Wounded Angel (The Earth Angels) - By Stacy Gail Page 0,4
to me. As I recall, it didn’t do this last year.”
“Sorry cupcake, but whatever the weather did last year doesn’t mean shit around here. Real Chicagoans have seen it sleet in May and they don’t give it a thought. They’ll cuss it, but that’s about it.” She leaned over to see what Ella was working on and tapped a stubby finger at a column. “You forgot to put yourself down for that hour-long consult you did last Saturday.”
“I didn’t work last Saturday.”
“In my book you did. Remember the whiny princess who wanted to know what all the machinery was for, how it was used, and why was it so difficult to operate, and should she actually be sweating?”
Ella couldn’t stop the eye roll if her life depended on it. “Oh, her. That didn’t take an hour, it only felt like it. And it wasn’t an official consult, I just chatted with her for a spell.”
“You got her to sign up for a yearly membership, so that’s working as far as I’m concerned. And Ella, nobody north of Nebraska uses the term spell, unless they’re having a discussion about who’s stronger, Harry or You-Know-Who.” Phoebe waggled a finger at her. “Remember, kid—it’s not just the accent you want to focus on changing, it’s the colloquialisms. I hear about you chatting for a spell, and suddenly my head’s filled with banjo music.”
Yikes. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, just be smart. You’re a Chicagoan now, so don’t forget it. And speaking of which, did you see the Cubbies’ final game of the preseason last night? Do you think they’re ready to kick some serious ass this season?”
Ella winced. Two boo-boos in one conversation was not the way to start the day. “Um, Phoebe? Does it matter that I don’t particularly like baseball?”
“The old you didn’t like baseball. The new you does. Things like that make all the difference in the world.” With a stern look, Phoebe headed toward her office hidden behind the mirrored wall that faced the lobby. “You have twenty-four hours to tell me what happened in the game last night.”
“Can I get away with saying the Cubs either won or lost and leave it at that?”
“Nope. I want a moment-by-moment account of the last play of the game, and if it’s done right—and you can prove you understand it all—I’ll give you an afternoon off.”
Great. Homework. “I’m on it.”
While surfing the web for results of the Cubs game, Ella found her attention slipping again and again to the clock in the monitor’s lower right-hand corner. Almost eight. Any minute now her newest client, Nate da Luca, would be walking through the front doors, and she was as nervous as a girl going on her first date.
Which was, of course, completely ridiculous.
What was even more ridiculous was her sleepless night. Hour after hour had been lost to thoughts—she flat-out refused to call them fantasies—about how best to train a man who was obviously in great shape and would need very little instruction from her. For crying out loud, he was built like a frigging fertility god from the Pantheon of the Overly Muscular. He had shoulders so broad she suspected she could sit on one of them comfortably, and arms that looked like he wrestled rabid bears for a living. The last thing she would have expected was that someone carrying that much muscle was shooting to be a long-distance runner. Just to look at him made her think it could never happen, but it also didn’t come as a surprise that he was the type to set his sights on impossible challenges. There was something about him that made her think there was nothing he wouldn’t tackle.
Just as long as he didn’t try to tackle her, everything would be peachy.
She shook her head, and had to stifle a disgusted huff at the self-centered thought. Had it been so long since she’d interacted with an attractive man that her hormone-infused brain pounced on the notion that he would even want to get physical with her? And if that wasn’t crazy enough, she couldn’t help but be stunned that thoughts of some rough hanky-panky with a stranger didn’t leave her cold. First came her awareness of him, and now ideas about tackling. The not-threatening but definitely full-body contact sort that wound up with kisses and tickling...
Oh, boy. Tackling and tickling? She was losing it.
It was Nate’s fault, really. The cork on her dormant feminine hormones popped the moment he started gushing out all that