Читать книгу In Bed With The Wild One: In Bed With The Wild One / In Bed With The Pirate - Colleen Collins, Colleen Collins - Страница 11

BUT SHE DIDN’T SAY THAT. “I’ll be staying through the weekend, I think. Have to be back in the office on Monday.”

“Great.” Kate beamed at her. “You’ll be in the Pollyanna room.”

“The Pollyanna room?” she echoed. Pollyanna? But she was hoping for…“Isn’t there anything else?”

“Sorry,” Kate replied. “Pollyanna is the only room available. But I’m sure you’ll like it. It’s very lacy and feminine—just right for someone like you.”

“Someone like me…right.”

Which was exactly what she was trying to avoid.

“I’m really sorry.” The innkeeper lowered her voice to a conspiratorial tone. “I completely understand. I think Pollyanna is kind of lame, too. But my mom made me add it. She thinks the other rooms are too—oh, I don’t know—slutty or something. Mothers.” She rolled her eyes. “Can’t live with them, and they won’t let you live without them.”

“I hear you.”

Kate edged the register book in front of her and then stooped down under the desk. From down there, she called, “Hang on. I have to get a pen off the floor—that darn Beau!” Straightening, she handed over a felt-tip. “Okay. Now I’ll need you to fill in your name and address.”

The register. The very one Tyler had signed a few minutes ago. With heightened anticipation, Emily pulled the book closer, eager to read whatever he’d written about himself.

But it was just a blank page. Darn it. Emily’s registration was the first one on a new page, and she was going to have to very conspicuously turn the page back if she wanted to read his information.

“Is there something wrong?” Kate inquired.

“Oh, no. Well,” she said, improvising, “this pen is dried out. Do you have a different one?”

As Kate once again ducked under the desk, Emily grabbed her chance, flipping the page back, squinting at the slash of rotten handwriting to make out “Tyler O’Toole, Chicago, IL,” and then several blank lines.

Quickly she put the register back the way it was, just in time for Kate to pop up with a pencil. Emily took it and scribbled down her own name and address.

Okay, so he wasn’t terribly good at filling out forms and he hadn’t given her much to go on. At least she knew his last name now. Tyler O’Toole.

Speaking of last names…she glanced down at her own. Was it wise to use her real name? Or smarter to go with a fake one just in case her mother started looking for her?

While Kate was occupied tidying up the pencil cup, Emily erased her last name and penciled in the first cool name that popped into her head. “Bond,” she wrote. Emily Bond.

After spinning the book around to read the name, Kate smiled. “Nice to meet you, Emily.” Then she turned to pull an old-fashioned key off a hook. “Okay. Pollyanna is the first room on the right at the top of the stairs. There’s a doll on the door—that’s how you’ll know it’s Pollyanna.”

“Pollyanna and baby dolls,” Emily murmured, feeling more disappointed by the minute. It sounded like her room when she was twelve. As the youngest child and the only girl in the Chaplin family, she’d had to endure all kinds of smothering, fussy stuff. “I’ll be sure to look for the doll.”

Handing over the key, Kate began to list a few other B and B procedures, something about when she wanted breakfast, and did she like coffee or tea, and would she want afternoon snacks, and checkout time. But Emily just nodded at appropriate times, not really paying attention. She was too busy watching Tyler slip back down the stairs and head this way. Beau nipped at his heels, but Tyler grabbed the big tabby in the crook of one arm and then deposited him with Kate.

Hanging on to the squirming cat, she interrupted her welcoming spiel to ask him, “On your way out so soon?”

He nodded, edging toward the door.

On his way out? But he couldn’t be yet. Emily needed to follow him, but it was difficult to do that in the middle of registering. How blatant would it be if she ran out now, without even looking at the Pollyanna room, just dropping everything and racing after him? Pretty blatant.

Beau gave a howl and Kate dropped him. After landing with a big thud, the cat immediately attached himself to Emily’s legs, winding around, meowing, giving her a plaintive stare from those infuriating green eyes.

“I—I guess he likes me,” Emily murmured.

