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He ran toward the cab, shouting her name, but the wind caught his words and blew them right back at him. The cab pulled away from the curb.
He spun around and ran to another cab, leaped inside, slammed the door and pointed madly. “Follow that cab!”
The driver, a gray-haired guy who seemed to be moving in slow motion, looked at him as if he was out of his mind.
“I know,” Jack said impatiently. “Cliché. Just do it anyway, will you?”
The man shook his head and hit the gas, accelerating quickly to keep the cab ahead of them in sight. It was no small task, since its driver seemed hell-bent on setting a new land speed record.
“Stay with him,” Jack said.
“Lots of traffic. I’ll give it a shot.”
By going five miles over the speed limit, the driver managed to stay just one car behind the other cab. And the whole time, Jack was consumed by thoughts of the day he’d met Rachel and the incredible hours they’d spent together.
That afternoon he’d gone by the Alamo in downtown San Antonio, partly because he had a little time to kill, and partly because it was one of his favorite places. She’d been out by the well behind the chapel, one of the only buildings in the Alamo complex left standing. He was first struck by her beauty, but it didn’t take long for him to discover that much more lay beneath her surface. After only a few minutes of conversation, he realized she knew more about the Alamo than he did, and that was saying a lot.
After spending a good two hours talking about nineteenth-century history, Jack had been positively entranced. Later they’d had dinner together, then strolled along the Riverwalk. And then they’d done something that was impulsive even for him.
As evening turned to dusk, their walk took them past the old Stonebriar Hotel. He didn’t know who made the first move toward it, but looking back, their thoughts had been so in tune that he imagined they must have done it together. Within minutes they’d checked in. He’d barely waited until they’d gotten into the elevator before he kissed her, and it was all they could do to get down the hall to their room before they came together in a fiery sexual encounter that made every other experience he’d ever had with a woman pale by comparison.
Then he’d awakened the next morning to find her gone. No note, no phone message, no nothing. And he realized that while they’d talked endlessly about history, she’d sidestepped more personal conversation, leaving him with only three pieces of information about her: Her name was Rachel, she was from out of town and she was an architect. And that was it. And from that day forward, he’d fervently hoped that somehow, someway, someday, their paths would cross again. How could he have known it would be a thousand miles away in Denver, Colorado?
All at once, the cab they were following accelerated, weaving hard to the right, then to the left, putting two more cars between them.
“You’re losing them!” Jack told the driver.
“The guy’s a maniac,” he muttered. “I’m doing the best I can.”
Jack yanked two twenties out of his wallet and held them up. “You need to do better.”
The driver had a sudden change of attitude and stomped the gas. “Hang on.”
With a little creative maneuvering of his own, Jack’s driver managed to gain on the cab ahead of them. Every muscle in Jack’s body was tense, every nerve ending alive. He had to catch up to her. He had to.
Then the light at the next intersection turned yellow. Jack’s driver slammed on the brake and brought their cab to a tire-squealing halt, while the other cab crossed the intersection and buzzed away.
“Damn!” Jack said, smacking the back of the seat with his fist. He couldn’t believe this. He couldn’t believe he’d come so close to finding her, only to lose her again. He slumped back against the seat, still cursing under his breath.
“Hey!” the driver said, “It’s stopping half a block up!”
Jack sat up again, hope surging through him. Looking down the street, he saw that the cab had pulled up next to the curb and the woman was getting out. Her straight dark hair swung across her shoulders as she bustled herself and her packages through the door of a high-rise bank building.
The light changed. Jack’s driver hit the gas, and a moment later he pulled up to the curb in front of the building into which she’d disappeared. Jack tossed him money, then leaped out of the cab and raced into the building. Scanning the lobby, he spotted her standing in a crowd near the elevators.
As he sprinted toward her, a set of elevator doors opened and she got on. The crowd followed her, leaving just as big a crowd behind waiting for the next elevator. He pushed his way through the people with as much civility as he could given his desperation, getting dirty looks left and right. But he had to catch that elevator.
The doors were closing.
“Rachel!” he shouted.
He reached over the shoulder of a man in front of him and tried to wedge his hand between the doors.
“Hey, buddy!” the guy said. “Back off! The elevator’s full!”
The doors closed, and the elevator began its ascent. Another came, and the people turned and hurried toward it, leaving Jack standing there alone, cursing his luck. Or lack of luck. This was a forty-story building, and thousands of people worked here. How would he ever find her?
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed. In a moment he had the manager of the Fairfax Hotel on the line and told him something had come up and he’d have to reschedule his tour for later in the day. The man sounded a little annoyed, but Jack couldn’t have cared less.
Then, as he stuffed the phone back into his pocket, he remembered that he did have one piece of information about Rachel. If she’d been telling him the truth about her profession, she was an architect.
He strode back through the lobby, found the building management office, and a few minutes later he got what he was after: the names and addresses of five architectural firms housed within the building.
