“Yes,” they all exclaimed at once.
For some reason, her gaze went to Devin’s. His no-bull philosophy was what she needed to bring some clarity to the crazy, illogical feelings racing around her heart. “Detective?”
He shook his head. “I know about crimes, not romance.”
Calla bumped shoulders with him. “Come on. You read people well. You’ve got an opinion.”
“McKenna’s a cool guy,” Devin said, clearly uncomfortable. “He offered to take me deep-sea fishing.”
Shelby sighed in disgust. “This ad for the Romance Network has been brought to you by the Repressed Detectives’ Association of Manhattan. Perhaps we can get a word from their president. Oops, no, he’s off strangling kittens at the moment. We’ll have to get back to him later.”
Devin pointed his beer bottle at Shelby, and even teasing, still managed to be threatening. “I’m not repressed.”
Calla giggled. “The RDAM. They can be your first client, V.”
“You chicks know how to cause trouble,” Devin grumbled, though Victoria could tell he was going to give in to her demand for his opinion. “However, you also throw a good barbecue and serve a decent beer. And since McKenna’s in love with you already, you’re halfway there.”
“In l—” Victoria sputtered to a stop. She wasn’t sure she could even say the L word aloud. “How do you know that?”
Devin lifted his lips in what might have been an actual smile. “Pretty much the same way I knew David was the thief.”
“Told you,” Calla said smugly.
Victoria wasn’t sure how to react. Her heart was jumping, and her practical side was fighting to convince the rest of her that she’d known the man only a few days, and it wasn’t possible for seriously deep feelings to have dug in.
Yet she knew for certain that no man had ever challenged, understood and delighted her so much. Her desire for him seemed inexhaustible. His support of her efforts to find the necklace had been constant throughout all the ups and downs. He trusted and admired her as much as she did him.
Plus, he’d led her to realize how far she’d been tempted to compromise herself for Richard’s business, when it wasn’t remotely worth the sacrifice.
“Oh, good grief,” Shelby said, slamming her hand on the arm of her chair when Victoria remained silent. “Get on a damn plane and go after him.”
Trevor lifted his beer in a toast. “My corporate jet is fueled and ready for your flight instructions.”
Victoria shoved back her chair. “Bye.”
As she raced toward the stairs leading down to the apartment, she heard Calla comment casually, “You know, the necklace’s curse might be real. David stole it because of his overwhelming jealousy for all the things he didn’t have as a child.”
Halting, Victoria turned to her devoted and always wise friends. “But I bet its future will be much more loving than its past.”
* * *
AS MOONLIGHT DANCED ON THE sand beneath his feet and a warm breeze skipped off the sea, Jared stared up at the ragged cliff he’d dived from.
He’d fallen, all right. And the ache in his stomach had nothing to do with entertainment for the restaurant diners who’d watched him jump while they enjoyed steak and lobster from the picture windows surrounding them.
He loved her. Why didn’t she feel the same?
Their parting had been a brief kiss beside Detective Antonio’s car, before he’d driven him to the airport. Jared’s life called, as did Victoria’s. But he’d been without her for a single night and already longed to see her.
He was so proud of her decision to start her own agency, but that would only mean more time in the city, managing her office and cultivating clients.
He had to be here. Or a facsimile of here.
The moon shone brightly, but his own light had dimmed almost to the point of being extinguished.
Being cooped up in a Manhattan office or apartment wasn’t a state he could sustain.
But maybe if he was in Manhattan with her, the city would be brighter, even dazzling. And he was sure he could draw her away to see the parts of the world he needed to sustain him. Hadn’t she relaxed beneath the sun? Loving his touch and their unique bond? Hadn’t he been searching for a new challenge? Wouldn’t she inspire him to realize a new dream?
As he rode up in the freight elevator that had been concealed beside the cliff for the divers, he embraced his new resolve.
He would convince her to give him a chance. Beg if necessary. Time and space be damned.
They would have a life together, no matter what he had to do to make it happen.
“A guest asked for you to stop by her table,” the young maître d’, Pedro, said as Jared stepped from the elevator.
Dripping wet, his mind on Victoria, and frustrated that he was stuck in Mexico for two more days before he could go home and claim her, he shook his head. “I’m due to go down again in twenty minutes.”
Pedro grimaced. “Make an exception.”
“Why?”
“Have mercy, amigo, she’s stunning. She has on this dark green satin dress, and I swear she’s naked beneath it. Frankly, how could she not be? I looked pretty hard, but—”
Jared raised his hand. “Fine.” He held out his arms. “Should I go like this?”
