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In the numbing black Kit felt a stray hair lift away from her terrified face. Through her mindless panic Kit suddenly felt a fire as skin touched skin. His right hand covered her left one, his fingertips slowly caressing her whitened knuckles. An electric energy of desire liquefied her veins, sending warmth spreading through her. His touch made her forget herself, and Kit barely felt the beginning of the descent. Her body hummed from his touch, and she imagined him kissing her. He claimed her ruby lips, tasting and teasing them with his tongue until they were swollen with the blood of passion.
The blessed thump came, and brakes squealed in their whine to stop the speeding plane. Slowly Kit opened her eyes, blinking to shake off disorientation. Though she was finally on the ground, she wasn’t sure she was safe. In the span of less than three hours, Kit knew her life had somehow been altered, but she wasn’t sure exactly how.
Focusing on the seat back in front of her, she brought the fingers of her right hand up to touch her lips. She felt the stickiness of her lipstick and exhaled deeply. It was fantasy, although it had seemed so real.
The pressure of his fingers lifted as he abruptly withdrew his hand from hers. His voice sounded almost curt. “We’re here.”
Kit blinked twice and focused as an icy coolness descended upon her hand. Her skin still tingled, missing the heat of his fingers. “Uh, good.”
Steadying her shaking voice, Kit continued to speak as the plane came to a stop. “Thanks for nursing me through the landing. It was sweet.”
He raised an eyebrow and Kit wondered if he knew that her thoughts a moment ago had been anything but sweet.
“It was nothing.” He shrugged his broad shoulders, and Kit felt her feminine ego shatter a bit as he dismissed her. She didn’t know why she was expecting something from a total stranger, but somehow she did. Maybe she really was the fool her father insisted she was.
With new determination she stood, the moment the seat belt light went off. “Well, thanks for sharing the flight. I’m off. I’ve got a rather difficult job ahead of me.”
“Good luck.” He didn’t blink, but instead looked at her as if memorizing her features.
Kit flushed. “Thanks.”
He didn’t respond, but instead joined her in the aisle. He towered four inches over her, and Kit stepped back. He must be at least six feet tall, she mused, watching him retrieve her two carry-on pieces with an almost practiced ease.
Oh, well, Kit thought a bit wistfully as he shrugged into his black sport coat. One more look couldn’t hurt. She let her gaze travel down his shirt’s button line to where it tapered to a perfectly proportioned waist. As he turned away from her, Kit decided that whoever he was, he was definitely one fit man. His masculine aura so fully commanded the small section of first class that the gray-haired woman behind her jostled her aside for a better view.
Knocked off balance, Kit crashed forward into him. He caught her easily, and under the soft cloth of his shirt taut muscles rippled. Instinctively her fingertips splayed across his firm chest. So hard, so solid…her knees wobbled as her body immediately molded to his. Delicious delirium overcame her as she inhaled his musky, all-male scent.
His strong arms steadied her. As his deep brown eyes looked down at her, Kit felt as if she were sinking into those gold-flecked pools.
“Are you okay?”
His soft-spoken words brought reality crashing back in. Shaken, Kit stepped away, but not before she saw his eyes darken and his face cloud over.
“I’m fine,” she lied, wondering if he had felt her desire. Did he know how tempted she had been by him during the flight? His guarded expression revealed nothing, and his long brown lashes hooded his eyes. Kit knew she couldn’t leave it like this. This man was going to haunt her dreams, and she didn’t even know his name. He at least had to have a name. Panic overwhelmed her, and she knew she had to say something to him, no matter what the consequences.
“Come on, honey. I’ve got to catch a connection to San Juan. Could you get a move on?”
“What?” Kit turned in disbelief to look at the woman behind her. The carry-ons Kit held crashed into one of the seats, and she paused to readjust her grip. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” The woman’s flat smile revealed her irritation and impatience.
Kit put on her most dazzling smile and turned around. “It was nice to have—”
The aisle ahead of her was empty. He was gone.
