Joyride

But not this year.

This year she was going to serve Corinne Surprise when Tony came home for lunch. A hot thrill zigzagged through her as she imagined his look of shock, then hot arousal, when he found his fiancée, the gift!

Corinne glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Eleven-ten. Tony would be home in twenty minutes. Gift-wrapping time! She grabbed the cylinder of clear plastic wrap she’d purchased this morning at the supermarket. With trembling fingers, she began crookedly wrapping the slick material around her. Well, so what if it wasn’t on straight. Unlike the mirror, this plastic stuff wasn’t meant to stay on long. Minutes, tops.

Humming one of her favorite Céline Dion tunes, Corinne checked her progress in the mirror. She imagined her sleek lines as the lines of his precious Ferrari—the glossy, shimmering coating like the slick, soapy water that sluiced over the car’s body when he washed it. Except, unlike with his Ferrari, Tony would lose control with Corinne and tear off the plastic. And amid the ripping, groaning and howling, she’d tease him to take extra care with her bumpers.

Me, teasing like that? She pressed a fingertip against her bottom lip, as though pushing back the forbidden thought. Then she dropped her hand and giggled softly. “I’ve installed a mirror, dressed hot in freezer wrap. Maybe the new Corinne sometimes jokes during lovemaking, too!” She was liking this new side of herself. Maybe, after the let-’er-rip sex, she’d even be bold enough to demand they set a wedding date. After all, Tony’s large Italian family expected it, so with a little sizzling encouragement, Corinne would help nail that expectation. Gee, considering she was on the brink of nailing a date, what should she ask for? Five months from now? Five weeks?

She checked the clock. Five minutes to show time! She finished wrapping herself, then reached for her sewing basket to retrieve a pair of scissors. As she fumbled through spools, fabrics and buttons, it struck her as funny how, after years of sewing practical skirts and demure blouses, here she was snipping off the end of a clear plastic minidress that showed way more than her intentions!

After cutting a slit so she could walk, Corinne turned to the mirror and checked out the overall effect. “They wouldn’t call me Inconspicuous Corinne at work now!” Her breasts swelled over the minidress like two luscious scoops. Her perky nipples pressed through the clear sheath. And below, through layers of shimmering plastic, you could see a curly triangle. She gave her head a toss, liking the tousled effect of her newly colored shoulder-length glossy blond hair. Wilder, more daring than her normal red hair, which was turning a sedate auburn. Plus this new, sassy blond was almost the same color as Tony’s Ferrari—that rare “hot gold” he bragged about to his pals.

“Now for the pièce de résistance,” she gloated, tiptoeing to the closet. She’d bought a pair of black stiletto heels especially for this occasion. On her allowance, she’d have had to save for weeks to buy these shoes. But Lady Luck had been on her side—they’d been half price. When the middle-aged salesman said their price was slashed because women never wore heels like this anymore, she’d felt her face burn hot, certain he knew she was buying them for sex. When he’d asked her to walk in them, she’d stumbled a few feet, stopped, and swaying a little had squeaked, “They’re perfect!”

Okay, it was going to be a challenge walking in these skyscrapers again, but she was a woman on a mission. A make-love-to-her-fiancé mission. A get-married mission.

A make-a-baby mission.

Slipping into the high heels was tougher than she remembered back at the shoe store. The arch was so high, she had to shove her foot in. Reminded her of the time she’d shoved her wild cousin Sandee through the back window of some guy’s Chevy. That had been fifteen years ago when Corinne and her mom moved to a small Texas town, following her mom’s divorce number two, to be close to the only family Corinne had ever known—Aunt Judy, her mom’s identical twin, and Judy’s daughter, Sandee. Since those teenage years, Corinne rarely saw Sandee, who now lived in Las Vegas, although they had occasional phone calls where they girl-talked for hours. One of those calls had been just last week…Sandee had been worried about a bump and run, but didn’t give details. And Corinne didn’t pry, although she’d been dying to ask questions because Sandee’s bump and run sounded like a possible chapter in How to Make Your Man Howl.

“Eiiyyy!” Corinne emitted her own howl as she teetered in the heels. Stumbling a few feet, she grabbed the mahogany bedpost and caught her balance. Holding on to the smooth wooden pole, she sucked in several shaky breaths. This is crazy. I won’t look like a hot babe if I’m teetering and stumbling, flailing my arms for balance. For a stinging moment, she thought she was going to cry.

