Neck & Neck (17 page)

So whose room is this?
she asked herself again.

An answer came to her almost immediately, but she really wanted to think it was wrong. Unable to help herself, she picked carefully through the shaving kit for some clue, but she found only the typical accoutrements of a man who traveled a lot. Travel-sized toiletries, comb, razor, toothbrush, an over-the-counter sleep aid that hadn’t been opened. But nothing with a monogram that might offer her a hint. Nothing elegant. Nothing expensive. All of the toiletries were the sort that came from the grocery store, not a posh specialty store or even a department store. The shaving kit, too, was of the economically priced nylon variety that could have been purchased at a discount store. Clearly, even though she was in one of the hotel’s most expensive suites, it wasn’t Russell Mulholland’s.

But then, it hadn’t been Russell Mulholland whose suite she feared she was in.

She shut off the water, pulled a clean washcloth from the rack, and opened a box of soap. After washing her face, she reached for the little bottle of complimentary mouthwash and emptied its entire contents into her mouth. After a few good swishes and some gargling, the taste of her nausea was gone, and she felt good enough to go in search of her purse, which she found at the foot of the bed. The little fold-up brush that the size of the purse necessitated wasn’t quite up to the task that was her hair, but she managed to at least divest herself of the Alpine look. After that, she
almost
felt like herself again. Well, except for the fact that she still had to confront the man who had brought her to his room and put her in his bed, even though she could remember none of it.

Steeling herself for the task, she moved to the bedroom door and, after only a small hesitation, pulled it open. Sure enough, there was a hockey game blaring on the television in the other room. And just as she’d feared, the man watching it was Finn Guthrie.

He lay on his back on the overstuffed sofa with his bare feet hooked at his ankles, one arm folded with his hand behind his head, the other dangling toward the floor with his hand loosely clutching the remote. He had changed out of the khakis and striped shirt he’d been wearing earlier—she did remember that, and recalled how incongruous she’d thought the preppy attire had looked on him—into a pair of faded navy sweatpants and a white, V-neck T-shirt. But unlike the T-shirt he had worn before, this one didn’t contour to his X-tra brawny frame like a second skin. Except at the shoulders, she couldn’t help noting, where the fabric once again strained tight enough to look as if it would rip open any second.

Well, a girl could dream, couldn’t she?

He was looking at the TV, even though Natalie was certain he knew she was standing in the doorway. He had to have heard the sound of running water in the bathroom and the rustle of her movements in the bedroom. Hell, he’d probably even heard her getting sick. Damn him. Not to mention it was his job to notice the presence of people. But he didn’t offer even a glimpse at her, only kept his attention fixed on the game.

In spite of that, her stomach did a funny little flip-flop that had nothing to do with having had too much to drink. He was just an unbelievably beautiful man, from the dark hair that fell over his forehead, tempting a woman to brush it affectionately back, to the ginormous feet that invited speculation about whether that size-of-the-feet-equals-the-size-of-the-uh-other-thing legend was true.

The thought inevitably made her gaze wander upward, over the long, long legs that were doubtless as roped with muscles as his arms, to gaze in speculation at that very part of him. After damning his sweatpants for being so baggy, she drove her gaze higher still, over the belly as flat—and probably as hot—as a steam iron, the chest that was roughly the size of Rhode Island, the strong throat and jaws darkened by a day’s growth of beard, to the eyes she knew were the color of smoky quartz.

And she tried not to think about how nice it would be to come home from work every night and have such a sight greet her the moment she walked in the front door.

She pushed the thought away and asked, “Isn’t it a little late for hockey?”

Still not looking at her, he replied, “Not on the West Coast.”

“It’s past midnight on the West Coast. That’s too late for hockey even there.”

“Not unless you’re a big wuss.”

She took a few steps into the room and trained her own gaze on the TV. Then she narrowed her eyes. “This isn’t even live,” she said. “It’s a delayed telecast.”

