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What about the storm you’re about to face in partnering with Dalton Montgomery?
A burning, sweet scent filled her nostrils a second before the telltale sizzle of liquid hit the gas burner’s flame.
Rats. In all her daydreaming, she’d forgotten her soup. She twisted off the heat and cleaned the oozing red mess. So much for supper.
Grabbing saltines from the pantry, she plopped into her favorite overstuffed armchair. She knew it’d sound silly to anyone else, but the chair had been John’s, and sitting in it was akin to getting a hug. At times, she’d have sworn she still smelled his citrus aftershave on the brown leather.
She switched on the local news, but when the bulk of the broadcast consisted of an extended sports segment, she turned it off, and her eyes drifted shut….
“Ahem. Ms. Vasquez?”
Rose jerked to attention only to find Dalton Montgomery standing less than twelve inches away!
“Sorry,” Mr. Montgomery said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Rose scooted to an upright position and tried to quickly pull herself together. Her hair was probably a mess and she did her best to shove it back into a metal clip.
“Don’t,” her uninvited guest said, eyeing her in his annoyingly direct way.
“Don’t what?”
“Fix your hair. It looks…fine. Like that.” He swallowed hard. “Down.” Wild. While he hadn’t voiced that last part, she sensed that was what he’d meant. Which was why she went ahead with the task of smoothing her hair back and purposefully snapping the clip.
His tone made her do a quick check to ensure her nap hadn’t resulted in a wardrobe malfunction. Nope, all was well with her formfitting black dress. It was her mind that seemed in trouble. What was it about him that left her off balance?
“Why are you here?” she asked, adopting the coldly professional tone she used with unruly junior-high students forced to take waltz classes by their parents.
“I have a lesson. Remember?” He tapped his watch. “It’s already seven-fifteen. I smelled something burning and worried there was a problem, especially seeing how all the doors were unlocked but no one was there.”
“So you barged into my home?”
“Whoa. Look, lady, I don’t know what you’re so defensive about all of a sudden, but I was only trying to be a Good Samaritan. Your door was wide open. I thought your place might be on fire. I came in to make sure you were okay. End of story. Now, are we going to dance, or what?”
Or what? Good question.
As was the matter of why she was so snippy.
She rarely slept through the night, which left her napping during the day. Usually to be poked awake by her assistant, Rachel—currently on maternity leave. Which was why she’d left the door open out of habit. Mr. Montgomery’s explanation had been plausible. Even admirable. His small-town brand of ingrained, instantaneous caring was a large part of the reason she’d packed up Anna and made the move from their impersonal Dallas high-rise to the town of Hot Pepper. She’d moved because she wanted to raise her daughter in a place populated with friendly folks. Double-checking her barrette, Rose stood. “I’m the one who should be sorry. With prom season right around the corner, I’ve been giving more private lessons than usual. All the overtime has me not quite myself.”
“It’s okay. When under pressure, I tend to go all grizzly on folks, too.” A quirky bear growl escaped his lips as he held up his fingers, feigning ferocious claws.
“Do you?” she asked, for whatever strange reason needing to know that he did truly understand.
He answered with a sad laugh as his lips fell into an unmistakable frown. They were firm lips. Yet soft. Intriguing, as if he held the power to kiss a woman senseless…Assuming she wanted to be kissed. Which she didn’t. Just that—
“Yes, Ms. Vasquez, I understand more than you could possibly know on the subject of how too much work affects people.” With a light sigh, he gestured to the floral-print sofa. “Mind if I have a seat?”
“Of course not. Please…” She gestured for him to make himself comfortable.
Dressed as he was in loose-fitting faded jeans and a chest-hugging orange-and-black Princeton T-shirt, he was a different man from the suit she’d met the previous night.
“Whew,” he said. “It feels good taking a load off. Down at the bank I’ve been pacing my office floor. A company my investment group is interested in acquiring tanked big-time. I can’t understand it. One minute, it was up by two, the next, down by ten. My guess is that it’s a soured subprime loan issue, but it could just be a poor review of stock option grants. It’s frustrating, you know. That feeling that there’s nothing you can do to resolve a situation.”
Rose flashed a wishy-washy grin. Dance was—had always been—her life. Aside from his sense of helplessness with which she was intimately acquainted, he might as well have been speaking Chinese.
“You didn’t understand a bit of what I just said, did you?”
