by Nora Roberts
A charming dining room set in dark wood was arranged conveniently near a sleek little kitchenette.
“Oh, my,” she said, but under her breath this time, as the bellman led the way into a bedroom with its own glass doors leading to a stone terrace. Two double beds were made up neatly with thick pillows and quilts, and the bath beyond—she only managed a quick look—had a mile of ivory counter, an oversized jet tub, and a separate glassed-in shower. And surely that was a bidet.
A bidet. Imagine it.
She could barely think as Tess instructed the bellman. “These bags in here, thank you. You can take hers . . .” Tess sent Willa a steely look. “In the other bedroom. You don’t mind sharing the room with me, do you, Lily?”
“What? No, no, of course not, I—”
“Good. Go ahead and get settled. Our first treatment’s in an hour.”
“Treatment? But what—”
“Don’t worry,” Tess said, as she sailed out after the bellman. “I took care of it. You’ll love it.”
All Lily could do was sink down on the side of the bed and wonder if she’d wandered into someone else’s dream.
“W HAT HAPPENED TO YOUR EYE. HONEY?”
The technician, therapist, consultant, whatever the hell she was called, made a long, sympathetic study of Willa’s shiner. Willa didn’t shrug. It was tough shrugging when you were buck naked on a padded table in a small, dim room.
“Wasn’t watching where I was going.”
“Ummm. Well, we’ll see what one of our skin consultants can do about it. Just relax,” she ordered, and began to wrap Willa in something warm and damp. “Is this your first visit to Mountain King Spa?”
“Yeah.” And her last, she promised herself.
The claustrophobia came quickly, unexpectedly, as the wrappings snugged her arms close to her body. She felt her heart pound, her breathing shorten, and she began to struggle.
“No, no, just relax, take slow, quiet breaths.” A warm, heavy blanket went over the wrappings. “A lot of clients have that initial reaction to an herbal wrap. It’ll pass if you just clear your mind, let yourself go. Now, these cotton balls are soaked in our Eye-Lax solution. It’ll probably help a bit with that swelling as well as the puffiness. You haven’t been sleeping enough.”
Swell. Now she was blind as well as trapped. Willa wondered if she would be the first client to tear herself free of herb-soaked restraints and run naked and screaming out of the Ladies’ Treatment Center.
Since she didn’t want the distinction, she fought to relax, let herself go. It was no more than she deserved, she supposed, for keeping her mouth so stubbornly shut on the drive down.
Music was playing, she realized. Or it wasn’t music really, but the sounds of water falling into water and birds chirping. She took one of those slow, quiet breaths and reminded herself she only had just over forty-eight more hours to suffer.
In less than five minutes, she was sound asleep.
She awoke groggily twenty minutes later with the consultant murmuring to her.
“Huh? What? Where?”
“We’re getting all those toxins out of your system.” Efficiently the consultant removed the layers of herbal wrap. “I want you to be sure to drink plenty of water. Nothing but water for the next few hours. You have a gommage in ten minutes. So relax. I’ll help you with your robe and slippers.”
Still half asleep, Willa let herself be bundled into her robe and slid her feet into the plastic slippers the spa provided. “What’s a gommage?”
“You’ll love it,” the consultant promised.
So she was naked again, on yet another table with yet another woman in a pale pink lab coat fiddling with her. At the first rough swipe with a damp loofah over bare skin slicked with a fine sandy cream, Willa yelped.
“Was I too rough? I’m terribly sorry.”
“No, it just caught me by surprise.”
“Your skin’s going to be like silk.”
Willa shut her eyes, mortified, as the woman rubbed her bare butt. “What the hell is that stuff you’re putting on me?”
“Oh, it’s our special exfoliator. Skin-Nu. All our products are herbal-based and available in our salon. You have fabulous skin, the coloring . . . but where did you get all these bruises?”
“Pulling calves.”
“Pulling . . . oh, you work on a ranch. That’s exciting, isn’t it? Is it a family operation?”
Willa gave up, let the layers of skin be scraped away. “It is now.”
