Notorious

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  What a dope he was. If he hadn’t been such a stiff-necked jerk in the beginning, he might have established a bond between them by now, one she wouldn’t feel so free to break. He couldn’t let her slip through his fingers, and he wouldn’t.

  But first he needed a few minutes of rest. Just a few. He stretched out on the big empty bed and figured on staying there a maximum of thirty minutes. Then he’d go back out and look some more.

  Many hours later he awoke with a start to find sunlight streaming into the room. He glanced at his watch and groaned. Nearly noon.

  Leaping out of bed, he showered and shaved in record time. While he dressed in jeans and one of Clint’s denim shirts, he figured out where he had to start his search, where he would have gone the night before if he’d taken time to think about it.

  Not long afterward he walked into the Pussycat Lounge. “I’m looking for Keely Branscom,” he told the thin guy who offered to show him to a table.

  “Keely? I don’t think she’s coming by today, but I can check with Suzanne after her number’s over, if you’d like to have a seat.”

  Bingo. Anxiety and anticipation churned in his stomach. She wasn’t coming by today, the guy had said. That didn’t sound as if she’d landed a job here. He hoped to hell it didn’t mean she picked up clients at the Pussycat.

  But at least he’d found a link to her. That was the main thing. And once they’d connected again, she wasn’t going back to whatever it was she was doing. He’d be better off if he didn’t think too much about what that might be.

  Rock music from a faulty sound system blared and crackled as a brunette with large breasts shimmied topless for half a dozen customers scattered throughout the bar. She must be Suzanne, he decided. No doubt the dance was supposed to be arousing, but he was so eager to find out about Keely that he just wanted it to be over.

  Finally it was, and the brunette sauntered backstage while the men in the bar whistled and called for her to come back for an encore. Noah hoped she wouldn’t decide to perform one.

  Fortunately she didn’t. Moments later she walked toward Noah’s table wearing an oversize T-shirt to cover what passed as a costume. When she sat down across from him, her gaze and manner were direct. “Brad said you were looking for Keely. What for?”

  He’d expected that. “We grew up together,” he said. “I heard she was in town, so I’d like a chance to see her.”

  Suzanne didn’t seem totally convinced. “So where’s home?”

  “Saguaro Junction, Arizona. Her dad’s the foreman on the ranch I own with my brother, Jonas.”

  Her expression softened a little. “She mentioned Saguaro Junction to me, so I guess you could be legit. You look pretty honest to me.”

  “Thanks. I don’t mean her any harm.”

  “Probably not. But women like Keely and me have to be careful, you know? Guys can become, like, obsessed with us.”

  His gut clenched as he thought of the nutcases Keely might attract if she continued on her present course. “I’m sure that’s true.”

  “I guess there’s no harm in telling you where she’s staying, though.” She gave him the name of a midpriced hotel downtown.

  “Oh,” he said, unable to hide his surprise. The hotel wasn’t the best Las Vegas had to offer but it wasn’t the worst, either. He’d braced himself for some sleazy dive in a bad part of town.

  Suzanne smiled. “I know. I was surprised, too. You’d think Attitude! magazine would put out the bucks for someplace a little glitzier, huh?”

  “Attitude! magazine?” Noah’s thoughts scrambled. The only magazine he’d ever connected to Keely was Macho. He’d vaguely heard of the other one, and thought it was for twentysomething women, although he wasn’t absolutely sure about that.

  “Wait a minute.” Suzanne’s eyes narrowed. “You sound surprised, like you didn’t even know she’s working for them. If you’re such a good friend, how could you not know that?”

  The information hit him like a microblast, and he struggled to come up with an answer. “We’ve been out of touch.” She worked for a magazine. She’d let him believe that she was a call girl, and she was a reporter for a women’s magazine. She hadn’t needed saving at all, and she’d played him for a fool.

  Suzanne stood. “In that case, she might not want to see you. What did you say your name was?”

