Double the Heat (25 page)

Read Double the Heat Online

Authors: Lori Foster,Deirdre Martin,Elizabeth Bevarly,Christie Ridgway

Tags: #Erotic Stories; American, #Man-Woman Relationships, #Mate Selection, #Contemporary, #Fiction, #Romance, #General, #Short Stories

BOOK: Double the Heat
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A bikini and no worries
, Kate had said.
That’s all you’ll need to pack
. She’d assured Amanda the condo would have everything else she’d need, right down to the sunscreen and beach towels.
Ha,
Amanda thought now. Spoken like the hedonistic bon vivant Kate was. The hedonistic bon vivant with perfect skin and perfect hair and perfect everything else, who didn’t need special skin and hair care products if she didn’t want to break out in hives, and SPF 492 if she didn’t want to spontaneously combust. Kate didn’t have seasonal allergies that required antihistamines, or insomnia that necessitated sleep aids, or dry eyes that demanded artificial tears. And her vision was perfect, so she didn’t have to pack things like saline solution and cleaning chemicals for her contact lenses, not to mention eyeglasses—and a spare pair, should her first pair break—or prescription sunglasses—and a spare pair, should the first pair break.
Oh, sure, Amanda probably could have bought most of those things in Florida, but who knew if the stores down there carried the same brands they did here in Indianapolis? It had taken her a long time to find products that didn’t irritate her highly irritable body parts. No way was she going to risk spending the only vacation she’d probably have this decade broken out in some abominable reaction to something new. Hence the additional stuff stuffed into her bag.
Nor did Kate—or her husband, for that matter—need to stay in touch with the rest of the world when they took personal time, the way Amanda did. Kate was a painter and sculptor who did her best work in isolation, and Marshall was a tech wiz who could work from any place that had wireless access. Amanda was the assistant to the CEO of Hoberman Securities, and the only reason she was able to take this week off was because her boss was on vacation too.
As it was, she would still be on call for the next seven days, since Mr. Hoberman was never actually
on
vacation when he went on vacation. He’d expect her to call in daily with her usual reports on developments in the financial and business worlds and keep him apprised of what was going on. So she’d also had to pack her laptop and assorted other gizmos for staying in touch with the world—and Mr. Hoberman—along with any paperwork she might need to consult about projects on which her boss was currently working.
Okay, okay, so maybe her vacation wasn’t going to be much of a vacation. At least she’d be at the beach. Alone. During January, a time when Indianapolis was already covered with two inches of snow and being threatened with more. With only half the work she normally had because, in addition to being Mr. Hoberman’s assistant, she was also, evidently, the only person at Hoberman Securities who knew the answers to really vital questions like “Where do we keep the microwave popcorn?” and “Whose turn is it to stock up on paper clips?”
She hoped the company didn’t collapse without her around to take care of such potentially catastrophic crises.
And speaking of catastrophic crises, she eyed her carry-on again, noting that the zipper was straining along its seam, and the buckles of the outer pockets looked about to blow. Always prepared, she thought. Just like the Coast Guard. Or was it the Boy Scouts? Campfire Girls? Well, anyway, Amanda Bingham wasn’t the type to go off half-cocked—or with a potentially explosive suitcase. So she hefted it from the bed, carried it to the stairs leading down to the first floor of her condo, and hurled it to the bottom. It bumped and thumped to the foyer without a single stitch coming undone.
She smiled, thinking her suitcase was a lot like her. Sturdy, no-frills, under stress and pushed to the limit, but not undone. Oh, no. Amanda Bingham was
never
undone. She approached every challenge that life presented fully prepared for any mishap. And for that reason, mishaps rarely—if ever—occurred in her life.
Vacation, here I come
, she thought. She closed her eyes and envisioned herself seated on the sun-drenched deck of a beachside restaurant—in the shade, of course—a pile of peel-and-eat shrimp before her bookended by a bowl of cocktail sauce and a bottle of ice-cold beer, sweaty from the heat. In the distance, the turquoise waters of the Gulf of Mexico sparkled beneath a crisp blue sky, a windsurfer clinging to a bright, rainbow-streaked sail skimming across its surface, and—
The chirping of her cell phone made the image dissolve, since she hadn’t planned on including it in her fantasy. Then she realized it wasn’t a part of her fantasy. Her cell phone was actually ringing. She snatched it from the nightstand, checking the number in spite of the fact that she knew perfectly well who it was. No one else ever called her.
She sighed, pushed the Answer button, and said, “Hello, Mr. Hoberman. . . . No, of course you’re not bothering me. . . . No, I don’t have to leave for another hour. . . . Sure, I can check on that for you and call you back tonight. Will you be at this number?”
She nodded in response to his orders, reached for the pad and pencil that were never more than an arm’s length away, and bit back another sigh.
Vacation, here I come. . . . Just as soon as I finish this call . . .
 
