t was like having the Sword of Damocles hanging over her head, Jaine thought gloomily the next morning. It hadn’t dropped yet, but she knew it would. The “when” depended on how long it took Dawna to spill the beans that she had gotten the list from Marci. Once Marci’s identity was known, they might as well all start wearing signs that said, “I’m guilty.”

Poor T.J. was worried sick, and if Jaine had been married to Galan Yother, she would probably have been worried sick, too. How could something that had been innocent fun between four friends have turned into something that might break up a marriage?

She hadn’t slept well, again. She had taken more aspirin for her sore muscles, soaked in a hot tub, and by the time she went to bed, she was feeling much more comfortable. Fretting about that darn article kept her awake long past her usual bedtime, and woke her before dawn. She positively dreaded getting the morning paper, and as for going to work – she would rather wrestle another drunk. On loose gravel.

She drank coffee and watched the sky lighten. BooBoo had evidently forgiven her for waking him again, because he sat beside her washing his paws and purring whenever she absently scratched behind his ears.

What then happened wasn’t her fault. She was standing at the sink rinsing out her cup when the kitchen light in the house across the way flicked on and Sam walked into view.

She stopped breathing. Her lungs seized, and she stopped breathing.

“Sweet baby Jesus,” she croaked, and managed to inhale.

She was seeing more of Sam than she had ever thought she would; everything, in fact. He stood in front of the refrigerator, stark naked. She barely had time to admire his buns before he took a bottle of orange juice from the fridge, twisting off the top and tilting it to his mouth as he turned around.

She forgot all about his buns. He was more impressive coming – no pun intended – than he was going, and that was saying something, because his butt was severely cute. The man was hung.

“My God, BooBoo,” she gasped. “Take a look at that!” The fact was, Sam looked pretty damn good all over. He was tall, lean in the waist, hard-muscled. She wrenched her gaze north just a little and saw that he had a nice, hairy chest. She already knew he had a good face, if a bit battered. Sexy dark eyes, white teeth, and a good laugh. And he was hung.

She pressed a hand to her chest. Her heart was doing more than pitter-pattering; it was trying to sledgehammer its way through her sternum. Other parts of her body were joining in the excitement. In a moment of insanity, she thought about running right over to audition as his mattress.

Oblivious of the tumult going on inside her, as well as the heart-stopping view across the way, BooBoo continued licking his feet. His priorities were obviously a real mess.

Jaine gripped the sink to keep from folding in a limp heap on the floor. It was a good thing she was off men, or she really might have charged across the two driveways and right up to his kitchen door. But off men or not, she still appreciated art, and her neighbor was a work of art, hovering somewhere between classic Grecian statue and porn star.

She hated to do it, but she had to tell him to close his curtains; it was the neighborly thing to do, right? Blindly, not wanting to miss a moment of the show, she reached for the phone, then paused. Not only did she not know his number, she didn’t even know his last name. Some neighbor she was; she had lived here two and a half weeks and still hadn’t introduced herself to him, though if he was any kind of a cop, he had found out her name. Of course, he hadn’t rushed over to introduce himself, either. If it hadn’t been for Mrs. Kulavich, she wouldn’t have known his first name was Sam.

She wasn’t stymied, though. She had written down the Kulavich’s phone number on the pad by the phone, and she managed to tear her gaze from the spectacle next door long enough to read it. She punched in their number, and belatedly worried that they might not be awake yet.

Mrs. Kulavich answered on the first ring. “Hello!” she chirped so enthusiastically Jaine knew she hadn’t woken them.

“Hi, Mrs. Kulavich, it’s Jaine Bright, next door. How are you?” Social niceties had to be observed, after all, and with the older generation that could take a while. She was hoping for ten or fifteen minutes. She watched as Sam killed the bottle of orange juice and tossed the empty.

“Oh, Jaine! It’s so nice to hear from you!” Mrs. Kulavich said, as if she had been out of the country or something. Mrs. Kulavich was evidently one of those people who talked in exclamation points when she was on the phone. “We’re fine, just fine! And you?”