  “Noah. Noah Garfield.” Noah “the idiot” Garfield.

  “Noah.” She backed away from the table. “I’m going to call her and warn her you’re on your way. I shouldn’t have told you where she is, but at least they have good security at that hotel.”

  “You don’t have to warn her.” He felt completely betrayed. Sure, at first he’d thought this weekend would be an isolated event, but then…then he’d started to care about her. He’d thought they were building something between them, and all the while she’d been laughing at him. “She has nothing to fear from me.”

  “So you say. I’m going to call her, anyway. I should have done that in the first place.” Suzanne hurried away.

  Noah left the bar and stood in the sunlit street trying to get his bearings. As the shock began to wear off, anger moved in. She’d been toying with him, amused with his white-knight routine, determined to corrupt the man who was trying to save her.

  And she’d succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. He would dare anything now. He wondered if she could handle that. Maybe it was time to find out. As long as Suzanne was going to announce his visit, he might as well make it. He wouldn’t want to disappoint a lady.

  But he might make her wait a while, wait and wonder what he planned to do. He’d grab some breakfast. Something told him he was going to need his strength.

  15

  CAUGHT.

  Keely thanked Suzanne for calling and slowly hung up the phone. Then she began to pace her small hotel room while her stomach did flip-flops. Childhood lessons kicked in, telling her that being found out this way, with Noah learning the truth from a stranger, was much worse than if she’d confessed, herself. If she’d told him the truth when her cell phone had rung while they were in the suite’s bathroom, then he might have been able to laugh about the situation…eventually.

  But when he’d assumed the worst—that she used the phone to turn tricks—she’d let him believe that, figuring it served him right for leaping to conclusions.

  She’d still been into revenge at that stage. The sixteen-year-old who’d been rejected that night in the barn had wanted her payback. But now, after a sleepless night of missing Noah, she realized what she’d done to herself. The game had turned serious, and she’d fallen in love with him. Or, to be brutally honest with herself, she’d never fallen out of love with him. He’d been the only man she’d wanted for so long, and apparently he still was.

  Ever since she’d left the Tahitian, she’d tried to talk herself out of being in love with him. When she couldn’t sleep, she’d switched on her laptop and started her article, hoping that work would keep her from aching so badly. The laptop was still on, and she’d typed and retyped the first paragraph, but mostly she’d sat staring at the screen and thinking about Noah.

  Perhaps most irritating of all was the stupid X-rated screensaver that flashed on automatically whenever she stopped typing for a while. Talk about rubbing salt in her wounds. If only she had aquarium fish swimming on that screen.

  But she didn’t have fish. Instead, a little naked cartoon woman chased a naked cartoon man, shoved him down and hopped on top of him. After some vigorous movement she jumped off, the man leaped to his feet and chased her down for more of the same. The cycle continued endlessly. A girlfriend who was into computers had created it for her as a joke.

  This morning she wasn’t laughing.

  What a bummer of a weekend. For a few sweet hours she’d had Noah wrapped around her little finger. But that was history. Suzanne had said he looked stunned by the news that she was a reporter. Keely could just imagine. But once he recovered, he would be furious. He might leave Vegas wi
thout trying to see her, but she doubted it. No, he’d come to her hotel to give her a piece of his mind, and then he would leave, cussing her all the way back to Saguaro Junction.

  She wondered if he’d tell her father, B.J. or Jonas about this. Probably not, considering the sexual nature of their encounter. But if she’d secretly been considering going home for B.J.’s wedding, she could kiss that idea goodbye. Even if Noah didn’t say anything to the others, the tension she’d create on the ranch by reappearing would ruin B.J.’s wedding day, and Keely wasn’t about to do that.

  As she continued to pace she wondered how best to handle the confrontation with Noah. She could avoid it altogether by checking out of the hotel and moving to another one. She could even head for the airport and try to snag a flight to Reno this afternoon instead of going in the morning.

