“A wedding dress our client is paying through the nose to locate.”
James wasn’t paying attention to them. Instead he was stepping through the small piles of clothing. A moment later he said, “Forgot one.”
Zach leaned closer. “If the dress is in there, that means the guy who got here before left without it.”
“Maybe he found the dress he was looking for.”
“Only one dress in this lot,” James said.
James unzipped the bag then flopped the lid open.
Sitting in the middle of wads of balled up tissue paper sat the wedding dress in question.
“Coincidence,” Mariah said.
“Fact,” Zach countered.
* * *
“WE’RE BEING FOLLOWED.”
Zach stared in the rearview mirror through the back window of the rental car, watching another sedan shadow their moves. He didn’t miss Mariah’s exasperated roll of her eyes.
“We’re not being followed. Maybe the driver is going to the same hotel we are. Have you thought about that?”
Zach sat forward and straightened his suit jacket. Ever since discovering that they were too late to catch the last flight out to Houston, Mariah had been a tad bit cranky. When he’d asked why, she’d said something about not having her toothbrush. Zach told her he always carried an extra and she was more than welcome to have it. He’d barely heard her murmur, “What kind of P.I. carries an extra toothbrush?”
Okay, so since Jennifer had first given him the case this morning, he’d felt a little let down that it had been something so menial, so unexciting. His meeting with Denton Gawlick and his wife had gone smoothly, no red bells. They were renewing their wedding vows next week and needed to have the dress, simple as that.
Then they’d arrived at the Unclaimed Baggage Center to discover someone else was looking for a wedding dress in a suitcase similar to the suitcase in which they’d found their dress. That is the client’s dress.
Zach pulled at his tie, which had grown a little tight around his neck. The mere mention of a “their” in the same sentence with “wedding dress” was enough to choke off air.
Hey, he was just as willing as the next guy to stand in front of an altar, only he intended to be ready for it when it happened. Of course his longtime girlfriend Kym had found out the hard way that he wasn’t anywhere near ready for it now. After two years of dating, of mingling their lives, she’d come out and asked him to marry her. That the proposal had come on the heels of his explaining to her what he planned to do, namely pass over control of his tool and die business and pursue what she subsequently called this “P.I. thing” hadn’t helped matters. That he didn’t want to get married had been his response. Kym hadn’t given him a chance to add the “yet” he was sure had been about to come out of his mouth. She’d up and walked out on him, never to be heard from again. Well, except for a voice-mail message telling him not to bother retrieving anything from her apartment because there was no longer anything there to retrieve. The whir of what he’d suspected was her garbage disposal on the other end of the line hadn’t sounded good.
“You’d think the rental car companies would make sure their vehicles had air-conditioning, wouldn’t you?” Zach said.
“That’s okay,” Mariah said, closing her eyes against the hot breeze wafting in the open window. “I don’t like air-conditioning anyway.”
Zach gazed at her. At the warm stains of color on her smooth cheekbones. The dots of moisture on her forehead and long, long neck. The way her damp T-shirt clung to her small breasts. Of course she’d say that. She was used to the heat south of the Mason-Dixon line. Dealt with it on a daily basis.
He settled back against the seat but he couldn’t say it was comfortable. The truth was, looking at Mariah Clayborn made him think of crisp sheets and sweaty bodies. Namely his and hers. Entangled together. Beads of moisture sliding down her elegant neck and over the crest of a breast and pausing there, waiting to be licked off.
“Are you okay?”
Mariah’s voice surprised him out of his reverie. “Yes, I’m fine.” If you counted being in a high state of arousal fine.
It wasn’t like him to be so…obsessed with the idea of sleeping with somebody. Of imagining how her thighs would look pressing against his hips instead of a horse’s back. Or how her mouth would purse just so as she fought to catch her breath.
Zach wiped the sweat from his brow.
“You don’t seriously think someone’s still following us, do you?”
Zach blinked at Mariah. She’d obviously tuned into his distracted state. But just as obviously she didn’t appear to have a clue as to the nature of his distraction.
“I don’t know,” he said.
He judged the hotel to be another mile or so down the road. Good. Because he didn’t think he could last another minute in a car alone with Mariah without either spontaneously combusting…or doing something a professional man shouldn’t be thinking about doing with a colleague, no matter how temporary that working relationship would be.
* * *
IF YOU TAKE ZACH LETTERMAN out in public, they will come.
As Mariah unpacked the entire inventory of her travel necessities—the toothbrush Zach had given her—she stared at herself in the dimly lit hotel bathroom mirror and sighed. Okay, so he was a striking man. Tall, lean with an air of self-confidence that could equal any rodeo cowboy’s. But Mariah couldn’t remember being around a man who attracted so much female attention. From the flight attendant hoping to be totally at his service, to the hotel clerk who had thrown in room amenities Mariah hadn’t known existed, Zach Letterman seemed to be a walking, talking billboard for male sexuality. Sure, she’d tuned into it the instant they’d met. But to be a victim of it, and having to witness how it affected others were two completely different things.
