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Yep, fantasy was much better than reality.
“YOU NEED A DATE FOR YOUR sister’s wedding, Carolyn, and so does Evan. I don’t understand the problem.”
No, of course her mother wouldn’t. Carly bit her tongue. For the millionth time that day, she wished she was still getting her stress-relief from a ride on a wave. Catching a sick double-overhead, especially, and riding through to the crest would’ve been the perfect remedy for this situation. But she knew she’d been lucky to have avoided her sister’s wedding hoopla for this long. The day was imminent now, and it was only a matter of time before her command performance as Carolyn Winters, society maven-to-be.
As if the lime-green bridesmaid’s dress wasn’t humiliation enough. And she couldn’t bear to think about the ridiculous hairstyle she’d have to endure on Nicole’s behalf. She’d heard rumors about mini-tiaras, and she hadn’t had the heart to investigate it any further.
“Evan’s not my type,” Carly said.
“But he likes you,” her father pointed out.
For your money, she thought. For me, all by my lonesome, not so much.
“He’s not going to be my date for Nicole’s wedding.” It came out louder than intended. Across the table, her father winced and her mother shook her head with impatience, and Carly was glad they’d chosen to eat in at her house, rather than make a public spectacle of themselves.
She’d fallen in love with the old place the second she’d laid eyes on it, despite the real estate agent’s pleas to forget about it and find something newer. Hurricane-proof was the exact term she’d used. But the small Mediterranean had a charm, a grace one didn’t find easily in a house for sale in this part of Florida anymore. The area was rife with McMansions and ranch houses. It had become her safe haven, close enough to the ocean for her to know it was there, but not too close to cause her concern. Until today’s fiasco.
“Will you please talk to her?” her mother said to her father while waving a perfectly French-manicured hand in the air.
Everything about her mother was perfect. Shelia Winters was still beautiful, still resembled that young woman who’d won the Miss Florida pageant when she was eighteen and caught the eye of the very wealthy Carl Winters III. Today, her mother’s light blue linen suit set off her blue eyes. Her skin seemed untouched by the sun. How someone lived in Florida and managed not to get a tan had always been a mystery to Carly, who only had to think about sun before her skin turned golden brown.
Her mother was already investigating dermabrasion and face lifts for her daughter.
“I’m still in the room,” Carly reminded them, dishing herself another helping of the complicated Shrimp Risotto she’d ordered from the gourmet restaurant in town. Cooking had never been her forte, and she’d lived in and out of hotel rooms and rental houses so often that she’d never had the time nor the inclination to learn to cook.
“Honestly, she’s impossible.” Her mother ran a hand over her own blond hair pulled back in a chic twist.
Carly ran a hand through her mess of blond locks that tumbled loosely around her shoulders. As far from a beauty queen as you could get. Thank goodness her sister had taken on that role willingly, or Carly’s teen years would’ve truly been a nightmare.
“I don’t understand the problem, Carolyn,” her father said. He was a good match for her mother, still handsome with streaks of silver feathering his dark hair. “You two always enjoyed being together.”
“When we were twelve. And it was more of a forced being together, since we were the only two kids of the same age on the yacht,” she pointed out.
“We’ve always talked about the two of you becoming a couple, honey,” her mother tried again in her best I’m-trying-to-be-patient-with-you voice. “It seems so right. You’re single, he’s single…”
Carly sighed, fighting the urge to lie on the floor in the middle of her kitchen and throw a good, old-fashioned temper tantrum. She was a mature, independent and successful woman who happened to be single, but she felt anything but mature right now. Her parents’ nagging about dating always seemed to bring out the worst in her, and she’d promised herself their comments wouldn’t get to her tonight.
A pairing between Carly and Evan Tremont III was always the family joke, since their parents were best friends. She’d run into Evan maybe three times over the past five years, and none of those events had been memorable. Obviously, both families thought that attending a wedding together might spark some ideas. Evan had no problem with this theory, and no backbone, either, since he’d sent her an e-mail offering to be her date. He’d apologized for being out of the country and unable to ask her in person, but knew they’d have a nice time.
A nice time. Not a great time, an awesome time, a killer-wicked time, not even a good time, but a nice time.
Ultra-formal, ultra-stuffy and ultra-boring. Carly could not live her life like that at all. Evan needed a healthy dose of Candy Valentine and then some.
Evan would’ve been perfect for Nicole, but her sister always managed to find her own suitably wealthy men their parents approved of. The man she was set to marry in two weeks’ time was no exception.
