To Alaska, With Love: A Touch of Silk

So many thoughts raced through his brain it seemed as if eons had passed. But it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds since she’d toppled into his embrace.

She raised a hand to her cheek to brush away a strand of golden hair. He tracked her movement, peered into those compelling brown eyes once more.

And stumbled. Literally lost his balance as the plane hit another pocket of turbulence. He tipped backward, taking Charlize with him.

They ended up in the middle of the aisle, a jumble of arms and legs. The fall hadn’t knocked the air from his lungs, but nonetheless, he found it hard to breathe with her lying on his chest.

“Are you okay?” There was that breathy whisper again, uncertain, a bit nervous. And unless he missed his guess, tinged with an acute awareness of him as a man.

“Okay,” he replied, hating for this moment to end.

“Please take your seats,” a flight attendant said sharply as she rushed over. “And buckle yourselves in.”

“Let me help you up,” Charlize offered, rising to her feet with amazing agility and grace for a woman wearing three-inch heels and a mean pair of stockings.

He almost laughed at the notion of a slender branch like her helping a tree trunk like himself to his feet. But he liked the idea of touching her again, so he put out his hand, which dwarfed hers, and allowed her to tug him.

Quinn pushed against the floor of the plane, and his own momentum brought him to a standing position. The top of her sleek head only came to his armpit. Her hip was level with his upper thigh. She seemed as perfect and delicate as the first butterfly of spring.

Without a doubt she was the most exquisite woman he’d ever met. Her straight blond hair was cut in a polished style and appeared as finely spun as silk. Her complexion was flawless, except for a small scar below her right earlobe. He had an almost overpowering urge to explore that scar with the tip of his tongue.

How he wanted to say something more to her, to do something more with her, but the frowning flight attendant was clucking her tongue and waving at them to take their seats. Charlize scooted past him, her breasts lightly brushing his upper arm, causing a brushfire to leap up his nerve endings, and made her way to her seat.

Kay was practically panting as she clicked the seat belt in place around her waist. Her heart pounded, blood suffused her skin. She couldn’t believe what had just happened and her body’s heated response to a stranger. Touching him had been far more electric, far more satisfying than her wildest imaginings.

She didn’t look up, because she knew he was still standing there staring at her as if he’d been struck with a bolt from the blue. What was the matter with him? Didn’t they have women wherever it was he was from?

“You sure you’re all right?” He squatted in the aisle beside Kay, defying the angry flight attendant, who looked as if she wanted to tie him into his seat but was too quelled by his size to approach.

“I’m fine, don’t worry about me. Please, for your own safety, sit down.”

“If you need me, I’m right behind you.” He touched her wrist with his massive paw, and her blood slipped through her veins like quicksilver. Intense. So intense. If she closed her eyes, she could see the two of them in a forest. Walking. Alone. On a bed of soft, mossy ground. The sunlight flitting through the trees.

Stop it, stop it, stop it. Don’t you dare go into another sexual fantasy, Kathryn Victoria Freemont!

She raised her hand to her face. The hand that had been wrapped in his. She smelled of him. Robust, masculine. Like pine needles, wilderness and soap. A shiver she could not suppress overtook her body. She could easily imagine him back there in his seat watching her with eagle eyes.

What was it about this man that so stirred her blood? What was it that made her feel giddy and girlish and oh-so-happy to be alive?

Kay was kidding herself, and she knew it. Just because he made her feel desirable didn’t mean she was licensed to jump his bones. She didn’t even know the guy’s name. What he made her feel was simply a reflection of her wishful thinking. She wanted rescuing from her life, and he was a convenient escapist illusion.

Because lately, nothing in her current experiences seemed to satisfy her. Not her relationship with her parents, who were pressuring her to marry Lloyd and produce an heir. Certainly not her romance with Lloyd, if you could even call what they had a romance.

Lloyd had proposed to her by email two days ago in a manner as romantic as a root canal. His exact message had been “Your father says he’ll make me partner if we’re married by the end of the summer, guess it’s time to do the deed.”

Whoopee! Sweep a girl right off her feet, why don’t you?

She’d ignored Lloyd’s email, pretending she hadn’t yet seen the missive, because she wasn’t ready to deal with it, and surprise, surprise, he hadn’t even called her in Chicago to see why she hadn’t responded.

