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The redheaded woman didn’t seem the least put out. “Actually, he’s a billionaire. And he’s handsome. And a good dancer. And a great bingo player. Not that any of that means anything. Why, I’ve known handsome, bingo-playing, tangoing billionaires before, but none of them knew how to appreciate the real me. The personality beneath the decorative package.” She patted her hairdo with a bony hand. “Mavoreen Rosenbaum does have a brain, too. Unfortunately, men are simple creatures much too caught up in their hormones to understand that.”
At that moment, a man bolted through the doorway and started down the aisle. He wore a three-piece suit and a haggard expression. He rushed past Deanie’s aisle, only to stop and retrace his steps until he stood next to Mavoreen Rosenbaum. He pointed his briefcase at the empty seat beside her. “I’m sitting there.”
“Of course you are,” she told him. “What can I say?” Mavoreen shook her head. “I guess we all have our crosses to bear.” She turned to let the man scoot past her. “I’ll expect you to keep your hands to yourself,” she told him as he settled in. “And your legs. And all other body parts. And don’t even think about staring at me, sonny, because I’ve got a stun gun in my purse and I know how to use it…”
“If she’s got a decorative package, I’m Shrek,” the blonde murmured.
As far out as the notion seemed, Deanie couldn’t help but admire the older woman. “At least she’s confident.”
“She’s delusional. There is no billionaire. It’s just a story she makes up so she doesn’t have to look like a lonely desperate woman, which is what she is.” The blonde smiled. “But enough with the small stuff. I’m Savannah Sierra Ellington.”
“Nadine. Nadine Codge. But you can call me Deanie.”
The woman’s smile widened and she winked. “Thank the good Lord for flight delays and nicknames.”
Before they could exchange any more pleasantries, the flight attendant’s voice carried over the loud speaker.
Deanie shifted her attention to the woman wearing the white blouse trimmed in turquoise piping and khaki slacks, and did her best not to grimace.
A reaction that had nothing to do with the fact that she was on an airplane for the first time in her life. Or that it just so happened to be Friday the thirteenth. No it was the cupid cutouts and heart streamers that decorated the front of the plane in honor of tomorrow.
V-Day.
The worst day of any single girl’s life.
The flight attendant wore a flashing neon heart pin. A red scarf dotted with red lips circled her neck. To top off her tribute to the big L, she sported a headband with a pair of red glitter hearts attached via long, tentacle-looking wires. The hearts bobbed with her every movement.
“…a little delay, but while we’re waiting for the tower to give the go-ahead for takeoff, we’ll start our in-flight service by taking drink orders.” She started down the aisle, pen and paper in hand. In her wake, another flight attendant carried a large red bag filled with packages of pretzels. She passed out the goodies and carefully eyeballed everyone’s seat belt.
“Welcome to Island Airways where love is always in the air,” the flight attendant with the pretzels told them after her partner had taken their drink orders.
“This is too much,” Savannah Ellington exclaimed when the attendants had moved to the next row.
“You said it.” Even the pretzel bags were red with tiny silver hearts. Deanie fought back the memory that pushed its way into her head… Of a hopeful young girl, a shoe box full of homemade sugar cookies and the most handsome boy in the seventh grade.
She’d been so silly back then and Mr. Handsome hadn’t been the least bit interested. Not that she’d taken the hint. She’d made more sugar cookies the next year and the next, and the only thing he’d ever given her in return had been a thank-you and a grin.
Ah, but that grin had been worth the entire day spent in the kitchen and her brothers’ teasing.
At least that’s what she’d thought back then. But then she’d wised up.
Sure, you did. After you made an even bigger fool of yourself.
“I’m definitely going to complain to the higher ups,” Savannah said. “This just isn’t right.”
“I know. It’s not like it’s a major holiday. We’re not talking Christmas, for Pete’s sake. It’s just Valentine’s Day.”
“I wasn’t talking about Valentine’s Day.” Savannah held up the red foil bag. “ One serving? Talk about chintzy. Forget dancing the night away once I get to Escapades. I’ll be too weak from lack of proper nutrition.” She dropped the bag into her lap and unlatched her purse. A little digging and she withdrew a candy bar. “Thank God I think ahead.” She tore the wrapper, broke a piece of candy off and popped it into her mouth. Her expression eased as she savored the mouthful before holding the bar out to Deanie. “Want some?”
Deanie shook her head.
Savannah gave her a knowing look. “It figures.”
“What?”
“If you hate Valentine’s Day, you’re bound to hate candy, too. And flowers. And jewelry.”
“I don’t hate Valentine’s Day. I just think it’s a little overdone.” And depressing. “People shouldn’t have to buy candy or flowers or jewelry to prove their love.”
