by Francis Ray
Faith gasped, then closed her eyes for a moment. How could Blade have done this to her? But even as the thought came to her, she knew it wasn’t Blade. It had to be the unpredictable Shane.
“Where shall we put them?” asked the delivery-woman.
Faith looked at the beautiful arrangements and wished she had enough willpower to refuse the delivery. She didn’t. “Half of you, please come with me to my office. The rest of you, please wait here.” She started to her office. She’d call Shane to thank him, then tear a strip off his hide.
Two hours later, Faith hung up the phone. Blade was out of the country and his secretary wasn’t sure how to reach Shane. Only Blade had his contact information. On impulse, she asked for Holt. It hadn’t taken long to discover Holt was almost as elusive as Blade and Shane. She just hoped this was the last of Shane’s attempts to make Brandon jealous. His being protective couldn’t compare with loving her.
The only thing the flowers had accomplished was to make her the hot topic of gossip for the guests and, unfortunately, the staff this time around. The latter was done with affection. Everywhere she’d gone afterward, she received thumbs-ups or big grins. They were happy for her.
After a brief knock, her office door opened. Cameron and Duncan entered. She’d obtained them rooms at a nearby hotel. Both whistled. “Brandon really knows how to grovel,” Cameron said with a chuckle.
Faith’s heart winced. “Brandon didn’t send them.”
“Then who sent them?” Duncan asked, his smile gone.
“A man who liked doing the unexpected.” She came around the desk. “How about a late lunch before you take off?”
Cameron and Duncan exchanged looks. Duncan said, “Last time you were begging us to stay; now you’re rushing us to leave.”
“Because I know Cameron has a race coming up this week and it’s time for you to harvest feed,” she said. “I love you both for coming here, but I’m going to be all right.” She held up her right hand. “Scout’s honor.”
Cameron threw an arm around her shoulder. “If you aren’t I’m going to pay a visit to a certain person who won’t be happy when I leave.”
“Cam—,” she began.
“Nothing you can say will change our minds,” Duncan said, cutting her off. “He only has a pass for now.”
She looked at the stubborn expressions on their faces and knew they’d spoken the truth. But since they hadn’t drilled her on who sent the flowers, she considered herself getting off lucky. “Let’s go eat lunch.”
Brandon’s gaze narrowed on seeing Duncan and Cameron enter the Red Cactus. He moved toward them. It was safe to assume they hadn’t come to pick a fight. “I’ll take them.” He picked up two menus. “Good evening. You want a table?”
“Nope. We’d like a moment of your time. The bar will do,” Duncan said.
Replacing the menus, Brandon went to a quiet corner and pulled out a chair at a bar table. “What?”
Neither man sat. “Just thought we’d give some friendly advice,” Cameron said.
“Seems you have some stiff competition,” Duncan said, his face gleeful.
“I can tell you’re really broken up by it.” Brandon took a seat and placed his folded arms on the table.
“We’re happy she’s not moping over you any longer.” Cameron rocked back on his heels. “He filled Faith’s office and her house with flowers.”
“Why are you telling me?” Brandon asked, his face and voice giving away none of what he was feeling.
“Better the devil you know.” Cameron slapped Brandon none too gently on the back. “But if you make her cry again, we’ll come down on you like a hard rain. Bye now.”
Duncan tipped his Stetson. “Bye.”
Brandon eased back in his chair and watched the brothers walk away. They could have saved their breaths. He’d already made up his mind about Faith, and nothing on earth could make him change it again.
The next day Faith received another call. “Ms. McBride, you have another special delivery.”
Faith’s lips pursed. “Thank you,” she said into the receiver of her headset, then disconnected her cell phone and turned to the head gardener for the hotel. “Please excuse me. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Take your time, Ms. McBride. You think it’s from him again?”
There was no sense being evasive or coy. “I don’t know,” she answered, and headed for the lobby, hoping it wasn’t. Three steps inside the lobby, she knew it wasn’t to be.
This time there were ten men and women. Each held a twenty-by-thirty poster of places around the world . . . a ski chalet in Switzerland, the Ritz in Paris, a hidden cove on St. Thomas, and on and on. The last breathtaking photo was of the balcony of a Navarone Resort and Spa on Maui overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Her lips tightened. Oh, if she could just get her hands on Shane.
A smartly dressed middle-aged woman stepped forward and extended her hand. “I’m Cassandra Eldridge, owner of Unique Travels. I have a message for you.”
“I bet,” Faith said under her breath.
“The journey is important, but so is the destination. Choose one, choose them all, as I have chosen you to continue the journey of a lifetime,” Cassandra finished, her voice unsteady.
Faith snorted. She wouldn’t have thought Shane had a poetic bone in his hard body. Intelligent—extremely. Sensitive—no way. Perhaps he’d hired someone to write the words. He’d unwittingly picked spots she’d always wanted to travel to but never had time to do so. How had he been able to be so accurate?
A prickling sensation ran up her spine. Stepping around the travel agent, Faith went to each enlarged picture. She’d wanted to travel, planned to until her parents divorced and she took over running the hotel. The only person she’d admitted her longing to was Brandon, but that was years ago, while she was trying to deal with her parents’ separation and pending divorce.
