Truly, Madly, Briefly

“You’re not welcome here,” Winston informed Jasper. “We don’t take kindly to you breaking Bobbie’s heart. Leave now, or Quincy here just might put an uncomfortable knot in that Gigolo underwear that you’re so fond of.”

Quincy agreed with a gravelly, snarling growl. He was by far the smaller of the two, but since he’d been the state mud-wrestling champion in his prime, and since he had hands the size of SUV hubcaps, few people cared to argue with Quincy Callahan.

In no time flat, and with seemingly no exertion, the uncles had her former fiancé and reigning cow-dung champion headed toward his car.

“This isn’t over,” Jasper called out. “I’ll win you back, Bobbie. You’ll see.”

Ferrets would fly first.

When Jasper finally drove away, Bobbie stepped out on the porch again. From the doomsday look on Aidan’s face, he wasn’t so sure of this lottery stuff either. He’d probably come over to call the whole thing off.

“I’ll take a stab at what happened to you,” Winston said coming back up the steps. He towered a good twelve inches over his fraternal twin, Quincy, and even had a few inches on Aidan. Her uncle gave his ornate feather-banded Stetson an adjustment. “That purple blotch on your skirt is from Eidelson’s Sensuous Musk Massage Oil, right?”

Flabbergasted, Bobbie just stared at him a moment. “How’d you know that?”

Winston cast an uneasy glance down at Quincy. Both shook their heads. Both mumbled. Quincy finally motioned for his brother to continue. “We had a meeting with Mr. Eidelson a couple of years ago, before you took over the business.”

“And you didn’t warn me?”

They shrugged in unison. “We figured he’d have a new product by now,” Quincy offered. He didn’t wait for her to verify that there was no product other than the staining, stinky oil. He hitched a thumb in Aidan’s direction. “The deputy was looking for you.”

Since the cheerless look was still on his face, Aidan had probably been with her uncles longer than he wanted. Of course, there were times when five seconds was too long to spend with Quincy and Winston.

Bobbie caught onto Aidan’s arm and pulled him inside. “Thank you for bringing him over,” she let her uncles know. She glanced around the yard. It was dark, but she figured it wasn’t so dark that she’d missed his vehicle. “Aidan, where’d you park?”

“By the pond. I took the back way.”

So that he wouldn’t be seen. Oh, yeah. He was definitely ready to put an end to this.

Bobbie gave a farewell wave to her uncles, but they just stood there grinning at her. When a second wave didn’t get them moving, she issued a good-bye and shut the door. Later, she’d have to inform them that this visit from the deputy wasn’t the start of the glorious romance that they obviously thought it was.

The full impact of the Twango-Drifter Plan hit Bobbie the moment she turned around to face Aidan.

Oh, my. Oh, my, my, my.

He was certainly an eyeful in those snuggy jeans and crisp white shirt. And here he was. Right in the middle of her entryway—the last place an attractive man should be, since she’d sworn off men for all of eternity.

“I’ll save you some time here,” she started. “My second thoughts are having second thoughts. I figure you’re feeling pretty much the same.”

“I am.” The corner of his mouth lifted. Not a toenail-dissolving grin like Jasper’s. This one made her smile and feel warm and tingly inside.

“It sure seemed like a good idea at the time,” Bobbie continued. “Well, maybe it did. But I caught us both at a weak moment. Now that the phones aren’t ringing and people aren’t pestering us, well, the Twango-Drifter Plan doesn’t seem, um, necessary, does it?”

Aidan no doubt would have agreed, but before he could even get out a word, one of the cats scurried across the windowsill. It clawed its way up the screen and onto the eaves.

Bobbie shook her head. “Just for the record—I don’t expect you to do a kitty rescue.”

He smiled again. And just stood there. Bobbie tried not to look at him. She really tried. But her eyes seemed to have a whole different notion.

She took in everything about him that she didn’t want to notice. The way his dark hair languished against his tanned neck. The little flecks of blue and gray in his luscious green eyes. She probably would have started drooling if the rattling sound hadn’t pulled her out of her Aidan-induced trance.

She glanced behind her. A second cat was making his way up the screen.

Aidan motioned toward the plate-size stain on her skirt. “You might want to take care of that before you attract a bear or something.”

