McCade slipped his arm around Sandy, pulling her close. “How’re you doing?” he asked quietly.
Sandy could see concern in his eyes and she made herself smile. It was shaky, but it was a smile. “Great,” she lied. Takeoff had been the worst. With McCade filming, she’d had no hand to hold, no fingers to squeeze. But he was trying to make up for that now.
“This plane is actually very safe,” he whispered into her ear. “You know we would have been at greater risk driving on the highway, and I’m not even talking about riding my Harley. I’m talking about driving a car. Hell, riding a bike would damn near quadruple the risk.”
“Thanks for telling me,” she muttered. “Now I’ll be scared to death whenever you ride your motorcycle.”
“I’m always very careful when I ride.”
“Careful people wear helmets,” she pointed out.
“It’s hard to look cool with a helmet on.”
“It’s even harder to look cool when you’re dead.”
“Point and game,” he conceded with a crooked grin.
His jean-clad thigh was pressed against hers, and he wore one of his standard black T-shirts underneath the bright red shell jacket Sandy had ordered him from the L. L. Bean catalog. He would have been more comfortable in his black leather jacket—she knew he wore this one for her.
Somehow, in the hours between the time he’d appeared in her office late that morning and the four-thirty ride to the airport, McCade had lost that sick, recently-hit-by-a-truck, hungover look. With the exception of slightly bloodshot eyes, she wouldn’t have known from looking that he had stayed up until dawn, drinking himself to the point of memory loss.
He smiled at her again, his eyes warm, his lean face creased with laugh lines. Sandy loved his face. Inwardly, she shook her head, admonishing herself. True, he was outrageously handsome, but there was more about McCade to love than just his face. Yeah, there was his body too…she snickered to herself as she remembered how wonderful it felt to dance with him, how great it was to have him hold her in his arms.
Still, James was handsome too. James also had a great body. But she didn’t love James, she loved McCade.
She loved McCade’s tough, streetwise attitude. She loved his quick sense of humor and his gentle kindness. She loved his fierce sense of loyalty, and his smart-aleck mouth that was equally able to get him both into and out of trouble. She loved his keen intelligence and sharp wit. She even loved all the things about him that normally drove her crazy—his over-protectiveness, his inability to keep from taking sides, the chip he still carried on his shoulder from all those years he was dumped on in middle school and high school, his attachment to the open road, and his aversion to settling down.
“This is what it feels like to be a bird,” McCade said. “Free and alive, and with an entirely different perspective of the world from the creatures that live on the ground.”
He might’ve been describing himself. Impulsively, she turned and kissed him lightly on the mouth.
McCade was shocked. He had never, not in a million years, expected Sandy to kiss him. Not while they were sitting in the back of a tiny airplane with her two most important clients in the front seat. No way.
But she had. For the first time since she had pushed him away in the movie theater, McCade allowed himself to hope that she could fall in love with him.
But then he frowned, remembering that disturbing memory he had of ripping her shirt open, buttons flying everywhere. Man, he wished he knew what had happened last night. He didn’t doubt that he’d been stupid—he was particularly good at that. He just wanted to know exactly how stupid he’d been.
“This isn’t so bad.” Sandy looked out the window at the mountains that seemed like a relief map so far below them. “You’re right about the perspective. Life makes more sense from this altitude. Everything that seems so huge down on the ground is really just laughably small, isn’t it?” She leaned back, resting her head against his shoulder. “Flying’s really not so bad. I could get used to this.”
Simon Harcourt took a separate car from the airport to his cabin, leaving James Vandenberg to drive Sandy and McCade to the motel. The technical crew of Video Enterprises was already waiting in the restaurant next to the motel when they arrived.
It was almost eight o’clock, and Sandy was nearly dizzy from fatigue and lack of food. McCade and James followed her into the restaurant, where they joined the crew. After ordering a quick dinner, she made sure everyone had the next day’s shooting schedule. If the weather allowed, they’d be hiking part of the way into the canyon with Simon Harcourt and his family. In that case, there would be a six
A.M
. wake-up call.
“What if it rains?” someone asked.