She ran her fingers through her hair, piling it up on top of her head then considering the results. Not that Zach seemed any the wiser for the attention. He had spoken to the clerk and the flight attendant the same way as he had to James, the flighty baggage caretaker. But she wasn’t entirely convinced that his being oblivious to his effect on women was any better than him knowing.
Of course it didn’t help at all that the women barely spared her a glance before writing her out of the picture altogether. No competition. She didn’t even have to see it written on their pretty faces. Their attitudes spoke volumes.
She sighed again and released her hair so it hung around her face again in thick, unruly waves. Not that being no sexual competition was anything new to her. She may have grown up competing with the males, but the females… Well, at first she hadn’t been interested in competing with them. Then there had come the time when she was so far behind in the imaginary competition she’d had to drop out of the race altogether.
Recently a confusing kind of restlessness had begun to coat her insides. A strange kind of itchy sensation, only it was under her skin, not on top where she could get at it. She caught herself scratching her arm and stopped. Had her exes found her sexy? Desirable? She figured they had, considering their physical attentions. But if that was so, where did that leave her in the sex appeal race? Did she have a minute amount that allowed her to go only so far, but just short of the altar?
Not that she was all that experienced. Sure, she’d been intimately involved with three men. Well, two. The first didn’t count because they’d never really had intercourse. Heavy breathing was about as far as things had gone with him, then he’d been in a hurry to drive her back to the ranch. She’d always thought it was because at the last minute he’d decided he hadn’t wanted to have sex with her.
And the other two…
Well, she didn’t want to think about them right now. She couldn’t change them. But she could change herself. She leaned forward and studied what looked like an oncoming zit on her c
heek. She made a face then eyed the travel-sized toothpaste tube. One of her cousins had put a dab on a pimple when they were teenagers. Personally, she had thought the action pretty gross. But now that she thought about it, she couldn’t remember Jolene ever really having a full-blown zit.
The mirror reflected the bed in the other room and the open suitcase sitting on top of it. Seeing the old lacy off-white dress lying there in clouds of tissue paper made her heart pitch to her feet. Justin Johnson was getting married. Tom Brewer had gotten married six months ago. And Jackson Pyle two years before that. And none of the three had ever mentioned the word marriage around her.
Mariah strode out into the other room, her intention to close the suitcase so she wouldn’t have to see the dress inside. Instead she stood in front of it, staring down at the lace with reluctant fascination.
The only other wedding dress she’d ever seen up close had been her mother’s. It had been tucked away in a box in the attic. The day after her mother’s funeral, she and her father had flown back from Amarillo, where her mother’s family was from and where her father had decided it was best she be buried. After they’d returned home, Mariah had hidden out in the old, dusty attic to get away from the nonstop stream of well-wishers and old women bearing casserole dishes. Up in the attic their voices had faded to an incomprehensible hum, and she’d looked out onto the stables, wishing she could be there instead. She’d leaned against a box only to have it collapse against her weight. She’d opened it up and, sitting on top of some old clothes, was the dress she’d seen her mother wearing in her wedding pictures. It had looked so tiny, so perfect. Just like her mother. And so unlike Mariah.
Three hours later, her father had found her sleeping in that same spot, an imprint from her mother’s dress on her cheek.
Mariah had found the dress again last year while clearing out the attic to make room for a home office for her father. When she’d opened the box, she found the dress looked no less perfect…and no less small. As she’d held the delicate fabric in front of her, she wondered if even at eight she’d been small enough to wear it.
Mariah reached out and rubbed the lace of the wedding dress between her thumb and index finger. She wasn’t sure of this dress’s history, but she was sure it had one. Although she knew that making new things look old was an art these days, she didn’t think anyone would want a dress to look this old. It appeared to be held together by sheer will alone.
What made a woman a woman? she wondered. What did they do that made men want them? Not just for short-term relationships but for the whole nine yards?
There was a soft knock at her door. Her heart shot up from the vicinity of her feet and she quickly closed the suitcase and stuffed it under the king-size bed, almost as if being seen in the same room with it would make her come up wanting even more. Then she crossed the room to open the door.
“Hi,” Zach said, seeming to fill the entire width of the hallway from where he stood her outside her door.
“Hi, yourself.”
“You ready to grab a bite?”
Mariah glanced back at her hotel room, thinking that the somber, empty appearance mirrored exactly how she was feeling right now. “Um, actually, I’m beat. I thought I’d, you know, just order something up from room service.”
In all honesty, she didn’t think she could weather another round of “Ooh, it’s a handsome guy” sure to come from the waitresses at any restaurant they went to.
“They have anything good?”
He walked into the room, leaving Mariah clutching the door handle tightly in her hand. “I don’t know. I haven’t looked yet. I thought I’d catch a shower first.”
A lie, to be sure. But right now she just wanted to be alone. Being around a man as strikingly attractive as Zach not only made her feel inadequate, he made her feel hot.
“Okay, then. How about I order from my room, you take your shower, then by the time you come over, the food will probably already be there?”
Didn’t the guy know how to take no for an answer?
