EXCERPT
FROM OPPOSITE OF FROZEN, WHICH ALSO FEATURES MR. VINCE LEE:
Oliver had been fighting a sense of looming chaos, and winning, until they pulled the half-frozen girl from the cargo hold.
He’d left the hospital with enough time to load all fifty-one passengers from the retirement village, plus luggage, onto the tour bus in Edmonton. He’d refereed a dispute over the merits of the two Elvises by declaring the King the winner, naturally. When mechanical troubles stranded them on the side of the road for hours, and far from the prebooked luncheon restaurant, he’d sprung for pizzas from the nearest town. He led the retirees in a rousing version of 99 Bottles of Bran on the Wall, reasoning that camp songs were as likely to work for the gray-haired as the young. He hadn’t even broken a sweat when one of the elderly ladies informed him, quite seriously, that he might be young and handsome, but his humor was perverted and condescending.
Then came the moment at the hotel in Harmony, when he was coaxing Mrs. Williams down the first of the bus’s steps.
Ninety-five-year-old Mrs. Horton, one of the more mobile passengers, and therefore among the first to disembark, tapped him on the shoulder with her cane.
“I’ll be with you in a minute,” Oliver said, and dug deep for patience.
Mrs. Horton had come at him from his blind side, which always rattled him. And her cane, with its icepick end, came close to scraping his glasses. Besides, why was she here, troubling Oliver, instead of taking full advantage of the rest stop? They had a long drive ahead to reach the hotel in Golden.
“Better hustle your fanny,” Mrs. Horton said. “Bus driver’s got a half-froze gal back there.”
“It’s February,” Mrs. Williams said, and if anything, slowed her descent. “I’m cold. You’re cold. Everybody’s cold.”
Mrs. Horton had begun to hobble away, but at this pronouncement, she paused and rested both hands on the handle of her cane. She fixed Oliver with a baleful eye. The pink, knit flower at the front of her cap quivered with what had to be indignation, since Parkinson’s wouldn’t have the gall to inflict itself upon her.
“Now I’ve done my job on account of I’ve delivered the message. If you want her all the way dead, guess that’s up to you.” She turned away.
It took a moment for the words to compute. When they did, Oliver fastened Mrs. Williams’s hand to the railing, abandoning her on the lowest step of the bus. “Wait here. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Unacceptable.” Mrs. Williams sputtered. “I’m in urgent need of the biffy.”
“Young man,” called one of the Hofstadter twins from behind Mrs. Williams.
Was that Mavis or Avis? Oliver hadn’t sorted them out yet.
“Young man, where are you going? We’ve been stuck in this contraption for hours. Now we’re just supposed to stand here?”
A small crowd had gathered near the back end of the bus, where they had stored items requiring rapid access. Oliver pushed through, being careful not to bowl anyone over. All they needed was for someone to break a bone.
He climbed over a sea of discarded walkers and canes to get to the bus driver. Buck lay on his belly, his head and torso inside the cargo hold, giving Oliver an eyeful of uniformed legs and backside.
Oliver dropped to his knees and performed a lousy version of the Marine crawl, so as not to bang his head on the bus’s innards.
In the diesel-scented gloom, a large child—no, woman?—lay curled on her side in a nest of clothing. She wore a child’s unicorn hat. Buck’s meaty hand shook her shoulder in an attempt to rouse her, but only had the effect of stirring her hair as it lay in a curtain across her face.
“Miss? Wake up, miss.” Buck turned towards Oliver. “I don’t know what she’s doing here, Mr. P. I can’t think how she would have gotten in.”
“That’s a conversation for later.” Oliver shucked his gloves. The first priority was to determine whether he should call for the ambulance or coroner.
He pushed her hair back off her face. In the gloom he could see her eyes were closed and she was so pale she almost glowed. In contrast, her lips were a dark blue.
Something tickled at the back of his memory. Could carbon monoxide be responsible? He slid two shaking fingers under the collar of her puffy jacket to skin that was scarily cold. She had a pulse, thank goodness. Weak and slow, but a pulse nonetheless.
