by Jackie Braun
Her face had clouded.
“My brother was shot several years ago.”
Instantly he regretted his flippant tone. “I’m sorry. Is he…okay?”
“Fine now, and thankfully he’s given up investigative work, found himself a good woman and a new, less risky career path, so I don’t have to worry about him anymore.”
She tugged the towel off her head, laid it over the back of the desk chair and began to finger-comb her hair.
“Why do people take such risks?” she asked.
For some reason he didn’t think she was talking about her brother now, and though he couldn’t pinpoint why, her expression had turned sad and there was that vulnerability he had glimpsed earlier in the evening.
He shrugged. “What’s the saying? ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained.’”
“You can turn that saying around, you know. ‘Nothing ventured, nothing lost.’”
He thought about Terri, about the bickering and finally the betrayal that had led up to their messy court battle and the ugly he-said, she-said testimony that was duly reported in the media. Marnie had a point. He certainly regretted having taken that chance.
Still, his experience in business convinced him of the need to take risks—acceptable ones where he weighed ahead of time what he could afford to lose. After all, if not for that first big gamble, in which he’d plunked every last bit of his savings and whatever else a bank had been willing to loan him, Tracker Operating Systems would still be a pipedream and not one of the biggest software developers and manufacturers in the world.
He couldn’t tell her all that, though. Instead he said, “Life’s a little more interesting when it has an edge.”
She shrugged.
“I don’t agree, but I’m afraid I’m too tired to argue the point right now.”
As if to punctuate her words, she yawned before going to gather her things. J.T. followed her to the door, glad she was finally leaving and yet sorry to see her go. The evening had passed quickly and enjoyably in her company.
“Thank you for the use of your shower.”
“You’re welcome.”
She tilted her head to one side. “I was hoping you were going to say ‘any time.’ Even if my power comes back on before I leave Monday and the water turns crystal clear, I’m afraid your shower has spoiled me.”
Just as she had spoiled the shower for him. J.T. doubted he would ever take another one in that bathroom without thinking of her.
“Felt that good, huh?”
“Incredible.”
Her slow smile had his mouth going dry. And suddenly he had to know: How would she feel in his arms? What would she taste like if he kissed her?
Marnie didn’t back away when he reached for her. She molded against him, resting her hands on his shoulders, although those dark eyes regarded him warily. When their mouths met, he thought he heard her sigh. And he knew he wanted to—the relief, the release of tension, seemed that great.
The kiss began hungry and only got more so when he changed the angle and she opened up to him. Marnie wasn’t shy, but she was greedy. No, not greedy, he amended. She gave back as much as she took. Hungry, that’s what she was. Hot. J.T. felt consumed by the heat and he was only too happy to burn.
When the kiss ended, it was his turn to say, “Incredible.”
Marnie nodded, looking somewhat surprised, maybe even a little shaken.
“It was nice, wasn’t it?”
“Nice? Let’s try that again and see if you can come up with a better adjective.”
But she backed away this time.
“I don’t think your ego needs any more feeding at this point.”
She’d been the one to end the kiss, as he figured she would be, since that would give her the upper hand. They’d known each other for only a couple of days and he’d already figured that much out about her. She wanted to be in control.
Still, he liked knowing he could shake her up, and the way her breath still shuddered in and out of her lungs told J.T. that he had, no matter how nonchalant Marnie was now trying to act.
“I had a nice time tonight,” she said, taking delight in stressing the word. “Maybe I’ll see you on the beach tomorrow morning.”
“Is that an invitation?”
Her lips bowed into a sultry smile. “Let’s say around nine.”
“I’ll be there.”
“And I’ll look forward to it.”
Just when he was beginning to feel smug, she added, “Bring an extra cup of Starbucks this time. Black for me, too. The way God intended a good cup of coffee to be.”
