Amanda was not in a good mood the following morning, as she went downstairs to prepare for the kickoff meeting. Her headache had returned with a vengeance and her stomach was tied up in knots. She’d spent the night tossing and turning, reliving old memories of her days—and nights—at Smugglers’ Inn.
And then, when she had finally fallen asleep shortly before dawn, her dreams had been filled with the man who had, impossibly, become an even better kisser. The sensual dreams had resulted in her waking up with an unhealthy curiosity about all the women with whom Dane had spent the past ten years practicing his kissing technique.
After a false turn, she found the conference room Susan had reserved. Ten years ago, the room had been a sleeping porch. The oversize green screens had been replaced with glass, protecting occupants from the unpredictable coastal weather without taking away from the dazzling view, which, at the moment, was draped in a soft silver mist.
It was absolutely lovely. Greg would find nothing to complain about here. The only problem would be keeping people’s minds off the scenery and focused on the challenge.
Drawn by the pull of the past, she walked over to the wall of windows and gazed out, trying to catch a glimpse of the cave where she and Dane had shared such bliss.
Both relieved and disappointed to see the fog blocked the view of that stretch of beach, she turned her back on the sea and crossed the room to a pine sideboard where urns of coffee and hot water for tea had been placed. Beside the urn were baskets of breakfast breads, and white platters of fresh fruit.
Amanda poured herself a cup of coffee and placed some strawberries onto a small plate. When the fragrant lure proved impossible to resist, she plucked a blueberry muffin from one of the baskets, then set to work unpacking the boxes of supplies.
As she separated T-shirts bearing the team challenge logo into red and blue stacks, Amanda wondered what Dane was doing.
Although she remembered him to have been an early riser, she doubted he’d have arrived at the inn. Not after the late hours he’d worked yesterday. Which was just as well, since she still hadn’t sorted out her feelings. All the agonizing she’d done during the long and sleepless night had only confused her more.
Last night, alone with him in the tower room that had been filled with bittersweet memories, it had felt as if no time at all had passed since that night they’d lain in each other’s arms, driving each other to painful distraction, whispering tender words of love, vowing desperate promises.
This morning, Amanda was trying to convince herself that stress, exhaustion and the surprise of seeing Dane again had been responsible for her having responded so quickly and so strongly to him. To his touch. His kiss.
Memories of that enticing kiss flooded back, warming her to the core. “You have to stop this,” she scolded herself aloud.
It was imperative that she concentrate on the difficult week ahead. If she allowed her thoughts to drift constantly to Dane Cutter, she’d never pull off a successful challenge. And without a successful challenge, not only would she lose her chance for promotion, she could end up being stuck with Greg Parsons for a very long time.
“And that,” she muttered, “is not an option.”
“Excuse me?”
Having believed herself to be alone, Amanda spun around and saw a woman standing in the doorway. She was casually dressed in navy shorts, a white polo shirt and white sneakers. If it hadn’t been for her name, written in red script above her breast, Amanda would have taken her for a guest.
“I was just talking to myself,” she said with embarrassment.
“I do that all the time.” The woman’s smile was as warm and friendly as Mindy Taylor’s had been last night. “Sometimes I even answer myself back, which was beginning to worry me, until Dane said that the time to worry was if I began ignoring myself.”
She crossed the room and held out her hand. “I’m Reva Carlson. And you must be Amanda Stockenberg.”
Having observed the frenzied activity that had gone into preparing the tower room, then hearing how Dane had insisted on carrying Amanda’s bags last night, Reva was more than a little interested in this particular guest. As was every other employee of Smugglers’ Inn.
“You’re the conference manager Susan spoke with,” Amanda remembered.
“Among other things. The management structure around this place tends to be a bit loose.”
“Oh?” Amanda wasn’t certain she liked the sound of that. One of the advantages of the Mariner Seaside Golf Resort and Conference Center had been an assistant manager whose sole function had been to tend to the group’s every need.
“Everyone’s trained to fill in wherever they’re needed, to allow for optimum service,” Reva revealed the management style Dane had introduced. “Although I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve been barred from the kitchen after last week’s fire.”
“Fire?” After having watched her first choice of resort go up in flames, Amanda definitely didn’t like hearing that.
“Oh, it wasn’t really that big a deal.” The shoulders of the white knit shirt rose and fell in a careless shrug. “I was merely trying my hand at pears flambé. When I poured just a smidgen too much brandy into the pans, things got a little hot for a time.” Her smile widened. “By the time the fire department showed up, Dane had things under control.”
