Please Say I Do

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  Maybe he had been in the jungle too long, because Hallie was looking damn good to him. Kissing her had been better than his first taste of full-bodied red wine. and just the memory of her eyebrows doing that flirty thing sent a streak of rebellious desire through his veins. She was definitely not the woman for him. Stephanie was. Stephanie, with her cool blond sophistication, her sleek, contemplative moods, her quiet, I-know-what-Iwant-and-how-to-get-it finesse. She was just the partner for him. He’d thought it through carefully those last months in the Amazon, making an equitable assessment of all the reasons she was wrong for Jack and coming to the inevitable conclusion that, since he and Jack were different in fundamental ways, she was absolutely the right woman for him. Having reached that astounding and factually supported theory, he wasn’t going to get sidetracked by a passing attraction to his roommate. Even if the inclination to try that kiss one more time was operating full strength on his willpower.

  The ringing of the phone saved him and he picked up the receiver with measurable relief. “Austin,” he said out of habit

  “Rik?” It was Babs Brewster, her voice cultured despite the high-pitched edge of her surprise.

  He stiffened. “Mrs. Brewster. How nice to hear from you again so soon.”

  “What are you doing in Ms. Bernhardt’s room?”

  “This is my room,” he answered, grateful for the ability to think on his feet. “What number did you dial?”

  “Oh.” She clipped the single syllable as if she were cutting off the tip of a cigar. “For operator. Then I asked for Hallie Bernhardt’s room and you answered.”

  “Well, you have the wrong number.”

  Hallie turned, her forehead creasing with a frown.

  Rik shrugged off any concern she might be feeling and listened as Babs informed him, “I do not have the wrong number. How can I have the wrong number? I asked for Hallie Bernhardt. The operator connected me with this room and you answered.”

  “Probably just a computer glitch,” he said, putting a soothing smile into his voice. “This is the first time I’ve been able to use my phone all morning. Wires must be crossed somewhere in the hotel.”

  “You’re positive this isn’t Hallie’s room?”

  “Now that you mention it, this was her room originally. Maybe the hotel operator doesn’t realize we switched rooms.’ He lifted his shoulder in a don’tknow-what-else-I-can-say shrug, and Hallie’s eyebrows started to rise in that questioning arch he found sexy and sweet and completely unnerving. “Why don’t you try the call again, Mrs. Brewster? I can’t imagine that same misconnection would happen twice.”

  “This is very strange,” Babs said, and hung up.

  Rik dropped the receiver in the cradle and it rang almost immediately. “It’s for you.”

  Hallie looked at him as the phone rang a second time. “What if it isn’t?” she asked. “What if she’s calling you, instead? Checking to see if you answer?”

  “Why would she do that? She’s been in this room once already. She sent Dan to take a look around five minutes after she left. She’s trying to call you. Trust me.

  An uneasy feeling followed Hallie to the bedside table. “Hello?” she said hesitantly into the phone receiver.

  At the other end of the connection, a man cleared his throat “Either I’ve got the wrong room or my best man is having a better day than I am. Is Rik there?”

  Hooking her finger through the coiled cord, she let the receiver dangle. “It’s for you.”

  “She called me?” Rik barely voiced the words as he stepped over to take the phone and Hallie stepped back, swinging the receiver toward him so their fingers couldn’t brush in passing. She didn’t want him to touch her, even accidentally, and especially not in passing. She didn’t know why he’d had to be so…so male this morning. Picking her up, carrying her inside, tumbling her to the floor, kissing her….

  A shaky sigh escaped her. She wasn’t going to think about that kiss. Or the weight of him pressing down on her. Or the feel of his long, hard body nestled on top of her, pushing her into the soft, but unforgiving, nap of the carpet. Rik wasn’t her type. He wasn’t even close.

  Okay, so he was close enough. It had been a long time since she’d let a man touch her, kiss her, look at her the way Rik just had. And she’d liked the way he did it. And she wished he was still doing it. But this was not the time to start something she couldn’t finish. She glanced at him as he stood, holding the phone, looking so virile, so vital, so very male. Admittedly, she felt the yin and yang pull of sexual attraction. But this definitely was not the time. And Rik definitely was not the man.

