A Thrill to Remember (3 page)

“And Cammie Jo Lockhart and Mack McCaulley,” Kay continued, “are you out there?” She raised a hand to her forehead to scan the crowd.

Liam flashed the spotlight to the corner of the room, interrupting the two lovebirds in the throes of a deep kiss.

Someone whooped with delight. Cammie Jo blushed and ducked her head. Mack grinned like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. The audience applauded.

In a very short time Bear Creek had changed considerably, and mostly for the better. Not only had Caleb’s three best friends gotten hitched or engaged, but the population had grown from fifteen hundred to almost two thousand.

Some of the ladies that had arrived in response to the ad had fallen in love with Alaska and decided to stay, even though they hadn’t found a husband. Some of the fellows from surrounding communities had moved in, hoping to catch the eye of one of those ladies. Bear Creek was growing and changing from a summer tourist resort into a real town. Part of Caleb liked the changes. Another part of him feared his hometown might one day lose its rustic appeal as an increase in population tamed the wilderness.

“The ad’s success rate stands at seventy-five percent,” Kay continued, once everyone had settled down. “That’s pretty darned impressive, but the magazine would love a hundred percent success rate. There’s only one bachelor left. Caleb, where are you?”

He took a step back, not interested in being thrust into the spotlight.

“Caleb?” Kay called out. “Come on up here.”

That’s when he realized no one knew he was dressed as Don Juan. Relief washed through him. All he had to do was keep quiet. He didn’t want Klondike Kate to know he was the millionaire bachelor, which would seriously alter her perception of him. At least for tonight he wished to remain incognito.

“Caleb, where are you?” Kay coaxed.

Meggie cocked her head to one side and peered through the crowd, hoping to spy her ex-stepbrother-in-law. She hadn’t seen much of Caleb this summer—he’d been too busy fending off love-starved ladies, while she’d been sequestered at home taking care of her mother.

But since she was catching the first plane out of Anchorage tomorrow morning, this would be the last chance she’d have to say goodbye. She was very happy that her divorce from Jesse hadn’t caused any hard feelings between them; Caleb was a good, stable, honest man. The kind of guy she should have married.

“Caleb?” Kay repeated for the third time, but he did not appear. “Anyone seen Caleb?”

Meggie wasn’t surprised, although she felt disappointed. Caleb wasn’t much of one for parties or crowds.

“Well, I guess all you single ladies are out of luck. Seems our most eligible bachelor has flown the coop,” Kay said. “But on a positive note, the buffet is now open for business. Enjoy, everyone.”

Meggie kept searching the crowd, but when her gaze landed on Don Juan, she forgot all about Caleb.

Don Juan was talking to a razor-thin woman in a black cat suit. Meggie immediately felt fat and dumpy in contrast. She shook off that feeling. She wasn’t going to think negatively. So what if she was a size twelve and not a size two? Just because her ex had preferred rail-thin women, that didn’t mean everyone did.

Don Juan turned slightly, and she could see his stunning profile made all the more intriguing by the camouflage of his mask. She stared at his full, ripe mouth.

What would he taste like?

She knew the answer deep within the most hidden parts of her. He would taste like sin. She pursed her lips and slowly released a pent-up sigh.

He angled his head, caught sight of her from his peripheral vision and smiled very, very slightly, as if he harbored a hundred sexy secrets. No one else in the building would have noticed the glance, the smile, so subtle was his execution.

But Meggie did.

Go on over and put on a show. Pretend to be Klondike Kate.

She wanted to, but she was afraid of so many things. Like making a mistake, or getting in too deep.

How deep could you sink, Meggie? You’re leaving town tomorrow morning, never to see Don Juan again.

Not knowing exactly how to deal with her unexpected sexual desires, she sought sublimation. The buffet beckoned. She hurried over to the table, picked up a plate and started down the serving line.

With a cocktail fork, she leaned over to spear a moist, pink shrimp, but before she could retrieve her succulent prize, someone on the other side of the table got to it first.

“Hey,” she protested, then raised her head and caught Don Juan’s stare head-on.

He stood before her, the fat, slick shrimp impaled on his fork. Leaning forward, he dangled the seafood mere inches from her lips. Damn if he didn’t possess a small, wicked smile tilting up one corner of his mouth.

Meggie’s stomach did the hula and her knees loosened. She had the sudden urge to sit right down on the floor so she wouldn’t topple over from his body heat.

“I will share with you, belladonna,” he murmured with his captivating Spanish accent, rolling the word belladonna around in his mouth, savoring it as if it was the finest Belgian chocolate money could buy.

Slowly, Don Juan lowered the shrimp until it lightly brushed her bottom lip. Meggie flicked out her tongue to whisk away a drop of juice. Audibly, he sucked in his breath, his eyes never leaving her face.

Her heart careened into her rib cage, and she felt oddly enchanted. Determined not to let him know exactly how much he had affected her, Meggie shrugged and stepped back.

“On second thought I think I’ll skip the shrimp,” she said, affecting Klondike Kate’s uncultured inflection.

“Why is that?” he whispered. “Are you afraid?”

“Afraid?” She avoided looking into his eyes again. “What’s there to be afraid of?”

“Some say shrimp is an aphrodisiac.”

“Old wives’ tale,” she pronounced, really getting into the gold-rush madam’s brogue.

“So why not take a bite and see?”

He was flirting with her, no doubt about it. Meggie didn’t know what to do. It had been a very long time since someone had flirted so openly with her. She wanted the attention and yet she didn’t.

“No, thanks.”

“Ahh,” he said knowingly. “I understand.”

In spite of her best intentions not to meet his eyes again, Meggie had to slip a quick glance his way to see what he was ahhing about. She was immediately sorry she had. Sympathy for her shone on his face.

