by Gina Wilkins
“Three. Two. One!”
A cheer rose to meet the masses of multicolored balloons that were suddenly released from above. Confetti filled the air, along with the opening strains of “Auld Lang Syne.”
“Happy New Year, Nicole.”
She looked up at Andrew and opened her mouth to return the sentiment. The words were lost in his kiss.
Her first dazed thought was that it surprised her that someone had set off fireworks inside the country club. Couldn’t that be dangerous? And had someone started singing “The Hallelujah Chorus”? And who was suddenly clanging all those bells?
In a last clutch at sanity, she realized that she’d fallen prey to a whole host of romantic clichés.
And then Andrew pulled her closer and she forgot how to think at all. She wrapped her arms around his neck and eagerly kissed him back.
She had no idea how much time passed before they finally pulled back for air. It could have been minutes—or another whole year, for all she could have said at that moment. Her arms still locked behind his neck, she stared wordlessly up at Andrew, who looked almost as stunned as she was.
It felt as though she’d been waiting all her life for a kiss like that. Who’d have thought it would have happened on this night, with this man?
She saw Andrew swallow. And then he bent his head again. She strained upward to meet him...
A heavy hand pulled them apart just before their lips touched.
“Happy New Year!” A middle-aged man with overly bright eyes and martini-soaked breath planted an enthusiastic kiss on one side of Nicky’s mouth, then turned and slapped Andrew’s shoulder hard enough to make him stagger. “Happy New Year,” he said again, drifting off to pounce on the next closest woman.
Andrew’s friends and acquaintances surged around them with enthusiastic handshakes and exaggerated air kisses. Joyce and Norvell descended on Nicky to kiss her, wish her a happy new year and tease her about the apparent conquest she’d made that evening. It was all she could do to answer coherently as she and Andrew were swept apart by the celebratory crowd.
Fifteen minutes or so passed before Nicky spotted Andrew across the room again, in conversation with his father and his companion. He was wearing his glasses again, she noted, and he looked stern and distant, in marked contrast to the dazed, almost vulnerable look he’d worn after they’d kissed.
As though he sensed her studying him, he glanced her way. He didn’t smile when their eyes met, but there was enough heat in the silent exchange to curl her toes.
She sagged lightly against the wall behind her. “Oh, wow,” she murmured wonderingly. “How did this happen?”
Nicole had never claimed to be psychic, or even particularly intuitive, but she was a strong believer in fate. And she had a sudden, staggering suspicion that hers had been sealed at the stroke of midnight.
A rush of panic almost sent her bolting for the exit.
And then she chided herself for her cowardice, lifted her chin and came to an abrupt decision. She wouldn’t know for certain where this thing was headed until she’d introduced Andrew to the sides of her he hadn’t yet seen.
Looked like it was time for show-and-tell.
Pushing herself boldly away from the wall, she turned to Joyce and Norvell, interrupting their conversation with an elegant elderly woman. “It’s been a lovely evening, Joyce, but I’m going now. Thank you for inviting me.”
Joyce was visibly surprised. “You’re leaving now? Alone?”
Nicky glanced in Andrew’s direction. “Maybe not alone.”
Joyce choked. “Oh. I—”
Nicky smiled at the older woman. “I’ll be in touch, okay? Happy New Year.”
“Er, yes, um, you, too, of course. Ah—”
But Nicky was already moving away, blithely dismissing the open concern in her distant cousin’s eyes.
THE SLIGHT TINGLE at his nape made Andrew turn. He wasn’t surprised to find Nicole moving toward him, smiling in a way that might have made him nervous had his head been clear. Since he was still inwardly reeling from the aftereffects of their kiss, he could only be pleased that she’d sought him out again.
“Andrew,” she said.
He liked the way his name sounded when she said it in that husky voice. His reaction to hearing it was decidedly physical. “Another dance?” he asked, eager to get his hands on her again.
