Читать книгу Total Package - Cait London, Cait London - Страница 7

The midnight moon hung over the Pacific Ocean’s black swells like a sly curse waiting to fall. Thickening clouds slid across that silvery surface, foretelling rain.

Below the cliff on which Danya Stepanov stood, the waves caressed the smooth silvery strip of sandy beach. Alone and brooding, Danya stared at the small cluster of lights that signified Amoteh, the town in southwest Washington State.

In the distance, jutting out into the darkness was the Amoteh Resort, managed by Danya’s cousin, Mikhail. The lush resort, one of a worldwide chain, offered tourists rest and businesses convention facilities. It also supplied many of the residents in town with an income from their crafts. Within the huge resort was a display room for Stepanov Furniture; the pieces were crafted by Danya’s uncle Fadey, his cousin, Jarek, and others.

Winds swept up from the shoreline below the cliff, tearing at Danya’s hair. Carrying the fresh bite of salt and the earthy fragrances of mid-June, the mist stirred around his body.

He turned to the ancient rocky grave, no more than a weathered mound behind him and walked to it.

The wind stirred the grass at his work boots, as if the Hawaiian chieftain who had died there recognized another lonely male. Danya understood the Hawaiian chieftain’s curse upon the land, a dying man damning his fate. Kamakani had been captured by whalers over a century and a half ago, and he’d been stranded on a land that wasn’t his, missing a woman who belonged to him.

Danya knew what it was to miss part of his heart and soul, his love, a wife who had died too young.

Familiar with brooding and loneliness at midnight, Danya looked around him. Strawberry Hill, a peninsula jutting out into the Pacific Ocean, was windswept and accessed by a rocky path. During high tide the waterway passage from the peninsula to the small town of Amoteh was dangerous. The huge deadly stone rising out of the crashing waves had already caused many boaters’ deaths. At low tide, Strawberry Hill could be reached by a long walk along the shoreline and a hike up that rocky path.

Danya found what he wanted—a small stand of wind-whipped trees, nothing like the soaring straight pines of his native Wyoming mountains—but it held the scent and feel of home.

An experienced woodsman, Danya moved into the shadows of the trees to brood.

Nine years ago, a drunken driver had taken the life of Danya’s young wife. Danya had been driving—how could he have avoided the crash, those headlights crossing the road?

Danya had lived that nightmare many times—what could he have done?

He inhaled the salty air and felt his heart twist, as if part of it had been wrenched away. His brother, Alexi, had also been a rancher, starting a new life in Amoteh. Now, over a year later, he was married and a father. Would it actually help Danya’s empty heart to relocate with his father, Viktor?

Last year, Danya had desperately needed the change from his father’s Wyoming ranch, where everything reminded him of his wife. Jeannie would have liked Amoteh, a Chinook name for the wild strawberries growing in the southwest Washington State coastal area. She would have liked the tourist pier, the sailboats skimming along the horizon, and digging in the sand for razor back clams.

She would have loved raising children amid their Stepanov cousins.

He inhaled unevenly and wondered if she was there with him, swirling around in the mist, waiting….

Danya turned his thoughts to what he did have—a family surrounding him, children to hold, a growing building and remodeling business with his brother—

The sound of a stick breaking caused him to tense—someone walked through the grass. The steady sounds said that one person had purpose, tramping to a familiar destination without the use of a flashlight.

He smiled grimly; there were others walking in the night, shielding their loneliness from those who cared and worried about them.

A high loud howl broke the night—a frustrated sound too high for a man, but still a howl. Danya eased aside in the shadows, watching the small shadow cross in front of him. It tossed a bulky object to the ground in front of Kamakani’s grave.

The person turned and lifted arms high—and a woman removed her top, bending to shimmy out of her loose pants.

A woman with hair too short to be caught by the wind stood, her legs braced apart, a small curvy silhouette, but definitely a woman. Outlined by the moon peeking through the clouds, she seemed almost mystical, a goddess coming to court the night.