When even the sound of his name caused a hitch in her breathing, Amanda knew she was in deep, deep trouble. “Dane was working in the kitchen?”
“Sure.” Another shrug. “I told you, we’re pretty loose around here. And Dane’s amazingly handy at everything. He shot the pan with the fire extinguisher, and that was that. But in the meantime, I’ve been banned from any further cooking experiments, though Mary did promise to let me frost a birthday cake for one of our guests tomorrow.”
“Mary?” At the familiar name, Amanda stopped trying to picture Dane in an apron, comfortable in a kitchen. “Mary Cutter?”
“That’s right.” Reva tilted her head. “Sounds as if you know her.”
“I used to.” Amanda couldn’t quite stop the soft sigh. “I came here with my parents on a vacation ten years ago.”
“Mindy mentioned something about that.” Reva’s friendly gaze turned speculative. “I guess Dane must have been working here at the time, too.” Her voice went up on the end of the sentence, turning it into a question.
It was Amanda’s turn to shrug. “I suppose. It was a long time ago, and there was quite a large staff, so it’s hard to remember everyone.”
From the knowing expression in the convention manager’s eyes, Amanda had the feeling she wasn’t fooling her for a moment. “I do remember his mother made the best peach pie I’ve ever tasted.” She also, Amanda had discovered this morning, baked dynamite blueberry muffins.
“Mary’s peach pie wins the blue ribbon at the county fair every year.” Returning to her work mode, Reva glanced around the room. “Do you have everything you need?”
“I think so.” Amanda’s gaze took another slow sweep around the room, trying to seek out any lapses Greg might catch.
“If you think of anything—anything at all—don’t hesitate to call on any of us. I have to run into town on some errands, but Dane’s around here somewhere.”
“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Amanda said quickly. Too quickly, she realized, as Reva’s gaze narrowed ever so slightly.
“Well, good luck.” Reva turned to leave. “With everything.”
Matters taken care of to her satisfaction, Reva Carlson returned to her own work, leaving Amanda with the feeling that the woman’s parting comment had little to do with the upcoming challenge exercises.
After she finished unpacking the boxes, Amanda headed down the hall to the kitchen, to thank Mary Cutter for the superb Continental breakfast, when she heard her name being called.
Believing it to be someone from the agency, she turned, surprised to see two familiar faces.
“Miss Minnie? Miss Pearl?” The elderly sisters had been guests the last time Amanda had stayed at the inn.
“Hello, dear,” one of them—Minnie or Pearl, Amanda couldn’t remember which was which—said. Her rosy face was as round as a harvest moon and wreathed in a smile. “We heard you’d come back. It’s lovely to see you again.”
“It’s nice to see you, too. It’s also a surprise.”
“I don’t know why it should be,” the other sister said. “With the exception of the three years the inn was closed—”
“A terrible shame,” the other interrupted. “As I was telling Dane just yesterday—”
“Sister!” A scowl darkened a sharp, hatchet face. “I was speaking.”
“I’m sorry, sister.” There was a brief nod of a lavender head that had been permed into corkscrews; the pastel hue complemented the woman’s pink complexion. “I was just pointing out to Amanda how sad it was that such a lovely inn had been allowed to fall into disrepair.”
“You’d never know that to look at it now,” Amanda said.
“That’s because Dane has been working around the clock,” the thinner of the two sisters huffed. It was more than a little obvious she resented having her story sidetracked. “As I was saying, with the exception of those three unfortunate years, we have been visiting Smugglers’ Inn for the last sixty-four years.”
“I believe it’s only been sixty-three, sister.”
A forceful chin thrust out. “It’s sixty-four.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course. I remember everything that happened that year,” the other snapped with the certainty of a woman who’d spent forty-five years as the research librarian for the Klamath County Library in southern Oregon.
The term sibling rivalry could have been invented to define Minnie and Pearl Davenport. Recalling all too well how these arguments could go on all day, Amanda repeated how nice it was to see the women again and escaped into the kitchen.
This room, too, was as she remembered it—warm and cheerful and immensely inviting. Fragrant, mouth-watering steam rose from the pots bubbling away on the gleaming stove; more copper pots hung from a ceiling rack and the windowsill was home to a row of clay pots filled with fresh green herbs.
An enormous refrigerator that hadn’t been there the last time Amanda had sneaked into the kitchen for a heart-to-heart talk with Mary Cutter was open.
“Hello?”
A dark head popped out from behind the stainless-steel door. “Amanda, hello!” Dane’s mother’s expression was warm and welcoming. She closed the refrigerator and opened her arms. “I was hoping you’d get a chance to escape those boring old business meetings and visit with an old friend.”