So why was he bumping her with his head and nudging her closer to Tyler? Was the cat actually telling her to go for it?

“Now, now,” she said sweetly, trying to disengage herself. But Beau was a stubborn little beast, and he rammed his whole weight into her, pushing her after Tyler.

Tyler’s moody gaze swept the two of them. Was that suspicion she read in the clear green depth of his eyes? Or interest? Just before he cleared the door, his hand already on the brass knob, Tyler stopped. He turned back.

“The airport, the cab…” he said slowly. “Do I know you?”

“Um, no.” Suddenly reckless, taking her opening where she could get it, Emily asked, “But would you like to?”

“Would I like to what?”

He gave her an odd look, but it spoke volumes. It was the same one that said, Who gave you a day pass from the loony bin?

She hated that look.

And then he shook his head, frowned at her, shoved open the door and took off for parts unknown, leaving her holding the key to the Pollyanna room.

Emily closed her eyes and tried not to feel like an absolute doofus. The first time in her life she’d gone for coy and flirtatious, and it had flopped big-time. Let’s not try that again.

“Emily, I’m sorry to have to say this.” Kate bit her lip. Clearly she was trying to be kind. It was written all over her pretty face.

“You don’t have to say any—”

“Yes, I do. I can’t help but notice that you seem sort of, well, smitten with Tyler.”

Smitten? Smitten? But that wasn’t it at all! Tyler was part of an adventure, a caper, an escapade. She hardly wanted to date him or bring him home to meet Mom and Dad—although the expression on their faces would have been priceless when they got a load of Tyler.

Emily shook her head, getting back to the business at hand. She didn’t want anything like that from Tyler. No, she wanted to skate on thin ice with him, to dance on the brink of danger. Smitten had nothing to do with it.

“You seem to have the wrong idea—” she began.

But Kate interrupted. “I’m so sorry, Emily, but I think it’s better you should be warned up front. Forewarned, forearmed, all that, you know? It’s just that Tyler and I, well, we go back a long way.”

Forewarned and forearmed? Tyler and I? Emily backed away from the desk. “Are you trying to say you and Tyler are a couple? I have always been very respectful of—”

“No, no, nothing like that.” Kate waved her hands anxiously. “It’s not that Tyler is taken or anything like that. And certainly not by me. Far from it. Well, we had a couple of…I mean, years ago, we did…never mind.” She gave Emily a wry smile. “Let’s just say I know him pretty well. And I have some experience with this matchmaking business. You know, running the B and B.” She inclined a thumb at the wall of postcards. “Those are some of my success stories.”

“M-matchmaking?” Emily sputtered. “But I don’t need—”

“That’s what everyone thinks,” Kate confided. “But you’d be surprised how many otherwise perfectly sensible people will walk right past the perfect person for them.” She shook the wayward tendrils of her short-cropped hair. “Luckily, I have really good instincts about people, and I am an excellent matchmaker, if I do say so myself.”

Looking at all the postcards, Emily had to agree.

“It’s my experience as a matchmaker that’s telling me this.” There was that kind, half-pitying expression again. “Frankly,” Kate said, “you and Tyler…I just don’t see it. Not a good match.”

“But I’m not interested in being matched up with him,” Emily insisted. What was it with her? Did she have “please find me a date” stenciled on her forehead? Everyone in the world seemed to think she was so pitiful she needed to be fixed up with a guy, any guy. And that was the last thing she wanted.

“I know, I know. Everyone says they’re not interested in getting matched up. And don’t get me wrong,” Kate interjected. “Tyler is a great guy. And you seem very nice. But I don’t think he’s at a place in his life where he’d be looking for someone like you. I mean, I have to be honest with you. Since he and I had our couple of nowheresville dates years ago, the only women I’ve ever seen him with have been hookers and strippers.”

Emily’s jaw dropped. “Hookers and strippers?”

“Oh, no, not to date or anything,” Kate assured her. “It was business. You know, in his line of work, it comes up.”

And what line of work would that be?

