The little refrigerator that had been filled with snacks and sodas the previous night was empty when Fortune opened it the next morning. So was the parlor car. So was the king-size bed. She had the odd feeling that the previous day and night had all been a dream. Now she’d woken up to the truth.
Until she went into the bathroom.
Her lace panties and T-shirt had been moved from the side of the tub. They’d been laid carefully across the towel rack.
Beads of water still hung on the tiled shower wall, and a rumpled towel lay across the edge of the tub. Hunter had taken a shower. He’d probably walked around in his briefs, and she’d slept through it.
Fortune’s face burned with the thought of his discovering her lacy underwear. She’d intended to wake first and put her laundry away.
“Fortune? Are you dressed?”
Hunter’s footsteps sounded in the parlor car.
“Yes,” she said quickly, stuffing the panties under her tank top, “but I’m starving. What happened to the snacks?”
“Oh, I knew you’d want to take them, so I went out and got a small cooler. They’re already packed. They don’t have tickets to the trains anymore, so I got our bill stamped too.”
“You took everything?”
“Yep. I thought I’d save you the trouble. Panther, Inc., can afford it. You ready for coffee?”
He’d brought coffee and sweet rolls from the hotel lobby. He laid it out on the table in front of the couch and motioned for Fortune to sit beside him as he spread out the maps and leaned forward. She began to relax. He wasn’t paying any attention to her. He wasn’t going to mention the underwear.
And he’d packed all the snacks.
Fortune suddenly felt good. He didn’t understand her need to store the leftover food, but he’d done it anyway. And he hadn’t teased her. She couldn’t explain the quiet feeling of comfort that his actions had caused.
Plopping down beside him, Fortune didn’t try to ignore the ever-present tingle that announced its presence as their thighs touched. He didn’t seem to notice. It had to be her, and a response that was eroding her nerve endings with every touch. He simply spread his legs and leaned closer to the table. Fortune swallowed her breakfast without tasting it. For the first time in her life she drank an entire cup of black coffee without flinching.
The cowboy was wearing his snakeskin boots and his jeans, but he’d left off the leather, and the olive-drab T-shirt was fresh. She wondered what he’d done with his dirty clothes. She might have offered to rinse them out, but that would bring up a discussion of her underwear, the underwear she’d stuffed under her shirt when she’d heard his voice.
He’d combed his blond hair back away from his forehead. As it dried, it fell boyishly forward across his face. She couldn’t resist the impulse and stretched her left hand out to push it back, caught herself, and for a moment her hand floated uncertainly, before she dropped it to the map, searching for some comment to justify its presence.
“Uh, Hunter, which way are we going?”
“What?” Hunter suddenly leaned back and turned, trapping the hand holding her sweet roll against the back of the couch. She rocked off balance and fell against him. “Well, now,” he said in surprise.
Fortune stiffened. She couldn’t move. Somebody had got out the hammer again, except this time it wasn’t nails holding her in place, it was invisible wires of magnetic energy.
With one swift motion Hunter slid his left arm under her bottom and turned her so that she was sitting in his lap with her map arm around his neck.
His blue eyes probed her dark ones.
“No,” she whispered, as his head moved down.
“I think yes,” he said as his lips found hers.
Holy hell, he was kissing her. His mouth was slanting possessively across hers, slowly, too slowly, as if he were deliberately trying to drive her crazy. He was assaulting every inch of her mouth desperately, as if he were a thirsty man who’d found a pool of water in the desert. He leaned back against the sofa. She went with him, melting against him, the heat of his touch dissolving her very bones.
There was a moaning sound. It might have been Fortune, or it could have been Hunter. There was no defining the sound, no holding back, no resistance to the raging fire between them. The parlor car seemed suddenly to sing, and their bodies took up the humming motion as though the rail car had started to move on its tracks. Fortune was moving. Hunter was moving beneath her. She could feel his burgeoning hardness throbbing against her bottom. Deeper and deeper the kiss went and the heat built, hands withdrew and forged into new areas until their skin was bare. They sizzled where they were touched.
Hunter twisted around and pressed Fortune against the seat of the couch, moving over her in a motion that stopped abruptly as he yelped and froze in place.
“Ohhhh, damn!”
