Chapter Two
“Who is that hunk of burning love I saw you dancing with?”
Savannah turned around to see Rachel eyeing her teasingly. She looked beautiful. Rachel had allowed Savannah to do her hair and makeup only on the condition that she went lightly on the makeup. But honestly, Rachel didn’t need a lot of makeup. Her skin was flawless, her red hair was shiny and beautiful, brushed and loose around her shoulders instead of pulled back in her usual ponytail. And the green, strapless gown with the diamond clasp in front that Avery had picked out for her not only fit her like a glove, it was a great color on her.
Ignoring the question, Savannah said, “I keep thinking I’ll cut off my hair someday but it’s so easy to pull it back I haven’t done it yet. What do you think? Should I do it?”
“No. You’re dodging my question,” Rachel said. “Who is he?”
Sighing, she knew Rachel would keep asking until she answered. “Harlan Sullivan. Aka, my new boss.”
“Harlan Sullivan? That’s Harlan Sullivan?”
“The very same. Why, do you know him?”
“No, but I remember him from high school. I was a freshman when he was a senior, so I only saw him from afar. I didn’t recognize him. I haven’t seen him in years, though. When did he get to be so gorgeous?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in years, either.” Gorgeous, she thought gloomily. That was an apt description. A gorgeous, mouth-watering, hunk.
“He’s your age, isn’t he? Weren’t y’all in the same grade in high school?”
She wondered if Rachel knew Savannah’s history with Harlan but since she was so much younger, she probably didn’t. “Yes, but we…weren’t close.”
Liar, liar. You were only in love with each other. Or at least, one of you was in love.
Savannah had figured the first thing Harlan would have done all those years ago was tell his buddies he’d scored with the banker’s daughter. Especially since he’d dumped her practically the minute he’d gotten what he wanted. But no one ever brought it up around her. Not even Regina Taggart, Paloma Kelly’s niece and a huge gossip. If she’d known, the story would have been all over town.
Maybe Harlan really hadn’t told anyone they’d slept together. She sure hadn’t. At first because it was a precious memory she didn’t want to share with anyone but Harlan. Then later, well, why confess how stupid she’d been? Besides being miserable, Savannah spent the first few weeks after the breakup expecting to hear the gossip about herself. She never heard one rumor.
“Harlan just bought Whiskey River Construction,” Savannah said, steering the conversation away from the past.
“You don’t look very happy about it.”
“I don’t know what I am.” Yes, you do. You’re still pissed. You want him to feel what you felt all those years ago. She knew she should let it go. Fourteen years was a hell of a long time to hold a grudge. Apparently that heartbroken girl still lived inside her, though. That girl had never forgotten the pain and humiliation of discovering her first love had only been using her.
“What’s going on, ladies?” Avery asked. Blonde and beautiful in her sleeveless burgundy velvet dress with the flared skirt, Avery stood out even among all the glitter and glamour at the ball.
“Savannah’s new boss is here,” Rachel said. “That’s him, talking to your movie star.” She pointed at the two men. “Savannah and he were in the same high school class.”
“Now that’s a picture to make a woman drool,” Avery said.
“Do y’all smell that?” Savannah asked, changing the subject, she hoped.
“All I smell are a million different perfumes,” Avery said.
“It’s lavender.” Savannah sniffed again. “Surely you smell it?”
“No, but Lavender Dreams has a display for the silent auction,” Rachel said. “Maybe that’s what you’re smelling.” She looked toward the dessert buffet. “Uh-oh. I’ll be back.”
“Ten to one she goes back into the kitchen,” Savannah said.
“She might go back in there but she won’t stay,” Avery said. “I promised I’d drag her out by her hair if she tried it.”
Savannah laughed. “You’re kind of scary when you’re determined.”
“Good. Maybe just the threat will do it.” She glanced away. “Well, well, look who’s coming this way,” Avery drawled.
Savannah looked in the direction Avery indicated. Harlan, naturally. Why did he have to look so good? And why was she so shallow? So he was a hunk. Big deal.
Looks aren’t everything.
Maybe not, but they’re sure as hell distracting.
But that wasn’t what really had her spinning. Seeing Harlan again, talking to him, dancing with him, had brought all sorts of sensory emotions and memories crashing down on her. The way he used to smile at her before giving her one of his long, slow kisses. Kisses that went on forever. The way she used to play with the hair at the base of his neck. How he’d brush her hair aside and kiss her neck. How he’d—
Damn it! Stop thinking about all that.
