She didn't see him anywhere. So there was no hope for it.
She just had to hope that Simone, whom she'd seen in one of the lounges with a tall, handsome investment banker from Toronto, would be too busy "socializing" to check up on the whereabouts of the junior members of her staff.
Then she would never notice that Celie O'Meara was where she had no business being—about to knock on a passenger's stateroom door.
"You'll be sorry," Allison warned. She'd followed Celie, talking furiously all the way, trying to dissuade her from interfering.
But Celie wasn't dissuaded.
And she wasn't going to be sorry. Jace was!
She thumped loudly on the door.
"Heaven help us," Allison muttered. "I'm gone." And she went skittering down the hall, leaving Celie by herself.
One second passed. Two. Five.
He wasn't there, Celie thought, unsure whether she was relieved or more annoyed than ever.
Then suddenly the handle rattled. The door opened.
And Jace, barefoot and bare-chested, clad only in faded jeans, braced an arm on the door and said, "Look, I'm really tired. I—Celie!" His eyes widened in shock.
It was all Celie needed. "I'm not at all surprised," she said scathingly. "All those women can wear a man out."
His jaw dropped. "What?"
"Women. The blondes. The redhead. The brunette. The girl whose hair I just colored. She's platinum now, by the way, in case you don't recognize her in the morning."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"I figured out why you're here," she told him icily.
Jace blinked. He looked suddenly nervous. As well he might, Celie thought angrily.
His shoulders hunched. The movement drew her attention to them, and then, because she couldn't seem to help it, she noticed his chest, his abs. A vision of Jace in the whirlpool rippled unbidden to the surface of her mind. Furious at the direction of her thoughts, Celie shut her eyes.
"And I want you to stop."
He went rigid. Nothing moved but his adam's apple. He swallowed once, then again. "Stop?" He ran his tongue over his upper lip. "Stop what?"
"You know very well what! What you came for! Hitting on all these women!"
Jace's eyes widened fractionally. Then it seemed almost as if a small shudder ran through him. He flexed his shoulders, took a breath, then grinned a little. "Yeah, right."
"I mean it," Celie said, refusing to give in to the lethal Tucker charm. "I want you to stop it," she repeated.
"Okay."
"What do you mean, okay?" she asked suspiciously.
He shrugged. "I'll stop."
"Well, good. See that—" But before she could finish her sentence, she heard voices coming from the stairwell at the far end of the corridor, and a couple came around the corner—a man in a tux and a woman with a tinkling laugh and a French accent.
Oh, dear God! There was no help for it—Celie pushed past Jace straight into his stateroom. "Shut the door."
It was his turn to blink. "What?"
"Shut the door!"
Jace shut the door. Then he turned and leaned back against it, folded his arms across his bare chest and regarded her levelly. "What a good idea," he said.
"It is not. But Simone was coming down the hall. My boss," she explained.
A brow lifted. "Ze French woman?"
Celie made a face and nodded. "She's … particular."
"Ah." He was still looking at her, his expression unreadable. He was grinning, but there was something in his eyes she couldn't fathom. Nervously Celie moved to the far side of the room so that the bed was between them.
A mistake, she realized at once. They both stood looking at each other—and the bed. And even though Jace hadn't moved, it felt as if he was closing in on her. "Stop that," she commanded.
"Stop what?"
"Looking at me that way."
"What way?"
"Like you … like you…" But she couldn't say the words want me. It was ridiculous to think such things. It was the way Jace looked at every woman!
"What happened?" she asked. "Did you run out of women in Montana?"
"You could say that."
She snorted. "I might have known! Well, you needn't think you're going to score here."
"No?" The word was a soft growl.
"No," Celie said recklessly. "You don't belong here!"
"And you do?"
The quiet challenge made her stop and glare at him. "What do you mean by that?"
"We don't either of us belong here, do we?"
"I have a job here!"
"Only because you ran away."
"I did not!"
"Did so. You had a perfectly good job back in Elmer. You had a perfectly good life back in Elmer!"