“Fine,” she answered automatically, not missing a minute of the action. Now he was getting out the milk. Eewwh! Surely he wasn’t going to mix orange juice and milk. He opened the milk and sniffed it. His biceps bulged as his arm lifted. “My, oh, my,” she whispered. Evidently the milk didn’t pass muster, because he jerked his head back and set the carton aside.

“What was that?” Mrs. Kulavich said.

“Uh – I said fine, just fine.” Jaine wrenched her attention from its wayward path. “Mrs. Kulavich, what is Sam’s last name? I need to call him about something.” That was an understatement.

“Donovan, dear. Sam Donovan. But I have his number here. It’s the same number his grandparents had. I’m so glad, because that way I can remember it. It’s easier to get older than it is to get wiser, you know.” She laughed at her own wit.

Jaine laughed, too, though she didn’t know at what. She groped for a pencil. Mrs. Kulavich slowly recited the number, and Jaine jotted it down, which wasn’t easy to do without looking at what she was writing. Her neck muscles were locked in the upright position, so she had no choice but to look through the kitchen window next door.

She thanked Mrs. Kulavich and said good-bye, then took a deep breath. She had to do this. No matter how it hurt, how it would deprive her, she had to call him. She took another deep breath and dialed his number. She saw him cross the kitchen and pick up a cordless. He was standing in profile to her. Oh, wow. Double wow.

Saliva gathered in her mouth. The damn man had her all but slobbering.

“Donovan.”

His deep voice was rusty, as if he wasn’t truly awake yet, and the single word clipped with irritation.

“Urn… Sam?”

“Yeah?”

Not the most welcoming of responses. She tried to swallow and found it was difficult to do when her tongue was hanging out. She reeled it in and sighed with regret. “This is Jaine, next door. I hate to tell you this, but you might want to… close your curtains.”

He wheeled to face the window, and they stared at each other across the two driveways. He didn’t dart to the side, or squat out of sight, or do anything else that might indicate embarrassment. Instead, he grinned. Damn, she wished he wouldn’t do that.

“Got an eyeful, did you?” he asked as he walked to the window and reached for the curtains.

“Yes, I did.” She hadn’t blinked in five minutes, at least. “Thank you.” He pulled the curtains together, and her whole body went into mourning.

“My pleasure.” He chuckled. “Maybe you can return the favor sometime.”

He hung up before she could reply, which was a good thing, because she was speechless as she closed her blinds. Mentally she smacked her forehead. Duh! All she would have had to do at any time was close her own blinds.

“Yeah, like I’m stupid or something,” she said to BooBoo.

The image of taking her clothes off for him shook her – and excited her. What was she, an exhibitionist? She never had been in the past, but now… Her nipples were hard, standing out like raspberries, and as for the rest of her… Well. She had never gone in for casual sex, but this sudden lust for Sam the jerk, of all people, floored her. How could he go from jerk to tempting just by taking off his clothes?

“Am I so shallow?” she asked BooBoo, and considered the idea for a moment, then nodded. “You betcha.”

BooBoo meowed, evidently in agreement.

Oh, dear. How could she look at Sam again without remembering how he looked naked? How could she meet him without blushing or letting him see that she had a major case of the hots for his body? She was much more comfortable having him as an adversary than she was seeing him as an object of lust. She preferred her lust objects at a safer distance… say, on a movie screen.

He hadn’t been embarrassed, though, so why should she? They were both adults, right? She had seen naked men before. She just had never seen Sam naked before. Why couldn’t he have had a beer belly and a shriveled wiener, instead of rock-hard abs and an impressive morning erection?

She began drooling again.

“This is disgusting,” she said aloud. “I’m thirty years old, not a teenager screaming over… whoever it is they scream over now. I should at least be able to control my saliva glands.”

