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Zoe nearly spewed out the sip of champagne she’d just imbibed. “H-hunk?” She stared at her former college roommate, shutting her mind to the memory of the wildfire lure of sexual attraction she’d felt outside the church. Her body was less amenable to discipline. She felt a quicksilver sluice of heat rinse through her veins. The tips of her breasts started to harden. “Hunk?”
“Oh, definitely,” Annie affirmed, fluffing her pertly bobbed hair. After a moment she transferred her gaze back to Zoe’s face. “Now I understand why you played it so cool when some of the hottest guys on the U. Va. campus were flinging themselves at your feet. What girl would settle for undergraduate frankfurters when she knew there was filet mignon in the world?”
Zoe struggled for control. She realized she was being teased. Teasing was one of Annie’s favorite activities. And most of the time she genuinely enjoyed her friend’s clever quips and perceptive little jokes. But on this particular occasion…
She wouldn’t have to stay much longer, she assured herself. During the traditional cutting of the wedding cake a short time ago, she’d noticed Peachy and Luc exchanging looks that indicated they were both eager for some privacy. A romantic getaway was definitely in the offing. As soon as the new Mr. and Mrs. Devereaux left the reception, she would be able to make a discreet exit from the scene.
And once she did that, she would never have to see Gabriel James McNally Flynn again. Out of Sight, Out of Mind was going to be her motto from this evening onward. She fully intended to forget her one-time rescuer as thoroughly as he seemed to have forgotten her.
She should have purged him from her thoughts a long time ago!
“I wasn’t playing at anything back at U. Va.,” she began, carefully placing her champagne glass on the small, linencovered table at which she and Annie were seated. “I was there to get a good education, not waste my time going to keg parties and football games with a bunch of frat rats. As for Flynn being prime filet mignon…well, you’re entitled to your opinion, of course. But all I see when I look at him is—is—” she searched furiously for a suitably scathing analogy “-gristle!”
Annie remained silent for several long seconds, appearing to subject this last assertion to a considerable amount of mental mastication. Zoe watched her dark eyes stray speculatively toward the dancers but refused to follow the visual cue. She knew Flynn was partnering Peachy and she felt no needno desire!—to watch him do it. She wondered nastily whether the former Special Forces officer realized that there was a world of difference between a waltz and a forced march. Bad luck for him if he didn’t. Although she didn’t know the new Mrs. Devereaux as well as she knew her older sister, Eden, she had a strong hunch that the former Pamela Gayle Keene wouldn’t take kindly to being ordered around like an incompetent recruit.
Her friend exhaled on a hissing breath then looked back at her with an oddly knowing expression. “He’s that tough, huh?”
“I told you what he did!” Zoe retorted, stung. In point of fact, Annie and Eden were the only two people in whom she’d ever confided the humiliating details of her five-day odyssey through the jungle. She’d given everyone else—the government officials who’d questioned her, even her mother and father—a carefully edited version of what had happened.
She never figured out exactly why she’d done this. She supposed it might have been because she’d harbored a fear that adults wouldn’t see anything wrong with Flynn’s behavior toward her. So he’d bruised her sensibilities, she’d imagined them saying to her. Didn’t she understand that he’d been acting in response to exigent circumstances? Couldn’t she see that what really, truly mattered was that he’d saved her life?
Her parents had actually declared that they thought their daughter’s rescuer deserved a medal. Whether formal action had ever been taken on this suggestion, Zoe didn’t know and had convinced herself she didn’t care. But given that inherited wealth and professional achievement had endowed Griffin Armitage and Alexis Fitzpatrick with a fair amount of pull in some pretty high places, she was inclined to guess that Flynn had at the very least received a glowing commendation for his personnel file at the Pentagon.
She’d wondered more than a few times what kind of accounting of his actions—and hers—Flynn had provided when he’d been debriefed by U.S. Army authorities, as he surely must have been. She’d also wondered whether he’d complained to his military buddies about “baby-sitting duty” as much as he’d complained to her.