But Kate was continuing with her friendly warning. “Really, trust me. He’s not your type.” She perked up. “On the other hand, I do have a sweet, nice, stable guy staying in the Pirate room. A nice, stable divorce lawyer. I think he’d be perfect for you—”

“A lawyer? No. No lawyers. Ever.”

Even if she had been interested in dating, which she wasn’t, that bit of info would’ve been enough to put her off. Yech. Her brain manufactured an image of the pompous, self-important face of Kip Enfield, and she shuddered. If she never saw another lawyer, it would be too soon.

“No lawyers? How funny,” Kate mused. “Tyler always says the same thing.”

But Emily was rewinding the tape of their conversation, back to the part about the hookers and strippers. Trying not to sound too nosy, she ventured, “Okay, so you said that women from the wrong side of the tracks come up in Tyler’s line of work. Why would that be, exactly?”

Kate blinked.

“I mean,” Emily tried again, “what line of work is it that these bad girls come up in?”

“Sorry.” Kate pressed her lips together. “I do apologize, Emily, since I brought it up, but I feel very strongly about maintaining my guests’ privacy.” She clapped the register shut with a quick thump. “I’m sure you understand.” Kate turned and ducked behind the desk, stowing the registration book securely in a drawer. “Where did I leave that…? Oh, here it is.” She held up an envelope. “Better go pay the bills. Right now.”

And Kate beat a hasty path down the hall to the parlor door. She turned around long enough to call out, “Remember, the Pollyanna room is the first right at the top of the stairs.”

“Got it.” Oh, she had it all right. She understood perfectly. Kate was not going to tell her anything useful about Tyler at all. Blast it, anyway.

Lugging her briefcase, which seemed to be getting heavier by the minute, Emily decided that with Tyler already off the premises, there was nothing to do but get upstairs and see what this Pollyanna room was all about.

“I’ll relax and then I’ll formulate a plan,” she said out loud, taking the stairs as rapidly as she could manage. When she almost tripped on the top step, she glanced at her sensible pumps. “The first thing I’m going to do is get out of these shoes. And the second…” She crinkled her nose. “The second is take off my skirt.”

She felt better already, having a plan.

“Okay, find the door with the dolly.” That was easy enough. The golden-haired doll in Edwardian clothing was fastened to the door with a pale pink ribbon around her waist, and she held out her arms in welcome. A dead giveaway that this was the Pollyanna room.

But Emily couldn’t resist. She passed it by, long enough to tiptoe down the hall to locate The Wild One. A small silver trophy was the marker for this door, for reasons she didn’t quite understand.

Fingering it gently, Emily wished again that she could see inside that room. “The Wild One,” she breathed. “That is majorly cool.”

Oh well. As she traipsed back to her own door, she decided that the good news was that The Wild One was right next to her room. It shouldn’t be tough at all to keep an eye on Tyler—if he ever came back.

Safely inside the Pollyanna room, Emily kicked off her shoes and took a look around. As promised, it was pretty. There was a canopy bed, dripping in white lace and ruffles, with a pastel-colored movie poster of Hayley Mills as Pollyanna hanging next to it. Under the poster sat a white wicker rocking chair, and in the rocker, someone had placed a fluffy teddy bear wearing what looked like a vintage christening gown.

Tall bookshelves took up most of the outside wall; they overflowed with exquisitely costumed dolls in velvet frocks and feathered hats. There was even a small wicker tea table with child-size chairs pulled up around it, and an antique armoire pushed up against the wall Pollyanna shared with The Wild One. Delicate bunches of violets had been painted on the doors of the armoire, making it an even more lovely piece.

“Oh, pooh.” Emily sat down on the bed, curling her hand around the carved wood bedpost. She’d only been here five minutes and she’d already fallen under the spell of the Pollyanna room. “I actually like it here.”

Somehow, Beau the cat had sneaked into the room with her, and she bent to pet his head absently. Apparently deciding that was an invitation, Beau hurled himself into her lap.

“Whoa.” He was one heavy cat. She tried to be friendly, but he began to sniff and paw at her cognac-soaked skirt, and Emily got the hint. “I was going to change it,” she told him. “Everyone is a critic.”