Her saliva glands thought differently. Every time an image of Sam popped into her head, which was about every ten seconds – she had to enjoy the image for about nine seconds before she banished it – she would have to swallow. Repeatedly.

She had left for work early yesterday morning, when Sam had been leaving at the same time. If she left at her regular time today, he should already be gone, right?

But he’d said he was on a task force and kept irregular hours, therefore he might leave at any time. She couldn’t time her departure so it didn’t coincide with his; she would have to carry on as usual and keep her fingers crossed. Maybe tomorrow she would be able to face him with more composure, but not today, not with her body revved and her saliva glands working overtime. She should just forget about it and get ready for work.

She stood in front of her open closet door and found herself in a dilemma. What did one wear when she might meet her neighbor whom she had just seen naked?

Thank God for the scrape on her knee, she finally decided. It was pants or long skirts until the knee healed, which prevented her from sashaying out in the black, above-the-knee sheath with spaghetti straps that she usually wore to parties when she wanted to look sleek and sophisticated. The black sheath made a statement, something along the lines of “Look at me, don’t I look sexy,” but was definitely inappropriate for work. The scraped knee saved her from a major faux pas.

Better to err on the side of caution, she finally decided, and chose the most severe man-tailored pants outfit she owned. Never mind that she had always liked the way the pants clung to her butt, or that it never failed to elicit a few admiring remarks from the male contingent at work; she wasn’t going to see Sam today. He had to be even more uncomfortable about what had happened than she was. If anyone avoided anyone, he would avoid her.

Would a man who was embarrassed have flashed her that wicked grin? He knew he looked good; better than good, damn it.

In an effort to get her mind off exactly how good he looked, she turned on the television to catch the morning news while she dressed and did her makeup.

She was applying cover-up stick to the bruise on her cheekbone when the female anchor of the local morning newscast said in a chirpy voice, “Freud never found out what it is that women want. If he had talked to four area women, however, he would have known the answer to his famous question. Find out if your husband or boyfriend is Mr. Perfect when we return, after these messages.”

Jaine was so stunned she couldn’t even think of a curse word to say. Her legs suddenly weak, she sank down on the closed toilet seat. Dawna, the bitch, must have given them up immediately. No – if she had named names, the phone would have been ringing nonstop. So far they were still anonymous, but that was bound to change today.

She hurried into the bedroom and dialed T.J.’s number, silently praying that her friend hadn’t yet left for work. T.J. lived farther out than Jaine did, so she left home a little earlier.

“Hello.” T.J. sounded rushed, and a little irritable.

“It’s Jaine. Have you seen the news yet this morning?”

“No, why?”

“Mr. Perfect made the news.”

“Oh. My. God.” T.J. sounded as if she might faint, or vomit, or both.

“They don’t have our names yet, I don’t think, since no one has called. Someone at Hammerstead will figure it out today, though, so that means by afternoon it’ll be common knowledge.”

“But it won’t be on TV, will it? Galan always watches the news.”

“Who knows?” Jaine rubbed her forehead. “I guess it depends on how slow news is today. But if I were you, I’d turn off all the phones and unplug the one that’s hooked to the answering machine.”

“Done,” T.J. said. She paused and said bleakly, “I guess I’ll find out if Galan and I have anything worth holding on to, won’t I? I can’t expect him to be happy about this, but I do expect him to be understanding. After we talked about our Mr. Perfect last week, I did some thinking, and, well…”

And Galan hadn’t compared very favorably, Jaine thought.

“On second thought,” T.J. said very quietly, “I’m not going to turn off the phones. If it’s going to happen, I’d rather just get it over with.”

After she hung up, Jaine hurried to finish getting ready. The quick phone call hadn’t taken long, and the television commercials were just ending. The newscaster’s perky voice made her flinch.

“Four area women have gone public with their list of requirements for the perfect man…”

Three minutes later, Jaine closed her eyes and sagged weakly against the vanity. Three minutes! Three minutes was an eternity of airtime. Of all the days for there to be no shootings or accidents blocking the freeways or a war, a famine – anything to keep such an insignificant story off the air!

