The Trouble With Valentine's Day (2 page)

She didn't want to lose her desire for sex. She was too young. For just one night, she wished she could turn off the interrogator in her head and find the sexiest guy around, grab him by the front of his shirt, and lock lips. For just one night, she wished she were the type of woman who could gorge on wild sex with a man she'd never met and would never see again. His touch would burn her alive, and she'd forget about everything but his mouth on hers. She'd take him to her hotel room, or perhaps they wouldn't even make it to the room and they'd have to do it in the elevator, or a service closet, or maybe she'd do him in the stairwell.

Kate took a drink and turned her attention to the good-looking bartender. He stood at the end of the bar laughing and joking and shaking up martinis. She might have become cynical about people and especially men, but she was still a woman. A woman with dozens of secret fantasies spinning about in her head. Fantasies of being swept up into big strong arms. Of eyes meeting across a crowded room. Of instant attraction. Remorseless lust.

Since her breakup with Manny, all her fantasy men were the complete opposite of her old boyfriend. They were all bad boys with big hands and bigger . . . feet. The star of her current fantasy was a blonde badass with size thirteen biker boots. She'd picked him from a Dolce & Gabbana ad in
Cosmo
, looking all cool and unkempt with his bad self.

Sometimes her fantasy involved him tying her to the back of his Harley and absconding with her to his love shack. Other times she'd see him in different dive bars with names like The Brass Knuckles or Devil's Spawn. Their eyes would meet and they'd only make it as far as the alleyway before they tore at each other's clothes.

Someone took the stool beside Kate and bumped her shoulder. Her drink sloshed, and she cupped her hands around her warm mug.

“Sun Valley Ale,” a masculine voice next to her ordered.

“Draft or bottle?” the bartender asked.

“Bottle's fine.”

As much as Kate would love to live out one of her fantasies, she knew it would never happen because she could not turn off the PI in her head. The one that, at a crucial moment, would decide she needed a background check first.

The scent of crisp night air suddenly surrounded her head, and she slid her gaze from her mug to the green plaid flannel rolled up thick forearms. A gold Rolex was strapped around his left wrist, and a thin silver band circled his middle finger.

“Do you want this on your room tab?” the bartender wanted to know.

“Nah, I'll pay for it now.” His voice was low and a little rough as he reached for his wallet in the back pocket of his Levi's. His elbow brushed hers as she ran her gaze up the green flannel of his arm to his big shoulders. The ceiling lights above shone down on him and picked out variegated gold in his brown hair. Unruly and finger-combed, his hair covered his collar and the tops of his ears. A Fu Manchu mustache framed his wide mouth, and he'd grown a soul patch just below his full bottom lip.

Her gaze continued upward to a pair of deep green eyes staring back at her across his broad shoulder, past all the greens on his shirt. His lids looked a little heavy, like he was tired or he'd just gotten out of bed.

She swallowed. Hard.

“Hello,” he said, and his voice just seemed to pour through her like her hot buttered rum.

Holy Mary mother of God! Had thinking about her badass fantasy man conjured him up? He wasn't blonde, but who cared? “Hello,” she managed, as if the hair on the back of her neck hadn't started to tingle.

“It's a beautiful night to hit the slopes. Don't you think?” he asked.

“Spectacular,” she answered, although her mind wasn't on skiing. This guy was big. The kind of big that came from genetics and physical labor. She'd guess he was in his mid to late thirties.

“Lots of new powder.”

“That's true.” Kate pressed her fingertips into the warm porcelain mug and fought the urge to play with her hair like she was in the eighth grade. “Gotta love all that fresh powder.”

He turned on his stool to face her, and her heart just about stopped. He was even better than her fantasy man, and her fantasy man rocked.

“So why aren't you out there?” he asked.

“I don't ski,” she confessed.

Surprise lifted one brow and the corners of his mouth. “You don't?”