He did spare her a glance at that, but it was just that—a quick once-over before turning his attention back to the TV. “How do you know?”

“I watched it.”

This time when he turned to look at her, it was for considerably longer than a second or two. “You like hockey?” he asked, his voice tinted with more than a little disbelief.

She shrugged. “Not as much as basketball, but yeah. I like hockey. When I was at Wellesley, I had season tickets to see the Celtics and Bruins both.”

“You went to Wellesley?” he asked, sounding even more incredulous about that than he had about her liking hockey.

Feeling defensive for no reason she could name—except that maybe because Finn had just made her sound like she was too stupid to go someplace like Wellesley—she snapped, “Yeah. I went to Wellesley. What of it?”

He shrugged and turned his attention back to the game. “Nothing. Just that you don’t seem like the Wellesley type.”

“And what type do I seem?” she asked tersely.

He shrugged again. “I don’t know. Just not the Wellesley type.”

She was about to ask him what he thought the Wellesley type was, since Natalie had met dozens of types of women in college, but he pointed the remote at the TV and scooted up the volume a few decibels.

“The Thunderbirds are playing the Bruins right now,” he said.

“No, they played them yesterday,” she corrected him. “That’s why I made sure to watch.”

He opened his mouth to say something else, but the crowd on the TV started screaming. And so did he as he jackknifed up into a sitting position. “Yes!” he cried, pumping a fist in the air. “Seattle scores! Now it’s tied with only two minutes left in the last period. We still have plenty of time to pull this thing through.”

Natalie strode slowly into the room until she stood at the other end of the couch. “You didn’t watch this live?” she asked.

He continued to watch the game instead of her. “I was working. Russell had to go to some meeting at Churchill Downs, so I went with him. I didn’t get to watch it live.”

She wasn’t sure what made her say what she did next, since it was an incredibly mean thing to do. She only knew that Finn was sitting there on the sofa, looking all devilish and handsome when she looked so disheveled and haggard, and he’d questioned her suitability for one of the country’s top schools, and he was making her body react in ways she really didn’t want it to react. Not for him. Not for a guy who obviously held a low opinion of her. Not for a guy who was keeping her from doing her job. Not for a guy who was coarse and obnoxious. Not for a guy who would only be in town for a couple of weeks.

Before she could stop herself, however, she said, “Boston’s going to score with ten seconds left. Unanswered goal. Seattle lost, four to three.”

Finn clapped his hands over his ears the second she started talking, but she knew he heard every word she said, because he looked at her like she was the most heinous person to walk the earth since Genghis Kahn. Then he dropped his hands to thumb the Off button on the remote and tossed it unceremoniously onto the sofa beside him.

“Thanks a lot,” he muttered.

“I was just trying to spare you the heartbreak you were in for,” she replied.

“No, you weren’t. You were deliberately ruining it for me.”

She started to deny it, then realized she couldn’t. “Well, you dumped me into your bed without with about as much care as you would have shown a bag of dirty laundry.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t have had to dump you anywhere if you hadn’t—”

He halted abruptly, right when he was getting up a good head of steam. Natalie had no idea why. She was behaving abominably, and he had every right to tear into her.

“Never mind,” he said. The he grinned. Devilishly, damn him. “Can I fix you a drink?”

Her stomach roiled at the mere thought. “Not just no, but
hell
no.”

He chuckled at that. “Hair of the dog,” he reminded her.

She shook her head. “Fizz of the Alka-Seltzer, I think, would be a better choice.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

He made his way to a cabinet on the other side of the room and opened it, then rifled through a duffel bag until he found whatever he was looking for. When he lifted a little blue and white foil packet up for her approval, Natalie could almost hear a flock of angels lifting their voices in the “
Hallelujah
Chorus.” Then he moved to where a couple of glasses sat by an ice bucket and upturned one to drop in a few cubes. He added a little water from a bottle of Fiji, ripped open the Alka-Seltzer with his teeth—
Oh, be still my heart,
she thought—and plopped the two white tablets in with everything else.

