The booking and management office for Bucket List Adventures was down the hall in its own wing of the hotel complex. It consisted of an open area for the staff, break and conference rooms, restrooms, a modest office for Terri, and a spacious office for Buck.
Terri breezed in from the covered hallway that connected with the hotel, trying to look as if nothing had happened. She found Bob in her office, sitting back in her chair with his boots on her desk and spilled coffee leaving a trail across the mahogany surface. A spark of annoyance flared. But she bit back a sharp comment. She’d asked the boy to cover the phones. He probably didn’t know how to transfer the calls to his own desk.
“So catch me up,” she said. “What’s happening?”
Making no move to get out of her chair, though he did at least have the grace to drop his feet off the desk and look a bit embarrassed, he picked up a yellow notepad. At least he knew enough to write down messages. “The skydive’s covered,” he said. “Jay called another instructor who was willing to take it.”
“That’s a relief.” And it was. After this morning, she was in no condition to parachute out of a plane with the seventy-year-old woman who was jumping to celebrate her birthday. “Anything else?” she asked.
“Diane called again. She wanted to know where Buck was. I told her you’d gone to look for him.” He glanced up at her. “Did you have any luck?”
Terri willed her expression to freeze. “Buck isn’t feeling well. He’d turned off his phone so he could get some rest, that’s all.”
“Well, I guess I should give you your desk back.” He stood then, a gangly figure who towered over Terri by a head. “Hey, did you lose your earring?” he asked.
“Oh!” Terri’s hands went to her earlobes. One earring was in place. The other was missing.
The little turquoise-inlaid silver earrings in the shape of Kokopelli, the Native American flute-playing deity, were her favorite pair. She’d received a lot of compliments on them. Even Buck had noticed them.
The missing earring could have fallen off anywhere. But it hadn’t. Terri’s gut feeling told her exactly how and where she’d lost it.
Buck would be sure to recognize it. And that meant that he’d have to acknowledge what had occurred between them. Her stomach roiled in fear and anticipation. This could be a disaster...or it could be the start of something amazing. And she had no way of knowing which until Buck finally arrived.
Buck’s ringing cell phone blasted him out of a sound sleep. Cursing, he fumbled for the device on the nightstand and sent it clattering to the floor.
Damn! He could’ve sworn he’d turned that phone off before collapsing into bed last night. And he would never set the ringer up to its full, earsplitting volume. What the devil was going on?
Grabbing the phone from the floor, he pushed the answer button. “Hullo?” he mumbled.
“Where’ve you been, Buck?” As always, Diane’s voice scraped his nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. The worst of it was, between the daughter they shared and the chunk of his company she owned, he’d likely be hearing that shrill voice for the rest of his life.
“Sick.” He forced the word through a throat that felt as if he’d swallowed glue.
“Well, get unsick. It’s almost noon. Did you get my voice-mail messages? I must’ve left you three or four.”
“Haven’t checked.”
“I’ll save you the trouble—I need you to pick up Quinn.”
His daughter’s name jarred him to alertness. “Weren’t you supposed to bring her here?”
“I’ve got people coming for a retreat. I could bring her up next week, but she’s all packed and ready to go. If she has to wait, she’ll be so disappointed.”
“Fine. I’ll send Evie Redfeather down in the jet to pick her up.” Evie was his personal pilot. Quinn knew and liked her.
“You can’t come yourself?”
“Like you, I have other commitments. Tell her Evie’s coming. She’ll be fine with that.” Buck ended the call before Diane could think of some other way to pull his strings. This last-minute change of plans was typical. Diane would have known about her retreat for weeks and could have made arrangements for Quinn earlier. But why do that when she could create a little drama?
Diane had been a Vegas showgirl when he’d met her ten years ago. After a hot weekend in her bed, he’d flown home without giving her a second thought. But then she’d shown up pregnant on his doorstep, and he’d done the honorable thing. For a while they’d tried to make the marriage work, but it had been doomed from the first “I do.” After a nightmare divorce settlement, she’d moved to Sedona, Arizona, and opened her own new age ashram.
The experience had left Buck with a bitter taste when it came to marriage. But at least he had Quinn. Quinn had been worth it all.
The phone shrilled again. Knowing it was Diane, Buck turned it off and lay back on the pillow. He’d come home last night with a pounding migraine. Feeling like roadkill, he’d taken some pills, undressed and fallen into bed, hoping to sleep through the pain. It had worked. He felt better today.
Especially after that crazy, sexy dream he’d had.
Closing his eyes, he tried to recall it in detail. He’d had erotic dreams before, plenty of them, but this one had been different. It had seemed so...real. The warm silkiness of skin against his body. The taste of that luscious mouth. Even the sexy aroma of her skin. He could remember everything about the woman—except her face.
Damn! He’d gulp down a whole bottle of those blasted pills if it could bring the dream back. His climax had been an explosion of sheer sensual pleasure, so powerful he’d probably drenched the bedding underneath him.
He frowned, struck by an odd notion. He should be lying in a damp spot now. But the sheet beneath him felt perfectly clean and dry.
Perplexed, he sat up, moved to one side and ran his hand across the mattress. Nothing. He shook his head, as if trying to clear out the cobwebs. What in blazes had happened here?
That was when he noticed something else—a subtle fragrance rising from the bottom sheet. Pressing his face to the fabric, he inhaled the sweet, clean aroma, trying to identify it. This wasn’t the softener the hotel laundry used. And it wasn’t one of the expensive perfumes his sexual partners tended to drench themselves in. It was something else, something fresh but somehow familiar. It was her scent, exactly as he remembered it.
There could be only one conclusion—the dream had been real. There’d been a woman in his bed, and he’d made love to her.
But how could that be? There’d been no one here when he’d gone to bed last night. The gate to the property had been locked. The house had been locked. And if the dog had barked at an intruder, he hadn’t heard it.
Was he losing his mind?
He sat up. The room looked the same as usual. Nothing appeared to have been touched except—
His gaze fell on the phone.
Now that his head was clearing, he distinctly recalled turning it off before he went to sleep. But someone had not only turned it on again but adjusted the ring volume loud enough to raise the dead.
Who would play such a dirty trick on him?
Maybe he was still dreaming.
Sliding his legs off the bed, he pushed