Double Jeopardy by Bobby Hutchinson Read Free Book Online Page A

dark lashes. His mouth was just full enough to be sensuous; his chin and jaw were strong and cleanly delineated; his teeth, white and even.
    That he had wrinkles made his face interesting instead of just handsome. There were deep laugh lines at the comers of his eyes and mouth, horizontal creases on his forehead; it was obvious that in spite of his profession he hadn’t had any nips or tucks himself. His face looked lived in.
    “I like your drawings. Who did them?” Sera turned to inspect them again, using the movement to try to get comfortable. Didn’t he realize these chairs were back breakers?
    “I did, and thank you. Dana, my office nurse, was scandalized when I hung them. She thought patients would be put off by them, maybe conclude I was making light of their problems. Funnily enough, most patients don’t seem to even notice.”
    “They’re probably too busy thinking about what they want you to fix for them, and wondering how much it’s going to cost and whether it will hurt” And trying to get out of here fast to escape these damnable chairs.
    He laughed. “You’re perceptive. Those are the exact issues that are raised in the first ten minutes of the first visit.”
    “Do you ever get tired of saying the same things all the time?” He made it easy to ask questions, even personal ones. In spite of his chairs, he made her feel comfortable, she supposed because he was so relaxed and easygoing himself.
    “Nope, never. I love my work. It sounds sappy, but I consider it a great privilege to be able to help people feel better about themselves.”
    “I don’t think that’s sappy at all.” She considered it noble, but she was too shy to tell him that. “Voluntarily having bits of me changed is not something I’d ever do. I guess that perfect or not, I like myself fine the way I am.”
    Plastic surgery wasn’t something she’d given a lot of thought to before Gemma’s accident, but she’d seen enough actresses in L.A. change their appearance to know that plastic surgery was the norm these days.
    “ For people who aren’t satisfied with how they look, I think it’s great to have a choice,” she went on. “And for Gemma, of course it’s essential.” The idea of Gemma having to live with the face she had now didn’t bear even thinking about. Sera shuddered. She was afraid her sister would commit suicide if there was no hope of repair.
    “Thanks again.” That affable smile came and went. “And what about you? Do you enjoy your work, Ms. Cardano? What do you do?”
    “Sera, please. With an E, because it’s short for Seraphina.”
    “Seraphina,” he repeated slowly. “That’s unusual. I like it.”
    She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t It makes me feel as if I ought to be wearing a white robe and hauling a harp. Ms. Cardano, on the other hand, tells me I oughta be wearing a striped business suit and carrying a briefcase.”
    He laughed. “Okay, I’ll settle for Sera. My name’s Ben. So if you’re not an angel, I gather you’re not a lawyer, either. No striped suit or briefcase?” He waited as if he had all the time in the world for her to answer his question.
    “Nope, not a lawyer, although my dad would have been thrilled if I’d gone that route,” she said. “I’m a set designer, an assistant set designer at the moment, doing the set for a sitcom. And I’m the same as you, I absolutely love my work.”
    He was obviously interested. “Now, that’s a fascinating job. You must have a lot of artistic ability. You have to draw the set first, don’t you?”
    “Yeah.” Sera nodded. “Then we build a model to scale. The trick is to make sure the set doesn’t look like a set.”
    “And it would have to take on the personality of the lead character, I imagine. If they were showing where the character lived, for instance?”
    “That’s right. Wow, not many people understand that.” Sera was amazed and impressed by his immediate comprehension of some of the subtleties of her