Roxanne St. Claire - Like a Hurricane

Sally grabbed a yellow notepad and stuck a pencil in Nicole’s hand. “Come on. You’re creative. Let’s come up with an ad campaign.”

“I don’t know anything about advertising, Sal.”

“Sure you do.” Sally pushed the pencil as though she could force it to create. “Everybody knows what sells. Sex sells.”

Nicole’s eyes popped open. Could Sally read what was on her mind? To cover, she snapped her fingers and pointed. “Yeah. I could hang naked from the billboard.”

Without a smile, Sally raised a dubious eyebrow. “As if you’d let the world see what you’re hiding under all those loose flowing tops.”

Nicole remembered the look on Mac’s face when he’d first dropped his gaze. Why had she taken her damn jacket off? She always hid her generous bosom behind something like it. She hadn’t expected some gorgeous stranger to walk in the elevator, to lure her with deep brown eyes, to kiss her until she couldn’t think—

“Hey, earth to Whitaker.” Standing, Sally waved a hand in front of Nicole. “See? You’re already in a fog of creativity.”

Nicole laughed. A fog—but not of creativity. What had Sally said? Sex sells. “Sex sells beer and perfume,” she murmured. “Can it sell a resort?”

“Why not?”

Why not, indeed? If she could promise a few minutes of the experience she had in the elevator and hall last night, she could fill the place to capacity.

“Maybe you’re right, Sal.” An unfamiliar tingle started in her stomach. She leaned back and twisted her hair up and closed her eyes. “What if we got people to believe there was something…in the air at Mar Brisas? Romance. Attraction. Heat.”

“Yeah, yeah!” Sally tapped the desk excitedly. “Our resort is intimate, it’s personal—”

“That’s it!” Nicole pointed the pencil at Sally. “A personal ad! No, no. Not just one…” She stood up, snapping her fingers as fast as her thoughts. “A series of them.”

“A series?”

“Yes,” Nicole insisted, looking at Sally, but seeing the ad in her mind’s eye. “They’d look like personal ads from one lover to another, but really they’d be subtle messages about the romance and pleasures of Mar Brisas. We could change them once a week and tell a little story. All—” She held up her hands and grinned. “—in text and one color.”

Sally perched on the corner of the desk, her eyes bright. “Oh, I get it, Nic. I really do. All that commuter traffic on Route One—people would actually be looking for the next installment of the Mar Brisas love affair.”

Nicole turned the yellow pad sideways, to simulate a billboard, sketching the outline of a rectangle from end to end. “We can play up the surf, the evening air, always reinforcing the message that it was the historic, authentic resort at the root of the relationship.”

Sally’s phone rang and she backed toward the door. “Write. I’ll be right back.”

When she left, Nicole studied the blank pad and waited for inspiration. None arrived. She turned to the window and cranked the jalousies open, taking a deep breath of pungent salt air, enjoying the familiar mix of coconut and hibiscus.

God she loved this place. St. Joseph’s Island, her Aunt Freddie and a host of real, wonderful people had saved her as a child. Now she had to save Mar Brisas.

She needed inspiration. She tapped the pencil on the pad and stared at it. What inspired her?

Soul kisses and anxious caresses.

She squeezed her eyes shut. She needed to write, not remember the night before. What really inspired her?

That astounding flicky thing he did with his tongue.

“Come on, Nic,” she chided herself. “Get creative.”

But didn’t writers get their inspiration from real life? Okay, this was a fictional personal ad. She wasn’t looking for the man of her dreams because she didn’t believe in fairy tales, never had.

But if she did, it would be Mac. She just knew it.

And that, she heard a little voice whisper in her head, was exactly why she’d run away from him like a scared rabbit.

She nibbled on the rubber eraser. Forget Mac.

But this was advertising and Sally was right: sex sells. So Mac had to be her inspiration. Plus, he was long gone from St. Joseph’s Island. He’d never see the ad.

She started to write.

Looking for the mystery man at Mar Brisas Resort for another trip to heaven. Let’s meet on the endless white sand for more pleasure in paradise. You can find it at Mar Brisas…

Her pencil froze. How should she sign her little message? With a smile and a quick flourish, she scratched the closing words. Of course. She knew all along how she’d sign it.

The Lady in Blue.

It was nearly midnight on Sunday when Quinn zipped his rented Mustang convertible down Route One. He’d expected to be there much earlier, but the flight had been delayed. About a mile before the causeway, he hit eighty and tightened his grip on the wheel. He had to get to St. Joseph’s Island.

How would she respond to him?

He’d asked himself that question for a solid week while he waited none too patiently for Nick Whitaker to confirm another meeting date.

He didn’t know the answer to the question, but he knew one thing. She was the one.

Quinn McGrath, a confirmed bachelor, an admitted womanizer, a confessed workaholic and the quintessential guy’s guy, had a dark secret that he might have revealed if he’d been alone for another hour with that woman. He was a hopeless romantic. He firmly believed that somewhere out there, his soul mate existed. His one and only.

His feisty Irish grandmother promised him that “there’s someone for everyone.” And Quinn believed her. He had no problem sampling the others…but he was waiting for her.

And he’d found her. Hanging out of a ceiling of an elevator. If only he knew her name.

He smiled at his brilliant plan to tack a week’s vacation on to his trip. It would really help him get to know the place, he’d told Dan. Of course, Dan Jorgensen had balked at the idea of time off. Who would want vacation when you could work?

But Dan finally bought the rationale and Quinn immediately booked one of the beachfront villas under the name of MacDougall. He didn’t want the owner to know he was staying there until after he played hardball in the meeting with him. But he wanted to be sure any staff checking for a “Mac” would be alerted to his presence. He’d optimistically called and confirmed the one-bedroom villa had a king-size bed.

If only he knew her—

Quinn slammed to a stop and the Mustang swerved in traffic. Behind him, brakes screamed and someone laid angrily on a horn. But all he could see were the giant blue letters on a billboard awash with uplighting.

He stared at the words, a breath trapped in his lungs like an animal in a steel cage. He ignored the melee of horns and hollers that responded to his unscheduled stop, reading the message out loud and lingering over the last four words. The Lady in Blue.

Someone in the car behind him opened his window and yelled at Quinn. “You okay, buddy? You need help?”

Quinn waved out his hand in the air. “Thanks. I’m fine.”

Fine. Oh, man. He was more than fine. With a long last look, he jammed the gas pedal and he let out a whoop. As he swung the convertible onto the causeway, he banged the steering wheel and called out to the stars above. “Yes!”

The Lady in Blue was looking for him. For more pleasure in paradise. He’d waited thirty-three years to find his soul mate, kissing a lot of willing candidates in the process. But now he’d found her and she wanted him. He broke every speed limit in St. Joseph’s getting to Mar Brisas.

Of course, the apathetic Whitaker hadn’t staffed the front desk at midnight. He picked up the house phone, but before he dialed, he noticed an envelope next to it marked Mr. and Mrs. MacDougall. In it, the key to 1601, which he dropped in his pocket. He crushed the envelope and tossed it in the trash, smiling at the assumption that the MacDougalls came in pairs.