Jo Leigh - One-Click Buy - September Harlequin Blaze

Izzie liked her on sight.

“Hey, Izzie,” Lilith called, “what do you know about computers?”

Offering the new customer a quick smile, she answered, “Well, I don’t know how to find any naked pictures of Heath Ledger, and I haven’t figured out how to send a death ray to spammers, but I do the Web site for the bakery.” It was a basic one, but Izzie was pretty proud of it.

“I hear ya. So you know how to enlarge pictures? Other than ones of naked movie stars?”

Izzie grinned. “Yeah, give me a sec.” She looked at the newcomer. “What can I get you?”

“Espresso and a cannoli.”

“Sorry, Lilith took the last.”

Settling for just the espresso, the woman paid her and waited for her drink. After making it, Izzie went over to Lilith to see what help she could offer.

It wasn’t much. It turned out the medium needed to enlarge a grainy newspaper picture in order to see a ring on some guy’s finger. And Izzie just didn’t have the know-how to do it.

The newcomer in black leather, however, did. Joining them, she asked a few questions, then bent over Lilith’s computer and went to work. Watching her type, her fingers flying on the keys, Izzie figured she was experienced at this. But when the woman acknowledged that she was hacking into the newspaper Web site to try to find the original photo, she suspected there was a lot more than simple ballsiness to the woman.

She was mysterious. Maybe even a little dangerous.

They both seemed that way, really. Lilith with her supposed psychic abilities. This woman with her risky, who-gives-a-damn attitude. So unlike little Izzie of the bakery.

Maybe, however, not too unlike the Crimson Rose. She wondered what these two would think if they knew she wasn’t quite the sweet, simple bakery worker she appeared to be.

“Who is this guy, anyway?” the stranger asked. “Don’t tell me you’re trying to figure out if that ring is a wedding band and he’s the asshole you’ve been dating for the last three months.”

“Ew.”

“So he’s not your lover.”

“Say that again and I’ll dump the dregs on you. He’s a jerk I’m investigating.”

“A jerk?” The stranger snorted. “What makes him different from every other man on this planet?”

“Good question,” Izzie muttered, though her heart wasn’t really in it. Nick had always been one incredibly good guy. The fact that he wouldn’t have sex with her as a stripper didn’t mean he was a jerk.

Even though he was.

She wandered away from the other two, cleaning off the empty tables in preparation for closing. As she worked, she kept up with the other women’s conversation, trying to stay out of it, but unable to when she heard who Lilith was currently dating. Hearing that the sexy medium had hooked up with Mac Mancuso, a nice boy-next-door type turned Chicago cop, she had to put her two cents in. Mainly because their situations-whether Lilith would believe it or not-were very similar.

“Mac’s not a jerk. He grew up just a few blocks from here. Our families know each other. I’d think any woman would love to catch a good, honest cop like him.”

The stranger in black immediately stopped typing. “You’re sleeping with a cop.” Somehow, Izzie suspected the woman was allergic to anyone official-especially the police.

“I’m sleeping with him, not married to him,” Lilith insisted. “Trust me when I say that my definition of right and wrong varies from his by huge degrees.”

Huh. Sounding more and more like Izzie’s situation. She almost wished she and Lilith were alone so they could talk.

“Keep working and your next ten espressos are on me,” Lilith told the other woman.

“I won’t be around that long, but thanks for the offer.”

“Add her to my tab,” Lilith told Izzie. “Any time she stops in, coffee’s on me.” Glancing at the stranger, she asked, “What’s your name?”

“Seline.”

Amused since Lilith’s tab currently took up two pages in her accounts book, Izzie asked, “Does that mean you’re actually going to pay it someday?”

Lilith shrugged in unconcern, watching as Seline kept working. When she finally struck pay dirt and got Lilith the information she wanted, they both seemed triumphant.

Izzie only wished her problems with Nick could be solved with an Internet search. Unfortunately, if she searched for the stuff she wanted to do with Nick Santori on the Internet, she’d probably get inundated with spam from sites like bigpenises.com from now till eternity.

Finishing up her cappuccino and shutting down her computer, Lilith thanked Seline for helping her out, then turned to Izzie. “Thanks for the sugar boost and the wi-fi.”

“Anytime.” Unable to help it, Izzie called out, “Lilith, don’t be so quick to write off a great guy like Mac. Maybe you and he can find a way to make it work, even if you think there’s no way it ever could.”

And maybe she was a sucker who should still be reading fairy tales. But hey, it didn’t hurt to dream, did it? Even if she was dreaming on behalf of someone else.

Once Lilith was gone, the other woman, Seline, approached the counter. Even her walk was feline-sultry-and Izzie wondered if she’d ever danced before.

“Here,” Seline said. She put a one-hundred-dollar bill on the counter. “For her tab. I sense that she needs the money more than I do. And I don’t have to be psychic to figure that out.”

Stunned, Izzie murmured, “Thanks.” She opened her mouth to say more-to offer the money back-but the mysterious woman in black had already turned toward the door, her coffee in hand. She walked out into the bright sunshine without another word, got onto her sleek motorcycle and roared away down the street.

BRIDGET DONAHUE had always known she would never be wildly sexy and self-confident like her cousin Izzie. But there were times when she allowed herself to think that, maybe, since they were related, Bridget had a tiny bit of Izzie-power trapped deep inside her. So ever since she was a kid, she’d played a game. WWID, aka What Would Izzie Do? And then she’d try to do that.

Asking Dean Willis to go out with her one day at lunchtime had definitely been a WWID moment. And Bridget still couldn’t believe she’d gone through with it. But if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t now be sitting at a coffee shop, looking across the table at his handsome face. Make that staring at his face.

Staring. Izzie wouldn’t stare. Bridget ducked her head down, focused on her cup of Earl Grey tea. Not the double shot espresso she probably needed-because of her “I don’t drink coffee” fib-but okay…mainly because of the company.

“You ready for a refill?” Dean asked.

Bridget shook her head. “I’m fine, thanks.”

They weren’t at her uncle’s bakery, but at a big chain place not far from her apartment. Bridget had chosen the spot, which seemed safe, neutral and impersonal. Not the kind of place that said she thought they were on a date. Not the kind of place where a date would be absolutely out of the question.

God, she sucked at this. Izzie would have met him at a hotel bar.

Small steps, she reminded herself. Asking a man out was a first for her. It wasn’t that she’d never dated-or that she was completely inexperienced. But if Izzie was on the top rung when it came to dealing with men, Bridget was still pulling the ladder out of the cellar.

They sat in an alcove by the front window. Bridget had her chair pushed back from the table, to accommodate the length of his legs beneath it. He looked crowded-bunched up in the small chair and the small corner-but he hadn’t complained.

“You must be tired of hearing me rattle on about my landlord problems,” she said as the conversation lagged. “I haven’t seemed to shut up.”