she answered.
“It’s me. Lewis Jackson. Jessie’s dad.”
“Is she okay?” Scarlet sounded instantly awake. “Did something happen?”
Lewis liked and appreciated her concern for his daughter. “No, she’s fine. Upstairs asleep.” At least as far as he knew. And since he’d learned the hard way never to assume Jessie was where she was supposed to be, Lewis walked to the doorway, poked his head into the hallway to confirm it was indeed eavesdropper-free, then closed and locked his bedroom door, just in case it didn’t stay that way.
“How did you get this number?” Scarlet asked. “I’m sure I didn’t give it to you. And I doubt Jessie would have shared it.”
Okay, time for some fast talking. “I just happened to come across the card you’d given to Jessie,” after searching for it in her backpack and pocketbook while she was in the shower—bad, reprehensible father—”while checking her plethora of pockets before putting her pants in the wash,” he lied. “I took it as a sign I should call you.”
Silence.
“Hello?” he asked.
She let out a decidedly feminine, sultry sounding moan which made him question, “Am I interrupting something?”
“No.” She did it again. “I don’t typically talk on the phone when I’m in bed. I’m trying to find a comfortable position.”
And just like that, with the mere mention she was in bed, without-sex-for-nine-long-months-brain overtook concerned-father-brain with an enticing visual of her luscious body. A comfortable position came to mind. Scarlet spread out on top of satin sheets. Naked. Waiting.
His sex-starved body went hard.
“Soooo, you called me,” she said. “What can I do for you?”
A loaded question if ever there was one. Because right this instant he wanted her to talk dirty, to touch herself and tell him all about it, to describe her aroused nipples and slick... Lord help him. Prolonged abstinence had effectively eradicated his ability to engage in casual nighttime conversation with a woman. From bedroom to bedroom. And if he took a few small steps, from bed to bed. And from out of nowhere, the idea of phone sex popped into his head.
“Hello. Everything okay over there?”
Totally disgusted with himself, Lewis rubbed his hand over his face and let out a breath. “A bad day followed by a bad night combined with a non-existent sex life since my daughter came to live with me and I am conjuring up totally inappropriate visuals of you, a woman I have known for less than twenty-four hours, at the simple mention of you getting comfortable in bed. In my defense, you were making some very sexy noises a moment ago, so I hold you partly responsible. But I assure you, when I picked up the phone to make this call my intentions were purely G-rated.”
“And now what are they?” she teased.
“Let’s just say, the next time you see me you owe me a slap across the face, because I totally deserve it.”
Turned out she had a sexy laugh, too.
He shifted in the recliner to relieve some of the pressure in his pants. Not good. Scarlet Miller was not the woman to slake his lust. He needed her to fix things between him and Jessie and would not risk anything interfering with his top priority. “Please accept my sincerest apologies.”
“Accepted, but not necessary,” she said. “For the record, you could pass for sexy on the phone, too.”
“You are not helping.”
“Do you want to know what I’m wearing?” she taunted him.
“Absolutely not,” he lied.
“I could—”
“Stop it.”
“Fine,” she said. “But you started it.”
“And I’m going to finish it.” Only because someone had to. “I called to talk about Jessie. To try to sweet talk you into sharing some more helpful hints on improving communication between us, because the direct approach is not working.”
“Too bad. That’s the closest I’ve ever come to having phone sex.”
Did he detect a hint of disappointment? “Oddly enough, me, too,” he admitted. And why did he feel so comfortable sharing that tidbit with a woman he hardly knew?
“You know you’re putting me in a tough spot,” Scarlet said, her voice serious. “I can’t betray things Jessie has told me in confidence. She really needs a friend to talk to, and right now I’m it. It took me a long time to get her to open up.”
He wanted to ask how she’d managed that, but decided to start with, “Would you at least tell me how you met?”
She took so long to answer Lewis had started to worry she wouldn’t.
“That I can do.” It sounded like she repositioned herself in bed. Again. “I work late on Tuesdays and Thursdays to spend some time with my night staff. So I take a break at three.”
“Right around when I send Jessie down to get a snack after school.”
“The cafeteria isn’t usually busy at that time so I noticed her, always sitting there by herself with that ‘don’t talk to me’ look.”
Lewis hated that look.
“I saw a lot of my thirteen-year-old self in Jessie. Mad at the world. Too much time alone and unsupervised. Do you honestly think she’s safe wandering around alone in a city hospital for hours waiting for you to get off work?”
Lewis did not appreciate the censure in her tone. She had no idea how hard he’d tried. “That was her doing not mine. I told her what would happen if she made one more babysitter quit. And she’s not supposed to be wandering around alone,” he pointed out maybe a little too forcefully. Calm it down. “She’s supposed to be in my office doing her homework.” Except his little Houdini always managed to sneak out without anyone seeing then show up hours later when it was time to go home. “What do you suggest I do? Let her stay at my condo all alone until I get home, like she’d prefer? Maybe some thirteen-year-olds are ready for that. But in my opinion Jessie isn’t.” And his opinion was the one that mattered.
“I agree,” Scarlet said, surprising him. “But it’s a moot point since I’ve got her spending her afternoons up in the NICU wing now.”
“Where?” Why?
“We have a family lounge. It’s geared towards the siblings of our babies who are often overlooked while their parents focus their attention on their sick infant. So we made them a special place with video games, toys, computers to do their homework, a television and a kid-friendly library that holds everything from picture books to young adult novels. Jessie comes up to read every afternoon.”
Jessie liked to read? They actually had something in common? Yet in the nine months she’d been living with him he’d never seen her with a book.
“I’m sorry. I assumed she told you.”
