Читать книгу Holiday Kisses - Gwynne Forster - Страница 9

Kisha Moran walked briskly toward her Baltimore dental office, hoping to get some paperwork done before her first scheduled appointment. She wanted to get an early start on what was sure to be a very long day. Lost in her thoughts, she barely noticed the tall, casually dressed man leaning against the doorway of her office until she was close enough to make out his features. She approached him warily, but saw in his eyes and facial expression that he seemed to be in serious pain rather than a physical threat, despite the fact that he easily towered over her five-foot-seven-inch height.

“I’m Doctor Moran,” she said. “May I help you?”

“I sure hope you can. I’ve got a terrible toothache, and this thing kept me up all night.”

She unlocked the door, and led him into a waiting room with a large, flat-screen television. She turned on the television. “This should distract you for a minute.”

“Doctor, nothing is going to distract me as long as this thing is throbbing.”

“Try to relax,” she said, taking off her jacket and putting on a white lab coat.

“Look, can’t you just give me some pills for the pain? Last night I tried to quell the pain with some bourbon, but this thing is killing me.”

She ushered him into one of the patient rooms, where he reclined in the dentist chair. She guessed he must have been at least six foot four from the way he had to contort his frame to fit in the chair. With her mask in place, she moved closer to him and looked down at his face just as he opened his eyes and looked at her.

Until now she hadn’t noticed how beautiful the brother was—gorgeous was more like it. His long lashes and dark, deep-set eyes seemed to promise everything a woman could desire. His thin top lip was offset by a full bottom lip that made him look as if he were pouting. She imagined what it would feel like if she’d bent down and run her tongue across his lips. How would it feel to run her fingers through the silky curls that framed his face, which was the color of shelled walnuts? She tried to still the butterflies in her stomach and chided herself for her thoughts, but to no avail.

“I’ll give you a Novocain shot, and in five minutes you won’t feel a thing,” she said, trying to affect an air of nonchalance.

He nearly sprang out of the chair. “Novocain? In a needle? No way. Give me a pill or something.”

She resisted staring at his handsome face and let a grin float across hers. “What’s your name?”

“Craig Jackson. And I hate needles. Please give me a pill for this pain.”

“A pill will take too long, and the dosage I’d have to give you would be too strong. You’d be in no condition to leave the office by yourself and there’s no one to take you home afterward. Besides, in the time that we’ve been talking about this, Mr. Jackson, the Novocain could have numbed your toothache and you wouldn’t be feeling a thing. You want the needle, or would you rather take a pill and suffer for another hour?”

“Some choice you’re giving me.”

“Aw, come now. Don’t be such a baby.”

“Baby! I’d like to see you deal with a tooth that hurts the way mine does.”

“I’m not making fun of you. I know it hurts. Open your mouth please. I really should x-ray this first, but if I took the time to do that you’d be in pain that much longer. Close your eyes and keep your mouth open.” She didn’t dare let him see the needle. Men were such babies when it came to needles. She injected the Novocain quickly, but winced when he stifled a groan.

“I’m sorry about that,” she said, “but that’s the worst of it.” Waiting for the Novocain to do its job, she took some digital X rays of his teeth and then studied the images.

“Mr. Jackson, would you look at this. How long have you had this cavity?”

“Quite a while. I didn’t have time to take care of it. I had to finish an important project. Besides, I dread seeing the dentist.”

She told herself not to take it personally, but to think of him as a patient that needed help. Not that she expected it to work. “You need a root canal, Mr. Jackson, and it’s going to take a while.”

“I don’t care how long it takes or how much it costs. I just want to leave here feeling no pain.”

“Really?” she said. “I thought that only applied when you were three sheets to the wind.”

He’d begun to relax, so she tested the area for numbness. He didn’t need to know that if it took longer than usual, she might have to give him another shot. “He raised an eyebrow and said, “Hmm. What do you know about three sheets to the wind? I’ll bet you don’t even drink.”

