The No Sex Clause (19 page)

He gunned the accelerator and with a disdainful purr the rental spurted forward, pulling alongside her. He glanced over, hoping to catch her eye. But she stared straight ahead, singing along to some mindless
pop music and oblivious to his look of longing.

He didn
’t matter to her. She didn’t remember. She didn’t smile.

Irritated now, he jabbed the accelerator and zoomed past her. He knew soon they
’d meet again.

Then he
’d refresh her memory.

* * *

Maggie Kendall was just leaving Fried Heaven with two cups of the diner’s delicious coffee balanced in her hands, when a tall, dark-haired stranger pushed open the door so suddenly that it caught her, and hot coffee sloshed wetly down the front of her white silk shirt.

“I am so sorry!” His handsome face flushed with embarrassment as he grabbed a wad of paper napkins from a dispenser on the nearest table and began to mop at the spill. His touch on her upper breasts was electric—it sizzled all the way down to her toes, leaving her breathless. Brushing his hands away, she
snapped: “You’re making it worse. My office is just across the road and I can clean up there.”

The man snatched back his hand as he realized the inappropriate intimacy of his touch. Blushing, he
tossed the damp napkins onto a table and jammed the offending hands into his suit pants pockets. “I…at least let me pay for your dry cleaning,” he stammered, but Maggie was already halfway out the door.

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it,” she muttered, avoiding his gaze. A second later she was gone.

* * *

Josh Tyler blinked, staring after her as the door slammed behind her. He’d been intent on cleaning up the spilled coffee mess and had acted without thinking. Now his fingers telegraphed the sensation of her warm, soft femininity and his embarrassment deepened. He hadn’t felt this awkward since high school.

“Don’t pay any attention to her,” a plump teenager behind the counter said. “That’s Maggie Kendall. She’s from the city.” She made the words sound like an accusation rather than a statement, and Tyler bit back a smile.

“Now, Alicia, Ms. Kendall’s a nice enough woman, and she’s worked wonders with the
Gazette
since she bought out old Dan Warrington,” an older woman sitting by the electronic till said in a warning voice.

“Yes, but she’s strange. People say she sees things…like, a second sight.”

“Alicia! That’s enough. Now serve the gentleman and then get back into the kitchen and help Sam with the cleanup.”

Tyler wanted to ask more questions but was pretty sure the eagle-eyed cashier would slap him down, so he ordered coffee and a Danish to go, paid and left the store.

Outside on the broad sidewalk, his eye was caught by the large sign on one of the offices across the road: The
Woeful Creek Gazette
. Maggie Kendall was an attractive woman, if maybe a bit highly strung. But he had no wish to get close to any member of the Press, and certainly not to someone with a reputation for ‘seeing things’.

Reporters and psychics were, in his experience, about equal in the charlatan stakes.