Secrets of a Perfect Night (31 page)

When she’d arrived back at her hotel room, she’d crawled into bed only to lie awake all night thinking about Thomas and Holly acting like goats. And the more she’d thought about it, the angrier she’d become until she’d wished Thomas were standing in front of her so she could punch him. She hadn’t fallen asleep until around 3:00
A.M.
Now it was eighty-thirty and she was exhausted.

Brina sat up on the edge of her bed and threw the blankets aside. She dialed room service and ordered a pot of coffee and a toasted bagel. The kitchen told her breakfast would arrive in twenty minutes, so she headed for the shower. As she stood beneath the warm water
and let it pour over her head, she wondered why Thomas romping around like a goat should bother her so much. She figured maybe it was because she expected more from him, at the very least to have better taste in women. True, Holly was still beautiful, and it had been ten years since high school. Maybe Holly had changed and become a nice person, but Brina doubted it.

She reached for her shampoo and worked the lather through her hair. Maybe Brina had built Thomas up in her mind to be something he wasn’t. She’d used the blueprint of the boy she’d known, the boy who’d gone to movies with her just so she wouldn’t have to go alone, to create someone who was perhaps larger than life. But people changed. Thomas had changed. He’d become…a man.

After her shower, Brina wrapped her hair in a towel and brushed her teeth. A loud knock shook her door and she quickly stepped into a pair of beige lace panties. She grabbed her white silk robe and called out, “Just a minute,” as she slid her arms into the sleeves. She pulled ten dollars out of her wallet and hurried to tie the belt about her waist. At nine in the morning, she figured room service was used to seeing people in their bathrobes. But when she opened the door, it wasn’t room service. Thomas stood on the other side, looking fresh and clean and very rested for a man who’d spent the night trying out the sexual positions of animals with the prom queen. His white T-neck was tucked inside a pair of black ski pants, and the word DYNASTAR was printed up each of his long sleeves.

“I thought you’d be up,” he said.

Brina looked down at herself and pulled the robe
tighter around her waist and breasts. “I wish you’d called.”

“Why?”

She looked up into his blue eyes and stated the obvious. “I’m not dressed, Thomas.”

“I’ve seen you naked before.”

“When?”

“When your swimsuit bottoms came off.”

“I was eight. We’ve both grown a bit since then.”

“You’re still short.”

Room service arrived, and before she knew what he was doing or could protest, Thomas paid the waiter, then carried the tray inside. Brina shut the door behind him as his long strides took him across the room. He set the tray on the table in front of the windows, then flipped the heavy drapery aside to find the pull string. The curtains folded back and the bright morning light poured into the room, reaching all the corners except the small entry where Brina stood.

She leaned back against the closed door and studied his short dark hair cut straight across the back of his tan neck. Her gaze took in the width of his shoulders and back, his narrow waist and nicely rounded buns. His legs had always been long, his feet big, and suddenly the room felt a whole lot smaller. The clean fresh scent of his skin mingled with the smell of coffee, and Brina’s stomach twisted into a hungry little knot. She didn’t know which was most responsible for the hunger pain. The sight of her bagel or the sight of Thomas.

Then he turned and looked at her, and she knew. His face was more devastatingly handsome, the symmetry a bit more perfect, in the natural light of day. His skin
seemed more smooth and a shade more tan. He looked more…The word that came to mind was
swarthy
. The mixture of his Anglo father’s and Spanish mother’s blood created a powerful illusion of passion and control.

She felt naked in front of him and pulled the towel from her head. Her damp hair fell past her shoulders and covered her breasts and back. “Why aren’t you out skiing with Holly?”

Instead of answering, he poured a cup of coffee. “Did you leave with Mark last night?” he asked as he blew into the cup and took a drink.

“I went to his party, but it was boring, so I left.”

He lowered the cup and raised a dark brow. “That’s a shame,” he said, sounding very insincere as he walked toward her, his long strides silently closing the distance between them. He seemed more relaxed this morning. More like the easygoing boy she’d grown up with, and less like the man she’d met the night before.