You'd never mistake this man for a male model. Never see his face pushing Dolce & Gabbana or him lying on the beach in a Gucci suit. He was too big. Too masculine. Too male. The full impact of him all too real. “No. Just passing through. It's been snowing so hard, I had to stop for the night.” He had a tiny white scar just below his soul patch, and his nose looked like it had been broken. It was hardly noticeable really, but Kate was trained to notice everything about a person's face. And studying this man's face was pure pleasure.

“Hope it clears up.” He snagged the beer bottle in his right hand. “I'm heading out for Bogus Basin in the morning.”

“Are you a ski bum?”

“During the winter months, pretty much. After Bogus, we'll hit Targhee and Jackson Hole before heading to Colorado.”

We'll?
“Are you here with friends?”

“Yeah, my buddies are still out on the slopes.” He hooked the heels of his boots on the bottom rung of his stool, and his wide-spread knees brushed the outside of her thigh.

The casual touch did something to her insides. It wasn't exactly instant, remorseless lust, but it was something. “Why aren't you out there with them?” Buddies. As in male friends. Men didn't generally refer to female friends as buddies.

He raised the beer to his lips. “Knees acting up,” he answered and took a long drink.

But there was little doubt in her mind that this guy had a woman in his life. Probably more than one. “Skiing with buddies on Valentine's Day?”

He watched her through those green eyes of his as he lowered the bottle. “Is it Valentine's Day?” he asked and sucked a drop of beer from his top lip.

Kate smiled. The fact that he didn't know meant he probably didn't have anyone serious in his life right now. “Every year on the fourteenth of February.”

He looked about the room as if really seeing it for the first time. “Ahh. That explains the hearts.”

Her gaze lowered past the mustache framing his mouth and chin, down the wide column of his thick neck to the hollow of his tan throat. “I think we're the only two in here who aren't a couple.”

“Don't tell me you're here alone?”

Kate returned her gaze to his and laughed. She liked the way he'd said that, as if he found it hard to believe. “Yeah, go figure.” In her favorite fantasy, she was trapped with a hunk of man in Nordstrom's shoe department. “How about you? Anyone going to be angry with you for forgetting Valentine's Day?”

“Nope.”

She'd never set a fantasy in a ski lodge, but she was thinking about it now. She couldn't help it. The man was throwing off pheromones like he was a nuclear reactor at Chernobyl. Sitting so close to ground zero, the fallout was lethal.

He pushed up the sleeves of his flannel shirt and exposed what appeared to be the tail of a snake or some sort of reptile on his thick left forearm. “Is that a snake?”

“Yeah. That's Chloe. She's a sweetheart.”

Right.
The tattoo was dark gold with black-and-white bands and appeared so real she leaned in for a closer look. The scales were perfectly defined, and without giving it a thought, Kate reached out and touched his bare arm. “What kind of snake is she?” She half expected to feel cool scales instead of warm, smooth flesh.

“An Angolan python.”

Python. Yikes!
“How big?” Kate looked back up into his face. Something hot and sensual shimmered within the green depths of his eyes. A need that made her pulse jump and tingles spread up her wrists.

He raised the beer to his mouth and looked away. “Five feet.” He took a long drink, and when he returned his gaze to her, that flicker of that something was gone, as if it had never been there.

She dropped her hand. “Are all five feet of her tattooed on your body?”

“Yeah.” He pointed to his forearm with the mouth of the bottle. “Her tail ends here. She's wrapped around my arm, down my back, and is coiled around my right thigh.”

Kate looked down at his thigh and straight at his groin. Soft worn Levi's covered his legs and cupped the bulge in his crotch. She quickly looked away before he caught her staring. “I have a tattoo.”

He laughed. A low rumble in his chest that did funny things to
her
chest. “What? A heart on your ankle?”

She shook her head and took a long drink from her mug. Her temperature shot up and her face felt flushed. She didn't know if it was the rum or the testosterone cocktail sitting next to her, but she was starting to feel a little light-headed. Not the kind of light-headed that made you faint, but the kind that brought a grin to your face even when you didn't feel like smiling.

