Читать книгу Sexy, Single And Searching: Sexy, Single And Searching / Eager, Eligible And Alaskan - Lori Wilde - Страница 15

WHAT ON EARTH had happened to her? Mack wondered as he paced the corridor, hands clasped behind his back.

Damn his tendency to jump in with both feet when he wanted something, never mind that he could be barreling off a cliff.

He needed to amend his “wife” list. Under “likes to be spoiled,” he was adding, “not a flight risk.”

Kay reappeared a few minutes after she had gone inside the ladies’ room to look for Camryn. Mack raised his head, and gazed at her expectantly.

“She’s not in there.”

“What do you mean she’s not in there? I saw her go in with my own eyes.”

“I checked all the stalls. No one is in there.”

“You’re covering for her,” Mack accused.

“Why Mack McCaulley, are you calling me a liar?” Kay settled her hands on her hips and gave him a mischievous grin.

Contrite, he said, “No, Kay, of course not.”

“I will tell you that the bathroom window was hanging open.”

“You think she climbed out the window?”

Kay shrugged. “Looks like it. What did you do to her?”

“Me? I didn’t do anything.”

“Camryn’s missing after slipping off alone with you. You Alaskans have the tendency to go after what you want pell-mell. Maybe you were moving too quickly for her.”

“Then why didn’t she just say so?” Exasperated, Mack jammed his hands in his pocket.

“You’ll have to ask Camryn that question.”

“Right. And how can I do that when I don’t know where she is?”

“She’s staying at Jake’s.”

Just forget her, McCaulley. There’s millions more fish in the sea. Look around you.

But part of him could not so easily dismiss Camryn without a valid explanation for her behavior. And he really wanted to apologize if he’d upset her in any way.

He left the community center and walked across the street to Jake’s B&B. He pushed through the door into the lobby, then went over to the front desk where he found the desk clerk, crotchety old Gus, sitting on a stool reading some true-crime paperback with a lurid cover.

“Hey, Gus.”

Gus grunted and barely looked up from his book.

“You have a guest by the name of Camryn Josephine staying here. Would you tell me her room number?”

“We don’t give out that kinda information.”

“Come on, Gus, you know me.”

“Yeah, and you’re a rascal, McCaulley. I don’t trust ya.”

“That was twenty-five years ago, Gus.” The elderly man gave him grief about his long-ago transgression whenever he could.

“I gotta long memory.”

“Obviously. I apologize profusely. I was a terrible kid. Now would you at least ring her room for me?”

“You ain’t got a chance with that one. She’s too smart for the likes of you.”

“That’s what you said about Quinn and Kay and you were wrong on that score, too.”

Gus snorted, put down his paperback and dialed Camryn’s room. He waited a few minutes then hung up the receiver. “She ain’t answering.”

Gus went back to his book and Mack turned away.

Where could Camryn be? The woman had disappeared like smoke up a flue.

Sighing, he walked through the lobby and plunked down on a chair in Jake’s great room where the guests and locals often congregated. Tonight, the room was empty save for that mousy woman with the Coke-bottle glasses.

What was her name again? Tammie Jo? Maybe she’d seen Camryn come through here.

He got up and stepped over to where she sat curled up on the sofa by the low-level fire. She was reading a copy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Her hair was pinned to her head in that unflattering bun and she wore a fluffy pink chenille bathrobe and outlandish Bugs Bunny house slippers. Somehow he wasn’t surprised at her silly getup. There was a half-empty glass of milk in front of her and a plate of cookie crumbs.

Party on, Tammie Jo.

He perched on the edge of the heavy cedar coffee table in front of her. “Hello, there.”

She kept her head tucked down, her eyes glued to her book. She was as bad as Gus. What was this? Blow off McCaulley night?

“Remember me?”

She nodded, still not glancing at him.

“You been sitting here long?”

She shrugged. Was she so shy she couldn’t even look at him? He recalled their encounter in the upstairs hallway. She’d acted pretty spirited then. Maybe it took sexy underwear and provocative talk to bring out the vixen in her.

“Would you happen to have seen a woman come through here? Tall. No wait, she had on really high heels.” He looked Tammie Jo over for a moment. “Actually, she might have been about your size. She had on this really amazing black dress. She’s got hair the color of pecan taffy and killer gams.”

“Sorry,” Tammie Jo snapped. “Didn’t see her.”

Okay. He’d handled that wrong. Apparently Miss Plain Jane didn’t care to hear him rhapsodize about some other woman and how could he blame her?

Mack got to his feet without a second glance at Tammie Jo. “Thanks for your help.”

She didn’t reply, just kept her nose buried firmly in her book. Hy-ca-rumba. She’d come all the way to Alaska to sit on a couch and read?

Shaking his head, Mack left the B&B. Time to go home. He was done with chasing after his fantasy woman. At least for tonight.

HE STILL hadn’t recognized her, Cammie Jo fumed as she combed through the lupines on her hands and knees outside the back door of the community center. It was after midnight, the sun had finally gone down and she had a pocket penlight clutched between her teeth.