Fortune blinked, suddenly aware of her surroundings, of Hunter, who was pressing her into the cushions beneath her body.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Damn! Just be still for a minute.” He rested his head against her cheek and took several shallow breaths. “Sorry, wild woman.” His voice was hoarse, not from the depths of passion but from pain.
“I know,” she teased, trying to gather her senses and cover her disappointment. “The spirit’s willing, it’s the body that’s saying no. I think that I probably should thank your body.”
“Somehow,” he said with a gasp, “I don’t think either of us would be honest if we did. And I never did believe in paying lip service to a lie.”
With his arms he forced himself up sufficiently so that he could grasp the back of the couch. From there he was able to stand. Now he was pressing both his hands against his back.
Fortune shivered. Her tank top was around her neck, her exposed breasts aroused and throbbing. But it was Hunter who was in real agony. Quickly, she pulled her shirt down and stood up. Ignoring the obvious evidence of Hunter’s desire, she moved behind him. “Get down flat on the floor, Hunter.”
“Sorry, wild woman, if I get down, I may not get up again, and as much as I’d like to oblige you, I don’t think I can handle it now.”
“Lie on your stomach, cowboy. I’m going to work out those spasms. It’s obvious that you haven’t made any sudden moves lately.”
Because he didn’t argue, she knew how badly he was hurting. He knelt and stretched forward, grimacing as he lay down. “So, I’m out of practice. Does it show?” he quipped.
“Not this morning, but I got a good look last night when you went to sleep in the tub, remember? You gave new meaning to the phrase ‘rise and shine.’ ”
She began to work her hands up and down his spine.
“Ah, yes. Well, there are ways of gaining respect and there are ways. A prune-shrunken body in a tub is not the best reference for a man, wild woman,” he managed to say, biting back a grimace.
“There was nothing shrunken about you a minute ago. As for prunes—hmm—I seem to remember I was eating a prune Danish when we got—uh—when you attempted to ravish me.”
“You mean when you threw yourself at my poor body?”
“I did not throw myself, I was propelled. All I was trying to do was—” run my fingers through your hair, she almost said. Instead she said, “find our place on the map.”
“I think that’s what I’ve been trying to do for a long time, my lady with the magic hands, ‘find my place on the map.’ ” Hunter let out a deep sigh and gave himself over to Fortune’s ministrations. This time he let go completely, swimming in the gentle sensation of her touch, letting go any thought of control or conflict.
There was a harmony between the slow pulsing of the blood in his veins and the easy, quiet sound of her breathing. Tension drained out of his pores in a rush of heat, replaced by a sense of belonging that was strong and complete. Two people, their auras enveloped one with the other.
Fortune Dagosta was healing his body with her touch.
“We’re on a sandy beach,” Fortune was saying softly. “Remove every thought from your mind. Listen. Feel. The ocean is lapping gently on the shore. The sun is warm on our bodies. We’re alone without a care in the world. Just you and me.”
There was a long silence. “Listen to the water, Hunter, you can hear its voice. You can feel its warm touch, starting with your feet. Like the light of the sun, it moves up your body, warming it. Do you feel it? The light has reached the back of your knees. Your thighs. Your bottom. Your back. It’s loosening, stretching. All the pain is being carried away by the water. The heat of the sun is bringing peace. The pain is gone.”
She leaned back on her heels and waited.
Slowly, Hunter turned over and stared at her.
“What are you, Fortune Dagosta?”
“I’m nobody special, just a person who helps people.”
Hunter was swimming in the emotion of the moment. For all his life he’d pushed people away, refused to allow anyone to get close. He hadn’t needed anybody and didn’t want that to be altered. Now, in the space of two days, everything had changed. He didn’t know how it had happened, and it scared the hell out of him.
Confusion warred with the peace Fortune had wrought with her hands. Yet he wasn’t ready to push away the peace, for the confusion was not born of anger but of something more powerful. Not just desire, but certainly desire was inborn in the feeling. Yet desire met compassion. Fear met … what emotion was he sorting out of this honesty? Love? No, Hunter Kincaid had spent his life avoiding love.
Fortune had given a little part of herself to him. But she gave little pieces of herself to anybody that needed it. If she were his, he’d stop that. If he ever fell in love, he’d want it all. He was selfish that way.
