When You Wish (Contemporary Romance) (2 page)

Clearing his throat, Dan opened the door to what he thought was the mystery woman’s office and stepped inside.

It wasn’t an office.

The scent of apples must have come from the dozen or so candles that wavered in an unknown breeze. His stomach contracted, and he felt dizzy for a moment. A man of his size really had no business forgetting to eat.

The only light came from the candles, giving the room a moody glow. He’d stepped into another world, and while Dan wasn’t very comfortable in the usual one, this one made him downright nervous. He almost fled; then she appeared from behind the Oriental screen.

Lithe and long, her black hair drifted past her shoulders—loose, free, lovely. Her head tilted down as she belted a red scarf about her slender waist. Her legs, tanned and p
erfect, played hide-and-seek beneath the thigh-high slit in the flowing white skirt of her dress. Dan swallowed and his eyes followed the long, naked expanse of her calf toward her bare feet.

Excellent feet. Long and slim, with red polish on the toes that matched the sash at her waist. He’d seen painted toenails before; he wasn’t a saint. But these, well . . .. He coughed.

Her head went up like a doe startled at the edge of the forest; her brown eyes searched the shadows. Dan couldn’t speak; he stood there staring, trying to take in every nuance of her face.

His scientific
mind began to catalog all he observed. Exotic, with high cheekbones, a strong nose, and supple, smooth, tanned flesh. Black lashes and brows, auburn lips, no makeup. The most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen.

“Are you here for me?” she asked.

Oh, yeah,
his mind leered in a very unscientific manner. Dan just stood at the door and stared like a fool.

“Sir?” He nodded because he could not speak. “All right. I guess there’s time for one more.” She reached behind the screen and pulled out a bright white sheet. The contrast of the crisp, cool cotton in her tanned, slim hand made hi
m think of autumn turned to winter, leaves beneath the snow, apple pies cooling at Christmas. He had lost what remained of his mind.

She tossed the sh
eet at him, and he caught it before the material slapped him in the face. “Everything off,” she said. “On the table. Sheet goes over you both.”

Before Dan could fathom what he’d just been told, she slipped out the door and left him alone.

“What the hell?” he muttered, staring at the cushioned table in the middle of the room. Candles, cushioned table, everything off? Dan clenched the sheet. He’d stumbled into the red-light district of Lake Illusion! He hadn’t even known there was one.

But the parasailing lady had said Project Hope resided here. Did Grace of the great legs and even greater face have a dua
l life? Prostitute by day, charity maven by night. Or the other way around?

Dan moved across the room and looked behind the screen. More spar
kling white sheets, several towels, and bottles of many colors. He picked one up.

Self-heating body oil.

“Uh-oh.” Dan put the bottle of golden oil back where he’d found it.

He should get out of here as fast as he could. Call Grace, whatever her name was, and settle everything on the phone. But
his entire life hung in the balance, and so did the good name of the Cabilla Grant. Mrs. Cabilla couldn’t know she was planning to give many, many dollars to a house of ill repute, however deserving their charity program was. Dan wasn’t a prude, but he needed that money.

What if he did take everything off and got on the table? His body r
esponded to that image in a predictable manner. But only because he’d been alone for a long, long time. Medical research scientists on the cusp of discovery did not have time for sex or love. That was the only reason he couldn’t seem to stop thinking of her incredible face, silky black hair, and long-fingered, clever hands.

“Damn,” Dan muttered and began to undress. This was probably the biggest mistake of his life, but he needed to find out just what was going on at 336 Elm Street if he was going to tattle to Mrs. Cabilla. He wasn’t proud of himself, but he was desperate. He’d stop things before they went too far. He would.

When the door opened again, Dan lay face down on the table, the sheet modestly covering him from waist to ankle. Keeping his eyes closed, he waited to find out what Grace would say next.

She didn’t speak; instead she moved about, then stopped at the table. Hands touched his shoulders, kneading the tense muscles, pushing at the knots of stress that made it hard for him to sleep at night, then slid over his ski
n, silky smooth. The oil, he recalled, and let out a sigh of pleasure.

She had large hands. Strong, too—amazingly so. Dan was a big m
an, and he worked out daily—otherwise he found his mind became as atrophied as his muscles, but Grace pushed at those muscles and dug into his spine. By the time she reached his lower back, he’d gone limp.

“Mmm,” he murmured. “This is amazing. Does it cost extra?”

“Extra? What means extra?”

All the tension that had flowed from Dan’s body came back with painful force as a heavily accented, male voice thundered from above.

Dan flipped onto his back and stared at the huge, blond monster in the bulging white T-shirt. “Who are you?”

Sniff. “I am Olaf.”

“Where’s Grace?”

“Gracie does no
t massage men. It is inappropriate, she says.”

“Huh?”

“Not illegal. No. But she does not feel right. And a big man like you . . .” Olaf shrugged. “She could not do a good job. Her hands are strong for a woman, but they are not the hands of Olaf.”

“Whoa, this is a massage parlor?”

“What did you think?”

Dan looked at the size of Olaf and remembered how his voice had caressed the word “Gracie.” He wasn’t going to tell the man he’d thought Grace was offering more than the house special. That would be the quickest way
to get his nose broken. He probably deserved it, but he’d rather pass on physical violence while naked. Dan started to get up.

Olaf shoved him back down. “Turn over. Silence. I do not like to talk while I work.”

“There’s been a misunderstanding. I came here to talk about Project Hope.”

“If you wish to talk of Hope, why do you lay on this table? Naked. Why do you ask for Grac
ie?” Olaf s fingers, which had been on Dan’s shoulders, suddenly dug into the sensitive cavity beneath his collarbone.