Then she raised her hands high and yelled angrily, “Dammit, what’s wrong with me? Look at me, will you, Chief? I’ve got everything any other woman has—maybe less in some places, but the basic equipment is there. So why did Ben marry some little fluff-cake and not me? Fluffy hasn’t got a brain in her head. So why did he pick her over me?”

A string of unladylike curses sailed through the night air, and Danya had the uneasy suspicion that the lady just might intend something drastic—like stepping off that cliff onto the jagged rocks below.

“Look. Basic thirty-year-old female equipment. Correction: prime equipment. We had sex. Sure, Ben never took that long, but then we didn’t have much time between jobs and that suited me. Look. Breasts. They have nipples and everything.”

The woman flung away a scrap of something, that just could have been a bra. She shimmied and tugged at her hips, and her foot kicked away another scrap. “Okay, Chief. You’re a man—or you were. What’s wrong with me?”

Absolutely nothing was wrong with her. The woman’s silhouette was all curves. Danya’s throat dried and something he thought had died started stirring. She was right: all the basic equipment was there. The impact shot right down his body and lodged into a hard tight knot.

“Okay, so I don’t do the helpless little Fluffy-no-brains act. That’s all fake anyway. Really, Chief. Tell me. Send some sign or something.”

Danya should leave her to grieve over her lost lover.

But she just might step over that cliff and that would be a shame.

Then, he thought as he weighed his options, there was the little matter of his own curiosity.

Danya moved silently through the shadows and circled down the rocky path leading to the grave site. When he’d gotten a distance down Strawberry Hill, he called loudly to the night, “I’ll be fine. Go on back down without me.”

Satisfied that would warn the woman of his coming, he began a slow upward walk to where he expected she would be rapidly dressing. From the corner of his eye, he noted a sleeping bag spread on the ground. His foot tangled in something and he reached down to collect a stretchy garment; it was a woman’s sports bra, which he’d seen other women wearing as they worked out. The rumpled white cotton briefs were still warm and fragrant from her body. That light floral scent of a female caused him to tense, suddenly aware that it had been a long, long time since he’d made love. He crushed the fabric possessively in his fist and forced himself to toss it carelessly to the sleeping bag. “Huh. Leftovers from a romantic night I guess,” he said loudly.

Danya walked slowly past the woman hidden by the night; rustling sounds said she still wasn’t finished dressing, and giving her more time, he walked to the edge of the cliff.

He could hear her breathing, and sensed her waiting behind him. Then she cleared her throat. “Um, mister. You’re not thinking of jumping, are you? Please don’t do that. I’ve had a really miserable day and you’d only make it worse.”

Sidney Blakely only wanted to escape the coy, perfumed, primping, light-brained mass of calendar models at the Amoteh Resort.

She did not want to witness a suicide, a cliff jumper determined to end his miserable life.

On the other hand, as a professional photographer, she could get a good shot of—Sidney discarded that thought. For once, she didn’t have a camera and she really didn’t want to see someone splattered all over the rocks below. If he fell onto the sand, that might be different, but still—

She paused just a heartbeat—the man looked really big, maybe six foot three or so, and powerful. If she came too close, he could easily take her five-foot-five-inch, 110-pound body right over the cliff with him.

She might be Ben’s sexual leftover, but she wasn’t ready to die.

Sidney hurried to finish pulling on her camouflage pants and tugged her sweatshirt down to her hips. Her boots were discarded and she had no time to put them on before she stopped the jumper. The rocks bruised her feet as she tried to both hurry and avoid pain. “Ooh, ouch…ooh…ouch. Hey, mister. Don’t do anything rash. Let’s talk this—ouch—out.”

Sidney came closer to stand a little behind the man—just out of reaching distance.

As a freelance photographer, she’d seen men, stunned by war, want to take their own lives. She’d seen them walk deliberately into enemy fire. She’d seen whole native villages taken out by floods and volcanoes; she’d captured the devastation of the western U.S. fires, flown above the scorching deserts, crossed desolate Arctic stretches to photograph reindeer herds. Well published in various magazines, she was an on-the-spot prime and well-paid photographer and she recognized people who were on the very edge of life, ready to throw it away.

