Free Perfect Sax by Jerrilyn Farmer Page A

close to people and safety and food!
    There was a lone guy inside and in that instant I got it. Look at me. I was wearing a low-cut black gown with a slit up to there and what used to be some pretty spectacular high heels. His window lowered and he said, “Hey, hello.”
    I probably shouldn’t have looked over at him, but I wascurious. And then surprised. He was a nice-looking guy. Quite nice-looking. I kept walking.
    “Hi,” he said, stopping his car a few feet from me.
    I remembered the first time I watched Pretty Woman and smiled to myself. This guy wasn’t Richard Gere, but he did have an aura of wealth, not to mention amazing great wavy hair, a lean, worked-out kind of body, and great, intelligent eyes. “Sorry,” I said, still walking swiftly. I was close enough to the Pantry to yell for help if I had to. “I’m not the kind of girl you’re looking for.”
    “Don’t be so sure,” the guy in the car said, again keeping pace with me, driving slow.
    “Sorry,” I said, noticing his hands on the steering wheel, strong hands, and the dimple in his cheek. “You’re not my type.”
    “I can change,” he offered. Again, the dimple. Now, what was this fairly cool guy with a laid-back sense of humor doing cruising around downtown at this hour? Didn’t he know most of the hookers hung out in Hollywood?
    Ever helpful to handsome tourists, I stopped right outside the Pantry and kept talking. “You know, you should try Santa Monica Boulevard, west of Highland.”
    “Can’t do that,” he said, smiling up at me. “I’m going to take you home.”
    The two guys at the tail end of the waiting customer line outside the Pantry turned to listen to our conversation. As I joined the line, my admirer kept his car idling next to the sidewalk.
    “And what,” I asked, with exaggerated force, perhaps inspired by the fact that I was defending my honor in front of a little audience, “makes you think I would ever put one foot in your car?”
    “Well, I’m making the assumption here that you areMadeline Bean. And if you are, my sister Zenya sent me to take you home. I’ve been driving all over the upper-class-forsaken streets of this city for at least forty minutes just looking for you.”
    I stared at him. “What?”
    “You must be tired. Want to get in and I’ll drive you home?”
    “You’re Zenya’s brother?”
    “All my life.”
    “Prove it.”
    “She’s a sweetheart. She’s blond.”
    He had dark blond hair, cut kind of long. I kept looking at him.
    “You want more? She’s married to a jerk named Bill Knight. I’ve got a cool nephew named Kirby.”
    Ah, well. Look here. I was being minded by Zenya’s brother.
    On the downside, it appeared that my slit skirt hadn’t attracted some adorable, random, night-cruising scum. On the bright side, it appeared I hadn’t been abandoned after all. Zenya wasn’t going to let me wander helplessly in the streets. While that husband of hers might have been out of his gourd with battle-tank fantasies of revenge, still, leave it to Zenya to call her brother and send him out to find me. “What instrument does Kirby play?” I asked.
    “Kirby plays the sax,” the man said, smiling. “Tenor sax. He’s pretty good, too.”
    “Damn. I thought you were trying to buy my favors,” I said.
    The two guys who had been openly eavesdropping were told by the Pantry’s host to move forward, and they went reluctantly in the door and to their table.
    “Want to hop in?” the man asked, gesturing to his passenger seat.
    “I don’t even know your name. What if you are an extremely clever liar?”
    “My name is Dexter Delano Wyatt.” He looked out at me from the window of his neat little Z4. “You are something else, Madeline. I’ve come to rescue you and you won’t let me.”
    Wasn’t that about the story of my life? “Well, you look suspicious,” I said coyly.
    “You are even more paranoid and delusional than the girls I normally date. Which, if you only knew me