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Now all she had to do was buy a ticket on his flight to San Francisco—two o’clock, the waitress had said—and keep shadowing him wherever he went when he got there. She would scope out whatever it was he was involved with, and she would step in to save him when the proper time arose.
Good plan, she told herself. It was just the sort of thing Trick McCall would do. Sukie, on the other hand, would be seducing him off to Paris for croissants in bed. But Emily preferred to stick with Trick on this one.
So she hit an ATM for as much cash as she could carry, tried not to look like a drug dealer when she paid for her ticket in cash, and then made a beeline for the gate.
Tyler was already there, moodily staring into space, and he didn’t seem to notice as she skirted around behind him and buried her nose in her Trick McCall book. Either she was very good at this surveillance stuff, or he was very bad at picking up on it.
Actually, things were working out so well she wondered if she should pinch herself. But surely this was kismet, destiny, fate, with her plans neatly falling into place to show her that this adventure was meant to be.
When the gate attendant called his row, Tyler strolled onto the plane, apparently none the wiser. Emily watched him go, drinking in his reckless, easy grace, the harsh angle of his jaw, the cool green of his eyes, offset beautifully by thick, dark lashes. Yes, she was definitely doing the right thing. She couldn’t just let someone like that pass her by and not do her best to save him.
Her assigned seat was near the front of the plane, so she was one of the last people to get on. She didn’t want to appear obvious, so she didn’t look for Tyler, didn’t allow herself to scan the rows or anything. No, she just settled in and fastened her seat belt. But even though she couldn’t see him, Emily knew he was back there somewhere. He wasn’t going to get away from her now.
And then the plane pulled away from the gate. A small smile curved her lips, and she felt a tingle of anticipation and exhilaration. Too late to turn back, which meant she was actually doing this. She couldn’t believe it! She had never done anything this outrageous in her life, and she was loving every minute.
“This your first flight?” The man next to her, a hearty, blustery type with bloodshot eyes and a boozy aroma, leaned in closer. “Fear of flying, huh, sweetie?”
Emily blinked. Men like this never came on to her. Why in the world would they start now? “Uh, no,” she managed. “Why would you think that?”
“You seem a little nervous,” he said, patting her hand, glomming on, squeezing warmly. “Kinda jittery. White knuckles. Poor baby.”
Eeuw. She snatched her hand away. “I’m not nervous. I’m just anxious to get to San Francisco.” She couldn’t help embroidering the truth, hoping to put him off. “Y’see, I’m a lawyer. Criminal law. I have a really important case. A murder case. My client murdered a guy who sexually harassed her. We’re claiming justifiable homicide.”
“Okay, I get the picture.” Mr. Boozy turned his attention to the stewardess, intent on snagging an early cocktail, and Emily leaned back and shut her eyes.
There were no bumps, no turbulence, nothing. And it was taking forever.
While Mr. Boozy tossed back miniature bottles of every color and type, Emily did her best to be patient. She finished off the Trick McCall book before they were even past Iowa. After that, she took a nap, thumbed through the magazine, filled in the crossword puzzle, gazed out her window. She even pulled the odious Bentley file out of her briefcase and worked on that for a while. But this waiting stuff was driving her bananas.
She was simply gazing at the back of the seat in front of her when the flight attendant held out a napkin and a bag of pretzels. “Would you like something to drink?” the woman asked pleasantly.
Although Emily waved off the stewardess, the guy next to her made up for her and then some. He had about ten empty bottles lined up on his tray, with a tiny Scotch, a tiny bourbon and four or five wines in different colors. He wasn’t just drinking, he was having a one-man tasting party.
With a jaded eye, Emily watched him plow through his liquor supply. At least he was a fairly quiet drunk. Then he turned to ask her if she wanted to try the cognac and knocked the whole uncapped bottle off his tray and into her lap. With cold, potent-smelling liquid seeping into her thigh, Emily realized those tiny bottles held a lot more than she would have thought.
The icky man did his best to blot at her with his napkin, but it didn’t help. So, for two hours, she sat there, stuck in her puddle of brandy, willing the plane to get its tail fin to San Francisco on the double so she could get out of there before she started shoving little bottles down Mr. Boozy’s throat.
Finally, blessedly, they were there, their gate was hooked up, and she gathered her heavy briefcase and her purse and bolted off the airplane as if there were no tomorrow.