T HE NEXT TIME WILLA SAW TESS, SHE, WILLA, WAS FLAT ON her back again, naked again, unless you counted the warm, thick brown mud that was being slowly smoothed all over her. Tess poked a head in the door, took one look, and burst into deep, bubbling laughter.
“You’re going to pay for this, Hollywood.” Christ, the woman was painting hot mud on her tits. On her tits!
“Correction, Mercy’s already paying. And you’ve never looked lovelier.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the new consultant said, “these are private rooms.”
“It’s okay, we’re sisters.” Tess leaned against the doorjamb, looking right at home in her white terry-cloth robe and plastic slippers. “I’ve got a facial in five. Just thought I’d see how you were holding up.”
“I’ve been lying down since I got here.”
“You really want to try the steam room if you have time between treatments. What have you got on next?”
“I have no idea.”
“I believe Ms. Mercy is scheduled for a facial next as well. The one-hour Bio Treatment.”
“Oh, that’s a honey,” Tess remembered. “Well, enjoy. Lily’s getting the full-body facial in the next room. She’s whimpering in pleasure right now. See you.”
“You came with your sisters,” the consultant said when Tess closed the door.
“So to speak.”
The consultant smiled and painted mud on Willa’s face. “Isn’t that nice.”
Willa gave up and closed her eyes. “So to speak.”
• • •
W ILLA GOT BACK TO THE SUITE AFTER SIX, ALL BUT crawling, as her legs were so limp and loose they didn’t seem willing to hold weight. She could have whimpered herself and hated to admit that it, too, would have been from pleasure. Her body felt so light, so pampered, so relaxed that her mind simply had no choice but to follow suit.
Maybe the fifteen-minute steam bath with a bunch of other naked women after her full hour massage had been a bit of overkill. But she’d lost her head.
“There you are.” Tess was just popping the cork on a bottle of champagne when Willa walked in. “Lily and I had just decided we wouldn’t wait for you.”
“Oh, you look wonderful.” Still wrapped in her robe, Lily got up from the sofa and clasped her hands together. “You’re positively glowing.”
“I don’t think I can move. That guy, that massage guy, Derrick, I think he did something to me.”
“You had a man?” Eyes wide, Lily hurried over to lead Willa to the couch. “For a full-body massage?”
“Wasn’t I supposed to?”
“My massage therapist was a woman, I just assumed . . .” She trailed off as Tess handed her a flute.
“I ordered a female for you, Lily. I thought you’d be more comfortable.” She passed another flute to Willa. “And I requested a male for Willa because I thought she should start getting used to what it feels like to have a man get his hands on her—even in perfectly professional surroundings.”
“If I wasn’t afraid I’d melt if I tried to stand up again, I’d punch you for that.”
“Honey, you should be thanking me.” With her own glass, Tess eased onto the arm of the sofa. “So was it great or what?”
Willa sipped the wine. She’d downed enough water to sink a battleship and the change to bubbles with a kick was glorious. “Maybe.” She sipped again, let her head fall back. “He looked like Harrison Ford, and he rubbed my feet. God. And there was this place just above my shoulder blades.�
�� She shuddered. “He used his thumbs. He had incredible thumbs.”
“You know what they say about thumbs on a man.” Smirking, Tess lifted her glass, toasted when Willa bothered to open one eye. “I’ve noticed that Ben has very . . . large . . . thumbs.”
“Isn’t noticing Nate enough for you?”
“Sleeping with Nate’s enough for me. But I’m a writer. Writers notice details.”
“Adam has wonderful thumbs.” The minute Lily heard herself say it, she choked and went beet-red. “I mean, he has good hands. That is, I mean, they’re very . . .” She snickered at herself, gave up. “Long. Could I have some more?”
“You bet.” Tess bounced up, grabbed the bottle. “A couple more and maybe you’ll tell us all about Adam’s wonderful long thumbs.”
“Oh, I couldn’t.”
“I’ve got another bottle.”
“Don’t tease her about it,” Willa said, but there wasn’t any sting in the words. “Not everybody likes to brag about their bedroom activities.”
