LITMIR.BIZ

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and a childhood friend.”

      “Oh, so you grew up in Miami?”

      “No, I grew up mostly back East. But we lived here for a few years. Alejandro’s been here all his life, though, and we’ve always kept in touch.” Peg moved toward the door. “I’m going to get your water now, okay? Go ahead and make yourself comfortable and I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

      She exited and tried not to think about Troy Barrington unbuttoning his shirt, unbuckling his belt, stepping out of his jeans. Tried not to think about the expanse of muscle that would greet her when she walked back through the door. She was a professional, after all.

      Peggy walked to the kitchenette and got one of the spa’s tall, apple-green plastic cups from a cabinet, added a few ice cubes to it and began to fill it with bottled water from the fridge. She caught sight of herself in the steel microwave door and as usual hated her freckled, pug nose. Not the kind of schnoz that got a man fantasizing.

      “Hey!” she said aloud. “I don’t want men fantasizing. Mind, body, spirit. No guys.”

      “What’s that, hon?” Marly Fine, the spa’s hairstylist and muralist, walked up behind her and dumped out the remnants of her green tea. Her glossy black hair hung in a loose French braid down her back and she’d eaten off all her lip gloss, along with part of her lip liner, too. Despite this, Marly was true to her last name: fine. Tall and willowy and ethereal, with deep blue-green eyes and unfairly olive skin.

      “Mind, body, spirit. Impulse control. Balance in all things,” said Peggy, feeling like the Pillsbury Doughboy in a red wig beside her. She needed to get her butt running again, instead of just coaching kids to do it from the sidelines. But no matter how much she ran or starved, her legs would always be short and thick compared to Marly’s.

      “Right, mind, body, spirit.” The hairstylist batted Peg’s ponytail playfully. “I hear you have a hottie under your sheet right now.”

      “Is Shirlie still panting out there?”

      “Yes.” Marly’s expression was amused. “And she swears she’s seen the guy before, in the news or on TV or something. What does he do?”

      Peg shrugged. “Beats me. All I’ve done is ask him what he wants to drink and point him toward the men’s locker room.”

      “Well, once you’ve got him kneaded to jelly under your magic hands, try to figure out the mystery. She’s going to drive me crazy.” Marly got another tea bag out of a canister and stuck her mug, full of water, into the microwave.

      Peggy liked green tea, too, but preferred it cold, straight from the refrigerator. “Okay. So what’s your evening look like?”

      “I’m doing highlights on Candy Moss right now. She’s had two glasses of wine and is giggling for no apparent reason under the dryer. Then a couple of updos for some gala in Coconut Grove. And last a simple cut and blow-dry. I should be able to leave early tonight.”

      “Lucky you.”

      “That reminds me, though—would you be able to wax a client’s eyebrows after you’re done with the hottie?”

      “Sylvia can’t do it?” Sylvia was their aesthetician.

      “She can, but this woman doesn’t like her—she over-plucked her last time.”

      “Oh, okay. Sure.” Peg headed for the exit. “Good luck with Candy after glass of wine number three, okay?” They really weren’t supposed to give the customers more than two drinks, but sometimes it was hard to cut them off.

      Marly laughed. “Thanks.”

      Peggy headed down the hallway and knocked on the treatment room door.

      “Come in,” Troy said. He was lying facedown on the table, with the sheet draped over his lower half.

      Peggy swallowed hard at the sight of his broad, smooth, tanned back and powerful biceps and triceps. She’d had a feeling his body was gorgeous underneath the simple cotton knit shirt.

      “Here’s your water,” she said.

      Troy propped himself up on his elbows and accepted it with thanks, flashing a chest that reminded her of Brad Pitt’s in, appropriately enough, Troy. It segued into a perfectly flat abdomen sporting a six-pack of trained, hard muscle, and her knees went disgustingly weak at the sight.

      Jock. Eddie. Jocks suck. Be true to own mind, body, spirit. Impulse control.

      Still she stared at Troy’s chest while he drank his water, until he quirked an eyebrow. “Have you spotted something important to science?”

      “What?” She flushed. “Uh, no. Let’s get started, okay?”

      He flashed her a quizzical grin and she realized, mortified, that she’d sounded as if she was in a hurry to touch him. Worse, he didn’t seem surprised. Egotistical jerk.

      He set his cup down on a side table within reach and relaxed again on the table.

      “Music okay?” she asked in crisp tones as she prepared the salt scrub. She added just a touch more shower gel to it so it would glide onto his skin smoothly. She mixed it with a wooden tongue depressor, the same thing a doctor would use with patients.

      “It’s very…uh, peaceful,” he said. “So how long have you been doing this, Peggy?”

      Let the small talk begin. “For about five years.”

      “What did you do before?”

      “I got out of college, waitressed and bartended for a couple of years, then tried to work for my brother, Hal, as an account manager—which was boring beyond belief.”

      “You don’t like a nine-to-five office environment?”

      “God, no.”

      Peggy filled her hands with the salt scrub and warmed it a bit before spreading it over Troy’s shoulders and upper back. “I’m more of an outdoors person, believe it or not.” She laughed a little self-consciously, smoothing her hands in circles over his skin.

      He groaned softly, and she was pleased that it felt good to him.

      “But I’m not really artistic enough to become a landscape architect,” she continued, “and I don’t have any desire to dig ditches…so here I am. I do this and also coach a powder-puff football team on the side.”

      Troy lifted his head. “You’re kidding—my twelve-year-old twin nieces are on a powder-puff team.”

      Her hands stopped. “Twins? Their names aren’t Danni and Laura, are they?”

      “Yes! Blond? Smart mouths?”

      “That’s them! I coach them Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday at the Woodward School. They’re really good, too.”

      “Yeah, don’t I know it. I’m the one who taught them to throw a ball. I used to play strong safety for the Jacksonville Jaguars.”

      Ugh. Football player, worst species of the genus Jock. She should have known. “Of course—that’s where I’ve heard your name,” Peg said politely. “Shirlie, our receptionist, was convinced that you were some celebrity…she’ll be so psyched that she was right.”

      “Celebrity? Nah.” But he looked pleased. “You tell her I’m just a broken-down old ball player.”

      He certainly didn’t look broken-down to Peggy. He didn’t feel broken-down, either, as she polished his body with the salt scrub and a loofah mitt. She was so close to him as she worked that she could smell the faint aftershave on his jaw and the essence of Dial soap on his skin.

      The gel she’d mixed with the salt had a sweet grapefruit scent. Imported from France, they’d just gotten it in last month and it was very popular. She smoothed it into his skin, exfoliating and massaging, and thought about the odd intimacy of her job. Most of the time, if anyone was uncomfortable,

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