No More Mr. Nice - By Renee Roszel Page 0,31

the great and powerful wizard of ROMs or RAMs or megawhatevers. He was simply a man helplessly out of his element in a world of women’s lace and frills. Kind of cute…

Worriedly, she shook off her unexpected softening. “It’s either lie about a sale, or have four fourteen-year-old girls believing you bought them sexy underwear because you think they’re sexy, date material. Is that what you want from pubescent females who’re already calling you a hot babe?”

“Hell, that’s the last thing I need,” he groused. “Tell them they were free, if you want.”

She shrugged. “A fifty-percent-off sale will do.”

He leaned a hip against the table. “What in hell would make them think of me as a hot babe? I’ve hardly even spoken to them.”

Her smile faded. “Don’t be coy, Lucas,” she retorted, feeling irked. “You know you’re handsome. You’re rich. And acting brooding and silent makes you seem mysterious. The combination of good looks, money and mystery is hard to resist—at any age.” She bit her tongue. What had made her add that last part? She’d have given anything to take the words back, and was horrified to see the amusement that flickered in his dark eyes.

“Why, thank you, Jess.” His grin was as taunting as his tone.

Darn him. Somehow, he’d gotten the misguided notion that she was intrigued by him! Egomaniac! She stiffened, and spun away, grumbling “Give me strength.”

DARKNESS HAD FALLEN and it was chilly. The teens, bundled in parkas, were divided into two teams of five kids. Each team member was armed with a gunnysack.

“Okay, folks,” Jess said, “Howie and Reba will chase the snipes with team one, and Mr. Niceguy and I will do it with team two. Whichever team catches the most snipes in their gunnysacks by midnight, gets a prize.

Howie and Reba, carrying sticks about two feet long, recently cut from a nearby scrub oak, set off to lead their crew to a remote section of Lucas’s wooded property. Lucas and Jess were similarly equipped, ready to lead their group in another direction.

“When we get back at midnight, Bertha and Bernie will have a snack ready for us, and we’ll award the prize to the winning team.” Jess grinned. “And don’t try to find out what the prize is, or you forfeit it to the other team.”

The kids on these retreats were always excited—too excited to sleep on their first night. So, they got to go on a “snipe hunt.” Little did they know it was all a joke—that there were no such fuzzy little animals as snipes. Several kinds of long-billed sandpipers called snipes inhabited marshy areas of Eurasia and North America, but none of those birds resided anywhere near Oklahoma City. The boys and girls, however, didn’t know that. And the game had always served as a fun icebreaker, giving everybody a laugh.

Lucas, however, wasn’t laughing. When the teenagers were out of earshot, he rumbled under his breath, “So, you and I are supposed to leave these kids in the woods for two hours, alone?

She nodded, swishing her stick at the fallen leaves. “You can run back to the house and play with your hand again, if you want to. I’ll hang around and keep an eye on them.”

“Don’t you think this little prank is cruel? I mean, it’s cold out here.”

She shushed him with a finger to her lips. “They’ll get a good laugh out of it, and any embarrassment will be salved by Bertha’s pecan pie. Both have been a staple of these retreats for five years, and they’ve always been a hit.”

Lucas shrugged. “I won’t argue with an armed woman.”

He wasn’t all that easy to see beneath the canopy of branches, though many of the trees had lost most of their leaves. Still, the autumn three-quarter moon was bright enough for Jess to detect his expression of displeasure.

“Okay, team,” she enthused. “Remember the snipe mating-call sounds like the chattering noise we practiced. You know, putting your tongue against the back of your front teeth and sucking as you pull your tongue away—like this.” She demonstrated, making a noise that sounded like, thit-thit-thit.

Annie Smith tried it. Then Suzy Clark joined in. Moses Booker laughed at the girls. “Oh, man, scope out the tongue action on these babes.”

“Yeah?” quipped Annie, with a reproving look. “Well, you’d better scope it out, ’cause that’s as close as you’re gonna get to my tongue.”

Jess laughed. “Okay, let’s hear your snipe call, Moses.”

“Yeah. Let’s hear it,” Annie said with a smirk. “Mr. Tongue Action.”

“Come on,