by JoAnn Ross
“Of course not. But the problem is, sweetie, you’re foolish enough to expect happily ever afters from these guys.”
“I can’t help it if I believe in happy endings. And besides, you’re a fine one to talk. The men you date aren’t all that dependable, either. Like that no-account count you’re jet-setting around with these days.”
“He’s not a count. He’s an earl. Or a duke. I always get those stupid titles mixed up. Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. The point is, honey, I know these men are unreliable. I also know that some of them, like Bertran, are more than a little attracted to the fortune I won in my divorce from that philandering playboy son of a Texas oil tycoon, Samuel T. Dallas.”
“Doesn’t it bother you?” Shiloh asked. “That they’re unreliable?”
“Of course not. The trick is to play the game for fun, not with any idea of a future. I use men the same way they use me. And when it’s over, we each go our own way. Without looking back. And without regrets.”
Shiloh truly loved her sister. But she couldn’t imagine having such a cold attitude toward romance. “I know I may be a bit naive and old-fashioned—”
“A bit?”
Since there was good-natured laughter in her sister’s tone, Shiloh didn’t take offense. “All right, I’m a lot old-fashioned. But I still believe it’s possible to find a man who’ll love me for who I am. And who’ll want the same things I want.”
“Diamonds and chinchilla are always nice.”
“I was talking about love. And marriage. And children. I know it’s a fantasy,” Shiloh admitted softly. She felt the sting of tears behind her lids and blamed it on the champagne. “But sometimes I can actually envision them—a little boy and a little girl.”
“And a vine-covered cottage with a white picket fence,” Savannah said, her good-natured gibe hitting remarkably close to home. “Let’s toss in a dog while we’re at it, why don’t we? How about a taffy-colored cocker spaniel?”
Shiloh laughed, as expected. But deep down inside she didn’t think there was anything so wrong with the life her sister had just described. Maybe by next year she’d find a guy. Maybe she’d even be a mother….
“Look,” Savannah said. “How about coming to my place in Aspen? I’m having a New Year’s Eve party and there’ll be scads of rich, eligible unattached males there. Believe me, sweetie, it’ll be like shooting ducks in a barrel.”
“I’ll think about it.” But as she hung up, Shiloh knew she wasn’t going to do it. Last year, while returning from a location shoot in Wyoming, the jet the film company had chartered had gone down in the Grand Tetons. Although no one had been killed, and the only injury had been the pilot’s broken leg, she hadn’t gathered up the courage to board another plane. Especially one bound for a ski resort in winter.
But after a sleepless night spent tossing and turning, rerunning her conversation with her sister in her mind, Shiloh made a decision. She still wasn’t ready to try flying again. But there was no reason she couldn’t drive.
* * *
Although it was not her nature to fret, the baby girl was worried. “There are going to be lots of eligible men at the New Year’s Eve party,” she reminded the angel as they watched Shiloh making her way higher and higher into the rugged Rocky Mountains. The snow-covered peaks glistened as if they’d been sprinkled with sugar crystals. Fat white flakes drifted down from a silvery gray sky. “What if our mother meets the wrong man again?”
“That’s not going to happen.” The angel patted her benevolently on the head, then waved a graceful hand over the scene, causing the wind to pick up. The snowflakes began to fall faster and harder against the windshield of Shiloh’s car. The first blizzard of the season had just hit Colorado.
* * *
“I can’t believe this!” Shiloh stared in frustration at the barricade closing the highway. After driving all the way from Los Angeles, her trip was coming to a standstill a mere forty-five minutes from her sister’s Aspen condo.
“I’m sorry, miss,” the state trooper guarding the roadblock said. His tone was properly official, even as he allowed his eyes to register masculine approval of the blond beauty behind the wheel of the fire engine red Mustang. “But I’m afraid no one’s getting over that pass tonight.”
“But I’ve come all the way from Los Angeles. And I’m a very good driver, Officer,” Shiloh assured him. “And I had some very expensive snow tires put on in Durango.”
He shook his head. “Sorry.”
