Bundle of Joy Read Free Page B

about hormones took the cake. Sure, Sam was a touch more weepy than usual these days, but this wasn't the Dark Ages, for heaven sake.
    Grabbing two fox capes from a chair near her Louis XIV desk, she hurried back toward the store room. He was bent over a stack of coats by the door to the store's tiny bathroom, an impulsive after-thought she'd had added to the storage area when she renovated the building last year. "I suppose you also think women should be kept barefoot and pregnant."
    "Don't put words in my mouth." He rose slowly, unfolding inch by powerful inch, until he towered over her. Dear God, he was enormous. He certainly had never looked so...so imposing back at O'Rourke's Bar and Grill.
    Why couldn't he at least have the decency to be less aggressively male, surrounded by fur coats and fancy dresses? He looked absolutely ridiculous standing there in his close-fitting t-shirt and even closer-fitting jeans with the hole in the right knee. Oh, Caroline knew plenty of men with holes in the knees of their jeans, but those men had bought said jeans complete with fashionable holes scattered hither and yon. She had no doubt Charlie Donohue had come by his state of disrepair honestly.
    "I know all about your type," she said, living dangerously. "Yeah?" He took a step forward. She said a prayer and held her ground. "I could tell you a few things about your type too, lady."
    "Oh, really?" She drew herself up to her full five feet one inch. "I'm sure I'd love to hear."
    "You're some rich guy's spoiled little daughter who has some time on her hands between dates so daddy bought you a store to keep you busy until he hands you off to some poor human bank account you'll call a husband."
    "You're more perceptive than I would ever have imagined," she drawled in her best spoiled little rich girl's voice. She'd tried for many years to cultivate her to-the-manner-born persona, and it was gratifying to know how well she'd succeeded. "Now if you don't mind, it's been lovely but I think we should say goodnight."
    "That's it?" He looked almost disappointed. "I cut you down to size and you stand there like Princess Diana, saying thank you and goodnight?"
    "I could recite the Preamble to the Constitution, if you like, but that won't change things. This was a rotten idea of Sam's and we'd be smart to cut our losses before there's bloodshed."
    She headed toward the big metal fire door that separated the storage room from the rest of the store but Donohue stepped in her way. "Not so fast."
    "Joke's over, Donohue," she said, heart beating faster. "Let me pass."
    "You're making me feel like a louse," he continued. "Go ahead. I'll give you one free insult and we'll call it even."
    "I don't make it a habit to insult people, Mr. Donohue."
    "I've watched you shoot down guys at the bar, Bradley. Your mouth should be declared a lethal weapon."
    She ducked around him and was practically at the door when, to her horror, he gave it a push and it clanged shut. The sound rang in her ears.
    "You idiot!" She forgot to modulate her voice as she pounded on the door with her fists. "Have you lost your mind?"
    "Idiot," he repeated with a grin as he leaned against the door. "Not bad, but you can do better. One good insult and I'll open the door and--"
    She whirled to face him, eyes blazing with fury, fists aching. "Don't you understand?"
    "Unlock the door." He looked down at her. "You do have the key, don't you?"
    "There is no key, you idiot! We're on a timer."
    "You have a phone in here?"
    "So the minks can call their mothers? Get real, Donohue! Face it: we're locked in here until tomorrow morning."
     
     

ii
     
    "I have to hand it to you," said Donohue. "You had me going there for a minute." Locked in the fur vault with the enemy until nine o'clock the next morning. Talk about unjust punishment. "Now open up."
    She swung on him with all the self-righteous fury of the condemned. Her delicate fist landed a punch right in the middle of his solar plexus and he