hapter Thirteen

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Pleasant!She’d said it waspleasant! Cal sat at his favorite table in the corner of the Mountaineer and brooded. Usually there weren’t any empty seats around him, but tonight everybody’d seemed to realize he had a giant mean-on, and they’d given him wide berth.

No matter how easily she’d dismissed what had happened between them, he knew Professor Rosebud had never had a better lover than she’d had tonight. There’d been none of that nonsense they’d gone through before, with her pushing his hands away. No, sir. He’d had his hands all over her, and she hadn’t uttered a single protest.

But what stuck in his craw—what really stuck like a big old chunk of hard-boiled egg—was the fact that he’d just had some of the best sex of his life, and he’d never felt more unsatisfied.

Maybe it was his fault for getting cute. Why hadn’t he just grabbed her right there in the house, carried her upstairs, and romanced her in his bed with all the lights on and that big mirror overhead? He could have done his best work there, not that he hadn’t been pretty damn good tonight, but if they’d been in his bed, he would have seen everything he wanted to see. In duplicate.

He reminded himself this was the third time the two of them had gone at it, but he wasn’t any closer to seeing her naked now than he’d been that first night. It was getting to be an obsession. If only he hadn’t turned off the dome light, he could have looked his fill, but despite that sassy mouth of hers, he’d known she was skittish, and he’d wanted her so much he hadn’t been thinking straight. Now he had to face the consequences.

He understood his nature well enough to know that the only reason he found himself thinking about her a few thousand times a day was because he still didn’t feel as if he’d really made love to her. How could he when he didn’t know what she looked like? Once he found out, it’d be over. Instead of growing stronger every day, this attraction he felt toward her would disappear, and he’d be his old self again, ready to roam the fertile fields of dewy young females with flawless faces and sweet temperaments, although he was giving serious consideration to raising his minimum age requirement to twenty-four, since he was getting tired of everybody baiting him.

His thoughts strayed back to the Professor. Damn, but she was one funny lady. Sharp as a tack, too. Over the years, he’d developed a certain smugness about the fact that he was smarter than most everybody else, but that razor-sharp brain of hers made it hard to sneak much past her. Instead, she marched right alongside him, her brain cells clicking away, matching him step for step and move for move. He could almost feel her peering into every dusty corner of his mind and making a generally accurate assessment of whatever it was she found there.

“Reliving those three interceptions you threw against the Chiefs last year?”

His head shot up, and he found himself looking into the face of his nightmares.Son of a bitch.

Kevin Tucker’s lips curled in a cocky grin that reminded Cal the kid didn’t have to spend thirty minutes standing under a hot shower every morning just to work the kinks out.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Heard this is a beautiful part of the country, and I decided to take a look. I rented one of those vacation villas north of town. Nice place.”

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“You just happened to choose Salvation?”

“Strangest thing. I’d already crossed the city limits before it even occurred to me that this was where you lived. Can’t imagine how I forgot that.”

“Yeah, I can’t imagine.”

“Maybe you could show me some of the local sights.” Kevin turned toward the bartender. “Sam Adams for me. Get the Bomber here another of whatever he’s having.”

Cal was drinking club soda, but he hoped Shelby kept her mouth shut about that.

Kevin sat down without an invitation and leaned back in the chair. “I didn’t get a chance to congratulate you on your marriage. It sure surprised everybody. You and your new wife must have had a good laugh over the way I took her for a groupie that night she came to your hotel room.”

“Oh, yeah, we laughed real hard about that.”

“A physicist. I can’t get over it. She didn’t exactly look like your standard groupie that night, but she sure as hell didn’t look like a scientist, either.”

“Just goes to show.”

Shelby brought the drinks over herself and gave Kevin the eye. “I saw you play fourth quarter against the 49ers last year, Mr. Tucker. You looked real good.”

“I’m Kevin to you, dollface. And thanks. The old man here taught me everything I know.”

Cal bristled, but he could hardly punch Kevin out with Shelby watching. It took her forever to finish flirting with Pretty Boy, but she finally left them alone.