“Of course.” Strange, but she’d almost forgotten about the massage oil. “I’ll just grab a quick shower and change. I won’t be long. Then, we can talk about…well, about our situations.”

Naturally, that would mean coming up with a different plan, or maybe no plan at all. Aidan was a grown man, incredibly grown, and he certainly didn’t need her to fix his problems. Besides, she absolutely, emphatically, positively didn’t want another relationship.

Really.

Once she was safely in the bathroom and had the door closed, she placed her fingertips over the pulse on her neck to verify what she already knew. It was racing. And not just racing either. It was in a full gallop.

So, she did what any other female who had sworn off men would do. Bobbie blamed it on Eidelson’s Sensuous Musk Massage Oil.

AIDAN BLAMED his visit on basic stupidity. And, of course, politeness.

The bane of his existence.

Why he hadn’t ended this fiasco with just a phone call, he didn’t know. But he did know that he had to put this Twango-Drifter Plan to bed in such a way that it didn’t hurt Bobbie’s feelings. Of course, after her comment just moments earlier, it was clear she wasn’t very comfortable with things either. After all, her second thoughts were having second thoughts. You couldn’t get any more unsure than that.

While he waited for Bobbie to finish her shower, he ambled around the living room, glancing at the cheery yellow and lilac décor. There were posters of Big Ben, Mount Rushmore, Limerick Castle and the Grand Canyon. A huge stack of travel magazines lay on the coffee table. Apparently, Bobbie had a bad case of wanderlust.

“It’s an obsession,” he heard her say.

Aidan turned to see her in the doorway. She was barefooted and wore jeans with a cropped T-shirt. There was nothing especially attractive about the outfit, but it seemed to garner his attention. He cleared his throat and forced his attention to garner something else.

“What’s an obsession?” he asked.

“Traveling.” She walked closer, and he caught the scent of her soap. She’d washed her hair as well, and it fell in damp strands against her neck. Like the outfit, it wasn’t especially attractive, but for some reason it was appealing. Appealing in a make-me-squirm sort of way.

He cleared his throat again. “You travel often?”

“No.” She gave a heavy sigh. “I rarely go anywhere because I work six days a week. That’s why it’s an obsession—I only get to dream about it. I guess you’ve been a lot of places, huh?”

“Some. I joined the law-enforcement exchange two years ago. The first place they sent me was London to work at Scotland Yard.”

A wistful, longing look glazed her eyes. “Ohh. London. I suppose you’ve been to Hawaii, too?”

He nodded. And nodded again when she asked about Italy and France.

“You are so lucky,” she concluded. “The closest I get to places like that are my travel magazines. A pitiful substitute, I can tell you.”

She stuffed her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. Not the best maneuver. Of course, she probably didn’t know that it hiked up her top so he could now see her stomach. Not just her stomach though. Her navel.

And it was pierced.

Hmmm. For some strange reason, he found that intriguing. And sexy. It reminded him of things best forgotten. Things that involved slow, wet, lingering kisses in the general region of her navel.

Aidan was forced to clear his throat once again. If he did much more of that, Bobbie would think he was coming down with a cold.

He was about to tell her the Twango-Drifter Plan was a no-go and get the heck out of there, but the lights suddenly went off, plunging them into total darkness.

“Sorry. This happens all the time,” she assured him. “There’s a flashlight in the kitchen. I’ll get it.”

He heard fumbling around when Bobbie walked into the adjoining room. Aidan also heard when she bumped into something.

“Darn it,” she mumbled.

She repeated that when she bumped into something else, adding some “shoot’s” and “blast’s.” Apparently, Bobbie didn’t have good night vision. Of course, it was so dark that he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face.

Another bumping sound sent him in search of her. “Need any help?”

Aidan stuck out his hands like Frankenstein to feel his way around.

“I know I have a flashlight in the drawer somewhere. Now, if I could just find the drawer,” he heard her say—right before he bumped into her. As bumps went, it was probably the best one he’d ever had. His Frankenstein hands were suddenly filled with her breasts.

“Oh!” she gasped.

Aidan said an entirely different kind of oh. It sounded more like a beached whale’s groan. Her cute little breasts fit perfectly in the palms of his hands. Touching them, however, was a big no-no.

He snatched his hands away and stepped to the side. “Sorry about that.”