Anybody who shared his life had to close out everybody else. No runaways, no strays, no men with injuries to be nursed. He’d demand an equally selfish woman, a hard woman. And this five-foot dynamo who shopped at Goodwill might shoot sparks of fire at anybody who thwarted her, but she wasn’t hard enough to ride with him. Even if he wanted her to, even if he could visualize that firm body beneath his without closing his eyes. He pushed away that thought. He had to break the spell.
“Apparently, I can’t do much to stop you, wild woman,” he said, and feigned a suggestive smile, “so if you’d like to have your way with me before the maids arrive, I think you’d better hurry. I’ve already checked us out.”
Fortune’s eyes widened.
The moment was spoiled. Their connection dissolved. She wanted to hit him. Every time his tenderness slipped out, he jerked it back with a vengeance and said something to drive her away. Another minute and she’d have forgotten about protection and gathered up the cowboy’s little secret hurts and loved them away.
But he’d spoiled it, turned it into some little quickie on the bedroom floor. She stood up, letting the disappointment she felt sweep over her. He simply stared at her in return, his eyes as wide and open as a summer sky. Then she understood. He wasn’t ready to be had—not like that. He was challenging her, closing her off in the only way he knew how, by reducing what he felt to pure sex.
Well, it wasn’t going to work, not anymore. She’d learned his secret. He was looking for his place, just as she’d been. He just didn’t know that he’d found it. She held out her hand. “Thanks, cowboy, but when I have my way with you, it’ll be when you’re as emotionally involved as I am—and prepared, which I’m not.”
Hunter took her hand and came slowly to his feet. The pain in his back was gone, but his legs were weak and there was an ache in his middle that wasn’t sexual. The feeling wasn’t painful. On the contrary, it was oddly comforting.
Hunter busied himself refolding the maps. Fortune dressed, rescued her Danish from the back of the couch, and followed Hunter when he started out the door. At the parking area she snapped on her helmet and slid onto the back of the cycle. It was spotted with dried raindrops from a shower during the night, its fine coat soiled and worn, like her, like Hunter.
She touched the machine, feeling the warmth it had already absorbed from the morning sun. It didn’t look quite so menacing. In fact, she was beginning to enjoy riding it.
Hunter started to get on, stopped, and extended his closed hand. “Here, you may need these.” He opened his fist and revealed her lace panties, the ones she’d tucked beneath her shirt. They unfolded, draping over the edges of his big hand like the petals of a flower.
“I like the lace,” he said, and planted a quick kiss on her startled lips as he swung his leg over the machine and started the engine. “White seems to be a contradiction to the pointed hair and bare feet, wild woman.”
Fortune didn’t answer. He was wrong, but she didn’t know how to say it.
Hunter drove away from the Choo-Choo and found the freeway. He was sorry he’d said anything about the panties. He’d been sorrier that he’d found them. When he had walked into the bathroom to shower and had discovered them hanging so innocently on the tub, he’d been shocked. Their white lace seemed to be such a contrast to the fiery woman who wore them. He’d have expected red, or black, not bridal white.
It wasn’t until they were on the outskirts of town that he remembered what Fortune had said about being prepared. He made a note to take care of that problem at their next stop. Hunter considered himself laid-back and easygoing. Few things bothered him, but there were some things he didn’t take chances on. For he was past telling himself that he and Fortune weren’t going to make love. He knew they were. It was just a matter of when.
“This is the one bad thing about riding a motorcycle—rain.” Hunter rolled the bike off the apron on the freeway and sat beside Fortune on the slanting concrete abatement beneath the overhead highway.
“How long do you think it’ll last?” she asked, rubbing her arms against the chill.
They were within an hour of the Bear Trap outside Nashville when the heavens opened up. The shower cooled both the air and Fortune’s bare arms as they waited. Great drops of rain were hurtling down, plopping with such force, they bounced off the pavement and fell a second time.
“These spring showers don’t usually last long.”
“What would we do if we had two or three days of rain?”
“We’d either have to drive very slow and get very wet, or we’d lose. Here, put this on.” He stood with surprising ease and walked over to the cycle, where he pulled her blue shirt out of the saddlebags and draped it around her shoulders. “I don’t think I can stand here and look at you.”
