Callie raised her head as a hand rapped on her office door. "Come—" she started to say, but Todd Waltrip wasn't waiting for her invitation. He breezed into her office with a broad grin on his tanned face and a twinkle in his mischievous blue eyes.
"Well?" he asked as he lowered his trim five-foot-nine frame into a chair in front of her desk and glanced knowingly at the thick white envelope on her desk.
Callie slowly set down her pen, removed her bifocals, picked up her mug of coffee and took a long, prodigious slurp. "I can honestly say, Todd," she replied at length, knowing how hyper and impatient he could be, "I have never read so many 'cocks', 'cunts', 'piss holes', 'pussies', 'tits', 'fucks', 'orgasms', 'cums', 'precums', 'ejaculations', 'fellatios', 'jerk offs', and 'clits' packed into three hundred pages in my life."
She then gave him a dry smile and promptly returned to her work.
Todd sat up a little in the chair, his fingers interwoven between his knees. "Yeah, but did you like it?" he inquired suggestively, with a twitch of his eyebrow. Then, business-like, "Do you think it'll fly with the board?"
Callie sighed. She was already tired and it was only Monday afternoon. But then again, she'd had an enormously exhausting weekend. What she was not going to tell Todd, or anyone else—ever!—was that she'd just spent the entire weekend getting herself off to the first one hundred pages of Nathan Ringer's Western sexcapade,
Boundless on the Brazos
. The whole book was one long orgy of cowboys and whores, speculators and sluts, doing each other from Brownsville to Odessa. One particular chapter in the book had especially riveted her...and stopped her continued reading then and there.
"Todd," she said finally, peering at him through half-open eyelids, "let's just get this over with. I know what this is all about."
He looked a bit confused: dark eyebrows that contrasted nicely with his graying brown hair drew together. "Oh yeah?" he said, glancing at his wrist watch at the same time. "What would that be? Because Nathan Ringer is supposed to be here any minute now to find out what you thought of it."
Callie sighed again and tilted back her head in her chair. She adored Todd Morris; he'd been her friend and boss for over fifteen years. But some times he took these sexual practical jokes towards her just a little too far. There had been the birthday he'd hired the male stripper to not only strip down to a pouch, but lap dance on her as well; and the triple-X rated video he'd played for her during a "training" session. There had been the enormous dildo that had seconded as a vase containing Valentine roses from him. For Christmas one year, he'd given her a coupon for a free massage that Todd had paid the sexy male masseuse to turn into a sex servicing session. And of late, speculating about her sex orientation, there had been the free salon visit that Todd had paid alluring twin sisters to turn into something much more intimate than a manicure and pedicure. All of these "services" she had kindly but firmly declined, although she had let the women do her nails.
She had no reason to doubt that this "manuscript" was just another of Todd's practical jokes, especially given the fact that she was on the verge of her forty-sixth birthday.
But to drag Nathan Ringer into it? Wasn't that going over the top?
Another tap on the office door, and a handsome brunette head with longish bangs and a gamine grin looked around the edge.
"The receptionist said I could come on back," said the lean and somewhat pale man with black-rimmed glasses and deep brown eyes.
Callie's breath caught in her throat. "Mr. Ringer," she managed, rising to her feet and putting out her hand.
With long strides, he came into the office, enfolding her fingers in electrifying warmth. "Miss Dewitt," he said, smiling broadly now to show beautiful white teeth.
"It's Dr. Ringer, actually," Todd corrected under his breath in Callie's direction. Then, to the younger man who was his equal in height, "Hello, Nathan, good to see you again."
Callie watched as the two men—obviously good friends—chatted for a moment, relieved to have a moment to compose herself. She was, of course, a huge fan of Dr. Nathan Ringer's. He was a noted anthropologist and historian, presently serving in some capacity at SMU or Harvard or Duke...perhaps all three. She couldn't quite keep up with the rapidly escalating career of the man several years her junior. Twelve years, to be exact. He was not even at his peak, and already he'd written a score of nonfiction masterpieces. So to even take the novel, however well-written, seriously, was absurd. There was no way he would stake his reputation on a work that was clearly beneath his intellectual capacity.
Suddenly Todd turned to her. "Well look, Callie, I'm going to leave you and Nathan to talk about your impression, as our senior editor, of his book. We'll powwow a bit later in the day, okay?"
With a wink and a smile Todd was gone, leaving Callie to gesture to the chair across from her. She sat back in her own, feeling overwhelmed and unprepared.
"You didn't know about this meeting," Nathan said, rather than asked.
Callie looked back up at him, feeling a flutter in her stomach. God, he was a gorgeous man. Thin, yes, and rather pale and drawn from too much time hunched over books...but she was that way, too. At forty-five, she knew she was in good shape for a woman "her age", which gave her little solace. How she wished she could be one of those sassy middle-aged cougars with the big tits and bleached blonde hair, the kind that twenty-one-year-olds would bang at a moment's notice. But she was a book editor in a small Dallas publishing house, with about as much sex appeal as a bowl of cereal. Despite hours a week in the gym, a careful diet, cosmetics, hair color, and a push up bra for her small breasts, she had accepted that she was years past her "sell date". And right now, she was more than a little aware of the huge gulf between her and Nathan Ringer...between her and any man, for that matter.