Pedro’s gaze raked him. Since Jared wore only a pair of soaking swim trunks, he doubted the restaurant manager would be happy if he dribbled his way through the elegant restaurant.
“She also tipped me fifty bucks,” the maître d’ confessed.
“Fine,” Jared said again, feeling like a kindred soul with the love-struck kid. “I’ll change and tell your lady how amazing you are, but you owe me a whiskey later.”
“Absolutely.”
“A good whiskey,” Jared clarified, as he was in the mood for a nice, long brood among men.
He stripped off his swimsuit in the locker room, toweled off, then dressed in a pair of black pants and a crisp white shirt. As he walked through the dining room, the singer playing the piano launched into the classic “Somebody to Watch Over Me.”
Not a song conducive to brooding men. Where was Sinatra when a guy needed him?
As he neared the table Pedro had indicated, however, Jared abruptly changed his mind. Pedro’s lady wasn’t his at all.
Sipping champagne, Victoria sat alone at the table.
Seeing her stunning face was like a caress to the melancholy feelings coursing through him.
“Hi,” he said stupidly, still wondering if she was a mirage.
Smiling, she stood, and he noticed she wore a jade-green copy of the dress from the costume party. “S-sorry it took so long to get here,” she said, her voice actually trembling. “A thunderstorm grounded my plane last night.”
She’d tried to come to him last night?
The knowledge had him surrendering the last of his barriers. He would follow her wherever she needed to be. They would find a way.
She plucked at her dress. “I had to get a seamstress to make this. Silly, I guess, but what else was I going to do, stuck in L.A. overnight? It seemed important at the time to make a grand entrance.”
“I’ll take you any way you come,” he assured her, clutching her hand in his, and knowing the two halves of his soul had been reunited.
She’d taken his heart with so little effort, and yet the hours they’d spent apart seemed longer than a day. He had nothing without her.
“I know this is sudden, and we haven’t known each other long, and I’m not one to do things this impulsively, but when I want something, well, I pretty much—”
He laid his finger over her lips. “You’re babbling.”
“Twice in one week? What are the odds?” She threw her arms around him. “Anyway, I came to tell you I’m in love with you.”
His heart took flight, rivaling even the exhilaration of cliff diving. “Are you?”
“Yes.” She angled her head. “How do you feel about me?”
Direct as always.
“Up until three minutes ago, I was soaking wet with seawater, missing you and feeling pretty lousy.” Breathing in the scent of her hair, he held her tight against him, where she belonged. “But even then, just like now, I was completely in love with you.”
She pressed her lips to his, and despite the public setting, lingered there. Her tongue caressed his, and her body, certainly bare beneath the dress, molded to his as if made for him.
Parting for breath at last, she gazed up at him, focused on him and him alone.
Whatever challenges lay ahead, he knew from that look that they’d climb or fall together.
“Wanna go back to the city?” he asked.
She glanced out the window to their left, where moonlight shone over the magnificent cliffs and beautiful blue-green sea below. “Nah.” She tucked her head between his neck and shoulder. “Let’s stay here awhile.”
* * * * *
Keep reading to read an excerpt of Blazing Midsummer Nights by Leslie Kelly
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1
SOMEONE ONCE SAID that the course of true love never did run smooth. As Mimi Burdette watched two of her good friends sway together in a romantic dance, however, she had to disagree. Because the true love between this couple had been obvious to everyone who knew them, almost from the moment they’d met.
“They look like a prince and princess,” murmured Anna, her neighbor, friend, landlady and tonight’s hostess.
“Considering the setting, maybe a fairy king and queen.”
She wasn’t kidding. The woods surrounding the backyard of the old plantation house just outside of Athens had been turned into a mythical forest. As dusk fell and a thousand twinkle lights began to gleam in the night, everyone at the engagement party slowed to appreciate the beauty all around them.
A trio of musicians softly strummed their instruments, the lyrical notes riding a warm, summer breeze. The Spanish moss hanging from the live oaks gleamed silver under the evening dew and the firefly-soft lighting. Magnolias the size of dinner plates dotted the trees, looking like a thousand full moons, filling the air with their evocative scent. Lanterns hung from the lowest branches of the graceful pines, and the arches of a dozen arbors were draped with writhing, sweet-smelling jasmine and heavily laden grapevines.
Okay, the vines and fruit were fake. But what an effect!
“You really outdid yourself,” Mimi said to Anna, who stood watching the proceedings, wearing a smile.