This man was brooding, maybe contemplating death—she had to stay calm, work him down, make him see that life wasn’t all that bad…even though hers was in the toilet now that Ben had married Fluffy.

She eased into position a few feet to the side of the “jumper,” and studied him. The wind caught his hair, the salty mist swirling around him. Early thirties maybe, shaggy wavy hair, a rugged hard face and a jaw covered with stubble, from there on down, he was all power and broad shoulders and long lean legs in jeans that topped his work boots. The hand raised to push back his hair was big and wide and strong—he was a man who worked with his hands and those broad shoulders said he was probably a laborer, Sidney decided.

“I come up here to be alone,” he whispered in a deep gravely voice.

Sidney moved closer. She had to think of something to keep him from jumping. “Yeah? Want to tell me why?”

He turned to her and those deep-set eyes, only slivers of silver in the night, pinned her. Oh, no, Sidney thought wildly, the guy could be a serial killer waiting here every night for his victim, and she’d walked right into—

A strand of his hair drifted across his cheekbone, softening the hard edge. His voice came deep and wrapped in a Western drawl that seemed to hold humor: “Sometimes, life is just the pits.”

Sidney decided that serial killers probably weren’t the humorous kind of guys and reverted back to her “jumper” theory. “How well I know—er, ah…Now, it isn’t always the pits. Look at the bright side, guy. Why don’t we talk about this?”

“What’s ‘this’?”

“You know, how good life is. We’ll swap stories and you’ll feel better. All we need is a beer and some talk and you’ll see that life isn’t that bad.”

“You brought beer up here?”

He sounded interested in that, but then maybe he was an alcoholic, and already pretty well on his way—but then he smelled like fresh air, newly cut lumber, that wonderful just showered soap-and-male smell. “No beer. Just a buddy to listen to you in the night. We’ll swap stories. You’ll see that my life is no joy ride and you’ll feel better.”

“I doubt if you can top what I’m going through.”

“Oh, no, I can. Wait until I tell you about it—step back from the edge there and I’ll tell you about my miserable excuse for a life. If you think you’ve got problems, you should try my life.”

A human touch, that’s what the man needed at his lowest hour, to know that someone cared about him. Sidney eased closer. “Now don’t do anything rash, just take my hand.”

His frown directed toward her was suspicious. “Why should I? What do you mean, rash?”

He wasn’t playing his role well—she was supposed to be rescuing him and instead he was asking questions. “Because I said so, dammit. I mean that a step or two more and you could go over the edge.”

He stared at her blankly for a moment and shook his head. “You think that I might—Uh…I see.” In the darkness he smiled slightly, as if enjoying a new thought. “Okay,” he agreed meekly.

He looked down at her extended hand, then slowly his large rough one closed over it. Calluses, Sidney thought, a workman who probably has pride in something—she just had to find out what made his life worth living and open the good things up for him.

Sidney inched back from the cliff and he followed her just those few feet. She breathed a little easier. Still. He could take a running jump at any time, and maybe take her with him. She could read the newspaper headlines now—or rather the memos and back copy that only a few people might read—Sidney Blakely, Freelance Photographer Dies in Lovers’ Leap. Send donations to—yada, yada. Bulldog, her father, would curse her for stupid female brain and her sisters, Stretch and Junior, would be left to fend for themselves. Fluffy would cry prettily and Ben would yawn and turn over. He did that well, yawn and turn over when he finished sex—Well, sex with Fluffy now.

The problem was, this guy wasn’t her lover. The headlines and memos would be wrong—typical bad reporting; the facts would be skewed.

“Guy, I’m going over there and sit down on my sleeping bag—” If the jumper was sitting, he couldn’t jump, could he? “And you’re welcome to sit a while. Or maybe we could walk down together. Maybe go for a beer somewhere?”

The man’s palm fitted against hers, his fingers linked with hers. Oh—Sidney cursed mentally—he was going to take her over with him. She stepped up the pace, and tugged him along to the sleeping bag. “Sit, dammit.”