Sandy smiled. “Then Frank will let you sleep late. If it’s raining, we’ll meet here at noon for lunch, see what we can do with the afternoon—maybe get some interior shots of Harcourt’s cabin.”
As she ate the bowl of soup and salad that she’d ordered, the crew straggled out of the restaurant, some of them heading to their rooms across the parking lot in the motel, others heading to the dark little bar that adjoined the restaurant.
McCade and James had ordered hamburgers, and they’d both finished eating while Sandy spoke to the crew. James excused himself, checking on the election-campaign volunteers who’d come to help with all of the little details of the shoot.
Sandy looked up to find McCade watching her. “Do me a favor?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Go over to the motel and check us both in.”
He pushed his chair back from the table. “Sure.”
Sandy finished her soup and salad then signed the check. She had just climbed tiredly to her feet and was about to hoist her overnight bag onto her shoulder when McCade reappeared. He took her bag in one hand, his bag in the other, and led her out of the restaurant into the parking lot. “Hey, Sandy?”
“No, McCade,” she said firmly. “That ‘Hey, Sandy’ sounded an awful lot like the precursor to bad news, and to tell you the truth, I’m too tired to hear it. Whatever it is, it can wait till the morning.” She looked at the numbered doors lining the long, two-story L-shaped motel. “What room am I in?”
“Two thirty-eight.”
That meant it was on the top floor. Good. There would be no tourists stomping around over her head at all hours of the night. And number 238 was down on the side of the L directly across the parking lot from the restaurant. It was near a stairwell too. She headed for her motel room, for her nice, clean motel-room bed, her soft motel-room pillow, and deep, oblivious sleep.
McCade was just a step behind her. “What room are
you
in?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Two thirty-eight.”
It took about four more steps, but the meaning of what McCade said finally penetrated her consciousness. She stopped walking and turned to face him.
“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” he told her apologetically.
She turned and looked toward the motel office, but he shook his head, anticipating her next move.
“I already tried, but they’re booked solid, there’s no other room available. I had them call the motel down the road, but they’re filled up too. I even tried the lodges out in the national park, but the people in the reservations office out there just laughed at me. If you want, I could squeeze in with Frank and O’Reilly.”
She closed her eyes. “I’m going to
kill
Laura.”
“Laura?”
“She made these reservations.” She opened her eyes and looked at McCade. “Even if we really
were
involved, McCade, unless we were married, we wouldn’t go on a business trip and share a room. It’s just not professional. It looks so…sleazy.”
McCade shifted the weight of the bags in his hands. “Let me carry your stuff to the room, then I’ll try to find Frank—”
“And sleep on the floor?” She shook her head. “No, look, McCade, we can share a room. We just have to be discreet. It’s not
that
big a deal anyway. It’s not really that different from you staying in my condo with me, right?”
He didn’t answer, so she went on. “Motel rooms usually have two beds. You can take one bed, I’ll take the other, and everything will work out fine. Okay?”
She was trying to convince herself as much as McCade. Sharing a motel room with him really wasn’t anything like sharing her condo. In her condo, she could escape into another room when her feelings started becoming too intense, when her attraction to him started pulling her in his direction. But this was for just a few nights, she told herself firmly. Surely she could go for a few nights without throwing herself at the man. Couldn’t she?
Silently, McCade followed her up the stairs to room number 238. He watched as Sandy put the key into the lock and opened the door. She flipped on the lights as they went in and—
Sandy swore softly.
One bed.
The room had only one king-size bed.
McCade stepped inside, pushing the door shut with his foot. He dropped his own bag on the floor near the door, but set hers on the dresser. “I’ll go find Frank.”
“Wait.”
The energy he’d found to shoot this evening’s plane ride had drained him, and he looked exhausted. “I gotta keep moving, or I’m going to fall down,” he told her when she didn’t continue.
“What if you can’t find Frank?”
“I’ll crash in one of the vans.”
“It gets cold up here at night,” she said. “We’re in the mountains, remember?” She took a deep breath, letting it out in a loud burst. “This is a big bed. And we’re grown-ups. We can share it, right?”
McCade shook his head. “I don’t know, Sand.”
