“She’s very attractive, yes,” Quinn agreed, but kept his voice low so she wouldn’t overhear.
Unfortunately the other man’s volume control had been affected by his alcohol intake. He leaned close in a confidential manner, nudged Quinn in the ribs and winked boldly. “I’d do her in a New York minute. Know what I mean?”
Slowly Charlize turned and pinned them both with an icy glare. Quick, like a little boy chastised, the businessman looked away. But Quinn didn’t flinch. He’d been dying for a glimpse of those eyes, and he wasn’t going to let his seatmate’s bad manners deprive him of the thrill.
Their gazes met.
And he wasn’t disappointed. Her eyes were as compelling as the rest of her. Sharp, slightly almond-shaped, the color of dark chocolate.
His heart did a triple axel, then dropped, ker-plunk, into his stomach. He’d always had a weakness for brown-eyed blondes. Quinn smiled, giving her his best George-Clooney-on-the-make imitation.
Charlize didn’t return the favor.
“Hi,” he greeted her boldly. “How you doin’?”
For a minute there he thought she might speak.
Her lips parted. Her eyes widened. A hint of a smile hovered.
Come on, sweetheart, give it up.
His hopes lodged in his throat. Suddenly his imagination transported him back to the fifth grade. He remembered sneaking off during recess to play spin the bottle with his classmates in the basement of Seward Middle School with the singular hope of kissing Mindy Lou Johnson.
But then Charlize cruelly shattered his dreams. Without a word, she flicked her gaze away, as if he was of no more significance than a pesky fly, and went back to her laptop.
Snubbed! Okay, that’s what he got for daring to speak to the Queen of Cool.
Quinn tried to focus on his magazine, but he couldn’t concentrate. Eventually, his gaze found its way back to those legs. Eighteen months without the comforts of female companionship was a far stretch to go.
That’s how long it had been since his ex-girlfriend Heather had turned down his marriage proposal. She’d told him that no matter how much she might love him, she could never be more than a fair weather Alaskan. The winters were just too harsh.
Heather begged him to move to Cleveland, but Quinn figured he must not have loved her as much as he thought. He had not yet met the woman who could convince him to leave his home. Alaska was in his blood, his heart, his soul. But man alive, sometimes those long, dark winter nights got really lonely.
Some of his friends had told him he was too stubborn, letting his love of Alaska overrule his heart. They said if he didn’t learn to compromise, he’d never find true love. But others had congratulated him on sticking to his guns. He was an Alaskan man, and only a woman willing to become an Alaskan wife could make him happy.
At thirty-two Quinn was ready for a family of his own, but he knew it would take a very special lady to make her home in Bear Creek. Elegant thing like Charlize Theron there, with her fancy panty hose and her hundred-dollar haircut, would be crushed by the regal brutality of the Alaskan landscape. Nope, pretty she might be, but he needed someone tough and strong and resilient. Someone like his younger sister, Meggie. Or at least how Meggie used to be before she married Jesse Drummond and moved off to Seattle to fulfill her dream of becoming a city girl. Trouble was, in Bear Creek, men outnumbered women ten to one.
In the meantime he wasn’t opposed to studying Charlize for sheer enjoyment. He tried to imagine her in Alaska and had to smile. No Broadway theater. No champagne-and-black-tie charity events for cultural enrichment. In Bear Creek if you wanted to raise money for, say, the volunteer fire department, you threw a salmon bake, got a keg of beer, slapped some hard-driving music on your CD player and let it go at that.
From where he sat, Quinn could only see her profile and those elegant hands tapping away at the keyboard. Her nose was perfectly shaped. Exquisite, in fact. Not too big, not too small. Not too sharp, not too soft.
Her cheekbones—Quinn could see just one, but he knew the other matched—were as high and sculpted as any fashion model’s. Her firm but feminine chin was an artist’s dream. And that mouth! Full, but not overblown like those Hollywood actresses who had their lips shot full of collagen. Lips currently adorned with lipstick the same russet shade as an Alaskan summer sunset.
Oh, this one was a fascinating combination of fire and ice, all right. Her regal demeanor shouted “You’re never gonna get it,” but those panty hose and spike-heeled shoes gave totally conflicting messages. Deep down she was a sensual woman aching to shake off that repressed disposition.
She closed her laptop and settled it under her seat. Her pencil dropped to the floor, unnoticed.
Quinn, never one to let good sense hold him back from something he wanted, seized the opportunity. Leaning forward, he tapped her gently on the shoulder.
“Miss?”
She jerked her head around and stabbed him with a hard, what-do-you-want-from-me-wilderness-boy expression. No doubt she was accustomed to strange men making passes at her, and she’d perfected that “hands off” look to quell even the most ardent admirer in his tracks. A necessary skill for a woman who dressed like that.
“You dropped your pencil.” He pointed.
Her expression softened when she realized he wasn’t hitting on her—even though he was working up to that. The corners of her lips edged upward and she silently mouthed, “Thank you.”
Argh! Her simple thank-you struck like an arrow through the heart.
Yo, Mama, I think I’m in big-time lust.
When she leaned down to retrieve the pencil, she shifted her legs and her skirt rode up higher on her thigh. Quinn almost choked.
He spied the hint of something black and lacy. She straightened, pencil in hand, and reached to tug her skirt down.
But it was too late. He already knew her secret.
She turned her head, met his eyes again and sent him a Mona Lisa smile.
Those were no panty hose.
The audacious woman was wearing a garter and stockings!
* * *
KAY FREEMONT CASUALLY TOOK a compact from her purse.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t so casually. Maybe she wanted another peek at Paul Bunyon back there without turning around and giving him the satisfaction of knowing she was interested.
Not interested in a serious way, of course. She was trying to untangle herself from an unsatisfactory relationship, not get into a new one. She merely wanted to confirm that the broad-shouldered man clad in flannel and denim was indeed as ruggedly cute as she thought.
Kay might have worried her bottom lip with her teeth, so curious was she about this man, but many years of her mother’s nagging stopped her. Mustn’t smear one’s lipstick. Freemonts had a certain image to maintain.
She feigned using the compact mirror to pat her unmussed hair into place, but she angled it so she could see him. Secretly she’d always been sexually attracted to burly, outdoorsy men. Strong, physical men who played contact sports and repaired their own cars. Men who chopped wood and roasted raw meat over fire pits. Men who’d fight to the death to protect their women.
The fact that her boyfriend Lloyd was a slender, brainy, pacifistic vegetarian who didn’t even own a car, much less know how to work on one, did not escape her. But just because she daydreamed about extremely manly men didn’t mean she coveted a relationship with one. It was simply a sexual fantasy.
Besides some things were more important than sex. Companionship, for instance.
And Lloyd is such a