“Are you always so sweet? That sounds like an order.” There was a slight, but unusual accent in his voice. She couldn’t place it—a cross between a Western drawl and something foreign.

“Bulldog—my dad was in the Marines. He raised my sisters and me according to regulations. Take it from there. And sit.”

When the tall man folded himself down onto her sleeping bag, Sidney took a deep breath. Shoot, she knew a few self-defense moves and just where to hit a man where he was most vulnerable. She’d been in basic training and maneuvers since she was old enough to toddle. Besides, he was staring off toward that cliff. It was probably calling him—jumpers sometimes said they got called to their deaths.

Sidney settled down on the sleeping bag, folded her legs lotus-fashion, and tried to come up with something to quell his suicide urges, something tender that he’d reflect upon and change his mind. She came up with “You don’t have a parachute. It would be messy at the bottom. You’re big. Think of the cleanup,” she said.

He’d drawn up one knee, closed his arms around it. “Mmm. I don’t think I want to jump just yet. Maybe I wasn’t going to anyway. So what’s the story of your life?”

Get personal, make an attachment, that’s what Bulldog had said about men who were weary of life. “Oh you had the look all right. I’ve seen it in combat zones—sad, alone, as if nothing else mattered…So, what’s your name?”

“So, what’s your story?”

She took a deep breath. “You’re being difficult. One of those. The name is Sid Blakely.”

“Sid,” he repeated softly, almost like a caress, with just that lilt of accent. She stuck out her hand and he considered it before taking it, enfolding it with his large one. “Danya.”

“Sounds foreign.” Now she recognized that slight inflection. He was still shaking her hand, slowly, as though he were studying the fit of it within his own. Just maybe he was wondering if he could drag her to the edge, and—

“Russian. My father and uncles immigrated, and I was born here.” He was looking at her hand in his, studying it. “You have good hands. Working hands. Small.”

Sidney withdrew her hand, but the feel of his remained—warm, rough, big. She fought the little unexplained shiver that shot through her. “Ah. See there. You have family. They probably worry about you. Think of them.”

“Okay, I will. What’s your story?”

“First, I want your promise that you won’t jump off that cliff after I tell you. Promise, and that’s a direct order.”

“Yes, sir.”

She thought she heard humor in that tone, and then dismissed it. “That’s better—Danya. You have a last name?”

“Stepanov.”

“As in the Stepanov family who lives here? Mikhail, who manages the Amoteh Resort, and Stepanov as in Stepanov Furniture? But then you have a family here. I’ve heard about them, and they’re hard to miss. You’re not alone.”

“I have just moved here last fall with my father, so that he can retire and relax near his brother—that is Fadey Stepanov, the owner of the furniture line. I’ve gone into business with my brother, Alexi. We’re builders and remodelers.” His smile was slow and thoughtful, as if he loved the ones who would go on living without him…. “Tell me your story. Maybe I can help you? Ships passing in the night and all that?”

She shook her head. “Keep the roles straight. I’m the one saving you, got it? You just go along and everything will be fine. You’ve got to realize that you’re not alone, that’s the first thing.”

“But you are here with me—so I am not alone, is that not so? Are you always this bossy?”

Sidney frowned as she ran through her day in hell. “Like I said, it’s been a rough day. I’m shooting a calendar, not my usual gig. I’m not into commercial portraits, but I wanted out of what I usually do—you know, to try something different. The pay is good, the work stinks—especially the off-hours when the models want to chum it up with me. We’re staying at the Amoteh Resort, doing some beach shots, and at night, they want to play pajama party. They want to include me. I’m hiding out now. There’s nothing worse than a bunch of women moaning over their boyfriends, talking lipstick and hair, and waxing their legs. You have no idea how bad that hurts. To shut them up, I let them do it…almost killed me. It doesn’t stop at the legs, you know—they have to worry about their bikini lines. Now, that really hurts.”

“Ouch.”

