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  Karla froze, and then she thawed, and then she melted. While her intellect issued a warning to withdraw, Karla pliantly allowed his arms to draw her into a shockingly intimate embrace. And while her sense of self-preservation insisted she cease and desist, Karla eagerly obeyed the request of his probing tongue to open her mouth for him. And while, somewhere on the edge of consciousness, she realized his endearments were uttered because he probably didn’t even know her given name, Karla shivered in response to the sweet, hot thrust of his tongue.

  His lips moving on hers as though he was intent on devouring her with his mouth, Jared murmured a deep-throated growl and slid his broad hands to her neatly rounded bottom. His fingers flexed into the soft flesh, then tightened to draw her up and into the heat of his taut body.

  Instead of feeling shocked by the contact with his aroused body, Karla experienced a shattering thrill of acceptance. Her intellect, sense of self-preservation, and conscience obliterated, her very consciousness balancing delicately on the edge of nothingness, she clasped her arms around his corded neck and arched her spine, pressing her tingling breasts to his chest and her quivering hips to the blatant maleness of him. Clinging to him with every ounce of feminine power she possessed, Karla feasted on the taste of Jared’s mouth, inhaled the spicy scent of Jared’s masculinity, and absorbed the essence of Jared into her soul.

  How long the kiss lasted, or would have endured, Karla didn’t know, but it ended when the alerting sound of a key being turned in the back door pierced the fog of sensuality clouding her mind. Jared relinquished his claim on her mouth the instant she began to struggle, but though he raised his head, he maintained his hold on her body.

  “My assistant!” she gasped, trying, and failing, to escape his embrace. “She’ll be walking in in a few moments. Please let me go.”

  “If you’ll agree to have lunch with me,” he said calmly, in an outrageous attempt at blackmail.

  At that moment Karla would have agreed to almost anything to avoid the embarrassment of having Anne discover her wrapped in Jared’s arms, but it was impossible. “I can’t,” she said in a frantic whisper. “I have an appointment.” Truth rang in her tone, simply because she’d told him the truth; Karla had agreed to meet her friends for lunch before they left for Phoenix, where they would catch two planes bound in different directions.

  Jared’s arms tightened. “Dinner.” It was not a question; it was a demand.

  Karla cast an anxious look at the door leading to the back office, where Anne was probably hanging up her coat at that moment. “Yes! Now will you let me go?”

  “Seven?”

  “Whenever!” Karla’s voice had a decided edge.

  Jared smiled and lowered his head to brush his lips over hers. “All right.” He brushed her lips again on his backward motion. “And we will have an affair,” he murmured. “Until seven, my sweet—Karla.” His arms released her and then, moving with a silent swiftness she wouldn’t have believed possible in such a big man, he was gone. The showroom door closed behind him as the office door opened behind Karla.

  * * * *

  He knew her name.

  The recurring thought distracted Karla at odd moments throughout the morning. Carefully avoiding asking herself why it should be so important to her that Jared had bothered to find out her name, Karla went about her daily routine with outward composure, while inside she was a mass of conflicting emotions, the strongest of which was self-recrimination.

  What in sweet heaven had come over her?

  The question jabbed at Karla with the painful regularity of a sore tooth. Her responsive capitulation to Jared’s advance was so uncharacteristic, so out of sync with her normal behavior, that Karla was left with a residue of confusion and impatience.

  Jared Cradowg was a man, like other men, and the fact that she had not merely responded to him but had responded with abandonment was an unpalatable dose of self-knowledge for Karla to swallow.

  Well, perhaps Jared wasn’t quite like other men.

  The thought brought Karla up short. Standing as still as if she’d been suddenly turned to stone, she stared out through the gallery window, blind to the magnificence of the panoramic view of the surrounding rock cliffs, blazing red in the morning sunlight. As her probing gaze turned inward, she contemplated the direction her unsettled mind seemed bent on talking.

  Why was Jared not quite like other men?

