“
Pack your stuff,” he
instructed sternly. His gaze traveled the length of her bikini-clad
body and a muscle twitched in his jaw. “We’re going back to
Atlanta.”
Lou blinked. “What? Why?”
Sam strode past her, grabbed the remote and
aimed it at the TV. He flipped through a few channels until he
found the station he sought. Lou ventured closer, hoping, but not
expecting to find the reason for her adventure guide’s sudden
unreasonable attitude.
Sam gave her a smile completely devoid of
humor. “Because, Louisa, according to the ten o’clock news, you’ve
been abducted. From your wedding.”
Even if she hadn’t heard him, the ominous
black letters that proclaimed “ABDUCTED” beneath her picture on the
TV screen, would have told Lou all she needed to know.
Black spots swirled before her eyes and
nausea roiled her stomach. That last taco she’d eaten for dinner
threatened to make an encore appearance.
“
Oh, God,” Lou murmured
thickly, sinking onto the end of the bed. How on earth had this
happened?
"He’s your only hope, lady,” Sam’s angry
voice came to her. “You’d better start explaining. Now!”
Lou’s head jerked up at his ominous tone and
another wave of nausea assailed her trembling belly. She managed a
sickly smile. “Well, uh… It’s quite funny, actually.”
Sam’s snort wasn’t exactly encouraging.
She managed a few weak ha-ha’s, then forged
ahead. “I-I ran away.”
That was good, Lou thought. Simple.
Straight-forward. He seemed to be the type of man who would
appreciate those qualities.
Sam replaced the snort with a smirk, sending
a shiver of foreboding down her spine. Uh-oh. She’d been wrong.
Okay, time to take a different tack.
Lou heaved an exasperated sigh. “Well,
obviously I haven’t been kidnapped,” she said, shoving up from the
bed to work off some of her nervousness.
“
Obviously,” came the
lethally calm reply. Sam grabbed her luggage from the closet and
slung it on the bed. “Let’s go.”
Lou blanched. “Go? Go, where?”
“
Back to Atlanta, darlin’.
I’ve put too much time and energy into my business to let your
little flight of fancy ruin it.”
Lou took exception to that remark, but was
more concerned with other, more dire aspects of his comment. “Go
back? Are you crazy? I can’t go back.” She shook her head. “I
won’t.”
Impossibly, Sam’s scowl deepened. He muttered
an unkind remark about rich debutantes which Lou chose to ignore.
“Obviously I’m not making myself clear—we’re leaving on the first
flight available back to Atlanta. Get packed.”
Lou plopped down on the end of the bed and
glared at him stubbornly. “You can get packed if you want. I’m not
going anywhere…except on my adventure.”
“
The adventure is canceled,”
he told her from between clenched teeth.
Lou quirked a brow. “You’re reneging on our
contract?”
Sam growled, momentarily at a loss. “Look,
lady, you don’t seem to get it. Your father thinks you’ve been
kidnapped! When he finds out that I’m the one who helped you leave
Atlanta, I’ll be ruined. Finished! Kaput!”
“
I can clear this up with a
phone call,” Lou insisted, slightly sympathetic to his
concerns.
James Honeycutt could be ruthless when
angered. Nevertheless, Lou had made a decision—an adult
decision—and Sam had simply been an unwitting participant. Her
father would understand that.
Sam’s ire eased, but still looked at her
dubiously. “If you could have cleared it up with a phone call, then
where on earth did he get the idea that you’d been abducted?”
“
The message,” Lou mumbled
under breath.
His eyes narrowed. “What message?”
“
The one I sent to let him
know that I was okay.” She hesitated, suddenly miserable. “I-I
didn’t want him to worry.”
“
Humph,” Sam snorted. “Well,
I guess it’s safe to say that plan didn’t work.” His gaze locked
with her. “Why do I feel like there’s more to this
story?”
Common sense,
Sherlock
, Lou thought, but wisely kept the
comment to herself. Somehow she didn’t think Sam would appreciate
her wit at the moment.