Mariah rubbed her temple, feeling the thud-thud of her pulse pick up speed at the mere thought of spending more time around him. “Okay, sure. Why don’t you do that.”
Zach smiled at her and a strange longing filled her stomach. “Is there any food I should avoid ordering for you?”
“A burger and fries should be a pretty safe bet.”
“The works?”
Despite her misgivings, Mariah found herself smiling back. “Even the onions.”
Zach seemed to linger longer than was necessary for the simple exchange. Mariah tilted her head to stare at him. Finally he cleared his throat. “See you in twenty minutes then.”
“Twenty minutes.”
Mariah closed the door after him then collapsed against it, her breath catching in her throat. She wouldn’t fool herself into thinking that Zach had hesitated because he was attracted to her. That he felt even the tiniest fraction of the hectic emotions rolling through her. The thought was too difficult to contemplate.
“Time for a shower, Mariah. A cold one.”
* * *
ZACH COULDN’T exactly put his finger on it, but Mariah’s go-get-it demeanor had taken a nosedive since their drive to the hotel. He pulled his tie off and tossed it across the bed then rolled up his shirtsleeves, the air conditioner just beginning to cool the room to a livable temperature. Maybe it was as she said, that she was simply tired, but somehow he got the impression that the day’s activities weren’t nearly enough to tap into her reservoir of energy.
His gaze slipped to the king-size bed, then to the window where the sun was just sinking below the horizon. He couldn’t help thinking that her weariness was emotional rather than physical. The engaged ex? Probably so. He couldn’t imagine being on the other side of that equation.
Well, actually, yes, he could. Because a week after Kym had given him her marriage ultimatum, she’d been going out with someone else. And, it was rumored they would be making an engagement announcement soon.
How did he feel about that? Zach absently rubbed his neck. He really couldn’t say one way or another. He supposed a part of him was sad that Kym was no longer in his life. But he didn’t regret not agreeing to her demands. So much of his life was unsettled right now. He knew what he wanted, but there was a ways to go before he actually achieved it. And the thought of Kym with another man bothered him not at all.
Which should strike him as odd, shouldn’t it? You’re with a woman for two years and she’s seeing someone else. Shouldn’t that make him at least a little jealous? The thought of her being intimate with another man?
Odd that it didn’t.
Of course, Kym could never understand his need for family ties. Yes, she might be an only child, and her parents were divorced, but there was a big difference between her situation and his, where essentially every last member of the family he’d known was lost to him. His mother. His grandmother. His father.
No, his father wasn’t dead. Or maybe he was. He couldn’t say. When his dad had run out on him and his mother when he was four, he’d been rated as good as dead.
His gaze drifted as if on its own accord back to the large, empty bed, and his thoughts slid to the woman in the room next door. Mariah Clayborn. Now there was a woman he was completely unprepared for. Fresh. Vibrant. Her sexiness was innate, something woven in with her bones, not something worn or fussed with or made up. She was earthy and sassy and so downright sexy he couldn’t stop imagining laying his hands all over her compact body. Of kissing her kissable mouth and thrusting his fingers into all that thick, dark hair, tugging it back to allow him access to her delectable neck. A neck so elegant not even a T-shirt could hide it.
A knock at the door. Probably room service. He pulled the barrier open, but instead of a waiter he found Mariah looking him squarely in the face.
“You’re not really a P.I., are you?”
Zach blinked at her several times to make sure he’d heard correctly. “Hello to you, too. Why don’t you come on in?”
She eyed him almost warily, making him want to laugh, then swept past him into the room, leaving the subtle scent of hotel soap in her wake. She turned to face him, but before she could repeat her question, room service did appear. In the few minutes it took the waiter to set up the tray and for Zach to sign off on the check, he considered how he might respond to Mariah’s question.
Finally they were once again alone. Zach crossed his arms over his chest and grinned at her. “What gave me away? My lack of experience with a gun? Or that I don’t wear a gray overcoat?”
“None and both of the above.”
“Ah.”
A smile played at the corners of her unpainted mouth.
“You’re right,” he said, sitting at the desk table and indicating she should take the seat across from him. “I’m not a P.I. At least not yet, anyway.”
Mariah hesitantly sat down across from him but didn’t touch her food. “Then what are you?”
“Right now? Unemployed.”
Her eyes narrowed.
How much did he tell her? He had yet to get used to the idea of franchising Finders Keepers. And it wasn’t so long ago that he’d flubbed up his explanation to Kym.
“Jennifer Madison knows this?”
“About my being unlicensed.” He nodded. “Yes.” He gestured to her food. “Eat before it gets cold.”
“I’m used to cold food.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Ah.” She smiled around a bite of pickle.
Zach lifted a French fry to his own mouth and nearly choked on his own saliva as he watched the unaffected way she first sucked then bit the pickle in half.
Good God.
“Where are you from?”
Zach lifted his brows. “What if I said Texas?”
“Then I’d have to call you a liar.”
“Not very polite.”
Distinguished Service & Every Move You Make (Uniformly Hot!) Page 21