An Honorable Man, Page 2

  She snuck a glance at him as she approached, appreciating the sensuous line of his mouth, the wave in his thick dark hair and his solid build. He looked to have three days’ growth of beard, which somehow made him seem more sexy. So did his height. She judged him to be at least six feet two, maybe even six-three.

  “Excuse me.” The timbre of his voice, soft and deep and without an accent she could detect, reached out to her. “Sorry to bother you, but can you recommend a place to stay?”

  That meant he was a visitor, unsurprising in a place marketed as a year-round tourist destination. Besides, if this man lived in Indigo Springs, she would have noticed him before now.

  “Try the Blue Stream Bed-and-Breakfast. It’s up the street a few blocks.” She pointed to indicate the direction. “If that’s full, I’d give the Indigo Inn a shot. It’s back the other way.”

  “Have you stayed at either of those places?” he asked.

  “No, I haven’t. Some locals book a room at the B and B just to sample the blueberry scones the owner serves for breakfast, but so far I’ve resisted.”

  “So you live here in Indigo Springs?”

  She wished he wasn’t wearing those shades so she could see whether the color of his eyes complemented his long, straight nose and strong jawline, which was partially obscured by dark stubble. “I do.”

  “Can you steer me toward me a good place for dinner tonight?”

  “Can I ever.” She gestured across the street to a Thai restaurant with a bright red door. “That place has the best pad thai I’ve ever had. It’s so good I could eat it every day of the week.”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Then how about having pad thai tonight? With me.”

  The breeze cooled the interior of Sierra’s mouth, alerting her that it must have dropped open. “You want me to have dinner with you?” she repeated, just in case she’d misunderstood.

  “Sure. Why not? You could save me from eating alone.”

  A thrill traveled through Sierra before reason took over. “Thank you, but I can’t.”

  “Are you married?” he asked.

  “Well, no.”

  “Engaged?” He didn’t give her a chance to answer. “In a relationship? Wary of strange men who approach you on the street?”

  She laughed. “No to the first two questions. Yes to the third.”

  “Not much I can do about that.” He gave a small shrug, emphasizing the play of muscles in his shoulders. “Thanks for the recommendations.”

  He started walking in the direction of the B and B, leaving Sierra exactly where she’d been before the unforeseen encounter: chiding herself for allowing her life to turn stale.

  So what had she done the first time she got the opportunity to do the unexpected?

  She’d let her unexpected opportunity get away.

  “Wait!” She followed up on her cry by pursuing the stranger. He turned, those eyes still covered by shades, the quirk of his sensuous mouth the only thing betraying his curiosity.

  “Are you married?” she asked.

  “Never been.” He lifted a left hand bare of rings. The base of his hand was broad, his fingers long, his knuckles lightly dusted with hair.

  Lots of married men didn’t wear the evidence, yet she could tell instinctively that he really was single. Chad, with his roots in Indigo Springs and stable job, was the type of guy you could settle down with. Her father had told her that all the time. He’d warn her against this man. Because this man was the kind you took to bed. She fought not to blush at the thought and asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Ben Nash.”

  It suited him, strong and to the point, like the man himself.

  “Mine’s Sierra.” She started to add the Whitmore surname, then caught sight of the sign above the doctor’s office. Sierra had worked hard to get where she was, but she longed for this man to treat her like a woman, not a physician. He had no notion she’d developed into the biggest bore who’d ever lived.

  “Hello, Sierra.” He stuck out one of his strong hands, which immediately engulfed hers in warmth, sending a shivery sensation through her. “I guess this means we’re not strangers anymore.”

  That had been her intention. She was through standing back and letting life pass her by. Earlier today she’d wondered how to dig herself out of her rut.

  Now she knew.

  “I can’t make it for dinner.” She tried lowering her voice to a flirtatious murmur. “Would you like to meet for drinks instead?”

