TRACY RICHARDS took her customary flying leap off the third-to-last step of her parents’ deck and landed on the soft sand…forgetting she was wearing pumps.
“Ouch.” Her ankle wobbled painfully. “Bleeping heels.”
She strode furiously toward Lake Michigan to retrieve a towel left out earlier in the day. Or at least she tried to stride furiously. But striding furiously across sand in bleeping heels and…much worse…panty hose was ludicrous. In fact, even having to wear them was ludicrous. Who wanted to get dolled up at the beach? Especially when it was this muggy.
But her dad had an image of overwhelming success to uphold, or whatever he thought he was doing. The need to strut his opulence had gotten worse since Tracy’s mom died a year ago. As if he were trying to honor her memory by indulging as much as possible in the luxury she’d craved all her life. Luxury she’d only been able to enjoy for a few short years before a heart attack took her away.
So now, when her dad threw parties here at their summer “palace” in Door County, Wisconsin—parties that were recently suspiciously stocked with wealthy unattached men Tracy’s age—everyone dressed up. She thought longingly of the July Fourth parties the family had growing up on their farm in Oak Ridge before the family business took off. Cheap beer in plastic cups, chips still in the bag and bratwurst tossed on the grill, guests in shorts and jeans and whatever they felt like.
Now it was gourmet-catered this and stemware holding vintage that. Enough to make you want to hurl rabbit cilantro sausage across the room. Thank goodness her three closest friends had come up to Fish Creek from Milwaukee for the weekend or she’d feel even more out of place in her own family’s house than she already did.
She reached the forgotten towel and shook it savagely. Immediately, the humid breeze coming off the lake blew gritty grains of sand between her contacts and her eyeballs. She doubled over, eyes squeezed shut and streaming.
Bleeping sand. Bleeping breeze. Bleeping—
“You okay?”
She stifled a groan. Jake. Son of her dad’s most recent set of close friends who happened to be gazillionaires. He’d been following her around all day like a dog promised extra kibbles with his bits.
“Sand in my contacts.” She opened her eyes, blinked cautiously, and turned in relief. “Whew. It’s—”
Electricity rushed into her body as if she’d suddenly become a power station.
Not Jake. Not at all Jake. Not even remotely Jake.
Tousled thick blond hair needing a cut. Strong masculine chin needing a shave. Tall muscular body wearing the kind of scruffy comfortable clothes she’d be wearing if she could. Breathing deeply as if he’d been jogging. And behind dime-store sunglasses lurked eyes that were giving her lessons in chemistry the likes of which she experienced only in her fantasies. God forbid he took his shades off. She’d probably climax right here on the beach.
His eyebrows quirked up over the top of his glasses and she realized it would probably be polite to put her tongue back into her mouth—figuratively speaking of course. “Sorry for staring. I…thought you were going to be someone else.”
“As far as I know I’ve always been me.” He gave a quick grin and moved past her. “Glad you weren’t dying of anything. See you around.”
She turned, clutching the towel to her chest with both fists, and watched him jog up the beach. Why did that happen sometimes? Some guys you could stare at all day and not get a single quiver, even if they were drop-dead gorgeous, and some guys…some guys could turn you inside out with a single glance. Even a single glance from behind dark lenses.
Tracy gave the towel another more careful shake, folded it, and started reluctantly back across the beach to the house, stomach heavy with a strange restless disappointment. If she had any guts she would have kicked off her heels and jogged after him down the beach, or better still, smiled a sultry smile and invited him to join the party, instead of turning into a tongue-tied hormonal mess. He was just the kind of guy she always fell for. Casual, a little scuffed around the edges, and not dripping a single dollar sign. Like the guys she grew up with in Northwest Wisconsin.
But then he hadn’t exactly seemed to want to linger. Hadn’t he felt the sizzling charge between them? Could she experience a connection that powerful all on her own? It didn’t seem possible.
She climbed up the steps to her parents’ deck and gave one last searching gaze up the beach for a certain fabulously put-together jogger in gray running shorts and a white T-shirt sporting the logo for Attitude! clothes. Regardless, he was gone. She’d missed her chance. Now it was back to the party, back to foie gras and fresh currants on toast points and fending off the Jakes of Door County. She shaded her eyes and stared harder. Was that him off in the distance? She couldn’t tell. The shores of Lake Michigan weren’t exactly empty in July, even in this exclusive part of the peninsula.
“Enjoying the view?”
Tracy swung around. Her Milwaukee friends, Cynthia, Missy and Allegra had ambled out onto the deck. Cynthia, elegant in a beige linen sheath and pearls, toasted Tracy with her martini. “We started without you. Any buns out there worth scoping?”
“Shh! Cynthia!” Missy’s chin-length blond hair swung against her bright red cheeks as she turned to see if any other guests had come out onto the deck. “Someone might hear you.”
“So what?” The tall sophisticated brunette shrugged her expensively padded shoulders. “It’s a free country. I defend my right to scope buns.”
