"It's a shame you're out in all this heat, though."
"What?"
"I mean, a pretty hairdo like that won't stand up for long in this. Is it always this hot?"
"My, my." She clicked the button on her fan. "It is hot."
"What happened to bearable?" Paige arched an eyebrow.
"I can't very well go to the ladies' auxiliary tea with wilted hair, now can I?" Dolores gathered up her purse and her notes. "I'll just finish these notes up downstairs in the diner where it's cool."
"Sounds like a good idea." He winked and Dolores blushed again before heading out the doorway.
"You're related, all right."
"What are you talking about?"
"The only other person who's ever made Dolores turn that shade of red would be your brother Jimmy."
"What can I say?" He shrugged. "It's a gift."
A few moments of silence ticked by before Paige finally found her voice. "So why are you here?"
"I was returning my tux."
"I mean here, here."
"You forgot this last night." He held up his hand and for the first time, she noted the battered bridal bouquet that he held.
"Thanks. I'd forgotten all about it."
"That's good to hear."
"What? That I'm having memory loss?"
He grinned. "That you were so shaken up after our dance that you couldn't think straight."
"You think so?"
"Darlin', I know so. You wanted to kiss me."
"You wanted me to kiss you. If I had wanted to kiss you, I would have." She glanced at her watch. "I have to get going. I've got an SAT meeting over at the activity center." She gathered up her purse and notebook.
"I'll show you the way."
"I know the way."
"Then you can show me the way. I don't think I've seen the new activity center. When was that built? Last year?"
"About five years ago."
"I don't get around town much when I'm home."
"Why are you doing this to me?"
"What?" he asked, as he followed her down the steps.
"Following me."
"Maybe I've always wanted to go to a SAT meeting."
"Do you even know what SAT stands for?" When he grinned, she shook her head, then elaborated. "It stands for Sick and Tired."
"That's just what I was going to say." He fell into step beside her. "Sick and tired of what?"
She smiled at him. Maybe it was a good thing he was following her. If he was so determined to make a nuisance of himself, the next half hour would undoubtedly change his mind. "You'll see."
"I don't know if I like the tone of your voice."
"Too late to chicken out now. Come on." She took his arm and tugged him down the street.
* * *
"So I told him," Harriet Miller said, "I would really like dessert." She shook her head. "Do you really need that dessert? Harvey asks me." She frowned. "So I said, I want that dessert. I deserve it, Harvey. I deserve it." Her words met with a round of applause from the other women seated around the circle of chairs that comprised Sick and Tired, the women's empowerment group Paige had been hosting for the past month.
"That's wonderful," Paige told the woman, desperately trying to ignore the man who leaned against the wall just inside the doorway, his arms folded as he watched her.
She'd expected him to run the other way the minute he discovered the nature of the group. Not many men felt comfortable in a group of venting women, but he'd simply smiled, said hello to several of the ladies he knew, and propped himself inside the doorway.
"So what did you have?" Louisa Jenkins asked. "The brownie or the apple pie?"
"The apple pie," Harriet declared with a smile. "With a double scoop of ice cream and caramel sauce."
"Atta girl!"
"You go, honey!"
"Score one for women everywhere."
"Thank you, Harriett," Paige told the woman, determined to ignore the way her skin flushed hot and cold every time she glanced at Jack. She was making it a point to avoid glancing at him or even thinking about him. She'd made it twenty-five minutes already. She could handle a few more. "That was a wonderful example of exercising your empowerment. Does anyone else have anything they would like to share? A moment when you realized you needed to speak up for yourself and did. Or maybe you simply realized it, but haven't yet had the courage to make the stand. Either way, we're here to listen." Paige glanced around the group, careful not to let her gaze linger too long on Jenny Turnover, the newest addition to Sick and Tired.
Most of the group was comprised of women rebelling against their husbands, but Paige had the feeling that Jenny had more bothering her than a spouse nagging her to lose five pounds, or one that wanted his beer brought to him in a glass rather than a can. There was a glimmer of fear in Jenny's eyes that Paige recognized all too well.
"Anyone? Remember, we're here to help each other. To encourage and listen." The group remained silent and Paige clapped her hands. "Well, then, let's end today's session with a few words of encouragement. As women, we need to speak up for ourselves and do what we think is right. We don't have to fit into the mold that society has shaped for us. I hope you all remember that. And don't forget, you are special. You're entitled to the best things in life. Until next week, ladies."
After a little chitchat, the group disbursed and Paige turned to gather up her notes.
She paused, every nerve in her body going on instant alert when she felt Jack's hand on her arm. She turned toward him.
"Now I know what's wrong with you. This," he fluffed her ruffled sleeve, "is just a disguise. You're really a man-hater."
"I do not hate men. Just because I'm a capable woman and I encourage other women to be capable, doesn't mean I don't like the opposite sex."
"You don't like me." He seemed proud of the fact.
"I don't dislike you. You're just not my type."
"But you want me anyway."
"I do not."
"Oh really?" He fingered her nipple through the thin fabric of her dress.
She stepped back from his touch. "That's just physical."