Damn. She didn’t need his pity. She didn’t want anyone’s pity, and she’d spent the past six months trying to convince everyone in Bear Creek of that fact. Now here was this masked stranger, reading her every emotion as if he truly knew her.

“You’ve been hurt by love.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh please. Anyone over the age of eighteen has been hurt by love.”

“But you’ve been hurt recently and you’re afraid to try again.”

“Hush up,” she insisted, but her pulse sprinted through her bloodstream.

How could he know this about her? Who was he? Was he from her hometown? If so, then who was he? No local man had ever set her libido to whirling the way this guy did. Bear Creek was too small, everyone too much like family.

“He has made you doubt your desirability as a woman,” Don Juan said. “He is a terrible bastard. Do not concern yourself with him.”

Her chest suddenly felt tight and she had the strangest urge to laugh and cry all at the same time.

“Look at me,” he insisted. “Look me in the eyes and tell me you’re not in pain.”

For pity’s sake. With a sigh of exasperation, Meggie stared him squarely in the face.

And lost herself.

With that warm smile and lusty expression in his eyes, Don Juan made her feel womanly, wanted and appreciated. Cherished. It was a feeling she hadn’t experienced in a very, very long time.

Entranced, she felt ensnared in a provocative reverie. A dreamy vagueness settled over her, wrapping her in a warm envelope of altered perception. She didn’t know if it was the masks or the wine or Don Juan’s solicitous smile, but she experienced a drowsy sense of peace.

Something about him seemed comfortingly familiar, as if she’d met him in another life. Except Meggie didn’t believe in that stuff. Even though she couldn’t exactly explain why, she felt safe in his presence.

Don Juan was the tonic she needed. The physical vehicle for her emotional healing. This magnetic man could be the cure for the psychic malaise that had dogged her for years.

In that instant, Meggie knew she was going to sleep with him.

MAGIC.

His costume was magic. It had to be. Caleb could think of no other explanation for his miraculous ease with the beautiful mystery woman. Wearing the mask and fake mustache was a liberating experience. He could be anyone. He could say and do anything.

Hell’s bells, he felt as if he were channeling Don Juan himself.

He was breathing hard, and roughly, the shrimp still dangling from his outstretched fork as he waited for Klondike Kate’s sweet, crimson lips to part and sheathe the tender morsel.

Their gazes locked. Who was she really?

She was breathing as hard as he, the gentle swell of her chest rising and falling in a mesmerizing rhythm. Holding him enthralled.

She reminded him vaguely of someone. But who? His mind probed the question but arrived at no answer.

Kate’s green eyes were lively and intelligent, the top half of her face hidden by the red-feathered mask. She wielded her tongue like an instrument of torture, touching it lightly against her upper lip as if purposely trying to make him lose control.

The visual impact slugged him. Hard.

His blood flowed hot and viscous through his veins. The way she gazed at him, like a curious innocent intent on exploring a brave new world, clutched something deep inside him and refused to turn it loose.

In that brief endless moment, as they faced off across the buffet table, the wet, pink shrimp as the prize, Caleb memorized everything about her not swaddled by the mask. The way she smelled of fresh summer rain, making him ache to bury his face in the curve of her neck. The fine brown freckles that lightly decorated her upper chest, exposed so engagingly by that red bustier. The irregular pounding of her pulse at her jawline. The sweet ruby bow of her lips.

And the completely gut-scorching realization that beneath the satin and lace of her flimsy undergarment, her nipples were standing at erect attention.

He almost groaned aloud.

“Excuse me,” Genghis Kahn interrupted, leaning across the table between them, tortilla chip in hand. “Could I get at that crab dip?”

Flustered, Caleb moved aside at the same time Klondike Kate blushed prettily, smiled and turned away.

Damn. The moment was lost.

Or was it?

Caleb ate the shrimp himself, hurried around to her side of the buffet table and boldly took her elbow. Instantly, his fingers tingled at the warmth of her soft skin. He pressed his mouth next to her delicate ear and murmured in a muffled growl, “What is your name?”

She lowered lashes so dark and long they brushed against her mask with a whispery rasp. “Now, now, that’s not part of the game.”

“And what is the game?” he asked, his voice thick with feeling.

“Secrecy. Anonymity. Mystery. That’s the fun.”

“You’re not going to tell me your name?”

“My name is Klondike Kate. Don Juan, I presume?”

He took the hand she offered him and pressed the back of it to his lips, as if he’d performed the courtly gesture a million times. He clicked his heels and bowed.

“At your service.”

“I am flattered. The famous lothario gracing the halls of my brothel. Perhaps, Señor Juan, we can teach each other a few tricks.”

Ah, but she was extraordinary. One minute blushing shyly, the next sassily playing at being a brothel madam in that whispery tone that obviously wasn’t her real voice. Just like him, she was playing a part. Her words hung between them like a physical entity, their meaning sinking into his brain one vivid movie-reel image at a time.

She wanted to teach him a few tricks.

Holy macaroni!

He was going to combust right there on the spot. What a game. Suddenly, he knew he had to get her alone.

“Wrap up your plate,” he said, barely remembering to keep up his Spanish accent. “Take it to go. We’ll have a picnic in the forest.”

“The forest?” Her eyes widened and for a moment he thought he’d panicked her and she was going to back out of their little masquerade.

“Twenty yards right outside this door, and you’re in the Tongass National Forest.”

“You don’t say.”

He waited. “Well?”

“I don’t think I’m really in the mood for food,” she murmured.

“No?”

“My appetite is of a different nature.”

Caleb thought he was going to break out in a sweat right then and there. “Mine as well.”

“You go on ahead.” She cast a surreptitious glance around the room and settled her plate on an empty table. “And I will follow. One can never be too careful. There might be spies.”