LESS THAN AN HOUR LATER Kit wondered what she had gotten herself into as she slid the pass card into the door handle of cabin 4648. The room certainly wasn’t what she was accustomed to, or what she was expecting.
“At least it’s an outside view,” Kit muttered as she slowly opened the door to the last spot available on less than twenty-four hours’ notice. Although the Island Voyager billed itself as a modern, comfortable ship, Kit decided the description didn’t apply to the bottom class of cabins.
Kit wrinkled her nose as she surveyed the dorm-size rectangular room she would be sharing with a roommate. The window was directly opposite the door, and on each side of the window were two tiny twin beds. Above them upper berths, normally hidden in the ceiling, were now lowered and locked into place.
Kit faced the window. The writing desk next to her right hip doubled as a dresser. Then she turned to her left. The sink and dressing table were on this wall, along with a small closet that was next to the sink. Even the door leading to the shower and toilet was small. Not a lot of space for one person, much less two. Her bathroom at home was twice as large as the entire room.
But the cabin would have to suffice for the three nights she would be on the Last Frontier theme cruise.
Kit pictured Eleni’s face, and now she knew why her editor had gotten that odd expression when Kit had accepted the assignment.
“I won’t be able to get you a press kit or an assignment sheet until tomorrow,” Eleni had said. “I’ll have a package meet the ship in Nassau.”
“Fine,” Kit had said.
“If you’re sure. They say they have one passenger spot available.” Eleni had pushed a stray brown hair out of her face. “You’d have to be willing to share a cabin.”
“A roommate?” Kit had blinked, but at that moment Eleni’s intercom had buzzed with the announcement that Michael O’Brien was on his way up. Unwilling to face her father, Kit had said, “I’ll take it.”
“Get going.” Eleni had waved at the door to the side hall. “You can pick up your tickets at LaGuardia. Just enjoy yourself until the information arrives tomorrow. And, Kit, be sensible!”
With that Kit had fled. And so here she was, sharing a cabin with someone she didn’t know, and all of this in order to do an interview she wouldn’t know anything about until tomorrow.
Kit glanced at her watch and wondered how Eleni had fared with Kit’s father, the domineering patriarch of O’Brien Publications. Knowing her father’s temper and his belief that his society daughter should not work, Kit was sure the morning meeting had not gone well. No, her father would be furious she had escaped to an out-of-town assignment. She grimaced. She owed her editor a big one.
Still, Kit needed these next four days. Not only would she prove herself a worthy journalist, she might even get to relax before going home. By that time, perhaps, her brother, Cameron, would have yet another new girlfriend. Her father loved the idea of getting Cameron married even more than he liked the idea of Kit marrying. Every time Cameron had a girlfriend it usually took the heat off Kit for a while.
She rotated her neck to stretch out the kinks left over from the flight. After the press packet and assignment sheet arrived tomorrow, she would do the interview, write the story, and get her father off of her back in the process.
The door opened and Kit waited for her roommate. More than one person entered, but Kit ignored the conundrum and smiled.
“Kit!” The woman Kit had had the misfortune of being seated next to on the bus from the airport screeched shrilly in delight and gave Kit a big, smothering bear hug. “I didn’t believe it when I saw that you were in our cabin! I’m Georgia, remember?”
“Our cabin?” Kit blinked as Georgia released Kit and another woman stepped into the cabin.
“Right, you’re rooming with me, Becca and Paula. Becca’s by the pool. Paula, this is Kit, Kit, Paula. Anyway I said, Paula, I met Kit on the bus. She’s really sweet and she thinks Last Frontier is the greatest thing since sliced bread. And since Carmen had to cancel on us, at least we’ve got Kit.” Georgia inspected the view out the window. “Look! I can see the building where we checked in!”
“Nice to meet you, Paula.” Kit offered her hand automatically to hide her shock. Oh, no. Not one, but three roommates. And they all believed she loved a television show, one she’d never even seen! Somehow she remained calm. “I’m Kit O’Brien.”
“Paula Sullivan from Sandpoint, Idaho,” Paula replied, returning the handshake. She assessed Kit for a moment, her direct gaze speculative. “You look familiar. Have you ever been on television?”
