by J. A. Coffey
Chapter Two
“No. No, nononono. I’m not spending the next week in a stateroom with...him,” Casey said to the room at large. The last reminders of the elevator kiss and Mason evaporated like dew on the honeysuckle at her parents’ Charleston home.
Him was the nicest word Casey could think of to describe the man laid out across her bed, a trail of tissue leading from his inert body to the nightstand and a hunk of the stuff affixed to his nose. The bleeding had started about ten minutes before when Casey entered the room, and told the bellhop she definitely would not be cohabiting with Tyler Cash, if that was his real name.
His name evoked a cowboy type: lean muscles, tanned skin and maybe even a mustache. Of course, the Tyler Cash lying across her bed was nothing like that. As far as Casey could tell, Tyler didn’t even have muscles underneath his pasty-white skin and as smooth as his cheeks looked, she wasn’t certain he was capable of growing facial hair. He had nice hair. Nicely brown, no hints of gray, and it didn’t look to be receding. He kept it a little long, but then Casey wasn’t all that crazy about those military styled cuts. Come to think of it, he kind of looked like a weaker, less colorful version of Mason.
This was getting out of control. First, Jane hired Mason to be her Mr. Right Now man. Now, a nerd was bleeding all over her bed, and they were apparently supposed to spend the next week together. Her life was slipping from her grasp as quickly as the cruise ship would cut across the Caribbean.
She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but there was no way she wanted a roommate. No. No. No. Casey considered herself a nice girl. She tried not to hurt people’s feelings and she knew from the amount of blood coming from Tyler’s nose that she’d hurt his feelings. Stress-induced nosebleeds were the worst. She would apologize later, but she wasn’t giving in on this. She wasn’t spending the next week with a nose-bleeding nerd when she could have seven beautiful nights with Mason.
Now, if they wanted to move the nerd into another room, Mason Drury could bunk in with her. As long as he wasn’t prone to nosebleeds.
The bellboy raised his hands. “But, Mrs. Cash, the ship is full and--”
“And that’s the problem. I’m not ‘Mrs. Cash.’ I am Ms. Cash.” Casey held up her left hand, twisting it from side to side. “No ring here. No tan lines where a ring could have been. I’m not married to this person and I’m not sharing a room with him.”
He pointed to a notebook. “But it says right here--”
“Naa der faud.” The blood, tissue and his hand holding it all together slurred Tyler’s words together, but Casey was pretty sure what he wanted to say.
“You’re damn right it’s not my fault. I bought one ticket. One room. I didn’t ask for a roommate and I don’t want one.” Especially with a man like Mason on board.
The stateroom door opened and January, the Cruise Director, came back into the room. Casey rolled her eyes when no one else from the ship followed her in. Shouldn’t the captain be called in? Or someone with some kind of authority?
All eyes swiveled, expecting January to solve the problem. Casey doubted the woman would be able to. Not just because she was named after a month. Her uniform was wrinkled and she had a run in her hose. The sophisticated upswept hairdo lost a little of its oomph because a few strands had come loose and were now glued with sweat to her neck and behind her ears. Casey wasn’t the only one suffering from the south Florida heat wave.
A tiny voice suggested leaving the cruise, and a louder one screamed a single word in her head. Mason. She wasn’t getting off this ship; she was getting Tyler Cash out of her room.
Please, let her have found another room for Cash the Nerd.
The bellboy slipped out the door without waiting for his tip. January stood, looking from one person to the next but not opening her mouth to speak. A sheaf of papers rattled in her hand. Surely there was an open room listed somewhere on those pages.
Tired of waiting, Casey said, “Well? Can you fix this?”
“I, um.” January licked her lips and stared at the light blue carpet. “I think what happened is that you booked a penthouse suite and...” She pointed to the male form still breathing tissue. “He booked one, too and the reservations computer must have merged the two reservations into one. I mean, you do both have the same last name and from what I can tell you booked at basically the same time.”
