Читать книгу A Kiss in the Dark - Karen Foley - Страница 8

MORE THAN ANYTHING, Lacey Delaney hated the dark—of being alone in the dark. She wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but at twenty-seven years old, she still slept with a bedside light on. It didn’t always keep the nightmares at bay, but at least when she woke up, panicked and gasping for breath, she wasn’t engulfed in utter blackness. Even now, sitting in the relative safety of her car, she had only to close her eyes to envision her father buried alive in a coal mining disaster so horrific that his body had never been recovered.

Maybe her friend, Julia, was right and she should just find herself a man to keep her so pleasurably occupied at night that she’d be too sated and tired to dream. Unfortunately, both her job as a design engineer for StarPoint Technologies and her overprotective mother kept her too busy to meet many eligible men. Katherine Delaney gave a whole new meaning to the term helicopter parent. She didn’t just hover; she flew fully armed, ready to obliterate any obstacles in Lacey’s path, or to extract her from any danger.

Now here she was … alone, broken down in the middle of nowhere, with darkness pressing in on all sides. If her mother could see her now, she’d have a complete fit. The thought made Lacey smile. Her mother hadn’t wanted Lacey to travel to Kentucky; had urged her to give the assignment to somebody else. Of course, the more her mother insisted that Lacey stay home, the more determined she was to go. Sometimes it felt as if the entire course of her life had been dictated by her mother’s belief that something would happen to Lacey if she wasn’t there to protect her.

Lacey understood the genesis of her mother’s anxiety. She’d been just eight years old when her father was killed, and her mother lived in fear that something terrible would happen to Lacey, too. That worry hadn’t diminished as Lacey grew older; if anything, it had ballooned into an irrational need to cocoon her against all dangers, real or perceived. And for a long time, Lacey had allowed it. But what had once seemed like parental concern for her welfare now felt like micromanagement of her life. More and more, Lacey found herself resenting her mother’s intrusive habits.

She loved her mom, but she wanted to be free, to experience life, and all its pitfalls, on her own terms. She wanted to be taken seriously, and not viewed as someone who needed to be taken care of. Unfortunately, her small stature seemed to bring out a protective instinct in those she worked with, and Lacey was getting a little tired of insisting that she could do things on her own. So when StarPoint Technologies had offered the opportunity to field-test STAR, the new Subterranean Advanced Receiver unit that would become the latest technology in NASA’s arsenal of global positioning systems, Lacey had jumped at it.

Her boss had been skeptical, since Lacey’s experience was limited to the design lab. She had never before ventured into the field. But Lacey knew if she wanted to be respected as an engineer and a scientist, she needed to be familiar with all aspects of the job, including fieldwork. She just hadn’t been prepared for how remote this particular field assignment would be.

The parking lot of the diner, where a short time ago she’d halfheartedly picked at a plate of meatloaf, was completely dark except for one light pole near the entrance. She’d been unable to pick up a signal on her cell phone, and was grateful that the owner of the diner had at least called for a tow truck before he’d snapped off the lights and locked the door, assuring her she’d be fine until Sully—the tow truck driver, she presumed—arrived.

Sighing, she sat behind the wheel of her rental car and left the door open for whatever small breeze might happen by. God, it was hot. Of course, New England could get sticky in the summer as well, but it was only early June and already Kentucky sweltered with heat.

Resting her head against the seat back, Lacey listened to the night bugs in the surrounding trees and watched the tiny blinking lights of the seemingly hundreds of fireflies. Generally, the heat didn’t bother her, but tonight was different. Tonight she would have to return to the pathetic little motel she had checked into earlier that evening, knowing she wouldn’t sleep a wink. She wasn’t a snob by nature, but the only other patrons she had seen were several itinerant coal miners who had been well on their way to getting completely drunk. Knowing a slim length of chain was all that prevented one of them from entering her room would ensure she slept with her clothes on. And to top it off, the room would be about a million degrees since the air-conditioning didn’t work.

Her small carry-on bag sat on the passenger seat beside her, and now she dug through the contents, pulling out an emergency pair of panties and bra—courtesy of her mom, just in case the airline lost her luggage—and an eReader as she hunted for the bottled water she had stashed there earlier. Blowing a strand of hair from her face, she took a long swallow of the water and decided it would only be for one night. Tomorrow, she would meet with Sheriff Hathaway, her point of contact while she was in Black Stone Gap, and ask him to recommend somewhere to stay other than the seedy Blackwater Inn. If there was any other place, she thought glumly. The motel should have been named the Backwater Inn, because it was literally in the middle of nowhere. Her own frantic hunt through the phone book she’d found in the bedside table hadn’t turned up any other hotels or motels in the area.