No! She pressed her lips together, careful to not smudge her lipstick. I want to be married. I want a baby. I’m going to be sexy if it kills me! Realizing her last thought, she started giggling uncontrollably. “I look like a walking—well, stumbling—ad for How to Make Your Man Howl,” she whispered to herself. “If this kills me, at least I’ll go out of this world looking like one burning hunkess of love! Talk about ‘showing’!”

Grinning with a surge of confidence, she straightened, let go of the bedpost, and teetered toward the foyer.

Scratch. Click.

Tony’s key in the lock!

Corinne almost tripped as she skidded to a stop in front of the door. Show time! She stood, spread-eagled. What to do with her hands? She flashed on the chapter “Bondage—It’s Not Just for Breakfast Anymore.” Shakily, she held her hands above her head, wrists crossed.

The door creaked open. Corinne closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, forcing her double scoops high. She felt like an overheated car engine, ready to rip loose and roar…

“Stop it!” squealed a nasally woman’s voice. “Wait’ll we get inside, Tiger Boy.”

Tiger Boy? Corinne opened her eyes. Some frizzy-haired blonde, her body squeezed like a sausage into a low-cut pink number, was nuzzling and rubbing against…Tony!

He looked up, his dark eyes meeting Corinne’s. His killer smile died. “This isn’t want you think,” he said sharply, gesturing emphatically with the hand that wasn’t around the blonde.

Corinne’s insides shattered, like a splintered mirror. Think? She couldn’t even breathe. Hell, she couldn’t even move! Feeling ridiculously vulnerable, she wanted to cover her nearly naked body but her hands felt soldered to the top of her hot-gold head.

The blonde reared back. “What the hell—?” She turned to Tony. “Is that your cleaning lady?”

“Cleaning—?” A burning rage tore through Corinne, thawing her frozen state. Dropping her hands, she fisted them in front of her. She’d never hit anyone or anything in her life—but right now she could probably cream Mike Tyson. “That’s right! I’m the cleaning lady, the seamstress, the washer woman…everything but the banker because ol’ Tiger Boy here takes my checks and only gives me a frickin’ allowance.”

She’d never seen that look on Tony’s face. Slack jawed. His eyes wide, dark. For a hotheaded Italian, he was suddenly acting very, very cool. No, make that shocked. And not at her gift-wrapped getup, but at her reaction. Corinne had never yelled at him. Never spoken her mind. Well, she’d only just started!

As she stepped from one high-heeled foot to the other, like a runner prancing before a race, a drop of sweat rolled down her chest and disappeared between her plastic-wrapped scoops. In the back of her mind, it hit her that suddenly she wasn’t teetering. “To sum it up,” she continued, not caring that she was yelling, “I’m the wife-who-wasn’t!” She fought the urge to cry and scream as she finished. “And obviously, I’m also the last one to know!”

“Tony,” whispered the blonde, “I think your cleaning lady is helping herself to the liquor cabinet—”

Tony cut her off. “Baby,” he said, tossing his keys on a side table. “Why don’t you go into the other room…”

Baby. Corinne could almost forgive the nickname for his car—but for another woman? While his fiancée was so desperate to get married and have a baby?

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” The blonde jabbed his chest with an inch-long crimson nail. “You bring me to your house for a nooner and we’re greeted by some plastic-wrapped maid with a deranged wife fantasy?”

Corinne’s heart twisted. Plastic-wrapped. Like leftovers. But the blonde had one thing right. Corinne definitely had a deranged wife fantasy. She’d been a fool wanting to marry this two-timing, self-absorbed Tiger Boy…who had a lot of nerve wearing that crucifix his mother had given him, as though he needed protection from the evil in the world!

Corinne glanced at his car keys on the table. Tony and the blonde were yelling at each other as though Corinne didn’t exist. Here she was, dressed like some kind of hausfrau hooker, and she was still being treated like Inconspicuous Corinne.

Well, no more!

Minutes ago, she’d shakily wrapped herself in this getup, thrilled at her audacious first step at shedding her inhibitions. Well, forget first steps. She was taking a flying leap!

In a rush of movement, Corinne snatched the keys off the table. In a stiff-kneed speed walk, she beelined past the arguing couple and across the lawn to the Ferrari parked in the driveway. Jumping inside, she shoved the key into the ignition. As the engine roared to life, Tony tore across the lawn, yelling a string of profanities—some Italian, some English.

