Free Desperate Measures by Linda Cajio

problem.”
    Mario would survive the spice fiasco, Joe thought as he headed for his cousin’s office. Just barely would Mario survive this.
    Fortunately for his treacherous cousin, Joe was now in a very good mood.
    Ellen had called.
    She still couldn’t believe she had done it.
    Ellen again gazed around the Palace Casino, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Joe’s smile of pure pleasure. She battled back a wave of anxiety, thinking of how quickly she’d lost herinternal struggle over him. After a long drive to nowhere that afternoon, she had really thought she’d brought all her frustration under control. She had done a lot of soul-searching … and remembering. And she’d been quite relaxed returning up the long driveway to her grandmother’s fieldstone mansion. Until she stepped out of the car. Before she knew it, she was in the kitchen, dialing as if she were a madwoman. Maybe she was. What her grandmother had had to say about a second, even more sudden, trip to Atlantic City was unrepeatable.
    Ellen resisted the urge to giggle. Poor Lettice.
    She sobered when someone jostled her against Joe. An overwhelming urge to melt into his hard warmth rose in her, and she fought against it, finally straightening.
    “Sorry,” she muttered.
    Joe dipped his head, but didn’t look her way. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or hurt that he had no reaction to her closeness. Neither way helped her current dilemma.
    The problem really wasn’t that she had made the call, she acknowledged. Any concerned person would have, especially after meeting innocent Uncle Thomas. But one little suggestion of further help, and she had thrown herself right into it again. If Joe had declined her new offer, she probably would have rushed down to his office and pinned him to his desk until he’d agreed.
    Suddenly her brain conjured a vivid image of her and Joe utilizing the desktop in quite a different fashion. His hands skimming over her body …
    “Help me, Lord,” she muttered under her breath, as she desperately erased the mental picture.
    “Beg pardon?” Joe asked.
    “I suppose we should start looking around,” she said, putting on a bright smile. What was it about Joe that made her forget everything?
    Joe frowned at her. “For wha— Oh, for Mario and the man, you mean.”
    She nodded, wondering where his brain was. Not with hers, she hoped. Slipping gratefully into the role of spy once again, she asked, “Got any impulses, Robinson?”
    He grinned at her, and she instantly felt the heat rise to her cheeks.
    “For finding two men this time,” she clarified, glaring at him.
    “Just wander around and look,” he said.
    “We could always try another page.”
    He laughed. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? I don’t think Mario would fall for it twice, do you?”
    “Probably not.”
    “Well, we’d better look around.”
    As they made their way past the various gambling tables. Ellen tried not to notice Joe’s fingers casually wrapped around her elbow. It was a simple gesture of male courtesy. And it also was igniting her attraction to Joe to a new high, for his hand brushed the side of her breast once, twice, three times through her silk blouse. Her breasts ached, and her mind traitorously dredged up more images of his strong fingers igniting more than attraction within her. Her heart reveled in the knowledge that they were alone.…
    Ellen gritted her teeth and forced herself to putmore space between them. She was in big trouble if she thought that wandering through a mobbed casino was “alone.” She must be nuts. Where, she wondered frantically, was her common sense? Probably out to lunch with the rest of her brain. She had to get a grip on herself. She knew more than most the unexpected ways life could hurt. She couldn’t pay the price again. She wouldn’t survive it.
    She decided to quit torturing herself. Okay, so she’d made a little mistake. Now that she was here, she ought to forget it and just