Was the man as dumb as a post? Or was he so blinded by Camryn’s supposed beauty he couldn’t see that the blah woman right in front of him was the same one he’d been drooling over all night?

Or was the truth plainer than that? Had he instantly labeled Cammie Jo a nonsexual entity and dismissed her the same way men had been dismissing her for years? She knew the conclusion he had drawn about her. Baggy clothes + thick glasses + no makeup + books = a boring spinster woman.

The thought made her blood boil.

Men, the simple beasts. They were so swayed by appearances.

Take one push-up bra, a pair of colored contact lenses, high-heeled shoes, professional grade makeup and voilà—the cinder girl becomes a princess.

She was put out, disgusted, annoyed and still very attracted to that bothersome Mr. McCaulley.

And for some vexatious reason she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Or the way his lips had tasted on hers.

Why hadn’t she simply come out and said, “Look, I’m Camryn. That’s my real name but everyone’s called me Cammie Jo since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.”

Why? Because without the totem she was too damned shy to speak such things to him. And because she would hate to see the disappointment on his face when he realized she wasn’t the hot, sexy babe he thought she was.

Well phooey on him anyway. She hadn’t come to Alaska to snag a husband. Marriage was the furthest thing from her mind. She wanted adventure and plenty of it. She wanted to sample new foods, drink in novel sights, inhale fresh smells. She wanted to see moose and bald eagles and grizzly bears.

But she wasn’t getting her wish unless she found the missing totem.

Just when she was about to give up, her hand hit something solid in the grass and she yelped with glee. Yes! The hiking trip to the Tongass National Forest was back on for the morning. Cammie Jo shone her penlight over the necklace, found where the string had broken, tied it into a secure knot and slipped it over her head.

Instantly, she felt stronger.

There. To heck with Mack. She was brave Camryn again and as long as she had the totem, nothing or no one was stopping her from having the time of her life.

CAMMIE JO woke at the crack of dawn ready for the hiking tour. She opened her window and breathed in the fresh, clean mountain air. She dressed, laced up her hiking books, double knotted the totem and slipped the necklace over her bulky azure sweater. She wasn’t losing it a second time.

After several attempts, she finally got the contact lenses in her eyes. She tried her best to recreate Kay’s makeup job, and she managed a serviceable replication. She brushed out her hair and let the curls trail down her shoulders as she’d worn it the night before. She checked herself in the mirror.

All right! Camryn Josephine was back.

She scurried through the lobby, apparently the only one awake in the whole place save for the elderly desk clerk who never looked up from the morning paper. Once outside, she found the street filled with passengers leaving the cruise ships for shore excursions. The restaurants were hopping, and the air was permeated with the tantalizing aroma of omelettes, bacon and strong coffee. She purchased orange juice and a blueberry muffin from a street vendor, then headed for the tour bus.

The bus that was to take them to the Tongass National Forest for their four-mile hike idled at a wooden park bench just a few feet from the B&B. Cammie Jo hurried over to find more than a dozen attractive young women and a few middle-aged couples already aboard.

She plunked down in the seat behind the driver. He looked familiar and after a few minutes of studying him she recognized him, not only from the party the night before, but from the Metropolitan magazine ad as well.

He was, quite frankly, the most handsome man she had ever seen, with coal-black hair and eyes the piercing blue of a glacier. He was probably the reason the bus was packed with so many single gals at this time of the morning.

Where as Mack was handsome in a rugged way, this man was handsome in the way of perfect Greek statues and paintings of heavenly beings. She found his beauty incredibly intimidating. On the dashboard in front of him lay a well-worn copy of a book by John Muir.

Caleb, she remembered. Caleb Greenleaf, the naturalist and apparently bus driver as well.

A few more women boarded—they giggled and flirted up a storm with Caleb before finding seats. Then Caleb rose to his feet and began to count heads. He consulted a clipboard. “Looks like everyone’s here except my assistant. He must be running late. We’ll give him a few minutes because it’s hard for me to lead a group of this size by myself.”

Everyone must have been pretty happy just to sit and eyeball Caleb because no one protested too much, although Cammie Jo heard someone behind her whisper, “We’ve got to be back on the cruise ship by noon.”

At that moment, a man in a brown bomber jacket sprang onto the bus.

“Morning, folks,” greeted Mack McCaulley. “Sorry I’m late.”

A wave of forgiving female twitters sounded around the bus.

He held on to the grab bar and remained standing while Caleb closed the door and put the bus in gear. Mack picked up the microphone and held it to his mouth as if to start into the regular tourist spiel when his eyes lit on Cammie Jo.

They both inhaled in unison and their gazes welded.

Mack’s sharp intake of breath crackled over the microphone.

Cammie Jo’s heart slipped sideways in her chest. What was he doing here? Why wasn’t he out flying his plane?

He recovered quickly, introduced himself and began telling everyone about the trip ahead. But Cammie Jo didn’t hear a single word he said. Her mind was a frayed ball of twine unraveling at an alarming rate.

She wrapped a fist around the totem and began to breathe easier. It was okay. She was all right.