So if Johnny Cash came back from the dead to take a cruise, she’d be rooming with him? If Casey had to choose between ghost and nerd, it was ghost all the way. Johnny could give her an orgasm just by singing her to sleep.
“But you know now that we don’t belong together. So where are you moving him?” Casey felt like she was floating in another world. What was going on? No cruise line in the world would make a mistake like this.
Tyler was beginning to look interested in the conversation. Probably two women had never fought over where he would sleep. He sat up, keeping his head tilted back and the tissue pressed against his nostrils. “I dud wut t’be probleb. I’ll sleeb adywhed.”
January moved to the side of the bed and patted Tyler on the knee. “Oh, you’re not the problem, Mr. Cash.” She sent Casey a dirty look. January clearly thought she was the problem because she didn’t want to have a stranger for a roommate.
Pulling the tissue from his nose with a latex-gloved hand, January smiled. “That’s looking much better, but you’ll want to keep the tissue in place just a little longer.” She handed him a fresh sheet, pressing it against his naked nose. She turned her attention to Casey and snapped the glove from her hands.
“The problem is this cruise is completely booked. It’s late August, you know. I’m afraid I don’t have a solution other than you rooming together. I will take ten percent off the final bill and all of your excursions will be paid for by the cruise line.”
“Can’t you find someone on board who is willing to have a roommate?” Anyone would work, as long as they didn’t mind running out of tissue within ten minutes. Surely there was one single, desperate woman aboard ship. Casey ignored the fact that until she met Mason she could have been the single, desperate soul.
January shook her head sadly and clasped her hands in her lap. “I’m afraid we can’t ask our passengers to accept a stranger into their rooms.”
“But you can expect me to share my room because of a computer malfunction? Get this through your head: I’m one of your passengers who does not want a stranger in her room.” Casey said. Before she could get rolling, January interrupted.
“But he’s booked into this room.”
“So am I. I have my itinerary right here.” She pulled a sheet of paper from her carryon and handed them to January, pointing. “One guest. One. How long have you been booked in?”
Tyler looked from Casey to January, clearly not sure what to think about two women fighting over where he would sleep. He probably never had this problem in his real life, wherever and whatever that was.
“Do weeds.”
Do weeds. Do weeds. Two weeks? Two weeks? No way. She wasn’t losing her single room to a nosebleeding nerd who had only been booked onto the cruise for two weeks. Sorry, wasn’t going to happen. She’d been booked for two weeks and one day.
She gritted her teeth and pulled a card she had never used in her life. “Do you know who I am? I’m Cassandra Cash, and I need space. I have a book deadline to meet and I can’t do that with some stranger living in my room. You’ll have to move him into crew quarters or something.”
“No. We can’t do that. He paid for a suite. The crew quarters are too cramped, and that wouldn’t be fair.” Apparently, the woman wasn’t realizing that it wasn’t fair to expect Casey to share a room with a stranger. January stood and clapped her hands together. “Unless Mr. Cash is willing to move to crew quarters, we simply have no other choice.”
Casey looked from January to Tyler, who was shaking his head no. Great. She could move. But where to? Casey couldn’t exactly track Mason down and ask if he’d mind a roomie.
January con
tinued. “I know this is a huge inconvenience, but there is simply nothing we can do. I have made notations in both of your files and the next time you sail with the Sweetheart Line, you’ll sail for free.” Before Casey could speak, January left the room.
“I ged we’re stud, huh?”
Stud. Ha! He was no stud. Cash was right, though. They were stuck together. At least for now. Casey wasn’t finished fighting for the private room she had booked.
Tyler stood, moving to pick up the leather bag beside the bed. “I’b soddy. You cad hab the ded, I’ll sleeb on the cowjuh.” He pushed the bag with his foot, trying to see which direction it was moving while keeping his head tilted back. The bag was headed for the closet.
Casey shook her head. She was being a jerk. Rooming with Tyler wouldn’t be the easiest thing in the world, but it wasn’t the end of it, either. And if things did work out with Mason... No, not going there. If things didn’t work out with Mason, Casey would seclude herself and finish the damned book. She and Tyler would probably only see one another a couple of times each day. It wasn’t as if she was attracted to him. Like she wanted to jump his bones while he slept on the tiny sofa.
