“Right.” Brandon winked at Noah.
“I wish you both the best.” Noah gave Jenny a hug. He stuck out his hand to Brandon, but ended up giving him a hug, too. “I’ll be in touch.”
“You bet,” Brandon said. “I want to know how this turns out.”
So did he, Noah thought as he sprinted toward the elevators.
Before he boarded the one that would take him to the top floor, he quickly scanned the lobby in case she’d already made it back down and was on her way out. He didn’t see her. She wouldn’t have left without going back to the suite, he reasoned. Her cell phone was up there, for one thing.
When the elevator opened, he half expected to see her in it. But the glass-and-brass cubicle was empty. All the way to the top floor he tried to decide what to say to her. He was beginning to realize that his original impulse to save her from herself had developed into something much more complicated. Now he was trying to figure out how to save her and also keep her in his life.
And that was plain crazy. They were from two different worlds now, and they certainly had different outlooks. She was a city girl who was glad to have escaped small-town life. He planned to spend the rest of his days on the Twin Boulders Ranch. His father had handed him the sacred trust of running the place, and he intended to pass the land on to his children one day.
Although Keely didn’t think much of the institution of marriage, he wanted a wife and babies, and he wasn’t getting any younger. Brandon’s wedding made him sharply aware of that.
So he had no business chasing after Keely, who didn’t fit in with his plans at all. Oh, but she fit perfectly when he was holding her. And the fit wasn’t only sexual, either. Whenever he thought about Keely, he felt a sense of connection so strong that he couldn’t imagine letting her disappear again.
Yet he had no clue what form a relationship might take at this point, or if she’d even agree that a relationship was a good idea, considering their differences. That’s why they needed more time together, to work on those problems. And if they were destined to part, then he wanted to make love to her in that good old-fashioned, horizontal way at least once before they said goodbye. He thought they both owed themselves that much.
He had to convince her to stay, and if words wouldn’t do it, then he’d try the physical approach. Of course, there was always the chance she hadn’t planned to leave at all. As he walked down the hall toward the suite’s double doors, he remembered the scene she’d prepared for him the night before—the hot tub, the skimpy bathing suit, skin flicks on the big-screen TV, champagne in the ice bucket.
Maybe she’d had a setup like that in mind when she’d left the party. Heart pounding, he slid his key into the lock and opened the suite door. “Keely?” he called, loud enough to be heard over the sound of the fountain in the entryway. No answer.
She might be lying seductively on the pillows in the living room…naked. His body surged with desire as he walked into the empty living room, lit only with soft indirect fixtures. “Keely?”
Still no answer.
She wasn’t in the hot tub or on the balcony, but a light glowed from the bedroom. Maybe she was waiting for him in that big, white bed. The image quickened his step and his pulse. He called her name again as he crossed the footbridge.
She wasn’t in the bed, either, and he had a bad feeling when he noticed a neat stack of twenty-dollar bills lying on the white sheets. He didn’t stop to count the money, but he guessed it was the same amount he’d given her the day before to buy clothes.
When he didn’t find her in the bathroom, he could think of only one other place she might be hiding to surprise him. She might be lying in the closet as a joke, mimicking the way she’d tucked herself in there yesterday when his buddies had visited the suite.
But the closet was empty, too.
“Keely!” He knew in his heart she wasn’t anywhere in the suite. He could feel her absence, had felt it from the minute he’d stepped inside the door. The electric excitement she carried with her everywhere was missing from these rooms. But he shouted her name, anyway, in a hopeless attempt to vent some of his frustration.
The only response was the gurgling of the stream in the living room.
Damn it! Where the hell had she gone?
She couldn’t be far away, he decided, hurrying back over the footbridge and through the living room. He hoped that she hadn’t caught a cab somewhere, that she’d be on foot. The Saturday-night crowds would be heavy, but she wouldn’t be hard to spot in that silver dress. A woman like her wouldn’t be hard to spot no matter what she had on, but if she’d made it up here and back down to the lobby before he left the party, then she hadn’t taken time to change.
