California Royale

by Deborah Smith

  Don’t miss any of our six romances this month:

  #276, McKNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR by Tami Hoag

  #277, SHOWDOWN AT LIZARD ROCK by Sandra Chastain

  #278, CALIFORNIA ROYALE by Deborah Smith

  #279, WINTER’S DAUGHTER by Kathleen Creighton

  #280, STRONG, HOT WINDS by Iris Johansen

  #281, PARADISE CAFÉ by Adrienne Staff

  “Couldn’t find a larger towel?” Shea asked, motioning Duke into the tub.

  “It’d be like putting a raincoat on a Greek statue,” he teased.

  She watched, hypnotized despite herself, as he eased down into the mud. His back muscles rippled in a symphony of male perfection, his bronzed body made her want—

  “Oink,” he said gruffly.

  She chuckled and poured the buckets of mud over his legs and torso.

  “Now what?” he asked.

  “Now you lie back, close your eyes, and I’ll massage your scalp.”

  He rested his head on a pillow and did as she said. Shea smiled, then dumped her last bucket of mud onto his head.

  Duke sat up, sputtered, then grabbed for her with both hands. “Take a wallow with me, hellion!”

  “Please, no,” she yelped, one second before he pulled her into the tub.

  She began laughing helplessly as she sank into the mud between his knees. He shook his head, slinging mud everywhere. “You play hard, querida. I like that,” he said in a voice that was half angry, half amused. “But you’ve toyed with a master gamesman. You’ve thrown down a challenge.…”

  “Quiet, hombre,” Shea said, and kissed him.

  He went still for a moment, then wrapped his arms around her possessively. Twisting his mouth against hers, the kiss went from giddy to wild to wanton.…

  CALIFORNIA ROYALE

  A Bantam Book / September 1988

  LOVESWEPT® and the wave device are registered

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  Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

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  Copyright © 1988 by Deborah Smith.

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  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10103.

  v3.1

  To the Young Women’s Luncheon Club,

  a lovely and very eccentric group of ladies

  who believe in sisterhood, good times,

  and white gloves.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  One

  The last thing Duke Araiza needed was a fat farm.

  Estate Mendocino was precisely that, he thought ruefully as he ambled down a corridor decorated with Italian tile, expensive art deco lamps, and oriental rugs. The huge resort embodied frivolous luxury from the tip of its French chateau turrets to the manicured greens of its golf course.

  It was late evening. The rich and famous were all in their silk-sheeted beds, he assumed. Duke whistled in his typically nonchalant way as he strolled down the elegant hallway until he came to a door with a placard that read, Mud Therapy and Massage—Women. He hesitated for only a moment, then pushed the door open. He walked through a dimly lit changing room, frowning at the solid-oak lockers and the crystal dispensers full of mineral water.

  Ornately carved doors—all shut—lined both sides of the room. But at the end of the hallway one door stood open, and the light poured out. Duke ran a hand through hair as black as a winter night, cleared his throat, and strolled through the doorway.

  A woman reclined in a claw-footed tub full of stuff that looked like a chocolate pudding with a bad identity problem. Duke stopped, amazed at the sight of her. Her beautiful small breasts were revealed above the mire that hid the rest of her body.

  “So this is mud therapy,” Duke said under his breath. “I could get to like it.”

  Her head was tilted back on the rim of the tub, and her eyes were closed. She had draped her slender, slightly muscular arms along either side of the tub. The cinnamon polish on her perfectly manicured nails coordinated with the room’s pink-and-brown color scheme. Everything about her whispered class.

  Duke watched the light of a single wall lamp weave golden tones through the wavy hair that flowed over the tub’s edge. That hair he thought, had to match the color of the Spanish gold piece he carried in his pocket. Duke moved quietly to the side of the tub and gazed down at her, fascinated. He could smell her perfume, unobscurred by the damp-clay smell of mud. Roses and cream, old-fashioned and delicate.

  Shea Somerton believed in psychic powers, but she was too practical to think that she might have them herself. Now, however, she felt the strangest urge to open her eyes. It was as if a key had been turned somewhere deep in her soul, driving away the restful blank-ness she had sought after a long day’s work. She raised her head languidly and let her eyelids flutter open.

  The first things she saw were snugly blue-jeaned thighs below a muscular, broad chest outlined in a clingy white pullover. In the instant of shock that followed, her gaze rose to an angular, richly tanned face with eyes as dark as burnt wood.

  Thick black hair was tossled over that face, a strand or two wisping forward to grace an intelligent brow wrinkled in concentration. A heart-stopping man looked down at her with a slightly chagrined smile—he knew he was someplace he should not be—but his eyes crinkled with laughter.

  “I never thought mud could look so good,” he said jovially.

  Shea gasped and sank lower in the tub. She was alone here, she realized. It was after ten and the staff was gone, and this exotic looking interloper was staring at her as if she were salsa and he the taco chip.