“I brought you something to drink, Tracy.” Allegra handed over a frosty bottle of some fancy beer Tracy’s dad stocked now, and flung back her frizzy mass of dark hair—the current choice from her vast collection of wigs. “Man it’s stifling out here. So, what is the latest bun report? Or were you admiring other natural wonders?”
“Well…” Tracy rubbed her thumb along a scratch on the cedar deck railing, on the one hand bursting with starry-eyed excitement and on the other strangely reluctant to talk about the encounter. It had been so powerful, and would sound sort of stupid put into words. Cynthia would make a lewd remark, Missy would be embarrassed and Allegra would take it all in stride in her carefree Bohemian manner.
“Aha!” Cynthia’s eyes narrowed. “I detect a close encounter of the masculine kind. Give, Tracy.”
Missy rolled her eyes. “If she doesn’t want to talk about it, she doesn’t have to.”
“Of course she does. Tell.”
The women stared expectantly, Cynthia with eyebrows raised, Missy with reluctant fascination and Allegra with cheerful curiosity.
Tracy smiled and shook her head. She might as well. They’d get it out of her one way or another.
“Okay, okay. I was on the beach, and this guy came by and…” She gestured helplessly. How did one describe a wonder of the universe? “Have you ever made eye contact with a total stranger and just about died from the chemistry?”
“Ohh, yes.” Cynthia inhaled rapturously over her drink and took a long swallow. “I locked eyes with a guy in the art museum one day last winter and nearly dragged him home.”
Allegra sighed longingly and pushed her lens-free purple accessory glasses up her nose. “Me, too, a couple of years ago, at the ‘Total Mind And Body Oneness’ convention. Believe me, I wanted to make our minds and bodies totally one.”
“Well…” Missy took a quick sip of her seltzer and blushed. “Remember that guy Brad from our sophomore geology class? Allegra, I don’t think you were in that class, but Tracy was. Anyway, my stomach almost dropped out first time I saw him. I still think about him sometimes.”
“It happened to me. Just now, on the beach.” Tracy half-turned away, her body thrilling again from the memory. “I got something in my contact and when I looked up, he was right there. I almost hyperventilated.”
“I see.” Cynthia patted back her already smooth hair. “So what are you going to do about it?”
Tracy suppressed a surge of irritation. Cynthia didn’t believe there was any mystery to the world. Just challenges and their appropriate solutions. “What did you do in the art museum?” She turned to include Allegra and Missy in the question. “At the convention, in biology class?”
Variously mumbled “nothings” came at her from around the deck. Tracy scrubbed her fingers through her short curly hair. “It’s ridiculous. None of the guys I’ve dated made me feel half of what this guy did with one look. A total stranger. And I didn’t feel like I could do anything about it.”
Cynthia impaled Tracy with the gaze that probably made her business adversaries long for their mommies. “Why not?”
“Why didn’t you?”
“The same wimpy reason you didn’t—all the ‘what ifs.”’ Allegra pushed back her brightly patterned shawl and started counting on her fingers. “What if he’s married, what if he’s gay, what if he hates me, what if I imagined the whole thing—”
“What if he’s an ex-con, child-molesting, foot-fetishist serial killer?” Missy shuddered. “Or a Republican.”
Cynthia bristled. “What’s wrong with being—”
“Okay, okay, you two.” Allegra reached over and patted Cynthia’s and Missy’s shoulders, bracelets jangling. “We’re talking chemistry, not politics.”
“I would have gone after my art museum guy except for the blonde wearing a wedding ring that matched his.”
“He was married and he looked at you like that?” Missy’s question ended on a squeak of outrage.
“No, no.” Tracy shook her head. “It’s not a leering look. It’s like something inside you is just wired to react to that person. It’s something you can’t help.” She took a long swallow of the vaguely skunky imported beer. “I don’t really know what it is. I just know I’ll be carrying this guy in my head for days.”
“So find him.” Cynthia shrugged as if she’d worked out yet another of the world’s pressing issues with a snap of her perfectly manicured fingers. “Get out there and find him.”
Tracy rolled her eyes. “What, go running after him up the beach?”
“This is a small community. Ask around. Start right here at the party. A lot of the people seem to have been coming to Fish Creek for years. See what you can come up with.”
“I don’t know.” Missy consulted her soda doubtfully. “It could be dangerous tracking down someone you don’t know.”
“You devour the personal ads every day, what’s the difference?” Cynthia sent Missy a teasing smile. “At least Tracy’s already attracted to the guy, which is more than you know from ‘likes walks by the lake and quiet evenings at home.”’
Missy blushed. “Okay, so I read them. But I would never answer one.”
“I think Tracy should get off her fanny ’n go for it.” Cynthia slapped her thigh, alcohol bringing out the North Carolina accent she usually suppressed.
Allegra nodded eagerly. “What could it hurt to ask around? We could all help. Even if we manage to find out who he is, it doesn’t mean you have to do anything.”
