“Oh, I’ve already made up my mind.”

“Don’t tell me. I like surprises.”

The woman laughed, pulled the bookmark free and slid it into her jacket pocket, and sauntered away. Watching her go, Jenna finally rose from the table and smiled at the thought of what other surprises the night might bring.

“You don’t have time for that.” Alice drew Jenna away from the table with one hand on her elbow. “It’s almost eleven and you need to be at the airport by six.”

Jenna regarded the woman to whom she attributed much of her success. At forty, Alice looked a decade younger. Her milk chocolate eyes and sharply contrasting silver-blond hair added to the allure of a sensuous smile. An inch or two shorter than Jenna’s five-eight, she was voluptuous where Jenna could barely boast curves. Many an editor and publisher had looked at Alice and seen a throwback to the pinup starlets of an earlier age. They underestimated her barracuda instincts when negotiating contracts, much to Jenna’s benefit. She and Alice were very close friends, but business always came first for Alice. Jenna didn’t mind. She felt the same.

“When have I ever been late for a flight?” Jenna draped her navy silk blazer over her arm. June had turned the corner into summer and she hadn’t needed to wear it over her white silk tee.

“I’m the one who makes your schedule, remember?” Alice spoke quietly so those nearby would not hear. “We can’t afford for you to burn out, especially not for something as trivial as a quickie—”

“If you were getting a little something a little more regularly,” Jenna teased, “you would appreciate the benefits of physical therapy.”

“Then I’ll schedule you a massage in Chicago.”

“Wonderful.” Jenna skirted around the table to put an end to the conversation. She glanced back over her shoulder and flashed Alice a grin. “Make sure you sign me up for the full body package.”

Jenna finally dragged herself into her hotel room just before midnight and immediately kicked off her low heels and shed the navy pants that matched her blazer. While dialing room service, she powered up her laptop and checked her e-mail. Her editor had sent the galleys for her next novel, the story of a returning soldier who fell in love with the widow of one of her fallen comrades, and she downloaded that while ordering shrimp cocktail and a salad.

“How soon can you bring that?” Forty-five minutes. Plenty of time for a shower. “That’s great. Thanks.”

She deposited her underwear into a laundry bag, folded her suit into her suitcase to deliver to the hotel dry cleaners as soon as she reached her next destination, and padded nude toward the bathroom. Her eyes stung with fatigue and the turned-down bed called to her invitingly as she passed, but she wanted to get to the galleys tonight. And she really should eat something. She’d noticed when getting dressed earlier that her waistband was loose and she was dropping weight she really couldn’t afford to do without. Always on the thin side, despite having what her stepmother Darlene called a trucker’s appetite, she had trouble maintaining her weight when her schedule was so hectic she often forgot meals. She could review the galleys while she ate—multitasking was her forte, after all. Besides, there was always the possibility she might have company if the bookmark message did its job.

Smiling at the memory of the sexy redhead from the bookstore, Jenna stepped under the warm water, tilted her head back, and let the spray wash away some of the weariness. Beneath the exhaustion, she was still soaring with the evening’s success. That charge kept her going, gave her more satisfaction than anything else she’d ever known, and she never wanted the high to end. The breakneck pace of her life, like a train hurtling forward, carried her far beyond the past she wanted to forget.

She’d discovered by accident when she was ten or eleven that the voices of the characters she created in her imagination drowned out the sounds of Darlene’s harsh criticism, muffled the loud curses outside her window of drunks wandering home through the trailer park in the small hours of the night, and muted the insidious none-too-subtle putdowns of the kids in school. Never had she dreamed then that her escape into those fictional worlds would someday provide her freedom from a life she abhorred.

Fifteen minutes later, clean and relatively refreshed, Jenna wrapped herself in the plush white robe offered by the hotel and sat down at the desk to answer e-mail while awaiting her late-night supper. Before she made it through her unread mail, the bell outside her suite chimed. A quick glance at the clock sent her heart racing. Too soon to be room service.

She opened the door to the length of the security chain. “Yes?”

“Ms. Hart?” a female voice inquired.

“Yes?” Jenna’s pulse kicked higher.

“I thought I should return this to you.” Her bookmark emerged through the three-inch opening, held between well-manicured, tapered fingers.

Heat flared in the pit of her stomach, and Jenna tilted her head to see out into the hall. The redhead smiled back.