“Nope,” she said with a surprisingly easy grin. “I didn’t get a single word.”
“That’s okay. No one understands what I do. Half the time, even I’m confused. Hey—” he pointed to the blackened saucepan still on the stove “—I know we’re supposed to be working on my dance moves, but how about grabbing a quick bite to eat first?”
Warning bells rang.
Yes, she should be professionally courteous with the man. But sharing a meal sounded suspiciously like a date.
It wasn’t, though, not really.
Besides, which sounded more ominous to her already thudding heart? Being held tightly in the man’s arms as he swept her across a dance floor, or sitting across a booth from him at downtown Hot Pepper’s usually crowded sandwich shop?
Seeing the situation in that light put a whole new slant on the matter. By all means, she should put off dancing for as long as possible.
“Let’s eat,” she said, already scrambling from her chair to find her purse.
“You seem hurried. Hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Great. Let’s go.” Holding out his hand, he hinted for her to lead the way out the loft’s still-open door.
“Wait,” she said, glancing at her dress. “I should change. Shoes would be a great idea, too.”
“You look fine as is, but shoes are a good call.”
“You think?” She couldn’t help but grin on her way toward the open space designated as her bedroom. Digging through her dresser for a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, she could’ve sworn she’d felt the heat of his stare. She glanced his way, only to find him engrossed in one of her glossy coffee-table books on Argentina.
Good.
Again, it was understandable that she’d feel urges. John had always told her if anything ever happened to him he didn’t want her spending the rest of her life alone. But it somehow felt too soon to even think of being with another man.
Clutching her clothing, she made a beeline for the bathroom—the only real room in the space aside from Anna’s.
Shushing the battle raging in her head, she slipped off her dance dress, puddling the black chiffon on the tile floor. It took but a second to pull on perfectly respectable jean cutoffs that felt too short and tight and a pink, scoop-necked T-shirt that wasn’t much better. Why was she feeling overexposed? She’d worn this very outfit tons of times to the grocery store and to pick up Anna from soccer practice or games.
She was being silly.
Spying her favorite leather sandals beside the hamper, she slipped her feet in, wriggled her red-tipped toes, then gave herself a quick pep talk on surviving the night.
Back in the living area, she found Mr. Montgomery still immersed in her book. When she said, “Let’s go,” he didn’t even look at her on his way to the door. Not that she’d wanted him to!
“More comfortable?” he asked on the shadowy landing.
“Yes.” See? She hadn’t a thing to worry about.
Especially since her awareness of him seemed mainly one-sided. A good thing, seeing how now that she knew he couldn’t care less about her, she could get on with the business of ignoring him.
Chapter Two
Hot damn, what a woman.
Outside, Dalton tried being nonchalant about sucking in the blessedly cool air. Never had there been a better time for Mother Nature to turn down the temperature. Rose had looked beautiful in her dancing dress, but the outfit she’d changed into gave him the craziest urge to grab her hand and run wild through the streets.
As hard as he’d tried focusing on that coffee-table book he’d picked up back in her apartment, his mind was stuck on one undeniable fact. Rose Vasquez was on fire. Her every move oozed slow, fiery heat that balled in his stomach, threatening to cut off his breath if he didn’t put some major space between them.
“Big Daddy’s Deli, okay?” he asked. “I could really go for a turkey on rye.”
“Perfect,” she said, shifting her thick black ponytail from the nape of her neck, exposing tantalizing, sweat-moistened curves. “Only I’m thinking I’ll probably have a pastrami and Swiss.”
“Yeah. Um, sure. Sounds delicious. Lead the way.”
After a flashed smile, she took off.
Too bad for him, facing her backside hardly worsened the view. The sight of her perfectly rounded derriere encased in denim short shorts almost did him in. Worse yet, as if her cutoffs weren’t sexy enough, her top was scant, too. Scant enough that her every step caused it to ride up, exposing a strip of tanned, firm back that he could only imagine—
No. This had to stop. He was with this woman for one reason. To learn a simple dance. Simple, simple, simple.
After Carly, he no longer associated with artsy women.
“Oh,” she said, lyrically spinning, walking backward as she talked. “I’ve got to have raspberry tea, too. Big Daddy’s makes the best in town. Perfect on a hot day or night.”
Hot? Did someone say hot? Picturing his instructor running a frosted glass across her glowing collarbone scorched him. And no way was tea going to be enough to cool him down.
