Sexy, Single And Searching
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Her heart clattered like an aging engine on low-octane fuel.
“I’d like to get to know you better.”
Cammie Jo couldn’t help noticing the dimple carved in his cheek and the provocative twinkle in his eyes. Was he asking her out?
“Really,” she murmured.
“Yeah. I’ll admit it. Out of all the women who’ve shown up in Bear Creek over the last couple of weeks, you’re the only one who’s really raised my interest.”
“And why is that?”
He cocked his head and a sheaf of dark-brown hair shifted over his side part. “You’re something of a mystery, and I love solving puzzles.”
“Oh you do?” She couldn’t believe how easily she was flirting, how she was matching his stare without blinking or turning red as a boiled lobster. She took a bite of cookie, ran her tongue along her lips for effect.
“I do.” His eyes tracked the movement of her tongue.
“Well good for you.”
“You’re making fun of me.”
“I’m not.”
“Where did you come from, Camryn Josephine?”
He raised a hand and for one jumpy moment she thought he might touch her, but instead he reached out to brace his palm against the side of the building and lean in toward her. His scent was pure heaven. He was close enough so that she could see just how long and lush his lashes were. They looked supple as sable and softened his direct, inquisitive eyes.
“Out of the blue.”
“I believe you,” he murmured. “You’re that unique.”
She’d never been in such an intimate position and she found she loved being close to this glorious representative of the male species.
“How are you when it comes to adventure?”
“How do you mean?”
“Do you like the outdoors? Are you game for mountain biking and kayaking and salmon fishing?” He waited, and it seemed, held his breath.
Goodness, what was the correct answer?
She thought of the ad, visualized the caption underneath the picture.
Wild Women Wanted.
Could she be wild enough for this man? She moistened her lips with her tongue, tasted the too-sweet flavor of strawberry-banana punch mingling with the almond of the cookie she’d just finished.
“I’ll take any adventure you can throw my way and eat it up with both hands.”
He hissed in his breath as if his mind had conjured some very wicked adventures indeed. “Anything?”
“Anything,” she declared, happy she had wondrous magic to help her keep that vow.
“Wait a minute.” Mack was suddenly looking at her real funny, staring at her mouth.
Uh-oh. Had he finally figured out she wasn’t really brazen Camryn, but shy Cammie Jo? A moment of fear licked through her before she remembered her wish.
Reaching out, he smoothed his thumb over the corner of her mouth.
Cammie Jo shivered. What was he doing?
“Cookie crumb,” he said.
“Oh.”
But the crumb was gone and he was still here, his face so very close to hers.
“Not so fast.” His arm snaked around her waist and he pulled her flush against the length of his body.
Good thing there wasn’t a maximum speed limit for pulses. She’d be liable for the highest fine imaginable.
Then he lowered his head and took her mouth with his own.
She was in heaven. But when he pressed his tongue to her closed teeth, she jumped back startled.
Mack blinked. His initial thought was one of complete surprise. Camryn Josephine knew next to nothing about kissing. But how could that be? Surely this hot, sassy babe had kissed dozens of men, if not hundreds.
Maybe she’d given him the weird, platonic-but-not-quite kiss because she was uncertain of her feelings. Mack scratched his head and looked down at her.
She was such a cute little thing. All curves and dips, so different from his own hard, angular body.
The woman might not be clear on her feelings, but he was clear on his. He wanted to taste more of her, go deeper, explore. See if she could indeed be the woman he was searching for.
He hooked his index finger under her chin, lifted her face up to meet his again. He watched the pulse in her neck jump with anticipation. Slowly, he lowered his lips to that throbbing beat and kissed her exposed throat with the lightest touch he could manage, heightening the anticipation.
Her skin was hot and getting hotter by the minute. The more his tongue laved over her rapidly pounding pulse, the faster it beat.
Mack felt her tremble. Her escalating excitement matched his own. Did her quest for adventure include those of the flesh?
He wanted her with a sharp spike of desire that stabbed straight through his groin. But letting lust rule his head was not the way to go.
No. As much as he might want to, he wouldn’t drag her home to his bed. But he would sample another taste of those lips. Just to give himself something to think about.
He took her mouth in a heated rush. She gasped into him. She tasted so exquisite he almost groaned.
The feminine scent of her filled his nostrils. He felt her chest raising raggedly against his own. He threaded his fingers through that mane of golden brown hair, cupped the back of her head in his palm.