She hadn’t wanted to add to Duncan’s and Cameron’s own pain or have them worry about her, so she’d said nothing to them. She’d confided in Brandon. He couldn’t have remembered.
“Here is the packet of brochures. My card is attached.”
Her hands trembling, Faith took the folder. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” the travel agent said with a little sigh. “He was so romantic.”
“He came to your office?” Faith pounced on that bit of information. Any woman who saw Brandon would never forget him.
Cassandra sadly shook her head of short dark curls. “It was all conducted by telephone. Where do you want me to leave the prints?”
“My office, please.” Faith headed in that direction, daring to hope that Brandon, not Shane, was behind the deliveries. She was too big of a coward to ask him.
Faith didn’t care that she was obviously waiting behind the check-in desk the next day for the delivery. She wasn’t the only one. Several guests milled in the lobby. Mae, one of the housekeepers, had been polishing the brass door handles for the past ten minutes. A short distance away, the three-by-three spot James kept running the vacuum over had to be the cleanest in the hotel. Even Henrí had passed through a couple of times.
If Brandon embarrassed her by not coming through, she was going to the Red Cactus and give him a piece of her mind. In fact, she might do that anyway. She came around the desk.
She’d spent a restless night vacillating between happiness and despair because she couldn’t be 100 percent sure that he was behind the flowers. Brandon could make a simple walk beautiful just by holding her hand. She cherished the ordinary because she’d never quite let herself believe any of it would happen. Dinner with just the two of them at his restaurant, a drive in the mountains, a bed of flower petals were all precious gifts she’d always cherish.
Suddenly James cut the vacuum and beat the doorman to grab the door and step back, a wide toothless grin on his brown face. Faith swallowed. There were four men, two in front and two slightly behind a fifth man who carried a black attaché case. When the man in th
e middle neared, she saw the chain hanging from his wrist. He stopped in front of her. The four men encircled her and the fifth man.
“Ms. McBride?”
“Yes,” she said, her throat dry, her heart thudding like she’d run for miles.
“Is there someplace we can talk in private?” he asked.
“Yes.” She went to the office behind the front desk. She didn’t want to wait a moment longer than necessary.
Two guards came inside the room while the other two remained outside. They looked around, then went back out, quietly closing the door. “Please have a seat,” the fifth man said, placing the case on the desk.
Faith sat. From the inside of his suit jacket the man removed a key. Then he unlocked the case. Faith gasped. Diamonds, emeralds, rubies in round, square, princess, and emerald cut sparkled. She wasn’t an expert, but she didn’t think any were less than three carats.
“All A-1 clarity, certified—flawless. He said they were just like you.”
Faith felt tears prick her eyes. She took the crisp linen handkerchief the man offered. Brandon’s restaurant was doing well, but he couldn’t afford this. Even if he could, he didn’t go in for extravagance.
“He thought you might have difficulty, so he asked me to inform you that at the right moment he will choose, just as he’s chosen you and you him.” The case closed. The click of the lock sounded overly loud in the room.
At the door, the man paused and looked back. “He asked that I tell you one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“Hold on to your faith.” With a slight tilt of his dark head, he was gone.
Faith’s hand clutched the handkerchief as thoughts bombarded her. She wanted so much to believe it was Brandon but was afraid to.
Hold on to your faith. “All right, Brandon, but I think it’s time I took my courage in hand and paid you a visit.”
Despite the demands on his time with two of his wait-staff and Michelle out with unexpected illnesses, and him trying to divide his time between managing the floor and helping in the kitchen, he noticed Faith the moment she crossed the room behind the hostess. When they passed an open table, Faith stopped and said something to Carol. The hostess who had been heading for the family table turned and looked at him. Faith’s gaze followed. The kick was as sharp as he remembered.
With a small nod of approval, he turned to finish trying to soothe the ruffled feathers of a patron who thought his rare prime rib was dry and overcooked. The man had eaten the entire meal, then wanted the meal credited. The woman with him had her head tucked as if she wanted to disappear. Brandon didn’t like being taken advantage of, but he didn’t have the time to argue with the wide-shouldered man who appeared to be in his midthirties. “I’ll comp half the meal.”
“I want—”
“Half, and the next time it will be a fourth.”
The woman’s head came up, her eyes wide as her gaze went from the speechless man up to Brandon.
“Decide now.”
“I’ve eaten in some of the finest restaurants in the world, and I’ve never been treated so rudely,” he claimed, his voice rising.
“If it’s been your practice to eat a meal, then demand it be comped because it was inedible, then I’d say you’re long overdue,” Brandon said just as loudly. “I’ll tell your waiter half. Have a nice day.” He turned and should have headed to the kitchen, but he detoured to Faith’s table. Although she was familiar with every item they served, she had her head hidden behind the oversize menu.
“Hello, Faith.”
The menu slowly slid down over her beautiful face to reveal chocolate eyes that would always get to him, mauve-colored lips that haunted his dreams. “Hello, Brandon.”
Bracing one hand on the back of her chair to get closer to her, he said, “I see you’re over your pique at me.”
