When the Lights Go Down. Amy Jo Cousins

her surprise, he smiled at her. Pulled out his sunglasses and slid them on.

      She didn’t like not being able to see where his eyes were directed. Not knowing what he was looking at made her feel as if his gaze was touching her everywhere.

      Instead of responding to her taunt, he came back with a question.

      “Why Carving Bananas?”

      She laughed and stared up at his dark shades, wondering how he’d take her explanation.

      Some men took it personally.

      “Eisenhower was speaking of Montgomery when he said, ‘I could carve a better man out of a banana.’” She paused for a moment, remembering the old embarrassment. “Or, at least, I thought he did. Turns out the historian who wrote the book I read made that up. Live and learn. Once a two hundred pound carving of a banana has been delivered to your door, you suck it up.”

      After a silent moment, he pulled the sunglasses off. The shock of meeting his eyes again, the blue of Lake Michigan in July framed by dark lashes, made her wobbly. He studied her, eyes narrowing. She couldn’t read minds, but she’d swear that he was finally ignoring her outfit and how she talked to him, and looking at her.

      “And you’re Eisenhower, I take it?”

      She bestowed her grin like a teacher giving a gold star to her favorite pupil.

      “You got it.”

      Focused on him, she forgot the grooved metal slats under her thighs and the ruffle of cool air against her bare skin. She felt him step a little deeper into her mind.

      “More like General Patton, I bet.”

      “I’ve got more subtlety and a broader grasp of the field of engagement than that. Besides, have you seen the state of education in this country? Most kids wouldn’t know who Patton was if he walked up and smacked them on the head with his riding crop.”

      “I bet you’d like to wear the boots, though.” His mouth quirked into a grin.

      A mental picture of herself in thigh-high riding boots and a jacket covered in military ribbons floated up from Maxie’s subconscious and she laughed out loud.

      “That might be one look even I can’t pull off.” She stood up, dumped her empty food container into the trash can next to the bench, and scrubbed her hands with her napkin before balling it up and making a rim shot into the open mouth of the can.

      She took two steps and stopped in front of him. Her mother had always advised her to face her fears head on.

      Wise woman.

      “You may think I’m not what you’re looking for, Mr. Drake. But if you get to know me better, you’ll find I’m exactly what you want. You’d be lucky to hire me or my company for your show, whatever it is.” Even in the boots, she had to tilt her head back at an uncomfortable angle to avoid staring at the front of his blindingly white shirt. She felt the snap and sizzle of sexual tension between them and fed off it.

      “Oh, I’m changing my mind about what I want.” His voice was low as he loomed over her.

      It took her a moment to figure out what he meant, and then she shook her platinum hair back with a swing of her head.

      She bet his usual type wore Louboutin shoes and pencil skirts as a daily uniform, but she damn well knew what he wanted right now.

      She smacked her palm flat on his chest and left it there. His heart thumped under her fingertips and she tapped her index finger against the muscles of his chest.

      “Hiring me would be the best bad idea you ever had.” She didn’t know why she was pushing this. If she picked up the Broadway second run, her entire crew would be booked. She wouldn’t be able take any more jobs.

      His hand wrapped around her wrist.

      “If that’s a bad idea, then I’m pretty sure this is a terrible one.”

      The blue of his eyes blotted out the spring sky as his head dipped toward hers, slow enough for her to pull her back if she’d wanted to do any such thing. Instead, she touched her tongue to her teeth and waited until his lips pressed against hers, his hand tightening on her wrist. Then her mouth fell open and she was lost.

      Chapter Two

      He tasted like coffee and cream from the cup he’d dropped at their feet. She had just enough brainpower left to register surprise at the sweetness, too. She’d have laid money on him taking it black.

      And god, this was stupid. The one thing she never, ever did was get involved with anyone in her professional life. She’d learned her lesson, thank you, and that burn had taken a long time to heal.

      But his mouth on hers was hot and she was slipping under his spell, her hand on his chest flexing as she dug her fingertips into the hard muscle under his corporate costume. He licked at her mouth and she let him in, a surge of heat shooting through her belly until she felt dizzy. Only the sharp pain of bobby pins poking her scalp when he tugged on her hair brought her to her senses before she climbed this guy like a tree in front of her favorite food-truck driver.

      * * *

      Maxie spent the next forty-eight hours thinking about what she’d agreed to after her kiss with Nick, and she still wasn’t sure it was a good idea. But she did know she could count on her sisters to tell her the truth.

      Whether or not she actually wanted it.

      She met her sister-in-law, Grace, and her two older sisters, both of them hugely pregnant, for an emergency summit slash massive laundry session the afternoon after her kiss with Nicholas Drake. Apparently everything that came into contact with babies needed to be washed in a special detergent, and between her two sisters they’d bought out most of Babies”R”Us. Her oldest sister Addy’s house was centrally located for all of the sisters and for their sister-in-law, Grace, who’d already knocked out her two kids and called a halt to further procreation, so they’d gathered there.

      Hip-deep in burp cloths and onesies, Maxie was starting to regret giving them the details of her interactions with the well-tailored businessman. Addy, Sarah and Grace had leaped onto the details like lions attacking a wounded wildebeest, oversharing way too many details of their own about the dearth of sex in late pregnancy. She’d threatened to leave and deprive them of her Gap-trained folding skills, but Maxie knew there was no chance she was getting off the hook.

      The speculation from her sisters, the preggos each sprawled on a separate couch, was getting progressively more explicit when Maxie finally gave up and raised her hands in surrender. “All right! All right! Pains in my ass.” She marched over and planted herself at the edge of the coffee table that stretched between the two couches. Bending her knees and leaning forward, hands on her thighs like an umpire at the plate, she glared at them.

      “It was hot. It was wet. After he dropped his coffee cup, he tangled his hand in my hair and pulled my head back a little.” She nearly lost it when Sarah gave a wistful sigh and only managed to keep a straight face by biting her lip hard. “I was pressed up against him and bent backward over his arm and we didn’t come up for air for ages.” Addy’s aww distracted her for a moment, but she nailed the finale.

      “Five more minutes and I would’ve jumped him on that bench. The thirty-three Washington bus could’ve stopped, unloaded passengers and driven off and I never would’ve noticed.”

      Her sisters closed their eyes and smiled dreamily in unison. She was sure each was imagining her own husband, ridiculously attractive men that they were.

      But the habit of sisterly ribbing was not to be denied for long. Addy cracked an eye open and lifted a brow. “Would have been funny if you’d lost that wig.”

      She definitely regretted telling them what she’d worn to work that day.

      Always the performer in the family, she held a beat before giving in.

      “I