Hot as Hell
To Suzanne Jones Lugo for joining me on that memorable hiking spa vacation and for being a dear friend for two decades—yeah, it’s been that long.
About a thousand years ago I traveled to Southern Utah with my friend Suzanne to visit a hiking spa that no longer exists. It was called the National Institute of Fitness. It’s called something else now and is a totally different type of place. Back before the spa got fancy, we endured a week of exercise, being weighed and measured, eating very green (and not very tasty) food…and had a fabulous time. The beauty of Utah with its clear sky and pure air was a lifetime away from my then life in Washington, D.C. I borrowed the scenery from my trip for HOT AS HELL, but everything else is pure fiction. At the “real” spa, the staff was exceptional and no one was murdered. Really. Not a dead body anywhere. So, if you ever get a chance to grab a friend and go away for a week without television where the focus solely is on you, your health and your friendship—take it!
Huge thanks to my fabulous editor, Kate Duffy. You continue to guide these books with a gentle hand. Don’t worry; the reality of your tough-gal reputation is safe with me. Thanks also to everyone at Kensington who had a part in making this work. Again, Kristine Mills-Noble—you are a cover goddess.
My continued appreciation goes to Wendy Duren for reading the first draft while you were busy writing your Pushcart Prize–nominated short story—congrats!
As always, the biggest “thank you” goes to my husband James. You make it all possible and worthwhile.
“T
his is your idea of a vacation?” Noah Paxton asked the question with a practiced level of calm he did not actually feel. By the way Alexa Stuart—Lexy to him—jumped up and out of her pool lounge chair, he guessed the fake tone did not impress her, either.
Dark sunglasses hid her eyes, but her dropped jaw suggested he caught her off guard. “Noah?”
She remembered his name. That was something. “Miss me?”
She settled back in her seat and smoothed out the magazine she had just crumpled in her fists. “No.”
“I’m going to take that as a compliment.”
She flipped her sunglasses to the top of her head and squinted up at him with intense green eyes. “What are you doing here?”
Funny, but the woman did not look at all surprised to see him. Probably had something to do with the fact she ruined their relationship, screwed with his career, and then ran. She had to know he would track her down eventually.
“I could ask you the same question,” he said.
“You already know the answer to that one. I’m on vacation.”
“Uh-huh.” That was all he could think to say while trying to ignore the size of her tiny pink bikini. The thing seemed to shrink more the longer he stared at it, but maybe that was wishful thinking.
With the burning southern Utah heat bouncing around and searing through his long-sleeved shirt, he understood her less-is-more theory of dressing. Still, there were other resort patrons hanging in the area. As far as Noah could tell, they all had eyes.
He scanned the pool deck to make sure none of those eyes belonged to men and none were staring at Lexy’s incredible shrinking bikini. Only a few other people braved the beating sun on the pool deck. Most of them sat up to their necks in the water. All but one was female.
The male-female ratio qualified as the only positive Noah could find about the high-adventure hiking spa Lexy chose as her temporary playground. Not that he knew what the hell a high-adventure hiking spa even was. He read the description online three times before jumping on a plane to retrieve Lexy. Once he saw the price of the joint, he seriously considered changing careers from security analyst to spa owner.
He wondered how the folks who ran the place convinced otherwise competent people to shell out a couple grand a week to stay at a no-frills location in the middle of nowhere. The place in question consisted of a few single-story and two-story stucco buildings painted almost the same color as the towering red rocks ringing them.
Deep in a valley and about two hours from Las Vegas, the spa felt more like an isolated boot camp than an expensive resort. Clean with well-kept grounds, but no extras. A bit too much of a throwback to his military days for Noah’s comfort.
“How did you pick this joint?” he asked.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Aren’t we touchy?”
“Let’s just say I’m waiting for you to tell me whatever it is you came the whole way here to say.”
He ignored that and started with the most obvious problem with her choice of bathing location. “This place is forty miles from the nearest anything. Didn’t see a restaurant or store anywhere close.”
He tolerated the desert as much as the next guy, but why not enjoy it after a little gambling while looking down from a luxury room high above the Las Vegas Strip?
“That’s why people stay here,” she said.
“To starve?”
“For the seclusion. Red Valley Fitness is known for its intense exercise and nutrition packages.”
“You sound like a walking advertisement.” Not a surprise, since she was a marketing genius, but still.
She let out a little sigh. “No one asked you to come here.”
Which explained why anger continued to spill through his veins at a rate that threatened to crack his spine. “I couldn’t resist.”
“But you
can
leave.”
“What happened to you going to places close to the house to get your toes painted and body scrubbed…” Scrub. Bikini. Yeah, he needed to change conversation topics. “Or whatever that stuff you do is called.”
“Toenails, not toes.” She wiggled them as if to emphasize the distinction. “And I do not get body scrubs.”
She seemed determined to kill him with visual reminders of what she hid under that skimpy bathing suit.
“We’re getting off course here,” he said in an effort to preserve his sanity.
“I’m not even sure what course we were on.”
“I could say something obvious, but I’ll let that one go.”
She rested her magazine against her thighs with an exaggerated sigh. “To answer your previous question, people choose this spa for fitness.”
“They don’t have an outside at home where they pay a mortgage and get fresh air for free?”
“You can’t get everything you need at home.” Her eyebrows inched up with the provocative phrase.
“Don’t remember hearing any complaints from you on that score before now.”
“I’m not there now, am I?”
“Very funny.” Not even a little funny, actually.
He was two seconds away from giving her a reminder of just how well they worked together on the home front. Probably would have if it were not so damn hot. And if she didn’t look ready to kill him.
