“Maybe,” she said into the phone.
“No maybe about it,” Lynne replied.
Michael dangled a key on a red-and-gold Marine Corps key ring and mouthed the word door. She nodded and closed her fingers around the shiny metal. He dropped his arm, but his gaze roved over her like a warm hand, reminding her she wore nothing but his thin, white T-shirt.
“Is he there right now? He’s there right now, isn’t he? Is he naked?”
“What?”
His mouth curved into a lazy smile and he leaned close. Chloe swallowed and tightened her hold on the phone. Was he going to kiss her? His lips touched her ear and he whispered, “Your clothes are in the dryer.” Then he stepped back, put on a pair of silver-rimmed aviators, gave her a quick salute, and headed to the entryway.
“Chloe, is he naked? Yes or no. Give me something!”
He stopped at the door, turned and gave her one last look. Then he was gone.
“He just left.”
“You let him walk out the door naked?”
“Get off the naked. He was wearing cammies and boots.” She shivered a little remembering how tall and broad and capable he’d looked, especially with the slow grin.
“Hmm. That’s good too. Keep going,” Lynne encouraged.
“I believe there was some kind of hat, and, this is important—aviator sunglasses.”
“Be still my heart. Although, to be honest, it’s not my heart I’m feeling at the moment. Whew. Nice work.”
“Thank you. Do you happen to know if Sempler intends to file a complaint against Michael?”
“I haven’t a clue. The clinic is base-affiliated and I don’t know how that sort of thing works. Michael’s not my employee, so…”
“Yeah, I understand.” She couldn’t eliminate the possibility. “Since I still am, thank God, when do you think you can place me in another assignment?”
“Right now, it looks like we’ll have something at a fancy spa in New Mexico in four weeks because they have a therapist scheduled to start maternity leave.”
Four weeks! She gripped the phone until her fingers hurt. She’d figured half that time, at worst. “Is there anything sooner? I don’t care where. I’ll take a cruise ship, if I have to.”
“You get seasick.”
“I get poverty sick even worse. I just drained my savings down to practically my last penny paying my grandma’s funeral expenses and a huge chunk of the old Visa debt.”
“Fuck Visa, Chloe. Drew ran up the card; he should be paying it off.”
“Yeah, but that’s never going to happen, and I’d like to qualify for credit again sometime this century, so I took a gamble and wrote the check. I risked being a little cash poor in the near term because I still had a bunch of weeks left on this assignment and figured I’d have time to build up my cushion. Now is literally the worst time for me to be out of work.”
“Yikes. Sorry to hear that, but there’s nothing else available right now. Don’t panic though. Sometimes start dates move up when maternity leave’s involved. I’ll keep you at the top of my list if anything c
omes up. In the meantime, file for unemployment.”
“I will, but it takes a couple weeks for those payments to kick in, and then the benefit is just a fraction of my normal income. It won’t cover—”
“Yeah, I hear what you’re saying. You have to find somewhere to live for four weeks. I wish I could let you stay in the apartment, but I don’t have the authority. If we make an exception for you, we’ll never be able to enforce the vacate clause again. You also need to turn in the rental car. Can you take care of that today?”
“Yes,” she replied, cringing at the impact on her tight budget of taking a cab to the Stars & Bars to pick up her car and then cabbing it back to Casa Clemente from the car-rental agency.
“Do you need a loan to bridge you until the new assignment starts? Our savings is a little on the thin side since we bought the new house, but I could wire you, like, five hundred bucks.”
So tempting, but she shook her head. “Thanks, I really appreciate the offer, but no. The housing problem is taken care of. Michael is letting me stay with him until I have a new assignment.”