She glanced down at her tank top and wished she’d replaced it with the T-shirt. She’d never thought much about what she wore. Her body was simply a part of her, and if looking at it brought somebody pleasure, so be it. But Hunter wasn’t just anybody, and the pleasure took hold and made her aware of herself as she’d never been before.
“We might as well eat while we’re stopped.” Hunter took the small red-and-white cooler, opened it, and set it between them.
She slid her arms into the shirt and nodded.
“Cola, milk, or fruit juice?”
“Is there a sandwich?”
“Ham and cheese or roast beef. Which?”
“I’ll take milk and roast beef.”
Hunter handed her the food and carton of milk. He opened his travel guide and studied the map as he ripped the paper from his sandwich. “Damn!”
“What’s wrong?”
“What day of the week is it?”
“Saturday, why?”
“Minnie Pearl’s hat. How are we going to get it?”
Fortune frowned at him. “I don’t know—we’ll ask her for it, offer to buy it, steal it if we have to. What’s wrong?”
“According to the guide, these other stars have some kind of gift shop or museum where they spend some time—except her. The only way we’re going to get to her is at the Grand Ole Opry.”
“So?”
“The Grand Ole Opry only takes place on Saturday night.”
“So—” Fortune cut herself off. It was Saturday. They’d planned to get the postman bear first, on the chance that he was delivering a message they’d need. “If we go to the Bear Trap first, we might not get back in time to make the Opry. If we go to the Opry first, we could miss an important clue.”
“And if this rain keeps up, we might not get to either one,” Hunter said glumly.
“And we only have one Saturday night.”
“Yeah, that makes everything a bit tight, doesn’t it? If everybody has the same clue. Wonder how many hats Minnie has?”
Fortune swallowed the last of her sandwich, dug around in the cooler for the crackers she’d swiped, and ate them. “Well, I guess that means we’ll just have to get wet,” she said, stowing her paper in the trash bag and brushing off her hands. “I’m ready when you are.”
“I know you’re willing, wild woman, but we’ll wait. I’ve already had one accident, I don’t want to take a chance on having another, not with you along.”
“Cowboy, if you were alone, would you go?”
“Probably, but I’m not alone.” He leaned back on the slanting concrete and put his hands behind his head, as if he were going to take a nap.
“Hunter Kincaid, you get up. I insist that we leave now! I refuse to lose this scavenger hunt.”
“Why don’t you get the camera and take my picture. Get the rain in the background. If we lose by a few hours, I want to show the officials that it was because of an act of God.”
“Do you think they’d accept that?”
“Nope, but it will give you something to do while we’re waiting.”
“I don’t want to take pictures. I don’t want to sit and wait. I want—”
“I want—I want—Come here, Fortune.”
Hunter’s eyes were closed. He wasn’t watching. He wasn’t arguing or paying any attention to her tirade.
“Sit down and talk to me. Tell me about your father.”
“My father?” she asked suspiciously. “Why should I do that?”
“Why do you hate him so?”
“I don’t. Or I didn’t. He wasn’t worth that much energy. I hated what he did to my mother.”
“What did he do?”
“He worked her to death. At least that’s what I thought. But I was a little girl, and a child’s picture of things is sometimes distorted. She died when I was six, remember. After that he sent me to live with his mother.”
“And your father? Where’d he live?”
“I don’t know. He wandered in and out, until my grandmother died. Then he came back to claim what she’d saved.”
“How old were you then?”
“I was sixteen.”
Hunter opened his eyes and held out his hand. “I left home when I was sixteen too.”
Fortune allowed him to pull her down beside him. “Not for the same reason, I’ll bet.”
For Hunter, Fortune’s voice said it all.
“Did he—do something to you?”
“No—no, but he would have, sooner or later.” Her answer was strained, and this time it was Hunter who shared Fortune’s pain.
“You’re right. I didn’t leave for the same reason,” he said, pulling her into the curve of his arm, gathering her to him, comforting her. “But there are other ways to be hurt. There’s greed, fear, and there’s the secret, terrible kind of love that damages people in the name of doing good.”
“Does this have anything to do with a little boy smelling his dad’s cigar smoke on the back porch, cowboy?”
