MEL DROPPED HER GLOVES into the disposal bin while Bowen continued reviewing Dan Blabbermouth’s performance. Not very flatteringly.
Unlooping the mask she’d worn and pulling off the papery gown that covered her scrubs, Mel dropped them, too, into the bin. It would be her turn next.
The only good thing about getting reamed out now, she reflected as she exited the surgical suite behind the others, was that she was too damned tired to care.
They’d just finished seven hours of surgery. At this moment, all she wanted to do was flop on a gurney and be fed intravenously.
In front of her, Bowen and Dan turned left. A civilian peeled himself off the wall opposite the double doors. Nice-looking man, Mel thought, but the family waiting area was one corridor over.
Wait. That’s no nice-looking civilian, that’s— “Jack?”
He came forward. Smiling warmly. At her. “Hi, Melinda!”
Mel’s flagging energy quit flagging. Had to, with all the endocrine activity going on internally. Her temp flashed skyward, heading rapidly for the delirium zone.
If a smile could do that, what would actual contact cause? An embolism?
“Friend of yours, Dr. Burke?” Bowen dropped ol’ Dan like a used surgical sponge and spun around; without a second’s hesitation, the cowardly gossipmonger sped away. “Perhaps you’d care to introduce us.”
Perhaps she’d care to leap off a highway overpass at rush hour, too.
“Uh, sure. Dr. Bowen, Jack Halloran. Jack, Dr. Leo Bowen.”
The two men shook hands as briefly as possible. Jack, Mel noticed smugly, towered over her boss by a good eight or ten inches.
“Pleased to meet you, Dr. Bowen.” Ha! Jack didn’t sound very pleased.
“Pleasure’s mutual, Mr. Halloran.” Bowen’s declaration didn’t resonate convincingly, either. “I take it you’re the new husband?”
Jack nodded while Mel smothered a smile at the idiocy of her own shocked reaction to the term. Only a she-geek would keep thinking of a man this commanding, this masculine as a wife. Self-defense, she pleaded silently. If Jack was the husband, that made her the wife. The nerdy Melinda Burke would be clueless about that role—or about how to handle having a husband like Halloran.
Shoot, she didn’t even know how to handle him showing up at work.
“What, what are you doing here, Jack?” Mel asked, then realized she should have herded him away first. Damn her interpersonal ineptitude!
“Waiting for you, Burke,” Bowen said, grimacing at having to explain the obvious to her. “The question is why?”
Jack blinked those dark blue eyes at her, then at her boss.
“I thought we could grab some dinner,” he said finally, letting his gaze return to settle on Mel’s face. “You hungry?”
For the warm concern floating in those incredible sapphire eyes and the erotic touch of that deep, husky voice? Hell, yes. She was starving.
“According to the lady out front, y’all were in there a long time.”
Bowen shouldered Mel aside to stand toe-to-toe with Jack. “Surgical procedures take as long as they take,” the program chief snapped. “We’re not paid by the hour, you know.”
Oh-oh. Jack’s jaw was jutting. Not used to Bowen’s hostility, Mel realized.
“Neither is Jack,” she said in a rush. “He’s a stockbroker. At least, he was. Now, he’s…well, he’s—”
Dammit. She couldn’t recall the name of that test he was studying for. Some kind of financing…. “He’s—”
An arm as hard as the titanium plates they’d screwed onto the skateboarding teen’s shattered femur clamped around her waist. “I’m a lonely husband who’s here to rescue his wife.”
“Rescue, Mr. Halloran?”
Mel cringed. She’d heard Bowen called every name in the book, but nobody’d ever accused him of being slow on the uptake.
“From—?”
Without thinking, Mel wrapped her arms around Jack. Wow, what a great fit, the unoccupied part of her brain thought.
