narrowed as if he was frustrated with himself, and he looked away. He gestured toward the garage.

"Getting more nails."

Without waiting for an invitation, Kate sat down on the secured plywood. Wrapping her arms around

her knees, she stared out into the distance. Jesse went back to hammering.

"Did you see the show?" she asked carefully.

"What?"

"Getting Real with Kate. Did you see it today?"

He seemed to debate, then sat back on his heels. She felt awkward under the intensity of his gaze.

"Does it matter if I did?"

"Well, no."

"Good."

Travis climbed up, holding on carefully, cringing until he sat with some security on the floor.

"Hi, Kate. What do you think of this place?"

"I'm impressed."

"Yeah, Jesse says it's going to be the best ever-even better than the one that used to be here where

you threw your arms around him and kissed him silly."

Kate's mouth fell open. "I did no such thing."

Jesse raised a brow.

"Okay, I might have. But I never would have thought of you as the kiss-and-tell type."

"You did the kissing, not me."

Jesse chuckled. Kate muttered.

"Jesse said you were a pistol when you were young."

A pistol, she mouthed at Jesse.

"Said you were a pistol today on the show."

She whipped around just in time to see Jesse trying to cut Travis off. "You saw the show?"

"We saw it, all right," Travis said with a nod of his head and a snort of disbelief. "Those were some

cats you had. And who knew they had thoughts? But Jesse made me turn off the TV. Did we miss the part where you actually talked to them?" Then suddenly the boy stopped, his face scrunching up as he glanced just beyond Kate. A second later, his eyes went wide and he looked back at her. "Though maybe that was something else we were watching. Not you at all. It was . . . Pet Detective. With Jim Carrey. That's it." He cringed. "I'm starved. I think I'll go get a snack," he added, then gingerly climbed down out of the tree.

Kate dropped her forehead to her knees. "Admit it, I was horrible."

"Horrible? You're exaggerating."

She narrowed a glance at him.

"It was entertaining. Interesting. I bet you money not a single soul turned you off today."

"You did!"

"Look at it this way. Good or bad, talk is talk, and no doubt people will be talking after that show."

"Great, just what I want. All of West Texas talking about me."

"Not necessarily about you, wild thing. About your pussy."

"Argh!"

He leaped out of the way and down the rungs before she had a chance to pick up the hammer.

To: Katherine Bloom From: Julia Boudreaux Subject: Good news Ratings went through the roof during the pet segment. The audience loves you when you get all red and embarrassed. Which is why I've decided on the next show. "The Lover's Lesson." A show about sex products, just like you suggested.

Julia Boudreaux Owner KTEX TV West Texas To: Julia Boudreaux From: Katherine Bloom Subject: No way

Don't you dare go all owner on me!! I will not do a show on sex products. I suggested a pregnancy show!! A perfectly respectable segment on women getting pregnant.

KCB.

Katherine C. Bloom News Anchor, KTEX TV West Texas

To: Katherine Bloom From: Julia Boudreaux Subject: Perfectly boring ... and you know it. The pet psychic was not boring. The look on your face alone when Mistress Reynalda instructed you to pet that cat was priceless. Though surely we can find a balance between too prepared and not prepared enough. I'll send a whole slew of products over so you can have a look this time. Get all prepared, if you have to.

XO, j ELEVEN Jesse walked out of the guest cottage, intent on getting a few clubs and heading across the street to the seventeenth fairway of the country club. It was dark, after midnight, and he was guaranteed to have the course to himself.

But when he saw Katie in her kitchen, he stopped because she was pacing. With a lamenting sigh, he set his clubs up against the wall, then went to the back door. Katie stopped and whirled to face him when he entered. She wore a white tank top tucked into drawstring pink pajama bottoms rolled up at the ankles. Her hair was loose and curly, like she had been running her hands through it over and over again, and the tea she had made sat on the counter untouched. She looked half wild, half hot as hell.

"What are you doing?" he asked bluntly.

"I'm trying to decide what to tell Julia when I quit."

After she had jumped through hoops to keep her job, this came as a surprise. He was too confused to

reply.

She threw her hands up in the air, the tank top pulling tight across her breasts. She didn't have on a bra.

The cotton outlined the sweet fullness, her nipples showing through the material, making heat sizzle

through his body. Jobs and quitting them were forgotten, and he felt an urge to take her to the guest cottage and peel the pajamas off so he could run his tongue along each breast, then lower.

"Great!" she bleated. "Just great! I know what you're thinking!"

"You do?" He grimaced, refusing to feel any sort of guilt because thinking and doing were two separate

issues. Just because he was thinking about breasts, tongues, and Katie in the same scenario didn't mean he was going to do anything about it. He wasn't.

He eyed the door and knew that tonight he'd be in for a cold shower.

"See, you're antsy to get away from here. You're embarrassed to be seen with a woman who can't look at a cat, hear someone call it a ... a pussy"-she shuddered- "without turning bright red, like a freaking cherry."

All this talk of pussies and cherries wasn't helping.

"I heard that!" she yelped.

"Heard what?"

"You groaned. You're tired of hearing about it. Me and my job. You're thinking that I should just go

out there and find other employment because I'm not cut out for TV."

"Ah-"

"Oh, sure. Stand there and be all judgmental."

"Okay-"

"I knew it! You think I'm making a fool of myself, and if I had any balls at all that I wouldn't put up with it. I'd stand up and say no! I refuse to become the laughingstock of West Texas!"

He sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets. "You're venting."

"Venting?" she all but hollered, her arms extended, her hair wild, her breasts playing havoc with his mind. "Do I look like I'm venting?"

"Actually-"

"Don't answer that. Tell me if I'm venting after you see this."

Jesse felt more confused by the second and was doubly wishing he had kept going down the driveway

instead of stopping in here. He loved women, loved being around them-except when they turned into raving lunatics.

"Katie, you're upset-"

"You bet I'm upset." She started pulling things out of a brown paper bag. "I'm upset about this."

She slammed down a handful of plastic-wrapped multicolored grocery items.

"You're mad about Fruit Roll-Ups?" he asked, things not getting any clearer.

She yanked out something else. "Fruit Roll-Ups and these!" She shook a plastic-wrapped package of oversized dice.

"I still don't get it," he said.

She didn't bother to explain. She continued on, pulling out a board game. On closer inspection, he realized that it was some kind of golf entertainment.