Spark Of Desire. Christa Maurice

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ was the human equivalent of the Tilt-A-Whirl. “Most of a female’s strength is centered in her hips. Men’s strength is in their shoulders.”

      “Really? That’s neat. Did you know that, Marshall?”

      Kevin shook his head without lifting it up. Jessica noticed the tips of his ears were red. Was he embarrassed or angry? Was she failing some kind of initiation?

      “There’s a way you can do it. I’ll show you.” Bobbie started spinning her butter knife on the table.

      Kevin looked at Bobbie. “Are you finished?”

      Bobbie shrugged.

      He sighed, staring at Bobbie for a minute before he spoke. “Okay, this is what I found out. I got you an application when I was down at the office the other day—”

      “Wasn’t that sweet?” Bobbie batted her eyelashes at him. “Did you go all the way down there just for that?”

      “No,” Kevin said. “Jack needed to go in, and I drove him. While I was there I checked a few things. I thought you were finished.” He turned back to Jessica, pulling the application out of his pocket along with a second piece of paper. “You need to fill this out and return it to the office. The address is at the top. The next round of tests starts on September first. That’s the written. The physical is on September third and the oral is on September seventh. There are fifteen openings.” He double checked the notes he’d written before folding the paper into his pocket.

      Bobbie whistled. “That’s bad.”

      “Why?” Jessica asked, looking from one to the other. She folded her hands into her lap, trying to keep from jostling one or the other of them. Glancing over her shoulder, she discovered if she moved her chair back more than two inches she’d be sitting at another table. She was surrounded.

      “You’re gonna have a hundred fifty, two hundred guys going for those fifteen spots. Some of those guys are going to be vets so they’ll get extra points added to their score. Pretty slim odds.”

      “There won’t be that many vets. Maybe fifteen,” Kevin grumbled.

      “Fifteen is enough to soak up the openings,” Bobbie said.

      “There’s no way all of them are going to pass the test. Half are going to fail outright and half the guys that pass aren’t going to score high enough.”

      “There’s one other minor thing you seem to be overlooking, Marshall. She’s a girl.” Bobbie pointed at Jessica without looking at her.

      “So?” Kevin grumbled.

      “Do you know how many women have tried to get into the department? Sixty-four. How many made it?” Bobbie held up two fingers. “Me and Peggy Spinelli.”

      “But what’s the percentage of men who’ve succeeded?” Kevin shot back. He leaned across the table, caught up in the argument.

      “Probably better than eight percent,” Jessica murmured.

      Kevin dropped back in his chair.

      Bobbie folded her arms. “It’s not going to be a piece of cake, and you’ve only got a couple of months to train.”

      “Six percent chance of success at best. Five, really,” Jessica mumbled looking at the table.

      “It is?” Bobbie asked.

      Jessica looked up, catching the last flickerings of surprise on their faces before they hid the expressions. She didn’t know what had surprised them, but didn’t think this was a good time to start asking questions. The odds weren’t inspiring, but it was better than nothing, and she didn’t want to give up before she started, not with Kevin defending her so ferociously. “That’s not zero percent, so I might as well try. What do I have to do?”

      “Do you run?” Bobbie asked.

      “Bobbie, why are you so wound up today?” Kevin growled. “You’re like a caffeine transfusion.”

      Bobbie grinned at him and turned back to Jessica. “So, do you run?”

      “I jog.”

      “How much?”

      “Three or four times a week for about a half hour. Two and three miles each time.” Jessica glanced at Kevin. She’d rested her elbow on the table and now his arm was brushing hers, interfering with her ability to pay attention to this woman. There was a test happening here. She couldn’t start failing this early, but with Kevin this close she could barely manage to keep her eyes on Bobbie. Forget where her mind was.

      But she wasn’t attracted to Kevin. He was too old.

      Bobbie nodded. “You need to up that to about six miles in that half hour. You need to do weight training, too.”

      “I can’t believe you’re doing this,” a familiar voice hissed behind her.

      Jessica squeezed her eyes closed before turning around to face Mindi. They were watching her. Kevin was watching her. He would want to know how she reacted in a crisis. Mindi freaking out in a restaurant was a crisis of magnificent proportions. Of course he didn’t know Mindi, so he didn’t know what she could get like. Jessica hoped he would never know. “Mindi, calm down.”

      “Calm down? Calm down?” Mindi’s voice rose to an unpleasant screech that rang off the narrow restaurant walls, causing half the patrons to stop eating so they could devote full attention to the floor show. “I can’t believe you’re even thinking about doing this.”

      Jessica stood up. “Excuse me.” She seized Mindi’s arm and pulled her out of the restaurant before she could start in on a serious temper tantrum.

      * * * *

      Kevin watched Jessica tow the cute but distressed blonde outside.

      “Maybe she’s an idiot savant with numbers,” Bobbie suggested.

      “What?” Kevin couldn’t stop staring out the window. For a few minutes there he’d managed to stop thinking of Jessica as a female, but watching her outside the window with her friend, he remembered again. For a too-young, too-big, unfeminine female, she filled out her short-sleeved blue cotton blouse enticingly. While he watched, she put one hand on her generous hip. Her little friend’s voice carried through the window like the whine of a dentist’s drill. She seemed like a fragile toy next to Jessica. Kevin tore his eyes away from the scene outside the window.

      “An idiot savant. You know, one of those people who can do calculus in their heads without notes or anything. What are you looking at?”

      Kevin’s eyes had turned back to Jessica and her little friend outside. Jessica brushed her silken brown hair off her face with one hand, remaining calm while her friend did everything but jump up and down screaming.

      “Uh oh. Looks like a lovers’ spat.”

      Seemingly without his permission, Kevin’s head snapped around to look at Bobbie. “Lovers’ spat?” Ugly coldness developed in his chest and start flowing through his body.

      “That’s СКАЧАТЬ