“Yes, the memory and the man. Sometimes I have a hard time remembering what my father looked like. He stole that from me.”
Hunter wasn’t talking about his father anymore, but the man who’d adopted him.
“Why did your mother marry him, Hunter?”
“She thought that it was best for me, to give me a home and a father. At least that’s what I always believed.”
“And now are you having second thoughts?”
“I don’t know. The man’s a mystery. He never gives up. He just keeps on trying to make me a part of his world.”
“Could it be that he cares about you, cowboy?”
“I can’t imagine why. I don’t understand why my mother is his champion. His children too. Julie and Penny seem to really respect the man. And my brother, Robert, does also, when he isn’t going through the normal sixteen-year-old rebellion.”
“The same kind of rebellion you went through?”
Fortune liked the feel of being close to Hunter. She liked the manly smell of him, mixed with the heat of the earth and the cool breeze that accompanied the spring rain. There were cars whizzing past not fifteen feet away, and yet they seemed hidden as the two of them lay back against the concrete.
“Maybe, but I ran away from home. Robert’s still there. I guess I have to be honest and admit that says something about Robert.”
“Or maybe about Hale?” Fortune asked softly.
“I don’t know. I’ve spent some time thinking about that recently. I don’t understand. After all these years a normal man would have given up. Hale still thinks I’m going to take my place in Kincaid Industries.”
“You call him by his first name?”
“In my kinder moods.”
“Yet something tells me that you’re not entirely convinced he’s the demon you believe.”
“It’s just that he keeps on trying to play the game. The man came to the hospital when I was hurt. He didn’t tell me, but the nurses said he didn’t leave until I came out of surgery and he was sure I’d be all right.”
“Doesn’t that tell you something?”
Hunter’s fingertips were digging into Fortune’s arm. She didn’t have to be told that he was revealing more than he’d meant to.
“All it says is that he was keeping up the image of the Kincaid name. My mother wanted me to be safe, and he saw to it that I was taken care of properly. When the hospital was ready to release me, he paid the bill and sent the limo to pick me up and bring me home.”
“And that bothers you, his paying the bill.”
“No, it took every penny I’d saved, but I paid him back.”
“What were you saving for?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Oh.” But it did matter. He’d spent every penny he’d saved repaying his adoptive father. She didn’t know what he’d planned to do with his savings, but that explained why he wanted the prize money. Fortune digested the information and felt a chill ripple over her, a chill that had nothing to do with the rain.
Rain? She sat up. The rain had stopped.
“Hunter, the rain has stopped. The sky is clearing. We can go.”
Everything was becoming clearer, she decided, everything but the reason why he wanted the prize money. And she’d been trying to find a way to claim all of it.
“Well, wild woman, which will it be first, the bear or the hat?”
Fortune thought for a long minute. “The bear. There’s something about that clue that intrigues me. If we don’t get to the Opry, we’ll find another way to reach Minnie.”
The Bear Trap was busy, very busy. Fortune and Hunter looked at each other with surprise until they went into the shop and heard the sound of music. At the back of the store was a small stage where a band was playing. The man sitting on a stool was singing about the streets of Baltimore, and the crowd of onlookers were listening with rapt attention.
“Bobby’s singing,” the clerk said, “if you’d like to listen for a while before you look around.”
“Uh, no thanks,” Fortune said quickly. “We’re looking for a postman bear. Would you have one in stock?”
The clerk smiled and nodded. “Sure do, right this way. There was a shelf of furry bears of all occupations—postmen, firemen, policemen. But the clerk went to the end of the counter, where there was a section of bears beneath a glass shelf. “Which one you want, hon?”
Fortune looked at Hunter, who nodded for her to choose. She picked a small tan bear with bright button eyes and a summer postman’s uniform with short pants. She quickly turned him around and examined his mailbag. Sure enough, in his mailbag there was a letter, a real letter addressed “To any person who has an imagination.”
“Do they all have letters?” Hunter asked.
“The ones in this case do,” the clerk answered. “They’re special stock, not to be sold unless a person specifically asked for a postman bear.”
“Open it, wild woman.”
“Wait a minute, sir, you have to buy the bear first.”
Hunter took a clip of money from his pocket and paid the woman as Fortune tore into the envelope.