  But that seemed cowardly. At nineteen she hadn’t had the guts to face the music after her centerfold had appeared in Macho and she’d run away to L.A. Ten years later, she liked to believe she had more courage. Besides, what difference did it make if Noah yelled at her? It wasn’t as if they had a future together or anything.

  So she’d stay and wait for him to arrive. Because of the scene she anticipated, she’d better invite him up to the room. Dealing with his fury would be difficult enough without also putting on a show for every person in the lobby or the hotel coffee shop.

  If he’d taken a cab downtown, he could be here any minute. Her room was trashed, the bed unmade and the covers tossed aside during her hopeless attempt to sleep. A couple of towels lay on the floor from a long shower that had done nothing to relax her. She thought of making the bed and picking up the area, but that seemed way too anal.

  Then she glanced down at her outfit—her favorite knit tank top, the old white one she wore for writing because it was soft as a baby’s bottom, and yellow gingham stretch capris, also a writing favorite because, for some reason, she always felt more creative wearing them.

  Her clothes hadn’t helped her write so far this morning. Neither had a big pot of room-service coffee. With Noah on the way, she might as well give up.

  She thought about changing clothes now that she didn’t intend to work on her article anymore. But she had no idea what to wear for a fight. And she was sure that’s what they were about to have.

  Maybe she should put on makeup, too, except that she didn’t want to look as if she was coming on to him and make him even angrier. He couldn’t very well think she was being seductive if she met him looking like this—barefoot, no makeup and her hair pulled into a ponytail. Maybe that was exactly the look she needed for a fight. In this outfit, she felt stripped to the basic, with her gloves off. Lean and mean, ready for anything.

  She’d done an article on fair fighting for couples and the suggestions had sounded perfectly reasonable at the time. Now, as adrenaline poured through her system, the suggestions sounded ridiculous. To heck with fair fighting. Time to line up her defense. This whole thing wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t assumed she was looking for a job dancing topless and pompously tried to save her. Just who did he think he was, anyway?

  Yeah, no wonder she’d decided to teach him a thing or two. He’d been asking for it, behaving as if he had the corner on right living. Who made him in charge of the world? Suppose she had been a topless dancer and had loved her job? What right did he have passing judgment on her choice of career?

  Okay, she was geared up for this donnybrook now. Let him come. And speaking of that, where the hell was he? Traffic wouldn’t be that heavy right now, and if he’d come straight to her hotel from the Pussycat Lounge, he’d be here.

  So he hadn’t come straight to her hotel. That was a depressing thought. The only thing worse than having this fight with Noah would be not having it. She couldn’t believe he’d go back to Arizona without telling her what he thought of her behavior. He’d want to have the last word. Wouldn’t he?

  When another half hour passed and her phone hadn’t rung, she was nearly ready to stomp over to the Tahitian and find out what was keeping him. Damn it, he’d stirred her up and then left her to wear a path in the carpet. Surely he wouldn’t track her down and then drop the whole matter. That would be so diabolical, so unlike Noah’s direct approach to things.

  She was ready to scream with frustration by the time the phone finally rang. She snatched it up and uttered a curt greeting.

  “Keely, darlin’,” Noah drawled, “you sound upset.”

  “Where have you been?”

  He chuckled. “Not far away. Just having a bite to eat in the coffee shop of your hotel.”

  She couldn’t figure it out. He should be yelling, and he was chuckling. She was the one yelling. “How can you sit down there and eat at a time like this?”

  “I was hungry.” He sounded lazy and content…almost. But there was a subtle thread of tension underneath that casual tone.

  Her heartbeat slid into a faster tempo. The years had made a few changes in Noah’s behavior, apparently, because he wasn’t reacting the way she’d thought he would. She had to believe he was full-out furious, and yet he sounded loose and in control. All she had to go on was that hint of tension, which she might be imagining because she expected it to be there. “I guess…I guess you should come up so we can talk about this.”

  “That would be fine. But I don’t want to interrupt your work.”