“Says you.” She ate another piece of candy and eyed Deanie. “You don’t have a boyfriend, do you?”
“Not exactly.”
“Not exactly no, or not exactly yes?”
Deanie swallowed. “We broke up.”
Savannah studied her a few more seconds before winking. “Don’t sweat it. There are plenty more where he came from. Real ones,” she added, nodding toward Mavoreen’s beehive that bobbed above the seat in front of her. “And trust me, the more the merrier. That way when one’s busy in Atlanta with a buyout for his precious company, you don’t have to sit around feeling sorry for yourself. You just hop a plane to a tropical paradise and party the night away with boyfriend number two. And number three. And number four. It’s all about having a back-up plan.”
For the lucky few like Savannah Sierra Ellington with her feminine clothes and her breathy voice. She practically oozed sex appeal. It made sense that she would snag more than one man’s attention.
Deanie, on the other hand, wasn’t as concerned with snagging every man’s attention as she was with keeping one man’s attention.
The man.
And so she intended to be ready when he happened along.
If he happened along.
“I shouldn’t have had that extra glass of wine in the airport lounge. I think I’ll head to the ladies’ room before we takeoff.” Savannah tucked the remainder of her candy bar into her purse, popped open her seat belt, pushed to her feet and sashayed the few feet to the lavatory at the front of the plane.
Deanie glanced at her watch again. Anxiety rushed through her, chasing away the excitement. They really needed to get going. The last thing she wanted was to be late.
Camp E.D.E.N. ran a tight ship. There would be no lounging around the pool or writing post cards. Her training would start immediately after check-in with the first workshop—Shedding Your Inhibitions. There would be a thirty minute dinner break and then it was back to work with three more workshops before curfew and lights out. The strict regimen went hand-in-hand with the camp’s no-nonsense image. Camp E.D.E.N. was for the serious, self-improvement-minded individual, not the fun-seeking sort. At least that’s what the Web site and its page of testimonials claimed.
Her toes whimpered and she eased her feet out of her shoes just enough to allow some breathing room. She shifted and tried for a more comfortable position. The seat was more narrow than she’d initially thought, her legs a lot more cramped. Jet-setting to a tropical getaway wasn’t at all as glamorous as she’d imagined.
It felt more like being cooped up in the last row of a school bus with the other equipment assistants—all three of them, Deanie included—while the football players rode up front.
Then again, this wasn’t high school.
This was her life.
The new and improved version.
“This is a good day.” She murmured the words her grandmother had recited to her every morning during her summer visits before the old woman had passed away.
A great day.
A scary day.
She forced aside the last thought.
Exciting, not scary.
Of course, both caused massive bursts of adrenaline and a faint, light-headed feeling so it was understandable how she could confuse the two.
She pulled out the latest fashion magazine she’d bought at the newsstand—after reaching for Sports Illustrated and giving herself a mental hand slap—and flipped to an article that debated the benefits of lip gloss versus lipstick. Then she heard something…
It took her all of two seconds to realize it wasn’t just the cramped space that reminded her of her high school days.
It was the deep, husky voice that slid into her ears.
“…wouldn’t say I was the greatest tackle to ever play pro football. Maybe one of the top five…”
It couldn’t be.
Deanie closed her eyes for a long moment, her heart beating frantically, as the past pushed and pulled at her.
“Hey there, Teeny.”
The familiar voice echoed in her memory and she practically smelled the sharp aroma of cattle and hay that had filled the corral where she’d watched her brother and his best friend practice steer wrestling techniques every afternoon after school.
“…I managed to hold my own, but there were a lot of players just as good…”
She forced her eyes open, drew a deep breath and twisted to peer over the top of her seat.
Rance McGraw had been the hottest, hunkiest boy to ever wear a Romeo High School football jersey. He’d been the youngest and the wildest of the notorious McGraw triplets, the star of Deanie’s adolescent fantasies and a few adult ones, as well. He’d been sweet and charming and charismatic, and one of the best steer wrestlers to ever win first place at Romeo Junior Livestock Show and Rodeo. He’d also been the boy Deanie had wanted desperately to marry and live happily ever after with.
Wanted, as in past tense. She’d given up her infatuation with him a long time ago.
Sixteen years was a long time, however, and the boy had turned into a hotter, hunkier man.
The man now sitting two rows behind her.
She swallowed and tried for a deep breath. But while her brain issued the command, her lungs wouldn’t cooperate. Neither would her eyes. She willed them to look away, but they kept staring, drinking in the picture he made, his tall, muscular form barely contained in the narrow seat.
With his dark hair and good ole boy smile, Rance was the spitting image of his two handsome brothers. He had the same strong jaw, sensuous lips and sculpted nose. At the same time, there would be no mistaking him for the other two. Being a fraternal triplet, he didn’t have blue eyes like Mason or green ones like Josh. Rather, his gaze gleamed as bright, as bold, as intoxicating as a shot of Jack Daniels whiskey.
