“Kinda like me being punched by Leena, huh?”
Algee got the connection immediately. He didn’t need to be told twice. “I hear you, man. I won’t say another word about it.”
“I appreciate that. I won’t say a word either. Listen, have you gone to see Luke and Julia’s baby yet?”
“Yeah. There’s no hassle in the castle over there. I’ve never seen Luke so over the moon. I heard the kid was almost born in your waiting room.”
Cole shook his head. “I knew Julia would never allow that to happen.”
“The woman does like to be in control.”
“Most women do.”
“Like Leena out there? Does she like to be in control?”
“She’s downright bossy,” Cole said.
“I recently met a woman like that too. Tameka Williams. She teaches English at Rock Creek High.”
“And she has a cat named Opi after her favorite nail polish.”
“I thought she’d name her cat something fancy like Shakespeare or something. Tameka bosses me around, correcting my English, telling me I should think about what I’m gonna say before I open my mouth.”
“Think you’re up to handling a bossy woman?”
“I am. How about you?”
“Always,” Cole said confidently.
“You care to put your money where your mouth is?”
“Always.”
“Fifty bucks says I get Tameka to go out with me before you get Leena to go out with you.”
“Leena works for me.”
“Ah, good point. We need ground rules. No fair threatening to fire Leena if she doesn’t go out with you. That would be taking unfair advantage.”
“As if I’d take unfair advantage of any female employee.”
“I meant it would be taking unfair advantage of me in the bet.”
“Oh, right.”
“So Leena’s job is secure even if she says no.”
“I already said I’d never threaten a woman to get her to agree to go out with me,” Cole said. “There’s no need.”
“Yeah, but this is a bossy woman.”
“She’s still a woman.”
“So we’re clear on this bet?” Algee asked.
“Totally.”
They shook hands.
“May the best man win,” Algee said.
“That would be me.”
“Hey, I rescue cats from alleys. Women are into that.”
“I
heal
the cats people rescue,” Cole said. “Women are even more into that.”
Algee picked up Til-D and returned the tabby to rest against his chest beneath his leather jacket. “In that case, I better get moving.”
“I’m impressed,” Skye told Leena as she leaned against the receptionist counter in the animal clinic’s waiting room. “Only in town a few days and already stirring things up. I may grow to like you after all.”
“Gee, thanks,” Leena drawled. “I’m honored.”
“As you should be.”
“I didn’t come here to stir things up.”
“No, you came because you ran out of other options. Been there, done that. Angel and I came here from the West Coast because we had nowhere else to go other than my sister Julia’s place.”
“I didn’t come to mooch off my sister,” Leena said defensively before realizing how that sounded. “I didn’t mean that you were mooching off Julia.”
Skye shrugged. “It wouldn’t matter to me if that was what you meant.”
Leena remembered Sue Ellen telling her that Skye didn’t care what other people thought about her, and apparently that was true. “So what did you mean by saying I was stirring things up?”
“With that photo of yours in the paper. You do know that your sister did an ad in the paper a while back for a local vision center in Serenity Falls, right?”
“No, she didn’t tell me.”
“You two don’t seem to talk much.”
“As you pointed out, I’ve only been back in town a few days. We haven’t had a lot of time to talk.”
“Everyone is talking about your photo.”
“Not my intention.”
“Whatever. Anyway, I just came over to see if you’d like to join our belly-dancing class.”
“Me? Why?”
“Because having a healthy body image is a good thing.”
“By exercising, you mean.”
“I mean image. What you think in your head.”
“Well, in my head I think my thighs are too big. Not every day, but in that photo for sure.”
“Is that what you’ve been telling people?”
“No.”
“Good. Don’t.”
Leena bristled at being told what to do. “I will if I want to.”
“Right. You’re right. You’re free to do what you want. So what’s the deal with you and Cole?”
“Huh?”
“You and Cole.”
“He’s my boss. What’s that got to do with my thighs?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me? I heard he was there during the photo shoot.”
“Making fun of me.”