Snow was flying in through the open window. Although the heater was blasting away inside the car, outside the temperature had to be in the low teens. Shiloh was beginning to shiver. She also knew when she was licked.
“Do you have any idea how long the road will be blocked?”
“That’s hard to say. In the meantime, you’re going to have to turn around and go back to Paradise.”
Her pout was not feigned. “If you’ve been sending people there all day, there won’t be a hotel room left in town.”
“No problem. Just go to the Silver Nugget and tell the lady working the reservations counter that Fletcher told her to give you the governor’s suite.”
“How do you know it’s not already taken?”
“Trust me, it’ll be available.” His grin, while remarkably attractive, failed to pluck a single feminine chord in Shiloh.
Realizing she had no choice, she turned around. Shiloh could only hope he knew what he was talking about.
The Silver Nugget was a large brick building situated on a corner lot on the main street. It boasted copper chandeliers, gleaming plank floors and a hand-stamped tin ceiling. Despite her frustration at having her plans ruined, Shiloh was charmed.
“So, Fletch told you to ask for the governor’s suite?” the gray-haired woman behind the reception desk inquired.
“Yes, but I don’t really need a suite,” Shiloh was quick to assure her. “Any room will do.”
“Every room in the hotel is booked, thanks to this storm. Even the broom-closet-size one next to the elevator.” The woman, who’d introduced herself as Dorothy Brown, pulled a card from a wooden box. “But Fletcher’s right about the governor’s suite being free. I like to keep it open in case he drops by. It’s good for business.” She made a notation on the card. “But I figure he won’t be needing it, since he’s basking on the beach down in Hawaii.” She looked out the window at the driving snow. “Lucky guy, our governor.”
“I like snow,” Shiloh offered.
“Actually, so do I,” the woman confided with a quick, oddly familiar smile. She handed over the registration card for Shiloh to fill out. “Except when it gets nasty, like tonight. Then I worry about my boy bein’ out on those icy highways.”
Shiloh suddenly recognized the warm smile. “You’re the trooper’s mother.”
“Got that right. Fletcher’s third-generation Colorado cop.”
“That’s admirable.”
“We’re big on tradition here.” She took the card back and filed it away. “Speaking of which, there’s going to be a party tonight in the bar.” She tilted her head in the direction of a dimly lit room named the Silver Nugget Saloon. “It’s been an annual event for the past century, and nearly all the locals show up. Of course, hotel guests are invited, too. No point in a pretty girl like you spending New Year’s Eve alone in her room.”
Shiloh accepted the old-fashioned brass key, considered her options and decided that if she couldn’t be with her sister, at least attending a party here in the hotel would keep the holiday from turning out to be a total bust. And then there was that ridiculously overpriced dress she’d originally planned to wear to seduce Kenneth. The same dress she’d tossed into her suitcase at the last minute to wow all those supposedly eligible men in Aspen.
Refusing the gregarious woman’s offer to ring for help with her bags, Savannah took the old-fashioned gilt-cage elevator to the governor’s suite on the third floor. She tried to call Savannah in Aspen to let her know about the change in p
lans, but a recorded voice informed her that all circuits were busy and suggested she try her call again later.
“You will have a good time tonight,” she scolded herself as she ran a bath in preparation for what Dorothy had promised would be a gala occasion. “You will not think about Kenneth, the overeducated, unfaithful louse. You’re on the brink of a new year. A fresh start. A year that could change your life.”
As she poured a generous splash of perfumed oil into the water, Shiloh had no way of knowing exactly how prophetic her words would turn out to be.
* * *
She was, without a doubt, the most stunningly gorgeous woman Matt had ever seen. She was not all that tall—eyeing her in a very undoctorlike manner, Matt guessed her to be about five foot five—but the legs showcased by that scandalously short skirt seemed to go on forever. The scarlet cashmere dress hugged curves that belonged on the cover of a swimsuit issue. Her hair was a rippling gold waterfall, tumbling down her back, her blue eyes were wide as the Western skies, and her crimson lips reminded him of ripe strawberries.