  She composed herself and answered drolly, “The mud won’t look so good if I plaster it over your eyes. Scram.” She paused, then added, “Please.”

  Duke’s smile widened with admiration for her sass. The woman gazing up at him with a mixture of concern and bravado had a somewhat waifish face made unforgettable by a Sophia Loren mouth and turbulent violet eyes. Liz Taylor eyes, that’s what they were. He’d never seen a face like this woman’s.

  “Sorry,” he said with sincere apology. “I was just exploring, and I wanted to see what mud therapy involved.” Duke rarely did anything he was told to do, so he didn’t scram. Instead he retrieved a redwood-slat folding chair from its place by one wall of the small room and brought it close to the tub. He turned the chair around so that its back was toward the woman’s wide, beautiful eyes, straddled it, and sat down.

&
nbsp; “My name’s Duke,” he said politely.

  “Your name is mud if you don’t get out of here.” Shea shook her head in exasperation at the inadvertent choice of words.

  “Mud.” He grinned. “Speaking of mud, what’s that stuff like? What does it do for you?”

  She tilted her head and looked at him with an icy, carefully composed smile. “Sir, are you a guest here?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am. I’ve got money and I’m fully certified.” He reached in a back pocket of his jeans and produced a guest card. Shea caught only the flicker of green and gold—Estate Mendocino’s colors—but it was enough to tell her that he was legitimate.

  “Duke,” she said in her most pleasant management voice, “this area is off-limits to male guests. The men’s mud-therapy room closes at eight o’clock. Weren’t you given instructions when you arrived?”

  “Gonna have me tossed out? I wouldn’t blame you.”

  “I don’t believe tossing is necessary. But you really should leave.”

  He gazed at her with a warmth that would fire wet kindling. Now that she could think about something besides the racing of her heart, she noticed that his nose was straight, but had just the slightest hook to it. A fine white scar ran horizontally across the bridge, giving him a tough-guy appearance.

  Shea was surprised that she found the look appealing rather than sinister. In her world of pampered and coiffed men, this man was unique. With such black hair and gleaming olive skin, he had to be of Spanish or Mexican background.

  “I just got in a couple of hours ago,” he explained. “I was supposed to drive up earlier, but I had a business meeting. I’ll take the official tour in the morning.” One large hand rose in a gesture that included not only the mud-bath room but the whole estate. “I want to see all of cotton-candy land.”

  Shea frowned at his derogatory assessment of the resort. This man didn’t have an ounce of flab on a body that must have been well over six feet tall. He was the picture of fitness, and he didn’t look like he needed to relax. He looked as if he were never anything but relaxed. So what was he doing at Estate Mendocino, the hangout of the rich and famous, the flabby and stressed out?

  “You don’t sound very enthusiastic about being here,” she told him, then paused, feeling her skin tingle with an odd mixture of fear and excitement. This definitely was not the mud’s mineral properties at work. “And I’m not very enthusiastic about your being here.” She indicated the mud-therapy room with a firm movement of her hand. “Really, sir, this is a private … how did you get into this part of the resort after hours? Were the doors to the spa area unlocked?”

  “Calm down, querida,” he said in a gentle, serious voice. He wasn’t going to tell her that he’d picked the lock. It would only upset her more. He shook his head. “I’m not that kind of man.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The kind who wants to frighten you. Who would try to frighten you.” His expression lost its sincerity and became suspiciously solemn. “I just want to know about mud.”

  Shea exhaled sharply. He looked like some sort of old-West maverick: rough and handsome, with an attitude that seemed both gallant and rakish. She could either get out of the tub and march out of the room, or she could make conversation. Shea imagined his midnight eyes watching her as she walked, muddy and naked, toward the door. She sighed.

  “The mud is good for your skin,” she explained as calmly as she could. “You sit in the mud for a little while, then you take a shower, then you sit in an herbal bath, then you shower again, then you have a massage. When you’re finished, you feel fantastic.”

  “Or else you have a craving to oink and squeal.”

  One corner of her mouth turned up in an involuntary smile. “But it would be relaxed oinking and squealing.” He laughed lightly, the sound so warm and pleasant that Shea’s nerves began to loosen. “We should put you to work here,” she told him in a desperate attempt to make conversation. “You have one of those laughs that makes people feel good.” His eyes gleamed at the compliment, and Shea felt warmth spread down her body. Oh, Lord, was she going crazy? He was a stranger.

  “You work here?” he asked.

  “Yes. I’m the estate’s manager.”

  He arched one thick black brow and analyzed that information with a surprised, then pleased, look. Shea heard a sound and peered over the edge of the tub. The toe of his scuffed brown cowboy boot was idly tapping a rhythm on the white tiles.

  “I tap when I think,” he told her.

  “Fred Astaire made a career of that.”

  He laughed again. “So where’s someone to give you a massage tonight?”

