‘‘You’re the woman with the schedule. What happens after the awards are given and the dinner is over?’’
‘‘It’s free time, so I suppose everyone will make a break for one of the bars.’’
‘‘That sounds about right.’’ He yawned and stood. ‘‘I’m going to turn in. I flew here directly from Sweden, and my body clock’s still off. May I walk you inside?’’
‘‘Yes. Thanks. You may.’’ Because she was strong and self-reliant, and able to stroll side by side with Rick Wilder without fear.
‘‘What’s the plan for tomorrow night?’’ He headed toward the hotel.
‘‘Mrs. Burstrom doesn’t like me to talk about her plans.’’ She climbed the stairs ahead of him, feeling self-conscious, hoping her knee-length dress covered her thighs. ‘‘She likes the element of surprise, and of course I respect her wishes.’’
‘‘Mrs. Burstrom is quite the character, isn’t she? She’s got Burstrom wound around her little finger.’’
‘‘Just the way it should be.’’ Karen grinned.
They got to the top. He stepped up beside her. ‘‘What’s that? Toward the top of the canyon?’’
She halted and looked, too. A light came on and moved, then stopped and went out. ‘‘It must be campers, although they’re not supposed to be there. Or lost hikers.’’ She lifted her pager, but before she could even speak the spa’s chief of security came hurrying up the path toward them.
‘‘Do you need something, Miss Sonnet?’’ Ethan played his flashlight over Rick.
Rick blinked and brought his hand up to shield his eyes.
Warmth spread through her veins. Ethan had been watching out for her.
‘‘I’m fine, but look.’’ She pointed at the light that had moved a little closer to the spa. ‘‘You’d better send someone up there to investigate.’’
Ethan stared up at the canyon rim. ‘‘Stupid hikers,’’ he muttered. ‘‘I’ll call the sheriff. He’ll take care of it.’’ Before he flipped open his cell phone, he looked into Karen’s eyes. ‘‘Is everything all right with you?’’
‘‘Really, everything’s fine, thank you, Ethan.’’
‘‘Great. Good evening, Mr. Wilder.’’
As they walked away, Ethan stood looking up at the canyon rim, speaking forcefully to the sheriff’s dispatcher.
Rick looked back. ‘‘You really have a lot of security around here. I’ve run into someone every time I’ve been alone.’’
‘‘Have you?’’ She hid a smile.
‘‘Do you have a lot of problems with intruders? ’’
‘‘No, just the occasional lost soul. But this area is still wild. We have bobcats and hawks, and sometimes a cougar wanders through.’’
‘‘Wow. I hadn’t thought of that.’’ He peered around at the trees as if expecting an attack at any moment.
‘‘But we’re perfectly safe. They’re more afraid of us—’’
‘‘—than we are of them,’’ he finished. ‘‘Yeah, yeah, my dad used to tell me that about snakes, but I still hate the big slimy worms.’’
‘‘Me, too.’’ As she walked, she tucked her hands behind her back. Not that she expected him to make a grab for her, but he was tall, and his broad shoulders made her feel crowded on the path.
The hotel came into sight, and Rick said, ‘‘You were telling me about tomorrow night.’’
‘‘No, I wasn’t.’’
‘‘Come on,’’ he coaxed. ‘‘I won’t tell. It’s the last night, so it must be the grand finale. What have you got planned?’’
It was so charming to have a man who was actually interested in what she did. ‘‘There’ll be a buffet in the afternoon, a ball in the evening, and another buffet at midnight. Then everyone leaves the next day, we have a week of regular guests, and it all starts again.’’
‘‘We’re going to have a ball? So there’ll be ballroom dancing? With a live band?’’
‘‘They’re local, called Good Red Rock, and they play songs from the last six decades.’’
‘‘I like to dance.’’
‘‘Really?’’ She raised her brows in disbelief.
‘‘Yep. Women will do anything for a guy who knows how to dance.’’
He made her want to giggle. ‘‘Anything?’’
‘‘Trust me.’’
