Ashley

It was after two a.m. I was in bed asleep. Alone. Lazer was still out of town.

I never sleep totally soundly on Friday and Saturday nights until the early morning hours. And even then, not with the vigor of other nights. Weekend nights are big date nights for my clients, and I'm on call twenty-four/seven for them.

I usually stay up until around two. After that, most everyone has generally gone home, date over. The majority of my clients are considerate enough to wait until reasonable hours or their appointed after-date postmortem appointments to talk to me. They'll only call if there's some kind of dire emergency. So heading to bed around two or two thirty is usually safe. But, like an on-call doctor, I sleep with my phone on my nightstand and the ringer turned up. Just in case.

When my phone beeped with a text, I sat straight up in bed, suddenly wide awake, and grabbed my phone. I didn't recognize the number. I mumbled to myself. Once woken, I had a hard time getting back to sleep. Too much adrenaline. My heart raced. To be awakened by a wrong number was going to make me grumpy.

I didn't know what made me do it, but I read the text. I was awake. I had to get up to answer the phone anyway, right?

Hi. My name is Anna. I'm Crystal Pruitt's friend, her backup when she goes out on dates with guys she doesn't know. We check up on each other. She gave me your number. She's out with one of your clients—Jeremy Marino. She missed her two o'clock all's well check-in and, to be honest, I'm a little panicked. I can't seem to reach her. She's not responding to my texts or answering my calls. Can you get in touch with him and make sure she's okay?

I responded immediately. I'm on it. I'll see what I can find out and get back to you.

I thought, Damn it, Jeremy. What are you up to?

I wasn't the kind to panic, but I remembered when Lazer had slid off the road and disappeared in the early morning hours in his car and the scare that had given me. Jeremy and the guys had gone looking for him and saved his life. If Jeremy was in trouble, too, as remote as that seemed, I needed to find out.

I called Jeremy's number. Pick up.

---

Jeremy

Falling asleep with the woman who's just refused my marriage proposal doesn't sound like the usual thing for a guy in my position to do. But that was exactly what happened. My ringing phone brought me out of a deep, surprisingly contented sleep. The door wasn't completely shut.

I had to shuffle around in my clothes on the floor to find the phone in my pants pocket. By the time I found it, it had woken Crystal and stopped ringing. Before I could even look for a voicemail, it started ringing again. I looked at the number and answered. "Ashley?"

"Thank goodness." Ashley let out a whoosh of breath. She was clearly worried. And maybe a bit peeved. "Are you okay?"

Crystal woke up and sat up, too, pulling the sheet up around her.

"I was." I rubbed my eyes. "I was sound asleep until you woke me."

"Do you know where Crystal is?" Ashley was definitely worried. "Did you drop her off? If so, when? Her friend Anna just texted me. Crystal hasn't checked in with her." She rattled on about a security system Anna and Crystal had. She talked loud enough that Crystal heard her.

Crystal made a face and held her hands up. "Oops. Sorry. I'm on it." She slid out of bed and looked for her purse and phone.

"Jeremy?" Ashley said. "Are you there?"

"I'm here." Damn. Caught in the act. "Crystal's fine. She's with me. She's calling Anna right now. Sorry. She just forgot."

"With you." Accusation was heavy in her voice. "And where is that?"

I sighed and tried not to break out laughing. "Well, Mom, if you must know, we're on a red-eye train heading back to Seattle. I took her to Portland for a beer. We'll be back in town in about forty minutes. I'll make sure she gets home safely."

Ashley calmed down. "I hope so. I'm not fond of getting emergency texts from friends of clients in the middle of the night. I can't believe you kidnapped a date."

"Kidnapped?" I laughed. "Is that what her friend is worried about?"

"It was implied."

"Huh," I said. "A guy takes a girl on a romantic choose-your-own-adventure date and ends up the villain."

"I didn't call you a villain—"

"This is all your fault," I said. "You're the one who told me to up my game—"

Ashley started laughing. "Fine. I'll take the heat. Just bring Crystal back in one piece and make sure she checks in with her friend again when she gets home."

I hung up and waited for Crystal to finish her call. She was being damningly demure all of a sudden, sitting on the side of the bed holding up the sheet to protect her dignity. And shielding herself from what I wanted to see.

When she finished her call, Crystal began picking through the pile of discarded clothes, looking for her panties. Her face lit up when she found them and pulled them out of her jeans. "Anna wasn't happy with me."

"So I gathered." I followed her progress as she picked up her bra and blouse.

"I was supposed to check in with her." Crystal grimaced. "We have a system."

"In case I'm a serial killer."

She shrugged.

"Nah. I get it," I said. "Safety first. It's the smart thing to do."

"It would have been, if I'd remembered to take my phone off airplane mode and called her when I was supposed to."

"Airplane mode? Going old school for this date? I'm flattered."

Her smile was radiant. "And now you're onto my backup security measures. If you're going to kill me, do it now before you get caught."

"I'll pass. I like what we did earlier too much to cut off the spigot just now."

"Sexual favors will spare my life. Good to know."

"Ashley chewed me out. In her way."

"I heard. Did you give us away?" She shook out her jeans.

"Being on the train saved us."

She let out a sigh of relief. "Good. In retrospect, it's probably good Ashley called. At least we know she cares." She laughed. "And I was dead to the world. I quite possibly would have slept all the way to the North Pole."

"I think the porter would have woken us."

"And found us naked in bed?" She shuddered comically.

"I'm sure they've seen it before."

"They haven't seen me. I've never been caught like that. And I don't intend to." She pointed to the bathroom. "I'm just going to freshen up."

I nodded, watching as she disappeared into the bathroom. Asking her to marry me tonight had been a spur-of-the-moment decision of the heart. What can I say? I'm from a decisive family. From the moment I met her at the accident scene, I knew she was the one. If I hadn't asked her tonight, I would have proposed the next time I saw her. Or the next.

Maybe I would have planned it out a little more if I'd thought ahead. Maybe not. If I'd had time to think about it, I would have worried it was too soon. That my enthusiasm would scare her off. I was convinced that my quick and early enthusiasm for the right woman wouldn't scare her off. And I was right. Didn't mean she was going to say yes the first time. Yeah, there was always a catch. Maybe I'd still top Dad and only have to ask twice.

Since I was going to have to ask her again—and possibly several times after that—it looked like I was going to have to put a little thought into making the next time romantic.

I paused. How was I going to top tonight? That was the question.

---

Crystal

I took my time in the bathroom. I still couldn't believe I'd fallen asleep so easily in Jeremy's arms. And slept like the dead. Sleeping, literally sleeping with someone, was a sign of trust. Unless you're dead tired and have been up for days, you don't let down your guard like that.

The entire evening and night still felt like a dream. Had he really proposed? This wasn't my first proposal, but the first two didn't count. I would never have married either of those guys. One proposed as a way of trying to win me back after I'd broken up with him. And the other was just drunken mutterings. Like tonight? I smiled to myself. That one had been nothing like tonight. And Jeremy hadn't been drunk.

I dug around in my purse and found my touch-up makeup bag. I fixed my mascara and touched up my lip gloss, still wondering if I should have accepted Jeremy's proposal. There are such things as long engagements, after all. And engagements can be broken. Getting engaged on your second date could be a story for your fiftieth wedding anniversary.

I kept second-guessing myself. What's the rush? We have time, I told myself. Plenty of time.