“I live in Boulder.”
“Unless there’s a fluke in weather systems which the National Weather Service and I are both unfamiliar with, it’s just as cold there.”
“I have a fireplace.”
“I’ll just bet you do,” she muttered under her breath. “And probably a cozy sheepskin rug in front of it.”
“As a matter of fact—”
“Forget it. I’m spending what’s left of this night in a hotel room in Denver and then I’m taking the first flight out in the morning.”
“And what exactly do you plan to tell your boss on Monday?”
“That you weren’t interested in a deal, which is just what I told him this afternoon and what, according to you, he has been told several times in the past. It shouldn’t come as a big surprise.”
His expression was speculative. “I’ve heard a lot about Trent Langston. Do you honestly think he’ll be satisfied with that excuse?”
“It’s not an excuse. It’s the truth.” She shot him a murderous glance. “Oh, hell. Of course, he won’t be satisfied with it. He’ll think I blew it somehow, but,” she added stoutly, “that’s just too damn bad. If he wants you, he can come out here and try to brainwash you himself.”
“You’re willing to give up, just like that?” Mark said curiously.
“I am not giving up just like that,” she snapped back. “It’s not as though this is our first offer.”
“It’s your first offer.”
“What exactly is that supposed to mean?”
“Why don’t you stick around and find out?”
“Because I’m not a masochist.”
“But from everything Morrie said, I thought you were ambitious.”
“Morrie’s judgment is not exactly top of the line,” she countered coldly, then added wearily, “Look, obviously, I’d rather go home with your signature on a contract, but you’ve made it very clear that you don’t even want to hear what I have to say. You’ve certainly gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid me. You must have your own reasons for distrusting Trent Studios and nothing I’m likely to say is going to change that.” She hesitated briefly and regarded him with a mix of hope and curiosity. “Is it?”
“No.”
“I thought so,” she said with a sigh. “Then what’s the use of my hanging around for a couple of days and then still going home with an unsigned contract?”
He smiled brightly. “You can tell Trent Langston you tried harder.”
“He’ll be thrilled,” she retorted sarcastically. “And what do you get out of all this? The chance to watch me squirm?”
“No. Like I said before, I just get the chance to get to know you.”
The concept completely baffled her. He didn’t trust her employers, which meant he couldn’t think too highly of her, either, since in his mind she was inextricably bound together with Trent Studios. And yet he wanted to know her better. Lindsay knew she was reasonably attractive, but so were half the women on this plane, and unlike her they were all going willingly to Denver to frolic in the snow. No, it still didn’t make sense.
“Why do you want to?”
He shook his head. “I thought I’d made that clear. I must be losing my touch.” He gazed straight into her eyes, dark sincerity matching wits with flashing skepticism. “I’ve always wanted to fall in love under a midnight sky with someone with bright green eyes.”
She tilted her head and studied him closely. He actually seemed to mean it. “You’re crazy.”
He shrugged. “I’m a writer. It goes with the territory. Now are you coming home with me or not?”
Home with him? Now that was another intriguingly dangerous thought, a thought not even to be considered. “I am going to a hotel room,” she said firmly. “For the night...or what’s left of it.”
“And then?”
Lindsay sighed. He was right about one thing, if she flew home first thing tomorrow morning, this morning, Trent would never believe she’d given this her best shot and he’d spend three solid weeks castigating her. She’d either have to slink around the studio on tiptoes and look apologetic or hide out someplace until his temper cooled down. Neither of these alternatives appealed to her. She liked to work, not cower around in the shadows while Trent went into one of his notorious sulks like some overgrown brat.
“I’ll think about it,” she said.
“Good,” he said, nodding in satisfaction, as the plane glided down on the runway. “I’ll pick you up in time for breakfast.”
* * *
When the pounding started on Lindsay’s hotel room door, she was convinced it was all part of a sadistic nightmare. She’d barely gotten to sleep under the thick down comforter that hugged her body with a delicious warmth. She poked one finger out from under the covers and tugged at the comforter until she could peek out.
A pale sliver of weak sunlight filtered through a crack between the drawn drapes. It didn’t look as though it had a very good grasp on the day. She sighed and snuggled back into the warm nest she’d created for herself. Surely no sane person would be out at this hour of the morning. It must be a mistake.
The pounding started again and an all-too-familiar voice called out her name.
She groaned and buried her face in the pillow. She’d been right. It wasn’t a sane person. It was David Mark et cetera. How could a man who’d gotten off the same plane that she had only a few short hours ago be on her doorstep at this hour? He either had a terrific metabolism that didn’t require sleep or a sadistic streak a mile long. She suspected that anyone who willingly lived where he had to dig his car out of snow drifts on a regular basis was sadistic, masochistic and probably all sorts of other disturbed things as well. He probably belonged in an institution that treated such disorders. He definitely did not belong in her hotel room. Not at this hour.
“Out of bed, bright eyes,” a husky voice called to her, then added hopefully, “Unless you’d like me to come on in and join you.”
