A Stranger's Touch

by Tori Carrington

  “What else do you have?”

  “Not much. You?”

  “I didn’t call to share what I have. I want to see what you got.”

  “Well, then our conversation’s over, isn’t it.”

  Beatrix hung up on him.

  Quinn sighed and dropped the receiver back in its cradle. “Old hellbitch.”

  Dulcy’s head popped back into the open doorway along with a flash of bare shoulder. Apparently she was getting dressed. “Are you referring to Mrs. Wheeler?”

  “Yes.” He threw off the bedspread and swung his feet to the floor.

  “Has she…?”

  Quinn met Dulcy’s gaze, trying to read the emotion in her eyes. “Found Brad? No.”

  Guilt. That’s what it was. He pinpointed it the instant before her head disappeared again. A moment later all of her reappeared wearing the hotel robe.

  “So what now?” she asked.

  “Do you really want to hear my answer to that?”

  Dulcy’s gaze strayed to the destroyed bed he sat on, then back to his face. “I mean, where do we go now to find Brad?”

  He raked a hand through his tousled hair. “That’s what I was afraid you meant.”

  She disappeared again. This time he pushed from the bed and strode to the door, watching her pluck their wet suits from the floor and gather together her clothing from the day before. He leaned his shoulder against the jamb and considered her. She looked about ready to jump out of her skin. Far from the woman who had been all over his skin only a short time ago.

  “Dulcy?”

  “Hmm?” She glanced his way, but when her gaze landed on an area she apparently wanted to think about least, she looked away again, her cheeks blazing red.

  “Are you okay?”

  She froze at his words, although her fingers continued plucking at the suits she held. “Okay? Yes, I suppose I’m all right.”

  “I know you’re all right physically. But what about otherwise?”

  “You mean, how am I feeling about having just slept with my fiancé’s best man?” She closed her eyes. “Not just once, but twice?”

  “The first time doesn’t count.”

  She blinked at him.

  “You didn’t know who I was then. And I had no idea who you were, remember?”

  She moved toward the table and draped the suits over the back of the chair. “Oh, that makes me feel better.”

  Quinn came up behind her and rubbed her arms through the thick terry cloth. “Look, Dulc, I’m not saying there’s a way to justify any of this. I’m merely suggesting that there are elements at work here that not even you and I know about yet.”

  She was as stiff as a telephone pole. Unfortunately, so was another certain area of his anatomy.

  “The flower shop doesn’t exist.”

  He frowned and released his grip. “What?”

  She stepped away from him and continued her housekeeping efforts by putting her bed back together. “The delivery van at Brad’s condo yesterday? I called information. There is no such flower shop.”

  “I know.”

  She stared at him.

  “I called, too.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I also called a friend of mine over at the DMV. The plates came up as belonging to a Honda Civic reported stolen a month ago.”

  They stood like that for several moments. Then Dulcy’s gaze dropped to his waist and lower, and her flush returned—along with a very revealing flick of her tongue over her provocative lips.

  “Don’t do that,” he warned.

  “Do what?’

  “Lick your lips that way.”

  She quickly turned away. “I think it would be better if you put on some clothes.”

  Quinn could describe the things he’d like to do in intimate detail, and not a one of them included clothing.

  “I’m going to take a shower,” she said. “Shall we meet downstairs in, say, twenty minutes?”

  “I thought you were going back to town.”

  She swallowed. “I take that to mean that you’re not.”

  He shook his head.

  “Then, I’m coming with you.”

  “Dulcy—”

  She held up a hand. “Don’t try to talk me out of it. I’ll borrow one of the club’s cars and follow you if I have to.”

  He nodded. He understood her need to find Brad. But he questioned what her actions would be once her missing fiancé did show up as a blip on the radar. “Fine. I’ll meet you out front in an hour and a half. I have some things I need to pick up first.”

  ONLY WHEN THERE WAS NOTHING left to do did Dulcy take a good long look at herself in the mirror. And that only happened by accident when she was reaching for the suite door to go downstairs and wait for Quinn to return from whatever errand he’d had to run.

  She dropped her hand to her side and turned more fully toward the gilt-edged hall mirror. Aside from the unfamiliar clothing of white casual blouse, cargo shorts and sandals that had been provided by the club, for all intents and purposes she looked like the same woman she’d been a few days ago. But she knew that aside from the mark Quinn had left on her right shoulder, the one that peeked out from inside her collar when she turned just so, there were no visible changes. No, the transformation she’d undergone had happened on the inside. Imperceptible to all but herself. Turning, she dropped into the iron chair next to the mirror and stared at the opposite wall.

  It felt as if the sun itself had completely changed directions, rising from the west instead of the east. If only the explanation for the way she felt could be that simple. There, just beneath her skin, rolled a chaos, a hectic urgency, that she couldn’t begin to comprehend. She knew that sex with Quinn was a contributing factor. But she wasn’t all that convinced it was the sole factor. The frenzied emotions had roots deep down inside her. It was as though they’d been lurking there all along, just waiting for the right moment to spring out and throw her life into turmoil.

