All About Eve Page 3

  Eve blinked the tears from her eyes. She couldn’t imagine experiencing so many things in so short a time. Loss was never easy, no matter what the circumstances.

  “Don’t be sad dear. We had ten glorious years together and made two children between us. I see him every time I look at Jake, so it makes the memories a little sweeter. But, oh the adventures we had together, and I’m glad to say I’ve had quite a few more over the years.”

  Eve was in awe. What an amazing woman, barely a girl out of the schoolroom and so unafraid of the life that lay ahead of her. She was envious of Ruth’s courage, and wished that she hadn’t been so sheltered for the last thirty years.

  “You understand, as someone of my social position, I would have been in a heap of trouble had my parents found out. They would have disowned me in a heartbeat if I’d brought scandal to the family name. But my husband took care of the details, and I learned to gamble, drink whiskey and keep my husband entertained in the bedroom so he never had reason to visit the rooms above the first floor.”

  “Wow,” Eve said, impressed. “Your secrets are safe with me.”

  “Well, it hardly matters anymore since my parents have been dead near forty years now and all my other friends keep dying too. It’s damned inconvenient to get old, let me tell you.”

  Jake watched the two women from the doorway. He’d loved his grandmother all his life. She’d been the calm in the storm through a tumultuous childhood. And he was beginning to believe that he’d loved Eve Lovegood since the moment he’d heard her voice on his answering machine. Who would have though that Jake Murphy would take the fall because of a tiny sorceress with a smoky voice and a kind heart?

  “Are you about ready to go, Gran?” Both women looked up at him with identical expressions of annoyance, and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. He turned his attention to Eve. “The foundation isn’t in as bad a shape as I thought it was. It just needs to been shored up and leveled, but it isn’t cracked. The safest way for us to start things is by filling in the basement, so you’ll have a solid surface. I’ll get a team started on it first thing in the morning.”

  Eve nodded, hoping he knew what he was doing.

  “I’ve moved your things to the safest place I could find so you don’t have to worry about toilets falling on your head.”

  “Oh, thanks,” Eve said, flustered by the way he was looking at her, as if he knew a secret and wasn’t quite ready to let her in on it yet. For someone who was supposed to be good with words she felt decidedly lacking in that department at the moment.

  “What time do you go into the station tonight?”

  “I go in for a quick briefing at five and then I go on air from six to nine. I’m usually home by ten.”

  “I’m going to come back later this evening and start work on the rotted wood. That will give me time to go back to the office, work everything up on paper and call in enough crews to get started.”

  He didn’t bother to mention that he was going to have some unhappy foremen pulling up stakes in the middle of other jobs to start a new project, but he’d make the pay worth their while, so they wouldn’t complain for too long. “The water and electricity will probably be able to be turned on sometime next week.”

  “That would be great. Mrs. Larsen next door has been letting me use her downstairs bathroom so I can get ready for work, and I’ve just been eating takeout until I have a workable room.”

  He’d wondered where she’d been showering and was ready to beg for her to use his place if she needed one. He was going to be seeing a lot of Eve Lovegood. He’d make sure of it.

  ***

  “Frustrated in Fairfield, you’re on the air with Dr. Lovegood. What can I do for you tonight?” Eve cringed at the high pitch squeal that came through her headphones. “You’ll have to turn the radio down, sir.”

  She waited patiently for the mumbling and squealing to wind down. After all, it was a full moon Friday and she’d been having weird conversations all night. But what she’d never been while working was distracted. A pair of cobalt blue eyes and twin dimples kept invading her concentration to the point where she’d had to ask a caller to repeat his problem twice.

  “Yeah, um, Dr. Lovegood? This is. . .”

  “We don’t say names on the air, sir,” she reminded the caller as the sensor bleeped out his name. For some reason people always wanted to give their names before telling her embarrassing things about their personal life. She’d never understand it.

  “Yeah, um, anyway. I’m having a problem with my girlfriend. Or I guess she’s my ex-girlfriend now. She keeps calling and bothering me, leaving messages on my machine, and that makes my new girlfriend really mad. What should I do to get my ex to leave me alone?”

  “How long ago did you break up with your girlfriend?”

  “What’s today? Friday?”

  “Yes,” Eve said, already impatient with the caller.

  “Then it was Wednesday.”

  “And when did you acquire your new girlfriend.” Anybody that knew Eve well knew the particular tone of voice she was using said you might want to take cover, but Frustrated in Fairfield wasn’t too bright.

  “Oh, my new girlfriend and I have been together a couple of weeks. Is that important?”

  Eve stifled a scream and wondered how this idiot could have passed the screening process to be on the air, and then she remembered he was one of the better callers she’d had all night.

  “Maybe your ex-girlfriend doesn’t feel like she’s attained closure. The breakup seems to have happened rather abruptly. How did you break up with her?”

  “I sent her a text message, and she was lucky she got that. Those things are expensive. Lola, that’s my new girlfriend, thinks we need to save every penny so we can get married, but with Justine calling and leaving all those messages on the machine it’s making things a little difficult between Lola and me. What should I do?”

