handed her a key. “You’ve got the best room in the house. Number 12. Your luggage will be delivered shortly.”
“Thank you,” she mumbled.
“Oh, and if you want to sign up for any excursions, just let me know. Metropolitan is picking up the tab.”
“Excursions?”
“You know, salmon fishing, mountain-biking tours, that sort of thing.” He eyed Cammie Jo. “Although you might prefer something a little less strenuous. There’s a guided hike of the Tongass National Forest scheduled for tomorrow morning at seven.” He handed her a brochure. “Are you interested?”
Cammie Jo nodded, anxious to get up to her room where she could regroup. “Sounds fine.”
“Good. I’ll book you.”
Keeping her gaze on the floor, Cammie Jo scurried through the mob of people gathered around the staircase. She was wandering down the corridor, searching for room 12, when she saw the dog.
A Siberian husky.
Cammie Jo stopped, caught her breath.
She loved dogs but because of Aunt Coco’s allergies, she’d never been able to have one. She put her bags down and sank to a crouch.
“Come here,” she cooed.
In an instant the dog was at her side. Cammie Jo rubbed the pooch’s belly.
“I see you’ve met Jake’s dog, Lulu.”
She hadn’t heard him approach. She whipped her head up to see Mack grinning down at her.
Her heart did this crazy gymnastic thing.
Say something, stupid.
But her tongue lay cemented to the floor of her mouth. She couldn’t think of one intelligent thing to say. So much for being a Mensa member. Nervously, she stuffed her hand in her pocket and her fingers glided over the totem.
I wish I was brave enough to have a real conversation with this man.
Mack squatted beside Cammie Jo and scratched Lulu’s ears.
Lulu moaned in ecstasy.
He rocked forward. His knee bumped into Cammie Jo’s. If he didn’t move away soon, she would be doing a bit of moaning herself.
Pant, pant, pant.
Her right hand rubbed the dog’s belly. Mack’s left hand scratched under Lulu’s chin. He tilted his head and grinned at her in the muted hallway lighting.
“She’s adorable,” Cammie Jo ventured, keeping her gaze firmly focused on the husky.
“She’s a big old thief is what she is,” Mack said, with obvious affection.
“Not her,” Cammie Jo protested. “She’s too sweet.”
“Don’t let her looks deceive you and don’t leave anything you prize laying out. Lulu’s a kleptomaniac.”
“Surely you exaggerate?”
He shook his head. “Nope. She steals whatever she can get her teeth on. Jewelry, candy, socks, pens, car keys.”
Lulu whined and gave them an I-was-framed expression, as if she knew her thieving habits were the topic of conversation.
“Yeah, we’re talking about you,” Mack assured the dog. He stood and leaned nonchalantly with one shoulder against the wall.
Cammie Jo glanced up and realized she was eye level with the zipper of his blue jeans. Unnerved, she shot to her feet.
Mack’s eyes met hers.
She gulped then blurted, “Uh…what are you doing here? I thought you had to pick up more passengers in Anchorage.”
“I do,” he said.
Her hurly-burly heart lub-dubbed. Had he come looking for her? But why would he do that? His presence seemed so intimate, so cozy, so wrong. And yet her blood was singing through her veins like a chorus of Christmas carolers.
“Why are you here?”
“I found something under the passenger seat of my plane. Thought this might have fallen out of your luggage.”
“Oh?” She arched an eyebrow. No telling what she might have dropped in her haste to get away from him. “What is it?”
From his pocket he withdrew a thin scrap of scarlet silk and stretched it over his palm.
Cammie Jo pushed her glasses up on her nose and stared at what he held in his hand.
A pair of thong undies.
How in the world did women wear these silly things without getting a permanent wedgie? Just the idea of putting them on made her squirm with discomfort.
“Although,” he continued, “this type of undergarment doesn’t really seem your style. I thought it might belong to one of my previous passengers. I feel like Prince Charming going door to door trying to find the Cinderella that fits these panties.”
Normally, she would have been embarrassed witnessing a handsome man handle dainty undies, but the smug look on his face irritated her to the point where she just snapped. He was so certain she was a boring fuddy-duddy, that she would never wear something as brazen as this—which of course she wouldn’t, but he had no right to make such an assumption about her—that Cammie Jo fibbed.
“Yes, they are mine.” She snatched the panties from his grasp and thrust out her jaw, daring him to contradict her.
The expression of surprise on his face made her feel something she’d never felt before. Boldness? She prodded the emotion. No, not quite boldness, something saucier than mere audacity.
She rested her hands on her hips. His eyes tracked her movements. He gazed at her as if trying to picture her in that thong. He shook his head as if he couldn’t even visualize it.
Cammie Jo notched her chin upward and looked just above the top of his head. A trick she’d learned in graduate school when she had to give lectures to undergrads. Don’t make eye contact and you’ll be okay.
“What did you think? That I wear white cotton, high-waisted granny panties?”
Which was indeed exactly what she had on beneath her clothes. Aunt Hildegard did everyone’s underwear shopping during the twice-a-year white sales, and Cammie Jo had never cared enough about the issue to buy her own panties. But she would roll over and die before she would admit such a thing to Mack, who thought he had her pegged right down to her choice of lingerie.
“I never said that.” A speculative note crept into his voice and in that moment Cammie Jo was able to label the amazing new sensation churning inside her.
By gum, she was feeling cocky. Puffed up with pride and ready to take whatever he dished out.
“I’m