Sidney nodded; Danya seemed to understand about bikini pain. She could tell by his slight grimace. Communication was progressing; soon he would forget about jumping. She decided to find out the reason for his crossing-out-life-tonight gambit. Touching was always good, according to Bulldog, so Sidney reached out and patted Danya’s jeaned thigh. It was hard and muscles tightened beneath her hand; Danya was in really good shape. He sucked in a breath and his hand had locked over hers, his thumb caressing her palm. It was probably because he needed human touch; Sidney allowed her hand to be held captive. “So, buddy, what’s your story? I’m a good listener—at least, my boyfriend used to tell me that.”

The mention of Ben took her backtracking to his choice of Fluffy, the blond bimbo, and Sidney was unfolding her whole miserable tale before she knew it. “His name was Ben. We’d been on a few photo shoots together, in some pretty tight places. I’d watch his back, he’d watch mine, that sort of thing. We camped together, went through land mines together, stood on the cusp of a lava river together, shooting away. It was great. He’s a photojournalist. You may have seen our stuff in magazines. Though a lot of people really don’t care about the photographer’s credits.”

“And?” He rubbed her hand slowly up and down his thigh, but then, she justified, the guy probably had a muscle ache.

“And sex. We had that—oh, maybe twice a year…when there was time. Nothing like whole hours or anything—you just don’t play around when you’re out there shooting stuff. You get the job done and go on. So, anyway, we had a thing going for oh, six or seven years, and then he meets Fluffy-baby. They got married a month ago. That’s why I don’t want to take any freelance jobs where I might cross paths with Ben. Fluffy-baby hangs all over him. It’s disgusting.”

“I see,” Danya said softly. “So that would hurt you?”

“It would make me mad. Fluffy hadn’t got a thing to offer. Some little sweetie pie who hasn’t been anywhere or done anything, but that isn’t bad—it’s just that we had done all those great, exciting things together and then he up and dumps me for her.”

Sidney lay back on the sleeping bag and her hand was released. As the wind riffled her hair almost playfully, she inhaled the damp scents of night, mingled with the earth and trees. A short distance away, a small animal rustled through the underbrush, and she carefully moved through memories before speaking. “Bulldog never liked Ben. So at least I don’t have to listen to lectures from sweet old Dad anymore.”

Grass brushed her feet and clung to them. She kicked slightly to dislodge the damp blades, and he noted the action. “Did you hurt your feet when you walked over the rocks?”

Danya reached to take her foot and draw it into his hands. He smoothed her arch and insole very slowly. A woman who knew how to take what she could get in a single moment of life, because it could be gone the next, Sidney relaxed slightly. She wanted to give him something back. “Hey, want a candy bar?” she asked as she dug into her pants cargo pocket.

“No, thanks.” He carefully drew off her thick workman’s sock, and continued to slowly, carefully rub her feet.

Sidney unwrapped the chocolate bar and munched on it, contemplating Ben’s defection while having her feet warmed and soothed. “I loved him—Ben, I mean. We shared film and lenses and hardships. A thing like that doesn’t go away easy. Now he’s with her, the six-foot-nothing-but-legs-and-boobs blond bimbo. I don’t know what he sees in her. They are planning to multiply and raise ducks. He’s all excited, Mr. Rabbit, so fast you never know he’s been there before he’s gone. Now, I’ve got a reason to jump off that—er, to eat a lot of these candy bars.”

She plopped her other foot into his hands. “Do that one. Talk. Pick up the pace.”

His hands moved slowly, carefully over her feet; his voice was husky and uneven. His thumbs cruised over her arches. “You’ve got small feet.”

She hoped he wasn’t getting ready to cry. She didn’t know how to handle tears, not even her own. Right now, thinking about Ben and Fluffy, Sidney’s eyes were burning. But a Blakely never cries. Bulldog would be shamed. That was why she carried the candy bars and why she’d put on weight—whenever she started to tear up, she’d grab something chocolate and focus on that. “Yeah. Hard to get the right kind of combat boots for my size, but I’m wearing hiking ones now. So what’s your story?”

“My wife died in a car wreck. I was driving,” he said simply.

Sidney swallowed the bite of chocolate. “You feel guilty.”

“Because I lived and she didn’t. A drunken driver met us head-on and crossed in front of us at the last minute. I didn’t come to for days, and when I did—Jeannie was gone. We were both twenty-three.”