 
 
It
went without saying that the flight to Fort Myers was, like everything else that day, a nightmare. The call from Mr. Hoberman had led to a half dozen more, thereby using up all the extra time Amanda had allotted herself just in case, because she always allotted extra time for herself just in case. As a result, she’d had to rush to finish dressing, rush to water her plants, rush to ensure she’d locked all the windows and doors, rush out to the cab honking its horn in her driveway, rush to the airport, rush to check in, rush to the gate, and rush to the plane.
Not that she was unaccustomed to rushing—being an assistant to a powerful CEO often required it—but once she was in rush mode, it was always difficult to slow down again. And being strapped into a tiny seat between a woman for whom it became immediately obvious that personal hygiene was an afterthought and a man who had brought aboard a meal that included what was clearly an animal long dead and never actually cooked was
not
conducive to the deep-breathing exercises she normally used to calm herself. Add to it the small child seated behind her who alternated between kicking her seat and screaming at the top of his lungs, and, well . . .
Suffice it to say that after all that, Amanda
really
needed a vacation.
She also really needed to remove her contacts because her eyes had become so irritated by the, ah, dry air—yeah, that was it; couldn’t have been her seatmates—which she did once the plane was safely at its gate. She also took a few minutes to change from the tweed trousers, cream shirt, and boots the Indy weather had necessitated and into a short denim skirt, red tank top, and flat sandals she’d tucked into her carry-on to allow her adjustment to the balmy Florida weather.
As she waited for her luggage to appear on the carousel, Amanda did her best to envision the white beaches and tranquil blue water of Captiva again. And she promised herself she would take herself out to dinner that very night for an ice-cold beer and peel-and-eat shrimp. But that vision evaporated when she saw her suitcase
finally
arrive on the carousel . . . spilling half its contents. This despite the fact that someone had tried—kind of—to put it all back together again. With duct tape. That hadn’t worked.
So much for the cult of the duct tape. Obviously there were some things even it couldn’t fix. She sighed inwardly and hoped nothing was missing. Especially her underwear and Benadryl.
The cab ride to the condo was only marginally less stressful, and cost nearly as much as it would have cost Amanda to rent a car for the week. But she had been determined to make this a vacation in every sense of the word, and do
nothing
except sit on the beach and watch the ocean, and visit only places within walking distance, and read all four of the books she’d brought along. Provided, of course, those books weren’t still circling the baggage area of some airport terminal along with her underwear and Benadryl. Oh, and of course she would also take any and all calls from Mr. Hoberman, which, she supposed, would necessitate that she work, something that rather countered the whole vacation-i n-every-sense-of-the-word-thing. But you couldn’t have everything, could you?
But other than the calls-from-Mr.-Hoberman part, it truly was going to be a vacation in every sense of the word. It
was
. Really. She meant it. She
did
.
Her disjointed thoughts scattered, however, when the cabbie came to a stop just below a row of gorgeous connected town houses, each painted a shade of barely-there color ranging from pearl pink to sky blue. They were perched on stilts over a row of connected parking spaces overwhelmingly populated by overpriced vehicles of some kind. Obviously, Kate hadn’t been kidding about the “luxury” aspect of her condo. Her temporary neighbors clearly had money to burn.