Even more, Rance had his own style that set him apart. He wasn’t the classic clean-cut cowboy type like the other McGraw men. Rather, his dark hair hung down to his shoulders. He wore a bright Hawaiian print shirt unbuttoned, a white NASCAR T-shirt beneath. She couldn’t see without giving herself whiplash, but she’d be willing to bet that he wore his signature board shorts, long and frayed around the edges, and a pair of flip-flops.
The only indication of his cowboy roots was the beat-up straw Resistol that he’d been wearing since the age of sixteen. It had belonged to his father who’d died that year. The hat looked worn and faded now, a Coors Lite patch stitched to the brim in between a patch for last year’s ESPN Extreme Sports Games in Colorado and another advertising the bungee jumping finals in South America.
The media still referred to him as a cowboy, however, because of his do-anything attitude and I-don’t-give-a-damn appearance. Rance was an ex-pro football player who now owned a chain of extreme sporting good stores and still made the news with his passion for the outrageous. Just last year she’d seen him on TV hang gliding over a sea of hungry sharks.
Crazy.
Not Rance, mind you. She understood his competitive drive better than anyone because she knew the circumstance behind it. His parents had died when he’d been sixteen, and a little of his heart had died with them. He’d been trying to revive it ever since with a constant supply of adrenaline rush.
No, Deanie was the crazy one.
Her heart pounded. Her vision blurred. Her hands even trembled.
And all because of the fact that Rance McGraw was this close and, despite every argument to the contrary, Deanie still wanted him more than her next breath.
She didn’t know whether to crawl across the seat and kiss him for all she was worth, or kick his ass sixty ways to Sunday.
On the one hand, she’d vowed to abandon her hellion ways and conduct herself in a more ladylike fashion from here on out.
On the other hand, she’d offered herself to Rance once before and it had gotten her the ultimate rejection.
She weighed the two options for several frantic heartbeats.
Better to go with plan B.
Deanie unfastened her seat belt and pushed to her feet.
2
WHEN IT CAME TO WOMEN, Rance McGraw had never been a man to turn tail and run the other way.
He liked women. Hell, he loved ’em and he wasn’t the least bit shy about it.
He loved the silky feel of a woman’s hair trailing between his fingers. The softness of her skin against his lips during a deep, hot kiss. The rasp of her nails up and down his back as he plunged deep inside her body. The soft, sweet, breathless sound of her voice as she begged for more…
Yep, he loved women, all right. As thoroughly and as often as possible. And they loved him.
Deanie Codge, in particular.
She’d been head over heels for him since the day he’d paired up with her brother, Clay, for the annual steer wrestling competition.
Rance had been eight years old when he’d gone home with Clay to practice. Deanie had been four, and hell-bent on joining in the wrestling match. When Clay had captured her in a headlock to teach her a lesson and force her to leave them alone, Rance had gone to her rescue.
It was the biggest mistake of his life.
Free of her brother’s hold, Deanie had stared up at him with wide, adoring blue eyes, and the damage had been done. She’d followed him around from then on, clear up until the night he’d graduated high school and left for college.
A vision pulled him back and he saw her standing on the grassy bank of McGraw River, her long, dark hair hanging down around her shoulders, her pale, naked body shimmering in the moonlight.
He didn’t remember much about that night except that he’d started out at Dorie Jackson’s graduation party with his buddies and a keg of beer. He wasn’t sure exactly how he made it out to the creek or what happened to the dozen or so guys he’d been party-hopping with. The evening was just a blur up until that moment when he found himself alone on the riverbank with Deanie.
His senses had sharpened then and he’d drank in the sight of her, from the faint stirring of her hair to the goose bumps that had chased up and down her pale arms, to the pucker of her ripe, rosy nipples. He’d heard the slight gurgle of water where it fed from the underground spring, the buzz of crickets and the thunder of his own heartbeat. He’d smelled the vanilla and sugar scent of her Sweet Honesty perfume. He’d tasted the surprise on his own tongue and he’d felt the sharp tightening of his groin.
That had been the first time he’d ever seen her naked. And the last.
Hell, that had been the last time he’d seen her, period. He’d been back in Romeo only a handful of times over the past sixteen years and he’d always made it his business to steer clear of Deanie Codge.
He’d succeeded up until a few months ago when he’d come face-to-face with her at the double wedding of his older brothers, Josh and Mason. Rance was the third and youngest of the McGraw triplets, and the only remaining bachelor. A title he intended to keep for as long as possible. His living-on-the-edge lifestyle wasn’t conducive to a long-term relationship and so he’d avoided them.
