Secret Admirer: Secret Kisses / Hidden Hearts / Dream Marriage. Christine Rimmer

Then you probably know why I called.”

      “Let me guess. You want a favor.”

      “Jane’s car’s in the shop. Could you drive her to work?” Jane. She’d barely spoken to him since she’d gotten him expelled his senior year. He’d been forced to resign as president of his high-school class, and several honors he’d earned had been stricken from his transcripts. He’d been in the doghouse with his folks, too.

      “If she calls and asks me herself, I’ll consider it.” Silence.

      “Lula, are you still there?”

      When Lula still didn’t answer, he began to think about the promotion Jane and he were competing for. If Jane needed a ride, why not scope out the competition? She was a tight-ass if ever there was one. Surprises, especially from him, unnerved her.

      “Do you take the Gazette?” There was a note in Lula’s voice he knew better than to trust.

      “Am I a red-blooded Red Rockian or what?”

      “There’s an anonymous love letter to the editor you might find very interesting. A little birdie told me it was written to you.”

      Jane’s mother wouldn’t be talking about Carol. “Are you saying Jane wrote it?”

      “Why don’t you drive her to work and ask her yourself.”

      The luscious, enormous mouth came back to taunt him. The red lips puckered. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the mouth, Jane’s mouth, stayed right where it was—tempting him.

      He’d kissed that mouth.

      The lips puckered seductively. Hell, he could almost taste her. He remembered exactly how satiny and slick those lips had felt on the outside and how wet and hot and honey sweet they’d been on the inside. He still couldn’t quite believe she’d let his tongue through the pearly gates without chomping it to bits.

      He thought about her hot body, and his number-two brain got so excited it tented the sheets beneath his waist. Good thing the cat wasn’t watching or she would pounce for sure.

      “Oh, and one more thing, Matty.” He gritted his teeth at his kindergarten nickname. “My Janie doesn’t have a date to the Spring Fling.”

      “Because she’s so damn picky, she’s turned everybody down who’s gotten up the nerve to ask her. Who’s she waiting for—Prince Charming?”

      “Could be, handsome,” her mother said slyly. “So, you keep up with my Janie’s love life?”

      “With our nonstop gossip grapevine buzzing day and night, I’d have to be brain dead not to know everybody’s business, including hers. How’d you find out Carol broke up with me last night because she’s moving to Houston a week earlier than she thought?”

      “She broke up with you because you wouldn’t propose.”

      “Damn, you’re good.”

      Lula laughed.

      “It was pretty late when she called me,” he muttered.

      “To be exact, it was 8:30 p.m. ’Cause you stood her up.”

      “Next time I want to know what’s going on in my life I’ll call you.”

      “If you’re driving Janie, she’s expecting me at 7:30 a.m.—sharp! You know how grumpy she gets if she has to wait even one second.”

      “I know how grumpy she is—period—any time I come around.”

      “That’s just because she’s afraid to let you know how much she likes you.”

      “Right!”

      “Trust me. Her mother knows. Remember, I was the one who had to put her back together after you kissed her under the mistletoe.”

      “Goodbye, Lula.”

      “Just read her letter. It made me weep.”

      Chapter 3

      A devil bit him in the tail when Matt saw her street sign and realized he was almost to her house. He finger-combed his inky hair. He adjusted his red tie with the pink flamingos. Hell. Maybe the thing was too loud. He ripped it out of his collar and tossed it behind him as he yanked his collar open.

      What was it? Every time he got around Jane, he got like this.

      Maybe the big sexy mouth that had haunted him ever since he’d gotten up this morning had him a little crazed. Maybe it was the thought of her perfect yellow house with its perfect white shutters and a picket fence, yes, a real picket fence, damn it, the kind that made a man think of kids and a future and a sweet, alluring woman waiting for him at night, that unnerved him. Or maybe it was just her.

      Not to mention the letter.

      Had she written it?

      Whoa! He wished that phrase that kept replaying like a broken record while the big, neon-red lips puckered would stop. His head hurt just thinking about it. He’d popped two aspirin, but they weren’t cutting the pain.

      …there has never been anyone in my heart except you.

      How could this be when she ran from him instead of to him that night. People who kissed like that and couldn’t stop belonged in bed together. He’d been a coward not to go after her. But after some of the hurtful things she’d said, Matt knew he’d done damage and should leave well enough alone.

      As if this helped his current predicament, he thought gloomily. Without having a why for the childish insanity that getting anywhere near her brought out in him, he stomped on the gas pedal so hard the powerful engine roared. It was 7:30 a.m. sharp when Matt skidded into her driveway, leaving a trail of black marks just to prove he was the big grown-up brat she thought he was. Next he honked. Just a couple of light taps just to make her mad.

      She had ears like a lynx. She’d hear him.

      Her front door opened immediately. The second he caught the merest glimpse of her slim, curvy body in the shadowy doorway, a hot bolt zapped him. As always, she hid that perfect figure under one of her dull conservative black suits and high-collared blouses. As always, every pearl button was securely fastened. As usual, her long, platinum-blond hair was tied back in that odious little knot in an attempt to downplay her looks.

      Oddly, the severe hairdo served to accentuate the high cheekbones and the classic lines of her exquisite face. And it was exquisite—a perfect oval. Everything she did just made her more attractive, at least to him, which was probably why she did it—to annoy him. She’d been annoying the hell out of him since she’d been a first-grader, so she was an expert at it by now.

      Her blue eyes swept over her perfectly manicured lawn, the row of potted geraniums and the well-tended ivies hanging in her oak trees before zeroing in on him. Pushing her stylish, if thick, metal-framed glasses up the slender bridge of her nose, she stepped onto her porch. Her blue eyes, which were fringed by long, inky lashes, widened before they narrowed—on him. Her beautiful mouth, the mouth of his wet dreams, opened and closed with distaste.

      “Your mom said you needed a ride,” he yelled. She pivoted on a single high heel and slammed the door in his face.

      “Good morning to you too, darlin’!”

      Okay, so he shouldn’t have honked.

      Gripping the steering wheel, he waited a minute. When she didn’t come out, he got out, finger-combed his hair again, and then climbed her steps two at a time. Before he could knock, she opened the door.

      She was on her cell phone now. “Mom! Mother! I know you’re there.” Abruptly Jane snapped her phone shut. With her eyes glued on his pink shirt, she said, “She hung up.”

      “Happy birthday, darlin’.” He bowed low.

      She didn’t smile.

      “We’d