Getting Lucky by Susan Andersen Page A

soon enough to log on to the internet to see what it offered in the way of rentals. At the moment she desperately needed the oblivion of sleep.
    It wasn’t until late the following morning, as she was transferring most of the items she’d packed the day before into some boxes she’d found in the garage, that she remembered the envelope in the suitcase. She dug it out and extracted a single sheet of stationary. Unfolding it, she began to read.
    Nooo! She abruptly sat down on the edge of the bed, and for one of the few times in her life, she wished she were a swearing woman. Her few, pitiful expletives simply didn’t cover the depth of her feelings. But, poop !
    The note was from Glynnis. Lily didn’t know how she’d missed it but that wasn’t the issue. What mattered was Glynnis’s specific request that Lily tell Zach where she had gone, with whom, and why.
    Poop, poop, poop, poop, poop ! Why was that her job?
    But there was simply no help for it; she had to honor Glynnis’s wishes. Hating not only that necessity, but the knowledge that Zach was going to blow it all out of proportion, she girded her loins and went looking for him.
    She didn’t quite do the cha-cha upon discovering he wasn’t home, but it was a near thing. Well, that’s a crying shame, she thought insincerely, and dug a package of phyllo dough out of the fridge to make herself a niceveggie turnover to go with that apple chutney she’d made the other day. And after lunch , she decided, I really should hit the real estate agents .
    When the back door rattled open a short while later as she was still eating, however, she sighed in defeat, knowing she could kiss a clean getaway good-bye. Rats.
    Zach closed the door behind him and looked at Lily, who gazed back at him calmly for a moment before returning to her lunch. Like yesterday, she was dolled up right down to the spike-heeled shoes on her feet—this pair open-toed and blue to match her top, which she had no doubt chosen to match her eyes. He watched her rosy lips close around a bite of something with a wonderful fragrance, and jerking his gaze away, he looked at the steam rising off a flaky pastry-looking thing full of wild rice, vegetables, and what looked to be cranberries. His stomach immediately protested that a single piece of peanut-butter toast was no kind of breakfast for a grown man. “I’ll say this for you, lollipop. You sure can cook.”
    “Yes, I can.” She hesitated, then jutted her chin toward the stove. “There’s another one in the oven, if you’d like it.”
    She didn’t have to ask him twice. He grabbed a plate, singed his fingers grabbing the goodie out of the oven, then got a fork from the drawer and poured himself a glass of milk. Carrying everything to the table, he pulled out a chair and sat down across from her. She passed him a little bowl of some spicy-smelling sauce with chopped apples in it, and he dumped a spoonful on top of his turnover. Before he dug in, though, he shot her a suspicious glance. “Why are you being so accommodating all of a sudden?”
    “For exactly the reason you think,” she said with a shrug that had him struggling not to watch the resultant jiggle of her breasts. “To soften you up, of course.” She waved at his plate. “Don’t let it get cold.”
    Knowing he wasn’t likely to get more than that, he took a bite. One taste was all it took, and he was a goner. “Damn,” he breathed when he came up for air half a turnover later. Forgetting who he was dealing with for an instant, he gave her a genuine smile. “This is good .” He immediately forked up another bite, savoring the rich textures and the flavors that exploded on his tongue.
    “So was my nefarious plot successful?” Lily asked when he finished. “Did my cooking turn you into Mr. Mellow?”
    “Yep.” And surprisingly, it was true. He’d spent the morning at Camp Pendleton getting the South American contingent situated for their training program, and he was now