“Why don’t you join me in the shower?” Sam offered.

“Yeah, right.” Giselle laughed, running her fingers along his skin. “You just want me to wash your back.”

“Hmm. My back wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” he replied, nipping her neck.

She sucked in a quick breath. “Ah, a wicked mind. I like the way you think.”

He licked the spot he’d just nipped. “Hey, I’m only thinking that you might have missed a few spots when you showered earlier,” he said innocently. “Why don’t you let me take care of them for you?” He reached behind the curtain and turned the water on. “It’ll need a little time to warm up. What temperature do you prefer?”

“I like it hot,” Giselle said, grinning. “Really, really hot.”

“That’s good. Then there’s something for both of us.” At her questioning look, he added,

“Because I like it wet…”

After a varied career path that included barbecue-joint waitress, corporate numbers cruncher and bug-business maven, Jennifer LaBrecque has found her true calling writing contemporary romance. Named 2001 Notable New Author of the Year and 2002 winner of the prestigious Maggie Award for Excellence, she is also a two-time RITA® Award finalist. Jennifer lives in suburban Atlanta with one husband, one active daughter, one really bad cat, two precocious greyhounds and a chihuahua who runs the whole show.

His Christmas Fantasy

BY

Jennifer Labrecque

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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To Girl: my daughter, my friend, my heart.

1

“WHEN ARE Helene and Mr. Wonderful getting here?” a muffled feminine voice asked as the kitchen door clicked closed behind Sam McKendrick, enveloping him in holiday scents of roasting turkey, pumpkin pie and fresh evergreen.

His sweeping glance, the practiced eye of a professional photographer, took in a green bean casserole in a glass dish waiting its turn in the oven, a mixing bowl surrounded by an opened bag of flour, measuring spoons and other baking paraphernalia on the yellow Formica countertop.

The crash and clang of falling pots and pans immediately followed from the lower corner cabinet where a very rounded rear was poking in the air, the speaker’s top half swallowed by the cabinet. “Got it,” the voice declared.

His new sister-in-law wiggled backward, freeing herself from the cabinet, an oversized cookie sheet in tow.

She straightened, stood, saw him and promptly dropped the cookie sheet. “Oh, hell.” Within seconds, however, laughter offset the momentary consternation in her hazel eyes. “Mr. Wonderful, I presume.”

Sam grinned. “Actually, it’s McKendrick. Sam McKendrick. And you must be Giselle.”

“Right.” She glanced at the teakettle-shaped clock on the wall. “You’re early.”

Giselle Randolph was a hot mess.

Her long brown hair, caught up in a clip, stuck out at an odd angle on one side, and flour dusted the end of her freckled nose. She wore a white T-shirt with I Brake For Elves in green lettering across the front, a bright red, very sexy bra visible beneath the thin T-shirt and snug gray sweats. He noted her bare feet and red toenails, a green-and-white holly berry design detailed on each of her big toes.

Enchanting with an earthy sensuality, she was the sexiest woman he’d ever met, flour or no flour on her nose.

She quickly recovered her aplomb. She smiled, wiped her hand on her thigh and extended her hand in greeting. “Welcome to the family.”

“Thanks.” He shook her sticky hand and the oddest sensation zapped him, as if he’d just found something he hadn’t known he was missing. Feeling slightly stunned, he shook his head to clear it and realized he was still engulfing her hand in his. He released her.

She grimaced an apology and wiped her hand ineffectually along the bottom of her T-shirt, which only tugged it tighter and threw her red plunging bra into further relief. “Sorry, didn’t realize it was sticky.” She waved her right hand, “Anyway…so, I guess I should thank you for eloping with my sister and saving me from some god-awful pink taffeta bridesmaid dress…or worse.” She pretended to shudder.

“Glad I could help.” He’d met Helene, a tall, cool blonde who turned heads everywhere she went, when she was on vacation at a resort in the Caymans and he was there shooting a brochure ad—not his typical assignment but he’d done it as a favor for his friend, who managed the resort. What followed was atypical, as well. Six whirlwind weeks and one Vegas elopement and honeymoon later and here he was, meeting the parents…and sister…on Christmas Day in suburban Atlanta.

“And my blushing-bride sister is where?”

“Your parents were out front working on the light display—”

She interrupted him, laughing. “More like fighting over the light display. You might as well get used to it. It’s a ritual.”

He laughed along with her, “Got it.”

“Helene?” she prompted, as if she hadn’t interrupted and he was the one who’d veered off topic. She retrieved the cookie sheet from the kitchen floor and put it on the counter.

“Talking to the next-door neighbors at the fence,” he said before she cut him off again. “She sent me in with the luggage.”

“Oh, right,” she said, her expressive eyes widening as if she’d just noticed the rolling suitcase handle in his left hand and the travel bag slung over his shoulder. “Come on. I’ll show you to Helene’s old room.”

He followed her down the hall of the rambling Victorian, which held a charming mix of antiques, clutter and Christmas decorations. They passed the front room, where a heavily decorated tree filled one corner and a cheery fire crackled in the fireplace. The setting could’ve been lifted from a made-for-TV Christmas special, a far cry from the public housing he’d grown up in. Buying his mother her own small house, complete with the white picket fence she’d longed for, had been one of the most satisfying moments of his life.

He started up the staircase, following Giselle, the stairs creaking loudly. Four steps up, he realized he was the only one setting them off. Giselle knew precisely where to place her foot to avoid the loud creak that seemed to come with every riser. He followed her lead, and there was no more creaking. She stopped and turned. Given the difference in their heights, it put them eye to eye.

“I see you’ve got it.” She shook her head, smiling. “Once she started dating, Helene spent half her life grounded ‘cause she’d get caught sneaking in late.”

It was an amusing tidbit about his wife, but he found himself wondering about Giselle. “What about you?”

“I never snuck out.” She was so close he didn’t miss the flicker of wistfulness in her eyes. Her smile lit up her face, and he caught himself just in time from reaching out to wipe away the dusting of flour on her nose. “No one wanted to keep me out late the way they did Helene. You won’t be surprised to know your wife always had the boys lined up.”

