my mind. I’m being silly, right?”
He was still asking that question at five in the morning. He was freshly showered and dressed for the office in a button-down and striped tie. He’d eaten a grapefruit, drunk a gallon of coffee, and tried to fry an egg, but it had stuck to the nonstick pan.
“So I’m being silly. Big deal. You know what they say. Better silly than sorry. I’m just going to go over there and check things out. I’ll be cool. No one will know.”
It was black as pitch when Jake drove past Amy’s house in a camouflaging cloud of his own exhaust. The van was still parked across the street, and the little Cape Cod house was ominously dark. Jake swore softly and continued on.
He parked around the corner and crept through a neighboring yard. He climbed Amy’s split-rail fence and sprinted across her back lawn. Now what? He tried windows. If he found any of them open, he was going to throttle her. Okay, all windows secure. Patio door locked with jimmy bar. He tiptoed up the stairs to her deck. Deck door locked with jimmy bar. Good. Motley looked at him from the other side of the sliding door and meowed. Jake tapped on the window to the cat.
“Kitty, kitty, kitty,” he said. Motley continued to howl. Jake saw a light flash on in the hall and a dark figure shuffle out of the shadows.
Amy scratched her head with both hands, yawned, and stretched. “Motley, you’re going to wake up the whole neighborhood. How can anybody sleep with this racket going … Ehhhhhh!” she screamed. There was someone on her porch! He was awful. Huge and crazy looking and … It was Jake.
She slumped against the wall and put her hand over her heart. “It’s the big one,” she said. “Heart attack city.” She opened the sliding door and pulled Jake inside. “What the devil are you doing out there? You scared me half to death.”
“I … um, I came for breakfast. I tried to make an egg, but it stuck to the pan.”
Amy cocked an eye at him. “Breakfast? Are you kidding me?”
“Okay, so I was worried. And lonely.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets and grinned his most endearing grin. “And hungry.”
Hungry she could believe. He was looking at her as if she were the last jelly doughnut in the world. “Jake, the sun will be coming up in half an hour. How are you going to get out of here?”
“Simple. Once you leave, they’ll leave. Then I leave.”
“And you want to waste time having breakfast?”
Jake removed his tie and followed her into the bedroom. What a strumpet, he thought happily. She wore a pale-pink-satin shirt-type nightgown that was rolled at the elbow and slit up the side with matching panties under the shirt. The sort with wide flared legs, like shorts. The sort you could reach your hand into with no trouble at all. The sort you’d strain your eyeballs trying to get a peek into.
He quickly stripped and slid between sheets that were still warm from her body and subtly fragrant with perfume and shampoo. Amy straddled him, resting her silky bottom on his thighs. She slowly unbuttoned her shirt, letting it hang loose while she leaned forward to kiss him. He reached for her and she retreated, laughing.
“Tease,” he said huskily.
“You ain’t seen nothing, yet.”
They lay together for a long time afterward in silent affection. Amy was the first to speak. “I’m going to be late for work,” she said softly.
“Maybe your boss will give you the day off.”
She sat up and stretched luxuriously. “I don’t think so. He’s a terrible slavedriver. Work, work, work.”
Jake slapped at her bare bottom, but missed, as she headed for the shower. “Do I get to share a shower with you?”
“Definitely not. I know about your showers. You can use the upstairs bathroom.” She washed quickly, towel-dried her hair, and shook her head to fluff her curls. She decided on black cotton slacks and a bright yellow knit shirt, dusted a hint of blush on her cheekbones, and swiped at her eyelashes with the mascara wand.
“Perfect,” she said to her reflection in the bedroom mirror. “The guys in the van couldn’t possibly miss this shirt.”
She had coffee brewed and an omelet browned to perfection when Jake entered the kitchen. They sat opposite each other at the little table.
Jake cleared his throat and tapped his fork on his coffee mug to the tune of “Yankee