DAPHNE PULLED BACK slightly and looked at him through the dark fringe of her lashes. “Kiss me,” she whispered again.
A gust of wind jangled the windows. The candle flame leapt.
“Not a good idea,” Andy murmured. He stood up and pushed back his chair.
“Yes,” Daphne whispered, standing, too. “Downright terrible.”
“I don’t, uh, want this.”
“Yeah, me neither.” And she gave him a look, the kind of look a woman gives a man she wants to wake up with. Sexy and playful and damn unrepentant…
And too damn hard to resist.
Andy lowered his lips, hesitated. A fleeting thought of resistance skittered through his mind, followed by a speck of rationalization it would only be a kiss…
Just a kiss…
His gaze trained on her mouth—that wicked, teasing mouth. A heavy pounding started in his chest, reverberated in his ears as he bent his bead closer.
Just a kiss…
The moment his lips brushed against hers, Andy realized what a fool he’d been. There was nothing just about Renegade Remington, nothing just about the mouth that clung hungrily to his. Nothing rational about the fingers that tunneled into his hair. The room receded, taking with it any last shred of common sense he had.
Whatever stupid idea he’d had about only a kiss exploded, replaced by something wild and dangerous as his lips consumed hers, his tongue sliding into her wet, yielding mouth. He probed deeper, aching to taste her fully. She groaned deep in her throat and he tugged her closer, loving the feel of her breasts flattened against his chest and how her body molded to his.
Just a kiss?
The hot, moist taste of her was devastatingly female. Pungent with the sting of whiskey. His hands thrust into her hair—so soft, so silky—and he dragged his mouth up her cheek, nibbling, licking, stealing her sweetness until he buried his face in her hair, and inhaled its flowery fragrance as though he’d never taken a decent breath in his life.
“So…good,” he murmured, pulling back to stare at her heavy-lidded eyes and reddened lips before claiming her mouth again with a deep, primal growl.
It went on and on—a minute, an hour, forever—until he withdrew his fingers from her hair and slid them slowly down the curves of her body until his hands rested on her hips.
He wanted her.
Wanted to drag her to the bed, onto the love seat, hell, take her right here on the floor. Rip those pretty pants off and bury himself deep inside her.
With a shuddered groan, he tightened his hold on her hips, willing himself to rein it in, fighting sizzling images that blasted through his brain. The two of them in bed, naked. Her legs wrapped around his hips, Daphne crying out his name. Again and again and again.
The candle flame licked higher.
Then suddenly blew out.
They held each other in the dark for a long moment, their hearts pounding, their breaths coming hard.
“What happened?” she whispered.
“Candle went out.”
“How?”
For a second he didn’t respond. He rested his chin on her head and took a deep, calming breath. What had just transpired between them was dark, primordial and, oh God, the hottest thing he’d ever experienced.
“Don’t know,” he finally answered. Didn’t want to know, either. He’d always been a black-and-white kinda guy, never buying into deeper meanings. Waste of time, he’d always thought. You live, you eat, you lust, you die.
Then his grandfather had died, ripping away the one thing that gave life meaning. Andy swore and fought with his grief, only to finally give up. He didn’t have any answers, but he did have the old man’s wisdom, encapsulated into anecdotes that offered some solace.
And Andy had continued to live, although life didn’t really touch him as much.
Until now.
Something about being here, in this room and with this woman, was undermining some fundamental aspect of his otherwise predictable, ordinary life. Strange occurrences had come to pass that he couldn’t always explain. Powerful feelings rocked his body and mind. If there was a God, he—or she—had grabbed Andy by the shoulders and given him a good shake.
He felt as though he were being reprimanded to look around, see things differently.
He didn’t want that.
Did he?
On the table, something caught his eye.
“Daphne,” he whispered, slowly turning her around.
“Oh my God.” Her body stiffened. “How’d that get there?”
The laptop was where they’d left it on the table, but its screen had changed. Instead of the historical photograph, it now displayed an image of two cards, the King and Queen of Hearts.
Daphne laughed nervously. “You did that.”
“No—”
“Yes, you did! You had to.”
“We must have accidentally clicked on a link—”
“No, we didn’t. That’s a screen saver.” She laughed again, a bit more relieved. “A romantic screen saver.” She lowered her voice and turned to face Andy. The spare, hazy light from the computer screen and the moon through the bay window gave Daphne an almost ethereal glow.