“You told me he’d saved your life, Zoe,” Annie pointed out.
“I told you a lot of other things, too.”
“Well, yes. You did. It’s just that…uh…”
“Just what?”
Zoe watched as Annie began twiddling with the small bellshaped locket that dangled at the base of her throat. Except for the initial engraved on its softly gleaming surface, the exquisite silver ornament was identical to the ones hanging around her neck and that of the blushing bride.
“Annie?” she prodded.
Her friend stopped twiddling. “Okay,” she said, leaning forward. “First and foremost, I don’t doubt for a second that those five days you spent tromping around the jungle were every bit as awful as you told me and Eden.”
“I really appreciate your faith.”
The sugared sarcasm provoked a grimace of exasperation. “Come on, Zoe. I realize it was a terrible experience. And I’ll grant you that Flynn might have made it worse—”
“Might have?”
“All right. All right,” Annie backpedaled. “What I’m trying to say is that now that I’ve finally met you know who after so many years of hearing about him…well, to be perfectly honest, hon, Gabriel Flynn is not what I expected.”
“And just what, pray tell, was that?”
“It’s hard to put into words. Sort of a…mmm…sort of a cross between Rambo and a male chauvinist troglodyte.”
The observation was vintage Annie, Zoe thought wryly. “But now that you’ve seen him you’ve decided he’s a fine piece of beef?”
“He’s certainly no Congressman Talcott Emerson III.”
This jibe was vintage Annie, too.
“Please.” Zoe held up her right hand, palm forward, like a traffic cop. She should have known her friend would get around to this, she chided herself. She really should have. While Annie had never been particularly complimentary about her choice of men, she’d become increasingly vocal on the subject since marrying Matt Powell in late April. “Do not—I repeat, do not—start up with that, Hannah Elaine.”
Zoe had had a relationship with Congressman Talcott Emerson III referred to by many as T. E. Three—several years ago. She’d thought he was everything she wanted in a man. He was so solid. So stable. Yet when it had come to the crunch, when this seemingly perfect-for-her man had brought out an engagement ring set with a flawless two-carat diamond that had belonged to his grandmother and proposed marriage, she’d found herself shaking her head and shrinking away.
For reasons she still couldn’t explain, the idea of spending the rest of her life with Talcott had suddenly filled her with an irrational sense of nothingness. Her brain had told her that she was being offered the normalcy she craved as an antidote to her harum-scarum upbringing. Yet something else had ominously warned that this normalcy would be, for her at least, a very numbed-out form of existence. And so, to her vast astonishment, she’d wound up thanking Talcott for his proposal, then politely turning him down.
He’d seemed surprised by the rejection but not terribly upset. He hadn’t even suggested that she might like to take a bit more time to think it over.
His political handlers had been less sanguine in their reaction. Apparently convinced that she was prime congressional spouse material—“A potential First Lady!” one of them had enthused—they’d come to her without Talcott’s knowledge and pleaded with her to change her mind.
She hadn’t.
Her employer, Arietta Ogden, had assured her that she’d done the right thing in saying no to Talcott. So, too, had Annie. After a certain amount of soul-searching, and some intensive questioning of her sanity, Zoe had decided that she agreed.
“I wasn’t denigrating your ex-almost fiance,” Annie protested. “My opinion of him has been going up ever since he punched out Trent Barnes, who, incidentally, Peachy tells me just happens to be the MayWinnies’ great-nephew, during that ambush-interview attempt on the local TV news last December. Just a few mornings ago I said something very nice about him. There was a photograph of him and the soon-to-be Mrs. Congressman Talcott Emerson III—you know, the multimarried Melissa ‘Call me Honeychile’ Reeves—on the front page of the Atlanta Constitution. I pointed it out to Matt, and I told him that even though nobody’s ever going to mistake T. E. Three for a wild and crazy guy, he’s definitely looking a lot less stodgy than he did back when you were going out with him.”