She shook her head. “Actually, I’m ready to leave.” His stomach tightened. She was leaving? Now? He wasn’t at all ready to let her out of his sight just yet.
She looked at him through her lashes. “Want to go with me?”
He almost swallowed his tongue. He had to clear his throat to ask, “Where?”
“Someplace a bit livelier than this,” she answered vaguely. “Interested?”
“Yeah, sure,” he heard himself saying, rather to his own surprise. “Let’s go.”
Her smile was blinding. It convinced him that he’d given the right answer.
They delayed only long enough to retrieve Nicole’s black coat from the checkroom. It was swingy and sort of sparkly, Andrew noted as he helped her into it. It didn’t look particularly warm, but then he didn’t expect to be spending much time outdoors.
“Did you bring a car?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I came with the McClains.”
He nodded in satisfaction and had his own vehicle brought around for them. Nicole looked a bit surprised to discover that he’d driven a Range Rover.
And then she smiled and allowed him to help her into the high vehicle. “This is great,” she said.
“Thanks. It’s new.”
“I would have expected you to have a luxury car.”
“I have one at home,” he admitted. “But I was in the mood to drive this one tonight.” Since he’d only had the vehicle for a couple of weeks, the novelty of driving it still hadn’t worn off. He hadn’t expected to share it with anyone that evening.
“I’m ready for directions,” he told her as he pulled out of the crowded country club parking area.
“Head southwest,” she said, settling comfortably into the leather seat after fastening her seat belt. “Toward Beale Street.”
“Beale’s going to be packed tonight,” he warned, frowningly anticipating mobs of tipsy revelers packing the jazz and blues clubs along that popular strip. He usually avoided that scene on New Year’s Eve.
“Just drive,” she instructed with a smile. “I’ll tell you where to turn.”
He shrugged and cooperated, curious, but not particularly concerned about what she had in mind. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as she squirmed out of her coat and threw it over the back of her seat. Her bare arms and nearly bare shoulders gleamed softly in the shadowy interior of the vehicle. And then she tugged down her visor to find the lighted vanity mirror on the other side.
She reached up and began pulling pins out of her hair, dropping them carelessly into the console between them. Andrew swallowed hard when cascades of heavy dark curls tumbled around her shoulders. Noting that he was paying as much attention to her actions as to his driving, she smiled and combed through her hair with her fingers.
“This feels so much better,” she murmured. “All those pins were giving me a headache.”
She looked different with her hair down. The untamed curls bounced and swayed around her face as though celebrating their release from captivity. They made her look younger. Less conventional.
A horn blew and Andrew forced his attention back to his driving.
Flipping the visor into place, Nicole twisted in her seat to look at him. “What do your friends and family call you?”
He was rather surprised by the question. “Andrew.”
“No nicknames? Andy? Drew? Junior?”
“Definitely not. And I’m not a ‘junior.’ My father is.”
“Oh, that’s right. You’re a ‘third.’ How did everyone distinguish who they wanted when you and your father were both in the house?”
“We weren’t both in the house at one time very often,” he answered with a shrug.
“Andrew,” Nicole murmured after a moment. “It sounds so formal.”
She hesitated, and he frowned. If she thought she was going to start calling him “Andy,” he would have to swiftly disabuse her of the idea.
But then she shrugged and changed the subject. “What do you do for fun, Andrew Colton Tyler III?”
He always hated it when people asked him that. He did the same things other people did—he worked, he went out, he sometimes played golf or tennis or raquetball.
Nicole seemed vaguely dissatisfied with the list. “I see.”
“What do you do for fun?” he challenged.
“Whatever sounds interesting at the time,” she replied, crossing her legs. Her long, wrapped skirt parted to expose her thigh in the light filtering in from the street lamps they passed.
It was all Andrew could do to keep his eyes on the road. “That sounds, er, rather impulsive,” he said, trying to keep up his end of the conversation.
“I suppose I tend to be a little impulsive at times,” she admitted. “Isn’t everyone?”
