Reckless Read Free Page A

mixed together, and very healthy. He wondered how long it was and what it would look like spread over her shoulders.
    A faint, almost unnoticeable ripple moved down his thighs. Impulsively, he leaned forward and snagged the triangle off her fork, knowing she had meant him to take it with his fingers.
    The taste exploded on his tongue. He widened his eyes to show his approval. “That’s good.”
    She grinned, and he decided her mouth was very nice. A nice mouth was one of his requirements in a woman. How had he missed it earlier?
    â€œYou might be surprised how many wonderful, slimy green vegetables there are,” she said.
    He picked up his fork. “May I have another one?”
    â€œOf course.” She leaned back to give him access, and Jake speared another from her plate. He smelled something nice coming from her skin, very light, a perfume or something.
    â€œYou smell good,” he said.
    â€œThanks. So do you.”
    He met her gaze and felt a flame arc between them—that undeniable frisson that passed between a man and a woman, a frisson that had nothing to do with anything except perfect chemical alignment. Chemicals didn’t care if her figure was the kind he usually admired, or whether she had home-canned peas on her shelf. He let his gaze sweep over her face, light on her mouth, travel downward to the plump breasts too tightly confined in the ridiculous dress. For a minute, he was a little dizzy—his exhaustion rising to the fore—and had to close his eyes. With an effort, he opened them again and made a stab at flirting. “You like my cologne, huh?”
    Maybe he’d expected her to be flustered. She was not. She met his gaze steadily, a tiny smile hovering at the corner of her mouth. “Yes.”
    Something about that expression teased his memory, and he frowned for a minute, trying to place her. The snippet jelled and he saw her laughing with an old soldier as she checked his blood pressure. “You work at the VA home, don’t you?”
    â€œThat’s one of my stops, yes.”
    â€œAre you a nurse or something?”
    She raised her eyebrows. “These days, women aren’t only nurses.”
    â€œA doctor?” He couldn’t keep the slight surprise from his voice. Not because she was a woman, but because he associated women who achieved such grueling positions with a much more aggressive personality. “You’re a doctor?”
    â€œAmazing as it may seem, I am.”
    â€œI didn’t mean it like that.” He shrugged and took another artichoke heart from her plate. “Most women with big-time careers are kind of...” He stopped, noticing the tightness of her mouth. “Ah, never mind.”
    â€œNo, please,” she said in a silky tone, “I love to hear sexist comments from the lips of macho soldier boys.”
    He laughed. It just came out of him all at once, sounding rusty and unused because it was. “Touché,” he said. “I’m sonny.”
    â€œAccepted.” Tiny flames of humor danced in her eyes. “I mean, you can’t really expect a soldier to be politically correct, now can you?”
    â€œEx-soldier,” he said automatically.
    â€œAh, that’s right. You’re retired, aren’t you?”
    â€œNo,” he said without the usual pang. Amazing how far a little Scotch, a little food, and a woman to flirt with went toward silencing his demons. “You have to complete your commission to retire. I resigned.”
    â€œI see.” She picked out a perfectly shaped, bright red strawberry and admired it on her fork. “That’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
    â€œI guess.”
    â€œYou guess? Look at it again. This is the queen of all strawberries, and by some fine accident, she ended up on my plate. And my mouth.” She bit into the flesh, and Jake found himself admiring the movements of her pretty lips. A bawdy comment bloomed in his