He returned to the elevators, his body humming with anticipation, images of Rachel swirling through his mind. She was beautiful, but the world was full of beautiful women, and his attraction to her had gone way beyond that. Even though their time together could have been counted in hours, for maybe the first time in his life he’d been thinking about the possibility of making a relationship permanent.
He’d find her. One way or the other, before this day was out, he’d find her. And if he had his way, he’d have her back in his arms again.
2
RACHEL WESTOVER GOT OUT of the elevator on the thirty-eighth floor, then turned and backed through the glass door of Davidson Design, dragging two large shopping bags along with her. If this day got any worse, she wouldn’t be able to stand it.
She’d realized this morning as she was leaving for work that she really could use a couple of new sweaters and a few other things if she intended to go to a ski resort for the next four days. So she’d ventured out for an early lunch hour, fought the crowds at both Ann Taylor and Express, stood in line next to a woman with a screaming baby, paid far too much for everything because she had no time to shop for a bargain, then took a cab back to her office driven by a guy who didn’t know the meaning of the word brake.
But at least now she was ready for the retreat. Four days of skiing in Silver Springs, courtesy of the big boss, Walter Davidson. The man liked to promote a “one big, happy family” feeling among his employees, and occasional employee/spouse retreats were his way of making that happen. Rachel had never been very comfortable in social situations, particularly those which she was forced to attend, so she wasn’t looking forward to this one. Unfortunately, turning down such a generous invitation would make her look ungrateful. And with the new project manager position opening up, she definitely didn’t want to appear that way.
The receptionist, Megan Rice, an animated little redhead with big brown eyes, peered over her desk.
“Hey, Rachel. Have fun shopping?”
“Not in the least.”
“Aw, come on. It’s always fun to spend money.”
Not for Rachel. Saving money was fun. Spending it was painful.
The phone trilled. Megan punched a button on her console, answered it, then routed it with another touch of her fingertip. Most companies had done away with call-routing receptionists and gone to voice mail. But Walter Davidson insisted on maintaining the personal touch, and Megan manned the central nervous system of Davidson Design with astonishing proficiency. She greeted visitors, did overflow word processing and generally took up slack wherever she found it. But despite her obvious competence, there was something about her that had always made Rachel feel just a touch uneasy.
Maybe it was the barbed wire tattoo on her upper arm that occasionally peeked out from under her sleeve. Maybe it was the glint in her eyes that said she always knew way more than she was saying. Maybe it was the phone calls she made sometimes to somebody named “Blade.” But for one reason or another, Rachel had come to suspect the truth: lurking behind those big brown eyes was the heart of a hell-raiser.
And now the hell-raiser was smiling at her.
Under normal circumstances, Megan’s smile was just a smile. But today was Rachel’s birthday. Megan was the self-appointed celebrant of all birthdays on the premises, and she accomplished that duty in ways that struck fear in Rachel’s heart. Rachel hated people making a fuss over her. But when it came to birthdays, Megan went beyond fuss and edged right into human torture.
A bouquet of black balloons.
Candles that wouldn’t blow out.
A six-foot rabbit belting out a singing telegram.
A T-shirt that read, I’m Not Old, I’m Chronologically Challenged.
“Any messages for me?” Rachel asked.
“No,” Megan said with a smile. “But I have something for you.”
Oh, no.
Rachel glanced quickly over one shoulder, then the other. She saw nothing suspicious, but that didn’t mean a thing. It could come from anywhere at any time, so she had to stay on her toes.
“Please, Megan,” she said. “I know it’s my birthday, but—”
“Hey, calm down, will you? It’s no big deal.”
That hardly made Rachel feel better. Megan thought a dancing chimpanzee was no big deal.
“Please,” she said imploringly. “Just tell me…” She took a deep, calming breath and let it out slowly. “Just tell me it’s not a stripper.”
Megan looked horrified. “You’re kidding, right? A stripper? Would I do something like that?”
The answer was an unqualified yes. A stripper. A guy with a boom box and a G-string beneath his tearaway pants, ready to bump and grind his way through a routine that would make Madonna die of embarrassment. Everyone would come out of their offices to watch the show, and she’d have to tolerate it or look like a bad sport.
That Walter allowed such behavior amazed Rachel. But it was just one more expression of his core ideology: the employees who played together stayed together, and if a few practical jokes masquerading as birthday surprises enhanced that mood, he was all for it.
Rachel sighed inwardly. What had happened to workplaces where people were stuffy and uptight and gave out birthday cards with rhyming verses that weren’t dirty limericks?
Then Megan reached for something underneath her desk, and Rachel braced herself.
“Here you go,” Megan said, and set a cupcake on the counter. Rachel held her breath, eyeing it warily. A cup-cake? Surely there was more to it than that.
“Lighten up, will you?” Megan said. “It’s way too small for a stripper to jump out of.”
True.
Rachel let out the breath she’d been holding. Well. That wasn’t so bad. A nice, conservative cupcake topped with white frosting and a single pink candle. That she could deal with.
