The Naughty List Bundle - Kylie Adams [125]
“They’re very sweet.”
He gave her an incredulous look. “Uh-huh. You go right on wearing those rose-colored glasses, sweetheart.”
She gasped at him in disapproval. “You’re such a cynic. They’re very nice men who are working hard for you. I’d think you’d appreciate that a little.”
Morgan led her into his office, which had once been the dining room. It had a large white stone fireplace, now filled with lush ferns instead of burning logs. He’d had the arched doorway framed and fitted so he could close the door for privacy. He’d never needed or wanted that privacy more than now.
He propped his shoulders against the mantel. “Jesse was picked up for fighting two weekends ago. He broke two pool sticks and several lights after a man accused him of cheating at a game. Jesse wouldn’t cheat, but he does have a terrible temper.”
Misty stared at him in blank surprise.
“Now Howard, he’s cooler than that. You won’t catch him causing a brawl.”
“You’re dying to tell me, so spit it out.” She mimicked his stance, leaning against the opposite wall.
Grinning, Morgan said, “He slipped into the theater without paying—five times in a row. He loves the movies, but says the prices have gotten too high. Arnold kept kicking him out and Howard kept creeping back in. No one would have known, but during the last movie, he tried stealing a bite of popcorn from the woman sitting next to him.”
“And she complained over that?”
Morgan winked at her. “The woman was Marsha Werner, and he’d recently broken off a relationship with her and was, I imagine, trying to worm his way back into her good graces. She wasn’t impressed, so she raised a ruckus and I finally had to arrest him. But it was Marsha who came and bailed him out, so who knows what’s happening there?”
Misty tried to stifle a smile. “It’s a little hard to imagine him in a relationship.”
“That’s only because you haven’t met Marsha. Things soured between them when she wanted to get married, but they were a good couple, like the best grandma and grandpa you’d ever met.” Morgan watched her smile widen and added, “Marsha’s real fond of the movies, too, but as she continually explains to me in rather loud tones, she’s an upstanding citizen and she pays for her entertainment.”
Misty lost control of her twitching smile and laughed out loud. Morgan watched her, seeing the way the heat and humidity outside had made her shirt stick to her breasts. She’d smell all warm and womanly now if he could just get close enough to her to nuzzle her soft skin.
“So what kind of sentence did each of them get?”
He held her gaze and murmured, “Community work. That’s why they’re fixing the yard. I bought the bushes and they agreed to do the work. In addition, of course, Jesse had to promise to stay out of the pool hall for a month, and Howard had to pay for the movies he’d seen.”
“Ah. They considered that a terrible punishment?”
“Not the yard work, but the other, yeah. With any luck, it’ll make an impression this time. But I hate to see them in any real trouble. They’re both pushing seventy, and even though they get around well enough to get into mischief, they don’t mean any real harm. I think they’re just lonely and a little bored, more than anything else.”
She twisted her mouth in a near grimace, then asked, “When you arrested them…”
“No, I didn’t handcuff them,” he answered gently, able to read her train of thought. It hurt him to see her so hesitant, to know that her own memories ate at her. He’d fix things for her one way or another, he vowed. “I didn’t stick them in back of the Bronco, either. They both rode up front with me. That way, I could give them a stern talking-to during the ride. They hate that.”
Misty smiled at him for a nearly endless moment, then turned up her can of soda and finished it off. She set the can on his desk. “I’m impressed, Morgan.”
“With what?”
“Your compassion. And the fact that you obviously have a soft side, which you hide pretty well, by the way.”
He wasn’t at all sure he wanted her noticing his soft side, not that he had one, anyway. He frowned at