“She’s alive,” Oliver said. “Let’s keep her that way.”
It took a few minutes, and before it was over, Oliver banged his head hard enough to feel nauseous, but between the two of them they worked her out of the hold.
As he stood, bracing her in his arms, first her unicorn hat fell off and then a stocking cap, revealing dark hair striped with cobalt blue.
In the fading sunshine, she looked older than he’d thought. Mid-twenties, maybe. Old enough to know better than to sneak aboard an unheated space during a Canadian winter. In his arms, she felt as light as her down-filled jacket.
“Oh, my,” one of the tour group said, pressing in closer. “A stowaway. How exciting.”
“Someone likes stripes.”
“And horns.”
“That’s my unicorn hat,” came from another. “That was in my suitcase for my granddaughter.”
Which explained the nest of clothing. At some point, the stowaway must have rifled through the accessible luggage, looking for ways to stay warm. Why in hell hadn’t she called for help? Oliver closed his eyes. Perhaps she had, at that. Had she lain there, freezing to death in pizza-scented air, while they sang cheeky drinking songs?
The orange-haired Hofstadter twin had found her way off the bus and now muscled her way toward him.
“Let me through, people. I’m a nurse.” Her voice had a volume and pitch calculated to convey authority, and the seniors obediently parted. Upon arrival, she repeated Oliver’s actions searching for a pulse, looking a thousand times more competent than he probably had. She nodded briskly.
They were joined by the blond twin. “Why, it’s the girl from the pharmacy in Edmonton,” she exclaimed. “She helped carry my bags to the bus. I thought she left. She even said goodbye.”
Making it a good five hours she’d spent in the hold. Oliver wanted to groan. He nodded toward the girl’s mouth. “Please tell me that’s lipstick,” he said to the nurse.
She swiped a gloved finger over the stowaway’s face and flashed a grin of triumph. “Yup. Our girl has a Goth sense of fashion.”
As if the nurse’s pronouncement had flipped a switch, the figure in his arms stirred. Her lashes opened, revealing a pair of unfocused eyes the color of wet spring leaves. She began to shudder, as if she’d swallowed an unbalanced washing machine.
Oliver had to shift her to avoid dropping her.
“That’s a good sign, lovey,” the nurse cooed to the stowaway. “You just keep that up. Shivering raises the body temperature.” She trained a laser-like gaze upon the waiting hotel, its sandstone exterior a glowing rose color in the setting sun. “Right. Time to get her warm.” Her voice whipped forth once again. “Make way, people. We have to get her inside.”
“Draft a few stronger men to get the others off the bus,” Oliver said, to an anxious-looking Buck. Then Oliver followed the nurse, conscious of the blond twin trailing behind like a pale shadow.
The nurse cut a brisk path towards the entrance, and activated the assisted doorway. Oliver had an impression of a well-appointed lobby with an old-world feel before the nurse halted at a bank of chairs.
“You.” She addressed a woman who vaguely resembled Betty White, and who wore a dark fur coat with a queen-like air. “Are you familiar with the hotel? I need immediate access to a room with a bed.”
The woman took one look at Oliver and his burden before rising smoothly. “We’ll use my suite.”
A large-eared man wearing a bellhop uniform had been advancing upon them.
“Gill, the elevator,” she called to him.
He headed for the call button.
“Wait,” Oliver said. “Can we use that?”
The bellhop’s gaze followed the direction of Oliver’s, to an empty luggage rack, and then bounced back to Oliver. Oliver saw him take in the group’s absence of luggage, Oliver’s burdened arms, and Oliver’s intent. Gill’s face instantly assumed the bland expression of the professionally polite. “Of course, sir.”
His expression didn’t alter while he helped Oliver sit and pivot, so Oliver could place his back to the rack’s cross bar. They maneuvered the shivering woman until she lay in Oliver’s lap, his arms and legs wrapped around her to keep her extremities safe.
But as they were wheeled onto the elevator, Oliver could see what Gill was thinking—what they were all thinking—and knew the familiar sting of shame.
