Strapless

Darcie Elizabeth Baxter tries to get a handle…

ON MEN

I’m not asking for much—though Mr. Exactly Right would be nice. But do they all have to be Mr. So Unbelievably Wrong?

ON RELATIONSHIPS

Does it count if your only contact with him is a Monday-night rendezvous at the local Hyatt?

ON WORK

How can I possibly climb the corporate ladder with Greta Hinckley, a woman with Sabotage tattooed on one cheek and Revenge on the other (and I don’t mean her face!), perched on the next rung?

ON FAMILY

Am I the only person alive who thinks that families are like men…can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em?

ON TRAVEL

Australia…jet lag…a mirrored closet wall in a fancy hotel…too much beer…too many sheep…and Dylan. Oh, God. What am I going to do?

Strapless
Leigh Riker

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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For Kristi Goldberg, who first urged me to tell this story—

and take a new direction. Your ongoing support

and encouragement mean so much.

Thanks, dear friend and fellow writer.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter
One

“I mean, it’s just logical—stuff happens. Right?”

Like muttering to herself, Darcie Elizabeth Baxter thought, or trying to make sense of things, this was nothing new. Stuff happened, especially to a twenty-nine-year-old woman trying to figure out her life. Happiness. Men. Work. You name it.

So on a sleet-drizzled Monday morning in January, it didn’t surprise Darcie to march into her cubicle at Wunderthings Lingerie International six floors above the Avenue of the Americas—and find Greta Hinckley rifling her desk. Again. Still, Darcie’s heart stalled. Even her grandmother told her she could be too trustingly naive. Although Wunderthings was not a huge corporation on the order of Warner, Maidenform, or Victoria’s Secret—the industry superstar—the smaller company had potential. Darcie wanted to be part of that, but she felt a sinking sensation. Had she left the draft of her proposal for this week’s development meeting in plain view?

“Morning, Greta.”

The other woman jumped—not high enough for Darcie’s taste—then whirled around, a sickly smile pasted on her narrow mouth. It made Darcie feel lush, as if she’d sprung for those silicone lip injections like all the female news anchors on TV. Everything about Greta Hinckley seemed narrow. Her horsey face, her shoulders, her blade-slim body…her mind.

“Take anything that appeals to you.” Darcie set down her foam container of coffee, determined not to let her incipient PMS this morning send her over the edge. “Don’t let me stop you. Mi casa es su casa.” She didn’t know the Spanish word for desk. House would have to do. Greta wouldn’t notice.

From the crinkle lines around her pale brown eyes, the faint gray streaks in her medium brown hair, Greta had passed her thirtieth milestone years ago. Still single, without a man in her life, according to the office grapevine, Greta lived alone in Riverdale and devoted her entire being to Wunderthings—and whenever she could, to stealing Darcie’s creative output.

Too bad Darcie was the only person who knew that.

It was enough to make her yearn for a full bag of red licorice whips for comfort. Darcie didn’t like confrontation, especially with Greta, and usually Greta’s “borrowing” concerned lesser issues. A suggested design to showcase next season’s bras or bustiers. An Un-Valentine’s Day Sale. New, high-traffic quarters for a not-quite-profitable-enough branch store. Not this time. A glance at the pile of papers on Darcie’s desk confirmed that her proposal for Wednesday was missing. Her global plan.

She opened her coffee, took a sip, and burned her tongue. “Damn.” She liked to think of herself as a controlled person, even today when she knew better. With difficulty she mellowed her tone. “If there’s anything I can clarify, let me know.”

“Clarify?”

Darcie perched on the edge of her desk, crowding Greta. She hated the dumb act. As if this wasn’t enough of a disaster, Darcie’s mother was in town—the worst week she could pick for one of her surprise visits to check on Darcie’s “decadent” lifestyle in the big city. If only a fraction of that were true, Darcie thought, and struggled to remain calm. Maybe if she explained her position to Greta…

“We’ve done so well in the States, in Europe, blah, blah, as Walt Corwin said at last week’s staff meeting, that the board has voted—as you know—to open up the Pacific Rim market. With the imminent recovery of the Japanese economy—let us pray—the decline of the Australian and New Zealand dollars, which gives us a growth opportunity at bargain prices, I’m suggesting…”

Greta straightened. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Darcie arched a brow. “Then may the best woman win.”

“Walter will decide—” Instantly, with their boss’s name, Darcie noticed Greta’s expression soften. “We’ll know then, depending on the board’s input, who will become his new Assistant to the Manager of Global Expansion. With my experience—”

“Your brilliance,” Darcie supplied, her astonishment growing. Did she only imagine it, or did Greta’s tone turn to maple syrup when she mentioned Walter? Interesting.

“Morning, ladies.”

As if Darcie had cued her, Walt Corwin’s administrative assistant swept along the aisle between cubicles, dispensing her usual brand of daily cheer and memos. Greta beamed. If nothing more, Greta was a political barracuda, but Darcie, shaking over this latest intrusion into her space, into her mind, could only smile weakly in response. And wonder if Greta really had a yen for their boss, the least of her problems.

This reminded Darcie of her own precarious hormonal state. Tonight, she would see the man in her life—a loose term to be sure—for their weekly “get together.” With luck, those few hours between the sheets might help her forget Greta and her own mother.

As she passed by, Nancy Braddock brushed the edge of Greta’s desk across the way. The in-basket wobbled and a sheaf of papers that had been sticking out slid onto the floor. In the midst of her morning parade, Nancy paused.

“Sorry, Greta.”

Deliberately, she picked up the stack, tamped the pages into precise order—for Nancy, everything had to be in order, a habit Darcie admired—and started to set them back on the desk. Then she stopped again, glancing up with an intent frown in Greta’s direction, the most expression the unflappable Nancy ever showed.

After a brief inspection, she handed the papers to Darcie then walked on.

Darcie stared down at them. My proposal. How long would it have taken Greta to scan the document, change the author’s name, then print out a fresh copy for Walter Corwin—and even more important, for the Board of Directors?

Darcie nudged Greta away from her desk. “Excuse me. This has to be in Walt’s office by ten today and I need to make a few additions. I can’t imagine how it ended up on your desk, Hinckley.”

The words didn’t satisfy. She couldn’t seem to blast Greta, except in her mind, and mentally Darcie stiffened her spine. She would let the proposal speak for itself. Damned if she would go under without a fight.

“If my hormones weren’t on a total rampage, I’d just leave.”

Ever since Greta that morning, Darcie’s day had gone downhill. Muttering to herself that night, she stared into the mirror of the usual room at the Grand Hyatt Hotel and shuddered at the sight. She always cringed at this time of the month, so that was certainly nothing new. She had a dozen friends who felt the same way about their appearance—miserable fat slut no one could love—twelve times each year. Darcie was in her own puffer fish phase: four extra pounds, cheeks too full, breasts engorged and aching, belly out to here…

PMS Psycho.

Unfortunately, she also felt horny.

Darcie caught Merrick Lowell’s reflection in the glass and frowned. Only moments ago he’d plied her with kisses, soft and hard, a caress or two of her tender nipples, before he abandoned foreplay, and her, for the telephone.

“I mean, go. As in, ‘I’m outta here.’ Let Mary Thumb and her four daughters ‘handle’ his problem.”

The selfish thought couldn’t be avoided. What about her problem? Why stand less than six feet away from a man who obviously wanted her only one night a week? Darcie considered moving straight toward the door, into the hall, down in the elevator and out onto Forty-Second Street. Since she’d begun to think of chain saw murder, tonight no longer held the promise of passion. She’d just grab the shuttle to the ferry, then cross the Hudson for home. Merrick seemed more interested in checking his voice mail—again—than in making love.

When Darcie turned away from the mirror into the room, he held up a finger. Wait a minute. Then we’ll screw. And her resolve tightened.

Lovely. She should leave him.

Her friend Claire told her so, repeatedly.

Give up, Claire said. Darcie’s relationship with Merrick—Darcie couldn’t even call it that—wouldn’t go anywhere. And when Darcie, who prided herself on logic, began to believe the same thing…

As if he knew what she was thinking, Merrick put down the phone with a smile that could melt granite.

“Sorry.”

And that fast, her mood lifted. No more holdover from this morning with Greta Hinckley. No more chain saws. No more PMS. Again, she was a normal person, sort of, with regular moods instead of periodic plumpness, a human being with a job at risk, Darcie admitted, a woman who needed a man. Now.

“No problem,” she murmured.

She reminded herself that Merrick liked schedules, which Darcie—since her migration from Cincinnati—was trying to despise, a minor glitch in their quasi-affair. So what? Marriage wasn’t her top priority—even if Merrick would be her parents’ Catch of the Day—and one reason Darcie had come to New York.

Darcie wouldn’t want a big home in some fancy suburban development facing a golf course. She wasn’t ready for Janet Baxter’s statistical two point four children—how could you manage that?—and a new gas-guzzling SUV in the three-car garage. Or the adoring husband who would come home every night to do half the chores and parenting. Ha. Darcie’s father never helped around the house, and Janet Baxter hadn’t worked outside their home in thirty-four years.

Darcie didn’t want a husband yet. Someday she might, assuming marriage improved her lot, but until then Merrick Lowell turned her on—every Monday night. Sex wasn’t everything either, she admitted, but theirs was a pragmatic arrangement. At the moment, like an opportunity to climb the company ladder right over Greta Hinckley, it suited Darcie.

She even smiled. “Oh, suck it up.”

Merrick was undoing his shirt, not looking at her. Instead, Darcie looked at him. Button by button, inch by inch of bared male skin, she felt her heart beat quicken. Hurry.

“What?” he finally said.

She cocked her head. “I’m admiring the view.”

“Well, come over here. I like your admiration hands-on.”

So he could be a little egocentric. Merrick had his faults, but he also looked gorgeous, which made up for a lot where her wayward hormones were concerned. Not that she wanted to seem shallow. Not that he was, really, her type.

His thick, honey-blond hair, in contrast to Darcie’s fine, straight but often unruly dark bob, didn’t bother her. Lighter hairs even sprinkled the backs of his hands, redeeming him as a too-pretty boy in her mind, strong hands that could make Darcie moan. Soon, she hoped. Important point in his favor. He had deep-blue eyes to her own bland hazel gaze, a sexy mouth that made Darcie feel positively thin-lipped without those silicone shots. But of course he dressed like a GQ model—Ick—and had a too-cool name, when hers was just a name, and he came from old Connecticut money while she sprang from middle-class Ohio. He made Darcie, a product of public schools, feel she didn’t have the inside track somehow. His education— Choate and Yale—reeked of class and privilege and had, naturally, led straight to his job on Wall Street where, without a Greta Hinckley in his path, he made tons of money…as he kept telling Darcie.

So he was a jerk.