“I’d like to,” Lily said, and flushed again. “I’d like to brag and strut and tell everyone because it’s never been like this for me. I never knew it could. I never knew I could.” Though she had no head for liquor, she knocked back her second glass with abandon. “And Adam is so beautiful. I mean his face and his heart, but his body. Oh, my God.”
She pressed a hand to her breast and held out her glass, which Tess obligingly filled. “It’s like something carved out of amber. It’s perfect, and I get all loose and fluttery inside just looking at him. And he’s so gentle when he touches me. And then he’s not, and I don’t care because I want him, and he wants me, and everything goes wild and I feel so strong, as if I could make love with him for hours, for days. Forever. And sometimes I have three or four orgasms before we’re finished, and with Jesse I hardly ever had even one, and then—”
She broke off, blinked, swallowed. “Did I just say that?”
Tess took a slow, labored breath, a long drink. “Are you sure you want to stop? Another few minutes, and I might just come myself.”
“Oh.” Hurriedly, Lily set her glass down, clasped her hands to her hot cheeks. “I’ve never said things like that to anyone. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
“You didn’t.” Willa’s own stomach was fluttering as she reached over to pat Lily’s arm. “I think it’s wonderful for you, and for Adam.”
“I couldn’t say things like that to anyone before.” Lily’s voice broke, and the tears swam. “I couldn’t to anyone except the two of you.”
“Now, Lily, don’t—”
“No.” Lily cut off Tess’s concern with a shake of her head. “Everything’s changed for me. It started changing when I first met both of you. I started changing. Even with all the horrible things that have happened, I’m so happy. I found Adam, and both of you. I love all of you so much. I love you so much. I’m sorry,” she said, and sprang up to rush to the bathroom.
Moved, flummoxed, Willa sat where she was and listened to the sound of water rushing into the bathroom sink. “Should one of us go in there?”
“No.” Feeling misty-eyed herself, Tess filled Willa’s glass again, then dropped onto the couch beside her. “We’ll give her a minute.” Thoughtfully she selected a perfect Granny Smith apple from the complimentary basket on the table. “She’s right, you know. As bad as things are, there’s a lot of good stuff trying to balance the scales.”
“I guess.” Willa looked down into her glass, then lifted her gaze to Tess’s. “I guess I’m glad I got to know you. I don’t have to like you,” she added before things got sloppy. “But I’m glad we got to know each other.”
Tess smiled, tapped her glass to Willa’s. “I’ll drink to that.”
NINETEEN
“W HAT’S THE POINT?” WILLA ASKED AS SHE FROWNED down at her toenails, currently being painted Poppy Pink by a technician. “Nobody sees them but me, and I don’t pay much attention to my toenails.”
“Which was quite obvious,” Tess returned, pleased with her Ravage Red polish. “Before Marla worked her magic on you, your toenails looked like they’d been groomed with a lawn mower.”
“So?”
Willa hated the fact that she was actually enjoying most of the process—which had included her new favorite, foot massage. She turned to the opposite side of the padded pedicure bench where Lily was beaming down at her half-painted toes.
“You really think Adam’s going to go for—what is it”—Willa cocked her head to read the label on the bottle of polish—“Calypso Coral?”
“It makes me feel pretty.” Smiling, Lily admired her nails, already shaped and slicked with matching lacquer. “Grown-up and pretty.” She looked over at Tess. “I guess that’s the point, isn’t it?”
“There.” As if after a long classroom lecture a student had finally grasped the formula, Tess clapped, careful to guard her nails against smears. “At last some simple common sense. A smart woman doesn’t dress up and decorate herself for a man. She does it for herself first. Then for other women, who are the only species that really notices the details. Then, coming up in the rear, for men, who, if a woman’s lucky, see the big picture.”
Amused at all of them, Tess wiggled her brows, lowered her voice an octave. “Ugh. Looks good. Smells good. Me wanna mate.”
She was rewarded for this insight by a snorting chuckle from Willa. “You don’t think much of men, do you, Hollywood?”
“Au contraire, dimwit, I think a great deal about men and find them, on the whole, an interesting diversion from the day-to-day routine of life. Take Nate.”
“You appear to have already done that.”
