It was hot in DC, which is to say it was August. And this in a town built on a swamp that no one wanted anyway. Fortunately for me, my offices aren’t in the Capital (area with an “a” object with an “o”) but on a side street in Alexandria which got spurned by yuppies even before the housing bubble popped like the soap bubble of dreams it was.

Even so, it was damn muggy in my office, and the aging swamp cooler was losing its battle with the thermometer, which was pushing the century mark on the outside and working itself up to it by way of the mid afternoon sun beating against my windows. My shades were drawn, but they were cheap cloth and instead of granting some decent darkness, they glowed like the filaments a lightbulb…the kind that had filaments, and were too hot to touch.

There are other things too hot too touch as well, and the minute she walked into that office I knew she was one of them. Long legs that flowed into stilettos that could stab a man in the heart without ever pricking his skin, a red dress that clung to her body like a drowning man clung to a scrap of wreckage, and sensual lips that had been painted to make the dress seem tame and looked every bit as soft as the blue eyes above them looked hard.

Yeah, she was hot all right, and I’m not talking about the bead of perspiration that glistened just above her lip, begging to be tasted.

Fortunately for me, I’m not a punk kid anymore, waiting for some damsel in distress to wander in so I can save her and win her affections in the process. At least that’s what I kept telling myself, though the beads of sweat that were forming on my brow and the quickening of my pulse as she crossed the room kept making a liar out of me.

I caught the glint off the rock on her ring finger and decided that If she wanted me to find her husband, I’d do it as a public service. Leaving a woman like that untethered was like letting a pit bull run free, or leaving a manhole cover open. Someone was either going to get badly bit or fall in deep enough to break their neck…either way it wouldn’t be pretty. The fan drifted back and forth across the room and a stream of warm air animated the dark curls that drifted down across her face.

And then she spoke, and all judgment fled.