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SHARI WILSON wantedto kiss the dyslexic postal worker who serviced her vintage brick apartment building in Seattle’s Capitol Hill. He’d mixed up her mailagain.
Sandwiched between her own letters for S. Wilson, Suite 325, was a bulky brown paper package addressed to L. Lawson, Suite 235. She’d have another excuse to see Luke Lawson, megahunk. She hugged the package to her, as giddy as a schoolgirl with acrush.
Okay, she was aschoolteacherwith a crush. And what a crush. Her downstairs neighbor made her shiver. It was a combination of a charming smile, tall, rangy body and a twinkle in his sleepy green eyes that just hinted at devilry between thesheets.
They’d been exchanging mixed mail for months now. In all the misdirected letters, she’d noted nothing was addressed to anyone else in his apartment, and there was no sign of a female when she’d delivered mail to his door, so it seemed logical to deduce he wassingle.
Andhot.
Just as she wassingle.
Andhot.
Gettinghotter every time she thought of L. Lawson just a floor below her and one suite over in235.
Fate, in the form of the portly postie, had thrown them repeatedly together and the zing of attraction had been immediate and, she thought, mutual. The last couple of times Luke had come to the door tousled and stubble-cheeked, his heavy-lidded eyes gazing at her as intimately as though she and Luke had just made love. Oh, what those eyes could do to a woman’s bloodpressure.
So why, apart from seduction by eye contact during their neighborly exchange-mail-and-chitchat sessions, hadn’t L. Lawson made any kind of move to get to know herbetter?
She bit her lip as she bypassed the elevator and jogged up the stairs to her floor. Maybe he was shy, or uncertain of her feelings orstatus.
Perhaps it was time she took charge of the situation and let him know both her feelings—attracted, very attracted, and her status—single. Verysingle.
The easiest way to give him the message was to ask him out. Nothing too intimate, just a movie or Chinese or pizza. A simple get-together that would give them a chance to become betteracquainted.
She would run down with his mail, casual as can be, and say, “Hey, I was just going to grab something to eat. If you’re not doing anything, why don’t you joinme?”
Yes. That was the way—easy, no pressure. If he turned her down she’d know where she stood and could ditch the adolescent fantasies that had begun to creep into her mind. Letting herself into her apartment, she snorted. There was nothing adolescent about her fantasies. They were definitely of thenot approved for audiences under the age of eighteenvariety.
She dumped her bag of papers to mark on the dining table and picked up Luke’s package. Taking a deep breath, she decided to go for it. She’d reply to the erotic messages his eyes had been sending her way. She’d ask himout.
Tonight.
A once-over in the bathroom mirror reminded her that teaching English to a bunch of high school students was no day at the spa. She couldn’t go anywhere without a quick shower. While she was lathered up under a warm spray of water she decided she might as well shave herlegs.
After drying off, she brushed her teeth, fixed her hair, applied fresh makeup and headed into the bedroom. She reached for jeans, then changed her mind. She was sick ofjeans.
A nice flirty skirt just jumped right out of her wardrobe and into her arms. She added a torso-hugging top in her favorite purple, her faux Tiffany earrings and she was ready. She reached into the bottom of her closet for strappy sandals and caught herself. She didn’t want to look as if she’d dressed up for Luke, when nothing could be further from thetruth.
Shari slipped her feet into her worn Birkenstocks instead. Yes, they made just the right statement: casual, not trying to impress, not at all. She retrieved the package, then noticed a blob of something on herskirt.
Back to the bathroom. She put the brown envelope down, turned on the tap then reached for her hand-washing soap. Ach, she needed a new bar and it was under the sink somewhere. On her hands and knees she rummaged through the bathroom cleaners, boxes of first-aid items, that time-of-the-month stuff, her travel bag for toiletries. Ah, there was the soap, right at the back. She found a clean facecloth, too, androse.
Andgasped.
Damn. The faucet was leaking again. Water trickled from its base gathering on the countertop in a pool that had reached Luke’s package and soaked into the kraft paper. She grabbed up the brown envelope and gingerly poked at the wet end. It was a little soggy, but surely there hadn’t been time for the water to soak whatever was inside. Felt like a book. Uh-oh.
Best to get it into Luke’s hands before the moisture penetrated. She decided to leave cleaning her skirt until later and just scraped off the blob with afingernail.
She grabbed her keys, her phone and the package, let herself out of her apartment and ran down one flight of stairs to Luke’sfloor.
In no time she was standing outside his door breathing faster than anyone should who’d only rundowna single flight of stairs. She took a deep gulp of air, rehearsed her casual dinner invitation andknocked.
Silence.
It hadn’t occurred to her that he wouldn’t be home. He was always home. She knew from their casual conversation that he was a journalist—she’d even seen his byline in the local paper. Almost as soon as she’d had the thought, she heard the lock scrape and then the dooropened.