In contrast to Thomas’s apparent ease, Brina’s nerves zapped her like the Stun Master she sometimes carried for work. She took the cup from him and held out the ten-dollar bill in her hand. “Take this.”

“Keep your money, Brina.”

Instead of arguing, she leaned forward and shoved it deep inside the hip pocket of his ski pants. The second her hand slid between the thin layers of slick nylon and Gore-Tex, she realized it was a mistake. Thomas froze and she jerked her hand free, but it was too late. The air between them changed, becoming clogged with tension. She placed her hand behind her back, the heat from his body still warming her fingertips. She was pretty sure he’d dressed left, and she
didn’t know if she should apologize or pretend she didn’t know. She decided on the latter but couldn’t quite meet his gaze. She stared as his chest and asked, as if she weren’t dying of embarrassment, “Did you come here to pour me coffee?”

“I want you to ski with me.”

She looked up into his face and was relieved when he stared back as if nothing had happened. “I told you I don’t know how to ski.”

“I know. I’ll teach you.”

“I don’t even have a ski jacket.”

“You can rent what you need.” She was about to argue that she didn’t need anything because she didn’t want to ski when he added, “I’ll pay for everything.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Fine, I won’t.” He glanced at his silver wristwatch. “The rental shop opened five minutes ago.”

“You called?”

“Of course. How long will it take you to get ready?”

Brina considered her options. She could let Thomas teach her to ski, or she could sit in the lodge and hope she found someone to talk to for the next five or so hours. “Thirty minutes.”

Thomas ran his gaze over Brina, a quick sweep up and down of his eyes. He took in her silk robe and damp hair, her flawless skin and pink toe polish. “Can you make it twenty? The rental shop runs out of small sizes early.” He reached past her and grasped the door handle. “I’ll meet you in the lobby,” he said, and walked out of the room and into the hall. The scent of her shampoo followed him, filling the air with the fragrance of coconuts and kiwis.

He walked to the end of the hall and let himself into his suite. The far wall consisted mostly of windows and overlooked the ski runs below, and the curtains were pulled back to allow golden sunlight to spill into the room. The light caught in cut-crystal glasses in the bar, and shot multicolored prisms across the thick beige carpet.

His skis leaned against the stone fireplace. His Hugo Boss suit he’d worn the night before was flung across the arm of an overstuffed couch, and the napkin with Holly’s telephone number had fallen from his pants pocket and lay on the mahogany coffee table.

Despite what he’d told Brina, he hadn’t considered Holly’s invitation. Well, maybe he’d
considered
it, but not for more than a few minutes. Holly Buchanan was as gorgeous as ever, but he didn’t suffer under the delusion that it was his personality alone that turned her on. And frankly, he liked to do the pursuing.

He walked into the bedroom, took his black ski boots out of the closet, and shoved his feet inside. The woman he felt like pursuing at the moment was just down the hall. Last night, when she’d walked up to him and asked him to dance with her, he hadn’t been sure he wanted to trip down memory lane with Brina McConnell.

Then he’d taken Brina into his arms, and the longer he’d held her there, the more he’d become convinced that he was going about the whole Brina situation wrong. He decided to discover why she’d fascinated and consumed his teenage years. Growing up, she hadn’t even been all that cute. Not until junior high school anyway, and not like now.

Thomas finished buckling his boots and stood. Since
he was in town until the next afternoon and had no real plans, he figured he owed it to himself to figure it out before he left. There was a part of him that thought maybe she owed him too, owed him for all the times he’d kept his hands to himself when what he’d really wanted was to run them all over her body. When he’d wanted to taste more than her lips and her throat, when he’d wanted to put his mouth on her breasts and run his hands up her soft thighs.

If he were completely honest, he’d admit that part of his plan had little to do with the girl from the past and everything to do with the woman who’d opened the door wearing her hair in a towel, cheeks pink from her shower, and her nipples marking the front of her white silk robe. He was far more attracted to the woman who’d blushed when she’d shoved money in his ski pants and found more than she’d bargained for than to Holly, who’d shoved her phone number in his pocket while telling him exactly what she wanted.

