Deadly Sexy by Beverly Jenkins Read Free Book Online Page A

red flesh and declared, “Reese the Fine could be a keeper, Jess.”
    “Don’t start looking at bridesmaid dresses yet. I may never see him again.”
    “Any man sending you goodies like this—same day, overnight? He’ll show. Don’t worry.”
    JT wiped her hands on some toweling then picked up the vase of callas. “We’ll see. In the meantime, these babies are coming with me.” She carried the gold and ivory beauties into her office and set the vase on the small glass coffee table by the sofa so she could enjoy them to her heart’s content. JT couldn’t remember the last time she’d gotten flowers that weren’t from clients or that she hadn’t purchased for herself. Reese’s face floated into her mind again and she smiled. The truck driving man had definitely scored on this one. Big-time. Where was he? she wondered. She knew better than to read anything into his gift other than the thank-you he’d written on the card, but he was proving to be just as nice as he’d seemed last night, and what woman wouldn’t appreciate that? Feeling even more buoyant than she had at the start of her day, JT floated back to her desk to work.
     
     
     
    Reese’s flight from San Francisco touched down at Detroit Metro Airport at 9 A.M. local time. The long drive in the truck from Texas to California coupled with the predawn flight had left him dead on his feet. Seeing his Pops waiting for him in the baggage claim evoked a tired but affectionate smile. They hadn’t seen each other in a few weeks, and so embraced like the close family they were.
    “How was the flight?” Pops asked while they walked over to the carousel. Tall dark-skinned Richard Anthony was glad to have all of his sons with him again.
    “Long. I had to be at LAX at 4 A.M. to make the six o’clock flight. I want to sleep for a week.”
    “Bryce told me about the call you two had last night.”
    The bags from Reese’s flight were just coming out of the chute and down onto the carousel when they walked up. “Except for that glitch, the engine performed pretty.”
    “Who was the lady?”
    He froze. Seeing the humor and curiosity in his father’s eyes, Reese shook his head. “You’re as nosy as Bryce.”
    “True. Answer the question.”
    Reese lifted the handle on his wheeled bag and pulled it behind him as they walked to the exits and outside to the parking structure. “She had car trouble. I gave her a ride to Oakland. That’s it.”
    “Nothing else?”
    He shrugged and lied. “Nope.”
    Richard Anthony was sixty-three and still a formidable man. If the truth be told, Reese and his brothers were still half afraid of the old man, who back in the day busted chops as a defensive lineman for the Chicago Bears before retiring and founding his trucking firm. When the three of them were young, they did their best not to cross their father. They loved him as much as he loved them, but nobody wanted to go to the woodshed with Pops. Nobody.
    Reese put his bag in the backseat. Once they were ready, Pops drove out of the structure and headed for the freeway. Merging into the traffic, he said easily, “Carl Carlyle called me this morning.”
    “Oh really?” Reese said, hoping he sounded nonchalant and that Carl hadn’t told his father about the cherries. But when he saw the amusement on Pops’s face, he knew he was busted.
    “Sent her cherries, huh, son? Okay, spill it. You know I live vicariously through the three of you.”
    Reese wiped his hands across his face, then smiled. “I’m going to shoot him.”
    “Funny. Same thing Carl said about you. Three in the morning?”
    “Yeah.”
    “She must have been something.” It was a statement, not a question.
    JT’s face rose and filled Reese’s mind’s eye. For a moment he drifted back, then turned to his father and asked, “Do you believe in love at first sight?”
    “Sure. First time I saw your mother, I knew she was the one. Didn’t matter to me that she was the daughter of some elite Chicago