“Really? That doesn’t sound like Cole.”
“You know him pretty well, do you?”
“If you’re asking if I ever had sex with him, the answer is no.”
Leena blushed. “That’s not what I meant—”
“Sure it is. Which makes me wonder why you’d care who your boss had sex with . . . unless you wanted to have sex with him yourself.”
Leena frantically looked around the currently empty waiting room. Where were patients and their owners when you needed them? All morning the place had been packed. Granted, it had been with women who’d come to tell her how much they appreciated her making a stand about full-figured women, women who had curves.
“I don’t discuss my sex life,” Leena said.
Skye grinned. “I do.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Your sister does too.”
“I’m not my sister.”
“Yeah, I know how that goes. I’m not my sister either. Sorry. Anyway the offer to join our belly-dancing class still stands. Think about it. You already know several of the people in the class. Me, Nancy Crumpler, Lulu, your sister.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“And if you want to know anything about Cole, feel free to ask me. I may not have slept with him, but he’s Nathan’s best friend and has been for years. I have ways of finding things out. By the way, Cole’s not seeing anyone at the moment. He just broke up with someone a few months ago.”
“I’m surprised he hasn’t had several relationships since then.”
“I’m taking a break,” Cole said from behind her. “Do I want to know why you two are talking about my personal life?”
“No,” Leena said. “You definitely do not want to know.”
“I think I do.”
“Trust me, you don’t.”
Cole gave her that raised-eyebrow look. “And why is that?”
“A lot of reasons. Look, you’ve got a customer. Er, client . . . I mean patient.” Leena greeted the newcomer with a smile of intense gratitude and relief. “Hi there. Welcome to the Rock Creek Animal Clinic. How can I help you?”
“You can pay my client the royalty she’s requested,” the young man said.
Leena blinked. “What?”
“Mrs. Petrocelli, owner of the dog named Misty, who appeared in the photo without permission, wants her share of the profits.”
“He bit my dress in half and almost bit me. Cole was a witness. Tell him, Cole. Tell him what happened.”
Cole sighed. “What are you doing here, Butch? You’re not a lawyer. You’re a culinary arts student.”
“That doesn’t pay very well,” Butch said.
“Leena, meet my cousin Butch.”
“Weren’t you a state wrestling champ in high school?” Leena asked.
“Yes, I was. So? You don’t think wrestling champs should be interested in good food?”
He looked aggravated enough to put her in a head hold. “I didn’t mean that,” she quickly assured Butch.
“She says a lot of things she doesn’t mean,” Skye said. “Don’t let it bother you.”
“So what’s the deal with Mrs. Petrocelli wanting money?” Cole asked.
“She spoke to me about it this morning,” Leena said.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll talk to her,” Cole said. “Sometimes she gets strange ideas into her head.”
Butch nodded. “Yeah, strange ideas like making that brussel-sprout-and-strawberry Jell-o mold for the Fourth of July town picnic.”
“If you think she’s weird then why are you working for her?” Cole demanded.
Butch shrugged sheepishly. “Money. She said she’d give me ten percent of whatever I could get for her.”
“What you got for her is a stern reprimand.”
“I don’t need ten percent of that,” Butch hurriedly said. “I’m outta here.”
Cole sighed as he watched his cousin leave before turning to Leena and Skye. “Welcome to my crazy family.”
“Take a number,” Skye said. “My family is much crazier than yours.”
Cole grinned. “True.”
“Mine’s no walk in the park either,” Leena said. “Sue Ellen leans toward the drama-queen end of the spectrum.”
“What about you?” Cole asked. “What end of the spectrum do you lean toward? The bossy end?”
“The organized end. Despite the craziness in here today, I managed to reorganize your accounts payable files to make them easier to work with.”
“Thanks.” Cole’s smile made Leena’s insides go all wobbly and wicked, reminding her of the touch of his mouth on hers.
“To quote your cousin, I’m outta here,” Skye announced, pushing off from the reception desk’s counter she’d been leaning against. “I just have one thing to say before I go. Get a room, you two.”