‘‘So you don’t really like to dance; you merely like to reap the rewards.’’ To her amazement she realized she was flirting. Lightly flirting. With a guy who had sort of reminded her of Warlord.
Maybe this was a sign that she was healing from the horrors of that time in the Himalayas.
‘‘Well . . . yeah. Do I sound like a sinner?’’
He seemed so amused, she didn’t stop to examine the words for hidden meaning. ‘‘You sound like a very smart man to me.’’
‘‘So, my evil plan is working. Tomorrow night would you dance with me?’’
‘‘Yes . . . but for no more reason than the pleasure of the dance. There’ll be no anything between us.’’
‘‘Fair enough. Because by tomorrow night I’ll have entranced you enough for anything.’’
She snorted softly. ‘‘You can hope.’’
‘‘I do.’’ He smiled at her, an open smile, and something inside her relaxed.
Surely if he were Warlord he wouldn’t expose his face so utterly. Surely if he were Warlord she wouldn’t feel so lighthearted. ‘‘They say when a man dances with a woman, all his secrets are revealed.’’
‘‘In that case . . . I’d better try to get more interesting fast.’’
‘‘You don’t think you’re interesting?’’
‘‘I do think I’m interesting.’’ He stopped.
She stopped, too, and looked up at him.
He tapped her nose like an admonishing older brother. ‘‘But I’m a computer nerd. I think binary numbers are interesting.’’
She laughed aloud, and enjoyed the sensation of his hand as he cupped her cheek and rubbed the high point of the bone with his thumb. ‘‘Why does a computer nerd know how to dance?’’
‘‘My parents are immigrants. Dancing is required.’’
She spoke without thought. ‘‘Then I will enjoy myself in your arms.’’
Softly he said, ‘‘That would be the best anything you could give me.’’
Chapter Eighteen
As Karen dressed for the Burstroms’ big dance, she was pleased with herself. For the last three days every event had gone off perfectly. The Burstroms had raved about her to the hotel manager, so much so that they had somehow given him the impression that they intended to offer her a position in their firm.
She foresaw a plump bonus in her immediate future.
The woman she saw in the mirror pleased her, too. Her black knee-length gown was plain, with an asymmetrical neckline and a six-inch slit up the back of the body-hugging skirt. The cap sleeves showed off her toned arms, and she’d done her hair in an upsweep, with blond strands that dangled around the face she had so artfully made up. Not that she didn’t always look her best when she attended these events, but today she glowed.
How could she not? All day Rick had been courting her, not blatantly, not ostentatiously, but with subtle attentions that made her feel special. Flirtatious. For the first time since she’d fled the Himalayas, she could laugh and talk with a man without wondering if captivity and sexual bondage would follow. Yet for all the comfort she felt in Rick’s presence, her senses still hummed. He was dangerous. Not like Warlord, but he was not a man to be lightly dismissed. Any man who successfully ran his own international company had to be dangerous in his way. But she doubted his way involved gunshots, mercenaries, icons, and pacts with the devil.
She opened her jewelry box. She reached for her amber earrings, and instead found herself stroking her slave bracelets with one fingertip.
Oh, they weren’t really slave bracelets anymore. They’d been roughly cut off her wrists. She’d carted them around Europe in the bottom
of her bag for ten months. Then, one day in Amsterdam, she’d stood looking in a gold-working shop at a man who was pounding a sheet of gold with a sledgehammer. And she knew what she wanted to do.
She’d brought back her mangled bracelets. She’d sweetly asked him to let her pound on them. At first he’d been startled, and the two of them had argued in his broken English and her wretched Dutch. Finally he had conceded that the almost-pure gold could be shaped, even by an amateur like her. Standing in that window, she’d pounded both bracelets flat. Each slam of the hammer had made her smile. With vindictive delight she’d pounded into oblivion the marks that proclaimed her a slave. With a little more care she’d worked the panthers into artistic, vaguely amorphous shapes. Then she had smoothed the edges, let him reshape them into bracelets, and tried them on.
They looked fabulous, heavy and gloriously barbaric. She had admired them, taken them off, and never touched them again.