And even her job as a reporter for Metropolitan magazine no longer fulfilled her as it once had.

“What happened to you?” she whispered to herself, grateful no one was seated next to her. “In college, you dreamed of writing novels and having adventures and taking a lover that was as kind and considerate and understanding as he was good in bed. Where did that girl go?”

It seemed her entire youth had been spent trying to please Mommy and Daddy and striving to be the perfect Freemont. Her one tiny insurrection had been insisting on studying journalism rather than art history, as her mother had wished.

“Lloyd Post comes from blueblood stock, dear, just like you,” her mother had told her when she called the day before to see if Kay had gotten Lloyd’s emailed proposal. Apparently Lloyd had already discussed it with her parents. Would have been nice if he’d talked things over with her first. “Give his proposition some serious thought. You could do worse than marrying him.”

Hmm, what was worse than binding yourself for life to a man who virtually ignored you for weeks on end? What was worse than until death do you part with a man who didn’t even care where your G-spot was located? What was worse than spending the next forty years beside a guy with whom you had absolutely nothing in common other than the fact you were both filthy rich with impeccable pedigrees?

Let’s see, what was worse than marrying Lloyd Post?

Well, owing money to the Mafia had to be a bummer. Being stranded in the desert with no water wasn’t cool. Having oral surgery wasn’t a blast. So yes, Mommy, you’re absolutely right. There are worse things than marrying Lloyd.

But there were so many better things, too.

Like taking that rugged woodsman to bed?

She tried to picture what would happen if she was to walk into her parents house on Paul Bunyon’s arm and announce they were engaged. Laughable! Even she, of the overactive imagination, could not conceive of such an event.

Helplessly she found her head drawn to the right, her eyes peeping surreptitiously over her shoulder.

And there he was, just as she knew he’d be. Staring at her and not a bit ashamed of his unabashed appreciation.

He was pure testosterone in a huge package that proclaimed, “I’ll never let any harm come to you.” It was a heady promise. Between his protective attitude and his raw animal magnetism, the man oozed an essential sexiness that called to something wild within her. Like a wolf to his mate. Something primal and elemental she hadn’t known she possessed until now.

She deserved to be happy. She deserved to be sexually satisfied, and she deserved far better than settling for Lloyd Post. In reality she knew Paul Bunyon did not figure into her future, but regardless, meeting him at this juncture had changed her. It was time she stood up to her parents and started living her own life. It was past time she found out what she’d been missing.

* * *

QUINN PLANNED TO WAYLAY her in the jetway, help her with her luggage, hail her a taxi, get her phone number and ask her out to dinner. In fact, he was so excited about the idea that he’d kept shifting restlessly in his seat, unable to think of anything else.

But when the plane landed at JFK, she leaped from her seat the minute the flight attendants opened the door. Quinn got up to follow her, but an elderly lady sitting across the aisle asked him to retrieve her carry-on bag from the overhead bin. What else could he do? By the time he made his way into the terminal, Charlize had vanished as if she’d never existed.

He looked left, then right, but the crowd had swallowed her. How could she have disappeared so quickly?

Damn!

He hadn’t mistaken her interest in him, no matter how cool she liked to play it. The attraction had been instant and physical. No denying her raspy breathing when he’d held her in his arms, no hiding her aroused nipples. She’d wanted him, all right.

So why had she run away?

Maybe she was married, the thought occurred to him, but he didn’t recall seeing a ring on that delicate third finger of her left hand.

Ah, well. Quinn wasn’t the sort to cry over spilt milk. He took a deep breath and headed for the baggage claim. Nothing to be done about it now. He tried to push her from his thoughts.

But despite his best intentions, he couldn’t help feeling he’d lost out on something pretty darn terrific.

* * *

“KAY, COME HERE, you’ve got to see this.” Her editor, Judy Nessler, stood in the doorway of Kay’s office on Monday morning, grinning from ear to ear and crooking a bejeweled finger at her.

Kay frowned and glanced up from the piece she was working on about finding love on the internet. She’d gone to Chicago to interview a couple who’d met in an online chat room, and she had her notes spread out on the desk around her. Included in the pile were copies of the spicy messages the couple had posted to each other during their courtship. Reading the sizzling missives had her feeling oddly cranky.