“I don’t like to see us at odds,” she admitted, tucking her lower lip between her teeth in a gesture he’d come to recognize as nervousness, or she was concentrating as she’d been the first time she’d put on his—he blocked that thought and shifted away in time to see the diner he’d just spoken to shake off the hand of the woman he was with and come toward them.
“You got a nerve brushing me off in front of my girlfriend, then coming over here to talk to some wo—”
Brandon snatched the beefy man, who outweighed him by thirty pounds, off his feet by his shirt collar. Suddenly there was absolute quiet in the restaurant. “That’s a line you don’t want to cross.”
The man squirmed, prying ineffectually at Brandon’s clenched fists. His eyes bugged.
“When I release you, I want you to apologize and do us both a favor and don’t come in here again. Understood?”
The man nodded. Brandon unclenched his hands. The man staggered, clutched at his throat, and backed up.
“I believe you forgot your apology,” Brandon said mildly, his eyes as cold as ice.
The man stopped, moistened his dry lips. “I-I’m sorry, miss.”
Brandon’s gaze went to the silent woman behind him. “You’re welcome anytime. Your first meal is on the house. You didn’t ask, but you can do better.”
She stared at Brandon, and when the man with her tried to take her arm she stepped away. “Thank you. I apologize. I think I’ll take you up on the offer and the advice.” She left, the man trying to catch up with her.
Applause erupted. Brandon ignored it. “Sorry about that.”
“He was bigger than you,” Faith said, her voice trembling.
“I was madder.”
“Why?”
Unable to resist a moment longer, he tenderly brushed the back of his hand against the smooth curve of her cheek. “I think we both know the answer to that.”
“We do?” she asked, her eyes huge and hopeful.
“We do.” He straightened. “Enjoy your lunch. I have to get back to work.”
She picked up her purse and came to her feet, shoving the strap over her shoulder. “I need to get back as well.”
“You haven’t eaten.”
“Doesn’t matter. I have what I came for.” She kissed him on the cheek.
“You know that’s going to spread like wildfire,” he said.
“I know, and you had better not let me down.” She walked away. Brandon’s hot gaze followed her every step of the way.
Would he come tonight? Faith asked herself that question over and over as the day progressed. She bounced between thinking he would and being deathly afraid he wouldn’t. She was sure . . . well, almost sure that he was the one who’d been romancing her. She smiled and stared into space. Laughter outside her office door snapped her back into the present. Hunching her shoulders over the budget that she should have approved days ago, she had started over the figures one more time when the door opened abruptly.
“Faith, there’s a problem with the lights in the Matador Room,” Esmeralda said.
Frowning, Faith threw a quick look at the clock on her desk as she came to her feet. “The Peterson party only had the room until six. It’s almost nine.”
Esmeralda threw up her hands. “You know how these things go sometimes.”
Indeed she did. “Have you called maintenance?” Faith asked, heading out the door.
“They’ll meet us there.”
Faith hoped the problem was easily fixed. She opened the door . . . to find that her most cherished dream had come true.
The immense crystal chandelier overhead threw soft light over the flower-filled room interspersed with exact replicas of the travel posters in her office. Standing in the middle of the room was an incredibly handsome, well-built man in a black dinner jacket playing a tenor sax. She closed the door behind her without taking her eyes off him.
The song ended on a long, mournful wail that made her heart weep. “You finally played for me, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything so sad.”
“That’s how I felt these last days without you in my life.”
“Brandon,” she wh
ispered, going into his open arms. Her mouth fastened to his. She groaned with pleasure as their tongues mated.
“I missed you so much,” he said, holding her tight.
“Me, too. I’m sorry about—”
Holding her away, he put his fingers to her lips. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m glad you had the courage to shake things up. I should have known when I started having dreams about you that what I felt had gone beyond friendship.”
Her fingers curled around the lapels of his jacket. “Do you think you might tell me what your exact feelings are?”
His hand tenderly cupped her cheek. “I love you.”
Tears pooled in her eyes. “Oh, Brandon.”
Panicked, he hugged her again. “Honey, please don’t cry. I promised that I’d never make you cry again.”
She smiled through her tears. “Since I cry when I’m happy, that might not be a promise you can keep.”
“There’s one I can, though.” Taking her hand, he went down on one knee. “I love you, Faith. You’re irresistible to me and so beautiful. Will you marry me?”
A deluge of tears flowed down her cheeks, but she croaked out, “Yes.”
He came to his feet and pulled a ring from his pocket. He slid it on her finger and kissed her hand. “Do you like it?”
Faith couldn’t see through the sheen of tears. She tried to blink the moisture away.
Brandon removed his pocket square and dried her tears. “I guess these monkey suits have their uses.”
“You wore the jacket and did all this for me?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
Taking the hand with the ring on it, he kissed her palm. “I wanted this moment to be perfect for you, just like you made my life perfect before I almost messed things up. I’ve been practicing on the sax every chance I got.”
“You played beautifully. I’ve never forgotten the first time you played for me. It’s one of my most cherished memories,” she told him, her voice trembling with emotion.