First You Kiss 100 Men.... Carolyn Greene
managed to mess things up already.
He took the file she handed him and paused to stare down at her. ‘‘You weren’t that short this morning.’’
Without moving from her position, Julie stretched a toe toward the black mules hiding under her desk. ‘‘I, uh…’’ She gave a little laugh. ‘‘My shoes temporarily went AWOL.’’
He glanced down at her nylon-clad feet, then ever so slowly pulled his gaze up her body until his eyes met hers. He grinned knowingly, and the suggestiveness in his smile made her wish it was August already so she could give him another birthday kiss. ‘‘Perhaps you should ask Mr. Oltmeier’s secretary to help you retrieve Mrs. Huffnagle’s letter.’’
Julie hurriedly slid her feet into the recaptured shoes and made a move to leave, but Hunter stopped her with a hand on her arm.
‘‘Before you go, I’d better warn you that Priscilla is a notorious matchmaker. She has tried to fix up her bachelor brother with every single female in the office.’’
Julie smiled broadly. Another potential kisser.
Hunter appeared irked by her reaction. ‘‘Why are you looking so happy? I’m trying to warn you not to let her sic her brother on you.’’ He shifted the folder to his other arm. ‘‘And while we’re on the subject, you should probably stay away from Spencer, too. He’s totally trustworthy where numbers are concerned, but that kind of integrity doesn’t always follow him into his social life.’’
Once again, Julie felt like a ten-year-old being lectured by her older, more worldly brother. She clenched her teeth and accidentally bit her cheek. With a grimace, she sought to remind him once again that she wasn’t the little girl next door who needed to be reminded not to run into the street.
‘‘I’m stating the obvious here, but you’re my boss, not my date filter.’’
His eyebrows pulled together in the frequently used expression of his youth. He had done that a lot when they were neighbors, mainly when Julie had used her own form of logic to explain whatever mischief she’d managed to get herself into.
‘‘Huh?’’
She paused for a second, reminding herself that Hunter wasn’t normally the type to interfere in her personal life. The only times he’d ever butted into her business were when he was concerned that she might get hurt. Like the time he’d caught her trying to make an explosive out of cap-gun powder. So she sought to reassure him. ‘‘Thanks to you and Gran, I’ve accumulated all the savvy advice I’ll ever need. You don’t have to worry about me anymore.’’
‘‘Yeah, but you still see only the best in people, sometimes even when they don’t deserve it.’’ His expression turned serious, as it had when they used to hold their philosophical discussions about whether cats had nine lives or lemmings really committed mass suicide. ‘‘I don’t want you to get hurt.’’
She lifted her chin. When would he understand that she was no longer an impulsive child who needed his protection? ‘‘I can take care of myself. Contrary to your long-held opinion, I’m not an accident waiting to happen.’’
At that moment, the deejay announced his return from the commercial break with the sound effect of shattering glass. Julie started at the noise, and Hunter gave her one of those knowing looks that once again managed to make her feel as if he had read her very thoughts.
His response was a resigned sigh. ‘‘When you talk to Priscilla, ask her to block out some time every day for the next week to give you some intensive training.’’
He turned to head back to his office, pausing only long enough to straighten one of the stacks of papers on her desk.
Julie popped a toffee into her mouth and tossed the wrapper into the trash can. This next month was going to be a long, hard one.
Chapter Three
Everyone loves a good mystery. Some people like it in movies or books. Others, such as doctors and scientists, attempt to solve mysteries in their jobs every day. Me? I like a bit of mystery in the man I’m kissing.
The man on the phone sounded a lot like Hunter. But why would he be calling from his office while he was with a client?
‘‘Hunter, is everything all right?’’
He cleared his throat and tried again. ‘‘This is Peter Matthews, Hunter’s brother. Is he in?’’
It took Julie a moment to adjust to the fact that the voice on the phone didn’t belong to her employer. A span of about nine or ten years separated the brothers in age, which meant that Peter had been practically an adult by the time she was born. Although he hadn’t been around much as she was growing up, she had seen him occasionally during holidays and his frequent visits home. And at his father’s funeral. Hunter had taken the elder Matthews’s death very hard.
His father, a policeman, had been killed in an on-duty accident when his partner had failed to follow a standard safety procedure. For a brief time Hunter had followed in his dad’s footsteps and worked in law enforcement before leaving it to work at the agency. Julie supposed the accident was also the reason Hunter had become such a stickler for policy and procedure.
‘‘Peter, it’s nice to talk to you again. This is Julie Fasano.’’ A pause followed while he apparently searched his memory to place the name. ‘‘I used to live next door to you.’’
‘‘Julie?’’ he asked, as if still unsure who he might be talking to.
‘‘You might remember me as Julie Beth.’’
‘‘Oh, yes, Julie Beth! The little girl who used to come over all the time and mooch cookies. So you’re working for my brother now, eh?’’ He chuckled softly. ‘‘I’d love to be a fly on the wall for that.’’
‘‘Well, actually, it’s been fairly uneventful.’’ Manners kept her from telling the full truth—that the job was boring. ‘‘Hunter is meeting with a client right now. Would you like me to get him for you?’’
She supposed she shouldn’t interrupt him, but this was his brother and it might be important. Besides, she was curious about the discussion between Hunter and his client, and if she had an excuse to go in there, she might catch a portion of their conversation. Better yet, she’d love to actively participate in finding the daughter that the elegant Mrs. Dexter had given up for adoption nearly forty years ago.
‘‘No, but you can give him a message for me.’’
Rats! Julie frantically searched for something to write on. In the process, she knocked a cup of pens onto the floor. Picking one up, she uncapped it and started scribbling on the closest bit of paper available—the margin of the newspaper in which she’d been reading her column. Peter started talking, but the ink refused to flow.
‘‘Hold on a sec.’’ She dragged the tip across the paper a few times before a spot of blue emerged. ‘‘‘Check to see if…’ What was the rest?’’
‘‘If the subject we discussed recently might be the mystery kisser.’’
For a moment, it seemed as though Julie’s heart forgot to beat. Surely he couldn’t be referring to her column? And who was this ‘‘subject’’ he’d mentioned? ‘‘Did you say ‘the mystery kisser’?’’
‘‘Yeah. It’s the new column in the newspaper that everyone’s talking about. Today’s article gives me reason to believe she might be the author, ‘Ann Onimus.’’’
‘‘Oh my.’’ Julie wondered if it would be prudent to probe for a name.
‘‘Yeah, that was my reaction, too.’’
Julie hesitated before asking her next question. It was important to find out more about this curious development, but she didn’t want