It was the coo of a pigeon sitting on her windowsill that woke her. Amanda stretched luxuriously and felt her lips curve into a slow, satisfied smile. For the first time in her life she knew exactly how Scarlett had felt the morning after Rhett had carried her up all those stairs.
Although she felt a pang of regret to find herself alone in bed, she decided that Dane must have slipped away to prevent gossip. Not that anyone would actually come all the way up here to the tower room. But it was thoughtful of him all the same.
It certainly wouldn’t help matters to have the team members gossiping about her and Dane sleeping together. Not that either of them had gotten much sleep.
Besides, they both had a busy day today. Amanda was taking the team out on a deep-sea fishing trip, while Dane caught up on some much-needed grounds work.
She climbed out of the high log bed, aware of an unfamiliar stiffness. To think you’ve wasted all that time on the stair stepper, she scolded herself lightly. When there are far better ways to work out.
Perhaps, she considered with an inward grin, she should take Dane back to Portland with her at the end of the challenge. Maybe, with the raise that comes with the creative director’s slot, I could hire him to be my personal trainer. And dear Lord, how personal he’d been!
Even as she found the idea more than a little appealing, it brought home, all too clearly, that their time together was coming to an end. If everything went according to plan, in two short days she’d be getting back on that bus and returning to Portland, where hopefully she’d move into Greg’s office. While Dane would stay here, in Satan’s Cove, living the bucolic life of a coastal innkeeper.
The thought of losing him, just when she’d found him again, was not a pleasant one. But unwilling to spoil what brief time they had left together, Amanda decided to take yet another page out of Scarlett O’Hara’s story and think about that tomorrow.
She went into the adjoining bathroom, which was now overbrimming with memories of the long hot shower they’d taken together last night.
This morning, as she stood beneath the streaming water, she wondered if she’d ever be able to take a shower again without remembering the feel of Dane’s strong, sure hands on her body, or the taste of his lips on hers, or the dazzling, dizzying way his mouth had felt when he’d knelt before her and treated her to lovemaking so sublime she’d actually wept.
When memories began flooding her mind and stimulating her body yet again, Amanda decided it was time to get to work. She turned off the water and slipped into the plush white robe—reminiscent of those favored by the Whitfield Palace hotels—hanging on the back of the door.
She found Dane pouring coffee. The scent of the rich dark brew, along with the aroma of Mary Cutter’s freshly baked croissants, drew her like a magnet.
“You weren’t kidding about special service.”
“With a smile.” He handed her a cup of steaming coffee, but before she could drink it, he bent his head and kissed her. “I knew it.”
“What?” How was it that he could set her head spinning with a single kiss? Although she doubted they’d had more than three hours’ sleep, Amanda had never felt more alive.
“That you’d be drop-dead gorgeous in the morning.” His eyes took a slow tour of her, from her wet caramel-colored hair down to her toes, painted the soft pink of the inside of a seashell. Beads of water glistened on the flesh framed by the lapels of the bulky white robe. Dane was struck with an urge to lick them away.
“Flatterer.” She laughed and dragged a hand through her damp hair. “And if you don’t stop looking at me that way, I’ll miss the fishing boat.”
“If you’ve ever smelled a fishing boat, you’d know that would be no great loss.” His own smile faded. “I’ve been thinking about the final challenge event.”
Amanda nodded. It had been on her mind, as well. “The cliff climb.”
“You realize there isn’t much room for error in rock climbing.”
“I know.” She sat down at the skirted table and tore off a piece of croissant. It was as flaky as expected, layered with the sweet taste of butter. “I trust you to keep things safe.”
“I’m not in the survival business.” He sat down as well, close enough that their knees were touching.
“I know that, too.” After last night, Amanda couldn’t find it in her to worry about anything. “But so far, you’ve done a wonderful job.”
“You haven’t been so bad, yourself, sweetheart. The way you’ve kept those team members from going for one another’s throats would probably earn you a top-level job in the diplomatic corps, if you ever decide to give up advertising.”