Holding her smile, she started across the room. And felt a swift kick of anticipation when Merrick didn’t smile back. He didn’t seem distracted now. His eyes had taken on that darker, intent male look that meant business, and heat streaked along Darcie’s spine. Sexual business.

He said, “You’re sure taking your time.”

“I’m meditating. On your sheer physical perfection.”

“Jesus, Darce, will you just get over here before I lose my hard-on?”

Despite her own practical mood, a flutter of disappointment slowed her steps.

“That’s romantic,” she murmured.

He frowned. “I don’t have time for romance. It’s not like we only met, or something. I have to get up at 5:00 a.m.”

Slightly peeved again, Darcie reached out to help him unfasten his French cuffs. Those gold-and-onyx links must have cost a fortune. Well, he had one to spare. Another thing they didn’t have in common. Sex would have to do. She peeled off his shirt, dropped it to the carpet, then moved in close to run her fingers over his warm, naked chest, down to his belt buckle. She purred in his ear.

“I thought you were already up.” Big Boy.

“Ha-ha. You know, comedy in the bedroom isn’t the biggest turn-on.”

Darcie made a pouty face. “Gee, now I’m losing my hard-on.”

Merrick didn’t respond. Apparently tired of talk, he hauled her tight against his chest and kissed her. Darcie felt his teeth push hard at her lips, then his tongue entered her mouth and she went limp in his arms. She was such an easy mark tonight, it was pathetic.

Her knees weakened. Her thighs loosened. Desire oozed from every pore.

When Merrick started breathing fast, so did Darcie. His hands were all over her now, pulling up her sweater, then with one deft flick of a finger, opening her bra. Darcie’s breasts spilled free. Or so she liked to think. They weren’t really big enough to spill or jiggle with any degree of success.

With a growl he palmed her breasts, and another streak of fire flashed through Darcie so fast she thought she’d eaten too big a wad of the wasabi—Japanese horseradish—that Merrick always encouraged her to try. It sure opened the sinuses. His touch, his mouth on her, did the same now to every orifice of her frustrated body.

Darcie fumbled at his belt. If only she didn’t have these reservations, and she didn’t mean about the hotel room they were in. She pushed away her misgivings but couldn’t manage to deal with Merrick’s fly.

“Move a little. I can’t unzip your pants.”

He eased back. “Do it quick.”

The zipper jammed. “Merrick…”

“Quicker.”

He pushed off her skirt, tossing it aside. Next her panties flew across the room, landing on a chair like one of her grandmother’s tea cozies. Except that Gran was more the sort for peach schnapps or Jell-O shooters. Darcie slipped off her shoes, he did too, and then they were naked. Phew. The air-conditioned room felt suddenly too cool, and her nipples hardened into knots—not love knots exactly, but oh well.

Legs entangled, they stumbled toward the king-size bed. Darcie hit the pillow-top mattress and Merrick rolled beside her. He took her in his hard, health-club muscled arms and kissed her with a hint of tongue. Not bad. Maybe she’d overlook his earlier rejection.

“You hot yet, babe?”

Darcie gasped. “I’d say so. Yes.”

“Then let’s do it. That’s why we’re here.”

His words lacked something, the stuff of her mother’s dreams—Janet would agree if Darcie ever talked about her “love” life, which she didn’t—but it was the twenty-first century and knights in armor on white horses were long gone. Men were…men. In the postsexual revolution, in the middle of a societal upheaval littered with women like Greta who had no partners, Darcie took her pleasure where she could find it.

“Ready?” he said.

“Move right in.”

Merrick braced himself above her. Silently, she opened her legs, and without another word he slid inside her, deep and full.

“Man,” he murmured in obvious appreciation.

“Woman,” she managed because she wouldn’t let him be a Neanderthal alone.

He started moving and she stopped caring about Janet’s plans for her, her own dubious future at Wunderthings or some elusive happiness she couldn’t quite grasp. Eagerly, she joined his rhythm. When orgasm caught them, it hit hard and fast—first Merrick, then Darcie. Nothing new there, either, in a whole day of nothing new. Merrick Lowell wasn’t her dream, but even as an optimist she’d never had that kind of luck—or for that matter, a mutual climax. He would do. They would. For now.

Until the “right man” came along.

Like that would happen any time soon.

“He’s lying, Darcie. Don’t believe a word he tells you.”

In Claire Spencer’s opinion, for which she was highly paid in her job, Merrick Lowell was a bigger problem for Darcie than Greta Hinckley. Worried about her friend, on Tuesday night Claire watched Darcie pace the living room of her grandmother’s apartment, which Darcie shared. Roommates? The odd couple, she thought. The duplex apartment, perched high on the Jersey Palisades in the same building where Claire lived with her husband two floors down, overlooked the Hudson River but, too tired to care about the view, she couldn’t enjoy it. Even here, she imagined she could hear tiny Samantha’s wail from her apartment’s new nursery.

“Why would Merrick lie?” Darcie wondered, bringing Claire back to reality.

“You can’t be that naive.”

“Oh, yes I can. I’m from Ohio.”

Her grandmother was watching television in another room, Claire knew, with her demonic cat, and Claire gave thanks for privacy. That, and Eden Baxter’s famous macadamia chocolate chip cookies. Claire snatched another one from the Wedgwood plate on the coffee table. Maybe Darcie should eat more of them, add twenty pounds to her frame, turn her legs into protective pin cushions, and forget men, especially Merrick Lowell. How could she stand him?

“We don’t do sophisticated in Cincinnati,” Darcie pointed out. “It’s a simpler place. People trust each other there. They leave their cars unlocked—at least in their driveways. They gesture to one another at Stop signs.”

“With middle fingers?”

Darcie sighed. “No, with polite waves of the hand to go ahead.”

“You can’t be serious.” Claire was a New Yorker. Middle fingers were like another borough dialect. Staten Island or the Bronx.

“They’re so courteous, they stop in the merge lane on the interstates.”

“I can see the pileups now.”

While Claire fought against a yawn—lack of rest, not boredom—Darcie stalked to the windows and stared out at a balcony like Claire’s own. Off to the left the majestic George Washington Bridge stretched across the river, but, used to the same view, Claire munched her cookie and studied Darcie’s rich, dark hair. Straight and silky, it gleamed in the light, putting her own carefully frosted curls to shame. And what she wouldn’t give for Darcie’s slim figure just now, or her hazel eyes ringed with darker pigment, not the black circles from no sleep beneath Claire’s generic blue eyes. She wondered if Darcie knew her own value.

“After yesterday with Greta and what you’re saying about Merrick, maybe I should go home,” Darcie said. “That would make Mom and Dad happy. If I lose this chance at Wunderthings, if Merrick is lying to me—”

“You’re in love with that ass?”

Darcie backpedaled. “Well, no. But Merrick’s pretty good in bed.”

Claire wouldn’t ask about last night. She’d only end up angry with Merrick, and sad for Darcie. Running on three hours’ sleep herself, with her postnatal hormones all over the place, she’d just start crying. For a single instant she envied Darcie. Her figure. Her single life. Her chances.

“I wouldn’t compromise. I’d look for damn good. Make that stupendous. Lights and laser shows. Fireworks. Excitement, Darcie,” Claire insisted. “Thirty—the big 3-0—is staring us both in the face. You first.” She couldn’t help gloating. “Six months, sweetie. From then on, you don’t settle for third-rate when you choose a man. Or a career, for Pete’s sake—not to take my own husband’s name in vain.”

“Peter the Great. He’s crazy about you.”

Was he? Claire didn’t feel certain these days. She thrust her shoulders back to emphasize her newly maternal shape. She needed to remember that she was still a woman. A bigger woman right now but… “Since the baby was born, I’m a goddess. At least after a night’s sleep, which is rare, I am. Did I tell you? He loves my new chest.”

Darcie turned and rolled her eyes. “He always did.”

Not that Claire let him touch her yet. “Peter’s a breast man, I admit.”

“The man is completely obsessed.”

“He loves all of me,” Claire murmured to convince herself. She worried sometimes…most of the time…about going back to work soon, about marriage and being a good mother—what a change from her freewheeling, prebaby life with Peter—and about not being sexy to him now. Talk about obsessive. Silly, she supposed. Once they made love again…when she felt ready…

“Maybe you and Peter are a fluke.” Darcie hesitated. “A hunky husband, a beautiful baby, that fancy job of yours. Vice President, Heritage Insurance, Inc.,” she intoned, making Claire smile. “A new shape that stops traffic….”

The smile faded. “Except for my oh-so-generous and saggy-to-my-knees belly.”

“You fit my mother’s profile of Woman perfectly.”

“Uh-oh.” Claire knew Janet Baxter could be a handful, but she had Darcie’s best interest at heart, too. They both wanted to see Darcie happy. Claire picked up another cookie, wondering why, if she was so happy, she cried all the time. “Your turn will come.”

“To be pregnant, with morning sickness? I watched you, remember. I need that at the moment like a pink slip from Walter Corwin.”

Claire frowned. The small but upscale women’s lingerie company had seemed like a good opportunity for Darcie four years ago, but she’d gotten stuck behind Greta Hinckley—who wasn’t naive at all—and Claire feared she would lose her creative momentum to Greta’s continued sabotage. She pushed aside her own muddled emotions and the topic of Merrick Lowell.

“You’re really worried about your job?”

With a groan Darcie strode away from the windows and Claire regrouped. She’d heard all about Greta.

“Listen. Hinckley’s so caught up in her own underwire, gel-enhanced bra—top-of-the-line of course—she doesn’t hear people whispering behind her T-strap back.”

“Whispering what?” Darcie said. “About her stealing underwear, or getting the new assignment we’re competing for in Expansion?”

“She won’t get it, sweetie.”

“She’s a shark.” Darcie told Claire more about the stolen proposal yesterday and Nancy Braddock’s rescue, then forced a smile. “I’ll know whether she mentioned that to anyone else by noon tomorrow. Either way I’m having lunch with Walt. If he chooses me, I won’t have time for men,” she added. When Claire snorted, Darcie said, “I may need sex but that’s all. Until I get my life in order.”

Claire bobbed her head. “I see. Then sex is why you stay with Merrick. What a deal. He gets laid with no strings. You get screwed with no consideration….”

“If so, that’s my choice. Temporarily.” She plucked a throw pillow from the sofa and threw it at Claire, who dropped the last of her cookie. “End of discussion.”

Claire retrieved the chocolate macadamia nut crumbs from the carpet. “A new assignment is the least you deserve for all your hard work. For instance, rewriting Corwin’s reports so they sound like a form of intelligent life wrote them in the first place. Working late three nights out of four on his projects—then coming in on weekends. If that slimeball Hinckley does get the spot, I swear—”

“I’ll kill her myself. Walt, too.”

“Give me a call. In this case I don’t mind being an accessory to murder.”

“We get along so well. We could share a cell.”

Claire grinned. “Hang curtains, lay rugs…a few pictures, and it’ll be home.”

