Hoodwinked. Diana Palmer

she covered his cage. “I don’t know how I could manage without him. He’s sort of my best friend.”

      That touched him deeply. He knew that she was rather a loner at the plant, but he hadn’t realized that this was true of her private life, as well. He scowled, watching her rush around the apartment before she excused herself to change into a white sundress and tie her hair back with a ribbon.

      He’d suspected her from the beginning of being involved in the problems with the Faber jet, and he still wasn’t convinced that she was totally innocent. But she didn’t fit the picture of a saboteur. Then he reminded himself that they rarely did. He couldn’t afford to let himself get too involved with her at this stage of the game. First, he had to find out a little more about her. And what better way than to involve himself in her private life?

      “I’m ready,” she said, breathless as she stopped just in front of him, almost pretty in her white spike heels, white sundress with its modest rounded neckline, and white ribbon in her hair. Despite the glasses, she wasn’t bad to look at, and she had great legs. She grinned at her good fortune. Imagine, having him actually ask her out. She could find out a lot about him this way. Playing the role of superspy was making her vibrate like a spring. She was having the time of her life. It was the first dangerous thing she’d ever done, and if he really was a saboteur, it was certainly that. She had one instant of apprehension, but he smiled and she relaxed. It was just a date, she told herself firmly. She wasn’t going to try to handcuff him and drive him down to police headquarters. That thought comforted her a little. She could always tell Mr. Blake what she found out.

      “Let’s go.”

      He put her in the pickup truck, noticing that she didn’t complain about the torn seats and the cracked dash. She smiled at him as if he’d put her in the front seat of a Rolls-Royce, and he felt a twinge of conscience. He knew for a fact that none of the women in his world would have smiled if he’d asked them to go on a date in this ancient, clattering iron rattrap. But Maureen looked as if she were actually enjoying it, and her smile wasn’t a suffering one at all.

      “You don’t mind the pickup?” he fished.

      She laughed. “Oh, not at all! My dad used to have one. Of course, it was in a lot worse shape than this one. We went on fishing trips in it and threw our tackle in the boot with the ice chest.” Her eyes were dreamy. “I remember so many lazy summer days on the bayous with him and my mother. We didn’t have much money when I was a child, but it never seemed to matter because we had so much fun together. Both my parents were educators,” she explained belatedly. “That should give you an idea of their combined incomes.”

      “Yes.” He put his almost finished cigarette to his lips. “Ironic, isn’t it, that we pay garbagemen in the city more than we pay the people who educate our children and shape the future. Football players are paid millions to kick a pigskin ball around a stadium, but teachers are still being paid like glorified babysitters.”

      “You don’t sound like a football fan,” she said.

      “I like ice hockey,” he mused. “And soccer.”

      “You’re built like a football player,” she murmured shyly.

      He flashed her a smile. “Believe it or not, the school I attended didn’t have a football team. My father refused to let me participate in what he saw as an educational wasteland.”

      “You didn’t participate in sports at all?” she persisted.

      “I did join the wrestling team,” he said with a grin. “I was school champion two years running and graduated undefeated.”