She wondered what he’d say if he knew she thought about exactly that on an almost daily basis lately. One of the things that had drawn her to advertising in the first place was that it was a service business, a business that prospered or failed on how it served its clients.
With all the recent megamergers, there seemed to be very little benefit to clients. In fact, more than one old-time C.C.C. client had proclaimed to be upset by a supposed conflict of interest now that the same huge agency was also handling their competitors’ advertising.
“You know,” she murmured, “a lot of people—mostly those in New York—used to consider C.C.C. old-fashioned. And perhaps it was.” Which was, she’d often thought lately, one of the things she’d loved about Connally Creative Concepts. “But it was still an agency where clients’ desires were catered to.
“These days, it seems that if you can’t win new accounts by being creative, you buy them by gobbling up other, more innovative shops. But the forced combination inevitably fails to create a stronger agency.”
“Instead of getting the best of both worlds, you get the worst of each,” Dane guessed.
“Exactly.” Amanda nodded. “Creativity becomes the last item on the agenda. And, although I hate to admit it, the advertising coming out of Janzen, Lawton and Young these days shows it. In the pursuit of profits, our clients have become an afterthought. They’re getting lost in the shuffle.”
“It’s not just happening in advertising,” Dane observed. “The workplace, in general, has become increasingly impersonal.”
Which was another of the reasons he’d left the world of big business. Although, under Eve Whitfield Deveraux’s guidance, the Whitfield Palace hotel chain routinely topped all the Best 100 Corporations to Work For lists, it was, and always would be, a profit-driven business.
“Every day I arrive at my office, hoping to rediscover the business I used to work in.” Amanda had been so busy trying to keep things on an even keel at work, she hadn’t realized exactly how much she’d missed the often-frantic, always-stimulating atmosphere of C.C.C. “But I can’t. Because it’s disappeared beneath a flood of memos and dress codes and constantly changing managerial guidelines.”
She sighed again. “Would you mind if we tabled this discussion for some other time?” The depressing topic was threatening to cast a pall over her previously blissful mood.
“Sure.” It was none of his business anyway, Dane told himself again. What Amanda chose to do with her life was no one’s concern but her own. Knowing that he was utterly hooked on this woman who’d stolen his heart so long ago, Dane only wished that were true.
“May I ask you something?”
There was something in his low tone that set off warnings inside Amanda. She slowly lowered her cup to the flowered tablecloth. “Of course.”
“Why me? And why now?”
Good question. She wondered what he’d say if she just said it right out: Because I think—no, I know—that I love you.
She put her cup down and stared out at the tall windows at the sea, which was draped in its usual silvery cloak of early morning mist.
“When I was a girl, I was a romantic.”
“I remember.” All too well.
“I believed that someday a handsome prince would come riding up on his white steed and carry me off to his palace, where we’d live happily ever after.” Dane had had a Harley in those days instead of a white horse, but he’d fit the romantic fantasy as if it had been created with him in mind. He still did.
“Sounds nice,” Dane agreed. “For a fairy tale.” Speaking of fairy tales, he wondered what would happen if, now that he finally had her back again, he just kept Amanda locked away up here in the tower room, like Rapunzel.
“For a fairy tale,” she agreed. “I also was brought up to believe that lovemaking was something to be saved for the man I married.”
“A not-unreasonable expectation.” Dane considered it ironic that he might have Gordon Stockenberg to thank for last night.
“No. But not entirely practical, either.” She ran her fingernail around the rim of the coffee cup, uncomfortable with this discussion. Although they’d been as intimate as two people could be, she was discovering that revealing the secrets of her heart was a great deal more difficult than revealing her body.
“If we’d made love that summer, I probably would have found it easier to have casual sex with guys I dated in college. Like so many of my friends.
“But you’d made such a big deal of it, I guess I wanted to wait until I met someone I could at least believe myself to be in love with as much as I’d been in love with you.”
Which had never happened.
“Then, after I graduated, I was so busy concentrating on my work, that whenever I did meet a man who seemed like he might be a candidate, he’d usually get tired of waiting around and find some more willing woman.”