She was so shameless about using him that J.T. had to grin. At least all she appeared to be after—for the moment anyway—was a hot shower and a steaming cup of French roast. He’d rarely gotten off that cheaply when it came to members of the opposite sex.
As he opened the door for her, he said, “I’ll walk you back. Wouldn’t want you to get lost in the dark.”
He reached for her bag, but she shook her head.
“Thanks, but no need. I never lose my way.”
Then, pulling the trusty flashlight from the front pocket of her case, she was on her way, following the beam as it danced across the beach.
CHAPTER FOUR
I NEVER lose my way.
Marnie had told J.T. that the night before, and yet she knew it wasn’t quite true. She’d stumbled plenty after that kiss, barely knowing right from left, up from down, back from front.
Oh, she’d pretended to act unmoved, even as her knees had turned liquid and her body had turned traitor. But the fact of the matter remained, she’d wanted J.T.
Right then, right there in his hard-surfaced kitchen, she had wanted him.
He was the first man she’d kissed, let alone fantasized about doing much more with, since Hal. She thought she should feel guilty about that. She’d loved her husband. But guilt, she was practical enough to realize, wouldn’t bring him back or undo the past. So, the only thing Marnie felt was dizzying sexual attraction and even a bit of smug satisfaction that she wasn’t the only one who’d been left dazed and breathless.
The minutes of her stay in La Playa de la Pisada were ticking steadily away, and yet as she laid in bed on this Sunday morning—something she hadn’t done in too many Sundays to count—she found she didn’t want to leave.
She felt reinvigorated. She missed her son and God knew she missed the convenience of electricity and hot running water, but she was in no hurry to return to either her parents’ well-meaning hovering or her staid life minding the tap and managing the business end of the Lighthouse Tavern while her brother was out of town.
Sure, this thing with J.T.—assuming it hadn’t already run its course—would be fleeting, and not just because she couldn’t stay in La Playa de la Pisada forever. Marnie was a careful woman, even more so now that she had a son to raise by herself. The man was a bounty hunter—if that wasn’t risk personified, what was? And besides, what did the pair of them have in common beyond an appreciation for Motown music and a taste for merlot?
Of course, it didn’t have to mean anything. She felt very Sex and the City-ish as she lay in bed, one hand flung negligently over her head, the other plucking at the thin fabric of her camisole, and mulled over the possibility of a brief, albeit mutually satisfying, fling. What man wouldn’t want that? No strings, no commitment. Just sex. Lots and lots of glorious sex.
At the knock on her door, Marnie bolted upright. Then she heard J.T.’s voice calling out her name. Could the man read her mind? She fanned her heated face and hoped not.
“I’m…just a minute.”
She scrambled for clothes, hastily pulling on a sweater and shorts. She paused in the bathroom to run a comb through her hair and splash some bottled water on her face. Then, satisfied that she no longer looked flustered or aroused, she went to open the door.
Thoughts of sex might have had her unsettled, but she forgot all about feeling self-conscious when she spied J.T. Her gaze lingere
d for only a moment on his handsome face, the lower half of which was bristled with twenty-four hours’ worth of beard and sported a sexy half grin. Then her gaze veered to the extra mug of steaming coffee he held in his hand.
“I didn’t see you on the beach,” he said as his gaze took a meandering tour of her features. “You did say nine?”
“Yes, I did. You’re very punctual.”
“Among other things,” he agreed, holding out the cup.
She snatched it from his fingers and drank greedily. A quarter of the mug’s contents was gone before she came up for air and then sighed deeply.
“Mmm. You’re a saint.”
“A saint?” He raised one sandy eyebrow at that assessment and something decidedly wicked flickered in his blue eyes. “Don’t canonize me yet. I could burn in hell for what I’m thinking at the moment.”
Marnie had been about to invite him inside, but she thought better of it now. She knew exactly the kinds of thoughts he was entertaining, as she had entertained them herself mere minutes before. But she wasn’t the sort to leap before looking, no matter how cozy the bed looked at this point.
