Silent Masquerade

What would a man who was as obviously worldly as Bill Hamlin think of her sordid story? Would he believe she was an innocent victim, or would he think she’d come on to her mother’s boyfriend and invited his attentions?

“Better drink that coffee before it gets cold,” Bill said as he adjusted his seat to a reclining position.

Cara nodded and opened the bag to find it contained a sandwich and a banana, as well as a cup of coffee.

“You missed your calling, Bill.” She grinned over at him. “You should have been a nutritionist.”

He didn’t smile in response. His face was set in a hostile mask, and his voice held a quiet threat as he asked, “What makes you think I’m not? And what do you know about my calling?”

Cara might have snapped back at him, if just at that moment the bus hadn’t lurched to the side and then come to an abrupt halt with a terrible screeching of the brakes.

Chapter Three

The driver used his radiophone to call in the broken axle. Within thirty minutes, the motel in Mount View, the town they had just come from, sent out its minivan to start hauling passengers back. The local garage sent a tow truck. The driver announced that a replacement bus would arrive in the morning, and in the meantime the motel would put up the passengers at the bus company’s expense.

Cara was on the first trek the van made, and she waited in the motel lobby with the others until the entire busload had arrived and were assigned rooms.

She passed the time looking over the postcard rack in the lobby, looking for a card to send her mother, just to let her know that she was safe. After all, it wasn’t as if they were staying in Mount View. They’d be long gone before Beth Dunlap ever received the card.

She chose one with a picture of the mountains and wrote a brief message, saying not to worry, that she was fine and enjoying traveling around the country.

She then curled up in the corner of one of the couches with her journal and a cup of coffee and a doughnut and wrote down everything she was feeling in a sort of letter to her mother.

She had just tucked the journal back into her gym bag when the last of her fellow passengers arrived, with Bill in their midst.

There were a few questions and some grumbling from the other passengers, but most took the news in stride, enjoying the diversion of a little adventure and the prospect of a night’s sleep in a real bed. They lined up at the desk to get their keys in orderly fashion. Cara found herself beside Bill.

“How about a swim before dinner?” Bill suggested.

Cara’s face brightened, then fell. “I didn’t bring a suit.”

Bill nodded and looked away as the line moved.

“But if that’s an invitation to dinner, I accept,” Cara said, putting a hand on his arm to get his attention. She jumped back when something like a wave of electricity jolted up her arm. Bill seemed similarly afflicted.

“Sorry,” she muttered, “must be the carp—”

Simultaneously they glanced down at the red tile floor and then lifted their eyes, meeting query with confusion.

“I do like a woman with spark,” Bill said, in a near whisper. His eyes gleamed, and a little muscle twitched along his jaw as he gave his full attention to her face.

Cara could feel his roving gaze, like a warm hand lightly caressing her skin. Her own eyes were drawn to the angles and planes of his face, to the full curve of his lips, the hard edge of his cheekbones. When she tried to swallow, her throat felt dry.

The bus driver called out, “Keep moving, folks,” and Cara and Bill returned to the present.

Cara soon found herself at the desk, and had to think a moment when the desk clerk asked her name. She went through the business of registering, finding her room and unpacking her few items of clothing with a soft smile on her lips. She’d seen a liquor store at the other end of the street, across from the motel, and decided she’d spend a little of her nest egg to provide a bottle of dessert wine as a way of thanking Bill for the dinner and the other meals he’d provided her. She tried not to ask herself why this particular meal felt like a date, after all the other, casual meals they’d shared on the trip. Bill had certainly made it clear that his only interest in her was as a seat partner for the duration of the journey. For herself, she wasn’t even sure Bill Hamlin was the type she would have dated if she’d met him under other circumstances.

Yet the memory of that moment in the lobby, when they’d looked deep into one another’s eyes, still had the power to steal her breath away and bring heat to the surface of her skin. Her type or not, he was the most damnably attractive man she’d ever met, and for tonight, at least, she intended to enjoy the pretense that he was a real dinner date and that they were on the verge of something sweet and promising—not to mention something dangerous and compelling.