Andrew tried to recall the last time he’d acted on impulse. He realized that he’d done just that when he’d accepted Nicole’s invitation. Before that—well, it had been so long ago that he couldn’t even remember the last time.
Nicole suddenly twisted again in the seat, looking over her shoulder. “Oh, you were supposed to turn left at the last intersection. Can you turn around and go back?”
Obligingly, Andrew pulled into a vacant parking lot and turned the Range Rover around. “Where are we going?” he asked.
She swept a curl from her cheek and gave him a smile that made his mouth go dry. “Does it really matter?” she asked, and his pulse jerked in response to her sexy, husky voice.
“No,” he answered a bit hoarsely. “I guess it doesn’t.”
She tapped the dash. “Better watch the road,” she advised, making him ruefully aware that his uncharacteristically erratic driving was almost as dangerous as her smile.
He made the turn she’d requested, then followed her directions through two more turns until they arrived at a dance club he’d heard of but had never visited.
“This is what you had in mind?” he asked in surprise when she requested that he pull into the parking lot that was filled almost to overflowing with compact cars, minivans and pickup trucks.
She nodded. “Surely you’ve been here before. It’s been open for several years.”
He shook his head, not bothering to explain that the more formal country club was more to his usual taste than noisy, crowded, trendy dance clubs. He hadn’t frequented such places since shortly after leaving college, when he’d set his sights on his career goals and hadn’t allowed anything to sidetrack him. Not even his former fiancée.
“It looks crowded,” he commented, pulling into a parking space some distance from the dub’s entrance. Unfortunately, valet parking wasn’t available here. “Are you sure we can get in?”
She smiled and tossed her head. “We’ll get in.”
She had her door open almost before he’d turned off the ignition. Without waiting for his help, she slid out of the vehicle. And then she began to untie the bow at her hip that held her long wrapped skirt together.
Andrew had just unsnapped his seat belt and opened his door. Noticing her actions, he paused. “Er...what are you—”
The skirt fell away. She tossed it carelessly into the back seat and slammed the door, leaving Andrew to wonder impatiently what she was now wearing. He hurried around the back of the Range Rover. She met him there.
He froze in his tracks.
The minidress she’d worn beneath the long, sarong skirt dung like a lover’s hand to her shapely curves, and was just long enough to be legal. The neckline was sedately rounded in front, but the deep dip in the back looked even lower now that the hem was so close to it.
“Ah, aren’t you cold?” Andrew asked hoarsely. His breath hung in little white puffs in the night air.
Nicole grinned. “Freezing. Let’s hurry inside.”
“Your coat?”
She shook her head, rubbing her arms with her hands. “It would just be in the way once we get inside.”
She turned and hurried toward the building. Andrew didn’t immediately follow, being too preoccupied with staring at her backside. Her slender hips swayed gently with her rapid steps. Her legs in their sheer dark stockings looked at least a mile long, and her spiked heels were dangerously, delectably high.
She looked over her shoulder. “You are coming, aren’t you?”
I’m damned close, Andrew thought, then drew a long, bracing breath of chilled air to clear his head.
Wondering what he’d gotten himself into, and telling himself he should have realized her scarlet lipstick indicated she wasn’t quite what she’d appeared to be at first glance, he squared his shoulders and caught up with her. He was already aware that this New Year’s Eve was going to be much different than his last few.
Whether that was good news or bad remained to be seen.
3
A VERY LARGE, very muscular man met them just inside the door of the dance dub. “Sorry, man,” he said to Andrew. “We’re full.”
Andrew certainly didn’t intend to argue. The music from inside the club was so loud it seemed to reverberate inside his skull. He’d just as soon find someplace quieter, if that were possible on this occasion. He took Nicole’s arm and nodded pleasantly at the doorman. “Of course. We’ll—”
“You aren’t really going to throw us out in the cold, are you, Tommy?” Nicole murmured, slipping out of Andrew’s grasp.
