Read Online Finding Jessie: A Mystery Romance by Eve Paludan - Free Book Online Page B

up all winter and they need that leg hair for warmth.”
    She laughed and splashed him a bit as she adjusted herself comfortably in the tub.
    He put the shampoo within reach, handed her a fresh bar of Ivory and a washcloth, and turned to leave the room before she saw how excited he was getting. He could feel himself rising, a fifty-seven-year-old man, without touching himself. Again, just the sight of her had him worked up to a near froth. He remembered that those parts had not worked reliably for quite a long time before he’d met her.
    “Sam,” she called, “would you come back in about twenty minutes and help me wash my hair? Please? Then I promise I won’t bother you for the rest of the day.”
    “S-sure,” he spluttered. “You can bother me anytime.” He nearly fled from the bathroom, feeling foolish for what he had just said.
    He heard her splashing about in the bath, even humming and breaking into song.
    Instead of puttering about the house, he stood outside the bathroom door, listening to her sing.
    When she finally called to him to come in the bathroom about twenty minutes later, he entered with a bottle of hair detangler and a Roseville pitcher from the kitchen. “This detangler is really for people hair, but I buy it for the cats’ fur.”
    “You bathe your cats?”
    He chuckled. “In this very tub. When you have two boy cats, you’ve got to bathe them and comb them once in a while, or the whole house will smell like cats and there’s a chance that everyone will wake up with fleas some cold morning when you are all lumped together in the bed!”
    She laughed. “How do the Twins take to the bath ritual?”
    “They struggled as kittens, but after two years, they suffer their baths with great indignant expressions and only the occasional claw mark administered to their poor, innocent bather.”
    She laughed, and then held out both arms. “Look Sam, I wanted to show you that my arm feels a lot better. I can move it about halfway to normal.”
    He breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m glad. You’re getting better a lot faster than I did when I hurt my shoulder.”
    He filled the pitcher with clean hot water from the tap and tested the temperature with his fingers. “I think that should be satisfactory.”
    “Ready?” he asked.
    She nodded and he gently poured the water over her head, and then two more pitchers and when her long red hair was all wet, she looked like a Disney mermaid.
    He poured shampoo into his hand and lathered it through her hair, starting at the crown and going all the way to the ends. She moaned a little and asked him to massage her scalp some more. He did do.
    “Sam, you are so kind to do this for me.”
    “You’re welcome.” He hesitated. “I’ve never washed a woman’s hair before. Am I doing it right?”
    She closed her eyes and said, “Trust me, Sam. You’re doing it right. I hope I can raise my arm all the way soon, so I don’t keep having to ask you.” He saw her nipples, which were a bit above the waterline.
    His groin tightened even more and it was hard not to groan just for the want of her. He tried not to look at her body, but his eyes just couldn’t stop feasting on Jessie. She was exquisite in every physical measure.
    At last, her hair was shampooed and rinsed and he helped her out of the bathtub and onto a towel-covered chair, and then wrapped a soft pink terry robe around her.
    “This is brand new. Where did it come from?”

“Mrs. Foster, from next door, brought it over for you.”
    “The lady in curlers who yelled at us to get a room?”
    “The very same. Maeve Foster pretends to be a gruff old woman, but in truth, I think she likes me quite a lot. She saw me carry you in, the day I brought you home from the hospital. You probably don’t remember, but she came over that morning with some Irish oatmeal for you and this robe, which her son bought for her but it was too small and so now she re-gifted it. Maeve is a retired nurse and she showed me how