she admitted. “Thank you—for letting me use the shower. I don’t want to take up too much of your time—”
“No, please,” Gerald said, walking toward her in a handful of long, smooth strides. “Have a seat. Have something to eat. I didn’t know what you’d like so I ordered a bit of everything.”
“I can see that,” Olivia said, scanning the tray admiringly. “And thanks for that, too. But I really should be going.”
He stopped just shy of her and the tray, a disappointed frown touching his lips. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. My friends and I have a plane to catch in a couple of hours. I need to get back to our room and make sure they’re okay. Pack up.” Out of excuses, she made herself look away from those eyes. In addition to kind, they were wise. It was a disconcerting mix, at least for her. She gestured to the room at large. “Your penthouse is beautiful, by the way.”
Gerald looked around, reaching up to scratch his chin with his knuckles. “It is rather, isn’t it? I’m afraid it’s new to me, too. I was staying in one of the business suites.”
“Oh,” Olivia said. “So you’re in town on business.”
“Well, for the most part.” His gaze crawled back to her, that shade of timidity flashing across his face again before he hid it with a wry grin that creased the corners of his mouth and eyes and simultaneously disarmed her. “Until I met you, of course.”
She lowered her eyes, pressing her lips together to hide a sly smile. “I hope I was a good distraction at least.”
One of his brows arced knowingly. “Oh, quite. A worthy distraction.”
She did smile a bit to herself, then sighed, realizing she was lingering here with him. Something about him. A pull, a tug. A compelling stir that toggled her in all the right places, particularly the area of her heart. Her smile quickly turned into a frown and she tugged the lapels of the robe together, gathering them tight against her throat. “Well, Gerald Leighton.” She made herself meet his eyes again. “It was nice meeting you.”
His grin turned kind again. “I couldn’t be happier that we did, love.”
Love. Yes, she liked the sound of that a shade too much. Olivia gripped the handle of the door and had opened it only slightly when he said, “Wait a moment.”
She looked around, and her breath snagged. He was closer now. Jesus, what was this hold he had over her? She didn’t know how to handle it.
His eyes narrowed on her face. The lines of his mouth were tense now, his jaw squared as he searched her expression. He reached out and took the door but didn’t shut it. She was free to go if she wanted, but his gaze and the urgency she saw there hooked her and made her knees buckle. “I’m ashamed to have to ask you,” he said, “but can I have your name? It seems I’ve forgotten it after last night’s tequila-fueled debauchery.”
She pursed her lips. “Why would you want to know? I mean, let’s be honest. We’re clearly never going to see each other again....”
Gerald lifted his shoulders and shook his head. “Not likely.” He stilled and the urgency blinked into his eyes again, heightened. “But you never know, do you? Maybe...one day I’d like to find you. Or you’d perhaps like to get in touch with me. I don’t know....”
As Olivia searched his eyes and the moment between them stretched, the link between them humming, she weighed his request. Weighed him. Reaching out, she touched the arm he was using to hold the door open. His muscle tightened at her touch. She slid her fingers up to the back of his and squeezed them warmly as she memorized his face. She would be glad of it later, when she returned to her hometown in Alabama. She would remember him and her night with him in the Bellagio penthouse fondly. “Olivia,” she said finally. “My name is Olivia.”
“Olivia,” he said, smiling softly.
She nodded, then stepped back, pulled away and broke his spell. “I think we should leave it at that.”
His lids came down halfway over his eyes, hiding resignation, or disappointment perhaps. “Right. It’s enough. For now.”
As if there could be a later. She cleared her throat and backed away from him, through the door into the hallway. “So long, Gerald.”
“Goodbye, Olivia.”
GERALD PARKED THE rental car at the bottom of a steep incline on the main drag of Fairhope, Alabama. He frowned through the light drum of rain and the protesting whir of the windshield wipers at the barricades in front of his headlights.
It was nighttime on the snug shoreline of Mobile Bay. And according to all the local radio stations he’d scanned during the drive from the airport in Pensacola, there was apparently a large and ominous hurricane headed in this general direction. The woman at the rental car company had told him he was lucky to have found an available flight from New York to the Gulf Coast at all.
When Gerald told her he’d be driving west toward Mobile and farther into the possible cone of impact, the woman had eyed him balefully and reluctantly handed over the keys.
The inclement weather didn’t faze Gerald too much. The rain was coming in bands and though the wind did slap the rain against the car at a sideways angle and tug at the wheel a bit, it was all spotty at best. Nor did the fact that he’d lost his way worry him too much. He grabbed the map from the passenger seat and flipped on the cab lights to scan it. He’d gone on drives in the New York countryside with the purpose of getting lost—lost in the scenery, lost in his head. Getting lost was nothing new to him.
What did give him pause was the fact that he had just driven through the downtown area and Fairhope appeared to be a ghost town. As he drove farther and farther away from the Florida-Alabama line and toward the bay, he had come across fewer cars on the road. By the time he got to his destination, the streets were all but deserted.
He wasn’t the worrisome sort, but he would be glad for a familiar face right about now, as well as the warm, homey lights of companionship.
What better place to find it than Tavern of the Graces where he had finally tracked down Olivia Lewis, the woman who had so captivated him in Las Vegas three weeks ago. Nearly a month had passed and Gerald still couldn’t get her out of his head. It might have been foolish to go flying off impulsively to Alabama when he had a manuscript due to his editor in New York very soon.
But he’d needed to see her. Something had driven him here to this small Southern town he’d never heard of, and he wouldn’t rest, much less write, until he got to the bottom of it.
Gerald brought the map closer. If he was reading it right, the tavern Olivia owned and operated on South Mobile Street was only a few blocks to the south. All he had to do was turn the car around, go back up the hill, then turn right and drive a half mile. He had made the mistake of going down the hill, which led into a park and a long pier overlooking the moody bay.
Brows raised in interest, he peered over the steering wheel, squinting through rain and wind, trying to see beyond the roadblocks. The rain was down to a light patter now. He pulled on the long wool coat he’d brought from New York and grabbed the emergency flashlight from the glove compartment. Led by that foolish, towering impulse