Zoe groaned.
“Speaking of stodgy—”
“Don’t.”
“I was just wondering about your latest beau,” Annie said, all brown-eyed innocence. “The Harvard-educated lawyer you met at the White House. You know. The one with the reversible name.”
Zoe reclaimed her champagne flute and took a healthy gulp. “Carter Howard.”
“Oh, right. Carter Howard.” Annie edged forward in her seat, her expression conspiratorial. “How would you rate him against Flynn?”
Zoe drained the remainder of her sparkling wine and signaled a passing waiter for a refill. “I wouldn’t.”
There was an unpleasant silence. It came to an end when Annie heaved a remorseful-sounding sigh and said, “I’m sorry, Zoe. Really. Forget I asked. I don’t know what got into me. I’d blame PMS, but it’s not that time of the month.”
Zoe fingered the slender stem of the flute for a second or two, then gave her friend a crooked smile of conciliation. “That’s all right. I probably overreacted. But it’s a sensitive subject with me.”
“‘It’ being—” Annie inclined her head toward the dance floor “-him.”
This time Zoe did look. But only for an instant. Flynn’s tuxedoed image was already burned into her brain. She’d entertained a desperate hope that he’d resemble a trussed-up penguin in formal wear. That hope had died as she’d watched him take his place next to Luc at the altar for the start of the wedding ceremony. To say that black-tie elegance suited Flynn was to understate the case.
“Exactly,” she confirmed, her throat constricting.
“After nearly sixteen years?” Annie’s forehead was furrowed. She looked genuinely concerned.
“Don’t worry.” Zoe pushed the champagne glass away from her and gave a humorless little laugh. “I’ll be over it tomorrow morning.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. I’m going for closure.”
Annie grimaced. “I thought you had to spill your guts on some sleazy syndicated talk show to get that.”
“What can I say?” Zoe shrugged. “I like to do things on my own.”
“Mmm.”
There was another silence. Less charged with tension than the previous one, but still not particularly comfortable. Eventually Zoe felt compelled to say, “I’m okay, Annie. Honestly.”
Annie shook her head slowly, her eyes narrowing. “I don’t think so.”
“Annie—”
“No, Zoe.” The tone was determined, brooking no dispute. “I can’t let this go. I have never seen you as unraveled as you were a few minutes ago when I was ragging you about Flynn. You’ve always been the epitome of poise. And that’s not just my opinion. Last night at the rehearsal dinner, I overheard Terry Bellehurst tell someone it’s too bad the United States doesn’t have a titled aristocracy because you’d make a fabulous Serene Highness. He also thinks you’d look swell in a tiara, by the way, but that’s neither here nor there. The thing is…this, uh, ‘sensitivity’ you say you’re going to get over…is it because you, uh, uh—Lord, I don’t know how to put this. Okay. Okay. Let me ask you this. How…different is Gabriel Flynn now from what he was before? In the jungle, I mean. With you. For those, uh, five days.”
“He’s older.”
“Zoe!”
“Well, he is.”
“And so are you. Is he more intense?”
“I don’t-”
“More attractive?”
“Annie—”
“Sexier?”
“What do you really want to know?” Zoe glared at her friend. “Whether he was as much of a hunk then as he is now?”
God.
Oh, God.
What had she said?
Zoe would have given almost anything to recall the words that had just erupted out of her. Because implicit in them was something she’d never admitted to herself, much less to anyone else.
She’d gone from girlish oblivion to womanly awareness during those five days in the jungle with Gabriel James McNally Flynn. And one of the reasons she’d hated him so much was that he’d never noticed.
Annie blinked several times, clearly taken aback. But she recovered very swiftly. “Yeah,” she said after a second or two, her voice mild. “Basically. Was he?”
Zoe leaned back in her seat, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters. Look, Zoe, both Eden and I have always taken it as gospel that Gabriel Flynn was a Neanderthal in camouflage whose hobbies probably included biting the heads off live chickens. But after seeing him today, after hearing Luc and other people talk about him…”
“You think I’ve been unfair to him?”
