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“Bye.” He waved as she closed the car door, started the car, and eased
out of the parking space.
It was late, and she was tired, but nothing was going to stop her from
checking email before she went to bed. There was only one piece of mail
waiting for her, but it was from Max.
My dear,
An Appetite for Passion
73
Only one more day...I’ll see you in roughly twenty-four hours...and it
will be a rough twenty-four hours indeed, waiting to touch your sweet face
with my hands, to blend my lips with yours, to hold your body tight to mine
and feel the excitement surging through it.
I want to get to know your body, and I want to get to know all of you.
Decisions, decisions—do we make love first, talk first, cuddle first—or have
you some other plan for us? I’m all ears.
Did you have a good day, sweet Kari? Mine was plagued with problems,
but nothing permanent or critical, and certainly nothing that being with you
tomorrow won’t erase from my consciousness.
I long to hold you in my arms, to whisper tender sweetnesses in your
ears, to hear your voice say my name and hear it as beautiful music.
And speaking of music, I’m not a half bad singer; I may serenade you
while I’m there. What is your favorite kind of music? That’s a topic we’ve
never discussed before. And please don’t tell me you like rap—that’s not
music! Say you love rap and you’ll ruin all my illusions.
Well, my dear, it’s dinner time and I haven’t eaten yet. I was eager to
“talk” to you, first. But now that I’ve done that, I’ll go fix a bite.
And so, that’s it until tomorrow morning, and then tomorrow night when
you should be watching your driveway for a red Porsche pulling in.
Till then,
Max
Kari’s reply was briefer than usual. Partly this was due to her tiredness,
partly to the constraints on what she would say to him. She wouldn’t cry on
his shoulder over the bad day; she didn’t want to tell him about the negligee
she’d bought for him, preferring to surprise him with it. In the end, she told
him how eager she was to see him, briefly described the incident at the
campaign HQ with the missing data, and let it go at that.
Showering quickly, she got in bed, but as tired as she was, she couldn’t
sleep. Lots of what-ifs ran through her head. What if Max was unable to
come tomorrow for some reason? What if he just didn’t like her when he
met her? And then, what if Jeff really had destroyed the data and was
responsible for the mailers’ disappearing act?
74
Cynthia MacGregor
On a night when she needed to be wide awake the next evening, and
really needed a good night’s sleep, Kari tossed and turned till well past 1:30.
An Appetite for Passion
75
Chapter 10
Jeff trudged back to the storefront reluctantly. No fool, he surmised
what Russ was saying about him. What many of his co-workers were no
doubt thinking and saying.
Kari seemed to believe in him. Sweet Kari. She was the only one there
who he felt truly trusted him one hundred percent.
Kari. She was fun, she was funny, she was quick-witted, clever, and
intelligent. She reminded him of Jennifer. Jennifer had been his best friend
in college. That and more. They’d progressed, Jeff and Jennifer, from best-
friendship to romance. Jeff had always believed your mate should be your
friend. Not every friend could, or should, be a lover, of course, but it was
good if any serious lover was also a friend.
Kari, of course, had a boyfriend—she had said as much. So that seemed
to eliminate her as a potential romantic interest...at least, as long as the
boyfriend remained on the scene. Too bad. But they could still be good
friends. Jennifer and he had been good friends even before they started
dating.
As Jeff returned to his work in the campaign office, he wondered what
Kari’s boyfriend was like. Was he rotund, ultra-skinny, or something closer
to average? More importantly, did he appreciate Kari?
Did he realize how special she was? Creative, industrious, upbeat,
friendly, trusting, and all that other good stuff...Kari had a lot going for her.
Did this boyfriend know it?
As Jeff worked, his mind wandered. Kari had taken up residence in his
brain. He realized, with guilt, that half of him was rooting for Kari’s
boyfriend to let her down.
He already considered Kari a friend. And part of him was cheering that
friend on, wanting her to find satisfaction with the boyfriend she had
mentioned. But another part of him—he had to be honest with himself—was
76
Cynthia MacGregor
hoping things didn’t go well with the boyfriend, leaving Jeff a clear field to
become something more than a friend, as he had done with Jennifer.
Working away, Jeff suddenly felt as if he were being scrutinized. If he
looked up, he imagined he’d see everyone staring at him, wanting to see
what he’d sabotage next. Damn!
To prove to himself that he was just being paranoid, he raised his head
from his work abruptly...and found that Eileen and one of the newer
volunteers actually were looking at him. Of course, that didn’t absolutely
prove what they were thinking, but the fact that they looked away as he
looked up and caught them seemed pretty incriminating.
Suddenly, Jeff felt very insecure. He’d been a vital person in the
headquarters since the start of the campaign. The others had looked up to
him, in part because of his knowledge, in part because of his personality,
and in part because of the sheer number of hours he donated to the cause.
Now, suddenly, they were looking at him in a different way...with suspicion.
Jeff felt very alone. He even entertained fleeting thoughts of abandoning
his work on the campaign. They could get along without him. There were
plenty of other causes that could use his services.
No! He believed in Larrimore. He wanted to see the man get elected.
And he was not going to let the other volunteers’ suspicions drive him away
from working for a cause he believed in.
But he wished they weren’t all convinced he was behind the recent
skullduggery. Again, the feeling of aloneness swept over him.
And again, he thought wistfully of Kari.
An Appetite for Passion
77
Chapter 11
When she first awakened on Friday, Kari was freezing. Though it was
still dark out, and she couldn’t see if it was fair or cloudy, the weather had
unquestionably turned colder. At first Kari thought that was what had
caused her to wake up even before her rooster alarm went off, and she
huddled deeper under the covers, seeking warmth even if she couldn’t go
back to sleep.
Then she remembered—Max would be here tonight! Springing from her
bed despite the chill of the room, she closed the cracked-open window and
selected a different outfit from the one she’d laid out the night
before...something more appropriate to the evident wintry temperatures than
to the October date on the calendar.
Kari tried to remember if the paper had predicted the temperature
plummeting this way. Finally, she decided she’d been too caught up in
Max’s eagerly awaited visit to focus on the paper, had read very little of it,
absorbed even less, and had probably bypassed the weather altogether.
Dressing more rapidly than usual, she raced down the stairs, as if by her
hurrying she could speed Max’s arrival. She continued at a breakneck pace,
booting up the computer, then putting on coffee while the computer slowly
did its thing. She righteously forbore to eat any breakfast but the coffee—
maybe she could lose another pound today if she skipped lunch too?—then,
while the coffee brewed, she went to the computer and logged on.
My dear,
Just a quickie because I have so much to do. I want to be all packed and
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