DANIEL FOUND CATE’S HAND and led her into the cottage. The moonlight coming through the south window lay on the floor in squares, giving them enough light to juke around the coffee table and make it into the bedroom without bodily harm.
“We could turn on a light.” Cate’s voice held laughter as she sat on the bed.
“There’s lots of light in here.” He joined her, pulling her down next to him on the duvet. “Enough for me to see how beautiful you are.”
“I bet you say that to all the girls.”
“Only when it’s true.”
“Daniel—” she began and stopped. “Is that someone at the door?”
He lifted his head from his concentration on just which breast he planned to nuzzle first. “Can’t be. It’s the middle of the night.”
But sure enough, her ears were better than his. The knock sounded again, a rapid staccato on the wood.
“Don’t move.” He kissed her and rolled off the bed, snagging a pair of jeans out of his duffel on the way. At the door, he took a second to button the fly, then flipped the main interior light on and swung open the door.
The young woman on the porch smiled at him and adjusted the tote bag on her shoulder. She wore a denim skirt, black boots and a black T-shirt that said Wash Him and Bring Him to My Cabin in pirate-style calligraphy.
“Hi, Dr. Burke.” She sounded confident, as if she were arriving for an appointment he’d forgotten about. That wasn’t unusual, except he wasn’t in the habit of making appointments at two in the morning.
She looked familiar, though. Cropped, purple-tinged hair. Nose stud. Big smile. The Web-site woman, that was it. But what the hell was her name?
Her eyes had locked on his naked chest.
“Is something wrong?” he asked finally.
“No, not at all.” Her gaze traveled up to his face. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“It’s two in the morning.”
“I know, but we’re both night owls. I’ve been keeping an eye on your cottage and saw movement, so I figured you were up.”
Had been up. So to speak. “What do you mean, keeping an eye on the cottage?”
Instead of answering, she asked, “Can I come in?” And instead of waiting for the No he’d opened his mouth for, she slipped around him and parked herself on his couch.
“Miss—” Damn, what was her name?
“Melanie,” she supplied. “Melanie Savage. We met the other night, remember? I do your Web site. And you can call me Mel.”
“The only person I’m calling here is security unless you tell me what’s going on.”
Another big smile. “I came to the conference specifically to talk to you. You’re a hard man to pin down. I wanted to do an interview for derringburke.com.”
“Then you’ll need to schedule it with my publicist, Stacy Mills.” How was he going to get her off the couch and out the door without picking her up and tossing her?
“She hasn’t returned my call. I prefer to go straight to the source, anyway.”
“That’s not how I work. Please go now. Wouldn’t want you to miss out on your beauty sleep.”
The girl’s smile dimmed a couple of notches and became a little speculative. Her legs crossed at the knee, she sat comfortably in the corner of the couch, one arm relaxed along the back. Not the posture of a woman preparing to do as he asked.
“I don’t need that much sleep. And I only have a couple of questions. Then I’ll go.”
Daniel resisted the urge to reach over, grab her and toss her out on her denim-clad rear. In the bedroom, Cate was totally silent and probably getting a chill. “All right. Two questions. Make it fast.”
“Excellent.” The grin snapped back onto her mouth, and she pulled a little tape recorder out of the tote bag sitting on the floor. She pushed the record button and set the unit on the coffee table.
“Tell your fans, Dr. Burke, the most terrifying moment of your career and how you overcame the fear.”
“It’s not exactly rock climbing, Ms. Savage. Digging in the dirt isn’t that scary.”
“I bet there was one moment, though. Tell me about it.”
There was no getting out of this without resorting to physical violence. He resigned himself and spoke quickly. “Then that would be the moment when I realized Ian McPherson—you remember, the Canadian cabinet minister’s son—had gone into the water alone to see that shipwreck. There were no guarantees we could find him, and he wasn’t experienced enough with the equipment to be down there without a diving buddy.”