Mason’s were the only bones she was interested in jumping at the moment. She wondered if he’d found some other woman. She couldn’t blame him. Leaving him all hot and bothered was an idiotic move. Space. Yeesh. But she couldn’t leave Tyler alone just yet, either.
“It’s okay.” Casey relented. She picked up his bag, moving a lamp to make room for it on a side table. “We’ll set up the ground rules later. Has the bleeding stopped?”
Tyler nodded. “I think so.” He tossed the tissue in the trash and let his head rest in its usual place. He waited a few seconds, then patted his upper lip just under his nose. “No blood. That’s a good sign.”
Without the tissue, he was much more attractive. His skin wasn’t so pasty; now that he had stopped bleeding, it was a nice peach color. Tyler obviously hadn’t been out in the sun much, but then what professional man spent their summer days outside? No late afternoon shadow on his cheeks, so she still wasn’t convinced he could grow a mustache, but that wasn’t so bad. Smooth skin wouldn’t irritate the sensitive skin on her chest.
Like Mason, he was almost a version of her perfect fictional romantic hero.
Oh, crap. Jane hadn’t... There was only one way to find out.
“Are you...supposed to be here?” Casey couldn’t bring herself to ask if he was being paid.
Tyler smiled, and reclined back on his elbow. “What do you mean?” He propped one leg against the back of the couch and stretched the other toward the floor.
“I mean...” But how to ask Tyler, tissue-breathing, nose bleeding Tyler if he was the escort without insulting him? Or would he be embarrassed? Were escorts proud of their jobs? “What do you do for a living?”
Tyler smiled a semi-come-hither smile. It would have worked better without the remnant of tissue stuck to the corner of his mouth.
“What do you want me to do?” Spoken like the male version of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.
She sat down hard on the edge of the bed. If Tyler was the escort, that meant Mason was just some guy. Some guy she’d just attacked in the elevator. Her face burned. He must think she was a real piece of work.
Not that it mattered; her hopes for spending the next seven days turning Mason into Mr. Right Now for her pleasure and for the book were dashed.
She doubted he would be interested in anything with Mr. Nosebleed on the couch. And even if he was, she wasn’t. She had a rule: one man at a time.
“Are you in...” She grasped for the right word, finally choosing, “Sales?”
Tyler shrugged. “More or less.”
Sighing, Casey said, “We’ll get to that later.”
Right after she killed Jane. How could she do this? Setting Casey up with a guy was one thing, making sure they were sharing a room was quite another. She was capable of getting her own men, thankyouverymuch, and deciding when to invite them in or leave them out in the cold.
“For now, let’s just say I know why you’re here.” At his surprised expression, she placed a wry grin on her face. “Jane spilled everything before I checked in. But that doesn’t mean anything--” She waved her hand between them. -“Is going to happen between us.” She picked up the trash can filled with tissues. “Does this happen much?” Casey wasn’t sure if she meant the nosebleed or rooming with a client. Thankfully, he didn’t ask.
Lounging against the sofa, Tyler said, “Hardly ever. It usually only kicks in when I’m in a dry climate. The last time I visited my folks in Arizona I practically needed a blood transfusion.”
She watched out the window as the ship began to make a slow turn toward sparkling blue water. “But this is southern Florida. We’re on the ocean. It’s not dry here.”
He shrugged. “I know. That’s why this is so weird.”
A tiny giggle bubbled up from her chest, then grew to a full-blown belly laugh. Really, this was too much. First getting dumped, then that crazy headline in the paper and Jane’s revelation. She thought she found Mr. Right Now, and went so far as to attack him in the elevator, only Mr. Right Now wasn’t in the elevator. He was bleeding all over her bed. It was just her luck to get stuck with a nose-bleeding escort. A man now looking at her like she had grown two heads.
Great, he thought she was nuts. Perfect.