He would find her. Damn it all, he would find her.
KEELY HAD GUESSED NOAH would come after her once he noticed she was gone. After all, they’d had a pretty good time in that hallway, and once a gal had whistled a tune on a guy’s piccolo, he usually wanted an encore. She wished she could give him one, because she’d truly enjoyed that first performance.
But it wasn’t in the cards, as they said in Sin City. And if her heart was aching worse than she’d ever remembered, well, she’d have to get over it. Noah wasn’t the right guy for her. Never had been and never would be.
Even he knew that, but chances were he wouldn’t let her run away, so if she wanted to escape, she’d have to be smart about it. Consequently, when Noah hurried past the hotel’s tropical garden on his way to the street, she watched him from behind the large lava boulder where they’d kissed the day before.
God, he was gorgeous. His mussed hair and rumpled tux only made him more adorable. And he was coming after her. Well, that was a picture to carry with her—Noah Garfield trying to chase her down. Years from now she’d probably still get a thrill thinking of this tall, broad-shouldered cowboy combing the streets of Vegas looking for her.
But it would be better for all concerned if he didn’t find her.
Surrounded by dense foliage and night shadows, she crouched behind the boulder and waited for him to pass. Instead, he paused to stare at the lava rock. He couldn’t possibly see her. The shadows were too deep. Yet her heart pounded frantically as she wondered if he’d somehow sensed she was there.
They’d played a lot of hide-and-seek as kids, and in those days she’d secretly wanted him to find her. Even at the tender age of seven, she’d felt a curl of excitement in her stomach when Noah was hunting for her. As he’d drawn near, she used to let him know her position with a slight rustle or faint cough. She’d squealed whenever he found her, as if she hadn’t been hoping for that to happen all along.
Maybe she wanted him to find her now, too. Maybe she’d chosen the boulder hoping that he’d look there. She held her breath and waited.
He gazed in her direction for another tension-filled moment. Then, with a shake of his head, he continued down the walkway toward the street.
She let out her breath with a sigh of disappointment. She’d outsmarted him. Damn it. So now that she had, it was time to continue with her plan.
Creeping out from behind the boulder, she ignored the puzzled glances from other pedestrians and focused on Noah walking ahead of her. Fortunately, his height and his gray tux made him easy to see. She kept him in sight all the way to the busy street.
He hesitated, looking right and left, studying the crowds. Finally he chose to turn left. Which way he went didn’t matter to Keely, but she had to know so that she could head in the opposite direction. Once she had about four blocks between them, she hailed a cab and gave the driver the address of her hotel downtown.
The route took them along the Strip in the same direction Noah was walking, and soon she spotted him striding down the street and scanning the crowds on both sides. She pressed her lips together, determined that she wouldn’t ask the cabdriver to let her out.
Although she longed to be with Noah again, she’d only be buying a little more time and a little more loving. The ending would be the
same. Better to deal with the pain when it was manageable than to take a chance on getting hurt worse than she’d bargained for.
Blinking back tears, she settled deeper into the back seat of the cab as the driver maneuvered through the heavy traffic. Once they’d passed the point where she’d seen Noah moving along the sidewalk, she turned to look through the back window, but she couldn’t pick him out of the crowd. Their little sexual adventure had come to an end.
NOAH WALKED TO THE POINT of exhaustion before he finally dragged himself back to the Tahitian. He believed Keely was still in Vegas, but he finally admitted to himself that finding her would be tougher than he’d first thought. And he was sick of walking the streets in a tux that smelled like overripe piña coladas.
Once back in the suite he went quickly into the bedroom and stripped down to the briefs Keely had bought him the day before. He thought about that first night and her open, generous invitation to make love. He’d been the noble fool who’d resisted her with no concept of what he was throwing away. He’d wasted hours trying to prove his superior morality, while he was living in the same suite with a goddess.
