out a beer and snapped off the top. Taking a long slug, he strode to his desk, collapsed into the chair and lifted his booted feet onto the desktop, crossing them at the ankles.
The cold beer slid welcome down his throat as thoughts of what he had planned for the next year filtered into his mind. He’d worked long and hard, bought the garage and made it enough of a success he would be bidding on an auction for garage number two in the New Year. He smiled. He was on his way.
Financially stable and continuing to provide for his family, he found life was good and settled, just as he planned. He took another drink. Even though he was nothing like his AWOL father, he couldn’t deny the thought of relationships, marriage and babies sent him running for cover.
That didn’t mean he would up and leave his family anytime soon. He was just fine and dandy living his life single and on his terms. Ignoring the ache in his chest, Scott took another pull on his beer.
The fact remained he still avoided serious relationships like his life depended on it. He couldn’t go there even if he found a woman he wanted. Not until he was ready to be a father and a provider and, by God, he wasn’t ready for either yet. There had been one woman that made him think he’d risk everything he held dear to be with her forever.
Forever lasted less than a few days before she disappeared out of his life again.
Scott took another drink. So he’d done his duty and continued to focus on looking after his mother and sisters as he had for the seven years before that fantastic week. He couldn’t deny his blood pumped with adrenaline, pulsed with a need for excitement and adventure...even some good old-fashioned romance from time to time, but he wouldn’t do that to himself, or a woman, until he was sure they’d both be around for the long haul.
The tension that knotted in his gut when he considered a committed relationship told him all too clearly he was nowhere near ready.
Scott hefted his feet from the desk and approached the office window. His Benelli motorbike was parked near the entrance of the garage, ready and waiting, primed to within an inch of her metallic life. Every time he revved her up, it was as though the bike urged him to just get the hell out of Templeton and onto the open road.
“No can do, sweetheart. No can do.” The weight of his familial obligations pressed down on his chest and Scott drained his beer.
He tossed the empty bottle into the recycling bin and whipped his leather jacket from the back of his chair. He shrugged it on, snatched his keys from inside the top drawer of his desk and strode toward the door. He locked it behind him and hurried down the steps, eagerly approaching his bike.
His heart pumped with anticipation for the freedom he felt whenever he rode her. He kicked the machine off its stand and wheeled it into the yard. He narrowed his eyes to look at the jet-black sky. Rain spattered his face. The gathering clouds would soon cover any stars that dared to appear when the mid-December temperatures slowly edged toward freezing.
He took his helmet from the box at the rear of his bike, pulled it on and straddled his favorite female. He gunned the engine and satisfaction roared through him as the powerful bike ignited his adrenaline and need for speed. Snapping down his helmet’s black visor, he accelerated onto the road toward Templeton’s town center.
He eased off the gas as he merged with the chaotic holiday traffic crawling along High Street. Colored fairy lights danced across his vision and he glanced toward the decorated shops on either side of him. The bustling summer season felt like an imagined memory. The Templeton shop owners were nothing if not resourceful, and each year the shops that kept the tourists happy with little pails and shovels in summer kept the residents happy at Christmastime with an array of gifts, original artwork and knickknacks only a woman needed.
Knowing he had to do something in the way of appeasing his coven of female relations, Scott reluctantly pulled into a parking space outside one of the shops. Cutting the engine, he slid off his helmet and ran his hand through his hair. He glanced toward a latticed window donning a particularly festive display and grimaced. Christmas was about time with family, laughing and joking, while consuming far too much food and beer. It wasn’t about sparkly red baubles, dancing reindeer or plastic Santas clutching their juddering bellies.
Get your ass in there and get this done, Walker. He swung off the bike and stowed his helmet.
Pocketing his keys, he took a deep breath and purposefully marched toward the shop. He raised his hand to push the door when it swung abruptly open. Upon sight of the woman’s long blond hair and hourglass figure trussed up in a fur-collared winter coat, he stepped back and waved his hand to the side in a theatrical gesture of gallantry. She barely glanced at him as she continued to coo and chatter into the cell phone glued to her ear, but he saw enough of her pretty features to cause his entire body to freeze and his grin to vanish.
Her soft floral scent whispered beneath his nostrils and her mumbled “thank you” seeped into his ears, burrowing deep into his mind. She hurried away along the street. Scott stared after her, his heart a granite rock in the center of his chest. That hair. That figure.
He swallowed. The short length of her coat showcased stocking-covered, shapely calves that he’d never forgotten. He couldn’t be mistaken. It was her.
He released his held breath and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. Not now. Not after all this time...
THE CHRISTIE HOTEL was wonderfully, quintessentially English. As a lifelong lover of all things Agatha Christie, Carrie had fallen in love the moment she walked into the Art Deco lobby earlier that evening. Unable to resist her producer’s habit of people-watching, she’d happily taken the key from the receptionist, dumped her case—after a little squeal of nostalgic satisfaction at the bedroom’s decor—and hurried back downstairs.
Now, as she stood in the hotel’s lobby, she released her held breath on an appreciative sigh. A gorgeous ruby-red carpet stretched out in front of her, leading to the closed beveled-glass, creamy-white doors of the bar at the far end. On either side of her, dual chairs were placed around low tables where people sat and chatted over a glass of wine or brandy. Plinths holding huge floral cascades of every imaginable color boosted the décor, the gilded mirrors reflecting the light in prisms around the vast space.
When her gaze travelled the height and breadth of the gloriously lit Christmas tree in the very center of the lobby, all thoughts of the dreaded task of tracking down Scott momentarily vanished. As she wandered closer, Carrie delighted in the exquisite 1930s ornaments and trinkets overflowing from its branches. She smiled, wishing for a sleek satin evening gown, and strolled toward the bar.
Despite being a habitual single-bottle-of-beer kind of girl, tonight she’d order a dry martini, just for the hell of it.
She slid onto a vacant barstool. The bartender, dressed in a black tuxedo, white dress shirt and bow tie, was young, good-looking and currently serving an elderly couple at the end of the bar. Carrie couldn’t wipe her smile as she stared around the room. The subtle light emanating from old-fashioned lanterns cast the intimate space in a soft amber glow; the dark wood paneling, bar and stools added warmth and security. The open-topped, pristine-white piano in the far corner was the cherry to her visual cake. Heavenly.
“Can I help you, ma’am?”
The bartender’s gaze darted in quick time from her face to the V of her sweater, but Carrie shook off the threat of annoyance, determined to
