1-900-Lover

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She depressed the play button and shot him an enigmatic look. “Then perhaps you should talk to his father.”

Impressed with the insight, Will inclined his head. Actually, he’d considered bypassing his sister and talking to Jim. Jim, he knew, would at least understand the motivation behind his son’s ignorant, thoughtless episode. He winced.

Lori…wouldn’t.

She’d be angry and appalled, and the combination of the two wouldn’t leave any room for understanding. Will had initially rejected the idea of bypassing Lori—it was the easy way out for him, ergo it had to be wrong. Now he wasn’t so sure. Now he—

His thoughts ground to a halt as Rowan’s voice, then his nephew’s sounded from the machine—her sultry “Hello,” then Scott’s nervous squeak.

“Hi. I, uh…” He cleared his throat and his voice lowered to a comical level. “Hey. What’s happening, baby?”

Will felt a smile tug at his lips and his gaze instinctively found hers. She, too, wore an amused expression.

“Look, Slick, you’re not old enough to have this conversation,” Rowan told him, instantly seeing through the ploy. “Call back in a few years.”

“Wait!”

From there, things happened exactly the way she’d told him. They’d chatted, she’d tried to disconnect, citing the enormous phone bill someone would not approve of, and his nephew, to Will’s astonishment, had glibly announced that his uncle wouldn’t notice another 1-900 number because he frequently called them himself. In fact, Scott had continued, his uncle had probably called her in the past. Rowan had laughed at Will’s outraged expression as he fervently denied the charge.

“I don’t need to have phone sex,” Will felt obliged to repeat after she’d turned off the tape. The unspoken because-I-can-get-laid-without-it hung between them, eliciting another mysterious smile from her. Her eyes twinkled.

“I’m sure you don’t.”

He nodded succinctly. “Damn straight.”

She chewed the corner of her lip, presumably to keep from chuckling at his expense, and busied herself by putting the cassette away. She was laughing at him, Will knew, and he couldn’t blame her because he was making a macho ass of himself. But he couldn’t help it. It was a matter of honor, dammit. Men who could get laid in the traditional sense didn’t call total strangers and whack off to the tune of a few well-rehearsed pants and sighs.

Phone sex? Will thought dubiously. Come on? He preferred his sexual encounters of the physical kind, thank you very much. He liked slow and tender, hot and frantic, and wasn’t averse to a little kinky now and then. Sex was sex and, regardless of the method employed, hell, he thought with a slow smile, it was always good.

He’d never once thought about having a woman talk him through it…but he wasn’t averse to a helping hand every now and then.

His gaze instantly drifted to her hands, and it took very little effort to imagine one of hers wrapped around him, touching him the way she’d implied she’d touched good ole Roy. A flash of heat detonated in his loins and a serious sense of excitement, one he hadn’t felt in eons, pulsed through him.

She tucked her hair behind her ear. “Do you— Do you want to listen to the other tapes, or will that one suffice?”

Will grunted, unnerved. “That one will suffice.”

She nodded, apparently still not trusting herself to look at him. “Good. Could I see that phone bill?”

He frowned, baffled. He couldn’t imagine why, but he handed it to her nonetheless. “Sure.”

Her lips moved as she silently scanned the bill, and it belatedly occurred to Will that she was tallying the multiple charges. In her head, without the aid of a calculator. Impressed, he readied his mouth to comment, but was interrupted as she handed the statement back to him. “Okay. Let me get my purse and I’ll write you a check.”

He blinked. “A check?”

“For the charges,” she called over her shoulder. She disappeared into the back of the house, then emerged seconds later with a wallet. By the time she’d made the return trip, he’d managed to organize his chaotic thoughts into some semblance of order.

“Look, this isn’t necessary. I didn’t come here to get you to refund the charges.” And he hadn’t. Quite frankly, he hadn’t thought beyond blasting her into oblivion, but he hardly needed to share that with her, did he?

She finished writing the check, scrawled her name across the bottom, then tore it out of the book and handed it to him. A smile caught the corner of her ripe mouth. “No, you came here to rip me a new one.”

He’d opened his mouth to argue, but a guilty laugh emerged, beating him to the punch. He pulled a shrug. “Like I said, I was pissed.”

“You don’t say?” She batted her lashes with feigned innocence. “I hadn’t noticed.”

He owed her an apology, Will knew, and though saying he was sorry wasn’t a phrase that came naturally to him—quite frankly, he wasn’t used to being wrong—tendering the expected nicety now didn’t seem quite so onerous.

He exhaled mightily. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said, albeit awkwardly. He glanced at the floor and was momentarily distracted by her bare feet. Lots of toe rings and a small tattoo of a butterfly decorated the skin right above her pinkie toe. Another bolt of heat landed in his groin and he struggled to find the rest of the apology. “I— I shouldn’t have come here. I, uh— I should have called.”

