“I know. Now get back to work. I’ll call if I’m going to be late.”
“Okay,” she said, then she was gone.
He gave the driver directions to his favorite pizza joint, which was pretty close to Central Park. He had the number in his phone book, so it was an easy matter to call. By the time he arrived, he could tell the cabbie to wait. If traffic were better, he could have had the whole thing taken care of in a half hour.
Leaning back, he took a long, deep breath. Ever since he’d gotten that weird call from Jessica, his heart had been pumping and he’d been wired. Totally ready for a fight, which wasn’t real smart, because he’d gotten mighty testy with a cop at the precinct, and it was a very near thing that he wasn’t keeping Owen the Rat Bastard company for the night.
He watched the passing people as they maneuvered through traffic, thinking how lucky he was to be heading toward Jessica. Someone had already won the cruise, he was sure. Maybe she would like to do that with him. Take a cruise. He hadn’t been to Alaska in a long time. Or maybe she’d like to do a barge trip on the Seine.
He didn’t give a damn, as long as it was with Jessica.
Tonight had made him more sure than ever that they needed to be together. She might be a tough cookie when it came to business, but she was still a woman, and he was still a man, and despite the incredible lack of political correctness, every instinct he had was to protect her, to care for her, to make sure no one would ever hurt her. He wanted to go to sleep with her right next to him. In fact, having her there felt like the only way he’d sleep well.
If Owen had hurt her…
Dan sighed. All was well, and Owen was safely out of the picture.
He swallowed hard as he sat up straight. “Shit,” he whispered. He finally understood what Jessica meant when she said he “didn’t have to.”
He was officially out of a job.
Female Intuition
One day, three men were trekking through a jungle, when they came across a violent, raging river. They had no idea how to cross. So the first man decided to pray:
“Please, God, give me the strength to cross this river.” Immediately he grew enormous muscles in his arms and legs, and he managed to swim across the river in a couple of hours, nearly drowning twice.
The second man saw this and he prayed, “Please, God, give me the strength AND the tools to cross this river.” A boat appeared from nowhere, and he battled across the river in an hour, nearly capsizing twice.
The third man saw this and prayed, “Please, God, give me the strength, the tools AND the intelligence to cross this river.”
Immediately he turned into a woman. She looked at the map, walked upstream a hundred yards and crossed over the bridge to the other side.
Source: Thompson, Dave “Female Intuition”
http://www.ijmc.com/archives/
18
THE LAST OF the contestants found the Central Park Pond at 11:53 p.m. Jessica had let Marla and Shawn go home hours ago, the same for the rest of the support team. She gave the final couple their New Dawn gift basket and assured them that they could, indeed, keep the GPS.
Five minutes later, Jessica and Dan headed slowly toward East Fifty-ninth Street. She hadn’t said anything to Marla about what happened with Owen. Her assistant would find out soon enough. In the meantime, she kept wondering what she should do about Dan. Ask him to leave?
The thought was far more upsetting than she ever would have imagined. She’d grown used to him being there for her.
All she wanted was to go back to the suite and crawl into bed with him. She could so readily imagine the comfort of his arms, and while she’d kept it together in front of the crowd, she felt very much in need of Dan’s strength.
There wasn’t much traffic at that time of night, including cabs. But Dan found them a ride, nonetheless. A hansom cab, complete with top-hatted driver and dappled-gray horse, and because of the hour, he arranged for the carriage to take them to the hotel.
Dan got in first, then held out his hand, which she took before she climbed up to the leather seat. He put his arm around her just as the horse lurched forward. It was late enough for the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves to echo down the long street, broken from time to time by the roar of a speeding car, but those moments in between made Jessica feel as if she was somewhere else, someplace magical.
What in the world had happened to her in these few short days? Something magical? When was the last time she’d thought of anything so fanciful? Not since she’d been a girl, that’s for sure. Her mother used to claim she was the dullest girl in all of Tulsa. The appellation made her cry the first time she’d heard it. But by the time she’d gotten her full scholarship to Harvard, she’d worn it as a badge of pride.
“Do you find me dull?” she asked.
His sharp bark of a laugh made her feel instantly better. “God, no. Why?”
“I was accused of dullness as a child. No one’s ever made me feel it wasn’t true, except you.”
“I’d never call you dull. Driven, yes. Focused, absolutely. Obsessive-”
She put her fingers to his lips. “I got it. Thanks.”
He captured her hand, kissed the back gently. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “I wasn’t, though. I was really shaken by Owen’s intrusion.”
“No wonder. It was a violation of your privacy, your trust.”
“I think I would have handled it a lot better if I hadn’t been naked.”
“And I wouldn’t have wanted to kill him in quite as many ways if you hadn’t been naked.”
She giggled. Something else she hadn’t done since forever.
“I like that,” he said, then he rested his head on hers.
“Like what?”
“The sound of you happy.”
“I seem to make that sound a lot when I’m with you. Which is odd, since I’ve spent the last five years trying very hard to be the toughest chick in the whole city. I’m with you four days, and I’m a giggling, sentimental fool.”
“Excellent.”
She turned to look at him, dislodging him from his odd little perch. “Why is that excellent?”
“Because you befuddle me, too. It’s nuts. But for the first time in years, something has become more important than my research projects. I didn’t think it could happen.”
“Is that why you haven’t asked me any more questions?”
The carriage turned left and they both leaned into the side door. When they straightened, Dan cleared his throat. “Actually, there is one question I’d like to ask you.”
Jessica sat a little straighter. “Only if you let me ask you something.”
“You first,” he said.
“Really?”
He nodded.
She took a deep breath, not sure at all her timing didn’t suck. But he didn’t have to stay, and she didn’t want him to leave, so…
“I was thinking,” she said, “about the end of all this. I mean, now that Owen’s no longer a problem, the deal is pretty much null and void.”
“Uh-huh.”
She felt his hand on the back of her neck, just resting there. Long fingers, gentle pressure. It was a