“Yes.” Tess’s smile turned smug and feline. “Nathan Torrence, an enigma at first. The slow-talking Montana rancher with the law degree from Yale who likes Keats, Drum tobacco, and the Marx brothers. A combination like that, well, it presents both a challenge and an opportunity.”
She lifted her completed foot and preened. “I like challenges, and I never miss an opportunity. But I’m getting my toenails painted because it makes me feel good. If he gets a charge out of it, that’s just a bonus.”
“It makes me feel exotic,” Lily put in, “like—what was the name of that woman in the sarong? The one in the old black-and-white movies?”
“Dorothy Lamour,” Tess told her. “Now take Adam, a different type of man altogether.”
“He is?” Since they’d moved to her favorite topic, Lily perked up. “How?”
“Don’t encourage her, Lily. She’s playing at expert here.”
“I don’t have to play at it, when it comes to men, champ. Adam,” Tess continued, wagging a finger. “Serious, solid, and yet vaguely mysterious. Probably the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen in my short, if illustrious, career of male tracking, with this—the only word I can think of is ‘goodness’—sort of beaming out of those yum-yum eyes.”
“His eyes,” Lily said with a sigh that made Willa roll her own.
“But—” Tess made her point with a shake of her finger. “It doesn’t make him boring, as goodness sometimes can, because there’s this simmering, controlled passion in there too. And as far as you’re concerned, Lily, you could shave your head and paint your face Calypso Coral, and he’d still adore you.”
“He loves me,” Lily said with a foolish grin.
“Yes, he does. He thinks you’re the most beautiful woman in the world, and if you woke up some morning and some wicked witch had put a spell on you and turned you into a hag, he’d still think you were the most beautiful woman in the world. He sees past the physical, appreciates it but sees past it to everything you are inside. That’s why I think you’re the luckiest woman in the world.”
“Maybe that wasn’t such a bad take,” Willa commented, “for a Hollywood writer.”
“Oh, I’m not done. We have to complete our triad.” Delighted with herself, Tess leaned back. “Ben McKinnon.”
“Don’t start,” Willa commanded.
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br /> “Obviously you’re hot for him. We’ll just sit here a minute and dry,” she told the technicians, then reached for her glass of sparkling mineral water. “A woman would have to be dead two weeks not to have a pulse spike around Ben McKinnon.”
“How much has your pulse been spiking?”
Pleased with the reaction, Tess moved a lazy shoulder. “I’m otherwise involved. If I wasn’t . . . In any case, I haven’t been dead for two weeks.”
“Could be arranged.”
“No, don’t get up and stalk around yet, you’ll smear.” Tess put a restraining hand on Willa’s arm. “Back to Ben—his sexuality is right out there, striding along a foot in front of him. Raw, hot, unapologetic sex in a tough male package. You watch him ride a horse and you just know he’d ride a woman with the same power. He’s also intelligent, loyal, honest, and looks fabulous in Levi’s. As a student of such matters, I’d have to say Ben McKinnon has the best buns in denim east or west of the Pecos. Not a bad distraction,” she finished, taking a slow sip of water, “from the day-to-day routine.”
“I don’t know why you’re looking at his butt when you’ve already got a guy,” Willa muttered.
“Because it’s a fine butt, and I have excellent eyesight.” Tess skimmed her tongue over her teeth. “Of course, a woman would have to be brave enough, strong enough, and smart enough to match him in power and style.”
There, Tess thought, as Willa sulked beside her, challenge issued, Ben. That’s the best help I can give you.
I T WASN’T UNTIL WILLA WAS BACK AT MERCY AND unpacking that she realized that through the last twenty-four hours of her stay at the spa, she hadn’t thought of the ranch, of her troubles, her responsibilities at all. And now that she did realize it, there was a quick wash of guilt that it should have been so easy to leave it all behind, to immerse herself in the pampering and pleasure.
Like walking into an alternate reality, she supposed, and grimaced as she tumbled pretty gold boxes onto her bed. Which might explain why she’d barely put up a struggle when Tess and Lily had urged her to buy creams, lotions, scents, shampoo.