  “I can’t believe she’d turn right around and call my room just to satisfy her suspicions,” he said almost under his breath. Then he lifted his gaze, caught her staring, and his lips curved in a rueful smile. “What am I saying? Of course I can believe it. How such a compulsive, obsessive mother as Babs Brewster raised a woman as serenely beautiful as Stephanie—”

  Putting the receiver to his ear, Rik raised his voice to an audible level and prepared for yet another Brewster onslaught. “This is Austin.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Jack stated with good humor. “My pal Austin wouldn’t have a woman in his hotel room first thing in the morning without inviting his best friend up to say hello.”

  “There’s a Do Not Disturb sign on my door, Jack. And it means you.”

  Jack’s chuckle was steady and familiar. “Right. And if you think I’m going to believe there’s a perfectly logical…and utterly platonic…reason for a female, whose voice is suspiciously husky, to be answering the phone in your room, you’re not the defensive lineman I used to push all over the football field during practice. Fess up, Austin, you overtipped the maid so she’d screen your calls for you and try to make people think you’re some kind of lothario.”

  “Voice mail would be simpler,” Rik said. “And far more efficient at screening nuisance calls like this one. What do you want, anyway?”

  Jack whistled. “A little companionship. A little male bonding. A little distraction to keep me from going crazy before Saturday. Want to take the copter up for a spin?”

  “Sure,” Rik agreed, knowing neither one of them was crazy enough to fly a kite in this wind, much less the helicopter. “I’ll meet you downstairs as soon as the wind velocity hits a hundred miles an hour. No sense in wasting our time on that little bit of breeze out there now. Can’t be more than forty, forty-five miles an hour. No challenge in that.”

  Jack’s laughter sounded bored. “You’re right. I’m getting overly anxious to risk my neck, as usual. Who’s the girl?”

  “What girl?”

  “The one who answered the phone, smart aleck.”

  “If I told you, you’d want to meet her. If I don’t tell you, you’ll still want to meet her. So, here’s the deal, buddy. I’m not going to tell you and you’re not going to meet her. There. I’ve simplified your life for you once again.”

  “I share the embarrassing details of my life with you, Rik. It wouldn’t hurt you to open up, explore your feelings, tell your best friend who she is and where you found her.”

  “Not a chance. I know you, Keaton, and exploring feelings isn’t your forte.”

  “You’re just jealous because I’m getting married and will no longer have to pretend to be sensitive and open to my feelings in order to get dates. Married men are expected to be insensitive and closed off, you know.”

  “No, only trophy husbands can get away with that Married men have to learn to be honest with themselves.”

  A stilted pause echoed across the phone line, then Jack eased the tension with a chuckle and a change of topic. “You’re never going to believe what flew past my window about an hour ago. A dress. And then, maybe twenty minutes later, I swear I saw a pair of panty hose go by. Someone at this hotel is having a very good time…and it isn’t me. Speaking of not having a good time, Dan just dropped by to tell me you’re auditioning ‘ex-ah-tic dancers,’ as he phrased it, for Friday
night’s entertainment. I think I should have some say in the selection, considering it is my party. Why should you have all the fun? I’ll just come on down to your room and make sure there’s real ‘ah’ in exotic.”

  “No.” His reply sounded indisputable even to Rik himself. “And don’t get your hopes up. I’ve promised Babs that there will be nothing about your bachelor party she could possibly disapprove of.”

  “Oh, gee, now Im really looking forward to Friday night. Don’t let me down, Rik. It’s my last night of freedom. I mean to make it memorable.”

  Rik wanted to offer Jack some heartfelt advice. He wanted to make him see what a mistake he was about to make. He wanted to save Jack from ruining the futures of three people, including his own. “Don’t worry,” he said instead. “I’ll make sure your bachelor party is the most memorable night of your life to date. Have I ever let you down?”

  “No, so that must mean you are auditioning and Til be right there.”

  “Don’t bother, because I won’t let you in. I’m keeping Friday’s entertainment under wraps. No one gets a glimpse before ten o’clock Friday night.”

