That was it—she was done being nice. Kate nodded slowly. “Look dude, if I’m not mistaken, my so-called best friend spent close to two grand to send me up here to get in touch with the life force and sniff the dirt and some other ridiculous New Age bullshit, and I’ll tell you what’s inconvenient—me standing out here on this porch freezing my ass off at one in the morning, all the while trying to deny the fact that I have to piss like a racehorse.” She yanked up on the handle of her roller suitcase and a loud clack cut through the still night air. The dog barked again. “How about you let me in now? Will that work for you?”
The door opened further still. She saw a long leg clad in a baggy, forest-green pajama bottom. “Did you take the shuttle up from Santa Fe?” he asked, peering over her shoulder.
“Of course, I did!” Kate didn’t know how many more seconds of patience and continence she had left in her. “You don’t see any rental car out here, do you? What’s with the interrogation? Just let me in, please!”
The rough pine door creaked as it opened wide. All rightee, then, Kate thought to herself. The narrow opening hadn’t revealed the overall hottie index of the man with the unshaven face and substandard manners. He was gorgeous, in a rumpled, naked-from-the-waist-up kind of way. His hair was a messy mop of nearly black curls, pressed flat on one side. His feet were pale, long, and narrow, peeking out from under the lounge pants. His chest was covered in dark curls, his build lean and hard but not bulky. His waist was tapered and his abs were ripped. His upper arms were defined.
“Oh, well. Follow me, I guess.” He let her in, shut the door behind her, and turned. Kate noticed immediately that he was just as fine going as he was coming. He had a tightly sculpted behind, and she might have been cold, tired, and in desperate need of indoor plumbing, but she was still able to appreciate the view revealed by the loose drape of his drawstring pants.
The wheels of her suitcase clacked along the tiled floor as she followed him. He led her across a large, cold lobby that offered no welcome. He walked right through a rounded archway to a dim hall littered with chairs, desks, and ladders. Kate followed the man into an alcove, starting to sense that there was something very wrong with this picture.
She could hardly believe it when the hottie paused to scratch the seat of his pajamas before he flipped on a light.
“Sleep tight, Miss Dreyfuss.”
Kate stared, incredulous, first at the room and then at the man. He’d just gestured toward an unmade, plainly carved four-poster bed, burgundy cotton sheets rumpled, and pillows newly indented. The room smelled of wood smoke, night air, and maleness. It was chilly. A book entitled Earth Voices was opened face down on the bed. The hottie grabbed it and tossed it onto the nightstand.
“See you in the morning,” he said, heading back out into the hallway.
Kate whipped around. “Stop right there!”
He did stop, then turned and stared at her, blinking again. He yawned. “Yeah?”
“Is this some kind of joke?” She spread her arms out to her sides and laughed nervously. “Did Monica put you up to this?”
He frowned at her, then his face relaxed into a smile. “Monica Taraborelli?” He laughed. “Oh, right. You’re the high-strung chick she was telling me about.”
Kate brightened sarcastically. “And thank heavens she did, otherwise you might not have been expecting me!”
He nodded, squinting at her. “Cool. Well, I’ll make breakfast for you in the morning before you head back.” He turned again.
“Just a minute!” This was horrible. She had to pee so bad her brain was short-circuiting. And she realized her voice was coming out in a very unflattering screech, but she couldn’t help herself. “You expect me to stay in here? This is your room! What kind of woo-woo operation is this? What about that brochure I received going on about how to ‘unwind your spirit and take a pilgrimage into your own landscape’? I reserved a private room with a queen-size bed! I paid for a group tour! I opted to experience the deep relaxation of the optional hot-freakin’-stone massage! You can’t just dump me in what is obviously your own bed! And go back where? Is this an episode of The Twilight Zone?”
The man had leaned against the doorjamb while she’d had her temper tantrum, and Kate couldn’t help but notice how the muscles in his abdomen rippled with the slight movement. He crossed one foot lazily over the other. “Well, first of all—”
“Who are you? What is your name?”