Two sharp raps on the door interrupted her thoughts. Motioning to him to stay on the couch, she walked to the door. Maybe January found a spare room. Or would invite Tyler to share her own cabin.
Mason Drury lounged in the doorway. Thumbs tucked in his front pockets, shoulder supporting his weight against the jamb, legs crossed at the ankle. He looked like an Obsession ad.
Double crap.
She scooted forward a few more inches, pulling the door closed along with her. Angling her body so he-- hopefully--couldn’t see around her to the warm male body on her couch, she smiled.
“Mason. What a surprise.” Great line, Case. You must be a writer.
“I decided six o’clock was too far away, and I wanted to see if you got that cell phone removed from your hand yet.”
Holding out her hands, Casey asked, “As you can see, the surgery went fine.” The phone was once again buried in the bottom of her bag. She’d never answered the earlier call. It was probably just Jane reminding her to take a chance, and she was already doing that on her own.
Mason pretended to examine her palms, his index finger tracing the life line and sending a shiver up her spine.
She needed to get him out of here. Away from bloody tissues, and questions from a male escort. Or his questions about why she needed a male escort.
Or her own questions about why Jane had started this whole crazy thing.
Jerking her hands away from him, she blurted, “Let’s go get that drink.”
He raised one eyebrow. “Don’t you want to know why I’m here, first?”
“Doesn’t really matter. I’ll just get my bag,” she said, slipping back through the door and shutting in it his face.
She looked from her bag to Tyler's questioning gaze. She grabbed a couple of tissues and pressed them in his hand. “I’ll be back and we can figure this all out.” Before he could reply, she escaped out the stateroom door.
She took two steps down the hall before she realized Mason wasn’t following. “Aren’t you coming?”
“Sure. I just thought we might need to talk about this before we dive right in,” he said, rubbing one hand over the back of his neck. “I don’t usually do this kind of thing. I mean, we both have our reasons for being on this ship. I’m here for work, but that will be simpler if we...uh, talk first.”
The world tilted and she flung her right hand against the wall to steady herself. “Work?” The words came slowly from between her lips.
His face darkened. Was that a blush?
“Well, I mean we...we both know what this is about.” He stumbled over the wo
rds. “It can still be fun. I mean, I’m all about enjoying my work, but I usually lay down some ground rules. For both our protection.”
Jane was dead. Absolutely. Positively. Dead.
She set up this fiasco by hiring an escort, and now Casey had a nose bleeding nerd in her room, and a blushing stud outside her door. Either could be her escort, and both of them were leading to nothing but trouble.
Her cell phone buzzed inside her bag. Before Mason could stumble over his we-need-to-lay-down-somegroundrules- speech anymore, she held up her finger for silence and flipped open the phone.
“There is big trouble, Casey. You’ve got to get off that boat.” Jane’s voice was bordering on hysterical. Casey had never heard her agent be anything but calm and supportive. This new Jane sent chills up and down her spine.
“I can’t get off the boat, Jane. We’re already underway.” Had been for some time, because when Casey had gone inside to grab her purse, she’d seen only a shrinking Miami outside her window.
“This is all my fault. I should have never suggested this. Should have just let you slink away and hide out in your apartment. The reporters would have gotten bored eventually. I could have brought you take out and we could have bashed stupid Nate.”
Bam, bam, bam. Was Jane hammering her desk?
“What’s going on Jane? We’ll handle it.” She smiled at Mason and shrugged her shoulders as if to say, “Hey, we all have someone we have to take care of.”
Mason jiggled his head and grinned back at her.
Casey tried to decipher Mason’s attempt at sign language.
He walked the fingers of his right hand across his left palm, asking if she wanted him to leave.
No.
Yes.
Hell, she didn’t know. Shaking her head, she again focused on Jane, just in time for her world to explode.
“There’s a reporter on board with you.”
Casey fought down the bubble of panic rising in her throat. “But you’re the one that keeps telling me all press is good press.”
“Not this kind,” Jane said.
Chapter Three