WHAT ARE FRIENDS FOR?

by Naomi Horton

  He thought of holding her the other morning, of the feel of her skin, the taste of her mouth … thoughts that led to other thoughts…

  He had to get out of here.

  Now.

  Teeth gritted, he pushed Andie gently away from him and sat up. "Gotta go, darlin'," he murmured, not meeting her gaze in case she could read even some of what he thinking in his eyes. Because if she did, she'd kill him. Right here, right now.

  She didn't say anything. Just nodded, her head down slightly so her hair partially obscured her features. Her robe had come loose so the front gaped a little, and he let his eyes follow the neckline down, tracing the delicate curve of her throat, the soft swell of the top of her breast, her skin smooth and lightly sheened with body oil…

  Taking a deep breath, Conn leaned over and gathered up the papers he'd tossed aside earlier, trying to get his rambling thoughts back under control. What the hell was happening to him, anyway? It was as though he'd never seen her before or something.

  This was Andie, for crying out loud! His Andie. Hell, he'd always known she was gorgeous. A man would have to be blind not to notice.

  But that had never been an issue. He hadn't coaxed her to work for him because she was beautiful, or because watching her walk across a room was a pleasure in itself, or because she had legs that would make a grown man weep. There were plenty of women around who fit that bill if all he'd wanted was looks.

  He'd wanted her at Devlin Electronics because she was his friend, and he respected and trusted her. Because she had a mind that could cut braised steel. Because she could juggle eighteen crises at a time and never lose her cool. Because she laughed at his jokes. Because she made him laugh. Because when he was around her he felt like a kid again, as though nothing was impossible and every dream he ever had could come true.

  Taking another deep breath, he got to his feet. He needed a woman. The last eighteen or so months without sex had messed up his mind, no two ways about it. While he was still married to Judith he'd just put his libido on hold, but now … man, now he was even ready to hit on his best friend!

  Olivia, he found himself thinking a little desperately. Maybe when they got back to Seattle he'd call Liv.

  Andie was looking at him, a little frown between those lovely brows, her eyes searching his, almost as though she wanted to say something but didn't know how.

  And he had a pretty good idea what it was. If he wasn't careful, he wasn't just going to have to find himself a new assistant, but a new best friend as well. "Let's call it a night," he said quietly. "Beck isn't going anywhere. We can go over this report of Czarnecki's in the morning."

  Andie nodded, shoving her hands into the deep pockets of her robe. She was tempted to ask him to stay, but it was hard being this close to him. In Seattle, in the office, she had her professional persona as a barrier between her and her feelings. But here … the moonlight, the solitude, the fire. All conspired to make her wish things that could never be, to taunt herself with possibilities.

  She strolled beside him as he walked toward the connecting door to his suite. "You never did drink your tea."

  "Rain check." He grinned down at her, then leaned one broad shoulder against the door frame as though deliberately postponing going through. "You know," he said very carefully, his gaze holding hers with only a hint of mischief. "We, uh, could… Well, for old times' sake, we could—"

  "Are you hitting on me, Connor Devlin?" she asked with a laugh, leaning on the wall beside him and gazing up into his grey-green eyes.

  "Well…" His grin widened. "Yeah."

  Andie laughed again, tempted, for one fleeting moment, to say yes just to see his expression. Instead, she just reached up and took a fistful of sweatshirt fabric and pulled him toward her. "Kiss me, you mad fool, and then go have a cold shower and go to bed."

  "My pleasure, ma'am…" He slipped one warm hand around the back of her neck, cradling her head, and brought his mouth down over hers more fully than she'd expected.

  It was supposed to have been just a casual good-night kiss, but Conn found himself kissing her slowly and deeply, taking his time over it, letting himself enjoy every wondrous moment of it.

  She gave a muffled squeak after a moment or two and drew her mouth from his, fingers still tangled up in the front of his sweatshirt, her eyes wide and a little unfocused. "Wh-what was that all about?" She sounded breathless.

