AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He pulled a towel from the new Viceroy towel rack, Edinburgh line, that she’d recently installed. But instead of giving it to her, he draped it over his shoulder.
She held out her hand, even though she had a pretty good idea what was coming. “Give me that.”
“Come and get it.”
She wasn’t in the mood. Except, of course she was because this was Ted standing in front of her, steady and sexy and smarter than any man she’d known. What better way to shake off her remaining jumpiness than to lose herself in lovemaking that demanded so little of her?
She stepped out of the shower and pressed her wet body against him. “Give it your best shot, lover boy.”
He grinned and did exactly as she asked. Better than she’d asked. Each time he took more care and postponed his satisfaction longer. After it was over, she wrapped a sarong around herself with one of the silk pieces she’d worn to his rehearsal dinner, then retrieved beers for both of them from the twelve-pack he’d stashed in her refrigerator. He’d already pulled on his shorts, and he took a folded piece of paper from the pocket.
“I got this in the mail today.” He sat on the couch, one arm draped along the back, and crossed his ankles on an abandoned wooden wine crate she’d turned into a coffee table.
She took the paper from him and glanced down at the letterhead. TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. He didn’t usually share the more mundane aspects of his mayoral job, and she sat on the arm of a wicker chair with faded tropical print cushions to read. Within seconds, she’d shot up only to discover her knees were too rubbery to hold her weight. She sank back into the cushions and reread the pertinent paragraph.
Texas Law requires that any person who tests positive for a sexually transmitted disease including, but not limited to, chlamydia, gonorhea, HPV, and AIDS, must provide a list of recent sexual partners. This is to notify you that Meg Koranda has listed you as one of these partners. You are urged to visit your physician immediately. You are also urged to cease all sexual contact with the above named infected person.
Meg gazed up at him, feeling sick. “Infected person?”
“Gonorrhea is misspelled,” he pointed out. “And the letterhead is bogus.”
She crumpled the paper in her fist. “Why didn’t you show me this as soon as you got here?”
“I was afraid you wouldn’t put out.”
“Ted . . .”
He eyed her casually. “Do you have any idea who might be behind this?”
She thought of the message on her bathroom mirror. “Any one of the millions of women who lust after you.”
He ignored that. “The letter was mailed from Austin, but that doesn’t mean much.”
Now was the moment to tell him his mother had tried to get her fired, but Meg couldn’t imagine Francesca Beaudine doing anything as vile as sending this letter. Besides, Francesca would almost certainly have checked for spelling errors. And she doubted Sunny would have made the mistake in the first place, unless she’d done it deliberately to throw them off track. As for Kayla, Zoey, and the other women holding on to fantasies about Ted . . . Meg could hardly throw around accusations based on dirty looks. She threw the paper on the floor. “Why didn’t Lucy have to put up with this crap?”
“We spent a lot of time in Washington. And, frankly, Lucy didn’t rile people like you do.”
Meg came up off the chair. “Nobody knows about us except your mother and whoever she might have told.”
“Dad and Lady Emma, who would probably have told Kenny.”
“Who, I’m sure, told Torie. And if big-mouth Torie knows—”
“If Torie knew, she’d have been on the phone to me right away.”
“That leaves our mysterious visitor from three nights ago,” she said. Ted’s wandering eyes indicated her sarong was slipping, and she tightened it. “The idea that someone might have been watching us through the window . . .”
“Exactly.” He set his beer bottle on the wine crate. “I’m starting to think those bumper stickers on your car might not have been the work of kids.”
“Somebody tried to break off my windshield wipers.”
He frowned, and she once again debated mentioning the scrawl on her mirror, but she didn’t want to be locked out of her home, and that’s exactly what would happen. “How many people have keys to the church?” she asked.
“Why?”
“I’m wondering if I should be nervous.”
“I changed the locks when I took over the place,” he said. “You have the key I kept outside. I have one. Lucy might still have one, and there’s a spare at the house.”
