The Red Hat Society's Domestic Goddess by Regina Hale Sutherland Page B

George Clooney. Okay, she was
really
into GeorgeClooney, and Mr. Fowler, with his thick head of dark brown hair finely threaded with silver and his warm brown eyes, crinkling
     at the corners with a grin that involved his whole face, was a dead ringer for George.
    “It
is
you,” he said, his voice as deep as the amusement in his eyes. He chuckled. “I can’t believe it. Miss O’Malley.”
    “I’m sorry, do I know you?” she asked, although she already knew she didn’t. She sure as heck would have remembered him.
    “He’s your new neighbor, Kim. He bought Mrs. Milanowski’s place,” Theresa informed her.
    She’d forgotten Theresa was still there, watching from the last step of the wide stairs leading down to the basement. She
     was
not
glistening while Kim sweated all over the place in front of this handsome stranger.
    “George Fowler,” he said, extending his hand.
    His first name was
George.
    Kim wiped her hand on the towel before putting it in his. Maybe she got the sweat off her palm, but she couldn’t tell as her
     skin heated and sizzled in his firm grip.
    “Should I recognize your name?” she asked, still having the impression that
he
knew
her.
    “I don’t expect you to. It was so long ago when we met. In high school.”
    Despite the silver in his hair, she doubted he was fifty… like she’d turned just a few months ago, graduating from a pink
     hat to a red one. He was probably only early forties. “I don’t think we went to high school together.”
    “No,” he chuckled again. “
I
was attending high school. I was in the first class you taught.”
    A former student. Usually she remembered them. But then she’d been teaching a long time. That was why she’d been let go when
     they’d had to cut a physical education teacher from the payroll.
    “You made a man out of me.”
    Some odd sound emanated from Theresa. Not a giggle. Not a snort. Something.
    But Kim couldn’t worry about her. Spots danced across her field of vision. She was having enough of a struggle keeping her
     wits about her. Had she worked out too long? Maybe she was having a stroke? She blinked and cleared her head. Then she was
     able to see his face more clearly. And the amusement heating his brown eyes.
    Belatedly she realized he still had her hand, and she withdrew it, with some regret. He had great hands. Big. Wide. Strong.
    “I’m sorry I don’t remember you.” She really was. Just how early could a person get Alzheimer’s? She had to have it to have
     forgotten
him.
He looked just like George…
    “I was a scrawny kid. Real nerd. Not an athletic bone in my body.” He laughed. “Or a muscle either.”
    His comments invited her to check him out now. So her gaze scanned him from wide shoulders down over a well-muscled chest,
     lean hips and heavy thighs, clad in a dark T-shirt and jeans.
    “Until you got a hold of me,” he added. “You made me love working out.”
    If he owed that body to her, she had certainly done something right in all her years of teaching.
    The amusement faded from his eyes as they darkened with solemnity. “You helped me pick my career, too.”
    “You’re a gym teacher?”
    He shook his head. “No, a cop.”
    “I—”
    “When you invited your dad to talk to the class.”
    She’d done that every year, even after he’d retired. The visits had meant a lot to both of them and not being able to do them
     anymore was the hardest thing for her to accept about losing her job.
    “I was so impressed, I decided I wanted to be just like him,” he said. “When I first got out of the academy, I worked under
     him for a while. Everybody still misses him around the department. How is he?”
    “Stubborn as a hound dog with a treed possum.”
    Theresa laughed clearly this time. “Colorful, Kim.”
    “You’ve met my father,” she reminded Theresa. “Am I wrong?”
    Theresa shook her head. “That you’re not.”
    “How old is he now?” George Fowler asked.
    “Eighty-three. But don’t