Angel's Touch (3 page)

And this massage had started out so soothing.

Megan sighed. “If you must know, someone hit on me. It was no big deal.”

“Did you reply with good insult?”

“Come on, Svetlana, you know I would never do that.”

“I know. Always the professional. But wouldn’t it be fun?”

“I’d feel bad about it afterward. Besides, she was very respectful. She backed down right away.”

Svetlana kneaded the tight muscles in Megan’s forearms. “So, this respectful woman who hit on you, was she cute?”

“I didn’t notice,” Megan lied.

“Of course you didn’t. It is necessary to be professional.” Svetlana slid her hands down to Megan’s fingers and worked the kinks out. “As you say, it’s all blur. All…” She dragged the word out, matching the slow rhythm of her massage as her pitch fell mournfully. “All…forgotten blur.”

Megan relented. “She was kind of cute. Very intense.”

Svetlana broke into an I-told-you-so smile.

“Don’t get too excited,” Megan warned.

“Never.”

“Have you heard anything about the Starfish Hotel being sold?”

“Starfish? Yeah, some woman is to turn it into spa. Women-only. Kira something. She’s asking around, trying to hire idiot to run massage part.” Svetlana’s hands paused. “This is woman who hit on you?”

“Yeah.”

“Unfortunate, as you have sworn off tourists.”

“Being new in town doesn’t make her a tourist.”

“You call the evil Amelia a tourist, and she owns condo here.”

“I think I’ll be the judge of who my rule applies to.”

Svetlana put Megan’s hand down and grinned. “That cute, yes?”

“Oh, God,” Megan said, remembering how Kira’s eyes had drawn her in like a magnet. Well, let’s be honest. Much as it pained her to admit it, the first thing she noticed was not her eyes.

Normally she didn’t care one way or another what her clients’ bodies looked like. Large, thin, splotchy, whatever, she really didn’t notice. Besides, clients picked up on that sort of thing subconsciously, and the last thing she wanted to do was make someone uncomfortable. She had been massaging runners all day in that tent, and it was true what she’d said to Svetlana—they did all blur together, just one set of sore legs after another.

Kira’s she remembered. In a sea of great legs, Kira’s were lean and strong and painfully beautiful. She loved the way you could see the muscles clearly defined, like an anatomy textbook brought to life, and feel their shape under your hands.

Safer to forget she’d noticed.

Safer, but not easy—not with the way her baser instincts kept kicking in every time she thought of her. In all the time she’d been practicing massage, she’d never felt this unprofessional.

“It would be wrong,” Megan said. Maybe saying it out loud would help her convince herself.

“Probably,” Svetlana agreed.

Megan blew out a deep breath. “God.”

“You didn’t want to date tourist, anyway.”

“Yeah, thanks, that helps.”

“Then why you don’t trust yourself and go for it?”

Because her instincts weren’t trustworthy, that was why. Svetlana had no idea what it had felt like that day she’d passed what she thought was her destiny on the crowded boardwalk and walked right through the woman’s aura.

And recognized it.

She had turned back to see who it was. The source of that electricity had stopped to look in the window of a souvenir shop. It was the strangest feeling. She knew this stranger had meant something to her once.

Meant a lot.

The woman—Amelia—must have sensed Megan was staring at her, because she looked over her shoulder and straight at her.

And wasted no time getting her into bed.

“I thought I knew what I was doing when I picked Amelia,” Megan said. “I thought it was fate when I met her.”

“If you say so.” Svetlana stepped back from the table and stretched. “Time to trade. My turn for a massage.”

“So much for fate, huh?”

Svetlana shrugged her bafflement.

If fate ever brought her another familiar face, she’d run the other way.

***

“What do you think?” Kira asked her dad as she showed him around the dilapidated Starfish Hotel—her new baby.

He’d called earlier that morning to say he was driving out to Wilmington and planned to detour past Piper Beach to see how her latest project was coming along. Kind of like he used to do when she worked for him, except now, when he told her what she was doing wrong, she could ignore him.

