that rose high and sudden beyond the resort. He’d seen a lot of Europe in the past few months, but when it came to drama, the desert had it hands down.
He stifled a yawn. By dint of heroic struggle, he’d managed to stay awake the night before until about eight o’clock, then nodded off into dreams of his roadside maiden in distress, dreams in which he’d jacked up her car—and she’d jacked him up. None of which prevented him, predictably, from waking at a ridiculous hour. Even taking time to work out and linger over breakfast had still seen him on the golf course before eight. He’d practiced his driving a bit to get the rust off and then took on the full eighteen-hole course.
All things considered, he figured he’d more than made up for sitting on a plane for fourteen hours. His muscles felt pleasantly tired. Raising the margarita, he took a swallow and thought again about the woman at the side of the road. He wondered where she was, what she was doing now.
He wondered if she’d given him even a thought once he was gone.
“So how are the margaritas?”
He looked up.
It was as though his mind had conjured her up. All tropical color and silky bare skin, she stood before him, fragrant and frisky, eyes alight with the promise of fun.
And all his hormones started doing the happy dance.
Her lips curved. “The polite thing would be to invite me to sit down.”
“Absolutely,” he said, snapping out of it and gesturing to the stool next to him. It wasn’t often that he was at a loss for words. Then again, it wasn’t often just looking at a woman could make him feel sucker punched. He watched her order a drink from the bartender who had appeared immediately in that magical way they did for beautiful women. “I guess you got to where you were going.”
“Thanks to you,” she agreed, turning back to him. Her smile was sunbeam bright, her hair a hundred shades of blond and golden brown as it shifted with every shake of her head. She wore it chin length so that it focused attention on her face, on that full mouth, those green eyes with their mischievous tilt. A faint whisper of her scent drifted across to him. He wondered if her skin was as smooth as it looked.
“You know, if I’d guessed you were headed to the resort, I could just have given you a ride.”
“Bad planning on my part.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, just enjoying watching her. “I suppose if you weren’t ready to get out of a car with me nearby, you probably wouldn’t have gotten into one, either.”
“I had your best interests at heart. What if I’d have turned out to be some wacko and there you were, stuck with me at the side of the road? You were safer with me in the car.”
“You did have a tire iron,” he recalled.
“Exactly.”
“In that case, I guess I owe you one.”
“It was the least I could do.” Laughter bubbled in her voice. The bartender set down Cilla’s drink and she held it up for a toast. “To good deeds and good Samaritans. Thank you again for stopping. You were very chivalrous. Your mama raised you right.”
The margarita tasted tart and cool on his tongue, the tequila a faint bite underneath. “She’ll be happy to hear it. You could write and tell her so. It’ll make her day.”
“I’ll write your mother if you write mine and tell her what a cautious citizen I was,” she bargained. “She’s forever wailing that I’m not careful enough and I don’t have the sense God gave a goat.”
Rand considered her. “You look smarter than a goat.”
“Thank you.” She inclined her head.
“Better looking, too.”
Her laugh was husky with delight. “I like to think so.”
Her bikini reminded him of a dish of sherbet, all bright pink and lime-green and orange. The top of it was one of those twisted bands that seemed to stay in place magically. The whys and hows, of course, were far less interesting than what was beneath.
“So what are you doing here?” she asked, watching him.
“I was heading to Vegas and made a wrong turn at Albuquerque,” he said blandly.
“What a disappointment.”
“Not even remotely.”
She stared at him for a beat, then blinked. “Well, just in case, I do have a deck of cards. I’ll be the house and we can play a few hands,” she offered.
“You’re too kind.”
“You can give me all your money and it’ll feel just like being there.”
“That would be much too kind.”
“That’s the way I am.” The amusement was back.
“So what are you doing here, meeting friends?”
“Flying solo.” She glanced around. “Where are your friends, Vegas?”
The palm fronds cast patterned shadows over her shoulders. Rand dragged his gaze away from her skin. “No friends.”
“Not any?” She raised an eyebrow. “But you seem like such a nice person. I’ll be your friend,” she decided. “Didn’t you tell me I owed a favor to the next person who needed one?”
“Generous of you,” he said dryly.
“Isn’t it just. Of course, I can afford to be generous. I’m here playing hooky from the world for a couple of days.”
“Hooky works for me.”
“Really?” She leaned toward him and lowered her voice like a coconspirator. “Want to play hooky together?”
“Only if you promise not to talk about anything remotely serious.”
“No politics?”
“Nope.”
“No economy?”
He shook his head.
“No ‘So, what do you do?’”
“Absolutely not. You start down that road, I’ll go find someone else’s tire to change.”
“Oh, now I get it,” she nodded wisely, “that was your pickup move.”
“You know it. I wait around the highway for gorgeous babes to have blowouts that they can’t change. It’s the ultimate icebreaker.”
“You are smooth.”
“Oh, I can ratchet up a jack with the best of ’em,” he assured her.
Her eyes were bright with amusement. “I thought you looked like a man who knew his way