“Um, no,” Kit said quickly, ignoring the time she had been on Hard Copy for chaining herself to a fence to stop an historic building from being torn down.
Paula ran a hand through the long black hair that fell to her waist and shrugged. “Probably not.”
Kit shuddered with relief as Georgia bustled about the claustrophobic room like a mother hen. “I want a top bunk. Be sure to take one of the bottom bunks if you want, Kit.”
“Thanks.” Kit sat down on the bottom bunk opposite the bathroom as Georgia continued to open drawers and explore every inch of the tiny cabin. She hoped Georgia didn’t snore. She hadn’t thought to pack earplugs.
“It’s 3:45! Time to get moving, y’all.” Georgia remained in motion, this time heading toward the door. “I want to get registered for the events and then get a good spot to watch the boat sail. They’ve put all of us on late seating at 7:15. Since we’ll go directly to the party afterward, everybody needs to wear their dresses to dinner. Did I tell you about the last theme cruise I went on, Paula?”
Kit ignored her roommate’s conversation, her brow furrowing. She was terribly unprepared for this assignment. Normally she did tons of research, not just stuff clothes into a carry-on and wait for an assignment sheet to arrive.
“Are you ready, Kit?” Georgia was still in motion. “We sail in thirty minutes, and Paula and I want a good spot. Let’s move it, y’all.”
For the lack of having any better idea or plan, Kit decided to just let her roommates sweep her along. The way her luck was going, it couldn’t hurt.
JOSHUA PARKER LET the warm ocean breeze flow through the brown shoulder-length locks that had less than one week until shorn short. He turned his face toward the sun, inhaling the salt-tinged air deep into his lungs. Even the fact that the boat was still docked in port, with the oily port smell mixing in, did little to discourage the feeling of well-being now filling him.
He had to admit, despite his initial reservations of participating in a theme cruise, the ship was nice, the weather wonderful. And he definitely could do without the cold dreary New York City November he had left behind. He was tired of slush melting around subway vents, tired of gray skies and tired of the gloom caused by buildings that refused to let the elusive sun touch the ground.
Even winter in Upstate New York would feel freer than the city that had snared his soul and held it captive for nine years. Escape was just around the corner, almost in sight, and Joshua wanted, with a passion, to permanently claim the open skies that hovered above his apple orchards. Even under a foot of snow his land remained unmarred by progress for miles and miles on end, glistening in its infinite whiteness.
Joshua sighed and admitted the truth—the rebel inside his soul was gone. No longer a wild child, now all he wanted was to return to the life of a gentleman farmer, as his father had phrased it many times before their big fight. It was a Jeffersonian phrase Joshua had once hated, but now it meant freedom, and freedom was what he craved.
Joshua turned from the enticing view of blue-green water that his private balcony afforded and opened the sliding glass door to reenter his suite. A blast of cool, manufactured air greeted his face, and as he surveyed the sitting area of the penthouse suite, he wondered how many other people had two love seats and a coffee table in their cabin. It was more space than he needed. He walked over to the minibar. Since he wasn’t paying for this cruise he might as well indulge in luxuries like three-dollar bottled water and penthouse suites.
In fact, if the cruise hadn’t been so important to the executive producers and owners of Last Frontier, Joshua doubted he would have even bothered to attend. With the hit television show in its final season, he wanted to permanently close this chapter of his life. Sure, the fans loved the show he had created and nurtured, but the success of Last Frontier had left him oddly empty. In fact, it had burned him out and soured him on writing.
Maybe that’s why he had bought the farm, doing four years ago what his father had first wanted for his only son.
The age-old clichе fit best, Joshua thought. Hindsight was twenty-twenty. At age thirty-two he had come full circle, finding himself in the same place he would have been, anyway, only now he met his father man-to-man.
The boy who had once selfishly destroyed his father’s chance of a political career, not once but twice, had disappeared. In his place was a man who knew that parents were to be treasured, not tormented.
