by Heidi Betts
“Thank God we don’t have to bother with going up to the registration desk and asking for room numbers,” Grace said as they bypassed the crowd and headed directly for the bank of elevators.
“Yep. It pays to be sleeping with a star goalie and the team’s own personal sports reporter,” Ronnie quipped in response.
Grace cast a disparaging glance toward the stacked and shellacked bimbettes waiting for a chance to do just that. “Not that you’d ever catch me hanging around like that. I don’t care how hot some of the players are, don’t those women have any self-respect?”
Ronnie followed Grace’s gaze just in time to see a groupie with blond hair bleached within an inch of its life lean over… and the waistband of her jeans ride down to reveal a bright red thong and a vine-and-roses tramp stamp at the small of her back.
“Good God,” Ronnie said, appalled. She blinked rapidly and turned away. “I think I’ve been struck blind.”
Grace chuckled as the elevator dinged and the up arrow turned green. “Do you need me to walk you to Dylan’s room, or do you think you’ll be okay?” she asked as they stepped into the car.
“Give me a minute, I think I’ll recover.”
The elevator dinged again and the door slid open on the twelfth floor. Ronnie patted the buttoned panel and the cool metal frame, feigning visual impairment. “Is this where I get off?” she teased.
Grace put a hand in the center of her back and shoved her playfully into the deserted hallway. “Only if you’re lucky,” she quipped as the doors slid closed again.
Ronnie stood there for only a second before turning on her heel and heading for room 1218. When she arrived, she raised a hand and knocked hard, doing her best to stifle a grin as she barked out, “Room service!”
She heard shuffling on the other side and pictured Dylan climbing off the bed or sofa and making his way to the door. The locks clicked and the knob turned.
“I didn’t call room-”
The door swung wide and he froze in mid-sentence, taking in her seductive pose as she lounged against the jamb.
“Good afternoon, sir,” she murmured in her sultriest Kathleen Turner/Body Heat impression. “Did you order a little afternoon delight?”
A playful twinkle lit his blue eyes and his mouth curved up in a sexy smile. Warm pleasure burst in her chest and spread outward.
Dylan had only been on the road a week, but Ronnie realized now how very much she’d missed him. For a woman who prided herself on her independence, she sure had adapted quickly to living with a man.
She loved falling asleep at night with him at her side and waking up to him each morning. And when he wasn’t there, she missed him. Missed his warmth and his presence and the way the mattress dipped whenever he moved.
If she was the first person up in the morning, she automatically fixed breakfast for him at the same time she fixed her own, and knew that if things were reversed, she could look forward to him doing the same.
She called him to ask if he wanted her to bring something home for dinner, and picked up items at the grocery store that she knew he’d like.
She was, for all intents and purposes, silly in love. And to add insult to injury, she wasn’t even trying to fight it.
Six months ago, she would have; she’d have fought it tooth and nail. Now, she simply let go and allowed the sensation to carry her along, like a leaf on the wind. She was happy. Content. Her life was finally full and well-rounded, and she was enjoying the hell out of it.
“I didn’t,” Dylan answered, “but I’ll be more than happy to sign for the delivery, anyway.”
“Oh. Well. If you’re not interested…” she teased, pretending to be offended and turn away.
He grabbed her arm and tugged her into the room, letting the door slam shut behind her while he hauled her up against his chest and laid one on her. His mouth was soft and warm and very welcome after the three-plus hours it had taken to get from Cleveland to Columbus.
When they broke apart long, long, loooong minutes later, Dylan pressed his forehead against hers, his hands around her neck, his thumbs stroking her cheeks.
“Why didn’t you call and let me know you were coming?” he asked.
“I wanted to surprise you.”
He smiled softly. “You definitely managed that. You didn’t drive all the way here by yourself, though, did you?”
Ronnie’s heart swelled at his concerned question. It just made her feel warm and fuzzy all over to know he worried about her and cared how she was doing, what she was doing, whether or not she was safe.
