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Her pale blue eyes darkened slightly. The fringe of dark, sultry lashes and the brash, upward jut of her chin reminded him she was no longer a child. Little Julie Beth wasn’t so little anymore.
Seeing her standing there like that, her face tilted as if inviting him to partake in the kiss he’d coveted earlier, he blurted the first words that came to his mind. ‘‘My birthday’s tomorrow.’’
Those dark lashes widened almost imperceptibly, alerting him that his remark had surprised her as much as himself. And then her freckle-spattered face was covered with a broad, uncensored smile. Standing on tiptoe, the ukulele dangling at her side, she whispered, ‘‘Happy birthday!’’ and touched her soft lips to his.
Forgetting about adhering to workplace procedures or saving social pursuits until the appointed break time, Hunter returned the kiss and felt himself respond in a way that was decidedly unprofessional. Not to mention painful.
It was as if she had locked up his brain and handed the key to his mutinous body. He pulled her to him, seeking release in the sweet sensation of her touch, but that only served to fan the flames even higher. And when she lifted her arms to encircle his neck, he didn’t even care that she banged the ukulele against his rump.
Her mouth, which he remembered as being full of sass and mischief, was now sweetly compliant as he explored her tender lips with his own. Her strawberry-flavored lipstick teased his senses, making him hunger for more. The soft curve of her breasts pressed against his chest, and Hunter damned the suit jacket he was wearing for adding an extra layer between them.
It was seconds—or maybe minutes, or even days—later when he reluctantly lifted his head to end the kiss. Julie Beth exhaled deeply and dragged her arms from around his neck. Her motions were slow, almost as if she were drugged.
‘‘Hear, hear!’’ said Len in an appreciative tone. The rest of the staff signaled their agreement with cheers and thunderous applause.
Hunter swallowed. He didn’t regret what he’d done, but he hoped Julie Beth wasn’t embarrassed by the attention. His gaze still fixed on the delicate features of her face, he sought to lighten the mood and, at the same time, cut an escape hatch for himself.
He asked his partner, ‘‘What’s today’s date?’’
‘‘April first,’’ the old guy said.
Julie Beth narrowed her eyes at him as she caught on to what was happening.
‘‘April fool,’’ he told her with a teasing grin. ‘‘Tomorrow’s not my birthday.’’
She tucked the ukulele under her arm and maneuvered past him. ‘‘I know.’’ Shooting him a wink over her shoulder as she headed down the hall toward the elevator, her skirt swaying in a devilish salute, she added, ‘‘Your birthday is in August.’’
‘‘I think Anna is seeing someone.’’
If it were anyone other than his brother making this outrageous statement, Hunter would laugh and tell him to get a hobby and stop letting his imagination run amok. As a judge and a pillar of the community, however, Peter Matthews was not prone to creating fanciful tales.
‘‘She’s been slipping out at odd times of the day and night, and she refuses to tell me where she’s going.’’ Peter’s face tightened in pain. He stabbed at the chicken with his fork. ‘‘And yesterday, when I looked in her tote bag for a pen, I found some racy lingerie.’’
Hunter’s sister-in-law had been a devoted wife and mother during her eighteen years of marriage. As much as Hunter tried, he couldn’t imagine her hurting Peter like this. Not intentionally, anyway. ‘‘There must be a reasonable explanation for her behavior.’’
‘‘Things haven’t been well between us for a while.’’ Peter met his eyes and then looked away. ‘‘I want you to follow my wife. Find out what she’s been up to. It’s important that we keep this unpleasantness out of the media.’’ He leaned forward and lowered his voice as if to emphasize the importance of what he was about to say. ‘‘With the reappointment coming up, I can’t afford a messy scandal.’’
Hunter set his napkin on the table. He had no wish to get in the middle of their marital difficulties, but an impartial third party might be able to help them. ‘‘You don’t need an investigator,’’ he said gently, ‘‘but a good counselor could probably help.’’
Peter clenched his jaw. ‘‘I already suggested that to Anna. She wouldn’t go.’’
‘‘Did you offer to go with her?’’ He immediately answered his own question. ‘‘What am I thinking? Of course not.’’ Despite the fact that Hunter had always admired his high-achieving older brother, he recognized that Peter often had difficulty believing he could ever be less than one hundred percent right. Perhaps that’s what had led him to become a civil court judge. It allowed him to have the final say on most of the cases that came through his courtroom.
Peter’s high-handed attitude softened for a brief moment, long enough to make Hunter realize that his brother was deeply concerned. ‘‘We have two teenage sons who need their mother.’’
If Hunter hadn’t already been swayed by Peter’s worried expression, mention of the boys would have been enough to make him agree to take the case. ‘‘After all you’ve taught me about collecting airtight evidence for my clients, I suppose I owe you a favor in return.’’