“Hmm?” He lowered his gaze down the side of her throat. “A rose on your shoulder?”

The kind of light-headed that made a girl think of hot sweaty things. Hot sweaty
naked
things she probably shouldn't act upon. “Nope.”

He looked back into her eyes and speculated, “A sun around your navel.”

“A moon and a few stars, but not around my navel.” Hot sweaty naked things that no one else would ever know about.

“I knew it would be something girly,” he scoffed as he shook his head. “Where?”

It couldn't be just her. He had to feel it too, but what if she did proposition him and he turned her down? She didn't think she could handle that kind of humiliation. “My butt.”

Smile lines crinkled the corners of his eyes, and he laughed again. “Full or half?”

Wait, he's a guy,
she thought as she polished off her drink. Guys were guys were guys. He wouldn't turn her down. “Crescent.”

“A moon on a moon.” He cocked one brow and leaned to one side and looked at her butt as if he could see through her clothing. “Interesting. I've never seen that before.” He took a drink of his beer and straightened.

Maybe it was the rum and her hot sweaty naked thoughts. Maybe it was because it was Valentine's Day and she was lonely and didn't want to wear Hush Puppies yet. Maybe for just once she wanted to act on an impulse. Maybe it was all of those things, but before she could stop herself, she asked, “Wanna see?” The second the words left her lips, her heart seemed to stop along with her breath. Oh God!

He lowered the bottle. “Are you propositioning me?”

Was she? Yes. No. Maybe. Could she really go through with it?
Don't overanalyze it. Don't think it to death,
she told herself.
You'll never see this guy again. For once in your life, just go for it.
She didn't even know his name. She guessed it didn't matter. “Are you interested?”

Slowly, as if to make sure he understood her perfectly, he asked, “Are you talking sex?”

She looked into those eyes staring back at her and tried to breathe past the sudden constriction in her chest. Could she use and abuse him? Could she twist him into a sexual pretzel then toss him out the door when she was through? Was she that kind of person? “Yes.”

There it was again. That hot, sensual need that flickered and burned. Then in the blink of an eye, his features hardened and his gaze turned cold. “Afraid not,” he said as if she'd offered him up a fate worse than death. He set his beer on the bar and rose until he towered over her.

Kate managed a stunned, “Oh,” just before her cheeks caught fire and her ears started to buzz. She raised a hand to her numb face and hoped she didn't pass out.

“Don't take it personal, but I don't fuck women I meet in bars.” Then he walked away, moving from the lounge as fast as his big boots could carry him.

Two

By thirteen, Kate had become an infre
quent visitor to Gospel, Idaho. As a kid, she'd loved hiking in the wilderness area and swimming in Fish Hook Lake. She'd loved helping out at the M&S Market, her grandparents' small grocery store. But once she'd entered her teen years, hanging out with her grandparents hadn't been cool any longer, and she'd only visited on rare occasions.

The last time Kate had been in Gospel had been to attend her grandmother's funeral. Looking back, that trip had been a short, painful blur.

This
trip was less painful, but the moment she lay eyes on her grandfather, she knew there would be nothing short about her stay.

Stanley Caldwell owned a grocery store filled with food. He butchered fresh meat and bought fresh produce, yet he ate TV dinners every night. Swanson Hungry Man. Turkey or meat loaf.

He kept his house clean, but after two years, it was still cluttered with Tom Jones memorabilia, which Kate thought odd since her grandmother had been the Tom Jones fanatic, not her grandfather. In fact, he'd gone out of his way to indicate that her obsession was something he supported but did not share. Just as she had not shared his love of big game hunting.

Of the two, Melba Caldwell had been more devoted to Tom than Stanley had been to hunting. Every summer Kate's grandfather had driven her grandmother, like a pilgrim journeying to holy sites, to Las Vegas and the MGM Grand to worship with the faithful. And every year, instead of bits of paper or teaspoons of milk, Melba had carried an extra pair of panties in her handbag.

