Impulsive (7 page)

"Oh. Well, move, will you, so I can get to the ice
cubes?"

Instead, he opened the freezer and handed her a tray, getting a
look at the frozen goods inside.

"Real ice cream," he commented. "And not a diet
entree in sight. It's going to be fun going out for a change with someone who
isn't counting calories. I hate sitting down to a dinner of country fried
steak, mashed potatoes with gravy, creamed peas, and rolls slathered with
butter, while my date is munching on a plate of rabbit food. It makes me feel
guilty, and takes a lot of the enjoyment out of the meal."

"You certainly won't have that problem with me," she
assured him, passing him a glass of tea. "If it isn't chock-full of
calories and fat, half the taste is gone. And if it's made of chocolate, get
out of my way or I'll mow you down to get at it. I sincerely pray that I never
become overweight, because my willpower in that department is totally
nil."

By now, Ty was out of the freezer and had spotted her cappuccino
machine. "Wow! Look at that!" He tugged open a cupboard door, then
another. "You have real food in here, too, and pots and pans that actually
look used, and a mixer, and a Crockpot, and a food processor. Tell me you cook,
honest-to-God cook, and I'll marry you tomorrow."

Jess shook her head, amused at his overblown enthusiasm.
"Down, boy! Down! Let's not get carried away, here. Besides, you'd be the
last man I'd choose to marry."

Ty blinked in surprise and tendered a frown. "Why? You've
already admitted that you think I'm handsome, I'm semifamous and make good
money, and"—he winked—"I've never had any complaints in the bedroom.
All in all, most women would consider me a prize catch."

"I'm not most women," she reminded him, "and if
you'd think about it for a minute, you'd know why I'd be nuts to marry you. Do
you really suppose I'd want to go through the rest of my life with the name of
Jessie James?"

Ty roared with laughter, as once again she caught him off
guard.
"Oh, that's choice!" he hooted.

"To you, maybe, but not to me."

"But you do cook?" he urged, nodding toward a rack of
cookbooks he'd just noticed.

"When I have time," she told him. "When I'm not on
assignment somewhere and living out of a suitcase."

"Do you do that much?" he questioned. "Travel, I
mean."

"I try to hold it to a minimum, but often there's a story I
want to research, something that just won't gel via phone or computer, or some
event or incident that needs that hands-on touch. Then I drive or fly to
wherever it is and get the scoop firsthand. Sometimes being there—seeing,
touching, smelling, experiencing it up close, getting face-to-face interviews—
makes the difference between a so-so story and a really great one."

"That makes sense, I suppose," he granted. After a quick
peek into the laundry area, Ty sauntered back through the living room and
headed down the hall. With Jess trailing behind, he found the hall closet and
the guest bath, giving them a swift once-over and continuing on. Next to be
discovered was her office.

"I take it this used to be the second bedroom?" he
ventured.

"Yes, but I converted it into an office for myself, since I
do a lot of my work at home. When I have overnight guests, they camp out in the
living room."

He wandered around the room, checking out her desktop computer,
her printer, her bookcase, her fax. "You've got some quality equipment
here," he remarked. Bending over, he noted the read-out on the fax and
chuckled. "I see you remembered to turn it back on."

After admiring her laptop computer, he made a beeline for the only
remaining room off the hall. Without bothering to ask permission first, he
opened the door and walked in. "The master bedroom, or in this instance I
suppose it's the mistress's bedroom," he stated, looking around with
interest. "Cozy. I forget, what's that design on the comforter and
curtains called?"

"Paisley."

"Oh, yeah. Those curved jobbies always remind me of
sperm." Her stunned reaction to his blunt statement was lost on him as he
strode into the connecting bath.

To Jess's annoyance he opened the cupboard beneath the sink, then
the door to the medicine cabinet. "What do you think you're doing?"
she snapped, slamming the cabinet door shut again.

"I can't believe you! Didn't your mother teach you any
better?"

He had the nerve to grin at her as he slipped past her into the
bedroom again. "Just checking your supply of Midol, my dear. No need to
get your dander up. On second thought, if you're getting that strung out, maybe
you should pop a couple of those babies before we leave. And I noticed you're
low on tampons."

"Shove it, James."

At this juncture, she really shouldn't have been surprised when Ty
marched over, yanked open the door to her closet, and began rifling through her
clothes. "What are you looking for now, pray tell?" she inquired
sharply.

"Nothing particular," he told her. "Just trying to
get a sense of your style, and the colors you prefer." He dragged out an
army green tailored blazer, held it up, and grimaced. "Oh, puke! Don't
tell me you really like this thing?"

She grabbed it from him and rammed it back in the closet.
"That's it, buster. The tour's over. You've worn out your welcome."

By the time she slammed the closet door, Ty, ignoring her obvious
pique, was cataloging the contents of her dresser drawers. He'd found the one
with her underwear and was rifling through it before she could stop him.

"Okay, where are they?" he muttered.

Jess shoved at his hands, all the while plying her weight against
his in an effort to shut the drawer. "Where's what?" she snarled.
"Damn it, Ty! If you're on a hunt for drugs, I don't have any. I don't
sell, and I don't use, and I don't associate with anyone who does."

"I already figured that," he stated flatly. "You
wouldn't
want to mess up your brain, since that's how you make your living.
I'm trying to find your bras, but all I can locate so far are these shapeless
sports things that look like sawed-off T-shirts."

"My bras?" she repeated stupidly. "My bras?"
This time she shrieked the words. "Look, you pervert. If you're into
ladies' underwear, go buy your own and get your big paws off mine!"

He turned and gave her a disgusted look. "I'm as normal as
the next guy. Maybe more. I just needed to see what size you wore, and I
figured if I asked, you wouldn't tell me."