He sighed deeply and folded his arms over his chest. In the light, his biceps looked even more impressive. “My name is Rod Serl—”
“Not funny.”
He chuckled, then cleared his throat when he realized she wasn’t going to join in. “Yeah. Okay. My name is Jorey Matheny and you were correct—that’s my bed right there. In fact, Miss Dreyfuss, that’s the very bed I was sleeping in when you began pounding on my door, cussing loud enough to wake the ancestors. And this is my lodge. And I wrote every crappy word in that brochure you liked so much.”
Kate felt slightly ashamed for her attitude. But just slightly. “And?”
“And what?”
“What’s your point? Where’s my room? Where are the eight other quote-unquote ‘pilgrims’ in this group tour?”
Jorey turned away, grabbed the doorknob, and began to pull it closed. “Good night, Kate. We’ll deal with the details in the morning. Let’s hope you’ll be less cranky by then.”
“Hold it!” She launched for him, clamping her hand down on his. “Tell me right now what’s going on. I demand an answer!”
Jorey extricated his fingers from her grip and sighed. “The thing is, Kate…” He paused to stretch and yawn yet again, causing the drawstring waist to fall even lower on his hips. She thought she’d faint. “The pilgrimage you signed up for was last month. I wondered why you were a no-show.”
“What?”
“You got the dates mixed up. Windwalker Lodge is in the process of a complete renovation. We’re in the off-season. There are no rooms available because they’ve all been gutted for new plumbing, heating, cooling, and wiring.” He nodded toward the rumpled comforter. “That right there is the only bed in the place. The furnace is not working at the moment, but I do have electricity and running water. And extra blankets. Sweet dreams.”
With that, he was gone.
* * *
When she shuffled into the lobby at about nine the next morning, it appeared her sleep had been anything but sweet. Kate Dreyfuss was wearing a pair of tight, black yoga pants that hugged her slim hips and flared below her knee, topped with a lime green scoop-neck T-shirt that cast an unflattering glow on her pale skin. She had dark circles under her eyes and, in the morning light, he could tell that the bridge of her nose was swollen. She looked like a size-six prizefighter. And a braless one at that. Maybe there were perks to having an unexpected girl guest in an unheated lodge.
“Breakfast, Kate?”
She hadn’t seen him, and she jolted in surprise, her brow creased with a frown. “I don’t do breakfast,” she snapped. “And you shouldn’t go around sneaking up on people like that.”
Jorey glanced down at his motionless legs, casually spread wide before him and planted on the floor in front of his decidedly unmoving chair. Obviously, the night had done nothing to improve her demeanor. But he caught the flicker of interest in her expression as she eyed his steaming coffee mug.
She nodded toward his beverage. “Is it halfway decent stuff?”
Jorey set down the mug and pushed himself to a stand. “Well, now, Miss Dreyfuss, you’re at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo mountains about ten miles out of beautiful downtown Chimayo, New Mexico, perhaps the last inhabited place on earth untouched by a Starbucks. But sure, it’s decent enough. Soy milk?”
Jorey heard her chuckle as she followed him into the kitchen. “Two sugars, two creams, but only if you have half and half. If you only have the powdered crap or if you aren’t joking about the soy, then you can just skip it entirely and make it thre
e sugars.”
“Sugar will rot you from the inside out.”
“So will caffeine, so don’t give me any of that vegan granola garbage.”
He poured her a big mug, shaking his head slowly, wondering why it was that this obnoxious woman made him smile, taking pleasure in the fact that he didn’t plan to tell her it was decaf.
“Here you are, Princess. No cream. No sugar. I aim to please.”
She laughed.
Jorey watched her cradle the big brown mug to her little pink lips. If it weren’t for the dark circles and the off-kilter nose, she’d easily be one of the most beautiful women he’d ever shared air molecules with. Her hair was a rich, almost black brown, straight and glossy. Her eyes were ice blue. She was built like a dancer. Too bad the energy pouring off of her was that of frenetic distress.