  "Damned if I know," he admitted with a chuckle. Her hair was like silk between his fingers and he ran his thumb up the side of her throat, loving the softness of her skin. "But we could always do it again and see what happens."

  "No." Taking a deep breath, she stepped back, shaking her head. "No, I don't think that would be a good idea."

  Conn had the sudden thought that if he really wanted to – really wanted to – he could probably talk her into bed. He found himself looking down at her, actually tempted to try it. It would be nice having her warmth tucked into the emptiness of his bed, to turn to her in the night and make love to her…

  Except he'd have to face her in the morning and try to explain just what the hell he thought he'd been doing. And facing her wouldn't even be as bad as having to face himself with the same question. It would change everything between them, change everything they were to each other, and he wasn't ready to lose her, too.

  "No, you're probably right," he said quietly, leaning down to kiss her again, but lightly this time. "We've got a good thing going here, right? It would be a shame to spoil it with something as self-indulgent and shallow as a night of spectacular sex." He gazed down at her as he said it, half hoping she'd say, "Here's to self-indulgence and shallowness," and "Let's go to bed, cowboy – we'll figure something out in the morning."

  And he thought for half an instant that she was going to do just that. She stood there, looking up at him with her lips half-parted, gaze searching his intently. It was one of those breath-held moments that seems to go on forever, and Conn actually started to reach for her just as she stepped back, laughing very softly, her eyes glowing with mischief.

  "Yes, I suppose it would. Best friends are hard to come by – isn't that what we agreed?"

  Grinning broadly, Conn reached out to comb a handful of silken dark hair off hr forehead with his fingers. "Of course, we could have been wrong…"

  Her smile turned thoughtful and she shook her head, looking a bit wistful. "No, I don't think we were. Not that I don't think a night of sex with you wouldn't be spectacular, mind you."

  In spite of himself, Conn had to give a bark of laughter. "I don't know about that, darlin' – I'm so out of practice I might wind up just embarrassing myself."

  "Somehow I doubt that," Andie murmured, soft lips curving up in a sly smile. She put her fingers against his chest and pushed him gently backward through the door. "Good night, Connor. Sweet dreams."

  "If you get restless in the night, you know where to find me." Still grinning, he gave her an outrageous wink, then closed the door gently behind him – more for her sake than his – and headed for bed. Although he couldn't see himself getting any sleep for a long, long while…

  * * *

  But to Conn's surprise, he did get a half-decent night's sleep, although his dreams had been pretty wild.

  And X-rated, he found himself thinking with a grin as he adjusted the brightness on the screen of his laptop computer. If Andie had any idea of the things the two of them had been up to in his dreams last night, she'd staple his hide to his office wall. Or use that sterling silver letter opener on her desk to divest him of one or two more critical bits of his anatomy.

  He shrugged his shoulders to ease the tension across them and leaned back in the chair as his computer loaded in the new program he'd called up, still grinning. He was on his own this morning. Beck had called early to say he and a couple of his top honchos were heading back to Seattle to work out some final details, and wouldn't be back until late.

  Which meant they were in the home stretch, Conn thought with satisfaction.
He'd be glad when it was finally over. This had never been his favorite part. The endless meetings and strategy, the deal-making, the dickering – all wore his patience thin after a while. He wanted to make things, not talk about them. All the boardroom mind games in the world couldn't match the visceral excitement of watching one of his engineers put the finishing touches on a prototype, then turning it on and having it work – really work – for the first time.

  Andie, thank heaven, seemed to understand that. Over the past nine years she had taken on more and more of the actual day-to-day details of running Devlin Electronics, leaving him free to work with design and engineering.

  If he lost her…

  He narrowed his eyes slightly. Maybe he would make a phone call to DeRocher this afternoon. Just a friendly little suggestion to back off. Andie would kill him if she ever found out, of course, but it would be worth the risk. She didn't love DeRocher. She couldn't love him. He wasn't right for her at all. Too old, too stodgy, too … hell, too everything!

  And Marc Beck? Not him, either.