A traffic jam behind her clogged the jetway, and she decided she surely had time to nip into the rest room and splash some water on her cognac-soaked skirt. She was in and out in record time—not that it really helped the cognac problem—but her gate had cleared by now, and Tyler was nowhere to be seen.
“What now?” Emily chewed her thumbnail, glancing up and down the concourse for a glimpse of that familiar leather jacket. Where could he have gone?
Hotfooting it in the general direction of ground transportation, she wished she wasn’t wearing pumps or hauling that stupid, cumbersome briefcase with the laptop in it. Was she gasping with exertion? Or starting to hyperventilate?
And where the hell had Tyler disappeared to?
Huffing and puffing, Emily took a decisive turn toward the taxi arrow. Tyler seemed like a cab kind of guy, didn’t he? Rather than a limo or a shuttle, she thought a taxi would definitely be the best bet—
“Taxi, miss?” When she was almost at the curb, a man suddenly appeared out of nowhere and reached for her briefcase.
Emily whirled in his direction, skidding to a stop, bumping into the cab driver, as she saw—oh, my God!—Tyler pop up like a mirage right in front of her.
She’d not only found him, she’d practically fallen on top of him.
The cabbie said, “You share cab, miss, yes?” and wrenched her briefcase out of her hand. He’d already tossed it into the trunk of the taxi, so there wasn’t much she could do but get in. Oh, God. She was supposed to be following the mysterious Tyler, not sharing the back seat of a cab with him!
Tyler waited, staring right at her, holding the door as she scooted inside. No chance of being inconspicuous now. She tried hard to manage her entrance with a modicum of grace, but it was impossible with those stormy green eyes staring a hole in her. She was flushed and breathless and she smelled as if she’d just taken a dip in a distillery vat. What kind of impression was she going to make? Besides idiotic, of course.
“Where we goin’?” the cabbie asked as Tyler folded his long, lean body in after her, stowing his duffel bag on the floor at his feet.
Tyler glanced her way, clearly giving her the first shot.
“I, uh…” She trailed off, tongue-tied. “I’m thinking.”
He shrugged. “Okay, well, I need to go to North Beach. Take Stockton—I’ll tell you where to stop.”
Emily couldn’t believe it, but she actually had the presence of mind to murmur, “What a coincidence. That’s exactly where I’m going.”
As the driver merged with traffic, sailing off into a sunny San Francisco afternoon, a long pause hovered over the back seat. Tyler’s gaze measured her, held her, as she waited for him to say something. Finally he offered, “You don’t look like the North Beach type.”
“Oh, really?” She had no idea what that meant. She’d never even heard of North Beach. Did he expect her to be carrying a towel and suntan lotion? “Well, you never know, do you?” she asked brightly. “Maybe I’ve got my swimsuit in my briefcase.”
Now she saw the spark of something else in his eyes. Humor? “There’s no beach at North Beach,” he told her calmly. “Are you sure you’re going to the right place?”
“Oh, I’m sure. I was just joking. About the swim-suit, I mean.”
Again silence hung between them. He shrugged. “Okay, if you’re sure.”
She wished he would stop staring like that. Miserable, Emily pulled on the hem of her soggy skirt and retreated into the far corner of the seat.
Still he was awfully close. Too close. And so very sexy. Even in repose, he had this hard-edged, smoky attitude that just screamed sex and lust and bad, bad things. It was like sitting two inches from a bonfire. She knew she shouldn’t touch, but she was mesmerized, bewitched by the dancing flames.
You know what happens if you start playing with fire, a panicky internal voice reminded her. You come away with third-degree burns.
Ooh. Bad thing to think about. Very, very bad.
Her mind suddenly filled with images of Tyler and heat and flames. She pictured him glistening with sweat, stripping off his clothes one article at a time as the torrid temperature overpowered them both.
Now she was definitely hyperventilating.
As she fanned her face, the rest of the trip into San Francisco became a blur. She had no idea what was outside her window; all she saw was Tyler.
Stop this, she commanded herself. Do something. Say something.
But what? Okay, so she hadn’t planned to introduce herself quite this quickly. She could roll with the punches, couldn’t she? Surely this was her golden opportunity to cross-examine him, to get him to tell her more about whatever this was she was horning in on. And then she would say, Hmm, sounds like you need my help, and somehow make it all sound natural and reasonable.
Except she hadn’t exactly figured out how to do that yet.