It was something the childish Kit O’Brien would find out in her own time, if she ever stopped running away long enough to grow up.
He took a long sip of the cold water and remembered the look of interest flickering behind Kit’s green eyes when he boarded the plane.
Joshua grinned, recalling her expression at his proposition. The words had somehow rolled easily off his tongue, the idea of seducing New York’s most notorious heiress in an airplane lavatory too irresistible to pass up.
She had almost taken him up on it, he thought with an ironic smile. She had almost consented without even knowing who he was, which had made her all the more interesting to him.
Usually people wanted something from him in return for their attentions, ever since the first Last Frontier convention, when he had become a fan idol. He hated it.
Worse, as much as he understood Bill Davies’s reasons, he still blamed Bill for forcing him into the public light. The producer had insisted Joshua make a few cameos in the show, and he’d insisted Joshua make appearances at fan conventions.
All Joshua had wanted was to fade into the background and let only the actors’ stars shine, but Bill hadn’t listened to Joshua’s arguments until the show had manifested into a cult phenomenon with a life of its own.
But by then the damage to Joshua’s privacy could never be repaired. Now there were Web sites where people who knew nothing about him discussed his personal life and speculated on it. Stemming from that were the women who wanted Joshua Parker, the man who could possibly make them a star, not Joshua Parker, the person. Once bitten, twice shy. Been there, done that, never again.
Joshua shook his head. From her champagne-and-caviar reputation of having careened through at least three fiancеs, he knew Kit probably had men pursuing her all the time.
But except for his blatant proposition made for the heck of it, he wasn’t pursuing her. Nor would he want to. The price of being associated with Kit O’Brien would be too high, too public. His philosophy was to only read the tabloids, not be in them. No, long ago he’d learned the hard way to give tabloid reporters a wide berth, knowing now that they always printed the worst.
But after meeting the infamous Kit O’Brien, he’d decided she backed up all the press and rumors about her.
And the rumors said she wasn’t currently available, anyway, despite last night’s fiasco. The morning tabloid headlines revealed for everyone her public humiliation of Blaine Rourke, the man everyone pegged as Kit’s current fiancе. Despite Kit’s dumping Meaty Choice dog food over Blaine’s head and down his tux at a charity dog show, “her father’s favorite godson” wasn’t likely to give up on getting Kit to the altar, even if one daily paper had snidely headlined the story Kit’ten Dogs Fiancе.
Although he hated the press, he had to admit he was somewhat curious as to why the society brat had done it. At the local newsstand where he normally purchased his Times, he had instead picked up the tabloid and skimmed the entire article. Of course the article didn’t give any clues as to her motives. He had replaced the tabloid and paid for his New York Times newspaper.
She probably didn’t have an excuse, doing it only to see her face in the papers. He’d done the same thing himself, when he was young and immature. No wonder her desperate need for escape, Joshua thought wryly as he sipped his water. Her father’s wrath was bad enough that she had flown away at first light.
Still, unlike his own father, Joshua knew as well as Kit probably did that Michael O’Brien was more smoke than fire. He had tolerated Kit’s well-publicized antics each time, no matter how outrageous. Joshua particularly remembered the people at the newsstand discussing her swimming with the seals in a skin-colored bikini to focus on animal rights. If he also remembered it right, there was a time she spent the night in a cardboard box in the middle of winter with some drunk ruffian to call attention to the plight of the homeless.
The grass was always greener, Joshua mused with a tinge of bitterness. Kit didn’t realize how lucky she was. Time after time her father forgave her and bailed her out of her messes. He hadn’t been so lucky. After costing his father his dream, his father’s disappointment measured in a very long, silent period. Maybe that’s why she remained so spoiled, and had been such a temptation to him on the airplane. She clearly had a passion for life.
Joshua blinked and tossed the now empty water bottle effortlessly into the wastebasket. His calves ached, so he kicked off his shoes. Here he was, on a cruise, and despite his exhaustion he was still wired. Normally he tried to catch a nap on the plane, but sitting next to Kit had made napping absolutely impossible. As he stretched out on the bed and closed his eyes, he again pictured her face as he asked her if she had ever made love on a plane. Her mouth had puckered into a surprised O and her green eyes had darkened to almost an emerald. Her soft reddish hair had shimmered as she shivered.