“Yes, you should have,” she replied levelly. “However, when Scott needed further tutoring, I should have given him my home number instead of continuing to let him call the 900-number.” Her lips formed another droll smile, and her eyes twinkled with humor. “In my defense, I was trying to guard my privacy.” She sighed softly. “At any rate, I intend to refund the charges, so just take the check, we’ll be square and we can forget about this mess.”

He doubted it, but he reluctantly pocketed the cash anyway. “At least let me pay you for the tutoring sessions,” he offered. He laughed grimly. “Believe me, if the kid had asked me for help with science he would have been sadly disappointed.”

If memory served, he’d barely passed science. Not because he’d lacked the intelligence or ability, he’d merely lacked the drive. Will had been one of those kids who survived high school by way of sports.

And—thanks to the kind hand of his father and grandfather—he’d known from the time he was old enough to plant a seed what he’d be doing with his life, so the only classes he’d been interested in throughout high school had been the ones that had pertained to agriculture.

Both his father and his grandfather had been farmers, had earned their living from the land. Corn, cotton, soy beans. Feast or famine, depending on the weather. They’d expected him to take the same route, but while Will had shared the same enthusiasm for the land, the same fascination with the soil and all she grew—the sheer interdependency of everything—he’d ultimately decided to carve his own path. He’d liked the combination of design, the challenge of outdoor architecture found in landscaping. He’d ridden through college on a football scholarship, had majored in landscape architecture with a minor in business administration, and the rest had been history. Unable to completely abandon his farming heritage, Will had added an heirloom seed catalog to his repertoire.

“No, those tutoring session are on me,” Rowan told him, dragging him back into the conversation. She rolled her eyes. “Hell, I needed them as much as he did.”

An important insight lurked behind that statement, Will decided. Intrigued, he arched a brow. “Oh?”

From her oh-hell expression, it was obvious that she thought she’d said too much. She swore under her breath, then released a pent-up sigh. “Oh, well,” she finally relented. “It’s not like you don’t know everything else about me.” She shot him a wry look. “I’m a teacher. I teach—” She winced grimly. “Correction, I taught science at Middleton High. Budget cuts ate my job, so until the system finds the money to put me back to work—hopefully in the fall—then I’m out of a contract.” She shrugged, then bit her lip and, though she met his gaze directly, he detected a hint of vulnerability he instinctively knew that she’d resent. Which, curiously, made her all the more attractive. “For obvious reasons, I would appreciate your discretion. I, uh… I don’t think the board of education would approve of my interim job.”

Will mentally whistled. She’d certainly mastered the understatement. They wouldn’t merely disapprove—they’d freak. A phone sex operator teaching their impressionable youth? Not here, not in this century.

The gravity of the situation he’d put her in finally dawned and he inwardly winced with regret. He’d royally screwed up by coming here. He’d literally jeopardized her livelihood. “Don’t worry,” he assured her. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

Her slim shoulders sank in obvious relief. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

She nodded. “Sure. Go ahead.”

Will hesitated. “Why phone sex?” he finally blurted out. The question had been burning a hole in his brain. She was obviously smart, educated. Geez, God. Why phone sex, of all things? Granted it was sexy and listening to her had made him unbelievably hot, but still…

Eyes twinkling, she shrugged. “Why not phone sex? It beats checking groceries at the Bag-a-Bar-gain. It’s lucrative, and leaves me time to do the things I enjoy.” She gestured around her living room. “Like stained glass, art and gardening.” An ironic chuckle bubbled up her throat. “Believe me, I tried other things first. No one wanted to buy my art, and the whole starving-artist gig didn’t appeal to me.” Her lips curled. “I’ve grown accustomed to the little things, you know? Food, shelter, electricity.” She sighed. “What about you? Aside from tracking down unsuspecting…entrepreneurs, what do you do?”

Will grinned, properly chastised. “I’m a landscape architect,” he told her. “Foster’s Landscape Design. Almost ten years in business without a single unsatisfied client.” Will grimaced as Doris sprang to mind. “At least for the moment, anyway. I’m working with a woman now who might ruin that particular endorsement.”

“Oh?”

He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Yeah. Doris Anderson.” He gave her the abbreviated version of the past three years, then shared the episode he’d endured this morning. “It’s insane. I can’t make her happy, can’t satisfy her.”

Rowan’s eyes twinkled with sexy humor. “Sounds like a personal problem to me.”

Will blushed, shot her a look from beneath lowered lashes. “That didn’t come out precisely right, did it?”

She laughed. “I sincerely hope not.” Her gaze drifted slowly over him and she rocked slightly back on the balls of her feet. “That would be a tragedy.”

Again that little zing of missing excitement buzzed through him and he barely resisted the urge to preen like a puffed-up peacock at the implied compliment. His gaze tangled with hers and he felt a smile flirt with his lips.