Hooked (5 page)

She must have not heard him correctly before. Any man with feet like these wouldn't say “criminy sakes alive.”

“Thanks,” Mr. Wonderful said as a jingle of change exchanged hands.

She couldn't possibly be so lucky Delbert would leave without giving his full routine. Not him.

“Sir, allow me to show you the features of this room.”

Meg's forehead lowered and bumped quietly on the floorboards. Nope. No luck for her.

“This is one of our better rooms. You'll notice the bed is quite comfortable, it being of the iron brass frame variety rather than solid oak, which can tend to warp.” Delbert walked on. His shoes were buffered
by the large rug in front of the mantel. “We keep wood for the fireplace year-round in case of a cold spell. With this being late March, one can never tell. The temperature drops quite considerably at night.”

“I'll remember that. Thank you for telling me.” Bare feet walked by the bed and toward the door once more. “If I need anything else, I'll call on the front desk.”

“But, I haven't shown you the bathroom features. Modern plumbing—just a year old. I can see you've tried out our shower bath. Was it acceptable?”

“Dandy.”

Meg held onto a frown.
Dandy?

She just couldn't put that vocabulary together with the looks and sound of the man. But then again, the men of Harmony had trouble putting charm and culture together with her.

Thuds sounded as the porter went to the bathroom, undaunted by the man's dismissal. Delbert Long was never put off. “This way, sir, and I'll demonstrate in case you overlooked anything.”

The man must have sensed Delbert wouldn't leave until finished, so he went with him. Hot and cold water faucets turned on and off. Then the shower curtain slid on its hooks. The opening and closing of the cabinet. A flush from the toilet, or as her mother would say, the necessary.

At last, they exited the bathroom.

Meg turned her face to see if she could find a snippet of the porter's shoes. As she did so, she practically choked on a bouncing puff of linen fuzz. Her sneeze came through her nose before she could stop it.

“What was that?” Delbert asked.

“I didn't hear anything.”

Meg held her breath as Delbert's shoes filled her view once more. She began inching her way farther back to the bed's headboard. As she did so, her upswept hair caught on a coil and tugged. She bit her lip hard to keep from crying out, but a small squeak escaped her.

“There it is again,” Delbert declared. “A sneeze before and now a yelp.”

“There's nothing of the kind.” The man walked Delbert to the door and opened it. “I'm sure you have other guests to see to. Thank you again.”

As Delbert wished him a pleasant stay, the door was closed midway through his oft-repeated sentence.

Meg didn't readily move. Her scalp throbbed where her hair had caught. If she could have, she would have lifted her arms to undo herself, but space didn't permit such a maneuver.

“You can come out now. He's gone.”

“Ah . . . yes, I know. But I can't.”

“What do you mean, you can't?”

“I've had a slight . . .” She couldn't finish.

“Let me guess.” He lowered again and stuck his head beneath the bed. She gave him her bewitching smile, the one she practiced in the mirror after brushing her teeth. Unfortunately it didn't have the affect on him she'd hoped. “You've had another accident.”

Frowning her disappointment that he didn't find her divinely captivating, she mumbled, “Yes, I did. My hair is stuck and I can't get out. You have to get me free. My hands won't reach the springs.”

She thought she heard him mutter an expletive as he stood. And it wasn't anything close to “criminy sakes alive.”

The towel fell on the floor in a clump, then more
shuffling inside bags until a pair of worsted trousers came into sight and first one leg then the other slipped into the dark blue trouser legs. He lowered himself to his knees again, then laid on his belly and crawled in toward her.

This close to him, and in such a confining space, the scent of his bathing soap filled the air.
El Soudan's
coconut oil. She'd know it anywhere. The traces smelled so good, she could almost taste him.

She got that giddy feeling again when he reached for her and his fingers tangled in her hair. Explosions of tingles ran down her spine when he sifted through the hair and pulled out pins in order to take down the high pile. Her gaze remained fixed on the floor until she mustered the nerve to look him in the eyes. When she did, her breath caught and, at the same time, his hand stilled. He looked right at her . . . as if he were going to . . .

She didn't know. She'd never seen that kind of fire in a man's eyes before when he gazed at her. That kind of passion and fire she read about but had never experienced. Could he tell she'd discovered paradise in his simple touch?

As he resumed his task, his knuckles brushed her cheek. On purpose? She dared to hope that he had. He was very gentle. A few more carefully orchestrated pulls that separated strands of hair, and she was free.

But neither of them moved. The moment seemed to be etched in time. She would never forget it. Whatever happened, she would always remember this as her first truly sensual encounter.

In his eyes, she saw a war of conflict as if, despite his best intentions, he wasn't thinking honorably. That she, Meg Brooks who had barely turned over a
new leaf, could make a man have dishonorable thoughts . . . well, all those hours in finishing school were paying off.

He brought his fingertip slowly down the curve of her cheek. Clearly no accident. She grew pleasantly flustered, liking the sensation.

“You can get out now. If you want,” he said in a deep whisper giving her the choice of staying. She couldn't possibly stay hidden beneath his bed; the complications were simply too wicked to think about.

“All right.”

With those two words from her, he nodded. Had there been a flicker of regret in his green eyes? He backed away and extended his hand. It was big and inviting.

