by Linda Cajio
Dancing in the Dark is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A Loveswept eBook Edition
Copyright © 1993 by Linda Cajio
Excerpt from Taking Shots by Toni Aleo copyright © 2013 by Toni Aleo.
Excerpt from Along Came Trouble by Ruthie Knox copyright © 2013 by Ruth Homrighaus.
Excerpt from Hell on Wheels by Karen Leabo copyright © 1996 by Karen Leabo.
All Rights Reserved.
Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.
Dancing in the Dark was originally published in paperback by Loveswept, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. in 1993.
eISBN: 978-0-307-79912-8
www.ReadLoveSwept.com
v3.1
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
Dedication
Editor’s Corner
Excerpt from Toni Aleo’s Taking Shots
Excerpt from Ruthie Knox’s Along Came Trouble
Excerpt from Karen Leabo’s Hell on Wheels
One
He was naked.
Charity Brown stared through the darkened trees and bushes and into the clearing lit by a small fire. A man stood several feet from the flickering flames, his arms outstretched to the night sky.
His eyes were closed, his body awash in a red-yellow glow, every inch of him completely illuminated. He was tall and slim, his muscles not bulky, but lean like a primitive hunter’s. His chest had a dusting of hair that angled down past his waist. Her gaze was drawn to the part of his anatomy that made him male. “Male” had never looked so good.
Embarrassment heated her cheeks even as the rest of her body heated with something else. She looked away, telling herself that she shouldn’t feel funny. A person would have to be a saint not to look. And just plain old human curiosity dictated that if one came upon a naked male while cutting through the woods on the way home from the library, one would, of course, take a look. In fact, she mentally challenged a saint not to.
And she thought things were dull in Milton, New Jersey.
But why, she wondered, was he standing in the woods like this? Like a warrior from the ancient past … several thousand years before the pharaohs. Primitive, virile, untamed. Charity’s fingers curved around the time-travel romance she’d taken out, along with the books she needed for her business class report.
“Naaa,” she muttered, shaking her head. Fiction was fiction. This was just a nut.
It occurred to her that maybe she’d hit the mark and she ought to make tracks for home before her peeping-Thomasina act turned dangerous. But the naked man lowered his arms and opened his eyes, and Charity wasn’t able to resist one last peek. She leaned forward and peered at his face.
He was in his thirties as far as she could judge, his hair dark and cut short. His features were even—square jaw, firm lips, and prominent cheekbones free of any extra flesh. Painted stripes streaked his forehead and cheeks. There was something hauntingly familiar about that face.
And then it smacked her between the eyes.
Jake Halford.
Charity staggered back in shock until her spine connected with a very solid tree trunk. She gasped for breath, half because it had been knocked out of her and half because she just couldn’t believe it. The naked man couldn’t be the new vice president of Wayans, Inc., the computer distributor she worked for. Mr. Wizard, the Wall Street Journal had called him for his ability to take companies or subsidiaries in trouble and transform them into solid profit-makers.
She rubbed her face and fought for control of her senses. Her imagination was really running away with her if she thought the naked man was Jake Halford. She stepped up to the concealing bushes again and took a good long look.
It was Jake.
“Oh, my Lord,” she murmured.
As her brain scrambled to take in the truth, he bent down, picked up a drum, and began to beat a steady rhythm on it. He also started to mumble a kind of mantra while he shuffled around the fire.
A giggle started low in Charity’s gut, rising inexorably higher. She clapped her hand over her mouth. The giggle snorted right out the side of her lips.
Mr. Wizard, the man who was going to cure all the financial ills of Wayans, Inc., and in turn cure all the financial ills of Milton, New Jersey, was playing cowboys and Indians in the woods.
And it looked like he’d forgotten his loincloth.
Jake glanced up sharply, his heightened senses keenly alert to any disturbance in the natural force of the forest. That often happened in the midst of the ritual, his being so alive with instinct that he could detect the slightest intrusion.
Something was out there.
A deer, he thought. The pine barrens of southern New Jersey were a haven for them. The urge rose in him to track it, to hunt it in the ancient way. But he had no desire to bring it down because he had no need of the meat and furs it would provide. He respected the creature. It was only trying to live out its life in the way nature had intended. He understood that perfectly. Man had turned away from his own natural needs generations ago, and now had no right to take. Certainly he had no physical need.
Jake was there that night, instead, to call up the ancient past inside himself, to find the true male and unlock it from the cage of modern culture. Men had forgotten how to be men, their basic need to provide for the tribe and gain inner satisfaction from that lost to them. The enlightened man was confused, uncertain, unhappy. Jake knew that feeling. He used to be an eighties kind of guy, so sensitive to a woman’s needs that he had suppressed his own. Until, five years earlier, he was offered the job of a lifetime. He’d been offered several before, his specialty being troubleshooting for companies in jeopardy, but he’d turned them down because of his wife’s career. The job had been to save a desperately struggling subsidiary company. Instead, it had gone bankrupt. People had lost their livelihoods. Needless to say, his conscience hadn’t allowed him to ignore the next company in serious trouble. Betsy hadn’t agreed with his conscience—or the move to another state—and he’d been slapped with a divorce so fast, it still made him reel to remember.
