Wife for Hire - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,8
less complicated that way. Today she seemed to be reading sexual overtures into every move Hank Mallone made. It was because he excited her, she decided. Virility fairly spilled out of him. Even in his wet, bedraggled state he was sex incarnate.
He backed out of her room, feeling like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, knowing he had a silly, embarrassed smile plastered across his mouth. “I’ll get your suitcases from the back of the truck,” he said. “I’ll put them in your room.”
Elsie’s voice carried up from the foyer. “Well, what the devil is this? For goodness sakes, it’s a cat. What are you doing locked up in this cage? Looks to me like somebody forgot to let you out.”
Hank wheeled around at the sound of the latch being released. “Elsie, don’t let the cat out while Horatio’s in the house!”
“Don’t Horatio like cats?” Elsie called up the stairs.
“I don’t know!”
“Too late,” Elsie said. “The cat’s already out, and it don’t look too happy about things.”
There was a loud woof, followed by the sound of dog toenails looking for traction on the kitchen floor.
“Fluffy!” Maggie shouted, pushing past Hank to get to the stairs. “Poor Fluffy!”
The cat raced through the living room, into the dining room, and up the summer sheers on the bay window. It clung there with eyes as big as saucers, its tail bristled out like a bottle brush.
Hank, Maggie, and Horatio all reached the cat at the same time. Horatio took a snap at the tail. The cat hissed at the dog, catapulted itself onto Hank’s chest and dug in.
“Yeow! Damn,” Hank yelled. “Somebody do something!”
“It’s the dog,” Maggie said, trying to get between Hank and Horatio. “Fluffy’s afraid of your dog.”
Elsie snatched a piece of fried chicken from the refrigerator and threw it at Horatio. The dog thought about it for half a second and abandoned the cat for the chicken leg.
“Just look at this kitchen floor,” Elsie said. “I just waxed it, and now it’s full of scratch marks. I swear sometimes it doesn’t pay to put yourself out.”
Maggie was whispering soothing words to Fluffy, as one by one she pried the cat’s claws out of Hank’s chest. “I’m really sorry,” she said to Hank. “Fluffy’s never done anything like this before.”
“It’s had rabies shots, right?”
“Of course. She’s had all her shots. I take good care of Fluffy.” She removed the last claw and cuddled the cat. “I thought you said Horatio doesn’t chase cats.”
“I said I didn’t know about him chasing any cats. Besides, Fluffy probably provoked him.” Hank unbuttoned his shirt to examine the claw marks in his chest. “You ever check that cat’s lineage? You ever find the name Cujo on the family tree?”
“Cujo was a dog.”
“Technicality.”
Maggie looked at the red welts rising over his hard, smooth muscles and felt a wave of nausea pass through her. His beautiful chest looked like a dart board, and it was her fault. She’d forgotten all about Fluffy, sitting not so patiently in the cat carrier. If she’d remembered to take Fluffy upstairs with her, this never would have happened. “Does it hurt?”
“Terribly. It’s a good thing I’m so big and strong and brave.”
“I’ll keep Fluffy in my room for a couple days until she acclimates.”
An hour later Maggie was sitting in the kitchen making her way through a mound of potato salad when Hank sauntered in fresh from his shower.
“How’s your chest?”
“Good as new.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He grinned at her. “Would you believe almost as good as new?” He took a plate of chicken from the refrigerator and dropped into a chair. “The rain is letting up.”
“I hope it doesn’t stop entirely. I love to fall asleep to the sound of rain on the roof.”
“I like it best when it snows,” he said. “The master bedroom is in the northeast corner and takes the brunt of the winter storms. When there’s a blizzard, the wind drives the snow against the window with a tick, tick, tick sound. I always lie there and feel like a kid again, knowing the snow is piling up, school will be closed, and I’ll be able to go out sledding all the next day.”
“And do you still go out sledding?”
He laughed. “Of course.”
It occurred to Maggie that she’d never sat across a kitchen table and shared small talk with a man whose hair was still damp. It was nice, she thought. It was one of those little rituals that was woven into the