"Damn straight, Sherlock." She glared at him, her eyes
blazing like lit coals.

He held out his arms, palms up in a conciliatory gesture. "I
can explain."

"Uh huh. Sure you can," she said snidely.

"The reason I needed to know your size was... well, I got you
something today, and I wanted to make sure they'd fit."

Jess shook her head, as if to clear her ears. "Care to run
that past me again?"

"What the hell. You can't get any more pissed at me than you
are already." He reached into his rear pants' pocket and pulled out a
small paper sack, holding it out to her.

Jess reached for it hesitantly, as if it might contain a family of
tarantulas.

"Go ahead," he prodded. "Open it."

She did. Inside were two badly mashed, squishy flesh-tone objects.
She pulled them out, holding them by the tips of her fingers.

Her enunciation was exaggerated to the extreme, her tone deadly
calm as she inquired, "Are these what I think they
are?"

"What do you think they are?" he hedged, his expression
as guilty as sin.

"Falsies." She all but spat the word at him.

"Actually, the correct term these days, according to the
saleslady who waited on me, is 'breast enhancers.' "

"I don't care if they're called booby balloons!" she
shot
back, waving them in front of his nose. "It amounts to the
same thing! And you can take them right back! Maybe you can get a refund. If
not, wear them yourself for all I care. I certainly won't!"

"I knew you'd take this all wrong," he griped.
"Look, Jess. I was just trying to help."

"Help?" she mocked. "If this is your idea of help,
I can darned well do without it."

He sighed. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I just
figured you must be self-conscious about the size of your breasts, and maybe
you were too shy or sensitive about the subject to buy something like this
yourself."

"But you weren't at all shy about doing it for me, were
you?" she exclaimed in disbelief. "My God! I can't believe you
actually purchased these yourself! Or did you have someone else do it for
you?" Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Fess up, you cad. Who else
is in on this nasty little joke of yours?"

"It's no joke, Jess, and no one knows but you and me. I
honestly did buy them myself, and believe me when I tell you it was anything
but funny. I had to talk my ass off to get that woman to believe I was buying
the blasted things for my poor, embarrassed, underdeveloped little
sister."

"Well!" she huffed. "Thank you too much for your
blunt analysis of my attributes, or lack thereof. However, your efforts and any
embarrassment you suffered—and I hope you were humiliated to the hilt—were all
in vain. I learned a long time ago not to attempt to make myself over into
something I wasn't meant to be. I also learned this particular lesson the hard
way," she added, wagging the falsies at him for emphasis. "Believe
me, the lesson stuck."

"You, uh... you tried some already?"

"To my everlasting regret," she admitted. "I was
fifteen, and all the other girls in my class had chests. All but me. I was
still in the training bra stage, being teased to death by my older brother.
Finally, Mom took pity on me and bought me a padded bra. Overnight, I went from
a minus-A to a B cup, and I
took a lot more ribbing from
brother Mike about that. He liked to claim I'd sprayed them with Miracle
Grow."

A chuckle spurted from Ty's lips. At Jess's scowl, he pursed them
in an effort to quell any further outbursts.

She resumed her tale. "Some of the other kids at school were
really unkind about it, too, but I ignored them all in favor of my new,
improved shape. Until the day the washer broke and Mom and I went to the
laundromat to do the clothes. Everything went fine until we got home and I
couldn't locate the foam inserts to my bra. To make a long story short, we
drove back to the laundromat. Mom went in and came out just as fast. She got
back into the car, clutched the wheel, and in a strangled voice told me that if
I wanted those things back that badly, I would have to go in and get them
myself, because someone had tacked them to the bulletin board."

"Oh, my Lord!" If his life had depended on it, Ty could
not have kept from laughing.

Even Jess was wearing a wry grin, remembering that long-ago day.
"Oh, go ahead. Mom laughed, too. So hard she could scarcely see to drive,
as I recall."

"What did you do? You left the falsies there, I
presume?"

"On the contrary. I went in there, in front of a packed
audience of males and females of all ages, I might add. With a face as red as a
ripe apple, I snatched my 'boobies' off that wall and ran out as fast as I
could. Mom peeled rubber for half a block making our getaway.

"Not long afterward, I decided the embarrassment and the
heckling weren't worth it. God forbid something even more mortifying should
happen. The padded bra hit the trash, and from that day forth my motto has
been, 'What you see is what you get, like it or not.' "

Ty reached out and plucked the offending objects from her grasp.
"Jess, if I'd known, I swear to you I would never have bought these
things. I didn't do it with malicious intent."

"I believe you, but that doesn't help much right this minute.
You see, Ty, I realize that you're used to being seen with beautiful women,
with well-rounded figures, and I don't fit that bill by a long shot. Whether
you admit it or not, you and I
both know that your
underlying motive was to make me over into someone more suited to your
I-deserve-the-best standards. Well, I've got news for you, Studly Do-Wrong. I'm
not going to play that game. Not for you, or any other self-centered male on
the planet. Along with other hard-learned lessons, I've concluded that any man
worthy of my respect and affection will accept me just as I am. If not, he can
just trot on down the road, because he's not welcome here."

Ty grimaced. "So basically what you're saying is, 'You are
woman, hear you roar'? Thanks for cluing me in to your feminist leanings,
because I think I've finally figured out what that acronym you threw at me the
other day means. Wagara must stand for Women's Association of Grandiose and
Ridiculous Attitudes."

Jess dredged up a fake smile. "Sorry. Nice try, but no
cigar."

"Okay, so the falsies are out. How about a nice underwire
bra? My sister claims they do wonders to push everything up and in or out or
whatever."

"I'm so glad for your sister," Jess professed blandly.