The smile of relief that greeted his response was clearly heartfelt. Hunter didn’t like what he was about to become involved in, but it would be worth the sacrifice if the results of his investigation provided a healing salve for his brother’s marriage.
Hunter left the restaurant and walked the long way back to the office. He told himself it was because he needed the extra time to think about his brother’s situation, but the decision had more to do with the fact that the Merry Messengers telegram shop lay along this route.
Curiosity was his motive, he told himself as he walked past the bagel shop and an independent bookstore. As he approached Merry Messengers, he slowed his pace and casually glanced in the window to see if Julie Beth might be there, waiting to deliver her next kiss-o-gram. As for what he would do if he should happen to see her, he hadn’t thought that far ahead.
Holding a hand to his forehead to shade his eyes, he squinted into the dark store. A middle-aged woman behind the counter smiled and waved him in.
It wasn’t Julie Beth. He took her invitation anyway, and once inside, glanced around the small shop.
Real and silk flowers adorned a shelf near the counter, and on the back wall sat ceramic figures and plaques with cute sayings. A spinner rack near a door marked Employees Only offered an assortment of greeting cards, a few of the less attractive ones gone yellow with age.
Still no sign of Julie Beth. He turned to leave, but the proprietress would have none of that.
‘‘How may I help you today?’’ The woman spoke in an overly perky tone, as though she felt the need to demonstrate the enthusiasm with which their telegrams would be delivered. ‘‘We’re having a special on birthday-grams this month.’’
‘‘Uh, no, I don’t think so. I was just looking for someone who was at my office earlier today.’’ He glanced around for a sign of the miniskirted imp who’d kissed him this morning. ‘‘But Julie Beth’s apparently out on a delivery.’’
The woman did a spaniel impersonation and cocked her head. ‘‘Julie Beth?’’
‘‘Julie Fasano. She’s about so tall.’’ He held his hand at shoulder level. Maybe the size of the shop was deceptive, and the lady had employed so many merry messengers that she couldn’t keep track of them all. His guess was confirmed when someone came into the building from a back entrance and made a small commotion beyond the Employees Only door.
He continued his description. ‘‘Long dark hair, petite figure,’’ he said, emphasizing the latter with a wavy motion of his hands, ‘‘and short leather skirt. Really great legs…and an even better kisser,’’ he added with enthusiasm. ‘‘Oh, and she wears strawberry-flavored lipstick.’’
The woman’s perky demeanor vanished. ‘‘You were the, er, birthday boy?’’
‘‘No, actually, I was just a bystander who happened to get lucky.’’
Her tone fairly bristled now. ‘‘I’m afraid I can’t help you with your search.’’
‘‘But you must know her.’’ How could anyone meet Julie Beth and not recall her exuberant spirit and playful attitude? ‘‘She was the one who delivered a kiss-o-gram to the Oltmeier-Matthews Agency this morning. Perhaps you could check your receipts. It’s bound to be in there.’’
‘‘There’s no need for that,’’ she said, her voice curt and cold. ‘‘Merry Messengers is a respectable business. We don’t deliver…kiss-o-grams.’’ If a person could sneer her words, that’s exactly what she did. ‘‘And we don’t encourage fraternizing between our employees and the clients. I’m afraid you’ll have to find some other way to enlarge your social circle.’’
She stepped out from behind the counter as if to escort him to the door, but he moved to one side to gain an opportunity to set straight her misperception. ‘‘No, it wasn’t like that at all. You see, it was only a birthday song and greeting card, followed by a little peck on the birthday boy’s cheek…sort of a congratulations kiss.’’
The woman folded her arms across her chest. ‘‘I’m going to ask you to leave now.’’
He didn’t need a two-by-four over his head to get the message. It had been a stupid idea to come by here and an even stupider idea to try to reconnect with his former neighbor. If he really wanted to find her, it would be a simple matter to look her up through other methods. After all, he was a private investigator.
But he convinced himself it was best they hadn’t reconnected. As a kid following her wacky impulses, Julie Beth had driven him crazy. He consoled himself about the aborted search with a mental reminder that, despite the passage of years, she probably hadn’t changed much in that regard.
Julie waited until the bell jangled over the main door to signal Hunter’s departure before she eased into the front room. She hadn’t intended to eavesdrop on their conversation, but the familiarity of the customer’s strong masculine voice had captured her attention, and when he’d spoken her name, she’d been hooked. Julie couldn’t help smiling as she remembered what he’d said about her legs.
The look on Mrs. Quarles’s face melted the happy expression from her own. She was really in for it this time.
‘‘First there’s the ongoing matter of your attire,’’ her supervisor said. She gestured toward the door Hunter had left through, indicating the matter he had brought to her attention. ‘‘And now this.’’
