, do you live under a rock? Ana is KITI’s star investigative reporter. Weeknights at five and special assignments.”
Ana waved away the description with a little hand-flutter. “Oh, please. You act like I’m Katie Couric, slumming with the common people. I’m just a journalist who works on television.”
“I see.” The clipped tones were back in Tom’s voice, and Jessica glanced at him curiously. The cheerful humor had fled from his expression, and his eyes seemed shuttered. “I don’t watch the news much.”
“You should catch her in action sometime.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He flashed a brief smile and stood. “Well, much as I would like to stay, my pizza appears to be done. Thanks for inviting me to join you, Ana. Maybe we’ll run into each other again sometime.”
“I’d like that.”
Tom nodded at Jessica. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” she said, watching him walk back to the counter, where a pizza box waited for him, steam escaping from under the edges of its cardboard top.
Ana rested her chin in the palm of her hand, gazing at Tom as he walked out of the restaurant, pizza balanced against one hip. He turned and waved briefly, then disappeared from sight.
“Yeah, I can see why you’d want to avoid him. Rude. Ugly. Total creep. I don’t know why they let him out in public.”
“I don’t know why I take you out in public,” Jessica retorted. “Could you have been any more obvious?”
“What? I had to go to the bathroom. Nature calls, I answer.”
“You were practically drooling on him.”
“Because you wouldn’t. Honey, he’s adorable. I think you two would be perfect for each other.”
“You don’t even know him,” Jessica protested. “Heck, I don’t even know him. We met today, for God’s sake. And what do you think was with that personality change at the end there?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, he was acting all nice and charming, and then he totally shut down. He couldn’t get out of here fast enough.”
Ana rolled her eyes. “His pizza was done and he was hungry. Not a big deal. You’re just looking for excuses.”
“Excuses for what?”
“Excuses not to go after him.”
“I will not be going after Tom Cameron. The fact remains that we work together. And trust me, he hasn’t exactly seen me at my best.”
“You just need an opportunity to show him your best side. Let me work on it.”
“No. Absolutely not. You know damn well I’m not interested in a relationship right now.”
“Who said anything about a relationship? He’s hot, Jessica. And there was a definite spark between you two. Why ignore that just because of some stupid rule you’ve set for yourself? That’s like a New Year’s resolution—meant to be broken.”
Jessica crossed her arms on the table and lowered her head onto them.
Ana reached over and patted her head. “Don’t worry about it, honey. If you like Tom—and I’ll beat you with wet noodles if you say you don’t—my advice is to go for it.”
She tugged on Jessica’s sleeve, encouraging her back up to a sitting position. “But in the meantime, you should eat pizza,” she added, as the server maneuvered their order onto the crowded tabletop.
Jessica lifted a topping-heavy slice onto her plate. Pizza, she could handle. Tom, well, that was a different story.
Tom slid the half-empty box onto the top shelf of his refrigerator. Lunch tomorrow would be better than usual, even if he did eat the leftovers cold at his desk. Cold Aphrodite’s pizza was better than hot pizza most other places.
He still wasn’t sure what had possessed him to sit down with Jessica and her friend at the restaurant. Outside work he was pretty much a loner. Hell, he was a loner at work too. Truth was, if he had seen any other staff member at Aphrodite’s, he would have ducked for cover himself.
But the sight of Jessica’s deer-in-headlights look right before she slid under the table had brought a wicked grin to his lips. To his own surprise he’d found himself accepting Ana’s invitation to join them.
It had been a great conversation too, until he found out that Ana was a reporter.
Too bad. She seemed like such a nice person.
He tossed his empty soda can in the recycle bin and wandered back out into the family room. He flipped channels for a minute or two, but nothing caught his attention. He turned off the TV and went into the bedroom, pulling his tie off as he walked.
It was always tempting fate to eat Aphrodite’s in work clothes, but he had rebelled at the thought of letting it cool any further while he changed. Now happily fed, he grabbed a pair of gray sweats and a white T-shirt out of his dresser.
The well-worn clothes slid on easily, and he could feel the tension of the day ebbing away. He wandered back into the family room and stretched out on the couch with the day’s mail.
He was separating the stack into bills and junk mail when the ringing phone broke his concentration. Glancing at the caller ID box, he grimaced and picked up the receiver.
“Hey, big sister. What’s up?”