“We’re only trying to help, honey. It’s been a long time since we’ve heard about you dating anyone,” her mother spoke up.
“I go on dates,” Carly insisted. “I didn’t realize I had to file a report every time I went out with someone.”
She’d had exactly two dates since she’d been back. One was a double date with Samantha and Joe and one of Joe’s friends, an experience she’d never repeat. The other was a blind date, the son of someone she knew from the magazine. A total and complete disaster. She’d find her own dates from now on.
“We think you need to start doing something serious with your life, some settling down,” her mother continued.
“I was doing something serious. I had a career, remember?”
Her mother rolled her eyes as though she’d sooner forget and her father patted her hand. “Yes, sweetie, but it was time for you to give that up. There’s important charity work for you to do in the family’s name. People are counting on you.”
Inwardly she cringed at the thought of her entire career being so easily dismissed even though she should be used to it by now. Besides, in surfing, you were only as good as your last ride.
“And I spoke to a plastic surgeon. He said he could remove that with no problem.” Her mother pointed to the small tattoo of a shark Carly had on her right ankle as though it were a disease spreading over her daughter’s body. “I’m sure he could do something about those, too.” This time, her mother pointed to the constant reminders of the accident on Carly’s thigh and knee, then waved her hand around, as though making it all disappear.
“I’m not seeing a plastic surgeon. The scars stay. And so does the tattoo.” She didn’t bother to use the plural. Her mother would never find out about the other one, anyway.
“She’s always been so stubborn, Carl.” Her mother shook her head and her father sighed.
“Maybe if you gave Evan another chance,” her father began. “Nicole doesn’t want you dateless at her wedding.”
In actuality, she didn’t give a flying crap what her perfect younger sister, and former Miss Florida, wanted, but Carly’s next words came as much of a surprise to her as they did to her parents. “I’m already seeing someone.”
The declaration stopped her parents short and Carly gave herself a mental pat on the back. The technique that had proven successful in several top-grossing movies was obviously as effective in real life.
Time to watch those films again to figure out exactly how these women found their made-up boyfriends.
“You said you were dating, but you didn’t mention anyone serious, Carolyn. Why haven’t we met this mystery man?” her mother asked.
She’d been thinking the same thing. “He’s been away. Traveling. I was going to introduce you at the wedding.” The overactive imagination was good for a lot of things, including making up men in her life. And the traveling excuse came naturally, since she’d done it often for her own career. Why hadn’t she thought of this before?
“Why not bring him to the rehearsal dinner?” her mother asked.
Yes. That was why.
“Or, better yet, the party we’re throwing this weekend?” her father suggested.
Sure. She’d get right on that magic voodoo doll and conjure herself up a man. At least, her parents had stopped mentioning Evan.
The phone rang, saving her momentarily.
Sam’s number flashed on the cell phone’s screen. “Hey,” Carly whispered, “parents are here.” She leaned her back against the cool, white stucco wall in her front hallway.
“Is it as bad as we thought?”
“Worse. Remind me to tell you about the trouble I’ve created for myself.” She heard her parents move into the living room and she made a dash into the now deserted kitchen to start the strong coffee she knew she was going to need.
Sam groaned. “With your imagination, I can only imagine. And I don’t mean to bug you, but Joe’s coming over tonight and I really wanted to give him that letter.”
“It should be easy for you to finish it off. Didn’t you like what I wrote?” Carly asked as she crumbled coconut onto the white icing of the cake she’d baked earlier from a box mix. Coconut therapy, she’d joked to herself when she’d made it, and she’d used an extra thick layer of frosting to hide the lopsidedness.
“I’m sure I will, once you send it.”
A slight chill went through her at Sam’s words. “I sent it hours ago. It went through, because I got the confirmation.”
“It didn’t come through here,” Samantha said quickly. “Can you resend it?”
Resending it was not the most immediate problem. That fax contained some erotic stuff, and whoever got it would most certainly be in for a thrill.
“Sam,” Carly said, trying to swallow her panic. “If you didn’t get the fax, then who did?”
“Maybe it didn’t go through and you only thought it did,” Sam tried to reassure her, as she forgot her parents and headed to her office, taking the stairs two at a time.
She pulled the fax confirmation out of the recycling bin where she’d tossed it earlier. She scanned for the number and read it out loud, number by number until…
“I reversed the last two numbers and somehow I added a dash,” she said. Oh crap. And then she saw the initials underneath the confirmation. USN. “What the heck does USN stand for?”
“I don’t know what it stands for, but I’m sure whoever gets it will just ignore it.”
