Like the Burning Man Festival in Black Rock, Nevada. Or a New Orleans Mardi Gras steeped in jazz. Times Square when the apple fell on New Year’s Eve. A piano serenade on a winter evening sitting before the fireplace in a luxury hotel on Alberta’s Lake Louise. Experiencing a chant by Tibetan monks, in Tibet.
“Cole, you missed the parking lot.”
Damn. He’d been lost in thought, circling the park twice while their ten minutes wound down. Just a bunch of useless wishes. Just as his fantasies of her last night as she lay across the hall were useless dreams. When he lost Stephie, he’d lost himself, too. Even if he could somehow miraculously reconcile his guilt, he lacked the ingredients a woman needed in a man.
He flipped a U-turn when traffic was clear. Too bad he couldn’t make a U-turn in life just as easily. His past had changed him forever, and there wasn’t a damn bit of sense in dreaming about things he couldn’t have.
But he could—and would—watch out for Andrea. “She’ll be fine. We’ll find her, or the police will find her, or she’ll come home on her own, but she’ll be fine.” He said it as much for himself as to assure Jami.
She merely smiled at him as he pulled into a space, and said, “I know,” as if she could somehow see the road map his brain had taken from missing the parking lot to finding Andrea.
Finding Andrea didn’t prove that easy. They showed her picture at the information desk in the rotunda, but no one had seen her yesterday. They confirmed, too, that management had received an e-mail from the police regarding Andrea, and the employees and docents had been alerted. It hadn’t helped locate the girl.
Cole and Jami walked the park grounds and the Holocaust Memorial. The day was warm, sunny, almost like late summer rather than mid-October. He was glad the kid wasn’t out there somewhere in the rain or the cold, but if Andrea was in the vicinity, she was doing a good job of lurking in the shadows.
He left Jami on a bench in the sun to watch the entrance while he went down into the Legion’s cafeteria for a couple of sandwiches. Rodin’s The Thinker was doing a lot of heavy thinking as Cole passed the bronze in the courtyard. He almost felt he’d find the answers to all of life’s mysteries written on the statue’s magnificent face if he could figure out how to read it.
Andrea was still a no-show when he got back to Jami.
“Maybe we should split up,” she said, after wiping a dot of mayo from her mouth. “You drive around, and I’ll wait here.”
“No.” He couldn’t say why the idea bothered him. Maybe The Thinker could tell him.
“All right, I’ll drive, and you wait.”
“We shouldn’t split up.” His chicken sandwich suddenly tasted as tough as dry toast.
“Why?”
Because something could happen to her. Okay, that was stupid. The worse that would happen was a fender-bender on San Francisco streets. Yet he had this irrational fear that if he let her go off on her own, he’d never see her again. Where the hell was that coming from? Eventually there’d come a day when he never saw her again. Get use to it, pal.
It was the most amazing thing how a mind could do an utter one-eighty in less than half an hour. He wanted, he didn’t want, he needed, he didn’t need, he cared...hell, no, he didn’t care.
He fished her keys out of his pocket and set the ring on the bench between them. “You’re right, we’ll split up. I’ll go.”
“I can do it.” She put her hand on the remote.
He put his on top and held her. “No.” The warmth of her skin leached into his very bones. He preferred she waited in the sunshine. “I’ll check out the surrounding streets. Andrea might be walking.”
“She might be,” Jami agreed.
They sat like that a long moment, her hand captured in his, then she pulled away to pick up the second half of her sandwich.
If she’d felt anything, he couldn’t tell.
He finished his sandwich, swigged his juice, then threw the empties in the nearby trash. “Okay, I’ll be back.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
His gut wrenched. He couldn’t see her eyes behind her dark glasses. Christ, how he wanted her. He could tell himself they’d end badly, it wasn’t meant to be, he didn’t deserve her, he couldn’t make her happy, he was damaged, ad nauseam.