“From malnutrition,” she supplied quickly, while that other brain part became feverishly occupied imagining how they’d fit together making love. “Jack thinks I don’t eat right when I’m working and I guess he’s all freaky ’cuz the stove doesn’t work. But the microwave does, so there’s really no reas—”
“Melinda’s too dedicated for her own good,” Jack said, mercifully cutting off her babbling. “These outrageous hours she works, skipping meals…. It’s appalling the way she comes home dead on her—”
Now it was Mel’s turn to disrupt the flow of babble. “Isn’t he sweet?” She laughed brightly. “Being so concerned about my welfare.” Weird, Bowen looked startled. Then…embarrassed?
Nah. She must be hallucinating.
“Somebody ought to be,” Jack insisted. “Any fool knows that your own health and well-being affect your job performance. And it’s not like you’re rotating tires here, you’re patching up people.”
Uh-oh. Bowen looked ready to stroke out. Intervene, Burke—now!
“Oh, ’fess up, honey.” Acting like some ditzy car-show bimbo, Mel poked her cutie’s six-pack abdomen playfully. “You’re the one who’s tired of frozen dinners, right? Hungry for something with real taste?”
Jack’s hand captured hers, pressed it against the warm, hard flesh beneath his starched cotton shirt. His eyes darkened, which Mel hadn’t even realized was possible. “Damned right I am,” he growled softly. His head bent toward hers.
“Now that you mention it, I could use some refueling, too,” Bowen piped up just as their lips met.
Jack lifted his head, breaking physical contact, but kept his gaze on Mel’s mouth.
Which felt exactly the way it had after the ceremony, when he’d actually kissed her. Hot and tingly, spreading delicious aching need through her interior like seismic waves.
After a moment as charged as one of those Russian delivery rockets lifting off for the International Space Station, Jack turned his attention to Dr. Bowen. “Then don’t let us keep you,” he said with a faint smile.
When Bowen’s eyebrows reached for his hairline, Mel wanted to groan, then just…slip into a nice coma or something. But after a second, he gave a little shrug.
“Tomorrow, Burke,” he said, and walked away without another word.
Jack turned her in the opposite direction. “I’m surprised he took the hint,” he muttered. His arm still around her waist, he guided her down the sterile, nausea-green hallway under the harsh fluorescent lights.
Mmm, what a romantic place for a stroll, Mel thought dreamily.
No. That wasn’t right.
Carefully detaching herself from Jack’s embrace, Mel stalked onward, shaking herself mentally.
She was losing it! This morning, she’d awakened dreaming of being kissed—but lightly, on the temple. Wasting good dreamtime on chaste, preteen swoony stuff. And now, here she was getting all mushy about walking arm-in-arm with Jack down a hospital corridor.
What next, Burke? Ask him to the prom?
Nuts. She was too close to achieving her dream for such nonsense. She couldn’t afford to start missing things she’d given up years ago. Like a social life. Physical intimacy. All that male-female stuff.
Mel knew that one false step could prove fatal at this point.
She doubted Bowen would take offense at tonight’s rebuff, but rhino-skinned or not, the man delighted in his program’s high dropout rate. He’d exploit any weakness he found to test his residents’ dedication.
As the corridor ended in a T and she automatically turned right, Mel reminded herself that she’d have the rest of her life to make up for lost time. Years ahead of her to get out and meet people. Maybe get married for real someday, have a child…even learn how to tell for herself when a stove didn’t work.
But for now, she needed to stay focused. Undistracted by navy eyes, a breathtakingly masculine body or concern for her welfare.
“I can see you’re hungry,” Jack said, catching up and letting his arm steal around her again. Damn, the man’s touch drained all her willpower and determination. “But what for?”
The answer wasn’t Chinese or Cajun or mac ’n’ cheese.
The answer was a little human kindness. And a certain man’s touch, his smile, some nonmedical conversation.
Mel looked at her watch. She had thirty minutes. Why not?
“If we hurry, we can get to the cafeteria before they quit serving supper entrées.” For the next half hour, she could have her Jack and eat dinner, too.
