Primal Instincts

Those long showers together. Dry skin.

Seven or eight times a night? Bladder infection.

Miriam slumped in her chair and scanned her office walls. Here was her family history, the legacy she was now in charge of safeguarding. Rows of framed magazine covers lined each wall. Some black and white, others in bold color. Through war, the baby boom, flower power, disco to iPod, Coles had guided the company sensibly and competently.

And not a single Cole had ever blown it over a romance. Although her dad had come close when he’d married her mom. Miriam had always thought herself more like her grandfather. Now it was clear she’d inherited her father’s self-destructive romantic habits. Obviously embraced them because she couldn’t get that man out of her mind.

Her glance hit upon one of the covers. Woman in a business suit, power bun with the buttons on her silk blouse undone to reveal a sexy red bra.

Is All Work and No Play Making Jane a Dull Girl?

She reread the caption once more. Her shoulders relaxed and a smile slowly started to spread across her lips. It was strange how often something on one of these covers would trigger an emotion or a decision.

Yes. She had become a very dull girl. Miriam had been nothing but work for a very long time. When was the last time she’d gone out? How many times had she turned down her friends’ invitations to hit the town? When was the last time she’d been inclined to wear a sexy red bra?

What was wrong with her? She lived in the town that never slept. And she’d been in most nights by nine. She needed to get out. Meet new and interesting men. Laugh, dance. Of course, seven or eight times seemed great when you hadn’t gotten any in seven or eight months.

This had nothing to do with Jeremy at all. She picked up her cell phone to call Jenna. That speed-dial setting hadn’t been used in ages.

Except Rich buzzed in over the intercom.

“Ms. Cole, there’s someone here to see you.”

She scanned the schedule Rich placed on her desk every morning. She didn’t have any appointments. Rich would know not to announce a drop-in. Something was odd.

“It’s a Mr. Kelso.”

Miriam could tell by Rich’s tone that this name was supposed to mean something to her. It didn’t.

“A Mr. Jeremy Kelso.”

Miriam clicked her phone closed.

5

IAN GRIMACED. He studied his hotel room. Already he had done all he needed to do. And still he felt restless.

So what else was new? Seems he’d battled restlessness for as long as he remembered. Why stay in the same place when something else beckoned around the corner? Hell on relationships.

But then, he wasn’t much of a relationship kind of guy.

So then why did the doc get to him?

She was just another woman. Same as any woman from any other part of the world. Granted her parts were naked and covered with paint…but still.

Ian paced toward his window. He needed outside. He needed the sun on his head and a breeze against his face. Sixth-story windows in hotels did not cut it. He pushed himself away from the glass. He’d walk back to Ava’s apartment, and skip all elevators. That should burn off some energy.

Like Ava’s place, the hotel faced the winding canal of downtown Oklahoma City, and so the walk to meet her wouldn’t take long.

He hiked down the stairs and emerged into the sunlight, giving in to the restlessness. The canal waters rippled bluish-green a few feet away from him. Trees and flowers flanked the stonework path beside the water. He weaved among the mothers pushing strollers who seemed to be the predominant occupants of the walk during the middle of the day.

Old warehouses being turned into stunning homes had renewed many an old downtown area suffering from urban blight. Oklahoma City obviously reaped the same benefits. Restaurants bracketed the walk, so he suspected couples would be replacing the moms and joggers once the dinner hour arrived.

A bright-yellow boat floated below him, passengers waving to the pedestrians. They waved back. His lips twisted. Flyover country. People didn’t wave to one another in the places he’d been.

He found Ava waiting for him outside the entrance to her building.

A blonde.

Ava was a blonde. He hadn’t been able to tell earlier. All the paint was gone, and her hair was still damp from her shower. Natural highlights from the sun streaked her hair. He’d never gone for blondes before, preferring the dark and exotic over the coolness of many fair-haired women. And those green eyes of hers were anything but cool.

He felt anything but cool around Ava. She smiled and came toward him, and his eyes were immediately drawn to her body. His normal life felt a world away from the utter temptation that was this woman. His days and nights were filled with the exciting challenges of chasing down people who did not want to be found, rough terrain and hanging out with guys who smelled like something rotten.

So on the blessed, and lately, more rare occasions when he was with a woman, he wanted soft curves, sweet scents and her dressed in pure glamour. When they weren’t naked, that is.

None of that remotely described Ava. Oh, he liked her curves, but there was nothing sweet about this woman. And nothing wrong with the casual jeans and animal-print top she wore.

She hadn’t bothered to put on any makeup, and he liked her natural like this. A light layer of freckles dusted her nose and cheeks. Like him, Ava was apparently a woman who’d spent some time in the sun.

She also smelled like cinnamon.

And he loved the smell of cinnamon.

“I found the Mexican place on my way over here. You ready?” he asked her. Ready to get back on the move. Bad things always happened when you stayed in one place.

Ava nodded. “At night they cook their tortilla chips, and I can smell it for hours in my apartment. Sometimes I wake up craving Mexican food, and I didn’t even do that when I lived there.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go.” He adjusted his larger steps to hers. Her head just reached his shoulders. The scent of cinnamon surrounded him once more.

“How’d you wind up in Oklahoma?” he asked, digging up a way to get his mind off the smell of her hair. He was a reporter. He asked questions.

“My grandparents live here. In fact, that was their building. I wouldn’t have been able to afford this many square feet. My parents were always moving us from one place to another, but we’d always spend our holidays in Oklahoma. It seemed natural to set up a home base here when I returned from overseas.”

“Was that often?” he asked. Talk. Talk was good. It took his mind off wondering what she wore under her shirt. Wondering whether she preferred animal print in all the clothes that touched her skin…

Hell, it’d been a while since he’d been with a woman, but usually he could go longer than ten seconds before imagining her naked.

“From my earliest memories. The longest I can remember staying anywhere was two years. It feels kind of weird to be opening boxes instead of packing them. Some of these things I haven’t seen in years.”

Her apartment had been filled with statues, masks and pictures. It didn’t feel like a home base to him. A home base was more like his apartment, a place to sleep and watch football until the next assignment put you in harm’s way. There was nothing permanent about a home base, and Ava’s apartment felt very permanent.

“Were your parents anthropologists like you?” He did not need to know this. Knowing her background wasn’t important for the writing of this book. He’d only meant to talk, to pass the time, to distract himself. But he found himself curious about her answers. He’d met a lot of different people during his travels. Why did he care?

A smile touched her lips, and she laughed softly. He liked the sound of her laugh. “I’m not laughing at you. It’s just that it isn’t very often people don’t know who my parents are, but then, I’m mainly hanging out with a bunch of academics. My parents, Carol and Alex Simms, uncovered a temple to Isis in ancient Greece and set the archeology world on its ear.”

“Oh, really? And how would one do that exactly?” During his flight to meet Ava, he couldn’t have imagined anything more boring than having a conversation about archeology. Now he was intrigued.

“One would do that by saying that that temple proved the ancient Greeks patterned their gods and goddesses on those of the Egyptians, in the same way that the Romans took over the Greek gods and goddesses. It’s not even too far a stretch to get from Horus to Zeus.”