“I know you said you didn’t even want a cake,” Megan said, “but everybody needs a cake on their birthday. Even if it’s a little one.”
“Well…thank you, Megan. I appreciate that.”
Megan motioned to the end of the reception desk. “And those roses are for you, too. They came while you were out to lunch. Aren’t they something?”
Ah. The flowers. They’d arrived. And they were something, all right. Just the kind of flowers sent by a man crazy in love with his wife.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Jack is very sweet. I’ve told him time and time again that flowers are a silly waste of money, but he won’t listen.”
“Too bad he couldn’t make it back to town for your birthday.”
“He tried to catch a flight out, but he couldn’t. It’s along way from South America, you know, and the access is pretty bad. He has to take a flight whenever he can get one.”
Megan rested her chin on her hand. “Wow. It must really be tough to have your husband gone all the time.”
Rachel let out a theatrical sigh. “I do miss him.”
“Easy to see why,” Megan said with a smile. “He’s gorgeous. Well, his picture is, anyway. Are we ever going to get to meet him?”
“Sure. Someday soon. I promise.”
Actually, the real answer to that question was Not in a million years. But Megan didn’t know that. Neither did anyone else at Davidson Design. And they never would.
Megan flicked a lighter and lit the candle on the cupcake. “Go ahead. Make a wish.”
That was easy. Rachel closed her eyes, then blew out the candle.
Megan leaned in close and whispered, “You wished for the promotion, didn’t you?”
Of course she had, but she didn’t particularly like Megan pointing it out.
Ever since her firm had won the bid to design a glitzy new hotel in Reno, she’d been evaluating her chances to become project manager. Her only real competition was Phil Wardman, a man with far less experience and technical ability than she had. But he had something she didn’t. Phil happened to be one of those backslapping, buddy-buddy kind of guys that Walter Davidson just loved. They talked sports, sometimes even played golf together, and more than once Rachel had seen them going out to lunch. Personally all that familiarity made her uncomfortable. After all, what did any of that stuff have to do with a person’s ability to do a job?
Over the next four days at the ski resort, she hoped to tip the scales in her favor, finding subtle ways to suggest to Walter that she really was the best candidate. In the end, she had to trust that any sane person would promote someone with qualifications over someone with schmoozability.
“Actually,” Rachel told Megan, “I wished for my husband to make it home in time to come on the retreat with me.” She sighed again. “But I’m afraid that’s not going to happen.”
“Maybe next time.” Megan punched a button to answer a call, staring pointedly at Rachel. “And then we’d actually get to meet him.”
Rachel smiled indulgently, then, gathering up her shopping bags, the flowers and the cupcake, went into her office. She deposited the bags on the floor and placed the roses on her desk—one dozen American Beauty roses that had cost way more than she ever should have spent. But they were exactly what her sweet, loving husband would have sent her.
Her sweet, loving, imaginary husband.
Rachel sat down in her chair and traced her finger over the wedding ring on her left hand, which contained a stone just big enough to be impressive, but small enough not to be ostentatious. They could do wonders with cubic zirconia these days. Unless somebody pried it off her finger and held it under a jeweler’s loupe, nobody would ever suspect that it wasn’t a real diamond.
And then there was the photograph, the one she and Jack had asked a passerby to take of the two of them on the Riverwalk in San Antonio. She’d had the photo enlarged, framed it and placed it on her credenza. And because she’d created just the right profession for Jack that explained why he was rarely in town, nobody got suspicious as to why they’d never met him.
The ring, the photo, and a flower delivery every once in a while—that was all it had taken for everyone here to believe that she was actually married.
Okay, so it was a little deceptive. But the moment she’d heard of the job opening at Davidson Design six months ago, she’d wanted it desperately. A small firm with a hot reputation—what better place to make her mark? Then she’d gotten word through the grapevine that Walter Davidson had a strong preference for married job candidates, a qualification that was a little difficult to acquire on short notice.
So she’d faked it.
In the end, she’d gotten a job she loved, and Walter Davidson had gotten a talented, dedicated architect, who was going to help him put his small but growing firm on the map. Nobody was hurt. Her plan had worked perfectly.
She sighed. Okay. There was one tiny little glitch. She’d underestimated the way she would feel every time she looked at that photograph.
She turned slowly and stared at it, playing back in her mind the one night she and Jack had spent together. She remembered every moment of it—every kiss, every touch, every whispered word in the dark. He’d made her feel as if she were somebody else entirely—a hot, wanton, reckless woman who never met a sexual position she didn’t like, a woman who would throw modesty and respectability and good behavior to the four winds and engage in a hedonistic sexfest that would have made a Roman emperor blush.
And it had scared the hell out of her.
She remembered with painful clarity how she’d felt when she woke before dawn and realized what she’d done. Fortunately she’d had the good sense to walk out of that hotel and leave temptation behind. Just thinking about that night made her cheeks flush with embarrassment. What kind of woman has wild, breathless sex with a man she doesn’t even know? Repeatedly?