“Let’s go for a walk,” she said, grabbing her sunglasses and a small disposable camera from the counter near the door. Then she brushed passed him, waiting outside for him to follow her.
He turned on a sigh.
“Sure. That’s what I had in mind,” J.T. mumbled.
The morning was glorious, the sky as blue and calm as the ocean. The only clouds that marred its perfection looked as if they had been brushed there with a few strokes from a master painter. For the next hour, they combed the beach, stopping at this rock outcropping and that one so Marnie could snap photographs.
“Smile.” Marnie turned the camera in J.T.’s direction and he quickly whirled away.
“Well, I think I managed a nice shot of the back of your head,” she said. “When I said smile, I meant, smile at me.”
“Sorry. I don’t like my picture taken.”
“Camera shy?” Then she said, “Oh, I get it. Your line of work. Probably not a good idea to have your photograph out there.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s not like I’d sell it,” she teased.
But J.T. didn’t laugh.
Even if Marnie had no idea who he was now, he knew better than most that even a simple snapshot could wind up gracing the cover of a tabloid when or if she figured out his real identity and decided to cash in on her association.
He thought he could trust her at this point, but he wasn’t a man to tempt fate. He’d done that before, with disastrous consequences. He was still dealing with the fallout of his ex-wife’s tell-all—although not necessarily tell-all-the-truth—book of the year before. The three-hundred-and-fifty-page bestseller had included three-dozen photos from the halcyon days of their marriage, including a couple of rather risqué ones that he’d come to regret, and J.T. had vowed never to expose himself, literally or figuratively, in that way again.
“Let me take your picture,” he suggested as a way of changing the subject.
Marnie happily obliged him. She leaned up against some rocks with her hips cocked, one long leg bent out to the side, head turned slightly and angled down, and ripe mouth pouting like a lingerie model would. She blinked slowly with her molasses eyes and coherent thought fled. But then she quit the siren pose, laughed and made a face at J.T. And that was the one he was sure he had captured on film.
He didn’t know why, but it surprised him that she could be silly. Women who looked like her didn’t tend to act goofy or outrageous in this way, at least not in his experience. Oddly enough, he considered it one of her most attractive qualities, right up there with her slow-blinking eyes and sinewy limbs.
“Look at this,” Marnie said a few minutes later as she bent down to retrieve a shell. She was a couple of steps ahead of him and the view her posture afforded J.T. made him think of another one of her qualities he found particularly pleasing.
“I’m looking,” he murmured.
“It’s pretty, eh?”
“I notice you say that a lot.”
“That things are pretty?”
“No, the ‘eh’ part.”
She laughed outright. “It’s the Yooper in me coming out, I’m afraid.”
“Yooper?”
“As in U.P.” When he only frowned, she said in her most instructional voice, “It stands for Upper Peninsula. Michigan is made up of two peninsulas. The one that’s shaped like a mitten is the lower one.” She held out her hands to demonstrate. “And the one that some folks say looks like a running rabbit—although, myself, I think that’s a bit of a stretch—is referred to as the upper one.”
“And the people there are Yoopers?”
“Who says you’re slow?” she teased.
“What’s in the U.P.? I mean, I’m not familiar with it. What’s the area known for?”
She shrugged. “Hunting, fishing…fudge and pasties. Lots of folks come for the scenery, too, of course. The Pictured Rocks National Shoreline, old copper mines, Tahquamenon Falls. And we even have mountains, the Porcupines, which are really more like hills compared to the Rockies or the ones here on the Baja, but they offer a nice view of things. Where I live, it’s pretty and peaceful, but a little remote. Not a shopping mall in sight,” she said on a wistful sigh.
“You don’t seem like a small-town girl.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I think I might be flattered, but I suppose I should ask, what do you think small-town girls are like?”
“I just wouldn’t expect them to be as fashionable as you: Prada shoes, Kate Spade handbag.”