  “So you cheated on your first girlfriend and then had the audacity to break up with her by text message? And now when she’s calling to find out what’s going on, you don’t have the guts to pick up the phone and tell her? Have I got the facts straight?”

  “Yeah, I guess so, but you make it sound kinda harsh.”

  Eve didn’t care. There had to be justice out there for the people who got screwed by love. “What did you say your name was?” she asked.

  “Jeremy Kline. But, hey, I thought we weren’t supposed to give our names.”

  “I’ve decided to make an exception in your case. My advice to you, Jeremy, is to grow a spine and a decent amount of morals before you try your hand at relationships again. My advice to the women of Fairfield is to run far in the opposite direction if you see Jeremy Kline coming your way. He has a lot to learn.”

  Eve cut the connection and gave the notice for a commercial break before falling back in her chair with a disgusted sigh.

  “Whoa, what was that all about?” Lucy asked, sticking her head in the door.

  “I don’t know. I just snapped. I want to talk to a normal person.”

  “Well, the phone lines have started lighting up like crazy, so a bunch of normal people are calling in to support you or you’ve just given the green light for all the crazies to crawl out of the woodwork.”

  “Wonderful.” Eve took a drink of water and put her headset back on. It was eight-forty-five. She could last another fifteen minutes. And then she was going to set the record for leaving the building and getting home on the off chance that Jake Murphy was still inside her house.

  Maybe a quick fling was just the thing she needed. Millions of people did it. Not everything had to end in marriage. Lord knew there was a slim chance she’d ever go that route again. The problem was, she was one of the few people in the world who related sex and marriage as two sides of the same coin. She didn’t tell her listeners that because who’d want to listen to her then? But she’d been a virgin when she’d married and she hadn’t been with anyone since. Hadn’t
wanted to be, she clarified.

  She looked at the information from her next caller and hoped for normalcy.

  “Waiting in Dallas, this is Dr. Lovegood, what can I do for you tonight?”

  “Hey, Doc.”

  Eve froze at the sound of the familiar voice on the other end of the line and felt her insides do a slow flip. Maybe she was thinking about him so hard he’d picked up on the signals.

  “Hey, yourself,” she said, her voice more husky than usual.

  “I was hoping you could help me out with something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, there’s this woman.”

  Eve felt a quick stab of jealousy clutch her heart because of this nameless woman. She ruthlessly stomped it back down and took a deep breath. She was a professional.

  “What woman?” The question didn’t really come out as professional as she’d hoped, more of a snarl.

  Jake laughed, sending shivers straight down to her toes. “Do you believe in love at first sight, Doc?”

  “Well, I suppose so, but more often than not it’s usually lust at first sight. Is that what you have?”

  “No, it’s definitely love. You see, a woman left a message on my business answering machine yesterday, and the sound of her voice made me throw all my well laid plans out the window. I had to meet her, so I went to her house this morning to see how I could be of service. One look at those amazing green eyes and I was head over heels, just like that.”

  “You seem to be pretty sure of your feelings. Are you a man who falls in and out of love easily?”

  “No. Can’t ever say I’ve felt anything close to it other than what I have for my family. The truth is, I’ve tried to avoid it. I’ve enjoyed the bachelor’s life over the years, but I was hit square between the eyes today. What do you think I should do?”

  “Well, if it were me, I’d want to get to know this woman a little better than just the superficial impressions you got from one meeting. She could be a serial killer or organize her pantry in alphabetical order by can size. And if I were this woman, I don’t think I’d fall for the love at first sight bit, especially if you’ve been enjoying the bachelor life the way I think you have, so you might want to keep that to yourself. Romancing the right woman is hard work. And you might be surprised. She might not want to settle down in a relationship. Maybe she has plans or dreams she wants to act on. Or maybe she has a difficult time with relationships. She could even be a lesbian for all you know.”

  “Do you think she’d tell me all these things if I asked her out on a date?”

  “I think it’s a good place to start.”

  “What if she turns me down?”

  “You sound like a pretty nice guy. I would think she’d at least give you a chance.”

  “I hope so, the problem is, whenever I’m around her all I can think about is taking her into my arms and getting lost in her eyes. They bewitch me.”

  Eve caught her sigh before it could go out over the airwaves.

  “Thanks for all your help, Doc. It sounds like she needs to be swept off her feet, and I think I’m exactly the guy to do that.”

  Eve somehow got her voice and her hormones under control enough to thank the caller and sign off, but it was all a blur. Jake had used up every bit of her last fifteen minutes, and she would give him anything he wanted just from saving her from any more lunatics.

  “Whew,” Lucy said as she burst in the room, a bundle of energy spiked with coffee. “That guy was hot.”

  “You don’t even know what he looks like. How can you tell he’s hot? I thought you didn’t like men?”

  “I don’t have to see that man to know he’s hot. He just made every woman in America wish she was the woman he fell in love with. How romantic. Even I could be turned with someone like that. And I could tell you weren’t all that unaffected either.”

