he said blandly.
“What a disappointment.”
“Not even remotely.”
She stared at him for a beat, then blinked. “Well, just in case, I do have a deck of cards. I’ll be the house and we can play a few hands,” she offered.
“You’re too kind.”
“You can give me all your money and it’ll feel just like being there.”
“That would be much too kind.”
“That’s the way I am.” The amusement was back.
“So what are you doing here, meeting friends?”
“Flying solo.” She glanced around. “Where are your friends, Vegas?”
The palm fronds cast patterned shadows over her shoulders. Rand dragged his gaze away from her skin. “No friends.”
“Not any?” She raised an eyebrow. “But you seem like such a nice person. I’ll be your friend,” she decided. “Didn’t you tell me I owed a favor to the next person who needed one?”
“Generous of you,” he said dryly.
“Isn’t it just. Of course, I can afford to be generous. I’m here playing hooky from the world for a couple of days.”
“Hooky works for me.”
“Really?” She leaned toward him and lowered her voice like a coconspirator. “Want to play hooky together?”
“Only if you promise not to talk about anything remotely serious.”
“No politics?”
“Nope.”
“No economy?”
He shook his head.
“No ‘So, what do you do?’”
“Absolutely not. You start down that road, I’ll go find someone else’s tire to change.”
“Oh, now I get it,” she nodded wisely, “that was your pickup move.”
“You know it. I wait around the highway for gorgeous babes to have blowouts that they can’t change. It’s the ultimate icebreaker.”
“You are smooth.”
“Oh, I can ratchet up a jack with the best of ’em,” he assured her.
Her eyes were bright with amusement. “I thought you looked like a man who knew his way around a lug nut.”
“Just handy with tools.”
She raised her glass. “Well, here’s to being handy.”
They grinned at each other. He’d forgotten the pleasure of banter with a clever woman, not to mention a sexy little dish like her. It had definitely been too long. “My name’s Rand, by the way.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Your parents wanted you to be a mapmaker?”
“Positive reinforcement,” he agreed. “What’s your name?”
She hesitated an instant. “Danni.”
“Let me guess, your parents wanted a boy? Doesn’t look like it was too successful to me.”
“Au contraire. I was quite the tomboy growing up,” she informed him.
He looked down to where her long, tanned legs peeked out of the wraparound sarong. “I bet you climbed trees with the best of them.”
“You’d better believe it,” she returned. “Played softball, too. I had a mean curveball.”
“I’ll remember to watch for that.” He didn’t know about curveballs, but she was definitely curvy enough in all the right places. “So have you been hanging out around the pool all morning?”
“Of course. Like I said, I’m playing hooky. How about you?”
“Did a quick run, played a round of golf.” Didn’t get down to the pool nearly soon enough.
She shook her head pityingly. “No wonder you were yawning. I’d be tired, too.”
“Are you kidding? I’m just getting revved up. A dip in the water and I’ll be good to go.”
Invitation replaced amusement in those green eyes. “And here I thought you were pretty good already.”
“Stick around. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
A JAZZ TUNE COURTESY OF A PIANIST nearby, floated out into the evening. Cilla sat in the terrace bar of the restaurant’s fusion restaurant, waiting for Rand. She wasn’t usually the one to wait, but when they’d parted ways to go dress for dinner, she’d found herself in a minimalist mood. Slipping into her pale gold silk shift and sandals took only a moment. The sun had taken care of her need for bronzer. All she had to do was darken her eyes a bit, slick on some lip gloss and presto, she was ready.
Staying on the grounds had seemed easiest. Neither of them had felt like dealing with the drive into Palm Springs. She couldn’t quite put her finger on the point at which dinner together had become a given. As to what might happen after that, well, the long, lazy afternoon of flirting and playing like otters in the pool made that seem like a given, also.
Cilla turned her head to look at the arched entrance just as Rand came through. He stood for a moment, searching the room for her and she caught her breath. She’d watched that face for hours at poolside, but somehow the time they’d spent apart had rendered the impact of him fresh. The afternoon sun had touched his skin with gold. Against the breezy white linen of his shirt, his hair was dark, his eyes a luminous silver. When he caught sight of her, the power of it sang through her. For a moment, he just stood, watching. Then he began to walk toward her.
And unaccountably, the breath began to clog up in her lungs.
He took his time moving across the room, as though he were savoring the spectacle. When he reached her side, he raised her fingers to his lips. “You’re lovely,” he said simply, brushing his lips over her knuckles.
And Cilla could only stare.
She’d been prepared for banter, for something cocky or ironic. She should have known he wouldn’t be so predictable. A man who knew what he wanted and went after it.
“I think our table is waiting,” she said.
CILLA FOLLOWED Rand off the floor in the nightclub and back to their booth, leaning back against him for a moment in mock exhaustion. Drinks to dinner, dinner to dancing. Like silent conspirators, they’d stretched the evening out, neither of them ready to see it end. With the passing hours, they moved into each other’s space, as casual touches that held nothing casual within them became commonplace.
But they had yet to bridge that critical gap between possibility and certainty.
Rand’s chest was hard and solid behind her and desire bubbled in her veins. When he reached out to toy with her hair, she very nearly purred. She wanted more of this man, this lovely man with the smooth voice and the bedroom eyes and the hands that promised all sorts of decadence.
She wanted more, period. So she didn’t move away, only sighed when he slid an arm around her.
“You’re quite a dancer,” Cilla murmured.
“You inspire me.”
“It’s the least I can do.” Then lights came up abruptly, bleaching the club from dim intimacy to hard reality. Was it really that late, she wondered in surprise, and straightened.
“Cinderella time, I guess,” Rand said.
“I’m not ready to call it a night,” Cilla objected. “It’s too soon.” Whether it was the wee hours of morning or not, she wasn’t the least bit sleepy. Instead, breathless anticipation ran through