He’d felt selfish and chauvinistic at the time, a failure as a caring man and husband. Women—notably his mother and four older sisters—had ruled his life from the cradle on. He’d had no father figure, for his father had forsaken his familial responsibilities shortly before Jake was born. At school Jake had been called a mama’s boy, and he had been one. His mother and sisters had plotted out his life for him, then passed him on to his wife. He’d always done exactly what everyone wanted, even to the point of agreeing not to have children because they’d interfere with his wife’s career. He’d never done what he needed to do.
Then, several years ago, he’d discovered the men’s movement. It didn’t denigrate women or their rights. They had as many rights as men. No, it put the blame squarely on men and taught them that they had emotional needs too. Needs that had to be met for their own well-being. It showed men how to be men again. And it helped Jake to find himself, the person he’d subjugated. It taught him how to meet his own needs. He was good at his job, and he could help companies get
back on their feet. He didn’t have to feel guilty anymore that his job could take him from troubled company to troubled company as his reputation grew. By taking care of his own needs, he took care of a lot of other people’s needs too. And if his ex-wife couldn’t understand that, she wasn’t the woman for him in the first place.
Jake looked around the clearing he was in, one he’d thought perfectly suited for the night’s ritual. There wasn’t a house or soul within a mile. He might be new to Milton, but he was positive of that. When no other men were participating, he preferred to conduct the ritual as men had 50,000 years ago. In nature’s original clothing. That meant complete privacy was essential.
He shrugged away the disruptive thought of another creature being out there. He felt good—refreshed and renewed. Like a man again. He’d unlocked the Iron John inside him once more.
His original purpose for the ritual floated through his mind. Honey-brown hair, expressive brown eyes, a figure that went on forever …
He’d staked out a prey right there in Milton and he intended to have it. It wasn’t exactly a use the men’s movement proscribed, but one it understood.
The hunter’s instinct washed over him in a wave of satisfaction. He looked up at the full moon and howled.
Twenty feet away, Charity Brown ran like hell.
“Charity? Charity Brown?”
Charity whirled around and found herself facing Dances with No Clothes On. She gasped and immediately looked away. Her one glimpse told her that at least he was dressed this time. He’d better be; they were in the middle of the archive room of Wayans, Inc., on a Tuesday afternoon. That one glimpse had also told her he looked even better with clothes on.
“Oh … ah … yes?” she managed to squeak out, feeling a burning heat creeping up her neck and face. She couldn’t look directly at him, no matter how hard she tried to focus her gaze on his.
An awful thought occurred to her. He knew. Fireworks of panic exploded inside her. He’d caught sight of her the other night, somehow figured out it was her, and was now going to fire her for spying on him. Adios. Bon voyage. Take a hike. She was a dead woman, because she absolutely could not afford to lose her job. Her entire life was balanced on a financial knife edge. If one sick day could throw her into chaos, being fired would be a catastrophe.
To her surprise, he smiled and held out his hand. “I’m Jake Halford, the new vice president. I don’t believe we’ve met yet.”
Oh, yes, we have, she thought, waiting for her doom. The vision of him dancing around the fire as if from an X-rated movie burst into her brain. Still not quite looking him in the eye, she took his hand and shook it briefly. Very briefly. A funny tingle seemed to radiate between them. She forced it away. “Hello,” she said.
The heat on her cheeks burned even hotter. Damn, she thought. Why was she blushing when he’d been the dancing naked fool?
Because he’d looked so good at it, a little voice told her.
“Are you feeling well?” he asked, frowning in concern. “You look overheated.”
“No, no, I’m fine,” she lied. She felt like a tomato boiling inside. She was aware of Gwen, the archive clerk and the only other person in the room, staring at them. She could just imagine the gossip Gwen would impart at lunch. Boy, if the woman only knew the real truth.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, desperately wishing for an escape. The tall shelves with their rows of manila folders hemmed her in next to him, though. Grimacing, she realized she’d just dismissed her best opportunity to escape when he’d thought she was ill.
A funny look crossed his face. “It doesn’t matter. Probably just the poor air circulation.”
Something was circulating a little too well inside her, she thought. She could still see him naked. Very naked.
He didn’t say anything for a moment. An awareness crept over Charity, a distinct feeling that she was being assessed like a doe who’d been sighted by a cougar. Somehow, also like a terrified deer, she couldn’t move.
Finally, he spoke. “I understand you’ve been with the company for four years.”
The sensation faded. He did have a commanding presence, but this was ridiculous, she told herself.
“That’s right, Mr. Halford.” Why did he do it? she wondered. Why would any grown man dance around a fire and howl like that? He’d sounded like the Hound of the Baskervilles with a gland problem. He must be crazy. She also wondered when he was going to get around to firing her.
