Teardrop Lane (10 page)

“What a doll she is,” a deep voice rumbled. Cicero slid into the seat to Rose’s left. “Gonna be a heartbreaker one day.”

“No,” Rose countered. “She’s destined to be a heart mender. Have you heard her story?”

“About being kidnapped?” When Rose nodded, he said, “Gabi told me. So great that there was a happy ending to that one.”

“Absolutely,” she agreed. “The world needs more happy endings. So, did you enjoy the fishing today? Have any luck?”

“Fishing was okay. I caught a few, but just between you and me, I don’t see the allure in ice fishing. That
said, this little festival has been nice. Love the way the whole town participates.”

“Wait until tomorrow when the hot air balloons go up. It’s truly a beautiful sight. They’re predicting perfect weather for it.”

“So I hear. Gabi’s been fretting about the weather all week, hoping that the balloons get to fly. We have friends in town for the party tonight, and she’s planning on bringing them back out here tomorrow to watch. I admit I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the number of tourists the event has brought to town. Gabi made a couple dozen glass balloons to sell as souvenirs and she told me she only has a few left.”

“She’s opened the retail shop?”

“Not yet. Her sister-in-law has set aside space for a display in her soap store during the festival.”

“That’s nice of Savannah.”

“She and Gabi are good friends.”

The school choir began their concert, and Rose settled back to listen. Events like this were always bittersweet for her. As a rule, she managed to keep her regrets at bay, but invariably when she sat in a crowd as a spectator rather than a parent, the
what-ifs
sneaked in like thieves in the night. Nevertheless, she enjoyed the concert, and afterward, she congratulated her pint-size patients on a job well done. All the while, she remained cognizant of the fact that Cicero stood at the edge of the crowd watching her. Waiting for her?

She couldn’t deny that it gave her a little thrill.

He fell in beside her as she began her walk to her car. “I had a nice talk with your sister earlier.”

“Was Sage here? I didn’t see her.”

“No, she came by the studio this morning to pester me about getting her pieces for Vistas Art Gallery. She gave me some dirt on you.”

Rose checked her step and almost slipped on the ice.

“She said you’re a writer. That you have an agent and everything.”

Oh. That
.

“There’s no ‘everything.’ We haven’t sold the book.”

“Sage said you’ve written more than one. Mysteries and medical thrillers. In all of our dinners together, you’ve never mentioned that to me. Why not?”

“There haven’t been that many dinners, and it’s never come up.”

“You have a creative streak, Dr. Anderson. I find that fascinating. I thought doctors were all left-brained people.”

“I think we’ve already established that your perceptions about physicians aren’t accurate.”

“I want to read one of your manuscripts.”

The idea both thrilled her and frightened her to death. He made his living off of his creativity.

“I’m just a dabbler. I find writing relaxing. It’s fun to use my medical knowledge to plot scenarios.”

“Sage said you live in a regular writer’s garret. I want to see that, too. Why don’t we plan to slip away from the engagement party tonight and you can show me?”

Seriously, he was amazing. She rolled her eyes at that. “Why am I not surprised that you would invite yourself up to my bedroom?”

The look he gave her was a knee-weakening combination of innocence and devilish desire.

The memory of that look stayed with her the rest of the day. As she got ready for the party, she tried to tell herself that she’d intended to clean her room today all along. That she’d intended to file the stacks of paperwork on her desk this afternoon.

And that she’d planned to wear matching red lace underwear beneath her dress anyway.

Rose looked at her reflection in her bathroom mirror,
a mascara wand in hand, and muttered, “You are pathetic.”

She was not going to invite Hunt Cicero up to her room tonight to show him her manuscript or her etchings or her underwear.

No way.

Well, probably not.

Could she do it?

She closed her eyes, shook her head, and silently chastised herself. Was she seriously thinking about going to bed with a man with whom she’d never even had a date?

You have dinner with him almost every night. He picks up the tab
.

Only half the time. She paid the other half. Those didn’t count as dates.

Says who? The only reason he hasn’t taken you out somewhere is because you shoot him down every time he asks. He walks you home after dinner, doesn’t he? That’s a date
.

No. Dates include a good-night kiss. She hadn’t kissed the man yet.

Idiot
.

Not that she hadn’t thought about it. Bet he was great at it. He had that intensity thing going, after all. She picked up a rust-colored lipstick and painted her mouth.

Wonder if he taps into his creative streak in bed?

A hookup. That’s what they called it these days. Easy, breezy, no strings sex. Could it really, truly be that way for a woman? No emotional entanglements? Just physical fun?

It had been so long she she’d had sex. Years.

Talk about pathetic
.

It would be fun with Hunt Cicero. Of that, Rose had no doubt. But she also had no experience with such things. After her disastrous first time as a teenager, she’d
waited until she was in a committed relationship to venture into sex again.

Look how that turned out
.

At this point the memory of Brandon’s betrayal was more an annoying paper cut than a vicious stab to the heart, but the experience had changed her. Never again would she trust her heart to a man.

She exited the bathroom and crossed to her dresser where a half dozen bottles of perfume sat on a mirrored tray. She reached for one, then froze. These were all scents Brandon had favored. “Why in the world have I kept them?”

She glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes before the party was due to start. She had time.

She pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater, grabbed her wallet, and headed downstairs to the Angel’s Rest gift shop. Celeste had commissioned Savannah Turner to create a unique line of scents for Angel’s Rest, and they’d recently added perfumes to the collection. Five minutes later, she was back in her room dabbing a spicy, exotic scent named Angelfire between her breasts.

As she walked to her closet and removed the emerald-green cocktail dress she planned to wear, she told herself that maybe the time had come for her to broaden her horizons, to leap into the unknown, to do the unexpected.

She knew better than most that life was short.

