Free What the Lady Wants by Jennifer Crusie Page A

the house.
    June wasn't home, so they foraged for food on their own.
    Mitch stared at the mounds of food inside the refrigerator: plastic-wrapped trays of cold cuts and vegetables, tiny chilled petits fours, gallon jugs of punch. Bob joined him, and they surveyed the feast with equally wistful eyes. "You have enough food here for an army."
    Mae came to stand beside him, distracting him from the food.
    She was distracting him a lot lately.
    "That's all for the memorial tomorrow." Mae pushed past him to rummage on a lower shelf. "How do you feel about leftover lasagna?"
    "Enthusiastic." Mitch told himself not to watch her as she bent over farther to get the lasagna, but he did, anyway. He was human. And so was she, thank God.
    He wondered how long it would take for her to get over her snit about opening the West. Probably days.
    She pulled the lasagna from the fridge and nudged the door shut with her hip as he backed out of the way. Then he watched as she put the lasagna on the counter and stretched to take down two plates from the cabinet, nudging Bob away from the counter with her foot. Her dress was loose, but it pulled against the muscles in her arms and back and flowed over her rump, and he sighed just from looking at her.
    He'd never met a more watchable woman in his life.
    That was odd, when he thought about it. He'd known a lot of very attractive women, many of them more attractive than Mae Belle Sullivan. All right, not many, but some. Stormy Klosterman, for one. So why was he watching her more and more and thinking about the case less and less and Stormy not at all? This was a bad sign in more ways than one.
    A smart man would tell her he was investigating the rest of the case on his own.
    Mae slid lasagna-filled plates into the microwave, tapped in the time, punched the power button and turned back to him. "So where are we going this afternoon?"
    Mitch said the first thing that came to mind. "I want to meet Barbara Ross, the woman who convinced Armand to leave Stormy."
    "I thought he did that because he had to open the West."
    "Well, sometimes you get a trail guide to take you, so to speak."
    Mae laughed and Mitch grinned back.
    "Does this mean I'm forgiven?"
    "For what? That drivel in the car?" Mae shook her head. "Well, you're a macho jerk, of course, but at least you're an honest macho jerk. You didn't try to convince me that you had to go West for my own good, or that deep down inside, women want men to go West. You're up front about being a jerk. That's kind of nice."
    "I object to the jerk, but if it gets me off the hook, I'll take it."
    "It gets you off the hook." The microwave dinged, and Mae turned to pull the lasagna out.
    Good. Now she was happy again, and he could leave her at home and get to work.
    "And you're not fooling me with this sudden need to see Barbara," she added. "You just want to meet more women." She put the lasagna on the table and distracted him by smiling at him.
    Suddenly, leaving her behind held no appeal. "With you there as a chaperon? Hardly. What else are we having besides lasagna?"
    "Bread." Mae went into the pantry to get it, and Mitch watched her move.
    Okay, so he'd tell her tomorrow he was working alone. After the memorial service.
    A bird chirped outside, and Bob swung his head into the cabinet with a resounding thunk.
    "I know just how you feel," Mitch told him and went to see what Mae was doing in the pantry.

    Barbara lived in an elite condo about four blocks from Armand's house.
    Mitch swung the Mercedes into a parking space. "Birds of a feather."
    Mae got out and stared up at the building, wilting in the heat. "I'd rather die than live here."
    "Fortunately, you don't have to make that choice." Mitch came up behind her. She didn't move, so he put his hand on the small of her back to push her toward the door, enjoying the warm dampness there. When he realized how much he was enjoying it, he jerked his hand away. "No one will ever make you live in an overpriced