“I saw your sister’s picture in the paper today,” Russ told Sue Ellen after school that afternoon when he met her at the Dairy Queen.
She nodded proudly. “Wasn’t it great?”
Russ shrugged.
Sue Ellen was surprised as his response. “What? You didn’t like it?”
Another shrug.
“Why not?” A suspicious thought moved at warp speed through her mind, as most of her thoughts did. “Did my sister ask you to talk to me?”
“I hardly know her. Why would she ask me to speak to you? About what?”
“The photo.”
“It was a revealing photograph.” Russ’s disapproval was evident. “I realize you can’t control your sister’s actions, but it’s a shame she had to go and do something like that.”
“Like what?”
“Make a fool of herself that way.”
“You thought she made a fool of herself?”
“Don’t you?”
“I, uh . . .” Sue Ellen shoved away her Blizzard, unsure what to say next. “Leena wasn’t real pleased with the photo.”
“Wise woman,” Russ said.
His comment stung. No one ever described Sue Ellen as wise. Their baby sister Emma had the brains in the family and not Leena, but still . . .
Why did Russ have to put it that way? He made her feel like a dumb blonde. Nothing new for her, true. But still.
Was that destined to be the heading on the scrapbook of her relationship with Russ?
But still.
Her
still
waiting for him to say how he felt about her. Her
still
waiting for them to have sex. Her
still
waiting, period.
“I’m sorry you didn’t like the photo,” she said. She wanted to add that she thought it was a great concept, but chickened out at the last minute.
That’s when it occurred to Sue Ellen that she rarely told Russ what she thought. Rarely as in
never
.
Why was that? Normally Sue Ellen told everyone on the planet what she thought. She was hardly the shy type.
Was she afraid Russ would disapprove of her thoughts?
Damn right!
Her friend Skye would shoot her if she knew that Sue Ellen was hiding her true self to please some guy.
But Russ wasn’t just
some
guy. He was the football coach. And the team had won last season. Which made him a big guy around town.
He was also a college graduate and people looked up to him.
So what if Skye would disapprove of Sue Ellen’s tactics. Skye already had a guy. Easy for her to editorialize from the sidelines.
Leena wouldn’t approve either. Too bad. Her sister wasn’t her keeper. Never had been, never would be. Which was just the way Sue Ellen liked it.
Instead of saying what she thought, Sue Ellen said, “You don’t like people making fools of themselves, do you?”
“Who does?”
Sue Ellen’s stomach sank through the floor clear down to China. Or whatever country was on the opposite side of the earth from Rock Creek. Geometry had never been her strong suit. Or was it geography? Either one.
The bottom line was that Russ didn’t suffer fools gladly or lightly or whatever “ly” word that was. Problem was, Sue Ellen had had more than her fair share of foolishness.
“I know what you’re thinking, Susie.” Russ reached out to pat her hand. “I know you’ve made mistakes in your past. But you’re beyond that now. You’ve turned over a new leaf.”
She perked up. “I have?”
“Yes. You’re on the verge of becoming a respectable realtor. A professional like me.”
Her stomach stopped its abrupt nosedive. Russ thought she was a professional. Like him. That she was respectable. Like him.
That was a good thing.
Basking in the glow of his approval, Sue Ellen reached for her Blizzard once more.
“Did you hear that the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
is looking for the sexiest bachelors in PA?” Mindy asked Leena.
“Hmm?” She was trying to figure out how to retrieve the page for tomorrow’s appointment schedule that had somehow disappeared off the computer screen.
“Sexiest bachelor in PA. The paper is running a contest. Well, I don’t know if it’s a contest, really, since they don’t have a prize or a winner. They are just listing the best bachelors in the state. You send in the guy’s photo and tell the readers about him. I thought of doing that for Cole, but I think it would embarrass him.”
That got Leena’s attention. The words
embarrass Cole
were not ones she often heard. Nothing seemed to rattle the guy. Not kissing her. Not hearing her and Skye talk about him. Not being told they needed to get a room.