“Ouch.” Dan jumped from the table before Olaf could take off his head. He clutched the sheet around his middle and put the table between him and the other man. D
an had never before felt threatened by another human being, but all of a sudden he understood why most people got out of his way Dan very much wanted to get out of Olaf s way right now. “I said this was a misunderstanding.”

“I know what kind of misunderstanding you have. This is why Gracie has me.” He thumped a hamlike hand against his chest. “Olaf is to make sure no one touches Gracie with inappropriateness. People think because we massage we also do other things. But we do not!”

“Of course not,” Dan agreed. Damn, he wished he had his clothes. Olaf s face was getting redder by the second.

“Americans have no understanding of the ways of the body. All is medicine, science. What they can see and touch.” Then Olaf actually hissed. Dan had never heard a man hiss; it was quite effective. “You do not understand that what you do not see is more powerful than anything of this earth.”

Dan had never been able to understand what he could not see and touch, but he wouldn’t argue with Olaf if the masseur told him moon men had taken over every cheese factory in Wisconsin. Instead he nodded and slid toward the screen.

Olaf blocked his way. Dan looked up into Olaf s furious face. The guy had to be seven feet of pure muscle. Dan was going to have to talk his way out of this one, but talking had never been one of his better talents—especially talking while seminude.

“Listen, Olaf, I made a mistake. I apologize. I’ll pay you for your time. But I really need to talk to Grace.”

“No.” Olaf shook his finger in Dan’s face. “There will be no talking to Gracie for a bad man like you.” Then Olaf reached out and yanked the sheet from Dan’s grasping fingers.

Three things happened at almost the same time. Dan made a grab for the sheet, Olaf tossed it over his shoulder with an evil grin, and Grace walked in the door.

All three of them stood frozen for a moment. Then Dan dove for
the screen, Olaf started laughing, and Grace asked, “Are you Dr. Chadwick?

Chapter
Two

By the time Grace had calmed Olaf and sent him on his way, the doctor was dressed. Even so, she couldn’t forget the sight of him standing naked as a jaybird.

He’d been magnificent, standing there with the candlelight flickering across his body—big and strong, with curves and dips and muscles in all the right places.

Grace had a vision of what her ancestors had been subjected to centuries ago. If you put a sword in one hand, a shield in the other, and some kind of fur over his shoulder, yo
u’d have a Viking invader climbing from his boat onto the shores of the New World. Now Grace had never been much for Vikings—being a Green Bay Packer fan herself—but wow, this one was something to see.

“You’re the administrator of Project Hope?”

Chadwick’s voice startled Grace from her mini fantasy. He stepped through the doorway and joined her in the hall. Nodding, she reached past him to close the door of her massage room. Her arm brushed his belly, and a tingling sensation ran all the way to her neck. His stuffy white shirt did nothing to stop the image of supple, smooth skin stretched over well-defined stomach muscles from appearing in her mind.

He hadn’t tied his tie, leaving the strip of bland, navy blue material looped around his neck. The starched shirt gaped open, and when he swallowed, the slide of his throat muscles made her shiver. How was she going to talk business with this man if every time she looked at him she remembered what he looked like naked?

“Miss?”

Grace blinked. She’d been standing too close, staring at his throat. Stepping back, she glanced at his face. He stared at her with rapt attention as well, but his eyes focused on her lips.

Self-consciously she wiped her mouth, half afraid she had drool on her chin. His eyes, the color of a sky surrounding a full moon—dark, yet somehow blue—followed the movement. Then he muttered and turned away, dragging a large, blunt-fingered hand through hair the shade of sand and sun. For a doctor, he had awfully long hair.

“I’m sorry, Doctor, but I don’t understand. If you came here to talk about my project why didn’t you say so? You’ve gotten Olaf all excited. He thinks you’re a . . .”

Grace let her voice trail off. Olaf s exact words were not fit for repeating, being in Norwegian and roughly translatable as “whoremaster.”

Those solemn eyes returned to hers. “A what?”

“Never mind. I think there’s been a huge misunderstanding.”

“Yes,” he agreed quickly. “I apologize, Miss . . . I’m afraid I don’t know your full name. Just Grace, as the woman in the front called you, or Gracie.” He shrugged.

“My last name is Lighthorse, but I think we’ve gone past Miss and Doctor, don’t you?”

She couldn’t be sure, but she thought he blushed. You had to like a guy who topped six feet and could still blush.

“Lighthorse?” he asked. “You’re Native American?”

Obviously he hadn’t looked at her as closely as she’d thought he’d been looking. “Aren’t we all?”

“Excuse me?”

“You were born in this country; so was I. Native.”

“I didn’t mean to offend.”

“You didn’t.” She should be used to questions by now. She’d lived in the north woods all of her twenty-eight years, yet she never ceased to be amazed that people were surprised to find Indians there. “I’m Ojibwe.” Her voice became brisk. “Lac du Flambeau. But if you just call me Grace, I won’t call you white guy.”

That got a smile out of him. “Fine with me,” he agreed, and held out his hand. “I’m Dan.”

Dan didn’t look like he sm
iled often, but when he managed the effect was devastating. Grace folded her lips together. No drooling, even in her imagination.

She shook his hand, refusing to acknowledge the flicker of awareness that continued to haunt her. He had calluses on those big hands, and they rubbed along her palm in an enticing way.

“I’d like to discuss Project Hope,” he said. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

“Yes. Certainly.”

He tugged on his hand, and she let go with a grind of her teeth. She seemed to have developed a thing for big guys with rough hands.

Having a doctor come to speak with her about Project Hope made this a banner day. Grace had figured she would be fighting the medical profession tooth and nail for a long while. From what she’d seen so far, none of them had any vision. But Mrs. Cabilla’s grant would help to gain respect for her dream. Money talked everywhere.