Читать книгу First You Kiss 100 Men... - Carolyn Greene, Carolyn Greene - Страница 13

Everyone loves a good mystery. Some people like it in movies or books. Others, such as doctors and scientists, attempt to solve mysteries in their jobs every day. Me? I like a bit of mystery in the man I’m kissing.

The man on the phone sounded a lot like Hunter. But why would he be calling from his office while he was with a client?

‘‘Hunter, is everything all right?’’

He cleared his throat and tried again. ‘‘This is Peter Matthews, Hunter’s brother. Is he in?’’

It took Julie a moment to adjust to the fact that the voice on the phone didn’t belong to her employer. A span of about nine or ten years separated the brothers in age, which meant that Peter had been practically an adult by the time she was born. Although he hadn’t been around much as she was growing up, she had seen him occasionally during holidays and his frequent visits home. And at his father’s funeral. Hunter had taken the elder Matthews’s death very hard.

His father, a policeman, had been killed in an on-duty accident when his partner had failed to follow a standard safety procedure. For a brief time Hunter had followed in his dad’s footsteps and worked in law enforcement before leaving it to work at the agency. Julie supposed the accident was also the reason Hunter had become such a stickler for policy and procedure.

‘‘Peter, it’s nice to talk to you again. This is Julie Fasano.’’ A pause followed while he apparently searched his memory to place the name. ‘‘I used to live next door to you.’’

‘‘Julie?’’ he asked, as if still unsure who he might be talking to.

‘‘You might remember me as Julie Beth.’’

‘‘Oh, yes, Julie Beth! The little girl who used to come over all the time and mooch cookies. So you’re working for my brother now, eh?’’ He chuckled softly. ‘‘I’d love to be a fly on the wall for that.’’

‘‘Well, actually, it’s been fairly uneventful.’’ Manners kept her from telling the full truth—that the job was boring. ‘‘Hunter is meeting with a client right now. Would you like me to get him for you?’’

She supposed she shouldn’t interrupt him, but this was his brother and it might be important. Besides, she was curious about the discussion between Hunter and his client, and if she had an excuse to go in there, she might catch a portion of their conversation. Better yet, she’d love to actively participate in finding the daughter that the elegant Mrs. Dexter had given up for adoption nearly forty years ago.

‘‘No, but you can give him a message for me.’’

Rats! Julie frantically searched for something to write on. In the process, she knocked a cup of pens onto the floor. Picking one up, she uncapped it and started scribbling on the closest bit of paper available—the margin of the newspaper in which she’d been reading her column. Peter started talking, but the ink refused to flow.

‘‘Hold on a sec.’’ She dragged the tip across the paper a few times before a spot of blue emerged. ‘‘‘Check to see if…’ What was the rest?’’

‘‘If the subject we discussed recently might be the mystery kisser.’’

For a moment, it seemed as though Julie’s heart forgot to beat. Surely he couldn’t be referring to her column? And who was this ‘‘subject’’ he’d mentioned? ‘‘Did you say ‘the mystery kisser’?’’

‘‘Yeah. It’s the new column in the newspaper that everyone’s talking about. Today’s article gives me reason to believe she might be the author, ‘Ann Onimus.’’’

‘‘Oh my.’’ Julie wondered if it would be prudent to probe for a name.

‘‘Yeah, that was my reaction, too.’’

Julie hesitated before asking her next question. It was important to find out more about this curious development, but she didn’t want to let on that her interest was more personal than professional. ‘‘I’m afraid I don’t understand the significance. Why would Hunter want to know who’s writing a column about kissing styles?’’

‘‘He doesn’t.’’

She allowed a moment of silence to follow Peter’s statement, hoping he’d fill it with a more in-depth explanation. He didn’t.

‘‘Just give him my message,’’ Peter continued. ‘‘He’ll know what it’s about.’’

‘‘Sure. I’ll do that.’’ With any luck, Hunter might be a bit more forthcoming than his older brother had been. And someday pigs would fly. But she could certainly give it her best shot.

‘‘Good luck in your new job.’’

With the way things were going lately, she was going to need more than luck. Whether Hunter liked it or not, she was going to have to do a bit of sleuthing of her own.

For the next quarter hour, Julie resisted interrupting Hunter’s meeting. The conversation with Peter consumed her thoughts. She tried to distract herself from worrying about it by focusing on a case in which a Mr. Younce was claiming disability benefits for a work-related back injury. Hunter had already explained that much of their business involved investigating insurance claims that were suspected of being fraudulent. Lifeway, the insurance company with offices in the same building, provided them with a lot of these cases. As for Mr. Younce’s supposed incapacitation, the man had reportedly been seen doing yard work and even demonstrating some wrestling moves to his young son. Although it would thrill Julie to catch the dishonest scumball in the act of scamming his employer, the mounds of paperwork attached to the Younce case left her cold.

Muttering under her breath, she chanted, ‘‘Bored, bored, bored, bored.’’

Julie moved aside some folders to turn up the radio. Though she doubted her column would still hold the public’s attention after yesterday’s brief discussion, she tuned in anyway. A popular rock tune was playing, and she noted that the Burning Issues talk segment was another twenty minutes away.

Too antsy to sit still for that long, she carried the newspaper to Hunter’s office door and listened to hear if the meeting was almost finished. The heavy wood effectively blocked most of the sounds, so she stepped closer and pressed an ear to the dark oak. No luck. Just some general murmuring sounds that she couldn’t distinguish.

With a flip of her hair, she pressed her ear more firmly to the barrier. In almost the same instant, the knob clicked, the door swung open and Hunter leaped forward to catch Julie as she fell inward toward the surprised pair.

‘‘Goodness!’’ said Mrs. Dexter, staggering back a step.

Bracing herself with a hand on Hunter’s firm abdomen, Julie regained her balance. Time slowed as she breathed in the clean, masculine scent of him, and she briefly forgot that he was the boss and she was the secretary. She even forgot there was another person in the room with them. All she was aware of while she clutched his waist was that he was a man and she was a woman. And she wanted to investigate him with every one of her senses.