“And you acted as though we shouldn’t kiss,” she said in a low voice. “Andy Branigan, you don’t fool me. You’re a mush.”
“Sure,” he murmured, suddenly wishing he’d really done something like that to please her. “Problem is, I don’t have such a screen saver. No bookmarks to any card sites, either.”
And he thought about saying more. How he didn’t believe in things like ghosts or true love, but knew he’d be a liar because those beliefs were being sorely tested in this damn room.
Reel it in, focus on reality. Like his deadline. The interview. And that the lady—despite her persuasive “no ring, no ties” line—belonged to another man.
Time to take five.
“Let’s go to bed,” he said, easing away from Daphne.
“Now you’re talking.”
“With the sheet up.”
“WHAT’S WRONG, Belle?” Sunshine hovered nearby on the roof, the layers of her white dress floating about her curvaceous form. “Not like you to get maudlin. Heck, you’re the eternal optimist, always advisin’ us ‘Never fold a good hand’ even if you have to fake it if you’re dealt a bad one. The girls giving you a bad time again about target practice?”
Belle snorted. “Like Flo and her persnickety self ever affected me.” She took a long drag of her cigarillo and stared up at the moon. “No, it’s ’cause I’m darn close to the Big Picnic and I got a couple in my room sleeping on opposite sides of the bed.” There were other things—the baby in the photo—but Belle never talked about that part of her old life. Except to Miss Arlotta.
“Your specialty is planting thoughts in lovers’ minds—already tried that?”
Belle nodded. “With those two, though, it’s like takin’ a horse to water who’ll barely take a sip.” She flashed a knowing look at Sunshine. “There’s a little problem with the woman, Daphne, being betrothed to another, but I can feel her heart’s wishes. She belongs with that man in my room, and he with her. But that ruffian has too many dang morals.” Belle took another puff.
“I know you, Belle. You’ll get that horse to drink,” Sunshine said with a wink. “Then give ’em some of your best tips to spice things up. That’ll cinch your last notch.”
Belle nodded, looked out at the dark, heavy clouds hovering in the west. “Looks like another spring snowstorm rollin’ in.”
“Shame, too,” said Sunshine. “The falls were just breaking up. A hearty snow could freeze them for another week.”
There was something special every year when the falls, frozen during the winter, came to life again. In a way, Belle viewed it as a reminder—or a promise—that they, too, had a life after this afterlife.
That’s when it hit her.
Maybe what would “thaw” Daphne and Andy would be a little change of scenery. An excursion to help them relax, get to know each other a bit better. She knew exactly the place. Daphne had said her great-great-great-great-grandfather had experienced the most happiness at a cottage nearby. Belle had a feeling that’s what Daphne had hoped herself to find up here—happiness. And wasn’t Andy a history buff?
And while they were there, they could ask about Jo. Now that Belle had seen the old photo with the baby, there had to be other clues to the child’s life. Especially as the lady who had adopted her had ended up as the housekeeper for Charlie Remington.
Belle thought about Sunshine’s special trait for manipulating the weather. “Can you make it sunny tomorrow so I can plant a special dream in my couple’s minds?”
Sunshine smiled, her pretty lips curving into a beatific smile. “Anything for you, Belle.”
She made a motion at the sky, twiddling her fingers as though waving goodbye to the clouds, then she blew Belle a kiss before floating through the roof into the hotel.
Alone, Belle looked up at the sky. Where the distant clouds were slowly retreating, twinkling stars emerged. She remembered how once upon a time, so very long ago, she and Drake had stood under a similar sky, picking out the constellations, and he’d teased her for not knowing where Venus was.
But she’d known what he really meant. She’d never told him she loved him, and she lived with that regret into eternity. Oh, Drake, my dearest, if only I’d known then what I know now…
Something stirred in the air.
“Bonnie.”
It resonated through her, that familiar rock-bottom, husky voice. Trembling with anticipation, she slowly turned.
There, ten feet in front of her, shimmered the outline of a man.
“Drake?”
“Bonnie.” The form filled. First the dark suit—Drake’s favorite, she noted. Then those long-fingered hands. Last his face. She ached as she stared at the familiar slant of his lips, that glint in his eye.
“How?” she whispered. “Why?”
“I waited for you, Bonnie. I’m still waiting.”