* * *

BILL WENT TO HIS ROOM, changed into swim trunks and headed for the pool. He’d always used swimming for his fitness regimen, since his career had entailed so much travel, and most hotels and motels had pools. This one echoed with the lack of bodies at this time of day, and Bill reveled in having the place to himself.

He dived in and then found that it took him a few minutes to get oriented. For some reason, the warm, silken water on his skin made him think of Cara. He’d never thought of swimming as an exercise in the erotic, but now he found himself wishing that Cara had been able to join him. He envisioned her long-limbed slenderness in a French-cut swimsuit, and the fantasy shortened his breath and made his limbs tense with desire. He could see her stroking beside him, her arms golden as they flashed through the water, her head tilted to the side as they stared into one another’s eyes.

He squeezed his eyes shut and forced his breathing into a rhythm his body could follow. He had no business thinking about Cara Davis in that way. For that matter, when had he begun to think of her as a desirable woman, rather than a casual traveling companion? It must have something to do with the fact that this was a sort of reprieve in the midst of his desperate journey. One night, suspended in time, to allow them to pretend they were normal people who’d happened to meet on a bus and were drawn to one another because they were young, attractive and available.

I’m not available, he reminded himself.

And it didn’t matter when his perception of her had changed. The point was that it was self-defeating to allow himself the diversion, and he was going to have to get control over such errant thoughts.

He did punishing laps for exercise and then leisurely breaststroked around the perimeter of the pool a couple of times. By the time he hoisted himself up onto the ceramic deck, his endorphins were humming and he felt physically better than he had in days.

He didn’t know why, but he felt safe here. Safe enough to look forward to his evening with his lovely traveling companion. There would be time enough tomorrow to restore the necessary status quo.

He whistled jauntily as he started down the carpeted hall to his room, and then he stopped dead in his tracks when he spotted Cara at the end of the corridor in front of the ice machine. She was talking to some man—a man Bill didn’t recognize from the bus—and the way they had their heads together, it was obvious to Bill that they were discussing something serious. Acting on instinct, he stepped back and flattened himself against the wall around the corner.

He waited a couple of minutes and then eased out to the edge of the wall and looked down the hall. Cara and the man were gone.

Bill took a deep breath and went on to his room. Okay, so his seatmate was talking to some guy. So what? She was a pretty girl; men were apt to notice her, hit on her. It was none of his business.

It made him uncomfortable to realize that if the man had been young and good-looking, what he was feeling might have been dubbed jealousy.

He made himself focus on their dinner date. He’d asked at the desk and been told there were actually four good places to choose from, since this was on a main route through the mountains, and many tourists stopped to enjoy the view.

He was dressed in record time, and too restless to wait in his room. According to his watch, it was a good hour before most dining rooms would open for dinner. He decided to let Cara know he was going for a stroll around the grounds and would meet her in the lobby in an hour.

* * *

THEY DINED at a table in the corner of the dining room of the Mount View Inn, which was large enough to allow them some privacy, though there were other dinner guests scattered throughout the room. Candles flickered, flowers scented the air, and soft music played through speakers strategically placed on each wall.

Bill and Cara faced each other across white linen, self- consciously holding large menus in front of them.

“You look lovely, Cara,” Bill said at last, setting his menu down with a sigh.

“I was just thinking that this room merits something dressier than a skirt and sweater,” Cara shyly replied, peeking around her menu.

“I think it’s more than just your outfit. I like your hair like that, by the way.”

“Thank you.” She’d pulled her hair up into a cluster of curls atop her head and used slightly more makeup than usual. “You look nice, too, Bill,” she said, and ducked back behind the menu as she felt a warm flush move up into her face.

Bill chuckled. “Must be the altitude,” he said.

“What?”

“This self-consciousness between us. Either that, or we’re just truck-stop people at heart.”

“I’d never been in a truck stop before I came on this trip,” Cara said. She didn’t add that dining rooms like this were much more in her league.