As she hugged the woman, Amanda realized that Mary Cutter had, indeed, become a friend that summer. Even though, looking back on it, she realized how concerned Mary had been for Dane. As she would have been, Amanda admitted now, if some sex-crazed, underage teenage girl had been chasing after her son.
“They’re not that bad.” Amanda felt duty-bound to defend the group.
“Oh?” Releasing her, Mary went over to the stove and poured two cups of coffee. She put them on the table, and gestured for Amanda to sit down. “Then why do you have those dark circles beneath your eyes?”
Amanda unconsciously lifted her fingers to the blue shadows she thought she’d managed to conceal successfully this morning. It was bad enough having to deal with Dane and their past, which now seemed to be unsettled. By the time the corporate challenge week was over, she’d undoubtedly be buying concealer by the carton.
“I’ve been working long hours lately.”
“You’re not sleeping very well, either, I’d suspect. And you have a headache.”
“It’s not that bad,” Amanda lied as Mary reached out and rubbed at the lines carving furrows between her eyes.
The older woman’s touch was gentle and more maternal than any Amanda had ever received from her own mother. Then again, the Stockenbergs never had been touchers. The Cutters—mother and son—definitely were.
Mary’s smile didn’t fade, but the way she was looking at her, hard and deep, made Amanda want to change the subject. “I just ran into Miss Minnie and Miss Pearl,” she said. “But I couldn’t remember which was which.”
“Minnie is the one with white hair and an attitude. Pearl has lavender hair and hides Hershey’s Kisses all over the inn.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Because the poor dear has an enormous sweet tooth. And Minnie has her on a diet that would starve a gerbil.” Mary flashed a quick grin that was remarkably like her son’s, although it didn’t have the capability to affect Amanda in such a devastating manner. “I feel so sorry for Pearl. She’s been sneaking in here for snacks ever since they arrived last week.”
“Well, I can certainly understand that. I had a muffin that was just short of heaven.”
“I’m so pleased you enjoyed it.” Mary’s eyes skimmed over Amanda judiciously. “You’re a bit thin, dear. We’ll have to see what we can do about fattening you up a little.”
“A woman can never be too thin,” Amanda said, quoting one of her sleek mother’s favorite axioms.
“Want to bet?” a deep voice asked from the doorway.
Amanda tamped down the little burst of pleasure brought about by the sight of Dane, clad again in jeans. Today’s shirt was faded chambray; his shoes were high-topped sneakers.
Mary greeted him with a smile. “Good morning, darling.”
“Morning.” He crossed the room on a long, easy stride and kissed his mother’s cheek. “Do I smell sugar cookies?”
“It’s my new cologne,” Mary said with a laugh. “The saleswoman said it has vanilla in it.” She shook her head in mock regret. “She also said men would find it impossible to resist. I’m afraid I was oversold.”
“Never met a man yet who didn’t like sugar cookies,” Dane said agreeably. His grin slipped a notch as his attention turned to Amanda. “Good morning.”
Amanda had watched the way he brushed his finger down his mother’s cheek in a casual, intimate gesture that was as natural to him as breathing. Once again she was reminded how different the Cutters were from the Stockenbergs. It would be wise to keep those differences in mind over the next several days.
“Good morning.” Her tone was friendly, but cool. She could have been speaking to a stranger at a bus stop.
“Sleep well?” His tone was as studiously casual as hers.
“Like a baby,” she lied. She pushed herself up from the table. “Well, I really do have to get back to work. I just wanted to stop in and say hi,” she told Mary. “And to thank you for the lovely breakfast.”
“It’s been lovely seeing you again, dear.” Dane’s mother took Amanda’s hand in both of hers. “I realize you’re going to be extremely busy, but I hope you can find time to visit again.”
“I’d like that.” It was the truth.
Without another word to Dane, Amanda placed her cup on the counter, then left the kitchen.
“Well, she certainly has grown up to be a lovely young lady,” Mary said.
“Really?” Dane’s answering shrug was forced. “I didn’t notice.”
Mary poured another cup of coffee and placed it in front of him. “Reva says she has a very responsible position at that advertising agency.”
This earned little more than a grunt.
“I couldn’t help noticing she’s not wearing any ring on her left hand.”
Dane’s face shuttered. “No offense, Mom, but I really don’t want to talk about Amanda.”
“Of course, dear,” Mary replied smoothly. But as she turned to the stove and poured pancake batter into an iron skillet, Mary Cutter was smiling.