“Was that worse than finding that leopard in your camp on the banks of the Amazon?”
That had been two years before the Temecula Treasure. Where had she dug up this stuff? “Of course. A human life was at stake. That’s your two questions. Please go now.”
“Just one thing—more of a comment, really. I want you to know how much your letters mean to me.”
He stared at her. “What?”
“The letters you sent me.” She waved a deprecating hand. “Oh, I know to the outside world there was nothing in them that couldn’t go on the blog, but I know you, Daniel. I got your message.”
“What message?” He barely remembered writing whatever she was talking about. In fact, his assistant had probably written them. She was pretty handy with a pen and had some talent at spinning facts into PR.
Melanie giggled as if he’d said something clever. “You’re so funny. But you’re right, there was more than one. It’s the last one I mean, though. That’s what got me on the plane out here. You said, ‘Every time I journey back into the past I take you with me in spirit.’”
“I did?” He was going to have to have a word with his assistant.
“I know you meant that for me. So, here I am. Do with me as you will.” Her eyes crinkled at the corners but the expression in them was very sexual. She uncrossed her legs and let them fall open, the message unmistakable.
Where was security when you needed them?
The light in the bedroom flipped on and Cate strode out like Peter Jackson’s Galadriel having a really bad day. She had one of his T-shirts on and her cheeks were flushed with angry red.
Daniel stepped out of the way.
“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do with you,” she snapped at Melanie Savage. “Get off that couch. Now. And get out of here before I throw you out.”
“Who the hell are you?” Melanie grabbed her recorder and put it in the tote, then clutched the latter to her chest.
“What do you care? Out!”
The woman stood and edged toward the door, her gaze swinging from Cate to Daniel. “You have a new girlfriend?” For the first time, her tone lost its assurance and stage sexiness. “What happened to that actress, Trisha Forrester?”
“None of your business. Good night, Ms. Savage.” Daniel stood by the door as Cate crowded her across the room. Since Cate was three or four inches taller, it was pretty effective.
“But those actresses aren’t your girlfriends,” the woman protested. “Your dates are staged with them for publicity!” Her frantic gaze went to Cate. “He doesn’t love you. He loves me!”
“He doesn’t love either of us.” Cate had her out on the path now. “Or your bloody Web site. Good night!”
In the light from inside, Melanie Savage looked shattered. “He could, if he’d give me a chance. You don’t belong here, whoever you are. I’ve supported him for years. I deserve this, not you!”
“You are completely crazy,” Cate informed her. She threw a glance back at Daniel. “Call security. The number is 888. Have her removed from the property.”
Trust Cate to know not only the tide tables, but the resort emergency number, too. “Will do.” He picked up the phone, but the gesture wasn’t necessary. With a sound suspiciously like a sob, Melanie Savage fled into the night.
DANIEL CLOSED THE DOOR and gave Cate a grin that was half teasing and half admiring. “Nice job. Who needs security when you’ve got a T-shirt–wearing goddess on hand?”
Cate hadn’t been aware she possessed a temper like this. Her chest felt as though it were about to explode and if she didn’t find a way to get it under control, she was going to make a complete ass of herself.
It wasn’t the unexpected visit. It wasn’t even the fact that she was one of his archaeologroupies, because she’d known about them since the day Anne Walters had brought them to her attention by tossing a newspaper on her desk with a big picture on the front page of the entertainment section.
No, she was furious at the fact that Daniel was so well known for having affairs with every woman who threw herself at him that this girl—Melanie Savage, for Pete’s sake, if that wasn’t an alias, she didn’t know what was—could walk in here with every confidence that her offer wouldn’t be refused.
It was probably only because Cate was in line ahead of her that she’d been refused at all. Cate clenched her teeth so the roar of rage on the back of her tongue wouldn’t get out.
“Cate?” Daniel tilted her chin with one hand while the other went around her waist to draw her closer. “She’s gone. It’s okay. Are you all right?”