“That’s a heavy load. When did it happen?”

“Nine years ago. I still see those headlights…every night when I close my eyes.” Danya lay down, put his hands behind his head and stared at the night sky.

“Wow. And I thought I had it bad.” The companionable thing to do would be to lie quietly and wait for him to talk, so that’s what Sidney did. She had to lie close because it was a single sleeping bag.

She needed to distract him from his grief and refocus him on something else. “I detest being closeted every day and night with these models. I’ll be glad when this gig is over. They won’t leave me alone. I’m just not into girly talk and she-she.”

“You could stay somewhere else.” He reached for her free hand and eased it beneath his shirt. The poor guy needed human touch, she thought as he rubbed her hand over his muscled stomach, and he felt good to touch, she decided.

“Do you ache—I mean, do you have some physical problem that might cause you to want to end it all? If you do, there are all sorts of counselors for pain—and for grief, by the way. Have you tried that?”

“No to the second part, but yes, now I do ache. Your hand feels good. Do you mind?”

“Not if it helps you. I’ve done massage when needed. I’ve been in lots of make-do situations, and most of the time it’s just people helping people, letting them know that someone cares. But I would sure like to escape those models. That’s why I brought my sleeping bag up here—to get away from them since there’s nowhere else to stay besides my room at Amoteh. Where are you staying? With your family?”

“In my family’s cabin along the beach. It’s quiet, private, except for the wind chimes and the waves. It’s pretty plain, one room, no luxuries like at the Amoteh Resort.”

“Sounds like heaven.”

The mist had turned to a gentle rain and Sidney knew she couldn’t stay all night—a photographer with a bad cold could ruin a shoot. Then she sneezed. “Look, I’ve got to go. Come down off this hill with me? We’ll go someplace for a beer and talk some more.”

“Everything is closed.”

“We could go to my room and raid the refrigerator there, but those models would be on you like flies on sugar. They’re man-hungry and you’re in no emotional shape to fight them off. They’re already half mad at me, so I’d have to let them have you—for the sake of the shoot. Now, you wouldn’t want that, would you? A bunch of sex-starved, booby bimbos chasing you?”

He chuckled softly, deeply in the night. “No, I sure wouldn’t want that.”

At least his humor was there. Maybe she had done some good after all. Sidney sat up and looked for her socks. Danya took her foot and slowly slid one sock on and then the other. Sidney had the strangest sense that she was being tended somehow.

It was a gentle, but uneasy sensation that caused her to jam on her hiking boots and lace them tightly. “You want to talk at your place, or what?” she asked abruptly as she stood. “If not, then I’m going to have to go back into that bimbo hell and try to find a quiet corner where someone isn’t sobbing over some girly movie, or someone isn’t wanting to give me a facial or pluck my eyebrows. The light won’t be good for shooting tomorrow, so they know they can stay up late—hunting me.”

He handed her the sports bra and her cotton briefs. There was nothing intimate about it, only one buddy helping another. She stuffed them into her sleeping bag and Danya stood. He bent down to roll her bag and lift it over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”

“I can carry that. Who do you think waits on me?”

“I don’t doubt it a bit. It’s just that you’ve helped me tonight, and I’d like to return the favor…so I wouldn’t be in your debt. You understand.”

Sidney did understand. She never liked to be in anyone’s debt and Bulldog had taught her to be self-sufficient. But if Danya needed that link to keep him off that cliff, she could sacrifice. He carefully led her down the rocky trail from the chieftain’s grave site. Around her smaller one, his hand felt good, strong, and companionable. Maybe he needed that link with her. Maybe she needed it with him. Ships in the night, Sidney reminded herself. At least she wasn’t at the mercy of the models.

Danya held her hand as they walked in the night, down Strawberry Hill and a long walk to the Amoteh Resort’s steps. From there, they moved across a small worn path and down to the shoreline and Amoteh, the town. In the distance behind them, a huge jagged rock jutted up into the night, the waves crashing around it; she recognized the landmark as Deadman’s Rock where boats had been smashed upon the rock and people had died.

