the moment they’d left the Skerritt and Crowe offices that morning, her senses had been assaulted by the man. The scent of his woodsy aftershave, the timbre of his deep voice and the occasional brush of his arm against hers when he opened doors for her had charged every cell in her being with a restlessness she refused to define. If she had to spend an entire night in the same room with Caleb only a few feet away, there was a very real possibility she’d be a raving lunatic by morning.
As he sat on the side of the motel bed, Caleb took off his boots, then picked up the television’s remote control and absently flipped through the channels. He had to get his mind off the woman changing clothes in the bathroom.
Glancing at the closed door, he shook his head. He’d put in a hell of a day listening to her soft voice and watching her move with a catlike grace that he found absolutely fascinating. But it was the few times they’d brushed against each other that had him feeling like he was about to jump out of his own skin. What was there about A.J. that sent his hormones racing through his blood like the steel balls in an pinball machine?
She was the consummate professional and gave every indication that she was totally immersed in her career. And he’d learned the hard way to avoid her type like a bachelor avoids a widows’ convention. So why was she all he’d been able to think about from the moment he’d laid eyes on her? What was there about her that he found so damned compelling?
Her clothes certainly weren’t provocative or meant to entice a man. And although she was far from homely, A.J. sure didn’t wear makeup or style her hair in a way to make herself look anything but plain.
He frowned. It was as if she was doing everything she possibly could to keep from attracting attention to herself.
That’s what he was having the devil of a time trying to figure out. A.J. didn’t look or act like an executive. Leslie Ann Turner, the woman he’d been involved with a few years back, had been the perfect example of a corporate climber and taken great pains to look attractive at work, as well as when they’d gone out on the town. They’d met by accident when he’d attended a farm symposium at one of the downtown Nashville hotels and she’d stopped by the lounge after work for drinks with her girlfriends. He’d asked her out and that had started their two-year affair. She’d been a junior executive then and hadn’t yet developed a thirst for power and position, nor had she looked down on him because he’d had nothing more than a high-school education.
But as time had gone on and she’d gotten a few promotions under her belt, that had changed. She’d stopped asking him to attend corporate parties with her and had adopted the attitude that the measure of a man was determined by the number of diplomas he held. And it really hadn’t come as a big surprise when she’d dumped him like a blind date on a Saturday night.
However, as hard as it had been to face the fact that she apparently thought he wasn’t good enough for her, he did have her to thank for a lesson well learned. A career woman wasn’t anyone he wanted to become involved with, no matter how compelling her baby blues were.
But A.J. didn’t seem to possess the same barracuda instincts, the same do-whatever-it-takes-to-get-ahead attitude that Leslie Ann had. Hell, there were a couple of times when he’d been outlining the policy changes, then later when he’d asked her to help with the break room renovations, that A.J. had almost looked unsure and vulnerable.
As he sat there pondering his uncharacteristic fascination with A.J., the bathroom door opened. Looking up, Caleb’s jaw dropped and he felt like he’d been blindsided by a steamroller. With her owlish glasses off and her long, auburn hair down around her shoulders, A. J. Merrick was a knockout.
He swallowed hard as she walked past him to the other bed. Her emerald silk pajamas and robe enhanced the red highlights in her hair and were the perfect contrast to her flawless porcelain complexion and baby-blue eyes.
“The bathroom’s all yours,” she said with a wave of her delicate hand.
She still hadn’t looked his way and he was damned glad. He’d been staring at her like a teenage boy stared at his first glimpse of a Playboy centerfold and there was no doubt in his mind that she’d think she was sharing a room with some kind of nutcase.
Suddenly feeling as if the walls were closing in on him, Caleb stood up. “I’m not all that tired,” he lied. “I think I’ll go down to the restaurant and get a cup of coffee.” Edging toward the door, he asked, “Do you want me to bring something back for you?”
“No, thank you.”
“Will you be okay here alone?”
She turned her incredible baby blues on him. “Sure. Why do you ask?”
He wasn’t about to tell her that she looked prettier and more feminine than he’d ever imagined. Nor did he want to admit that he felt like a prize jackass for running like a tail-tucked dog.
“Just checking.”
She hid a huge yawn with one delicate hand. “I’ll probably be asleep before you make it downstairs.”
The thought of what she might look like with her long silky hair spread across the pillow, her dark lashes resting on her creamy cheeks like tiny feathers, made his body tighten and had him reaching for the doorknob in less than two seconds.
“Night,” she called.
“Uh, yeah, night,” he muttered, closing the door behind him. He was halfway down the hall before he realized his boots were still sitting on the floor beside the bed in their room.
He stopped dead in his tracks. “Well, hell.”
“Flashback?”
Turning, Caleb found a tall, skinny man, with what looked like a piece of tinfoil molded to his bald head, standing behind him. “Excuse me?”
“I asked if you were having a flashback from your last encounter with them,” the man said, pointing toward the ceiling. “Some of us have flashbacks from time to time. Especially if the encounter was a really close one.”
When Caleb caught on that the gentleman was referring to E.T., he shook his head. “No. This was more like a first-time sighting.”
“I can totally relate. It can be a pretty disconcerting experience the first time you see them.” Grinning, the man reached up to adjust his foil skullcap. “But as time goes on you’ll find yourself looking forward to it and even hoping for an encounter of the third kind.”
Caleb nodded. He was already anticipating how soft and feminine A.J. would look when she woke up tomorrow morning. And just the idea of a close encounter with her of any kind made him hard as hell.
When the man continued on down the hall, Caleb turned and walked back toward the room. “You have no idea, buddy. No earthly idea at all.”
The moment the door closed behind Caleb, A.J. collapsed onto the side of the motel bed. She’d felt his gaze follow her across the room when she’d walked out of the bathroom and her knees still felt as if they were made of rubber. How on earth would she be able to close her eyes, let alone get a wink of sleep?
All she could think about was what he’d wear to bed and how he’d look first thing in the morning when he woke up. And just knowing that he’d be sleeping a few feet away sent shivers up her spine and made breathing all but impossible.
A.J.