Oh, Lord. What a mess. How on earth could she
fix it? And how much would she have to tell Sam in order to keep
him from calling her father? Lou took one look at his grim
countenance and decided she didn’t have much choice other than to
level with him. Given the mess she’d gotten them into, it hardly
seemed fair to be anything but honest.
Lou blew her breath out with a whoosh. “You
might want to get comfortable for this,” she warned.
He rolled his eyes and gave her a put-upon
look, then sat down on the bed. “You have my full attention.”
Ah, what she’d been dreaming of—Sam’s full
attention and a king-sized bed. Of their own volition, her eyes
strayed to the impressive landscape of Sam’s perfectly formed
chest. His skin looked smooth as marble, tanned, and she was
suddenly hit with an almost overwhelming urge to smooth her palms
over the masculine contours. The snap of his jeans hung open,
revealing an intimate peek at his tan line. Lou shook herself,
shoving the thought to the back of her mind.
“
As I’m sure you’ve deduced
from the ten o’clock news—” Lou shot a dark look at the TV. “—I was
supposed to get married today.”
Sam smirked. “Yeah, I got that part.”
“
Well…I didn’t want
to.”
“
Obviously,” Sam drawled.
“But here’s a thought—why didn’t you just call it off?”
Lou groaned in despair. “You don’t know my
father. He can be quite, um, intimidating. And I never should have
agreed to the marriage, but I wanted to make him happy; I wanted to
do what was best for the company.” Lou groped for a way to make him
understand the tumult of emotions rolling through her.
“
The company?” Sam frowned.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“
The merger,” Lou confided
hopelessly. “Honeycutt Foods and Reedwater Snacks.”
“
Strangely, I’m beginning to
understand,” Sam said, scowling. “I don’t know whether that’s a
good thing or not.”
Lou managed a weak smile. “Look, I know that
this doesn’t make a lot of sense to you and I should have been
more, er…forthcoming. But I had to do what I had to do.” Her brow
creased with determination. “I’m not spending my life in a loveless
marriage just to make sure some business deal goes through. I
shouldn’t have ever let it go this far.” Suddenly weary, Lou sagged
onto the end of the bed. “It just got out of hand. The gown
fittings, the flowers, the caterer. Before I knew it, I found
myself at the church and…and I just couldn’t go through with it. So
I left.”
“
And ended up at my door,”
Sam concluded.
Lou nodded. “Good slogan. It certainly got my
attention.”
Sam grunted in response.
“
So, how ‘bout it, Sam? Do I
still get to have the time of my life?” Lou’s attempt at humor fell
pitifully short, and she found herself holding her breath, awaiting
Sam’s response. Once again, his answer seemed irrationally
important to her.
He gave her another long, considering look.
“You’re going to call your father and clear this up?”
Hope bloomed. “Right away.”
“
And you’re certain that I
won’t incur the wrath of James Honeycutt and my business won’t
suffer as a result of going through with your
adventure?”
“
Positive,” Lou promised
with an affirmative jerk of her head. “I’ll call and let him know
that I haven’t been kidnapped…but I can’t let him know where I am.
I-I need this time for myself, to figure out what it is I want to
do with my life.” Lou bit her lip. “Do you understand?”
A spark of some emotion lit his gaze.
Compassion, perhaps? But it vanished just as quickly. “That’s
between you and your father. I just don’t want to jeopardize my
business.”
“
It won’t. I’ll take care of
it.”
“
Before your
swim.”
“
What? Oh,” Lou murmured,
blushing.
She’d been so caught up in their discussion,
she’d completely forgotten her state of undress. Funny how the
bikini didn’t make her feel indecent when she lay by the pool, but
in the close confines of her room combined with Sam’s penetrating
gaze made her feel positively naked.
She felt is gaze move over her from head to
toe, causing a wave of heat to redden her fair skin. The tops of
her breasts particularly burned. A shiver of awareness swirled
through her, making her breath hitch in her lungs.
Beside her, Sam swallowed tightly. He bolted
from the bed. “Well, I’d better go. We’ve got a busy day
tomorrow.”
“
Right,” Lou concurred. “The
manatees. Sorry about the mix-up,” she told him, trailing him to
the door. “Must have been quite a shock seeing me on TV like
that.”