“We’re invited to a ball, Hunter, a charity ball for the children’s hospital. I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I. Let’s have another one of those bears,” he said to the clerk.
“I’ll sell you one,” she agreed, “but they all say the same thing. I know. I put the notes and the ticket in the envelope and into the bear’s mail pouch. I’m supposed to give you this too.” She handed Hunter a second envelope.
Inside was money, a great deal of money, and a business card. “ ‘Western Wear for all occasions,’ the card says.”
“Excuse me, ma’am.” Hunter followed the clerk back to the cash register, where she handed him his change. “Do you know anything about this ball we’re invited to?”
“Only that everybody in Nashville will be there. It’s a western affair, a real high-class gala. They auction off objects donated by the stars.”
“Like hats?” Fortune asked. “Like Minnie Pearl’s hat?”
“Probably.”
“And when is the ball, cowboy?”
“When else, tonight.”
“Uh-oh, and what time is it now?”
Hunter looked at his watch. “Four o’clock. We’d better hurry. If we’re going to spend this money for clothes to wear to a ball, we need to get moving.”
“But if we spend the money on clothes, we might not have enough to bid on Minnie’s hat.”
“So we won’t buy clothes, we’ll rent some. Have you got a telephone directory we can use, ma’am?”
The Yellow Pages listed several stores where formal western attire could be rented. In less than thirty minutes they’d found one and explained to the clerk where they were going. He knew about the event, and after directing them to the dressing rooms began to bring out possible outfits.
Fortune couldn’t believe the kind of clothing he was showing her. She’d never imagined owning such dresses. Finally, she settled on a copy of a slinky red sequined Barbara Mandrell dress with long sleeves and a high neckline trimmed with black fringe. It fitted her like a glove, and every bead moved as she breathed. The costumer added a pair of red satin evening shoes and glittery dangling earrings.
Hunter didn’t comment on his choice when they met back at the cash register. When the clerk found out that his customers couldn’t provide a permanent address, he lost his helpful manner.
“Sorry, the only way I’m allowed to rent our garments to people without a permanent address is with a deposit equal to the amount of the replacement cost.”
“All right, how much?”
“A thousand dollars ought to cover it.”
Fortune groaned. They were lost. If they left the deposit, they couldn’t be sure they could bid on the hat. “Hunter?”
Hunter thought for a minute, then reached inside his wallet. “Maybe this will do it.”
The clerk looked at the card and swallowed hard. “Er, yes, certainly, Mr. Kincaid, shall I have these delivered to your hotel, or will you want to carry them with you?”
“Send them,” he said gruffly. “And they’d better be there in an hour.” He took Fortune’s arm and practically dragged her out the door.
“What was that all about?”
“Let’s just say that part of Hale’s determination is paying off. A long time ago he had business cards made up for me, showing that I’m an employee of the Kincaid Hotel chain. I’ve fought my name long enough, I guess I might as well use it. Buckle up.”
“Where are we going, cowboy?”
“Where else, to the Kincaid Hotel.”
“We are? Why?”
“Because that’s where they’re holding the ball.”
Wisely, Fortune didn’t asked any more questions. She knew that Hunter was in a rage. It was obvious that he resented having to use his name, but he’d done it. The question was why? It certainly wasn’t to impress her. There were other ways to get to the ball, to get one of Minnie’s hats. It had to be because he wanted to win.
And Fortune was beginning to think they might.
After all, they had six more days before the deadline, and only two clues left to solve. They already knew that the next location they were searching for was Lithia Springs. But the last clue, the mysterious reference to direction and a creature’s tears, was still a mystery. Nothing in any of the books had offered an answer.
Maybe she’d call Lucy. Lucy might have an idea. Fortune wanted to check on the children anyway.
As soon as they walked up to the registration desk and Hunter identified himself, she knew what it meant to be with a Kincaid. In spite of the odd looks she received, the clerk fell all over himself to help Hunter.
It took some arguing from Hunter to make the clerk understand that they wouldn’t accept free lodging and that they couldn’t afford the presidential suite. Hunter finally settled on regular adjoining rooms, connected by a small foyer. The rooms proved to be so luxurious that Fortune wondered why on earth Hunter Kincaid hated the man who’d given him his name so much, he’d turn his back on all his wealth.