“Listen to us. Home for the Criminally Insane.”

Claire joined her in a snicker then sobered. “But about Merrick…”

“He’s okay. He takes me out, opens doors like a gentleman—”

“Once a month. The rest of the time he just pokes you.”

Darcie couldn’t argue except to add, “He’s smart, makes good conversation—”

“When he’s not on top of you.”

“And he loves his nephew,” Darcie finished.

Claire gaped at her, her own fatigue forgotten. “See?”

“What? Now you’re saying his nephew doesn’t exist? Merrick carries his picture in his wallet, and why would he lie? He’s a sweet little boy with fair hair, the Lowell smile…” But she grabbed a cookie from the plate and so did Claire.

“I’m telling you, Darce. Wake up. The guy is married.”

At noon the next day on the corner of Fifty-Fourth and Fifth, Merrick Lowell was the last thing on Darcie’s mind. She stepped off the curb reciting her own vital statistics.

“Darcie Baxter. Twenty-nine years old and, possibly, about to be cast aside. I stand five feet four in my panty hose, which are soaked at the moment—no, not with lust but, like the rest of me, from this freaking rain.” On the other side she marched along the sidewalk in the freezing January downpour. “I live with my grandmother, whose cat despises me. I’m sleeping with a man who likes his cell phone better than me, and obviously—” she drew a deep breath “—I talk to myself.”

A yellow cab rushed past splattering slush over her down trench coat and nearly running Darcie over.

“I have a college degree, right? I’m not a total washout in the brains department, if some might disagree. I shower every day, use deodorant. I shave my legs before the hair even needs curlers. I don’t lie—except for tiny fibs now and then, usually to protect someone’s feelings. And only this morning I helped a little old lady cross the street.” Or did Gran’s daily trip to the convenience store next to her apartment building count? She’d been half a block ahead of Darcie the whole way. “I can’t be that bad. Oh—and I do my job.” In fact, she thought her presentation that morning to the board had gone well. She hadn’t fainted or lost the power of speech. “So why give the goodies to someone else?”

She walked on, mumbling. No one noticed. On a dismal, gray day in Manhattan with a raw wind whipping off the East River and blowing through the canyons of skyscrapers, turning hats and people into sails, no one would. In New York, unlike Cincinnati, they scurried from meeting to deal, from glossy restaurant to trendy bar. They fought for cabs on the street. Except in times of crisis, they left others to their own devices.

Which proved to Darcie that she was in real trouble.

Maybe she should have stayed in Ohio. Bite your tongue, Gran would say.

In the middle of the block, she turned in at The Grand Vitesse. Its burgundy canopy looked to be the priciest thing about the place.

Inside, she spied Walt Corwin immediately. His thin hair lay plastered, as usual, against his scalp and he was—what else?—reading the Wall Street Journal.

Darcie waved off the waiter, who tried to take her damp coat. She plopped down across from Walt, propped her chin on her hands and beamed at him. Think positive. “Well?”

“Well what?” He continued to peruse the paper and her heart sank.

“Unless you’re reading the fourth column—one of those cutesy feature stories—would you mind putting that down?” Another deep breath. Might as well get this over with. Then she could go home, peel off her sodden panty hose, pour a stiff belt of scotch—even though she hated liquor—and cry. “Did I lose out this morning?”

Walt’s myopic blue eyes winked into some kind of watery focus.

“What makes you think that?”

She shook out her napkin. Real linen. Maybe the place wasn’t that cheap, or Walt.

“I didn’t lose?”

“Darcie, you need confidence. Why would you assume—”

“Desperation.” Greta Hinckley, she thought.

“Take my advice. In the corporate jungle, never let ’em see you sweat.”

“Walt, I need a raise in order to eat. I need this assignment to Global so my brain won’t rot.” She paused, not daring to hope. “You’re my boss. Tell me. The board meeting…”

“Went to hell in less than five minutes.” He glanced up again from the paper. “Four minutes after we dealt with your presentation. Order anything you like. I’m told the daily special—coq au vin—is pretty good. Chicken,” he said when Darcie just blinked.

Blindly, she took the menu she was handed. She couldn’t decipher a word, but not because it was in French. Even the translation didn’t register. Her mind whirred in circles. Walt had warned her only yesterday that as a relatively junior employee it was unlikely the board would approve her appointment. And, Darcie knew, with Greta Hinckley in contention…

Hope skipped inside her. She scanned the entrees for the most expensive item, testing the waters. “How about lobster Newburg?”

“Go for it.”

Her pulse sped. “You mean…”

He laid the newspaper beside his salad plate. His lips twitched. “Let’s order wine. Or would you prefer champagne?”

Her mouth went dry.

“I…don’t like champagne.”

Could it happen? More money…a future? As if signaling the start of her imagined prosperity, Walt snapped his fingers. The waiter appeared with a bottle of chilled Chardonnay. Darcie watched him pour a pale-golden stream into her glass after Walt had tasted the wine. Her heart hammered harder than it did whenever Gran’s pet Persian cat cornered Darcie in a surprise attack. When they were alone again, he lifted his stemmed goblet.

“Here’s to my new Assistant to the Manager of Global Expansion for—”

“Walt! I love you!” She shouted it through the whole restaurant.

“—Wunderthings International.”

“Oh. Oh Jesus. God. Oh—” She knocked over her wine. “I can’t believe this.”

She had talent, ability, good ideas. She wasn’t (except with Greta) afraid to speak her mind. But fickle luck, actually coming her way? Darcie tried not to grin. I’ll never be hungry again, Scarlett.

Walt sopped up the wine with his napkin. She knew he hated messes. Hated the display of emotion for which Darcie had become justly famous in his department.

“Don’t get your panties in another twist,” he said, scowling at the wet tablecloth. “There won’t be a lot more money.”

Giddy, Darcie didn’t care. She could manage. The opportunity, a title…

“A title, Walt.” She grinned. “Can I have that on my office door?”

“What office?”

“I don’t get an office?”

“Honey, I have an office. You’re still on the cubicle farm…until next year when the board can see how you’ve done with this first assignment.”

“I’ll prove to them—” she waved an airy hand “—whatever they need me to prove.” Had they actually accepted her plan? “I’ll work twenty hours a day.”

“You’ll have to,” he said.

“I can do that. Jeez, I can do anything.” She drew herself up straighter. What was it Gran said? “‘I am Woman, hear me roar.’” Her voice rose again over the room full of diners. Heads turned—well, whaddya know? Some New Yorkers weren’t that jaded.

Walt laid a hand over her lips. “Christ, keep it down, will you? I went to bat for you over Hinckley, and I expect you to slave for me. I expect to be pleased.”

Pleased? For a single instant Darcie thought she’d discovered the worm in the apple of paradise. Was he propositioning her? She fought back a mental image of herself on her knees in front of Walt at his desk. Her face on a level with his swollen lap. No, never. Despite Greta’s possible fantasies about him, Darcie doubted that Walt, who was a widower, had a sex life at home or at work. If he did, she sure didn’t want to be part of it.

“Your wish is my command.”

Fighting a smile, he shook his head. “You’re so full of shit.” After the waiter took their orders, he poured more wine into her empty water glass. New York in the midst of a torrential winter downpour was also under a water rationing edict. Darcie couldn’t imagine why—something about the reservoirs—but you had to beg for the stuff, even in five-star restaurants. As if she knew about those. Walt raised his glass. “Congratulations, Darce. Others may doubt but I have every confidence you’ll do a fine job—make me proud. Make sure you do,” he said, then, “I hope your passport’s in order.”

“Passport?”

He nodded toward the front windows where icy rain slid down the glass.

“I said, Global.” He grinned. “Isn’t that what you wanted? The Pacific Rim. It’s like a reprieve from hell. Nancy told me what happened—and tipped the balance in your favor. Hinckley stays here. Good presentation, Baxter—for which you get your fondest wish—the opening of Wunderthings, Sydney. It’s summer there.”

Chapter
Two

“Balmy ocean breezes,” Darcie told her grandmother. “Hot sun…”

“That’s a shame.” In the early evening after her trip home from Wunderthings, she watched Eden Baxter fluff another Oriental pillow on the oyster-white sofa. “I doubt you’ll have time for the beach. Corwin will expect you to work.”

True. She had her chance now to prove herself—much to Greta Hinckley’s dismay—and didn’t intend to blow it, but excitement still flowed through Darcie’s veins.

“The guidebooks tell me I can spend nine to five in the city, then be lying on the sand at Manly after a thirty-minute ferry ride.” Her specialty, Darcie supposed, owing to her daily commute across the Hudson. She might be new to this assignment, but she was a pro with ferries.

Eyeing Gran’s huge gray Persian cat, which had just entered the room, Darcie felt her pulse hitch. She stepped back into the dining area. She never relaxed until she pinned down Sweet Baby Jane’s location—and took up her own position as far away as possible.

“Maybe I’ll reverse commute into the city. Then I could run in the mornings at the beach, grab a few rays—”

“Ah, to be young-er.”

Eden flicked a feather duster over a spotless walnut end table. Another perk of living with Gran, Darcie acknowledged. She didn’t have to clean. Neither did Gran but that didn’t bear pointing out. Nor did the fact that in the glow of light from the end table lamp, her grandmother’s carefully groomed, rich auburn hair had an apricot cast. And white showed at her roots. She needed a touch-up.

“You’ll always be young, Gran.”

She couldn’t see a grin from her position by the dining table, well away from Sweet Baby Jane’s predatory feline prowl, but she heard her grandmother’s cheeky tone of voice. “My men keep me that way.”

“You have more boyfriends at eighty-two than an entire block of apartment-dwelling single females on the Upper East Side.”

“Isn’t that bad?” Meaning good. Darcie eased away from the table. In the living room Eden rubbed a slender finger over a gold picture frame, checking for dust. The eagle in the expensive print seemed to glare back in disapproval, as Darcie’s mother might.

“You’re famed for your liaisons—in this building anyway.”

Gran paused. “Has that naughty doorman been talking again?”

“Julio?” Darcie raised her eyebrows. “I hear he’s the soul of discretion.”

Eden snorted delicately. “As long as he gets his weekly tip for bringing up my groceries—gets that huge wad of bills I slip him every Christmas. I’m telling you, the list of maintenance people here who deserve ‘appreciation’ every holiday season is the nearest thing to extortion.”

“Julio just likes the feel of your soft little hand in his pocket.”

“Nothing soft about him.” Eden turned. “Myra Goldstein says he has a shaft the size of Long Island. And she should know.”

“Jealous, Gran?”

“Who, me? If I took half an interest in that man, he wouldn’t be able to walk for a month. Make that a year. Myra is no competition.”

Darcie grinned but let a few beats pass while her grandmother scooped up a stack of newspapers, some magazines. She was addicted to the New York Times crossword puzzle and at least twenty financial publications. Since being widowed fifteen years ago, Eden had become a success in the stock market. Her love life was equally legendary.

