we can both feel like idiots together.”
She shook her head. “If you see me tomorrow, if we bump into each other in the elevator, please pretend tonight never happened, let me think I imagined or dreamed it all, because it would be too humiliating to know it was true.”
He could see by the determined set of her chin that she meant it. Of course, there was no way Robert was going to let that happen. But there was no point arguing about it tonight. She’d find out soon enough that when he found something he truly wanted, he could be relentless in pursuit of it.
And now he very much wanted her.
RUTHIE LEFT HER dream man at the entrance to the restaurant. He went one way, toward the elevator, and she headed toward the lobby. Part of her was relieved he’d agreed to forget tonight had ever happened. Another part was sad she’d ever asked him to. She had a feeling it was just as well she didn’t know his name. He’d never mentioned it, and she’d never thought to ask. If she had, she might have been tempted to peek at the registration records for his room number. “No, Sinclair. You’re swearing off men starting right now,” she muttered as she rounded the corner next to the front desk.
“Swearing off men?”
Ruthie glared at her cousin, Chuck, who’d obviously heard her comment. Chuck, Celeste and Denise’s only brother, worked as the night front desk manager. He’d left the wedding shortly before Ruthie had, so she didn’t ask him what happened after she’d slipped out. “Yes. You’re all a bunch of heartbreakers!”
“Guess ya didn’t have such a great time at Celeste’s wedding, huh?” Chuck replied. A goofy grin creased his face and he suddenly looked like the surfer dude he wanted to be. Chuck didn’t exactly match the hotel’s clean-cut image, with his shoulder-length, bleach-blond hair, tanned complexion, and perpetual lazy grin. “So’dja catch the flower thing or what? I had to leave early and didn’t see that part.”
“No, I didn’t catch the bouquet. Thank goodness.”
He shrugged. “I thought you old single chicks dug that, you know, getting your hopes up and all.”
Ruthie leaned across the three-foot-wide expanse of polished oak that made up the front check-in desk and grabbed a fistful of her cousin’s shirt. “Old? You think I’m old?”
He grimaced and held his hands up protectively. “Nah, not old. I mean, it’s not like you’re pushin’ thirty or anything!”
“You’re on a roll now, Chuckie,” she snarled. “Why don’t you dig yourself in deeper?”
He suddenly looked shocked. “Oh, man, Ruthie, you’re thirty? When did that happen?”
Ruthie sighed in exasperation. “Chuck, sweetie, remember when you were six and you ruined my twelfth birthday slumber party because you kept coming to the door of my room and trying to throw spitballs at my friends? And I told you I was going to make you eat six of them, one for each year I’d had to suffer with you on the planet?”
The head bobbed, slowly. A grin creased his face. “Yeah, and I hit Denise in her head and she ran crying to your mom.”
Ruthie had forgotten that. “Okay, so it wasn’t all bad.”
He snorted a laugh. “She sure was ticked. So why’d ya mention that?”
She explained slowly. “I was turning twelve. You were already six. Uh, how old are you now, Chuck?”
He hesitated for a moment longer than anyone should have when asked that question. “Twenty-three next month.”
She waited, watching the wheels churn behind the bright blue eyes. Saw him calculate. “Oh, yeah, right,” he finally said with the lazy nod. “See, I toldja I didn’t miss it.”
“There’s a reason you’re so gorgeous,” Ruthie muttered beneath her breath. Her mother’s favorite saying suddenly popped into her head. Heaven distributes its gifts.
Chuck got the tall, blond, lean and gorgeous genes. He was like Ruthie’s late father and her uncle in that respect—and like Celeste and Denise. But Chuck had been just a bit shortchanged in the “quick” department. “I guess there are worse things than big hips and kinky red hair,” she continued with a yawn.
“Huh?”
“Never mind, sweetie,” she said as she wearily turned toward the elevator. “I was just coming in to say good-night. I’m going up to my room. Don’t call me in the morning, as I’m quite sure I’ll be sleeping off a champagne headache.”
He smirked. “Yeah, I’ll bet. You must’ve had a hellish good time. I’ve never seen you rockin’ when you’re walkin’.”
She didn’t ask what he meant, too tired to try to follow his reasoning tonight. “The ceremony was beautiful,” she conceded. “But I’d rather forget everything else that happened this evening.”
“That bad?”
A flash of memory brought a sudden warmth to her cheeks. The man. The dark-haired stranger in the kitchen. Well, she might want to forget how foolish she must have appeared to him, but she certainly would never forget the expression on his face—the one that said he thought she was desirable.
But she’d never see him again. Which was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it? Even if it wasn’t, it didn’t matter. She never got his name! She’d never asked, probably subconsciously keeping their interlude anonymous, enjoying its mystery and magic.
“Let’s just say, after I watched Celeste tie the knot, the evening went downhill faster than you did the time you broke your arm trying to sled on a greased trash can lid.”
He looked puzzled, trying to place the memory. Ruthie blew him a tired kiss and turned to leave the lobby.
“Hey, Ruthie, take a few aspirin tonight before you go to sleep. Should make you feel better in the a.m.”
She gave a rueful chuckle. “Chuck, there is absolutely nothing that can happen to me tonight that will make me feel better in the a.m.”
3
TO HER DISMAY, Ruthie realized when she reached her room that her bad-awful day was not over yet. Staring dumbly at the doorknob, which remained stiff and unmoving in her hand, she jammed the key in once more. “Stupid old locks!”
It didn’t help. The room key would not open the door. “Great, oh, just great,” she muttered, tired and wanting nothing more than to kick off her too-tight shoes and fall into the king-size bed on the other side of the stubborn door.
Wearily making her way down the hall toward the elevator, Ruthie paused to pick up a white courtesy phone residing on a small telephone table. Hoping she wouldn’t have to explain to Chuck the intricacies of locks and keys, she nearly cheered when someone else answered in the lobby.
“Tina? Why does Chuck have you working the desk?”
“Smoke break,” the other woman said. Ruthie heard a distinct popping sound and knew Tina was cracking bubble gum, probably thick, pink, and shiny. “I’m off at two, so he took a last ten.”
Ruthie
