Free Life Is A Beach (Mills & Boon Silhouette): Life Is A Beach / A Real-thing Fling by Pamela Browning Page B

she pushed the play button, and Slade’s face popped up on the screen. A good-humored face, an animated face—until Karma asked him the first question and he froze up.
    As Slade hemmed and hawed his way down into the conversational skids, Karma slid a glance in Jennifer’s direction to gauge her reaction. “Not much of a talker,” was all she said.
    “Mmm,” Karma said noncommittally.
    “Still,” Jennifer mused as Slade started running on about birds, “he’s a hottie. I can’t see what’s the big whoop about roseate spoonbills and great blue herons, they sound boring to me, but I think I’ll give Mr. Slade Braddock a whirl.”
    Karma’s heart sank.
    Jennifer switched off the tape. “Set it up for Friday night, won’t you, Karma?”
    “Well, I—”
    “I mean, why not?” Jennifer skewered her with a look.
    “I’ll have to check to see if he’s busy,” Karma hedged, getting up and shuffling through a pile of papers on her desk.
    “Aunt Goldy says she’s met him. She says he’s nice. What do you think? Are we well suited, he and I?”
    “Why don’t I study your personality profiles in relationto each other and get back to you on that? Of course, I won’t see his until he brings it back.”
    Jennifer shrugged, which went a long way to show off her breast assets. “Oh, don’t bother with that psychology stuff. I want to go out with him. Friday night is good because my mother is trying to set me up with her best friend’s son, Sheldon. If I already have a date, Mom won’t insist.” She flipped her hair back off her shoulders, and Karma was nearly blinded by the shimmer of it in the slant of sunshine coming in the window. Slade, she thought sourly, would go crazy at the sight of Jennifer.
    “So do you promise to set it up?”
    “All right,” Karma said reluctantly. “I’ll do it.”
    “Tell Slade to pick me up at seven,” Jennifer said airily on her way out the door.
    When she had gone, Karma collapsed onto her desk chair and pillowed her head on her arms in dismay at the thought of setting Slade up with Jennifer.
    “Well, he may be a client, but Jennifer won’t like him,” counseled the Aunt Sophie side of her. In fact, the voice in her head sounded so much like her aunt’s that Karma’s head jerked up in surprise.
    Whereupon the Karma side of her cautioned, “Why wouldn’t Slade like Jennifer? She’s blond, sexy and eager.”
    Unfortunately it was the Karma side of her that made the most sense.
    Still and all, Friday was still four days away. Karma could only hope that Jennifer, who could usually be counted on to show her fickle side, would decide before then that Slade wasn’t a real possibility.
    S LADE B RADDOCK SHOWED UP at the rooftop sundeck yoga class right on time that night. He strode in wearing those cowboy boots, jeans and a white T-shirt that made his tanlook darker than ever. He nodded to Karma, balancing his hands on his hips and looking the group over.
    “Who is that?” Mandi asked as she unfurled her purple yoga mat.
    “Oh, just someone I invited to join us,” Karma answered.
    “Mmm- mmm. I sure would like to hear him say, ‘You know you want it, baby. You know you do.”’ Mandi lowered her voice in imitation of a male consumed by lust, which might have been funny if Karma were in the mood for it.
    “Don’t they all say that to you?” Karma asked innocently. Mandi let out a sort of halfhearted giggle as Karma unfolded herself from her mat, where she had been sitting in Half-Lotus position. She strolled over to where Slade stood.
    He grinned at her, the light in his eyes rivaling the moonlight spilling down from a clear night sky, his grin revealing teeth that gleamed whiter than the promise of any toothpaste commercial on TV. “Didn’t think I’d show up, did you?” he asked.
    What to reply? She had and she hadn’t, both at the same time. One thing for sure, she had developed a dry mouth from merely being in his line of sight, and at that moment,