She mulled over various openings, but before she’d so much as asked for his name, the taxi swooped up one hill and down another, and Tyler leaned forward.
“This is it. Pull over here,” he instructed, and the cab slammed to a stop.
“Okay, we got North Beach,” the driver shouted. He jumped out to open the trunk and retrieve Emily’s briefcase as Tyler unwound himself and his duffel bag from the back seat.
Emily got out more slowly, not exactly sure how she was going to maneuver Tyler into showing her where he was going. For her to follow, he had to lead the way. But he was standing there waiting, doing the gentlemanly thing and allowing her to go first.
“No, no, you go ahead,” she said suddenly. “I’ll take care of the cab. My treat. You just go right ahead and get on your way.”
His dark brows lowered. “Why would you want to do that?”
“I—I’m practicing random acts of kindness,” she blurted. Well, that was as good an explanation as any.
He studied her for a moment, but finally accepted the favor, probably deciding it was easier to let the crazy lady have her way than fight with her. Phew. As Emily thrust bills at the cabbie, her quarry ambled across the street and up to a charming little Queen Anne house on the opposite corner. Mostly painted pink with some white trim, the house had a faintly purple conical tower in one corner. The sign out front read “Beau’s B and B.” And Tyler marched right in the front door as if he owned the place.
This was a surprise. Although Emily thought the B and B looked delightful—the only remotely Queen Anne house around—it was not where she would have expected Tyler to land. Everything else on the softly sloping street was strictly Edwardian, mostly three stories, with squared-off angles and bay windows. But whatever it was, at least Beau’s B and B was a legitimate place to stay, and she wouldn’t look incredibly weird filing in behind him.
As soon as she got rid of the cabbie, Emily gathered her purse, her briefcase and her courage, and took off across the street to Beau’s B and B. Her heart pounded as her hand closed around the brass knob on the front door. Get a grip, Emily, she chided herself. You just spent half an hour in a car with him. How much scarier could sharing a bed and breakfast be?
So she opened the door.
The inside of the B and B was even cuter than outside, with a small pine desk tucked inside a cozy vestibule in the front hall. There was a Tiffany-style lamp on a three-legged table opposite, casting a soft, rosy glow into the hall. A dark-haired woman—a very pretty dark-haired woman—stood behind the desk, smiling and laughing as she put Tyler on the register.
Emily took a good look at her, a little in awe of the casually eccentric way the woman was dressed, and how at ease she seemed to be around Tyler. Her hair was short and kind of spiky, as if she’d just washed it, tossed her head, and left it that way. And she was wearing a scarlet silk T-shirt under a crazy quilt vest—an outfit that was just as unique and striking as the rest of her.
This woman was exactly the sort of person Emily had always secretly wanted to be, but had never come close to. How annoying. She hated her already.
Emily dawdled by the door, trying to be inconspicuous. She pretended to be occupied looking at the array of colorful and exotic postcards pinned to the wall, taking in bright pictures of Zanzibar and Pago Pago, but mostly she was eavesdropping on Tyler and the beautiful innkeeper. It only took about a second to pick up that these two were old friends. Sheesh. Jozette at the Rainbow Rest-O-Rant and now the offbeat proprietor of Beau’s B and B. Did he know every unattached woman in the western hemisphere?
“Aw, c’mon, Kate,” Tyler grumbled. “You know I don’t have a reservation. How long have we known each other? Have I ever had a reservation?”
“No,” the brunette returned cheerfully. “But I keep hoping you’ll surprise me.” She cocked her head to one side, fixing him with a mischievous gaze. “Are you going to pay me this time?”
“You can take it out in trade,” he said in a low, husky voice, and Emily just about fainted where she stood. Take it out in trade? What kind of trade was he talking here?
Now she really hated her. Lucky dog, she thought. But the innkeeper, the vivacious Kate, didn’t seem to take the offer seriously. She just laughed at Tyler, shaking a finger in his direction, while a huge yellow tabby leaped up on the desk from out of nowhere, right smack in between the two of them. The cat landed with a clatter, knocking over a ceramic pencil cup and scattering pens and papers every which way.
“Whoa.” But after the momentary surprise, Tyler leaned in and began to scratch behind the cat’s ears. “Hey, big bad Beau, it’s been a long time. You still remember me, pal?”