Jorey saw her appraising the kitchen he’d made with his own hands. She glanced at the pine cabinets and let her fingertips graze across the chocolate marble countertop. “Cute place,” she said. “Now get me out of here.”
It was Jorey’s turn to laugh, mostly at himself. After a fitful night of sleep on the floor in front of the fireplace, he’d already been up for three hours, watching it rain like it hadn’t rained since last April. And after five years in the high desert, he knew exactly what that meant—raging arroyos, dirt roads turned to quicksand, and a washed-out bridge at the end of his isolated lane. It also meant that the Mistress of Morning Joy over there wasn’t going anywhere for at least three days.
She scowled at him. “Don’t tell me this is decaf.”
“All right. I won’t tell you. Did you sleep well?”
“No. I do not sleep well as a rule, and I certainly didn’t last night. It was too quiet and I was freezing.”
“I see.”
“I need real coffee. We’re about an hour out of Santa Fe, right? Can I borrow your car?”
Jorey tried not to laugh, but was unsuccessful. The last thing this woman needed was caffeine. “I don’t have a car. I have a Land Rover.”
Her eyes lit up. “So do I! Well I did, anyway, before I totaled it. So I’m experienced.”
“Clearly.”
“All right. Fine. I’ll get my stuff and you can drive me back into town, then. My Blackberry isn’t working up here, so I’ll need to use your phone to call the airline.”
Jorey didn’t know which bit of good news to share with this woman first. She obviously wasn’t the type who was cool with things not going according to plan. Monica had mentioned that Kate was one of those go-getter sales types. It figured. He’d certainly known enough of them in his previous life.
“Miss Dreyfuss?”
“I’ll be packed in five minutes.”
She’d already turned toward the kitchen doorway. Jorey allowed himself a few leisurely seconds to watch her tight little ass as she scurried her way across the room. Then, still enjoying the view, he recited the facts to her as he knew them. “The phone lines are down. The bridge is washed out. The roads are flooded. We’re living on generator power at the moment.”
She stopped. She spun around. Jorey observed a wave of emotions wash over Kate’s face and flow out again, leaving in its wake an almost innocent stare.
“Pardon me?”
“Nobody’s going anywhere for a few days, unless you’re familiar with burros.”
“Burros? What the hell?”
He hadn’t been this amused in months. The way her mouth fell open and the way she blinked and the way she blindly reached for the counter to steady herself—it was entertaining.
She stared out the big kitchen window at the incessant rain and swallowed hard. “This shit cannot be happening,” she whined.
Jorey shrugged and took a few steps toward her, momentarily brightened by the hope that she might be handy with a circular saw, though he wouldn’t bet on it. “It’ll be all right.” He reached out to place a friendly hand on the bare skin of her elbow. The silky warmth he encountered reminded Jorey that Kate Dreyfuss was all woman—tense and angry and at least a decade younger than him, but all woman.
“Sweetheart, have you considered that this might be the divine spirit telling you to stop and smell the roses?”
Kate squinted at him, and Jorey could see the gears turning behind the creamy loveliness of her forehead.
“First of all, there are no roses up here.” She put the coffee mug on the counter and her hands on her hips, shaking his hand free of her elbow. “And even if there were, it wouldn’t matter because I can’t smell jack with my broken nose. Plus, that right there—” She pointed a manicured nail at the mug. “That is decaffeinated coffee, so don’t even try to lie to me. And the divine spirit can fuck off, and so can you.”
She spun around so fast that her hair whipped out around her, momentarily chasing away the chaotic aura of oranges, violets, and magentas Jorey had watched dance around her pretty head all morning.
He grinned, thinking that there were only a select few ways to break through an aura that unruly, and one of them involved lots and lots of sex.
“Shall I expect you for lunch?” Jorey called after her retreating form. As she slammed his bedroom door with finality, he realized he’d never made it in there to get clean clothes. The dirty jeans he’d found on the laundry room floor would have to do until she came out again.
