Smoldering Desire by Desiree Day Page A

yourself.” Kelsey laughed and stood still.  T.J. was sitting in his carrier, in the seat of the buggy, exactly where the stores discouraged parents from putting the carrier.  But Barrett ignored it.  “Try shopping with a toddler and a baby without using this, then come talk to me,” she’d mutter every time she’d put the carrier in the buggy.
    Barrett stroked T.J.’s cheek, normally he was a quiet baby.  “Are you okay, sweetie.  What’s wrong, you just ate.”  T.J. wailed.  “It’s okay, Mommy got you.”  She unbuckled T.J. from his carrier and pulled him into her arms.  His screams grew louder and Barrett gently bounced him while patting his back.  She heard a loud burp.  “You had to burp.”  She pulled him away along with a string of spit up.  “Oh crap!”  He’d destroyed her suit jacket.
    Just then she heard Kelsey’s laugh.  “Oooh!”  She looked and saw her two-year-old daughter jetting down the aisle leaving behind a wake of laughing adults.  Barrett held up her hand, the one that was gripping the harness’ strap, it was bare.  “It must’ve slipped off when I picked up T.J.”  She quickly returned T.J. to his carrier.
    She wanted to cry.  At least once a week she argued cases in front of judges, other lawyers and juries, but none of them ever came close to making her want to whimper and roll up into a little ball to escape it all, like her daughter did.
    “Come back here!” Barrett roared.  “This is why I use the harness!” she yelled as she raced after her daughter while pushing the shopping cart.  Shoppers jumped out of her way and a couple good hearted ones really did try to catch her daughter, but Kelsey wiggled out of their grasps as though she was covered in baby oil.  For a two-year-old she had feet like roller skates, she zoomed along the aisles, squealing loudly. “Kelsey come back here!”
    But having her mother chase her while yelling, made Kelsey think they were playing a game, so she ran even faster.  She turned the corner and out of Barrett’s sight, a wave of despair washed over her.  Adrenaline propelled her forward, she rounded the corner, narrowly missing a Pepsi display.
    “Is this what you’re looking for?”  A familiar lady was holding her wiggling daughter.
    Barrett skidded to a stop.  “Sage?” she croaked.
     
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    Drew Atkins logged into her profile on www.ineedaman.com. She grinned when she saw the number of messages waiting to be read.  Thirty.  She already knew that more than eighty percent of them were either from sixty-year-old men, married men or men so disgusting looking that they made her ill.  Ten percent was usually bi-curious women, she wasn’t ready to go that route yet and the remaining ten percent were actual possibilities.
    And for the last six months she had been dating those possibilities.  After a few dates or for some it took only one date for the maybes to become actually nos.  She liked the system she devised.  Round one started off with coffee.  Only a few moved on to dinner, round two.  And only a lucky man made it to round three, dinner and sex.  That had been Darius.  He had sexed her and kept a smile on her face for a whole month.  They were inseparable, that was until his wife showed up at her house threatening bodily harm.
    The pickings of men in her hometown were slim, and unfortunately a lot of them had the personality of a bull toad.  Drew quickly scanned an e-mail.  This sounds interesting, she thought.  She returned to the beginning and slowly reread the message, it had piqued her interest.  He had called himself Blkman1972, he liked jazz music, went to church regularly, drank socially, never married and no kids.  She crossed her fingers before clicking on the link to his photo.  By now she had downgraded her look requirements from drop dead gorgeous to presentable.  “Please be decent looking.”  Her excitement dimmed when she saw his picture, her