Emily’s heartbeat stumbled. Quickly, she grabbed the telephone, punched in the Personals number, listened impatiently as a recorded female voice offered available options.
To reply to a LoveNote, the voice said nasally, please enter the number of the LoveNote you’ve selected
Emily entered a number. She waited, heard a husky male voice say “hello,” listened to what was, more or less, a repeat of the ad in the magazine, and waited for the ad to end and the tone to sound. At last, it did. It was time to leave a message for Mr. Handsome, Sexy and Successful, 40, D, brown and brown.
Her mouth was dry as sand. She thought, fleetingly, of the sad red geranium sitting at home on her kitchen table, which she kept forgetting to water...
Beeeep!
Emily swallowed, licked her lips and took a breath. Sound sexy, she told herself.
“Good afternoon.” Great. Just great. She sounded about as sexy as a Girl Scout trying to sell cookies. “Hi,” she said, trying for perky, if not sexy. “Uh, I’m calling to say—to say that I think I might be just the Brrr and Brrr—uh, the Brown and Brown you’re looking for.” She hesitated, checked the ad again. Sexy, it said. And beautiful. Emily chewed on her lip. “Well, maybe not. I mean, I have brown hair. And brown eyes. But I’m not exactly sexy. Or beautiful.” Her voice cracked. “But, really, is that so awful? ‘Beautiful’ means having qualities that delight the senses. I know that because I had to look it up once, in the dictionary. I wanted the exact meaning because I was writing a term paper on Shelley. The poet, you know? Anyway, I’m just saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and handsome probably is, too. So even if you’re not as handsome as you say you are, that’s okay because I’m not...” She groaned, put her hand to her forehead. “As for sexy, well, what does ‘sexy’ mean, anyway? Different things in different cultures. For example, when I was studying anthro, I learned that sexual attractiveness varies enormously from tribe to tribe in the Amazon. Some view nudity as the norm. Others, perhaps after they’ve had some contact with the outside world, disdain nudity but me nothing wrong with indulging in coitus with a variety of partner. There’s a particular pygmy tribe—”
A large male hand slammed down on the telephone cradle, breaking the connection. Emily jerked her head up. McBride was standing over her, looking down and glaring.
“Just what in the Sam Hill are you doing?”
Dear God, Emily thought, what was I doing? The telephone buzzed in her ear like an angry bee.
“Miss Taylor?”
“You’ve—you’ve always called me Emily.”
“A mistake,” Jake said coldly, “considering that I’m starting to realize I don’t know the first thing about you.”
He folded his arms over his chest. It was, she thought foolishly, a formidable chest. He’d taken off his suit jacket, loosened his tie, undone the top button of his white shirt and rolled back his sleeves. He did that often; he’d once said he felt choked in a suit and tie. Why was it she’d never before noticed that his arms were dusted with dark, silky-looking hair? That his chest was the width of The Great Wall of China?
“Well, Miss Taylor? What were you doing?”
Emily put the phone down, folded her hands in her lap and tried not to think about how long he might have been standing there.
“I was—was making a call,” she said carefully.
“To whom?”
“To...” She frowned as she looked up at him again. “It was a personal call, Mr. McBride.”
“Yes.” Jake shot her a predatory smile. “I imagined it was. Somehow or other, I didn’t think you’d be discussing pygmy sex practices with any of my clients.”
She could feel the heat flash into her face. “I was not discussing pygmy sex practices.”
“What were you discussing, then?”
“Would you step back, please,” she said coolly, “so I can stand up?”
“Answer the question, Miss Taylor.”
“I don’t have to.” She could feel her courage rushing back, swirling through her blood in a wave of heat. “As I said, it was personal.”
“Did you ask me if you could make personal calls?”
She blinked. “No. No, I didn’t. But you never said—”
“You never asked.”
Emily glowered up at Jake. “I’ll pay for the call,” she snapped.
“I don’t want your money. I want to know why you were talking about pygmy sex practices, and with whom.”
“Dammit!” She shoved her chair back and shot to her feet, her flushed, angry face lifted to Jake’s. “I wasn’t talking about pygmy sex practices. I told you that. I was leaving message on an answering machine.”