  Problem was, Andie was just too damn good for most of the men she met. She needed someone who knew how special she was. Someone who could make her laugh with just a look, and knew that her favorite flowers were snapdragons and that her favorite movie was Casablanca. Someone who could rub her back the right way, and make her a margarita just how she liked it, and was willing to spend hours rooting around in musty old bookstores looking for those volumes of romantic poetry she loved.

  Somebody like him, Conn thought irritably.

  Maybe marrying your best friend wasn't such a bad idea after all. If nothing else, at least you could count on sharing a good laugh now and again.

  Except he'd never convince her of that. As far as Andie was concerned, friendship and romance did not mix.

  Which was just as well, because he didn't have a damned thing to offer her anyway. Two failed marriages wasn't exactly the kind of thing that inspired confidence. With his record, even Andie – who knew him better than anybody – would be a fool to take a chance on him.

  Hell.

  He rubbed the back of his neck and glowered at the computer screen, not making much sense of it. Not really interested in making any sense of it. He'd been listening to the faint sound of voices and splashing and laughter for a while now without really registering what it was. But now, suddenly, he found himself wishing he was out there with whoever was in the pool rather than in here, working. Or pretending to work.

  Restless, he got up and walked across to the window. There were four of them in the water: Margie, Frank Czarnecki, one of Bill Miller's people and Andie. They were playing some game with a beach ball, which seemed to consist mainly of trying to drown each other, and he grinned, amused at the sight of Frank Czarnecki in bathing trunks and not a computer in sight.

  Someone rapped on the door of his suite and he shouted at whoever it was to come in, smiling as Andie shot up out of the water to grab the ball. She took off for the far end of the pool with it, everyone else in hot pursuit.

  "I have those financial records you wanted."

  Conn glanced around as Marc Beck walked into the room. "I thought you'd gone into Seattle with your father."

  Mark shook his head, tossing a handful of papers down on the table where Conn had been working. "Nope. He and his bean counters have things under control. I'd just be in the way."

  Conn leaned one shoulder against the wall and looked at Marc curiously. "You know, I haven't been able to help notice that you don't seem very concerned that your father's selling Becktron out from under you. You are his only son. It seems to me that—"

  "—that I'd be chomping at the bit to take over?" Marc grinned easily, coming across to look out the window. "Hell, no. Becktron was always my dad's baby, not mine. Frankly, I'm just as glad to see it go. Our bread and butter were the big military contracts, and when they went the way of the cold war, our days were numbered. We have the choice of retooling and trying to start over again, or bowing out gracefully." Marc gazed down at the pool thoughtfully.

  Andie was out of the water now, stretched out in a deck chair in a peacock blue bathing suit that left a hell of a lot more firm, tanned flesh exposed than Conn thought absolutely necessary. He'd forgotten just how good she looked in a bathing suit. And Beck, obviously, had noticed it, too.

  "Are you, um…" Beck looked at him speculatively. "This isn't any of my business, but you and Andie seem pretty tight."

  "We are," Conn said abruptly.

  "She says you used to live beside each other when you were kids. That you grew up together."

  "That's right." What the hell had they been doing, trading life histories?

  "She says you went to college together, too. That you've always been sort of best friends."

  "Not sort of," Conn said testily. "We are best friends." He gave Beck a mildly hostile look. "Are you going anywhere with this, or just fishing?"

  Marc just looked at him calmly. "She seems to think a hell of a lot of you. I just wanted to know if there's anything more to it than that."

  The question, Beck's sly way of getting at it, irritated Conn unreasonably. "Why don't you ask Andie?"

  "I did." Another speculative look. "She said you're not romantically involved. But…" Beck smiled very faintly, his eyes holding Conn's. "I figured you might have other ideas."

  "Such as?" Conn kept his voice deliberately soft.

  Marc laughed quietly, bracing one shoulder against the window frame casually. "She's a hell of a woman, Devlin. To be honest, I can't figure out why you haven't already snapped her up. She's just about everything a man could want in a woman."