Tracy bit her lip. It was tempting. It was certainly tempting. She’d been dateless for several months, and though she refused to judge her worth as a person in terms of men, the fact remained she wouldn’t mind a romantic attachment, especially with someone who didn’t spring fully trust-funded out of her Dad’s social register. Someone she could spend casual, relaxed time with and forget she’d been thrust into this strange new world of wealth.
She glanced around at her friends. The three women watched her expectantly—Cynthia challenging, Allegra encouraging, Missy apprehensive. Anticipation hung over the trio as if Tracy were being empowered to do something all three women wished they could share in.
All at once, a crazy, fabulous idea sprang into her head. Why couldn’t they? She could take up the challenge herself then slap it right back at them.
“I’ll do it on one condition.” She smiled and fingered the blue foil label on her beer. “That whenever this kind of instant attraction happens to any of us again, we’ll pursue the guy.”
“Ha!” Cynthia clapped her hands together and laughed, a flush rising attractively up her cheeks. “Great idea, Tracy.”
“Wow.” Allegra’s eyes shot open wide. “Double wow.”
“But what if…I mean, I couldn’t do this. I’d be horrible at it, I know.” Missy bit her lip, looking as if she’d been asked to French kiss a tarantula.
“I could help you out, honey. You’d do fine.” Cynthia lowered her voice to a gentle drawl. “Your whole mystique is that you’re totally unaware of your attractiveness. Guys love that, I’m serious. And they’re not too upset either by your enormous—”
“Cynthia!” Missy wrapped her arms across her chest, trying hard to look outraged over the smile tugging her lips.
“Allegra?” Tracy turned to her old friend and fresh-man-year roommate, brimming with excitement she hadn’t felt since before her mom died.
“Why the heck not?” Allegra shrugged, making her jewelry chime. “I guess at its worst, it would be merely another episode of Allegra’s Adventures in Rejection. So I’m in.”
“Missy?”
“I…I…” Missy looked at each woman in turn, obviously experiencing the panic of facing certain surrender. “Once we get them, then what?”
“Think of it as science, Missy.” Allegra peered over the tops of her glasses with a fierce scholarly expression. “An experiment involving the chemical reaction of female to male.”
“Is it merely an animal reaction?” Tracy donned an equally academic scowl. “Or a sign of deeper linkage?”
“In other words,” Cynthia gave Missy a sultry smile, “do we fall in love or just get lucky?”
“Oh!” Missy gasped out.
Tracy sent Cynthia a warning scowl. “Missy, you have to admit it would be intriguing. To find out whether these men turn out to be soul mates, life mates, or—”
“Bedmates.” Cynthia waggled her eyebrows. “I came, I saw, I conquered, I came again.”
“Cynthia, you’re incorrigible.” Missy clucked her tongue and smiled at the co-worker she’d adopted into their group of University of Wisconsin roommates.
“But would you love me any other way?”
“So it’s a deal.” Tracy laughed, feeling as if the world was suddenly bright and full of fabulous possibilities. Chances were nothing would come of this encounter. What were the odds someone at the party would be able to identify her mystery man by a vague description? But the high of seeing him, of deciding to take matters into her own hands, was worth it already.
“What should we call ourselves?” Allegra asked. “We should have some kind of name, just for fun.”
“Absolutely.” Cynthia nodded. “Like those secret clubs I used to organize in grade school that had me as the president and only member.”
“I did that, too!” Allegra giggled. “You can’t get much more secret than that.”
“I’ve got it.” Tracy put down her beer and held up her hands to sketch a giant marquee in the air. “The Manhunters.”
Cynthia pretended to choke on her drink. “Manhunters! It’s dreadful. I love it.”
“Tacky in the extreme.” Allegra grinned. “I love it, too.”
They turned to look at Missy, who squirmed and made a face. “It’s not very scientific. More…predatory.”
“Exactly.” Tracy lifted her drink for a toast; Cynthia’s shot up alongside, then Allegra’s; Missy’s rose weakly. “To the newly formed Manhunters Club.” Tracy smiled, imagining herself introducing Mr. Scruffy to her horrified father, imagining them living happily ever after without a luxury trapping in sight.
“Let all males between the ages of twenty-five and forty, who are straight, single, attractive, financially and mentally sound, non-reliant-on-their-mothers and dying-to-be-in-a-committed-relationship…beware. We, the members of the—”
“Uh, Tracy?” Missy stared past them off the deck, eyes wide, blush rising up her face again. “Was he wearing gray shorts and a white T-shirt?”
Tracy inhaled sharply and clutched her beer. “Yes…”
“Well, well.” Cynthia put her hands to her hips and smiled admiringly past Tracy’s shoulder. “You sure know how to pick ’em. Go to it, huntress.”
Tracy swallowed over what felt like her entire throat congealed into one enormous tight mass and turned around.
There, jogging effortlessly toward them, sunglasses in place, a vee of sweat sticking his shirt to his broad chest, was Manhunter Tracy Richards’s very first prey.