  SIERRA SMOOTHED her hands over the tight jeans that hugged her body like denim Saran Wrap, glimpsed down at the deep, daring vee of her clinging black top and fought the impulse to sprint to her bedroom closet.

  She didn’t think she moved, but her spike heels were so high she wobbled a little anyway.

  The outfit was hers, but she’d only worn the shirt before and always under a sweater. With her straight brown hair taking a free fall down her back, she felt like a stranger.

  “Who do I think I’m fooling?” Sierra muttered. Ben Nash had seen how conservatively she was dressed when they met that afternoon. He wouldn’t fall for her seductress act tonight.

  If, that is, she managed to keep the date.

  She shook off the thought. Of course she intended to meet him. A quick glance at the alarm clock on her bedside table showed she still had twenty minutes until they were scheduled to get together. If she was quick about changing her clothes, she’d barely be late.

  She sat down on her bed, crossed one leg over the other and started to pull off her shoe. A rapping sound stopped her.

  She went still, listening intently. The tapping stopped, then started again, sounding exactly like a knock. She rolled her eyes. Of course it was a knock. That was how visitors announced their presence in the absence of a doorbell, which the downtown town house she’d moved into last week didn’t have.

  She crossed the hardwood of her second-floor bedroom, which still smelled of the polish she’d used to bring out its shine, hoping her heels didn’t damage the floor. She peeked out the window that faced Main Street. Annie Sublinski Whitmore stood on the doorstep, wearing jeans that fit much looser than Sierra’s, a green Indigo River Rafters windbreaker and tennis shoes. Her pickup truck was parked at the curb.

  Regretting that she hadn’t had time to change her clothes, Sierra headed for the stairs. She gripped the banister to keep from counterbalancing in the unfamiliar heels, made it to the foyer and let Annie into the town house.

  “Hope you don’t mind me stopping by like…” Annie’s voice abruptly lost steam, and her easy-to-read eyes widened. “Wow!”

  Sierra grimaced and crossed her arms over her midsection. “It’s too much, isn’t it?”

  “Too much for what?” Annie asked, pulling the door shut behind her.

  Sierra hesitated. Annie had become her sister-in-law a few months ago when she’d married Sierra’s brother Ryan. The two women had attended high school together once upon a time but they were still working on becoming friends. “I’m meeting someone for drinks.”

  “Great!” Annie patted the stray hairs the wind had blown loose from her blond ponytail back into place. Her face, devoid of makeup, glowed with natural color from the sun and the wind. “Anyone I know?”

  “No.”

  Annie waited a beat, but Sierra couldn’t very well tell her sister-in-law she was screwing up the courage to lose her inhibitions with a sexy stranger.

  “I’m glad you’re dating again.” Annie had a sincerity about her that made everything she said appear genuine. “Really glad.”

  “Thank you.” Sierra’s response sounded wooden when she’d meant to communicate how touched she was by Annie’s enthusiasm. Suppressing a sigh of frustration, she gestured toward the kitchen at the back of the town house. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Oh, no,” Annie said. “I wouldn’t dream of keeping you, and I’m itching to get home to Ryan anyway.”

  Annie was referring to Sierra’s childhood ho
me, a large Colonial in the residential area immediately adjacent to downtown Indigo Springs. Sierra had lived in the house as an adult, too, until deciding the newlyweds should have it to themselves. Annie and Ryan wouldn’t be alone for long. At the end of the school year, the daughter they’d given up for adoption when they were teenagers and reconnected with last summer was moving in with them permanently.

  “Ryan played pick-up basketball tonight, so I had dinner with my dad after I got off the river.” Annie ran a tourist-themed business with her father that offered whitewater trips and mountain bike rentals. “He texted a little while ago that he has a glass of red wine waiting for me.”

  “Sounds like you deserve to relax.” Sierra shifted from high heel to high heel. She was already taller than average. In the shoes, she towered over Annie. “Ryan says you’ve been working a lot lately.”

  “Spring’s our busiest season, especially when we get a lot of rain. The rafting’s terrific when the river’s high. We’re booking so many trips I won’t have time for anything but work the next couple weeks.”