“If you don’t behave, I’ll have to tell Mom.”

Eden made the sign of the cross. “Spare me, you thankless child. That son of mine could have married well. Instead, look at him. Henpecked by that virago of a wife in Via Spiga pumps and—have you seen it?—that faux fur jacket. It looks like road kill.” She admired her own thinly strapped sandals with three-inch heels. Sweet Baby Jane wound around Eden’s slim ankles before moving on. “Still, if it weren’t for Janet Harrington Baxter, I wouldn’t have you.”

In spite of herself—Eden said such things a hundred times a day—Darcie felt her eyes mist. “I love you, too, Gran.”

She waved away the sentiment. “You, and every man in this building.”

“That’s hardly the same thing.”

“God be praised.” Eden’s blue-green eyes twinkled like peridots. “I’m going to miss you, you know. There’ll be no one to keep those wolves from my door.”

“With that sign dangling from the bell saying Abandon Trousers, All Ye Who Enter Here? I suppose not.” As she spoke, she tracked the cat’s slow saunter in her direction. Every time Sweet Baby Jane got near, she clawed the hell out of Darcie—on purpose, Darcie felt sure. She’d never known an animal so vicious at heart (dogs usually like me) but the small injuries seemed worth the free rent at Gran’s. Never mind the traffic.

“Darcie Elizabeth Baxter, there is no such sign.”

“There should be,” she had just said when, without warning, Sweet Baby Jane’s sharp teeth suddenly clamped down on her calf. Darcie yelped, but Eden chose not to notice. Her beloved pet could do no wrong.

“I am far from being a promiscuous woman. At my age?” She covered her heart with scarlet-tipped fingernails. With the exception of her one mild heart attack years ago, Eden remained in excellent health, allowing for occasional bouts of angina during stress. “Don’t be ridiculous. If you even think of spreading that vicious rumor, no one will believe you.”

Darcie shook off the cat, trying not to draw Eden’s attention, her leg stinging.

“They won’t listen,” she teased. “They know you.”

“Well.” Eden raised a perfectly penciled brow. “The last man who slept in my bed did leave with a big smile on his face.”

“Norman?”

“No, not Norman. Jerome Langley.”

Darcie rubbed her injured calf. “The little bald Jewish guy who never holds open the elevator door? He picks his nose, Gran. I’m disappointed in you. Again.”

“The last man—it may have been Norman at that—was six months ago.” Eden spun Darcie toward the stairs that led to the second level of the apartment. “How promiscuous is that?”

“Not very. But you’re lying.”

Her grandmother marched her across the pale-beige carpet, Sweet Baby Jane following Eden like a devoted dog. “You’ll never know. And although I’ll miss you, it’s time to pack instead of snooping in my romantic business.”

“You’re right. But did I tell you? They sun topless over there.”

Gran’s steps faltered. “That southern hemisphere sun is strong, I’m told, and the new hole in the ozone doesn’t help. Be careful then—but do show your wares, Darcie. You have nice breasts, which some Australian hunk is bound to appreciate. With a bit of ‘exposure’ there’s no telling what you’ll find.”

“You want me to look for a man?” And bare herself so he’d even notice?

“You’re not getting younger yourself, dear. It’s time you considered a home of your own, several children…not right away…but still, a nice hard organ to bump up against you every night.” She repeated, “Every night, Darcie.”

She groaned. “I’ll see Merrick twice this week.”

Darcie had a sudden image of him on Monday, Palm Pilot in hand. Thursday night’s free, too. Same time, same place.

“Then by all means,” Eden murmured, “let’s fling open the patio doors and shout. Loud enough that those idiots trying to kill each other in traffic on the bridge can hear—” she waved toward the George Washington “—that man has seen fit to bestow his presence and his sexual attributes—”

“Down, Gran.” She was blushing. When Sweet Baby Jane smirked at her, Darcie sidestepped the cat. While Eden wasn’t looking she booted SBJ gently in the rear. With a shriek of outrage, the animal streaked upstairs to lie in wait for her.

“Why, what happened, my little furball?” Eden called. As if she didn’t know.

Darcie cleared her throat for attention. “It’s not only Merrick’s fault we don’t see each other often. I have the trip across the river to consider.”

“Horse pucky.”

At the stairs to the upper floor Eden dumped her duster in a teak stand by the shorter flight of steps that led down to her small foyer. No cloud rose from the clump of feathers, which seemed to satisfy her.

“I know you don’t welcome my meddling. But if I were you,” she said, “I’d kick Merrick’s highly toned ass right down an elevator shaft at the Grand Hyatt. You can do better. Remember your father’s mistake.”

Gran had a point. Her words about Merrick only echoed Claire’s.

“Merrick does like Via Spigas, too,” Darcie admitted.

Eden grinned. “I am going to miss you. You always make me laugh.”

But before Darcie could put a foot on the first step to go upstairs, and shut her bedroom door before the cat could find her, Eden caught her arm. “Here’s more advice—which I urge you to heed, dear. It’s a very good sign for future happiness. Never—but never—marry a man who can’t make you roar with laughter.”

“Assuming I find this paragon of masculinity while I’m in Sydney working, would you like me to bring you one, too?”

“Don’t stop there. A pair would be nice. In those sexy Akubra hats.”

“Roll over, babe. You know you love it from behind.”

Darcie couldn’t imagine what she’d done to deserve such sweet nothings in her ear—just as she couldn’t comprehend Merrick’s indifference to her news last night that she was going to Australia. He’d barely said a word. In the dark hotel room on Friday near dawn she came awake to the murmured male voice beside her. A hard arm lightly covered with honeyed hair wrapped around her waist to drag her closer across the warm sheets, then turned her. A hard appendage jutted against her spine, insistently moving in a provocative rhythm Darcie recognized too well—but at the moment didn’t welcome.

His delivery left something to be desired, too. His attitude.

“Would you stop? Merrick, quit.” She shoved hair out of her eyes and struggled up in bed. She stared at him, bleary-eyed, then squinted at the clock on the night table. How had she slept so long? “It’s almost 5:00 a.m. I need to get home to change for work. You know Gran worries when I don’t come back all night.”

“That’s what you get for living with an eighty-two-year-old woman.” His laugh turned into a groan when she jabbed his ribs. “Ouch. I bet she hasn’t made love in four decades.”

“You’re wrong.” So wrong he couldn’t imagine. “And rude.”

“Come on, I’m joking. I could tell, the one night we had dinner at her place, that she had eyes for me.” He reached for Darcie again, his long-fingered hand grazing a breast before she scooted away. “You wouldn’t run off and leave a man in need, would you?”

Darcie didn’t plan them. The words popped out.

“Claire thinks you’re married.”

Merrick sat up. “Claire should mind her own business.”

“Are you?” Darcie persisted.

“If I was, I wouldn’t tell her.”

“Or me?” she couldn’t help saying.

His gaze flickered. “What is this, Darce? We went to dinner. Fell into bed. Had a good time. Just like usual. Didn’t we?”

“Did we?” She wasn’t sure at the moment.

“Christ’s sake.” He rolled out of bed, raising the scent of stale sheets. “If you’re going to get funky on me with the relationship thing, I’m gone.”

“The relationship thing?”

“You know. ‘It’s time for us to talk about commitment.’ Wedding rings. Honeymoons on Maui or St. Kitt’s.” He grimaced. “Babies.”

“What’s wrong with children? You always tell me you love kids.”

“Sure, somebody else’s.” He leaned over to plant a kiss on her mouth while an image of his sweet-faced nephew, then Claire’s newborn daughter flashed through Darcie’s mind. “Why would you want to get fat and gassy carrying some guy’s brat?”

“I don’t. Yet. But someday…” With someone, she thought.

He brushed another kiss along her collarbone. “You sure can’t see me walking the floor with a squalling infant, can you?”

Hmm. With that image, another flash of memory caught her. Merrick in a dimly lit bar the night they met. Merrick, with his smooth blond hair, his dark-blue eyes, his upper-class smile, talking her into bed that first time. Then a newer fantasy came to mind: Merrick, pushing a baby carriage. Obviously, a far-off vision he didn’t share.

“No, I suppose not.” She didn’t know why but disappointment surged inside her. “I suppose your nephew’s birthday party is enough for a man of your stature….”

“What, are you being sarcastic?”

Darcie slid from bed to face him, toes digging in the carpet. “No. Are you?”

“What nephew?” he said.

She frowned. “The little boy you told me about. Remember? The one who learned to ride a tricycle before he was two. The favorite nephew who could throw a baseball at five and knew how to swim when he turned six. You bragged about him.”

“Oh. That nephew.”

Darcie blinked. “Merrick, how could you forget?”

“I didn’t. Jesus, I’m only half-awake.” He turned toward the bathroom. “Since we’re both up—” he gestured at her wild hair, at his jutting boxer shorts “—and there’s nothing happening here, between us that is, I guess I’ll get moving. The earlier I get to work, the more money I’ll make today—if the market’s up, too.”

Darcie stared after him. Claire’s words, then Gran’s, kept running through her brain. You can do better. Never marry (or sleep with?) a man who can’t make you roar with laughter.

She should have stayed in Ohio. She should never have met Merrick.

No, it was only that she didn’t expect things to work out with men just because they never had. But some day they would… Until then, logically it didn’t make sense to give up regular sex with Merrick, even if he could be a pain otherwise.

Right now, she didn’t like him, not in a dim bar, in a hotel bed, or anywhere else—especially a little kid’s birthday party he claimed not to remember.

Australia looked better and better.

The next day Darcie popped an analgesic tablet in her mouth and washed it down, praying it would at least kill her cramps. Still in a mood after Merrick yesterday—not all owing to PMS—across the small table in a crowded coffee shop just off Broadway, she watched her mother ease a manicured finger around the inner lining of her black pump. Thank heaven Darcie had been busy packing until now. She sure wasn’t in the mood for this.

“I must have stood in line at that ticket kiosk in Times Square for over an hour,” Janet Baxter said, one reason they were meeting here. “This is still a filthy neighborhood. I hope I don’t regret even the half price. Most of these shows have no substance.”

“The audience, either. That’s what you get on Wednesday and Saturday matinees.”

Only tourists and suburbanites from Connecticut and New Jersey filled the seats then. In town from Cincinnati, Janet Baxter belonged to the former group, and had come with friends from Ohio, but of course she must have another purpose, too—something even beyond this visit with her older daughter, Darcie had decided. Her mother’s clear brow furrowed before she seemed to remember that a frown could cause lines. Permanent ones at fifty-five. Her expression smoothed out like a banana peel.

“I’m deeply concerned about your grandmother,” she said, apparently the real reason for their chat over tea (for Janet) and black coffee (for Darcie). Cheap tobacco, sweat and bad perfume roiled in the heavy air around them. So did conversation from the other tables, and Darcie had to raise her voice.