First a little hesitant, she relented and laid her fingers in his. Smooth palm with no calluses. No sweating either.

His grip wasn't that of a loafer; she was acutely conscious of his impressive strength. She slid from under the bed, petticoat still balled in her fist. He assisted her to her feet. As he did so, her hair tumbled into her eyes, around her shoulders and down to her waist. She'd never liked the color. Copper. So . . . so vivid and . . . coppery. She stuck out like a sore thumb throughout school. Well, maybe not only herself. Crescencia Dufresne's hair was red-orange. Meg supposed copper was better. But not by much.

The man stared at the burnished red waves of hair surrounding her as she made a part in the thick curtain so she could see him in return. He gave her a look over but she couldn't tell what he thought of the copper-color. He probably thought it too much.

“Thank you. I have to go. But . . .” Now Meg had
her hair to contend with as well as the petticoat. She couldn't reappear in the lobby in the state she was in. She had to fix herself up before she left this room.

He reached for her and lifted her hand. She felt her pulse beat unevenly at the base of her throat. He pressed her hairpins into her palm, as well as the safety pin she must have dropped on the floor. Then in that husky voice of his, “Go into the bathroom and put yourself together.”

If he hadn't nudged her with a light push of her shoulders, she doubted she could have moved. She'd been transfixed by the play of light from the window that reflected in his eyes.

Once she snapped out of her trance, she strode into the bathroom and made short work out of repairing herself. In the process, she took in the items strewn on the floor. An expensive suit coat, vest, starched white shirt, trousers, and a twist of white drawers. In the corner by the bathtub lay a traveling case, its clasp not fastened. Barely discernable from the opening was the pearl-grip of a gun.

A gun
. A mix of fear and curiosity tattooed with Meg's heartbeat. Who
was
he?

With a parting glance in the mirror, she poked the last hairpin home and returned to the bedroom apartment once more.

The man had slipped into a shirt in her absence, although he hadn't buttoned it. A wedge of chest showed through the opening. That tantalizing glimpse of short and forbidden masculine hair.

She paused at the bed, stared at the mound of luggage and fishing gear, then picked up the key she'd tossed earlier. “Well,” she sighed taking short steps
to the door, “thank you for everything. I'm sorry for the inconvenience I caused you.”

He made no comment; merely stared, making a leisurely study of her lips, her eyes, her hair. He looked at her in a way he had no business doing, but his gaze held her still. Her skin grew very warm. It felt as if he were touching her without touching her.

Gun or no gun, she couldn't leave. Not yet. Not until she knew his name. She was utterly smitten by him.

“Well, thank you again Mr . . . . ah . . .?”

A heavy frown marked his forehead, as if he'd become quite annoyed about something. Then: “Wilberforce. Vernon Wilberforce.”

2

A
pricots.

Her burnished red hair color reminded Matthew Gage of a bowl of ripe apricots sitting on a tabletop with early morning sunshine pouring coppery hues over them.

Smiling blandly, he mentally chastised himself.
Gage, you horse's ass, you're turning as poetic as that slob, Phineas Wolf, who writes a corn column for
The Metropolis.

Meg Brooks was the first woman Gage had seen in a long time who interested him. And he'd had to introduce himself as Vernon Wilberforce. The image produced by the sound alone conjured up bedroom disappointment in a big way. Not that he was thinking about tangling the sheets with the pleasing-to-the-eyes Miss Brooks. In spite of her lost underwear, he didn't think she went around flinging her petticoat over headboards.

Even so, her standing before him with her hair cascading down to her waist had put ideas into his head.
Curls of copper hair contrasting against the soft white of a pillow. Thick lashes lowered for his lips to caress. Her figure was not voluptuous, but he hadn't judged her on what she lacked; it was what she had that captured his attention. The creamy-pale color of her skin. Slender wrists and fingers. Faintly rosy mouth.

The ideas that had formed in his head no doubt went against the grain of her morality. Still, there had been that undefinable moment, the pair of them beneath the bed, when she would have yielded him a kiss. Her heavy-lidded eyes had glittered as if she'd been moonstruck. Gage knew better than to start something that would never be finished; and yet, he'd had to touch her cheek to see if it was as soft as it looked.

She had been.

When he'd found Meg Brooks in his room, he'd been so distracted by brown eyes, a full mouth with a little definable bow to the upper lip, and a shapely set of black stocking-covered legs—he'd pitched his cover out the window.
Stupid.

Gazing down, Gage noted the few glistening strands of reddish-bronze hair still caught in his fingers. He took a step away from the bed, unwound the fine hair and set it on the bare desk.

“Christ almighty,” he muttered. Either he was growing sentimental or foolish. Both unnerved him.

Gage couldn't let a woman detract him from his story. He had a roll to play. He hadn't used his Professor Fophead vernacular in a long while. The stodgy old goat was appallingly prudish and talked like he'd been born a century ago. Actually, Gage couldn't take the credit for inventing the jack-a-dandy phrases. He'd based them on an editor he'd once worked for. Louis
Platt. A pantywaist of a man who'd asked his journalists to write slice of Americana stories. Gage had never caught on and left that newspaper for another.