She reminded herself again that she wasn’t here on vacation. Where she slept didn’t matter. She had a job to do, and a dingy motel room wasn’t going to deter her. StarPoint Technologies was under contract to NASA to develop a GPS unit that would operate underground, capable of sending and receiving signals through hundreds of feet of rock. Lacey had spent the past three years of her life designing and developing the unit, affectionately dubbed STAR.

Now that the development phase was complete, all that was required before they could turn the unit over to NASA was the final testing. For Lacey, this meant a chance not only to prove herself as a field scientist, but also to get out on her own. She could do whatever she wanted, within limits.

But Lacey was tired of limits.

She’d do her job, but she also intended to have some fun on this trip. Her friend Julia was right; allowing her mother to have so much influence over her life was unhealthy, no matter how good her intentions might be. This was an opportunity to spread her wings a bit and explore her own capabilities.

She’d spend three days with the local search-and-rescue team, demonstrating the use of handheld GPS units designed by her firm, and then one week at the local coal mines, testing STAR. But she’d also have some free time in which to sightsee. She’d spent part of the flight from Boston to Roanoke consulting her tourist book, considering the things she might do while she was in Kentucky. An evening pub crawl with free samples of Kentucky’s finest bourbon sounded fun, but so did zip-lining over a forest canopy. Of course, how much free time she had depended on how smoothly the field tests went.

The opportunity to utilize the local coal mines to test STAR had been too good to pass up. Not only would the coal mines that riddled the area around Black Stone Gap provide a perfect test environment, but Lacey owed it to her father to ensure the unit worked deep inside the tunnels, where it could do the most good. If she could prevent even one miner from suffering the same fate as her father, she would be satisfied.

It seemed only minutes had passed when headlights swung toward her through the parking lot. Lifting her head, she peered at a large, beefy tow truck as it turned into the lot where she was stranded. It approached from the side and parked facing her door. The headlights bathed her in a blinding glare as she sat up and shielded her eyes.

She couldn’t see who was in the driver’s seat, but felt their scrutiny as if it were a palpable thing. She suddenly knew how a deer felt when caught in a car’s headlights. Here she was, alone and vulnerable and out in the middle of nowhere, and she could only imagine who watched her from the cab of that tow truck. Lacey had completed a self-defense course in college and she had no doubt that she could take care of herself, but when she heard the opening and closing of the driver’s door, it galvanized her into action. Better to be safe than sorry. Swiftly, she pulled her own car door shut and punched the lock down. A figure stepped into the light, silhouetted for a moment in the brightness.

Lacey’s breath caught.

His body was lean and powerful, with broad, sloping shoulders and narrow hips. It was a body that turned a woman’s thoughts instantly to sex. The light behind him shadowed his features, but she knew with a certainty they would be as arresting as his body.

He came closer, and as Lacey sat immobile, he leaned down to peer in at her. Her mouth fell open as she stared wordlessly into the bluest eyes she had ever seen. They weren’t just your average blue, either. Even in the dim light she could see they were an opulent shade of blue-green that reminded her of tropical waters and warm, secluded beaches.

“Ma’am?” His voice carried low and clear through the car window, and she could see the concern in his eyes. “Are you okay?”

She recognized his voice as the man she had spoken to on the telephone earlier. She would have preferred to roll her window down to talk with him, but with the engine off, the power windows were useless. If she wanted to communicate, she would have to either shout through the glass, or open the door. Already, the air inside the car was suffocatingly hot. She studied him for a moment, and then drawing in a deep breath, pushed her door open but made no move to get out.

He stepped into the opening, bracing one hand on the roof and the other arm along the top of the door frame. He grinned down at her, a lazy this-must-be-my-lucky-night kind of grin. His teeth were white in the darkness of his face. He wore a faded black T-shirt that clung to his muscled torso, and from her vantage point below him, Lacey could see the impressive bulge of his biceps as he leaned into the car.

“You called for a tow truck?” Deep indents flashed in his lean cheeks. His voice was lazy and warm.

Lacey didn’t know what was wrong with her. She couldn’t seem to find her voice. “Um, yes.” She gulped. “I did. My car doesn’t seem to want to start.”

She wasn’t prepared when he suddenly crouched down beside her. Now he was eye level with her and she could see he had close-cropped, dark hair. Balancing on the balls of his feet, he edged forward and reached toward her legs.

“Mind if I take a peek?” he asked.

A surge of heat coursed through Lacey that had nothing to do with the outside temperature. For one wild, crazy second she was sure he was going to flip back the skirt of her little sundress and, heaven help her, she was going to let him.

