LITMIR.BIZ

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Going home. He missed Miami and he was turning flips at the thought of seeing Jackie again and showing her how he’d changed, but he couldn’t help wishing he could have said goodbye to Haley. He would miss the way she challenged him at every turn. Not too many people did that to him.

      Jackie did.

      It had just been so long since he’d seen Jackie that he was imbuing Haley with his ex-girlfriend’s traits. That was all this was. That was all it could be, because he’d given up being a ladies’ man and he was damned proud of his restraint.

      A year.

      It had been a year since he’d been with a woman. His longest record since he’d lost his virginity at sixteen. See, Jackie, I have changed!

      The governor and his wife joined Jeb’s conversation with the hospital administrator. Jeb winked at the wife, a dumpy woman in her mid-fifties wearing a colorful muumuu. “You’re looking beautiful tonight, Mrs. Freemont.”

      She blushed like a girl and ducked her head. “You’re such an outrageous flirt.”

      From eight to eighty, most women were so easy to charm. Look them straight in the eye, pay them a compliment and mean it. That was the essential part. You truly had to love women. Add a conspiratorial wink and they were putty.

      All except for Jackie.

      And Haley.

      “You don’t have drinks,” Jeb said to the Freemonts. “Let me rectify that right now.” He motioned for one of the waiters roving through the crowd with trays of hors d’oeuvres to come over. He gave their order to the waiter, turned back to pick up the thread of the conversation when his attention was immediately snagged by a leggy honey-blonde sauntering up the gangplank.

      She wore a skimpy little blue dress with tiny white flowers scattered over the material, and her breasts moved with such a pert bounce he had to assume she was not wearing a bra.

      Instantly, his body lit up.

      His gaze trailed from the blue four-inch stiletto sandals on her delicate little feet, up the length of those amazing calves and back to the nip of her narrow waist to the boldly unharnessed breasts, and finally, he glanced at her face.

      His heart did a double take.

      No way! This could not be Haley French looking like a supermodel with her perfectly arched eyebrows and glossy pink lips.

      His eyes bugged out and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He knew she was pretty, yes indeed, but he had absolutely no idea she could look like this. Stunning.

      “Excuse me,” he said smoothly to the Freemonts and the hospital administrator, then set down his drink and made a beeline straight for Haley.

      Her eyes widened and she reached for the elbow of the dark-haired girl beside her. She said something short and succinct to her friend, shook her head, spun on her heel and hurried back down the gangplank.

      “Wait!” Jeb called, pushing through the crowd.

      But Haley didn’t even glance around. Her friend stood on the gangplank looking bewildered.

      “Jeb, hey, I’ve been wanting to speak to you,” someone said.

      “Great party.” A beautiful woman clutched at his arm.

      A man clapped him on the shoulder. “We’re going to miss you on St. Michael’s.”

      “Excuse me, excuse me.” Jeb shook off the people. Why was he so desperate to prevent her from leaving?

      He blew past Haley’s friend, reached the end of the gangplank. Haley was a good twenty feet ahead of him. She was already off the dock and climbing the stairs to the marina parking lot.

      “Haley!”

      She didn’t turn around.

      He was running now. Definitely uncool. Ruining your image, dude. Stop it.

      Jeb reached the bottom of the stairs just as Haley crested them. “Baby, don’t go.”

      She stopped in midstep and spun around to glower at him. One sexy gam perched on the landing, the other on the step below. “Excuse me?”

      “Baby, please don’t go.”

      “Baby? Did you just call me baby?”

      He shrugged, chagrined. “Sorry. Figure of speech.”

      “Do I look like an infant to you?”

      “No, ma’am. Not in any way, shape or form.”

      Slowly, she came back down the steps toward him, her eyes blazing fire. His pulse hammered hotly through his veins. “The word baby is also often used as a term of endearment between lovers,” she said.

      “Uh-huh.” He nodded.

      “Are we lovers?”

      “Unfortunately, no.” What was he doing? Jackie was the one for him. He was trying not to seduce other women, and for a whole year, he’d been a very good boy. He should just tell Haley goodbye and go back to the party.

      “I am not an infant and we are not lovers, correct?”

      “Correct.”

      “Then under no circumstances are you to call me baby. Got it?”

      He gave a jaunty salute. “Got it. No baby. Not now, not ever. The word is stricken from my vocabulary.”

      “Good. Even among lovers I find the word off-putting. Infantilizing each other isn’t the way to build a mature, loving bond.”

      “You have strong opinions about it.”

      “I do.”

      “You really don’t like me all that much, do you?”

      “Not especially.”

      “Why did you come tonight?”

      “My friend Ahmaya needed a wing woman and a ride. She doesn’t have a car.”

      “You were just going to go off and leave her?”

      For one second, she looked shamefaced, but quickly recovered. “Ahmaya’s a big girl. She can take care of herself.”

      “And yet, you came with her.” Jeb raked his gaze over Haley. “Looking like that, I might add.”

      A pink blush crept up her neck. “It’s Ahmaya’s dress.”

      “You’re stunning.”

      “Oh, I feel so special,” she said snidely. “I bet you said that to only a couple dozen women today.”

      “More like a baker’s dozen,” he teased.

      Her shoulders relaxed a little at that and a tiny smile briefly lit her lips. Small victory. With Haley, he’d take his triumphs where he could get them.

      “Are you still planning on running away?”

      “I’m not running away.”

      “Seems to me you are.”

      “I can’t run in these shoes. I was walking away or, more accurately, hobbling away.”

      “Why?”

      “I don’t like parties.”

      “Why not?”

      “They’re too crowded. I don’t like crowds.”

      “Uh, you forget I saw you in action in those relief camps right after Hurricane Sylvia. The tents were packed tighter than sardine cans and you were right in the middle of it.”

      “That was different. I was helping people.”

      “C’mon back to the party,” he coaxed. “I’ll let you give the Heimlich maneuver if anyone chokes on a

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