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It wasn’t Antoine’s fault that the boredom hadn’t left her. She was the problem. She found herself thinking too much during intimate times. Analyzing every move.
Not that she’d always been that way. Far from it. There’d been a time in her life when a man’s touch had set her ablaze. But she refused to think about that man. It was bad enough she’d dreamed about him.
Maybe she’d just grown too cerebral to experience sexual bliss. After five weeks of dating her, Antoine had probably realized as much. Hence all those recent business trips.
Had she really thought of herself as an urban adventuress in her dream last night, with more notches on her bedpost than the gals on Sex and the City? She nearly snorted at the thought. In real life, her notches were few and far between.
But not nonexistent. She’d had pleasurable affairs. She was far from frigid, as Cade Hunter had claimed last night. Dream or no dream, that accusation still smarted.
“If Antoine laid a hand on you in anger,” Lexi said, “I’ll stomp his butt. I don’t hold with violence.”
Brynn resisted the urge to point out the irony in those two statements, or to laugh at the image of petite Lexi stomping a big guy like Antoine. “He didn’t do anything, I swear. He wasn’t even here last night. He left town after dinner for another business trip.”
Seeing the doubt on Lexi’s face, Brynn realized she had to come clean about what had really happened, or Antoine would be labeled a woman-beater. But how she hated to confess! Her sleepwalking was sure to make Lexi and Trish worry, considering Brynn’s role as resident manager of the inn. Roaming about in a zombielike state couldn’t be good for business.
“If you must know, I caused the ruckus myself last night,” Brynn admitted. “I was dreaming.”
Lexi frowned, perplexed. “What does dreaming have to do with—” She broke off as understanding dawned. “Oh, no. You haven’t started sleepwalking again, have you?”
Brynn assumed she was remembering the night in the sorority house when Lexi had woken to find her wandering around their bedroom, carrying on about Daytona Beach and a Pontiac Firebird. Thank goodness her roommate hadn’t paid much attention to what she’d been saying. The near miss of having her deepest, darkest secret exposed had shaken Brynn so much that she’d spent months taking herbs, sleeping aids, meditation therapy and biofeedback sessions to stop her from walking or blabbing in her sleep. Brynn believed it had been pure determination that had eventually broken the habit.
“Last night was the first time I’ve walked in my sleep since college,” Brynn said, hoping to reassure Lexi with that fact. “I guess the onset of football season was just too much for me to take, um, lying down.”
“So what did you do?”
“Rammed into a wall. Woke up in a closet.” She didn’t mention that it had been the basement broom closet. Lexi didn’t need to know she’d actually left her bedroom suite.
“That’s pitiful.” Lexi shook her spiky platinum head in grim reflection. “I’ll bet I know why this happened. You’re keeping too much bottled up inside. You’re still sexually repressed.”
Brynn stared at her in astonishment. How had she arrived at that conclusion? For all Lexi knew, her sex life was hotter than ever with Antoine.
“Oh, don’t look so surprised. I know you, Brynn Sutherland. If you were getting any decent action, you’d be giddy with relief, after all those years of pressure building up. Believe me, I have personal experience with this phenomenon.” She slumped back in her chair and sighed. “I had such high hopes for you and Antoine.”
Brynn rested her head against the back of the rocker. “It’s not his fault. It’s mine.”
“You just haven’t found the right guy.”
Hating to get her started again on a campaign to find her a red-hot lover, Brynn steered the conversation back to its original track. “I doubt that my sex life has anything to do with the sleepwalking, anyway. It’s stress related.”
“You’ve been stressed more than this plenty of times, but I haven’t heard about your sleepwalking until now. What was your dream about?”
The question caught Brynn off guard. “Nothing. Nobody. That is, nobody I know.” She felt unreasonably shaken by the inquiry. “I mean, I might have known them, but…uh…” Impromptu lying had never been her strong suit.
That intent look came over Lexi’s face again, and Brynn nearly groaned. Her friend would hound her until she confessed. With Lexi’s truth-seeking, mind-probing talents, it was a wonder Brynn was able to keep any secrets from her at all.
She did, though. The important one. The one about Daytona Beach and the Firebird.
“I don’t see how this is pertinent,” Brynn said, caving under the pressure, “but the only person I recognized in the dream other than Candice Bergen was Cade Hunter.”
“Cade Hunter.” Lexi contemplated the information, then broke into a small, self-congratulatory smile. “So I was right. The sleepwalking does have to do with your sex life.”
“It does not! It’s just that Trish mentioned running into him yesterday.”
“Cade Hunter was the last guy you really went crazy over.”
“I didn’t go crazy over him.”
“You know you did. Half the girls in our sorority house did, and he wasn’t even a frat boy. That man was one well-built, good-looking hunk of masculinity.”
“Not good-looking, really. Appealing, you could say.”