“You’re right. I don’t, except for the occasional glass of wine at dinner and a cocktail on special occasions. Though I suppose you know that pleasure need not require alcohol. The best highs are enjoyed cold sober.”

“I’m not going there,” he said, his speech slightly slurred from the effects of the Novocain.

Now, what had she said to bring that on? She could tell by his expression that he’d taken her comment as a double entendre. Well, she wasn’t going there, either.

With her body pressed against the arm of the chair to steady her hand, she began to drill. But the deeper she went, the worse it got. She stopped and stepped back from him. “I don’t see how you tolerated this.”

“You still think I was being a baby?” he said, petulantly.

“I wasn’t talking about the pain when I said that. And, yes, you were being a baby about the needle. Open your mouth, please.”

He opened his mouth, and she resumed drilling. “Ow! Hey!”

“My goodness. I touched a nerve. I’m so sorry. Rest for a minute.”

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” he asked in a disparaging tone.

In light of the pain he’d experienced, she forgave him. “I’m a doctor of dental medicine, a DMD. And I certainly did not imagine all those years and student loans I spent studying dentistry. Open your mouth.” She quickly gave him another shot of Novocain and patted his shoulder. “I know it’s unpleasant, but at least I’m a dentist who cares that you’re in pain.”

He looked intently at her for a long minute. “Yeah, I guess you do. Sorry if I’ve been giving you a hard time.” He tried to smile, and she could hear the sudden pounding of her heart.

Around one o’clock in the afternoon, nearly four hours after he’d walked into her office, she removed the towel that covered his chest, gave him a cup of water and asked him to rinse his mouth. He did. “Bite down hard on that side,” she said. “It should be fine now.” She opened a can of Ensure, poured it into a glass and gave it to him with a straw. It’ll be a while before that Novocain wears off, so don’t try to eat for at least another hour, but this will hold you.”

Craig stood and rubbed his hand gently over his left cheek. He stared down at her. “How much,” he asked.

“My receptionist will take care of it. You’ll see her on your way out.”

He paused. “I can’t thank you enough, Doctor. The patients with appointments this morning must be furious with you. Thanks again. His gaze swept across the room and came back to her. Lights danced in his large brown eyes.

“You’re the definition of an angel,” he said, then winked at her and left.

Kisha sat down in the chair where Craig had just sat. It wasn’t just that she was tired. She wasn’t quite sure why she was so exhausted.

She knew Regine, her receptionist, would have him fill out the intake form and provide his personal information along with his payment. And for a fleeting moment, Kisha thought about using the information in his patient file to find out more about him.

She’d been around plenty of attractive men. In Key West, where she’d lived before moving to Baltimore, it was not unusual to see good-looking guys wearing the skimpiest of swim briefs. She enjoyed looking at them—after all she wasn’t dead. But she had never reacted the way she had toward Craig Jackson. His eyes! She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. She’d love to experience what those eyes promised.

Three months ago, Kisha Moran had had all of her belongings packed and shipped to number 118 Palely Place in Baltimore, Maryland. She said goodbye to the never-ending Florida heat, the floods and the dreaded hurricanes. She loved living in the Keys, especially the casual lifestyle of fishing, swimming and tennis. But after seeing the damage from one too many hurricanes, she’d had enough.

Kisha had been concerned about opening her dental practice and starting all over again in a place where she didn’t know anyone. But Baltimore had a large African-American population and a number of institutions of higher learning. She planned to build her new practice by providing low-cost dental care, letting students pay on a sliding scale and offering free service to children from the poorest families.

By mid-September, she’d settled in, had a respectable number of patients. Her practice increased weekly, thanks to the proximity of her office to Morgan State University and its large student population to which she offered a discount. Not all of her patients attended the university, but many of them did, and they proved to be her best source of referrals.

Craig Jackson’s acquaintances thought of him as a loner, and to some extent, he was. In his undergraduate days at Howard University, his personality earned him the nickname of Stonewall. A brilliant, no-nonsense man, he was often brutally frank and always honest. Small talk annoyed him.