But his hand went with unerring skill to the hood release located just under the dash, and only when she heard the popping of the catch did she realize she had been holding her breath. He rose to his feet in one fluid movement and rounded the front of her car to raise the hood, pulling a slim flashlight out of a back pocket.

Lacey sagged back against the seat. If she’d had a fan, it would have been working overtime to try and cool her suddenly flushed skin. He was, without a doubt, the most sinful-looking man she had ever seen, and she thought it had as much to do with the way he looked at her as it did with the way he looked.

She struggled to get a grip on her rioting thoughts. What was she thinking? A tow truck driver? She could almost see Julia doing a victory dance. Despite his amazing eyes, he was probably not much better than the leering, beer-swigging coal miners at the Blackwater Inn.

But an image of that leanly muscled physique came back to her, and she knew instinctively she was wrong. He wasn’t at all like those men. He was the sort who would take his time with a woman, ensuring her pleasure before reaching his own. He would be assertive, playful and maybe even a little kinky. For one wild instant, her imagination surged. Images of a secluded mountain cabin and fur-strewn floors lingered in her mind. She envisioned him clearly, his tautly muscled body moving softly over her own in the darkness, murmuring husky words of encouragement against her throat, her lips …

He came back around to her door and bent down, interrupting her wayward thoughts. “Ma’am, do you mind if I try to start her up?”

“Oh, of course not!” Unable to meet his eyes, Lacey scooted out of the car to stand out of his way.

She watched as he folded his long frame into the driver’s seat and turned the key. Still nothing. He tried again, and then sat back for a moment, considering. Looking up at her, he gave her a lopsided grin.

“Looks like you’re going to need my services, after all,” he drawled.

Lacey’s pulse reacted immediately. If he only knew.

Sensing those tropical water eyes on her, Lacey glanced at him. His expression held a heat that made her breath catch, and she knew in that instant that he was interested in her. Then he looked away, his features shuttered.

“Do—do you know what’s wrong with the engine?” she asked, clearing her throat against the sudden restriction she felt there.

“Why don’t I show you?”

Climbing out of the car, he indicated she should precede him, and her nerves jumped when he placed a hand at the small of her back to guide her. Just that light touch of his fingers seemed to burn through the thin fabric of her cotton dress. A tiny shiver rippled through her. She felt strange, all fluttery and anxious, and her heartbeat pulsed loudly in her ears. She felt shivery, yet flushed with heat. And all because this man had touched her.

He leaned over her engine compartment and flicked his flashlight into its dark interior. He spoke, and she listened to the warm, rich tones of his voice even as she admired the fit of his jeans across his backside. She envisioned those leanly muscled orbs cupped in the palms of her hands.

The next moment she was appalled. What was wrong with her? She was acting like a moonstruck teenager. It wasn’t as if she’d never been this close to a gorgeous guy before. She’d had relationships. Okay, so she hadn’t been intimate with anyone on any level in several years, and she was probably more than a little sexually frustrated. But between her job and her mother’s nearly constant vigilance, she hadn’t had an opportunity to develop any relationships, meaningful or otherwise. But here she was, with nobody to tell her what she could or couldn’t do. While she didn’t think she’d reached the point where she would jump the first attractive stranger she encountered, it was a wonderful feeling to know that she could, provided the stranger was also willing.

With a start, she realized the stranger had stopped talking and was watching her, resting one hip against the frame of the car, arms crossed casually over his chest as he waited for her to return to earth.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “You were saying?”

He grinned then, slowly, as if he knew exactly what she had been thinking. “I was saying that it looks like you have an abrasion in the insulation of the wiring harness.”

“Oh.” Lacey looked at him blankly. “What does that mean?”

The indents in those lean cheeks deepened. “Well, when the wiring isn’t seated right, there’s too much friction and an abrasion can occur, resulting in a hot spot.” He eased himself away from the car and took a step toward Lacey. “When that happens,” he said slowly, his voice languid and dark, “the wiring can overheat, melting everything right back to the driveshaft.”

Lacey blinked. Her cheeks grew warm. “Really.” She slid her gaze away from the sudden heat in those translucent eyes. “A hot spot, huh?”

“Mm-hmm. You’re definitely going to need my services.”

Turning away, Lacey pressed a palm against her chest and forced herself to breathe normally. “Okay, then. It’s a rental car, so whatever’s wrong with it, they can fix it. I’ll call the rental agency and let them know where they can collect it.” She drew in a steadying breath before turning back to face him. “Should I pay you now, or let the rental agency pay you when they come to get the car?”