  His voice tickled up and down her spine, making her shiver. “I’m not working.”

  “Then maybe you’re doing research.”

  “No.” Maybe it was his location holding him back. He didn’t want to yell at her while he was using the house phone in the lobby. Made sense.

  “Then maybe you’re testing the suggestions you made in your latest article,” he said smoothly.

  “Excuse me?” She was so nervous about this coming fight that she could barely remember her name, let alone what she’d written for the last issue.

  “I picked up one of your magazines in the gift shop and, sure enough, there was an article by you. I read it while I was eating. Learned quite a bit about multiple orgasms.”

  She swallowed. “Oh.”

  “The way I understand it, self-gratification is a big part of women learning how to have them.” He might have been discussing cattle prices, from the nonchalant way he said it. “I thought you might be practicing.”

  If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was sexually teasing her the way she’d teased him earlier in the weekend. But that didn’t seem like Noah, especially now, when he was so angry. She wished he’d start yelling at her, because then she’d know what to do. She’d figured out her side of the argument. But he wasn’t playing this according to her script and she was having trouble keeping her balance with the conversation.

  She cleared her throat. “Noah, what’s your point?”

  “It seems I underestimated you, Keely. You have a lot more talents than I was giving you credit for. I’m here to apologize for reading you so wrong.”

  “You are?” Now she was thrown completely off-kilter.

  “Absolutely. I’d like to make that apology in person, if you’ll give me your room number.”

  Maybe they were going to discuss this like two mature adults. No passion. Damn it, that didn’t feel right, but if that was his approach, she had to go along. You couldn’t fight with someone if they wouldn’t fight back, and it was up to him to strike the first verbal blow.

  She cleared her throat, determined to take the high road, too. “Noah, I should apologize, too, for leading you astray.”

  He laughed. “You certainly did lead me astray, darlin’.”

  Her skin flushed hot. And that sexy laugh rolled through her, doing all kinds of mischief. If only he didn’t have a sexy laugh. And a sexy voice. And a sexy mouth. “Actually, I meant for misleading you about my occupation.”

  “No apology necessary. There was a certain thrill involved, thinking that you were a bad girl. You taught me a lot about fantasies, Keely. I’m grateful
for that.”

  “Oh.” She rubbed her temple, which was beginning to throb with the promise of a headache. She’d introduced him to fantasy and now he’d probably use that knowledge to enrich his life with somebody else. She’d been useful. Triple bummer. “I see,” she said. “That’s very…nice.”

  “Give me your room number. I think it would be better to say these things to each other face-to-face.”

  If they were going to have a civilized discussion, she could just as easily meet him in the lobby, but she wasn’t really dressed for that. She gave him her room number.

  “Thanks. I’ll be right there.”

  She hung up the phone, totally confused. She’d expected him to blow sky-high on the phone, then demand her room number so he could yell at her some more in person. Instead, he was apologizing. Thanking her for introducing him to some fantasy concepts. Getting ready for a kiss-off speech.

  Oh, Lord, that was it. Thanks for the memories. It’s been a lot of fun. Bye.

  She felt sick to her stomach. This was the speech she’d been trying to avoid ever since they’d met in front of the Pussycat and he’d indicated he wanted to save her. She’d figured if she called the shots, she could make the speech instead of him and protect her heart at least a little.

  Even leaving the Tahitian hadn’t been all bad, because she’d been the one saying a silent goodbye. If Noah had stormed up to her room and raged at her before stomping out, that wouldn’t have been all bad either. Passion was never bad. Instead, he planned to deliver a calm, rational kiss-off speech. He sure knew how to hurt a girl.

  When he knocked on the door, she jumped and her heart began to pound. Well, she’d grown up in the years they’d been apart, too. She would simply beat him to the punch. Somewhere, she’d dredge up a few chuckles of her own as she told him what a fun and frivolous time she’d had this weekend. Years from now she’d be able to look back and laugh at how crazy they’d been, she’d tell him.