At age thirty-three, Craig’s career was about to take off, or so he hoped. He anchored a local five o’clock TV news program and prided himself in writing all of its scripts. His habit of including a “human interest” segment in each of his daily programs made him a favorite with viewers.

Back in his office at TV station WWRM, Craig cast a rueful glance at the chocolate bar, the refuge from desperate hunger, that he kept in his top desk drawer, and shook his head. If he had to choose between hunger pain and the return of that toothache, he’d welcome the pain in his stomach. He answered his phone.

“Jackson speaking.”

“Hey, son, how’s it going?”

He knew his dad hadn’t called to make small talk, so he asked, “What’s up, Dad?”

“I’m wondering how far you are from deciding that you want to be a lawyer after all. I just looked at a piece of prime office space that would be perfect for Jackson and Jackson. It’s—”

“Dad, I thought we agreed that if I don’t become syndicated or get a network-level job within a year, I’ll join you. Right now, I’m the only anchor on my level who writes his own news scripts. That ought to tell you something. I’ve got nine months to go.”

“All right. I want you to succeed at whatever you undertake, but this is my dream. I want to see you successful and happy, but, well, I’m between a rock and a hard place.”

“I’m beginning to think I’d make a lousy lawyer, Dad. The more I work as a journalist, the more I love it.”

“You got your law degree with distinction and passed the bar on the first try.”

“But I got my journalism degree at the top of the class. Look, Dad. If I don’t have a network-level program in nine months, I’ll join you. I’ll be as miserable as a wet puppy in freezing temperatures, but I’ll keep my word. But you know I have no intention of failing at this.”

He told his father goodbye and hung up. He didn’t blame his dad. By not joining the family firm he was breaking a tradition that had begun with his great-grandfather. He looked at his watch. She’d said an hour, but he still couldn’t feel a thing on that side of his face. Hunger pangs reminded him that he hadn’t eaten any solid food since the previous evening.

Thinking about what he could eat that didn’t require chewing, he went down and got a container of milk and a muffin from the snack shop. He soaked the muffin in the milk and managed to make it slide down his throat. Then, he busied himself editing the five o’clock news.

That doctor had a tender, caring touch. “I wonder what her first name is,” he said aloud, as he got his suit jacket and found the card that the receptionist gave him. “Kisha.” He pronounced it several times. She was a looker. And sweet, too. “I can’t believe I left that woman and didn’t even ask her for a date,” he said to himself. “I must be getting old.” He realized that the effects of the Novocain had finally worn off entirely when he felt a dull ache. A glance at his watch told him that he had an hour and forty minutes before news time. He closed his computer, locked his desk and headed for the restaurant at the end of the block.

Kisha couldn’t get Craig out of her mind and, for the remainder of the day, she thought of various reasons to call him. That night, she slept fitfully with intermittent dreams of Craig Jackson and the way his long-lashed, dreamy eyes teased her. She tossed in bed until her shoulder ached and awakened the next morning, sleepy, groggy and with an aching head. For the first time since she opened her practice, she arrived late to work. Her first patient needed front caps for cosmetic purposes, and after taking X rays and measurements, she got down to the business of making a forty-five-year-old man who should never smile look like Prince Charming. She attached the temporary caps and went to lunch, but not even a good crab salad improved her mood.

When she returned to work, she pulled Craig’s file, wrote his phone number in her address book, went into her office and closed the door. Using her private line, she dialed Craig Jackson’s phone number.

“Mr. Jackson, This is Kisha Moran. How are you feeling?”

She wondered at his silence. “Uh…thanks for calling. I guess I feel like a guy who just lost the inside of a tooth.”

She didn’t know what to make of that comment. “I’m not sure I know what that means. Does it hurt? I mean are you having any discomfort? You had very extensive surgery yesterday. I’d like to know how you’re getting along.”