Despite instructions that they were to meet at eight o’clock sharp, the team members straggled into the conference room. By the time everyone had gotten coffee, fruit and pastries and taken their seats, it was twenty-eight minutes past the time the kickoff had been scheduled to begin.
“Well, this is certainly getting off to a dandy start,” muttered Greg, who was sitting beside Amanda at the pine trestle table at the front of the room. “Didn’t you send out my memo letting the troops know I expected them to be prompt?”
“Of course.” Amanda refrained from pointing out that if one wanted troops to follow orders, it was helpful if they respected their commanding officer. “We arrived awfully late last night,” she said, seeking some excuse for the tardy team members. “Everyone was probably a little tired this morning.”
His only response to her efforts was a muttered curse that did not give Amanda a great deal of encouragement.
Greg stood and began to outline the week’s activities, striding back and forth at the front of the room like General Patton addressing the soldiers of the Third Army. He was waving his laser pointer at the detailed flowchart as if it were Patton’s famed riding crop. The troops seemed uniformly unimpressed by all the red, blue and yellow rectangles.
As he set about explaining the need for consistent process and implementation, even Amanda’s mind began to wander, which was why she didn’t hear the door open at the back of the room.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” one of last night’s bellmen, who bore an amazing resemblance to Brad Pitt, said. “But Ms. Stockenberg has a phone call.”
“Take a message,” Greg snapped before Amanda could answer.
“He says it’s urgent.”
“I’d better take it,” Amanda said.
“Just make it quick. I intend to get on schedule.”
“I’ll be right back.” Amanda resisted the urge to salute.
The news was not good. “But you have to come,” she insisted when the caller, the man she’d hired to conduct the physical adventure portion of the weekend, explained his predicament. “I understand you’ve broken your leg. But surely you can at least sit on the beach and instruct—”
She was cut off by a flurry of denial on the other end of the line. “Oh. In traction? I’m so sorry to hear that.” She reached into her pocket, pulled out the antacids she was never without and popped one into her mouth.
“Well, of course you need to rest. And get well soon.” She dragged her hand through her hair. “There’s no need to apologize. You didn’t fall off that motorcycle on purpose.”
She hung up the phone with a bit more force than necessary. “Damn.”
“Got a problem?”
Amanda spun around and glared up at Dane. “I’m getting a little tired of the way you have of sneaking up on people.”
“Sorry.” The dancing light in his eyes said otherwise.
“No.” She sighed and shook her head. “I’m the one who should apologize for snapping at you. It’s just that I really need this week to go well, and before we can even get started on the kayak race, my adventure expert ends up in the hospital.”
“That is a tough break.”
She could hear the amusement in his voice. “Don’t you dare laugh at me.”
“I wouldn’t think of it.” He reached out and rubbed at the parallel lines his mother had smoothed earlier. “I don’t suppose a hotshot businesswoman—with her own window office and fancy Italian-leather chair—would need any advice?”
The soothing touch felt too good. Too right. Amanda backed away. “At this point, I’d take advice from the devil himself.” Realizing how snippy she sounded, she felt obliged to apologize yet again.
“Don’t worry about it. People say things they don’t mean under stress.” Which he knew only too well. Dane had found it enlightening that the temper he’d developed while working for the Whitfield Palace hotel chain seemed to have vanished when he’d bought the inn, despite all the problems refurbishing it had entailed. “How about me?”
“How about you, what?”
“How about me subbing for your kayak guy?”
Remembering how he’d taught her to paddle that double kayak so many years ago, Amanda knew it was the perfect solution. Except for one thing.
“Don’t you have work to do?”
Dane shrugged. “It’ll keep.”
“I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble.”
“Why don’t you let me worry about that, contessa? Besides, we all kind of pitch in where needed around here.”
That was exactly what Reva had told her. And Amanda was grateful enough not to contest that ridiculous name. “Thank you. I really appreciate your help.”
“Hey, that’s what we’re here for.” He grinned and skimmed a dark finger down the slope of her nose. “Service With a Smile, that’s the motto at Smugglers’ Inn.”
The knot of tension in her stomach unwound. It was impossible to worry when he was smiling at her that way. It was nearly impossible to remember that the man represented a dangerous distraction.
Relieved that she’d overcome the first hurdle of the week, and putting aside the nagging little problem of what she was going to do about the rest of the scheduled adventure exercises, Amanda returned to the conference room and began handing out the challenge-team shirts.
“What the hell are these?” Don Patterson, the marketing manager, asked.
“They’re to denote the different teams,” Amanda explained. “Reds versus blues.”