Matt had no idea who she was. But she was the closest thing to a goddess he’d ever seen. Unfortunately, stopping by the Chambers place to check on Jamie Chambers’s croup had made him late, and it was obvious that Fletcher Brown—looking disgustingly macho in his state trooper uniform—was in the process of posting No Trespassing signs all over that magnificent female body.
Squaring his shoulders, Matt forged his way through the crowd. “Happy New Year, Fletch.” Although his words were directed to the hovering cop, his gaze settled on a face that belonged on a fifteenth-century madonna and seemed oddly out of sync with the body built for sin. “Shouldn’t you be out keeping drunk drivers off our highways?”
“Nobody’s going to be drinking and driving tonight, Matt,” Fletcher Brown assured him. “Not in weather like this.”
“You never know. I remember us doing some pretty crazy things when we were younger.” He flashed a smile at Shiloh. “Since Fletcher seems to have forgotten his manners, let me introduce myself. I’m Matt McCandless.”
Matt McCandless was handsome enough to have gotten work as George Clooney’s stand-in. However, because Shiloh had spent the last six years in Hollywood, where a plethora of gorgeous hunks waited tables, parked cars and delivered pizzas while waiting for their big break, good looks didn’t impress her. As a rule, she found handsome men horrendously self-centered.
Like the average guys aren’t? that obnoxious little voice in her mind piped up. Kenneth had been short, with a rapidly receding hairline.
As she looked into eyes that possessed the sheen of buffed pewter, Shiloh felt a spark of attraction jolt through her like lightning hitting dry timber.
Oh, no! This couldn’t be happening. Not now!
“Hello, Matt McCandless.” Years of acting lessons kept her from revealing that every nerve in her body had begun to hum. She involuntarily glanced at his left hand, noting he wasn’t wearing a ring. Which didn’t necessarily prove he was single, she reminded herself, remembering the cheating pilot. “I’m Shiloh Beauregard.”
Matt told himself that it was merely a trick of light, gleaming down from the brass-and-copper chandelier overhead, that made her look like a vision from another world. But he didn’t really believe that. Not for a minute.
They stood there, Matt looking down at her, Shiloh looking up at him, for a long, extended time.
“Matt is Paradise’s doctor,” Fletch finally said grudgingly.
“How interesting.” Talk about typecasting! Once again she considered how much he resembled ER‘s resident hunk.
“In fact, thinking about it, shouldn’t you be out making house calls?” Fletch asked. “What with flu making its rounds.”
“I’ve already checked on everyone who needed checking on,” Matt said easily.
He would have had to have been deaf not to hear the male aggravation in his best friend’s tone. It reminded him of a time, back in the ninth grade, when he and Fletch had come to blows over pretty little redheaded Peggy Sue MacGregor.
Unfortunately, sometime during the fisticuffs that earned them both a month’s detention for fighting on the school grounds, Peggy Sue had gone off with Walter Kendrick, the baseball team’s hotshot pitcher. Of course Peggy Sue, as delightful as she’d been, couldn’t hold a candle to this woman.
“So,” he continued, “unless Carla Lawrence goes into labor, I’m free for the night.” He bestowed another of those irresistible smiles on Shiloh. “What Fletch neglected to mention is that I’m also mayor of Paradise. As such, it’s my job to play host to visitors.” He held out his hand in an unthreatening gesture that unnerved her nevertheless. “So, Ms. Beauregard, may I have this dance?”
His voice was as deep and rich as molasses. Even as Shiloh tried to steel herself against its warmth, she couldn’t help being entranced by the way it curled around her name, caressing it with smooth tones. The small spark that had flickered deep inside her flared dangerously.
Not wanting this overwhelmingly masculine man to think that she couldn’t handle a small-town Lothario, deciding that it was time to rattle him back a bit, Shiloh flashed him her most seductive smile.
“Why, thank you, Dr. McCandless. That sounds lovely.” Her melodious voice, singing with all the charm of the South, was the same one Vivien Leigh had used to charm the Tarleton twins.