Too bad he hadn’t discovered what the rest of her body felt like next to his. If it was anything like the sparks that erupted between them when she had tripped on the plane and he had caught her against his chest…loving her body would be phenomenal.
In fact, as a male who lately had chosen a long period of celibacy, he had needed to make a quick retreat from the plane in order to hide his body’s immediate reaction to the feel of hers.
Joshua opened his eyes and glanced at his watch. Five minutes before he had to leave for the Last Frontier staff meeting. He let his thoughts drift. Kit hadn’t mentioned where she was going. Miami was a connection to just about anywhere.
Not that it mattered at this point in his life. Kit O’Brien would never fit into his world. She was parties and fancy clothes. He was jeans and a cowboy hat, mud and muck and the farm near Syracuse, New York. Her limo probably took her everywhere. He always took the subway in the city.
In a little less than three weeks he would ride his horse every morning through the orchards, supervise the dairy operation and return full-time to his nonfiction writing, a career he had put on hold once he had begun scripting Last Frontier. She’d be deep in the party rounds of the “A” list society Christmas season.
Still, he thought with a grin as he closed his eyes and pictured the way Kit’s yellow knit skirt clung to and revealed her shapely, toned legs, she was something to behold.
Chapter Two
Four hours later Kit attempted to concentrate on figuring out the world of Last Frontier. Her roommates hadn’t sighted any of the cast members, although they’d certainly talked about one of them, a Joshua Parker, more than the others.
“Kit!”
Kit looked over at Georgia, who was waving a hand in front of Kit’s face. “Yes?”
“You’re looking a little pale. Are you okay? Do you need me to wrap your ankle? I brought an elastic bandage.”
“No thanks, Georgia, I’m fine. Really. I told you it’s nothing.” Kit smiled reassuringly. Just her luck to have twisted her ankle in front of a hypochondriac.
Georgia looked like a dubious mother hen. “If you say so. If you change your mind I’ve got the bandage right here in my purse. I never travel without an emergency kit.”
With that Georgia began watching a video on one of the Topsider Lounge’s screens. Reminding Kit of a hotel dance club, the lounge consisted of chrome rails and raised seating areas. The topmost seating was upstairs on the Compass Deck, which sounded glamorous but was really just a deck surrounding the outside of the lounge.
Kit wasn’t quite sure what to make of her roommates. Freely admitting to being a rabid fan of Last Frontier, Georgia was obviously the leader, even picking out the table on the main level.
“Here comes the waitress. What does everyone want? This round’s on me.” Georgia announced. Paula and Becca, Kit’s other roommates, offered no resistance and ordered cocktails.
Kit shook her head in refusal, but to no avail. Georgia ordered, anyway, and the waitress moved away.
“I got you some wine.” Georgia studied Kit matter-of-factly. “You only had one glass of champagne with dinner.”
“Really, I usually try to have only one.” In fact, it had been months since she had had more than one glass of wine, except for wine tasting, and then the procedure was to spit it out.
Kit’s protest fell on deaf ears as Georgia cut her off. “You’ll have one glass of wine, honey. It’s good for the arteries, and it’s not like you’re driving anywhere, sugar. Has anyone seen either Bob or Joshua yet?” Georgia turned to search the room for her idols.
Kit smiled wryly. Again Georgia had told her how life was going to be. Georgia and her father would probably get along great, but Kit just didn’t have the heart to upset Georgia the way she would her father.
The waitress returned with the drinks at the same time a cruise representative arrived on the dance floor with a microphone. Kit took a small sip of her wine, rolled it over her tongue and wrinkled her nose. Bottom-grade white zinfandel. Her father had subjected her to a wine course when she was twenty-one. While she had found the class boring, it had been the way he’d finally let her into her chosen profession. Her father didn’t want her to work, and writing about wine had been her entry into magazine features.
