Hidden Gems. Carrie Alexander

were full and soft. He’d found it tough to pull his gaze away, although her natural beauty was daunting. She could emerge from a ragbag and still pull herself together, while he counted himself dapper if he remembered to put on an unwrinkled shirt.

      Over a tofu and spinach scramble, she’d continued with her insistence that this wasn’t the right time to start up anything between them. He’d agreed against every instinct, silently planning to bide his time until she adjusted to the idea.

      The situation might have seemed hopeless. Except that he’d been struck by the way she’d avoided touching him. At first. And proof that she was as aware of him as he was of her.

      The dog, who’d been sniffing at a concrete urn holding only the stiff brown stalks of last year’s planting, suddenly gave one short sharp bark. She shot to the end of the leash. The jolt almost jerked Jamie off his feet. “Sally! Quiet.”

      Marissa stood at his shoulder. “What is it?”

      “There must have been a cat.” He looked across the street. A woman pushed a stroller. A man in an ill-fitting business suit leaned against a mailbox, head lowered while he lit a cigarette. Sally growled low in her throat.

      “I’m jumpy since the mugging attempt,” said Marissa. “I even thought Shandi was a burglar.”

      “I’ll keep an eye out.” Jamie squeezed her hand.

      The gesture was innocent, then not. They realized their proximity at the same moment. His gaze caught on her lips. She dented the lower one with her teeth. They leaned even closer, inches away, holding their breath—

      “Hey, hey, hey! What’s going on here?” called a voice from above. Shandi hung out of the third-floor window. “Break it up, you guys.”

      Marissa pulled away, her cheeks almost as pink as her lips.

      “Would you mind answering your cell?” Cavalierly, Shandi tossed the phone out the window. “It’s driving me up the wall, ringing every ten minutes.”

      Jamie made a lunge and caught the phone. He handed it to Marissa. “I thought it was switched off,” she said when the shrill ringer went off.

      Shandi grimaced. “Yeah, well, I had to make a few calls and my minutes are running short. Quid pro quo— you stole my shoes.”

      “Great.” Marissa flipped the phone open and said a wary “Hello?”

      A deep voice immediately began fast talking on the other end of the connection. Jamie knew by the way her face sobered that the caller was Paul Beckwith. What he couldn’t tell was whether she’d wanted to hear from him.

      4

      “I’M HANGING UP now, Paul.”

      He continued as if Marissa hadn’t spoken, essentially pleading for her forgiveness even though he talked around any actual admission of wrongdoing. Why hadn’t she ever noticed that he was as slick as a politician—or the stereotypical smarmy lawyer? Especially when cornered.

      She broke in. “All I hear is yammering that doesn’t mean a thing to me. I’m hanging up.”

      “First say that you’re not angry with me.”

      “Fine. I was angry, but I’m not anymore. Okay?”

      “You still sound angry.” Paul inhaled as if he were going to relaunch, but maybe he’d finally run out of words because he actually waited for her reply.

      Marissa sat on her bed cross-legged. Shandi was in the kitchen, making pancakes in animal shapes. With a nonchalant shrug, Jamie had signaled to Marissa that he was going upstairs to his place. She’d been relieved that he didn’t feel the need to stick around and coach her on her responses to Paul—while listening in—but another part of her kind of wished that he was the type of guy who fought for what he wanted.