Most of the times Harlan had come into town in the last few years, Savannah had managed to avoid him and sometimes had not even known he’d been in town. There would be no avoiding him anymore. Unless she quit her job or he fired her, she’d be seeing him five days a week, at the least.
“Did you get your business taken care of?” Harlan asked when he reached them.
“Yes. I don’t think you’ve met my friend, Avery Burton. She’s co-chair of the ball.”
“Nice to meet you,” Harlan said. “Logan mentioned you’d, er, encouraged him to be co-chair.”
Avery laughed and shook hands. “Something tells me he didn’t say encourage.”
Harlan smiled but didn’t contradict her.
“Dance with me?” he asked Savannah.
Go on. You know you want to. Besides, all that happened eons ago. You need to get over it.
Startled, she looked to see if her friend had spoken to her, but she wouldn’t have said anything in front of Harlan. Besides, Avery didn’t know about hers and Harlan’s past. Not to mention, that hadn’t been Avery’s voice.
Good God, was she hearing voices now?
She shook off her thoughts. Or whatever they were. “All right.”
Just enjoy it. Things aren’t always what they seem. The scent of lavender followed her as Harlan led her to the dance floor once again.
*
It hadn’t been a fluke, Harlan thought. Dancing with Savannah—at least to a slow song—was torture. Sweet torture, but torture nonetheless. He kept his hand on her waist, the sheer fabric of her siren-red dress the only thing between him and her creamy, smooth skin. He wanted to move his hand to her bare back, just to see if her skin was as soft as it looked. Being reasonably sure she’d slap him down, he didn’t.
Her dress was classy…but sexy. Very sexy. When he looked down he could see the swell of her breasts above the red bodice, the hint of shadow in her cleavage. He wanted to kiss her, first her mouth, just her mouth, with long drugging kisses just like they used to exchange. Wasn’t it weird that he could still remember what it felt like to hold her? Kiss her? Make love to her?
Good God, man, get a grip. You can’t possibly remember something that happened once, fourteen years ago.
Of course you can. Savannah was your first love. Your true love.
“Did you say something?” he asked her. Maybe she’d spoken and he’d misheard her.
“No. I was just…thinking.”
“About…” What the hell was going on with the…voice in his head? A woman’s voice. In his head. What the fuck? He brushed away his uneasiness. There had to be some reasonable explanation.
“That song.”
He hadn’t paid attention, too obsessed with Savannah to actually think much. “Someday,” he said, recognizing it. “Nickelback. We used to listen to them a lot.”
“You didn’t ask the band to play that, did you?” she asked suspiciously.
“No, but I might have if I’d thought of it.” He grinned. “Brings back memories, doesn’t it?” Memories of making out in his car, listening to that song and many others.
She flushed, but raised her chin pugnaciously and said, “You wish.”
Harlan laughed. “Liar, liar.”
Oh, yeah. She remembered all right. And so, by God, did he.
*
Half an hour later, Savannah was manning the coatroom. She didn’t mind. Much. There was a chair, so at least she didn’t have to stand in her heels forever. And it gave her a chance to think. A chance to decide exactly what she was going to do about Harlan Sullivan. And her job.
Because she totally needed to think about the job and not, damn it, remember the past.
She could find another job. Whiskey River was growing and she knew of several businesses that might hire her. Some had actively tried to hire her away from Bill. If worse came to worst, there was always her father’s bank. Savannah shuddered at the thought. She loved her father but work for him? Not in a million years.
She liked her job at Whiskey River Construction. She enjoyed the business and the variety of her duties. Bill gave her a lot of responsibility and depended on her to function practically as another arm of his. While she wasn’t in any way, shape or form a contractor, she knew a lot about the business after working for Bill for so long. Savannah could also take over on site—and had—when Bill had been unable to be there.
Whether working for Harlan would be any different from working for Bill Griffith, she didn’t know. But she should give it a chance, shouldn’t she? What harm could there be? Surely she was too smart to fall for him again. What had happened between them had taken place years before. Besides, for all she knew he was involved with someone. Single didn’t necessarily mean uninvolved, and she sure as hell wasn’t interested in a man who was taken.
If he’s tangled up with someone then why is he flirting with me? she asked herself. Because he’s a scumbag? She really hoped he wasn’t.
“Savannah, what are you doing here?”
She looked up to see Harlan standing in front of the Dutch door. She walked over to him and put her hands on the top of the half-door that separated them. “Taking care of the coatroom.”
