Kate Hoffmann - A Fare To Remember

HANNAH FELT COSMOPOLITAN and daring, inviting a man up to her room on her first night in New York. It wasn’t a particularly elegant room, but she couldn’t imagine making him wait down in that cramped lobby. He was her new best friend and she wanted to treat him right.

He’d brought her flowers, too. Even with a few of the roses and a couple of daisies missing, it was a fabulous bouquet. She’d been a little worried that he was watching out for her as a favor to Mario, but if so he wouldn’t have brought flowers. She’d tuck one in her hair for the night and put the rest in the ice bucket. A daisy would look great with the peacock-blue-and-yellow dress she’d planned to wear tonight.

“Here we are, home sweet temporary home.” She pushed her card key into the lock and opened the door. The minute she stepped on the carpet and it squished under her bare feet, she suspected a problem. When she glanced at the bed where she’d laid out all her dry-clean-only, sale-priced interview clothes in preparation for ironing them, she knew disaster had struck.

“Sprinklers,” she said, moaning as she walked across the drenched carpet to her equally soaked clothes. “The smoke set off the automatic sprinklers.”

Zach closed the door and stared at the mess. “Can’t you just dry them somehow?”

“Not these. I mean, look at them.” A sick feeling settled into the pit of her stomach as she picked up what used to be a bold purple-and-kelly-green-striped dress. Purple and green oozing together made brown, something she’d learned in kindergarten with finger paints.

A neon-green suit decorated with big white tulips had rust splotches all over it. The rust had probably descended when the old pipes disgorged their supply of water all over the room. Her peacock-blue-and-yellow dress, a combo of silk and rayon that had been a steal at fifty percent off, was covered with ugly water stains and seemed to be shriveling before her eyes. That left her with the yellow sundress, which she’d hung in the closet after taking it off this afternoon.

She turned to him, determined to be a big girl about this. “Well, I’m clothes-less! Down to my underwear, a sleep shirt, my yellow dress and this bathrobe. Know any cheap stores?” Her voice barely quivered. She hoped he couldn’t tell that she was close to tears.

From the way he was looking at her, he probably could tell. “There are some resale shops in the Village.”

“Yeah?” She was determined to maintain a brave front. “Shopping in the Village would be very cool. I’ve always wanted to. Now it looks like I have a great excuse.”

“If you want, I could go with you during my lunch hour tomorrow.”

She was touched that he’d offer, but there were limits to how much help she could accept. “That’s sweet, but you really don’t have to. Shopping for clothes can’t be your favorite way to spend free time.”

“I don’t mind. I’d be happy to do that.”

“Because you feel sorry for me.”

He hesitated. “Look, it’s natural to feel a little sorry for somebody who just had her entire traveling wardrobe sprinkled into oblivion. But that aside, I’d like to help. And the fact is, you need me.”

She was afraid that might be true, for a variety of reasons, but she wasn’t ready to admit it yet. “Why is that?”

“I drive a hard bargain. No offense, but knowing how you pass out tuna and roses, I’m guessing you don’t.”

That made her laugh. “You’re right, I don’t. My sister refuses to take me to garage sales with her because I pay whatever’s marked on stuff, which she says violates the basic law of garage sales.”

“That’s absolutely true. It’s settled, then. Did you know your message light’s blinking?”

She glanced at the phone, and sure enough, the red light was flashing. “But I don’t know anybody.”

“You know the people in the hotel.”

Her tummy churned. “Oh, God. Do you think they’re going to charge me for this disaster?”

“No, but they might want to talk to you about it.”

She stared at the blinking red light and wondered if she could pretend she hadn’t seen it. If Zach was wrong and the hotel wanted to charge her for the inconvenience and water damage, she’d rather not find out right before her first big night in New York.

But she’d worry about that blinking light all evening, so she might as well get it over with. Picking up the phone, she punched the message button.

An official-sounding male voice came on the line. Ms. Robertson, we understand the sprinklers discharged in your room.

Hannah closed her eyes and hoped that her shaky financial situation wasn’t about to get a whole lot worse.

We apologize for the inconvenience. When you’re ready, we’ll transfer you to another room.