Craig’s antenna shot up. She didn’t call him to ask how his tooth was. A dentist would expect him to call if he had a problem. He suspected that she was exceptional, but her modus operandi couldn’t be that different from the ways of other dentists.

“Did you have any discomfort after the Novocain wore off?”

He didn’t want to believe that Kisha Moran was just like all the other women who chased him, but he was taking no chances. “My tooth is fine, Doctor Moran. If it bothers me, you’ll be the first person to know, and you can trust me on that. Thanks,” he added, wanting to terminate the conversation with a measure of civility.

A minute of guilt plagued Craig for having treated Kisha to a brush-off. He resented women who assumed that he was available for their enjoyment, a dressed-up television turkey for their gourmet meal. He didn’t want to believe that Kisha was that type. He was as human as the man who worked in overalls, wore a hard hat, dug ditches or drove a bus. He had wants, needs, hopes and dreams just as they did. He worked in front of the TV camera, but when the cameraman put it aside, he turned off the smiles and the charm. His private life was his own, and he didn’t mix his personal affairs with his public persona.

Taken aback by what she regarded as a put-down, Kisha busied herself developing fliers to post in the neighborhood and at the university to attract patients. She hoped to have as much of her clientele as possible from the neighborhood in which her office was located. Days passed, and she made no progress in her efforts to forget about Craig. So it stunned her to receive a call from a member of the WWRM Channel 6 TV news staff telling her that she had been chosen citizen of the week and asking if she would come in for an interview.

“Thank you for the honor,” she said, “but I can’t imagine what I’ve done to earn it.”

“Citizen Of The Week is our regular Friday news feature,” the man said. “We chose you, because you’re offering free care to indigent children one afternoon each week. That’s a noble thing to do.”

“I never realized that it would be newsworthy. I only want to help the children. Thank you. I’m delighted to accept.”

“Great! We’ll send a car for you. Please be ready Friday at two-thirty.”

Onstage and on camera, Craig looked at the name of his guest and nearly swallowed his tongue. Kisha Moran was his citizen of the week. He read the notes that his staff had prepared for his interview and put them aside. That gibberish would never reveal Kisha Moran’s warm and feminine personality. He made a few notes for the interview and, surprisingly, looked forward to seeing her again.

Decked out in a feminine yet tailored red suit with black accessories and her hair around her shoulders, Kisha Moran was stunning. He did a double take as she walked toward him, but he had the presence of mind to stand and take a few steps to meet her as she crossed the small stage. None of the entertainment community’s habit of kissing any and everybody for her, he noted. She extended her hand for a cool and very businesslike handshake.

“How do you do, Mr. Jackson. Thank you for this wonderful honor.”

Both of his eyebrows shot up. “Thank you for coming, Dr. Moran. Do you treat any child whose parents demonstrate an inability to pay?”

She leaned slightly forward. “Absolutely. I’ll only do it once a week, but I’ll treat all children under age fourteen that I can fit in on Thursdays between twelve and five-thirty.”

“That’s remarkable. I don’t know of another private citizen who’s made such a gesture. Was this among your plans while you studied dentistry?” He held his breath, hoping that he’d given her a question that would enable her to open up and reveal herself to the viewers.

“Not specifically. But I spent a lot of thought on the most effective way that I could give something to the community in which I earn my livelihood. I had wanted to spend one afternoon a week at a senior citizen center, but I couldn’t make the necessary connections. I suppose I wanted results too quickly.”

“I imagine you’ll have more than you can handle on Thursday afternoons.”

“Treatment is by appointment. I require that the children get follow-up exams. All patients should have follow-up care. Dental surgery is surgery. Just because a doctor doesn’t use a scalpel doesn’t mean that aftercare isn’t essential,” she said, looking him in the eye with a cool and impersonal expression on her face.

After they talked for fourteen of the allotted fifteen minutes, he stood and presented her with the plaque. “Thank you, Mr. Jackson. I’m honored to have been chosen for this award.” She extended her hand for a shake. “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Doctor Moran. Thank you for coming.” She had flawless manners, he thought, and he felt as if he’d just had a blast of sleet in the face while trudging against the wind in a winter storm.