She shook her head. “I came with Grace. It was her idea, actually.” Over his shoulder, she lifted a wrist and glanced at her watch. “She’s probably knocking on Zack’s door right… about… now.”
“Well,” Dylan said, hooking an arm around her waist and all but sweeping Ronnie off her feet as he swung her toward the bed, “I hope he likes his surprise as much as I like mine.”
Grace reapplied her lip gloss-the clear, wild-cherry flavor Zack liked so much-and ran her fingers through her hair to boost the light blond curls. Then, pasting on her most seductive Marilyn Monroe pout, she tapped on Zack’s hotel room door.
It took longer than she would have expected for him to answer, so she tapped again. She heard a couple of muffled noises and a muttered curse in response, and had to bite back a laugh.
If she knew Zack-and she did-the room was probably a disaster area already, after his being there only one night, and he was probably tripping over his own shoes, pants, shirts, suitcase, and everything else in an attempt to answer her repeated knocking.
When he finally opened the door, however, she was startled not by his messy living habits, but by how incredible he looked half-naked, still dripping from the shower, with only a modest, white towel clutched around his hips.
Oh, yes, there was a reason she’d fallen in love with this man.
More than one, she supposed, but at the moment it was his incredible physique that stood foremost in her mind.
He blinked and ran his fingers through his wet hair.
“Hey,” he said somewhat distractedly, obviously struggling to make sense of her sudden appearance. “What are you doing here?”
“What do you think I’m doing here?” she replied, her grin widening as she took a step into the room and sidled up to him. She pressed herself against his tall, solid frame, uncaring of his dampness soaking into her clothes. “I came to rock your world, big boy.”
At that, his lips curled and a devilish light brightened his blue eyes. “Well, okay, then. Come on in. Don’t mind the mess,” he said, shifting them both so the door could swing closed.
“I never do,” she replied with a chuckle.
What he’d done to the hotel room was nothing compared to the state of his apartment back in Cleveland. If he didn’t have Magda, his housekeeper, come in a couple times a week to clean up, Grace swore the place would be declared uninhabitable. And she put up with that, didn’t she?
All right, so she tended to pick up his socks and wipe down a few surfaces any time she was over, but otherwise she thought she tolerated his Pig-Pen lifestyle fairly well.
Pulling away slightly, she leaned back against the wall running between the bathroom and the rest of the suite. She raked him from head to toe with a hot gaze, using two manicured nails to tug at the towel he was still holding low on his hips.
“I think I’m overdressed,” she murmured saucily.
His lashes fluttered as he returned the head-to-toe scrutiny, causing her nipples to pucker beneath her bra and a warm longing to gather between her legs.
“I should say so,” he replied in a low, suggestive tone. “You need any help remedying that fact?”
“Oh, I think I can handle it,” she teased.
Slipping away from the wall, she continued to face him as she walked backwards into the main area of the room. Step by slow step, while her fingers worked to free the buttons running down the front of her blouse.
>
Her heel caught on something and she glanced down to find herself standing in one of the leg holes of a pair of discarded BVDs.
“Nice,” she said, shaking her foot and kicking the briefs aside.
As she lifted her head, something in her peripheral vision caught her attention. A movement, a flash of pink.
Focusing her gaze, she turned her head the rest of the way and zeroed in on a woman sitting in the center of the king-size bed, back against the headboard, naked except for a matching lollipop pink bra and panty set.
Grace blinked. The blond-bleach blond with dark roots, not professionally salon blond in keeping up with her natural hair color the way Grace did-shifted nervously, dragging the sheet up to cover what Grace had already had the misfortune to see.
Turning her attention back to Zack, she speared him with a look that should have shriveled his testicles and had him running like a girl.
“Is there something you’d like to tell me?” she asked, her previously sultry tone replaced with icicles sharp enough to kill.
Zack’s pale brows knit. “Huh?”
Oh, he was good. He had the dumb-jock routine down pat.