“Not surprised at all. She’s beautiful.” Helene was beautiful. Sam realized he had a need, as a bastard kid who’d grown up in public housing, to prove himself by having the best. He might wear jeans, but his shirt was always pressed and his jacket was Armani. His condo downtown offered a great view of Atlanta’s skyline. At thirty, he was ready to settle down. Beautiful Helene was a head-turner. He’d married her and committed to a lifetime together, and Sam neither made nor took the commitment lightly. Which was why he found it so confounding to be standing on the stairs with his heart slamming against his ribs and lost in the depths of Giselle Randolph’s hazel eyes.

“She is,” Giselle said on a breathless note. Something real and hot and dangerous pulsed between them. Something organic neither one had manufactured but which they were both caught up in. She inhaled sharply, and for one brief moment, like the slow descent of a single drop of water captured on time-lapse film, she leaned toward him. Her breath tumbled out in a sigh, gusting warm and fragrant against his mouth.

Instinctively, he shifted toward her. The stair creaked like a rifle shot, blasting away the intimacy and bringing them both back to their senses.

She turned abruptly and led him up the stairs, chatting as if that would erase whatever the hell had just passed between them. “That’s Mom and Dad’s room at the top of the stairs, so you can see how they were right there to bust her. And then Daddy’s study is off to the right on the other side of their bedroom. My room is in the attic. I talked the parental unit into letting me move up there when I was twelve. It let my imagination run free.” That made sense. Helene had told him her sister was a writer. “And here’s Helene’s room…well, your room, too, now. Since you’re married and all.”

He deposited the suitcases at the foot of the bed as Giselle determinedly continued her tour guide monologue. “That’s a picture of Helene when she won homecoming queen her junior year,” she said, pointing to a particular picture in a wall full of framed glossies of his wife. “And that’s when she was senior homecoming queen.”

God, he wanted to kiss her to shut her up and, well, he just wanted to kiss her.

A sick feeling blossomed in his gut. Even further out of left field than the urge to kiss her came the traitorous thought that he’d up and married the wrong sister. And that was a helluva fix two days past his honeymoon.

The week before Christmas, two years later…

“HEY, GISELLE, got a minute?” Monica, Life Trendz magazine’s editorial department secretary, stepped into Giselle’s cubicle. “Change of plans on the Sedona trip.”

Often the harbinger of less-than-stellar news, Monica had a the-shit’s-about-to-hit-the-fan-but-don’t-shoot-the-messenger smile she put on for such occasions. She wore that smile now.

“Sure.” Trepidation crawled along Giselle’s spine as she closed the file folder with her Sedona notes. She was flexible. Writing for a monthly magazine that covered recent innovations, new ideas, and current…well, trends demanded flexibility, but a change of plans on Friday when she was flying to Arizona on Sunday to start this project didn’t sound promising. “What’s up?”

“Do you want the good news or the bad news first?” Monica stepped into her cubicle but remained standing instead of making herself at home, the way she usually did in the folding chair shoved in one corner.

“Start with the bad so we can end on a positive note with the good.”

“Darren’s bagging the Sedona assignment.”

“What? He can’t do that.” More than just the photographer she’d teamed up with for three years now, Giselle considered Darren a good friend. “Unless he has a really good reason, he’s about to be a dead friend.” She was only partially joking.

She stared at Monica and drummed her fingers on her desk, awaiting an explanation. “And by the way, he’s a chicken to leave it up to you to tell me.”

Monica offered a weak smile. “Something about him and Gerald and a progressive dinner and not having enough prep time if he goes.”

“A progressive dinner?” Giselle shot to her feet. “That’s it. He’s dead. I’m going to kill him. I’ll wait until after Christmas, but before the new year…”

“I know you’ve got a personal stake in this trip and you could’ve used Darren’s moral support.”

True enough, she had a personal stake in the Sedona assignment, but Monica was blissfully ignorant, as was everyone else other than Darren, as to the real reason behind her eagerness to cover the story. Writing for Life Trendz meant sifting through scads of material for story ideas. She’d run across an online thread and knew, knew the moment she saw it, it was meant for her.

A New Age guru in Sedona claimed on the third day after the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year when the Earth rotated at its furthermost point from the sun in the northern hemisphere, there was an incredible spike at the energy vortexes in Sedona. Supposedly this surge at one particular vortex, which impacted both the male and female balance energies, had a profound effect on attractions and relationships. The guru claimed that couples who showed up there together tended to fall in love. There were even couples coming out for recommitment ceremonies, they were so convinced. Kind of a right-place-at-the-right-time love potion.

So, maybe it was a little out there, but that was the nature of most trends and the kind of stuff their readers loved. Giselle was willing to show up to see who else might be there, because anything was better than pining after a man you couldn’t have and shouldn’t want in the first place.

Monica, along with everyone else, thought her Sedona pilgrimage was to get over her ex-husband. They were wrong. Sam McKendrick was at the heart of her problem.

She’d never told anyone that running from her attraction to Sam was the real reason she’d married Barry Treadway. Except for her pathetic confession to Darren, over a shared pitcher of margaritas and chips and salsa in celebration of her divorce a couple of months ago. Darren, happy in his ten-year relationship with his partner Gerald and a romantic at heart, had proved an avid listener and sympathizer.

Once her Jose Cuervo buzz was gone, Giselle had sworn him to secrecy and forbidden him to bring it up again. She’d blabbed in a moment of weakness, but it wasn’t something she wanted to run around discussing. It was bad enough suffering from infatuation-induced insanity without talking about it. She’d coined that catchy phrase herself by way of explaining why she, the responsible big sister who, despite the sibling rivalry that marked their relationship, generally adored her baby sister and always had her back, could fall into lust with Helene’s husband.

From the moment she’d looked up in her mother’s kitchen and seen Sam standing there…something had happened inside her. She’d fought it, run from it, tried to ignore it, but from the moment she’d laid eyes on Sam McKendrick, she’d wanted him. It wasn’t as if she’d made the decision to want him. It was far worse. Something in her had responded to him, connected, and she’d been in a constant state of flux ever since.