She wrenched herself out of his grasp. “I’m fine.”
“That’s a woman’s standard answer when everything is not fine.”
“You would certainly know,” she snapped, then wished she hadn’t. Get a grip, Cate. Act your age.
She wasn’t sure there was an age limit on jealousy. Because that’s what this was. She was being jealous and unreasonable and she was ashamed of both. Because what on earth was she doing if not the exact same thing as Melanie Savage? She’d turned on the charm for Daniel and made herself just as sexually available, and he’d taken her up on it just as fast as she’d expected.
Daniel assumed she was angry with Melanie, but she wasn’t. The truth was, she’d seen herself in the other woman—and the view wasn’t pretty.
With a heroic effort at self-control, she turned to Daniel. “Didn’t you promise me something to put on?”
His gaze was quizzical. “I wondered if you were getting chilly in the bedroom, but I needed to figure out how crazed she was.”
“I don’t think she was crazed at all.”
One eyebrow went up. “You don’t?”
“No. Her behavior was probably logical given the data she had.”
Daniel narrowed his gaze as if he were trying to translate an ancient dialect. “What?”
She shook her head and looked past him into the bedroom. “If you’re not going to lend me this T-shirt, maybe you could hike back down to the beach and get our stuff.”
He tried to take her in his arms again, but she evaded him. “I was hoping we could dispense with the clothes, have a hot shower together, and go to bed.”
“Yes, I know you were. But I don’t think so.”
“She really spoiled the mood, huh? Next time I’m not answering the door.”
Men. She had no idea where people got the idea that they utilized their brains more efficiently. But as an excuse, it would do.
“Yes, you could say that. Besides, my key card was in the pocket of my skirt. Even if I did get back to my room dressed like this, I still couldn’t get in.”
He held up both hands. “I concede to your logic. But this isn’t over, Cate.”
Did he have to stand there, naked except for a pair of worn jeans, with the top button still undone? Did he have to have the most beautifully defined chest she’d ever had the pleasure of exploring, not to mention hips and thighs carved into leanness by his outdoor life?
She sighed and forced herself to look away. “No,” she said at last, “I don’t imagine it is.”
He went into the bedroom and pulled on an ancient brown T-shirt that said My Life Is on the Rocks. Two of the people in the anthropology department had brought back the same one after visiting New Mexico.
“Make yourself at home.” He waved in the direction of an enormous gift basket filled with fruit, jars of jelly, chocolate and small bottles of liqueurs. “I haven’t even opened that yet. Feel free. I can’t take it home with me. And if I’m not back in half an hour, send out the search parties.”
“I will.”
Tossing an uncertain glance at her over his shoulder, he let himself out. When his footsteps faded, Cate tugged on the blue T-shirt she wore so that it fell farther down her thighs, and went to have a look at the basket.
It was a shame to spoil its beauty, but if he didn’t plan to take it with him, someone may as well enjoy it. Besides, tucked in behind a box of biscotti was a bottle of chardonnay and two glasses. She found a bottle opener in the kitchenette and filled one.
The first few sips didn’t do much, but three-quarters of the glass of cool, dry wine gave her attitude a chance to change.
She pulled the drapes on all the cottage’s windows and, wine in hand, drifted slowly through its rooms. The conference certainly treated its speakers well. The dorms were comfortable, of course, but they didn’t have washed pine furniture, or terra-cotta tile floors that made a cool contrast to the deep pile of the scatter rugs. Daniel’s worktable was much bigger than hers, too. His computer was set up on one end next to his open briefcase, and the other end held a couple of the ubiquitous boxes of his books.
Good girls didn’t look in other people’s briefcases.