“Oh, well, we do have magazines and a little thing called cable television,” she said in her best hillbilly impersonation. Then she confided, “The shoes are a knockoff, but the bag’s the real thing. My sister-in-law knows my weakness and gave it to me for my birthday last year.”
“And you would have turned how old then?”
“Age is relative.”
“How’s that?”
“Because only my relatives know my age.” She grinned and then arched an eyebrow. “Getting back to Prada and Kate Spade, I wouldn’t expect a bounty hunter to recognize designer labels, although I notice you favor a few of them yourself.”
“I guess we’re both full of surprises.”
“Full of something,” she replied.
For no reason he could fathom, he heard himself say, “My education in women’s fashion came courtesy of my wife. Ex-wife now.”
J.T. wasn’t the sort to volunteer information about his private life to those close to him, let alone to a virtual stranger. But then that kiss had made Marnie seem a lot less like someone he’d met mere days ago. Maybe it was because unlike almost everyone in his life, Marnie treated J.T. like a normal person. She wasn’t afraid to tease him or put him in his place. It was becoming clear that she didn’t see dollar signs or a job promotion when she looked at him, so she could afford to be blunt.
“Ah. A lot of things about you make perfect sense now,” she said.
Yes, very blunt.
“Such as?”
“Are you forgetting the first couple of times we met? You don’t trust women.”
“I don’t trust many people,” he replied and realized it was true.
He had a net worth in the billions and owned and operated one of the most innovative and profitable software companies on the planet. He attracted people—men and women—like a magnet, but he knew most of these “friends” and “supporters” and “admirers” wanted, even expected, something from him.
Walking on a beach in Mexico with Marnie, J.T. realized this was the first time in a long time that he’d simply been J.T. with no impressive title before his name, no list of credentials streaming after it.
“How long were you married?”
He grimaced. “Too long.”
“Any children?”
“No, thank God.”
“Don’t you like children?”
She kicked at the sand as she walked. “Think you’ll ever do it again?”
“Get married? Hell, no.” Recalling the courtroom drama, mountain of legal fees and nasty headlines he’d endured, J.T. snorted. “I’d rather be skinned alive. In fact, I think I was.”
She slanted one of those slow-blinking looks his way. “Oh, I don’t know. Your skin looks pretty intact to me.”
“What are you doing tonight?”
“One compliment about your skin and already you’re planning an evening out? You’re entirely too easy, J.T. Really, you should at least pretend to play hard to get.”
“You make me regret my impulsive behavior.”
But he didn’t regret it, not really. He wanted to continue as the man simply known as J.T. for as long as possible. So, he asked again, “Do you have plans?”
“Is a shower included in the evening’s activities?”
He thought about the vivid fantasy he’d entertained the night before. God, I hope so, he thought, stifling a groan. But he merely nodded.
“Then it’s a date.”
But was it a date?
Marnie wondered about that as she dressed for the evening several hours later, taking more care than usual with her appearance. She’d used J.T.’s shower, but had decided to return to her rental to get ready. She chose a thin-strapped black tank top and a lightweight black and white patterned skirt that flowed to the middle of her bare calves. Everything was new, bought in Yuma on a full-day shopping excursion that her mother had insisted Marnie needed. And Marnie, never one to pass up a visit to a mall, had agreed.
In fact, she had bought half a dozen new outfits during that outing, charging it all and telling herself she would think about how she would pay for it later.
The decision, however irresponsible, had seemed less about splurging than about living. As she’d tried on those new clothes, she’d felt a bit like a butterfly newly released from its cocoon. And she hadn’t stopped with clothes. She’d purchased accessories and shoes, including the pair of black slip-ons she now wore. She’d spied them on a department store’s clearance rack and hadn’t been able to resist. They sported a boxy silver buckle over the open toe and heels high enough that she would have felt uncomfortably tall around most men, Hal included.