“About Gran? Why?”

Naturally, Darcie thought she knew. But in her current frame of mind she’d enjoy hearing her mother talk about a subject Janet found distasteful and uncomfortable.

“Your father and I sent you to live with Eden for two reasons.”

“Cheap rent. Free utilities.”

“And…” She obviously wanted Darcie to recite this part of the old litany, and one of Darcie’s hot buttons. It was all about security, a safe place for their firstborn daughter to live. Darcie felt she could take care of herself.

“There’s a third? You go ahead, Mom.”

Janet squirmed in her chair. She pursed her lips, then just as quickly stretched her mouth to erase the tension. Toying with her cup of Darjeeling, she avoided Darcie’s all-knowing gaze. Darcie let the moment—and her own chance to escape her bad mood—build. Until her mother surprised her.

“We wanted you—” Janet cleared her throat “—to keep an eye on her.”

“There’s a new slant. I’m supposed to baby-sit my eighty-two-year-old grandmother?” Darcie paused for effect. “Mom, she’s had more dates in a month than you and I combined, in our entire lives. You should see the guys she comes up with.”

Janet turned pale. “You’re joking. Aren’t you?”

Sure, but why let her off that easy? “I tell you, those men are already wearing a path in the brand-new carpet she had installed in December—a trail from her front door to her bedroom.” Let her tell you what’s in Julio’s pocket.

Janet plucked lint from her navy Talbot’s suit, straight from the Kenwood Mall store in Cincinnati. “You’re trying to upset me.”

“Go see for yourself.”

Janet looked around the narrow shop, at the various array of Saturday-in-Times Square characters, as if only just aware of them, and wrinkled her nose. “I wouldn’t cross the river to stay with her. I’m not welcome. Eden has always hated me.”

“Hate’s a strong word.” Darcie couldn’t even use it on Merrick yesterday.

“I’m sorry we ever suggested you share her apartment for a few months.”

With the seemingly casual statement, Darcie’s instincts went on full alert. Uh-oh. Checking up on her wasn’t the issue, but neither was Eden’s sex life. Darcie had lived in Fort Lee for her four years in the East. Both she and Gran liked the arrangement. Although Darcie planned to get an apartment of her own, in the meantime, except for Sweet Baby Jane, they didn’t get in each other’s way and Gran was as tolerant of Darcie’s lifestyle as Darcie had become of hers. She liked to think Eden’s social life was mainly invention (good grief, she’s my grandmother) even when she knew better. But obviously, she’d missed something. Janet had still other ideas.

“Perhaps we should find you a place now. With your pay increase—”

“It’s not that much.”

Which seemed to play right into her mother’s hands. “You could get a roommate to share the rent. A real roommate.”

“Mmm.” Darcie remembered her college days sleeping with the lights in her face because her art student roomie needed to finish a project. All night. Tripping over someone else’s clothes, someone else’s boyfriend. Finding used tampons on the dresser and spent condoms on the rug. “I’ll pass. At Gran’s I have my own room and no one bothers me.”

Janet was undaunted. “When you get back from Australia, we’ll see.”

“See what?” Darcie shook her head. “Mom, I don’t need help.” Not from her Midwestern parents anyway. “What’s this really about?”

“Your sister,” her mother finally murmured, sending Darcie’s sharpened senses into another spin. Janet studied her lap. “She graduated from Smith last June. Seven months ago.”

“Now there’s a tragedy.” UC—the local university—for Darcie, the Ivy League for her kid sister. “I was at the ceremony. What’s she done?” Darcie smiled to soften the words. So Annie was the bottom line here. Annie, who didn’t give a damn what other people thought. Darcie wouldn’t mind if she had gotten herself into some sort of trouble for the first time in her life. Not serious trouble, of course. “Speeding ticket?” she said. “Didn’t register to vote Republican?”

Janet waved a hand. “She’s headstrong, you know how she is. She wants to come to New York.” Her mother said this as if Annie’s career goal was to become a prostitute—though Janet would likely say “lady of the night.” She pushed her cup aside, a drift of pungent Darjeeling rising into the stuffy air. “I honestly can’t imagine her living with your grandmother.”

“Corruption, Incorporated.”

“Yes. Well. You may smirk but it’s true. Eden is a bad influence.” She dragged the cup back for another swallow, and another little frisson of discomfort trickled down Darcie’s spine. “Your father and I are adamantly opposed to Annie’s wishes—unless, as her big sister, you could look out for her. If you shared an apartment—”

“Mom, Annie’s a slob.”

Clearly defeated for the moment, Janet surged to her feet, then ruined her exit by stumbling in her Via Spigas. “I’ll be late for the theater. Please think about what I’ve said.” Recovering her balance, she gave Darcie a tight smile. “It was good to see you. I’ll phone tomorrow. Perhaps we can do something together before you leave.”

“I leave tomorrow night.”

“Sunday brunch, then. We’ll talk more about Annie.”

Darcie rose, too, determined not to make any logical decision until after her trip to Sydney. But the devil rode her heels. “And I can tell you all about Julio.”

Darcie was still smiling to herself when she whipped through the revolving doors at FAO Schwarz into the Saturday afternoon chaos that always reigned there. She didn’t often venture into such stores—after all, she didn’t have kids, as Janet might point out—but before she left the States she wanted to buy a gift for Claire’s new baby. Her goddaughter.

A little thrill went through her. She’d only seen the baby once, but already she loved the tiny girl. And the promise she represented. Maybe this one fragrant little human being would get everything right. No errors, no strikeouts. Just a solid crack of the bat, and a home run down the center line of life into the bleachers.

Darcie wasn’t a sporting person. “I’m the last one chosen for the softball team,” she murmured and swept past a display of basketballs and soccer pads. “You should have seen me when I took horseback riding lessons. Ever watched someone end up backward in a saddle? And don’t forget swim camp. I sank like a rock.”

“May I help you, miss?”

A clerk stepped into the aisle, his gaze curious.

“No, thank you.” She gave him a bland, unfocused smile.

“I heard you talking….”

“Was I? Oh, I must have forgotten to take one of my medications.” She zipped onto the escalator to the second floor, and waved at a mountain of Bob the Builder toys on display. “Gotta watch it, Darce. Even in New York.” She grinned. “But gee, he noticed.”

She wandered through the video games department, then stopped to watch two boys tap out a tune on the giant keyboard that had become famous years ago when Tom Hanks played it in Big, still one of Gran’s favorite movies. Eden espoused its same whimsical, youthful view of life. By the time Darcie located the baby area, she had nearly forgotten tea with Janet. An apartment with Annie? The possibility raised the hairs on her neck.

Darcie lingered over a table full of stuffed animals. She tried to envision herself holding an infant like Claire’s daughter, standing at an altar for the christening beside her own husband—handsome, well-dressed, with a look of absolute devotion on his face as he gazed at his new family. The image was her mother’s, not Darcie’s right now…but was she seeing Merrick?

The fantasy ended when she remembered Merrick’s vagueness about his nephew. And her need to figure out her own life first. Darcie surveyed the pile of animals, discarding the usual bears and bunnies. She had just paid for a cross-eyed zebra sporting a huge red bow when, across the aisle in the doll department, she spied a familiar form.

What would he be doing here? In a toy store?

It didn’t fit his image, but Darcie sidestepped a woman pushing a stroller so she could get a better look. Dark-blond hair, not a strand out of place, that recognizable GQ look even on Saturday in khakis and an Irish fisherman’s sweater. Her heartbeat tripled in alarm. Since leaving Janet, she hadn’t combed her hair, couldn’t have any lipstick left. And her dark-green eyeliner, which tended to run when she got warm, probably streaked her face. It was too hot in the store. She must look a mess.

What difference does it make? You’re you, with or without makeup.

He moved and so did she. Darcie saw a flash of profile—straight nose, not a bump or deviation—that tilt of his head, a little imperious, a lot commanding, even arrogant. The set of his shoulders. And wouldn’t she recognize those hands anywhere? Especially on her bare body. It must be…

“Merrick,” she called softly just as he lifted a hand to someone—not Darcie. Mad at her? He’d left in a mood yesterday morning. So did she. Once he saw her, and they talked… She didn’t want to leave for Australia in a snit. Claire was wrong about him, she tried to tell herself. So was Gran.

When a little blond girl rushed toward him, Darcie didn’t react. Someone’s child had run headlong into a stranger—not unusual here, except that he seemed to know her. Merrick caught her slight shoulders with a laugh, said something, then watched her skip away. An odd look on his face…like adoration.

Her pulse thudding (the zebra’s head sticking out of its bag with apparent suspicion, too) Darcie crossed the aisle into the doll department. It was pink. Hundreds—thousands—of Barbie dolls dominated the display space. Dentist Barbie. Wedding Barbie. Olympic Barbie. A host of international Barbies, the Dolls of the World collection. A little too crowded for Darcie’s taste. She wouldn’t make that mistake in Sydney. “Her” store would be clean, uncluttered, sophisticated.

“Merrick.” He stood in front of a rack of miniature clothing, his back to her, and Darcie saw him stiffen. When he turned, his smile looked wooden.

“I thought I heard your voice.”

She shrugged. “Just talking to myself again. Or Buster.” She held up the zebra bag then closed the distance between them, wondering why she didn’t feel better about this chance meeting in a city they both shared. “Shopping for your nephew?”

Again, he looked blank. Carefully blank this time.

“Guess not,” she said, gazing at the pink all around them. Like onlookers at a circus, scores of Barbies smiled at her, at Merrick from their plastic-windowed boxes. “I mean, what would an eight-year-old boy want in this department?”

“What are you doing here, Darcie?” His voice sharp, his eyes harder.

“Talking to you. Now.” She brightened her tone. “I wondered…before I leave town…if we might…” Fall into bed again in apology?

“Daddy!” The same little girl pelted full-tilt into his knees.

Merrick set her away, smoothing her dress—Saks Fifth Avenue, Laura Ashley…?—running a hand down the length of her sleek blond hair. Hair almost like his. She wore a blue plaid ribbon to hold it back, and had Merrick’s eyes, too.

Darcie’s unwanted coffee sloshed in her stomach. No, this wasn’t a circus for the Barbies to watch. It was the Roman Colosseum. Lions, gladiators, victims…

Daddy. Darcie bent down until she reached eye level with the child.

“Hi.”

Merrick stepped between them. “Uh, why don’t you run over there, kiddo.” He pointed at a pyramid of dolls on a nearby table “Pick out one you like.”

Assuming he was talking to the child, not to her, Darcie straightened and the little girl said, “Can I? Can I?”

“Yes,” he said. “You may.”

Her mission approved, she scampered off. A heavy silence hung in the air.

Claire had been right. He’s lying, Darcie.