He shrugged. “Let them pay for it. Here, I’ll give you a business card.”

She watched as he strode over to the tow truck and began rummaging around inside the cab. He swore softly. “I know they’re in here somewhere. Aha!” He came back and handed her a small card. “Give this number to the rental agency.”

Lacey glanced at the card. There was the business name, Sully’s Towing Service, but not his first name. Pushing down her disappointment, she looked back up at him. “Thanks. If you’ll wait just a moment, I’ll get my things out of the car.”

She popped the trunk release and was hauling her presentation materials and the case that contained STAR out, when he leaned in through the driver’s door and across the seat. She paused for a moment, peeking around the trunk to admire his ass. When he finally straightened, she realized he was holding her lingerie and carry-on bag in one hand, and her little pocketbook in the other.

“You don’t want to forget these.”

The delicate satin panties looked ridiculously fragile in his large hand, and she had a sudden image of him sliding them slowly down over her hips. Her eyes flew to his. Those mesmerizing dimples were back again as he handed her belongings to her.

Taking the items wordlessly from him, she struggled to lift the heavy case out of the trunk when he reached in and took it easily from her hands. Then, lifting her presentation case in his other hand, he strode over to the tow truck and tossed them both into the cargo area behind the seats.

“What are you doing?”

He gave her a smile that sent her heart lurching. “I’m taking you home.”

Her voice, when she finally found it, came out as no more than a squeak. “You’re what?”

“Well, I wouldn’t feel right leaving you in a deserted parking lot,” he said, running a hand over his crop of short hair and managing to look endearingly concerned. “So unless somebody’s already on their way to pick you up, I’ll run you wherever you need to go.” He gave her a questioning look.

Logically, Lacey knew that what he said made sense. He couldn’t leave her here, without a way to get back to the motel. But his words still caused her imagination to surge.

“No,” she finally managed. “There’s nobody coming to get me. I’m only here for a few days.”

“Ah,” he said meaningfully. “Well then, why don’t you hop into the cab and I’ll hook the car up.”

Hesitating only briefly, Lacey did as he suggested, sliding past him as he held the door open and taking his proffered hand to hitch herself up onto the bench seat. His skin was warm, his fingers strong and sure as they closed over her own.

She watched him as he came around to the driver’s side and pulled himself up behind the wheel. Mere inches away from her, in the confined space of the cab his presence was overwhelming, the sheer maleness of him assailing her senses.

Suddenly, he turned toward her on the bench seat, one arm sliding along the seat back behind her shoulders as he craned to peer through the rear window and align the truck up with her car. Lacey’s nostrils flared. She could smell him. A clean scent of male sweat and soap. She realized she had only to turn her face and her lips would brush along the smooth bulge of his biceps where they rested on the back of the seat.

Rigid, Lacey clutched her overnight bag with both hands and forced herself to look straight ahead, but found herself staring at his thighs. They were lean and well-muscled beneath the close-fitting blue jeans. She swallowed. His hand on the steering wheel was strong, with long, tapered fingers and neat, clean nails. She noted he wore no rings and felt an unreasonable sense of relief. Sliding a sideways glance at him as he maneuvered the tow truck into position, she couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking about her.

COLE MACKINNON COULD scarcely believe his good fortune as he jumped down from the cab and began the process of hitching the car to the tow truck. He’d been back in Black Stone Gap for less than two days and had stopped by Sully’s garage that night on a whim. They’d been kicking back with a cold beer when the call had come in. Sully, his longtime buddy, had been on another line so Cole had automatically picked up the second phone when it began to ring off the hook. He’d helped Sully out before so it was no big deal when he’d offered to tow this one in. He actually enjoyed playing the Good Samaritan. But when the headlights of the truck had first swung over the car, he’d been nearly speechless at the sight of the woman who reclined in the driver’s seat.

She was pale and slim, with bare arms and legs, and ginger hair that fell as soft and straight as summer rain to skim her smooth shoulders. In the stifling heat of the Kentucky night, she looked as cool and refreshing as a tall glass of mint tea. When he’d reached under the dash to release the hood, he’d had to fight the urge to skate his palm along the silken length of her leg, fiercely reminding himself that he was there to help her. He had absolutely no intentions of seducing her. No way, not a one.

None.

He finished fastening the coupling on the hitch. As he straightened, he glanced through the rear window of the tow truck in time to see her scoop that silky hair up in both hands and pile it on top of her head, exposing the sweet, vulnerable curve of her neck.

Damn.

He stood transfixed, all his good intentions vanishing, scattering like so many fireflies into the heat of the night.