Another interesting thought, her muddled mind said, mulling it over before her rational side noted that he was already turning the handle of the door. Her eyes widening with shock, she realized that the knob was not only turning, but the door was opening. One size-eleven foot, clad in a cowboy boot, stepped onto blue carpeting leaving disgusting little droplets of melting snow. By the time the rest of Mark Channing—she was going to have to get used to calling him that—followed, she was kneeling in bed, the comforter clutched tightly around her, her eyes flashing dangerous sparks.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded in as ferocious a voice as she could manage after being awakened from a sound sleep by a madman. She sounded a little like a pesky Chihuahua, all snap and very little muscle.
“Picking you up for breakfast,” he said calmly, black eyes drifting appreciatively over her bare shoulders and down, lingering at the spot on her surprisingly ample chest where the comforter was just barely keeping her decent. “I thought you’d be ready by now.”
“By now?” she repeated incredulously. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“It’s nearly nine o’clock. If you sleep much longer, I’ll have to take you to lunch, and we won’t have nearly enough time for skiing.”
Lindsay’s gaze flew to the sickly stream of daylight, then back to Mark. She glared at him accusingly. “That’s all the strength your sun out here can muster up at nine in the morning?”
“It’s clear and brighter in the mountains. You should have seen the sky at daybreak,” he enthused. “It was all grays and pinks and oranges. It would have made a great painting.”
“Daybreak?” Her voice took on a decided squeak. Suddenly the rest of Mark’s words began to register. With something akin to horror, Lindsay began to shake her head.
“No,” she said firmly. “No mountains! No skiing!”
“But it’s beautiful. And skiing is fun. You’re going to love it.”
“I won’t love it.” She snapped out each word emphatically.
“We’ll talk about it over breakfast.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
He nodded. “We’ll see,” he said soothingly. “Now you get dressed and I’ll help you pack your things.”
“Pack my things?” She did not want his masculine, ruggedly virile hands sifting through her silky, intimate clothing. It was indecent. Besides, why the devil did her things need to be packed in the first place?
“I’m perfectly capable of packing my own things, when I am ready to leave this hotel and go back to Los Angeles.”
“Of course you are—” he said in a placating tone that set her teeth on edge “—when the time comes. In the meantime, I thought it would make more sense for you to stay out at my place. The drive back and forth is hell when the roads are covered with ice.”
Moving out to his place over any kind of roads, Lindsay thought, would be like tossing herself into a pit of vipers. She’d decided that much on the plane last night and nothing had happened since then to make her change her mind. In fact, his virtually breaking into her room just now only confirmed it.
“I think this room will be just fine,” she informed him politely. “Other than a staff that seems to give out keys rather capriciously, this hotel seems to have all the amenities I need.”
“Unfortunately, you’ve already checked out,” he told her, grinning complacently.
“I’ve what!” The tiny squeak in her voice rose to a decided shriek that she knew from past experience was a sure sign that her temper was about to cross over into a rage that few people ever wanted to experience more than once. She tried her best to save it for very special, incredibly infuriating situations involving people she hoped like hell never to see again. This was rapidly approaching one of those situations.
“Well, I knew how you felt about wasting your company’s money,” he said innocently. “Just last night you were telling me you didn’t like to use your expense account on lost causes. I knew right then that you certainly wouldn’t expect Trent Langston to pay for a fancy hotel room in the city, while you went off to the mountains skiing.”
“I am not going skiing!”
By now she had a feeling that where she was really going was crazy, stark, raving bonkers. She was kneeling on a bed in her own hotel room, wrapped in a comforter, screeching like a banshee at a virtual stranger who’d broken in and now wanted to pack her bags and cart her off to play in the snow. It might make a decent screenplay, a perfectly hysterical comedy, in fact. It made a lousy morning.
“Oh, Lindsay,” he said sorrowfully. “You need to put some fun in your life, some adventure.”
“Fun is going for a walk on the beach in eighty-degree weather. Fun is visiting the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa. Fun is having a drink at the top of the World Trade Center at midnight. Fun might even be dancing until dawn at a disco in London or riding a camel across the Sahara,” she informed him haughtily, then added, “There is nothing involving snow and temperatures that barely creep over zero and winds that howl like wolves that could possibly be considered fun.”
He shook his head. “I can see I have my work cut out for me.”
“It’s not your job to make me like cold weather. If, for some insane reason, you thought it was, consider yourself fired.”
He studied her slyly. “Want to consider a deal then?”
Lindsay understood all about deals. You did not make them with men who were looking at you the way Mark was looking at her right now, as though she were a tasty morsel of prime beef and he’d been starving for a week. However, she’d been well schooled by Trent. You listened to everybody. Then you said no.
“What deal?” she asked cautiously.
“You come to Boulder with me. Let me show you what life can be like here.”
“And?” she said skeptically.
“I’ll listen to what you have to say about the contract.”
“That’s blackmail!”
“That’s a deal,” he corrected.
She supposed by his standards, it probably was. She looked at the lukewarm sliver of gray light peeking between the drapes and thought longingly of the sun-dappled beach at Malibu. She’d been promising herself she’d take up wind-surfing and this probably would have been the perfect weekend for it. There would have been lovely, warm breezes, bright blue, cloudless skies...