She let her breath out in a whoosh. “They want to switch me to a different room. That’s all.”

“As well they should,” Zach said. “You can’t sleep in that bed tonight.”

“Guess not. I hadn’t thought of that. But I don’t want to take the time to change rooms now. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

“And our reservations are for seven-thirty. I could call and change them, but-”

“No, don’t. I’ll let them switch me while we’re gone.” With no choice in the matter, she hurried to the closet and took out her yellow dress. Draping it over one arm, she pulled a rose from the bouquet. “Be right back.”

Then she stuck the rose between her teeth, flung her free hand in the air and cocked her hip in a flamenco dancer’s pose before dashing into the bathroom. His startled laughter was exactly what she was after. She might be a clueless newcomer who had trashed her clothes immediately upon arriving, but she didn’t want Zach to think she was totally pathetic. She still had flair, damn it.

FOR SEVERAL SECONDS ZACH stood staring at the closed bathroom door as he processed that last provocative image Hannah had given him. There was no getting around it, the woman was hot. Hot and generous. Zach’s imagination latched on to those two attributes and came up with one obvious conclusion. He wanted some of that.

But just because she aroused him didn’t mean he’d end up taped to Mario’s dash. It didn’t even mean he and Hannah would end up in bed together. He had no idea if he was the only one thinking about sex, although the rose between her teeth suggested she might be having thoughts along those lines, too.

He ran a hand over his face and took a deep breath. The rustling sounds coming from the bathroom did nothing to calm him down. He pictured the black bra and panties and realized she would have to take off the bra in order to wear the thin-strapped sundress. If she had spent some time sunbathing topless, which he suspected, her breasts would be golden and gorgeous.

This was insanity, standing here on a squishy carpet imagining what was going on behind that bathroom door. He should have waited in the lobby. At the rate he was going, he was liable to do something inappropriate, like grab her and kiss her the minute she walked out.

And then what, genius? Throw her down on that soggy mattress? Very classy.

Actually it sounded kind of kinky and exciting. The wet sheets might feel interesting against their hot bodies. He’d never had sex on a soaked mattress before, and the experience might prove educational and moist.

Oh, for God’s sake. He’d invited her to dinner, and they would have dinner. Then he’d walk her back to her hotel and go home like the sophisticated urban professional he was. He would not spend the entire meal wondering if she’d invite him back up to her new and improved, much drier room afterward. He would not hope that he could get her to do that routine with the rose one more time.

Mostly to give himself something to do, he pulled out his cell phone and moved the reservation ahead fifteen minutes so they wouldn’t lose it. There shouldn’t be a problem on a weeknight, but he didn’t want to take any chances. The evening had already had its share of detours.

As he was closing the phone and clipping it back on to his belt, Hannah came out. She wore the same dress, so the sight of her shouldn’t have affected him, but it did, anyway. Maybe it was how she’d done her hair.

After piling it loosely on top of her head, she’d tucked daisies into her curls so that she looked like a wood nymph, or at least what Zach thought a wood nymph might look like. He felt as if they should be running hand in hand through a meadow in slow motion before settling down on a bed of soft grass to…yeah, to have sex. Face it, Evans, you’re officially obsessed with the subject.

As a hormone-driven teenager he’d devoured a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and daisies had been involved in one of the sex scenes. He’d forgotten that until this very minute and wondered if the scene in the book had anything to do with his own fondness for daisies.

Hannah smiled at him. “Ready?”

You have no idea. “Sure. Let’s go.”

“I put the rest of the flowers in the ice bucket. Wait a sec. I should probably throw my undies and makeup in the suitcase and put the wet clothes in the laundry bag.”

“Probably should.” And he shouldn’t watch her do that, either. But he did, anyway, torturing himself with a view of silk and lace in various colors being tossed from a drawer into the duct-taped suitcase she’d taken out of the closet.

She ducked back into the bathroom and returned with her cosmetics bag. Then she grabbed two cans of tuna and dropped them in her oversize purse. “For tonight, in case we pass any homeless people.” Finally she turned to him. “Now I’m ready. You’ve been extremely patient.”

“It’s easy.” And it had been, which should have surprised him. Normally he didn’t like waiting for people.