“Cafeteria?” Jack halted his forward progress. And Mel’s. “I was thinking more like one of the new places in Uptown. Or maybe the Enclave.”
Someplace way more intimate, relaxing and upscale than some freaking hospital cafeteria.
The Enclave, of course, topped his list since it offered the greatest potential return on investment. As in, dancing. He figured a little vertical touching, twining and twisting might cure his obsession with the horizontal version.
Mel chuckled. “Good luck getting a table at one of those trendy places without a reservation.” Moving onward, she turned left at the next hallway intersection.
Jack stared after her in dismay. She was right, dammit. How the hell had he forgotten that? Maybe he was exposing his brain cells—at least the ones that remembered how to date—to too many strong cleaning chemicals.
“And I’m due back in Recovery in thirty, anyway.”
“What?” He hurried to catch up. It’s not a date, he reminded himself. It’s getting over his strange obsessive fascination with this woman. That’s why a leisurely dinner in a conducive atmosphere was so important.
Mel pushed through a metal door and began descending stairs. Jack clattered behind her. “You have to go back to work? Tonight?” Unbelievable.
Unacceptable, too. If she didn’t know the cost of this kind of work schedule, he did.
Without waiting for her answer, Jack double-clattered past her, then stopped at the next landing. Mel halted one step above it.
Looking straight into the soft green depths of her eyes, Jack recognized the irony of what he was about to say, but made a note to appreciate it on tape-delay. Right now, he had to make this woman who’d accepted—no, actively solicited—his caretaking understand just how much she needed it.
“Sweetheart…” Manfully he uttered The Phrase. The phrase normally delivered by females, the four words guaranteed to strike terror in the hearts of unsuspecting males. “We have to talk.”
“Okay.” She pushed past him. “But we’ve got three minutes to do it over dinner. Otherwise, we’ll have to ingest our protein as eggs and theirs are runny.”
Well, who was he not to be swayed by such a persuasive argument?
“Right. Lead on, babe.”
THEY AVOIDED the runny ovoids with a minute-nineteen to spare, but—Jack examined the contents of his tray while the cashier rang it up—he wasn’t so sure they’d gained much.
Mystery meat under glutinous white gravy. Green gelatin cubes. Corn bread so dry it crumbled when he lifted its plate from the service table.
Mel’s selections looked equally unappetizing.
After paying for the “food,” he threaded his way through a sea of mostly empty tables to join Melinda. Who nodded but remained silent as he offloaded his dishes and she doctored her salad with dressing packet glops.
Okay, Halloran. This was your idea, start your pitch.
“So that’s your boss?”
Good choice, buddy. As an opening gambit, it only earned him another nod.
“Does he diss everybody who works for him or just you?”
Well, that got her attention.
Mel’s head jerked up, sending her dark hair sliding back over her shoulder like a stream of chocolate syrup. “He was actually pretty civil back there,” she insisted.
Jack hardly heard her ridiculous claim. Too caught up in speculating how that shoulder would feel, naked beneath his fingertips. As silky as her hair? As smooth and creamy as the enticing curves of her back had looked?
Lifting and lowering the shoulder in question, Mel went on, “His concern is increasing our proficiency, not projecting joviality.”
“Yeah, I got that,” Jack said as he tried to cut through the breading on the mystery meat. “Your boss has the personality of pond scum.”
Mel gave him one of her high-beam smiles. “Can’t argue with you on that.”
“But why do you have to go to wherever-that-was in a few minutes instead of coming home?” He wasn’t whining, just implementing his brilliant plan to get to know the woman he’d married so he’d get over being attracted to or interested in her. Sort of like real spouses.
“After surgery, patients go to Recovery. It’s an area near the OR suites, where they’re monitored while they come out of the anesthetic.”
Jack gave up sawing on the impenetrable breading. “I watch TV,” he informed her. “What I meant was—why you?”
“Huh?”