What a dope he was. If he hadn’t been such a stiff-necked jerk in the beginning, he might have established a bond between them by now, one she wouldn’t feel so free to break. He couldn’t let her slip through his fingers, and he wouldn’t.
But first he needed a few minutes of rest. Just a few. He stretched out on the big empty bed and figured on staying there a maximum of thirty minutes. Then he’d go back out and look some more.
Many hours later he awoke with a start to find sunlight streaming into the room. He glanced at his watch and groaned. Nearly noon.
Leaping out of bed, he showered and shaved in record time. While he dressed in jeans and one of Clint’s denim shirts, he figured out where he had to start his search, where he would have gone the night before if he’d taken time to think about it.
Not long afterward he walked into the Pussycat Lounge. “I’m looking for Keely Branscom,” he told the thin guy who offered to show him to a table.
“Keely? I don’t think she’s coming by today, but I can check with Suzanne after her number’s over, if you’d like to have a seat.”
Bingo. Anxiety and anticipation churned in his stomach. She wasn’t coming by today, the guy had said. That didn’t sound as if she’d landed a job here. He hoped to hell it didn’t mean she picked up clients at the Pussycat.
But at least he’d found a link to her. That was the main thing. And once they’d connected again, she wasn’t going back to whatever it was she was doing. He’d be better off if he didn’t think too much about what that might be.
Rock music from a faulty sound system blared and crackled as a brunette with large breasts shimmied topless for half a dozen customers scattered throughout the bar. She must be Suzanne, he decided. No doubt the dance was supposed to be arousing, but he was so eager to find out about Keely that he just wanted it to be over.
Finally it was, and the brunette sauntered backstage while the men in the bar whistled and called for her to come back for an encore. Noah hoped she wouldn’t decide to perform one.
Fortunately she didn’t. Moments later she walked toward Noah’s table wearing an oversize T-shirt to cover what passed as a costume. When she sat down across from him, her gaze and manner were direct. “Brad said you were looking for Keely. What for?”
He’d expected that. “We grew up together,” he said. “I heard she was in town, so I’d like a chance to see her.”
Suzanne didn’t seem totally convinced. “So where’s home?”
“Saguaro Junction, Arizona. Her dad’s the foreman on the ranch I own with my brother, Jonas.”
Her expression softened a little. “She mentioned Saguaro Junction to me, so I guess you could be legit. You look pretty honest to me.”
“Thanks. I don’t mean her any harm.”
“Probably not. But women like Keely and me have to be careful, you know? Guys can become, like, obsessed with us.”
His gut clenched as he thought of the nutcases Keely might attract if she continued on her present course. “I’m sure that’s true.”
“I guess there’s no harm in telling you where she’s staying, though.” She gave him the name of a midpriced hotel downtown.
“Oh,” he said, unable to hide his surprise. The hotel wasn’t the best Las Vegas had to offer but it wasn’t the worst, either. He’d braced himself for some sleazy dive in a bad part of town.
Suzanne smiled. “I know. I was surprised, too. You’d think Attitude! magazine would put out the bucks for someplace a little glitzier, huh?” “Attitude! magazine?” Noah’s thoughts scrambled. The only magazine he’d ever connected to Keely was Macho. He’d vaguely heard of the other one, and thought it was for twenty-something women, although he wasn’t absolutely sure about that.
“Wait a minute.” Suzanne’s eyes narrowed. “You sound surprised, like you didn’t even know she’s working for them. If you’re such a good friend, how could you not know that?”
The information hit him like a microblast, and he struggled to come up with an answer. “We’ve been out of touch.” She worked for a magazine. She’d let him believe that she was a call girl, and she was a reporter for a women’s magazine. She hadn’t needed saving at all, and she’d played him for a fool.
Suzanne stood. “In that case, she might not want to see you. What did you say your name was?”