The news story had stopped short of the raunchy requirements, but made sure the viewers knew they could get the List, as it was being called, and the accompanying article, in their entirety, on the station’s Web site. Women and men had been interviewed for their reaction to items on the List. Everyone seemed to agree with the first five requirements, but after that opinions began to vary widely – usually with women taking one view and men the other.

Maybe if she took a week’s vacation, starting immediately, this would all have blown over by the time she got back from Outer Mongolia.

But that would be the coward’s way out. If T.J. needed supporting, Jaine knew she had to be there for her. Marci could also be facing the end of a relationship, but in Jaine’s opinion, losing Brickhead wouldn’t be much of a loss, and besides, Marci deserved some flack for spilling this whole thing to Dawna in the first place. With dread weighting down her every step, she forced herself out to the car. As she unlocked it, she heard a door open behind her and automatically glanced over her shoulder. For a moment she stared blankly at Sam as he turned to lock his kitchen door; then memory came roaring back, and in panic she fumbled with the door handle.

Nothing like a little notoriety to make a woman forget she wanted to avoid a certain man, she thought savagely. Had he been watching for her?

“Are you feeling better today?” he asked as he strolled up.

“Fine.” She half-tossed her purse into the passenger seat and slid under the wheel.

“Don’t put it there,” he advised. “When you stop at traffic lights, anyone can come up, pop the window, grab the purse, and be gone before you know what’s happening.”

She grabbed her sunglasses and slid them on, pathetically grateful for the protection they gave her as she dared to glance at him. “Where should I put it, then?”

“In the trunk is the safest place.”

“That isn’t very convenient.”

He shrugged. The movement made her notice how broad his shoulders were, and that reminded her of other parts of his body. Heat began to build in her cheeks. Why couldn’t he have been a drunk? Why wasn’t he still wearing sweatpants and a stained, torn T-shirt, instead of oatmeal slacks and a midnight blue silk shirt? A cream-and-blue-and-crimson tie was knotted loosely at his strong throat, and he carried a jacket in one hand. That big black pistol rested in a holster against his right kidney. He looked tough and competent, and way too good for her peace of mind.

“I’m sorry if I embarrassed you this morning,” he said. “I was still half-asleep and wasn’t paying attention to the windows.”

She managed a nonchalant shrug. “I wasn’t embarrassed. Accidents happen.” She wanted to leave, but he was standing so close she couldn’t shut the door.

He hunkered down in the V formed by the car and the open door. “Are you sure you’re okay? You haven’t insulted me yet, and we’ve been talking” – he glanced at his watch – “about thirty seconds already.”

“I’m in a mellow mood,” she said flatly. “I’m saving my energy in case something important comes along.”

He grinned. “That’s my girl. I feel better now.” He reached out and lightly touched her cheekbone. “The bruise is gone.”

“No, it isn’t. Makeup is a wonderful thing.”

“So it is.” His finger trailed down to the dent in her chin and lightly tapped it before withdrawing. Jaine sat frozen, ambushed by the abrupt realization that he was flirting with her, for God’s sake, and her heart was doing that sledgehammer thing again.

Oh, boy.

“Don’t kiss me,” she said warningly, because he seemed somehow closer, though she hadn’t seen him move, and his gaze was centered on her face in that intent look men get before they make their move.

“I don’t intend to,” he replied, smiling a little. “I don’t have my whip and chair with me.” He stood up and stepped back, his hand on the car door to close it. He paused, looking down at her. “Besides, I don’t have time right now. We both have to get to work, and I don’t like rush jobs. I’ll need a couple of hours, at least.”

She knew she should keep her mouth shut. She knew she should just close the car door and drive away. Instead she said blankly, “A couple of!!!hours?”

“Yeah.” He gave her another of those slow, dangerous smiles. “Three hours would be even better, because I figure that when I do kiss you, we’ll both end up naked.”