“What’s your name?” Jenna asked.

“Brin MacIntyre.”

“I just ordered room service. Are you hungry?”

“Eternally.”

Laughing, Jenna closed the door, slid the security chain free, and opened it. “I thought you said you didn’t read romances?”

Again, the red-gold brow winged upward as Brin stepped inside. “I don’t follow.”

“I believe you’re quoting one of my books with that line.”

“Is it getting me anywhere?”

“Oh yes.”

Jenna slid the chain back on, wrapped her arms around Brin’s neck, and kissed her. The kiss started out languid and soft, just a slow exploration. Brin was a very good kisser. With a tug from Brin, the tie on Jenna’s robe came loose and warm hands clasped Jenna’s waist. Her breasts tightened and her nipples hardened. The arousal was automatic, pleasant, welcomed.

Leaning back from the kiss, Jenna assessed her partner. Brin’s eyes were glinting hotly, her mouth a sensuous curve. She looked as confident as her kiss suggested she was. Jenna wanted more of those hard kisses and demanding hands, just as soon as she was sure Brin agreed to her Number One Rule. She was in charge.

“I want to take you to bed,” Jenna said. “First I want that beautiful mouth of yours”—she brushed her thumb over Brin’s lower lip and moaned softly when Brin gently bit her—“on me until I come. Then I intend to make you come, more than once.”

“No complaint from me,” Brin murmured without hesitation.

“You should know, too, I’ll be leaving at five in the morning.”

“Then we shouldn’t waste any time.” Brin walked Jenna backwards to the open bed, gently eased the robe from Jenna’s shoulders, and guided her down. Holding Jenna’s gaze, Brin unbuckled her belt and pulled her shirt from her pants. She had just opened the last button, exposing small breasts beneath a pale silk bra, when the doorbell rang again.

“Damn, that’s room service,” Jenna moaned, already so wet, so ready for that first searing caress she hurt.

Brin smiled and crossed to the door. Without opening it, she said, “Leave it in the hall.”

“Very well,” a voice from outside responded.

Within seconds, Brin eased into bed, braced herself on her forearms, and settled her hips between Jenna’s thighs. The pressure against Jenna’s clitoris made her stomach tighten.

“God, you feel good,” Jenna whispered.

“I’m going to make you feel a whole lot better very, very soon.”

Gard Davis studied the corpse.

The elderly woman lay on her back beneath a handmade quilt in a handsomely crafted bed that Gard was willing to bet had been in this woman’s family for over a hundred years. Although her skin was tinged with the faint blue of death, she was still beautiful. Her thick white hair flowed softly around a delicately sculpted face that, despite the decades, remained poignantly elegant. Gard saw no evidence of struggle, pain, or anything amiss, but she went through the prescribed steps because the deceased, and her family, deserved her best. She felt for a pulse in the carotid and radial arteries, and found none. She placed her stethoscope on the chest and listened for breath sounds or a heartbeat, but the torso remained motionless and deeply silent. Straightening, she arranged the covers until only the woman’s face showed against the soft linen pillowslip.

“What do you think?” asked Rob Richards.

“I think Elizabeth Hardy was a very lucky woman.”

“Huh?” Rob’s broad, open face puckered with confusion as he surveyed the dead woman. He was reliable and loyal, and unfailingly literal.

“What is she, ninety-four? Ninety-five? She died in her sleep.” Gard shook her head. “She’s lived all her life on this farm. As near as I can tell, she loved it. I hope I die in my sleep in my own bed when I’m her age.”

Gard couldn’t imagine dying with the sense of peace Elizabeth Hardy seemed to have attained. She was already thirty-three and had spent most of the last decade rootless. She didn’t see happiness in her future, not after losing her family, her lover, her social status, and pretty much everything that had defined her—or what she’d thought had defined her. With an irritated shake of her head, she turned to the paperwork she needed to fill out.

“You can go ahead and get the gurney, Rob. We’ll take her over to Simpson’s funeral parlor.”

“Shouldn’t we call someone?”

“I know she doesn’t have any family around here, and I don’t want to leave the body in the house. It’s going to hit ninety tomorrow. We’ll let Mark Simpson do what needs to be done while we call the sheriff and have her track down the family, if there is any. Then I’ll call them.”