“You okay?” she asked. “You look—” she cocked her head, causing that ponytail of hers to tumble in a glorious wave across her left shoulder “—kind of flushed.”
“I’m fine,” he said, quickening the pace. “Just a little out of shape.” Right. He worked out five days a week. He’d never been in better shape. Problem was, he’d also never been in better-shaped company.
Business. Think business.
No other topic held the power to so quickly bring him down.
“Mr. Montgomery?” Rose abruptly stopped. Pirouetted to face him.
As deep in thought as he was, Dalton crashed into her. Only this wasn’t the kind of collision one called the police about. More like paramedics. Sounded corny, but from the moment his body bumped into hers, he needed CPR.
Her breasts…Sweet warmth mounded against his chest. Her smell…Musky, mysterious, exotic. Damp tropical earth after an afternoon rain. Had there ever been a woman more worthy of poetic verses?
The fact that he’d even thought such a thing had him breathing unsteadily. He wasn’t supposed to like poetry. How many times during his formative years had his father told him poetry—any art, for that matter—was for wimps not future executives?
“Sorry,” he said, lurching back.
“That’s okay. It was my fault for stopping. You just had this determined stride, like you were going to keep walking.”
“Right. So, see? The crash was my fault for not keeping my eyes on the road.” Instead of your behind.
“Hey,” she said, holding open the restaurant’s door, “don’t sweat it. Once we get started on our lessons, we’ll get a lot closer than that.”
Dalton gulped.
Thank the good Lord for the air-conditioned breeze streaming from the restaurant. The rich smell of mingled cold cuts and cheeses further revived him.
His companion asked, “How’s that table?”
He glanced in the direction she’d pointed.
An intimate table for two. The windowed alcove would’ve been ideal if this were a date, but since it wasn’t, and he didn’t want to risk another medical emergency, he stammered, “I’m, a…touch claustrophobic. How about that one?” He gestured toward a well-lit booth large enough to seat eight and sandwiched between a rowdy family of five and the beeping cash register.
After they sat across from each other, a waitress stopped by and they both ordered raspberry tea.
Once the pretty teen had returned with their drinks, then left them to study menus, Ms. Vasquez said, “I never can decide whether to get the pastrami and Swiss or try something new. It’s a toss-up, you know. One way’s safe, comfortable. The other’s a risk. Calculated, but a risk all the same.”
Dalton took a hasty sip of tea. Could the woman read minds? Only he hadn’t been pondering his food selection, but his life choices. What was it about the woman that’d made him itchy? Discontent?
“I’ll have the pastrami,” she said. “I just can’t help it. It’s so good.” She slid her menu to the end of the table. “How about you? Made a decision?”
“My usual turkey on rye.” I’m not in the mood for experimentation. Though the night had started out on the fun side—kind of a wild departure from his usual staid evenings of Seinfeld reruns and frozen dinners—Rose’s offhand comment about risk taking had reminded him that after being badly burned nearly a decade ago, he’d taken few chances in his own life.
So what? Did that make him less a man for choosing the path of least resistance? Because from where he was sitting, that’s how he suddenly felt. He sighed.
After ordering, Rose asked, “Everything all right?”
“Sure,” he said. Peachy. At least it would be once this dance thing was over.
“You seem tense. Did I say something to offend you?”
“No. Just a rough day at work dogging me.”
“Want to talk about it? I mean, not to be nosy, but our dancing will go easier if we’re at least friends.”
Considering how a few minutes earlier he’d wanted to take their acquaintance beyond friendship, Dalton had a tough time meeting her gaze. The woman was only trying to be professionally courteous, yet from the moment they’d met, his thoughts had been anything but professional. “You know how I mentioned I work at the bank?”
“Mmm…Fun.” The sparkle in her eyes told him she was teasing.
He flashed her a wry grin. “It can be. When the money’s flowing…”
“Why do I get the impression there’s a but on the end of that statement?” She still smiled, but her eyes now looked sad. “Mr. Montgomery, as much as you may like to have folks believe otherwise, I don’t think you’re all about the Benjamins.”
Her statement hit him hard. How could she know something like that? Something he’d never admitted to anyone, yet a fact that’d troubled him for years. What kind of banker could he be when he didn’t live and breathe money?
“Sorry,” she said after the waitress left homemade chips and fat dill pickles. “My friend Rachel and I are always playing games like that. You know, trying to figure out deep, dark secrets about people just by looking at them. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
