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He stopped long enough to shed his suit coat and toss aside his tie.
Olivia handled the buttons and buckle and finally the zipper.
And they were both naked.
He kissed her again, eased her down on the side of the bed, knelt on the floor to kiss her belly and her thighs. “Where’s the whipped cream when you need it?” he teased, his voice a low rumble against her flesh.
“Oh, God,” Olivia said, because she knew what he was going to do, and because she wanted so much for him to do it.
He burrowed through the nest of curls at the apex of her thighs, found her with his mouth, suckled, gently at first, then greedily.
He made a low sound to let her know he was enjoying her, but she barely heard it over the pounding of her heart and the creaking of the bed springs as her hips rose and fell in the ancient dance.
He slid his hands under her, raised her high off the bed and feasted on her in earnest. The first orgasm broke soon after that, shattering and sudden, and so long that Olivia felt as though she were being tossed about on the head of a fiery geyser.
Just when she thought she couldn’t bear the pleasure for another moment—or live without it—he allowed her to descend. She marveled at his skill even as she bounced between one smaller, softer climax after another.
At last she landed, sated and dazed, and let out a croony sigh.
She heard the drawer on the bedside stand open and close.
“Still sure?” Tanner asked, shifting his body to reach for what he needed.
She nodded. Gave another sigh. “Oh, very sure,” she said.
He turned her on the bed, slipped a pillow under her head and kissed her lightly. She clasped her hands behind his head and pulled him closer, kissed him back.
This part was for him, she thought magnanimously. She’d had her multiclimax—now it was time to be generous, let Tanner enjoy the satisfaction he’d earned.
Oh, God, had he earned it.
Except that when he eased inside her, she was instantly aroused, every cell in her body screaming with need. She couldn’t do it; she couldn’t come like that a second time without disintegrating—could she?
She was well into the climb, though, and there was no going back.
They shared the next orgasm, and the one after that.
And then they slept.
It was dark in the room when Olivia awakened, panic-stricken, to a strange whuff-whuff-whuff sound permeating the roof of that old house. Tanner was nowhere to be seen.
She flew out of bed, scrambled into her clothes, except for the panty hose, which she tossed into the trash—what was that deafening noise?—and dashed down the back stairs into the kitchen. Ginger, on her feet and barking, paused to give her a knowing glance.
“Shut up,” Olivia said, hurrying to the window.
Tanner was out there, standing in what appeared to be a floodlight, looking up. Then the helicopter landed, right there in the yard.
Olivia rubbed her eyes hard, but when she looked again, the copter was still there, black and ominous against the snow. The blades slowed and then a young girl got out of the bird, stood still. Tanner stooped as he went toward the child, put an arm around her shoulders and steered her away, toward the house.
He paused when the copter lifted off again, waved.
Sophie had arrived, Olivia realized. And in grand style, too.
“Do I look like I’ve just had sex?” she asked Ginger in a frantic whisper.
“I wouldn’t know what you look like when you’ve just had sex,” Ginger answered. “I’m a dog, remember?”
“BEFOREYOUSTART yelling at me,” Sophie said, looking up at Tanner with Kat’s eyes, “can I just say hello to Butterpie?”
Tanner, torn between wishing he believed in spanking kids and a need to hold his daughter safe and close and tight, shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. “The barn’s this way,” he said, though it was plainly visible, and started walking.
Sophie shivered as she hurried along beside him. “We could,” she said breathlessly, “just dispense with the yelling entirely and go on from there.”
“Fat chance,” Tanner told her.
“I’m in trouble, huh?”
“What do you think?” Tanner retorted, trying to sound stern. In truth, he was so glad to see Sophie, he hardly trusted himself to talk.
He should have woken Olivia when he got the call from Jack’s pilot, he thought. Warned her of Sophie’s impending arrival.
As if she could have missed hearing that helicopter.
“I think,” Sophie said with the certainty of youth, “I’m really happy to be here, and if you yell at me, I can take it.”