‘‘I can explain….’’
‘‘Will it be as imaginative as your excuse for stopping traffic on Main Street by swinging like Tarzan from the stoplight to deliver a rush-hour proposalgram?’’
Julie thought she had made it clear why she’d donned the silly costume and stopped traffic for the occasion, but she explained once again. ‘‘The client’s girlfriend works at the zoo. It seemed the logical thing to do.’’
‘‘So you said. And then there was that incident of the adoption-gram on horseback on the courthouse lawn.’’
‘‘The little girl loves horses. The adoptive parents wanted to celebrate the event with something fun that the child would remember.’’ Her supervisor wasn’t any more impressed with her reasons today than she’d been shortly after they had occurred. Julie wrung her hands.
‘‘You can still see hoofprints in the rose beds.’’
‘‘They say rose petals are very tasty, so you can’t really blame the poor horse for wanting to sample them.’’
‘‘Those weren’t the only unscripted performances you’ve given,’’ Mrs. Quarles said, ‘‘but kissing the clients will certainly be your last.’’
‘‘The way he told it sounds worse than it was,’’ she began. Her boss seemed cynical, but Julie gave it her best shot. ‘‘You see, I’m actually doing serious research on the subject of kissing, so I don’t wind up with a dud of a dude. So I got this spiral notebook and numbered the lines from one to a hundred and drew columns for the date, the name of the kissee and where it took place.’’ She paused. ‘‘Do you want to see it?’’
‘‘Absolutely not.’’
‘‘Anyway, I’ve got something like forty-seven names in my book now. Most of them—especially the ones I got while delivering my singing telegrams—were just little dry ones on the cheek. I don’t really know how that would tell me anything about the guy, but I suppose they all count.’’
‘‘I’ve heard all I need to know about this.’’
‘‘But wait, I haven’t finished. The scoring column is where it gets difficult. People with B.O. get the lowest rating…thank goodness I haven’t run across that yet. The highest score is a ‘Zinger.’ Only one has come close to that.’’ With an uncharacteristic display of prudence, she decided not to volunteer that Hunter had been the one to earn that particular honor.
‘‘You may pack up your belongings, Miss Fasano. Merry Messengers won’t be requiring your services any longer.’’
Chapter Two
Then there’s the matter of expediency. Sometimes one of the partners in a kissing couple is a bit more…hesitant, shall we say?…than the other. Hesitation does not necessarily signify reluctance, but it sure can add to the frustration level.
Back at Oltmeier-Matthews, the receptionist got up to lead her to Hunter Matthews’s office.
‘‘Please don’t bother,’’ said Julie. ‘‘I want to surprise him.’’
With the ukulele strap slung over one shoulder and her purse over the other, she headed down the right corridor past a glassed-in meeting room toward the man who had wrecked her carefully laid plans.
The secretary’s desk outside his office sat vacant. Except for the fact that it was devoid of papers and folders, she might have assumed that the employee had stepped away momentarily. A deep voice floated to her from the inner office—a voice that only hours ago had set her heart aflutter, but now filled her with an urge to use her ukulele as a weapon over his head.
‘‘Yeah, Pete, I told you I’d look into it. Don’t worry, I’ll make it a priority. But I still think you’re making a mountain out of a molehill.’’
Taking the musical instrument in hand, Julie pushed the office door open, stepped inside and pointed the neck of the ukulele at him.
‘‘You used to be like a big brother to me,’’ she announced. Well, not really like a brother, but she wasn’t about to admit that she’d once had a long-term teenybopper crush on him. ‘‘Is that any way to treat family?’’
‘‘Pete, I’ll have to call you back.’’ Hunter hung up the phone and rose from his chair. Then he untwisted the coiled cord and moved the phone an inch so that it was exactly catercorner to the edge of his desk. ‘‘Two singing telegrams in one day? What’s the occasion this time?’’
‘‘I’m not delivering a telegram. In fact, thanks to you, that part of my life is now history.’’ Standing across the room from him as she was, Julie thought it prudent to raise her voice so she could be heard. But given her frustration level at the moment, her raised voice quickly turned to something nearer a shriek. ‘‘What possessed you to go to my employer and tell her I was delivering kiss-o-grams and that you happened to ‘get lucky’? You made it sound like I was hiring myself out to deliver more than just a song and a greeting.’’
If he was ashamed, he sure didn’t show it. He should have been avoiding her gaze. He should have been bowing and scraping and apologizing profusely, but instead he stood there like a statue of some gorgeous Greek god and studied her face with unwavering attention.
‘‘I’m sorry,’’ he said, taking a step closer. ‘‘That’s not what I intended to do.’’