So she slipped off her jacket and skirt, even her panty hose, tossing them onto the bed. Much better. Beau immediately curled up on the pile of discarded clothing and began to lick his paw.

“I’m glad you’re happy, Mr. Kitty. But what do I wear now?”

While hanging out in her silk blouse and underwear was comfy for right now, it had its disadvantages in the long run—like the fact that she couldn’t leave the room.

“Aha!” Emily announced, stooping and dragging her laptop out of her briefcase. After carefully moving the tiny tea set, she opened her computer on the small wicker table, managing to squeeze herself into one of the junior-size chairs. “Let’s do a little E-commerce,” she muttered, booting it up and searching for the nearest decent clothing store. It took a few minutes, but she hit pay dirt eventually. “Ooh, this one’s good. Based in San Francisco, and they even deliver.”

She clicked on an image of a plain white T-shirt, and then a pair of khaki pants. “And let’s see. Maybe a pair of sneakers and some socks.”

All it took was quickly verifying the inn’s address, keying in her credit card info, and then sitting back and waiting for her new clothes to arrive.

“I love technology,” she said brightly. She felt so smart, so hip, so now, coping with the various challenges of her impromptu adventure.

But what now? She had to do something while she waited. Of course, she was keeping an ear peeled for any activity next door in The Wild One, but so far, nothing. She’d already read her book, and she had no intention of working on that stupid Bentley file. Not here. Not now.

But the Bentley file did remind her that she’d sneaked away from work in the middle of the morning, and left not so much as a note to explain her hasty departure. A quick check of her watch told her that in Chicago time, her parents would have expected her home for dinner about an hour ago. They probably would assume she had a date and refrain from calling out the National Guard for at least a few more hours, but she had to do something.

“E-mail.” It was the only solution. So she sat there at her laptop, composing a good cover story for her nosy, overprotective family. “Hmm…how about Sukie Sommersby?”

A few cheerful E-mails detailing a frantic call from Sukie were a cinch to come up with. “Sukie had another emergency,” she typed, “so I’m off to Miami for the weekend. Don’t worry—everything is fine. You know Sukie! See you on Monday.”

She was just sending the last note when Beau bolted from his perch on the bed and went racing to the armoire. He began to howl—not just meow but howl—and to purposefully scratch his nasty little claws against the beautiful wood.

Emily hustled over to try to pry his paws off the cabinet. “What is it you want, Beau? You can’t want to go inside the armoire, can you?”

He spun around suddenly, bounding to the bed and leaping on top of her clothes, and then just as suddenly dashing back to the armoire, where he started the caterwauling and scratching act again. He repeated this mad dash two or three times.

Emily was struck with a very odd thought. “Beau,” she said out loud, “this can’t really be your way of telling me to hang up my clothes, can it?”

It was the best theory she could come up with. So she dutifully shook out her jacket and hung it, not quite shutting the armoire doors as she toted her skirt into the adjacent bathroom to rinse off as much cognac as she could. She was still carrying the dripping skirt when she noticed Beau seemed to have disappeared.

“Where did he get off to?” she mused. But there was no Beau to be seen. Shrugging, she hung the skirt in the bathroom, and then searched under the bed and behind the rocker. Nope. “Okay, so he must be stuck in the armoire.”

But when she opened the doors this time, she noticed a wide crack all the way around the back wall. And she could see daylight through there.

What was this? A magic armoire with a secret passage at the back? Emily’s heart beat faster.

“Beau?” she called. “Did you go through the crack?”

Peering closer, she couldn’t help but give the partition a little push, and then a little look.

And before she knew it, she’d shoved it open wide, climbed through the back of her armoire, and scrambled out the front of the one next door. There she was, standing in the middle of The Wild One in her underwear!

“This room is so cool,” she whispered, her eyes wide. Cool wasn’t the half of it. The bed frame was shiny chrome, while the spread was black leather, stretched taut against the frame. The footboard looked like the front grill of a motorcycle, and it actually had handlebars that twisted back around the corners. “Yowza.”

It made her want to take a ride on that bed and see where she ended up.

