LITMIR.BIZ

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in his powerful arms, held against his rock-hard chest, stroked with his gentle hands…

      “Beautiful flowers,” Jon said, admiring the arrangement.

      “Lora’s a florist,” Dr. Reed said, his gaze traveling from Jon to Lora.

      Jon smiled at her in such a way that her knees felt a little weak. She’d always been a sucker for a good smiler.

      “Your work is original,” he said.

      “Thanks.” She needed to get out of this room for more than one reason!

      Jon looked over her head. “Victor, is there anything I can bring you this evening when I come back to visit? Magazines? A portable radio? Illicit milkshakes?”

      “I’ll be long gone by this evening,” Dr. Reed said. “Jess and her husband are picking me up this afternoon.”

      “That’s great news.”

      Lora saw her chance. “I’ll leave you guys alone now,” she said, and started to shuffle off. She and Dr. Reed hadn’t firmed up anything concerning her wily plan to nurse him back on his feet and into her mother’s heart; no doubt Jon’s arrival had nixed the whole idea.

      Jon gestured at her arms. “Aren’t you going to leave the flowers?”

      “Lora is bringing them to the house tonight,” Dr. Reed said. “Not that these aren’t appreciated, Jon, but really, you guys down at the clinic shouldn’t have sent me any more flowers.”

      Jon’s brow creased. “I don’t think we did,” he said.

      “’Course you did,” Dr. Reed said, handing Jon the card. “It says so right here.”

      Jon read the card.

      “Maybe one of the assistants arranged it,” Lora mumbled. She was going straight to hell for all these lies!

      “Those girls are always going overboard,” Dr. Reed said fondly.

      Jon still looked skeptical.

      “Fact is, this little lady is going to be my nighttime nurse for the next couple of weeks,” Dr. Reed added with a wink at Lora, who grinned with pleasure.

      Jon looked up from the card. “I thought you refused to have strangers in the house at night.”

      “Well, Lora isn’t a stranger. I knew her father once upon a time.”

      “You knew her father?” His eyebrows inched up his forehead again as Lora tried to recall their earlier conversation at the clinic. No use; it was a blur. Jon said, “Victor, I would have been happy to help you out. You did so much for my dad.”

      “And now you’re covering for me at the clinic. The debt is more than paid. Besides, you don’t have time to play nursemaid and Lora is prettier than you are.”

      Both men stared at Lora who felt a red tide wash up her neck. “I can’t argue that point,” Jon said at last.

      “And she’ll let me pay her for her time, won’t you, Lora?”

      “Of course,” she said breezily, thinking of a timing belt for the van.

      “And now that I know Lora has a cat at home, I feel even better about my decision.” Dr. Reed turned to Lora and added, “I’m glad you came in here and talked me into taking your help. You’re very persuasive.”

      Lora smiled wanly as a sudden cold front engulfed Jon’s inherent warmth. She could imagine what he was thinking. Why would she insist on staying with a man she’d never met before, one she’d quizzed him about just hours before? Finally, after an eternity or two, he said, “You talked him into it?”

      “She all but insisted, didn’t you, Lora?”

      Jon’s wary gaze make her feel like confessing her plot. It’s like this, she could say. Mom is lonely, I’ll find someone for Gram later, I want my privacy back, Dr. Reed seems like a great guy and what better way to find out if he really is as nice as he seems than to hang around his house for a couple of weeks?

      Like that would make things better!

      Jon’s back was to Dr. Reed and he didn’t bother to look cordial when she murmured goodbye. At the last minute he said, “I’m sure we’ll meet again.”

      Not if she could help it!

      Chapter Two

      Lora stored the bouquet she’d take to Dr. Reed’s later in the big walk-in refrigerator, taking a second to inhale deeply. As always, the cold, flowery air cleared her mind as it filled her lungs. So many flowers, so many choices, and the order she was filling simply gave a price range—the selection and composition was up to her.

      As she arranged heavy copper roses with dark purple iris, lemon colored freesia and glossy magnolia leaves, she watched her mother and grandmother out of the corner of her eye and for the first time, had doubts about what she was doing.

      They looked so…content.

      Grandma Ella with her wispy white hair and rosy cheeks was dusting everything in sight, concentrating especially, it seemed to Lora, on items by the front door. No doubt Grandma had arranged some semiaccidental meeting between Lora and a friend’s grandson and was looking for him even now. Groan.

      Lora’s mother, on the other hand, was busy helping a middle-aged man pick out the flowers for a bouquet to be wrapped in cellophane. At fifty, Angela Gifford was a tall, slender woman with glossy black hair barely brushed with gray, cut to ride atop her shoulders. She was by far the best of the three with customers, knowing when to help and when to back off. Grandma Ella tended to talk people to death and Lora had what her mother called “patience issues.”

      A few hours later they all drove home together, Lora at the wheel, the iris and daffodil arrangement secure in the rack in the far back, Grandma Ella chatting away about her friend’s grandson.

      Once inside the house, Lora broke her big news. “I have a job for two weeks,” she informed them as she counted and fed her fish. All present and accounted for. Her denizens of the deep had survived another day.

      “I’ll be gone in the early evening until morning, I’m helping out an older guy who just had foot surgery. I’ll still come into work, of course, and the money I make will fix up the van. One of you two is going to have to feed my fish.”

      Grandma Ella made tsking sounds deep in her throat. For years, Lora had tried to emulate these sounds as they seemed to come in quite useful in a variety of circumstances, but she just couldn’t get them right. Grandma said it was because she didn’t have enough bosom. Lora looked down at her chest. The fact that she wore an oversized sweater didn’t help much, but maybe Grandma was right.

      The tsking faded away and Grandma said, “I invited a young man over for dessert tonight, Lora. Oh, that’s right, you were off making deliveries when he came in. You might want to comb your hair and change your clothes.”

      Lora’s mom opened the refrigerator and took out a foil wrapped package of leftovers. No matter where she lived or with whom, Angela Gifford was a true cook, the kind who roasted a turkey and fixed all the trimmings for just two people, who got giddy if a friend presented her with a freshly caught crab.

      “Chicken enchiladas okay with everyone for dinner?” Without waiting for an answer, she added, “I don’t know, Mother, I thought the boy looked a little young.”

      This comment got Lora’s attention. “How young?”

      “Angela, when you get to be seventy-one, everyone looks young,” Grandma Ella insisted.

      “How much younger?” Lora asked warily.

      Grandma shrugged plump shoulders. “I don’t know.”

      “Six years if a day,” Lora’s mother said firmly.

      Aghast,

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