Tanner suppressed a chuckle. This was no time to be a pal. “You could have been kidnapped,” he said. “The list of things that might have happened to you—”
“Might have,” Sophie pointed out sagely. “That’s the key phrase, Dad. Nothing did happen, except one of Uncle Jack’s guys collared me at Grand Central. That was a tense moment, not to mention embarrassing.”
Having made that statement, Sophie dashed ahead of him and into the barn, calling Butterpie’s name.
By the time he flipped on the overhead lights, she was already in the stall, hugging the pony’s neck.
Butterpie whinnied with what sounded like joy.
And Olivia appeared at Tanner’s elbow. “We’ll be going now,” she said quietly, watching the reunion with a sweet smile. “Ginger and I.”
“Wait,” Tanner said when she would have turned away. “I want you to meet Sophie.”
“This is your time, and Sophie’s,” Olivia said, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Tomorrow, maybe.”
It was a simple kiss, nothing compared to the ones they’d shared upstairs in his bedroom. Just the same, Tanner felt as though he’d stepped on a live wire. His skeleton was probably showing, like in a cartoon.
“Maybe you feel like explaining what I’m doing here at this hour,” she reasoned, with a touch of humor lingering on her mouth, “but I don’t.”
Reluctantly Tanner nodded.
Ginger and Olivia left, without Sophie ever noticing them.
ATHOME, OLIVIA showered, donned a ragged chenille bathrobe and listened to her voice mail, just in case there was an emergency somewhere. She’d already checked her cell phone, but you never knew.
The only message was from Ashley. “Where were you?” her younger sister demanded. “Today was Thanksgiving!”
Olivia sighed, waited out the diatribe, then hit the bullet and pressed the eight key twice to connect with Ashley.
“Mountain View Bed-and-Breakfast,” Ashley answered tersely. She already knew who was calling, then. Hence the tone.
“Any openings?” Olivia asked, hoping to introduce a light note.
Ashley wasn’t biting. She repeated her voice mail message, almost verbatim, ending with another “Where were you?”
“There was an emergency,” Olivia said. What else could she say? I was in bed with Tanner Quinn and I had myself a hell of a fine time, thank you very much.
Suspicion, tempered by the knowledge that emergencies were a way of life with Olivia. “What kind of emergency?”
Olivia sighed. “You don’t want to know,” she said. It was true, after all. Ashley was a normal, healthy woman, but that didn’t mean she’d want a blow-by-blow description—so to speak—of what she and Tanner had done in his bed.
“Another cow appendectomy?” Ashley asked, half sarcastic, half uncertain.
“A clandestine operation,” she said, remembering the black helicopter. That would give the local conspiracy theorists something to chew on for a while, if they’d seen it.
“Really? There was an operation?”
Tanner was certainly an operator, Olivia thought, so she said yes.
“And here I thought you were probably having sex with that contractor Brad hired to build the shelter,” Ashley said with an exasperated little sigh.
Olivia swallowed a giggle. Spoke seriously. “Ashley O’Ballivan, why would you think a thing like that?”
“Because I saw you leave with him,” Ashley answered. Her tone turned huffy again. “I wanted to tell Brad and Melissa that I’ve decided to look for Mom,” she complained. “And I couldn’t do it without you there.”
Olivia sobered. “Pretty heavy stuff, when Brad and Meg had a houseful of guests, wouldn’t you say?”
Ashley went quiet again.
“Ash?” Olivia prompted. “Are you still there?”
“I’m here.”
“So why the sudden silence?”
Another pause. A long one that gave Olivia plenty of time to worry. Then, finally, the bomb dropped. “I think I’ve already found her.”
Chapter Six
“THISPLACE,” SOPHIESAID, looking around at the ranch-house kitchen the next morning, “needs a woman’s touch. Or maybe a crack decorating crew from HGTV or DIY.”
