Just One Look Read Online Free PDF

quiet suggestion to find someone she could talk to.
    In the meantime, he needed to tell her to come in to see Sylvia next week. And that would be a great excuse to get away from the talkative Deirdre What's Her Name who'd snagged him as soon as he'd walked in tonight.
    "Excuse me, Deirdre, but I see a colleague I need to speak with. It's been a pleasure meeting you." He smiled but she didn't return his smile. In fact, she looked positively piqued.
    "Over here," he called to one of the many waiters plying the crowd with trays of champagne.
    Jennifer risked a glance through the still quaking foliage and caught her breath. Matt had stopped a passing waiter and lifted two champagne flutes from the tray. She gasped. Oh, no. He was coming this way. Hurriedly, she turned her back and acted as if the painting on the wall behind her were fascinating.
    "I thought I recognized you between the greenery," Matt said.
    Jennifer glanced over her shoulder as nonchalantly as she could considering her pulse rate. "Oh, Doctor . . . Penrose, wasn't it?"
    Matt grinned. "Was and is. Here." He handed her one of the glasses. "You look thirsty."
    Jennifer accepted the glass gratefully. She smiled brightly. "Thanks." At least holding it would keep her hands from shaking.
    "You're welcome." Matt sipped the bubbly and studied her over the rim. She looked as repressed as he suspected she was. Most of the women in here had dressed in expensive gowns that bared their arms, shoulders, backs, and breasts. But not Jennifer Monroe. She had on a tube of gray silk that touched the floor. Over that was a matching boxy jacket with dozens of tiny buttons in looped buttonholes.
    There wasn't anything wrong with the outfit but there wasn't anything right either, he thought. It was the perfect ensemble for a woman who didn't want to draw attention to her feminine attributes.
    Jennifer turned back to look at the painting, hoping he would believe she'd been back here studying the atrocious streaks of oil paint on a jet black canvas. She tilted her head to the side. When he spoke, she heard the amusement in his voice.
    "What do you think the artist was trying to say?"
    She choked back a laugh. This was art? More than anything Jennifer wanted to tell him she'd seen better art in a kindergarten class. At least five-year-old finger painters had emotion in their art. "I don't know." She studied the putrid green circle with the black spot in the center. "What do you think?"
    Matt took a sip. "I'd say he was making a statement about the commercialization of art in contemporary America."
    "Really?" Jennifer asked, impressed despite herself. "What makes you think that?"
    "I know the artist. He was commissioned to deliver a five thousand dollar painting." He waved his hand. "There it is."
    "No, Dr. Penrose!"
    "Yes, Dr. Monroe."
    Silence fell between them. Jennifer found herself sipping her champagne in unison with him. Their eyes caught and held. She blushed.
    "I didn't know you supported the shelter, Dr. Penrose," she said. Her voice sounded weak to her own ears.
    "I worked at a similar one in Houston when my practice was in the Conroe area. I'm glad to be a part of this. You too, I guess, huh?"
    She nodded, wishing he'd just go away before she yielded to her admiration for him. He had a strange effect on her respiration.
    The silence between them seemed fraught with tension. She searched for something to say. "Uh, what made you move your practice to Dallas?"
    "My parents live in Plano. So does my sister Patricia. My dad had a heart attack last year so I decided I should be closer to home."
    "Oh, I'm sorry. Is he all right now?"
    "Yeah, thanks. I think he's going to be fine. But when it happened, I realized how little I'd seen them the last few years even though we were only a couple hundred miles apart. They're not getting any younger. So I was thinking along those lines when a series of, I guess you could say serendipitous, events happened."
    Jennifer lifted her eyebrows, unable