"That's exactly what I'm talking about." And before she could say a word, his lips covered hers.
His mouth moved against hers, his tongue sweeping her bottom lip, begging her to open up and let him inside, and for a split second, she couldn't think or even breathe. Her heart all but stopped beating and she just stood there, feeling him against her, coaxing her, seducing her.
His arms pulled her close and his body pressed the length of hers, his heat overwhelming her until her knees actually went limp. His tongue teased and his lips nibbled and she couldn't stop her mouth from opening. He swept inside, tasting and stroking and stealing her common sense for a long, heart-pounding moment.
When he finally pulled away and stared down at her, she simply stared up at him.
"I was right."
"About what?" she said, still dazed.
"You wanted to kiss me."
"I…" The word yes was on the tip of her tongue, but it couldn't quite make it any further. "I'm late," she blurted. "I – I have to get back to the paper." She snatched up her purse and notebook and left as fast as her feet could carry her.
She needed to breathe, to think, to figure out what the heck had just happened.
It was the worst kiss of her life.
* * *
It had been the worst kiss kiss of Paige's entire life.
Not the kiss itself, mind you. That had been terrific. Wonderful. Stupendous. Jack Mission knew exactly how to slant his mouth just so and stroke his tongue along the length of hers and lick…
She fought down a sudden burst of heat that pebbled her nipples and made her walk faster toward the safe refuge of the newspaper office.
No, it wasn't the kiss itself that had been so horrible. It had been her reaction to it. The wonder she'd felt, the awe, the total cluelessness. Her mind had gone completely blank and she'd been dumbfo
unded as to what to do next. As if Jack Mission's kiss had been her first kiss ever.
Pathetic.
True, it was the first kiss she'd had in months, but it wasn't the first time she'd locked lips with a man. She knew how to kiss for pity's sake.
Okay, so she'd only kissed three men and one qualified more as a boy, but she'd had many kisses since her very first during a game of spin the bottle at a birthday party when she'd been thirteen. She'd been married, for crying out loud.
Can't you do anything right, woman?
The question echoed through her head and brought back a wave of anxiety. For so long, she hadn't been able to do anything right. She hadn't been able to dress appropriately or clean good enough or cook well enough or—
Water under the bridge.
She'd started a new life and broadened her horizons. Thanks to her weekly cooking lessons, she could actually do more than boil water. She could strip her no-wax floors better than Mr. Clean himself, and she actually wore more than just jeans and oversized T-shirts.
And the kissing?
Before she could dwell on the question, she heard a voice behind her. She slowed and turned in time to see Shelby gaining on her, his hat in hand.
"Hey, Shelby."
"I hope I'm not keeping you from something. You look like you're in an awful hurry, but I really wanted to talk to you about something."
"I was just headed back to finish up a story. You can walk with me."
"That's okay. I've got a load of hay to drive back to my place. This'll just take a second. Say, you did a good two-step the other night."
"What?"
"I saw you dancing with Jack. You did a good box waltz."
"That's what I was doing?" Of course it was. She would have known a box waltz anywhere.
Except with Jack Mission as her partner. He'd pulled her close and she'd been conscious of only one thing – him.
"Look, I was thinking that maybe, if you're not busy next Friday night…"
Here it was. The moment she'd been waiting for. Shelby was actually going to ask her out.
"That is, I've been meaning to try this new steakhouse out on Route Five and I thought that if you like steak—"
"Geez, I'm late." She made a big pretense of glancing at her watch. "I've got an interview over at City Hall with the sheriff."
"Sure. I just thought that if you wanted to try—"
"Did you hear that?"
He glanced behind him. "What?"
"That noise. It sounded like Deb's cat. She's back at the newspaper office and she's been so lonely with Deb out of town, she's taken up howling."
"They've only been gone a couple of days."
"And the poor thing's already grieving. I really need to see about her and then get to my interview. I'll talk to you tomorrow." Before he could get in another word, she turned and started down the street.
What the heck had she just done?
She'd been waiting for him to ask her out. Hoping for it.
But that was before the kiss. Before she'd realized how totally inept she was when it came to interacting with the opposite sex on a romantic level. She didn't know how to kiss right! How could she go out with Shelby when a date was surely going to lead to an intimacy she was totally unprepared for.
For all her self-improvement, there was still one major hurdle she hadn't jumped. She needed some lessons in love. And she knew just the man to give them to her.
* * *
Chapter 3
«^»
Since the moment Leslie Carter had asked him out to the eighth grade Sadie Hawkins dance, Jack Mission had been propositioned by many women. He'd heard everything from "I'd really like to get together with you," to "Take me to bed, Stud." But he'd never heard an invite phrased quite like this one.
"…to brush up on my technique and you seem like the adequate choice to give me some pointers," Paige Cassidy was saying, a serious expression in her warm chocolate brown eyes as she stared across the four feet of distance that separated them.
Jack set down the distributor he'd been oiling on his motorcycle and stood, wiping a trickle of sweat that slid from his left temple. "Let me get this straight. You want to sleep with me?"