“I was talking about the exercise facilities,” she said with a smile that suggested she liked his discomfort a bit too much. “Some people come here because they like the exercise classes and hiking.”
He glanced around, expecting to see people passed out from dragging around backpacks in this heat. “Only an idiot would walk around out here in early September. It still hits a hundred degrees before noon.”
“That’s why the hikes start at six.”
She had to be kidding
. “In the morning?”
“Of course.”
Not kidding
. “Is the goal to steam clean your body from the inside out?”
She closed her eyes for a second. “I give up, Noah. What are you doing here?”
Now, there was a damn fine question. If she would throw on a towel he might be able to come up with a damn fine response. As it stood, only strings of babble filled his brain.
Times like these he wished he were an ass man. Lexy sat on that particular and very impressive part of her anatomy. Her long, sexy legs…well, he had always been a leg man. Then his gaze skimmed over her to the tops of her breasts where they plumped over her skimpy suit. Okay, he was a bit of a breast man, too.
Who was he trying to kid? Eyes. Mouth. Shoulder-length, baby-soft brown hair, and the sexiest shade of green eyes ever. Hell, even knees. He loved all of Lexy’s parts.
“Noah?”
“Huh?”
“Answer me.”
Sure. Once he figured out what the question was.
She tapped on the magazine. “Why are you hovering over my chair?”
“I was in the neighborhood.”
“You’re about seven hundred miles from home.”
“Dry heat makes you grumpy.” He held up his hands. “I’m not judging. Just stating a fact.”
“Yeah, the heat is the problem with my attitude.” She added an eye roll as if he could not pick up on her sarcasm without it.
“I’m here looking for you.” Because being the only person at the pool’s edge dressed in a suit without a blazer in temperatures nearing one hundred did not make him look like enough of an idiot.
“Why?”
“You’re not at the office.”
“Believe it or not, that’s not a crime.”
“You never go on vacation.”
“So?”
“We have a work emergency.” He cleared his throat to make sure he had her attention. “Then there’s the misunderstanding between us.”
He took her wide-eyed “have-you-lost-your-mind?” stare to mean she was not happy with his interpretation of the situation between them. “What’s with the look?”
“We do not have a misunderstanding.”
She said that a little too fast for his liking.
He sat down nice and slow on the chair next to her, so he didn’t tip the thing over. Landing on the cement at her feet lacked a certain male appeal. Bad enough he had to run after Lexy. Crawling around at her feet stepped over the line.
“Don’t sit,” she ordered.
He faced her on the same level this time. “Too late.”
She slapped her magazine against her bare legs. “The chair is taken.”
“By?” He glanced around ready to beat the shit out of whatever poor loser tried to wrestle the seat away from him.
“Anyone who wants it except you.”
“I’ll get back up if I need to. That’s one thing I still do just fine.”
She let out a little huff before speaking. “Let’s just get to it, okay?”
Sounded good to him. “Thought I’d have to wait longer for you to talk about this subject.”
He had been waiting for four weeks for an explanation. The woman breaks it off, hands back the ring, ignores him, and then she races off to a place where people cooked in the sun for fun. Not her usual style. She had abandoned her stay-and-fight mentality in favor of hiding.
Something other than her being ticked off at him was happening here. He picked up on that clue when his computer password stopped working at the office. He fixed that easily enough. Finding the files Lexy stole was proving to be a bit harder.
“How did you find me?” she asked.
He dropped his shoulders, letting the tension ease out. “Of all the things we need to discuss, that’s the subject you pick?”
“What else is there? Actually, forget that.” She waved her hand in front of her face. “Instead, tell me how you figured out where I was.”
Appeared she was not ready to open up about the most important topic—them. “I’m a security expert. Tracking you down was not all that difficult.”
“You checked my financial records? Had me followed? What?” She seemed appalled at the idea.
Lucky for him, finding her turned out to be much easier than that. He simply asked her brother, who happened to be his friend and partner in Stuart Enterprises, Gray and Lexy’s family’s business. Gray had no idea why his sister ran off, why she tampered with office security before making her great escape, or where the client files disappeared to, but he did agree with Noah that Lexy was behind whatever was happening.
“Some information is privileged,” Noah said.
She folded the top corner of the magazine page down and then flipped it back up. The back-and-forth went on as she spoke. “You’re not a lawyer. You don’t have some sort of confidential relationship with a client, so stop pretending you do.”
“Is it my imagination or have you become obsessed with my career?” At this point, he would be happy with her showing an interest in anything about him. Since his career appeared to be in some jeopardy, he was happy to start there.
The chair creaked when he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. Being a bit closer to her felt right. The chances of her belting him or shoving him increased, but he decided to take the risk.
She shifted to the side of the chair farthest away from him. Another inch or two and she would be sitting on the cement.
“Problem?” he asked.
“Other than you?” she asked in a tone best suited for a conversation with someone with a negative I.Q.
“You’re much friendlier in San Diego.” He pretended to think about that for a second. “Well, it’s more accurate to say that you were up until four weeks ago. Are you ready to talk about that?”
“I’m going back to my vacation.” She slid her glasses back down to hide those beautiful eyes behind tinted lenses. “We’re done.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
He thought about pushing the subject. They could argue, fight…maybe even make up at some point. Her frown suggested that last part would not be happening soon. So he decided to pull back. If Lexy wanted to fight on Utah turf, he would comply. He needed a room, a shower, and a change of clothes.
“You win.” He stood up and stared down at her.
The magazine shook in her hands. “I do?”
“Yep.”
Her eyes narrowed to tiny slits. “What’s the catch?
Smart lady
. “Why would you think—”
“Experience.”
He smiled. “Enjoy your sunbathing.”