“Yowza,” she said again, although that was not a word she could ever remember uttering before in her entire life. She whirled around in the room, drinking it in. Decorated completely in black-and-white, it had a big poster of Marlon Brando in his motorcycle gang attire from the movie, a black-leather director’s chair near the front window, a dresser that looked more like the counter at a fifties diner, and a big silver trophy sitting on its own special shelf. Beau was curled into a half circle in the director’s chair, and he lifted his head long enough to fix her with those infuriating, all-knowing green eyes.

Emily swallowed, fingering the handlebars. This was like all her fantasies come true. It was adventure and excitement boiled down and turned into a bedroom. And she absolutely loved it.

“Okay, get a grip,” she ordered herself. “You wanted to know more about Tyler, didn’t you? This is your chance to snoop around, handed to you on a silver platter—by a yellow cat.”

She shook her head. Whether Beau had led her here or not, the reality was, she was inside Tyler’s room, and she might as well make the most of it. She chewed her lip, glancing around.

“The duffel bag,” she declared. It was tucked neatly under the leather chair. “Look in the duffel bag.”

But she barely had her hand on the zipper when she heard the sound of the side window scraping open behind her. She spun around in time to see a huge, bulky man vaulting in over the windowsill. Sensing danger, Beau leaped over her head and skidded under the bed.

Suddenly her little adventure had gotten scary. Very scary.

Oh, God, what now? The intruder was even bigger and uglier than that Slab person she’d seen at the coffee shop. He had muscles and bulges everywhere, including his neck, and he looked mean enough to pop a blood vessel just for fun. He also had a dull, vacant squint to his eyes—in her experience, the mark of the terminally stupid.

Not good. Not good at all. Emily could feel sweat drizzling down the neck of her blouse as she frantically wondered if she could scream and if anyone would hear her and how she would explain what she was doing here. She edged along the wall, hoping to make a break for it. But the thug advanced, blocking her path to either the open armoire or the door, and there was nowhere to go.

“Hey, you,” he bellowed, pointing a meaty finger at her. “Don’t move.”

“I’m not moving,” Emily returned quickly. “Not even a toe.”

“Yeah, well, you move a toe and I break it.” His thick lips twisted into a menacing grin. “That’s what I do, you know, like, what I get paid for. Breaking stuff. So don’t tempt me, huh?”

“Not tempting. Not doing anything.” She held herself so still she could hear a rushing sound in her ears. She licked dry lips. “You know, I think you have the wrong room. Could I help you find the right one, maybe?”

He narrowed his piggy little eyes, giving her the once-over. “I ain’t got the wrong room. I know O’Toole is here. I wanna know what he’s doing in Frisco. Is he helping Slab? Or looking for him, huh?”

“O-O’Toole? I actually don’t know what he’s doing in town.”

“You look like a smart girl to me,” the big bruiser growled.

Yeah, well, you don’t look very smart to me. But she kept it to herself.

“So don’t be a dumb bunny, huh?” He marched his massive bulk nearer, where that fat finger could poke her right in the collarbone. “I’m an old friend of Slab. Associate, you might say.” He pronounced the word ass-o-cee-ate.” “So now I need to know where Slab is. You know, for ol’ times. And where the stash is. And you’re going to tell me, huh, cutie? Now.”

“S-Slab? S-stash?” she stuttered. “I wish I could help, really I do. But unfortunately for both of us, I have no idea. I’m really very sorry, so incredibly sorry.”

She had only the vaguest notion of what she was chattering on about as she eyed his trousers, trying to figure out if she could get her knee anywhere near the big gorilla’s, um, tender parts. Not likely. Plus he would probably break her kneecap for even thinking about it.

“Will you please shut your trap?” he roared. “I am loosing my patience with you.”

“I think you mean ‘losing,”’ she said helpfully. “Not ‘loosing’—losing.”

His face contorted with rage as she realized it was probably not the best strategy at this juncture to point out his grammatical problems.

When, thank God, the door crashed open, Emily practically shouted with relief. She might be in her underwear, and she might be in his room, but she was awfully glad to see him.

