Cinderella Search (2 page)

Blood gushed out of his nose, splashing across the white sheet and pillows.

“Let me go!” the voice demanded, muffled as if its owner had a mouthful of cloth, or had her head buried in a sack.

Steve blinked hard, his eyes flooded with stinging tears of pain. “Let you go? Are you nuts, or what?” To better control the legs, he wrapped one arm around the woman’s knees, pinning her lower legs against his shoulder. “I’m trying to help you, so hold still!” He gave a tug and felt her body descend.

Instinctively, wanting to make her descent as smooth as possible, he placed the flat of his hand under her buttocks as they emerged.

“Get your hand off my butt, you lecher!”

“Jeez!” He moved his hand down to her thigh. “You think I’m enjoying this?” He stared upwards at a round, lush bottom covered in nothing but a pair of hot-pink panties with a dainty row of lace around the legs. “In case you haven’t noticed,” he added, “You’re stuck in the middle of my ceiling, sweet-cheeks.”

“‘Sweet-cheeks?’” she repeated, her voice an indignant squawk. “Nobody calls anybody that anymore!”

Steve laughed. “They do if they’ve got the kind of view I have down here.”

“Oh!” Even that sounded like cussing. “You’re not even supposed to be there!” she said, renewing her futile struggles.

“Tell me about it.” He wiped his bloody nose on the back of his hand. “But if I’d gotten the cabin I wanted, you might still be in this predicament, honey, though I sure as hell wouldn’t. Now quit fighting me. Put your arms over your head. I’ll pull you the rest of the way through.”

“No way!” Her squirming renewed. “Push me up.” It sounded like an order, but a second later she added a reluctant “Please?”

“Be a whole lot easier to get you down. Gravity, you know.”

“If gravity was going to get me all the way down, it would have already done so when I fell,” she answered with what Steve had to admit was excellent logic. Not that he was about to tell her so. She still had his bloody, aching, undoubtedly swollen—maybe even broken—nose to pay for. He tugged at her waist, bending his legs. The bedsprings squealed almost as loudly as she did.

She wriggled those delicious, silky limbs against his bare shoulder and chest. Feeling only a bit guilty, he realized he was enjoying it more with each wiggle. Hell, he liked legs. He liked women. He especially liked women with legs like this one had.

Looking up again, he saw something crawling out from under the leg of her panties. He swatted it. “Ouch! Dammit, what was that for?” He stared at his empty hand, then at the bug still perched on her rear. “I think I just smashed your tattoo. Sorry, I thought it was a spider.”

She shuddered. “Perish the thought,” she muttered.

“Spiders are a problem, huh?” He could relate to that. Personally, he hated moths, as irrational as he knew it to be.

“Spiders are the problem.”

“Then let’s get you out of there.” As he planted his feet wide apart to steady his stance, he felt her lift away from him as if someone up in the attic was pulling her. Someone was. She was.

“Come on, honey,” he said. “Help me here, so I can help you. Make like an eel and let yourself slither.”

“I’m not an eel, I don’t slither, and I’m not your honey you … you … opportunist!”

That was distinctly unfair. “Well, you sure as hell aren’t a salmon, which is all this opportunist came here for,” he replied. “If you think catching an ungrateful—” He stopped, sucking in a couple of steadying breaths. She was stuck. She was scared and likely embarrassed. He wasn’t going to get anywhere with her if both of them were mad and hyperventilating.

Maybe if he got her to relax a little, he could get her out of this mess. Compliments. Women liked compliments. “If your top half lives up to your bottom half, maybe I’ll forget about fish. You might turn out to be the catch of the season.”

“Oh, sure, great, and I end up stuffed and mounted above the fireplace with a plaque under my belly?”

He laughed. “Works for me. You’re a good, firm specimen, anyway. Stuffed and properly mounted, you’d be in less danger of falling down.”

Suddenly, the word “mounted” not to mention “stuffed” took on entirely different connotations in his mind. As if she sensed that, she renewed her struggles and let loose a further string of curses. Tired of arguing, tired of trying to maintain his balance on the sagging mattress, he gave another tug on the woman’s legs and felt her come down a further two inches.

“Stop pulling and start pushing, Mac! That top half you’re so interested in is jammed up here and you’re about to rip off what I’m certain you’d consider the most important parts of it.”

Oh.