Now she took pleasure in the slick gold surface. Gingerly she lifted them from the box and slipped them around her wrists. She stepped into her black satin pumps with puffy black satin bows, and walked to the full-length mirror.
The dress was chic, the shoes were sexy, and the bracelets were loose, cool against her skin, and breathtaking. She looked the antithesis of a slave.
Without allowing herself a single thought of warning, she caught her turquoise silk wrap and tossed it over her shoulders. She left on the lamp in the sitting area, and walked out the door.
Tonight she would put the past behind her and never look back.
The ballroom was sumptuous, decorated with flowers and silk hangings, and the French doors that lined the patio were open to let in the dry desert air. Inside, sixty people were dressed in their best. She saw sequined cocktail dresses and red chiffon evening gowns, designer tailored suits and formal tuxedos. Champagne and tequila flowed freely, and Good Red Rock played while every single person took to the dance floor.
Texans knew how to party.
But Karen was working, keeping an eye on the waiters who circulated with trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres, drying off a guest who had leaned against the small decorative table and knocked off a large vase full of flowers. She called for staff to pick up the shattered ceramic and the broken flowers and wipe up the spilled water. She pinned up the hem of Mrs. Burstrom’s full-length gown when Mr. Burstrom stomped on it while they danced the Cotton-Eyed Joe.
And all the while on the periphery of her sight, she watched Rick Wilder’s dark head. He talked, he smiled, he danced with female after female. As the ballroom grew warmer he stripped off his jacket and tie. His crisp white shirt and suit trousers showed off his broad shoulders and flat belly, and when he unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves, the corded strength of his tanned forearms made Karen’s mouth grow dry. Packaged like this, he was a gorgeous model of a man.
Yet apparently he never glanced her way. While he held a woman in his arms he was aware of no other. . . . And last night he’d told her the truth: Every one of those women would have done anything for him.
Late in the evening, when the party was running smoothly and she was standing alone behind a ficus, he found her. His gaze swept her approvingly, and lingered on the bracelets. ‘‘You look magnificent.’’
Magnificent. She liked that.
‘‘Would you do me the honor?’’ He held out his hand, palm up.
Old-world elegance in a gorgeous package . . . and a man who observed her astutely enough to know when she was finished with her duties.
For all her suspicions, she had not yet linked him to Warlord, yet to know that he watched her while she was unaware . . .
At her hesitation, his green-and-gold eyes crinkled in amusement.
And that made her realize she needed to make a decision and stick with it. Either he was Warlord or he wasn’t. Last night she’d decided he wasn’t, and nothing had happened that should change her mind.
Overcoming her reluctance, she placed her hand in his and stepped into his embrace.
The band played a swing tune, and he stumbled a little as they started to move to the music.
Definitely not a Warlord move.
Despite the first misstep, Rick led well, keeping up with the lively beat until she was gasping with exertion—and pleasure.
And that did remind her of Warlord.
I promise that before I am done with you, every time you think of pleasure, you’ll think of me.
And she did. Fool that she was, she did.
When the song ended, Rick asked, ‘‘Did you enjoy yourself in my arms?’’
‘‘Very much.’’ She looked down, away from his teasing glance, then up and into his eyes.
He scrutinized her face, her gown, her shoes. ‘‘Beautiful,’’ he breathed.
She was flirting, dragging out every last breath as an enticement, and he responded.
‘‘The next dance is a slow one.’’ He offered his hand again.
‘‘Sure.’’ Take that, memory of Warlord. I’m going to dance twice with the same sexy guy.
She let him pull her close. She put her arms up on his shoulders, his reassuringly broad shoulders, and together they swayed to the music.
This wasn’t Warlord. She would know Warlord by his touch. She would know when he held her like this, their bodies moving together in a rhythm that carried them in slow steps toward intimacy.
Wouldn’t she?
But she couldn’t see Warlord dancing at all, ever. Dancing was such a civilized procedure, and . . .
She had to stop thinking about him. Now.
Rick Wilder was not Warlord, so maybe . . . Rick Wilder was the cure for what ailed her.