Kate had accompanied her grandmother to one of Tom's shows a number of years ago. Once had been enough. She'd been eighteen, and seeing her grandmother whip out a pair of red silkies and toss them on stage had scarred Kate for life. They'd sailed through the air like a kite and had wrapped around Tom's mic stand. Even now, after all these years, the mental picture of Tom wiping sweat from his brow with her grandmother's panties disturbed her and caused a deep groove in the center of her forehead.

Kate's grandmother had been gone for two years, but nothing of hers had been packed up and put away. Tom Jones chotchkes were everywhere. It was as if her grandfather kept the memory of her grandmother alive through sex bomb ashtrays, Delilah shot glasses and pussycat bobble heads. As if to lose those things would be to lose her completely.

He refused to hire more day help in the grocery store, even though he could certainly afford it. The Aberdeen twins and Jenny Plummer rotated the night shift. The store was closed on Sundays, and the only real difference was that now Kate worked with him at the M&S instead of Melba.

He was so old-fashioned that he still did the bookkeeping by hand in a big ledger. He kept track of his sales and inventory in different color-coordinated books just as he had since the 1960s. He absolutely refused to step into the twenty-first century and didn't own a computer. The only piece of modern office equipment he owned was a desk calculator.

If things didn't change, he was going to work himself into an early grave. Kate wondered if that was what he secretly hoped. She'd come to Gospel for a break, to get away from her life for a short while. One look into her grandfather's sad face and even sadder existence, and she'd known there was no way she could leave him until he was living again. Not just going through the motions.

She'd been in Gospel for two weeks now, but it had only taken her two days to see that Gospel really hadn't changed that much since she was a kid. There was a sameness about Gospel, a day-to-day predictability, that Kate was surprised to discover appealed to her. There was a certain peace in knowing your neighbors. And even though those neighbors were all locked and loaded, there was comfort in knowing they weren't likely to go on some wild killing spree.

At least not until spring. Like the black bears that roamed the wilderness area, the town pretty much hibernated during the winter months. Once the regular hunting season was over in the late fall, there wasn't a lot to do until the snow melted.

As far as Kate could tell, the townspeople had a love/hate relationship with tourists and were suspicious of anyone without an Idaho “famous potatoes” license plate bolted to their bumper. They had a distrust of California and felt a superiority over anyone not born and raised in Idaho.

After all these years, Gospel still had only two diners. At the Cozy Corner Café, the specials of the day were still fried chicken and chicken fried steak. The town had two grocery stores. The M&S was the smaller of the two, with only one checkout. On the outskirts of town, two different churches lined the same street. One nondenominational, the other Mormon. Gospel had five bars and four gun and tackle shops.

The only new business in town was a sporting goods store located in what had once been the pharmacy right across the parking lot from the M&S. The old log building had been refurbished and restored, and big gold letters spelled out
SUTTER SPORTS
just above the stained-glass fish in the huge front window. It had a green tin roof and awnings, and a Closed Until April sign hung on the double glass-and-brass doors.

According to Stanley, Sutter's didn't sell guns. No one knew why. This was Gospel after all, gun-nut capital of the world. A place where kids got their NRA membership cards before their driver's license. A place where all pickup trucks had gun racks and
THEY CAN HAVE MY GUN WHEN THEY PRY IT FROM MY COLD DEAD FINGERS
bumper stickers. People slept with handguns stuck in the headboards of their beds and stashed in panty drawers. And they took it as a matter of pride that no citizen of Gospel had been killed with a gun since the turn of the century, when two of the Hansen boys had shot it out over a whore named Frenchy.

Well, there
had
been that incident in '95 when the old sheriff of the town had taken his own life. But that didn't count since taking your own life really wasn't a punishable crime. And no one really liked to talk about that particular chapter of the town's history anyway.

Most everything inside the M&S Market was the same as Kate recalled from her childhood. The antlers of the twelve-point buck her grandfather had blown away in '79 were still on display above the old battered cash register. Around the commercial coffeemaker, conversation ranged from the mysterious owner of Sutter Sports, to Iona Osborn's hip replacement surgery.

