Worth the Trip by Penny McCall Read Free Book Online Page A

had three weeks left to figure it out, and she wanted those weeks. “Have a nice trip. Let me know how it turns out.”

chapter 4
    “MIND IF I TURN ON THE TELEVISION?” TRIP asked Norah that evening.
    They’d had dinner, which had taken less time to eat than to agree on where to order it from since he’d wanted real food, and she’d wanted something without grease, calories, and, apparently, taste. They’d settled on pizza—Chicago-style, of course, since he didn’t get to the city all that often—with a side of antipasto salad which she’d stripped of meat and cheese and ignored the dressing completely.
    Immediately after cleaning the kitchen to within an inch of its life, Norah holed up in her office, and left him to wander the tomblike depths of her house. It didn’t take him long to work his way back to her.
    “Television,” he repeated because she hadn’t looked up from her book, or even acknowledged his presence, and he’d been lurking in the doorway for at least a half hour. “It’s that antique box sitting in your living room—”
    “Parlor. And it’s not antique.”
    “It’s not plasma or flat screen.”
    “Yes,” she said, not looking up but sounding huffy about being interrupted.
    It was just too irresistible—childish, maybe, but irresistible. “Yes, I can turn on the television or yes, you mind?”
    She looked at him over the tops of her glasses, black rimmed, cat’s-eye glasses that gave her face a whole other character, one he found sexy, the way her eyes zeroed in on his, focused and intent, one eyebrow inching up along with the corners of her mouth because he was staring, he realized, and it was no longer comfortable or about poking fun at her because she was being so stuffy. And he’d completely forgotten what they’d been talking about, so instead he rattled around the room, lined with bookshelves that were filled with biographies, textbooks, and reference manuals. No fiction. “What do you read for enjoyment?”
    “Shampoo bottles, road signs, cereal boxes,” she said, poker-faced.
    “Let me guess, wheat germ, granola, and fiber.” He grinned at her. “Lots of fiber.”
    “What’s wrong with fiber?”
    “You’re too young to eat fiber.”
    “No one’s too young to eat fiber.” And she went back to her book, stopping to type a note into her laptop.
    “What are you doing?”
    She sighed and looked at him, taking her glasses off first, to his disappointment. “I’m researching a new book.”
    He circled the room again, checking the titles on the spines of her books, and just as she turned back to work he said, “What’s it about?”
    “Attention deficit. I have a perfect research subject in mind.”
    “There’s nothing to do,” he said.
    “There are eleven other rooms in this house.”
    “I know. I’ve been in them all. I peeked in your closets, snooped in your medicine chests, and poked around in your bedroom.”
    “You forgot to mention my underwear drawer.”
    “I resisted that urge. The house is depressing enough. Getting a look at your unmentionables would kill the last bit of mystery, and if I found white cotton I’d have to shoot myself before I dropped dead from sheer boredom.”
    She smiled. He figured it was the mental picture of him with a bullet hole in his head.
    “Some of those rooms you snooped through have televisions. With cable. No porn channels, but you can probably find some gratuitous nudity. Or maybe a Victoria’s Secret commercial.”
    Trip shrugged. “I’m not really a TV watcher.”
    “What do you do for entertainment?”
    “Solve crimes, catch bad guys, rescue damsels in distress.”
    She opened her desk drawer and rooted around, saying, “I think I saw some kryptonite in here.”
    His grin widened. “No Lois Lane complex?”
    She rolled her eyes. “Go away and let me work.”
    “What do you expect me to do? This house is like a museum. You probably haven’t moved a stick of furniture in fifteen