She squished her package in rigid fingers, choking the zebra. Buster goggled at Merrick and so did Darcie—without her eyes crossed. Shoppers pushed by. A baby, like Claire’s, fussed. Over the PA system a male voice announced a sale in Electronic Games.

She felt sick.

“Well. Now I know.”

“Darcie, don’t make a big deal of this.”

She reeled back at his weary tone.

“No big deal? Just call me naive…” To her horror, she choked up. She hadn’t thought this would really matter, if it proved true.

“It isn’t what you think.”

“Oh, that’s too tacky. What a classic line.” She swallowed hard. She could smell his aftershave, expensive, woodsy. Smell popcorn on the air. Smell the more acrid scent of…betrayal. “Are you saying you’re not married?”

He turned away. Darcie snagged his arm.

“Merrick, you owe me an explanation.” When he remained silent, she said, “No wonder you didn’t remember your ‘nephew.’ Or are you more used to calling him your son?” She flicked a glance toward the table nearby. “Your daughter looks like you. So does he. How old is she?”

“Six. Yes,” he said. “I’m married.” The words came out loud, and he deliberately lowered his voice, color slashing across his cheeks as if Darcie had slapped him. Not a bad idea. “I’ve been married for ten years. Is that what you want to hear?”

“No, I want to hear why you’re screwing me instead of your wife!”

His tight schedule. His one-night-a-week free. Two this week, lucky her. You wouldn’t leave a man in need, would you?

“It doesn’t work between us,” he said.

“What doesn’t work? Sex? You and me? What?” She’d never felt so mortified, so hurt, in her life. Which was saying a lot.

He tried to lead her to a quieter corner but Darcie dug in her heels. She thrust the zebra bag between them like a shield.

“Just say it here.” And if there was anyplace more absurd, more public, than the doll department of FAO Schwarz, she couldn’t think where. That didn’t matter now. Then he shocked her again.

“I love you, Darcie.”

“Oh. You bastard.” A first, she thought. It was a wonder he didn’t strangle.

“No, I mean it. It’s over between Jacqueline and me. She won’t even care.”

“Her name’s Jacqueline?” He nodded, looking at the floor, and Darcie’s mouth tightened like a prune. His wife had probably gone to Smith, like Annie.

He glanced up through a screen of thick lashes. “Do you hate me?”

“Right now, I’d say that’s a definite yes.”

For several moments neither of them spoke. Darcie clutched the zebra and listened to her own breathing. It seemed capable of overriding the noise around them. Roared like an oncoming subway train. She might drop dead right here on the floor. Attention, please. Emergency. Would Medic Barbie go to Aisle Four…

“When do you leave?” he said.

“I told you, tomorrow.”

“I can’t see you before then?”

“I don’t want to see you.”

He looked miserable. “How long will you be gone?”

“I don’t know. Days, weeks.” She’d already told him that, too. Didn’t he listen? “Whatever it takes to negotiate the space we want for the new store.” Whatever it took, not just in Sydney, to heal her broken heart. Forever.

Darcie tried not to focus on Merrick. When his beautiful child bolted from the nearby table straight into his arms, Darcie flinched at her sweet voice.

“Would you buy me this one, Daddy?”

She thrust a pink, plastic-windowed package in his face. International Barbie. Dolls of the World. It seemed just right to Darcie.

Holding Darcie’s gaze, Merrick grasped the box hard.

“Sure, kiddo.”

The little girl gave him a coy smile. “Do you want one, too?”

Merrick managed a small laugh. “Nice try. We’ll just buy this today.”

Darcie stared over his daughter’s head into Merrick’s dark-blue eyes. Then she tightened her grip on Buster the zebra—and marched toward the escalator.

“Darcie. Wait!”

She kept going. She didn’t look back. It was the upside escalator, of course, but Darcie only needed to escape. Suddenly the setting, the noise, the displays seemed absolutely fitting. For once, she had the last word.

“Daddy already bought himself a doll—or so he thought.”

Merrick didn’t know it, but he needed the Returns Department. As for herself…

Australian Barbie.

Merrick Lowell would never see her—a.k.a. Darcie Elizabeth Baxter—again.

Chapter
Three

“‘Waltzing Matilda,’” Darcie sang to herself. “‘Once a jolly swagman…’” Losing the lyrics again, she hummed a few bars. “‘Dum-de-dum…his billabong…’” For some reason her eyes filled.

Jet lag, she thought, and tipped her head back. She hadn’t thought it would be this bad. The new Westin Sydney, with its open expanse of chrome, glass and satiny wood led her gaze upward to a vast skylight showing a night-black canopy full of twinkling, but unidentifiable, stars. New to the southern hemisphere, Darcie sat in the hotel bar digesting the beef tenderloin en croute she’d eaten earlier in one of the trendy lower level restaurants with Walt, and nursing a glass of local Chardonnay to settle things.

Wearing her pinstripe suit, even alone she shouldn’t feel this out of place. In New York—ten thousand miles to the east, as her long, sleepless night on a Boeing 747 from San Francisco could attest—women wore black, too, particularly after five. With a good strand of pearls, her mother would advise. In most big cities of the world, you couldn’t go wrong in dark colors, but Darcie frowned into her glass. She wasn’t wearing pearls, and opals seemed the gem of choice in Australia, if she believed the many shop displays she’d passed on her way to the hotel tonight. And according to the group of what appeared to be thirtyish executives at the next table, beer had it over wine.

Idly, Darcie studied them.

She couldn’t concentrate. A continued low-down cramping had made her order the glass of wine she didn’t really want, or need.

“Thank God he didn’t get me pregnant,” she said of Merrick.

Bastard.

His being married wasn’t the issue. She might be naive at times but she was no brainless ingenue. As a woman of the new millennium, sexually free and unencumbered, she could handle his being married—even if that little fact rankled some deep down remnant of tradition in her own character. Thanks, Mom and Dad. But Merrick’s failure to reveal the truth? That still hurt.

Darcie hated lying. Liars, most of all.

Blinking, she straightened in her roomy club chair. Her glass clicked onto the marble tabletop. What if he carried some STD? That’s all she needed to remember Merrick Lowell—genital herpes or warts. As if she didn’t feel enough of a sexual outcast.

She pressed a hand to her suddenly thumping heart. But they had used protection. Every time. Remember, Merrick didn’t relish having kids. Darcie grimaced. Then why did he seem to have two of them? Maybe it was only her imagined children he didn’t want. Her middle-class genes.

With a sigh, she fell back into the deep chair again.

Twirling the stem of her glass, she gazed around the dimly lit room—and oh, as if a band had struck up the national anthem, “Advance Australia Fair,” would you look at that. Yummy. A lone man stood talking to the bartender, another Aussie male Darcie had noticed earlier. Now, she barely saw him. Eclipsing every other man in the room, this one had dark hair, unlike Merrick’s (a point in his favor) thicker, longer. Hair a woman could twine her fingers through, letting its sinuous silk send a message of desire straight to her achy loins.

His broad shoulders blocked out the bartender to his left, behind the bar. He lounged in three-quarter profile to her, an amazing profile if she bothered to linger on it. Better than Merrick’s. Busily, Darcie’s gaze swept like a huntress down his long frame, from those incredible shoulders and well-developed deltoids—bunched, and nicely rounded, under his chambray shirt—to his washboard belly, then his muscled, jeans-clad legs and, finally, his feet. Boots, she saw. Good ones, if she could judge from this distance. His fingers looked lean and graceful wrapped around the beer bottle in his hand, and when he lifted it for a long swallow, Darcie watched his Adam’s apple work in his strong, beautiful throat. It was true. Australian men were not to be believed.

Could he be any more perfect? Like a fantasy come true, even the Akubra hat from Gran’s wish list lay next to him on the bar. Darcie decided it was on her agenda, too.

“You jolly swagman,” she murmured, sending him a flirty smile.

Heck, why not? She was on her own, for tonight at least, in an exotic foreign environment—for once in her life. No one watched her, certainly not all the executives at the next table who were telling loud jokes and laughing among themselves. Their cigarette smoke created a cloud of anonymity, like the famed Blue Mountains with their eucalyptus haze. Janet Baxter—or Darcie’s father—were nowhere to be seen. And Cincinnati, though not quite as far away as New York, could be ignored for one night. Not that she needed to care. For good measure, feeling defiant after Merrick, she tipped her glass in salute.

She detected no response to the smile or the toast, but his steady gaze did even crazier things to her equilibrium, to her lower abdomen, and Darcie swallowed hard. With her nod in his direction—three strikes, you’re out—the beer bottle stopped halfway down and he stared at her. Then he glanced over his shoulder as if to see whether she’d been signaling the bartender for a refill, not coming on to him. He picked up his hat. What else could she do? Darcie looked down into her half-full glass, and waited. Pulse pounding. Stomach clenched.

Would he come over?

When a tall shadow fell across the table a moment later, she realized she’d been holding her breath. Raising her eyes, Darcie exhaled. Seeing him up close, she struggled not to slip out of her chair onto the floor in a puddle of need.

“If you were a mate—” he pronounced it “might” “—which you’re clearly not, I’d say G’day, but we Aussies don’t use the expression between the sexes.” The word hung between them. “You’re a blow-in, eh? Welcome to Sydney.”

“Blow-in?”

“That’s Ozspeak—for newcomer. Or you could say Strine.”

Ozspeak? “A stranger is a Strine?”

“No.” He smiled. “That’s how we say Aus-tra-lian.” He tangled the syllables.

Darcie smiled, too. “And I thought you spoke English here.”

His wasn’t the smoothest line she’d ever heard, and he’d guessed she was a tourist, but that voice could warm the polar ice cap—which wasn’t all that far away. Darcie gripped both arms of her seat. His gray-green hat, plopped at a jaunty angle on his head, the lightweight sport coat that dangled from one finger over his shoulder, shouted Take me. I’m yours.

She couldn’t help herself. Darcie hummed the first few bars again of “Waltzing Matilda,” for his benefit this time, and he laughed.

“Mind if I sit down?”

She gestured at the opposite club chair. “Park your ‘tucker’ right there.”

He grinned—a gorgeous grin. “Already had my tucker, thanks.”

Darcie had no idea what tucker meant either. All she knew was, it was in the song and that her abdomen, even her thighs, had begun to ache in a different way.

His grin widening, he leaned back in his chair. “Puffaloons, yabbies, Vegemite, a nice bit of Pavlova… What’re you drinking?”

What was he talking about?

“Uh, Chardonnay. Anything…Strine.”

“It’s really Or-strall-yan. Since you’re trying so hard to fit in here, I thought I’d point that out.” Charmingly, in addition to his mangled vowels, his deep voice lifted at the end of each sentence, as if asking her approval of the thought. He raised a finger—which Darcie didn’t resent as she had with Merrick at the Hyatt—to a passing waiter who’d delivered another tray of beer to the next table. A shout rose up at someone’s latest joke. “Tucker means food,” he explained.