Sam and Helene’s whirlwind marriage had lasted a whopping eight months. Eight months before Sam had cheated on Helene. How could Giselle possibly still find herself hung up on a man who’d betrayed her sister? And the really pathetic part of her, the part she despised for even thinking such a thing, was furious that if he was going to cheat, she, Giselle, hadn’t been an option. Not that she would have slept with her sister’s husband, but…And despite the knowing, despite the guilty sense of betrayal every time she thought of him, Sam McKendrick remained her forbidden fantasy.

She was resolute that this trip to Sedona would get her over Sam. It was meant to be, as if her stars were aligned just so. Darren bailing like this was merely a glitch, a minor hiccup.

Giselle started mentally running through the freelancers they’d used in the past. She’d be okay sharing a cottage with any of them. Apparently Sedona was the happening place at Christmas because Monica had had a heck of a time finding accommodations. She’d lucked out on a cancellation and managed to snag a two-bedroom cottage at a resort in the middle of Sedona. Serendipitous. Finding a sub willing to travel this close to Christmas would require one more dose of serendipity. She reached for her day planner.

“We’ll just have to find a replacement,” she said.

Monica stopped her. “That’s the good news. Darren’s already lined up his replacement.”

“Good, maybe I won’t kill him before New Year’s Eve,” Giselle said with a laugh. What was her problem? She should’ve known Darren wouldn’t leave her hanging. Her problem was she was making herself crazy about this trip because she was so ready, okay, desperate, to get over Sam McKendrick. “It won’t be the same as working with Darren because we’re used to one another, but he wouldn’t stick me with someone he didn’t trust, especially on this assignment.”

Monica stepped closer and cast a furtive glance about, as if Darren might be lurking in the potted plant down the hall. “Okay, he told me not to say anything,” Monica said, lowering her voice, and Giselle bit back a smile. Darren knew that was a surefire way to get Monica to pass along the info. Monica liked being the one in the know. “But he says this guy is hot. And single. Oh, yeah, and straight,” definitely a salient point “…you know, available. He said it was a shame to waste all that vortex voodoo.”

Giselle perked up. Hope sprang eternal. Normally, she was the last person looking to be set up with someone, but if the guy was even halfway decent, and Darren tended to have excellent taste in men, she was more than happy to drag him along to the magic vortex with her. If she showed up with her own potential love match, then all the better to rid herself of her Sam McKendrick fixation.

It couldn’t happen soon enough. Out of the blue, Sam had called. Two weeks ago she’d gotten home from work, and without any forewarning, she’d unsuspectingly punched the blinking button on her answering machine. She’d dropped her grocery bag and totally ruined a dozen eggs when she’d heard, “Giselle, this is Sam. I…uh…just wanted to touch base…maybe catch up. Call me.”

Right. Maybe when hell froze over. She’d sunk to the sofa and hit the Repeat button and listened again, despising herself for her weakness, for the instant heat that rampaged through her at the mere sound of him, the way every cell in her body seemed to soak up the richness of his voice like a dry sponge in a spring rain. And then she’d leaned forward, her finger poised over the Delete button, and…she couldn’t.

She still hadn’t. But she would when she got home today. This time she really would. And she wouldn’t hit Play and listen again before she deleted it. Yep, Sedona was all about healing and starting over—that had to be why she’d found the online thread two days after Sam’s phone call—and if she happened to haul along her own potential candidate, where was the harm?

Hope and enthusiasm buoyed Giselle’s mood. “Hot, single, and available—what’s not to love?”

Monica beamed in relief and waved her hand. “And Darren was all worried you’d be pissed.”

“I prefer him because I’m used to him, but if he’s lined up a decent photographer who’s all of the above, I’m good with that.”

As a general rule, men didn’t fall all over themselves around Giselle. She’d grown up the brains, her sister the beauty. Giselle took too much after her father’s side of the family to be a man-magnet, but hey, with all the energy and stuff floating around Sedona, who knew? Anything was possible, wasn’t it?

“Darren says this guy’s dropping by around,” Monica checked her watch, “well, now, to go over the assignment particulars with you.” She rubbed her hands together in anticipation. “I can’t wait to get a look at him. In fact, I think I’ll have lunch at my desk so I can check out your new love slave.” She did a Groucho Marx waggle of her eyebrows. “That is what this vortex thing is going to do, right? Turn him into your personal love slave?”

Giselle laughed, more excited than ever. She had a funny feeling in her tummy, a knowing, all doubts gone. This trip was about to change her life.

“I’ll let you know when I get back.” She picked up her note file from her desk.

Monica turned to leave. Giselle stopped her, grabbing a pen. “Wait a sec. I can probably figure it out on m yown since good-looking strangers don’t drop by my home-away-from-home cube every day, but does this camera-carrying paragon of manliness have a name? He probably won’t answer to love slave until after we get to Sedona.” She was terrible with names. This way she wouldn’t have to stress about remembering his when they met if she already had it written down. She flipped open the file folder, ready to jot his name on the inside flap.

Monica wrinkled her nose and Giselle laughed.

“You’re just creating a cheat sheet,” Monica accused. Okay, everyone in the department knew Giselle was bad with names. “Sam McKendrick. But he might like it if you call him Love Slave.”

Giselle swayed on her feet and for a second thought she might pass out. No, no, no! Anyone. Anybody. Just not him. “Son of a bitch,” she wailed. “No!”

Darren was deader than dead.

As if conjured from the depths of hell or every fantasy she’d had for the last two years, the devil himself sauntered into her cubicle. A laconic smile crinkled the corners of his hooded blue eyes. Stubble shadowed his rugged jaw and his dark brown hair looked as if he’d run his fingers, rather than a comb, through it. He’d paired a crisp white collared shirt with a well-cut jacket and jeans. Just as she remembered him. Equally familiar, her pulse raced and an illicit tingling raced through her body, leaving frantic heat in its wake.

Sam.

Her folder and pen slipped through her hands; papers scattered across the floor.

“I thought I heard my name, but just for the record, Love Slave works for me.”

2

SAM TOOK her son of a bitch and my-worst-nightmare-just-walked-through-the-door expression as good signs. If she was that emphatic, that reactive, then Darren was right and she was interested.

“It’s been a long time, Giselle.”