"Oh, yes," Celie said scornfully. "Living with my mother and her new husband? Or maybe living with my sister and her new husband?"
She supposed she could have stayed in the house she'd shared with Polly's family and her mother after they'd each moved away, but she couldn't imagine it. It was a huge place. She'd have rattled around in it. And she'd have been lonelier than ever.
"You could get your own damn husband!" Jace's eyes flashed.
Stung, Celie retorted, "What do you think I'm trying to do?"
His jaw worked, and he shoved away from the door to pace into the room. "You didn't have to come all this way for that!"
"No? What was I supposed to do in Elmer?" Celie said scornfully. "Put a sign in the window—husband wanted? Or maybe I should have put an ad in the paper?"
Jace was glaring at her. "You could have looked around. Found a local guy."
"Right. Like Logan Reese maybe? Spence Adkins? Lots of temptation there. A convicted felon and a surly cop. No, thank you very much. They're not my type."
"Thank God," Jace growled. His chest was heaving and his eyes glittered fiercely.
Celie folded her arms across her chest and glowered back at him as he came to loom over her. "Who else is there? Artie?"
"Guess," he ground out. And before she could respond—before she could do anything!—Jace reached out and hauled her into his arms and fastened his lips to hers.
In her life Celie had, of course, been kissed. She'd been engaged, after all. She'd experienced the fervor of Matt's youthful fumbling passion. She'd tasted masculine desire.
Even after Matt had jilted her, she'd known it vicariously. She'd dreamed of Sloan Gallagher's kisses. And in the past few months she'd actually had a few brotherly ones from Sloan for real. They'd had potential. But they were nothing like the kisses he'd given Polly. Those had been intense. One of the things that had driven her to take this job was her desire to experience that intensity directed at her.
And now she did. She felt an intensity, a hunger, a need that rocked her. She felt the power of masculine desire, pure and simple. And very definitely directed at her.
By Jace Tucker?
On the verge of melting, instead Celie came to her senses. She jerked back, pressed her hands against his chest and shoved. Hard.
She stared at him, her heart hammering. "'G-guess'?" she gasped, looking around wildly. Her mind buzzed. Her blood roared.
"What on earth do you—" But she couldn't finish, could only stare, transfixed, into his fierce gaze.
"That's what I'm doing here, Celie," he said harshly, and his voice was as fierce and forbidding as his face.
Celie gaped, mind reeling.
Then, desperately she lurched past him and wrenched open the door. She darted out into the hall and practically knocked down the couple walking by as she flew past them down the hall.
"Mademoiselle O'Meara!" the woman in the twosome called after her.
Oh, God! But there was no way on earth Celie was stopping now.
* * *
Five
« ^ »
He'd blown it. Big time.
Damn it all to hell! He knew Celie was skittish. He knew she had to be handled with kid glo
ves, had to be made to feel warm and loved and secure.
So what had he done?
He'd grabbed her, for heaven's sake! His kiss had been anything but warm and tender. It had been hungry, uncontrolled, desperate.
Like him, Jace thought grimly, wiping a palm down his face. And if that wasn't bad enough, he'd blurted out all that stuff about her finding a local guy for a husband, too, then telling her that's why he'd come!
Nothing like playing all your cards by simply throwing them at her face!
Of course, if she'd gone all starry-eyed and eager and said, "A local guy? Like you?" he might have been glad he'd done it.
But she hadn't. She'd been scathing in her dismissal of Spence and Logan—and she hadn't considered him a candidate at all. For a single instant while he was kissing her, he thought he'd felt her surrender, he thought she'd begun to kiss him back. And then she'd shoved him away and bolted from the room.
He'd wanted to run after her, to apologize, to take that terrified look off her face. But she'd run desperately down the hall away from him, practically trampling the couple in her way, and before he could move, he'd heard a shocked, "Mademoiselle O'Meara!"
It had stopped him dead.