“Checking coats is one of your duties?”
“Not normally. But the woman in charge got sick. As in throwing up. And there’s no one else to do it. At the moment, anyway.” Hopefully, someone else would arrive to take her place before long. “I assume you’re leaving and want your coat.”
“Yes, thank you.”
She squashed the twinge of disappointment. “You’re not staying for the silent auction?”
“No, I donated one of the prizes but I didn’t bid on anything.”
“Oh? Which one is yours?”
“The ski trip to Vail, Colorado.”
“Nice.” And expensive. Another sign that he’d done well. “Do you have your ticket?”
Harlan reached into his pants pocket. Frowning, he checked his other one. Then the pocket of his tux coat. Before long he’d been through every pocket. “Damn it, I know I had it. I don’t know what happened to it.” He glanced at her. “It’s not that funny.”
“I wasn’t laughing. Although, it is funny.”
“If you weren’t laughing then who—” He broke off and shook his head. “Never mind. I’ll come back there and look for it.”
Opening the half-door to the outer area, she let him in, closed it behind him, then opened the door to the main coatroom. “Couples and groups are together and they’re more or less in the order people came in.”
“I came alone about forty-five minutes after it started.”
“I don’t suppose your coat has any distinguishing characteristics?”
Harlan shrugged. “It’s a man’s overcoat. Brown.”
She walked over to the electronic coat rack and pressed a button. The rack stopped and she waved a hand. “Have at it. I’d start about here and go clockwise. I think the ones before this are from earlier in the evening.”
He began looking. “I hate to cut out early, but the weather is getting worse and my car isn’t made for ice and snow. This has all the makings of a big ice storm.”
“An ice storm? Surely not. In the Hill Country in early December?”
“Freak storm.” He pulled out his smartphone, frowning as he tapped icons. “I can’t pull up the weather app in here, but I looked at it right before I decided to leave. The temperature is dropping and the rain turned to sleet some time ago.”
“Damn. We’re nowhere close to the end of the ball. The silent auction hasn’t ended yet.”
“I’m sure there are a lot of trucks and SUVs here. Most of those people won’t worry about the weather.”
“What kind of car do you have?” she asked curiously as he flipped through the coats.
“Hmm? Oh, it’s a Ferrari.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Nice car,” she said dryly. He must have made a killing in Dallas. Not that it surprised her. She’d always known Harlan had it in him to go far.
Still rifling through the coats, he threw her a grin. “What can I say? I like sports cars.”
Savannah had a number of other questions, but she stifled the urge to ask them. She walked inside to see if she could help. “Haven’t you found it yet?”
“No. There are a lot of coats here and a number of them look just like mine.”
The door slammed shut behind her, the sound reverberating throughout the small room. Startled, Savannah turned around to look. “That’s weird. I don’t know why the door slammed shut. There’s no breeze.” She walked over to it, turned the handle and tried to open the door. No luck. Setting her shoulder against it, she tried again. Still wouldn’t budge. She thought about kicking it, but her shoes—silver skinny, high-heeled sparkly sandals—weren’t made for that. She’d break her toes if she tried.
“Harlan, can you come see if you can open this door?”
“Hold it. I think I found my coat.”
“Fine, but I need your help.”
“Help with what?” he asked, emerging from amongst the multitude of coats and wraps.
“The door,” she repeated impatiently. “I can’t get it open.”
He hung a coat on the hook beside the rack and walked to the door. He turned the knob, pushed, and when it didn’t open he tried again. He rattled the doorknob, put his shoulder to the door and pushed. “It feels like it’s locked.”
“That’s impossible. The only way it could be locked is if someone locked it from the outside.”
“Whatever, I think that’s what happened.”
“Try again.”
He complied. Again, it didn’t budge. “We’re stuck.”
“Stuck? How can we be stuck? That’s ridiculous.”
“Maybe so, but that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t get the door open.”
“Who would have locked us in here? And why?”
“I don’t have a clue. Do you?”
“No. I can’t imagine how this happened.” Tapping her foot on the floor, she stared at the door, then turned to Harlan and said, “Do something.”
He laughed. “Like what? Kick it open?”
“Yes.”
He stared at her a moment, then laughed again. “You’re serious.”
“Of course I am.”
Harlan continued to laugh.
“What? They do that all the time on TV.”
Trying to stop laughing, he managed to say, “It’s not that easy in real life.”
