1-900-Lover. Rhonda Nelson

display case which housed mismatched china pieces and other bric-a-brac served as a counter of sorts. Butted against the lower kitchen cabinets, the old piece formed a bar between the kitchen and living room.

      Rowan shifted a few items aside and hefted a boom box, along with a couple other tapes onto the glass surface. While she wrestled with the plug, the things she’d moved out of the way snagged his attention. His eyes widened and, before he could check the impulse, a startled laugh, which he barely morphed into a cough, broke up in his throat.

      A bottle of strawberry wine, three enemas and two treatments of wart remover stood on the makeshift counter.

      Rowan started, then shot him a look and ultimately followed his gaze. She inhaled sharply, then closed her eyes tightly shut and groaned miserably. Color bloomed on her cheeks and she sank her teeth into that ripe bottom lip. “The wine is mine,” she said haltingly, obviously—adorably—mortified. “The other things…are not.”

      “That’s a relief.” Will felt his lips twitch. He crossed his arms over his chest and lifted one shoulder in a negligent shrug. “For a moment there I was afraid you were a warty, constipated alcoholic.”

      The comment drew a droll smile and, while he couldn’t be sure, he thought he saw a flash of reciprocated interest in those too-perceptive green eyes.

      “I’m the alcoholic,” she deadpanned. “My landlord is warty and constipated.”

      He grimaced, shifted and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “That’s…unfortunate,” Will finally managed, unable to come up with anything that remotely resembled an appropriate response.

      “Ah,” she sighed knowingly. A ghost of a smile played on her lips and she crossed her arms over her chest, then leaned a curvy hip against the counter. “So you can be tactful.” She paused, allowing the dart to penetrate, then continued before he could respond. “I run errands for her,” she explained. “As you can imagine, buying those particular items—” she glanced meaningfully at the ignoble remedies “—results in considerable embarrassment. So,” she sighed wistfully, “in the vain hope that I could preserve a little dignity, I decided to stockpile them.” Eyes twinkling, her gaze darted to him and she blew out a resigned breath. “Clearly, it didn’t work.”

      For whatever reason, Will got the distinct impression that her efforts to thwart humiliation rarely worked. He smiled, unreasonably enchanted. “Ah, well. Better luck next time,” he offered, once again unable to conjure an artful remark.

      She chuckled grimly, pulled a slight shrug, then turned her attention back to the tapes. “One can hope.” She slipped a tape into the player, and hit the rewind button. “So Scott’s your nephew? How old is he? Sixteen? Seventeen?”

      “Seventeen.”

      “He seems like a good kid. Bright.”

      “He is. Though obviously his judgment isn’t always on the mark,” he added pointedly.

      Rather than being insulted, she merely smiled. “He’s a teenager,” she said, as though that explained everything. “They’re a breed apart until those hormones level out. Particularly boys.”

      Interestingly, her matter-of-fact tone resonated with the voice of experience. Still… Will grimaced. “I don’t think that excuse is going to fly with his mother.”

      She depressed the play button and shot him an enigmatic look. “Then perhaps you should talk to his father.”

      Impressed with the insight, Will inclined his head. Actually, he’d considered bypassing his sister and talking to Jim. Jim, he knew, would at least understand the motivation behind his son’s ignorant, thoughtless episode. He winced.

      Lori…wouldn’t.

      She’d be angry and appalled, and the combination of the two wouldn’t leave any room for understanding. Will had initially rejected the idea of bypassing Lori—it was the easy way out for him, ergo it had to be wrong. Now he wasn’t so sure. Now he—

      His thoughts ground to a halt as Rowan’s voice, then his nephew’s sounded from the machine—her sultry “Hello,” then Scott’s nervous squeak.

      “Hi. I, uh…” He cleared his throat and his voice lowered to a comical level. “Hey. What’s happening, baby?”

      Will felt a smile tug at his lips and his gaze instinctively found hers. She, too, wore an amused expression.

      “Look, Slick, you’re not old enough to have this conversation,” Rowan told him, instantly seeing through the ploy. “Call back in a few years.”

      “Wait!”

      From there, things happened exactly the way she’d told him. They’d chatted, she’d tried to disconnect, citing the enormous phone bill someone would not approve of, and his nephew, to Will’s astonishment, had glibly announced that his uncle wouldn’t notice another 1-900 number because he frequently called them himself. In fact, Scott had continued, his uncle had probably called her in the past. Rowan had laughed at Will’s outraged expression as he fervently denied the charge.

      “I don’t need to have phone sex,” Will felt obliged to repeat after she’d turned off the tape. The unspoken because-I-can-get-laid-without-it hung between them, eliciting another mysterious smile from her. Her eyes twinkled.

      “I’m sure you don’t.”

      He nodded succinctly. “Damn straight.”

      She chewed the corner of her lip, presumably to keep from chuckling at his expense, and busied herself by putting the cassette away. She was laughing at him, Will knew, and he couldn’t blame her because he was making a macho ass of himself. But he couldn’t help it. It was a matter of honor, dammit. Men who could get laid in the traditional sense didn’t call total strangers and whack off to the tune of a few well-rehearsed pants and sighs.

      Phone sex? Will thought dubiously. Come on? He preferred his sexual encounters of the physical kind, thank you very much. He liked slow and tender, hot and frantic, and wasn’t averse to a little kinky now and then. Sex was sex and, regardless of the method employed, hell, he thought with a slow smile, it was always good.

      He’d never once thought about having a woman talk him through it…but he wasn’t averse to a helping hand every now and then.

      His gaze instantly drifted to her hands, and it took very little effort to imagine one of hers wrapped around him, touching him the way she’d implied she’d touched good ole Roy. A flash of heat detonated in his loins and a serious sense of excitement, one he hadn’t felt in eons, pulsed through him.

      She tucked her hair behind her ear. “Do you— Do you want to listen to the other tapes, or will that one suffice?”

      Will grunted, unnerved. “That one will suffice.”

      She nodded, apparently still not trusting herself to look at him. “Good. Could I see that phone bill?”

      He frowned, baffled. He couldn’t imagine why, but he handed it to her nonetheless. “Sure.”

      Her lips moved as she silently scanned the bill, and it belatedly occurred to Will that she was tallying the multiple charges. In her head, without the aid of a calculator. Impressed, he readied his mouth to comment, but was interrupted as she handed the statement back to him. “Okay. Let me get my purse and I’ll write you a check.”

      He blinked. “A check?”

      “For the charges,” she called over her shoulder. She disappeared into the back of the house, then emerged seconds later with a wallet. By the time she’d made the return trip, he’d managed to organize his chaotic thoughts into some semblance of order.

      “Look, this isn’t necessary. I didn’t come here to get you to refund the charges.” And he hadn’t. Quite frankly, he hadn’t thought beyond blasting her into oblivion, but he hardly needed to share that with her, did he?

      She finished writing