“What is it, Judy?”

“Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.”

She wasn’t in the mood for Judy’s guessing games. It had been almost twenty-four hours since her plane ride with Paul Bunyon, but she couldn’t seem to stop spinning fantasies about him. How could the thought of one man make her ache so badly?

Nor had she been able to locate Lloyd in order to pin him down for a dinner date to discuss his marriage proposal in person, and he hadn’t yet returned the call she had left on his answering machine.

“I’m in the middle of something,” Kay said.

“Just come with me.”

Sighing, Kay pushed away from her desk and followed Judy down the corridor to the advertising department. As usual, the room was abuzz with activity. But atypically, all the activity seemed concentrated in the middle of room. Centered, in fact, around a skyscraper-size man who had his back to them.

A man clad in red flannel and blue denim. His head was cocked to one side and he was laughing at something one of the blushing assistants had said. Kay’s pulse momentarily stuttered to a stop. She raised a hand to her throat.

No. It couldn’t be.

Judy leaned in close and whispered, “You don’t see guys like him traipsing up Fifth Avenue every day of the week.”

Please, don’t let it be Paul Bunyon, Kay prayed, but in her heart she knew.

Judy took her by the elbow and dragged her across the room like a reluctant puppy on a leash.

“Quinn,” Judy said. “I’d like you to meet Kay Freemont, one of our top writers.”

Slowly he pivoted on one booted heel, an insouciant gleam in his eye. Then recognition hit. His brows sprung up on his forehead and the grin went from free and easy to downright seductive.

It was Paul Bunyon! What an awful coincidence.

Of all the magazine offices in Manhattan, he had to walk into mine.

Why was he here? Was this some kind of a sign, him showing up so unexpectedly? Was the universe trying to tell her something?

“Kay, this is Quinn Scofield from Bear Creek, Alaska.”

She stared at him.

He stared back at her.

Neither of them spoke.

The air around them seemed to vibrate with heat and energy and overpowering awareness.

Quinn. From Alaska. The Mighty Quinn. She should have known he would have a macho moniker. The name fit him like the mackinaw he wore.

Puzzled, Judy watched them watching each other. “Have you two already been introduced?”

“Actually, no.” Quinn didn’t even wait for Kay to offer her hand. He simply took it, and her blood puddled like melted butter in the pit of her stomach. “I’m very honored to make the acquaintance of such a lovely lady.”

Pul-leeze. Enough with the flattery. I just saw you flirting with that assistant.

And yet, a small frisson of pleasure spiraled through her body and lodged with stunning acuity in her most feminine parts. If anything, her attraction to him was even stronger than it had been the day before.

Scary.

When Kay finally tore her gaze from his face, she realized that all the single women—and more than a few of the married ones—in the room were looking at her as if she’d snatched a prized morsel of filet mignon from their mouths.

“Quinn’s come to New York looking for a wife,” Judy said.

A wife? Kay took a step backward.

She jerked a quick glance in Quinn’s direction and saw he was observing her reaction to Judy’s news. Oh, boy, and here she’d been dreaming of having a red-hot fling with him. Well, certainly not now!

She’d just about decided to give old Lloyd the heave-ho and to tell her parents she was tired of living her life to suit them. She was ready to stretch her sexual wings and fly. She was not getting involved with a man who was looking for a commitment. No way. No matter how sexy he might be.

“He wants to place this full-page color ad with us.” Judy took the advertising copy from an assistant and handed it to Kay.

Full-page color-ad space in Metropolitan magazine didn’t come cheap.

“The four of us pitched in,” Quinn said, as if reading Kay’s mind. “The bachelors of Bear Creek.”

“Doesn’t that have a great ring to it?” Judy’s eyes glistened. Clearly she was enamored of Quinn, his buddies and their ad.

Kay stared down at the photograph in her hand and sucked in her breath. Pictured were four of the most gorgeous men she’d ever laid eyes on, one of them Quinn. They looked sexier and far more masculine than anything Madison Avenue could have dreamed up. The men wore blue jeans, devilish grins and nothing else, their hunky, well-muscled bare chests on prominent display.