  With a shaking hand, she smoothed back her already smoothed hair, resisting the urge to muss it all up again. The truth was, she was having a difficult time trying to push herself back into the neat lifetime role she’d spent thirty years creating. Even her hair didn’t want to cooperate, curls springing up after she’d moussed them to death. She touched her mouth, noticing that there seemed to be new poutiness to her lips. Or had they always been like that and she hadn’t noticed?

  But above and beyond everything, there was a sexuality…a neediness…an awareness that sizzled along her nerve endings, making her take a look at the world with a whole new prospective. It hadn’t been so long ago that she’d stopped in the middle of a very important deposition, wondering what she would think thirty years from now, looking back at her life. Would she remember this deposition, the claimant in the case, or even the case itself? Or would she look back and realize she’d missed the point altogether?

  It had been that day that she’d decided to stop saying no to her mother’s wish that she not only marry, but marry well, and said yes to Brad’s surprising proposal.

  And now? Now that she couldn’t move without an aching muscle reminding her of her time with Quinn? How about thirty years from now? Would she look back and see this time as a horrendous mistake? Or the most fantastic time of her life?

  Dulcy absently rubbed her hands over her exposed arms and stood. None of that mattered this instant. What did was finding Brad, if only to make sure he was all right. The rest…well, the rest she hoped would come to her when she saw him again.

  She gripped the door handle and nearly ran straight into Mr. Jones, who seemed to have been leaning against the closed door.

  “Oh! My apologies, Miss Ferris.” He straightened his jacket. “I was just checking to see if you needed anything further this morning.”

  Dulcy eyeballed him. Did the man ever let up? She remembered her and Quinn’s activities in the pool last night and wondered if Mr. Jones had been aware of the little get-together. And whether or not he had a camer
a or if they sold disposable ones in the gift shop.

  “That’s kind of you, Mr. Jones, but I won’t be needing anything more. Thank you very much for your hospitality.”

  She moved to pass him.

  “Miss Ferris? I thought you might be interested in this—”

  He held out something to her. Dulcy slowly opened her palm, and he dropped a single key into it.

  “It’s against club policy, but I thought my doing a little snooping in Mr. Wheeler’s on-site locker wouldn’t be out of the question. You know, given the circumstances surrounding his disappearance. I found this inside.”

  Dulcy swallowed hard. “Thank you.”

  It was only when she was halfway down the hall that she realized Jones had had his hand extended, expecting a tip.

  QUINN SAT BACK in the Jeep, his appearance relaxed by design. Only he knew that relaxed was the last thing he felt. He watched Dulcy step down the curved club walkway, her long legs turning the head of an older gentleman just entering the establishment, her hair pulled back severely. She tugged on the collar of her blouse, spotted him, then started in his direction.

  He resisted the urge to fidget.

  What was it about this one woman that got to him so? He’d been with countless women, some more beautiful, others oozing wit, but not a one of them could hold a candle to the enigmatically provocative Dulcy Ferris. She affected him on a level he couldn’t begin to comprehend.

  In his mind’s eye he saw his wizened Hopi grandmother smiling at him. “I’ll never fall in love,” he’d told her. He’d been all of eight, and the night before, he’d caught his mother crying over his long-gone father, not for the first time. His grandmother had patted his head with her gnarled fingers and laughed. “Love is not something you fall into, or find, little one. Love is something that finds you, no matter how carefully you hide.”

  Quinn had forgotten about that conversation, even though for weeks after his grandmother had said it, he’d tried his hardest not to fall asleep at night, afraid love would sneak in under his door and grab a-hold of him, hurt him the way it had hurt his mother.

  Of course, he’d long since learned that it hadn’t been love that had hurt his mother, but his father. And nothing he could do had been capable of tipping the scales in that regard. Not even when he was fifteen, and sought out his father where he was living in Arizona with his second of what would be three families, and demanded answers where there were none to be had. Yes, feeling the solid connection of his young fist against his father’s jaw had brought some satisfaction. But that satisfaction had long since vanished, leaving him with little more than bittersweet memories of what his mother’s hopes had been. Hopes he feared she still lived with, residing in his grandmother’s old house near White Sands where she insisted on spending her days. Alone. Her face full of wistful dreams when she heard the sound of a vehicle approaching.

  Quinn ran his hand over his face, then punched the button to switch on the air conditioner. It was only ten-thirty, but already the strong desert sun was promising another scorcher. Dulcy hesitated outside the passenger door. He reached across the seat and opened it for her. He forced himself not to watch when she climbed in and stowed a bag in the back, presumably her clothes. He put the Jeep into gear then pulled away.

  Five minutes into the drive, he finally looked her way, only to find her staring at something in her hand. The object reflected the sunlight, and he squinted. “What’s that?”

  Dulcy lifted her head as if deep in thought. “Hmm? Oh. Jones caught up with me as I was leaving. He said that he had poked around in Brad’s locker and came up with this.” She handed it to him.

  He considered the key.

  “It doesn’t match the one I have to his condo, so that’s out.”

  Quinn gave it back to her. “How about to his office?”

  “He has a card key.”

  He nodded. He already knew that.