Kira led him to the empty roof. It was only four stories up, but they were right at the edge of town, so that was high enough that you could look out over a protected stretch of wild dunes and see the ocean. She couldn’t wait to build a rooftop patio up here. “Isn’t this a great view?”

He took a few token steps toward the edge of the roof and stopped to mop the sweat from his forehead with a limp linen handkerchief. That’s what bandanas were for, in her opinion, but unlike her, he believed in executive attire—including a real handkerchief in his pocket—on the jobsite. Business suits only. He tried, anyway. Catch him first thing in the morning and his pinstripe suit was crisp and his tie tightly knotted, but by afternoon his collar was unbuttoned, his tie was loose, and his assistant was scampering in her three-inch do-me heels to locate where he’d misplaced his jacket.

“No view from the ground floor,” he complained. “You’re going to lose your shirt on this one.”

“You always say that.” Ever since she’d quit working for him and struck out on her own, starting businesses and selling them just like he’d taught her to, he’d been full of gloomy predictions of her financial ruin, none of which had come true.

“I was right about that restaurant,” he reminded her.

“I didn’t lose everything,” Kira protested, even though she almost had. She’d helped an aspiring chef open a restaurant in nearby Rehoboth, and ended up taking a big financial hit when the inexperienced chef’s cooking turned out to be less than popular. That was the last time she was messing around with a restaurant. Fortunately she’d managed to bail with enough money left to buy this bankrupt hotel and its not-quite-beachfront-yet-still-super-expensive land. Her second chance. She’d fallen in love with the property at first sight.

“You came close,” he countered. “How many times do I have to tell you not to use your own money on these projects? Put someone else’s money at risk. Find an investor.”

“And let that investor tell me what to do? No thanks.”

“They won’t force you to do anything that’s not in your best interests.”

“They won’t force me to do anything at all, because I’m not taking their money.” She knew her father sincerely believed he had her own best interests at heart. He just didn’t understand what her best interests
were.

“You always were stubborn,” he said.

“I don’t need their money.”

“Too stubborn for your own good.”

Kira narrowed her eyes at him. “Because women should be meek and do what you tell them to do?”

He raised his hands defensively. “Where do you come up with this stuff?” He shook his head. “I’m just telling you to get a backer.”

“I’m my own backer on this one, Dad.”

“This one and every one,” he grumbled.

Damn right. Kira admired the ocean view that was going to turn her financial future around. This project, unlike her last one, wouldn’t let her down.

The restaurant had been a mistake from the beginning, starting with her decision to join forces with the woman she was dating. At the very least, she should have noticed that her girlfriend knew nothing about running a business. Or that she saw Kira as a shortcut to becoming chef of her own restaurant so she could skip the part where she learned how to be a good one.

This project was different. No business partners, not this time. Someone to help her design the spa and later manage it, yes, but no one with a financial stake who would convince her to make decisions she wasn’t happy about.

“How much is this costing you?”

“It won’t be too expensive.” Kira refused to give him numbers, which would only serve as more ammunition. “Some of the rooms are in bad shape—the previous owners closed them off when something broke instead of fixing the problem—but a lot of it’s fine the way it is. I won’t need to gut the place.”

“So you get the retro vibe for free.” He looked the roof up and down, his gaze noticeably pausing to dwell on the boxy hulk of the rooftop air-conditioning units, no doubt estimating how many years they had left in them before they had to be replaced. With him, it was all about the condition of your assets, all about the numbers.

“Isn’t it great?” Kira said extra enthusiastically, hoping he’d get the hint that he should say something positive.

He eyed her in the same assessing way he’d looked at her rooftop machinery. “You put yourself and your money on the line, you can’t afford another loser.”

“No, I have a good feeling about this place. This one’s going to work out.” Let him be grumpy if he wanted to, but with the right renovations and a new business model, this hotel was going to be a success. “You’ll see.”

He shook his head. “I hope for your sake you’re right.”