“The evening begins with a banquet at seven, followed by the auction and a dance,” Hunter was saying.
“That’s nice,” Fortune said, still standing in the middle of her room.
“It’s after six now. I suppose we’d better start getting ready. Do you have everything you need?”
“I think so, but then I’ve never been to an affair like this, so how can I be sure?”
There was a knock on the door. “Bell captain.”
Hunter opened the door and let the hotel employee enter the room. He was carrying the costumes from the rental shop.
“Where shall I put these, sir?”
“In here,” both Hunter and Fortune said, pointing at different bedrooms.
“Just lay them across the chair,” Hunter said, “well sort them out. I guess you’re nervous,” he said to Fortune, closing the foyer door behind the bellman.
“I guess I am.”
“Which bedroom would you like?”
“Either one.”
Hunter took the bag containing Fortune’s dress, and the accompanying boxes, into the room on the right. “If there’s anything you need, we can have it sent up.”
Like what? she wanted to ask. Nerve pills, a hairdresser, and a makeup artist. Maybe a maid to help her dress. Hunter wouldn’t need help. She could tell from the ease with which he moved about the suite that he was far more used to living in luxury than she. She’d thought they were alike, birds of a feather. She’d been wrong. Every flower in the vase on her dressing table pointed out the difference between them.
Hunter might have run away from home when he was sixteen, but this was the kind of home he’d run from. She’d run from a house with no paint on the walls and dirt-filled automobile tires used as flowerpots along the driveway. Now he expected her to dress up in spangles and go to a fancy ball. She wasn’t Cinderella.
Fortune nodded and walked quickly into her bedroom, closing the door behind her and leaning against it. Ten of her precious minutes evaporated before she was able to stop shaking long enough to turn on the shower. In the bathroom she found a shower cap, shampoo, and fancy soap.
Feeling slightly decadent, she stepped into the marble shower stall and adjusted the water controls. The shampoo was sweet-scented, as was the body gel. Even the towels smelled of cologne. By the time she discovered the hair dryer and container of makeup, she decided that there were advantages to being wealthy.
Fortune’s usual sunny nature eventually took over. After a few giggles at her ineptness, she finally managed to pull on the pantyhose, the only article of clothing that the costumer clerk hadn’t provided. Fortune sorted through the makeup and considered her objective. She might look like a street child normally, but it was by choice. One of her temporary jobs had been as a makeup artist for a burlesque house. She knew how to create beauty, and tonight she wanted to be beautiful.
By the time Hunter knocked on her door, she was wearing the red sequined dress, the satin high heels, and her most elegant uptown face. She picked up her black beaded evening bag, took a deep breath, and turned around.
The door opened, and Hunter was ready to chide Fortune about the lateness of the hour. He started to speak, but his throat closed over and caught his words behind a mountain of tightness. This time he didn’t even try to hide his surprise. This time his laid-back air of acceptance whooshed away, leaving him absolutely stunned.
Fortune Dagosta was a vision.
Fortune Dagosta was beyond a doubt the most beautiful, alluring, sensual woman he’d ever laid his eyes on. And she was holding her breath in abject fear.
“Wild woman,” he whispered throatily, “if you so much as look at another man tonight, I’ll kill him.”
“I shan’t,” she replied, drinking in the sight of her golden cowboy in a black tux, with a matching red cummerbund and bow tie, black boots with silver trim on the toes, and silver buttons on his shirt. “I promise. I won’t even see another man.”
For one long moment time quite simply stood still, then both Hunter and Fortune began to grin. “Damned if we aren’t the best-looking couple I’ve ever seen. What do you say, Ms. Dagosta?”
“I say that I’m hungry, cowboy.” Lordy, was she hungry. But food was the last thing on her mind.
“Yeah, but knowing you, I’d better order something from room service for later. These shindigs aren’t known for good food.”
“I think I like the idea of later,” she whispered.
Hunter crooked his arm. “Then the sooner we leave, the sooner we can get back. Shall we go, madam?”
“Indeed, Mr. Kincaid. Do you have our ticket and our money?”
“Indeed, wild woman, tonight I’m totally prepared, for anything.”