“Like shirts versus skins,” Marvin Kenyon, who’d played some high school basketball, said.
“Exactly.”
“I wouldn’t mind playing shirts and skins with Kelli,” Peter Wanger from the computer-support division said with a leer directed toward the public-relations manager, who was provocatively dressed in a pair of tight white jeans and a thin red top. The scoop neck barely concealed voluptuous breasts that, if they hadn’t been surgically enhanced, could undoubtedly qualify as natural wonders of the world.
“Watch it, Peter,” Amanda warned. “Or you’ll have to watch that video on sexual harassment in the workplace again.”
“Oh, Peter was just joking,” Kelli said quickly, sending a perky cheerleader smile his way. “It doesn’t bother me, Amanda.”
That might be. But it did bother Greg. Amanda watched her superior’s jaw clench. “Amanda’s right,” he growled. If looks could kill, Peter would be drawn and quartered, then buried six feet under the sand. “Just because we’re not in the office doesn’t mean that I’ll stand for inappropriate behavior.”
It sounded good. But everyone in the room knew that what was really happening was that Greg had just stamped his own personal No Trespassing sign on Kelli Kyle’s wondrous chest.
“Talk about inappropriate,” Laura Quinlan muttered as Amanda handed her a red T-shirt. “My kid’s Barbie doll has tops larger than that bimbo’s.”
At thirty-six, Laura was a displaced homemaker who’d recently been hired as a junior copywriter. Amanda knew she was struggling to raise two children on her own after her physician husband had left her for his office assistant—a young woman who, if Laura could be believed, could be Kelli Kyle’s evil twin.
Secretly agreeing about the inappropriateness of Kelli’s attire, but not wanting to take sides, Amanda didn’t answer.
“I can’t wear this color,” Nadine Roberts complained when Amanda handed her one of the red shirts. “I had my colors done and I’m a summer.”
“This week you’re an autumn.” Amanda tossed a blue shirt to Julian Palmer.
“You certainly chose a graphically unsatisfying design,” he complained.
“We should have come to you for help,” she said, soothing the art director’s easily ruffled feathers. Personally, she thought the white Team Challenge script just dandy. “But I knew how overworked you’ve been with the Uncle Paul’s potato chip account, and didn’t want to add any more pressure.”
“The man’s an idiot,” Julian grumbled. “Insisting on those claymation dancing barbecue chips.”
“It worked for the raisin growers,” Kelli reminded everyone cheerfully. Despite all the rumors that had circulated since the woman’s arrival two weeks ago, no one could accuse her of not being unrelentingly upbeat.
Amanda had been surprised to discover that beneath that bubbly-cheerleader personality and bimbo clothing, Kelli possessed a steel-trap mind when it came to her work. Which made it even more surprising that she’d stoop to having an affair with a man like Greg.
Not that there was actually any proof, other than gossip, that they were sleeping together, she reminded herself. However, given Greg’s Lothario tendencies, along with all the time the pair spent together in his office with the door closed, Amanda certainly wouldn’t have bet against the possibility.
Julian stiffened and shot Kelli a look that suggested her IQ was on a level with Uncle Paul’s. “Potato chips,” he said, “are not raisins.”
No one in the room dared challenge that proclamation.
“Wait a damn minute,” Marvin Kenyon complained when Amanda handed him a blue shirt. “I categorically refuse to be on his team.” He jerked a thumb in Julian’s direction.
Amanda opened her mouth to answer, but Greg beat her to the punch. “You’ll be on whatever team I tell you you’re on,” he barked from the front of the room. “In case I haven’t made myself clear, people, challenge week isn’t about choice. It’s about competition. Teamwork.
“And effective immediately, you are all going to work together as teams. Or at the end of the week, I’ll start handing out pink slips. Do I make myself clear?”
He was answered by a low, obviously unhappy mumble.
Smooth move, Greg, Amanda thought.
The worst problem with mergers was their effect on the employees. Even more so in advertising, where people were the agency’s only real assets.
The rash of changeovers had caused dislocation, disaffection, underperformance and just plain fear. Which explained why more and more accounts were leaving the agency with each passing day. It was, after all, difficult to be creative when you thought you were going to be fired.
There were times, and this was definitely one of them, when Amanda wished she’d stuck to her youthful dreams of creating a family rather than an ad for a new, improved detergent or a toothpaste that supposedly would make the high school football quarterback ask the class wallflower to the prom.
When the idea of home and children once again brought Dane to the forefront of her mind, she shook off the thought and led the group out of the room, down to the beach where the first challenge activity was scheduled to take place.