“Noah. Noah Garfield.” Noah “the idiot” Garfield.
“Noah.” She backed away from the table. “I’m going to call her and warn her you’re on your way. I shouldn’t have told you where she is, but at least they have good security at that hotel.”
“You don’t have to warn her.” He felt completely betrayed. Sure, at first he’d thought this weekend would be an isolated event, but then…then he’d started to care about her. He’d thought they were building something between them, and all the while she’d been laughing at him. “She has nothing to fear from me.”
“So you say. I’m going to call her, anyway. I should have done that in the first place.” Suzanne hurried away.
Noah left the bar and stood in the sunlit street trying to get his bearings. As the shock began to wear off, anger moved in. She’d been toying with him, amused with his white-knight routine, determined to corrupt the man who was trying to save her.
And she’d succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. He would dare anything now. He wondered if she could handle that. Maybe it was time to find out. As long as Suzanne was going to announce his visit, he might as well make it. He wouldn’t want to disappoint a lady.
But he might make her wait a while, wait and wonder what he planned to do. He’d grab some breakfast. Something told him he was going to need his strength.
15
CAUGHT.
Keely thanked Suzanne for calling and slowly hung up the phone. Then she began to pace her small hotel room while her stomach did flip-flops. Childhood lessons kicked in, telling her that being found out this way, with Noah learning the truth from a stranger, was much worse than if she’d confessed, herself. If she’d told him the truth when her cell phone had rung while they were in the suite’s bathroom, then he might have been able to laugh about the situation…eventually.
But when he’d assumed the worst—that she used the phone to turn tricks—she’d let him believe that, figuring it served him right for leaping to conclusions.
She’d still been into revenge at that stage. The sixteen-year-old who’d been rejected that night in the barn had wanted her payback. But now, after a sleepless night of missing Noah, she realized what she’d done to herself. The game had turned serious, and she’d fallen in love with him. Or, to be brutally honest with herself, she’d never fallen out of love with him. He’d been the only man she’d wanted for so long, and apparently he still was.
Ever since she’d left the Tahitian, she’d tried to talk herself out of being in love with him. When she couldn’t
sleep, she’d switched on her laptop and started her article, hoping that work would keep her from aching so badly. The laptop was still on, and she’d typed and retyped the first paragraph, but mostly she’d sat staring at the screen and thinking about Noah.
Perhaps most irritating of all was the stupid X-rated screensaver that flashed on automatically whenever she stopped typing for a while. Talk about rubbing salt in her wounds. If only she had aquarium fish swimming on that screen.
But she didn’t have fish. Instead, a little naked cartoon woman chased a naked cartoon man, shoved him down and hopped on top of him. After some vigorous movement she jumped off, the man leaped to his feet and chased her down for more of the same. The cycle continued endlessly. A girlfriend who was into computers had created it for her as a joke.
This morning she wasn’t laughing.
What a bummer of a weekend. For a few sweet hours she’d had Noah wrapped around her little finger. But that was history. Suzanne had said he looked stunned by the news that she was a reporter. Keely could just imagine. But once he recovered, he would be furious. He might leave Vegas without trying to see her, but she doubted it. No, he’d come to her hotel to give her a piece of his mind, and then he would leave, cussing her all the way back to Saguaro Junction.
She wondered if he’d tell her father, B.J. or Jonas about this. Probably not, considering the sexual nature of their encounter. But if she’d secretly been considering going home for B.J.’s wedding, she could kiss that idea goodbye. Even if Noah didn’t say anything to the others, the tension she’d create on the ranch by reappearing would ruin B.J.’s wedding day, and Keely wasn’t about to do that.
As she continued to pace she wondered how best to handle the confrontation with Noah. She could avoid it altogether by checking out of the hotel and moving to another one. She could even head for the airport and try to snag a flight to Reno this afternoon instead of going in the morning.
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