Her soft, full lips almost distracted him from the dark circles under her eyes and the lousy food. Almost.
“Why isn’t Bowen doing the monitoring?” Jack spelled it out slowly. “Or that other guy who came out with you? Why are you the one staying late, and coincidentally the one shoving down this ghastly stuff?” His fork encompassed every item on the table. Even the iced tea tasted bitter and powdery.
“I volunteered.”
“You what?” Jack pushed aside his plate. “Come on, Melinda! Look, if it’s me…if I’m the reason you stay here night and day, just tell me what I’m doing wrong. I’m not pestering you. I’ve got the bills caught up. I’m doing my best as far as the housework goes….”
Okay, he’d been studying some, too, but that was part of the agreement. “I can do better,” he admitted. Quit napping, for one thing. Cut back on the cooking shows. And limit the old geezers to fifteen minutes when they dropped by, instead of putting on a pot of coffee and letting them yak while they snacked him out of house and home.
Man, he loved the sound of his name on her lips. He loved his lips on hers. He’d love his lips on…her.
Moron! What happened to his aversion-therapy program?
So far, it wasn’t working worth squat.
“I intend to be the best pediatric surgeon Bowen has ever trained,” Mel said quietly, but even he could hear the determination. “That means taking every opportunity to gain experience, to learn, to practice what I’ve learned.”
“How much are you learning when you’re asleep on your feet?”
Mel narrowed her eyes at him as she sat up straighter. “I’m not tired.”
Somebody else might have bought it, but Jack knew better from personal experience. “Bull-oney. You’re so exhausted you don’t even feel it anymore.”
One side of Mel’s mouth quirked up. “Oh, I feel it,” she assured him. “I just can’t pander to it.” She spread her hands palms up. “This is just part of the price you pay to be a doctor.”
Jack sat back, crossed his arms over his chest. Mostly to keep from reaching for her. Plucking her out of her seat and carrying her off someplace private—especially if it contained something, anything resembling a bed big enough for two.
“Well, it’s too high a price,” he declared.
Mel shook her head. “No, it’s not. No price is too high if I can save the lives of kids like Harry.”
Her head stilled; her eyes met his. “Jack, try to understand. My dad’s in the oil exploration business, so we moved around. A lot. Lived in towns one block long, in campers—once we spent months in a tent in the middle of nowhere, North Africa. Maybe that’s why my little brother and I were so close.” She gazed past him at something only she could see.
“Just before he turned six, Harry got…sickly. We were in a little town on the Alabama coast then. The only doctor available couldn’t figure out what was wrong.”
Jack could see she was fighting back tears; he ached to gather her into his arms. To hold her. Even his desire to help his sister past her grieving couldn’t hold a candle to how he felt about taking care of Melinda. Protecting her from all this pain and discomfort, from any hint of sorrow.
“So, didn’t your parents take him to a bigger town? Another doctor?”
A tear spilled from each of those brimming green eyes and rolled unchecked down her cheeks. “Not soon enough. And the guy was a specialist, but not in pediatrics. Children aren’t just small adults, you know. He operated on Harry, but…
“When they came out and told us he’d died on the table, I vowed then and there to do something useful with my life, so his wasn’t wasted.” Wadding up her paper napkin, Mel blotted the errant tears, then dropped it atop her barely eaten meal. “And that’s what I’m doing. That’s why I married you. Not to talk me into slacking off just as I’m about to achieve that goal.”
The woman had a great sense of timing, Jack admitted ruefully as he watched her move around the table in preparation for stalking off.
But if she expected to make such a dramatic speech and exit stage left without a peep out of him, then she bought that whole Easter Bunny thing, too.
In one move, Jack rose and stepped in front of her, leaving less than a centimeter between them. “You’re seriously mistaken, Melinda,” he purred, his hands curling around the shoulders made for them. “I’m not trying to discourage you. I’m trying to help. You need a more balanced life.”