She pulled back and smiled up at him, into his reassuringly light eyes. ‘‘Where are you from, Rick?’’
‘‘I was raised in a tiny town in the Cascade Mountains. My parents are foreign immigrants, and they raise grapes for wine, and we’ve got a fruit stand. We’re very organic. Worms don’t dare invade our apples. My father would curse them.’’
‘‘Your parents sound delightful. Any siblings?’’
‘‘Two brothers and one sister.’’ He moved with the music seemingly without thought, leading her confidently. ‘‘What about you? What’s your family like?’’
‘‘I have a stepfather. He raised me, but we’re estranged.’’
‘‘Bummer.’’ Rick cocked his head. ‘‘Or not?’’
‘‘I don’t know. All my life he’s been such an asshole, but I haven’t spoken to him for two years, and I sort of miss him.’’ She blinked in surprise. She didn’t know why she’d said that. She hadn’t even realized she thought such a thing. ‘‘I think he might be lonely.’’
‘‘I know where you’re coming from. My dad is an old-world disciplinarian, and I was always the wild child.’’ Rick offered the information easily, like a man who had no secrets to hide. ‘‘When I was a teenager, I resented his always telling me to do the right thing, but now I’ve done the wrong thing enough to realize that he wanted me to be a good man. When you do the wrong thing often enough, you turn evil.’’
‘‘Evil?’’ That took her aback. ‘‘That’s a harsh word.’’
‘‘That’s what my father would call it. For him there is no gray, only black and white.’’
She supposed immigrants had a different view of life.
‘‘In fact, I’m going on from here to visit them.’’
‘‘A family gathering?’’
‘‘They don’t know I’m coming. I’m going to surprise them.’’ He smiled, but it wasn’t his usual open, easy smile. This one was a little twisted, a little pained.
She probably looked exactly the same when she talked about Jackson Sonnet.
‘‘You should come with me,’’ he said impulsively.
At least, she supposed it was an impulse. ‘‘What? Why?’’
He sighed. ‘‘Because my father’s going to nag at me. I can hear him now. ‘Adrik, you’re almost thirty-three
years old. What? You don’t even have a girlfriend? You should be married. You should have babies.’ ’’
Karen started to laugh.
He watched her glumly. ‘‘Oh, sure. You think it’s funny.’’
‘‘I think you’re grabbing at straws.’’
‘‘But what a lovely straw you are.’’
They smiled at each other in perfect accord.
‘‘So, Adrik is your real name?’’
‘‘A name from the Old Country.’’
On impulse, she said, ‘‘Would you like to walk me to my cottage?’’
‘‘I would like nothing more.’’ He took her hand and pulled her from the dance floor.
‘‘Now?’’ She hadn’t meant now.
He stopped by the doors. ‘‘My darling events coordinator, the guests are headed for the midnight buffet. Mrs. Burstrom is giving us the glad-eye. And if I stay here much longer, I’ll be good for nothing but a bout of loud snoring.’’
‘‘What do you think I want you to do in my cottage?’’
‘‘Have a drink while we whine about our parents.’’
‘‘In that case . . .’’ She took his hand and led him outside.
He made it so easy for her. There was no pressure. She knew she was doing the right thing, using him to flush Warlord out of her mind.
As soon as they stepped off the patio he stopped her and kissed her cheek, then slid his lips along her jawline and down her throat.
People saw them. Women saw them. And the gusting sighs almost blew Karen off her feet.
Yet the kiss was so sweet, so gentle, Karen could do no more than chuckle and run her fingers through the pelt of his dark hair. ‘‘Do you know you just made me the envy of every woman here?’’
He wrapped his arm around her waist and led her down the path toward her cottage. ‘‘No, I just made myself the envy of every man here.’’
In some distant portion of her mind, she realized he was saying exactly the right thing.
But so few men bothered. She had to give him points for that. And points for finding out where her cottage was . . . That made her steps falter.
‘‘How do you know where to go?’’
He looked indignant. ‘‘Do you think after that encounter with the security guard last night, and seeing those lights on the canyon rim, that I would let you walk to your cottage without watching to make sure you got home safely?’’