IN ROOM 33 (13 page)

He buried his face in the hollow at her throat, and she could hear his efforts to control his breathing. Her heart wanted to leap from her chest when he kissed under her ear and said. "Christ, Lana, I don't think I could live without you"—he thrust into her, closed his eyes—"without this."

He moved inside her and so did her fear. If this was love, Lana preferred lust. Lana Cole Emerson didn't know what to do with love.

* * *

Wade stood in front of the last door of the day. They'd been in the hotel for over three hours.

After a tour of all the unoccupied rooms—which was most of them—Wade had taken Joy into the weirdest and mustiest basement in Seattle. He rapped on, and talked about, the Phil's bewildering maze of pipes, vents, and electrical wiring until Joy's brain was thick with information. None of which she'd yet put in order. A hotel, she'd learned, was much more than a haven for the weary traveler, it was a marvel of engineering and planning.

By the time Wade opened the double doors on the grand ballroom, Joy was dusty, dirty, and eager to see more. He stepped back to let her go in first.

"Wow." She walked in and did a slow spin. "I don't remember this from when I was here."

Wade closed the doors behind them, looked at the ceiling some thirty feet above them. "I don't think we came in here. Look." He pointed upward and her eyes followed to see a painted ceiling that would rival the finest of those she'd seen in the galleries of Italy. But instead of cherubs and angels, it was the towering trees, rich waters, and jagged coastline that cradled the home of Seattle in the mid-nineteenth century. It was brilliant.

"Wow," she said again and heard him chuckle.

When she turned to look at him, the steadiness of his gaze made her briefly self-conscious. "What?" she asked, stepping away from him.

"You like that word," he said. "And I like the way your lips move when you say it." He kept his interest full on her. Now she felt edgy.

She walked to the center of the cavernous room and away from his scrutiny. "So this is the grand ballroom?" she said and did another turn.

He smiled before going along with the change in subject. "Yes. This is the nearest to original of any public part of the Phil. Like any business, through the years changes were made. Some good. Some bad. The worst during the late sixties. That's when the shift started toward permanent residency. Once that happened, this room was closed off. My grandfather said even if the rest of the place went to hell, he wanted this room to stay as it was."

"That would be Joe Emerson, right?"

Wade nodded.

"Then your father must have felt the same way. He didn't change it, either."

He shrugged. "He pretty much ignored it, like he did everything else to do with the Phil. He inherited more interesting things to play with." Wade took another long look around. "As for grandfather, I think it had something to do with my grandmother loving the room so much. I said as much once."

"And he replied?"

A smile, part amusement, part nostalgia, curved his mouth. "He said 'Fiddlesticks.' Old Joe wasn't your sentimental type—on the surface, at least."

"How long were your grandparents married?"

"Over fifty years."

Joy started to say
Wow
again but thought better of it. "That's amazing." She walked to one of the windows. She could hear the traffic on the other side, but the heavy velvet drapes caked in dust muffled it. She shoved one of them aside to reveal windows that appeared to be covered on the outside.

"These windows look interesting, but why are they boarded up?"

"The hotel was resurfaced along the outside of this room somewhere along the line, and the windows were covered over. I don't know why." He came to stand beside her.

"Can you pull the drapes farther apart? I'd like a closer look."

The drapery track was a good twenty feet over their heads. Wade reached as high as his six-foot-plus frame allowed, grasped a fistful of fabric, and gave a strong tug. It didn't move, so he tried again.

This time draperies, track, and sixty years of powdery grime came down with a swoosh to completely envelop them. When they'd fought their way free of the heavy, dust-laden velvet, they looked like a pair of chimney sweeps. Joy's eyes were running like taps and she couldn't stop coughing.

"Are you all right?" Wade pushed the last of the drapery off her shoulders.

"I've got something in my eye," she said. "It feels like a clod of clay."

"Come on. Sinnie'll have something to help. She's the ship's doc."

Joy kept a hand over her dust-stuffed eye and followed him out of the room. "Was that Sinnie I met yesterday?"

"Uh-huh." He took her in tow.

"She's a doctor?"

"Actually, she's more of an Igor, but we like to indulge her."

"How reassuring."

"She's on five. Let's go."

Sinnie opened her door on the first knock. Even with only one good eye, Joy saw her shock. "What in heaven happened to you two? Fall down a coal shaft?"

"Joy's got something in her eye. I thought you could help." Wade said.

"Come in. Come in," Sinnie took Joy's hand, pulled her forward. "Come to the bathroom, girl, I've got eyewash in there."

As they disappeared into Sinnie's tiny bathroom, Joy heard Wade say, "Hi, Mike. I didn't see you sitting there. Not working today?"

"Got laid off."

If Wade answered, Joy didn't hear. She was sitting on the toilet seat, and Sinnie was flushing her eye out with enough liquid to raise the level of the Pacific. When she had Joy completely blind, she closed the door.

"Glad you're here, Miss Joy Cole, because I've got a few things to say." She handed her a towel.

Joy blotted her face, glanced in the mirror over Sinnie's sink to see hair layered in dust and dirty gray streaks running from her eyes to her chin. "Talk away. But do you mind if I try to get rid of this grime?"

"Here." The woman handed her a soap pump.

Antibacterial. Strong enough to strip paint. "Thank you."Joy didn't relish the idea of washing her face with it, but it would have to do. She turned back to the sink. "What's on your mind?"

"That man out there."

"Wade?"

"This place should be his, not yours."

Joy put as small an amount of soap as she could on a clean facecloth. Or what was a facecloth ten years ago. It was thin as gauze. "I agree with you, Sinnie. But it isn't."

"Would have been if he'd made up with that useless father of his. Hadn't gone to jail, which makes him pretty stupid, too."

