Free Double trouble by Barbara Boswell Page B

have eased her guilt. After all, she now had the ultimate excuse: / didn't know what I was doing. Except that it didn't work for her. No amount of alcohol could induce her into doing something she didn't want to do, she knew that. Consequently, that meant she'd wanted to go to bed with Matt Minteer! And with her inhibitions and defenses conveniently obliterated, she'd done exactly that.
    Kayla swallowed hard. She had to stop thinking about that night, to stop thinking about him/ ''Sure, let's go," she said with determined cheer.

    Five
    Bootleggers, a club on the shores of the Susquehanna River, had wall-sized glass windows that looked out on the dark waters and a dock that enabled boats to pull right up to the club. Inside the wide main room, decorated in hot shades of coral, yellow and turquoise, a six-piece band known as Chill Factor played reggae to the lively crowd.
    The Afro-Caribbean rhythm was impossible to resist. While Kristina table-hopped—she seemed to know three-quarters of the people in the place—Kayla sat enjoying the music. It energized her and lifted her spirits. As the drums throbbed and the singer sang a lively calypso tune, Kayla felt herself begin to unwind. She decided she was glad that Kristina had insisted on coming here.
    **Luke, I'm beat. All I want to do is to go home and hit the sack." Matt frowned as Luke forged ahead of him, ignoring his older brother's protests, just as he'd been doing since their departure from Rillo's.

    **C'mon, Matt. It's time for a little celebration," Luke called over his shoulder. *'You just won that grant for the district. Think of the jobs the new steel plant will bring, not to mention the trickle-down effect on the rest of the city's economy."
    "It's premature to celebrate," Matt, ever-cautious, reminded him.
    "It's in the bag. You sold them tonight," Luke said, grinning with brash confidence. "Now it's time for a little fun. You're going to love Bootleggers. The sax player and the bassist unleash licks that will drive you wild and the percussion sets your blood drumming. I can't believe you've never been here. It's one of the hottest spots to—"
    "Meet girls, I suppose," Matt cut in reprovingly. "I've heard all about your adventures, little brother. You have an encyclopedia of pick-up lines and you make every attempt to proceed directly from introductions to bed. Since Steve Saraceni got married and discovered fidelity and fatherhood, you've taken over as Harrisburg's fastest zipper."
    "I know you meant that as a big brotherly reproach, but I'll take it as a compliment." Luke was cheerfully unabashed. "And it's women, Matthew. Women. Girls get testy when you call them girls, unless they're under eighteen or over seventy. And yes. Bootleggers is a good place to meet women, although I really dig the music here too."
    Matt was struck by a swift, sharp sense of deja vu. ''Now everybody in the place knows that you're my girl, " he had said as he held Kayla on his lap at the fund-raiser last Friday night.
    * ' Woman,' ' she had corrected.
    He'd heard her but had been far more interested in the feel of her, warm and soft and feminine on his lap, than in what was politically correct. He remembered what an irresistible temptation she had been, how desperately he'd wanted to slide his hand upward those few crucial inches and cup her breast in his palm, to take her soft ripe mouth in a

    kiss that was as hard and hungry as his body. Later in the dark privacy of the hotel room he'd done all that and more—
    The flashbacks had a visceral effect on him. His body hardened, fast and sharp, and he had to slow his pace and gulp for breath. He blindly followed Luke inside the club and then to a table where the music filled the room, primal and hot and sexy.
    The beat of the drums seemed to be throbbing inside him. Matt sank into a chair, ignoring Luke's attempt at conv^-sation. Kayla McClure. He turned the name over and over in his mind, hearing it instead of the song lyrics being