Still? “That Tombstone sheriff would have put me in jail the moment I stepped foot back in town.” I regret not trying. We lost so much.
He started to fade.
“No!”
His form flickered, returned.
Tell him. Before it’s too late.
“Drake, we had a child.” Her soul’s secret, the one thing she’d always wished she’d shared with him. If life was about following your heart, she’d failed miserably.
His eyes glistened with emotion.
How long would he—could he—stay? She had to tell him what happened. Before it was too late.
“On the run after Tombstone, near Denver, I discovered I was with child. A local doctor knew a couple who desperately wanted children and could provide a real home.”
Drake nodded, and for a moment, Belle wished he’d yell at her, blame her. Because it would hurt less than his tender, compassionate look.
“I only asked if they’d name her Jo.”
Drake smiled. She did, too, knowing they were both remembering that summer he’d taught her to read by using the book Little Women.
“In ’91, yellow fever swept through the area,” she whispered. “A customer told me a couple in a nearby town had died. Them and their little girl, Jo.”
Belle pursed her lips, her mind stumbling over the rest. How Miss Arlotta, the only one who knew Belle’s story, had helped her through those grief-stricken months until she could work again.
“Oh my darlin’ girl,” murmured Drake, his form fading, “I wish you hadn’t been alone.”
She reached out her hand. “Don’t leave—”
But her only answer was the whistling wind and the faint hush of the nearby falls.
“WHERE’S the baby?” A man’s muscled arms, brown below rolled-up shirt sleeves, wrapped around Daphne’s waist from behind.
“At the neighbor’s,” she answered, wiping the juice of apples off her hands onto a towel. She pushed aside a bowl filled with the peeled fruit.
“You smell sweet.” He nuzzled her ear, his warm breath making her shiver. “Like hot apple pie.”
A breeze flitted through the kitchen window, bringing scents of summer roses that mingled with the baking ham and buttermilk biscuits. The man turned her to face him.
It was Andy. And yet, at the same time, it wasn’t. The shock of red hair, those piercing blue eyes were his. Even that cocksure smile. But different was the work shirt, soiled and stained from hard labor, pulled tight across his wide shoulders. And the sun-kissed brown of his skin, as though he spent most of his life outdoors.
Her heart pounded as he tugged her closer. He smelled of sun and sweat and man. He leaned down, rubbed his nose playfully against hers and murmured huskily, “Darlin’ girl of mine.”
It was again familiar and, at the same time, not. Daphne knew this teasing led to passion, just as she knew the ridges and muscles underneath his clothes, where to touch, how to please. How it felt to be beneath him when their bodies joined.
And yet, this room, this very world, felt surreal. Vaguely familiar, but if she thought about it enough, she knew she’d remember fully. Like a word on the tip of your tongue.
A grin sauntered across his lips, and he gave her that look—his blue eyes burning into hers, scorching her with their need—and suddenly it didn’t matter what she’d thought was real or unreal as she let herself be swept away on a tide of feelings.
“I want you,” he growled.
He touched her, oh so lightly stroking her cheek, the path of his roughened fingers leaving a tingling sensation that spread slowly, completely, throughout her body, leaving in its wake a physical craving that filled every cell of her being.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Desire thickened the air. He cupped her cheek, angling her head as he kissed her long and hard. Tendrils of her hair lifted with another breeze, tickling and teasing her skin. She groaned, opened her mouth wider, tangled her tongue with his.
He trailed his hand down her cotton bodice, the heat of his fingers seeping through the fabric to her hardened nipples. A heaviness flooded the aching hollow between her legs.
“Yes,” she whispered again. “Oh, yes…”
Up came her skirt. His hand grazed her thigh, slipped into her drawers. Hot, skilled fingers touched her and she arched her back, panting as another breeze rushed over her moistened face.
“I…need…you,” he whispered huskily.
With anxious persistence he tugged her forward. She eagerly complied. Her breath quickening with his, she spread her legs, ready to succumb to the sweetly wicked heat….
Knock knock knock.
Andy faded, the kitchen faded….
Knock knock knock.
Daphne blinked open her eyes, looking foggily around the room. Brass four-poster bed. Chandelier. Familiar…and yet…
She wriggled her toes under the cream-colored satin bedspread and stared at the sunlight filtering through gauzy curtains fringing a bay window. It was all coming back to her…the room, Maiden Falls…
Knock knock knock.