The fact remained that he wanted her. And it was a hell of a lot more than mere physical satiation he craved.
* * * * *
At the day’s end, they went back to Emeryville because the hotels on Union Square or down by Fisherman’s Wharf were too expensive.
Cole was driving again, and the traffic heading back over the Bay Bridge during the afternoon rush hour was even worse than the morning had been. Still, it was kind of strange the way she let him do all the driving now. It wasn’t only that city driving bothered her. It was that a woman let her man do the driving because it made him feel...like a man.
Wasn’t that the scariest thought?
Cole wasn’t her man. She didn’t know what he was, except aloof. His attitude had worsened as the day ticked away. The more time passed without finding Andrea, the longer the silences between them had become.
“I’m so depressed,” she whispered. The exhaust seeping into the car from the surrounding vehicles made her head pound.
“I told you we’d find her, and we will.” Great words, but his voice sounded as defeated as she felt.
Part of her wanted him to take her home to her mom’s house for a home-cooked meal. Comfort food. But she didn’t know how to introduce Cole to her mother now any better than she had last night.
“You’re probably hungry,” he added. “We should have eaten dinner before we left the City.”
“I’m fine.” Not. She’d waited for hours. No Cole and no Andrea. Until finally she’d had to call him on his cell phone because she simply couldn’t stand it anymore. Her butt ached from sitting on the metal bench, not to mention that after the first hour, her thoughts began to wander to the most horrific things. She finally understood what it must be like in solitary confinement.
“All right, then I’m starving,” Cole said.
Finally, they were over the bridge and on the Emeryville side, with the Marriot right there.
“Two rooms, please,” he said once they were parked and inside. This time there were four clerks working, the lobby was a mess of suitcases, bags, hanging carriers, and people waiting, checking in, or milling around.
“I’m sorry, sir, we don’t have two rooms available due to a big conference check-in.” A pretty Asian girl with long dark hair, the clerk managed an exceptionally polite tone in the midst of the confusion and disorder in the lobby.
“You’ve got nothing?” Jami repeated, a little dumbfounded. It was a Thursday night, for God’s sake.
The efficient woman punched a few keys. “We do have one room, double beds, but unfortunately it’s right next to the vending machines and quite noisy.”
Cole drummed his fingers on the counter, then turned to Jami. “Do you want check down the street?” he asked with the oddest pitch to his voice, a little husky, a lot hesitant.
“I’m afraid there are three conventions overlapping the weekend,” their helpful clerk added. “Most of the hotels are full.”
“We got two rooms last night,” Jami protested, as if that would make a difference.
The clerk raised her eyebrow.
Which meant they should have kept them. “I don’t want to drive back into the City or...” They could go to her mother’s. Or...she was sure they’d find a hotel more easily on the Peninsula, maybe near the airport.
She thought about sharing the same room with Cole. Her breath caught. A flush seemed to roll through her body. He’d asked her, left the decision up to her. Could she? Should she?
She didn’t suggest her mother’s house or a Peninsula hotel. Cole looked at her for so long, something dark in his eyes, that she knew he wouldn’t suggest an alternative either.
“I’m tired. I don’t feel like driving anymore. L
et’s go ahead and take it,” she muttered, her voice almost too low to hear over the frantic beat of her heart.
Cole tapped his credit card on the counter.
“And we’d like a reduced rate since it’s noisy,” Jami added for the clerk. She was a thrifty accountant after all.
Chapter Twenty-six
The restaurant buzzed with noise, and their waiter had hurried them through their selections like a fast-food clerk.
Cole was completely nuts. He had no idea what he’d ordered or how it tasted, yet he remembered Jami’s wine glistening on her lips. He hadn’t a clue what her dessert was, but the sexy-as-hell moan of appreciation she made as she savored each bite blew a few of his fuses. How the hell would he handle it when she started on her cappuccino?
