Rachel Gibson - The Trouble With Valentine's Day

She'd worked for Intel Inc., one of the most prestigious investigating firms in Vegas. She'd enjoyed everything about being a PI. Everything from spying on lowlifes out to defraud insurance companies or the casinos, to reuniting long-lost loves or separated family members. If she'd had to follow cheating boyfriends or girlfriends or spouses, that had been okay too. Hey, if a man or woman was cheating, then they deserved to get caught. If they weren't (which was never the case), then no harm done. Either way, it had not been her problem. Kate had gotten paid for her time and walked away…

Until the day Randy Meyers had come to her fourth-floor office. There hadn't been anything remarkable about Randy. He'd been neither handsome nor ugly. Short nor tall. He'd simply been.

He'd come to Intel Inc. and to Kate because his wife had disappeared with their two children. He'd shown Kate the typical family photo. The kind taken at the mall for around thirty bucks. Everything about that photo had been ordinary. Everything from the matching sweaters, to the boy's crew cut and the little girl's missing front tooth.

And everything about Randy had checked out. He'd worked where he'd said he did. He'd had no criminal record. No history of abuse. He'd sold cars at Valley Automall and had been his son's Cub Scout leader. He'd been his daughter's soccer coach, and he and his wife, Doreen, had taken classes together at the community college.

His wife and the children hadn't been hard to find. Not at all. They'd fled to Waynesboro, Tennessee, to stay with Doreen's sister. Kate had given Randy the information, signed off on the case, and never would have given it a second thought if Randy hadn't made the national news twenty-four hours later. The things he'd done to his wife and children before he'd killed himself had stunned the country. It had shocked Kate to her core.

This time, she hadn't been able to remain detached. This time she hadn't been able to tell herself that it wasn't her problem, that she'd just been doing her job. This time she hadn't been able to move on.

A week later, she'd resigned from her job. Then she'd called her grandfather and told him she was coming to visit him for a while. Her grandmother had died two year earlier, and Kate knew that her grandpa, Stanley, was lonely. He could use her company, and she could use a breather. She didn't know how long she would stay, but long enough to figure out what to do now. To take a step back and figure out what she wanted to do next.

She faced the bar and took a drink. The rum slid down easy and added a little kick to her growing buzz. With single-minded determination, she pushed thoughts of the Meyers family from her head and concentrated on the hearts strung along the bar. It was Valentine's Day, and that reminded her that she hadn't been on a good date in months. Sex since the Bellagio and Manny. And while she really didn't miss Manny, she did miss intimacy. She missed the touch of a man's strong hands. Sometimes she wished she were the sort of woman who could pick up a man in a bar. No regrets. No recriminations. No wanting a criminal background check first.

Sometimes she wished she was more like her friend, Marilyn. Marilyn's motto was, "If you don't use it, you'll lose it," as if her vagina had an expiration date.

She looked at her reflection in the mirror behind the bar and wondered if losing the desire for sex was like losing a sock at the Laundromat. Did it just disappear without a trace? By the time you noticed it was gone, was it too late? Was it gone for good?

She didn't want to lose her desire for sex. She was too young. For just one night, she wished she could turn off the interrogator in her head and find the sexiest guy around, grab him by the front of his shirt, and lock lips. For just one night, she wished she were the type of woman who could gorge on wild sex with a man she'd never met and would never see again. His touch would burn her alive, and she'd forget about everything but his mouth on hers. She'd take him to her hotel room, or perhaps they wouldn't even make it to the room and they'd have to do it in the elevator, or a service closet, or maybe she'd do him in the stairwell.

Kate took a drink and turned her attention to the good-looking bartender. He stood at the end of the bar laughing and joking and shaking up martinis. She might have become cynical about people and especially men, but she was still a woman. A woman with dozens of secret fantasies spinning about in her head. Fantasies of being swept up into big strong arms. Of eyes meeting across a crowded room. Of instant attraction. Remorseless lust.

Since her breakup with Manny, all her fantasy men were the complete opposite of her old boyfriend. They were all bad boys with big hands and bigger… feet. The star of her current fantasy was a blonde badass with size thirteen biker boots. She'd picked him from a Dolce & Gabbana ad in Cosmo , looking all cool and unkempt with his bad self.

Sometimes her fantasy involved him tying her to the back of his Harley and absconding with her to his love shack. Other times she'd see him in different dive bars with names like The Brass Knuckles or Devil's Spawn. Their eyes would meet and they'd only make it as far as the alleyway before they tore at each other's clothes.

Someone took the stool beside Kate and bumped her shoulder. Her drink sloshed, and she cupped her hands around her warm mug.

"Sun Valley Ale," a masculine voice next to her ordered.

"Draft or bottle?" the bartender asked.

"Bottle's fine."

As much as Kate would love to live out one of her fantasies, she knew it would never happen because she could not turn off the PI in her head. The one that, at a crucial moment, would decide she needed background check first.

The scent of crisp night air suddenly surrounded her head, and she slid her gaze from her mug to the green plaid flannel rolled up thick forearms. A gold Rolex was strapped around his left wrist, and a thin silver band circled his middle finger.

"Do you want this on your room tab?" the bar-ender wanted to know.

"Nah, I'll pay for it now." His voice was low and a little rough as he reached for his wallet in the back pocket of his Levi's. His elbow brushed hers as she ran her gaze up the green flannel of his arm to his big shoulders. The ceiling lights above shone down on him and picked out variegated gold in his brown hair. Unruly and finger-combed, his hair covered his collar and the tops of his ears. A Fu Manchu mustache framed his wide mouth, and he'd grown a soul patch just below his full bottom lip.

Her gaze continued upward to a pair of deep green eyes staring back at her across his broad shoulder, past all the greens on his shirt. His lids looked a little heavy, like he was tired or he'd just gotten out of bed.

She swallowed. Hard.

"Hello," he said, and his voice just seemed to pour through her like her hot buttered rum.

Holy Mary mother of God! Had thinking about her badass fantasy man conjured him up? He wasn't blonde, but who cared? "Hello," she managed, as if the hair on the back of her neck hadn't started to tingle.

"It's a beautiful night to hit the slopes. Don't you think?" he asked.

"Spectacular," she answered, although her mind wasn't on skiing. This guy was big. The kind of big that came from genetics and physical labor. She'd guess he was in his mid to late thirties.

"Lots of new powder."

"That's true." Kate pressed her fingertips into the warm porcelain mug and fought the urge to play with her hair like she was in the eighth grade. "Gotta love all that fresh powder."

He turned on his stool to face her, and her heart just about stopped. He was even better than her fantasy man, and her fantasy man rocked.

"So why aren't you out there?" he asked.