She knelt to gather her papers. “Not long enough, Sam,” she said, but scrambling around on the floor sort of ruined her haughty tone.

He squatted to help, bringing him that much closer to her. He breathed in her scent and drank in the sight of her. Despite the passage of time and all the water under their respective bridges, he felt the impact of her in his gut, the same as he had the first time he’d met her. Back then, she’d worn her brown hair long and pulled up in a clip. Now she sported a sleek chin-length bob with red highlights. “I like your hair, it suits you.”

“That’s a load off my mind,” she said without looking at him. She leaned forward to pick up the last piece of paper but he beat her to it. He held it out. Her eyes met his, and the rest of the world faded to nothingness. Once again, he was lost in those hazel eyes, and despite her sarcasm he recognized the flare of desire in their depths.

“Obviously, you’ve met before,” the other woman in the cubicle said, jerking him back to the rest of the world. Sam had forgotten she was there.

He stood and slipped his hand beneath Giselle’s elbow to help her up. She straightened, shrugging off his touch. His gut knotted from just that brief contact with her.

He turned to the other woman and extended his hand. “Sam McKendrick, Giselle’s new love slave.”

The woman snickered. Giselle glared.

She shook his hand. “Monica Dixon, department secretary extraordinaire.”

Monica Dixon radiated curiosity.

“Sam was my sister Helene’s first husband,” Giselle said.

Clean, simple, straightforward. She deliberately ignored his love slave reference.

“Your ex-brother-in-law? No kidding. Small world.” Monica looked from him to Giselle and shrugged. “At least it’s not your ex-husband. That would be uncomfortable.”

“The ninth ring of hell,” Giselle said.

Hot damn! She wasn’t pining for Barry post-divorce. The guy had never been right for her. Standing by and watching Giselle marry a man who was obviously all wrong for her, who didn’t appreciate her, was one of the hardest things Sam had ever done. But he’d been married to Helene and there’d been no other option, no other choice. Now was a whole new ball game. Sam was single and, according to Darren, as of mid-September, so was Giselle. “I heard you and Barry had split.”

Monica backed out of the cubicle opening. “I’ll just leave the two of you to play catch-up and sort things out. I’m going to lunch.”

Giselle slanted her an amused glance. “I thought you were skipping lunch today.”

The woman offered a conspiratorial smile. “Not now. See ya.”

Obviously an inside joke.

Giselle turned to face him, her hair framing her face. Her earlier amusement disappeared, leaving her hazel eyes curiously flat.

“I don’t want to work with you,” she said, crossing her arms over her rounded breasts, which were impossible to ignore in a curve-hugging T-shirt beneath her well-cut pantsuit jacket. He’d never forgotten that red bra beneath her white T-shirt when he first met her. Forget, hell. He thought of it often. Was she wearing a red bra beneath her T-shirt now?

“Really? And I thought son of a bitch was an exclamation of delight.” He propped himself against the other end of her desk. “Why wouldn’t you want to work with me? I’m very good at what I do.”

“Maybe I object on moral grounds.”

“We’re mature adults. I’m sure we can both make it through four days and remain civil and professional.”

Any further objections on her part would paint her as being immature and unprofessional. He’d learned at an early age that you couldn’t wait for life to hand you things. If you wanted something, you worked your ass off and made it happen. He’d worked hard at school and a career that took him far from the housing projects he’d grown up in. But it was true enough that you could take the man out of the projects but you could never take the projects out of the man. Sam would never be content to sit back and take what life gave him. He wanted Giselle. He would’ve never, ever approached her as long as either of them were married, but now he wanted to see if there might be something there, if what he’d felt the first time he saw her, if what he sensed from her was real.

She narrowed her eyes, fully realizing he’d just backed her into a corner and thrown down the gauntlet. Meeting his challenge head-on, she set her chin at a determined angle. “Fine. I’ll e-mail you the briefing notes this afternoon. I’ve got a few updates.” Her lips tightened, precisely the same way Helene’s did when she was pissed. “Since we’re discussing professionalism, we’re sharing a two-bedroom cottage. I’d prefer you not entertain while we’re there.”

“I think I can manage. It’s not as if I keep a harem.”

“You did while you were married.” She lobbed the accusation at him.

He took the hit. He’d wondered how long it would take her to bring it up. Less than fifteen minutes. One drunk night. One woman. One big-ass mistake. Getting drunk had not been the best response to finding a guy in his bed with his wife.

Had Helene told her family she’d been sleeping with not just any guy but Sam’s best friend for months before he found them in bed together? Probably not. And it didn’t really matter because it didn’t exonerate him. Sleeping with a stranger because he was angry and hurt had been wrong. And playing the blame game accomplished nothing.

“Hardly a harem. But to put your mind at ease, I’m not going there to look for another woman. I will, of course, expect the same courtesy from you.”

For a moment she looked startled, as if she hadn’t expected that. “Not a problem. You know Helene’s remarried.” She relayed the news, ever the big sister. It had shades of the day she’d pointed out Helene’s homecoming accomplishments.

“Of course I know.” He laughed. “Danny was still mid-proposal when she phoned to tell me.”

Giselle didn’t appreciate his dry sense of humor. “She’s very happy now.”

“That’s a relief.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, again—she had the eye-narrowing down to a fine art. She’d mistaken his comment for sarcasm. Although he wasn’t happy that Helene had slept around on him with his best friend, and God knows he still missed Danny, Sam had known their marriage was over before then. After his initial bout of anger, he’d realized he was actually relieved that their mistake of a marriage was over.

Giselle ignored his comment and shoved her laptop into a padded carrier. “I need your e-mail to forward the project outline.”

He plucked a business card from his jacket pocket and handed it to her. “I’m looking forward to Sedona.”

She took the card, not touching him in the exchange, and dropped it in her laptop satchel. “So am I.” She offered him a smile he thought was meant to be professional but came across as slightly grim. “I’ll send the file later.”

She slung her handbag over her shoulder and he stepped out of her cubicle ahead of her, into the hallway. “Thanks. I’ll see you Sunday.”