“It’s a lousy deal,” she grumbled.
He grinned. “It’s the only one you’re getting.”
Lindsay sighed. “Maybe you should reconsider and go to work for Trent Langston after all,” she muttered. “You’re two of a kind.”
“I take it you’re coming,” he said happily.
“I don’t seem to have a choice.”
“Well, that’s not exactly true. You do have a choice.”
“I think it falls into that depressing, gray area between murder and suicide.”
He watched her and waited, her words simply hanging in the air like drifting, aimless balloons. Finally, she sighed.
“Oh, all right. Pack my damn bag. I’ll be ready in a few minutes.”
She hugged the comforter tightly around her and marched into the bathroom as haughtily as she could. She had a feeling the effect was not quite as regal as she might have liked. Worse, with Mark’s dark-eyed gaze seeming to burn into her, she had a horrible suspicion she’d left her backside in plain view. It would be incredibly difficult to maintain the upper hand with a man who’d seen you fully exposed.
She slammed the bathroom door shut behind her. Who was she kidding? She hadn’t had the upper hand for the past twenty-four hours and giving David Mark Channing Morrow a glimpse of her bare anatomy couldn’t possibly make things any worse than they already were.
She glared at the door. If that man thought for one single second that she was his for the taking, then he was in for one mighty rude awakening. He might make her heart pound a little faster than usual and her nerves might be a little more easily rattled, but he also infuriated her. Lindsay knew anger was a very good weapon to use when someone was trying to get under your skin...or into your bed. After a few days under the same roof, he’d discover that she might have a smile like the warmth of a summer sun, but she could be colder than a Denver morning if she wanted to be.
The difficult part was going to be adjusting the temperature just enough to get his name on that contract before she froze him out of her life.
CHAPTER FOUR
When they walked into the still-crowded hotel coffee shop twenty minutes later, the young, attractive, brunette hostess blatantly surveyed Mark from head to toe. He was wearing what Lindsay had decided after two encounters must be his standard man-of-the-wilderness uniform—snug-fitting jeans, wool plaid shirt and impressive, hand-tooled boots. Despite the casual outfit, he looked exactly like some sort of westernized Greek god just descended from Mount Olympus. The hostess nervously grabbed her entire supply of menus in her rush to accommodate him with what Lindsay knew would be the best table in the room.
She did all that before he smiled.
Once he’d given her one of his heart-tumbling, dimpled grins, the poor woman practically fainted dead away. Lindsay had a feeling the bewitched hostess never even noticed her as she trailed along in her prim little suit like some docile, royal retainer who’d been trained to stay ten paces behind.
“I have a wonderful table right back here,” the hostess gushed with a fairly dazzling smile of her own. She started toward a large, comfortable table in the back of the room, her slim hips swaying provocatively.
If Lindsay had been the jealous type or, for that matter, if she’d even had any claim to Mark at all, the woman’s clear invitation would have made her madder than hell. As it was, she thought she knew exactly how the woman felt. Mark had the same impact on her. His mere physical presence provoked a purely feminine response in her that she was astounded at and not the least bit thrilled about having.
Before they could reach the table the hostess had chosen, Mark stopped and gestur
ed instead toward a much smaller table for two.
“How about that one?”
When Lindsay and the other woman both looked at him oddly, he shrugged and said innocently, “It’s by the window.”
“Not a smart move,” Lindsay retorted. “I’ll be able to see all the people slipping around on the ice.”
“They’ve cleared the sidewalks,” he countered reasonably.
She glared at him. “There are still little flakes of white stuff coming down and you’ll never convince me someone’s scattering rose petals. Besides, every time somebody says something out there the words freeze in midair. Have you ever thought about what happens to all those words when it thaws?”
Mark just shook his head and it wasn’t until they were seated that Lindsay realized he didn’t give a hoot about the weather, the view or their impact on her already-dismayed psyche. He’d had another strategy entirely in mind. It was not the least bit innocent or subtle: the table he’d chosen was so tiny that their knees were bumping, rubbing together in an intimacy that provoked an instantaneous response inside her, just as he’d known it would. Unless Lindsay twisted around until her feet were poking out in the aisle, she was stuck with the little curls of heat that wound their way from their touching knees right straight to her abdomen. She thought about making the quickest escape possible, then glanced outside at the swirling snow and shivered.
Damn Trent Langston! And Mark Channing! She was not going out in that horrendous, subhuman weather. She didn’t even own any boots, for crying out loud. She was staying right here as long as she possibly could. She’d figure out a way to ignore those damnably enticing knees brushing against hers if it killed her.
She concentrated on the menu with a certain amount of desperation as she tried to figure out what would take the longest to prepare and even longer to eat. Normally, if she ate at all in the morning, she grabbed a quick danish and coffee at the office and ate while she read through a stack of contracts on her desk, but today she ordered eggs Benedict, a side order of hash-browned potatoes, a large orange juice and a large pot of tea.
Come Fly with Me Page 4
