Lynnette Kent - Expecting the Best

Zach leaned toward her as she sat down. “Do you have space on your office wall for a plank that huge?”

“Definitely.” She patted the edge of the plaque. “I’ve waited more than ten years for tonight. I plan to hang this where everybody can see, if I have to build a wall to do it.”

The closing remarks also lasted forever, but at last the banquet broke up. Zach escorted Shelley to the coat-check desk, where she stowed the plaque, and then to the hotel ballroom. They reached the edge of the floor as the band started playing. Without a word, he held out his left hand. Her right palm lighted on his. He took her onto the parquet surface—she caught his rhythm immediately. Just like that, they were dancing.

“Mmm.” Zach grinned with satisfaction, swinging her through a turn. She followed like a pro. “I haven’t had anybody to dance with in a long, long time.” Not since his best friend, Claire Cavanaugh, had married Shelley’s ex and moved to Wyoming.

His partner stepped close and tucked her head just beneath his chin. “How many cops dance as well as you do?”

“Don’t know. Don’t dance with many cops.” He enjoyed her responding chuckle. “You should do that more often.”

“Improvise?”

“Laugh.” He didn’t expect an answer and moved her into another turn. When she came back, his hands automatically found their place.

Two years, he realized at that moment. He hadn’t made love to a woman for almost two years. Not since Claire’s wedding, when the realization of what he’d lost had hit him with the power of an avalanche. He’d needed someone to hold that night, and his date for the reception obliged. They went their separate ways the morning after, and he’d kept to the company of guys since. His handball game had really improved.

Tonight, he wasn’t thinking about handball. Shelley’s thigh brushed his legs, her fingers played across his shoulder. Her back arched as he drew her close for a dip and she looked up at him from under her lashes, smiling.

At the sudden rush in his blood, Zach wondered if he’d pushed the limits on his restraint a little too far.

The music slowed, ended. He forced his hands away from Shelley long enough to applaud. When the band started up again, he made himself wait and at least look at her for permission. The expectation on her face eased his mind... and raised his temperature. “You like to dance, don’t you?”

She moved into his embrace. “I grew up on Fred Astaire movies.”

“I’m no Astaire.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Zach.”

He wasn’t sure, at that moment, whether or not to believe the invitation in her eyes.

The rest of the evening convinced him.

THEY DANCED to every tune, drank champagne when the band took a break. Co-workers and competitors drifted by to offer congratulations on the award. Shelley found herself smiling at them, introducing Zach with her fingers on his arm as if he belonged to her or something. At the realization, she dropped her hand.

During the next introduction, her face heated up when he put an arm around her waist. But her stomach had settled down nicely. Somehow, she didn’t think she could credit the food.

At last the music started again and they could go back to doing what felt so right—dancing. Zach wasn’t a tall man like her ex-husband, but she was only five-two so she didn’t need tall. His steel blue eyes glinted with a smile as he engineered turns and dips and sways. While his breath warmed her ear, her temple, her cheek, his muscles responded with controlled power to every step she took.

Wise or not, Shelley couldn’t ignore the pleasure of being held in a man’s arms again, with his hands to guide her, his strength to lean on. She couldn’t resist the kick of flirting, and having somebody as good-looking as this man flirt back. Zach wore his tux as comfortably as a pair of jeans, as precisely as a European playboy. His light brown hair was sleek and tame tonight, his face more austere than she remembered. He smelled like heaven.

Under such a potent influence, any second thoughts lasted about as long as champagne bubbles. Late in the evening, Zach’s mouth brushed the skin of her temple. Desire, warm and fluid, rippled along her spine. When she looked up, his gaze asked a question. She impulsively parted her lips in invitation.

Yet his kiss took her completely by surprise. She’d never known such power, never felt so weak, as at the moment his lips moved over hers. The pleasure of being wanted tempted her to tears. Zach swept her across an entire range of emotions within seconds, and all with just the brief contact of his mouth.

He drew back the space of a breath. “Shelley.” His whisper sounded as unsteady as her pulse. “Leaving now might be a good idea.”

She didn’t have any clever words to use, didn’t intend to shatter the moment. Whatever he meant, she wanted these feelings to last as long as possible. As if he understood, they stopped in unison and turned without a word toward the nearest door out of the dim ballroom.

The bright lights in the outer hallway couldn’t break the spell. They retrieved the plaque and their coats. Zach helped Shelley into hers with a squeeze of her shoulders she knew she hadn’t imagined. As they waited for the elevator, she could barely feel the press of his palm in the small of her back, but she needed nothing more to keep her aware of his strength. He filled her consciousness to the exclusion of anything else.

In the lobby of the hotel, reality cracked over her like an icicle falling from the roof.

“Oh, wow.” Shelley stared out the glass front door at a foot of new snow. “Were we having a blizzard? I missed the news.”

Zach stood behind her. “Me, too. Doesn’t look like it’s thinking about stopping any time soon, either.”

“Maybe never.”

They watched the heavy curtain of snow in a kind of trembling suspension of time.

And then Zach bent close. “Your house is a long way out of town.”

“It is.” And dark and incredibly empty.

“Mine’s closer, but the cop in me knows better than to drive even that far after this much champagne.” His breath played across her ear.

She shivered. “Definitely a bad idea.”

“We could call a cab.”

That would give her too much time to think. “I dread going out in the cold.” Even inside her house, it would be cold. Because she’d be alone.

He took a deep breath. “We could stay the night here.”

For a thousand reasons, no would be the right answer. A wise woman learned from her mistakes.

Or did a wise woman take advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime chance? Shelley nodded and kept her eyes on the snow. “I think that sounds...perfect.”

His hands covered her shoulders again. “Back in a few minutes.”

There wasn’t much time to reconsider, even if Shelley could have managed to think amidst the fireworks of anticipation exploding in her mind. Zach returned in what seemed like seconds to sweep her and the plaque into a packed elevator—obviously, they weren’t the only ones who’d decided against travel. After an endless trip, he guided her out at the concierge floor. The rowdy crowd vanished behind sliding brass doors.

Walking down the hallway, Shelley registered impressions instead of thoughts. The dent of their footsteps on carpet the color of blue stained glass. A scent of flowers—lilies? And the quiet that only snow can bring, even to a tall, downtown building.

Then the click of a key card in the door lock.

The floor lamp between the armchairs had been switched on. A service tray waited nearby, bearing an ice bucket and champagne, glasses and a single rose in a crystal vase.

Shelley set the plaque down near the wall and turned as Zach closed the door behind them. “Someone works fast.”