Ladies' Man

Ellen Layne knew it was a mistake to leave the house without a book.

But her uncle Bob had insisted there wouldn't be a single moment of downtime all evening-a quick trip in the limo to Kennedy Airport, intercept Great-Aunt Alma as she began her three-hour stopover before her flight to London, dinner at one of the airport restaurants, then back home after tucking Alma safely on the red-eye to England.

They would watch the tape of last night's show on the VCR in the stretch limousine, he'd told her. And even though Ellen had already watched her legendary uncle's late night talk show when it aired, she knew he wouldn't appreciate her reading while his face was on the screen.

Bob Osborne, the king of late night television, was good at an awful lot of things, but being ignored wasn't on the list.

So now here she was, in Kennedy Airport, waiting for a flight from Chicago that had been delayed for an hour, with nothing whatsoever to read.

It was something of a fluke that they were even here. Bob was supposed to be in Boston preparing for next week's broadcast of his show from Faneuil Hall, and Ellen had an acting class that usually ran from six to nine. So Bob had made arrangements for someone else to meet Alma's plane. But then her acting coach had gotten cast in a local film and the class had been canceled, and Bob had been called back to New York this afternoon for a meeting with his network's executives, so here they were.

And Ellen was here without a book.

Bob was happy as a little clam, interrogating the security guards who X-rayed the carry-on luggage and ran metal detectors over people who set the walk-through gates abuzz. His team of bodyguards-who doubled as both built-in audience and straight men-hovered nearby.

Ellen had escaped and now headed for one of the airport newsstands, hoping they would have something that she hadn't yet read.

There was a book rack that held all of the New York Times bestsellers and then some, but what really caught her eye was the young man standing in front of it.

From the back he was a living, breathing advertisement for Buns of Steel. He was wearing softly faded blue jeans with a white button-down shirt tucked into the waist. His shirtsleeves were rolled up and his sport jacket hung casually over one shoulder.

His hair was blond and thick and wavy, and longish in the back, spilling over his collar. It was the kind of hair that was meant to be touched.

Ellen stood next to him and, gazing up at the rows of books, risked a sidelong glance.

He was even better looking from the front.