  “That’s good, right?”

  “Good for business. Not so good for the festival, which brings me to the reason I stopped by.” Annie’s long pause was uncharacteristic. “I was hoping you’d fill in for me on the planning committee.”

  “Me?” Sierra resisted the urge to take a giant step backward, away from the request.

  “I know it’s a lot to ask, with Chad being a member.” Annie made a face. “I thought you might be uncomfortable around him, but Ryan says you’re made of tougher stuff than that.”

  Her brother didn’t know her nearly as well as he thought he did.

  Sierra pressed her lips together, so she wouldn’t give in to the temptation to refuse outright, and composed an answer. “Do I have to let you know right now?”

  “Oh, no.” Annie shook her head. “Take a day to think about it. There’s a meeting Sunday afternoon and then things’ll get pretty busy, especially come festival weekend.”

  Sierra nodded, hating herself for letting the thought of dealing with her ex-boyfriend stop her from agreeing to help the community. At this rate, Annie would have a hard time warming up to her.

  “You’d be a great help to the committee, not to mention you’d be doing me a huge favor,” Annie said. “And who knows? After tonight, being on the committee might not seem like such a big deal.”

  Sierra cocked her head. “What do you mean by after tonight?”

  “You’re dating again, right?” Annie grinned at her, then let herself out of the town house. Before she pulled the door shut, she stuck her head around the frame.

  “One more thing,” she said, eyes sparkling. “If you’re looking to impress that guy you’re meeting, don’t you dare change out of those clothes.”

  BEN STOPPED WATCHING the entrance to the Blue Haven Pub fifteen minutes after Sierra was due to arrive. She’d stood him up, not that it came as a shock.

  Sierra had been as skittish as an anonymous source when they’d met even as she tried to project a worldliness he’d seen right through. She was classy, from the toes of her low-heeled pumps to the tailored cut of her blazer to the subtle smell of her perfume. She wasn’t the type of woman who arranged dates with strange men.

  He fought back disappointment even though he couldn’t fault Sierra’s judgment. His motives weren’t exactly pure. He’d intended to subtly press her for information on the town’s inhabitants and find out what she knew about Dr. Whitmore.

  Now that he wasn’t distracted by her imminent arrival, nothing was stopping him from striking up conversations with the patrons. There were plenty of them, sitting on stools around the bar, playing pool in the back room, gathered around tables hoisting mugs of beer. The pub seemed to be the town’s ultimate gathering spot, a place frequented by both locals and tourists.

  He imagined his mother sitting in this same bar, perhaps at this very table, unaware she didn’t have long to live. A chill penetrated his skin, and he realized his hand had tightened around his frosted glass. He relaxed his grip. His chances of discovering the truth about how his mother had died would be greater if he could treat this like any other story.

  So far he hadn’t learned much.

  The teenage clerk at his hotel had recently moved to town with his family and was unfamiliar with Whitmore Family Practice. The waitress at the Thai restaurant knew only that Ryan Whitmore was a doctor.

  Neither had Ben made headway on tracking down the sender of the e-mails. He’d visited the public library at five-thirty that afternoon only to find out it closed at five.

  He wished he’d done more groundwork on the Whitmore family before leaving Pittsburgh. After receiving those anonymous e-mails, however, all he could think about was traveling to where the scent was strongest.

  He’d counted on a quick search of the Web yielding all he needed to know. He hadn’t anticipated his hotel wouldn’t have Internet access and that the only Internet café in town wasn’t scheduled to open until next month.

  He was about to leave the table and head for an old-timer bellying up to the bar when he caught sight of a woman with long, sexy brown hair at the entrance. She took off her black jacket, revealing clothes that showed off her killer body.

  She scanned the interior of the bar, her posture as rigid as that of a mannequin in a store window. She looked in his general direction, and her chest expanded, as though she was sucking in a deep breath. He watched as she ventured forward, curious to see if she’d be joining a lucky guy.

