When he read the digital screen of the incoming phone number, he didn’t relax. “What’s wrong?” he demanded instead of a normal greeting.

“Some hello.”

“Dad.” Tanner let out a careful breath. His father sounded…fine. “You okay?”

“Scared you, did I?” He gave a craggy laugh. “Good. Maybe you’ll come by and bring me something.”

“I’m not bringing you cigarettes or booze.”

“Hey, I raised you better than that.”

Relief filled Tanner. “You’re ornery. That’s a good sign. I’ll bring you dinner.”

“I’d rather have the cigarettes.”

“Too bad.”

“Tacos then, extra spicy sauce.”

“Soup,” Tanner said finally. “Take it or leave it.”

“Double chocolate cake for dessert?”

“Pudding. Vanilla.”

“Dammit, boy, you’re the meanest son of a bitch I know.”

Tanner laughed. How long had it been since he’d sparred with his father? Heard that joy of life in his voice? Too long, and more than relief filled him, along with a burst of warm affection.

Tanner didn’t have much, materially speaking, at this point, not after a year of spending every penny he had to get his father well. But he had this, and it was everything. “Love you, too, Dad.

See you in an hour.”

“Are you sure? Because if you had a hot date, I wouldn’t want to interfere.”

He thought of Cami. And multiple orgasms.

He could give her multiple orgasms. At the mere thought, his body leaped to attention.

“Tanner?”

“No date,” he said, rolling his eyes at himself and his juvenile reaction.

“Why not?”

“Dad.”

“Look, all I’m saying is, if you come across a chance to get some instead of seeing me, well then, go get some.”

“Some what?” Tanner asked warily.

“Sex, boy. Stay on the same page now.”

Tanner groaned. “I’m hanging up.”

“Okay, but just remember. Sex first. Then me.”


THEY WENT all the way to Reno for dinner because Ted wanted to go to Denny’s. In hindsight, that should have been Cami’s first hint things weren’t going to get better.

“They’ve got a great buffet,” Ted said, huffing a little as he escorted her across the parking lot. They got to the front door at exactly the same moment, and Cami hesitated, thinking Ted might open it for her.

He opened the door, all right, and in his haste for food, pushed ahead of her.

And stomped on her toe.

“I love buffets,” he said in lieu of an apology.

Cami grimaced at her throbbing toe and smudged sandal. “Gee, I hope there isn’t a crowd.”

“That’s the beauty of this place,” Ted answered earnestly. “It’s never crowded.”

Goodie.

“Dessert is included.”

“Even better.” This couldn’t be happening to her, she decided, watching her date rush toward the buffet table. Her mother couldn’t have really done this to her own daughter. Determined to believe it wasn’t as bad as she thought, Cami pasted a smile on her face and tried really hard. “I heard you build Web sites.”

“Look at that,” he whispered reverently, pointing to a platter of biscuits, giving her a little nudge when she didn’t move. “Take as many as you want.”

“Great.”

After dinner, during which Ted refused to talk because talking interrupted the eating process, which was apparently close to a religious experience for him, he offered to let her pay. Then offered to take her to the movies.

Dutch treat.

“It’s not that I can’t pay for you,” he said quickly, walking with her to his car. “It’s just that in today’s day and age, I know how important it is for a woman to assert her independence. Plus, I find a lot of women take advantage, you know, and agree to go out with me just for a free night of entertainment.”

“In the name of not taking advantage, let’s just call it a night,” she suggested.

“Oh, no.” He looked scandalized. “That wouldn’t be giving this thing between us a fair chance. Hey, I have an idea. We can do the drive-in theater.”

“No, that’s not necessary-”

“Shh,” he said very politely, cranking up the radio and filling the car with what sounded like elevator music. “I love this song.”

Cami clamped her mouth shut and actually wished for Tanner’s far too loud rock music.


TED’S CAR DIED at precisely midnight, painfully reminding Cami that she was in no way, shape or form related to Cinderella, who’d at least had those cute little mice for company when it all went bad.

They were on a relatively untraveled stretch of road, because Ted had gotten off Highway 80 at least five miles from nowhere to see if he could locate the Big Dipper for her.

Now the car was dead and her cell phone had no signal.

Didn’t get much better than this.

Thanks, Mom.

“Here comes a car,” Ted said. “I’ll see if I can flag it down.”

Cami waited while he hopped out and wildly waved his hand, illuminated in the approaching headlights like a bouncing…dough boy. In the dark, Cami couldn’t see what transpired, but a moment later, Ted came back.

“It’s a woman,” he said. “She’s in a Porsche two-seater on her way to Auburn. She said she could take me into Truckee.”

“Me?”

“No. Me.”

Cami frowned because Ted seemed…excited. Breathless, almost. Definitely more animated than she’d seen him all night. “You mean you’re going to leave me here?”

“Just for a little while. I’ll go get help.”

“And come back for me?”

“Uh-huh.” But he was craning his neck, staring dreamily at the other car. His demeanor had changed, he stood straighter and taller and looked happier even than when he’d been facing a twenty-foot spread of food.

“That must be some woman,” she ventured.

“She’s a Denny’s fan.”

“You found that out in two seconds?”

“Yeah. So listen, I’m going to get going.”

Cami couldn’t believe it. “Let me get this straight. Your car died and you’re going to take the only ride, leaving me stranded out in the middle of nowhere by myself?”

“Don’t be silly. You have my car.”

“It doesn’t run!”

“Yeah, about that. Don’t turn on the radio while I’m gone, you’ll waste the battery on top of everything else.”

