Jennifer Greene: Can’t Say No

“Can’t understand you. You’ve got an arousing pair of…lungs, honey. Why don’t you use them?”

He stalked off through the throng of people waiting for luggage. Anxiety faded in Bree, replaced by a second wind of energy. Furious energy. For two cents, she would have followed him and landed a right hook…but then, she wasn’t the type. She had no temper now and never had. “Bree’s my good one,” her mother used to say. “I can always count on her to stay cool and calm. She never even cried as a baby…”

Good Bree, good Bree, echoed the rollicking headache in her temples. An arousing pair of lungs, was it? Bristling, she stalked toward the luggage pickup. Lungs, schmungs. The first time she’d laid eyes on Hart, she’d guessed he was obsessed with that particular portion of a woman’s anatomy. You could always spot a breast man in a crowd.

Richard, being a decent man, would never have been so crude as to stare at any woman below the neck.

Richard would also have helped her with her luggage, instead of leaving her standing there, the last one in the crowd, to face a moving conveyer with nothing on it. Where were her two pale blue suitcases?

The attendant looked blank. After two phone calls and seven pieces of paper from Bree’s scratch pad, she gathered that her luggage was on some other plane. Apologies and promises were politely delivered…one day, at most two, hand-delivered to her doorstep…

Which was nice. Except that her silk blouse was already wrinkled and damp with perspiration, and her pencil-slim skirt was hardly cabin attire. Glumly, Bree stalked off in search of her rental car, her stomach starting to cramp from hunger and her muscles protesting too many nights of insufficient rest.

She became abruptly alert as she neared the car desk. Hart Manning was there, bent over the long counter as he filled out some forms, his leonine mane unmistakable. He certainly wasn’t delivering sarcastic comments to the clerk as he had to Bree. The blonde was laughing, all dimples and bright blue eyes.

Ducking behind a conveniently tall businessman, Bree bolted for the farthest clerk as she rapidly smoothed her blouse and flicked back her hair. On the off-chance Hart should look her way, she’d make certain that the egotistical, opinionated boor saw a-how had he put it?-an efficient, self-sufficient woman. Her smile was wide awake and brilliantly capable as the young redheaded man across the counter glanced up, indicating it was her turn.

“How you doin’, miss?” The clerk had a cheeky grin and a wink for a hello. “What can I do for you?” It took several seconds for him to readjust his eyes down from her face to the piece of paper her hand was frantically waving. “Bree Penoyer, a month’s car rental, huh? Okay, sweets…”

But he returned a moment later with a boyish shrug. “You sure it’s under that name?”

She nodded vigorously.

“Can’t find a thing.”

Already paid for it, you must, she scribbled rapidly on her pad, but he’d turned to answer another customer’s question, and he didn’t see the note. He just winked again in her direction. Two customers later, she regained his attention, at least insofar as he leaned on the countertop and stared at her like a lovesick calf. “Hi again.”

Weren’t there child labor laws in this state? The kid couldn’t have been eighteen.

My car, Bree scrawled desperately.

“Maybe it was another rental agency? You want a phone?”

A phone was as useful to her as diamonds in the desert. Tears were so ridiculously close she was ashamed of herself. She never cried. Please look again, she scribbled, and sent pleading eyes to the young redhead.

“Hey, look, no problem. There’s a convention in town, and we’re booked up, but we’ll get you something.” The boy brought back a computer list, suggesting three gas guzzlers that would cost her twice as much as the one she had arranged for.

Bree closed her eyes in frustration, dragging one hand through her hair.

“ Now what’s the problem?” growled a baritone next to her.

Bree’s spine turned ruler-straight, her lips twisting in a stiff smile. “Nothing,” she mouthed to Hart.

“No problem exactly, mister…” The redhead explained the mix-up with a happy grin. That grin gradually faded as Hart let forth a stream of invective.

Fifteen minutes later, Bree had in her hand the keys to an affordable compact, and faced the nasty job of having to thank her rescuer. “Thanks,” she mouthed tightly.

“Can’t understand a word. I admit I’m fascinated by your game of not talking, but the immediate priority is food for the hungry. Usually, I offer a woman a meal before we’ve slept together-you’re a passionate snuggler, aren’t you, Bree? Or at least you were until you decided to start screaming. Now, now…” Hart shot her a lazy grin when her eyebrows shot up in outrage. He added in a whisper, “I had to pick up your name from the rental agent, since you’re so stingy with conversation. You look like hell, you know. Actually, a lot of men would probably burn for the way you look. I fail to understand why there isn’t a ring on your finger. You’ve been in Siberia for the last decade? Never mind. You can explain it all to me in sign language while we’re eating.”

A lynching, truthfully, would be too good for him. People were staring at them. Actually, it wasn’t people but women, looking not at them but at him. He drew every feminine eye as they passed, with his nauseating Greek-god profile and commanding stride. Furthermore, he was actually trying to tow her along with him…at least until she dug in her heels at the restaurant door, shaking her head vigorously.

“I take it that’s supposed to mean no? Honey, I’ve heard more noes that mean yes from women than there’s honey in a beehive. I watched you the entire time you were racing around the airport-and we both know you’re in no shape to drive. You could barely keep your eyes open getting off the plane, and your stomach was grumbling half the night. And you have a headache, don’t you?”

She shook her head in denial.

He tapped her nose gently with his forefinger. “And you’re a fibber. Amazing how a woman can fib without even talking.”

An hour later, Bree climbed into her rental car, locked the doors, checked the locks on all the doors, started the engine and jammed her foot on the accelerator. The weariness and depression that had been following her like a shadow these past weeks were gone. Every cell in her body was vibrating with life, after an incredible hour of that man staring at her over a restaurant table. He hadn’t been happy until she’d eaten ham, sausage, eggs and hash browns with two cups of coffee…She never ate that kind of breakfast.

Nor had she ever met a pushier, nosier man than Hart Manning. The less she answered his questions, the more he looked as if he’d gotten hold of a priceless puzzle that increasingly intrigued him. And he’d almost-once-made her laugh, with his coaxing grin and irreverent humor. She’d stopped herself in time. A woman should never encourage a stranger, and she could guess his intentions from the way he kept looking at her, at her breasts and throat and eyes…it was nerve-racking. The man was probably in heat constantly. She’d had a cat like that once.

She’d gotten rid of the cat.

A car zoomed past her, and she flicked her eyes in the rearview mirror. And blinked. A navy blue Lexus was just behind her, and the driver had a leonine mane, eyes that matched his car and a large, powerful hand that waved, all friendly-like.

Swiftly, her eyes returned to the road. Not that she could exactly accuse him of following her-he’d happily volunteered his own destination as a vacation cabin in the town just short of hers. That was still no excuse for his edging behind her as though she needed a caretaker. Her foot snapped down on the accelerator. So she looked sleepy, did she?