Look at the biceps on that guy. Look at his tan. Why doesn’t he just carry her instead of acting like a wimp?
The thing was, especially when you had years of baseline fitness behind you, health challenges didn’t necessarily result in a fragile appearance. And in Phoenix, you only had to be breathing to acquire skin color.
The others piled into the elevator.
Only then did Oliver realize the enormity of what they were doing. “Shouldn’t we call 911, or whatever you people have up here?” Oliver said.
The nurse looked over her shoulder, the one visible eyebrow raised. “Shouldn’t you know how to summon help before taking elderly tourists to the Rockies?”
Oliver opened his mouth, but what could he say that was defensible? This isn’t my usual job. I was gang-pressed into helping at the last minute. That was true, but while waiting on Shawn in the hospital, Oliver should have asked the important questions. If he’d gone into a game with such lackadaisical prep, Smithy would have benched him for half the season.
The girl in his arms stirred. “No…” She appeared to be having trouble making her mouth form words. “No, nnnnnno hospital. Nnno doctors.”
With a ding, the elevator announced they had arrived at the top floor. The fur-coated lady led the way, then the twins while the bellman pushed Oliver forward.
He still wasn’t convinced he was doing the right thing.
But the stowaway was getting better, wasn’t she? Oliver could call 911 from the room as easily as the lobby. Besides, she might sound like a drunken monkey, but she’d gone from unconscious to conscious to opinionated in minutes—in no time at all, she’d be acting like a normal female.
The Betty White lookalike stopped in front of a door and swiped a keycard in the lock, standing back to let the nurse in first.
The suite was large and clearly occupied on a long-term basis, with homey touches you wouldn’t otherwise see in a hotel room. One of them—a small white Shih Tzu—yawned from her cushion in a wicker basket. She padded over to greet her owner with a woof.
To the left, a bathroom with a tub was visible past the bedroom area. Oliver struggled to his feet, the woman still in his arms, and headed in that direction.
The nurse’s military-grade voice lashed out. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To put her in the bath,” Oliver said.
“So you want to kill her then?” She tossed a capacious handbag into an armchair. Both hands set to removing her scarf and bulky coat, which were likewise discarded. At a wordless gesture from her, the blond twin began to follow the nurse’s example.
Oliver froze. “That wasn’t the plan, no.”
“Just checking. Because if you warm up her extremities too quickly, you’ll send all that cold blood straight to her heart and blam!” She clapped her hands with grim satisfaction. “Cardiac arrest.”
Right. Though Oliver never had cause to worry about treating hypothermia in his life, it was starting to come back to him. Along with the usual remedy…
“You’re going to use body heat to revive her?” he asked, in case he was mistaken.
The nurse nodded brusquely.
“Don’t worry.” The blond twin was seated at the edge of the bed, working off a boot. “Mavis might have a ghoulish sense of humor, but she worked up north for years and handled oodles of hypothermia.” She paused thoughtfully. “Why, one time she was the only nurse on duty—not even a doctor around, can you imagine?—when two snowmobiles of teenagers went through the ice on Lesser Slave Lake—”
“He doesn’t care about that,” Mavis said. “He’s too upset about our blue beauty to want to hear my war stories. You,” she said to the fur-coated lady. “Strip back the covers so Oliver can set our girl down. He’s getting tired.”
The woman, who had been murmuring something to the bellman, handed Gill a pink leash and moved to obey. “My name is Mrs. Arbuckle, not You,” she said indignantly.
“Pleased to meet you.” To get out of Mrs. Arbuckle’s way, the blond twin shifted to the armchair and attacked her second boot.
Mrs. Arbuckle pulled back the covers on the king-sized bed to reveal snowy white sheets.
To the stowaway, Mavis cooed, “Poor dear. So cold. At least you’re shivering. If not, we’d have no choice but to send you to the hospital.”
Oliver was dimly aware of the bellman leaving, the dog preceding him at the end of her leash like a small, shaggy mop.
He set the stowaway down and resisted the urge to check his vision. That could wait for another few minutes.