Tanner, still half-asleep, stood at the counter pouring badly needed coffee. Between Sophie’s great adventure and all that sex with Olivia, he felt disoriented, out of step with his normal world. “You watch HGTV and DIY?” he asked after taking a sip of java to steady himself.
“Doesn’t everybody?” Sophie countered. “I’ve been thinking of flipping houses when I grow up.” She looked so much like her mother, with her long, shiny hair and expressive eyes. Right now those eyes held a mixture of trepidation, exuberance and sturdy common sense.
“Trust me,” Tanner said, treading carefully, finding his way over uncertain ground, because they weren’t really talking about real estate and he knew it. “Flipping houses is harder than a thirty-minute TV show makes it seem.”
“You should know,” Sophie agreed airily, taking in the pitiful kitchen again. “You’ll manage to turn this one over for a big profit, though, just like all the others.”
Tanner dragged a chair back from the table and sort of fell into it. “Sit down, Soph,” he said. “We’ve got more important things to discuss than the lineup on your favorite TV channels.”
Sophie crossed the room dramatically and dropped into a chair of her own. She’d had the pajamas she was wearing now stashed in her backpack, which showed she’d been planning to ditch the school group in New York, probably before she left Briarwood. Now she was playing it cool.
Tanner thought of Ms. Wiggins’s plans to steer her into the thespian program at school, and stifled a grimace. His sister, Tessa, had been a show-business kid, discovered when she did some catalog modeling in Dallas at the age of eight. She’d done commercials, guest roles and finally joined a long-running hit TV series. As far as he was concerned, that had been the wrong road. It was as though Tessa—wonderful, smart, beautiful Tessa—had peaked at twenty-one, and been on a downhill slide ever since.
“You’re mad because I ran away,” Sophie said, sitting up very straight, like a witness taking the stand. She seemed to think good posture might sway the judge to decide in her favor. In any case, she was still acting.
“Mad as hell,” Tanner agreed. “That was a stupid, dangerous thing to do, and don’t think you’re going to get away with it just because I’m so glad to see you.”
The small face brightened. “Are you glad to see me, Dad?”
“Sophie, of course I am. I’m your father. I miss you a lot when we’re apart.”
She sighed and shut off the drama switch. Or at least dimmed it a little. “Most of the time,” she said, “I feel like one of those cardboard statues.”
Tanner frowned, confused. “Run that by me again?”
“You know, those life-size depictions you see in the video store sometimes? Johnny Depp, dressed up like Captain Jack, or Kevin Costner like Wyatt Earp, or something like that?”
Tanner nodded, but he was still pretty confounded. There was nothing two-dimensional about Sophie—she was 3-D all the way.
But did she know that?
“It’s as if I’m made of cardboard as far as you’re concerned,” she went on thoughtfully. “When I’m around, great. When I’m not, you just tuck me away in a closet to gather dust until you want to get me out again.”
Tanner’s gut clenched, hard. And his throat went tight. “Soph—”
“I know you don’t really think of me that way, Dad,” his daughter broke in, imparting her woman-child wisdom. “But it feels as if you do. That’s all I’m saying.”
“And I’m saying I don’t want you to feel that way, Soph. Ever. All I’m doing is trying to keep you safe.”
“I’d rather be happy.”
Another whammy. Tanner got up, emptied his cup at the sink and nonsensically filled it up again. Stood with his back to the counter, leaning a little, watching his daughter and wondering if all twelve-year-olds were as complicated as she was.
“You’ll understand when you’re older,” he ventured.
“I understand now,” Sophie pressed, and she looked completely convinced. “You’re the bravest man I know—you were Special Forces in the military, with Uncle Jack—but you’re scared, too. You’re scared I’ll get hurt because of what happened to Mom.”
“You can’t possibly remember that very well.”
Benevolent contempt. “I was seven, Dad. Not two.” She paused, and her eyes darkened with pain. “It was awful. I kept thinking, This can’t be real, my mom can’t be gone, but she was.”