He turned on his heel and made his way down the hall toward the elevators. What he wanted to do was the same thing he’d wanted to do since the first time he met her. He wanted to pull her into his arms, bury his hands in her hair, kiss her senseless and then make love to her until she couldn’t remember her own name.

That, however, would have to wait another few days. But it would happen. He’d come for her and he was ready to lay siege.

GISELLE LOCKED the doors of her VW Bug and collapsed against the upholstered seat, determined to pull herself together. The parking garage’s top deck was mercifully deserted on the Friday before Christmas. Lots of people must have left work early to shop, or they were taking the following week off and had gotten a head start, she absently speculated.

She welcomed the car’s near-freezing temperature. She felt hot and confused and generally a mess. Gray clouds covered the sky like a woolen winter blanket. They seemed somewhat appropriate.

She fished her cell phone out of her satchel, scrolled through the stored names and hit the speed dial.

“Do you know why I’m calling?” Giselle asked without preamble, speaking into her hands-free set even though she was still sitting in her parked car. She didn’t dare drive during this conversation. She’d probably crash. Not that she had anywhere to go. She’d just wanted to get rid of Sam before she did something stupid like step between his splayed legs, wrap her arms around his neck and give in to the plaguing temptation to discover what his mouth felt like against hers, how he tasted and just how good it might feel to have all of his parts close to all of her parts that tingled and throbbed for his touch.

That, however, might send a mixed signal following her declaration that she didn’t want to work with him or even talk to him. Although what she had in mind wasn’t technically working or even talking. Moaning and heavy breathing did not conversation make.

Not to mention that if it did happen, news would spread through the entire office in a heartbeat. And last, but definitely not least, she would never be able to face her family afterward and live with herself.

All in all, getting him out of her office had been the better plan.

“You’re calling to thank me for being a good friend?” Darren said.

Giselle snapped.

“What were you thinking? What did you tell him? Oh, and remind me to never split a pitcher of margaritas with you again. Ever. And you are a major chicken-shit that you didn’t tell me this to my face.” She finally ran out of steam and ended her rant.

“Relax. I was subtle.”

Yeah. Darren was to subtle what she was to beauty-queen beautiful. Giselle groaned. “There’s nothing subtle about you.”

“I called him under the guise of talking about a couple of his pieces in a small gallery, you know, one photographer to another. I hadn’t even gotten around to working you into the conversation when he brought you up.”

“He brought me up?” she echoed rather stupidly, her pulse moving into overdrive. She idly smoothed her hand over the gearshift’s rounded knob.

“Apparently he recognized my name and knew I worked with you. Said he reads the magazine. He asked about you. I mentioned the divorce, yada, yada, yada, he asked for your number.”

A raindrop splattered against her windshield. Then another and another.

“He called and left a message a couple of weeks ago,” she told him.

“Let me guess, you didn’t call him back.” Giselle could practically see his eyes roll.

It began to rain in earnest. “What was the point? My intention is to get over him, not talk to him.” “Did you ever think, Girl Genius, that talking to him, going on assignment with him is just the way to do that?”

“Actually, no. It strikes me as dangerously stupid.” Case in point: she’d told Sam she didn’t want to work with him. That was the sensible, cautious side of her. However, there was a part of her deep down inside that wanted to give in to the opportunity to spend four torturous days with him. In the last half hour, she’d felt more alive, more tuned in to everything, as if she’d finally fully awakened since…well, the last time she was around Sam McKendrick. What she felt around Sam was what she’d wanted to feel when she’d married Barry—an electric sizzle, an almost frantic compulsion to touch and be touched, a restless ache deep inside that seemed an instinctive response to him.

She slammed the lid shut on that Pandora’s box. Not only had Sam been her sister’s husband, he’d cheated on Helene. Strictly off limits. Verboten.

Frustration welled inside her, a countermeasure to her incendiary sexual response to Mr. Wrong. “Riddle me this. How am I supposed to get over him when he’s right frickin’ there?”

“Selle, honey, haven’t you ever been shopping, seen a wickedly expensive dress and known that even if you were willing to eat beans for the next two months, you still couldn’t have that dress?”

“Um…no. I don’t really wear dresses,” she said, “so I’ve never been in that situation.” He deserved a dose of obtuse.

Darren offered a long-suffering sigh. “For hypothetical situations, we’re going to pretend you have. What should you do?”

He loved constructing these little illustrative vignettes. What the hell, she’d play along. He usually made a point…sooner or later. “Walk away and look for a knockoff I can afford in another store.”

“That’s your first mistake.” Darren pounced on her. “And that’s why you wound up with a man who didn’t suit you. You settled.”

“Sometimes you’re amazingly insightful.”

“I know.” She sensed his grin on the other end. “What you need to do is march into that store and try on the dress. You always try it on and then when it doesn’t look as good as it should on your bodacious self for that kind of money, you can walk away from it feeling good about not buying it.”

The idea of “trying on” Sam instantly gave her a mental image of the two of them engaged in hot, sweaty sex, which actually was a mental image that was never very far away. “I’m not trying him on.” “I didn’t mean literally…although that could work. I meant that if you spend a couple of days with him, you might find out you don’t really like him.” She heard Gerald’s voice in the background. “Hold on a sec,” Darren said to her, and then he was talking to Gerald. “Yeah, I’m almost through. I’m talking Giselle off a ledge.”

She snorted in his ear. “Humph. Talking yourself out of hot water is more like it.” He laughed, and she continued, “And what if you try on the dress and it looks even better than you thought and you still can’t have it?”

“You’re screwed.” He didn’t have to sound so cheery about it. “But at least you can admire the way you look in it for a few minutes. Or sell your soul to the devil and buy it anyway.”

“That’s so helpful…and reassuring.”

“I’m always here for you, hon. Listen, gotta run. Give me a call when you get back and you can thank me then.”

“Or not. I’d suggest you spend the next few days getting your affairs in order,” she suggested darkly.

Another laugh, followed by, “Ta,” and Darren was gone.

Giselle disconnected the call on her end. She tucked the phone back into her case and watched the rain form rivulets on her windshield. She still didn’t know how Sam had wound up on this assignment. And it didn’t really matter, did it?

Come hell or high water, she was getting over Sam on this trip. The alternative wasn’t an option.

