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The ripe-egg news gave him pause. He thought about it. Offered: “I can use a condom.”
She gave him a withering look. At least, she hoped it withered him. So far, he was remarkably unwithered. “Condoms have only about a ninety to ninety-four percent success rate. That means, at best, their fail rate is six percent.”
“Hey, those are good odds.”
Another withering look. ?
?Oh, yeah? Can you imagine what would happen if even one of your little marauders jumped my girl?”
“They’d tie up and fight like two wildcats in a sack.”
“Yeah. Like we just did.”
He looked horrified. He released her and stepped back. “They’d be in the sack before they even introduced themselves.”
“We’ve never introduced ourselves,” she felt compelled to point out.
“Shit.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I’m Sam Donovan.”
“I know who you are. Mrs. Kulavich told me. I’m Jaine Bright.”
“I know. She told me. She even told me how you spell your name.”
Now, how on earth had Mrs. Kulavich known that? “It was supposed to be Janine,” she explained. “But the first n got left off the birth certificate form, and Mom decided she liked it that way.” Jaine wished she had been a Janine. “Shelley,” “David,” “Janine”; the names all fit. Jaine was a wild card, the odd one out.
“I like ‘Jaine’ better,” he said. “It suits you. You aren’t a Janine.”
Yeah, she thought morosely. That was the problem.
“So what’s this problem you’re having with … who was it? Oh, yeah. Shelley, David, everyone at work, the reporters, and BooBoo. Why are you having trouble with reporters?”
She was impressed by his memory. She couldn’t have rattled off a list of names that had been shouted at her while she was being sprayed with cold water.
“Shelley is my older sister. She’s mad at me because Mom asked me to baby-sit BooBoo and she wanted the honor herself. David’s my brother. He’s mad at me because Dad asked me instead of David to baby-sit his car. You know who BooBoo is.”
He looked over her shoulder. “He’s the cat on your car.”
“On my—” She whirled in horror. BooBoo was pussyfooting across the Viper’s hood. She snatched him off before he had time to evade, and indignantly returned him to the house. Then she rushed back to the Viper and bent down to inspect the hood for even the tiniest scratch.
“Don’t guess you like a cat on your car either,” Sam said smugly.
She tried out another withering look on him, though she had noticed the egg news had done a good job of withering him anyway. “There’s no comparison between my car and yours,” she growled, then gave the empty driveway a startled look. No brown Pontiac. But here was Sam. “Where is your car?”
“The Pontiac isn’t mine. It belongs to the city.”
She felt weak with relief. Thank God. It would have been a serious blow to her self-esteem if she’d slept with the owner of that wreck. On the other hand, maybe she needed the Pontiac as a mental brake on her sexual impulses. If it had been sitting there, the preceding episode probably wouldn’t have gotten so out of hand.
“Then how did you get home?” she asked, looking around.
“I keep my truck parked in the garage. Keeps the dust and pollen and bird deposits off it.”
“Truck? What kind of truck?”
“Chevy.”
“Four-wheel drive?” He looked like a four-wheel-drive kind of guy.
He gave her a superior sneer. “Is there any other kind?”