Virtuously, she turned away and walked into the bedroom to rifle his clothes. Well, maybe not rifle. She wouldn’t even touch. But it was interesting to see that the rough-and-ready persona she’d seen on The Jah-Redd Jones Show was consistent. There were no silk suits and ostentatious ties hidden in the closet. Nope. Just a duffel bag with socks and underwear spilling out of it, along with a couple of pairs of jeans and some shirts and T-shirts.
He hadn’t even brought a suit to deliver his keynote speech in—instead, he’d presented his paper in jeans. Even Indiana Jones put on his tweed jacket and horn-rimmed spectacles when he delivered his lectures, and goodness knows the man looked yummy in a tux when the occasion called for it.
You probably couldn’t pay Daniel Burke to climb into a tux. He’d run screaming into the night, first.
With a smile, Cate turned back into the sitting room. As she passed the table, her elbow caught the upturned lid of the briefcase, spinning it around and sending it over the edge and onto the floor.
“Damn!”
Cate put her wineglass on the table and knelt to pick up the mess. Paper had sifted in every direction. She gathered it up, trying to keep typed sheets together in case he was proofing a paper. Maps, schedules, notes—well, there wasn’t much she could do about that. She would just have to apologize and explain when he came back.
Reading glasses—the first sign that the he-man might have a flaw or two. Pens, pencils, a bottle of headache tablets, a digital camera. Good thing that had landed on the soft carpet. She would have had to replace it if it had smashed on the glossy tile.
She put the briefcase back on the table and began to put everything into it. When she finished, she realized that some of the things must have gone into the compartments in the lid, because there was something tucked in there that she hadn’t noticed before.
A photograph.
She pulled it out, curious as to who would be so important to Daniel that he would keep it with him on his travels. His family? Or a girlfriend about whom the papers knew nothing?
She gazed at the photo and blinked.
It was herself.
She even remembered the day it had been taken. They’d knocked off early because a huge thunderstorm had blown up out of the east, sending everyone at the Mexican dig scurrying for shelter like the ground squirrels running for their holes. After the storm had passed, she had taken a walk out to her favorite aerie on the cliff to watch the clouds travel to the west. The setting sun had broken through them in bars of deep golden light, and the first inkling she’d had that she was not alone had been the click of the shutter as Daniel had snapped the picture behind her.
She’d never seen it, of course. Never seen any of the pictures he’d taken.
Daniel had caught her in profile, with the glorious sunset lighting one side of her face. God, she looked so young. So vulnerable and clueless about the world.
With the number of models and starlets in his life helping him stay in the spotlight, why would he want to keep a picture of an ordinary academic close to him? It clearly went everywhere with him, tucked into the lid of his briefcase where the casual onlooker wouldn’t see it behind other papers. Was it a reminder of some kind? A memento of a time before work and academia and the reality of making a living had set in?
Or was it something deeper than that?
Could Daniel possibly have cared much more than she’d thought? Could he still care?
No. Impossible. The starlets shot down that line of thinking before it even got off the ground. A man who cared would have contacted her at least once in eight years, even if it were just to ask why she’d left and whether she was interested. A man who cared would not have shrugged his shoulders and gone on to his merry string of camera-ready companions.
As she suspected, there was no analyzing the male mind. She needed to stick to plan A. A simple fling and then she would move on herself. Already she could feel the benefits of this therapeutic approach. She was loose-limbed and still glowing with the aftereffects of sex. A few more treatments at Daniel’s hands and she’d be as good as new and ready for the next real relationship that came along.
No more uncertainty. No more fear.
And no more waiting around. Cate frowned at the clock over the kitchenette’s sink. Daniel had been gone for half an hour and it certainly didn’t take that long to hike down to the beach and back. Probably he’d run into the lovely Stacy Mills and gotten distracted.
Her brave mood punctured, Cate marched into the bedroom and snatched a pair of clean boxers out of Daniel’s duffel. She’d have them laundered and return them in the morning. Meantime, she’d go to security and have them let her into her room.
Sometimes a woman just had to do things herself instead of forever waiting around for a man.