“I’m not saying that,” Annie denied. “Maybe the guy had an emotional epiphany after he left you and totally transformed himself. People can change. Improve. Still, I can’t help thinking, if the Flynn of sixteen years ago was essentially a younger version of the Flynn of today, he probably was capable of having a pretty stunning effect on members of the opposite sex. Especially those without any real…experience. Heck, if I’d been thrown together with someone like him back in my virginal days I would have been lucky to escape without having my psychological circuitry permanently fried! So what I’m wondering is, well, is it possible you developed some sort of, uh, crush on Flynn?”
Zoe said nothing. This was partly because there was nothing to say, partly because she seriously doubted that she had the wherewithal to utter a single syllable. She wanted to avert her head but the same paralysis that had gripped her vocal chords seemed to have severed the link between her brain and body.
“Oh, honey.” Annie reached forward and placed a soothing hand on her arm. “You don’t have to look like that! It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I’m not—” Zoe gulped convulsively “—ashamed.”
But she was. Lord in heaven help her, she was. And it was all Flynn’s fault!
“Embarrassed, then,” Annie quickly amended. “Look. I don’t have any idea what happened when you and Flynn saw each other outside the church before the wedding but I don’t imagine you had time for any meaningful conversation. I do know that you’ve been avoiding him since then. And except for that incendiary stare he gave you when he was walking down the aisle with Eden after the ceremony was over, he’s more or less been ignoring you. You’re not going to achieve that ‘closure’ you were talking about earlier unless you make contact with the man. So why don’t you get up and go talk with him as soon as he finishes dancing with Peachy?”
“I can’t.”
“Of course you can. Tell you what—I’ll even go over with you.”
“Oh, great.” There was a bitter taste on Zoe’s tongue. “You can perform the necessary introductions.”
“Huh?”
She looked her friend directly in the eye, wanting there to be no misunderstanding. Then, slowly and distinctly she said, “He doesn’t remember me, Annie.”
“Who doesn’t remember you, Zoe?”
The source of this pleasant, baritone inquiry was Annie’s husband of roughly four months, Matthew Douglas Powell, who’d just materialized next to the table where Zoe and Annie were seated.
Stunned by the interruption, Zoe watched as Matt dropped a brief but obviously tender kiss on the top of his wife’s head. He then sat down next to Annie, saying, “Sorry I took so long. I bumped into Francis Smythe—you know, the Brit who supposedly used to be a spy—outside the men’s room, and we started talking about cyberspace security.”
“Heavens.” Annie’s lips curved in a deeply affectionate smile as she shifted emotional gears with no apparent glitch. “I’m surprised you came back at all.”
Matt, who co-owned a small but highly successful Atlanta computer company with his older brother, Rick, grinned seemingly unaware that he’d disrupted a minor psychodrama. “Well, I was tempted to ask whether he could offer any tips about hacking into the Bank of England and borrowing a couple of billion pounds, but I managed to restrain myself.”
“Such willpower.”
“I can resist everything but you, love,” Matt declared, scooting his chair closer to Annie’s and slipping an arm around her shoulders.
“Funny,” his wife riposted as she snuggled contentedly into his embrace. “You seem to do a pretty good job resisting me whenever I ask you to pick up your socks.”
Matt gave Zoe a comic look. “I guess this means the honeymoon’s over. Just wait. She’ll start nagging me about leaving the toilet seat up next.”
“I’ve given up on that,” Annie informed him sweetly. “I’m resigned to having my tush hit water every time I sit down on the commode.”
Zoe slumped in her seat, dizzyingly grateful for the diversionary banter. Matt and Annie shared one of the most remarkable relationships she’d ever seen. They’d been friends all their lives. Literally. Born in the same Atlanta hospital just twenty-four hours apart, they’d grown up next door to each other. The first time Annie had spoken to Zoe about him, she’d described him as “my best buddy.”