“All right, all right,” he said. “Up you go, then. But believe me, I want an explanation—sweet-cheeks.” Just barely, he resisted giving them another little pat for good measure.

Bending his knees, he wrapped his hands around her ankles and put her sandaled feet on his shoulders. With one hand on her bug, and the other splayed against the head of the bed for balance, he boosted her up through the hole.

Suddenly relieved of her weight, he staggered backwards on the too-soft mattress, fell off the bed and landed on the floor with his back against an oak highboy. His head smashed so hard into a drawer-pull that he saw stars. While recovering on the floor from his fall, he watched a trunk come hurtling onto his bed.

It popped open, spilling out some yellowed papers and old clothing that smelled of mothballs. Slowly, Steve got to his feet. Cautiously, he approached the bed. When he was sure nothing else would come tumbling down upon him, he shouted, “Hey, you okay up there?”

There wasn’t a sound. Even the wind and rain had died down. “Miss? Where are you?”

Still nothing. Not a hint of a sound. No sign of movement, no face appearing in the jagged hole overhead.

Well, hell! If it hadn’t been for his aching nose and skull he’d have thought he’d imagined her. Without taking his gaze off the ceiling, he backed into the adjoining bathroom. After soaking a washcloth in cold water, he cleaned the blood off his face and neck.

Before calling downstairs to the front desk—he could only hope there’d be someone on duty at this time of night—he tugged on his jeans and shook the plaster dust from his hair.

What the hell had Ken seen in this place? It had clearly gone downhill from the time his buddy had visited fifteen years before. For a nickel he’d leave. The weather had been lousy since his arrival on Wednesday, and now the place was collapsing around his ears. Wrestling a few fish into a boat simply wasn’t worth it.

In her fear and fury, Lissa all but flew down the service stairs that led from the attic to the storage room at the back of the office, and burst through the door to the reception area. Rosa stood behind the counter, ostensibly keeping an eye on the front entrance to the Madrona Inn.

“Dammit, Rosa,” she demanded, “I thought you were going to stall him? Tell him about my ghostly great-grandmother? Offer him a cinnamon roll or something?”

“Huh?” Rosa whirled around to gape at Lissa. “What happened to you?”

Lissa started brushing the plaster dust off her blouse, then smoothed down the cotton skirt that had been crumpled up under her armpits while she hung in midair. “Jackson’s in his room! A wolf spider pounced on my hand and scared me half to death. Then, if that wasn’t bad enough, I fell through the damn ceiling! I lost one of your sandals up there somewhere.”

“I’ve had those sandals since 1968!” Rosa wailed. “How could you lose one?”

“How could you let Jackson slip by you?”

“He didn’t! I swear he didn’t come in. I never even blinked my eyes. I couldn’t have missed him.”

“Then who do you suppose is in his room?” Lissa asked, but Rosa only shook her head, gnawing on her lower lip, her brows drawn tight over her small nose. “He must have come in before your dad and I got back,” Rosa said defensively, “though Gertie didn’t mention it.”

Gertie, the afternoon shift desk clerk probably wouldn’t have, Lissa knew. Gertie saw little and said less. “Did you ask her?”

“Well, no, but your dad came right over and I only stopped off at Reggie’s for the stuff. When we left the bar, Ginny was singing straight to Jackson. I can’t believe he’d walk out on that.”

Neither could Lissa. Ginny, her best friend since they’d both been six, had an enviable way with males that she’d begun practicing in the cradle and by now had perfected. Even as a child Lissa had been awed by Ginny’s captivating manner, and had long ago given up trying to match it. Men followed Ginny like lovesick puppies.

“Well, obviously, he did walk out on Ginny,” she said. “Or someone else is in his room.”

Of course, she had slipped into the kitchen for the carafe of coffee Jock, the dinner cook—and Ginny’s father—always left for her, but that had taken mere seconds! Still, she supposed that would have been long enough for Jackson to come in and go upstairs.

Oh, heavens! Had he heard her father tinkering up there? If so, had he thought anything of it? She grinned. Maybe he had. And maybe he’d thought it was a ghost. One could always hope …

“Now, who do you suppose that will be?” she asked rhetorically as the phone on the desk rang its two distinctive chirps, indicating a call from one of the guest rooms.

The phone chirp-chirped again. Lissa drew a deep breath, let it out slowly, then picked up the phone. “Front desk,” she said smoothly. “How may I help you?”

“A woman and a trunk just fell through my ceiling,” said a very irate male voice she had no difficulty recognizing.