Beau, after whom the B and B was apparently named, responded with a loud, rusty purr that Emily could hear all the way over by the door. She took that for a yes.
“I guess rascals and rogues have to stick together,” Kate noted dryly. “You and that cat are two of a kind. Beau, get down from there.”
The cat ignored her, whipping her with its tail, giving her a dismissive glance from brilliant green eyes—eyes that were the exact same shade as Tyler’s.
“I’ve got it. Leaves on an apple tree,” Emily said out loud. The apple tree outside her bedroom window when she was a kid. She’d finally placed the color.
Tyler, Kate and even the cat turned at her words. Oops. Emily could feel her face suffuse with rosy heat.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Just thinking out loud.”
“About apple trees?” Tyler shook his head. She could see the questions forming on his lips. Who are you, anyway? Why are you following me? And who gave you a day pass from the mental ward?
Oh, yeah. She was making a great impression.
Kate smiled kindly. “I’ll be with you in just a sec,” she told Emily. And she winked, as if to say, I get the apple tree thing.
Oh, dear. Here she was ready to dislike Kate on sight, and the innkeeper was acting like a co-conspirator. Emily focused on the postcard from Pago Pago, trying to sort out her jumbled thoughts.
Meanwhile Kate turned her attention back to Tyler. “Hey, Ty, I’ve changed things since the last time you were here. You were in the Gone With the Wind room last time, right?”
He nodded.
Kate sighed. “I loved that room. But I had to redecorate. A couple of guests set the bed on fire trying to recreate the burning of Atlanta.”
“That’s, uh, too bad,” Tyler choked, disguising a chuckle by concentrating on the cat. He stroked his fur and tried to maneuver the stubborn little animal into a position where he could get picked up. Undaunted, Beau stood his ground, bonked his head into Tyler’s chest and purred even louder.
Emily was enchanted. This was the first time she’d seen him really smile, let alone laugh, plus he was acting all sweet and tender toward the yellow cat. It was a whole different side of him.
“Okay,” Kate went on, chewing the end of a pencil. “Let’s see. I know you like the Pirate and Kismet rooms best, but they’re full. So I guess I’ll put you in the new one.”
“And that is…?” he asked warily.
“You’ll love it. After I decided Gone With The Wind was too dangerous, I switched to my next favorite movie,” she explained. “Turns out it’s perfect for you. The Wild One. Yep. You’ve already got the leather jacket and everything. And you get to sleep under Marlon Brando’s picture. Cool, huh?”
“The Wild One?” Tyler shook his head. “The Pirate and the red one—what is it, Kismet?—are bad enough. I can’t wait to see what you’ve done to this one.”
Emily couldn’t wait, either. She could feel her eyes growing rounder at the mental images The Wild One evoked. She knew that movie. Leather jackets, motorcycles. Bad attitude. She gulped, trying to contain her growing excitement. Wow. It was perfect for Tyler.
But he didn’t seem to notice. He just scooped up his key and his duffel bag and went down the hall. As soon as he left, his best pal Beau went after him, skidding off the desk and showering pens and paper clips to the four winds.
As Emily watched Tyler’s well-shaped, jean-clad derriere disappear up the stairs, her mouth went dry. But his departure didn’t really dampen her enthusiasm. Once again, she thanked the Fates that had landed her in the midst of all this. Pirates and Kismet and The Wild One? This place was great!
She stepped up to the desk, eager to see what room awaited her. The way things had gone so far, maybe this would be perfect, too. Maybe there would be a Mata Hari room with her name on it, she mused. Or Xena, Warrior Princess.
“So, you’re checking in?” Kate inquired.
“Right. If you have a room.” After buttoning her suit jacket so it more completely covered the stain from the cognac spill, Emily hurriedly ran her hands through the basic brown strands of her chin-length bob. She hoped she wasn’t too much of a mess. After all, she had to look respectable enough to get a room.
“One room left,” Kate told her.
Emily smiled. See? Her luck was holding.
“Will you need help with your…? Oh.” Her host glanced over the desk and then back up at Emily. “No luggage?”
“Lost,” Emily replied quickly. “I think my bags got sent to, uh, Pago Pago by mistake.”
“Okay. Well, if you need me to call the airline and track that down for you, you let me know,” Kate offered sympathetically. “Usually lost baggage shows up in a day or two, but it never hurts to call. Just leave the tracking number and I’ll be happy to take care of it.”
