About Last Night... (5 page)

to save the family business.

When the elevator dinged and the door slid open, his exhaustion nearly immobilized him, but he managed to drag himself and

his bags across the red thick-piled carpet to the empty reservations counter. Just his luck that everyone was taking a break. He

looked for a bell to ring, but he guessed the hotel was a little too classy for ringers. Live flower arrangements the size of a

person graced the enormous mahogany counter shiny enough to reflect his image—in his opinion, just another overdone element

of the posh resort whose decorating philosophy seemed to be "Size
does
matter."

He wondered briefly how much green the bride and groom were dropping for the wedding. Between the rehearsal dinner, the

ceremony and the reception, all of which were supposed to take place at the resort, he suspected his buddy would have to

perform an extra face-lift or two to foot the bill. Derek scoffed, shaking his head. Marriage—bah. He gave his pal and the

Murphy woman six months, tops.

"Hello?" he called, trying to tamp down his impatience. He was not above stretching out behind the counter to sleep if he had

to.

A door opened on the other side of the elevators, and his mood plunged when Pinky herself emerged from the stairwell, pale

and limping, hair everywhere, coat flapping. "Oh, brother," he muttered. The last thing he needed was to spend one more

minute with the leggy siren.

Stepping up next to him, she said, "Derek, I insist you take the room."

One look into her blue eyes gave him a glimpse of Steve's future—the woman would be a handful, even for Steve. He might

have felt sorry for his pal, but, he reasoned perversely, the man who had led such a charmed life to date probably deserved a

little grief. "Janine, go back upstairs."

She frowned and planted her hands on her hips. "I thought people from the country were supposed to be polite."

His ire climbed, then he drawled, "I get testy when I run out of hayseed to chaw on."

Her eyebrows came together and she crossed her arms, sending a waft of her citrusy perfume to tickle his nose. "What's that

smart remark supposed to mean?"

He did not need this, this, this … aggravation, not when his body hummed of fatigue, stress and lingering lust. Derek felt his

patience snap like a dry twig. He leaned forward and spoke quietly through clenched teeth. "I'll tell you what it means, Pinky. It

means I left my firm in the middle of a very important project to fly here and stand in for my runaway brother in a ceremony I

don't even believe in, only to catch some kind of plague and have my reservation canceled and have my sleep interrupted by a

stranger crawling into my bed!"

She blinked. "Do you have blood pressure problems?"

Heat suffused his face and he felt precariously close to blowing a gasket. She and Steve deserved each other, and they'd

never miss him. So after one calming breath, he saluted her. "I'm going home. Please give Steve my regrets." He turned, then

added over his shoulder, "And my condolences."

He picked up his suitcase, then headed toward the main lobby, not a bit surprised to hear her trotting two steps behind him.

"Wait, you can't go!"

"Watch me," he growled.

"I'm sorry—you can have the room."

Derek lengthened his stride.

"After all, you made the trip down here…"

As he approached the lobby area, a buzz of voices rose above the saxophone Muzak, reminding him of bees. But then again,

he did have honey on the brain. Good grief, he needed sleep.

"And you're not feeling well," she rattled on. "Blah, blah, blah…"

The buzz increased as he rounded the corner. He stopped abruptly at the sight before him, and she slammed into him from

behind, jarring his aching head.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she gasped. "I didn't realize—"

"Can you be quiet?" He pulled her by the arm to stand alongside him, too distracted by the scene to worry about her tender

feelings.

The step-down lobby of the hotel was swarming with people, some in their pajamas sitting in chairs or lying on couches,

others in lab coats, tending to the guests, others in security uniforms, hovering.

"What the hell?" he murmured.

"They're medics," Janine said. "Something's wrong." She walked over and knelt in front of a young man in a hotel uniform

sitting in a chair looking feverish and limp. While her lips moved, Janine put a hand on the youth's forehead and took his pulse.

The coat she wore fell open below the last button, revealing splendid legs encased in those black hose, and bringing to mind

other vivid details about what lay hidden beneath the coat. She tossed the mane of blond hair he'd come to suspect was real

over one shoulder, evoking memories of its silkiness sliding over his chest and face.

Recognizing the dead-end street he was traveling, Derek shook himself mentally and strained to remember what she said she

did for a living. A nurse? A nurse's aide? No, a physician's assistant. Except the woman seemed way too flaky to oversee

someone else's welfare.

She rose and patted the young man on the arm, then returned.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

Janine shrugged. "No one knows. Several employees and guests have come down with flulike symptoms, so they called for

medical assistance."

The remains of pink color shimmered on her full mouth … a mouth that had been kissing him not too long ago. His groin

tightened. "Is it serious?"

She shook her head. "It doesn't seem to be. My guess is a bad white sauce served in the restaurant, or something like that."

Then she stopped and angled her head at him. "Wait a minute—when did
you
start feeling bad?"

He shrugged. "When I got here, there was a mix-up on my reservation, so I hung around the lobby for a while until Steve

arrived. I remember asking the clerk for directions to the gift shop to buy some cold medicine before I walked up to Steve's

room."

She stepped closer and tiptoed to place her small hand on his forehead. He flinched in surprise, but relented. Her eyes were

the same deep color of blue as his mother's favorite pansies. The best part of winter, she always said. His pulse kicked higher.

He had to get out of here, fast.

"You're a little warm," she announced, her forehead slightly creased. "But not anything alarming."

He stepped around her, his eye on the revolving exit door on the far side of the lobby. Outside sat a yellow taxi, his escape

hatch. "Listen, I'm going to grab that cab to the airport. I'll see ya, Pinky. Have a happy marriage and all that jazz."
And good

riddance.