He reminded himself that when he sat down again he would still be facing the camera and that he should keep his reactions to himself. But that was easier said than done. Neither by word nor action did she let on that they’d met before. He had expected her to indicate that she was his dentist or at least to say it’s nice to see you again. But, oh no. The lady had cloaked herself in a thick layer of professional ice and stuck to the point. She looked as feminine and sexy as he remembered, but that was as far as it went.

He completed the program and went to his office. Sitting at his desk, he reached for a candy bar and unwrapped it. Damn! She’d just showed him that she was as expert as he at giving the brush-off. He wasn’t frivolous enough to go after her for the sport of paying her back. Besides, as he’d just discovered, he wasn’t immune to her. He saw a lot in her that he liked, but he didn’t have time for a relationship. He put his heart and soul into whatever he did, so he’d placed that part of his life on hold while he drove toward his goal. But Kisha Moran was definitely getting his attention.

He picked up his copy of the station’s daily journal and glanced through it while he munched on the candy. Suddenly, he sat bolt upright. The six o’clock local news anchor would be moving to a managerial post, and the job was up for grabs. He put aside the candy and typed a note to the station manager, giving his credentials and stating that he believed he was the best person for the post. It was not a network position, but six o’clock anchor beat five o’clock in status and seven was even better than six. Telling himself to put his best effort on the table, he got busy editing material that he had planned to air the following week and when he went on the air that evening, he presented his program on Baltimore’s homeless and the rate at which their numbers were swelling.

At the end of the program, viewers’ calls jammed the station’s telephone lines, and he knew he’d done the right thing. Still, three days passed before he received a call from his superiors.

“Come in, Craig, and have a seat,” Milt Sardon, the station’s manager said. “I have your application here, and I’ve given this a lot of thought.” Those words sent chills down Craig’s back, but he didn’t flinch.

“I have to tell you that I never thought you capable of the kind of warm repartee in front of a camera that would make you a good ad-lib mixer with your on-camera colleagues or when conducting interviews. But seeing you sit on the ground beside those homeless people and talk with them as if you were one of them moved me. And your interview with that dental surgeon was an eye-opener. You displayed a lot of warmth and caring, and your viewers could see that. Although you asked her some tough questions, you wanted her to make a good impression.

“We think you deserve to anchor the six o’clock news. Congratulations. I’m expecting great things from you in the years to come.”

He resisted letting out a long breath. “Thank you, Milt. I’ll do my best.”

“That will be good enough,” Sardon said. “The office on the sixth floor is much larger and has a better view. I’ll have your things moved up there.” They shook hands, and Craig walked out into the hallway where, at last, he could let out a long breath of pent-up anxiety.

Kisha loved the six o’clock news. And seeing Craig in the chair that first night, surprised her, though she didn’t think much of it. The regular anchor probably had the night off. However, she took notice when he announced that he intended to change the program’s format and devoted a short segment to the questions that viewers wrote or called in about Kisha and the location of her office.

Hearing his voice when she answered her phone at around seven-thirty that evening stunned her. “Hello, Mr. Jackson. This is a surprise, albeit a nice one. Congratulations on your promotion to six o’clock news anchor.”

“Thank you, Dr. Moran. You were so formal when we last met that I wasn’t sure you’d welcome a call from me.”

“Come now. I just watched your program, and I want to thank you for airing the letters, questions and comments about my appearance on your program. You were very generous.”

“I…I was filling up my hour with the best material I had. You were a wonderful guest, quite a bit different from the Kisha Moran that I remembered, but that’s…I think we’ll just leave that until you and I are up to airing it out. Right?”

She laughed. So he got the drift of what she’d said. Good. “If you say so.”

“Say…look. What do you say we let bygones be bygones, and you have dinner with me. I want to celebrate my promotion, and I’d like to celebrate it with you.”