“You could say a whole lot more than that! He’s a manly man. And more to the point, he’s an old flame of yours, which means that time has probably glorified him in your mind.”
“Glorified him? Cade? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Everyone knows that old flames burn hotter in a woman’s memory than they ever did in real life.”
Brynn considered the statement and wondered if it was true. As much as she despised him for his heartless behavior, she couldn’t deny that her memories of Cade Hunter sparked more sensuous heat in her than any of her later relationships. He and she hadn’t made love per se, but their make-out sessions had always stirred an intense longing. Had the passage of time exaggerated that longing, until no flesh-and-blood man could ever compete? It was a startling thought.
“A woman in your unfulfilled state, dreaming about an old flame as hot as Cade Hunter…” Lexi shook her head, pondering the situation. “No wonder you got so worked up.”
“I wasn’t ‘worked up’ over Cade! At least, not in a sexual way. I was angry because he was insulting me.”
“Insulting you how?”
Telltale warmth crept into her face again. She didn’t want to say he’d been calling her a “prick tease.” That would lead Lexi to analyze the underlying reason she’d dreamed such things…and Brynn didn’t want to talk about how she and Cade had broken off their relationship all those years ago. Make love to me, Brynn, or we’re through.
She still had a hard time even thinking about his ultimatum, let alone discussing it. She’d been falling in love with him—deeply, desperately—while Cade had clearly wanted her only for sex. Hurt, angry and humiliated, she’d broken up with him. He’d lost no time finding someone else. A sorority sister of hers, no less, who soon turned up pregnant.
That had been years ago. Brynn now viewed the entire episode as a lesson learned. She’d fully recuperated from the devastation, of course, and was much wiser to the ways of unscrupulous heartbreakers like Cade Hunter.
But she didn’t want to talk about it, now or ever.
“I don’t remember exactly how he was insulting me,” she said, avoiding Lexi’s probing gaze.
“Uh-huh.” Clearly she knew Brynn was withholding information. Fortunately, Lexi didn’t press the issue.
Brynn couldn’t have been more relieved. Because even though she had been angry with Cade in the dream, she’d also ripped open her pajama top in the throes of an erotic challenge. Maybe her sexual stagnation was affecting her more than she’d thought.
“Take my advice, girlfriend,” Lexi said. “Go find a man you’re really hot for and let loose with that pent-up energy. Otherwise, who knows what’ll become of you?”
Words of wisdom, no doubt. But Brynn wasn’t someone who could easily “let loose.” Except, of course, in her dreams.
“WE’VE GOT OUR ‘IN’,” Cade Hunter murmured into his cell phone as he drove through the old, tree-shaded neighborhood surrounding the Three Sisters Bed & Breakfast Inn. He’d found it necessary to refamiliarize himself with the lay of the land. It had been too many years since he’d lived nearby to remember all the details. “I followed Trish to a cafе yesterday. Made contact. She invited me to stay at the inn. I’m on my way.”
His associate murmured his approval, and Cade disconnected the call. If this encounter with Trish hadn’t produced an invitation, he’d had another ruse ready to justify his visit. This would be better, though. Trish had invited him, an old college chum, and he’d accepted. No suspicions would be raised about his motive for being there.
And that was important.
Pocketing the cell phone, Cade turned his open-topped sports-utility vehicle toward the inn. Trish had mentioned she’d be manning the registration desk this afternoon while Lexi and Brynn worked on preparations for the weekend’s activities. He couldn’t have asked for a luckier break.
Because if Brynn were working the front desk, he had no doubt she’d whip out the No Vacancy sign and swear the inn was full. She’d always been good at turning him away.
But he was here to do an important job, and he wouldn’t let Miss Brynn Sexy-As-Sin Hold-But-Don’t-Have Sutherland stop him. Nor would he let himself obsess over her again. She’d probably changed quite a bit over the years, anyway. With any luck, he would hardly recognize her.
Not that he was worried about seeing her again. The last nine years had taught him a lot. Made him stronger and smarter, especially when it came to women. Friends called him jaded. He preferred to think of himself as enlightened.
Turning his SUV into the shady, asphalt driveway of the antebellum mansion that had once been Brynn’s sorority house, Cade forced his grip to loosen from the wheel and the muscles of his body to unclench.
She’d demanded “self-control” from him, all those years ago. Since then, he had mastered the art. No matter what she did or said, how she looked—or smelled, smiled, sounded—there was no way in hell he would let her get to him.
2
OKAY, SO SHE WASN’T an urban adventuress, or gloriously liberated like Lexi, or “in the know” about cosmopolitan social trends, like Trish. And if either of them knew about her personal history, chances were they never would have allowed her into their social circle in the first place, which, in a way, made Brynn feel like a fraud.
