Finders Keepers. Shirl Henke

needed to make another hundred miles in order to keep on schedule. But she was beat. Slurpee stained her clothes and made her brown hair stand up in strawberry spikes. She shuddered every time she caught sight of herself in the side-view mirror. If a cop pulled her over, he’d haul her straight to jail.

      “I gotta have a shower,” she muttered. What’s more, if she didn’t clean Matt, too, he’d dry stuck permanently to the carpet in the back of the van, her passenger forever. No Aunt Claudia. No money.

      She considered what to do. According to her map, the next town was a wide place in the road around fifteen or so miles due east. “You better pray there’s a motel in this burg coming up, buster, or I’m gonna drag you through a car wash on the end of a rope,” she yelled into the back of the van.

      She pulled off the highway and found just the kind of joint she wanted.

      The Mountain Dew Inn boasted indoor plumbing and that was about it. Cheap and quiet, the small mangy hole-in-the-wall would be a place where no one asked questions when she requested a room at the far end of the building “so her patient wouldn’t be disturbed.”

      The desk clerk gave her a funny look and a sniff test, marveling to himself over a customer who looked and smelled as if she’d rolled in stale strawberries. It took all kinds and he’d seen most of them. But Elroy Phleggi had no intention of asking about a paramedic’s weird habits. Maybe it was burn salve. Go figure. He’d let that snotty new maid Kimmie deal with any mess they left in the morning.

      He tossed the keys across the counter at her and gave directions to the last room on the left side. Then he turned back to the TV and a rerun of an old Beatles movie.

      Sam knew the paper towels hadn’t done much to remove eau de Slurpee from her vehicle. “Oh well, Aunt Claudia can absorb the cost of new carpet, so to speak,” she muttered as she backed the van up to the door and guided Matt into room thirteen. The moment she checked out the bathroom, she knew the number had been an omen.

      “Not a damn place in the shower to hook that cuff to.”

      Matt could hear her curses as she drew nearer. He would’ve smiled if not for the tape over his lips. Now she was muttering something about the shower stall as she began unraveling the bandages from his head. The sleep mask came next. Then she removed the tape, not at all gently.

      “Anyone ever tell you your bedside manner stinks?” he asked, blinking to get his eyes to focus.

      “Anyone ever tell you that you just plain stink?” she shot back.

      “That’s your fault for dumping that gunk down the wrong pipe.”

      “The right pipe would’ve been a lead one—to beat you unconscious for the rest of this trip.”

      In spite of the red splotches and crisp hairdo, she looked kind of cute. He grinned. “You look like you have a wicked case of measles. Oh, and I like the ‘do.’ That Slurpee stand’s in the wrong business. Oughta start marketing that stuff as hair gel.”

      “Amusing from a man who looks like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Mr. Granger.”

      “Don’t you think you could call me Matt?” Why in the hell was he getting the hots for a woman who’d done him more bodily injury than a Jersey leg-breaker?

      “Nope.” Her single-syllable reply did not convey the cool certainty she had intended. How can a man in this condition be wildly attractive to me?

      He stared at her breasts again, even though that was what had gotten him in this mess in the first place. Think of something else, Granger. He raised his head and looked at her face. In spite of everything, she was still one hell of a good-looking dame. He shrugged inside the straitjacket and grinned stupidly at her. “You going to keep me trussed up all night?”

      “Nah,” she replied grimly, removing the stun gun from her fanny pack. “But unless you want to do more break dancing, better pay attention.”

      “As Ross Perot said, I’m all ears.”

      That wasn’t exactly the part of his anatomy her thoughts had strayed to, but she would definitely not share that with him. “There’s no way to secure a cuff in the shower stall in this dump, so I’ll have to bathe you myself.”

      He leered. “Now I’m all eyes.”

      “You won’t be for long.” With that, she slipped the blindfold back on.

      “Hey, what’s going on?”

      “I’m going to remove your clothes and the jacket, then cuff your hands behind your back and guide you into the stall. You behave while I scrub you off—I mean, oh, hell, you know what I mean.”

      He grinned. “No fair. You get to watch and I don’t.”

      “I’m the health-care professional, remember?” Just keep reminding yourself of that, Sam.

      Chapter 4

      Sam slipped the robe off of his body, unfastened the jacket straps and pulled the apparatus off of him. Every article of apparel on him was stiff with red ichor. Then she stood back and said, “Take off the pj’s and then put your hands behind your back.” Obediently, he unbuttoned the pajama top and shucked it.

      But the bottoms were stuck to his legs. He said to her, “Okay if I bend down and peel these off or will you zap me again?”

      “Do it—slowly.”

      He yanked the cheap cotton off with a hiss of pain when sizable clumps of his leg hair went with it.

      “Now you know what a bikini wax feels like,” she said.

      He straightened up and glared at her through the blindfold. “Thank God I was born male.”

      Her mouth went dry just looking at his body. She was definitely happy he was a male, too! Now naked for her to admire, Matt Granger was quite a sight to behold. Keep it professional, Sam. She cleared her throat, then said, “Now, put your hands behind your back.”

      He did as he was told, holding his hands so she could click the cuffs on his wrists. Then he let her guide him toward the sounds of steamy water pouring from a shower nozzle. He could hear the soft rustle as she shed her clothes and visions of the two of them naked in the water flashed through his mind, sending signals to his body. Now he was sure there’d been no permanent damage from that stun gun. Thank God!

      “Don’t you think you could call me Matt, now?”

      “Definitely not now. Get into the shower.” Sam shoved him beneath the steamy downpour, but not before he backed up just enough for her breasts to brush against his arm. Damn, the man had some moves, even blindfolded and cuffed!

      “No fair again. You have me buck-ass and you’re still wearing stuff,” he groused.

      Since her bra and panties hadn’t suffered during the accident in the van, she had left them on, body armor of a sort. A Victoria’s Secret chastity belt. Ha! Somehow, Sam didn’t figure it would do much good. “Quit bitching and stand still,” she said sharply, lathering up a bar of soap between her hands. She stood stupidly, suds running down her arms while she stared at his water-slicked body, which filled the small shower stall.

      She was afraid to touch him.

      As if reading her mind, he taunted, “Come on, Samantha. Scrub me off.”

      You can do this. You’re a trained professional. And he’s worth ten grand! Sam repeated the words like a mantra as she reached up and began lathering his chest. God, the pelt of black hair felt good. Too good. She moved up his neck and said, “Close your eyes.”

      “Why the hell should I? I’m blindfolded.”

      She thrust her soapy hands into his hair and started scrubbing.

      “Yeow! That burns!”

      “I told you to close your eyes. Soap’s dripping inside the mask.”