A genuine, full-fledged smile curved his
lips, momentarily stunning Lou. “You could say that.”
“
If you think about it,” Lou
said, pushing her sudden advantage, “it’s almost funny.” She
chuckled for his benefit.
The smile dimmed. “Almost.”
Damn. She’d gone too far. “It’ll be
funny…someday.”
“
I’m sure it’ll be a hoot,”
he agreed. “Someday.”
“
Tomorrow?” she asked
hopefully.
“
I doubt it.”
Lou winced. “I just don’t
want this little, er, misunderstanding to mess everything up. This
trip is really important to me. I’m getting to do all the things
that I’ve always wanted to do. I’m not just going to have the time
of my life, I’m starting over.
Carpe
diem!”
Lou said
enthusiastically.
“
Which means seize the
day.”
“
Whatever,” Lou smiled. “I
just want to have the time of my life.”
The side of his mouth quirked slightly. “So
you’ve said. I’ll see you in the morning.” With that, he left.
Lou closed the door behind him, then banged
her head against the cool metal surface. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,”
she chanted to herself. Oh well, she’d just have to suck it up and
call her father. Dread coursed through her at the thought. He’d
have to deal with the details—Edwina particularly. Lou worried her
lip.
Hell, he’d probably be better of just letting
Edwina believe that Lou had been kidnapped. A pang of sympathy hit
her, but she quashed it.
After all, this technically wasn’t her fault.
If her father had only listened to her, if he hadn’t brushed off
Lou’s concerns, then they wouldn’t be in this position now. She
wouldn’t have had to literally run away.
Funny how the idea of not having her
adventure had shaken her. More so than she would have expected. Lou
imagined there was some sort of important revelation in that
thought, but didn’t have the desire to pursue it. Shed’ had enough
revelations over the past sixteen hours to last her a lifetime.
Despite all of that, however, a grin burst
through, then a chuckle. She pressed a fist to her shaking lips.
Oh, to have been a fly on the wall when Sam had seen the evening
news! True, he might not find funny tonight, but she certainly
did.
That had to be progress, right?
After pushing himself another mile, Sam bent
at the knees and dragged a breath into his deprived lungs. The jog
back to the hotel had resulted in more of a burn than he was
accustomed to on his morning run, but it felt good nonetheless.
With luck, the extra exertion would incinerate the fuzziness which
presently surrounded his brain.
Last night’s little panic attack had resulted
in the worst night’s sleep Sam could recall. He usually slept like
the dead. He played hard, he rested well. But rather than fall into
his usual semi-coma, Sam had tossed and turned all night. And every
time he thought about Lou Honeycutt in that skimpy bikini—which had
been often—he’d been plagued by sexual fantasies.
He should have trusted his instincts Sam
thought again as he made his way upstairs. Agreeing to guide her
adventure had been a mistake he would undoubtedly pay heavily for.
But that was a moot point now. He’d agreed to do it and, short of
reneging on his contract, he didn’t really have a choice. He would
simply have to make the best of it.
Once again Sam found himself wondering why
Lou had agreed to marry someone she didn’t love, but he forced
himself to stop.
That was her problem—not his.
Obviously she’d dealt with it the only way
that she knew how—she’d run away. Though he’d known her less than
twenty-four hours, Sam had the distinct impression that things had
to be especially bad to make the tenacious female he’d grown
acquainted with bolt.
And that’s why he’d agreed to fulfill her
desire for adventure.
Lou had had the look of a hunted animal.
Those mischievous baby blues had been wide with panic, her normally
perky disposition suddenly fearful.
Given what he’d seen on the news, he no
longer doubted that Lou had thought her only means of escape had
been to flee. He’d certainly been mildly intimidated just by seeing
her father on TV…and Sam hadn’t lived with him for the past
twenty-odd years.
Still, agreeing to an adventure and getting
involved with Lou were two entirely different things. He only hoped
that she understood that he had made a business decision. He would
take Lou on her little adventure, but that was it. He wouldn’t
become her unwitting hero. He wouldn’t consciously aid in her
staying one step ahead of her father.