A Dangerous Affair Read Online Free PDF Page B

prescribed times. Girl Scouts shied away. Trick-or-treaters kept their distance at Halloween. The mailman slipped in and out like a ghost.
    She wiped a smudge from the bathroom mirror in the foyer and cleaned the sink with a disinfectant wipe. She folded the hand towel in thirds and placed a fresh roll of toilet paper on the spool. Then she grabbed the cordless phone from the kitchen on the third ring and answered, "Hello?"
    "Can you hear me?" Samantha Perkins shouted over a spirited MC and loud strip club music.
    Jamie could tell her caller, as usual, was in the strip club where she worked. "Barely," she replied.
    Samantha apparently moved away from the source of the music. "How 'bout now?"
    "A little better." Jamie stirred the saucepan and mashed the big wooden spoon at the melting clump of stew. She covered the top with a lid and adjusted the burner. "Are you at work?"
    "Just changing. You sound distracted. Is this a bad time?"
    "It's fine," Jamie lied with an eye on the microwave timer. "I'm cooking dinner," she said, retrieving her apron from the pantry.
    "Where've you been? I left you messages. I thought maybe you went into witness protection or something."
    Jamie watched the pool boy through the kitchen window. His tan arms flexed inside his muscle shirt as he brushed the pool up and down. "I'm just busy."
    "Are you back to work yet?"
    "I'm staying home."
    "I thought you took that nursing job?"
    "I turned it down."
    "Why?"
    "Alan needs me at home."
    "You'll go crazy at home," Samantha insisted.
    Jamie rubbed her hands on her apron. "Are you on break?"
    "I go on stage in five minutes." Samantha sneezed on the other end. "Charley sent me flowers."
    Jamie smiled. She could hear the excitement in her best friend's voice. "The guy you met on-line?"
    "He had them delivered to the club."
    "He's falling hard for you."
    "You think?"
    "How many dates have you had with him?" Jamie asked.
    "Three."
    "Did you kiss him?"
    "We covered that base on our first date."
    "Was it good?"
    "Amazing."
    "You always say that."
    "I'm serious this time."
    Jamie sprinkled salt and pepper in the stew. The taste was close but not quite to Alan's liking. "What's so great about his guy?"
    "He listens to me," Samantha confided. "He cares about me as a person, not an object."
    Jamie tucked the phone between her chin and shoulder. She added more pepper to the simmering meal and stirred the pot. "He wants to get inside your pants." She paused before the next words came out of her mouth. An extended silence persisted on the line. "You already slept with him didn't you."
    "I'm a dancer, not a slut."
    "That's why he sent you roses."
    "I didn't say they were roses," Samantha said.
    "You're unbelievable. You just met this guy on-line."
    "He's not a creep."
    "That doesn't mean you should sleep with him on your first date."
    "It was our second. And I couldn't help myself. I feel this amazing chemistry between us. Like nothing I've ever felt before."
    Jamie stuck the wooden spoon in her mouth and pretended to gag. "I still think you should take it slow."
    "Look who's talking," Samantha countered over the phone. "What about you and Kyle Miller? Or Ben Redcliff. Or that ski instructor you hooked up with over Christmas break in college? You practically jumped his bones the minute we got back to the lodge."
    "I was taking lessons from him."
    Samantha laughed. "I bet you were."
    Jamie laid the wooden spoon on a plate. "I just hate to see you get burned again."
    "I can take care of myself. You're the one with the perfect life in your sunny Florida home with a pool."
    Jamie laid the placemats on the table. "It's not as easy as you think."
    "That's why I'm coming down for your birthday."
    "Sam—"
    "It's not a debate. I felt bad when I missed your party last year."
    "I never had a party last year."
    "Exactly. And you didn't turn forty last year."
    "I don't want to turn forty this year."
    "Any woman would kill to have a figure like yours at your age."
    Jamie switched the