Indecent Suggestion - By Elizabeth Bevarly Page 0,75

Becca would have an excuse to blow off work next week and spend it together in bed.

Naked, save for the square-cut, one-carat, filigreed-set diamond on her left ring finger.

Tonight, he thought. He would pop the question tonight. First he’d cook for her. Steaks, since he did those better than anyone in Indianapolis. Filet mignon, yeah. And he had a really nice bottle of pinot noir he’d been hoarding for a while now, waiting for a special occasion. What could be more special than asking the woman you loved to join her life to yours forever and ever and ever?

Man, he’d turned into a romantic sap over the last month, he thought, his smile feeling goofy as it curled his lips. And damned if he wasn’t enjoying every minute of it.

Still thinking about Becca and the way she looked and sounded and smelled, and the way she was going to light up all over when she saw the ring, he almost didn’t hear the feminine cries of “Turner! Oh, Turner! Hello! Turner!” until he had almost stumbled right over a slender woman in a gray wool coat, with a black beret perched atop her head.

It took him a moment to identify her, so wrapped up was he in his thoughts of—and plans for—Becca. But eventually, the woman’s face registered in his muddled brain and he recognized her as the Amazing Dorcaso…uh, he meant Dorcas Upton, of course. The hypnotherapist he and Becca had seen weeks earlier.

“Oh, hi,” he said as he reached out a hand to steady her. “Dorcas, right? How are you doing?”

“I was just going to ask you the same question,” she told him.

She met Turner’s gaze levelly and smiled what he could only call a “knowing” smile. What she might know that he didn’t, however, he couldn’t have said.

“How are you and Becca doing?” she asked.

He shrugged philosophically. “Actually, Dorcas, I have to be honest with you. The session Becca and I had with you didn’t work for us at all.”

The hypnotherapist’s smile fell. “Oh, dear. The two of you still aren’t making love?”

“Oh, we’re making love,” he said enthusiastically, without thinking. “All the time, in fact. We just never quit smoking.” Then the gist of her question hit him, and he frowned. “Wait a minute. Why did you ask me that? That was a really personal question.”

She eyed him with confusion. “Turner, why did you and your wife make an appointment with me?”

“Becca’s not my wife,” he said, feeling even more puzzled. Well, not yet, anyway, he added to himself. But he didn’t want to break the news to anyone just yet. In spite of the humongous strides forward his relationship with Becca had made, the two of them would probably need some time to get used to the idea of being married themselves before revealing their intentions to anyone else.

Now Dorcas eyed him with something akin to horror, and Turner grew downright bewildered. He was about to ask her if there was something wrong, but she spoke again before he could put voice to the question, asking him a question of her own. But it didn’t make any more sense than the one about Becca being his wife did.

“Turner, what’s your last name?”

She should already know that, he thought. And even if she didn’t remember it, what difference did it make now? In spite of his confusion, however, he told her, “McCloud. Why?”

“And Becca’s last name?” she asked without answering.

“Mercer.”

The color went right out of Dorcas’s face then, and her eyes fluttered closed and stayed that way for a moment. Turner honestly feared she was about to faint, and was relieved when she opened her eyes again. But her color was still off, as if she were becoming gravely ill about something.

“And why did the two of you make an appointment with me?” she asked again.

Oh, now, she really ought to know that, he thought. It couldn’t have been more than a month ago that he and Becca had gone to see her. If she recognized him in a crowded street and remembered his first name, she should certainly recall the circumstances of their initial meeting.

“To quit smoking,” he told her.

Her mouth fell open, but no words emerged.

Turner’s puzzlement turned into something else then, something he didn’t want to put a name to, but something that felt very much like fear. “Why are you asking me this stuff?” he asked. “What the hell is going on?”

Instead of answering him, though, she only muttered, very softly, “Oh,