A trunk? Had she knocked it through the hole in her scramble to grab the equipment and run? “I see,” she said, managing to keep her astonishment out of her tone. Make like you don’t believe him, she told herself.

“A woman and a drunk just fell through your ceiling. Are they two separate people, or one and the same?”

“Not a drunk, a trunk! Tango, Romeo, Uniform—”

She interrupted. “I get it. A trunk, not a drunk.” Oh, lordy, she had knocked it down! “And a woman. They, uh, fell through your ceiling?”

“Yes, dammit, and if you don’t believe me, there’s blood, plaster, and old clothing all over my bed as proof. I’d like the matter taken care of at once.”

Blood? Had she scraped her legs when she fell? She didn’t feel injured—except dignity-wise. “Yes, sir. Certainly, sir. What room did you say you were in?” Oh, you’re good, Lissa.

“I didn’t.” The words were chiseled in ice. “There’s no number on my door. I’m on the top floor.”

“Oh yes. That would be …” She hesitated, as if she had to check the register. “Mr. Jackson?”

In as soothing a tone of voice as she could muster, she added, “I’ll be right up to investigate the incident, sir.”

The receiver smashed down on the other end. Steve Jackson was definitely not impressed by the Madrona Inn, which was, of course, exactly what they’d been aiming for.

She winked at Rosa, who grinned in approval, apparently forgiving the loss of the sandal. Good, that was a relief. After all, Rosa was her de facto stepmother. Her dad and Rosa’s so-called clandestine affair, which they blithely and erroneously believed to be a secret in Madrona Cove, had been going on for years.

“Good, he’s ticked off.” Lissa laughed, gave Rosa a high five and kicked off the one remaining sandal. She shoved her feet into her own shoes, which would have been impossible for navigating the floor of the attic. Hauling up her skirt, she checked herself for scratches that might have bled. Nothing. Maybe he’d exaggerated to get faster action.

“Okay, here I go,” she said, satisfied she wasn’t marked with any evidence. “Desk clerk, chambermaid, and general apologist for the Madrona Inn’s dreadful deficiencies. Maybe Reggie’s masterpiece of Halloween horror won’t be necessary after all.”

Lissa checked herself in the mirror for telltale signs, saw streaks of plaster chalk on her green silk blouse and quickly shed it, glad of the T-shirt she wore under it. She put on her “apologist’s” face and mounted the main staircase to the third floor.

W
OW! SHE CAME CLOSE
to saying it aloud. Ginny’s rave description hadn’t prepared her for Steve Jackson. Nothing could have prepared her.

Six-foot-three if he was an inch, his tight, faded jeans riding low on lean hips, his broad chest bare except for a golden cloud of hair down its center … Lissa gulped. His shoulders nearly filled the doorway. Dark blond hair curled over his forehead, begging for a woman’s hand to brush it back.

She fought the urge to reach up, clenching her fists behind her while trying to look relaxed, professional, and concerned all at the same time.

The frosty glare faded from his blue eyes as his gaze swept over in clear, masculine appreciation and, she saw, speculation. He gave her a complete once-over—twice. From the top of her head, slowly down over her bosom, to her hips and legs, now mercifully hidden by fullness of her skirt. His gaze was so piercing Lissa felt as if he could see through the gathers of the fabric. She caught her breath and spoke.

“Mr. Jackson?” She held out her hand. “I’m Lissa Wilkins, night manager.” A minor promotion wouldn’t hurt her credibility and after all, she was in charge tonight.

He took her hand, wrapping his around it. His grip was firm and his fingers and palm so callused it was obvious he was accustomed to doing hard work. Would the older son of a hotel magnate work so hard at anything? Suddenly, she wanted with a terrible intensity for Steve Jackson not to be who they thought he was.

But he had to be. The laws of coincidence stretched only so far and no farther.

“Hello, Lissa,” he said, in a deep, husky voice that sent tingles down her spine. She gently pulled her hand free. Though they were at arm’s length, she still detected a whiff of a spicy aftershave or maybe shampoo, and a malty odor of beer. Everything about him—his mesmerizing blue eyes, his tall, lean, muscular body and that sexy voice, plus the sensations his hands had produced were sending her into sensory overload.

He stepped back three paces. Like a dinghy in tow, she followed him into the room. With difficulty, she forced her gaze from his eyes to the mess on his bed.