“Or a less choosy one.”
She smiled at that suggestion. “Anyway, after a time, sex just didn’t seem that important anymore.”
“You have been working too hard.”
Amanda laughed even as she considered that now that she’d experienced Dane’s magnificent lovemaking, sex had taken on an entirely new perspective.
“Anyway,” she said with a shrug designed to conceal her tumultuous feelings, “perhaps it was old unresolved feelings reasserting themselves, but being back here again with you, making love to you, just felt so natural. So right.”
“I know the feeling.” He covered her free hand with his, lacing their fingers together. “You realize, of course, that you could have saved me a great many cold showers if you’d just admitted to wanting me that first night?”
The way his thumb was brushing tantalizingly against the palm of her hand was creating another slow burn deep inside Amanda. “Better late than never.”
“Speaking of being late...” He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss against the skin his thumb had left tingling. “How much time do we have before you’re due at the dock?”
She glanced over at the clock on the pine bedside table and sighed. “Not enough.”
“I was afraid of that.” He ran the back of his hand down her cheek. “How would you like to go into town with me tonight?”
The opportunity to be alone with Dane, away from the prying eyes of the others, sounded sublime. “I’d love to.”
“Great. Davey Jones’s Locker probably isn’t what you’re used to—I mean, the tablecloths are white butcher paper instead of damask and the wine list isn’t anything to boast about. But the food’s pretty good. And the lighting’s dark enough that we can neck in the back booth between courses.”
Her smile lit her face. “It sounds absolutely perfect.”
Other than the fact that the sea had turned rough and choppy by midafternoon, and Dane had been right about the smell of fish permeating every inch of the chartered fishing boat, the derby turned out better than Amanda had honestly expected.
The teams seemed to be meshing more with each passing day, and at the same time the competitive viciousness displayed on the bike race had abated somewhat. At least, she considered, as the boat chugged its way into the Satan’s Cove harbor, no one had thrown anyone overboard.
As team members stood in line to have their catch weighed and measured, Amanda noticed that Kelli was missing. She found her in the restroom of the charter office, splashing water on her face. Her complexion was as green as the linoleum floor.
“Whoever thought up this stupid challenge week should be keelhauled,” the public-relations manager moaned.
Since the week had been Greg’s idea, Amanda didn’t answer. “I guess the Dramamine didn’t work.” Prepared for seasickness among the group, Amanda had given Kelli the tablets shortly after the boat left the dock, when it became obvious that the woman was not a natural-born sailor.
“Actually, it helped a lot with the seasickness. I think it was the smell of the fish that finally got to me.” She pressed a hand against her stomach. “I’m never going to be able to eat salmon or calamari again.”
“I’m sorry,” Amanda said, realizing she actually meant it. “Is there anything I can do?”
“No.” Kelli shook her head, then cringed, as if wishing she hadn’t done so. “I just want to get back to the inn, go to bed, pull the covers over my head and if not die, at least sleep until morning.”
“That sounds like a good idea. I’ll ask Mary Cutter to fix a tray for you to eat in your room.”
If possible, Kelli’s complexion turned an even sicklier hue of green. “I don’t think I could keep down a thing.”
“You need something in your stomach. Just something light. Some crackers. And a little broth, perhaps.”
Although obviously quite ill, Kelli managed a smile. “You know, everything I’ve been told about you suggests you’re a dynamite advertising executive. Yet, sometimes, like during that stupid helicopter session, you seem to be a born diplomat.”
“Thank you.” Amanda was surprised to receive praise from someone so close to her nemesis.
“You don’t have to thank me for telling the truth,” Kelli said. “But there’s another side to you, as well. A softer, nurturing side. So, what about children?”
The question had come from left field. “What about them?”
“Do you intend to have any?”
“I suppose. Someday.”
“But not anytime soon?”
“Getting pregnant certainly isn’t on this week’s agenda,” Amanda said honestly.