They’d made a plan for where they’d search tomorrow, but hell if he could recall it now. The condom in his wallet burned a hole. Driving around the City, he’d stopped at a drugstore and bought a pack. Why he put one in his billfold, he didn’t know, maybe as a reminder of his wicked intentions and a couple of hours to talk himself out of it over dinner. The remaining two in the package, he’d stuffed into the paper sack of clothing they’d dropped off in the room before heading to the restaurant.
But he hadn’t talked himself out of it. He planned on seducing her. He’d regret it later, yet he’d regret it just the same if he didn’t. When the hotel clerk said there was only one room, he’d wanted to jump on it. Instead he’d let Jami choose. She could have said no. She should have said no. She didn’t. He used that as a nice, tidy excuse. She had to know what would happen.
Now didn’t that sound like laying the blame at someone else’s door?
“So where do we go from here?” she asked, once her coffee drink had arrived. “I don’t think Andrea hopped a bus to Colorado to see the Anasazi or caught a plane for the Louvre.”
After driving around the general vicinity all afternoon, he was convinced Andrea hadn’t jumped on a bus for the Legion of Honor either. “Did she mention an art school she’d like to attend?”
“No.” She stirred, watching the milky fluid in her cup as if it were a tea-leaf formation bearing all the answers.
“Then we should go home and leave this for the police.” He knew she wouldn’t go for it even as he made the suggestion.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because.” She sipped and closed her eyes appreciatively.
His heart ratta-tatted. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Her thoughts flitted across her face in changing expressions he could almost read. She didn’t want to give up. She believed herself responsible. She felt useless.
“There isn’t anything I can say to make you see this isn’t your fault, is there?” He signaled the waiter over for a refresher on his own coffee.
“I don’t feel I’m to blame exactly,” she said, when the waiter had moved on to the next table. The voices filling the high-ceilinged restaurant cocooned them in their own little bubble. “I just feel on edge. Like I need to do something or go crazy.” She tipped her head and looked at him. “Does that make sense?”
He knew all about doing something so you didn’t go crazy. It was called avoidance. “Yeah, it make sense.” This time the waiter came by with the bill. Cole gave Jami a look as she went for her wallet, and she actually faltered, then put it away, letting him pay. “What doesn’t make sense,” he went on when they were once again alone in their bubble, “is to drive around San Francisco without a hint that she’s even here.”
“But—”
He held up his hand. “You had a good idea, but it didn’t pan out. So give it up.”
She wasn’t a woman who gave up easily. He liked that about her, but he also sensed she’d put useless effort into a lost cause.
A lost cause like him?
Yeah. What normal person found a CD at a thrift store and went looking for the musician? It was an outlandish thing to do. Why would she even care? Listen to the music because you like it, then move on.
“I don’t like to give up,” she muttered into her coffee.
“I realize that.”
“It’s weak to give up.”
A splinter of discomfort lodged in his chest. “Sometimes it’s the only smart thing to do.”
He thought about the condom in his wallet. What the hell had he been thinking? They’d make love, and she wouldn’t give up. He’d have to hurt her to get rid of her. “Let’s sleep on it and decide in the morning.”
In the morning, he’d make the decision for her and drive them home. Not that he’d do much sleeping tonight with her in the next bed, but hell, seducing Jami was the dumbest idea he’d ever had.
Back in the room, he revised that. The dumbest idea he’d had was sitting in this damn little room while she took a shower. Naked. Body all wet. Her hands all over herself.
Holy hell.
The moment the water shut off, he called through the closed door. “I’m going down to the bar for a beer.”
He’d stay down there long enough—and then some—to be sure she’d be asleep when he went back up.
* * * * *
The room was dark, quiet, and fragrant with her shower and the ever-present vanilla scent. Cole almost walked right back out. He’d nursed the damn beer for what seemed like forever, enough to dampen any desire, yet the moment he smelled her, the sliver of light through the curtains revealing her body’s outline beneath the covers, it gripped him again in full force.