This certainly made finding a man a little less intense, but at least she’d signed Candy’s name as a joke and not her own. She hadn’t used a cover letter, either.
Whoever got it wasn’t going to know it was her personal secret fantasy. “I hope so. And I’ll fax it to you again now, okay?” Carly snapped the cell phone shut and double- checked the fax number twice before pushing Send.
“Carolyn, someone’s at the door,” her mother called up the stairs.
“I’ve got it,” she called back. She crumpled up the confirmation paper and threw it back into the bin before heading down to the front door. She opened it without looking through the peephole.
Camouflage greeted her. A brick wall of camouflage, leaning against her doorjamb with a very serious look on his very good-looking face.
A face she had to look up to see, which, at her own height of five feet, ten inches, meant this man was much taller than that. He was well over six feet and filled out in all the right places.
The army-green T-shirt fit more than fine across his broad chest and shoulders and showed off his sculpted biceps. His dark blond hair was sun-bleached in places, fell across his forehead casually. She was close enough to notice the flecks of gold in his hazel eyes, and a primitive thrill coiled in her belly.
Maybe just thinking about the voodoo doll had worked, because this was more magic than she could’ve hoped for.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“Yes, you can.” His voice was husky and unhurried as he leaned in toward her, his arm still resting on the doorjamb. “You want to explain why you’re sending pornographic faxes to a United States Navy SEAL team?”
2
HUNT HADN’T BEEN SURE what to expect from someone named Candy Valentine, but the woman who’d answered the door looked genuinely surprised, which was a good sign. It meant the letter had been faxed by mistake, that she wasn’t some kind of SEAL groupie or, worse, hadn’t been trying to hack the system. In truth, the teams got letters like this one all the time, by mail. But when it came through a secure fax line, it had to be investigated, and he’d been the lucky one pulling office duty at the Mayport Military Base when the fax rolled through the nearest printer.
He was checking in regularly while on partial leave, and he’d never expected to find himself making the hour or so drive down the coast toward Daytona to investigate something like this.
I want you to start by running your tongue slowly around my ear….
Hooyah.
“Who are you?” she asked, keeping her voice low and giving a quick look over her shoulder.
She wasn’t home alone. Married, maybe?
“Lieutenant Jonathan Huntington, United States Navy,” he announced, letting his gaze drop to her hand. No ring and no tan line. “Did you send this fax?” He held the papers up, page one on top so she could read it.
She licked her bottom lip nervously, and then nodded.
Damn, she was sexy.
Let your hand drift down to my breasts….
He’d needed a frozen-cold shower before venturing to find the author. A cursory check through records told him that the owner of the fax line was a woman. He was relieved, but now…
Get down on your knees….
If a fantasy was going to turn him on this much, he sure as hell wanted it to be from someone who looked like her.
A beautiful woman. A woman with tousled blond curls and deep brown eyes and a lithe, athletic-looking body, showcased in a pair of shorts and a tank top.
Spread my thighs….
She had the longest legs he’d ever seen, tanned and slim and finely muscled, and if he wasn’t mistaken there was a shark tattoo on her left ankle.
Make me lose control.
You have been OUTCONUS for too long, Hunt—out of the country and out of the bedroom. This was a hell of a welcome home. It was time for some much needed R & R, and he wondered what this Candy Valentine was up to.
A list of names had been faxed along with the fantasy, some of which read like a who’s who of Florida society. He’d grown up in the area, close enough to know the wealthy by name but not close enough for any of it to rub off on him. And there was an expensive, top-of-the-line Mercedes convertible in her driveway.
Was it possible she was some kind of high-priced call girl?
“This is an extremely serious offense.” He continued to play the hard ass, although now his curiosity was more than piqued. Especially because of the thin, healing scars running vertically along her right thigh and knee. “The military doesn’t look kindly on solicitations of this kind.”
But this letter sure as hell does it for me.
“It…this…wasn’t supposed to be,” she stuttered, and then she stopped and gained her composure. “I’m sorry about the mistake. This was supposed to go to a friend and I obviously faxed it to the wrong number. I apologize for the inconvenience.”
“A male friend?”
“Excuse me?”
“You said it was supposed to go to a friend….”
“Oh. No. It was for a female friend.” Her blush was visible through her tan, and she shifted from one bare foot to the other as she crossed her arms. “It’s not what you think.”
“I’m thinking a lot of things right now,” he said.
“I don’t see how the specifics are any of your business. I’ll take those back and you can be on your way.” She reached out for the papers but he pulled them away.
“No can do. It’s official government property.”
“What does the government want with something like that?”