“You can't weigh that much and
not
have hip problems,” Ada Dover said as Kate punched the keys of the cash register, then hit Add with the side of her hand.

“Uh-huh,” she responded as she set a can of cling peaches in a plastic grocery bag. Even the sounds inside the store were the same. From the back room, she could hear the whine of the meat slicer, and from the speakers overhead, Tom Jones sang about touching the green grass of home. Melba's presence was still everywhere in the M&S, from the horrible music to the velvet Tom painting hung in the back office. About the only thing that had really changed inside Melba Caldwell's store since her death was the stream of widows trolling for her husband, Stanley.

“Iona should have gone on Weight Watchers years ago. Have you ever tried Weight Watchers?”

Kate shook her head, and the end of her pony-tail brushed the shoulders of her black shirt. Last week she'd substituted Tom Jones with
Matchbox Twenty
. But halfway into the second verse of “Disease,” her grandfather had ejected her CD and plugged Tom back in. As Ada rambled and Tom crooned, Kate felt a slight brain bleed coming on.

“It really keeps my figure trim. And Fergie's too. Being that I'm Iona's good friend, I tried to get her to at least check out a few meetings over at the grange.” Ada shook her head and her eyes narrowed. “She said she would, but she never did. If she'd listened to me, she'd have lost that weight huckity-buck and there would've been no need to have that hip replaced.”

What the heck was a huckity-buck?
Fearing the answer, Kate pointed out instead, “It could be that Iona has a low metabolism.” According to her grandfather, Ada Dover arrived every day around noon, coifed, decked, and doused in Emeraude. No doubt about it, she was looking to make Stanley Caldwell husband number three.

“She should buy one of those mountain bikes from over there at the sports store.”

Now that Kate was here, her grandfather always found something to do in the back room to avoid Ada and the widow posse who had him in their sights. He also made her do the home deliveries the widows called in on a regular basis. Kate didn't appreciate it either. She didn't like getting pumped for information about her grandfather, and she had better things to do than listen to Myrtle Lake rattle on about the horrors of heel spurs. Better things—like giving herself a lobotomy. “Maybe Iona should just start out walking,” Kate suggested as she rang up a box of Wheat Thins and placed it in the sack.

“Of course, even if Iona wanted to buy one of those bikes, she can't. The owner of that store is probably in the Carribean, sunning himself like a lizard. His mama is the nurse over there at the clinic. She's not from around here. Minnesota, I think. Tight-lipped as Tupperwear.” Ada dug into her huge purse and pulled out her wallet. “I don't know
why
he opened his store in Gospel in the first place. He'd probably sell more bikes and what-nots in Sun Valley. He doesn't sell guns over there. Don't know why, but that's a Minnesotan for ya. Liberal and contrary.”

Kate wondered what being a Minnesotan had to do with not selling guns or being contrary, but she was too busy fighting the shudder passing through her to ask.
Sun Valley.
The scene of the greatest humiliation of her life. The place where she'd gotten drunk and propositioned a man. The one time in her life when she'd managed to suppress her inhibitions and go for it, she'd been shot down by a man who'd practically run from the room to get away from her.

“He's handsome as sin but doesn't park his boots under anyone's bed. Everybody knows Dixie Howe's been trying her best to hook him, but he isn't interested. 'Course I don't blame him for avoiding Dixie. Dixie's got a gift for hair dye, but she's been rode hard and put away wet more often than Aunt Sally's mule.”

“Maybe he doesn't like women,” Kate said and hit Total. The guy in Sun Valley hadn't liked women. He'd been a misogynist. At least, that's what Kate liked to tell herself.

Ada sucked in a breath. “Homosexual?”

No. As much as Kate would have liked to believe the jerk had been gay, and that's why he hadn't taken her up on her proposition, she really didn't think so. She was too good at reading people to miss those signs. No, he was just one of those men who liked to degrade women and make them feel really bad about themselves. That, or he had erectile dysfunction. Kate smiled, maybe both.