Ryanne Corey - The Secret Millionaire

“Tonight was…?” Zack prompted.

“Perfect just the way it was.” She sighed, leaning her head back against the seat. “The rain has finally stopped. Can you smell how fresh the air is? I love it when the world is all fresh and clean like this.”

Obviously the subject had been changed. Since he truly didn’t know what else to do, Zack bent down, pressing his lips softly to her forehead. Then he stepped back, closing the Jeep’s door. “So be it. At least I tried.”

She gave him one last look, feeling the strange tug of unfamiliar emotions. Then, because she hadn’t really left herself any choice, she started the car and pulled out of the parking lot.

Immediately Zack pulled a pen out of his pocket and wrote her license plate number on the palm of his hand. He wasn’t through trying…not by a long shot.

Alpha males never gave up.

The motel Zack had seen earlier was managed by a middle-aged woman with a Santa Claus figure and a headful of pink foam curlers. She didn’t like being roused from her sleep, judging by the expression on her face. Zack threw her a preoccupied smile, and she started to blush and fiddle with the rick-rack collar of her pink-and-white seersucker robe. Wonderful. Now the nuclear weapon worked. Immediately he whipped out his poker face and asked if he could pay half price for only using the room half the night. He had discovered long ago that businesswomen didn’t mind being friendly—unless it cost them money. This lady was no exception: “A pretty face won’t get you any special treatment here,” she snapped, abandoning her flirtatious air.

Climbing the metal-grate stairs to his room on the second floor, Zack brooded on his unhappy existence, feeling deeply sorry for himself. A stout woman with curlers in her hair had just called him pretty. Before that, an irresistible woman had resisted him with no trouble at all. He’d kissed her and she’d kissed him back, which was probably a good thing, except for the fact that he now knew exactly what he was missing. Yes, he had Anna Smith’s license plate number, but that didn’t guarantee he’d ever see her again. The Jeep could be borrowed or rented for all he knew. He’d call in the license plate number first thing in the morning and discover just how depressed he should be. He knew that Anna wasn’t going to be easy to track down. And why?

Because he was on vacation and bad things happened to people when they were on vacation.

Though Zack had supposedly been given a nonsmoking room, it smelled heavily of cigarette smoke. He had quit smoking five years earlier, a monumental achievement for a man who had been smoking since he was sixteen. But suddenly he was itching for a cigarette. Naturally he blamed his renewed cravings on his burdensome vacation. The dripping faucet in the bathroom, the air conditioner that refused to turn off and the mattress that seemed to be made out of cement he also blamed on his vacation. It was a fine scapegoat.

He stripped off his clothes and huddled beneath the lightweight bedspread trying to get warm. After a few minutes he put his clothes back on and dove beneath the covers, trying to block out the rumbling of the air-conditioning. He didn’t feel sleepy whatsoever. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Anna. She was grinning at him over her shoulder, fluttering her extravagant lashes and looking so damned adorable. You’re cute, but you’re a little cocky.

Why had he let her go? Why hadn’t he done something?

It was rare for a woman to have this effect on Zack. Since his life was his work, he’d always made a practice of ending his relationships long before either party was seriously involved. He had learned from firsthand experience how difficult it was for someone in his line of work to have a normal private life. Zack’s father had also been a cop, a larger-than-life hero to his son and a man respected among his colleagues for his courage, humor and loyalty.

Unfortunately, Tommy Daniels was far better at enforcing the law than he was at making his marriage to his wife, Kelly, a success. Whether it was due to his addiction to thrills and chills or his famous roving eye, Tommy was a bitter and recurring disappointment to the woman who waited at home for him. Zack’s mother had tried for fifteen years to hold her marriage together. Though Tommy loved his wife, he was a man who became bored easily and found it difficult to enjoy the stifling responsibilities of a husband and father. He couldn’t relate to his wife’s loneliness, or her constant anxiety about his well-being. If he was content, why wasn’t she? Toward the end of their unhappy marriage, Kelly had begged her husband to leave his job and concentrate on his family. For Tommy, that was like asking him to give up oxygen for the rest of his life.

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