For some reason she could not discern, Kelli seemed to be mulling that over. Amanda waited patiently to see what the woman was up to.
“You don’t like me much, do you?” Kelli asked finally.
“I don’t really know you.”
“True. And spoken like a true diplomat. By the way, Dane was a perfect gentleman last night.”
“I can’t imagine Dane being anything but a gentleman.”
“What I mean is—”
“I know what you mean.” Amanda didn’t want to talk about Dane. Not with this woman.
Kelli reached into her canvas tote, pulled out a compact and began applying rose blush to her too-pale cheeks. “You love Dane, don’t you?”
“I really don’t believe my feelings are anyone’s business but my own.”
“Of course not,” Kelli said quickly. A bit too quickly, Amanda thought. “I was just thinking that advertising is a very unstable business, and if you were to get involved with our sexy innkeeper, then have to move back East—”
“I doubt there’s much possibility of that. Besides, as exciting as New York admittedly is, I’m comfortable where I am.”
Kelli dropped the blush back into the bag and pulled out a black-and-gold lipstick case. “Even with Greg as creative director?”
She’d definitely hit the bull’s-eye with that question.
“Greg Parsons isn’t Patrick Connally,” Amanda said truthfully. “And his management style is a great deal different.” Sort of like the difference between Genghis Khan and Ghandi. “But, as we’ve pointed out over these past days, advertising is all about change.”
“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” Kelli looked at Amanda in the mirror. Her gaze was long and deep. Finally, she returned to her primping. After applying a fuchsia lipstick that added much-needed color to her lips, she said, “I suppose we may as well join the others.”
As they left the restroom together, Amanda couldn’t help thinking that their brief conversation wasn’t exactly like two women sharing confidences. It had strangely seemed more like an interview. Deciding that she was reading too much into the incident, she began anticipating the evening ahead.
Amanda hadn’t been so nervous since the summer of her fifteenth year. She bathed in scented water that left her skin as smooth as silk, brushed her newly washed hair until it shone like gold and applied her makeup with unusual care. Then she stood in front of the closet, wondering what she could wear for what was, essentially, her first real date with Dane.
She’d only brought one dress, and she’d already worn it last night. Besides, somehow, the front ties had gotten torn in their frantic struggle to undress. And although she had no doubt that the patrons of Davey Jones’s Locker wouldn’t complain about her showing up with the front of her blouse slit down to her navel, she figured such sexy attire would be overkill for Satan’s Cove.
Although she’d been underage, hence too young to go into the bar/restaurant the last time she’d visited the coastal town, from the outside, the building definitely did not seem to be the kind of place where one dressed for dinner.
With that in mind, she finally decided on a pair of black jeans and a long-sleeved white blouse cut in the classic style of a man’s shirt. Some gold studs at her ears, a gold watch, and a pair of black cowboy boots completed her ensemble.
“Well, you’re not exactly Cinderella,” she murmured, observing her reflection in the antique full-length mirror. “But you’ll do.”
So as not to encourage unwanted gossip, she’d agreed to meet Dane in the former carriage house that had been turned into a garage. As she entered the wooden building, his eyes darkened with masculine approval.
“You look absolutely gorgeous, contessa.”
She was vastly relieved he hadn’t seen her when she’d arrived from the boat, smelling of fish, her face pink from the sun, her nose peeling like an eleven-year-old tomboy’s and her hair a wild tangle.
“I hope this is appropriate.” She ran her hands down the front of her jeans. “I thought I’d leave my tiara at home tonight.”
“All the better to mingle with your subjects,” he agreed, thinking that although she’d cleaned up beautifully, he still kind of liked the way she’d looked when she’d returned from the fishing derby today.
He’d been in the garden, tying up his mother’s prized tomato plants, when he’d seen her trying to sneak into the lodge, her complexion kissed by the sun and her tangled hair reminding him of the way it looked when she first woke up this morning after a night of passionate lovemaking.
“I got to thinking,” he said, “that perhaps, after a day on a fishing boat, taking you out for seafood wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had.”