“How ’bout cutting the bullshit, Tucker, and tell me why you’re really here.”

“I already told you. Just a little vacation. Nothing more.”

Cal swallowed his fury, knowing the more he pressed, the more satisfaction Tucker’d get out of it. Besides, he had a pretty good idea why Kevin had shown up in Salvation, and he didn’t like it one bit. The kid was playing a psych-out game.You can’t get away from me, Bonner. Not even during the off-season. I’m here, I’m young, and I’m in your face.

Cal made his way to the kitchen at eight the next morning. He was in no mood for the nine o’clock meeting Ethan had scheduled with their local state representative so the three of them could discuss the teen drug program, and he wasn’t looking forward to the lunch he’d set up with his mother to try and talk some sense into her, but neither could be postponed. Maybe if he’d had more sleep he wouldn’t be so out of sorts.

But he knew he couldn’t blame his foul mood on either lack of sleep or the stiffness in his joints. It was that sex viper he’d married who was responsible. If she didn’t have this compulsion for keeping her clothes on, he’d have slept like a baby last night.

As he walked into the kitchen, he saw Jane sitting at the counter munching some kind of

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nutritious-looking bagel with honey squeezed on top. For a moment the homeyness of the scene made it hard for him to breathe. This wasn’t what he wanted! He didn’t want a house and a wife and a kid on the way, especially not with Kevin Tucker holed up five miles away. He wasn’t ready for this.

He noticed that the Professor looked as neat as always. Her gold turtleneck was tucked into a pair of khaki slacks that were neither too tight nor too loose, and she’d pulled her hair back with a narrow, tortoise-colored clip-on headband. As usual, she hadn’t bothered with much more makeup than a swipe of lipstick. There wasn’t one thing sexy about her appearance, so why did she look so delectable to him?

He grabbed a fresh box of Lucky Charms from the pantry, then collected a bowl and spoon. He slapped the milk carton down on the counter with more force than necessary and waited for her to rip into him about the way he’d run off last night. He knew it hadn’t exactly been gentlemanly, but she’d hurt his pride. Now he was going to have to pay the price, and the last thing he wanted to hear at eight in the morning was a screaming banshee.

She raised both of her eyebrows over the tops of her glasses. “Are you still drinking 2 percent milk?”

“Something wrong with that?” He ripped open the cereal box.

“Two percent isn’t low-fat milk despite what millions of Americans think. For the sake of your arteries, you should really switch to skimmed, or at least 1 percent.”

“And you should really mind your own damned business.” The Lucky Charms clattered into his bowl. “When I want your—” He broke off in mid-sentence, unable to believe what he was seeing.

“What’s wrong?”

“Will you look at this?”

“My goodness.”

He stared incredulously into a mound of dry cereal. All the marshmallows were missing! He saw lots of beige-colored frosted oat cereal, but not a single marshmallow. No multicolored rainbows or green shamrocks, no blue moons or purple horseshoes, not a single yellow whatchamacallit. Not one solitary marshmallow.

“Maybe someone tampered with the box,” she offered in that cool scientist’s voice.

“Nobody could have tampered with it! It was sealed up tighter than a drum when I opened it. Something must have gone wrong at the factory.”

He sprang up from his stool and headed back into the pantry for another box. This was all he needed to make a lousy morning worse. He emptied his old cereal in the trash, ripped open the new box, and poured it in the bowl, but all he saw was frosted oat cereal. No marshmallows.

“I don’t believe this! I’m going to write the president of General Mills! Don’t they have any quality control?”

“I’m sure it’s just a fluke.”

“Doesn’t make any difference whether it’s a fluke or not. It shouldn’t have happened. When a person

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buys a box of Lucky Charms, he’s got expectations.”

“Would you like me to fix you a nice wheat bran bagel with a little honey on it? And maybe a glass of skimmed milk to go along.”

“I don’t want a bagel, and I sure as hell don’t want skimmed milk. I want my Lucky Charms!” He stalked into the pantry and pulled out the remaining three boxes. “I’ll guaran-damn-tee you one of these is going to have marshmallows in it.”