She probably was sorry too, but unfortunately Bobbie stepped in the same direction he did. This time, his lowering hands skimmed over her waist. And the skimming didn’t stop there either. Their middles swished against each other. Man, did they swish. As swishes went, it was a prizewinner.

“Don’t move,” she demanded.

Aidan was sure he’d misunderstood her. They were touching from waist to kneecaps. Surely, she didn’t approve of that. His body did though. In fact, his body was rather pleased with the fact that it had Bobbie plastered against it. It was obvious he’d have to have a man-to-man talk with his body.

“My earring,” she explained. “You’re caught on it. Don’t move. It’ll hurt.”

He was nowhere in the vicinity of her earlobes. “Excuse me?”

“The earring in my navel—it’s caught on your shirt or something. Please don’t move.” He didn’t have to see her face to know there was a frown on it. Aidan could hear it in her voice. “It’s something my friend, Crystal, talked me into last month for my twenty-eighth birthday. Needless to say, it was a stupid idea. Then, the skin closed around the earring, and I can’t get the darn thing out.”

Aidan eased his hand between them and encountered the snagged earring. And some female flesh. Bobbie’s stomach was soft and firm at the same time. Best not to dwell on it though. Best not to dwell on anything that made his body feel like an overly productive furnace.

“It’s caught on my belt,” he let her know.

“Can you untangle it?”

Probably, but not without feeling around a lot. His body was about to volunteer him for the job, but Aidan vetoed it. His body had no vote here. It was already making some pretty bad suggestions.

“Your hands are smaller,” he answered. Which probably didn’t have a thing to do with anything, but it was the only semi-plausible reason he could come up with. “Why don’t you try?”

She did. With a vengeance. Bobbie stuck her hand between them as if she had no plans whatsoever to encounter him along the way. And she encountered him all right. Her agile fingers slid against his chest, stomach and even slightly lower—to the fly on his jeans.

All that encountering would have been okay—maybe—if he hadn’t been stirring like crazy beneath that fly.

“Flashlight,” he managed. “It’ll make this easier.”

Or at least it might get his eyes uncrossed.

Bobbie made a sound of agreement and reached around behind him to get to the drawer. Not the best position for them to be in. Now, all of her was plastered against all of him. Breasts. Stomach.

And most especially, other things.

The torment didn’t stop there either. Aidan could feel her warm breath on his neck. He could smell the scent of soap on her skin. That wasn’t usually a turn-on for him, but it apparently was now. Soon, he’d have to beg for mercy.

Or beg to have sex with her.

Aidan remembered who he was with—Bobbie. Nope, it’d have to be begging for mercy. There was no way he could become involved with her. She was one tempting morsel that he intended to leave on the proverbial plate of life.

She fumbled for several moments. Wiggled. And otherwise nudged and rocked. “Got it,” she announced.

Aidan was so worked up that it took him a while to realize she meant the flashlight. She clicked it on, and golden light sprayed between them. He could hope that she wouldn’t notice that their little bump-and-grind session had caused some changes in his body. Of course, she was definitely close enough to feel it if she moved just slightly to his right.

Part of him—a disgusting vile part—very much wanted her to move to his right.

And wiggle back and forth a little.

“Darn it,” Bobbie mumbled.

Heck! Had he said that wiggle part out loud? He hoped not. He didn’t stand a chance of coming up with a plausible explanation for it.

“What?” Aidan asked, his voice cracking.

“My navel ring’s not tangled on your belt but on some loose threads on the loop of your jeans. I don’t think I can get us apart. I’ll have to use the scissors.”

She might as well have said she was about to boil him in rancid snake oil. There was no way he wanted Bobbie near a certain part of his temporarily enlarged anatomy with a pair of scissors.

“Let me try,” he insisted.

The lights flared on. It wasn’t exactly the best time for that to happen. Now, he’d actually have to look at her while he tried to disjoin them.

She chuckled softly. “Weird things like this always happen to me.”

That wasn’t hard to believe. Bobbie definitely had a Calamity Jane, I Love Lucy thing going on. Still, this had to be a first. “You’ve caught your navel ring on a man’s jeans before?”