Meanwhile, there was all this surplus clothing to remove. At least the layering proved she wasn’t a total ninny. He removed three pairs of mittens and counted four layers of clothing under her puffy jacket, three of which he doubted belonged to her. Between the colors and styles, they looked like relics of the eighties.
He reached what was likely the bottom level—a long tunic made of sweater fabric in gunmetal gray, with leggings to match.
The blond twin had come closer to watch and now stood in her blouse and panties. She spoke to the stowaway. “I’m not one to criticize another person’s color choices, but do you realize, dear, that you look like a bruise?”
Until now, the stowaway had lain passively as Oliver removed her clothing. But as he reached under the tunic to find her waistband, she stirred and swatted his hands.
“I’ve got this, Oliver,” Mavis said. To Mrs. Arbuckle she said, “If you aren’t getting naked, it’s time to leave.” As if that wasn’t sufficiently presumptuous, she added, “We’ll let you know when we’re done with your room.”
Mavis crossed her arms and seized the lower front edge of her sweater. “Now, unless you want to get an eyeful of something that needs ironing, I suggest you run for the hallway.” She threw back her head and laughed.
Oliver was chased out of the room by the blond’s answering cackle.
LUST ABROAD
WHITLEY COX
Piper Valentine knows all too well that life is short. Off to Peru to heal after a grievous loss, she finds more than solace in the hot, charismatic travel journalist sitting across from her on the airplane. Derrick King’s had a brush with death, too, but he has no idea that he’ll face it again — and again — after giving in to his instant attraction to Piper. Their journey to the top of the world, filled with parties, humor, and fun, is turned topsy-turvy as they’re pursued by mysterious gunmen.
* * *
Determined to reach Machu Picchu and fulfill her promise to her dead husband, Piper finds that having Derrick along makes her feel safer, even as his lust for her endangers her heart. She’s never found another man so sensual, and with danger on their trail, they keep ending up in each other’s arms. Derrick’s a man with needs — and secrets. Will Piper find strength in surrender? And can Derrick find a way to believe in a future — for both of them?
For Elissa and Matt.
Who actually did rescue me from a police station in Miraflores, after we’d been robbed.
Sometimes the best people and truest friends can be discovered in the most trying of times.
I *heart* my Canadian Heroes. Thank you!
Oh, and for Smokey, Beatrice, Jellybean and Molly-
&nb
sp; Never on our plates, but always in our hearts.
PROLOGUE
DERRICK
A s far as airports go, and I’ve been in a lot, this one’s not half bad. I made my way down the advertisement-riddled hallway toward my gate. With time to kill before boarding, I’d be able to sit with my laptop and get some work done. Lord knows I’m not back to one hundred percent yet and really need the extra time that Leon gave me to get this piece to him for the next issue.
Finally finding my gate number, I took up residence next to a column with a plug-in, capitalizing on the last free outlet slot. Despite the fact it was still a couple hours to boarding, the gate was already filling up with passengers, all of us bound for Lima, Peru, and probably at least seventy percent of us heading on to Machu Picchu.
Engrossed in editing the lighting on a photo of a spider monkey I took while in Boquete, I didn’t see the person next to me vacate their seat. But when the intoxicating scent of fresh oranges and hyacinth wafted toward me, and a flurry of bags, a flowy skirt, and blonde locks whirled past my downcast eyes, I couldn’t help but look up. Holy crap!
“Is this seat taken?” she asked, her voice breathy and sweet, while a healthy pink flush ran up her neck and bloomed across her cheeks. She had a camera bag slung over one shoulder, a smallish backpack hung around the other one, and a Boho shoulder bag draped around her neck like a feedbag for a pack mule. Was she running away from home?
She continued to stare at me, but then I guess it was because I was staring at her and had yet to answer. I licked my lips and shook the fuzzies from my brain. “Uh…no…go ahead.”
She nodded and smiled and with a dull thud flung her backpack down to the floor with a sigh. “Thanks.” She pulled the other two bags off and stored them at her feet.
Tropical Tryst: 25 All New and Exclusive Sexy Reads Page 163