Page 38 of Call Me Irresistible (Wynette, Texas 6)

“I hope you didn’t pay real money for it. Eye of the beholder, I guess.”

She gazed up at him. “Does this place have a postal address?”

“Sure it has an address. Why do you want to know?”

“I want to know where I live, that’s all.” She also needed some things sent to her that were packed away in her closet back home. She found a scrap of paper and wrote down the address he gave her. She nodded toward the front of the church. “As long as you’re here, will you turn on the hot water? I’m getting tired of cold showers.”

“Tell me about it.”

She smiled. “You can’t still be suffering from the effects of Lucy’s three-month sexual moratorium?”

“Damn, but you women sure do like to talk.”

“I told her it was stupid.” She wished she were evil enough to pass on the news that Lucy had already taken a lover.

“We finally agree on something,” he said.

“Still . . .” She returned to putting the jewelry away. “Everybody knows you can have any brainless woman in Wynette. I don’t exactly see what your problem is finding sexual companionship.”

He looked at her as though she’d just joined the Idiots Club.

“Right,” she said. “This is Wynette, and you’re Ted Beaudine. If you do one of them, you’d have to do them all.”

He grinned.

She’d intended to annoy, not to amuse, and she took another swipe. “Too bad I was wrong about you and Torie. A clandestine affair with a married woman would answer your problem. Almost as good as being married to Lucy.”

“What do you mean by that?”

She extended her legs and leaned back on her hands. “No messy emotional crap. You know. Like real love and genuine passion.”

He stared at her a moment, those tiger eyes inscrutable. “You think Lucy and I didn’t have passion?”

“Not to be insulting—okay, maybe a little insulting—but I sincerely doubt you have a passionate bone in your body.”

An ordinary mortal would have been offended, but not St. Theodore. He merely looked thoughtful. “Let me get this straight. A screwup like you is analyzing me?”

“Fresh viewpoint.”

He nodded. Contemplated. And then he did a very un–Ted Beaudine–like thing. He dropped his lids and gave her a wicked eye-rake. Starting at the top of her head and sliding down her body, lingering here and there along the way. Her mouth. Her breasts. The apex of her thighs. Leaving hot little eddies of desire behind.

The absolute horror of not being immune to him hurled her into action, and she jumped up from the floor. “Waste of effort, Mr. B. Unless, of course, you’re paying.”

“Paying?”

“You know. A big wad of twenties on the dresser afterward. Oops . . . I don’t have a dresser. Oh, well, there goes that idea.”

She’d finally managed to annoy him. He stalked into the back room to either turn on the hot water or blow the place up. She sincerely hoped it was the former. Not long after, she heard the back door close, and a few moments later, his car pulling away. She was strangely disappointed.

The foursome teed off the next day. Ted and Torie playing Kenny and Spence.

“I had to go to Austin yesterday,” Spence told Meg, “and every time I saw a beautiful woman, I thought about you.”

“Jeez, why?”

Ted gave her a surreptitious poke. Spence threw back his head and laughed. “You’re something, Miz Meg. You know who you remind me of?”

“I’m hoping a young Julia Roberts.”

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