***

Megan and Svetlana slowed to a touristy stroll as they approached the Starfish Hotel. It had been in bad shape for as long as Megan could remember, but you could tell it had once looked nice, with interesting architectural details under the weathered, peeling paint. Construction equipment and several Dumpsters sat in the parking lot out front. She wondered if the new owner was renovating or tearing it down. Like everywhere else, people were buying these old properties for the value of the land and ripping everything out, and the city council hadn’t gotten around to doing anything but grumble about it. If anyone ever did try to stop a project, they wouldn’t get any help from that quarter.

“Okay,” Megan told Svetlana. “We’ve seen it. Let’s go.” Megan was anxious to leave before anyone noticed them, so she could pretend she hadn’t purposely decided to walk down this street to check out this particular construction site.

Svetlana pointed to the side of the building, where Kira Wagner, dressed like a construction worker in blue jeans, a white long-sleeved shirt and a hard hat, was coming around from the back. “Is that her?”

Megan tugged on Svetlana’s arm. “She hasn’t recognized me yet. Let’s pretend we’re just walking by.”

“No, I think she sees you.”

Kira was running toward them now, and not in a half-assed bouncy way that might have indicated a shred of hesitation, but in a real, flat-out run. Like they didn’t see her and she wanted to catch them before they left.

She was beautiful when she ran. Fast and fluid and in total command of her body. What was it about some women, that they set off an internal alarm, making her heart race and her gut do…whatever it was doing…because she
knew
—she knew with absolute certainty that they played on her team. Even before Kira had attempted to ask her out, Megan’s body had known.

“Megan, wait!”

She slowed. There was no way out of this, was there?

“I think
I’ll
pretend I’m just walking by,” Svetlana said. “You stay here. And by the way, I don’t think ten minutes makes her a client.” Svetlana took off while Megan stood rooted to the sidewalk.

“No, wait.” Megan looked from Svetlana to Kira and back again. Svetlana couldn’t leave
now.

The traitor turned around but continued to walk away, backward now, wiggling her fingers in a mocking little wave goodbye.
“Do svidaniya
.”

She’d pay Svetlana back for this later. What happened to
You didn’t want to date tourists, anyway
? What happened to
It would be wrong
?Oh, wait—that was her line. But Svetlana had agreed with her, hadn’t she? Some friend.

“Megan.” Kira came to a stop. “I’m so glad you came by.” She wasn’t even breathing hard, and she’d been running in construction boots, powering through like they weighed nothing.

Megan glanced one more time at Svetlana’s rapidly retreating form. This would have been much less awkward if Svetlana hadn’t pulled a
do svidaniya
.

“Can I show you around?”

“Sure.” Megan smiled politely. She really had to learn how to say no.

Of course, it was her own fault for coming by this way in the first place. It was also her own fault that as she followed Kira up to the hotel, instead of paying attention to the construction site, she found herself scanning Kira’s posture. It was instinct—a habit she’d picked up in massage school. It was the first thing she did when a client walked into the room.

It was not at all the same as checking someone out.

It was a professional appraisal, that’s all it was. It meant noticing with her trained eye that Kira’s pelvis was tilted back, which meant her hamstrings would be tight under those formfitting jeans, and could be giving her back pain.

Her fingers itched to find out what was going on in that lanky, well-conditioned frame. Ten short minutes in the busy massage tent hadn’t been nearly enough time to search out her muscle imbalances. Athletes were always fun to work on. From a professional standpoint, of course. Megan hung back a step so she could get a better view.

Oh, crap. She squeezed her eyes shut, realizing what she was doing. She really was checking her out. She thrust her hands behind her back and clasped them tightly before they betrayed her. They seemed to have a mind of their own right now, and she knew what they wanted.

Contact.

With those muscles.

Not going to happen.

Kira tugged on the hotel’s front door and held it open for her. In the lobby, the carpeting had been pulled up, the wiring was sticking out and stacks of ceramic tile were piled up against one wall. Megan ventured down the hallway to their left and poked her head into one of the rooms. The beds and dressers had been removed, but it still looked like a hotel room. Maybe it was the hotel-like, floor-to-ceiling windows.

She sneezed hard from the dust. “Where’s the spa going to be?”

“You heard about that?”