She glanced down at a man’s bare arm, dusted with golden-red hair, thrust over her naked chest.
Ohhhh…
That was coming back to her, too. Last night. Little airplane bottles of whiskey. That kiss…
Oh, God, that kiss.
But…
She frowned, jerked her gaze up to the track lights on the ceiling over the bed. Where’s the sheet? She glanced back at her naked breasts—covered by that very naked, very male arm—again. Didn’t he loan me one of his T-shirts to wear?
Andy groaned, snuggled closer. “Darlin’ girl,” he mumbled.
Darlin’ girl. That’s what the man—Andy?—called me in the dream.
Daphne slid out of bed, the cool air assaulting every spot of her naked body, trying her best to remember when she’d doffed—or Andy had removed?—the bright orange Tony Stewart NASCAR T-shirt he’d given her to sleep in. She remembered slipping it on…but didn’t remember much after that.
Knock knock knock.
“Coming!” she called out. She trotted to the bathroom and grabbed a hotel robe—fluffy, white—off a hook, then headed to the door. After peering through the peephole, she opened the door slightly and looked at the bellhop, the kid with the braces, who gave her a quick down-up glance.
“Sorry to, uh, wake you.”
“It’s all right.” She looked around for a cart. “Did you bring coffee?”
“No, but they have courtesy coffee and rolls downstairs.” He handed her a paper. “Brought you a fax.”
“Fax?”
The kid nodded, his eyes darting past her to the bed, back to her. “From the Denver Post with instructions to be delivered immediately to a Mr. Andrew Branigan. We tried phoning your room, couldn’t get through, so I’m hand-delivering it.”
“Right,” she murmured, remembering Andy hooking up the phone line to his computer last night. They’d forgotten to reconnect it. “Thanks.” She accepted the paper. “Let me get some change—”
She glanced back at the room, wondering where she’d put her purse, half expecting to see a pile of ripped orange T-shirt lying somewhere.
“Uh, no problem,” the boy said. “After all, I interrupted you two—” His cheeks flushed. With an awkward wave, he suddenly turned and left.
She shut the door, wondering if last night she and Andy really had…No, no way. She’d know. A few bitty bottles of whiskey wasn’t enough to do her in, wipe out her memory.
Because she well remembered wanting to do what she hadn’t done. In fact, she’d been pretty darn desperate to do what she didn’t get to do. Jeez. Now that she thought back to last night, she cringed at her “kiss me” demand.
Demand? More like begging.
Daphne Remington had never begged a man for it.
She stared at Andy, lying in the bed.
That’s how he looked in the hot images that had filled her mind last night. It was as though somebody had taken over her thoughts, zapping her brain with hot, sizzling pictures of a scrumptiously naked Andy making burn-down-the-house love to her.
She closed her eyes. Oh God. I begged.
“Who was that at the door?”
She opened her eyes. Andy, the sheet hanging dangerously low on his hips, glanced sleepily at her.
“Bellboy,” she croaked. “You got a fax.” And by the way, I’m not the begging type. Really.
Andy propped himself up on his elbow, blinked lazily. “Has to be from Frank, my features editor. That man’s tracking instincts could shame a bloodhound.” Yawning, he waggled his fingers for the paper.
Daphne handed it to him, remembering the dream. In it, Andy’s body had been more sunburned. A ruddy brown that emanated heat. And although she didn’t get to see him naked in the dream, she’d known what he looked like and it was pretty darn near what she saw now. Muscled chest carpeted with wild swirls of golden-red chest hair. Strong shoulders. And those hands. Brown…big…
“You can let go.”
“Sorry.” She released her grip on the fax.
He shot a crooked grin at her. “Too much lovin’ in the kitchen, eh?”
Daphne did a double take. “What?”
“Hmm?” He gave his head a shake, yawned again. “Sorry, my mind’s playing tricks on me…started dipping back into my dream last night…”
“Kitchen?”
He cocked her a sleepy grin. “Yeah, there was a kitchen.”
“That…that was in my dream, too. We were in it…we lived there…” Heat raced to her face as she remembered the rest. Did he also experience that?
His smile slowly dissolved, replaced by a perplexed look. He checked out Daphne’s robe, the bed, the room as though finally realizing just where they were, too.
He looked back at her. “Daphne,” he said huskily, “we had the same dream.”
The glass decanter on the table rattled.