Nothing But The Best

Being bored wasn’t.

It made her feel inadequate. If she’d been Paige, she’d have been quite content to lie there and contemplate the universe. If she’d been Trish or Thea, books would have been company enough. But she was herself and she needed something more. Not scheduled meetings and swank party something mores, but company, conversation, fun. Solitaire wasn’t cutting it.

She needed a man.

Like that gorgeous specimen who’d changed her tire, for example. If he were lying here beside her, that would be just perfect. They could laugh together, have a few drinks, do some dancing. Maybe even give each other a run through in bed, considering that here it was April and she’d yet to have sex in the new year. Playing hard was the perfect antidote to working hard.

In retrospect, she felt silly for having been so cautious with him, especially when he’d turned out to be such a good guy. Not that she’d talked with him much, of course. In that sense, he’d been the perfect fantasy: tall, dark and handsome, a blank slate for her to color as she would. He’d be her kind of guy, the kind of guy who could make her laugh, who was just a bit unpredictable, who knew what he wanted and was ready to go after it.

Especially in bed.

Now there was a thought, much more interesting than cards. She closed her eyes, imagining how he would be. Sexy in that take charge, I’ve-got-to-have-you-now way. Fabulous body, that went without saying, and hands to die for. Hands that would know just how to touch her, hands that would make her shiver and moan.

Cilla sighed and opened her eyes. She wasn’t quite ready to go on the prowl, even if she was on a mini-getaway, but the thought of sex—good sex—made her weak.

Oh, well. She sighed again and put the red queen on the black king. Woman on top, her favorite position.

The waitress stopped at her chaise. “Can I get anything for you?”

What the hell, Cilla thought, it was close to cocktail hour, just a couple of time zones over. She looked out toward the palm-shaded bar across the pool and considered her options. The bartender set a margarita down on the bar. Now there was an idea, something frosty and tangy tart to cut the heat. She’d have a drink and then she’d go mingle a bit and see what kind of entertainment she could scare up. “I’ll have a margarita on the rocks,” she began, watching the guy at the bar pick up his drink. “Ask the bartender to please use a lot of lime and add a shot of—”

Cilla broke off, eyes widening. The guy with the margarita had turned toward her enough that she saw his profile, and then his full face. What were the chances, she asked herself as the corners of her mouth began to tug up. It couldn’t possibly be her Samaritan from the night before, showing up here of all places. It couldn’t be.

It was.

“Scratch that order,” she told the waitress. “I’ll go to the bar myself.”

He wore turquoise trunks, his blue-green Hawaiian shirt hanging open over them. As near as she could tell, she’d been right the night before: his body was prime stuff, washboard abs, sinewy legs, pecs that suggested he had more than a passing acquaintance with a weight room. But it was his face that captivated her.

He stared out toward the green of the golf course, nodding to the music as the breeze stirred his hair. He wore it long enough on top to be hip, short enough in the back to be tidy. The five o’clock shadow from the day before was gone, which was a pity. The gorgeous lines of cheekbone and jaw were not. Dark glasses hid his eyes.

Cilla sat up and scooped up her deck of cards. She was done with solitaire, she thought, finger-combing her hair and rising to tie on her sarong. The game she wanted to play now was deuces.

RAND STARED OUT at the arc of mountains that rose high and sudden beyond the resort. He’d seen a lot of Europe in the past few months, but when it came to drama, the desert had it hands down.

He stifled a yawn. By dint of heroic struggle, he’d managed to stay awake the night before until about eight o’clock, then nodded off into dreams of his roadside maiden in distress, dreams in which he’d jacked up her car—and she’d jacked him up. None of which prevented him, predictably, from waking at a ridiculous hour. Even taking time to work out and linger over breakfast had still seen him on the golf course before eight. He’d practiced his driving a bit to get the rust off and then took on the full eighteen-hole course.

All things considered, he figured he’d more than made up for sitting on a plane for fourteen hours. His muscles felt pleasantly tired. Raising the margarita, he took a swallow and thought again about the woman at the side of the road. He wondered where she was, what she was doing now.

He wondered if she’d given him even a thought once he was gone.

“So how are the margaritas?”

He looked up.

It was as though his mind had conjured her up. All tropical color and silky bare skin, she stood before him, fragrant and frisky, eyes alight with the promise of fun.

And all his hormones started doing the happy dance.

Her lips curved. “The polite thing would be to invite me to sit down.”

“Absolutely,” he said, snapping out of it and gesturing to the stool next to him. It wasn’t often that he was at a loss for words. Then again, it wasn’t often just looking at a woman could make him feel sucker punched. He watched her order a drink from the bartender who had appeared immediately in that magical way they did for beautiful women. “I guess you got to where you were going.”

“Thanks to you,” she agreed, turning back to him. Her smile was sunbeam bright, her hair a hundred shades of blond and golden brown as it shifted with every shake of her head. She wore it chin length so that it focused attention on her face, on that full mouth, those green eyes with their mischievous tilt. A faint whisper of her scent drifted across to him. He wondered if her skin was as smooth as it looked.

“You know, if I’d guessed you were headed to the resort, I could just have given you a ride.”

“Bad planning on my part.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, just enjoying watching her. “I suppose if you weren’t ready to get out of a car with me nearby, you probably wouldn’t have gotten into one, either.”

“I had your best interests at heart. What if I’d have turned out to be some wacko and there you were, stuck with me at the side of the road? You were safer with me in the car.”

“You did have a tire iron,” he recalled.

“Exactly.”

“In that case, I guess I owe you one.”

“It was the least I could do.” Laughter bubbled in her voice. The bartender set down Cilla’s drink and she held it up for a toast. “To good deeds and good Samaritans. Thank you again for stopping. You were very chivalrous. Your mama raised you right.”

The margarita tasted tart and cool on his tongue, the tequila a faint bite underneath. “She’ll be happy to hear it. You could write and tell her so. It’ll make her day.”

“I’ll write your mother if you write mine and tell her what a cautious citizen I was,” she bargained. “She’s forever wailing that I’m not careful enough and I don’t have the sense God gave a goat.”

Rand considered her. “You look smarter than a goat.”

“Thank you.” She inclined her head.

“Better looking, too.”

Her laugh was husky with delight. “I like to think so.”

Her bikini reminded him of a dish of sherbet, all bright pink and lime-green and orange. The top of it was one of those twisted bands that seemed to stay in place magically. The whys and hows, of course, were far less interesting than what was beneath.

“So what are you doing here?” she asked, watching him.

“I was heading to Vegas and made a wrong turn at Albuquerque,” he said blandly.

“What a disappointment.”

“Not even remotely.”

She stared at him for a beat, then blinked. “Well, just in case, I do have a deck of cards. I’ll be the house and we can play a few hands,” she offered.

“You’re too kind.”

“You can give me all your money and it’ll feel just like being there.”