And she wasn’t living hers to the fullest. In the past twenty years, she’d never done anything crazy or wild. She’d never done a kegstand or flashed her boobs at a Mardi Gras parade. She’d done what was expected of her—college, medical school, being the devoted daughter.

She’d never had an affair.

She’d never played with fire.

In this day and age where casual sex seemed to be accepted as the norm, she was an oddity. She could count
on two fingers the number of partners she’d had. The consequences from her first foray into sex had been enough to keep her celibate until Brandon.

In the end, that hadn’t worked out so well for her either, had it?

She’d been the good girl, the supportive partner, putting her lover’s career above hers while ignoring her self-doubts. And when she had entertained those concerns, she’d turned to the rock in her life for advice—her oh-so-traditional army colonel father. Brandon had been the son he’d never had, and to the Colonel, men’s needs, wishes, and desires always came before females’. That’s the way she was raised. That’s the way she’d acted.

Well, maybe it was time to change the status quo.

Dr. Rose Anderson—Bad Girl
. She liked the sound of that. She liked the idea of it. Why not go for it? What would it hurt? Who would it hurt? Her father was gone. Sage was forever telling her to kick up her heels.

She stepped into her dress and did a twist-and-turn pretzel dance to get it zipped. She stepped into a pair of Christian Louboutins—shoes were her indulgence—and dug out her evening bag from the back of her closet. She touched up her lipstick, dropped it into her bag, and snapped the bag shut. As she stared at her reflection in the mirror, her stomach took a nervous roll. She looked all right for a woman her age, but she’d left dewy and fresh behind long ago. Did she actually have the guts to go through with—a hookup?

“It is the day of the Ice Fishing Derby,” she muttered, making fish lips at her reflection.

Suddenly out of nowhere, tears flooded her eyes. An engagement party hookup. How pitiful was that? She attempted to blink the moisture away before her mascara smeared, but when a pair of teardrops overflowed, she grabbed for a tissue and headed for the bathroom.

Great. Just great. A pre-party pity party. Pre-engagement
party. Another engagement party. How many did this make since she’d moved to Eternity Springs? And she wasn’t even going to count the baby showers. She’d end up a sobbing mess.

“Stop it,” she scolded, dabbing away the wetness and glaring at her reflection. “Just stop it. This is stupid. This is your choice. You have a good life. You are a happy person. You have a man who has twice the sex appeal of Daniel Craig wanting to jump your bones. What do you have to cry about?”

Nothing. She was nervous, that’s all. Frightened half to death at the thought of getting naked in front of Cicero. Nearly a decade had passed since she’d stripped off her clothes in front of someone new. Her stomach wasn’t quite as flat. Her butt wasn’t as high. Her boobs weren’t as perky.

She drew in a deep, bracing breath, then exhaled a sigh. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t ready for sex with a man who was little more than a stranger.

A little voice whispered in her head:
You could start with a little necking
.

Her lips twitched. “Rosemary Anderson, you are a mess.”

She scowled at the dark smudges beneath her eyes, and set about making the repairs. By the time she exited her suite and headed downstairs, she felt calm again and once more in control.

She was on the second floor landing when her sister glanced up, spied her and gave a little wave. Rose waved back.

The figure standing near the reception desk looked up. Dressed in a dark suit and silver tie, Hunt Cicero gave her a slow once-over, his gaze lingering on her breasts, her hips, her legs.

His tongue languidly licked his lips.

When he finally raised his gaze to meet hers, the heat in those chocolate eyes raised chill bumps on her skin. His intimate smile made her shiver. His roguish wink sucked the breath right out of her.

Maybe I’m ready, after all
.

Cicero was feeling edgy.

As he dressed for the party at Angel’s Rest, he found himself prowling his loft apartment. He’d spent another fruitless afternoon with his sketch-pad. Were he not already running late, he’d spend some time on the weight bench he’d installed in the storage room downstairs. Not that exercise would help his situation. He’d spent hour upon hour in physical exertion, thinking about the Albritton and about Emily Dickinson’s feathered hope since receiving that life-changing phone call; and still, inspiration eluded him. He’d never struggled like this before.

He’d come up with a few ideas—small ideas. Small ideas wouldn’t cut it for a chance like this. He needed something colossal, something spectacular, and so far he’d managed little more than humdrum. It was driving him crazy.

He needed to clear his head. He needed to blow out the cobwebs.

He needed to get laid.

He could drive up to Crested Butte and pick up a ski bunny, but that idea didn’t have much appeal. Not when Doctor Delicious starred in his nighttime dreams and daytime fantasies.

His fascination with Rose Anderson bemused him. The last time he’d focused this intently upon one woman, he’d been fifteen years old and crushing on a girl in math class. Why now? Why this woman? Who knew? It didn’t really matter, did it? Like Jayne used to say after her diagnosis,
it is what it is
.

And what it
was
was he had a bad case of the hots for Rosemary Anderson, MD.

He grabbed his keys and headed out, his mind filled with images of Doctor Delicious. Laughing with Shannon O’Toole this morning. Staring into the hole cut through the ice of Hummingbird Lake. Wrinkling her nose at the wiggling fish the barkeep yanked from the water. Her tender smile and encouraging wink to the little Montgomery girl. He was drawn to her like Keenan to trouble.

Cicero didn’t know exactly why she appealed to him so much. Over the years, he’d had a bevy of beauties revolve through his bed—actresses, models—he’d even scored a
SI
swimsuit edition centerfold one time. Rose Anderson was pretty in a girl-next-door sort of way, built long and lean with curves where they were meant to be, but she wasn’t drop-jaw breathtaking. She was smart, witty, and delightfully stubborn. Passionate about her beliefs, her work, her family and friends. He found the whole writing thing intriguing. He sensed that she harbored secrets, and he wanted to learn what they were.