Free Body Heat by Susan Fox

curly gray hair. Fred wore tailored khakis and a blazer, and the woman had on one of those dresses that buttoned down the front, patterned with swirly pink flowers.
    “Just finished for the day,” Jesse said. Needing to get away from Maura and that irresistible urge to kiss her, he went to meet them.
    Heel clacks told him Maura was following.
    “I’d like you to meet Lizzie Gilmore,” Fred said. “Lizzie, this is Jesse Blue, the young man I was telling you about. I’ll show you his bike when we go out.”
    “Pleased to meet you,” the woman said, extending a hand.
    It was sturdier than his gardening pal Virginia’s, so he gave it a firm squeeze. “Me, too.”
    “You two are going out?” Maura asked, sounding surprised.
    The older woman nodded, her brown eyes bright. “We’re going across the street to a movie. They’re showing Eat Pray Love and I’ve never seen it.”
    Jesse knew the movie complex across the street. It was an independent, run by a billionaire who loved movies and didn’t care about making a profit. The five cinemas, each a different size, showed everything from old classics to the latest blockbusters. He guessed it came in handy for the Cherry Lane folks, and bet the owner had great rates for seniors.
    “ Eat Pray Love, huh?” Not his favorite, but he guessed it made a good date movie.
    “We must be off,” Fred said, kinking his elbow toward his lady friend. She slipped her hand through it and they moved away.
    Maura shook her head bemusedly. “He’s been yearning after her for months now,” she murmured. “How did he get up the courage to ask her out?”
    He sensed it wasn’t a question directed to him. In fact, he figured she’d pretty much forgotten he was around. “I’ll be going.”
    “Oh!” She turned toward him, and he could tell he’d been right from the way the color rose to her cheeks. She was sure a blusher, this lady, but he still hadn’t worked out whether it was sexy thoughts or annoyance that triggered her. Mostly, he figured it was annoyance.
    “I’ll see you tomorrow then, Jesse,” she said in a polite, society-woman voice. The kind of voice that made his skin crawl. “At nine, as we agreed. Please be prompt.”
    Just to be wicked, he flashed her his best lady-killer grin and put on a husky drawl. “Tomorrow,” he said with promise in his voice. Unlike everyone else in this place, she hadn’t told him to use her first name, and so he didn’t. Instead, when he said, “I’ll be looking forward to that, Ms. Mahoney,” he let his voice linger caressingly over every syllable of her name, just the way his hands longed to twine themselves in that silky hair and never come out again.
    Her cheeks flamed brighter and she turned back into the building, banging her shoulder against the door frame before she strode off.
    He chuckled softly, then, whistling, strolled toward his bike. It had been one hell of a day. And this was only the first one of his three-month community service gig.
     
    When Maura heard the bike roar to life, she looked out the window by the door. Jesse, in helmet and jacket, cruised down the block under a canopy of pink blossoms. James Dean and cherry blossoms. Something was wrong with this picture. And something was wrong with her. Had turning thirty transformed her normally sensible body into a mess of raging hormones? She growled with annoyance and turned, to see Nedda, the evening receptionist, watching her curiously.
    “What’s he doing here?” the older woman asked brusquely. “Why did we hire him? I asked Gracie, and she just said Louise had done it. Mostly, she was gushing like a teenager.”
    Maura had never liked Nedda diFazio, who was one of those sour women who derived her greatest pleasure from tattling on others. Still, in the interests of working on her own people skills—not to mention the fact that Nedda’s sister was the chairman of the board’s wife—she tried to be pleasant. “Gracie’s right. Louise made the