Marie Ferrarella - Fortune's Heirs - Reunion

“I won’t.”

It was a promise he was making her, she suddenly realized.

She stood and watched him for a second as he pried off the container’s lid, then poured some of the contents into a tray. Did that mean he had felt something, too? It would be nice to know that she hadn’t been alone during the blitzkrieg she’d just experienced.

“Fine,” she responded.

Then, to keep him from saying anything else, Gloria turned up the radio. A love song filled the air. She was quick to switch stations. But the next one belonged to a call-in talk show. The host was venting about a proposed tax bill. Muttering under her breath, she switched around until she found a country-and-western station.

With a smile, she left it on.

Roller raised to begin, Jack groaned as he looked at her over his shoulder. “Oh, God, you actually listen to country music?”

Good, they were back in their corners again, she thought. On opposite sides of an issue. She waited for the safe feeling to return, the one that told her she had nothing to fear.

This time, the feeling didn’t come.

Maybe later, she thought hopefully. “Every chance I get.”

Jack frowned, turning back to the wall. Trying to block out the music. “I didn’t think you were the type for crying-in-your-beer songs.”

“I’m not.” She loved music and country and western was her favorite kind. “And they don’t cry in their beer. There’re a lot of good words, a lot of good sentiments to be garnered from country-and-western music.”

“If you say so.”

“Yes,” she said cheerfully, dipping her roller in the tray, “I do.”

She began to hum to the tune on the radio, doing her best to silence the tune her body was humming as she remembered that kiss.

There was a pizza between them on the back room desk. Because they’d badly needed a break after three hours of painting, Gloria had ordered a pepperoni pie from the pizzeria at the other end of the mall. Large, half-finished containers of soda stood like frosty sentries on either side of the opened box, standing guard over the more than half-consumed pie.

There was a great deal more than dough, cheese, sauce and pepperoni shimmering in the air between them, though.

Tasting a bit of sauce along her mouth, Gloria wiped her lips before continuing to work on her slice. She still didn’t know what to make of Jack, or even if she should try.

But Jack Fortune wasn’t the kind of man you could just write off or walk away from.

Especially after he’d kissed her in a manner that would have burned off a woman’s socks.

Better just to go on eating and not say anything, Gloria told herself, even though the aftereffects of his kiss were lingering a lot longer than she’d thought they would.

That was only because she’d been celibate so long. Even plain tap water tasted like sparkling wine if your thirst had gone unquenched for two years.

Trouble was, she thought, watching Jack beneath hooded eyes, she hadn’t realized she even was thirsty until she’d taken a sip.

Annoyed that she couldn’t stop her mind from wandering down a path she didn’t want it to go, she took a healthy swig of her diet soda and then leaned forward to take another slice of pizza.

At the same time that he did.

Both reaching into the box, their hands brushed against one another. It took effort not to pull back her hand. When he raised his eyes to hers, she said the first thing that popped into her head. “You lasted longer than I thought you would.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean? Was she talking about his staying here after he’d kissed her? “Come again?”

“Painting,” she explained, picking up her slice. “I half expected you to make a U-turn at the door when I suggested you put on the coveralls and pitch in.” And I would have stayed feeling a whole lot safer if you had, she thought. “Thanks to you, we’re almost done.” She flashed a grin, pausing to take a bite of what amounted to her fourth slice. “At this rate, I’ll be ready to open in another week. The man who does the lettering is coming tomorrow.” She watched as he took another slice himself.

Jack raised a brow in mock surprise. “You mean, you’re not going to do that yourself, too?” Where was she putting all this food? he wondered. So far, the woman had consumed more than his last three dates put together and she looked fantastic doing it.

Careful, buddy, he warned himself. You’re on dangerous ground here. You start admiring the way a woman eats, you’re lost.

Gloria shook her head and laughed. “No way. I’ve got terrible handwriting. No one would know what the name of the store was.”

He was vaguely aware of nodding in response, hardly hearing what she was saying. His attention was riveted to the way her mouth moved as she spoke. To the way she breathed. Because it was warm inside, she’d unzipped her coveralls down to her waist when she’d sat at the desk. Beneath the bland garment with its paint splatters she was wearing a tank top that adhered to her like a hot-pink skin. It molded itself to her breasts, softly hinting at cleavage while it brought out the deep black of her hair.

She’d loosened her hair, as well. It was skimming along her back now like a black velvet cape.

One hand holding his slice, the other wrapped around the soda container, Jack could still feel an itch working itself across his palms.

He wanted to touch her. To run his palms along her body. He wanted to see for himself if it was as soft, as firm, as it appeared.

In a desperate attempt to mentally backpedal before he found himself in too deep, he searched for something to use as a barricade between them. Something official. “What kind of insurance are you going to be carrying?”

It took her a moment to absorb the question. He’d been looking at her with a gaze hot enough to burn away her coveralls and everything else, as well. She was grateful to talk about something as bland as insurance. Even so, she took a sip of the cold soda to quench a thirst that only partially resulted from the spicy slice of pizza she was consuming.

“Same as before,” she told him. Then, in case he hadn’t come across that when he was conducting his intrusive research into her life, she added, “I went with Gibraltar Insurance when I opened up my store in Denver.” Before he could ask, she gave him the reasons behind her choice, enumerating them on her fingers. “Reasonable rates, accessible agents. They were right there for me after the robbery.”

“Robbery?” The slice halfway to his lips, Jack stopped and looked at her incredulously. “You were robbed?”

Gloria bit her tongue, but it was too late. She should have done that before she’d said anything.

Big mistake, her mind taunted.

She shrugged as carelessly as she could, dismissing the incident, and then smiled at him prettily as she held up her thumb and forefinger barely three inches apart. “It was just a small robber.”

“Bullets are the same size no matter how tall or short the shooter,” he pointed out.

Damn, she wished she’d kept her mouth shut. “Yes,” she said patiently, “I suppose they are. But no one was hurt,” she was quick to add. “The guy who robbed us looked more scared than anything.”

“You saw his face?”

“His eyes,” Gloria corrected. “And he was terrified.” She just knew he’d had to have been driven to do what he had by awful circumstances. “If my customer hadn’t started hyperventilating just then, I think I might have had a shot at talking the robber out of what he was doing.”

Just what kind of a nutcase was his father backing? The woman was certifiably insane. “Or a chance at getting shot—”