As he led her through the throng of party-goers, Shiloh was aware of the eyes watching them with undisguised interest. When they reached the middle of the dance floor, he drew her into his arms with an easy grace that suggested he was extremely comfortable with the opposite sex.
“This is going to sound like a horrendous cliché,” he said, “but you look awfully familiar.”
“I’ve made a few movies,” she murmured into his sweater.
Recognition instantly struck. “You’re the cocktail waitress in Night Bites.”
She tilted her head and looked at him, clearly surprised. “You actually saw Night Bites?”
It had been a campy vampire movie that had not called upon any of the skills she’d struggled to learn in drama class. All the young director had asked of her was heaving breasts and the ability to feign orgasmic pleasure while the star—a part-time valet parking attendant at Planet Hollywood—sank a pair of blatantly false fangs into her neck.
“My nephews were staying with me while my sister and her husband were on a second honeymoon in Kauai. They rented the tape one night. You were great.” He decided, for discretion’s sake, not to mention what her performance had done to the boys’ teenage hormone levels. His own levels, he recalled with chagrined amusement, had soared into the stratosphere.
“That movie took five days to film,” she revealed. “And amazingly ended up in the top fifty earning movies this year.”
“I’m not surprised. Mike and Danny sat through it five times. They’re convinced you’re a shoe-in for the Oscar.”
“Not until they add a category for swooning.” The boneless faint had been her sole artistic contribution. Everyone had agreed it made her scenes much more riveting.
“The swooning was the best part.” Especially since there was always that chance that her dangerously low-cut nightgown might just slip down a tad bit more, revealing nipples already visible through the filmy white silk. Matt had held his breath, right along with his nephews, waiting for that silk to slide.
“By the end of the weekend, they’d decided to buy the video. And your calendar.”
“That was my manager’s idea.” Since the calendar featured still shots from her movies, she hadn’t even had to pose for the pictures. “He said it would get me exposure.”
“It certainly did that.” The January shot of her, draped in seaweed, could have easily melted all the snow in the Rockies.
Shiloh sighed. She didn’t have to be a mind reader to know exactly what he was thinking. In each photo she was, of course, scantily clad. The most ridiculous one, and the one she’d recently learned had
been responsible for the most sales, had been the shot of her in the flesh-colored bikini, draped in kelp, from Revenge of the Cheerleaders from the Black Lagoon.
“It’s a long way from being art,” she admitted. “But it paid for a new car.”
“Art—like beauty—is in the eye of the beholder. And personally, I think your calendar is a lot more decorative than the Audubon one with all the mallards one of my patients bought me for Christmas this year.”
Shiloh laughed, and when he drew her closer, she twined her arms around his neck and surrendered to the magic. “I was so frustrated when the highway to Aspen was closed,” she murmured. “But now I’m glad it was.”
“Me, too.” He nibbled on her ear. “Remind me to thank Fletcher. In the morning.”
His words suggested that she’d be spending the night with him. Which was, of course, out of the question. She may play a woman of loose morals in the movies, but she was, after all, a general’s daughter. And General Stonewall Jackson Beauregard’s little girl did not sleep around. Well, perhaps Savannah did. But Shiloh had never been that reckless.
She was about to warn him that if he was expecting to get lucky tonight, he ought to go looking for another dance partner, when she made the mistake of looking into his eyes. She was suddenly reminded of a dangerous, storm-tossed sea, and felt as if she was drowning.
“You realize that every man in town is dying for a chance to dance with you,” he said.
“I think that’s probably an exaggeration.”
“Not at all. And the annoying thing is, I’m probably going to have to let them.”
“That’s not exactly your decision to make,” she felt obliged to point out.
He captured her chin between his fingers—long fingers that could have belonged to an artist if they hadn’t been delivering babies or suturing up wounds—and held her gaze to his.
“Isn’t it?”
“I think this is where I tell you that you’re not really my type.” Having thought about it a great deal since Christmas Eve, Shiloh had come to realize that Savannah was right about her being fatally attracted to irresponsible men.