Camryn wriggled in his arms, every nerve ending in her body on full alert.
It was too much, too soon. She was in sensory overload and she couldn’t absorb everything that was happening.
Yes you can, silly, you’ve got the totem. She reached up to caress the necklace, to draw strength from its power. But when her fingers crept to her throat she felt nothing but her own skin.
Panic-stricken, she jerked away, leaving him looking dazed.
“What…?” he asked.
Cammie Jo stared down at her chest. The totem was gone!
Without it, she was not brave enough to kiss a virtual stranger. On her own, she was not the type to flirt and bat her eyelashes and volley innuendoes.
She was her old self. Vulnerable, scared and way out of her league.
In desperation, she cast her gaze to the ground, looking among the flowering lupine at their feet for her missing necklace. Her breath came out in frantic wheezes, as if she was an asthmatic in a room full of ragweed pollen.
“Camryn? What’s wrong?” Mack reached out to put a hand on her shoulder.
His touch sent her over the edge. She had to get away. Had to leave before she ruined everything. Had to hide from him so he wouldn’t see her for the timid spinster-in-the-making that she really was.
Later, after the party was over, she would come back and try to find the necklace. But for now every phobia she’d ever experienced was gelling into one major fear. That of being found out a fraud before she’d ever had a chance to really live her great adventure.
Get out. Get away!
“I…I can’t do this.” She spun on her heels and took off at a dead run.
“Camryn,” Mack cried. “What’s wrong? Talk to me.”
She never hesitated.
“Wait!” His footsteps thundered behind her.
Clippety, clippety, clippety—stumble. Her ankle turned sideways in the impossible heels but she ignored the bite of pain and kept going.
Hurry, hurry. You’ve got to give him the slip. Except she could hardly see where she was going with this darned hair bouncing free and unfettered about her face and she didn’t know the area. She rounded the building at a dead-on sprint, hoping he’d give up the pursuit. For heaven’s sake, if a man was running away from her she’d take the hint and not chase after him.
But Mack stayed right on her tail.
Was the man part bloodhound? Jeez Louise. Talk about relentless.
Where could she go to get away from him? She leaped over some shrubbery at the edge of the side-walk. A well-dressed crowd was just walking into the entrance of the community center. Cammie Jo barreled past them, using human bodies as a shield between Mack and herself.
“Excuse me. I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to step on your toe.” She heard Mack apologizing but she never slowed, not for a second.
Lungs bursting. Stitch in her side. Throbbing ankle. She could endure all that but not a totemless face-to-face encounter with Mack.
Rabbit quick, she darted through the front door, spun past a startled Kay and clattered upstairs to the relative safety of the ladies’ room.
Okay, don’t panic, don’t panic.
Lovely advice. About as useful as telling a hostess not to panic when she’s got ninety-nine guests coming for Thanksgiving dinner in fifteen minutes and a hundred pounds of Turkey à la Froufrou just exploded in her brand new rotisserie oven.
Cammie Jo paced the tiled bathroom, arms folded across her chest. What to do? She couldn’t stay in here all night.
Or could she?
Tempting thought, but considering the way he’d chased after her, Mack didn’t seem the kind of guy to let things go without a fight. He would probably send someone in after her.
Rats, rats, rats.
And then her gaze landed on the window.
Hmmm. Small opening, but she was petite.
Cammie Jo climbed up on the sink and leaned over to raise the window. She stuck her head out and peered down.
Yipes!
The ground was farther away than she expected. Never mind that directly underneath the ladies’ washroom window sat a row of sturdy, metal, bear-proof garbage cans that looked as if they could skin a girl something nasty.
Cammie Jo pulled back, and mulled over her choices. She could take a header, or more precisely, a footer out the window, or she could face Mack again.
Which was easier to do?
She closed her eyes briefly and wished for the totem.
If wishes were nuts and cherries we’d all have a Merry Christmas, Aunt Kiki was fond of saying, although Cammie Jo had never quite understood the adage. Herself, she’d always wanted clothes and toys for Christmas, not nuts and cherries.
“Camryn?” Kay’s voice called to her from the outer room. “Are you in there? Mack’s looking for you.”
Ulp. It was now or never.
Cammie Jo dangled her legs over the window ledge, took a deep breath and jumped, stiletto heels and all.
5
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.”