“That was food you mentioned?’

“Puffaloons are fried-dough scones, yabbies are little freshwater crayfish, Vegemite’s a national treasure—yeast extract. Pavlova’s dessert. Meringue, whipped cream, fruit…”

“You were teasing me.”

He nodded. “Besides, the tucker you meant is from the bush, often carried in a backpack.”

Darcie smiled. “By a swagman like yourself?”

He glanced at his blue shirt. “Do I look that bad?” Then down at his jeans. “Sorry. A swagman’s a bum. A hobo.” Darcie flushed at her error and he said, “I came in from the station this afternoon. Didn’t take time to change.” He looked at the executives’ table. They all appeared as well-dressed as Merrick. “Left my good bag of fruit upstairs.”

Station? “I didn’t see any trains.”

He grinned again. “There are some. But that’s not what I’m talking about.”

Blinded by his smile, Darcie ran a finger around the rim of her glass, his gaze instantly homing in on the motion. “You’re a cowboy?”

His eyes had darkened. So did her blood.

“Yes, ma’am. I raise sheep. On what you’d call a ranch.”

Surprised, she took a breath. The air felt thick with smoke and…lust.

“Bag of fruit?” she repeated, recalling what else he’d said.

“Aussie rhyming slang. For suit.”

“Oh. I didn’t mean to insult you. You look nice.” Understatement of the entire timeline of mankind, Darcie. She could put him in a display window—oh God, yes—and with his body draped like a coat hanger with filmy lingerie, wouldn’t that sell undies? Or she could send him down a fashion-show runway with a skimpily dressed model on each arm. “And that hat…”

He removed it, as if suddenly remembering his manners, then playfully plunked it on Darcie’s hair. When his hand brushed her cheek, she felt a flash of frenzied desire.

“There you go,” he said, and her ache grew more insistent, her blood thicker. She couldn’t stop staring. He wore a gold signet ring on his right little finger and even that melted her. His touch lingered, his tone softened. “Now you look just like an Aussie.” He gave her a long once-over she couldn’t read. “Guess I need to teach you a few things.”

Darcie’s libido puckered. “We can trade.”

He held her gaze. “All right, I’ll help you learn Ozspeak. My language—the language of a convict subculture full of rebellion. For what? Your…straight-laced English grammar?” He laughed, then offered his hand, his dark eyes warm and too direct. Could they see right into her more than friendly fantasies? She couldn’t tell. Until he said, “Or maybe we’ll work out a different bargain. Something more interesting.” He paused when she took his hand. “Good to meet you. I’m—”

Before he could say his name, Darcie reared back. His firm grasp, the feel of his fingers around hers, the whisper-light brush of his thumb over her palm threatened to turn her to pudding. Butterscotch. Her whole body tightened. Too perfect.

“Let’s not,” she said.

“Not what?”

“Exchange names.” She fiddled with the hat, tilting it rakishly over one eye. She’d had enough of Merrick Lowell and his lies. If she ended up with this Aussie hunk—oh, Gran, you should see him—she wouldn’t regret it in the morning. “Let’s keep things…mysterious.”

He went still in his chair. He waited until the bartender set their fresh drinks on the table and left. The growing heat in his eyes had cooled. Considerably.

“You’re not working here, are you?”

Working? “Not at the moment.” Why did he ask?

He gazed at Darcie with suspicion.

“I finished at five today,” she continued, “your time, whatever it’s called.”

“Eastern Standard Time in New South Wales. Greenwich mean time plus ten.”

In New York that would be…yesterday sometime. Darcie felt too jet-lagged, too enthralled by him, too unsettled by his look to do the math. She waved a hand. Why did he seem…disappointed?

She hurried on. “The man I work for told me to go home. I can’t seem to get my clock turned around, though. I don’t know whether to yawn or do my morning bends and stretches.” Then she knew. Shocked, Darcie swallowed. A working girl.

“You think I’m—” A lady of the night?

“Darling, I think you’re the cutest thing I’ve seen. But I don’t do hookers.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

Hoping she’d convinced him of her relative innocence, Darcie leaned against the up button at the bank of elevators opposite the Westin gift shop. It was closed now. In the past hour the executives in the bar next door had raised their level of laughter and camaraderie another few decibels, and several women in trendy power suits had joined them. She and the cowboy had also taken their new “relationship” onto a different plane. Talk about verbal foreplay—once she made him understand that Walt Corwin wasn’t her pimp. The elevator doors glided open. Darcie and the sheep farmer entered the car.

He punched his floor, she punched her button…so to speak…then with his hand catching hers, he nailed her up against the rail along the wall. His gold signet ring clinked against the wood. Darcie still wore his Akubra hat when his mouth lowered to her throat. His warm breath sent a thrill of lust from the roots of her hair to her too-high shoes, toes cramped like her uterus into a suddenly too-tight space.

Murmuring, he kissed her neck, her earlobe, then drew it between his teeth. Beautiful teeth, she remembered. His hands began to roam. “So, you’re in retail.”

She’d had to tell him something about herself. That wary look on his face had threatened to spoil their evening. Darcie kept things general, though, except now he knew she was staying here. Well, of course he did. Her head swam a little from the wine but she could still think. More or less. They were in the elevator, rising quickly to the upper floors, not out on the street saying goodbye. Darcie had a sinking feeling of déjà vu. Monday nights with Merrick at the Grand Hyatt…

“It’s a new job,” she said. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it.”

His low tone sent flame along her already singed nerve ends.

“I imagine you can do anything you set your mind to.”

She paused, remembering Walt. “My boss is sleeping,” she informed him.

“With you?”

“Next door. In his own room.”

He drew back to smile at her. “You’re drongo. Funny, that is.”

Or did the slang mean idiot? Her stomach sank another notch. Men and hotel rooms were becoming a habit. And who wanted a comedienne—as Merrick said? Now, the Aussie would laugh at her, pat her on the head—smashing his own Akubra hat with the motion—then send her to her room. Darcie’s Big Night in Sydney Goes Belly Up.

“Funny in a good way,” he added.

“Let’s see.” She watched him move in again, felt his lips trail along the column of her neck to the first button on her white silk blouse. “I’m cute. I’m a laugh riot. I’m—”

“You’re—” A big, pathetic joke with jet lag, PMS and no chance now of getting “close” tonight. “Sexy as hell,” he finished. With his low words of reprieve, Darcie’s legs went weak. She leaned her head back farther to give him access to her throat. His tongue swept across the hollow there, down to her breasts, into the slight cleft that passed for cleavage—when she wore the right bra. She wasn’t.

And for a moment Darcie’s sensible side prevailed. Walt was upstairs. They were here to work. In any case she shouldn’t take a stranger to her room. Was she nuts? Forget Merrick Lowell. Not only were hotels becoming her second home, a bad habit, but this seemed risky. Possibly dangerous, Darcie cautioned herself. Certainly the rash notion showed a lack of common sense on her part. She couldn’t help asking.

“You’re not a serial killer, are you?”

His tongue whisked along the valley of her breasts.

“Like I’d tell you.” At the droll statement she could feel him smile against her skin. He lifted his head, his dark eyes meeting hers. “Which floor are you on?”

“Uh, thirty-three.”

He took her mouth, sent the words inside. His tongue, too. His husky tone.

“I’m on thirty-one. Let’s go there. It’s closer.”

Her pulse soared like the rising elevator and Darcie stopped finding reasons to resist. Hell, take a chance—like Annie. By the time the doors opened onto the quiet hall, his hat had flopped over her left eye. By then, Darcie supposed the hotel security staff had had their fill of elevator foreplay, verbal and physical, on the video monitors. He took her hand, led her to the corner room on the corridor, and, while kissing her again, slipped his key card into the chrome slot beside the door that flashed red when no visitors were wanted. The light turned green—go, Darcie—and they tumbled inside.

Darcie had a quick impression of light wood, butter-cream walls, the frosted celadon-green glass door of the bathroom—like her own room. Before she breathed again, he had her up against the mirrored closet doors in the entryway. Still kissing, he caught her hips in his hands and bumped up against her, better than Gran had said.

Darcie wound her arms around his sturdy neck. With her head tipped back, the Akubra smashed against the glass, she hung on tight. Oh, God, he could kiss. God, he could…

In about five seconds, with his hand flicking open buttons like this down the front of her blouse, then his chambray shirt (he obviously didn’t need practice) Darcie wouldn’t even be breathing.

His hand dropped to his buckle. The belt snapped from the loops. It clanked onto the marble floor. Outside, through the plate glass window wall on the opposite side of the room, the stars—those unidentified constellations—sparkled in the black nighttime sky. Blocks away, down the long slope of King Street, which Darcie couldn’t see from here, at Darling Harbour people danced and drank. It didn’t matter. With his shirt open, her blouse undone, he pressed his chest to her breasts and Darcie whimpered at the low-down ache in her abdomen. They’d never reach the bed.

“Feel good?” He dragged down his zipper. She heard a foil packet tear before he sheathed himself. “I’ll make it better. I promise.”

“Don’t let me down.”

With her request, he whisked her panties off so fast Darcie never felt them fall. He cupped her bottom in both hands. That aching spot down low needed his attention so badly she couldn’t speak—comedy was the last thing on her mind now—and his hardness pushed at the ready opening of her body. He raised his head.

“You’re clean, right?”

She gasped. “I’m clean.”

“Me, too. So let me…show you…my billabong,” he whispered hotly.

Then he slid inside. Deep. Hard. Full. Heaven. Her breath rushed out.

“Ohhh.”

“Unhhh.”

The stars twinkled. The moon shone. The cold beige marble floor made her toes curl—or was that him? His arousal felt velvety hot. The mirror felt slick and cool against her bare bottom. If he opened his eyes, would he see her big behind squashed flatter than his hat to the glass? When his heat engulfed her, Darcie no longer cared about her exposed rear end, about hotel rooms with men who didn’t love her.

His tempo increased. He stroked her, in, out, in, out until they both seemed to lose their minds from the very motion, like the lilting strains of the song she only half remembered.

“You little swag…woman…” he gasped.

“You…big tucker…man…”

She didn’t know how long they lasted. Seconds. Minutes. Hours. Not long enough. At some point while the moon still gleamed and the stars still shone and Darcie still wore the Akubra, the climax caught her, swift and shattering.

With one last hard thrust, on a groan he came, too.

When he stopped shuddering and she finally stopped shaking, her head fell back against the mirrored closet. She didn’t mind if he saw her rear now, plastered to the glass, reflected in all its formless, naked glory. When his head dropped to the juncture of her neck, his mouth hot and open on her damp skin, Darcie peeled herself away from the mirror. And the Akubra hat thumped onto the marble floor. She couldn’t tell which of them was breathing in the most ragged rhythm. Or a complete lack of one.

Her heart beat like fury. His thicker, stronger pulse thudded against her breast.