He stared down at Melinda. They were so close, almost touching. He could feel her breath on his neck, just above his collarbone.
He’d have to plead insanity for what came next. His fingers were kneading those soft, yielding shoulders. She made a low sound in her throat as her chocolate hair swept over his hands like satin fire.
He kissed her. Down to her tonsils. Right there in the deserted hospital cafeteria.
And if her pager hadn’t gone off, he might have followed up with one of those movie moves: sweeping dishes off the table and laying her back, coming down over her….
But the pager buzzed. And either Jack let her go or Mel wrenched herself free.
Whatever, she took off like a jet-fueled dragster. Heading for the recovery room, he assumed.
Jack staggered off to recover, too. Melinda Burke might need some instruction on attaining balance in her life.
But she could give master classes on kissing. And sign me up for a few. As in, a few thousand.
Yeah, a few thousand of those kisses and he’d have Melinda right out of her clothes—
Jack shook his head to clear it. No, no kisses. No clothing removal. What he ought to be trying to get Melinda out of was his system.
Good luck, pal. There wasn’t a shower icy enough to cool down the feverish desire she generated in him.
His usual practice of loving and leaving by mutual consent had hit a road bump, Jack realized as he wandered the rabbit warren of anonymous corridors in search of one leading to the hospital’s parking garage.
Melinda was a whole new country. In her case, absence didn’t make abstinence any easier. But intercourse required interaction. And why would Mel interact with a guy who tried to jump her bones almost every time he got near her?
So now he not only had to pry her away from her damned surgery fellowship, he had to reassure her he wasn’t Jack the Ripper.
Only one sure way to accomplish that: the courtship thing.
Funny, the idea didn’t seem as unpalatable as it always had in the past. In fact, he could picture himself and Mel as a couple.
Well, he could picture them coupling….
FORGET EVERYTHING that just happened, Mel advised herself as she stormed down to Recovery. The guy was well-meaning but misguided; his advice irrelevant. And his kiss—
Whew! Jack Halloran’s kisses turned her to mush. Unfortunately, right now she was a doctor on duty, not a woman. She’d have to save the mushy business for later.
Mel flat-handed the gray metal door and walked into Postop.
One of the two nurses working there looked up from adjusting an IV drip. “You checking on Bowen’s kid?”
“Yes. How’s he doing?”
Dammit, she could practically hear Jack whispering, See? Even the nurses think of him as Bowen’s case. So why isn’t Bowen here monitoring his patient’s post-op progress?
“BP’s good and he’s breathing well.”
“Is he coming around yet?” Mel asked, crossing the room to reach the unconscious teen, taking his wrist to check his pulse. Strong and steady.
“Not that I’ve noticed,” the nurse answered as he checked another patient. “Who did the anesthetic?”
“Kronsky.”
Both nurses laughed. “Grab a magazine,” the one who’d hailed her advised. “Kronsky puts ’em under deep. Thinks she’s doing the surgeons a favor.”
Maybe she was, while they were in the operating room. But now…Mel looked at the big clock above the desk in the corner. Already after ten.
She’d be pulling her Cinderella act again. A yawn cracked her jaw. Jack was right about her putting in outrageous hours.
Not Bowen. He’s probably home by now. Asleep.
Well, maybe she could sleep in one day soon. Weekends were generally a little slower. No morning rounds on Saturday, for one thing.
In fact, Mel realized suddenly as she tucked the boy’s blanket around him, some Saturdays she didn’t see Bowen until late afternoon.
The nurse turned around. “Dr. B.’s orders for the kid are in his chart.”
“Brian,” Mel said softly, looking down at the still-unconscious boy. “His name is Brian.”
Picking up the chart, Mel flipped it open to scan the orders. No surprises. Monitor and update vitals. Report condition to family.
As she closed the chart, the nurse working the other side of the room said, “Oh! As he was leaving, Dr. Bowen said to tell you he wants someone—meaning one of you doctors, not a lowly nurse—to check the kid again at 7:00 a.m.”