  Karla knew the answer to that question—she simply shied away from forming it. Still, her feelings, her emotions, her consciousness, insisted she not only form the answer but examine it, dissect it, face it without flinching.

  To the casual observer, even to Anne, who had come to know her as well as she allowed most people to know her, Karla appeared cool, composed, but distracted. Her appearance was a facade she had carefully, painfully erected many years before as a defense.

  Inside, where Karla lived, she was beginning to tremble in protest to the answer presenting itself against her will. Her eyes open but narrowed, Karla stared out the window at the appealing modern western city—and confronted old established fears ingrained in her self.

  Jared Cradowg was not different from other men merely because he was an exceptionally talented artist, or because he was an extremely attractive man—in an earthy, wholly masculine way. No, the intangible that set Jared apart from other men was the responsive emotion he so effortlessly drew from her. Jared was the cause—Karla was the effect. And it scared the hell out of her.

  Karla had traveled the route of personal and emotional cause and effect before. She had paid the price of a destructive relationship in the coin of pride and self-esteem. When finally, emotionally bankrupt, she had walked away from the destructive situation, Karla had determined to avoid at all costs that rock-strewn pathway from involvement to commitment.

  At the time, young in years, but old, bitter, and wise in experience, Karla had laughed in self-mockery while declaring she would commit herself to an institution before she’d commit herself to another man.

  Yet now, only a few years later in actual time but light-years in terms of Karla’s personal growth, she identified and was terrified by the revitalized juices surging thick and hot through her body in response to Jared Cradowg.

  In other words, Karla knew she was in deep trouble in regard to Jared. His appeal was basic in nature; something in him silently communicated to something in her.

  “Karla, don’t you have a twelve-thirty appointment with your friends for lunch?”

  The sound of Anne’s voice jarred through Karla, shattering her concentration and dispersing the disruptive quiver attacking her nervous system. Both annoyed and gratified by the interruption, she gathered her thoughts and senses together before turning to reply to her assistant with a brittle smile of composure.

  “Yes, I do.” Karla shot a quick glance at her wristwatch, and concealed her amazement on discovering the amount of time she had spent on inner scrutiny. “I’d better leave.”

  “Yes.” Anne’s smile revealed her confusion, but she refrained from commenting on Karla’s distraction.

  Grateful for the younger woman’s reticence, Karla gave her a warm, genuine smile. “I doubt that I’ll be back after lunch. Can you handle it on your own?”

  Anne’s slight frown was wiped away by her soft laughter. “You’ve trained me very well, Karla. Yes, I’m sure I can handle it on my own.”

  Karla flashed a grin as she headed for the back office and her handbag and cape. Within minutes she was behind the wheel of her secondhand car, silently giving thanks for whatever had guided her the day she had decided to hire Anne, who had been eager but inexperienced.

  Since her friends were planning to leave directly after lunch, Karla had suggested they meet at the restaurant adjacent to their motel. As she drove into the parking lot, she felt her breath catch in her throat at the awesome view.

  The motel stood close to the edge of a cliff, affording a panoramic view of a section of Oak Creek Canyon. A wry smi
le curved Karla’s lips as she stepped from the car, recalling the awe and trepidation she had felt on her initial trip into Sedona to scout out possibilities for her gallery. As her friends had done, Karla had flown into Phoenix on that hot day in late spring and had rented a car to drive to Sedona. Armed with a map, she had decided to enter Sedona via the scenic route. And scenic had barely described the drive down the cliff face into Oak Creek along a switchback road composed of a series of hairpin curves. The memory of her sweaty palms and amazed senses brought a soft chuckle to Karla’s lips.

  “Uh-huh, the pressure’s gotten to her and she’s beginning to unravel. Laughing to oneself is the first sign.”

  Startled by the dryly voiced observation, Karla whipped around, her chuckle growing into full-throated laughter as she encountered the smiling faces of her friends.

  “I agree.” Alycia nodded solemnly at Sean. “Do you think we should begin to worry about her?”

  “Begin to worry!” Andrea piped in. “I thought we’d been worrying for almost six months.”