He whispered a low, erotic word, and Darcie cried out, ready to begin all over again what they had just finished…but, like him, not quite finished. When he kissed her, long and sweet and silky, she hoped this one night would never end.

“‘Waltzing Matilda,’” Darcie breathed into his mouth like a prayer.

“Want another beer?” Like a pagan god, hours later he stood naked at the minibar, a perfect sight in the open fridge door that shafted light over his loins, upward along his taut belly to his muscled chest and shoulders, to the renewed glitter in his dark eyes. Darcie wanted him, again, too.

Swathed in the white cotton duvet, she lay on the king-size bed amid big goose down pillows and grinned at him. Even though she didn’t like beer, she said yes.

“And after that…?” she added, hoping for more.

“We’ll rehydrate, then negotiate.”

Like Scarlett O’Hara the morning after Rhett, she couldn’t seem to stop smiling.

I’ll make it better. “I won’t give you a fight.”

“I hoped you wouldn’t.”

“I have to say, I like a man who keeps his promise.”

With a wolfish smile of his own, he slammed the fridge door and walked—strolled in all his male splendor, which Darcie suspected he did on purpose—across the room to her. Darcie lifted the duvet to invite him in. Now the city lights coming through the wide windows illuminated him, too. Gilded his sunbrowned skin. Deepened the interesting creases in his cheeks, the smile lines around his mouth.

“How old are you?” she asked idly, reaching for the beer he held out.

“Thirty-four.” He didn’t ask her the same question. “Why?”

“You’re well preserved.” She trailed a hand over his shoulder. “I’m twenty-nine.”

“Thanks. We’re both old enough.” For what, he didn’t say. He rubbed his bare chest. “Most women don’t like telling, though.”

“Are you always this polite?”

“My mum hopes so.” Oh Lord, a chink in the walls of pleasure. His mother. He had one, maybe just like Janet. He fell onto the bed, held his beer can to one side, and lowered his head to kiss her open mouth. “But no, ma’am. I’m not that polite. Now.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” She repeated her earlier words.

He frowned. “Hey. I didn’t really think you were a working girl.”

“Yes, you did.”

He seemed to take most things literally, which Darcie tried not to mind, either. After all, she’d taken Merrick at face value. There was a lesson there but right now she wouldn’t give it any credence.

“Well, I didn’t want to think so,” he said.

“Why not? Other than the fact you don’t pay for sex?”

“I’d never pay for it. Even if I was ugly as a fence post.”

Her gaze wandered over him. “Believe me. You have nothing to worry about.”

“No worries, darling,” he corrected her. “We’re behind on our lessons here.”

“No worries.” Repeating the mantra, Darcie folded him close. Darling. “But on second thought, isn’t this subject too personal for our first date?”

“What, sex? Have another beer,” he said. “Then you won’t care.” He paused. “Is that what this is?” He glanced at the duvet, the pillows, Darcie. “A date?”

“Well. I guess not.” She murmured, “No strings.”

Warm and scented with sex, with each other, they lay close under the covers, drinking tall cans of Foster’s lager. Another, then another. Ugh. Still, beer didn’t taste so bad by the third bottle. Or was it fourth? At some point he’d called room service after they finished the minibar supply to have it restocked.

“For a woman who hates beer,” he finally said, “you’re holding your own here.”

The room spun a little. “It’s cheaper than the hard stuff.”

He kissed her again, tasting of beer and man. “You live where?”

She hadn’t told him. “New York.”

“City?”

He sounded horrified. She took another swallow. “Uh-huh. Right outside of Manhattan. You know, the island the Native Americans sold to the Dutch.”

“By yourself?”

No, with my grandmother. She couldn’t say that, either. Didn’t want him to know too much about her. Darcie pushed away the memory of home, even of Gran, who would appreciate more than anyone else this little tryst, and of course banished any thought of her mother. Tonight was tonight. Her one-time, one-night stand. Tomorrow was…

“No way. I have a roommate.”

“Male or female?”

“Uh…female.” Two actually. Eden Baxter and Sweet Baby Jane, the devil’s spawn. Nearly a week later Darcie’s punctured calf still hurt. She tried to recall her last tetanus shot but couldn’t.

He frowned again. It made him look totally endearing, even if he did show signs—serious ones—of being too much like her family. “If I was your father,” he said, proving the point, “I wouldn’t let you live in such a big city. Too dangerous.”

“Let me? You’re not my father.” Darcie ran one finger down his belly, then lower. “This is too dangerous.”

That distracted him. All over again. Just as she hoped, he reached for another packet on the night table. “What happens when I run out of condoms?”

“We’ll…renegotiate.” She took him in her hand to help. Silk and velvet, strength and vulnerability. “We’ll improvise.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

He made it sound like a question, but Darcie agreed. All she would let herself think about was this: lovemaking, long and lazy, to be relished, the likes of which she’d never known before—take that, Merrick—or perhaps ever would again. They shared the last of the beer…five, or was it six? And over and over Darcie indulged herself, her fantasies, the tug of need low inside, for the rest of the night.

In his arms, she dreaded the dawn—and ignored the first flutters of nausea.

Until a few faint fingers of light finally penetrated the wall of windows in room 3101 of the upscale Westin Sydney. Then Darcie Elizabeth Baxter startled awake, hot bile in her throat—and bolted for the bathroom.

Darcie gave one last gasp, swallowed twice, and straightened. Resting back on her heels on the marble floor, in the doorway of the toilet stall, she swiped the moistened washcloth over her face again, her parched lips, then drew long, deep breaths to steady her stomach.

There. She would live now. Worse luck.

Then she realized she was no longer alone.

Without looking up, Darcie knew he was there, leaning a strong, broad shoulder against the green frosted glass of the bathroom door—and shirtless of course. A quick glance in the vanity mirror confirmed his naked chest. Darcie shuddered while her heart did a little tap dance of appreciation. All that expanse of sunbrowned skin over sleek muscle, warm and smooth under her fingers during the only half-remembered night of casual sex and talk…the feel of the silky dark hair that swept across his breast-bone…the lure of tight, dark twin male nipples…

“Hi. How’s it going?” he said.

Deep, throaty morning voice. Hint of amusement.

“It’s not. I hope.”

He laughed, low and intimate, reminding Darcie not only of her illness—wretched, so wretched to be sick away from home, sick in a strange man’s company—well, not exactly a stranger now, she had to admit—reminding her of the intimacies they’d shared. Now this…she heard the familiar chink of a can against the gold signet ring on his little finger. Darcie’s nose wrinkled at the smell of hops, malt and yeast.

Oh God, he was drinking a beer.

“What time is it?” she said, aghast.

“Almost six.”

“Six a.m.?”

“Down Under. I can’t tell you what time it is in the States. You drank too much.”

“I screwed too much,” she muttered.

“The beer, the time difference, jet lag. I couldn’t help but hear the chunder here.”

Her stomach rolled again. “Chunder?”

“A local term for kissing the porcelain god. Aussie-style.” He took another swig. “Chunder on the Paramatta,” he mused. “Now there’s a name for a movie.”

“Paramatta?”

“It’s the river that flows into Sydney Harbour. I know, that doesn’t make any sense, but you have to admit it’s got title appeal. Still, there can’t be a worse sound for another human being to listen to,” he said.

Which didn’t seem to bother him. If he could drink beer at this time of day he had a stomach like steel. The six-pack abs, she could certainly vouch for. That is, until she’d suddenly jolted from bed.

“Believe me. I’d gladly trade places.”

“I wouldn’t.” She heard the smile in his voice, the concern, too, but couldn’t face him. “I’ve done my time. Thought I’d let you have your privacy here. You sure you’re all right now?”

She cleared her throat, her voice shaky. “I’m fine.”

“You look kind of gray—like a battleship.”

“How flattering.”

But then, forget the closet mirror last night. Probably her wide behind spread over half the floor in this position. Tightening her muscles, she shot a glance in his direction. A better view, for sure. Bare chest, flat belly, jeans zipped but not snapped. And, oh dear lord, there was that heavy bulge again behind his fly. What kind of man got an erection looking at a sick woman? But Darcie’s face flushed with heat, and memory. Her own fingers twitched. She couldn’t keep her hands off…it…all night. Was half a memory better than none? She couldn’t recall much else. Maybe she didn’t need to, and eight—possibly nine—fully packed inches was sufficient. Or what’s a heaven for?

Darcie groaned inwardly. Her thighs tingled. The depths of depravity to which she’d sunk since crossing the Pacific a day ago—or was it three?—continued to amaze her. Thirteen-plus hours on a jet from San Francisco with a good tail wind and she’d turned into a slut. A drunken…what was the Aussie term he’d taught her sometime during the night?…bit of a brothel. A mess, all right.

After this interlude on her knees, how could she feel aroused by even a sunbrowned, muscled god of an Outback male? A cowboy, no less. The sudden image of his slate-green Akubra hat—what the hell had they done with that in the throes of their one-night stand passion?—flashed through the remnant of her mind. And she hadn’t even passed the city limits of Sydney to fall under his spell.

As if he could have any interest left in her now. She’d picked him up in the Westin bar…practically dragged him to his own room. She could feel him watching her, most likely wondering whether to call the local version of those little men in the white coats. Or the vice squad. A doctor…but he had his own diagnosis.

“It must have been the beer. You’re not pregnant. Are you?”

“Pregnant? Me?”

Her gaze shot to him again. His dark eyes clear and direct—no hangover for him, no matter how much he drank—he shifted his weight against the door frame. Early sun shafted through the bedroom window that overlooked Darling Harbour blocks away, penetrated the clear glass wall into the bathroom like a lover, and gilded him in soft rose-gold light.

“I don’t mean from last night, darling—” in the mirror his eyebrows, darker than his hair, lifted “—but what about before?”

“Not a problem, I haven’t had sex since 1985.”

When she finally turned, he was scowling, perplexed. Darcie figured the teasing lie was payback for his comments about tucker.

“How is that possible? You said you were a virgin till you were twenty-three. Six years, that would be—”

“A joke.”

“Which thing?”

“Both.”

He didn’t look like he believed her. Not the brightest bulb in the pack, she’d decided, but that body of his simply wouldn’t give up. Maybe, after Merrick, it was enough. She stared at him, her bout of nausea forgotten, then stared some more.

To her utter disgust, fresh, fierce desire snaked through her. He followed her inspection with his eyes.

“See something you like? Again?”

Darcie gave in. What the hell. An ounce of Scope and she’d be good as new.

Almost.

Rising, she swished out her mouth then crossed the room to him on shaky limbs. You’re history, Merrick Lowell. If she didn’t make love again until the next half of the twenty-first century, she would darn well make some memories with this Australian sheep rancher to tide her over. She looped her arms around his neck to whisper in his ear.

“Hi. I’m Darcie Baxter. And you are…?”

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