“I hate it when you do that.” Tom could hear the smile in Janet’s voice. “You’re not psychic, so don’t even try.”
“I do have a few tricks up my sleeve though.”
“Okay, big shot, why am I calling?”
Tom pretended to ponder the question for a moment. “You think I work too hard, I need a social life, and you have just the woman for me.”
“Am I that predictable?”
“As predictable as rain in Seattle.” He shifted the phone to the other ear and tucked a throw pillow behind his head. “And so is my answer.”
She intoned dryly, “You love your job, who needs a social life, and you’re not interested in meeting anyone.”
“You got it.”
“Come on, Tom,” she wheedled. “Just dinner. Meredith’s really great. I know you’d like her. Friday night?”
“Not interested,” he said. “Thanks anyway.”
“Fine,” she grumped. “How about just dinner? No blind dates, just family togetherness.”
“Yeah, I can handle that.”
Her voice softened over the phone line. “It’s been four years.”
He gripped the phone more tightly. “Let it go, Janet.”
“Funny, isn’t that what I’ve been telling you?”
“I like my life the way it is.”
“Even though you’ll never meet someone new working at the high school.”
Too late, Tom realized that his silence had caught his sister’s attention.
“Have you met someone?” She paused. “Don’t hold out on me, baby brother.”
“It’s nothing,” he forced out past gritted teeth. “Nobody.”
“No way, kid. You’re not getting away with that. Spill.”
“There’s nothing to spill,” he protested, but even as he said it he knew he was lying. He sighed and said, “There’s a new teacher hired on for the rest of the year. We had a bit of a run-in this morning, and then I saw her at the pizza place tonight. Nothing’s going on. I swear.”
“Mm-hmm.” Her skepticism was evident. “Okay. Dinner Friday, I promise no ambushes. But believe me, baby bro—you’re going to fill me in on all the details.”
Janet’s laugh was still ringing in his ears as he hung up. Filling her in on the details was what concerned him the most.
Details. He snorted. Unfortunately, details were not in short supply. Unwanted, unasked-for, Jessica’s image kept elbowing its way into his brain.
This evening’s run-in had only added more frames to his erotic slide show. At work, her business attire
only hinted at her figure. The T-shirt and jeans combo she wore at the pizza place, however, had adhered to her curves like static cling. Thanks to the thin cotton of her T-shirt, he had a pretty good image of her ripe, curvy breasts, and the picture just wouldn’t go away. Even worse, he wasn’t sure that he wanted it to.
With a groan, he hauled himself off the couch and headed down the hall to the bathroom. It might be January outside, but at this moment he definitely needed a cold shower.
Steam billowed through the cozy bathroom. Hot water and rich bubbles filled the tub. Jessica stuck a toe in, then adjusted the water temperature. She glanced at the stack of play scripts balanced on the bathroom counter. It really wasn’t practical to read in the tub. What if one fell in and got ruined?
She knew she was rationalizing, but really, what did one day matter in the grand scheme of things? What she really needed to do was keep up on grading during the week, then this weekend she’d knuckle down and put the drama fiasco in working order. And right now, Tangerine Bliss was calling her name. No need to ruin a perfectly good bubble bath with work.
Jessica slipped her robe off and put it on the hook on the back of the door. She stepped into the foamy bath, wincing a little as the heat of the water bit at her toes. She adjusted to the warmth quickly and slid into the suds up to her neck. Smiling, she closed her eyes.
No, it was no good. The least little relaxation, the moment she let her guard down, and he tromped right through her brain.
“Go away,” she muttered. “I’m taking a bath.”
But her subconscious merely stuck its tongue out at her and provided a living-color image of Tom Cameron wearing a far-too-skimpy towel wrapped around his waist, hair damp and tousled, shoulders glistening with droplets of water. She squeezed her eyes shut again.
Nope, the picture was still there. And now one of those water drops was sliding down his chest, pausing momentarily at his navel—he was an innie, she noted, at least in her fantasy—and continuing lower until it disappeared out of sight behind the towel. Jessica sighed. Stupid towel.
More like stupid Jessica, she thought, shaking her head. She’d never even seen the man in anything but business attire. Even at Aphrodite’s he’d been in his suit and tie, obviously picking up dinner on the way home from work. She was probably just superimposing his head on the torso of some male supermodel. Didn’t the subconscious mind like to mix and match?