Looking surprised, the doorman turned to Nicole, then did a double take. “Nicky?”
She gave him a brilliant smile. “In the flesh.”
The man’s formerly severe face creased with a broad, toothy grin. “Well, I’ll be—Nicky! Damn, it’s good to see you.”
Andrew watched in disapproval as Nicole stepped happily into the big man’s enthusiastic embrace.
“It’s good to see you, too. Tommy,” she said.
“I thought you’d moved off to Chicago or Detroit or someplace like that. What are you doing back in town?”
“Minneapolis,” she corrected him. “Do you know how cold it is there? I had to get home before I froze my, er, fingers off.”
“So you’re back to stay?”
“For a while, anyway. Oh, this is Andrew Tyler.”
The big man nodded agreeably. “Nice to meet ya. I haven’t seen you in here before, have I?”
“No, it’s my first visit.”
Tommy moved away from the entrance to the club. “Have a good time.”
Nicole took Andrew’s hand and towed him forward. She reached up to pat Tommy’s cheek as she passed him. “Thanks.”
“Hey, you’re welcome here anytime, Nicky. You know that.”
The club was exactly as Andrew had expected—dim and crowded and noisy and smoky. The music was loud and frenetic—very different from what he usually listened to. He’d rather be just about anywhere else—as long as Nicole was with him. The more time he spent with her, the more he realized he’d only just begun to know her.
He was just about to subtly question her about her relationship with Tommy when a woman nearby squealed. “Nicky! You’re back!”
A painfully thin young woman in a clingy black-and-silver mini, black over-the-knee stockings, clunky shoes and dangly costume jewelry threw herself at Nicole, who greeted her with laughter. Before long, Nicole was surrounded by babbling twentysomethings in trendy clothing.
Watching in wonder, Andrew decided that she must know nearly everyone in the place. It amazed him that she seemed so completely at home here, yet had seemed no less comfortable as a first-time visitor to his club. Straining to hear over the loud music, he caught only snippets of her conversations with her friends.
“When did you get ba
ck in town?” someone asked her.
“A few days ago.”
“How was Indianapolis?”
“Minneapolis. And it was cold.”
“Have you seen Stu yet?”
Andrew’s eyebrow lifted when Nicole stiffened visibly in response to that name. “No,” she said. “Haven’t seen him. Is Pete here tonight?”
“Didn’t you hear? Pete moved to L.A. Got a gig in a comedy club there. It was only for a couple of nights, but he decided to stay and give it a shot. He’s hoping for a TV sitcom.”
“No kidding? Then I hope he makes it. He’s a funny guy.”
The DJ’s rich, mellow voice came through the speakers when the song ended. “Someone just told me Nicky Holiday’s here. Happy New Year and welcome back, Nicky. No need to make a request—I know what you want to hear. This one’s just for you.”
Andrew wasn’t up on current musical hits, but this was one he recognized, since it was at least a decade old.
“‘Nineteen ninety-nine!’” Nicole exclaimed in delight, and turned to Andrew. “We have to dance to this one,” she told him. “It’s my all-time favorite dance number.”
“But I—”
But she had already taken his hand and was pulling him toward a dance floor that looked barely large enough to accommodate a third of the dub’s patrons.
There’d been a time, back in his college days, when Andrew had known how to party. When he could hold his own on a crowded dance floor, when no music had seemed too fast or too loud. It felt like another lifetime, he thought as he tried gamely to keep up with Nicole, who threw herself into the dance with an enthusiasm she hadn’t allowed herself at the country club.
“Go, Nicky!” someone shouted from nearby.
She was breathless and laughing when the song ended. She waved a thank-you at the DJ, who grinned back at her, then played another song, this one a slow number. Without waiting for an invitation, Nicole fell into Andrew’s arms. He obligingly began to move with the music.
“That was great,” Nicole said. “Haven’t heard that song in ages. Good of TAFKAP.”
Andrew wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. “Tafkap?”