  “Stop thinking, Fred.” She frowned, deciding as she did that she ought not to be so intrigued about this unsettling stranger. “I’m just here for the mud bath and a shower.”

  “You like being dirty, then you like getting clean. Querida, you’re my kind of lady. Take a shower and let’s go to dinner.”

  After a stunned moment Shea muttered something in fluent Spanish. She wished that he’d stop calling her querida. It meant “dearest.”

  He nodded, smiling and subtlely inhaling. The scent of roses and cream would never leave his thoughts now. “I’m a fast talking hombre, that’s for sure. Where did you learn such street lingo?”

  “Los Angeles. My hometown.”

  “Ah.” Duke gazed at her thoughtfully. Though she was covered in mud, he surmised that she was an elegant, well-educated woman. Her command of barrio Spanish continued to puzzle him. “It’s nice to meet another California native,” he told her. “There aren’t many of us left.”

  “What part?”

  “All of me.”

  “What part of California?” she emphasized in a droll tone.

  “Imperial Valley. Near the Mexican border. Ranch and farm country.”

  “Are you ranch or farm?”

  “I’m hungry,” he answered with an authoritative nod. He wasn’t about to let this straight-talking princess get away so easily. “How about dinner?”

  Shea rubbed muddy fingers on her suddenly tense temples. “I can’t fraternize with the guests. It’s a management rule.”

  “Ah, but you’re the manager. You can change the rules.”

  She shook her head. “Owner’s rule, not mine. But it’s a good one. Besides, guests aren’t supposed to eat dinner away from the estate.” She stared at him for a moment, her thoughts turbulent. “You don’t even know my name.”

  “That’s why we should have dinner. To learn names.”

  “The name is Shea Somerton. That eliminates the need for dinner.”

  He smiled. “I like it. The name, not the refusal to eat with me.” He got up and went to a huge brass baker’s rack on one wall. He retrieved a monogrammed pink hand towel and brought it back to her. Before Shea could reach up, he bent forward and carefully wiped the dabs of mud off her face.

  Shea’s senses went on complete alert. His fingertips brushed her skin, setting off interesting tingles. She looked up at him and was nearly lost in the gaze of earthy appreciation he didn’t try to hide. He smelled virile and outdoorsy, unadorned by cologne. It was a refreshing change from the expensive and loud scents the male guests used, and Shea found herself responding to this assertive visitor’s clean, masculine scent.

  “Thank you,” she said blankly when he finished. He smiled at her, his eyes so intense that the smile seemed only a polite gesture meant to reassure her that she was safe. Just barely. He ran one forefinger down to her lips, brushed them lightly, and nodded at her.

  Shea looked away and scooped up a handful of mud, which she smeared across her upper chest as she tried to think straight. She had never understood the kind of spontaneous sexual reaction that provoked strangers to make intimate advances. That was the stuff of racy movies and soap opera episodes, not real life—not her regimented life, at least. Men complimented her on her muscle tone; they didn’t burn her up with inviting looks.

  “Is this a hint?” he ask
ed. Shea turned her gaze upward. He gestured toward her chest. “You want me to clean more mud off you?”

  There was nothing to do but laugh, so she did. This was an incredible encounter and it was completely hopeless.

  “Get cleaned up and let’s drive over to town for dinner,” he urged again. “Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “I’m not married either. I’m a lot of fun, and—”

  “You’re here to eat nutritiously. Your room has a well-stocked refrigerator, I’m certain.”

  “I’m not in a room. I have one of the cottages.” He sighed grandly and straddled the chair again. “I looked in the refrigerator. Ten kinds of juices, a hundred kinds of vegetables, flat, ugly crackers—you call that eating?”

  Now it was Shea’s turn to raise a brow. A week in one of the estate’s regular rooms, including the fitness and health program, cost three thousand dollars. A week in one of the cottages cost twice that. Nothing about this man proclaimed that he had money, but he obviously had plenty. She liked the fact that he didn’t show it.

  “What are you hoping to get out of your stay here?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “I like northern California in the springtime. Where I come from, there aren’t many trees. It’ll be fun to look at the redwoods around here. Besides, I want to see what a fat farm is all about.”

  Shea frowned. She was too proud of the regimen at Estate Mendocino to let that remark pass. “Fat farm? This is a health and fitness resort.”

  “Fat farm,” he corrected primly. “You ought to turn this place into something useful. Like an amusement park. Or a used-car lot. Or …”

  “Now look,” she began. “Sir—”

  “Duke,” he interjected.

  “Duke, you have to have a positive attitude.…” She stopped talking, and her face contorted with pain.

  He stood, swinging one long leg over the back of the chair in a graceful motion. “What’s the matter? Something in the mud bite you?”

  “Leg c-cramp,” she managed between clenched teeth. “I ran t-ten miles tonight. Which is th-three miles more than usual.”