replied.
“If you’re good, I’ll fill you all in on it,” Cilla said with a smile. “Trust me.”
1
The present….
THE HIGHWAY WAS open, the wind was in her hair, and for the first time in nearly two months, Cilla Danforth felt free. Around her, the California desert stretched out in all directions, flat and open and fringed with mountains. She turned up the stereo. Friday night and nowhere to be for two whole days.
It was almost better than sex.
Not that she had recent memory of that, of course. Running around to the spring collections in Paris, Milan and New York made it a little hard to have a social life. She was back in her own time zone now, though, at least for a few weeks. Yes, being couture buyer for Danforth’s was exciting. And being the bridge-line buyer for the coast-to-coast Forth’s chain was a challenge. Sometimes, though, she wanted to stop being Cilla Danforth, fashion guru and department store heiress, and just…be.
Cilla would cheerfully have kissed the administrative assistant who’d chosen the Carrington Palms Hot Springs Resort as the location for the Danforth Corporation strategic-planning meeting. The rest of the board and management was showing up Sunday night, or even Monday morning. That was practically an eternity away and she had every intention of spending that eternity by the pool.
And leaving Cilla Danforth behind for a couple of days.
The setting sun sent long fingers of shadow stretching out ahead of her as she headed east. The cars coming toward her—such as they were on this stretch of highway—had begun switching on their lights. Still, she was making good time, and barring unforeseen incidents, she’d make the resort before it got dark.
A sudden explosion made her jump. Instantly, the car began to slew on the highway. Fueled by a spurt of adrenaline, Cilla fought to brake and keep her little Porsche roadster heading straight. Finally, what seemed like eons later, she brought the car to a stop on the shoulder.
Then she dropped her head onto the steering wheel and waited for the shakes to go away.
Okay, triage. It had to have been a blowout. She just needed to confirm it, call AAA to send someone to change the flat, and she’d be on her way. It wasn’t a disaster, just an inconvenient delay. She refused to let it interfere with her bliss.
Cilla slipped on her shoes, wishing she’d remembered to toss her driving moccasins back in the car after she’d worn them last. Stilettos and a miniskirt weren’t exactly approved tire-changing attire, but then who planned for that sort of thing anyway?
Teetering a bit, she walked toward the back of the car. It didn’t take much more than looking at the pieces of rubber littering the highway beyond to confirm that it was a blowout, but she glanced at the car anyway to see more rim than rubber showing on her left rear wheel. A muscle truck with chunky tires drove by, the two guys inside whooping and making enthusiastic suggestions about how she might spend her night.
Wasn’t she just a lucky girl, she thought as she watched their taillights fade.
Cilla slipped back into the car and pulled out her cell phone. And, remembering the truck, she put up the top on the convertible, staring out at the purpling sky as the fabric canopy came down over her. It wasn’t much, but in a place this desolate, every little bit helped.
“TWO HOURS?” Cilla repeated in astonishment.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the phone operator responded, “but you’re out in the middle of nowhere and the only tow companies we’ve got in the area are on calls. The first one who finishes will be out to take care of you.”
The sun was dipping below the horizon. When Cilla looked out to either side, she saw only mesquite, sagebrush, the occasional tumbleweed. It had been wonderfully open and free when she’d been driving. Now, it was fast becoming merely empty and intimidating. She wasn’t a woman who was daunted by much, but the last thing she wanted to do was sit by the side of the road for two hours while it turned dark.
“Ma’am? Did you want me to put you on the call sheet?”
Two hours, Cilla thought, plus the time for the driver to change her tire.
Unless she changed it herself.
After all, how hard could it be? She’d seen people change tires before, in the movies, anyway. Her owner’s manual probably had directions. As she told her father regularly, she was capable of far more than anyone gave her credit for. Why be a girl and wait for a tow-truck driver to come bail her out? Self-sufficiency, that was the ticket.
“Ma’am?”
“Never mind,” Cilla said firmly. “I’ll take care of it.”
Twenty minutes later, she stood cursing as she tried to get the lug nuts on the wheel to turn. The owner’s manual made it sound simple: take off the lug nuts, jack up the car, pull off the old tire, put on the new and be on your way.
They just didn’t warn you that the lug nuts had been tightened by the Incredible Hulk.
Putting her weight on the tire iron for what seemed like the hundredth time, Cilla gritted her teeth and shoved. It did exactly nothing, and stilettos weren’t exactly the right footwear for stomping. She could feel the bruises forming on her palms. Maybe it was time to reconsider the tow truck, she thought as yet another car whisked by, stirring up dust. Bad enough she’d broken a fingernail loosening the wing nut that held the jack in place in the trunk, not to mention the fact that she’d yet to figure out just exactly where the jack was supposed to go when the time came to raise the car.
That part, of course, wasn’t particularly important just then. If she couldn’t get the lug nuts off, her experiment in tire changing was going to come to a screeching halt.
In time with her thoughts, she heard the chirp of tires on pavement. Cilla whipped her head around toward the front of her convertible and froze. The car that had just passed her was on the shoulder about a quarter mile ahead, and swiftly backing up in her direction.
Her heart began to thud. Maybe—probably—it was a good Samaritan. Maybe it was some nice guy who’d be eager to help. She’d grown up in L.A., though, and was all too aware that there were other types of people who stopped for lone women broken down at the side of the road, especially out in the desert.
She picked up the tire iron and got back into the car. It never hurt to be cautious.
Brake lights glowed red as the car stopped a few feet in front of her. White, late model, American made. Didn’t signify much of anything. Psychos could still drive Ferraris and Hummers, and perfectly decent people drove rolling junk heaps. The door of the car opened and she swallowed. Be prepared for anything, she told herself. The driver could be capable, clueless but well-intentioned, or up to no good.
Or, she thought in a moment of stupefied surprise, he could just be the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. Lean and lanky in jeans, he walked toward her in the wash of headlights, a sheaf of dark hair falling over his forehead. His face was all intriguing angles. His mouth looked soft and eminently kissable. If she’d met him in a cocktail bar, she’d have thought she’d died and gone to heaven.
But she wasn’t in a cocktail bar.
He put a hand on her roof and bent down to look at her. “Need some help?”
Up close, he packed a punch. A five o’clock shadow blued his jaw deliciously. His eyebrows drew sharp lines above his dark gray eyes. Who knew Samaritans were so gorgeous?
Of course, Ted Bundy had been good-looking and charming, too, she reminded herself, but she still brought the window down an inch. “No thanks. I’ve got a tow truck coming,” she said, holding up her cell phone.
“It kind of looked like you were trying to change it yourself when I drove by. Are you sure you don’t need a hand?”
She could think of a thing or two to do with hands like