  “Except you.”

  Rik rubbed the back of his neck, weary of fencing with Jack, weary of trying to figure out a way to stop this ridiculous wedding from happening. “Except me.” His gaze connected with Hallie’s and some unrecognizable sensation pulled tight across his chest. She was watching him—at a distance that ought to have him squarely in the twenty-twenty range—and there was something intense about her. The sarong had shifted during their roll on the floor and she’d smoothed it back into place. Except the places it had settled were different than before. Looser across her breasts. Tighter around her hips. Seductive all over. The tightness in his chest moved lower.

  Since that last kiss, he was looking at her with new awareness. And she was looking back. And…it wasn’t going to happen. No way. Not even if she kept staring at him as if she was starving and he was dessert. She sighed. He couldn’t hear her, of course, because Jack was talking…and talking. But he could see the rise of her breasts as she breathed in and then the slow movement of the exhale as the sigh escaped. Something was going on here that he couldn’t quite put a name to. She was thinking something. Something about him. Something she obviously wished she wasn’t thinking. And he, suddenly, didn’t want her to stop thinking about him at all. No matter what the context.

  “I got you some juice,” he said impulsively, gesturing at the peace offerings he’d left on the table, forgetting totally that Jack was on the other end of the phone receiver still pressed against his ear. “You didn’t get to finish your breakfast.”

  “Ah, Rik, that was so sweet of you,” Jack said after a moment’s pause. “Orange juice and a chorus line. I’ll be right down.”

  Down. Rik jerked to attention. “Okay,” he said. “Sure. Come on down. You know the way.”

  “I do.” Jack chuckled, this time without much humor. “I do. I do. See, I’m practicing for the big day. Don’t say it. I know what you’re thinking and we’re not going to discuss it again. I’m marrying Stephanie on Saturday and that’s that” He hung up and Rik slowly replaced the receiver, his eyes on Hallie as she peeled back the silver cover on the orange juice. Jack didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. He didn’t know that his approaching nuptials hadn’t even been in the running for first place in Rik’s thoughts, and he also didn’t know Rik had switched rooms with Hallie and was just down the hall, not three floors down. Rik hoped whoever was occupying room 1012 was friendly.

  “You invited him here?” Hallie asked, her pensive expression replaced with one of annoyance. “To meet me?”

  “I invited him downstairs…to the tenth floor. There is a difference.”

  “It won’t take him long to figure out his mistake.”

  “But it will take considerably longer to figure out exactly where I am.”

  She set the plastic cup back on the table. “Why didn’t you just go down to his room? Or meet him in the lobby? You and I are only sharing a room and only by mistake. It’s not as if you have to watch over me like I’m a baby and in need of constant attention. I promise I’m not going to make another rescue attempt this morning.”

  He glanced at the bra flag outside and the perfect idea clicked into place. A baby. By God, that’s what he needed. A baby. With a grin, he grabbed Hallie by the shoulders and pressed a fleeting kiss to her crinkled forehead. “I’ll be back,” he said, pushing her to arm’s length. “Don’t answer the door or the phone. Take a nap or something. Give your hangover a little TLC.”

  She cocked her head to the side and narrowed a suspicious gaze on him. “What is wrong with you?”

  “Nothing,” he said as he headed for the door. “Nothing at all.”

  Chapter Six

  The door closed behind him and Rik was gone. Where, Hallie didn’t know, couldn’t imagine, wasn’t entirely certain she cared. Except now that she was alone, she didn’t want to be.

  Her headache wrapped around her brain like a flannel blanket, muffling her usually crisp, clean morning thoughts. Her stomach growled and she alternately eyed the cup of orange juice and the can of V8 juice and reminded herself that she didn’t handle acidic foods well. The pretzels were fat free, but the sodium content was very high, which might be okay if she had a gallon of water to drink with them. There was only tap water, though, and with everything else that had gone wrong on this trip, she hated to take chances with her drinking water.