She shook her head. "No, not at all. I intend to be wide awake and paying full attention to everything you say."
"I meant sleep with me, darlin'. As in doing the dirty, the nasty, the bumpity-bump—"
"Yes," she cut in, a vivid red staining her cheeks. "I'm sorry. When you first said sleep, I thought you meant sleep, and I plan on paying attention to what you say."
"What I say?"
"And do. And don't worry. I'm a quick learner. You won't have to repeat yourself or do the same thing over and over."
"But that's half the fun," he teased, before he could think better of it. She wanted to sleep with him, for Chrissake.
"And I'll pay you. It's not like I'd expect you to do something like this for free."
"Pay me?"
"Twenty dollars an hour. That's what I paid Orlando Giovanni to teach me how to make antipasto. And ravioli, but that only took a half hour, so he only charged me fifteen." A doubtful look crossed her face. "But then this is probably a little more difficult than antipasto. I could go twenty-five."
"Twenty-five dollars an hour?"
"Twenty-six."
"Twenty-six?"
"All right. Twenty-seven, but that's my final—"
"I'm not bargaining," he cut in. "And I'm not doing this."
"Okay, twenty-eight—"
"No." He shook his head as the truth crystallized. "I should have known."
"Known what?"
He pinned her with a stare. "It was all just an act."
"What was an act?"
"You want me."
"I do not want you."
"You just offered me twenty-eight dollars an hour to have sex with you."
"You said you weren't bargaining, remember?"
"You do. You want me."
"I do not want you. I want to pick your brain."
"Darlin', it's not my brain you're asking to explore. It's my body and the answer is no." No matter how inviting the very vivid image was of her touching and tasting and exploring his suddenly flushed body. "You're not my type."
"And you're not mine, which is the beauty of this arrangement. We're all wrong for each other. I want love and marriage and a happily ever after." As if she noticed the sudden fear that rushed through him, she added, "But not with you. Never with someone like you."
"And what's wrong with me?"
"You're temporary, and I want permanent."
"Rumor has it you had permanent."
A guarded look slid over her features. "We all make mistakes and Woodrow was my biggest. But the next time, I'm not going to make any mistakes. So will you do it?"
"Have sex with you for money?"
"Do you have to keep saying that?"
"That's what you're asking."
"I'm asking for your instruction. You make it sound so tawdry."
"Darlin', this is as tawdry as it gets. You want to have paid-for-by-the-hour, no-strings-attached sex. That translates into tawdry."
"You're going to teach and I'm going to learn. It's no different from the dance lessons I've been taking. Or the cooking classes. Or the hair and makeup, the sewing, the macramé—"
"Macramé? You actually pay money to learn macramé?"
"I think we're getting off the subject."
"You brought it up."
"To illustrate a point. If I want to learn something, I have to find someone to teach me."
He eyed her. "You know what you're asking, don't you?"
"Of course. I want you to—"
Her voice drowned as his lips claimed hers in a hot, searing kiss that sent heat pulsing along his nerve endings. But it went beyond the physical, particularly when she shuddered in his arms and her lips trembled. A strange tenderness welled inside him and he had the insane urge to cradle her in his arms
and kiss her harder, deeper, until she relaxed.
He pulled away and fought for a calm breath. He shook his head. "I'm only going to be here for a little while—"
"Which makes you all the more perfect. Here today, gone tomorrow. I don't have to worry about you getting any wrong ideas and hanging around like some lovesick stalker. Not that you would, of course. You're not really the lovesick type."
"I'm the hot sex type."
"That's what I'm counting on."
He shook his head again. "Sorry. You'll have to find someone else." He turned away before he did something really stupid, like kiss her again. That's what had gotten him into this mess in the first place. He'd kissed her and obviously wowed her so much that now she wanted to pay him for sex. Pay him, of all things. As if he would ever take money for something that brought him so much pleasure. He should be the one paying her—
Wait a second. No one was paying anyone because Jack wasn't doing this. He wasn't even thinking about doing this. He had a ranch to look after for two weeks, then his sentence was up. Jimmy would be home and Jack could get back to whatever waited for him.
The next town. The next job. The next woman.
For a little while. Then he was on the road again, moving, looking, drifting like he always did because Jack Mission didn't like to get too settled.
Settling was fine for some people, but he liked his freedom, his space. Yep, space was a good idea right now, particularly since Paige was filling up his senses with the warm delicious scent of spiced apples.
His nostrils flared and he swung his leg over the bike.
"I've got work to do."
* * *
"Work totally sucks."
Paige spared a glance at the young man, his glasses perched low on his nose, seated at a nearby desk. At twenty-two, Wally was a senior journalism major at a nearby community college. As head reporter, he'd taken over Deb's editorial duties while she spent her honeymoon in Aruba. Paige had inherited Deb's actual assignments, including the Fun Girl Fact for the Week, which had become a major point of contention since Paige had ran an article about intellectual men. Since Wally was one of the few shy, quiet, brainy types in a small town full of ranchers, he'd taken Jimmy's position as the hottest catch for three counties. And he looked none too happy about it.
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