“No, but once when I was a teenager, I got my braces caught on some deep-pile carpeting. Don’t ask for details.” She put the flashlight aside and flattened her hand on his chest. “Lean back just a little, and let me see if I can do something about this. Hmmm.”

Bobbie stared down at the bodily connection.

Aidan was still aroused and hoped like the devil she wouldn’t notice. Of course, only blindness, paralysis or virginal naiveté could have prevented her from noticing something like that.

“It’s the Austrian crystal on the earring that’s actually caught,” she continued. “I think I can—”

When she didn’t finish her sentence, Aidan glanced at her. Except it didn’t stay a glance. Their gazes connected—and turned into a full-fledged stare.

“You wear boxers,” she mumbled. But then her eyes widened to the size of turkey platters. “Ohmigosh. I didn’t mean to look. Or to say that out loud.”

He knew the feeling.

“I mean, it’s no big deal,” she babbled. “It’s just there’s a poll making the rounds. Most people in town thought you were into briefs.”

“There’s a poll about my choice of underwear?” Aidan asked.

She nodded and swallowed rather noisily. “Last I heard, most people figured you for a Naughty Guy.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh.” She blushed. “That’s one of Boxers or Briefs’ products. Item 451A. A classy traditional-cut faux silk brief in nontraditional colors. It has an ad slogan that I’d rather not mention if you don’t mind.”

Aidan couldn’t help it. He had to smile. So did Bobbie, eventually.

Man, did she ever smile.

This was not good. Bobbie looked centerfold-sexy with that smile and her hair tumbling around her face. Her mouth was slightly damp, too.

Mercy, he couldn’t be thinking about kissing her. He just couldn’t be. This Twango-whatever idea, the one he didn’t want, was all for show. A faux relationship with faux kisses and faux feelings.

Too bad the heat stirring in his body didn’t feel so frickin’ faux.

It felt like a blazing inferno.

Aidan shook his head, hoping to clear it. It didn’t work. Nothing cleared, especially the sudden, urgent ache he had brewing below the waist.

Ah, heck.

He didn’t want that part of his body to get in on this. His mouth was already thinking things that were way out of line, but those thoughts were G-rated compared to all the stupid ideas that brainless part of him could suggest.

“Uh, Bobbie.” He’d just tell her to slap him, to make it a good hard one so it’d knock some sense into him.

“Yes?”

But she didn’t ask it like a question. It sounded more like an invitation. Of course, that was the opinion of that brainless part of him below the waist. Aidan could pretty much discount any interpretation it came up with.

He felt his head lower. Tried like the devil to stop it. Couldn’t. His eyes were already trained on her mouth. On her sweet, warm mouth.

Aidan couldn’t remember ever wanting a mouth this much. It was stupid to want it. Wrong. And reckless. Heck, after his earlier experience with her, it might even be hazardous to his health.

His head still dipped lower.

He decided to hope for a miracle because that was the only thing that stood a chance of stopping him now.

Apparently, he was about to kiss Bobbie Fay Callahan. And he was about a hundred percent certain that there’d be nothing faux about it.

4

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SHE WAS ABOUT to kiss Aidan O’Shea. Bobbie was too fuzzy-headed to think of why she shouldn’t be doing that. At the moment, it seemed right. It felt right, too. Of course, with him this close, making love with him on the kitchen table suddenly seemed right.

“Uh,” she got out.

She should stop this. This would complicate things that were already too complicated. However, with his mouth only a fraction of an inch away, all Bobbie could manage was another “Uh.”

“Uh,” he repeated.

So, they were both past the point of even simple coherent speech. It didn’t matter. She didn’t want to talk anyway. She wanted him to kiss her until her eyelashes curled to tight little coils.

His eyelids lowered. Bobbie’s automatically did the same. She angled her head. Mercy. This would be good. She just knew it. A man who looked like Aidan could certainly send a woman jetting straight to the stars.

“Say, what’s going on here?” someone asked.

The soaring and jetting came to an abrupt halt, and instead Bobbie did a crash-and-burn. Mainly because it wasn’t soaring-inducer, Aidan, who was doing the asking. Even in her passion-induced stupor, Bobbie figured that out.

Their visitor was her best friend, Crystal, and her presence was both a blessing and a curse. Bobbie apparently wouldn’t get that eyelash-curling kiss after all, but freedom from a navel-ring attachment was only moments away.