Her stomach took another roll suddenly, followed by a flare of pain between her eyes, so she took a seat on the couch at the end opposite the one where Finn had been sitting only a moment ago. Another stab behind her right eyelid made her lean her head back and cover her eyes with her arm, splaying one hand open over her still queasy belly.

But when she heard the hiss of the swiftly dissolving Alka-Seltzer, she opened her eyes again just in time to see Finn’s hand drop in front of her face, holding the glass that contained her salvation. Just as she started to reach for it, though, her gaze skittered to his thumb, where a scar that began just below his nail curved toward the back of his hand. As she took the glass from him, she circled the fingers of her other hand around his wrist and turned it, feeling the scar beneath her palm even before seeing how it ran all the way down the back of his hand and wrist. It didn’t appear to be the result of anything life-threatening—she wasn’t even sure it had been stitched up—but it was too strangely shaped to have been from a medical procedure, starting off deep and jagged, then narrowing until it was straight and smooth.

“My God, what happened here?” she asked before she could stop herself. It seemed like kind of a personal question to ask of someone she’d just met a couple of days before. Especially in the tone of voice she’d used, one that made her sound not just surprised by the size of the scar but by the fact that he’d been hurt so badly once upon a time and that she genuinely cared.

Then again, she
did
genuinely care, she realized. The thought that Finn had been injured like this at some point in his life made something inside her do a little hissing and fizzing of its own. And not in a way that promised to make her feel better.

Gently, he tugged his wrist free and held up his hand to inspect the scar, as if he’d forgotten about it until now. He flexed his fingers, relaxed them, then dropped his hand to his side, ignoring it. “I got that by stupidly breaking a window with my bare fist,” he said in a flat voice.

Her eyebrows shot up at that. “What happened? Did you lock yourself out of your house?”

He shook his head slowly but said nothing.

“Your car?”

Another shake of his head.

“Your place of employment?”

This time he didn’t shake his head at all, but his gaze never left hers as he told her, “No, I was trying to break into the chemistry lab of Seattle Community College.”

Now her eyebrows arrowed downward. “You locked yourself out of school?” she asked, confused.

This time he sighed heavily before shaking his head. But he did shake his head. Kind of. “No, some kid in the neighborhood told me and Russell that the chemistry lab of Seattle Community College had just switched over to Mac from PC, and we really, really wanted a Mac.”

Natalie’s lips parted fractionally as she tried to absorb that. “You were breaking in
illegally
?” she asked incredulously. “To
steal
something that didn’t belong to you?”

He chuckled at that, a soft sound completely lacking in humor. “You say that like you’ve never met anyone who did anything illegal or took something that didn’t belong to them.”

“That’s because I
haven’t
ever met anyone who’s done anything illegal,” she told him. “Well, except for skimming off the books at work and cheating on their taxes. But that’s not like . . .”

Now Finn nodded. “Ah. Got it. White-collar crimes. Much nicer crimes, those, than the kind of stupid stuff kids get themselves into. That’s just people who are smart enough and old enough—and rich enough—to know better, stealing from their employers or employees or shareholders. Leaving retirees broke and people unable to send their kids to college. Robbing the government of tax money it could use for education and the arts. And here I had the nerve to try to steal a computer when I was a dumb-ass kid.”

“Hey, that’s robbing funds for education,” she pointed out halfheartedly, knowing the argument was lame but reluctant to concede that he was right. At least to his face. “Those Macs cost way more than PCs, which aren’t exactly cheap to begin with.”

“My bad,” he said blandly.

This time Natalie was the one to sigh. “Okay, okay. There’s no such thing as a victimless crime. Crime is crime, no matter who’s committing it, and at some point, somebody has to pay.” When he said nothing more, she continued, “So what happened?”

He expelled another one of those impatient sighs. “Exactly what you might think would happen to a couple of dumb-ass kids who try to break into a community college, even without one of them slicing open his wrist.”

“You got caught,” she guessed.

“Yep.”