Smooth Irish (Book 2 of the Weldon Series) Read Free Page B

a
towel. As she passed, she pulled the plug on her bath. She didn’t
think she could take anymore of what the hot silky water had
induced. She’d go feed Shakespeare and keep her mind on what was
important, not what her body clamored to have.
    She also ruthlessly ignored any guilt
she had over telling Jackson that she had no interest in where the
attraction between them could lead. She might play it out, over and
over again in her foolish writing, but she’d never let him know
that.
    The ringing of the doorbell stopped
her in her tracks. With her fantasy of Jackson fresh in her mind,
every fiber of her foolish body was hoping the devil was on her
doorstep.

     

CHAPTER TWO
     
    Nan’s pulse leapt with anticipation.
Mouth dry, she tiptoed up to the peephole, careful to not make any
noise. Centering her eye on the viewer, she felt her stomach clench
and sink with disappointment.
    She opened the door to her neighbor, resigned to
hear over a cup of tea the woman’s account of Shakespeare’s
misdeeds in the neighborhood.
    An hour later, Nan came to the dismal
realization that she envied her cat’s sex life. He was neutered,
but that didn’t seem to stop him from wooing every female cat in
the neighborhood. Cats didn’t have to live by a plan or be
disciplined. They just let the good times roll and then landed on
their feet.
    To make matters worse, her
disappointment that Jackson had not been on her doorstep rankled even more than her cat envy. She
hated to think that there was any truth to the absence-makes-the-heart-grow-fonder adage . She’d
already learned that the out-of-sight-out-of-mind thing was a
joke.
    By the next morning, she’d made a
twenty-item list of what comprised the perfect man in a attempt to
give her left brain the opportunity to show her right brain how
messed up it was for fantasizing over Jackson Weldon, and felt
pretty good about the exercise.
    Puttering around in pajamas that had
more frayed edges than an Egyptian mummy, she watered her colorful
zoo of indoor plants that served as her family. She discussed with
them the idea of buying another book on gourmet cooking. She needed
a distraction and some tricky recipes just might be the
ticket.
    “Well, Goldie, what do you think?
Shall we try Italian?” The Golden Trumpet didn’t shout back an
answer, so she moved on to her Blue African Lilies. She’d heard
some old wives tale that they brought happiness to the home that
they grew in. Whether it was true or not, Nan had bought herself
some and took extra care to keep them healthy and
thriving.
    She enjoyed coaxing miniature roses to
bloom, drinking in the vibrant summer colors of the gloxinia, and
smelling the fresh rosemary and basil from the planter in her
kitchen window. Being surrounded by the lush plants kept memories
of her childhood at bay.
    For her mother, flowers had been a
sign that good times were ahead. But nothing she’d planted or
bought had lived. Either she’d had a black thumb or the stresses of
her life had proved too distracting to care for the plants except
intermittently. To Nan, flowers were the symbols of hope her mother
could never seem to hold on to.
    The ringing of the phone pulled her
back from the past.
    “ You stood me up last
night and the only way you can make amends is to take me to lunch
and then shopping. There has to be something out there to make a
beached whale sexy.”
    Nan laughed at Alexi’s complaint. “If
you’re a beached whale then I’d hate to see what the rest of us
women look like eight months pregnant. You’re a glowing Madonna and
you know it.”
    “ Tell me a thousand more
times and I might hear you. Seriously, let’s hit the
mall.”
    “ Okay. Let me finish
watering my jungle and I’ll be by to get you.”
    “ Good.”
    Hanging up, Nan misted the rest of her
plants with water, put a little spoonful of fertilizer into her
button fern, and then readied herself. She pulled into the
unpretentious drive of Alexi and Jesse’s beachside