“You can’t sleep on the floor in Frank’s room,” she said decisively. “It would look too weird. Everyone thinks we’re living together. And I
definitely
don’t want you sleeping in the van. Maybe tomorrow they’ll have another room.”
He shook his head again. “They’re booked solid through the weekend.”
“Maybe someone will call and cancel.” She sat on the bed and pulled off her boots, tossing them next to the wall. “I’m going to take a shower and then go to sleep. We have to get up early in the morning.”
She rummaged in her bag, pulling out one of her little cotton nightgowns. She tucked it under her arm as she started unbuttoning her shirt.
Buttons. In his mind, McCade saw buttons flying through the air inside of Sandy’s little car. He saw Sandy, so beautiful and sexy, her eyes filled with desire….
He turned away, suddenly painfully aware of his rock-solid desire. He’d been walking around in a state of confusion for weeks now, ever since he’d arrived on Sandy’s doorstep, and the thought of sharing that enormous bed with her had pushed him over the top.
Mercy, he wanted her.
And if that memory he had of ripping her shirt open really was a memory and not a dream, then he was seriously out of control. What was he thinking,
if?
That was no dream. The buttons he’d found in her car were proof of that.
He heard the sound of the water go on, and slowly took off his jacket.
He was next in line for a shower—a
very
cold one.
“Hey, Sandy?”
McCade’s voice came from the darkness on the other side of the bed. She rolled onto her side, trying to get comfortable. The mattress had seen better days, though, and McCade’s weight on one end made it seem as if she were sleeping on the side of a hill.
“Yeah?” she answered.
“This is sorta strange, you know?”
Oh, yeah. She knew. “Close your eyes, McCade. If you’re even
half
as tired as I am, you’ll fall asleep right away.”
“I’m sorry. It’s my fault that you’re so tired.”
“Remember that the next time you go out drinking. I haven’t lectured you yet, have I?”
“Nope.”
Sandy turned to face him. “There are more ways to die from drinking than drunk driving,” she told him sternly. “You could have overdosed and died from alcohol poisoning.”
“You know, I didn’t go out intending to get skunked,” he said. “When I left your place, I didn’t plan to drink at all.”
“So why did you?”
He didn’t answer right away, and the darkness pressed down on Sandy mercilessly. She longed to see his face, see his eyes, know what he was thinking.
“I got drunk because riding my bike didn’t help,” he finally said.
Riding his bike didn’t…? Disappointment clutched at her. He was feeling tied down, and she knew what she had to do. She had to set him free. “You don’t have to stay.” She hoped he couldn’t hear the tightness in her throat, suddenly glad for the darkness that kept him from seeing her face. “After this weekend I can replace you, even with just a few hours’ notice. So don’t stick around out of a sense of guilt. If you have to go, I can get along without you.”
Her words echoed in the darkness. She could get along without him. Of course she could.
McCade lay in silence, seeing buttons shooting through the air. Oh, man, did she
want
him to leave? He couldn’t ask. He cleared his throat, but he couldn’t find the words to ask her what had happened last night. But he was dying to know. Had he kissed her? Had he tried to make love to her? What had he said, and how had she answered?
Not for the first time since he’d awakened that morning, he cursed his inability to remember.
Heat. He saw it in Sandy’s eyes, felt it in her touch, tasted it on her lips. She drew him toward her, and as their mouths met again there was an explosion of fire.
Their clothes fell away, dissolving around them, and he was touching her. Sweet Lord, he’d waited so long for this. Her legs opened, she was ready for him, and he couldn’t wait. He entered her almost savagely and she cried out, her voice thick with pleasure.
But suddenly she pushed him away.
Then he was sitting in Sandy’s car. They were both fully dressed, and Sandy was crying.
But as suddenly as she had started to cry, she stopped.
If you still want to make love to me when you’re sober
—Sandy watched him steadily—
just let me know, okay?
McCade sat up in the darkness of the motel room. His heart was pounding, and the sound of his breathing, unsteady and ragged seemed to rattle around him. He ran his hands down his face. Talk about vivid dreams. This one had been so realistic that—