3

GISELLE SHIFTED in her aisle seat on Sunday morning as the non-stop Atlanta-to-Phoenix flight continued to board.

Sam had arrived. She sensed him, felt him, as if she was tuned in to him on a level she’d never experienced with anyone else. She looked up from her magazine and her breath caught in her throat as her eyes met his. He just looked so…well, damn glad to see her. The kind of look lovers would share on a crowded plane.

And then he was there, beside her.

“Worried I wouldn’t make it?” Sam said by way of greeting. His cocky grin, however, carried an edge of uncertainty.

“One can always hope.” Instead of coming out crisp and biting as she’d intended, she sounded breathless and teasing, undone by that combination of smile and faint hesitation, as if it actually mattered to him whether she was glad to see him or not. And once again she was disgusted with herself that even though he was a cheating bastard, his blue eyes still set her heart tripping.

Giselle had arrived at the airport early enough to grab a coffee and bagel and skim the morning newspaper before she was called to board the flight from Atlanta to Phoenix. Arriving early hadn’t been a problem since she’d tossed and turned all night—yet another sleepless night compliments of Sam McKendrick.

She really hadn’t been sure Sam would show at all. But there he stood, larger than life.

Stepping closer to her aisle seat, he hoisted his equipment bag into the overhead bin, which was all good and fine except it put his other equipment right at eye level.

Look away, look away, look away, she told herself, but somewhere along the route to her brain her libido intercepted the message and she continued to stare at his crotch, the bulge between his thighs thrown into relief by his upraised arms. Finally, he settled his carryon and she hastily averted her eyes, which did nothing to abate the heat radiating from her core. One lousy Sam’s-crotch-at-her-eye-level encounter and it was as if a furnace switch had been flipped on inside her.

“Want to move over?”

He wished. “No. I don’t.” She smiled and stood, stepping out into the aisle. She always requested the aisle seat. A blonde who’d given Giselle a dismissing look earlier sat next to the window. Giselle hated being squashed into the center seat. She offered Sam a bright smile. “I believe you’re in the middle.”

Karma was a bitch. Going to Sedona, doing this story, this was her big chance to get over this…ridiculous…making-her-crazy…thing she had for Sam. This was supposed to be her cure, her fix. And then he’d ruined it by showing up. Of all the assignments to get—him…now. Seemed sort of fitting he had to scrunch his sixfoot plus, broad-shouldered, long, muscular-legged, crotch-bulging—self into the center seat. Served him right for plaguing her.

She extended her two hands, palms up, the way they did on game shows when they were showcasing a prize. “Enjoy.” She offered an evil smirk.

His blue eyes twinkled and she wanted to kick herself. She was aiming for hateful, at least sarcastic, and he seemed to think she was flirting with him. She wasn’t flirting. Nope. Because that would be like ducking under a line of yellow tape with Warning Do Not Cross in big bold black letters.

“Okay, then.” He slid in, folding himself into the tight spot.

Giselle sat back down and her space shrank proportionately to accommodate Sam next to her. Short of leaning out into the aisle, she couldn’t get away from his broad shoulder against hers. Her stomach somersaulted, and she felt even more flushed than when she’d been face to crotch two minutes ago. He dug around and clicked his seat belt into place, his muscles bunching against her arm as he completed the simple task.

And he smelled…well, good, dammit. Not that she wanted to be stuck next to him for the next four hours if he had body odor or halitosis, but she didn’t need this, either. His scent was fresh and clean, like that of a man just out of the shower with the faint blend of soap, deodorant and a hint of mint toothpaste. Enticing. Appealing. Arousing.

No doubt about it, karma was definitely a bitch. And she was paying for having developed a crush on her sister’s husband the first time she laid eyes on him and for wanting him from then to now and all the stinking time in between and for still feeling this horrible tingly, I’m-so-alive feeling when she was around him, even though she knew he was a cheat and she was a sick puppy to still feel that way. Yes, she was being punished.

He turned his head to face her. They were close enough she could see her reflection in his eyes. It was like being enveloped in a blanket of Sam, of forbidden want. Forget it. She wasn’t being punished. She was being tortured.

“I read through your notes and the article outline last night,” he said. “I wanted to bounce a couple of ideas off you.”

She and Darren often spent a flight brainstorming. It was the perfect use of time. She occasionally talked to other people on board when she traveled alone. But it had never felt like this—dangerously intimate, as if she couldn’t quite catch her breath. As if she was rather rapidly losing her mind…

If Sam leaned just a little closer to her, and she a little closer to him…his mouth, with that sensually full lower lip, was right there. Never once when she and Darren were seated next to one another had such errant thoughts run through her head.

She looked away from him and blindly reached out to straighten the magazine and paper stuffed in the seat back in front of her. And no, it wasn’t to occupy her hands with something other than cupping his jaw. Well, maybe it was. “I’d rather talk about it on the drive up from Phoenix,” she said.

Discussing a project with him that centered on falling in love seemed a much safer proposition with the rental car’s front seat between them. She really looked at the seatback ahead of her and realized she’d just rearranged the barf bag. Kind of fitting, actually.

He shrugged and the movement echoed through her as his shoulder rubbed against her. “Sure. However you want to play it.”

She picked up her magazine and proceeded to ignore him. Or rather, she tried. Sam wasn’t an easy man to ignore. He wasn’t loud or boisterous or ultrahigh-energy. If anything, he tended to be on the quiet side, a man comfortable in his own skin who didn’t need to be the constant center of attention. But he radiated a strength and determination, a grit that gave him presence.

She was conscious of him on every level—his scent, his arm resting near hers, the hug of worn denim across his thighs, his broad, well-shaped hands, the smattering of dark hair beneath the pressed cuff of his white shirt—the same as Christmas night two years ago.

That had the dubious distinction of being both the best night of her life and the worst, both exhilarating and mortifying. She recalled it with such clarity that it could have been last night rather than two years ago.