* * *
She woke up completely disoriented. Nothing felt right and nothing felt normal. It wasn’t light but it wasn’t dark, and she let her eyes roam around the room, trying to put the pieces together. For an eerie moment, Kate’s mind floated, grasping for anything that would make sense, and when nothing came to her, she fancied herself the heroine in one of those Lifetime Television amnesia movies—What day was it? Where was she? What time was it? Oh God, what was her name?
Then the scent hit her nostrils—wood smoke and cold air and that man—that Jorey Matheny guy with the horrendous manners and even worse coffee. She squeezed her eyes tight and rolled over, pressing her face into the pillow, but all that served to do was force the scent of that man further into her brain.
Kate wanted to go home. She wanted her life back—the one where she juggled sixty million dollars in public relations accounts. The one where she spent weekends in Palm Springs with Brad. She wanted the life where Brad told her she was the most amazing woman in the world, the one where her nose and her car weren’t smashed up, where her dad wasn’t recovering from a triple bypass, and her brother wasn’t asking for her recommendations on leg-waxing salons.
That life.
There was a tap at the door. “Miss Dreyfuss?”
“Leave me alone.”
“I brought you some soup. You’ve been sleeping all day.”
“No thanks.”
“You have to eat. It’s vegetable barley. I made it two months ago.”
She rolled her eyes. “So you’re trying to kill me?”
She heard his laugh from behind the door. It was a rumbling, happy sound. “The soup was in the deep freezer, Princess. I heated it up so it’s nice and hot.”
She raised her face from the pillow, feeling her exhaustion spread deeper into her bones. She wondered why she felt so tired—shouldn’t so much sleep be rejuvenating? What was wrong with her? She tried to remember what she’d read about the symptoms for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Or fibromyalgia. “I’d rather have a double bacon cheese. Where’s the nearest In-N-Out Burger?”
“Probably down the street from the Starbucks.”
Kate snorted. With a sigh of effort, she pushed herself up in bed, rubbed her hands over her face, and raked her fingers through her hair. She was being a selfish, spoiled bitch and she knew it. Well, tough. Maybe that’s all she was—an über-bitch—and she’d never be anything more, no matter how hard she tried. That’s what Brad had said, just before he’d run off and married some bimbette just this side of puberty.
“Come on in, I guess.”
She saw the scuffed toe of his cowboy boot first, easing the door ope
n enough that he could step through, one hand carrying a tray and the other a stack of magazines. She was about to tell him to set everything down and get lost, when she noticed his jeans. As he walked over to a table by the window and pulled it toward the bedside, she observed how the worn and pale denim pulled softly against his narrow hips, rounded butt, and lean thighs. There was a slight tear in the left knee and a few drops of dark paint on the right leg just above the ankle. And the way they seemed to cradle what was hiding behind the zipper … Kate swallowed hard, trying not to stare.
Suddenly, he was standing right beside the bed, looking down at her. My God, the man was extraordinary. The clean, white smile and that single deep dimple on his right cheek made him look like a kid. The salt-and-pepper stubble and the self-assured set of his broad shoulders made him seem much older.
But it was the peaceful awareness in those dark eyes that suggested Jorey was far more than he was letting on. And all Kate could wonder was what was a man this fine doing hiding in the middle of Southwestern Bum-Fuck?
“How old are you, Jorey?”
“Old enough to know better. How about you?”
She supposed she should be offended, but she’d started the conversation. “The same. At least most of the time.”
“Ah. Then we understand each other.” Jorey’s lips spread wide and his eyes lit up. He wasn’t shy about letting his gaze stray from her face to her uncovered shoulders, upper arms, and …
Kate pulled the sheet up under her chin, suddenly aware that the combination of the cold air and the hot man was making a spectacle of her chest.
“Don’t bother, Princess. I noticed those happy little girls first thing this morning.” Jorey arranged the tray and magazines, smile still intact.
Kate remained calm, determined not to produce the shock he was clearly fishing for. In a pleasant voice, she said, “Not especially interested in the social niceties, are we?”
“I got expelled from charm school. That’s why they sent me up here.”
Real Men Do It Better Page 8