In the photo Quinn was lounging on one end of a black leather couch. He was bigger than she’d even imagined, with the buffest biceps on the planet. Draped across the other side of the couch was a coal-haired, blue-eyed Adonis with a dreamy, angelic air about him. On the floor, perched atop a bearskin rug, sat a dishy blond man with more charisma than a movie star, and another dark-eyed man with a lantern jaw and deep-set brown eyes. All four men were looking straight into the camera as if staring into the eyes of a beautiful woman.

Her gaze went from the one-dimensional, bare-chested Quinn to the fully three-dimensional Quinn standing beside her, and she gulped.

“That’s Caleb Greenleaf,” he said, leaning over her shoulder and pointing to the Adonis. “He’s a naturalist for the state of Alaska. And that’s Jake Gerard and Mack McCaulley. Jake runs the local bed-and-breakfast, and Mack’s a bush pilot.”

But Kay wasn’t thinking about Caleb or Jake or Mack, no matter how good-looking they were. She was completely and totally distracted by Quinn’s warm breath fanning the hairs on the nape of her neck.

Her gut tripped. She inhaled sharply and caught the arresting scent of his subtle aftershave and heated male flesh. That delicious smell sent her senses reeling.

Shaking her head to dispel the sultry cocoon Quinn had woven around her, Kay returned her attention to the glossy paper in her hand. Beneath the photograph of the four very eligible bachelors was the provocative caption: Wild Women Wanted!

“Do you have what it takes to be a wilderness wife?” was the first line of copy.

For absolutely no reason at all, Kay’s heart fluttered. That line shouldn’t have titillated her. She definitely did not have what it took to be a wilderness wife. She considered eating fast food roughing it. She had a low tolerance for cold weather, and she was scared to death of creatures like wolves and moose and bears.

Of course, if you had a man like Quinn to protect you from the cold and the critters, it might make Alaska a little more palatable. Still, a life without four-star restaurants, Broadway shows and department stores was too dismal to consider.

“I love this whole idea,” Judy was chattering to Quinn. “Sexy bachelors forced to advertise in the lower forty-eight states to find wives. It’s romantic. It’s enchanting. It’s a modern-day fairy tale. Our readers will eat it up. In fact, I’d like to run a feature article on the four of you.”

“We could hold a contest,” Kay volunteered, her marketing instincts kicking in, despite the fact that she really wanted nothing more to do with this particular bachelor and his wife hunt. “In thirty words or less tell us why you’d like to win a free trip to Bear Creek, Alaska. That sort of thing.”

“Fabulous!” Judy enthused, and patted Kay’s cheek. “You’re such a dynamo. I knew you’d have something valuable to say. I love the idea. Simply love it. Then we can do a follow-up story on the contest winner. And who knows, if any of the guys find a wife as a direct result of the ad, we can do follow-up articles all through the year. I’ll have to run this by Hal first, but I know he’s going to adore it, too.”

Kay shrugged, playing it cool as always. Freemonts never acted too eager.

“So what do you say, Kay? Ready to pack your bags and spend a couple of weeks in Alaska?” Judy asked.

“What?” She shook her head, thrown off by Judy’s question. “Me go to Alaska?”

“Well,” Quinn said, “late February probably isn’t the best time of year to visit. When I left home, it was ten below.”

“No kidding?” Judy whistled. “That is cold. But if we want the article to run with your ad in our June issue, then there’s no time to waste. Kay can do it. She’s pretty intrepid, aren’t you, darling?”

Ten degrees below zero! Kay shivered at the very idea. “Are you nuts?”

“Come on, where’s your spirit of adventure?” Judy goaded her. “Besides, it’s perfect for the article. You can tell the readers firsthand that being an Alaskan wife is not for the faint of heart. Marriage-minded, handsome, successful bachelors do not come without some kind of price tag.”

Kay shook her head. She was not going to Alaska—it would give Quinn the wrong idea. He might start thinking she was interested in becoming his bride. Besides, she had to settle things with Lloyd. “I’m sorry, I can’t commit to this project right now—I’ve got too much on my plate. Why don’t you ask Carol? I’m sure she’d love to go.”

Was it her imagination, or did Quinn look disappointed? The notion that he wanted her to come to Alaska did strange things to Kay’s insides.

“Don’t give me your answer yet,” Judy said. “I still have to talk to Hal. Then you can make up your mind. How’s that sound?”