She gave him a point for appearing sincere, but the road to you-know-where was paved with good intentions. An overly honest conscience raised the point that it was she who had deliberately bent the company rules of not fraternizing with customers. Hunter’s role had merely been to bring it to her employer’s attention. But that didn’t stop her from venting her frustration over this setback in her career plans.
‘‘Then what, may I ask, were you intending to accomplish by telling my boss I was doling out kisses indiscriminately?’’ She’d been very discriminating when she’d favored him with an early birthday kiss, but there was no way she could have made Mrs. Quarles understand that.
‘‘I’m not really sure,’’ he responded, in a much quieter tone than she’d been using. He seemed truly perplexed.
‘‘You’re not sure why you wanted to ruin my career? Or you’re not sure why you set me up to look like a wanton woman?’’ It seemed as though her blood was boiling in her veins. Her face felt hot, her chest was tight and her vision became blurred as she tried to stare him down through the tears that had pooled in her eyes. Anger, she reminded herself. Stay focused on the anger, and don’t think about how much it hurts to have your career opportunities slashed and burned by one reckless conversation. She took a deep breath to fortify herself for the final salvo. ‘‘You owe me big-time, Mr. Hunter Matthews. And I want you to pay up now.’’
She heard a rustling sound behind her, but was distracted when he stealthily approached her. Positioning his body close to hers, he reached toward her.
For the space of a millisecond, Julie thought that he might take her in his arms and kiss her again. And during that slow-motion fraction of time, she wanted him to do it.
Time had treated him well. Gone was the lean teen physique, and in its place was a body enhanced by firm muscles and a tailored suit. Further magnifying his physical appeal was the lithe confidence with which he moved—confidence gained from maturity and experience. It was an exhilarating combination, and Julie was not immune to it. He’d been a potent package before he’d left for college. Now he was absolutely stupendous….
Lifting her chin in anticipation, she took a breath to steady herself. Of their own accord, her eyelids lowered, and she ran her tongue over her parched lips.
His hand briefly touched her arm as he moved her slightly to one side, and her knees became like pudding. Then the contact was broken as he leaned past her to grab the door. Mmm, privacy.
‘‘Sorry about the disturbance, folks. Everything’s under control now.’’
Julie’s lashes fluttered open. Folks? She turned just before he pushed the heavy wooden door shut and saw a half-dozen curious faces smiling at them. Most of them were the same people who’d watched as she sang to Mr. Oltmeier this morning.
With a barricade between them and their audience, they were alone again. But having been jolted out of her momentary distraction, and disappointed that the situation hadn’t gone according to her secret wishes, Julie refocused her attention on the matter at hand.
‘‘You owe me a job.’’
‘‘That would never do.’’
‘‘I don’t think you understand how important the Merry Messengers job was to me. Losing that position is going to severely and negatively impact my career plans.’’
He had the nerve to laugh. ‘‘You delivered singing telegrams. What kind of stepping-stone is that? Were you hoping to someday deliver singing and dancing telegrams?’’
Julie crossed her arms over her chest. ‘‘Of course not,’’ she retorted. ‘‘I’ve already been a dancing banana.’’
Too late, she realized she had only provided him more fuel for his entertainment. Looking at it from his point of view, she supposed it did sound silly to tie her career plans to a ridiculous part-time job, but she couldn’t tell him the real reason she needed the Merry Messengers gig. For one thing, it sounded disreputable to say it provided her with plenty of men to kiss. For another, claiming she needed kissable men to report about in her test column would betray the terms of the agreement she’d made with Mr. Upshaw.
‘‘Just give me a job working here, and I’ll let bygones be bygones.’’ Maybe she should just drop the matter now and look for employment as a waitress, but this was a matter of principle. He owed her. Besides, it would be so cool to do the Dick Tracy thing. As for the column, she’d have to find another way to meet potential kissers.
‘‘I told you I can’t do that.’’
‘‘Why not? I saw a TV news magazine report about private investigators, and it showed how you spend days or even weeks following people around. Certainly a couple of extra eyes, ears and hands could help lighten your load.’’
Once again, he closed the distance between them. This time, though, he wasn’t reaching for the door. He touched her chin with the crook of his finger, and Julie couldn’t help wanting him to finish what she’d started in her mind a moment earlier.
Hope resurged in her heart as his finger trailed upward along her cheek. Brushing a tendril of hair away from her face, he stroked the curve of her ear. As he leaned toward her, his dark eyes heavy with passion, she felt as though her lungs were paralyzed by his heady nearness. Her body braced for what was to come, and the memory of the last kiss sent a warmth throughout her that pooled in the pit of her femininity.
He was so close she could feel his breath on her face. Her lips parted in readiness. And then it came. Apollo had landed. Unfortunately, it missed the mark and ended up on her cheek instead. A dry, brotherly kiss.
Disappointment flooded her soul and found release in the form of a heavy sigh.