The older woman, dressed as always in colorful, flowing robes, merely shrugged. “Setting the stage for romance is easy when the people involved are meant for each other like Duke and Lyssa.” She chuckled. “Of course, it didn’t hurt that I’m helping with the costumes and props for the downtown theater group’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
With her filmy, billowing clothes, and her long ash-gray hair, loose and wavy and entwined with flowers, Anna looked more like a hippie than a retiree. So maybe it wasn’t so surprising that she could take a normal backyard, ringed by normal Georgia woods, and turn it into something out of a storybook.
“Anyway, it was just a few lights, some fabric—easy.”
“Maybe for you, but other than advertising, the creative wiring was left out of my genetic code. To me, this looks like pure sorcery and magic.”
The soon-to-be bride and groom deserved a magical wedding. They were wonderful people, and she already missed having them as neighbors. They’d already moved into their new house, but until a week ago, had lived right across the hall from her own first-floor apartment in this grand old estate home.
Anna and her husband, Ralph—dubbed Obi-Wan because of his love for all things Star Wars and his sage, all-knowing demeanor—had bought the place decades ago and raised their family here. Once the kids were gone, they’d divided the three-story mansion into six small apartments, figuring the rental income would keep them nicely provided for in their retirement.
With the unit across from Mimi’s vacant, and another unrented one on the second floor, the big house was feeling empty. Plus, Anna and Obi-Wan’s volatile marriage was on the rocks again. Obi-Wan’s one fault was his jealous streak. He was always accusing other men of being after his wife. His latest accusation had angered Anna enough that she had moved into one of the vacant units to teach him a lesson.
In this economy, three rentals not bringing in any money was not a good thing. She had to wonder where Anna had come up with the funds to throw this engagement party for her former tenants. Mimi had offered to help pay—she could certainly afford it and would have loved to help—but Anna’s pride wouldn’t allow her to accept. The most she would allow was the use of Mimi’s nice discount on much of the food.
Sometimes it really paid to be the daughter of the owner of a chain of grocery stores. Not to mention being the head of marketing for said grocery store chain, with an express ticket to the executive offices of her family’s business.
Some people wondered why she lived here, in a small apartment in an old house, when she could afford to buy her own home, or sponge off her parents at their estate. But Mimi loved this place, loved the history of it. More importantly, she loved the sense of community she found here, where she was free to be herself and didn’t have to wear the socialite hat, or the business executive one. She could just be Mimi.
“Oh,” Anna said, snapping her fingers as she remembered something. “You’re going to have new neighbors. My daughter, Helen, and her little boy are moving from Atlanta next weekend, taking the vacant unit on two. And I rented the apartment across from yours today.”
“Really? That’s wonderful,” Mimi said, surprised.
“I invited the new tenant to come tonight, but he didn’t want to intrude—he moved in this afternoon.”
“You must be so glad,” she said, relieved to know one financial burden had been lifted from her landlords’ shoulders. She doubted they’d take rent money from their daughter, who had gone through a bad divorce last year.
“One B is a real hottie,” Anna said, her eyebrows waggling.
“There are more important things than hotness.”
Definitely more important. She’d been involved with superhot guys in the past and had the psychological burn scars to prove it. The last supersexy, relied-only-on-his-looks guy she’d
dated had ended up “borrowing” her credit card and buying a matching pair of his-and-her motorcycles.
That had been bad. Worse? Mimi hadn’t been the her.
No way was she stepping close to the flames again. Now when she looked at a man, she was more interested in steadiness, self-confidence and brains. If those things came in nice-looking packages, okay, but looks alone just didn’t cut it.
Fortunately, it was possible to have all of the above. She only had to look across the crowded party at her own golden-haired escort to see that.
Dimitri was perfect. He was everything she’d been telling herself she needed, and was nothing like the men who’d hurt her in the past. He’d also been hand-picked for her by her own father, who was notoriously hard to please. Normally, that would be a bad thing; she didn’t like doing what was expected of her, and knew her father to be a bully. But considering her bad luck with romance, and her efforts to improve her relationship with her dad—who stood firmly in the path of her going where she wanted to go professionally, i.e., right into his office once he retired—it seemed like a smart move.
The icing on the cake? Dimitri was also very handsome.
But handsome doesn’t always equal hot. And enjoying being with someone definitely doesn’t always lead to physical heat.
She sighed deeply, wishing that little voice in her head would shut up, even while acknowledging the words were true.
But it didn’t matter—handsome was enough. Handsome was movie-star good looks, good manners, holding the door. Handsome was every hair in place, jaw smoothly shaven and a nice suit. Handsome was self-confidence borne of being admired by everyone who knew him, and inspiring fantasies of Prince Charming in just about every woman who saw him. Handsome was a good-night kiss with enough tongue to be provocative but not enough to be impolite.
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