Too hot to sleep by Stephanie Bond Page A

You’re a nurse—what do you do for yours?”
    Georgia choked on her first drink of soda. I have phone sex with my boyfriend. While I’m thinking about you. She gulped air. Last week she was a frustrated almost-virgin, this week she was a phone wench.
    Ken cocked his head. “Do you have problems swallowing?”
    Wiping her mouth with a napkin, she frowned. “Not usually.”
    “So what about the insomnia?”
    She chewed slowly, carefully, then swallowed. “Try to relieve some of the stress in your life.”
    “I exercise, but it doesn’t seem to help.”
    Georgia fidgeted with her straw. “What about…your personal relationships?”
    He stopped chewing. “What about them?”
    “Well, do you…have any?”
    “If you’re asking if I have a girlfriend, I don’t.”
    She tucked the tidbit away in her subconscious, then shook her head. “I mean friends—co-workers, neighbors.”
    “I know a lot of people, but I’m not sure if I’d call all of them friends.”
    “Bingo,” she said. “You told me you were close to your family and now they’re not around. You’re probably in need of emotional c-companionship.”
    He lifted one dark brow.
    Squirming on her seat, she spotted the dog and seized the ungraceful way out. “Like Crash. Pets are known to lower blood pressure and to relieve stress.”
    “It is nice having someone else around the place.”
    “I’ve been thinking about buying a pet myself,” she admitted. “For the company.”
    “You don’t live with your boyfriend?”
    How did the man know every button of hers to push? “No.” She was alone, with a couch like a stone.
    His brown eyes danced. “So you two aren’t that serious?”
    “We’re not engaged, if that’s what you mean.” Although if their relationship was progressing as she hoped, perhaps her mother could be reigning over wedding plans sometime in the near future.
    “Have you ever been married?” he asked.
    “No. You?”
    “Absolutely not.”
    Okay. No ambiguity there. She was wasting the afternoon with a dead-end flirt when she should be consoling her ill boyfriend and exploring the new dimension of their relationship.
    Sights and sounds and smells and touches descended all around Georgia, and suddenly she couldn’t get out of there fast enough. The blue sky, the cool breeze, the children laughing in the playground—all of it a ploy, to make her think that she was in charmed company. She took another bite of the hot dog, thinking the faster she ate, the sooner she could escape.
    “I see a lot of bad domestic situations in my line of work,” he said. “I’m sure you do, too.”
    She nodded, gobbling her food.
    “Makes you wonder how the people got together to begin with.”
    She nodded, washing down a large bite with a deep draw on her soda.
    “I mean, of all the people in all of the world, how are you supposed to know when you meet the right person?”
    She wet her lips. “You just…know, I guess.”
    “So Rob is the right person for you?”
    His words lingered in the air between them. Her first instinct was to tell Ken Medlock that it was none of his ma’am-ing business. But he was so intent, his eyes serious yet alight with friendliness. As if he were…concerned. “I think so,” she said, the intimacies she’d shared with Rob so fresh in her mind. If he weren’t the right person, what did that make her? Guilt and grease didn’t marry well in her stomach.
    Ken gave a little laugh. “The story of my life—a day late and a dollar short.” He took another bite of his hot dog, just as if they weren’t discussing…
    What were they discussing?
    This man, this virtual stranger, threw her off balance, made her feel as if her thoughts and her beliefs were up for negotiation. Such a charming, compelling personality, as large as his muscled body. He reminded her of someone…Her memory ticked backward until…She froze when the match fell into place.
    Her father. Good-looking, with a winsome smile. So easy to