Her boss, the French dragon, was staring, astonished, after her. And when Celie disappeared around the corner, the dragon turned and fixed him with a hard stare. It centered for a very long moment on his bare chest and then slowly, disconcertingly, traveled up to meet his eyes.
"Ah," she said, ice dripping, "the friend." It was amazing how much doubt and distrust the woman could get into one single word.
Jace bristled, then gathered his wits and forced himself to calm down. It didn't take a psychologist to know that Madame Dragon was ready to fire Celie. And it didn't take a conflict-resolution specialist to know that being the guy who got her fired would rank right up there with being the guy who'd called to tell her Matt wasn't marrying her.
Not in his best interests, to say the least.
He took a slow, careful breath. "That's right," he said. "We go back a long way, Celie and I. We grew up together, and I invited her to come see some pictures from home." He spoke matter-of-factly and hoped the dragon bought it.
"Pictures," she echoed, her gaze sliding down to his bare chest again. "Indeed?"
"Indeed," Jace said firmly. "She's been kind of homesick. Told her sister, and she told the old man I work for…" He shrugged, as if the conclusion ought to be self-evident. "Celie's a good kid. Kind of naive. But sweet." God, he couldn't believe he was saying this. "She spent her whole life in Elmer, you know. But she always wanted to see the world. It just took her a while to get up the gumption to do it. We're all real proud of her for goin' out and doin' this."
He was, in a perverse, annoyed sort of way damned proud of her. Taking this job, bidding on Sloan, going to Hollywood with him—drat her!—had all proved that Celie had more guts and gumption than he'd ever have guessed.
"So you come to check on her?" Fine dark brows arched skeptically over the dragon's dark eyes.
"Yeah. Her sister thought it would be nice if she saw somebody from home. And I sort of figured it was time for a vacation. So I said I'd come and see her. Kinda let her know we aren't so far away, after all. An' it worked," he said brightly. "She's cured."
"Cured?" The dragon brows arched even higher.
"Not lonely anymore," Jace said. "In fact she didn't even stay to see all the pictures. She noticed the time and jumped up just like that an' said she had to go." He gave the woman his most charming smile. "That's why she was runnin' out the door. She knew she had to get up and get to work early tomorrow. Real conscientious, that's our Celie."
"Mmm."
Whether the dragon believed a word he was saying he had no idea. But short of calling him a liar—and if staff weren't supposed to fraternize with passengers, they probably weren't supposed to call them liars, either—Jace knew there was little she could do but nod her head and, he hoped, forget whatever notions she had about causing Celie any more grief.
"Ah, yes, Celie is most conscientious." She dredged up a begrudging smile and politely bestowed it on Jace. "A hard worker. But she is, perhaps, as you say, a little too naive … a little too innocent." She fixed Jace was a knowing look. "Is not ze best zing to go to a gentleman's room."
It didn't seem the time to tell her that Celie didn't consider him a gentleman.
"We're friends," Jace said firmly. "Like I said. I came to give her some moral support, see she was okay."
"And now you have seen her. Yes? Then how do you say … mission accomplished? So, enough mission. Now Celie gets her work done."
It wasn't a question. Bright eyes nailed him where he stood.
Jace nodded. "Of course."
The dragon bent her head. "I am glad we agree. Is good for everyone, you understand, that Celie will not be coming to your room again." Her smile blinded him. She gave an encouraging nod.
Jace knew what she wanted him to say. "I understand."
The smile grew several megawatts brighter. "Zen we say good night, monsieur." And, hooking her arm through the crook of the arm of the suit accompanying her, the dragon gave him one last nod, then waltzed away down the corridor.
Jace went back in his room, shut the door and sagged against it. Had he done it? No, better question. What had he done?
My God, he'd kissed Celie O'Meara! He'd virtually told her he'd come to marry her. And she'd turned tail and run in the other direction.
The phone rang. He snatched it up.
The trouble with being on a boat, Celie thought, pacing the upper deck, whirling at the fantail and pacing back the way she had come, was that wherever you went, there you were.
