“Then I’d think you’d be used to kids.”
“You’d think wrong. My folks are good with kids. Not me.”
“So what are you going to do about this Kayla woman you’re not falling for?” Boomer asked.
“Damned if I know.”
Kayla was running late when she got to Jack’s apartment Thursday afternoon. It didn’t help that she’d had to stop three places before finding Jack’s stupid imported ale and the right brand of salted beer nuts. On her way out yesterday, she’d given Ernie the Doorman the rejects. Ernie had responded by smiling at her, or at least she’d assumed the slight movement at the corner of his mouth was a smile—he wasn’t exactly the demonstrative type.
Now Jack was another matter entirely. He certainly let you know how he was feeling. She’d called a cleaning service to stop by this morning, only to have them call her back and say that Jack had thrown a fit and refused to let them in. It had taken Kayla fifteen minutes to calm down the cleaning service owner, a necessity since Kayla often worked with them. No, she was not feeling kindly toward Jack at the moment.
And those feelings took another nosedive when she saw the note taped to his front door. It had her name on it, as well as the name of the pizza place around the corner. Apparently Jack didn’t believe in using blank paper for writing when he could make do with odds and ends.
Along with her name, he’d written half a dozen errands for her to run—including buying a five-dollar lotto ticket, picking up the latest video releases, buying a package of men’s white jockey shorts in size thirty-four as well as a bottle of pricy perfume.
It sounded as if the man had something special planned.
So why did that bother her? Why should she care what he did with Misty or Mandy or any other woman? She didn’t care. It just irked her that he’d written the note as if she were a peon and he the great lord ordering her about. Not to mention her aggravation at the way he’d treated the cleaning service people this morning, after she’d gone to all that trouble to get him squeezed in. If Jack thought she was cleaning up after him, he was sadly mistaken.
She rang the bell and pounded on the door. When that got no response, she was about to get out her key when Jack finally answered the door. Seeing how pale he was, she asked, “What happened to you?”
“What do you mean what happened to me?” he growled. “I broke my damned stupid leg, that’s what happened. And then I was kept up most of the night with women calling me, trying out their phone-nurse routines, asking me what I’d do if I couldn’t work as a firefighter anymore. What the hell kind of question is that to ask a man?”
Since he was weaving on the crutches like a drunken sailor on shore leave, Kayla said, “Maybe you should sit down—”
“I’m fine,” he growled.
“You don’t have to snap my head off,” she said, inexplicably hurt by his curtness. “I was just trying to help you...”
“I don’t need any help.” His words were gritty with anger and frustration. This was only his third day in the cast and already he was going nuts.
“Right. I can tell you’re doing just peachy on your own,” Kayla mockingly noted, waving her hand at the living room strewn with clothes, newspapers, dirty dishes and empty bottles and cans. “Why did you send away the cleaning people?”
“Because I don’t want strangers around. Besides, I told you I hate people fussing over me,” he growled.
“Yes, well, I hate people fainting on me,” she retorted, “and that’s what you’re going to do if you don’t take it easy.”
“I’ve never passed out in my life.”
“There’s always a first time, big boy.”
“Listen, little girl,” Jack shot back, “don’t order me around!”
“Hey, don’t yell at me because your girlfriends kept you up all night” was her immediate comeback.
An x-rated reply was on the tip of his tongue, but he bit it back because the truth was that Kayla had been the one who had kept him up all night—in every sense of the word. Jack hadn’t been able to get her off his mind and that was driving him out of his mind.
“That wasn’t yelling. THIS IS YELLING,” he shouted, working up a good head of steam. “If this is the way you treat your other clients, I’m surprised you’re not out of business. You couldn’t even buy a simple bottle of beer and some beer nuts without screwing up!”
Kayla didn’t care if this job might lead to good things for her company, nobody was going to talk to her that way! “If you don’t stop yelling at me, I’m going to break your other leg!”
“This isn’t going to work,” Jack declared. “I’m going to hire someone else.”
“You didn’t hire me, your Uncle Ralph did.”
Jack waved her words away as if they were of no importance. “I’ll get someone else.”
“Good luck. You’re so impossible no one would work for you! Your uncle warned me about you.”
“Yeah, well, he didn’t warn me about you. He should have known better. He knows I don’t like bossy women.”
“You want to hire someone else? Fine. I’ll even help you find them,” Kayla stated, her anger fiery hot at his accusation that she was bossy. Retrieving her ever-handy notebook from her oversize purse, she said, “I’ll write up the help-wanted ad for you. Let’s see... how about ‘impossible, irritable, arrogant man looking for blindly devoted slave to run errands for him at any time of the day or night. Salary—not enough. Benefits—none. No appreciation, no courtesy.’”
“Wrong. The ad should read ‘Good-looking, smart, good-natured guy with great sense of humor looking for temporary help. Emotional types need not apply.’”
“Emotional types?” she repeated in disbelief. “I’m not emotional! You’re just impossible! You’d try the patience of a saint.”
“You’re claiming to be a saint?”
“Of course not. If I were, I wouldn’t be irritated by your preposterous demands and outlandish expectations....”
“Irritated? Oh, I think you went past irritated some time ago,” Jack retorted. “Try furious and bossy.”
“Stop calling me bossy!”
“Or what?” he taunted her.
Too furious to say another word, she turned to leave.
Afterward Kayla couldn’t be sure if Jack reached out a hand to prevent her from leaving...or to open the door to boot her out.
Either way, he tottered on his crutches and ended up flattening her against the closed door—tumbling her into his arms.
Three
Kayla instinctively put her arms around Jack’s waist to steady him. His breath was warm and minty against her cheek as he braced his arms against the door, his hands on either side of her head. His lower torso was intimately pressed against hers so that she could feel every bone and sinew of his muscular frame.
She saw the hunger flare in his incredible smoky eyes even as she felt the throbbing of his arousal through his running shorts. Her coat was open, and her denim skirt wasn’t thick enough to provide any protection against the heated intensity of his powerful body.
Not that she wanted protection. She wanted him to kiss her. He did, slowly but fiercely consuming her as if he had all the time in the world to enjoy every millimeter of her mouth and couldn’t wait a second longer to do so.
This