Make It Hot. Gwyneth Bolton

professional isn’t gonna keep you warm at night, and professional isn’t easy on the eyes like Joel Hightower. In my opinion, professional is highly overrated if it means you have to pass on a man like that. I saw the way he looks at you…Girl, that man eyes you as if he wants to sop you up with a biscuit.”

      “Stop lying, Jenny. He does no such thing.”

      “You wanna put some money on it?”

      “No, I don’t. I wouldn’t put money on something like that. Plus, a man as fine as him could have and probably does have any woman he wants. He probably likes those skinny model chicks.”

      Samantha was more than happy with her curvy figure and had no desire to move from her size twelve to a size two, but, she knew not every man could handle a sister with some meat on the bones.

      “What he wants is you, and I wonder what you’re gonna do when he decides to go after what he wants.”

      “I don’t think we have to worry about that happening.” But Samantha couldn’t help letting herself wonder what if…

      What if Joel Hightower really wanted her? The heat rose to her neck, her face flushed and her heart started to flutter. Why now?

      After years of being able to go with the flow and date guys without getting caught up in emotions…After years of staying clear of men with dangerous occupations…After years of being professional and not crossing the line with anyone she was treating…

      Why was Joel Hightower able to tempt her with a smile and a look? Why was he the one to cause her desire to bubble over and need she had barely known she had to erupt? Most importantly, why was she starting to believe she wasn’t going to be able to continue doing things the way she had been doing them. After years of steering clear of the dangers that came with falling in love, she seemed to be primed and ready to make the leap right into Joel Hightower’s arms. And that scared her as much as it excited her.

      Chapter 4

      After her last appointment of the day, Samantha made it home to her apartment in Elmwood Park in record time.

      The town she lived in, Elmwood Park, had started out many years ago as a sort of suburb of Paterson, like South Paterson and West Paterson. In fact, the town used to be called East Paterson until they changed the name to remove all associations with the inner city. Still, it was a little safer for a single woman living on her own. Also, her apartment complex was nice and welcoming.

      And she never felt happier to see the red-and-white brick, colonial-style apartment units than she was today. She pulled into her parking spot, thinking about what she could quickly make for dinner. Her phone was ringing as she walked through the door, and she rushed to answer it.

      It better not be a telemarketer, she thought as she made the dash across the living room/dining room to the phone hanging on the back wall of her galley kitchen.

      “Hey, Sammie. It’s your mother.” Veronica Dash’s soft voice wafted through the phone lines, and Samantha tried to discern what kind of mood she was in.

      Was it her sober and depressed mother on the line, her two-glasses-of-gin shy of passing out and depressed mother or her angry, bitter, lashing-out and drunk mother?

      “Hi, Mom. How’s it going?”

      “When are you coming home? Why can’t you get a job here in Chicago? What kind of daughter leaves her mother all alone?” The slight slur in her voice canceled out still sober.

      Samantha started walking with the cordless phone, kicking off her shoes and making herself comfortable on the huge plush brown sofa-sectional that took up the majority of the small living room/dining room. There was no telling how long she would be on the phone with her mother this evening.

      She could hear the sound of clanging glass and knew Veronica must have been fixing herself another drink.

      “Mom, I have a job here that I love, and I like it here. You could always move out here. A change of scenery might be good for you.” She had made the offer many times before, and she knew her mother would turn it down.

      Samantha loved Chicago and would always consider herself a Chi-town girl. But when she left home to attend graduate school and earn her MS in Occupational Therapy at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey, she ended up staying on for the DPT—Doctor of Physical Therapy—program. By the time she finished her studies, she’d come to love the North Jersey area, and she had come to love the newfound peace in her life and not having to watch her mother drink herself to death.

      Finally, she had a legitimate reason to leave the continuous sadness looming in her childhood home. As much as it shamed her to admit it, she was sort of glad her mother didn’t want to move to New Jersey.

      “I’m all alone, and I don’t want to leave my home. It’s all I have left of him. It’s the only thing I have left. If you were any kind of a daughter, you wouldn’t have left me. How could you leave here? We’re a family here.”

      “You have me. The house is just a place, Mom. You have me, also. Daddy was murdered but you still have me…” Samantha wished she could call back the words as soon as they left her mouth.

      “I don’t have you. You’re not here. You’re no help. You’re selfish. You’re trying to punish me because you think it will make me stop drinking. Just like when you stopped visiting. Cutting me off…Selfish!”

      Samantha closed her eyes. She didn’t say anything because her mother was right. She had tried to use the threat of not visiting as a ploy to get her mother to go to rehab in the past. It hadn’t worked.

      “They murdered him. They took him away from me. Why? Why did he stop at that corner store to pick up cough medicine for you? It’s your fault. It’s your fault my husband is dead.” Veronica’s angry words caused Samantha to go still.

      It wasn’t as if she hadn’t heard the words before. It was more that she was shocked that they still had the ability to wound.

      Samantha spoke so she could barely hear her own words. “It wasn’t my fault. It was the criminal’s fault, the one who was robbing the store when Daddy walked in.”

      In the past, Samantha might have been spiteful enough to add that she wasn’t the one who called her husband and asked him to pick up a bottle of Robitussin while he was on duty. But the grown-up woman knew it was no more her fault than it was her mother’s.