Tyler.

HE BARELY HAD A CHANCE to register that some oversize lunk was manhandling a half-dressed woman. Was it that goofy little brunette from the cab? Before Tyler knew what hit him, she broke away, catapulted herself into him, and knocked him backward onto the leather bed.

He tried to catch her. Fat chance. “Oof” was all he could get out as he toppled back onto the bed, taking her with him. He was underneath, she was on top, and they each made a bad move and then another in a vain attempt to get off the damn slippery leather bedspread.

After about a second of wrestling around, it became impossible to tell whose limbs were whose. Her legs and arms seemed to be all tangled up with his body in ways that were really not a great idea for strangers.

“Your elbow is in my ribs,” he tried. “And will you get your hand off my—?”

Her hand flew off his crotch and settled on his hip as she cried, “My hand? Do you realize where your hands are?”

Yes, he did. He was about to break into a cold sweat over it. Why wasn’t she wearing any clothes? It wasn’t his fault if one of his hands had landed on the back of her thigh, just under the silky curve of her skimpy panties, and the other one was lodged somewhere under her shirt, slipping over her slick, naked flesh, unable to get a decent hold.

“If you would just…oh, forget it!” She attempted to sit up, winding a bare leg around his abdomen, somehow managing to brush him in any number of intimate places. Without thinking, he rolled the other way, but the tail of her blouse got caught under his arm. When he rolled, the fragile fabric pulled, popping buttons every which way.

Tyler stopped dead. He gulped, looking straight down into a whole lot of pale, creamy skin. The fact that she was wearing a wispy scrap of a bra only made her exposed curves look that much more tantalizing.

Across the room, the window frame screeched and splintered as the burglar barreled out in a hurry, not bothering to be neat about it. Funny, but Tyler had almost forgotten about him.

Meanwhile, he couldn’t take his eyes or his hands off all that skin. But he had to get himself out of this before it got any worse—if that was possible.

Savagely dragging his lower body out from under her, Tyler found his head pointing toward the open doors of the armoire. He could see all the way into the Pollyanna room through the gaping hole in the back.

“What?” He stared down at her. “You broke into my room through the armoire, dressed like that? Are you stalking me or something?”

“Ha!” she retorted. She scrambled to a sitting position, vainly attempting to hold the sides of her blouse together. “Of all the nerve! You may be gorgeous, in a menacing and disreputable sort of way—which is not at all my type, for your information—but my motives toward you are completely honorable and virtuous and have to do with helping out a fellow human being who is clearly in trouble with a capital T. This has nothing to do with some insane stalker thing.”

He had no clue what she was babbling about. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

But she ignored his questions. “I’m the one who deserves some answers. I have just been threatened by a criminal, and I think you owe me an explanation. Who was he? And what does he want with you? He said something about you and Slab and a stash and how he breaks toes for a living!”

“Toes?” he echoed, mystified. “Legs, maybe. But who breaks toes for a living?”

“Don’t change the subject.” As she leaned in closer, her voice dropped to a softer, more intimate tone. “You’re in trouble, aren’t you? But I can help. You can trust me. I’m a lawyer.”

He laughed out loud at that one.

“Why are you laughing? Okay, so I don’t look much like a lawyer at the moment.” She spared a rueful glance for her tattered blouse and bare legs. “But I am. I swear it!”

Tyler laughed even harder.

Apparently trying to make him stop guffawing at her, she bent nearer, grabbing his shoulders in her small hands. “Listen to me,” she said, but her voice dropped into a huskier, less self-assured range as a tangible, shocking kind of electricity flowed between them. One of her hands slid to his jaw. “I was trying to…”

Her hazel eyes glowed with something that had very little to do with honor or virtue, and her gaze seemed to have caught and stuck on his mouth. He knew why. He suddenly had the crazy notion that all he had to do was lift his head about an inch, and he would find her sweet, soft lips melting into his kiss.

Why not? She was half-naked and she was in his bed.

His mouth grazed hers, and he could already feel her hunger, her eagerness.

He reached for her.