On the boat.
With your thoughts jumbled, your wits scattered, your mouth still tingling from the hard press of Jace Tucker's lips.
She pressed her fingers against her own lips now and could still feel the sensation that had shocked her to her core. Jace Tucker had kissed her?
Jace Tucker didn't even like her!
Did he?
She would have said not. She had always thought not. She had always thought she was beneath his notice. Silly, dull Celie O'Meara was hardly the sort of girl to catch a guy like Jace Tucker's eye.
Or was she?
The thought sent a shiver right down her spine. She and Jace Tucker? Good God.
She reached the bow end of the deck and stopped, clutching the railing and staring out into the inky velvet sky and tried to arrange her thoughts, tried to make sense of a world turned upside down, tried to think! She tried to be logical like her niece Sara.
Well, like her niece Sara used to be. Before Flynn. Sara said logic had gone right out the window where Flynn was concerned. Trying to explain how she could have simply tossed her day planner and her common sense right out the window, she'd told Celie, "I don't know really. I felt some sort of primordial attraction I never even imagined existed until he walked into my life." She'd looked dazed. And then she'd said urgently, "Do you know what I mean?"
Celie hadn't. Now she suspected she did.
She'd felt an urge she'd certainly never experienced before, when Jace's lips had touched hers. She'd felt hot and hungry and eager and desperate. She'd wanted the kiss to go on and on and on. She'd wanted other things to go from there. She'd wanted … Jace!
She gave herself a little shake and began pacing again, mind still spinning, body flushed with desire and barely cooled by the late-night breeze that caressed her skin. She barely felt it. Just as she barely saw the sliver of moon in the black velvet sky or the stars scattered like diamonds across it.
Instead she saw Jace's face. She saw the way his blue eyes had glittered as he'd looked at her, the way his hard mouth had twisted when he'd said those words. That's what I'm doing here.
Those words. She ran them over and over in her mind. "You could get your own damn husband! You could have looked around. Found a local guy." And then, when she'd scornfully challenged
him to name a local guy, he'd said just one word: "Guess." And then he'd kissed her.
And then she relived the kiss. She'd never been kissed like that. Had never known that hunger, that intensity, had never responded with equal need. She still felt weak at the knees and fuzzy between the ears.
"That's what I'm doing here, Celie." She could hear the harsh words now.
That's what I'm doing here.
She stopped pacing and stood absolutely still, letting the late night breeze hit her squarely in the face as she stared into the darkness and considered the meaning of those words.
He'd come to … to court her?
It seemed so unlikely she shook her head. It boggled her mind. It was so unlike Jace.
Wasn't it?
She tried to think. Jace Tucker wanted her. She tried out the notion. Bent her mind around it. Said the words.
"Jace Tucker wants me." She rolled his name around in her mouth, tasted it the way she had tasted his lips less than an hour before. Could still taste his lips now.
Jace Tucker wanted her.
No. He didn't simply want her. That wasn't what he'd said.
He wanted to marry her!
Well, he hadn't said that, either. Not in so many words. But that was what he'd meant, wasn't it? It was her finding a husband that they'd been talking about.
She tried saying, "Jace Tucker wants to marry me," out loud and couldn't. Her tongue seemed welded to the roof of her mouth. She gripped her hands together tightly, as if the pressure from them would push more blood up through her over-heated body into her befuddled brain, as if it would help her make sense of this astonishing notion.
He wanted to marry her?
No. He couldn't.
But if she put everything he had said together—and combined it with that kiss!—that was the total she got. She did the addition again—and again. Every time it came out the same way.
And she, ninny that she was, instead of asking him what he was talking about, instead of insisting he spell it out, had panicked and run!
"Jace Tucker wants to marry me?" She got the words out finally, but they came out a question. She couldn't quite say them matter-of-factly. Still she stood staring out into the distance and felt this incredible wave of … what? Peace? Joy? Satisfaction? Inevitability? … wash over her.
A COWBOY'S PURSUIT Page 7