She cocked her head to the right, indicating the bimbo still snuggled up in his bed. Zack followed her movement with his eyes, and darned if he didn’t go a few shades paler.
Finding herself suddenly the center of his full attention, the woman climbed to her knees and let the sheet drop. “Hi,” she said with a too-sweet smile. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” Zack snapped.
Grace knew he was addressing the woman in his bed, but she was the first to answer. “You know, I was just asking myself the same question.”
Fingers flying, she rebuttoned her blouse, then charged for the door, pushing past Zack before he had a chance to stop her.
“Grace, wait.”
With her hand on the knob, she spat back, “Fuck you. Or better yet, let your bimbo do it.”
“Grace!”
She heard him calling her, heard his footsteps pounding down the hall after her, but she didn’t stop, didn’t even slow down. Knowing the elevator would take too long and give him too much opportunity to catch up to her, she raced for the emergency exit and slammed through, filling the stairwell with the sound of her heels clacking down, down, down, around, down, down, down.
She didn’t cry. She wasn’t quite sure why not, because inside her heart was breaking and a voice was screaming so loudly, her brain felt as though it were bouncing off the walls of her skull.
But over that was a burning, melting, red-hot fury and sense of betrayal that seemed to obliterate everything else.
Zack was lucky she didn’t have a gun or knife or any other type of weapon on her person. If she had, she was very afraid he’d be lying in a pool of his own blood by now.
She’d have shot him in his cold, black heart. Stabbed him in the balls and cut off his dirty, stinking, skirt-chasing dick. Bludgeoned him with his own hockey stick.
Finally reaching the twelfth floor, she pushed through the heavy metal door and hurried down the carpeted hallway. She was out of breath from running, but her pulse was jumping under her skin out of pure anger.
She found Dylan’s room and started to pound.
“Ronnie! Ronnie, open up! It’s Grace, we have to go.”
Even knowing she was disturbing them and that it might take them a couple of minutes to get dressed and get to the door, Grace continued to rap.
As the seconds ticked by, everything seemed to come crashing down around her. Her arm grew heavy, slowing her knocks. Her lungs burned, causing her to inhale and exhale rapidly. Her eyes stung and tears finally began to flow.
By the time the door opened to reveal Ronnie and Dylan, both half-undressed and struggling to shrug back into a decent amount of clothes, Grace was sobbing, gasping for breath.
“We have to go,” she told Ronnie brokenly. “I have to go. I have to leave right now.”
“What in heaven’s name happened?” Concern laced her words and filled her gaze as she stepped into the hall, immediately wrapping her arms around Grace.
Grace sagged against her friend for precious seconds. “He’s a lying, cheating bastard. There’s a woman in his room. In his bed! Naked!”
The more details she tried to give, the higher her voice rose, but instead of falling apart-or falling apart any further-they acted to galvanize her, and fury washed through her once again.
“I have to go,” she said again, pulling away from Ronnie and straightening her spine. “I can’t stay here, I have to go home. If you’re not ready to leave, I’ll go by myself and you can find a way back later. Or I’ll call a cab and you can use my car to get home. I don’t care, I just have to go. I have to go. I have to go. I have to go.”
On some level, she realized she was out of control and on the verge of a breakdown, but all she could think was that she couldn’t stay here-in this city, in this building where Zack had cheated on her, betrayed her, ripped her heart from her chest and stomped all over it.
“Okay, okay, give me a minute,” Ronnie replied, still sliding her hands up and down Grace’s arms.
Letting go, Ronnie turned, and Grace was vaguely aware of her speaking with Dylan in hushed tones. Later, Grace knew she would feel horribly guilty about her behavior and about ruining her best friend’s surprise rendezvous with her boyfriend, but right now the only message her brain was processing was the urgent need to run.
A moment later, Ronnie returned to the hall with her purse under her arm. She kissed Dylan’s cheek, shot him a crooked, apologetic glance, and took Grace’s elbow to steer her down the hall.