Frustrated, Savannah pounded on the door and yelled but she wasn’t surprised no one came. She could hear the band and knew the music would cover any noise she made unless someone was immediately outside the door. “It’s not funny,” she said, noticing Harlan was still struggling not to laugh.
“Yes, it is.”
“You didn’t arrange this, did you?”
He shot her a quizzical glance. “With what purpose?”
Get over yourself, Savannah. Do you honestly think Harlan had a hand in this?
“Never mind.” She tried the door again, to no avail. “Call someone to come let us out. I don’t have my phone.”
Harlan pulled out his phone and looked at it. “No bars. It won’t work.”
“Try anyway.”
He pressed a couple of buttons and held it to his ear. “Nope. I can try to text but… Wait a minute,” he said, looking at the screen. “Damn, I swear it was at least half-charged when I came in.”
“Let me see,” she said suspiciously. Wasn’t that convenient?
He didn’t comment but she saw his mouth curve up as he handed it to her. “Damn it! It’s dead as can be.”
“I believe I said that.”
She shot him an annoyed glance. “Someone’s bound to want their coat.”
“You’d think. Until they do, let’s sit down. We could be stuck here for a while.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, she frowned at him. “In case you haven’t noticed, there’s nowhere to sit.”
“There’s always the floor.”
“Are you kidding? I can’t sit on the floor in this dress. It will be ruined.”
He took his coat off the hanger and spread it out on the floor in front of a wall. “There. How’s that?”
She wasn’t at all sure she could manage to get down to the floor. She accomplished it by putting her back against the wall, hiking up her dress and letting Harlan help her slide down the wall until her butt hit the ground. She suspected getting up would be even harder. Her dress was going to be a wrinkled mess, but who knew when they’d get out of here anyway? She leaned back against the wall and stretched her legs out in front of her, arranging the dress over them. “I can’t believe this.”
Harlan got another coat down and spread it out beside her. “Are you cold? Would you like me to get your coat?”
She started to say no but she really was cold since her arms and shoulders were completely bare. “Okay, thanks. It’s one of the first ones. The leopard skin faux fur.”
He walked back to the carousel, took out a coat with leopard markings and showed it to her. “Is this it?”
“Yes.”
Harlan wrapped it around her shoulders, then sat down beside her.
“Are you sitting on some random person’s coat? Don’t you think they’ll be pissed when they get it back?”
“Possibly, but I’m fairly sure it’s Logan’s coat. He’ll just buy another one if it’s messed up.”
“He won’t mind?”
Harlan shrugged. “He’ll get over it. Hell, I’ll buy him a new one if it’s that big of a deal.”
“This wasn’t how I envisioned spending the evening,” she said.
“Me neither. But if I had to be stuck in a closet with someone, it would be you.”
“Oh, please.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re flirting with me? Again?”
He grinned. “Would that be so bad?”
God, those dimples. They gave his smile that much more impact. “Yes. For a number of reasons. I’m going to be working with you, for one thing. Unless you’ve decided to fire me after all.”
“I’ve told you, I don’t plan to fire you or anyone else who does their job well.”
“All the more reason you shouldn’t flirt with me.”
He considered her, more seriously than he had been. “You’re still pissed at me, aren’t you?”
Of course not. That would be ridiculous.
Okay, so I’m ridiculous. She doubted it would work, but wouldn’t it be fun to make Harlan Sullivan fall madly in love with her and then destroy him as he’d destroyed her all those years ago? “Why would I be pissed?”
“Because of the way we broke up.”
Savannah laughed. “Harlan, that was a hundred years ago. I’d almost forgotten it.” Liar, liar.
“I haven’t. Breaking up with you is one thing I’ll always regret.”
He sounds so sincere. But I don’t trust him an inch. “Like I said, it was a long time ago, but I’m sure we can find a way for you to make it up to me.” She gave him her most winning smile.
His eyes darkened to a deep, vibrant green. She’d always thought he had gorgeous eyes. Long, dark lashes, the color shifting with his mood from light hazel to almost jade.
Was he looking at her mouth? Damn it, he was. And the way he was looking at her made her stomach flutter, which pissed her off to no end. “No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your expression did.”
He laughed. “It’s not a crime to look. Or to want.”
Revenge is a dish best served cold, so the saying went. Fourteen years made it cold as ice.
A female voice whispered, “You were kids. It was ages ago. You should get over it.”
But when she looked around only Harlan was there. And the scent of lavender.