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JESS JESSUP
It began
to amuse Sloan that several women had walked by more than
once and that their smiles were becoming increasingly
blatant and aimed directly at Jess.
It
amused her, but it didn’t surprise her. Jess Jessup had
that effect on women no matter what he was wearing, but
when he was in uniform, he looked as if he belonged in a
Hollywood film, playing the part of the handsome, tough,
charismatic cop. He had curly black hair, a flashing
smile, a scar above his eyebrow that gave him a dangerous,
rakish look, and a thoroughly incongruous dimple in one
cheek that could soften his features to boyishness.
Everyone, from the secretaries to the desk sergeants,
teased him about his attractiveness to women, and to his
credit, he showed neither annoyance nor vanity. If it
hadn’t been for the fact that the women Jess dated were
all tall, willowy, and beautiful, Sloan would have
believed he was oblivious to looks, his own or anyone
else’s.
They
looked like Las Vegas chorus girls, Sloan decided, noting
the choreographed movements of tight derrieres, long legs
and high-heeled sandals. A slight smile hovered at the
corner of her mouth as she tried to imagine herself in the
role of uninhibited femme fatale. “Let’s hear it," Jess
said wryly.
“Hear
what?” she said, startled to discover that instead of
watching the three women, he’d turned in his chair and was
staring intently at her.
“What
were you thinking?”
“I was
thinking they looked like Las Vegas chorus girls,” Sloan
said, bewildered and uneasy beneath his unwavering stare.
Several times in the past, she’d caught him looking at her
in that piercing, thoughtful way, and for some
inexplicable reason she had never wanted to ask for an
explanation. “Honestly, that’s what I was thinking.” She
insisted a little desperately.
“That
not all of it,” he persisted smoothly. “Not with that
smile . . .”
“Oh, the
smile – “ Sloan said, inexplicably relieved. “I was also
trying to imagine myself in those heels and tight, skimpy
shorts, strolling around in the park.”
“I’d
like to see you do that,” he said and before Sloan could
even form a reaction to that remark, he stood up, shoved
his hands in his pockets, and said something that left her
gaping at him. “While you’re at it, could you also slap a
half inch of makeup to hide that glowing skin. Dump some
dye on that honey-blond hair, too, and get rid of those
sun streaks.”
“What?”
she said on a choked laugh.
He gazed
down at her, his expression bemused. “just do something so
you stop reminding me of ice cream cones and strawberry
shortcake.”
Her
laughter bubbled to the surface, dancing in her eyes and
trembling in her voice. “Food? I remind you of food?”
“You
remind me of the way I felt when I was thirteen.”
“What
were you like at thirteen?” she asked, swallowing back a
laugh.
“I was
an altar boy.”
“You
weren’t.”
“Yes, I
was. However, during mass, my attention constantly
wandered to a girl I liked who always sat in the third pew
at ten o’clock mass. It made me feel like a letch.”
“How did
you handle that?”
“First,
I tried to impress her by genuflecting deeper and
appearing more skillful and adept than any of the other
servers.”
“Did it
work?”
“Not the
way I wanted it to work. I was so good I had to serve two
masses instead of one all that year, but Mary Sue Bonner
continued to ignore me.”
“It’s
hard to imagine a girl ignoring you, even then.”
“I found
it a little unsettling, myself”
“Oh,
well, win some, lose some, you know.”
“No, I
don’t know. All I know was that I wanted Mary Sue Bonner.”
He
almost never talked about his past, and Sloan was
intrigued by this unprecedented glimpse of him as an
uncertain adolescent.
He
lifted his brows. “Since piety and religious fervor didn’t
impress her, I caught up with her after ten o’clock mass
and persuaded her to go to Sander’s ice cream shop with
me. She had a chocolate ice cream cone. I had strawberry
shortcake . . . “
He was
waiting for her to ask what happened after that, and Sloan
was helpless to resist the temptation to hazard a guess.
“And then I suppose you had Mary Sue?’
“No,
actually, I didn’t. I tried for the next two years, but
she was immune to me. Just like you.”
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