Fortune's Secret Daughter. Barbara McCauley

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      “If you’re asking if I have a jealous boyfriend—” she rooted through her underwear drawer “—the answer is no.”

      The fact was, she’d never even had a man in her bedroom before, unless she counted Lester, the seventy-year-old carpenter who’d replaced the window opposite the bed with a gothic leaded glass window she’d found from a demolished Orthodox Russian church in Sitka. And Keegan Bodine. He’d delivered and set up the cherrywood headboard she’d bought from Auntie M’s Antiques and Ammunition on Third and Main. Keegan was an outback guide in Twin Pines, thirty-two, single, good-looking. But he was just a friend. A good friend but nothing more.

      Alaska was full of men like Keegan. Rugged, healthy, robust men looking for a woman. One day Holly assumed she’d find the right one and settle down, but for now, she preferred to keep her relationships simple and she wasn’t looking for love. Not the one-night kind or the permanent kind. At this moment, she loved her life just as it was: busy and full and no complications.

      “What about you?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at him. Once again, the sight of his long body stretched out in her bed made her breath catch. She quickly looked away.

      “I definitely don’t have a boyfriend,” he said with a yawn. “Or any other entanglements, either.”

      She heard the heavy sound of his breathing and quietly crept toward the door. Entanglements. A strange, but appropriate word, she thought, and paused by the doorway to watch the steady rise and fall of his chest. Let herself wonder for just a moment what those honed muscles would feel like under her fingers, what that body would feel like—

      “Hey, Holly?”

      She jumped at the husky, sleep-heavy sound of his voice. Guilt warmed her cheeks.

      “He warned me you were difficult.” His words were slurred, barely intelligible. “He didn’t warn me you were so damn sexy.”

      He rolled away from her then and this time she was certain he was out.

      He warned me you were difficult?

      Who had warned him? Doc? Or maybe Quincy had said that to Guy when he’d called over to the garage and asked about his plane. But that didn’t really make sense, either, she thought, shaking her head. Maybe it was just the drugs and exhaustion talking and his comment was nothing more than gibberish.

      That was probably it, she decided as she quietly closed the bedroom door behind her. Difficult, my foot. She frowned. She wasn’t difficult. At least, not unreasonably.

      She paused, stared at the closed bedroom door.

      He didn’t warn me you were so damn sexy.

      Those words made her blood warm. More gibberish? she wondered. Or had he meant it?

      More than likely, he said that to all the women. And no doubt, with this man, there was a long line of swooning females.

      Sexy? Her?

      She looked at her jeans and boots, the turtleneck she wore. He certainly hadn’t been referring to her clothes. Her hair was a mess from her dive in the lake, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup. So what could he possibly think was sexy about her?

      She laughed at her own foolishness. The man had a head injury, for heaven’s sake. He was delirious. For all he knew, she could be Olive Oyl. And what did it matter anyway? He’d be gone in a few days after he recuperated, and since he wasn’t a regular with the company who normally flew in shipments, she’d probably never see him again.

      Shaking her head, she pushed all thoughts of Guy Blackwolf from her mind. She’d already lost nearly an entire day’s work. She was bone-tired, but she still had orders to fill and bills to pay. And if there was one thing she’d learned growing up, money sure as hell didn’t fall out of the sky.

      Guy dreamed of double-double hamburgers, hot, greasy French fries and rich, thick chocolate shakes with whipped cream and a big, fat cherry on top. He had the burger in one hand, the shake in the other. On a sigh, he bit into the juicy meat, but suddenly it turned to shredded cardboard in his mouth. He took a gulp of the shake, but that also had the consistency of powdery sawdust.

      He woke on a hoarse cough, felt a searing pain in his chest, then blinked hard and remembered where he was. In Holly Douglas’s bedroom.

      In her bed.

      When she found out who he really was and what he was doing here, no doubt he’d be sleeping on the street.

      Rising on an elbow, he reached for the glass of water on the bedstand. For the past two days, every time he’d awakened, there’d been a full glass there. He downed the water, then sank back onto the pillows. His chest burned and his head throbbed, but for the first time in two days, his mind was beginning to clear.

      He’d felt, more than actually seen her presence since he’d tumbled into her bed. A soft rustle, a quiet whisper. Once or twice, the cool touch of her fingers on his forehead. And even when she wasn’t in the room, he’d known that she’d been there by the faint smell of strawberries and wild mint, mixed with a scent that belonged to her alone.

      He’d slipped in and out of sleep, managed to muster up just enough strength to stumble back and forth to the bathroom on his own, but that was it. He’d given his body the rest that it had needed. But now, ready or not, he was getting out of bed.

      And, as the saying went, he was hungry enough to eat a bear.

      Since he probably smelled like a bear, though, he thought it best to tackle a shower before food. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, then dropped his bare feet onto the cool hardwood floor. When the room stopped moving, he rose, tugged on his jeans, grabbed the blue flannel shirt she’d given him to wear and made his way to the bathroom.

      Her blue-tiled shower was small, the nozzle too low for a man his height, but the water was hot and the pressure strong. The familiar scent of strawberries filled the bathroom—her shampoo, he realized, and couldn’t help himself from taking a whiff of the bottle sitting on the shower shelf. As much as he enjoyed the smell, he appreciated the unscented shampoo and fresh bar of green deodorant soap she’d left out for him on the sink countertop. A guy couldn’t very well go around smelling like strawberries, after all.

      He brushed his teeth, shaved, and except for the fact that every bone in his body ached, he nearly felt human again. Now the most pressing problem was the empty pit in his stomach.

      On his way to the kitchen, though, he spotted the phone on the table beside her sofa. He needed to call Flynn and give the man an update on the situation here, but hadn’t had an opportunity since he’d dumped his plane into the lake. With Holly gone, there was no better time than now.

      Guy glanced around the quiet apartment. His brain had been muddled when she’d brought him in here that first day, and he hadn’t gotten a good look at the place. The furnishings were simple, but comfortable, a blend of woodsy and feminine, old and new. There were several books on a shelf beside the fireplace. Mysteries, biographies and romance, plus a new Jonathan Kellerman he’d bought himself last week but hadn’t had time to read. There were also several children’s books, which he found curious. From what Flynn had told him, she’d never been married. Of course, that certainly didn’t preclude СКАЧАТЬ