“Jake,” he said, smiling.
She blinked, surprised at the offer of familiarity. She cleared her throat. “Jake.”
“And you’re Dave Ringman’s secretary.”
“Well, it’s a little more than that,” she said stiffly, for he’d hit a bone of contention. She ran the entire sales staff for Dave, who preferred to spend the workday “touching base” with Wayans’s biggest clients. She didn’t mind the job, but she preferred the title and pay that went with it.
“Oh?” Jake’s tone had turned frosty, and she realized she’d just made a faux pas with the new VP. That wasn’t good. “What I mean is, there’s a lot of basic logistics to the sales staff that I handle.”
“And how are we doing in the sales department?”
“Not as well as we have,” she said frankly, knowing that was why he’d been brought in. He had the figures for the past year. She’d sent them to him over Dave’s signature. Wayans had been spiraling downward for more than a year now. She didn’t know how long it could continue to do so before jobs were in trouble, but she suspected the crisis point had already been passed.
“Well, we’ll turn things around.” He smiled cheerfully. He sounded so normal, rational. Even charming.
As she gazed at him, it occurred to her that he was being nice. He was not acting like a man who’d been caught in the raw and was about to cremate the catcher. She even found it hard to equate the naked dancing man with this self-assured executive in white silk shirt and pinstripes. His eyes were a startling gentle brown against his dark, saturnine features. Allowing herself to take a good close look at him, she realized he was quite attractive.
Maybe he wasn’t about to fire her. Maybe he had no idea that she’d seen him. Maybe he was just a nice guy with a sunshine-camp complex. Whatever, she had one up on the boss. A big one.
She grinned. What had he chanted to the gods that night? she wondered. Or had he just accidentally stepped on the fire? “Oo, oo, ahh, ahh” could go either way.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“Oh … ah … nothing.” But it was funny. Maybe he sang “Ring around the rosy with no pocket for a posy.” A snort of amusement escaped her.
He smiled at her. “Now, something is funny.”
What an understatement. She immediately rearranged her face. “No, no.”
Unfortunately, she giggled and completely ruined the effect.
“Come on,” he coaxed, grinning.
“Nothing.” She clamped her hand over her mouth. It didn’t help as she began to laugh. “This is terrible!”
“What?”
She waved her hands, chuckling helplessly. She couldn’t believe herself. No one in her right mind laughed at the new boss—no matter what he did. The more she tried to get hold of herself, though, the more she laughed.
“All right,” he said, in a clipped tone.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped, leaning weakly against some file shelves.
He frowned, then obviously decided to ignore her slight problem. “I also wanted to talk with you about that project for Bickman’s. I understand from Dave that you helped him.”
That sobered her. She’d done the entire job while her boss took all the credit.
Jake smiled briefly. “Now that I finally have your undivided attention, I have a similar project I want you to work with me on.”
Anger shot through her. Another job where she did all the work and he got the credit? No way. Then she realized that he was the boss. Whom
was he going to get credit from? Himself? Instead, he would see what she was capable of. It was actually a prime opportunity for a promotion and a badly needed raise.
Of course, it did mean working closely with him. She didn’t know if she could. He was attractive, a little too attractive to suit her. That could be dangerous. She’d be in hysterics half the time too.
“I’d be happy to,” she said finally, knowing she couldn’t afford not to do it. “But what about Dave?”
He frowned in puzzlement. “You’ll continue your work with him, of course. Why wouldn’t you? I already have a secretary.”
There goes my sanity, she thought. Tentatively, she began, “I do have a heavy workload already …”
“Can you take it home? This new project is really important for the company’s well-being. Even its continued existence.”
She stared at him. Take it home? “I’m enrolled in night classes at Drexel University—”
“Surely you don’t go every night.” He stared back at her, grim-faced. “This is an important project for Wayans, and I need the help. Someone who knows what they’re doing. Dave is too busy as it is.”
And if he gave it to Dave, she’d get stuck with it anyway. Charity knew defeat when she saw it. Dances with No Clothes On clearly deserved a second moniker.
Mr. Ogre.
As Jake watched Charity nod, agreeing to help him, he decided all was going well. Very well.
Though he kept trying not to stare at her, he couldn’t help it. Charity Brown was extremely attractive. He’d first noticed her about a week before as she’d left the building, and he’d been startled by an instant surge of lust, followed by an even deeper surge of the soul. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had caused that kind of reaction in him, and he’d been determined to meet her ever since. He’d asked around, checked her records, gotten some information, and finally had come up with a plan.
He’d found his prey, marked her for capture, and now he was stalking her in the ancient way. He was utilizing the skills that fed the male spirit, and it felt immensely satisfying to be on the hunt. It would be a long process, but that was only more fulfilling for the male soul. Of course, when he finally captured her, and he would, the result would be mutual pleasure. He was sure she wouldn’t be displeased. Looking at her now, he knew it would be worth it.