  “It’s too big to be for a desk drawer, or even a filing cabinet.” She sighed and slid the key into her purse.

  Quinn pulled the Jeep to a stop. Looking for traffic, he made a U-turn, heading back the way they’d come.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Brad has a cabin in Colorado, just outside Aspen.”

  Dulcy frowned. “He never said anything to me about it.”

  “He never said anything to anyone about it, aside from me. Not even Beatrix knows of it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Quinn glanced at her confused expression. “Try his cell phone again.”

  He watched her pull out her own portable and punch the redial. After a few minutes, she closed it again. “Nothing.”

  “There’s no phone at the cabin. He just had electricity installed last year, but still no major appliances or television. It’s where he used to go when he needed some time to himself.”

  “Then, why didn’t we just check there first instead of going through all this?”

  “Because he always let me know when he was going there. You know, in case something happened and someone needed to get in contact with him.” He checked his rearview mirror. “And he always had his cell phone with him.”

  He watched her cross her arms beneath her breasts and give a little shiver. “Isn’t there a caretaker or someone we could call?”

  “No.”

  Her eyes widened as she looked at him. “You’re not proposing we drive all the way to Colorado?”

  He shook his head. “No. I’m proposing we go to my place, about forty-five minutes northeast of here, and make a few phone calls. Brad’s secretary would be a good start. I’ve never been to the cabin, but if anyone would know where it is, she would.”

  “Wouldn’t she tell Beatrix about it?”

  “Beatrix would be the last person she’d tell.” He gave in to a grin. “The top reason Brad hired her is because Beatrix had fired her. She hates the woman.”

  She nodded. She could certainly relate to that.

  Quinn stared out at the two-lane highway that split the desert in half for as far as the eye could see. Not a word passed between him and Dulcy for a full thirty minutes. The silence was slowly grating on his nerves. Why didn’t she say something? Tell him he was every bit the cad Brad told her he was? That last night was a mistake not to be repeated?

  That the instant they found Brad she was calling off the wedding?

  He glanced over to find her twirling her engagement ring around and around her ring finger. Quite a task, considering the size of the rock. Three carats at least, he guessed. Brad had never been one to do things by half measures. He grimaced and slipped a CD into the player. A moment later strains of vintage Santana filtered through the speakers. But rather than diminishing his tension, the sultry Latin guitar licks served to increase it.

  “So tell me, Dulcy…what do you plan to do once we find him?” Quinn asked.

  He wasn’t positive he had asked the question aloud until she turned to stare at him, her sexy mouth working around an answer though no sound came out. Finally, she turned her head back toward the passenger window. “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  “Do you love him?”

  Quinn winced. Was he really asking his best friend’s fiancée these questions? And what about his own thoughts on love? On its fickleness? Its impermanence? Surely the past few days only served to prove his beliefs. If love was forever, why had Dulcy slept with him a mere week before her wedding?

  Her response finally came. “Do you really want to know the answer to that question?”

  “No.” And he didn’t. Mostly because an answer either way wouldn’t tell him what he wanted to know. And what he wanted to know was how she felt about Quinn himself.

  “You live out here?” she asked, staring at a large mesa off to the left, tumbleweeds to the right.

  “It’s where my people are from.”

  “So you are Native American.”

  He glanced at her.

  “Jena thought you might
be.”

  “Half. My father was Caucasian.”

  “Are you close with your parents?”

  “With my mother.”

  He felt her gaze on his profile, but refused to look at her. If she found his answers evasive, so be it. Until he knew where she stood, he didn’t think revealing too much of himself was wise. In fact, he’d never felt comfortable enough around a woman to reveal any more than he already had to Dulcy.

  “My father left when I was two. My mother, grandmother and maternal uncle were my family.”

  Quinn rubbed the back of his neck. What was it about this woman that found him thinking one thing, and saying the complete opposite?

  “My parents have been married thirty-three years.” She straightened her skirt. “I don’t know that that’s any better. Then again, it’s all relative, isn’t it. I think part of the reason I waited so long to get engaged was that I couldn’t figure out what made my parents’ marriage work. Love? Convenience?” She shook her head. “I still can’t figure it out. I can tell you it wasn’t because they were or are blissfully happy.”

  “Is anyone?”

  She stared at him. “No. I guess not. There’s always a catch, isn’t there?”

  Quinn grimaced. In their case the catch was in the shape of one wealthy missing fiancé, Bradley Wheeler.

  “My grandmother used to tell me that things that come easily are never appreciated.”

  Dulcy turned back toward the window. “I wonder how that philosophy will apply when we find Brad.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know.”

  About a mile up the road loomed bright orange cones indicating roadwork. The sight never failed to strike Quinn as odd. He always associated roadwork with cities. Yet here was a self-contained crew out in the middle of nowhere. It stood to reason that someone had to look after the roads. It just seemed odd somehow. He glanced in his rearview mirror. Where the road had snaked off endlessly empty a few minutes earlier, now other cars dotted the landscape. Figures. Even out here road construction backed up traffic where usually there was none.

  “Do you live alone?”

  Quinn glanced at Dulcy. “No.”

  She blinked to meet his gaze. “Oh.”