At Her Beck and Call. Dawn Atkins
at the rocking car.
“If I have to, I could.”
“I know what you mean.” His eyes held heat. He didn’t want to have to listen to Mark and Jasmine doing what they wanted to be doing any more than she did.
“Got a coin?” she asked him.
“Huh?” He fished out a quarter.
“You flip and I’ll call.”
He smiled, braced it on his thumb and tossed it upward.
“Heads,” she said, and they held each other’s gaze while the quarter flew and spun up, then down.
Mike caught it without looking and slapped it onto the back of his hand. Tails shone up at them. “Looks like I’m the lucky one.”
“Sorry.”
“Get some sleep.” He touched her cheek, looking bewildered. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“Oh, I do.” It was lust, pure and simple, stoked by the hours together, how comfortable they’d been, everything they’d shared. They’d slipped easily into a teasing flirtation and just gone too far. “Blame it on the desert, the night, the stars. Hell, blame it on golf.”
“If you say so.” He backed away, still watching her, then raised a hand in farewell before turning to lope to the car to tell the couple where they would be banging the headboard.
She stood for a second, trying to shake off the spell. Out there at the resort, she’d forgotten who she was, what she wanted, everything but the warm man whose lips were on hers.
She realized she wasn’t scared to go to work now.
Which caused a cold thought to trickle through her brain. What if the flirtation had been about the job? What if she’d worked the physical attraction because the mental challenge scared her? After all, if her boss was attracted to her, he’d have to keep her on. Had that been her unconscious trick? It was second nature to use sex appeal to get what she wanted.
But that was unacceptable. The new Autumn was better than that. Smarter, too. And tomorrow she’d prove it.
5
AFTER A SLEEPLESS NIGHT, Mike’s brain was full of white noise and his eyelids felt coated with sandpaper. At first Mark and Jasmine kept him awake, going at it as though they’d invented the act. A down pillow over his head hadn’t blocked the moans and shrieks and thuds.
But after that it was all about Autumn. He’d enjoyed her company so much. The hours had flown by, which was odd, since he usually tracked every tick of time.
Then he’d lost all sense and kissed her.
He was her employer, for God’s sake. Wasn’t it bad enough that he’d hired her out of guilt over ogling her? He had no idea whether she could even do the job. References notwithstanding, she was a student and Lydia’s system was not simple.
He’d hired her anyway. And then he’d kissed her.
Talking with her, laughing, teasing her, he’d realized how lonely he’d been, as empty and lost as that deserted resort. Standing there under a starry sky, he’d wanted to taste her, hold her, sink deep into her lush body.
What was his problem? He’d had plenty of feminine company over the past six months. He’d dated four women and slept with two. Attractive, intelligent, professional women.
He’d enjoyed them.
But he didn’t long for them.
Autumn Beshkin was the kind of woman a man craved. He’d always wanted that.
Something about her…an air of mystery and secret depths, a knowing cynicism with an edge of hope. She reminded him of the season she’d been named for, with its changing light, golden moon, crisp air and nature splashing the trees gold, rust and red. Autumn.
Hell, she’d turned him into a poet.
He couldn’t believe he’d told her he wanted to be a pilot. She’d been so eager about her new life that he’d flashed on the road not taken, the things he’d pushed down, shrugged off, ignored. Her excitement made him grin, made him kiss her.
It was crazy. Chemistry. As fleeting as sparks from a campfire. What he wanted was a relationship, making a life with someone, working through problems, setting goals and achieving them. At thirty-five, he was too old to think with his parts.
Still, there was something about Autumn. She was smart and funny and original, of course, but something else got to him—the way she came on strong, chin up. One tough cookie who expected to elbow her way to what she’d earned, by God, as if she didn’t dare hope for things to work out. Which hit him in the heart, made him want to bulldoze a clear path for her. Made him want to make her happy.
Jesus, Mike, you just met her.
But she was so…unusual. Unpredictable. Ferocious and shaky at the same time. And he couldn’t wait to see her again.
He dragged himself out of bed, got ready and headed in to work. He loved his drive into town. Right away, he picked up the sweet tang of prickly pear jelly stewing in the Cactus Confections vats.
The factory was located in one of three historic buildings, including a defunct blacksmith shop and what passed for a museum housed in the old post office/assay office. Sally’s Knit Hut now inhabited the old mercantile. There were federal monies available for the restoration of historic districts if he could only carve out the time to write the grant proposals.
At the town limits, Ned Langton was planting the flowers in the Welcome to Copper Corners sign. True to his word, he seemed to be almost ready for the Founder’s Day dedication.
Turning the corner, Mike watched Jeff Randolph swipe his neighbor’s Copper Corners Dispatch. Jeff refused to pay the carrier over some nonsense about too many tosses in his cholla bed and chose, instead, to irritate his neighbors. Jeff was a jerk, but he’d donated more money than anyone for Darren Goble’s reconstructive surgery after the tractor accident.
Mike loved this town and all the people in it, flaws and all. Driving down Main, he felt a renewed sense of mission. The citizens of Copper Corners had faith in him. They’d elected him for a third term, hadn’t they?
Not that anyone had expressed any interest in running against him. Not many go-getters in Copper Corners. If you wanted to make a mark, you left town.
Yeah, Copper Corners was small and people gossiped, did petty things, were selfish and sometimes mean. People in cities weren’t any better. The difference was that in a small town, like in a family, you solved conflicts, worked around warts and foibles. You didn’t give up on each other, get a new job or grab a cab out of town.
Who was he arguing with?
Autumn. She’d tilted her head at him as though he was as quaint as the little town that owned his heart. He had no regrets.
Or very few, anyway.
He passed the high school, the elementary school, the pizzeria and the downtown shops, then pulled into the town hall lot and parked in the mayor spot—not that he ever had to fight for space. Especially not this early in the morning.
He was surprised to see Evelyn’s blue Toyota Camry with its license plate border painted like lace. Autumn’s car—a silver Subaru WR X, sexy and practical, like the woman herself—wasn’t there yet.
Inside, Evelyn held the phone between her ear and shoulder while she knitted what looked to be a baby blanket. Already, Lydia and Bud must have Evelyn’s fluffy handiworks bursting out their windows and doors.
When she saw him, Evelyn stopped sewing and dropped her jaw. “Hang on,” she said to her caller. “You getting an award somewhere, Mayor Mike?”
“Of course not,” he said, feigning innocence.
“Dress slacks