Mel clenched her pager, cursing silently. “Were those his exact words?” she asked. “Have someone check on Brian tomorrow morning?”
The male RN grinned and nodded. “Uh-huh, but he didn’t use the boy’s name.”
The order-reciting nurse made a rude noise. “Because he didn’t know it,” she contributed. “Bowen never bothers with unimportant details like that.”
“What do you mean?” Mel asked, before any inopportune professional etiquette discouraging gossip about colleagues could rear its ugly head.
“Leo Bowen’s one of those old-fashioned surgeons,” explained the male nurse, whose name tag read Jesse Ordonez. “You know, the kind who don’t think of their patients as human beings.”
“Yeah, they’re just procedures to perform,” the other nurse—Mary Chan—agreed as she came over and patted Mel on the shoulder. “Bowen doesn’t remember his residents are humans, either. You have to remind him.”
Nurse Ordonez laughed. “Right, but don’t do it tomorrow. I heard he’s scheduled to play golf with some neurosurgeons. I made the mistake of paging him once when I first started here. He was on the tenth hole. Putting. I almost lost my job.” He shuddered in mock horror at the memory.
The two nurses went back to checking vital signs, joking about other doctoral quirks they’d observed over the years.
Mel stood there, looking down at Brian, the teenage skateboarder with more bravado than sense.
A sudden fury swept over her. She’d been killing herself—never letting up. Working 24/7 to keep up with her reading, to write precise, thorough and exhaustive reports, fill out the endless parade of hospital forms, do patient follow-up…while Bowen played golf!
She owed Jack an apology.
After checking Brian again, Mel went over to the wall phone, snatched up the receiver and paged ol’ Blabbermouth. She owed him something, too.
As for herself…
Jack was gonna find a little note on the coffeemaker when he came down in the morning.
The doctor would be sleeping in. Maybe even as late as six o’clock.
The sheer rebelliousness of the decision made her dizzy. Or was that fatigue? Or the lingering aftereffects of a kiss so astonishing, so incapacitating, it made an F-5 tornado feel like a soft spring breeze?
JACK RAKED HIS HAIR. Glared viciously at the clock, then back at the note.
That was the real problem with 4:30, he reflected. There was nobody else awake if you needed to vent.
Nice that Mel had seen the light after their discussion last night, but an extra hour in the sack wouldn’t give her the balanced life she needed.
Too restless to go back to bed, too sleepy for TV, Jack parked at the breakfast table.
He tried to focus on Mel’s imbalanced life and what he could do about it for her, but he could swear he heard tapping. Now what? he wondered. Aural hallucinations, or another appliance getting ready to give up the ghost?
No, that was definitely tapping. At the kitchen door.
Jack strode over and wrenched it open. Felt his jaw sag.
“Bob?”
The old man from across the street grinned apologetically. “I know. It’s too early for a social call, but…I saw your light on. ’Severything okay over here?”
“Oh, yeah. Just fine, thanks.” Jack smothered a sigh and started to close the door. When the oldster’s face fell, he reversed the motion, inviting Bob in. “Want some coffee?” he asked. Might as well shoot the breeze with the senior till it was time to rouse Mel. Better than sitting here confused, frustrated and…frustrated.
Within minutes, Bob was happily slurping coffee and accepting Jack’s offer to pop a frozen waffle in the toaster, since he’d finally learned how to not turn the rectangles into charcoal briquettes.
“Got a partiality for blueberry muffins,” geezer Bob said a minute later, while he drowned the waffle in syrup and dug in.
“I’ll make a note of that,” Jack promised dryly. “In case the repairman ever returns to fix the blankety-blank range.”
He’d swear the old man’s ears actually perked up. “Say what? Your stove still don’t work?”
Anything to break his obsession with Mel. Jack spilled the whole sorry Lenny story.
