Five's A Crowd Read Online Free

was no possible response to such a question, so Holden ignored it, although he did look at the young woman, deciding to give her the full benefit of the Masters smile. “Take a wrong turn, Pink Lady?”
    She continued to jog in place, her own smile still pasted on her incredibly lovely, disturbingly intelligent face. “Nope. I’m your slave driver, Mr. Masters, here for the duration. Name’s Angel. Taylor Angel. I got here yesterday. So, how do you feel about pain?”
    Sid had sicced a female therapist on him? Was this his idea of a joke? If so, Holden wasn’t laughing. He reached up to stroke his mustache with thumb and forefinger, then remembered that it was gone. “Depends on who is inflicting the pain, I suppose,” he said without inflection, turning the key and pushing open the door. “Right now, I’d say I’m in favor of it—if my agent was within strangling distance. You coming in, or were you thinking of running a marathon before lunch?’
    She shook her head. “Nope, no marathon. I already put in my two miles for the day. Just cooling down, you know,” she said, then jogged past him into the condo, which gave him a mind-boggling vision of long. legs, short shorts and games two interested people could play.
    “Your room is on the top level,” she told him before he could ask. “Mrs. Helper—Thelma—is upstairs, probably baking something sinfully fattening. There’s a dumbwaiter in the garage if you can’t carry your luggage yourself, although you should, as it would be good therapy. Not bad for a quarterback to keep his legs in shape, either. These stairs will comein handy on rainy days, so you don’t have to miss a workout. You need more than bedroom eyes and a killer smile to play in the NFL, you know.”
    Holden decided he hated Taylor Angel. Hated her a lot. Beautiful women were supposed to look great draped on his arm, but keep their mouths shut. This one might have the looks of a Christie Brinkley, but she had the mouth of a Joan Rivers, and he had to beat down an impulse to gag her with her own ponytail.
    “I’ll remember that, Miss Angel,” he said, not bothering to hide his sarcasm, “if I decide to try batting my eyelashes at the defense before airing one out to Bill Evers in the end zone.”
    The sarcasm floated right over her head, or she chose to ignore it. He was pretty sure it was the latter, for this woman wasn’t the least bit dumb. “Evers? Good man, though sometimes he looks like he’s afraid of the ball. When he dropped that pass against Dallas in the play-offs last season, I nearly kicked in the television screen.”
    Oh, good. She thought she knew football. Just what Holden didn’t need. “I never talk shop, Miss Angel,” he told her as he went over to the staircase and looked up, all the way up, to the top floor. Why didn’t Sid book him into a sixth-floor tenement? It probably would have had fewer stairs. “I think I can smell brownies.”
    “Thelma,” Taylor reminded him, looking smug, most probably for his benefit. “Queen of the mix. If she can just add eggs and water, she’s a gourmet baker. But she’s a whiz with roast beef—just ask her. Come on,” she added, turning for the door once more, “let’s get your luggage. I want to see you on my table, so I can get an idea of how much work we have ahead of us.”
    See you on my table. The words stopped Holden in his tracks. “You’re really a physical therapist? Why am I having trouble with this?”
    “Physical therapist and licensed massage therapist, actually. You’ll need more massage probably, according to what Sid told me about your injury,” she responded as she walked outside, so that Holden had no choice except to follow her. “So Uncle Sid really didn’t tell you about me? I wonder why.”
    “Uncle Sid?” Oh, yeah. I’m going to kill that man. “Sid’s your uncle?”
    She stood next to the trunk of the car, waiting for him to open it. “Courtesy uncle, actually. His parents and