  Asking herself if she’d ever get used to being cared about, Karla winked the mist of tears from her eyes and managed a shaky smile.

  “I was recalling the first day I came here, and my reaction to the scenic drive into Oak Creek Canyon,” she explained, linking her arms through Alycia’s and Andrea’s.

  “Aha! That explains it then.” Sean looked relieved, which obviously hadn’t been easy, considering the gleam of humor in his eyes. “Karla isn’t going around the bend. She was merely reliving an experience that was similar to the one the three of us shared yesterday.”

  Karla tilted her head to look up at him. “You drove into Sedona via the scenic route, too?”

  Sean nodded. “I loved it.” He grinned. “At least what I could see of it while negotiating those curves.”

  “It was fantastic!” Andrea agreed enthusiastically.

  “It was absolutely terrifying!” Alycia shuddered. “I was numb with fear and barely breathing by the time we finally got to the bottom.”

  Feeling the reflexive quiver in the slender arm linked through hers, Karla frowned at Alycia. “I didn’t know you had a fear of heights.”

  Alycia’s smile was weak. “I suffer from acrophobia with a capital A. I have since I was a child.” Her eyes grew shadowed with a faraway, dreamy expression. “I think it has something to do with being thrown from a horse during a previous incarnation.” Her voice held the tone of utter conviction.

  Andrea nodded in solemn agreement. “Of course, that would explain it”

  Karla came to an abrupt stop and rolled her eyes in Sean’s direction, as if beseeching help. “Please, don’t start that reincarnation hocus-pocus again,” she pleaded, referring to the esoteric belief held by both of her friends.

  Alycia’s smile was soft with understanding. “You really do have difficulty with the concept of reincarnation, don’t you?”

  “Oh, no.” Karla shook her head in sharp denial. “I have difficulty with the freeway—any freeway. I have difficulty balancing my financial accounts. I have difficulty allocating my time so as to fit all of my activities into the hours available each day.” She smiled wryly. “In other words, I have more than enough to cope with in this lifetime, thank you. Spare me the mumbo jumbo about previous existences.”

  “You don’t know the wealth of experience you’re missing “ Andrea said, smiling but serious.

  “Well, what I don’t know ... and all the rest of that old adage,” Karla retorted.

  “You’re totally earthbound,” Alycia accused, laughing. “And totally enmeshed in the here and now of today.”

  “Totally,” Karla agreed, laughing with her.

  “Which probably precludes even the possibility of believing in UFOs and extraterrestrials, I suppose,” Andrea interjected.

  Karla nearly choked on her laughter. “You suppose correctly, innocent one.” She glanced quizzically at Sean. “What do you think about all this?”

  Sean shrugged. “I think your beliefs, or lack of them, are your business.” An attractive smile curved his lips. “And since we have less than three hours left before we must leave for Phoenix,” he continued, glancing at his wristwatch, “I also think it’s time for lunch.”

  Alycia smiled with smug satisfaction. “Did I marry a diplomat—or what?”

  Before either Karla or Andrea could respond, Sean began shepherding the three laughing women toward the motel restaurant. “On that note,” he drawled, “I’ll end this discussion.” He grinned. “Before one of these two decides I am definitely an ‘or what.’“

  In light of the swiftly approaching time of parting, lunch was a bittersweet delight. The food, though well prepared and delicious, was consumed without much notice. The conversation was animated and centered mainly on the future plans of the four close friends.

  “Since I haven’t been able to get into NASA,” Andrea said, in a bright tone that failed to conceal her disappointment, “I’ve decided to stay in the San Francisco area and perhaps further my studies at Berkeley.”

  “And since Sean is about ready to begin working on a new historical tome,” Alycia piped up, “I’ve decided to do my postgraduate work at the University of Pennsylvania.”

  Karla raised her eyebrows at Sean. “Does this mean there are no plans for a little Halloran in the near future?”

  Sean’s laughter was easy and relaxed. “Not at the moment,” he admitted. “But that could change.” He smiled intimately at his wife.