They arrived at the edge of the forest in under ten minutes and Caleb parked the bus. He gave instructions for the people to divide into two groups of twelve. One group was to go with him, the other group to follow Mack.

Caleb climbed off the bus and the tourists followed. Mack stayed rooted to the spot, his eyes never leaving her face. Cammie Jo hesitated, not knowing what to do.

Her pulse jumped like water droplets on a redhot griddle and her tummy tugged to and fro with this swishy-swashy sensation like a washing machine set to agitate.

She shouldn’t be scared. But then she realized the emotion wreaking havoc on her insides was not fear at all. But rather excitement tinged with something else. A feeling she’d never experienced with such intensity.

Sexual arousal.

The air between them was charged with more voltage than any high line wire. Every hair on her arm stood at erect attention.

Cammie Jo gulped. Hard. She was hot and wet and achy down there.

And then the bus was completely empty, save for her and Mack.

He trod slowly toward her, his boots echoing with a solid thud, thud, thud, that matched the crazy rhythm of her heart.

“I’ve got a bone to pick with you,” he said.

Cammie Jo jerked her head around, looking for a way out. Not because she was afraid of this bundle of walking testosterone but exactly because she wasn’t. She should have been scared to death because he was so close, so manly, so gosh darn p.o.’d at her. Instead she was turned on like a faucet twisted to full blast.

“No place to run, Sugar Plum.” He was standing directly in front of her in the middle of the aisle, his big hands planted on the backs of either seat. “If you want off this bus, you’ll have to come through me.”

Was she even breathing? All she knew was that his smoldering dark eyes had pierced her clean through and pinned her in place.

Normally, she hated conflict. Avoided it at all costs. But now she possessed a newfound bravado.

“And what kind of bone do you have that needs picking?” she asked coolly, amazing herself with her impudence. “Chicken? Beef? Pork perhaps?”

Ha! He almost smiled. She saw it flit at the edges of his mouth before he gained control by frowning deeply.

“Why did you run out on me last night?”

“Mack!”

They both jumped.

Caleb rapped on the outside of the bus window and tapped at the face of his watch. “We’re burning daylight, bud.”

“Duty calls.” Cammie Jo said with enough sugar in her voice to choke a honeybee.

“Don’t think this lets you off the hook. Sooner or later you and I are having a long talk.”

“Fine with me.”

“Fine.”

They stared at each other.

“You coming on the hike, then?” He inclined his head.

“Why, of course.”

He stepped aside, gestured with a hand. “Ladies first.”

Haughtily Cammie Jo rose, nose in the air, and started forward. She sailed past him, but then promptly tripped over her boot laces as she descended the bus steps, and sprawled face forward in the dirt.

IT WAS AN HOUR and a half into their three-hour hike through the spongy forest undergrowth and Mack couldn’t stop looking at Camryn. He smiled whenever he recalled how she’d leaped to her feet after falling from the bus and dusted herself off before he could get to her. He’d made a move to help, but she’d glared at him so hard he’d stepped backward, palms up in a gesture of surrender. She was a feisty thing; an odd combination of half regal cutie, half fierce tomcat.

Proving beyond a shadow of a doubt she possessed quality number two on his “wife” list.

He halted the group from time to time to give minilectures on the flora and fauna. During these little breaks, Camryn assiduously avoided looking at him, pretending instead to be wildly enraptured with a skunk cabbage or chipmunks or wild blueberry bushes.

Apparently she didn’t think he noticed when she cut her eyes surreptitiously at him. For his part, he stared at her boldly. He had nothing to be ashamed of.

Except she was a distraction to beat all distractions. Some nerdy middle-aged guy outfitted in the wrong kind of footwear kept asking him silly questions. Like, “Why are the Sitka spruce and the western hemlock the only variety of trees in the Tongass?”

“Because that’s the way it is,” Mack had finally snapped and he heard Camryn snicker. Was she laughing at him or the nerdy guy?

Caleb and his twelve adoring disciples were a quarter mile ahead of them in the forest. Mack brought up the rear in his group to prevent stragglers while Camryn had positioned herself far ahead of the pack, as if to put as much distance between them as possible by infiltrating Caleb’s group.

Mack admired the way Camryn’s trim little butt swayed from side to side in those snug-fitting jeans. He loved watching her hair bounce about her shoulders as she walked and the way her sweater adhered to her breasts.

He recalled the moment when they were alone on the bus together and he’d been trying to intimidate her with his maleness, hoping to wring a confession out of her concerning her strange behavior the night before. Instead of being unnerved as he expected, he could have sworn he saw sparks of unmitigated mischief in her fabulous green eyes.

“Which kind of bone needs picking?” she’d drawled, all spunk and sass.

My bone, he’d thought but hadn’t had the guts to say.

An unwitting image of that cute little butt of hers curving above his cupped palm jettisoned itself into his head and just like that, boom!, he got hard.

Taking a deep breath, Mack paused, put one hand on a tree and struggled to rein himself in.

“Oh!” someone up the trail cried and it sounded an awful lot like Camryn.

Mack’s head came up just in time to see a flash of color as she tumbled down the embankment.