But none of them did. He opened all three boxes, and there wasn’t a single marshmallow in any of them.

By now the Professor had finished her bagel, and her green eyes were as cool as the missing marshmallow shamrocks. “Perhaps I could make you some oatmeal. Or Wheatena. I believe I have Wheatena.”

He was furious. Wasn’t there anything in life he could count on these days? The Professor had him spinning mental cartwheels; Kevin Tucker had materialized out of nowhere; his mom had moved out on his dad; and now the marshmallows were missing from five boxes of his favorite breakfast cereal. “I don’t want anything!”

She took a sip of milk and regarded him with perfect serenity. “It really isn’t healthy to start the day without a good breakfast.”

“I’ll risk it.”

He wanted to whip her up off that stool, toss her over his shoulder, and carry her up to his bedroom so he could finish what he’d started last night. Instead, he yanked his keys from his pocket and stalked out to the garage.

He wouldn’t just write the president of General Mills, he decided. He was going to sue the whole damned company! Everybody from the board of directors right down to the shipping clerks. By damn, he’d teach General Mills not to ship out inferior cereal. He jerked open the door of his Jeep, and that was when he saw them.

Marshmallows. Hundreds of tiny marshmallows covering the seats. Red balloons, pink hearts, blue moons. They were scattered everywhere. Across the dashboard, on the front seat, and all over the backseat.

A red veil descended over his eyes. He slammed the door shut and charged into the kitchen. He was going to kill her!

She sat at the counter sipping a cup of tea. “Forget something?”

“Yeah, I forgot something all right. I forgot to smack you silly!”

She didn’t look the slightest bit intimidated. Damn it! No matter what he threatened, no matter how loud he yelled, she didn’t even cringe, probably because she knew he wouldn’t touch her. Now he had to satisfy himself by pumping up the volume. “Youare going to pay for this!”

He grabbed one of the Lucky Charm boxes and turned it over, spilling the cereal everywhere. He yanked open the sealed flap on the bottom, and sure enough, a neat slit in the inner bag had been

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carefully resealed with Scotch tape.

He gritted his teeth. “Don’t you think this was just a little childish?”

“It certainly was. And immensely satisfying.” She took a sip of tea.

“If you were pissed off about the way I took off last night, why didn’t you just say so?”

“I prefer docudrama.”

“I can’t believe anybody could be so damned immature!”

“I could have been a lot more immature—emptying the marshmallows in your underwear drawer, for example—but I believe revenge should be subtle.”

“Subtle! You ruined five perfectly good boxes of Lucky Charms and spoiled my whole day in the process.”

“What a pity.”

“I ought to… I swear I’m…” Damned if he wasn’t carrying her upstairs right now and making love to her until she begged his forgiveness.

“Don’t mess with me, Calvin. You’ll only get hurt.”

Seriously. He was seriously going to kill her. He regarded her through narrowed eyes. “Maybe you’d better explain why you got upset enough to do this. It’s not like anything really important happened last night, is it? You yourself said it was—How did you put it? Oh, yeah. You said it wasquite pleasant.

Now to my way of thinking,pleasant doesn’t add up toimportant.” He regarded her closely. “But maybe it was more than pleasant for you. Maybe it was more important than you want to let on.”

Was it his imagination or did something flicker in the depths of those melted shamrock eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s your lack of courtesy I found offensive. It would merely have been good manners on your part to have stayed around instead of running off like a teenager hurrying to tell his buddies he’d scored.”

“Manners? Is that what five boxes of mutilated Lucky Charms is all about?”

“Yes.”

Just one good shot. He was already late for his meeting, but he couldn’t leave until he got off one good shot. “You’re about the lowest breed of human being there is.”

“What?”

“Right up there with the Boston Strangler and the Son of Sam.”

“Don’t you think that’s a little extreme?”

“Not hardly.” He shook his head and regarded her with disgust. “I married a damned cereal killer.”