  Karla got the picture; Sean was telling her, without telling her, that he and Alycia were not taking preventive measures. As she was aware that her friend actually longed for a miniature reproduction of herself and Sean, Karla wished her success, while she herself couldn’t imagine coping with either a husband or child, never mind both.

  “And you are going to be knocking yourself out to make a smashing success of your gallery ... right?” Alycia asked the question they all knew needed no reply.

  Karla answered anyway. “Of course.” To herself, she added: As soon as I dispatch the disruptive influence of an artist named Cradowg. Then, refusing to acknowledge the feeling of trepidation or the shiver of response she felt at merely thinking his name, Karla launched into a discussion about mutual acquaintances, none of whom she was the least bit interested in. Her evasive tactics protected her throughout the remainder of the meal and their time together.

  * * * *

  The feeling of trepidation, with accompanying shivers, crept over Karla once again while she was dressing for the dinner appointment Jared Cradowg had blackmailed her into that morning. Karla understood perfectly that the former sensation was generated by the latter response.

  She didn’t want to have dinner with Jared; she didn’t want to be in the same room with Jared; in all honesty, Karla felt uneasy about being in the same county as Jared Cradowg.

  Carefully choosing attire that would project an image of cool professionalism, Karla stepped into a pencil-slim charcoal-gray skirt and tucked in the tails of a tailored pearl-gray silk blouse before closing the zipper and fastening the button on the waistband. After slipping into the tailored suit jacket and a pair of slim-heeled black pumps, she backed away from the full-length door mirror to eye her reflection critically.

  She was satisfied with her appearance—from the neck down; the outfit projected the picture she had hoped to achieve—cool, composed, businesslike. But her reflection from the neck up wrenched a sigh from her suddenly tight throat.

  In contrast to the severely conservative attire and underplayed makeup, her natural skin tone was tinged with a pearlescent glow and her hazel eyes sparkled from an inner light, the cause of which she absolutely refused to contemplate. But most demoralizing of all was the look of vulnerability, due entirely to the silky strands of dark hair that had escaped the classic knot at the back of her head. The wisps of silk lay in silent invitation against her neck.

  Muttering an expletive that contradicted the look of vulnerability,
Karla raised her hands and stepped closer to the mirror, determined to redo the hair knot. The sound of the apartment doorbell arrested her hands in midair.

  Jared? Already?

  For an instant, Karla froze, her tense body seemingly incapable of motion. Then her gaze shot to the face of the small clock on the nightstand by her bed. The clock read 6:51, nine minutes before the stated time. Maybe it wasn’t Jared.

  The doorbell rang again, a short, sharp summons directed by the jab of an impatient finger.

  Karla’s soft lips twisted wryly as she slowly lowered her arms. The commanding sound of the bell convinced her it had been Jared’s finger doing the jabbing.

  Returning her glance to the mirror, she swept her gaze the length of her reflection, sighed again, and then, squaring her shoulders, turned and walked out of her bedroom.

  His finger made contact with the doorbell again as Karla crossed the moss-green living room carpet Gritting her teeth in annoyance, she unlocked the door and swung it open with barely leashed anger. His index finger was ready to make yet another jab at the abused doorbell button.

  “Are you deliberately trying to demolish my bell?” she demanded in outrage.

  Looking not at all chastised, Jared casually lowered his arm and just as casually grinned at her. “No,” he answered in an offhand drawl. “I was deliberately making sure you would answer, not ignore it.”

  She frowned as she stepped back, allowing him entrance into the apartment. “Why would I ignore it?”

  The sound of Jared’s laughter skipped down her spine and reactivated her shivers. “To avoid having dinner with me by pretending not to be here, of course,” he replied dryly.

  Feeling a sinking sensation inside, Karla stared at him, at the masculine attraction of him, and ground her teeth. She hadn’t even thought of avoiding him by pretending not to be home.

  Why hadn’t she thought of it?

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  The question distracted Karla while Jared sauntered into the center of the living room and ran his artist’s gaze over the decor.