But there was one area in which she felt entirely comfortable, and that was welcoming guests. She loved meeting new people, greeting those she’d entertained before, and hearing about their lives, travels and interests. Every new arrival filled her with anticipation, as if she were embarking on a new adventure. And every person who became a friend made her feel that much richer. She considered the most important part of her job to be making her guests feel comfortable. At home. Sincerely welcome.
With this in mind, Brynn allowed Trish to work the registration desk while she herself played hostess to the new arrivals in the parlor, offering them high tea—or happy hour, as some preferred to call it, although the guests had to provide their own “happy” libations to go with the soft drinks, tea and coffee served there.
As Brynn and Lexi set trays of pastries, cheese and veggies on the antique sideboard for their Thursday afternoon guests, a thunderous roar came from the entryway.
“GO DAWGS! Sic ’em! Rrrf, rrrf, rrrf…”
In any other part of the country, the sound of men barking, growling and howling might have raised an alarm. But in Athens, Georgia, home of the University of Georgia Bulldogs, the commotion merely drew smiles from a few of the guests in the parlor. Brynn and Lexi went a little further and answered the barking with howls of their own.
“Hey, guys, I do believe we’ve found some Easy DZs,” remarked Smitty, the biggest and loudest of the four beer-bellied, middle-aged newcomers. The group had quit barking to pause at the wide, arched doorway of the parlor and leer playfully at Brynn and Lexi.
“I beg your pardon?” Brynn asked in mock affront at the age-old slur to her sorority. These guys were some of her favorite regulars who stayed at the inn every year for the football season opener. “Did you say Easy DZs? That’s Easy Delta Zetas to you.”
“Leave it to those Kappa Alpha boys to get it wrong,” Lexi added, which prompted the men to break into a bawdy song about their beloved fraternity.
“Go put your paw prints on a registration form at the desk, you crazy dawgs, you,” Brynn called out over their singing while she poured coffee for three young, pretty recent graduates. As former beauty queens—Miss Athens, Miss Clarke County and Miss Georgia—the girls were slated to participate in opening-day celebrations on campus. They seemed to be saving their smiles for the occasion; they looked bored at the moment and annoyed by the commotion.
Brynn moved away to fill cups for the more congenial guests. She would have to find a way to draw these young women into the fun-loving spirit of the weekend.
Before she could make an effort to change the girls’ spoilsport attitudes, her radio beeper went off, and Trish asked if she’d take a look at a faulty air conditioner. Brynn hurried upstairs to handle the problem. August in Georgia definitely required air-conditioning.
Forty minutes later, after nearly dismantling the wall unit, Brynn called a repairman. It was at times like these that she truly appreciated Trish’s help. At least she knew the front desk was being run properly while problems kept her elsewhere. She hated missing high tea, though, especially when her Kappa Alpha guys would be trooping in there—with a twelve-pack of beer, probably—and unwittingly annoying the beauty queens. Hopefully Lexi would keep things amiable, regardless of what tactics the guys might use to get the attention of the three young ladies.
Hoping for the best, but fearing the worst, Brynn finally made her way downstairs. If things hadn’t gone well between the Kappa Alphas and the beauty queens, high tea may have ended prematurely, which wouldn’t bode well for the weekend. A congenial atmosphere was vital during football season, when people wanted the freedom to make fools of themselves and have others appreciate them for it. Brynn had to do her utmost to promote a fun-loving spirit among her guests.
Armed with that resolve, she marched toward the parlor, passing Trish, who was deeply involved in a phone conversation at the reception desk. A glance toward the kitchen showed Lexi retreating with an armful of empty snack trays.
Assuming that the tea had ended early, Brynn was surprised as she drew closer to the parlor to hear lively voices and peals of laughter, both masculine and feminine. Mystified, she paused at the parlor entrance and gaped. The guests were clustered around a table—the Kappa Alpha men, the beauty queens, a married couple who were both retired professors, and big, gruff old Mrs. Hornsby, all watching some central action.
Only when Brynn crept closer did she realize that an arm-wrestling match was taking place. Smitty, the Kappa Alphas’ earlier spokesman, was involved in the match, his beefy face red with exertion, his brawny arm raised and quivering under the strain, his hand clasped in a death grip with a darker, leaner hand.
Brynn then caught sight of the other contestant’s face. And the breath left her body. God help her…it was Cade Hunter!
Why was he here? Had he come to see her? She couldn’t imagine why he would. They hadn’t parted on friendly terms. And if he’d come for a social visit, why was he involving himself with her guests?
The beauty queens looked pleased at his presence; they were clustered around him in seductive poses, their gazes glued to his lean, strong-jawed face. The men, all caught up in the macho contest, cheered their fellow Kappa Alpha on, and even the older guests watched with interest. Cade’s attention was trained solely on his opponent.
