A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion Read Online Free PDF

swiftly finishing the highball and then ordering another, and Ruth just watched them, fascinated by Harry’s heavy exertions at courtship and Kitty’s schoolgirlish agreement to be wooed. Harry’s left arm wedged its way around Kitty and he angled toward her, even whispered a few endearments, but he seemed increasingly nervous in his awareness that he was entertaining two women and if he lost one’s interest he’d perhaps lose both.
    And that’s when his right hand flew up in a roundhouse wave and he called, “Why, it’s Henry in Henry’s! Hey Judd, join us!”
    Ruth turned to see a solemn, handsome man in his early thirties hanging his straw hat on a peg. He was short but trim, athletic, and dapper, with owlish, round, tortoiseshell glasses; flannel-blue eyes; and walnut brown hair so wavy it seemed corrugated. His highly polished brown shoes were probably Italian, his tan Brooks Brothers suit seemed so unwrinkled it could have been bought just that hour, and his chin was square and manly with the deep almond of a dimple. She turned to face Kitty and smiled for the first time that day as the gentleman walked over. She smelled his spice cologne as he shook Mr. Folsom’s hand and was invited into the booth.
    “I’m fit only for a solo,” he said. “I was just going to gobble a bite and get back to the office.” He spoke with the lulling, tranquilizing baritone of radio broadcasters.
    Imitating a pout, Kitty said, “But Ruth’s feeling left out.”
    Judd Gray looked down and found a gorgeous Scandinavianwoman of thirty frankly staring at him with thrilling blue eyes that flashed with so much light she seemed candled. Even on such a hot day, a wintery, gray fox fur was flung over her shoulders and she wore a dark cloche hat over her very blonde hair. She was dressed in a navy blue, filmy fabric that betrayed the full, round breasts that were unfashionable in those first days of the boy look. Judd was good with scents and noted she’d chosen Shalimar lilac perfume for the day.
    “If I’m not intruding,” Judd said.
    Ruth smiled and said, “Please do.”
    His thigh slightly touched Ruth’s as he sat and she let hers stay as it was. His closeness to her made his handshake awkward as he affably said, “Hello there. I’m Judd Gray.”
    “I thought your name was Henry.”
    “It is in the birth register,” the hosiery salesman said.
    Judd explained, “I’m formally Henry Judd Gray but I just use the initial H. Harry likes to flaunt his detective work.”
    “So it’s Judd,” Kitty said.
    “My friends call me Bud.”
    Ruth smiled again. “So many choices!”
    “I haven’t one for you yet.”
    “Mrs. Snyder,” she said. “Ruth.”
    Imitating her, Kitty said, “Mrs. Kaufman. Karin. But they call me Kitty.” She shook his hand. “She’s also called Tommy.”
    Judd grinned. “Oh. Are you a tom-boy?”
    “Kitty calls me that because my friends are mostly men.”
    “And why’s that?”
    She said with that silky caress of a voice, “Oh, who knows? I guess because they’re so safely predictable in some ways. And unpredictable in others.”
    Harry called out, “Olaf! A ginger ale for Mr. Gray.”
    “Me too,” Kitty said.
    Seeing Ruth’s highball glass was still full, Harry called out, “Three,” and finished his own. And then, out of nowhere, Harry hiked up Kitty’s calf as high as his chest. “Wouldja look at the shapely ankles on this gal?”
    Kitty just laughed and swatted his hands off. Judd was sure, then, that these were fast “delicatessen” ladies, and he looked at Ruth so intently her face got hot. “You’re very tan,” he said.
    “We just got back from a weekend sailing on the Atlantic.”
    “We?”
    “The husband, me, and the baby.” Ruth looked at his nicely manicured left hand. “I see you’re manacled too.”
    Judd glanced at his gold wedding ring. “Almost ten years now. Isabel. And I have an eight-year-old. Jane. She’ll be nine in August.”
    “Mine’s seven.