  "I told you," Conn growled, looking down at the pool. At Andie. "We're just good friends."

  "So you don't mind if I…?" He left it delicately hanging.

  "If you what?"

  "No more games, Devlin," Marc said with a lazy smile. "I like Andie. I like her a lot. And I'm interested in pursuing it further. I just want to make sure you're okay with that."

  "It's got nothing to do with me," Conn said mildly. "You should be having this conversation with Alain DeRocher, in Quebec City."

  "Andie and I have talked about DeRocher. I don't think it's particularly serious. Not from Andie's side, anyway."

  Conn looked at Beck. Had Andie told him that? Hell, she wouldn't even discuss DeRocher with him!

  "You don't have to worry about this interfering in your negotiations with Becktron." Marc smiled again and shrugged away from the wall. "I'll stay at a discreet distance until the deal is finished. As you pointed out the other day, until this deal goes through, you and I are still competitors."

  Marc left then, strolling across the room and out the door as casually as he'd come in, leaving Conn gazing down at the pool. Andie was talking with Margie now, laughing in the sun, completely unaware that he was watching her. That he and Beck had been planning her future.

  Beck, anyway. Conn smiled. Beck had a hell of a surprise coming if he thought it was going to be that easy. He'd come in here talking as though it was already a done deal, as though the decision was his and that Andie would just naturally fall into his arms.

  Conn knew her better than that.

  Or did he? Conn narrowed his eyes slightly as he looked down at her. He'd always thought he knew Andie Spencer better than he knew anyone. And yet, in the past few days she'd hit him with a couple of surprises, the fact she was actually contemplating marrying DeRocher being just one of them.

  He thought of Beck. Thought of Beck with Andie.

  You and I are still competitors…

  Damn straight. Grinning, he turned away from the window, reaching down to shut off the computer as he walked by the table. And may the best man win, sport. May the best man win.

  * * *

  Frank Czarnecki was a new man.

  Andie started rubbing her wet hair with the towel just to hide her grin. She had no idea what it was – the mountain air, the vacation atmosphere, the fact tha
t Margie looked good in a bathing suit – but something had turned Frank into a pretty fair imitation of a suave guy. He was talking. He was laughing. He was relaxed and having fun. He was even flirting.

  Still grinning, Andie leaned back and watched the two of them. Margie was glowing like a sixteen-year-old in love for the first time, eyes sparkling, cheeks pink. They were sitting on a big towel beside the pool, knees almost touching, leaning toward each other in that way a man and woman did when the rest of the world had ceased to exist and there's just the two of them.

  A tiny flicker of envy shot through her, watching them laughing like that. Those first few days of falling in love were unlike anything else in the world – every heartbeat imbued with magic, each moment a new discovery, each breath drawn filled with joy. The world became a wondrous place where every word and glance and touch held meaning and tenderness.

  It had been a long while since she'd felt that magic.

  She let the towel fall into her lap and stared across the pool at the mountains, a flood tide of sadness welling up through her, making her eyes prickle. It was silly, feeling like this. She had everything. Everything a woman could want.

  Someone – someone decidedly and deliciously male – suddenly sat on the chaise longue behind her and wrapped two strong arms around her middle and nibbled the back of her neck.

  She smiled. "Good morning, Connor."

  "How'd you know it was me?" he asked with a soft laugh, rubbing his nose against her ear. "Could have been Marc Beck."

  "Marc Beck has better manners than to accost a woman at nine in the morning."

  Conn's arms tightened slightly and he kissed the side of her throat. "That's the only way you knew? My timing?"

  "And your after-shave." She grinned. "And this." She ran her fingertip along the white scar meandering along his forearm. "You nearly died in that car accident."

  "'Only the good die young.' Isn't that what you told me when you came to see me in the hospital?" He nuzzled the nape of her neck. "I'd just turned seventeen, was half-drunk on beer and cheap wine, and our team had just beat the hell out of the competition. You made me swear an oath that night, remember?"