Secret Admirer: Secret Kisses / Hidden Hearts / Dream Marriage

He rubbed his head where it hurt. The trouble with being a bachelor was the time gap when there wasn’t a good woman to nag you into living sensibly. Carol would have stopped him on beer number three.

All of a sudden the damn alarm clock had his brain throbbing so hard he could have sworn it hopped off the counter straight into his skull. Jane’s red mouth dissolved into the mists of his mind. Groaning, he jammed pillow number three over his head, rolled over onto Julie Baby, who stuck several claws in his chest. When he screamed, she jumped from the bed to the lamp, knocking it over and shattering the bulb.

“Damn your hide, cat!”

Although he wasn’t much on rules, a man should know better than to sleep naked with an untrustworthy female whose nails were too long.

Matt sat bolt upright and glared at Julie Baby, who stared back at him serenely. Did cats ever blink? Growling, Matt threw a pillow at the clock, which hit the floor and mercifully died beside the jagged bits of lightbulb.

The phone rang again.

Lula again.

Later.

The trailer, what he could see of it from the tattered couch, would’ve made a pig oink with pride. The sink overflowed with last night’s dishes. The garbage can brimmed with several days’ stinky leavings.

Later. After he got the window unit installed and washed his Porsche tonight, maybe he’d vacuum. Even he could see it was time.

The phone stopped ringing. Lula didn’t leave a second message.

If and when Jerry Keith ever got his ranch house finished, Matt intended to be neater. The trashed trailer, which was supposed to have been temporary lodging, would go back where it belonged—to his hunting lease.

The trouble was Jerry Keith was bad about working for other people instead of for him.

“Have to build clientele. Marketing. That’s your game, ain’t it, Big Bubba? You’re up for director of market research, am I right? Same as Jane Snow? Afraid she’ll beat you?”

Matt knew he’d been way too patient with the brat, but his kid brother did have a few things on his plate—a pregnant wife, for one thing.

At least with no AC and open windows, Matt could hear doves cooing outside and a whippoorwill. The faint breeze that smelled of cedar and grass nearly lured him outside, only the phone rang again, and he picked up.

“Lula, darlin’, you aren’t gonna quit, now, are you?”

“How’d you guess it was me?” She sounded pleased.

“I’m psychic.”

“Like me? Then you probably know why I called.”

“Let me guess. You want a favor.”

“Jane’s car’s in the shop. Could you drive her to work?” Jane. She’d barely spoken to him since she’d gotten him expelled his senior year. He’d been forced to resign as president of his high-school class, and several honors he’d earned had been stricken from his transcripts. He’d been in the doghouse with his folks, too.

“If she calls and asks me herself, I’ll consider it.” Silence.

“Lula, are you still there?”

When Lula still didn’t answer, he began to think about the promotion Jane and he were competing for. If Jane needed a ride, why not scope out the competition? She was a tight-ass if ever there was one. Surprises, especially from him, unnerved her.

“Do you take the Gazette?” There was a note in Lula’s voice he knew better than to trust.

“Am I a red-blooded Red Rockian or what?”

“There’s an anonymous love letter to the editor you might find very interesting. A little birdie told me it was written to you.”

Jane’s mother wouldn’t be talking about Carol. “Are you saying Jane wrote it?”

“Why don’t you drive her to work and ask her yourself.”

The luscious, enormous mouth came back to taunt him. The red lips puckered. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the mouth, Jane’s mouth, stayed right where it was—tempting him.

He’d kissed that mouth.

The lips puckered seductively. Hell, he could almost taste her. He remembered exactly how satiny and slick those lips had felt on the outside and how wet and hot and honey sweet they’d been on the inside. He still couldn’t quite believe she’d let his tongue through the pearly gates without chomping it to bits.

He thought about her hot body, and his number-two brain got so excited it tented the sheets beneath his waist. Good thing the cat wasn’t watching or she would pounce for sure.

“Oh, and one more thing, Matty.” He gritted his teeth at his kindergarten nickname. “My Janie doesn’t have a date to the Spring Fling.”

“Because she’s so damn picky, she’s turned everybody down who’s gotten up the nerve to ask her. Who’s she waiting for—Prince Charming?”

“Could be, handsome,” her mother said slyly. “So, you keep up with my Janie’s love life?”

“With our nonstop gossip grapevine buzzing day and night, I’d have to be brain dead not to know everybody’s business, including hers. How’d you find out Carol broke up with me last night because she’s moving to Houston a week earlier than she thought?”

“She broke up with you because you wouldn’t propose.”

“Damn, you’re good.”

Lula laughed.

“It was pretty late when she called me,” he muttered.

“To be exact, it was 8:30 p.m. ’Cause you stood her up.”

“Next time I want to know what’s going on in my life I’ll call you.”

“If you’re driving Janie, she’s expecting me at 7:30 a.m.—sharp! You know how grumpy she gets if she has to wait even one second.”

“I know how grumpy she is—period—any time I come around.”

“That’s just because she’s afraid to let you know how much she likes you.”

“Right!”

“Trust me. Her mother knows. Remember, I was the one who had to put her back together after you kissed her under the mistletoe.”

“Goodbye, Lula.”