For a long moment after he’d left, Cami just sat there, rooted in…well, pissiness.

How had this happened to her?

Doormat. She wore one on her head.

It doesn’t look good on you, Tanner had told her.

And he was right. Damn, she hated that, when other people were right. Sighing, she leaned back and realized for the first time just how alone she was.

There were no other headlights in sight, not in front, not behind her. In fact, with a pathetically low moon and some cloud cover, there was nothing in sight except the glow of the white buttons that ran down the front of her sundress.

She became aware of how noisy nighttime in the Sierras was. Trees rustled with the wind and seemed…possessed. From far, far away came the sound of a truck. Good, she hoped it was coming this way. She’d simply flag it down and…get herself hijacked, kidnapped, raped and murdered.

Yikes.

Something very close by made a clicking sound. Probably a big, black ugly cricket. She quickly rolled up the window. Didn’t stop the clicking, though.

If that big bug was in the car, she was going to have to scream. Loudly.

She wished for Annabel, who’d save her from the bug. She wished she’d never gotten mad at the cat for eating spiders. She wished for Dimi, who’d know what to do, even if she’d tease Cami to death over this ridiculous predicament. Hell, she wished she’d never answered her mother’s phone call.

Setting her head to the dash, she closed her eyes and felt alone. Very alone.


H IS HAND slid around her waist to the small of her back. He stood close enough for her to smell him, sandalwood, leather and…drywall dust.

Stop. Rewind dream and try again, Cami told herself, jerking upright because she was absolutely not going to fantasize about that man, not Tanner James.

Slowly she drifted off again.

He had her against his warm body. He smelled like heaven, one hundred percent male. His broad chest and strong arms surrounded her.

Yeah, that was better.

He kissed her, softly at first, but with increasing heat and hunger, moaning her name in a voice that had shivers racing down her spine.

More, she demanded of her dream.

He lowered his hands to her bottom and cupped her in his palms, easing her closer, rubbing the heavy bulge at the fly of his jeans to the damp juncture between her thighs until she cried out his name.

Tanner.

Dammit, not again!

Cami closed her eyes tighter and refused to look at the face of her fantasy man, forcing herself deeper into sleep.

His hand skimmed up her spine, cupping her head. Tipping his to the side, he kissed her, deeper, wetter, using his tongue, his teeth, his touch to drive her close to the edge.

She wanted that edge, she wanted multiple edges.

Which brought her back to Tanner, damn him, because it had been him who put that unbearably erotic thought in her head.

Hopelessly awake now, she straightened and blinked into the dark night that wasn’t quite as dark anymore. According to her watch, she’d slept for five and a half hours, fantasizing about hot sex, which accounted for her hard-as-rock nipples and the ache between her legs.

It made her even grumpier.

Still no cars, but at least the sky was lightening. At five-thirty in the morning, the sun would be up soon enough. Grumbling, beyond fear, because she had to pee and was starving, she got out of the car. With her purse slung over her arm and cell phone in hand, she headed up the road, not intending to stop until she had a signal.

It only took about five minutes. She dialed Dimi’s town house first, and got her machine. “Get up,” she said unkindly into the phone. “I’m stuck out here in the middle of nowhere between Reno and Truckee and I need you to come get me.” She gave the exact off-ramp and her approximate location in high hopes her sister would wake up and come rescue her.

In case Dimi didn’t get her lazy butt out of bed, Cami tried her mother next. She didn’t care about the time or waking up her mother, mostly because it was her mother’s fault she was in this predicament in the first place.

But there was no answer there, either. “Okay, Mom, I’m stuck,” she said to the machine. “Your dreamboat ditched me for a babe in a two-seater. Who’d of figured, huh? I expect a ride pronto. Don’t you dare stop to take out your curlers first or I’m never giving you a grandchild.”

Cami tipped her head back, studied the stars making their exit into the day sky and sighed.

What now?

Ted, the jerk, had clearly ditched her. That, or he’d gotten very lucky.

Either way, she was on her own. And she wasn’t up for the walk, not without a bathroom, and there was no way she planned on squatting behind a tree, thank you very much.

On the off chance Dimi was at this very moment raiding Cami’s bathroom for lipstick, or her kitchen for chips, she tried calling her own town house. Okay, yes, she knew there was no chance in hell Dimi would be up this early, but desperate times… Fact was, she needed to talk to someone, and if that someone was himself, so be it. When the machine picked up, she said, “Dimi, get your paws off my stuff and come rescue me from the date from hell.”

Nothing.

“Okay, yes, I’ve got an attitude,” Cami said, trying to be nice just in case, because it was very easy to annoy Dimi. “And I’m sorry, but you would, too, if you’d had the night I had.”

Still nothing.

Cami stopped walking and leaned against a tree on the side of the road. “Fine, you want a good laugh? It all started last night, even before I left. First my contractor told me I have this doormat on my forehead that says oh, please take advantage of me, and maybe I do, but it wasn’t very gentlemanly of him to point it out, you know? And then I had to go to Denny’s for the all-you-can-eat buffet, which believe me sounds much more appetizing than it is. And now I’m stuck out here around Highway Eighty all by myself because my date went off with another woman. The car won’t start and I have to pee. And I’m wondering why it’s so hard to have a nice date? It shouldn’t be that hard, women are easy enough. A cruise would be nice, yes, but not expected. I mean really, whatever happened to candles and moonlight and romance? Are you there? Are you listening? Annabel? Anyone?”

Cami sighed and felt the surge of self pity wash over her. “Oh, jeez. Not that I’ll ever admit it to him, but Tanner was right. I should have just said no.”