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“Just my luck. For the first time in my life I think I’d actually pay to have someone tell me who the heck I’m going to be next week.”
Izzie the baker? Izzie the stripper? Izzie the New Yorker? Izzie the Chicagoan? Izzie the horny?
That was the one she really wanted an answer to. Was she ever going to get laid again, and oh, please, please, please, would it actually be Nick Santori who did the laying?
She didn’t ask Lilith any of those things, though the medium promised she’d try to help her as soon as she was “back in business”-whatever that meant. But that might be too late. She might already have done something stupid-like having sex with Nick the bouncer as the Crimson Rose. Which would be fabulous but would make him hate her if he found out the truth.
Or something more stupid, like going out on a date with Nick, the guy up the block, which would have her parents planning their wedding. Then she’d hate herself.
Ordering a cappuccino to go with her treat, the mysterious brunette made herself at home at a front table, firing up a laptop. After making the frothy cappuccino, Izzie carried it over. “Doing some surfing?”
“I’m going to try. The most I’ve ever used the Web for is updating my Web site and answering e-mail.”
“Don’t forget shopping. Or maybe you’re going to start haunting chat rooms?”
“No, I’m doing research.”
Leaving the woman to it, Izzie went back to work. Concentrating on cleaning out the display cabinet, she was surprised to hear the bell jangle as another late-day customer came in. This one she didn’t recognize-and she definitely would have, if she’d seen her before. The leggy brunette was dressed entirely in sleek, black leather and she looked like a predatory cat. The sexy little motorcycle parked outside the door suggested the woman was a risk-taker and a rule-breaker.
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.
