First You Kiss 100 Men.... Carolyn Greene

hoping he’d fill it with a more in-depth explanation. He didn’t.

      ‘‘Just give him my message,’’ Peter continued. ‘‘He’ll know what it’s about.’’

      ‘‘Sure. I’ll do that.’’ With any luck, Hunter might be a bit more forthcoming than his older brother had been. And someday pigs would fly. But she could certainly give it her best shot.

      ‘‘Good luck in your new job.’’

      With the way things were going lately, she was going to need more than luck. Whether Hunter liked it or not, she was going to have to do a bit of sleuthing of her own.

      For the next quarter hour, Julie resisted interrupting Hunter’s meeting. The conversation with Peter consumed her thoughts. She tried to distract herself from worrying about it by focusing on a case in which a Mr. Younce was claiming disability benefits for a work-related back injury. Hunter had already explained that much of their business involved investigating insurance claims that were suspected of being fraudulent. Lifeway, the insurance company with offices in the same building, provided them with a lot of these cases. As for Mr. Younce’s supposed incapacitation, the man had reportedly been seen doing yard work and even demonstrating some wrestling moves to his young son. Although it would thrill Julie to catch the dishonest scumball in the act of scamming his employer, the mounds of paperwork attached to the Younce case left her cold.

      Muttering under her breath, she chanted, ‘‘Bored, bored, bored, bored.’’

      Julie moved aside some folders to turn up the radio. Though she doubted her column would still hold the public’s attention after yesterday’s brief discussion, she tuned in anyway. A popular rock tune was playing, and she noted that the Burning Issues talk segment was another twenty minutes away.

      Too antsy to sit still for that long, she carried the newspaper to Hunter’s office door and listened to hear if the meeting was almost finished. The heavy wood effectively blocked most of the sounds, so she stepped closer and pressed an ear to the dark oak. No luck. Just some general murmuring sounds that she couldn’t distinguish.

      With a flip of her hair, she pressed her ear more firmly to the barrier. In almost the same instant, the knob clicked, the door swung open and Hunter leaped forward to catch Julie as she fell inward toward the surprised pair.

      ‘‘Goodness!’’ said Mrs. Dexter, staggering back a step.

      Bracing herself with a hand on Hunter’s firm abdomen, Julie regained her balance. Time slowed as she breathed in the clean, masculine scent of him, and she briefly forgot that he was the boss and she was the secretary. She even forgot there was another person in the room with them. All she was aware of while she clutched his waist was that he was a man and she was a woman. And she wanted to investigate him with every one of her senses.