  Too bad she hadn’t been more particular about what she poured down her throat last night. Tequila probably wasn’t filtered for purity. But then, neither were the random glimpses of last night that ricocheted at odd intervals through her memory, bebopped across her mind’s eye and gave her a chill of embarrassing recognition. Not that any singular memory was stand-alone awful, but the whole bundle together was enough to submarine her self-confidence. She couldn’t have been dancing in the lobby last night. She’d remember doing something so…so out of character.

  But already this morning, Babs had mentioned a dancer as if she knew what she was talking about. Dan had mentioned a dancer as if he knew what he was talking about. And Rik had said…

  I’ve seen you naked.

  Humph. She’d like to know exactly how he’d managed to justify taking her clothes off.

  No, she wouldn’t

  Yes, she would.

  No. Definitely no. Some things were better left to the imagination.

  She only wished the last twenty-four hours had been one of them.

  With a groan, Hallie picked up the energy bar, tore open the wrapper and bit off a mouthful. It was actually more like sawing off cardboard with her teeth, but then, food that took effort to chew was usually better for the digestive system.

  But what she wouldn’t give for a Hershey’s candy bar right now.

  Hershey’s bar. Hershey’s Kiss. Rik’s kiss. Rik.

  She would not think about him. He was no gentleman. Taking advantage of her sorry situation to get her out of her clothes, teasing her, kissing her….

  Giving her his room—well, trying to, at any rate— keeping Babs away from her, ordering breakfast, bringing her not just a change of clothes but an abundance. He’d provided necessities she hadn’t yet thought about needing. He’d even gotten snacks because she’d been cheated out of breakfast and he thought she might still be hungry. He’d rescued her from the balcony without chiding her for going outside in the first place.

  So, okay. Just because his manners were a little on the rough edge was no reason to deny he possessed some gentlemanly traits. He had lived in the jungle, for heaven’s sake. Miss Manners Saves the World probably didn’t make the top ten reading lists there. All of which meant that Rik’s behavior wasn’t the problem. It was her reaction to his behavior that bothered her.

  Gnawing on the energy bar, Hallie decided she owed Rik a measure of gratitude. He shouldn’t have kissed her, certainly, but she could have—should have—mad
e it clear she didn’t want to be kissed. Instead, she’d enjoyed it, responded to it, liked it. She was fairly certain he knew that, too.

  Lord, her head hurt. She would never, ever, for the rest of her life, take another sip of tequila. She’d be a model of propriety from now on. Hawaii wasn’t on her short list of preferred places to be. It wasn’t even in the top hundred. But since the Brewster wedding had brought her to Paradise, she’d make the best of it, avoid any excess exposure to the island atmosphere and stay as far away from the ocean as possible.

  While she was at it, she’d stay as far as possible from the attractive man who just happened to be sharing his room with her.

  Recognizing Rik had good points didn’t change the basic truth that he had his own agenda. He’d told Jack he was keeping the bachelor party’s entertainment under wraps. He’d told her he had a few surprises in store for Jack. Hallie didn’t like surprises in conjunction with one of her weddings. If Rik was planning to play some tasteless joke at Friday night’s party, he’d have to do it over her dead body. Which, considering how she felt at the moment, wasn’t out of the question.

  But she’d be better by Friday night, and she’d make certain Rik’s silly surprise wouldn’t spoil even a single moment for Jack and Stephanie. It was, after all, what the Brewsters were paying her to do.

  FROM WHERE HE WAITED by the bank of pay phones, Rik observed the lobby. The woman at the concierge desk reminded him of Stephanie, except she was shorter, darker and rounder and looked nothing like Stephanie at all. Earlette was working the front desk, which must mean someone hadn’t shown up for their shift. She was looking a bit frazzled, but her smile still carried a sincerely warm welcome. He was going to like living in Hawaii. He was going to like flying tours between the islands, being married, having kids, putting down roots….

  Leaning his shoulder against the booth divider, he wished the woman on the other end of the phone would take him off hold. She was checking on a costume, but the longer it took, the less he was sure this baby idea was a good one. If it worked, Jack would still be single come Sunday morning and Stephanie would be looking at him, Rik, in a new light. Well, it might not be quite that simple, but—