Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle by Pauline Jones (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📕

Tommy didn't ask when he cornered me. He just did. And did it very well.

“Why…thank you, Tommy.” I straightened my cap.

He grinned. “Anytime. Really. The pleasure was all mine.”

“Oh, not all yours,” I assured him. I tested my knees. A pity they were still steady. The boy could kiss. At least I’d learned some new stuff for my book.

Jerome made me work for it. Of course, there was a marriage proposal still on the table between us. I smoothed the desert tan tee shirt wrinkling a bit across one broad shoulder and gave him what I hoped was an inviting look from under my lashes.

“What’s the kiss supposed to prove?” he asked, his voice going husky, but still laden with amusement.

No wonder I liked the boy.

“Well, I figured if we…kissed and then we, well, felt like singing or something, then I…we’d know.”

“Singing? Like a love song?”

“I’m not looking for a dance number here.”

“You’ve been watching too many musicals. Any particular song you got in mind?” Amusement came out into the open in his eyes.

I started to smile, too. “I was thinking of something smoky and edged with jazz, but since you’re a white boy, I won’t hold it against you if you can’t produce.”

He laughed. “You’re something else, Stanley.”

He looked at for me for a moment, then stepped up to the mound, so to speak. His lips settled over mine, pleasant, nice tasting, sweeping away the present, and Kel from my thoughts, carrying me back in time. I was sixteen again and getting my first kiss. The kind of kiss I’d been hoping for from Freddie Frinker and hadn’t gotten. I even got a little wobble in my knees. My leg popped up, because it never had. But it didn’t knock either leg out from under me the way Kel’s kisses did. And there was no music.

Sweet Sixteen didn’t count.

“What now?” Jerome asked, still looking amused and ever so slightly regretful. I guess he could read the writing on my lips as well as the next guy.

“I think we stay friends. It’s the way they do it in all the best musicals,” I said, with a few regrets of my own.

It was a relief, so we kissed on it again, only friendly this time, though Jerome tried to take advantage by stretching it out a bit. I let him because of Freddie and the spit rainbow, then watched him swagger away, wondering if I should have tried a little harder to get that song going in my heart—

“Are you finished? There are a few guys you haven’t kissed yet.”

I really did need to stop meeting Kel like this.

He was several feet away and glaring, but my stupid knees still went soft, just from remembering what it was like to kiss him. There was more going on than hormonal hurrahs, but I wasn’t ready to admit what that might be. There was too much risk, too much possible pain following that path to its natural and logical conclusion. The sun glanced off the burnished brown of his hair, the highlights winking as the wind ruffled the surface. His skin glowed from the fresh air and he had on this truly great coat. He slipped sunglasses over the glare and walked, no stalked, over to me.

I crossed my arms, determined not to feel guilty for conducting what was essentially scientific research. On his behalf. “What do you want now?”

“I want you to look at something.”

Etchings?

“The computer sheets you found.”

Oh, well. Baptist girls weren’t supposed to look at etchings anyway. “Why?”

“There’s some handwriting on one of them that I want you to see if you recognize. Do you mind?”

“No, I don’t mind.”

Despite my agreement, he didn’t move. I shoved my hands, cold now that I was no longer kissing boys, into my coat pockets.

Kel looked around. “So, what’s going on here?”

“Going on?” I slid on my dark glasses, why should all the advantage be his?

“Yeah. All this stuff. The ribbons, bandstand—”

“It’s a rally in support of the troops. And they’re dedicating a pig.”

Kel’s brows arched above the top of his glasses, telling me he was startled. “Pig?”

I pointed at the howitzer. “Pig. It has this military sounding name, but Flynn just calls it the pig.”

“Flynn? Flynn Kenyon?” Kel asked. “He’s involved in this rally of yours?”

“Actually I’m involved in this rally of his, in a very minor way.” I stared at him. He looked tense. “What?”

“Nothing.” He nodded towards his car, parked at the edge of the grass. “Let’s go. I have the papers in my car.”

He took my arm for the walk to his car, but I noticed that several times he looked back at the pig. At the car, he opened the door.

“Get in.”

“Are we leaving?”

“I thought we could look at the papers over lunch. I still owe you one. And you did say you were through kissing every guy that happens to walk by.”

“I didn’t kiss every guy that walked by. Just three of them.” I crossed my arms, feeling kind of Schwarztcoff-ish in my Desert Storm gear. “What about my dog?”

“Your dog?” He looked at Addison, frolicking with some children. “Can’t he stay and play? He won’t fit in my car.”

“We’ve established your car is small, haven’t we?”

He started beating a tattoo with his fingers on the top of the small car. “And your dog is big as a horse. But I think Dobbs and Henderson can take him home.” He signaled to my watch-suits.

“I suppose so, just warn them to keep him away from your car until we leave.”

Kel got kind of immobile. “Why?”

He laid a protective hand on his car.

“He likes to bite off the mirrors.”

“He—why?”

“He’s patriotic and believes people should buy American.”

Kel pulled rank on the suits. We left without Addison and with his side mirrors intact, though it was a near thing. We sped rapidly away from the park, traveling in silence for several blocks before Kel took up the attack again.

“So, did you give Jerome his answer?” He