Amanda took in the rest of her surroundings as she climbed out of the cab, noting similar complexes scattered sparsely up and down the beach as far as she could see, as well as the complete absence of any of the tacky tourist traps one usually saw woven in between such structures. The sun was dipping low over the ocean by now, staining the sky with smudges of color as soft as those of the houses in front of it, spreading fingers of gold and copper and orange across the softly rippling water. The breeze kicked up, freeing a few errant curls from what had been a tightly contained braid until the fiasco of her trip, but somehow, suddenly, Amanda didn’t mind her state of disarray so much.
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, dispelling all memory of stinky seatmates and expensive cab rides and employer’s phone calls, instead inhaling the sharp, savory scent of the sea. The wind whiffled through the palms arcing over the complex, making their broad fronds whisper something soft and senseless, something that soothed her frazzled nerves.
Oh, yes,
she thought as she opened her eyes. She definitely needed this. She’d been running at full tilt for too long, and it was way past time for her to take a few days for herself. No one could do their job well if they didn’t take time to recharge. And what was the point of anything if one didn’t do her job well?
She paid the cabbie after deftly computing fifteen percent for a tip—not that he deserved it, since he’d tossed her taped suitcase onto the ground at her feet as if it had leprosy—then collected her bag and headed for the pale yellow condo at the very end of the row, which Kate had identified as hers. At the foot of the stairs, Amanda shifted the suitcase to her other hand so she could search in her purse for the key, and in doing so, lost her grip on the bag. That inevitably freed the tape on one side and made it spill its contents
again
. On the upside, she immediately saw her Benadryl and at least one pair of underwear. On the downside—
Well, she’d just chalk up the entire day—save the gorgeous view and lovely breeze—on the downside column.
Biting back a disgruntled sound, Amanda scooped up her belongings and stuffed everything back into the bag, wrapping one arm around the bundle as best she could. Then she made her way up the steps, battled the key into the uncooperative lock, shoved at the sticky front door in a few futile efforts to open it—okay, maybe the place wasn’t quite as luxurious, or at least as accommodating, as Kate had promised—until she finally managed to hurl herself against it with enough force to open it . . . and send both her suitcase
and
herself hurtling to the floor.
Okay, that was
it
, she decided as she gazed at the ceiling and did her best to ignore the pain in her shoulder that had taken the brunt of her fall. This was absolutely the last thing that would go wrong on her vacation. From here on out, she vowed,
nothing
was going to happen that would do
anything
to disrupt her R&R for the rest of the week. Nothing. Nada. Nil.
Zip. Zero. Zilch.
From here on out,
everything
was going to go according to plan. She would have nothing but peace and quiet and enjoy herself immensely and return to Indianapolis and her job fully refreshed and raring to go. The rest of the week was going to be
perfect
.
As if cued by the thought, a muffled
bump
sounded from the other side of the room, and Amanda’s stomach clenched tight. Before she had a chance to process what might have caused it, a second sound followed, this one the sound of a man’s voice. A man’s voice singing. Singing “At the Copa . . . Copa-cabaaa-naaa.” Badly.
She had managed to scramble onto her hands and knees by the time a door on the other side of the living room opened and the source of the man’s voice appeared. It was coming from a man. Imagine that. A man who was cloaked by little more than a puff of quickly dissolving steam and a damp, dangerously dipping bath towel.
But it wasn’t the fact that there was a half-naked man in the otherwise-deserted condo that stunned, confused, and horrified Amanda. It was the fact that she knew him. Too well.
Max Callahan, the sorriest excuse for a human being ever to come down the pike, so full of himself and his certainty that he was God’s gift to women that there wasn’t room in him for anything else. Anything like, oh, intelligence. Gentleness. Consideration for his fellow man. A work ethic. Stuff like that.

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