the front of her body toward him, legs brushing his pants. Uh-huh, still looking like he’d just come from a high-class wheeler-dealer meeting, except for his hair. Now the salt-and-pepper locks had tumbled all over themselves, slouching over his forehead.
What a cutie pie.
He ordered a shot of tequila from the bartender while talking loudly over the music. “No peace for the wicked.”
Didn’t she know it. “Rest isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
He glanced at her, ran his gaze over her body, leaving a shimmer of heat over Jinni’s limbs. God bless Val and Estelle for letting her loose tonight.
Definitely a wonderful way to pass the time in Rumor. She liked fire in a man. In fact, she couldn’t get over the way he’d hunkered into his fancy car today, shooting a burning glare at her….
Wait. Mercedes-Benz. Snazzy threads.
Did this guy have a life worth writing about?
As his brilliant-blue gaze traveled back up from her breasts to her face, Jinni batted her eyelashes at him, smiling.
He merely looked away, then threw down his shot of tequila.
Hello? The eyelash trick always worked. And, actually, it had been the prelude to more than a few marriage proposals. What was this guy…immune?
And was it possible that he didn’t recognize her? No. Unthinkable. Jinni Fairchild did not go unnoticed.
Not before, anyway.
She “hmphed” and absently stuck the end of the cigarette in her mouth, reaching for her purse.
Suddenly, the item was snatched from her lips. The next thing she knew, she was watching the man snap her death stick in two with one hand.
“Hey,” she said, about to give him a piece of her mind. What nerve. What cheek. What…hands.
Oooo. Long, tapered fingers. Large and able. Hands—one of a man’s many admirable features.
He tossed the remnants of the cigarette onto the bar, ordered another tequila, then offered one of those hands to Jinni. “Max Cantrell,” he said.
The name sounded familiar. Cantrell.
Before she could say a word, he was talking. “Sorry about that, but I can’t stand the sight of those things. My son was caught smoking in my brother’s abandoned house, and every time I see someone about to light up I go ballistic.”
Jinni settled in her chair, nodding, interested to see when he would recognize her. In the meantime, she’d get a little flirting in.
Max continued, running a hand through his hair. “Damn. Michael, he’s my son, you know, has been driving me to distraction lately. We can’t talk without butting heads. It might help if he were a normal teenager, but he’s smart. Incredibly smart. And it carries over to his mouth. I’ve been thinking he’s from another planet, we’re so different. Planet Attitude. Yeah, that’s where he’s from. And I don’t speak the language or understand the customs.”
Resting her chin in the palm of a hand, Jinni continued taking it all in. This guy really needed a shoulder to cry on, and that’s what she was best at. Maybe there was a biography in this, a Horatio Alger rags-to-riches story coupled with the struggles of an all-American father.
Gulp. If he was a father, then…
She looked. No wedding ring. Curious.
“Doesn’t your wife help you out?” she asked.
Max narrowed his eyes. “Ex-wife.”
“Hmm.” Score one for Jinni.
“What do you think?” He leaned on the bar, his ruffled hair making her want to cuddle him, press him to her shoulder, her chest….
Oh, baby. Come to Mama.
Jinni tilted her head, widened her eyes. “What do I think about your son?”
“Yeah. No. I shouldn’t be mouthing off like this. You’re a total stranger, but—”
“Sometimes strangers can offer the best perspective.”
He nodded. Max Cantrell really had no idea who she was. She’d lost her je ne sais quoi for certain.
Sighing, she said, “I’m not exactly an expert on boys. Never even baby-sat a day in my life.”
Scratch that. She was a master if there ever was one. Jinni Fairchild had a great deal of experience with teenage boys. Just not recently.
“Actually,” she said. “I do know a lot about males.”
He looked her up and down again. “I’m sure.”
Flirt away, big boy, she thought.
Responding by instinct, she wound a lock of her platinum hair around a finger, toying with him. “I’ve always had an innate curiosity about guys. I mean, let’s face it, every girl wants to know what goes on in the locker rooms.”
He watched her work the hair. “Michael’s not into sports.”
“Good thing, because jocks are plain wacky, let me tell you. When I was in high school—I went to this very conservative prep school, but we had a highly esteemed football team, you see—I was puttering around the halls one day after classes when a lineman asked what I was up to. Well, before I could open my mouth, he’d tossed me over his beefy shoulder and was carrying me toward the locker room.”
She couldn’t stop herself, even if Max was staring at her with that disbelieving expression from the parking lot again.
“I gave a few token ‘put me downs’ but it was too late. He’d set me on my feet right in the middle of the showers. Now, I wasn’t sure what to think, and neither did those poor, jock-strapped boys. We just gaped at each other for a minute, gulping air and wondering how to communicate, almost like one of those science fiction movies where two alien civilizations meet and they don’t know what to do with each other. But finally I just sat myself down on a bench and said, ‘Continue,’ and they all laughed, going about their business.”
Max was, by now, shaking his head.
Jinni smiled, unsure of herself now that the story had unspooled from her mouth in such a fantastic manner.
She added, “They let me sneak in a few more times, so, really, I know my boys.”
“Incredible,” said Max, echoing his sentiment from today’s confrontation. He stared at her as if she’d ridden down from the ceiling on the curve of a showgirl’s moon, a combination of disbelief and disdain in his gaze. With a shake of his head, he belted down his tequila.
That’s when Jinni knew that he recognized her.
And she wasn’t sure it was a good thing.
Chapter Three
He’d bellied up to the wrong seat at the bar and poured out his soul to a weirdo.
Sure, she was beautiful in her body-hugging black dress while her hair—as fluid as fine, pale wine—tumbled over her shoulders, and her blue eyes bored into him, fringed by those sooty, batting lashes.
If he’d thought she was gorgeous this afternoon, when he’d wanted to rear-end her car out of pure frustration, he was wrong. Jinni Fairchild was exceptional, statuesque as a goddess.
Goddess? Man, he’d had too much tequila.
“I think it’s time for me to go,” he said, moving to get off the stool.
“Wonderful idea,” she said, latching on to his arm. “That pool room is quiet, I’ll bet.”
Her touch sizzled into his skin, even through his button-down shirt. He hadn’t been this attracted to a woman in… Damn. Forever.
Suddenly,