  Her steps faltered, but she kept coming in his general direction, navigating the labyrinth of tables, dodging a woman who abruptly stood up. She didn’t stop until she drew even with his table and slipped into the chair across from him.

  “Hey,” she said. “Sorry I’m late.”

  He was the lucky guy.

  He blinked, then blinked again. She had the same high cheekbones, delicate chin and full mouth as the woman he’d met earlier that afternoon. While that Sierra had been pretty in an understated way, this one was a knockout.

  “No apology necessary.” He kept his eyes trained on her face instead of indulging himself and letting them dip to the generous cleavage her low-cut shirt displayed. She had the bone structure of a model without the emptiness he perhaps unfairly associated with the excessively beautiful. That term didn’t exactly apply to Sierra, mostly because of the intelligence in her eyes, but partly due to a nose that wasn’t completely straight. In his opinion, that small imperfection made her more appealing. “You’re definitely worth the wait.”

  “Exactly the reaction I was aiming for.” The comment should have sounded flirtatious, but her voice shook slightly, as though she was…nervous?

  A middle-aged waitress in a hurry stopped by their table to take Sierra’s drink order. Sierra hesitated, then said, “Whiskey.”

  “Neat?” the waitress asked.

  Sierra’s eyebrows, finely arched and a shade darker than her hair, drew together. “Excuse me?”

  Ben hid a grin and supplied, “Without a mixer.”

  “Oh, no.” Sierra waved a hand airily, as though she ordered whiskey every day of the week. “I like it with water. On the rocks.”

  Ben waited until the waitress had gone, then set about trying to put her at ease. “The B and B was booked, but I got a room at the Indigo Inn. I also took your advice about the pad thai. It was delicious.” He smiled. “The pad thai, I mean. I haven’t tasted the room.”

  “I’m glad.” She fidgeted with her gold bracelet, her expression serious. His joke had been lame, but he’d at least expected her to return his smile.

  One beat of silence stretched to two, then three.

  “So, Sierra whatever-your-last-name-is,” he said, “what am I allowed to know about you?”

  She stopped playing with the bracelet and clasped her hands primly in her lap, the kind of reaction he might have expected if he’d asked for the pin number of her ATM card.

  “I’m not
all that interesting,” she said.

  The understatement of the year, and Ben’s years were packed with intriguing things. “Let me be the judge of that.”

  The waitress saved her from replying by returning with her whiskey, which she set in front of Sierra with a plop before bustling away. Sierra picked up the glass and took a large swallow. Her lips curled and her eyes watered.

  Those damp eyes zeroed in on him. “Can we not do this?”

  “Do what?”

  She waved a slim, pretty hand. Her nails were unpainted. “Pretend to be interested in each other’s lives. We both know why we got together tonight.”

  They did? She shifted in her chair, as though waiting for him to say something. For the life of him, he didn’t know what. He wasn’t ready to confess his hope that she could tell him about Dr. Whitmore.

  “Mutual attraction,” she whispered. A blush stained her smooth alabaster skin, and he would have bet his laptop computer she’d never come on to a stranger before.

  “I’m definitely attracted.” He was intrigued, too, and determined to get to the bottom of the puzzle she presented. “Except I’d love some conversation. For me, there’s got to be more than lust at first sight.”

  The pinkish color on her cheeks deepened to a deep rose before she tossed her hair back and met his eyes. She held his gaze, it looked like with an effort. “Then tell me about yourself.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  Her delicate shoulders rose, then fell. “What are you doing in Indigo Springs?”

  “Reliving memories.” He’d eventually tell her he was an investigative reporter, but the moment wasn’t right. “I was here one time as a child. It seemed past time I came back.” Something stopped him from revealing his grandparents had once been residents of Indigo Springs. “How about you? Have you lived here long?”

  “All my life.” She fidgeted and snuck a not-so-covert glance at the people around them. She’d been doing that a lot since she arrived.