  Eve knew her face was flushed so she bent over to grab her bag to give her heart rate a little time to slow.

  “I’m going to go ahead and take off. There are going to be construction workers swarming my house at the crack of dawn tomorrow.”

  “Oh, good. Everything worked out with the number you called.”

  “It worked out magnificently,” Eve said with a secret smile. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough for giving me that card. I have a good feeling about Murphy-Madsen construction.”

  Lucy watched her friend head off to the elevators, her step more lively than usual, and wondered what the hell she’d just missed.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The brittle October morning rang crisp and clear as the sunlight peaked over the horizon. Eve was freezing and stood impatiently over the camping stove she had sitting on the floor as she waited for the water to boil for her coffee.

  The sun was still tucked away in sleep when she’d woken to start her day. She showered, thanks to Mrs. Larsen’s generosity, and dressed warmly in jeans and a turtleneck and then threw a flannel shirt on top of it all. Goosebumps still lined her flesh, but she planned to warm up soon enough. If only the damned coffee would make. This was her house, and she had every intention of helping with the renovations. Her hands could get dirty just as well as anyone else’s. A little hard work would warm her up almost as fast as coffee.

  Workers began arriving at a steady pace at six o’clock, but the one person she was looking for was nowhere to be found. Maybe he’d changed his mind and decided to run far, far away, clinging to his bachelorhood like a second skin.

  “Come on, come on,” she said as she stamped her feet, wishing the saying weren’t true about a watched pot never boiling.

  “You look pretty desperate for caffeine.”

  Eve jerked around to face the door and felt the air close off from her lungs. He hadn’t run away after all. And he’d brought coffee.

  “Is that for me?” she asked, pointing to the cup that flashed the name of her favorite coffee establishment.

  “Yeah, I meant to use it as a bribe, but you kind of have a crazy look in your eyes so I think I might just set it down slowly and run for the door. I’ve seen that same look in my Gran’s eyes before, and it usually ends with me having to bail her out of jail.”

  “Hand it over, and I’ll do whatever it is you’d planned to bribe me with. I’m desperate.”

  “I have to ask you something important first.”

  “What?”

  “Are you an obsessive compulsive pantry organizer, and if not, do you have an aversion to settling down in a serious relationship?”

  “Oh, man, I really need that coffee.”

  Jake moved forward slowly, the coffee held out as a peace offering, and started laughing when she jerked it out of his grasp and took a scalding sip. He put his own cup down and backed her against the kitchen counter.

  “That’s a dangerous power you just gave me. If I wasn’t such an honorable guy, I could think of all sorts of things for you to do to pay me back for a simple cup of coffee.”

  “You don’t seem like the kind of man who knows the meaning of the word simple.”

  He switched their positions so he was leaning against the counter and she was embraced in the circle of his arms, and the look on her face was somewhere between curious and scared to death. Dr. Lovegood was an interesting combination, and he should have believed her when she’d told him that really romancing a woman would take a lot of hard work.

  “I’m going to go out on a limb, since you didn’t bother to answer my questions, and say that you aren’t completely crazy. But by the wary look in your eyes I might have to do a lot of fast talking to make you consider a relationship.”

  Eve couldn’t seem to get a deep breath into her lungs, and little spots danced in front of her eyes. Her coffee had ended up somewhere, forgotten as soon he’d taken her in his arms. She might not have a lot of experience, but she knew when a man was going to kiss her. His eyes were endless pools of blue, so dark with desire and longing that she took an automatic step back.

  His hands
stopped her retreat and gently rubbed the tightened muscles in her back. She shivered at his touch, and felt the throb of attraction low in her body. Moisture pooled between her thighs, and she lowered her head in embarrassment at her instant arousal to his touch. She’d never felt like this with anyone.

  The heat of his fingers branded her with every touch against her spine. He tipped her chin up with his finger and leaned in close so their breaths mingled. She didn’t know how to describe the ferocity of need that claimed her body, but she knew it terrified her to the depths of her soul—terrified her enough to make him stop before things got out of hand.

  “Don’t kiss me,” she gasped.

  “Why not? Did you forget to brush your teeth? I don’t mind, honestly.”

  “No, they’re brushed.”

  “Well, then, there’s no problem,” he said, moving in again.

  Eve pushed her hands against his chest so he bumped against the counter, and the cabinet door that had been hanging precariously at best fell off and hit Jake on the head.

  “Ouch, son of a bitch.” He rubbed the top of his head furiously and gave her a glare as if to place the blame on her shoulders.

  “Let me see,” Eve said pushing him into a nearby folding chair. “Is it bleeding?”

  “You did that on purpose.”

  Eve barely contained a laugh at the disgruntled expression on Jake’s face, more suited to a ten year old boy than a grown man.

  “I did not. Stop being such a baby and let me see.” She ran her hands along his scalp and felt the gentle swelling of the lump that had already formed. “There, it’s not so bad. Just a bump. Take two Aspirin and call me in the morning.” She leaned over and kissed it before she could talk herself out of it.

  Jake grabbed hold of her hand and swung her around so she sat in his lap.