She glanced at the man whom she had rescued. He looked big and lethal, hard and soulless, the wind catching his hair. He kept on one side of her, breaking the wind, and handling her sleeping bag as if it were nothing. Sidney hurried to match his long stride, but then she noted that it had shortened, and that he moved with her. She only reached his shoulder, her hand small within his.

The guy was a toucher, needing and giving touches and she could handle that—if it would help him deal with his pain. She’d talk him through the night and in the morning, he’d feel much better.

They passed docking piers, the boats moving in the waves, gently bumping at their moorings, then the long tourist pier filled with shops that were now closed, flags trembling above them.

Then, just as they passed a long margin of driftwood piled on the shore, Sidney decided that maybe Danya really only needed to have sex to make him see that life was worth living.

But not with her. She stopped, jerked her hand away from his, and plopped down on a log. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute—”

Danya loomed above her, the sleeping bag propped over his shoulder. “Problem?”

“I just want to get something straight. No sex. No way. Not with me. You’ve got to promise to think of me as a friend, a buddy, not a woman.” She patted a driftwood log. “Sit.”

“I do not think of you as just a woman,” Danya said slowly, thoughtfully, with that touch of foreign formality.

He eased down to the log and studied her, his face all angles in the mist and eery moonlight. “Good. Just keep thinking of me as your buddy and we’ll be fine. Men usually think of me that way and I’m used to talking straight with them, no female chatter for me. Do you have a sexual problem? Because if you do, I can’t help you there.”

Was he trying not to smile? “Not that I know of.”

“What’s your sexual history? I’m just asking because I don’t want to be jumped by some guy with stored up—some guy needing relief. I mean, have you done it since your wife—you know?”

“A few times. But I didn’t find what my wife and I had and I needed that to feel complete.”

“No offense, but you understand why I need to be careful.”

“You have my word that I will not touch you—like that. But it is nice to listen to you talk. If you would stay with me, it would fill the hours.”

She eyed him and could find no humor in that hard face. “Are you saying that I talk too much? Because I’m just trying to help you, after all.”

“I am saying that I would be pleased if you would share my home tonight.” Again, his formality caused Sidney to be uneasy. But then, she’d met a few European males and though this guy was born in the U.S., sometimes family traditions carried over; he probably even spoke Russian. She’d noticed that same formality in Mikhail Stepanov, and a slight disdain for the models hovering around him.

“I’m not having sex with you—just getting that straight upfront. Been there, done that, with Mr. Rabbit, and it wasn’t fun. What happened to these other women you’ve had?”

Danya looked out to the black waves. “Correction—a couple of women, each for a brief time. It seems that I am a good matchmaker. Through me, they met someone more suitable than myself.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. So you were dumped. Danya, you can’t think of yourself as a life’s loser just because you were dumped.”

“That is good advice. I’m tired and my cabin is just a little bit farther. Do you want to go on, or back to the resort?”

Sidney yawned and thought of the primping models waiting to give her facials, pluck her eyebrows, share intimate girl-talk and discuss silly fashions. “If I could pull up a piece of your floor for my sleeping bag, I’d be grateful.”

He nodded and stood. Exhausted now, Sidney yawned again and looked down at the big hand extended to help her to her feet.

Bulldog wouldn’t like her accepting help, but since this guy needed lots of touching to get him through the night, what did it matter?

In her lifetime, Sidney had had to make quick decisions and always trusted her judgment. Now it told her that she could trust this man. He needed companionship for the night and she needed rest.

It would all work out, she decided as she walked with him to his cabin.

And then her artistic photographer’s mind added an enticing thought—he was gorgeous and just maybe she could get some really good shots, a portrait in black and white would really emphasize that rugged face.

That long lean body wasn’t that bad, either, she decided, and it would be perfect for some excellent shots, maybe for magazine ads. She might even be a factor in changing his life, in starting him in new successful directions, in giving him a new and beautiful slant on life.

Hey, when opportunity raised its beautiful, profitable head, who was she to deny it?