“I don’t know. Socializing could impair the doctor-patient relationship.”

“Don’t even think it. Good dentists are much easier to find than women who are intelligent, accomplished and beautiful, not to speak of some attributes that I’d as soon not mention. Will you have dinner with me? I’ll take you home the minute you say the word.” He didn’t know why he’d called her. To see her again was an easy answer, but did he want to prove to her that she couldn’t ignore him as she’d done at the station, even when she was looking at him? Or was there something else, something that he hadn’t defined?

Her answer surprised him. “No chitterlings, brains or rhubarb, please.” What a way to say yes. Nothing coy about this woman, he thought, feeling as if he’d had the benefit of a warm fresh breeze.

“How about seven tomorrow evening, Friday, while my promotion is still fresh?” He was pressing his luck, but he didn’t want to give her time to think about it. “I’ll be at your home at six-fifteen.” This time her answer was to give him her home address. If she didn’t like the word yes, she certainly was adept at avoiding its use.

When she opened her door to him, he wondered how many different Kisha Morans there might be. He’d heard that women wore green when they didn’t want to stir a man’s libido. But on her, green was as sexy as if she’d worn fire-engine red. He opened the front passenger seat of his silver Mercedes CLS 550 coupe for her and waited until she had fastened her seat belt, walked around and got in the car. “What do you think of Roy’s. I don’t have reservations, but I know the maître d’ will seat us.”

“I like Roy’s. If this one is anything like Roy’s in Naples, Florida and Philadelphia, I’m in for a treat. The crab cakes are to die for.”

If he made her happy, she’d have good thoughts about their time together, and he would at least have made amends for brushing her off. “Then that’s where we’ll go,” he said, opened his cell phone and dialed the restaurant. “This is Craig Jackson, I’d like a table for two at seven o’clock, please.”

“This is Maynard, Craig. Is your guest a woman?”

“Yes, indeed, brother,” he said, knowing that Maynard would get the hint and do his best to get him a table overlooking the water in spite of his having called at the last minute. At the restaurant, he gave his key to the parking attendant, went inside with Kisha and led her to the bar.

“Since I’m driving, I’m having lemonade. What would you like?”

“Tonic water with a slice of lemon over ice, please.”

He couldn’t help laughing. “Anybody looking at that drink would think you liked gin and tonic or a Tom Collins, right?”

“You get the message. I honestly believe alcohol is overrated.”

“Yeah. I think you alluded to that right after you stuck that needle in my gum. Look, I don’t want to call you Dr. Moran, although I assure you I respect your title. My name is Craig.”

“I’d like you to call me Kisha, if you want to.”

If he wanted to. Laughing wouldn’t make sense, but he could hardly resist it. The waitress brought their drinks, and he focused on her as he sipped the lemonade, seeing more in her than he’d seen before, more that he wanted to see.

“I have a question for you. Is the maître d’ a close friend of yours? You have to make a reservation well over a week in advance to get a table here. I’m really impressed that you accomplished this with one phone call.”

“I like this place, so I try to stay on the good side of the maître d’, and it pays to do that.” She evidently didn’t know that he enjoyed a kind of celebrity status, and that made him feel special. What a joy it was to go out with a woman who agreed to have dinner with him because she liked him and not because of his reputation.

“I’ve never been here alone,” she said, “so I haven’t had that option.” She sat forward, devilishness dancing in her eyes.

“You’d only have to walk in here and look unhappy. Maynard would rush to you and get you whatever your heart desired.”

“You’re joking. I think I’ll try it one day. I’ve never been made to feel queenly. Not that I’ve minded, but it seems to wear well on the women who get that treatment.”

He looked hard at her. The woman was almost as frank as he. A straight talker. He liked that, and he liked her more and more. “The guys you’ve known must have been a few bricks short of a full load. Where did you study dentistry?”

“New York University. Where did you study and what? Actually, I’m more interested in what than where.”