“All right, but don’t tell Hal that I’ve agreed to sign on yet.”

“Understood. Now why don’t you take Quinn to lunch? In fact, take the rest of the afternoon off. Show him New York. Since you’re practically engaged, I know you won’t be a threat to his bachelorhood and snatch him off the market before the ad even has a chance to run.”

Chapter Three

PRACTICALLY ENGAGED.

So that explained why she’d fled from the airplane before he’d had a chance to ask her name. She’d been as attracted to him as he was to her, and very clearly disturbed by that attraction because she was in a serious, committed relationship.

Damn.

And he’d come to New York in person, rather than handling the details of placing the ad over the phone or through the mail, not only because he was considering purchasing new wilderness gear from a sporting goods outfit run by an old friend, but because he’d secretly hoped to have one last sexual adventure before seriously beginning his wife search.

With all his heart and soul, Quinn believed in monogamy. His parents, who’d had a solid, loving marriage for forty years and still counting, provided him with a blueprint. Once he made a commitment to a woman, he’d be hers for life. But until he found her, well, he was a red-blooded male, after all. He had physical needs. Needs that were growing stronger by the minute.

He’d known from the moment he’d watched Kay Freemont board the plane that he wanted her, and then to find her working in the office of Metropolitan magazine—unbelievable! He’d taken it as a positive sign that she was supposed to be his passionate last fling. But now, to discover that she was practically engaged. Where did that leave him? He wasn’t the sort of guy who came between a woman and her almost fiancé.

Then again, what the hell did “practically engaged” mean, anyway? Quinn ran a hand through his hair. Where he came from, either you were engaged or you weren’t. Maybe it was a New York thing.

“Well.” Kay nodded and looked rather uncomfortable with the assignment of baby-sitting him for the rest of the afternoon. “Well.”

Had her boss’s edict to wine and dine him left her at a loss for words? Or was it something more? Was it meeting him again?

Dream on, Scofield.

And yet, that was exactly what he wanted to do. Dream on and on and on of taking her to bed. Seeing her in her work environment, amid people who obviously admired and respected her, looking so professional and self-possessed in that short-skirted purple business suit made him crave her even more. Did she have any earthly idea what those magnificent legs of hers did to a man? Women who were practically engaged and possessed legs like Thoroughbreds should not be allowed to wear skirts like that! There oughtta be a law.

Damn, but the woman blew him away! Her cocoa-brown eyes simmered with a suppressed sexuality that begged to be brought to a boil. When he had turned and spied her beside Judy Nessler, adrenaline walloped him in the gut.

Now, simply standing here next to her, inhaling her scent—a fetching combination of vanilla ice cream and sharply scented cinnamon sticks—his body came alive. To the point where he wished for a bucket of ice cubes to chill his throbbing member.

“Your cologne smells nice. What’s it called?”

“White Heat.”

He angled her a glance. “White Heat, huh? It suits you.”

“Pardon?”

He could tell by the way she pursed her lips that he’d unnerved her. “You’re like white heat. You’ve got this cool, outer demeanor, but inside, there’s a deep, smoldering flame.”

She gulped. He watched her struggle to control her features. She hated giving away her thoughts, he realized, and she’d mastered the art of suppressing her emotions.

How he longed to unsuppress her. To teach her how to open up and say exactly what was on her mind.

“Uh, let me get my bag and coat and change my shoes.” She gestured in the direction of what he supposed was her office. “And we can grab some lunch.”

She dashed away, leaving him to rein in his hormones, and returned a few minutes later wearing a black leather coat with an oversize purse thrown over her shoulder and a pair of Nikes on her feet. He almost laughed at the sight of her in that glamorous business suit and shod in running shoes, but once they were out on the street, he noticed a lot of the women similarly dressed. He commented on it.

“Try walking twelve blocks in high heels. You’d carry a spare pair of sneakers in your bag, too.”

“We don’t even have blocks in Bear Creek.” He grinned.

She gave him a strange look as if he was speaking Mandarin. And it struck him then how different their lives were. He could survive alone in the Alaskan wilderness for weeks if necessary, but in New York City, he feared being unable to survive something as simple as crossing the street. He couldn’t understand how people lived here day in and day out. The pollution, the noise, the crowds. Eventually it had to drive you out of your mind.