Free For Your Love by Candy Caine

title searches in order to turn up any liens or debts on properties they intended to buy. Perhaps she could convince Haywood to try this kind of investigation. He’d probably be good at it. She had figured all the man needed was some direction and motivation. As for the latter, well, she was the prize.
    She’d had a personal interest in Haywood from the start. There was something about him that drove her to help him become financially solid. Now she knew that something was love. With his feelings for her being just as strong, marriage was the next logical step. They were seeing each other on an everyday basis. He practically lived in her apartment, so when she suggested his moving in with her, he agreed and gave up the short-term rented apartment he’d leased from her. She liked the way he fit into her life and could easily see it becoming permanent. The fact that he liked to cook hadn’t even figured into her assessment—much.

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Eleven
     
    As the weeks passed, Carla soon found herself going to the gym more often without Lynne. Short-staffed at the real estate office, Lynne had less and less time to spend at the gym. Because Carla saw Richard practically every day, she hardly noticed Lynne’s absence. They’d work out and then go for coffee or do lunch. Needless to say, she began to look forward to going to the gym more and more, which helped keep her weight-loss regimen on track. More importantly, she and Richard had become real close friends and she often found herself looking forward to seeing him. He listened to her ideas for new books and always made her feel good–sometimes, too damn good. The way she wished Martin would make her feel. She wondered if Richard looked forward to seeing her, as well.
    She got her answer one Saturday morning in late October. Arriving at the gym, she found Richard standing outside by the front door of the gym. His face brightened as he saw her approach. Carla felt her heart begin to gallop and she quickened her step.
    “Hi!” she greeted him.
    As if having to make excuses as to why he was outside, Richard said, “It was such a gorgeous day, I felt like waiting outside.”
    “For me?”
    His face reddened and she was soon sorry she’d said that, but softened it by adding, “I’m glad you did.”
    He nodded and changed the subject. “We’d better get started.”
    They dropped their stuff off at the locker rooms and met at the exercise equipment. After a grueling half-hour on the treadmill, they swam in the indoor pool as they often did. Carla had ceased being embarrassed that her body wasn’t bikini-worthy. A great deal had to do with the changes that had already taken place in the months that had passed. She’d been losing the weight steadily and was looking better.
    But she had to admit that some of her ease came from the way she caught Richard looking at her appreciatively from time to time when he didn’t think she noticed—definitely a boost to her ego. And she’d have to be blind not to notice the bulge in his swim trunks, which he tried to hide by hastily wrapping a towel around himself or diving into the pool. Since she certainly couldn’t be the reason for his hard on, she convinced herself that Richard must be a typical male who got turned on by the least little sight of a woman’s body in a bathing suit. Too bad she was just as guilty of getting excited by looking at his body sometimes. She found his build attractive, and sometimes had the urge to reach out and stroke his beautifully proportioned body or trace that line of chest hair that disappeared into his bathing trunks.
    Of course, she felt guilty to have such thoughts, being a married woman. She told herself she was only reacting like any woman who sees a hot guy in a bathing suit and not because it was Richard. Then why did she feel the pooling warmth between her legs when she caught sight of his bulge straining against his bathing trunks? It had to be because she hasn’t