“Don’t worry about me.” Her smile was quick and warm and reminded him of the one he’d fallen for when he was nineteen. “I’ve got a stomach like a rock. And I adore seafood.”
“Terrific. Iris has a way with fried oysters you won’t believe.”
“I love fried oysters.” She batted her lashes in the way Scarlett O’Hara had made famous and a fifteen-year-old girl had once perfected. “They’re rumored to be an aphrodisiac, you know.”
“So I’ve heard. But with you providing the inspiration, contessa, the last thing I need is an aphrodisiac.”
He drew her into his arms and gave her a long deep kiss that left her breathless. And even as he claimed her mouth with his, Dane knew that it was Amanda who was claiming him. Mind, heart and soul.
Satan’s Cove was laid out in a crescent, following the curving shoreline. As Dane drove down the narrow main street, Amanda was surprised and pleased that the town hadn’t changed during the decade she’d been away.
“It’s as if it’s frozen in time,” she murmured as they drove past the cluster of buildings that billed themselves as the Sportsman’s Lodge, and the white Cape Cod–style Gray Whale Mercantile. “Well, almost,” she amended as she viewed a window sign on another building that advertised crystals and palm readings. A For Rent sign hung in a second-story window above the New Age shop.
“Nothing stays the same.” Dane said what Amanda had already discovered the hard way at C.C.C. “But change has been slow to come to this part of the coast.”
“I’m glad,” she decided.
“Of course, there was a time when Satan’s Cove was a boomtown. But that was before the fire.”
“Fire?”
“Didn’t you learn the town’s history when you were here before?”
“I was a little preoccupied that summer,” she reminded. “Trying to seduce the sexiest boy on the Pacific seaboard. Visiting dull old museums was not exactly high on my list of fun things to do.”
Since he’d had far better places to escape with her than the town museum, Dane decided he was in no position to criticize.
“With the exception of Smugglers’ Inn, which was located too far away, most of the town burned down in the early nineteen-thirties. Including the old Victorian whorehouse down by the docks. Well, needless to say, without that brothel, the fishermen all moved to Tillamook, Seaside and Astoria.”
“Amazing what the loss of entrepreneurs can do to a local economy,” she drawled sapiently. “So what happened? Didn’t the women come back after the town was rebuilt?”
“By the time the city fathers got around to rebuilding in the mid-thirties, the prohibitionists had joined forces with some radical religious reformers who passed an ordinance forbidding the rebuilding of any houses of ill repute.
“After World War II, alcohol returned without a battle. And so did sex. But these days it’s free.” He flashed her a grin. “Or so I’m told.”
Even though she knew their time was coming to an end, his flippant statement caused a stab of purely feminine jealousy. Amanda hated the idea of Dane making love to any other woman. But short of tying him up and taking him back to Portland with her, she couldn’t think of a way to keep the man all to herself.
She was wondering about the logistics of maintaining a commuter relationship—after all, Portland was only a few hours’ drive from Satan’s Cove—when he pulled up in front of Davey Jones’s Locker.
From the outside, the weathered, silvery gray building did not look at all promising. Once inside, however, after her eyes adjusted to the dim light, Amanda found it rustically appealing.
Fish, caught in local waters, had been mounted on the knotty-pine-paneled walls, yellow sawdust had been sprinkled over the plank floor and behind an L-shaped bar was a smoky mirror and rows of bottles.
“Dane!” A woman who seemed vaguely familiar, wearing a striped cotton-knit top and a pair of cuffed white shorts, stopped on her way by with a tray of pilsner glasses filled with draft beer. Her voluptuous breasts turned the red and white stripes into wavy lines. “I was wondering what it would take to get you away from that work in progress.”
She flashed Dane a smile that belonged in a toothpaste commercial and her emerald eyes gleamed with a feminine welcome Amanda found far too sexy for comfort. Then her eyes skimmed over Amanda with unconcealed interest.
“Just grab any old table, you two,” she said with an airy wave of her hand. “As soon as I deliver these, I’ll come take your drink order.”