The other downside to this situation was that unless Bobbie could convince her friend that absolutely nothing carnal was going on, then for the next six years or so, Crystal would torment her with questions about this incident.

Aidan tried to step back from her, but Bobbie caught onto his shoulders before he could do that. No sense injuring herself at this point.

“Crystal,” Bobbie said as calmly as she could. “What are you doing here?”

“I closed the salon early and thought I’d drop by and snag some leftovers for dinner. The front door was unlocked so I let myself in.”

As usual. Crystal’s self-invitations didn’t normally bother Bobbie. In fact, she usually welcomed them. But then, she’d never been caught in a near lip-lock with a cute deputy either. “You scared the life out of us.”

Crystal shook her head. “Mmmm. You sure that’s all I did? Because I think I might have interrupted something here.”

But Crystal dismissed it with the flippant wave of her hand. “Hey, what am I saying? This is you—Bobbie Callahan. Senior citizens without access to Viagra see more action than you do.” She picked an apple out of a wicker basket, levered herself onto the counter and started to munch. “So, what’s really going on?”

“Nothing, really. My navel ring got caught on his jeans,” Bobbie explained. “We’re having a little trouble untangling ourselves.”

Crystal stopped in mid-bite. “How’d that happen?”

“You don’t want to know,” Aidan mumbled.

Bobbie quietly agreed. “Crystal, could you just get us loose and stop asking all these questions?”

Crystal shook her head again, sending the heap of tiny tangerine-colored curls bouncing. “The idea of putting my hand on the front of his pants doesn’t appeal to me. Well, maybe it does a little, because he is on the hot side.” And with a chunk of apple still in her mouth, she winked and grinned at him. “But I wouldn’t feel right doing that since he’s sorta yours. I mean, you did win him in the lottery and all. That’d be like cheating if—”

“Crystal!” Bobbie said through clenched teeth. “Get us loose now.”

“All right. All right. Don’t go all crazy on me. I’ll get your big sharp chef’s knife from the drawer—”

“No!” Aidan yelled. “No scissors or knives. It’s time to put an end to this.” He reached between them and used his thumbnail to saw the threads off the navel ring. After a few seconds, he had them free.

Bobbie stepped back and pushed her hair out of her face. She didn’t look at Aidan. Couldn’t. And he no doubt felt the same. What in the name of heaven had she almost done? She wasn’t the kind of woman ruled by lust glands.

She wasn’t even sure she had lust glands.

Crystal stuck out her hand for Aidan to shake. “Crystal Pudney. You probably don’t remember me, but I own the Curl Up and Dye Beauty Palace over by the Piggly Wiggly on Main. We met the first day you got to Liffey.”

Bobbie waited for Aidan to rattle off a plethora of unsavory details about Crystal the way he’d done to her in his office. But he merely nodded. No comment on the fact that Crystal had missed gobs of appointments and had scores of moving traffic violations. Just the briefest handshake in the history of that particular form of salutation.

“I have to go,” Aidan announced.

“Oh. I’ll see you to the door,” Bobbie offered when he took off like a fighter jet in that general direction. She had to sprint after him.

Unfortunately, Crystal followed right on their heels. Shoot! Bobbie couldn’t very well ask for a moment alone with Aidan, or Crystal would think something was going on between them.

Which there wasn’t.

That almost-kiss had been a mere minor setback in her not-so-minor plan to swear off men forever and ever. It was also a hindrance to them dissolving their plan to rid themselves of romance and other assorted aggravations. But it wouldn’t happen again.

Nope.

Now, that she knew the potent effect of Aidan’s mouth, she’d just distance herself from those luscious lips. While she was at it, she’d subscribe to a couple more travel magazines. It would give her mind something else to do other than dwell on dwellings it shouldn’t be dwelling on.

“You’ll call if you find out anything about the missing Gigolos. I mean, the underwear?” Bobbie asked.

“Oh. Sure. Will do. Good evening, ladies.” At that same supersonic speed, Aidan turned on his afterburners and jetted out the door.

“And don’t worry about that, uh, other thing,” Bobbie called out to him. “We’ll discuss it some other time. Not tomorrow though. I’ve got a meeting in Austin. But soon.”

He didn’t even spare her a glance. “Okay.”