drift.”
Great. He was lusting after Klondike Kate but he’d gotten stuck with Miss Hot-for-Your-Wallet.
Undaunted by his lack of response, Elvira continued. “Somebody told me you’re that millionaire bachelor. Is that true?”
“Sorry.” He shook his head. “Don’t have a penny to my name.”
“Oh.” Her eyes rounded in alarm as if she’d just stepped in a big pile of something unsavory with her expensive designer shoes.
And his friends claimed he was too cynical. Well, he had his reasons.
From the beginning of this whole advertising-for-wives venture, Caleb had been reluctant to join his friends. Not that he was afraid of commitment—he did yearn for the same intimacy and happiness the ad had generated for his three buddies, Quinn, Jake and Mack. But given his family’s history of numerous weddings and divorces, stepfamilies merging and then dissolving, he was a bit leery of marrying for any reason other than true love.
You’re paranoid, Greenleaf. Terrified of getting involved with a woman like your mother who ditches rich husbands for even richer ones. Or of winding up like your dad, down and out after two failed marriages.
Okay, all right. Perhaps he was sensitive on the subject. And maybe he did have trust issues when it came to women.
At age twenty-seven, he had amassed a small fortune by translating his love of the wilderness into a lucrative dot-com company that supplied indigenous flora and fauna to universities and laboratories. When he’d sold the company in the midst of the bull market and parlayed his hobby into a cool million, he’d discovered that other than impressing his hard-to-please, social-climbing mother, the money had been a hindrance rather than a boon.
He realized too late he shouldn’t have worn the attention-grabbing Don Juan costume. He couldn’t say why he’d chosen the guise of the infamous lothario. Perhaps because he was nothing like the gregarious Spanish lover and it was easier pretending to be something he wasn’t. More than likely it was because the outfit had been fairly simple to put together.
But if he was honest with himself he would admit the Don Juan masquerade did elicit a certain confidence in him. Something about these leather pants, shiny black boots, dashing cape, dapper fake mustache and billowy white pirate’s shirt stoked his confidence in a way he couldn’t explain. The costume served as a conduit for the darker side of his personality and dared him to act upon impulses he normally would have suppressed.
Like the urge to glide across the room and introduce himself to Klondike Kate.
He had never been one for casual sex, although in college he’d indulged in a few short-term flings in an attempt to douse his desire for Meggie. But the woman in red made him so darned hot that he was ready and willing and open for just about anything.
Short-term, long-term. He didn’t care. He just wanted to get to know her.
And, after much speculation, he was ready to call off the wife search and plunge headlong into a reckless affair in order to ease his sexual frustration.
Tonight he was suave Don Juan.
Anything was possible.
Go on. Do it.
He searched for his crimson goddess, but she had walked away. He was bereft for a moment, but then he caught a flash of red as she disappeared into the costumed throng gyrating on the dance floor in time to a jivey disco version of “Wild, Wild West.”
He exhaled.
“Wild, Wild West” morphed into “Super Freak.” Blood strummed in his temples and his heart pounded like a headhunter’s drum. Panic scratched through him at the thought she might leave the party before he could speak to her.
Where had she gone?
“Will you excuse me?” he asked Elvira, and before she could reply, he pushed off from the wall and went to prowl through the crowd.
After several minutes of searching, he spied Klondike Kate sitting alone in a cloth-backed chair positioned in a dimly lit alcove just off the main hall.
He smiled to himself.
Gotcha.
One high-heeled shoe dangled from her hand and she was slowly massaging her foot. At the sight of those delicate toes, painted not stark scarlet as he might have suspected, but a beguilingly innocent cotton-candy pink, Caleb’s lodged in his throat. She inclined her head, exposing the gentle sloping curve of her neck, and he had to bite down hard on the inside of his cheek to keep from moaning out loud. His gut constricted, his muscles loosened, his body warmed—and extreme reaction he recognized but could not seem to control. His unexplained nervousness scared him, smacking of a weakness he did not want to accept.
Don’t let her get to you.
It had simply been too long since he’d had sex. That was why he was so susceptible to her allure. No other reason.
Yeah, right. If mere horniness was what motivated him, then why not take advantage of the dozens of women who’d thrown themselves at him all summer?
Nope, this was different, even if he couldn’t say why.
Klondike Kate started to lean forward to slip her shoe back on, but stopped short. His gaze tracked her movements. He noticed one of the hooks on her bustier had snagged the chair’s tweed cloth.
Squirming, she tried unsuccessfully to dislodge herself.
This is your chance to meet her, Greenleaf. Don Juan to the rescue.
Heart thudding, he hurried over, boldly leaned down, pressed his mouth to her ear and heard himself whisper in a debonair Spanish accent that sounded nothing like his natural voice, “Please, allow me. It would be my greatest honor to assist you.”
DON JUAN’S MANLY HANDS rested on her bare back, his fingers finessing the hook of her bustier.
Meggie Scofield caught her breath, stunned that the drop-dead gorgeous man in the black leather mask who had been staring so blatantly at her ever since she strolled into the community center was touching her in a most intimate fashion and causing a frisson of heat to spread fanlike over her tender flesh.
No. No. This was much too soon. The guy was more than she had bargained for. She wasn’t ready for this much masculine attention.
It had taken every ounce of courage she possessed—plus generous encouragement from her friends and a hefty quaff of chardonnay—to stroll into the party wearing this skimpy outfit. If she hadn’t been so darned determined to shed her goody-goody image she wouldn’t have made it this far.
But now she was paralyzed, intoxicated by the smoldering nearness of this stranger. He stood so close his spicy cologne filled her nostrils with the bracing combination of orange zest, piquant cinnamon and rich licorice. He smelled like a holiday feast.
Anticipation, charged and fiery, crackled between them. Adrenaline shot through her veins, prickled her sensitive skin, seeped beneath the auburn wig she wore over her coal-black tresses.
Who was he? And why did he seem so fascinated with plain ordinary Meggie Scofield,