With that, she was dashing across the room to where a group of men were playing a game of pool on a green-felt-topped table. The seductive movement of her hips in those tight white shorts was nothing short of riveting.
“Old friend?” Amanda asked as she slipped into a booth at the back of the room.
“Iris and I dated a bit in high school,” Dane revealed easily. “And when I first returned to town. But nothing ever came of it. We decided not to risk a great friendship by introducing romance into the relationship.”
Relief was instantaneous. “She really is stunning.” Now that she knew the woman wasn’t a threat, Amanda could afford to be generous.
“She is that,” Dane agreed easily. “I’ve seen grown men walk into walls when Iris walks by. But, of course, that could be because they’ve had too much to drink.”
Or it could be because the woman had a body any Playboy centerfold would envy. That idea brought up Dane’s contention that she was too thin, which in turn had Amanda comparing herself with the voluptuous Iris, who was headed back their way, order pad in hand. The outcome wasn’t even close.
“Hi,” she greeted Amanda with a smile every bit as warm as the one she’d bestowed upon Dane. “It’s good to see you again.”
Amanda looked at the stunning redhead in confusion. “I’m sorry, but—”
“That’s okay,” Iris interrupted good-naturedly. “It’s been a long time. I was waiting tables at Smugglers’ Inn the summer you came for a vacation with your parents.”
Memories flooded back. “Of course, I remember you.” She also recalled, all too clearly, how jealous she’d been of the sexy redheaded waitress who spent far too much time in the kitchen with Dane. “How are you?”
“I’m doing okay. Actually, since I bought this place with the settlement money from my divorce, I’m doing great.” She laughed, pushing back a froth of copper hair. “I think I’ve found my place, which is kind of amazing when you think how badly I wanted to escape this town back in my wild teenage days.”
She grinned over at Dane. “Can you believe it, sugar? Here we are, two hotshot kids who couldn’t wait to get out of Satan’s Cove, back home again, happy as a pair of clams.”
“Iris was making a pretty good living acting in Hollywood,” Dane revealed.
“Really?” Although she’d grown up in Los Angeles, the only actors she’d ever met were all the wannabes waiting tables at her favorite restaurants. “That must have been exciting.”
“In the beginning, I felt just like Buddy Ebsen. You know—” she elaborated at Amanda’s confused look “—‘The Beverly Hillbillies.’ Movie stars, swimming pools... Lord, I was in hog heaven. I married the first guy I met when I got off the bus—an out-of-work actor. That lasted until I caught him rehearsing bedroom scenes with a waitress from Hamburger Hamlet. In our bed.
“My second marriage was to a director, who promised to make me a star. And I’ll have to admit, he was doing his best to keep his promise, but I was getting tired of being the girl who was always murdered by some crazed psycho. There’s only so much you can do creatively with a bloodcurdling scream.
“Besides, after a time, a girl gets a little tired of her husband wearing her underwear, if you know what I mean.”
“I can see where that might be a bit disconcerting,” Amanda agreed. She’d never met anyone as open and outgoing as Iris. She decided it was no wonder the woman had chosen to leave the art and artifice of Hollywood.
“After my second divorce, I got fed up with the entire Hollywood scene and realized, just like Dorothy, that there’s no place like home.”
“I just realized,” Amanda said, “I’ve seen one of your films.”
“You’re kidding!”
“No. I went to a Halloween party a few years ago and the host screened Nightstalker.”
“You’ve got a good eye,” Iris said. “I think I lasted about three scenes in that one.”
“But they were pivotal,” Amanda said earnestly, remembering how Iris’s character—a hooker with a heart of gold—had grabbed her killer’s mask off, enabling a street person rifling through a nearby Dumpster to get a glimpse of his scarred face. Which in turn, eventually resulted in the man’s capture.
“I knew I liked you.” Iris flashed a grin Dane’s way. “If I were you, I’d try to hold on to this one.”
“Thanks for the advice.” Dane didn’t add that that was exactly what he intended to do.