They’d feasted on Christmas dinner and retired to the parlor so Dad could watch The History Channel. Sam, Helene and Giselle had headed over to the love seat to finish off a leftover bottle of zinfandel. Giselle was glad, really she was, when Helene had settled herself on Sam’s lap. They were newlyweds and Giselle was thrilled to see her sister so happy. They’d only polished off half a glass of wine when their mother had called Helene over to look at kitchen remodeling magazines. Mom’s kitchen was definitely long overdue. Giselle did not, however, possess Helene’s knack for interior design, which left her sharing the love seat with her new brother-in-law.

The Christmas tree lights were winking and blinking, a dying fire glowed in the fireplace, and Giselle, who’d been on guard all day against any more errant moments such as the one on the stairs when she’d been showing Sam to Helene’s room, foolishly relaxed. She and Sam talked writing and photography and argued whether the Cubs or Braves had a better pennant chance in the upcoming year.

Sam had laughed at something she said and in that instant everything shifted, tangled, clarified. The most intense surge of sexual longing had ripped through her, shaken her to her core. She’d wanted to use her hands and mouth to map the angles of his face, the rugged line of his jaw, the broad expanse of his chest, his slightly splayed thighs and all the areas in between.

It didn’t matter that her family sat a stone’s throw away in the same room. She’d ached for the press of his body, the slide of his hands beneath her clothes, on her bare flesh. She’d wanted to taste him, feel him, every intimate inch. Like a flash flood roaring through a dry canyon, desire had deluged her. The intensity was a hundred times what it had been earlier on the stairs.

He was her sister’s husband. She’d excused herself posthaste and all but run to her room. She’d felt ridiculous, guilty and horrified that Sam or any of her family might’ve had any inkling of the direction of her thoughts. And while she’d hid in her room, she couldn’t escape the unquenched fire that followed her.

She’d made sure she was out the door and on a long walk bright and early the next morning when Helene and Sam were leaving. She’d vowed to keep away from him. She’d be pleasant but distant. And still her feelings plagued her for days, weeks, months. Sam became her forbidden fantasy.

She’d never felt so damn guilty in her life because not only was Sam her sister’s husband, but she’d known, for that moment in time, that Sam wanted her in return. She’d felt the impact of his gaze lingering on her lips and knew he wanted her, and she was so ashamed that she’d known not only the sweet, hot ache of physical desire but a flare of triumph that he wanted her, Giselle. Wrong, wrong, wrong on so many levels. It wasn’t Helene’s fault that men had always been attracted to her, rather than Giselle, the sister with the good personality. Nor was it Helene’s fault that the boy Giselle had such a horrible crush on in high school had asked to walk Giselle home…just to wangle an introduction to her sister.

And there’d been something so noble in the fact that Sam had looked away first. If she had to feel this betraying lust, this forbidden desire for her sister’s husband, at least he was worthy of the guilt Giselle felt for coveting him. And of course, she’d never actually betray Helene by doing anything, and neither would Sam. That had been apparent. And somewhere in there the illicit attraction she felt for him was compounded by a sense of sacrifice. She might want him, and he might have wanted her, but they’d both looked away because it was the right thing to do.

And then she’d found out he’d betrayed Helene and it had been doubly painful. Not only was he not the noble man she’d thought him, but his affair with some nameless woman meant he’d looked at someone else the way he’d looked at Giselle, with that same yearning, and it had rendered that night meaningless, robbed it of its magic.

She should’ve thanked him for that. For turning her something-beyond-infatuation into loathing. But then that loathing became self-loathing because even though he wasn’t worthy, even though he was a cheat, she couldn’t seem to scour him from her mind.

And now, mind aside, he was seated next to her on her pilgrimage to get over him once and for all. And the truly wretched part was that if he stood up right now and announced he wasn’t going and walked off the plane, she was fairly certain she’d be more mournful than celebratory. Oh, what a tangled web…

She felt him look at her, but she steadfastly pretended to read her magazine, turning a page for good measure. She felt too raw, too vulnerable to risk glancing at him.

To Sam’s right, the blonde all but leaned into his lap, or maybe she was just carried by the momentum of her oversized boobs.

“Hi, I’m Felicity,” she said, introducing herself to Sam. “Are you two together?” Felicity’s voice grated, painfully perky after Giselle’s near-sleepless night.

Giselle kept her eyes trained on the magazine page in front of her, but she felt Sam’s quick glance in her direction. “We’re coworkers. This is a business trip.”

“What kind of business are you in?”

Giselle retrieved her iPod from where she’d stored it in the seat back ahead of her.

“I’m a photographer and Giselle’s a journalist. We’re working on a magazine article.”

“Ohh,” Felicity squealed. “A photographer. How fascinating.”

Giselle shoved in her earphones and turned the unit on. She’d flown often enough to zone out the flight attendants upcoming safety spiel. She’d rather be nibbled to death by vampire ducks than listen to Felicity flirt with Sam the entire trip. Thanks, however, to her foresight in charging her iPod, vampire ducks were totally unnecessary.

The opening chords of Ravel’s “Bolero” swelled in her ears, muting Sam’s low rumble and Felicity’s enthusiastic response. She closed her eyes, giving herself over to the music’s passion and sensuality.

She still sensed his body heat, the proximity of his leg, arm and shoulder. There was no escaping the subtle combination of soap and maleness that was Sam, but at least without seeing him and hearing him she hoped to maintain a little distance…and sanity.

Sam McKendrick was a sickness…and she desperately needed a cure.

SAM EMBRACED the silence filling the car as they left the remnants of suburban Phoenix behind and headed north on Route 17 to Sedona.

Giselle drove the rental SUV. It was her story, her project, and she wasn’t a woman who would put him behind the wheel of the car simply because he was a man. That was fine with him. He studied her profile as she navigated a lane change.

His ex-wife and her mother boasted classically beautiful features of high, sculpted cheekbones, flawless complexions, straight noses, thick curling lashes surrounding slightly exotic eyes, and lush full mouths. Giselle, however, had inherited the Randolph features. Her small, slightly snub nose bore a liberal sprinkling of freckles; her cheeks were more round than angular; wispy lashes framed her hazel eyes; and although wellshaped, her mouth lacked the pouting fullness of her mother’s and sister’s. However, Giselle exuded an innate sensuality.

