But she didn’t find feet sexy. Did she?
Since his feet provided no more reprieve from the terrible war of sensation going on within her, Stacy dragged her gaze away from his toes and back up the length of him. Despite his disheveled appearance—his hair, always perfectly groomed for magazine shoots, was sticking up in a cowlick at the back of his head, and his cheeks and the jut of that formidable chin were shadowed in dark whiskers—when Stacy looked into his face, she had to swallow a gulp of pure intimidation.
Kiernan McAllister radiated a kind of power that could not be tarnished by arriving at the scene of an accident, dripping wet and with a towel around his waist. Even though her job at Icons of Business had entailed interviewing dozens of very successful businesspeople, Stacy was not sure she had ever encountered such a prime example of pure of presence before.
McAllister’s wet hair, the color of just-brewed coffee, was curling at the tips. The stubble on his face accentuated the hard, masculine lines of his features.
The out-of-the-storm look of his hair and being unshaven gave him a distinctly roguish look, and despite his state of undress, he could have been a pirate relishing his next conquest, like a highwayman about to draw his sword.
His eyes were a shade of silver that added to her sense that he could be dangerous in the most tantalizing of ways.
In the pictures she had seen of him, his eyes had intrigued, a faint light at the back of them that she had interpreted as mischievous, as if all his incredible successes in the business world were nothing more than a big game and it was a game that he was winning.
But, of course, that was before the accident where his brother-in-law had been killed.
There was the difference. Now McAllister’s eyes had something in them as shattered as glass, cool, a barrier that he did not want penetrated.
By someone looking for a story. In that moment, Stacy knew Caroline had not set up anything for her. And she also knew, without asking, he would turn her down flat if she requested an interview.
He stepped back from her, regarded his handiwork on her head. “I think we’re done here,” he said, evidently pleased with his first-aid skills.
He once again offered his hand. She took it and he pulled her from the chair. She relished the feeling of his hand, but he let her go as soon as she was standing. She faced herself in the mirror. It was much worse than she thought.
The top of her hair was almost completely covered with a tightly taped down piece of gauze.
Now she really did look and feel like the poster child for Murphy’s Law. Everything that could go wrong, had. Who wanted to look like this in the presence of such a devastatingly attractive man?
Even if he was sardonic. And didn’t believe in Christmas. Or love.
“That’s going to be murder to get off,” she said, when she saw he had caught her dismayed expression.
“Isn’t it?” he said, apparently pleased that his handiwork was going to be so hard to remove.
She sighed. It was definitely time to set him straight about who she really was and what she wanted. She took a deep breath.
The phone that he had set on the counter began to ring.
Only it was the oddest ring she had ever heard. It sounded exactly like a baby squawking! There was no way a man like McAllister picked a ringtone like that!
In a split second, Kiernan McAllister went from looking relaxed and at ease with himself to a warrior ready to do battle! Stacy watched his face grow cold, remote, underscoring that sense of a solider being ready for whatever came next.
“What on earth?” she whispered, taking in his stance and his hardened facial features. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s time,” he said, his tone terse. “He’s awake.”
“Who’s awake?”
McAllister said nothing, his gaze on the phone, his brow furrowed in consternation. If he were a general, she had the feeling he would be checking his weapons, strapping on his armor, calling out his instructions to his soldiers.
“That isn’t a cell phone, is it?” Stacy asked slowly. McAllister was staring at it as if he was a tourist in some exotic place who had discovered a snake under his bed.
The squawking sound escalated, and McAllister took a deep breath, squared his shoulders.
“A phone?” he asked, his voice impatient. “What kind of person has a phone in the hot tub?”
In her career she had met dozens of men who she did not doubt took their phones everywhere with them, including into their hot tubs! Now, she could see clearly he would not be one of them.
“Cell phones don’t work up here. The mountains block the signal. I think it’s part of what I like about the place.” He frowned as if realizing he had told her something about himself he didn’t want to.
That he needed a break from the demands of his business. He was no doubt the kind of driven individual who would see some kind of failure in that.
But before she could contemplate that too long, the phone made that squawking sound again, louder.
“What is it then, if it’s not your phone?”
“It’s the monitor,” he said.
“The monitor,” she repeated.
“The baby monitor,” he said, as if she had not already guessed it.
She stared at it with him, listened to the squawking noises emitting from it. The monitor was small and state-of-the-art, it looked almost exactly like a cell phone.
But if was definitely a monitor, and there was definitely a baby on the other end of it!
BABY?
Stacy prided herself on the fact that she had arrived prepared! She knew everything there was to know about Kiernan McAllister.
And he did not have a baby!
McAllister folded his arms across the breadth of his naked chest and raised that dark slash of an eyebrow at her. “I told you, you were rescuing me, not the other way around.”
“Excuse me?” Stacy said, dazed by this turn of events.
“Your turn to ride to the rescue, though I must say, you haven’t exactly inspired confidence so far.” He reached out and turned down the volume on the monitor, inspecting her anew, like a general might inspect a newly enlisted person before sending them into battle.
His voice was hard-edged, and faintly amused as he regarded her, and she was struck again that, despite his words, he was the man least likely to need a rescue of any sort. Even if he did need one, he would never ask for it!
“I’m riding to your rescue?” Stacy