Brynn couldn’t help but take the opportunity to study the man who had broken her heart nine years ago—the last man she’d been “crazy” about. His shoulders looked broader now, his chest and arms more powerful, but that might have been because of the muscles flexing with exertion. His jet-black hair was as thick and wavy as ever, but cropped shorter than it had been then. Subtle strands of silver now gleamed near his temples. Surprising, considering he was only thirty. His skin, a dark, natural bronze, looked more weathered, giving his already rugged face a craggier look than she remembered. But his eyes, the amber color of sunlit honey, glinted with the same look of wry amusement and quiet intelligence that had first attracted her to him.
He had no business being here! This get-together was for guests only, not the general public. She had to set him straight on that matter.
Unless, of course, he was a friend of the Kappa Alphas, just dropping in for a visit. She couldn’t chase off a friend of her guests. But her Kappa Alpha men were at least ten years older than Cade; he wouldn’t have attended UGA at the same time they had. And Cade hadn’t been in a fraternity. He’d belonged to a different kind of brotherhood—the criminal-justice majors, who hung out together at the gym, pumping iron, or at the firing range, honing their aim in hopes of entering the police academy or FBI. Her brother had been one of his crowd. Brynn’s sorority sisters had referred to them as “cop wannabes.” Because they weren’t in a fraternity, they were generally considered beneath the notice of the Delta Zetas. At the same time, most red-blooded women couldn’t help but admire the rock-hard physiques and protective attitudes of those criminal-justice boys.
Cade had never lacked for female admirers.
Which brought up another possibility—that he’d come to visit one of the beauty queens. But they were recent graduates, and Cade hadn’t been in Athens for nine years, as far as Brynn knew.
Before she had time to reflect on other possibilities, Cade pinned his opponent’s arm to the table. Cheers erupted from the beauty queens, who congratulated him as if he’d made the winning touchdown at a championship game. His defeated opponent flushed, laughed and mumbled something about tennis elbow.
“My turn to take him on,” another Kappa Alpha announced, nudging his frat brother out of the chair. “And this time, use your right arm, buddy. I’ll put you down, anyway.”
Brynn realized that Cade had been using his non-dominant arm, probably as a handicap against the age difference. Interesting. In arm-wrestling, he actually had scruples.
But he had no business being at her high tea.
It was time to assert her authority. “Excuse me.” She shouldered her way through the Kappa Alphas, who were hunkering around the table for the next match, while the girls fluttered and cooed around Cade, expressing their faith in his endurance. “I hate to interrupt the action, but…”
Cade’s attention swung to her then. Her breath halted. Her stomach dropped. She’d forgotten how powerful his gaze could be. She felt as if he’d physically grabbed her and lifted her high into the air. She actually experienced the heady rush of vertigo.
Coming to her senses, she shook it off, and reminded herself who he was and what he’d done. It had been years since she’d confronted him in anything but her fantasies. Oh, how she’d torn into him then! And how she longed to do that now. She couldn’t, of course. She had to think of her guests, and the harmonious spirit she intended to promote.
Restraining herself, she said in an admirably civilized tone, “I’m afraid this function is for registered guests of the inn only.”
Cade confused the issue immediately by smiling at her as if he were mildly pleased to see her. Only mildly, mind you. But that was enough to distract her, to kick her pulse into high gear. “Hello, there. You remember me, don’t you? From UGA. Cade Hunter.” He extended a hand to her—a smooth, practiced move that she automatically responded to. His grip was firm, warm and dry—and the fit of his palm against hers was utterly perfect. Immediately intimate. Frighteningly familiar. “You’re…Brenda, right?”
Brenda. Brenda!
Brynn pulled her hand back from his and stared at him. He’d forgotten her name. All these years, she’d been harboring fantasies of whittling him down to size with her sharp wit and icy demeanor, while he hadn’t given her a thought.
“Brynn,” corrected Mrs. Hornsby in her gruff, cantankerous voice from somewhere behind her. “Her name’s Brynn.”
“Brynn,” Cade repeated. “That’s right. Sorry. I’m terrible with names. How’ve you been?”
Delusional, it seemed. She’d been sure he would never forget her. How dared he forget her? “This gathering is for registered guests only, Mr…Hunt, did you say?”
“Hunter.” His smile didn’t waver as he reached into the pocket of his tight jeans, pulled out a room key and held it up for her inspection. “And I am a registered guest.”
Stunned for the second time in mere moments, Brynn stared at his room key in horror. Registered! He’d registered as a guest? He would be staying here, under her roof? And in the Dogwood Room, according to his key. Two doors down from her suite. No!
“For the whole weekend?” She forgot to even try hiding her dismay.
“Not the weekend.” Before she could breathe a sigh of relief that he’d only be here for the night, he added, “I’ll be staying a couple of weeks. Maybe three, depending on my schedule.”