“Told you ’bout those sanctimonious service guys, didn’t I?” Bob crowed, then jabbed his fork in Jack’s direction. “Joe Donaldson’s the man you oughta call,” he said as seriously as an SEC regulator. “He retired from Big D’s Appliance World. Likes to keep his hand in. Wouldn’t charge you an arm and a leg, neither.”
Taking a small notepad and ballpoint from his shirt-pocket, ol’ Bob scribbled down a phone number, ripped off the sheet and handed it to Jack. “Joe lives a block over. He’ll be glad to come over ’n see what he can do—his wife’s always wanting him out from underfoot.”
Repocketing his writing tools, the oldster mopped up syrup with the last piece of waffle. “It ain’t easy on us old coots, just sitting around. A man likes to feel useful, ya know?”
Jack nodded absently. Yeah, he knew. He looked at the scrawled number. What the heck. If Joe wasn’t the genius Bob thought he was, Lenny could fix whatever the retiree messed up—if he ever showed up.
Meanwhile, the term “asset reallocation” floated through Jack’s head. Less time on the house equaled more time to solve the Mel-balance problem, right?
“Any of you ‘old coots’ work on pool pumps?” He’d detected the reason for the green water, but after the Lenny experience had hesitated cold-calling a phone book listing.
Ol’ Bob nodded happily. “Right next door. Preston St. Clair. Used to own a pool company. An’ if you want some help takin’ the dead limbs off that tree out front, Charlie Rodriguez’s your man.”
“Give me their numbers, too,” Jack said as he got up to refill Bob’s coffee. Was the whole neighborhood retired and hot to do odd jobs? Why didn’t they play golf? Or cruise around in RVs or whatever old people did?
Well, if they showed up and got the job done… “How much do you guys charge?” he asked. Couldn’t be more than Lenny.
“Why? You need to check this out with the little lady first?” Bob asked with a funny expression. Oh, he was eyeing the toaster.
Jack snorted as he heated another waffle. “The little lady—I mean, Mel—doesn’t care what I do or how I do it.”
“She said that?” At Jack’s nod, it was Bob’s turn to snort. “And you believed her? You are new at this, aren’t ya?”
Well, yes, he was. “So what? I’m the houseperson around here. I don’t have to ask her permission,” Jack warned the self-proclaimed old coot.
“Heck no,” Bob agreed. “But women don’t think the way we do. That’s why ya gotta be…subtle, ya know? Best way to handle ’em is to make ’em think whatever it is, it’s their idea.”
“What? Aw, come o—”
The geezer cut Jack off. “Come on yourself, son. You ever told your woman somethin’ she didn’t want to hear? Did she listen? Hell no.” He answered his own questions.
“Women’re wired different, son. So we gotta learn different ways t’deal with ’em.”
After a third waffle and the rest of the coffee, the wizened know-it-all finally went home.
Thoughtfully, Jack made a new pot of coffee.
Bob’s view of females sounded a tad outdated, but…
The direct approach to Mel and her brutal work schedule had been about as successful as fortifying cereal with baloney.
So maybe Bob had a point. Think different.
A brilliant plan leaped fully formed into Jack’s brain. A genius of a plan. He smiled at this latest proof of restored creativity. Quitting work to stay home was the smartest move he’d made in years.
“Oh! I didn’t know you were up.” Mel’s cloud-soft voice came from the doorway.
She’d tied her hair back in a ponytail, but the robe she wore dipped low enough in front to taunt him with the cleavage it revealed that it concealed. His hands ached to slo-owly push aside that soft peach material…to stroke those smooth creamy breasts…to take their weight in his palms…to rub his thumbs over Mel’s nipples and feel them grow as taut with arousal as he already was.
Jack wrenched his gaze from Melinda and looked at the clock. Just after 5:30.
“It’s too early to be up,” he said, taking a deep breath. Trying to think, not imagine. No luck. Before the oxygen reached his brain, he blurted, “Where we need to be, Mel, is back in bed.”