"But wait, don't you want to see a doctor?"

He shook his head as he turned to go. "Nope."

She grabbed his arm. "Derek, what are you going to tell Steve … about tonight?"

He took in her wide eyes and her parted lips and for a minute he wondered if she knew what kind of man she was marrying.

She seemed so innocent. Then he laughed at himself—dressing up in naughty lingerie and coming to the hotel to please Steve

was not the act of an innocent. Besides, for all he knew, Steve
had
changed and would be a faithful husband. On the other hand,

sometimes women knew their boyfriends were philanderers and didn't care, or liked the freedom it afforded them. Steve was

probably well on his way to becoming a wealthy man, and money could make people overlook a variety of indiscretions.

Either way, it was none of his business. He wet his parched lips. "What do you want me to tell him?"

She averted her eyes, and he could see the wheels turning in her pretty head. When she glanced back, she looked hopeful.

"Nothing?"

He smirked. Nothing like honesty to get a marriage started off on the right foot. "You got it, Pinkie. Nothing happened. We

ran into each other in the lobby as I was leaving."

"Okay." Her smile was tentative as he increased the distance between them. "Well, goodbye," she said, then waved

awkwardly.

He nodded. "I'll leave Steve a message when I get to the airport and I'll touch base with him next week."

"We'll be in Paris for two weeks," she called.

"Better him than me," he said, knowing she couldn't hear him. He waved and smiled as if he'd said something inanely nice,

then turned and strode toward the exit, his steps hurried. He couldn't wait to feel blue-grass under his feet again. Steve and Jack

could have the high life and the high-maintenance women. Right now he'd settle for a honey of a good advertising idea.

And a good night's sleep to banish the memory of Steve's bride in his bed.

* * *

hook. She could leave now and Steve would never know she'd been there. Derek had said he wouldn't mention the incident,

and for some odd reason, she believed him. His seriousness had struck her—he was a man with a lot of responsibility. What

had he said? That he'd left at a busy time to attend a ceremony he didn't believe in?

Actually, she should be feeling nothing but giddy relief. Instead, she had the most unsettling sensation that something …

important … had just slipped through her fingers…

Janine shook herself back to the present. She still had tomorrow night—technically, tonight—after the rehearsal dinner to

broach the issue of having sex with Steve. Leaning over to massage her heel, she acknowledged she might have to regroup and

come up with a different outfit, but Marie would think of something.

She headed toward the pay phones, threading her way through the people in the lobby. She was tempted to offer assistance to

the medics, but they seemed to have everything under control, and she was still feeling the effects of the wine. Tomorrow

morning—correction, in a few hours—she'd call that nice Mr. Oliver to make certain the problem had been resolved. The last

thing she needed was to have the entire wedding party food-poisoned at the rehearsal dinner. Her mother was already on the

verge of a nervous breakdown.

She picked up the phone and redialed the apartment using her memorized calling-card number. Her sister answered on the

first ring.

"Marie, thank God you're home."

"I just walked in the door. I stopped on the way home to pick up pineapple juice. Why aren't you, um,
busy?"

"Because Steve's not here."

"What? But he answered the phone when you called."

"No, his
best man
answered the phone. Steve gave the guy his room because the man was sick and didn't feel like going out

with everyone else." She waited for the revelation to sink in and was rewarded with a gasp.

"You mean, you greeted the best man wearing that pink getup?"

Janine relived her humiliation yet again. "Noooooo. I mean, I crawled into bed with the best man wearing this pink getup."

For once, she had achieved the impossible—Marie was struck speechless.

"Marie, are you there?"

"Are you saying—" her sister make a strangled noise "—that you put a stroke on the best man?"

"No!" she snapped. "We sort of realized the mistake, Marie."

"At what point?"

Janine remembered the kiss and experienced her first all-body blush—not completely unpleasant—then leaned against the

enclosure. "My virtue is intact."

"Unbelievable! See, exciting things do happen to you."

"Really?
Humiliating
was the first word that came to my mind."

"Isn't your best man that dreamy Jack Stillman?"

"He was. But Jack disappeared, so Steve asked Jack's brother, Derek, to stand in."

"Is he gorgeous too? And single?"

Her head had started to throb again. "Marie, I didn't call to discuss the Stillman gene pool. I called to see if you would come

to pick me up. I left my purse under the front seat of your car and I have no money and no key."

"Well, sure I'll come back, but don't you want to wait for Steve?"

"I don't think so." She wasn't sure she could go through with her plan to seduce Steve with the memory of another man's

mouth on hers so fresh in her mind.

"You lost your buzz, ergo your nerve."

"Well—"

"Janine, if you come home, you won't be any closer to the answer you went for."

The sick feeling of anguish settled in her stomach again, but she appreciated her sister's objectivity, quirky as it was. "You're

right, but Derek said the guys are supposed to be out all night."

"Okay, so you wait in Steve's room until morning." Marie laughed. "That is, unless you think he won't do it in the daylight."

Janine tried to smile, but she felt too disjointed to respond.

"Oh, wait," her sister said. "You said that the best man is staying in Steve's room."

"No," Janine said morosely. "He left."

"Left to go to another hotel?"

"No," she said, swinging her gaze toward the revolving door. Flashing lights outside the front entrance caught her attention.

Two ambulances and several police cars had arrived, along with a van that bore a familiar insignia: the Centers for Disease

Control. A knot of people stood outside, as if in conference, and she recognized the general manager she'd been talking to

earlier as one them. The revolving door turned and, to her amazement, Derek walked back in, his expression as dark as a