She took Grace’s purse and dug out her key ring, keeping it in hand. Though her brain still wasn’t processing details as well as she’d like, Grace was frankly relieved to turn the task of driving over to someone else, since she knew she was in no shape to get them back to Cleveland in one piece.
“It’s all right, sweetie,” Ronnie murmured softly as they headed for the elevators and pressed the button that would get them to the lobby level. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
But everything wasn’t all right, and Grace knew deep down in her soul that it never would be again.
Purl 8
When Jenna heard the low growl of an engine, she was in the barn, filling feed troughs and bowls with grain. At the moment, her aunt’s alpacas were still out in the pasture grazing, but before nightfall, she’d be bringing them in, and they needed to have fresh food, water, and hay in each of their stalls.
Aunt Charlotte would never forgive her if she dropped the ball in taking care of her little sweethearts, no matter how distracted Jenna might be with other things.
Which was why she didn’t think twice about a vehicle passing by the house. The dirt road running past Charlotte ’s farm didn’t get a lot of traffic, but the occasional car or truck did rattle by on its way here or there.
And right now, she had much more important things on her mind. Baby names and colors for the nursery.
Oh, she knew it was premature to be thinking about that sort of thing already. She’d only finished having sex twelve hours ago; there was no way she could know for sure whether she was pregnant or not.
But she was hopeful. So very, very hopeful.
The fight with Gage that morning had definitely shaken her, but it hadn’t exactly been unexpected. She’d known how he would react once he became cognizant enough to realize what she’d done-and why.
It hadn’t been noble of her in the least, that she could fully admit. In some ways, though, it had been necessary-at least to her.
She was lucky, too, that she knew Gage so well. He was furious with her, yes, and he would likely take out his anger and frustration at the gym, pumping iron and pounding a punching bag until his already impressive guns grew even bigger and harder. And he would probably drink a little-a few beers at home in front of the TV and then a few more later, once Zac
k and Dylan got back into town and could help him commiserate about the deceptive nature of women in general and his ex-wife in particular.
Jenna wasn’t proud of the fact that she’d caused Gage that kind of stress and displeasure, but she was still grateful that he was who he was. Because any other man might have chosen to react with physical violence or by taking legal action.
Despite all of that, however, soon after Gage had stormed out, she’d caught herself humming and then realized that she was also smiling… and she hadn’t stopped since.
She was humming every lullaby she knew, one after another. Her hands continually drifted to her abdomen as she wondered if she really might be pregnant at this very moment, and she kept trying to decide if she should do the baby’s room in Sesame Street or adorable jungle animals.
There were so many things to consider. Did she want to know the baby’s gender before he or she was born, or did she prefer to be surprised? Did she want to do a nursery in standard boy (blue) or girl (pink) colors, or should she go with something more general, like green or yellow?
It was frightening, but it was also exhilarating, and she couldn’t wait. She just couldn’t wait to find out if she was or wasn’t… and she prayed to God she was.
Finishing up in the barn, she wiped her hands on the seat of her pants and turned for the open barn door. The car-or truck or whatever-was still out there, she noticed. Rather than passing by, it seemed to have stopped, idling near the house.
Jenna frowned. She wasn’t expecting anyone, and people didn’t usually drop by her aunt’s for no reason. And if it was someone she did know-like Charlotte or Grace and Ronnie-that would mean their plans had been ruined and they’d been forced to return sooner than anticipated.
Leaving the barn, she headed for the house, but couldn’t see the driveway until she’d rounded a small tool shed between the two larger buildings. When she did, when the driveway and the big chrome-and-black Harley-Davidson Low Rider sitting there came into view, she froze.
Her arms fell to her sides and her feet refused to budge. Deep in her chest, her heart began a staccato thu-thump, thu-thump, thu-thump, sending blood pounding through every part of her body except her brain. That remained surprisingly inactive and empty of coherent thought.