It was a fair enough question, since he obviously knew more of her schooling that she did of his. “Howard University undergraduate, and I majored in Philosophy. Then I got a degree in journalism.” If she didn’t probe, he wouldn’t mention his law degree from Harvard.

“If I knew how to whistle, and if we were in the woods, I’d whistle,” she said. “As a philosophy major, I’ll bet you were what we used to call, ‘loaded.’”

“I can hold my own. What was your undergraduate major?”

“Chemistry. I began my freshman year by majoring in boys, but when I discovered that all the guys were in school to major in girls, I lost interest in the fun. I was orphaned the summer after my sophomore year, and that changed everything.”

“I’m sorry. Do you have older siblings?”

“I don’t have any siblings, so it was kind of rough. But let’s not linger on that.”

He looked at his watch. Precisely seven o’clock and a perfect opportunity to change the topic. “It’s time to claim our table. If you’re still enjoying the drink, leave it there, and we’ll get another at the table.”

She followed the maître d’ to their table and gasped in awe at the sun, a big, round red disc sinking into the Patapsco River. He had seen it from that table before, but somehow, it looked different, more magnificent as he stood beside her. If it was an omen, he wasn’t sure that he welcomed it.

Being comfortable with a man of whom she knew nothing about other than where he worked and what he’d told her should have made her question her sanity, but she could read people, and she liked what she saw in this man.

He asked her which chair she would prefer to sit in, something new in her dating experience. “I like to face the door,” she said, “but I suppose it would be better for you to sit in that chair so that you can see the waiters approach.”

“You’re the most thoughtful person I know,” he said. “I usually prefer to face the door. Thanks.”

The waiter took their orders. Both of them chose the Maryland crab cakes. For a first course, Kisha ordered a sampling of barbecued shrimp, baby back ribs, scallops and buffalo wings.

“Are you going to eat all of those ribs?” he asked her.

“Tell you what, you give me half of your Portuguese pancake, and I’ll give you one rib, two shrimp, a scallop and one buffalo wing. It’s too much for me anyway.”

“Sure you don’t mind?” he asked, but he was already dividing their appetizers. “Gosh, this is a real treat,” he said. “I get to have both of my favorites. Choosing is always a problem.”

“Here’s something to commemorate your promotion. Congratulations,” she said, watching him closely.

“You brought me a present? Really?” His eyes widened, and his face creased into a smile. “Can I open it?”

“Why not wait till later? I hope you’ll like it.”

“I know I will. I love presents. Any kind of present. Thanks.”

They finished their meal, walked out into the night air, and he held her hand while they waited for the parking attendant to bring his car. He walked with her to the front door of her house, opened the door with her key, entered with her and flicked on the light in the foyer.

“This was wonderful, Kisha. I want to see you again. I want to get to know you.” His gaze seemed to bore through her.

I should say something, she thought, but nothing came to mind. His elegant style, his charm and good looks were reducing her to a simpleton. She told herself to get it together. “I enjoyed the evening, too, Craig.” She opened her bag, got a business card and wrote her home phone and cell phone numbers on the back of it. “I look forward to hearing from you. I work late some nights, so if you don’t get me here, call my cell.”

He gave her his business card. “I’ll call you tomorrow evening. Thanks for a most pleasant evening. Good night.”

“Good night, Craig.”

She closed the door. “Well I’ll be damned. Not even a peck on the cheek,” she said aloud. She’d have to think about that. True, she took a chance when she allowed him to come inside, but she wasn’t one for making out in public. She had expected a light kiss, since he didn’t seem the type to make a nuisance of himself. But a simple good-night and may I see you again? Would miracles never cease!

She sat on the sofa in the darkened living room and kicked off her shoes. Would she have kissed him? Probably. A sensible woman did not get involved with a man who looked like Craig Jackson, a towering Adonis with long-lashed dreamy eyes, a well-toned body and a voice that could lull a woman into a stupor. She rested her head against the back of the sofa and closed her eyes. She had needed that to remind herself of her resolution to never again fall for a man who looked too good to touch.