It was as if Helene was so used to her looks commanding attention that she’d never bothered to develop any other attributes, whereas Giselle immersed herself in the world around her and it filtered back through her, lending her a depth and earthy sexiness his ex-wife didn’t possess.

“What?” She slanted him a brief look and then trained her eyes once again on the road. “Don’t stare at me.”

“I wasn’t staring, I was looking.” He couldn’t seem to get enough of looking at her.

“Well, don’t. Don’t look at me.” Her rigid shoulders and faint frown screamed Off Limits.

“Why not?” He ignored her off-limits order. “I like looking at you.”

She in turn pretended she hadn’t heard his declaration. If he hadn’t been watching so closely, he would’ve missed her almost imperceptible gasp. “It makes me nervous and you should never make the driver nervous.”

“Is it me in particular or people in general looking at you that rattles you? Most women like being looked at,” he said. Helene had seemed to crave it, in fact.

“I’m not most women,” she said on a husky note, “so you can stop.”

No. She definitely wasn’t most women. She was smart, sexy and slightly bohemian. She defied categorizing, which was why he hadn’t been able to forget her. What would she say if he told her he wanted to do so much more than simply look at her? He wanted to kiss her until she forgot that he’d once been married to her sister and that her entire family despised him. He wanted to hear her gasp with pleasure.

“I’m a slave to your happiness. Your wish is my command.” His rejoinder hung between them, bound them, thickening the air with a raw sexual awareness. An image clicked into his head like a film frame. Giselle naked in his bed, her sweet nipple in his mouth, his cock buried deep inside her, his hand between them, stroking her clit as he dedicated himself to bringing her to orgasm.

Color stained her face, as if she knew what he was thinking. “Then you should’ve stayed home, Sam.”

Rather than any real venom, he thought he detected a desperate note in her rebuttal. Or maybe he was just projecting his own sense of desperation in taking the assignment so he could see her again.

“It’s a little late for me to stay home. Plus I’d miss seeing this part of the country.”

“Then try looking out the window,” she said dryly.

He laughed because that was definitely the Giselle he knew and he was just damn glad to be here, sharing a ride with her. “Fine. You drive and I’ll watch the scenery.”

He unzipped the equipment bag he’d stored on the floorboard and pulled out his camera. Even when he wasn’t looking at her, she seemed to surround him.

In his mind, he slid the straps of that red bra down her shoulders, his fingers dragging along the soft warmth of her skin. Where did her freckles end? What did her breasts look like without her bra? Prominent or small nipples? Rose-hued or darker, duskier? Was she a pubic waxing fanatic or was she more au naturel?

He didn’t need to be thinking about her naked, or it could be damn embarrassing when it was time to get out of the car or if she happened to glance over and down.

He spent a few minutes adjusting the settings, cleaning the lens, and then resolutely looked out the passenger window. On both sides of the divided highway, towering saguaro cactus dotted the arid brown landscape like green giants. “It is spectacular, isn’t it?”

“It must’ve been something to travel through here by stagecoach back in the day,” Giselle said, her voice low and reflective.

“Yeah. Hot in the summer, cold in the winter.”

“Very funny.” Amusement sparkled in her eyes and he knew a moment of intense satisfaction that he’d been responsible for putting it there.

Wind gusted through the canyon and buffeted the SUV. “And windy.”

“Obviously you’re not channeling the pioneering spirit.”

He grinned at her dry wit, one of the things he’d liked so much about her from the beginning. “’Fraid not.”

“So you had some ideas you wanted to bounce around on the article?”

He might’ve railroaded his way into this assignment, but they still needed to be on the same page with the article. When a writer and a photographer “spoke” at cross-purposes it resulted in substandard work. Sam didn’t do substandard.

He’d resolved as a kid that if people wanted to slap a label on him, he’d make damn sure that label was Excellence. He demanded it of himself and expected it from others, as well.

“So, the way I understand it from your outline, there’s an urban legend taking shape that couples who show up at this particular vortex on the third day after the winter solstice fall in love.”

“There’s a little more to it than that, but that’s the gist of it. You don’t actually have to be a couple. Singles apparently show up there,” she shrugged, “and sometimes the magic works and sometimes it doesn’t.”

“Sounds like the power of suggestion to me. It’s hard to believe someone falls in love because of winter solstice at a Sedona vortex. That just seems like a lot of hocus-pocus, but I’ll still be glad to take photos.”

“So you don’t believe in magic?”

He leaned into the space between them, narrowing the distance. He caught another whiff of her perfume. If scents were translated to pictures, this one evoked a dark, erotic blend of swirls and curves in shades of ruby red and purple against a blanket of yellow-gold. Complex and evocative beneath the surface. It suited her. “Do you believe in magic?”

“I trust you’re a better photographer than you are interviewer.”

He chuckled. “Am I interviewing you?”

“If you were, you’d be doing a lousy job. You’re obviously biased.”

“And you’re hedging.” She was a crafty one, Giselle was. “Do you believe in magic?”

“I believe in forces of energywecan’t necessarily see.”

Forces of energy. Something stirred inside him, a resonance, an acknowledgement. “I take it that’s a yes. Have you ever experienced magic yourself?”

Her hands tightened on the wheel and he felt her hesitation, as if she might refuse to answer. She was right. He was a lousy interviewer. She tilted her chin up. “Maybe…once…I’m not sure, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

Gooseflesh prickled his skin and the first time he ever saw her came to mind, swiftly followed by that Christmas night two years ago. Forces of energy. That summed it up exactly.

He asked the question that had been bugging him ever since he’d skimmed Darren’s assignment notes. “Are you coming with a personal interest? Are you looking to fall in love?”

“It crossed my mind.” Her smile had an edge to it. “Who couldn’t use some help in their love life?”

That made him want to grind his teeth. “Come on. You’re writing this story, but you don’t really believe this, do you?”

“How are you so sure it’s not real?”

“It’s not an issue for me. I can take the photos all day long but it doesn’t mean I believe this magic nonsense.”

Before she could respond, a massive wind gust barreled through the canyon. One minute they were driving along in their lane and the next a trailer swaying behind a pickup in the lane beside them bounced off the SUV, metal screeching against metal, sending them spinning out of control.

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