She’d taken the bed by the window. He closed the curtains a little tighter to disguise her shape in the bed, then put his wallet and watch on the bedside table. She didn’t move, fast asleep, thank God. He grabbed his paper bag, rustled around in it, but couldn’t find a damn thing without the light, so he carried it into the bathroom.
The first thing that fell out when he up-ended it on the counter was the opened package of condoms. Oh man. He shaved, washed up, brushed his teeth, took his time, waited for his libido to slide back into submission. Until he realized he’d have to sleep in a fresh pair of underwear because he’d forgotten to throw sweats into the bag. With his own room, it hadn’t mattered. But hell, underwear was next to being naked.
So be it. She was asleep. She’d never know. In the morning, he’d use the bathroom first, then go downstairs for coffee while she did what women did in the morning. Great idea.
She rolled over as he groped for his bed in the dark. Tensing, he waited for her to say something, but moments later he relaxed when her breathing fell back into sleep’s rhythm.
Quiet as a mouse, he crawled beneath the covers. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he let his gaze wash over her. Hair in disarray all over the pillow, the bedspread pulled up to her chin, her knees curled, she appeared peaceful and childlike. He hadn’t spent the night with a woman since Hannah. He’d dated, had a few relationships, but he’d done his fooling around elsewhere and come home the same night. He had a rule about women not sleeping over. It wasn’t something to which he’d wanted his daughter exposed at her tender age.
Hell, maybe he’d just been too cowardly to try to explain a man’s needs to a nine-year-old.
Watching Jami evoked a long-forgotten sweetness. If he could have done so without waking her, he’d have smoothed a finger over her cheek, his hand through her hair, dropped a kiss on her earlobe. Instead he simply watched and breathed her in. It was pure pleasure and sheer torture, and in the end, he had to close his eyes because it hurt.
He just needed to sleep. Tomorrow they’d return to Masterson, only a few hours left with her at most. She turned, made a soft snuffle, settled again. He couldn’t sleep. The room was too damn hot, and she was too damn close. Rolling to the other side of the bed, he climbed out and played with the thermostat. He was pretty sure he’d turned it down, not up.
“What are you doing?”
Damn. He jumped back beneath the covers like a teenage boy caught by a girl walking into the wrong locker room. “Just turning the air conditioning u
p.”
She was silent a long moment. Then finally she shoved the covers aside and padded to the bathroom. He tried not to look—looking was torment—but he made out her legs in a pair of pajamas shorts. Maybe he could be asleep by the time she came back. Someone laughed at that, and he was pretty sure it was his own little devil perched on his shoulder.
He kept his eyes closed for her trip back to bed. Yet with every step, then the shush of the covers, the gentle waft of her scent tempted him.
“Cole?”
He made a strangled noise.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine.”
“You were gone so long, I thought maybe you’d gotten drunk.”
The assumption didn’t offend him. “Just talking to the bartender.” He’d sat at a corner table and people-watched. It was amazing what went on after hours at business conventions, who left with whom and how cozy they looked as they were leaving.
“Oh,” she said.
“Goodnight.”
Silence lay over the room for an eternity. Or a minute. Then, “Cole?”
She wasn’t going to sleep. He was doomed. They both were.
* * * * *
Cole made a noise, half annoyed snort, half choked laugh. At least that’s what Jami thought it sounded like.
“What?”
Get in my bed with me. She could think it, but say it? Yeah, right. “Do you want me to set the alarm?”
“No.”
In the dark, he was nothing more than a lump in the bed.
She’d never in her life slept in a hotel room with a man she barely knew. She’d never had sex with a man she’d known only a week. She’d dated Leo several months before they slept together. She’d had five lovers, all longer-term relationships, and Leo was the first man she’d lived with. She always thought before she leaped. Cole was right; she wasn’t impulsive. Being impulsive scared her. Even going to Masterson wasn’t impulsive; she always had the option to run back home. She always had a safety net, like her family or her savings account.
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