Joy rinsed her face, her interest piqued. "Why did he go to jail?"

"Told you. He was stupid."

"How stupid?"

"Eighteen months' worth. And all because of a woman."

"He hurt a woman?" Joy couldn't believe that. She'd spent the afternoon with the man, and other than a killer wit, she didn't detect violence.

"No! Wade wouldn't ever hurt a woman. And it was her should've gone to jail." She gave Joy a hard-eyed look. "He just picked the wrong female, like his daddy before him. But Wade's paid his dues. And he doesn't need another Miss Fancy Pants to come along and take what's his, mess him up again."

Joy folded the facecloth, set it on the sink, and faced her. "That 'fancy pants' being me?" She came very near to smiling but managed a straight face.

Sinnie's expression shifted and she cocked her head. "You're a cool one, aren't you?" She looked as if she approved.

"I didn't come here to 'mess up' Wade's life, Sinnie. I'm here because his father left this place to me. Right now, I'm trying to figure out the smartest way to deal with it, and I've asked Wade to help. That's it."

"You want my opinion?" Her gaze was steely.

"Can it be avoided?" This time she did smile. She liked this woman.

"Give the Phil to Wade, and don't waste any time doing it. It's the right thing to do."

Joy studied her for a minute, saw the love there. Envied it. She thought of Lana, her endless needs, and her own responsibility, courtesy of Stephen, to meet them. "It's not that simple, Sinnie." And neither could she ignore her own growing feelings for the Phil. Amidst all the neglect and decay, there was a handsomeness to the place, a wry charm. And no matter how many broken windows she counted, how many ruined halls she walked, that charm captivated her.

There was a knock on the door. "You all right in there?" Wade called.

"Coming," Sinnie said, then whispered for Joy's ears only, "I like you, young woman, I truly do. But the 'smartest' thing for you to do is leave this place to its intended. And I'll say this, too—you hurt that boy out there"—she jerked her gray-topped head—"and you'll have me to answer to."

Wade banged on the door again and Joy opened it, glad for the diversion; it hid her grin. Joy hadn't answered to anyone since she was eight years old, yet the idea of being accountable to this fierce old woman held a peculiar appeal.

When the door opened fully, she looked up at the six feet of "boy" Sinnie was so protective of, then into his green eyes. Until now his eyes had been watchful, quiet. And while they'd teased and humored her throughout the tour of the Phil, they had given away nothing about the man behind them. But in this moment they held concern—for her.

She was no more used to being concerned about than she was to being accountable.

"Need anything?" Wade caught her chin with his knuckles and raised her face to his, turned it to and fro, scanned it thoroughly, worriedly. "There's a drugstore up the street."

"No, I'm fine." Unless you factored in a strange weakness in the limbs or a pair of eyes suddenly incapable of leaving his.

"Good." His voice lowered, and he lifted his hand to push her hair back from her temple; the gentle connection held until he'd run his fingers through the length of her hair and brought a handful of it to rest below her shoulder.

For a frozen moment, they stared at each other and neither spoke. Still loosely holding her hair, Wade rested the back of his hand just above her breast. A heavy, warm stone radiating heat. Joy, gazing up at him, was dimly aware of her own shallow breathing, her narrowing focus. Wade drew in a heavy breath, his gaze dropping to her mouth.

Sinnie coughed—loudly—and spoke sternly. "She had a bit of dust in her eye, Wade, she wasn't flattened by a falling piano. And you aren't looking so good yourself, in case you haven't noticed."

Joy felt her color rise up, far enough to meet the befuddlement between her ears. She still couldn't get her breath.

Somebody laughed.

Joy turned from Wade, who hadn't stopped looking at her and didn't look the least flustered, to the other man in the room. She'd completely forgotten he was there.

"This is Big Mike," Sinnie said without preamble. "He lives on four."

"Mike. Nice to meet you. "Joy hated the look he gave her—one of those centipede-under-the-collar kind of looks.

The burly man nodded, held onto his smarmy smile.

Joy turned to Wade. "I think I've seen enough for today, but I was thinking..." She hesitated. This idea of hers had seemed like a good one—before the time warp she'd entered with Wade a couple of minutes ago. Now she wasn't so sure.

Wade waited for her to finish. She glanced around to see both Sinnie and Mike equally as interested.
Oh, hell, in for a penny
... "I was thinking it might be a good idea for me to stay here—while I figure things out."

Wade's eyebrows shot up as if they'd been pulled by wires. "You want to stay here?"

"Makes sense to me. I can take my time looking around, really get to understand the place."

"I don't think so."

"Why?" She didn't bother to tell him it was her hotel and she really didn't need his or anyone else's approval.

"There's not a decent room in the place. You've seen that today." He shook his head. "You're better off at the Marriott."

"Room 33's in good shape," Mike said. "Rebecca sure liked it."

"No." Wade said.

"No." Sinnie said, their voices a beat apart.

Joy looked at them both, intrigued by their vehemence. Then she remembered. "You didn't show me that room today. Said you didn't have a key."

"I didn't have it on me. Not that it matters—the room's a mess. It's a bad idea." Wade's jaw was set to rock-hard.

"Wade's right," Sinnie piped in."You've got a good, safe room where you are. This is no place for a woman alone."

"You're alone, Sinnie," she said, a comment that brought a scowl dark as a rain cloud. "And believe me I've stayed in worse places than the Phil through the years."

"There's a room on four, right next to mine," Mike said. "It ain't too bad. I'll look after her."

Wade glared at him. "Joy's fine where she is. At the Marriott." He stated the last as if his words were etched in stone.

Joy eyed them all. Three more people trying to tell her what to do in her own hotel. "Let's take a look at four. And while we're there," she said, turning to Wade and smiling, "you can get the key to Room 33."