Corinne didn’t try to decipher which was which as she shoved the gear into reverse and squealed down the driveway, smoking rubber obliterating the vision of her home, her husband-to-be, her future. In a moment of dread, mixed with a strange anticipation, she realized she was shedding more than her inhibitions, she was shedding her entire life.

As she ground the gear into first, she stuck her other hand out the sunroof. “Bye bye, Baby!” she yelled before punching the gas.

A MANILLA FOLDER LANDED with a slap on Leo’s desk. “Guy claims an oversized redhead stole his classic Studebaker,” said a gravelly male voice. “More like a classic bump and run. Couldn’t have been Lizzie ’cause she had a thing for Acura Integras.”

Leo slugged a mouthful of scalding coffee. Too hot. But damn if he’d let on he’d just singed a layer of skin off his tongue.

“Sorry,” Dom murmured, rubbing his temple. “Shouldn’t make Lizzie jokes. Bad taste.”

Real bad. Leo coughed and stared at the folder, pretending to be absorbed in this Studebaker case, but his mind was on Elizabeth—Lizzie—his former wife. Everybody had known how much he loved her. Hell, everyone loved her. She’d had a knack for getting to people with her infectious devil-may-care style.

And just as everyone had known Lizzie, everyone knew the story. How he’d been on a raid and discovered his devil-may-care wife was no angel. Caught her in a drug-bust sting. How he’d been shot at damn near point blank range because he’d been tunnel-visioned on his wife, unable to move, to digest the hellish reality. After getting out of the hospital, the department had pressured him to see a shrink but it had ripped his gut apart to talk about her, so he’d stopped going. Since then, he never talked about her to anyone else. Except Mel, the parrot, and then only after a few drinks.

But even then, he never called her “Lizzie.” Always “Elizabeth” as though saying her full, Christian name could distance the devil.

“When do I get a real case, Dom?” asked Leo, changing the subject. “I’m thirty-five, your best detective, and you’re assigning me senior citizen nits. Next I’ll be tracking a stolen walker.” But in Leo’s heart, he wondered if he even wanted a “real” case. He figured he kept asking because being a cop was the only job he’d ever known.

Dom lifted his eyebrows, which lay like a fuzzy caterpillar across the captain’s brow. He opened his mouth to respond, but Leo cut in.

“If you’d gotten shot because your wife was…” The rest of the sentence tasted bitter, so Leo let it hang. Defensive. Again. One of his newer, more pleasant personality traits since the crash-and-burn of his marriage, his life. “Forget it.” He picked up a pen. “Studebaker,” he repeated, writing the word on a legal pad. “Overage geriatric owner. Oversized—whatever that means—redheaded thief.” He stopped writing and looked up. “And who said Vegas has become nothing but a big family town?”

Leo had lived here all his life. Watched his dad walk out on the family. Watched his mom raise her two sons single-handedly, one of whom was hell on wheels. By seventeen, Leo had been an accomplished delinquent who specialized in hot-wiring cars for joyrides…but his hobby came to a screeching halt when his mom remarried, this time to a cop.

At first Leo hated his new stepfather, whom Leo called “Hobo Cop” behind his back. But despite Leo’s attitude, his stepdad never wavered on dishing out discipline…or love. One day, Leo accidentally called this man “Dad.” And when the man, in return, called him “Son,” Leo knew he wanted to grow up to be a cop.

Which he became. And after that, a hotshot detective. But now he was on desk duty, his career stalled. Just like his life. Some days he wanted to start over, pack up his antiquated Airstream and head out to some new frontier, finding a small ranch in which to spend the rest of his days. Especially while recovering from the shooting, he’d had a lot of time to indulge in this fantasy. In his darker moments, it’d given him hope to plan how long it’d take to save for a down payment on this ranch…he’d figured two years would nail it…

The sound of Dom shoving aside a bag of pretzels and a half-eaten Twinkie brought Leo back from the ranch fantasy to the desk reality. “You should eat better,” Dom grumbled, planting himself on the edge of the desk. Crossing his arms over his uniformed chest, Dom continued, “I know you hate desk duty. Trust me, if we had our way in the precinct, we’d pay you to stay home.” Dom grinned, then turned somber again. “It’s tough enough getting shot—worse being forced to take a paid leave. Let me remind you that you were to remain on leave for a full year, but not Leo Wolf-man—”