Remembering Brina’s face at the exact moment she’d realized where she’d put her hand brought a smile to Thomas’s lips. He chuckled as he pulled his ski poles from the corner he’d leaned them in yesterday. If she wasn’t careful, the next time she touched him would be no accident.

The last day of the year 2000 turned out to be spectacular. The sun shined from an almost cloudless sky, and the temperature hovered around thirty degrees. Perfect skiing weather.

“Are you sure I’m not going to fall off?”

“Yes, and if you do, I’ll catch you.”

Even though Thomas seemed to know what he was doing, Brina was a bit uneasy. Sure, he’d helped her rent the right clothing and gear, the right length of poles and skis, but she wasn’t so sure about the chairlift.

The lift line moved forward and Brina planted her poles and moved with it. They’d only run through a few quick lessons before moving into the lift line. “Shouldn’t we try the bunny hill first?”

“Bunny hill’s for weenies. You don’t want to be a weenie.”

Actually, she could live with that. “In this outfit, I’d fit right in,” she said, referring to the dorky one-piece suit that zipped up the front and cinched in at the waist. It was powder blue with the brand name Patagonia embroidered on her left breast.

“You look cute,” Thomas said, trying to sound sincere, but his smile was just a little too amused. In contrast to Brina, Thomas didn’t look like a dork. Dressed completely in black, he looked like one of those pro skiers photographed in a Ray-Ban ad.

“Well, I can’t stop thinking about the last time I went skiing. I can’t stop thinking about falling and breaking my leg again, only this time when those really cute ski patrol guys come for me, I’m wearing an Easter Bunny suit.” She scratched her nose with her gloved hand. “I’m thinking about how much that will suck.”

Thomas looked at her through sunglasses so dark she couldn’t even begin to see his eyes. “Then don’t think about it.”

She frowned. “Gee, wished I’d thought of that.” They moved forward in line, and she ran through the instructions he’d given her on how to get on the chair-
lift. Look back, grab the bar on the outside of the chair with her outside hand, and sit when the chair hit the back of her thighs. Easy.

To her surprise and relief, and with Thomas’s help, getting on the lift was easier than she’d thought. Staying on was harder. Her boots and skis were so heavy she felt as if they would pull her off. Her slick suit didn’t help.

She panicked and grabbed the back of the chair. “I’m sliding off.”

Thomas reached above their heads and lowered the safety bar. Brina rested her skis on the bottom peg and relaxed as the chair lifted them up and up, high above the snowcapped trees. The people below resembled brightly colored ants, and only the sound of the cable running between the lift wheels filled the crisp air that brushed her cheeks.

“What kind of private investigating do you do?” Thomas asked, breaking the silence.

She looked over at him, his dark hair and black coat in stark contrast to the backdrop of clear blue sky. His cheeks were beginning to turn pink, and the bright sun shot sparks like solar flares off the dark reflective lenses of his shades. Her pupils contracted and she lowered her gaze to his full lower lip. “Missing persons mostly,” she answered. “Sometimes I investigate insurance fraud.”

His mouth formed the word, “How?”

“Investigate fraud? Well, say an insurance company based back east somewhere needs some work done in Portland. They call my office and hire me to research a claimant’s charge. For instance, last year a woman fell
at her place of work and supposedly hurt her back and was confined to a wheelchair. She filed a workmen’s compensation claim, but nobody had seen her fall and there were no security cameras. The insurance company hired me and I followed her around for about three weeks.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Boring mostly. But I finally photographed her driving bumper cars with her kids in Seaside.”

“You always were a tenacious little thing.” He smiled, a flash of white teeth against this tan lips. “I thought you were going to be a nurse.”

Watching his mouth did funny things to her stomach, and she wondered what it would be like to kiss him. To lean over and press her cool lips to his, kiss him until the temperature changed and their mouths turned hot and moist. She turned her gaze and looked down at the tree tops. “And you were going to be a doctor.”

His quiet laughter drew her attention to his mouth once again. “You used to give me ‘medicine powder’ you’d made from crushed Smarties.”

“And you used to give me shots in my bottom.”

“But you never pulled your pants down very far. All I ever saw was the top of one cheek.”

“Is that why you wanted to give me shots all the time? You wanted to see my bum?”