The HOLIDAY HONEYMOON fun continues this month, when Gulliver’s Travels employee LUCY FALCO rekindles the flame with CHRISTOPHER BANKS. Praise Letter to Reader Title Page About the Author Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Copyright

The HOLIDAY HONEYMOON fun continues this month, when Gulliver’s Travels employee LUCY FALCO rekindles the flame with CHRISTOPHER BANKS.

So if you loved the earlier HOLIDAY HONEYMOON books—or even if you missed them—you’re sure to enjoy this sensuous, fun-filled romance by award-winning author Carole Buck.

Praise for Carole Buck’s earlier Desire miniseries WEDDING BELLES...

“...In Annie Says I Do...readers will appreciate how Ms. Buck skillfully turns a lifelong friendship into a passionate love affair.”

“...Peachy’s Proposal [is] a scrumptious confection of a delight... Ms. Buck...creates a keeper for your bookshelf.”

“[In]...Zoe and the Best Man...Ms. Buck gifts us with a clever, witty love story with oodles of warm sensuality and touching emotion.”

—Melinda Helfer, Romantic Times

Dear Reader,

Welcome to a wonderful new year at Silhouette Desire! Let’s start with a delightfully humorous MAN OF THE MONTH by Lass Small—The Coffeepot Inn. Here, a sinfully sexy hero is tempted by a virtuous woman. He’s determined to protect her from becoming the prey of the local men—and he’s determined to win her for himself!

The HOLIDAY HONEYMOONS miniseries continues this month with Resolved To (Re)Marry by Carole Buck. Don’t miss this latest installment of this delightful continuity series!

And the always wonderful Jennifer Greene continues her STANFORD SISTERS series with Bachelor Mom. As many of you know, Jennifer is an award winner, and this book shows why she is so popular with readers and critics alike!

Completing the month are a new love story from the sizzling pen of Beverly Barton, The Tender Trap: a delightful Western from Pamela Macaluso, The Loneliest Cowboy; and something a little bit different from Ashley Summers, On Wings of Love.

Enjoy!

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325. Buffalo. NY 14269 Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont L2A 5X3

Resolved To (Re) Marry

Carole Buck

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CAROLE BUCK

is a television news writer and movie reviewer who lives in Atlanta. She is single and her hobbies include cake decorating, ballet and traveling. She collects frogs, but does not kiss them. Carole says she’s in love with life; she hopes the books she writes reflect this.

Prologue

It was the final night of December, and the former Lucia Annette Falco and her new husband, Christopher Dodson Banks, were too intoxicated to fully understand what they were doing.

Their euphoric deficit of comprehension had nothing to do with alcohol. The only liquor either of them had imbibed on this New Year’s Eve was a few pro forma sips of champagne at their wedding reception. If they’d been tested, they would have registered stone-cold sober.

So why were Chris’s normally steady limbs as wobbly as a wino’s as he stood in the center of the hotel suite where he intended to consummate the marriage vows he’d uttered with such solemnity earlier that evening?

And why was Lucy feeling as giggly and giddy as a prom queen at a frat-house keg party as she anticipated doing exactly the same thing?

To put it simply—or not so simply, as things turned out—the newly wed Mr. and Mrs. Banks were drunk with love.

And dreams.

His dreams about her.

Her dreams about him.

Their dreams ... about themselves and their future together.

The fact that only a few of these dreams had been clearly articulated by either party—and that several of the more crucial unspoken ones seemed to be downright contradictory—was something neither the bride nor the groom had taken time to consider.

Such was the nature of their mutual intoxication.

Lucy melted against Chris with a purr of delight as he gathered her tenderly into his arms. She clung to him, nuzzling at his chest. Breathing in deeply, she savored the subtle spice of his cologne and the potent hint of natural male musk that lay beneath it.

She adored the way her new husband smelled.

And tasted.

And felt.

She was nuts about the way be looked, too.

Funny. She’d grown up assuming that when she finally surrendered to the urge to merge, her mate would be some hunky Mediterranean-type male. And why not? The vast majority of the guys she’d gone out with had been cast from the same dark-eyed, dark-haired, olive-complected mold. They’d sported tight jeans and black leather jackets. They’d also—with the notable exception of Chachi Palucci, who’d tried to impress her with plagiarized poetry—been prone to flexing their well-developed pecs in an effort to incite her admiration.

Whereas Chris ...

Well, the man to whom she’d given herself in every sense of the phrase had hazel eyes. His thick, straight hair was a sun-gilded caramel brown. Although his skin had been burnished by years of tennis, skiing and sailing, it was pale in the places the sun had never touched.

The bulk of his well-tailored wardrobe came from Brooks Brothers, Paul Stuart and Ralph Lauren. He wore leather on his feet and around his narrow waist, and that was it. He was tall—six feet to her own five-five-and built along lean, angular lines. While he was not the kind of man who indulged in false modesty, neither was he inclined to strut his stuff.

In short, Christopher Dodson Banks was not her type. No way. No how.

Or so Lucia Annette Falco would have sworn, until the sultry Saturday night when her gaze connected with his for the first time.

He had been checking out her chest when she registered his existence in the world. No big deal, really. She’d blossomed from soda-straw skinniness to a C cup the summer before she entered seventh grade, and she’d been getting ogled ever since.

Although she didn’t particularly relish the attention her bosom attracted, Lucy had come to terms with it. She’d also discovered that the apparently genetically ingrained male tendency to assume that a woman’s IQ was inversely proportional to her bra size could be turned to her advantage. She didn’t play dumb. She had too much self-respect to resort to that kind of ploy. But there were situations in which she consciously refrained from flaunting her brains up front.

The few genuinely offensive members of the opposite sex she encountered-specifically, the jerks who grabbed without asking permission and who couldn’t seem to grasp the concept that no meant no, not maybe or take me—she left to the not-so-tender mercies of her widowed father, three unmarried brothers, four uncles and ten male cousins. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe herself capable of fending off lechers. Quite the contrary. But as the only female Falco of her generation, she believed it behooved her to offer the men in her family the opportunity to defend her honor—and vent what she considered potentially dangerous buildups of excess testosterone—every now and then.

It was for her own peace of mind, really. As long as her macho macho relatives were preoccupied with protecting her, they weren’t going to have the time or energy to embroil themselves in any really serious trouble.

The tawny-haired stranger had lifted his gray-green eyes to her coffee-bean-brown ones a second or two after she glanced in his direction and became aware of his unabashed appraisal of her T-shirted breasts. She’d intended to blow him off like lint, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was that she was sweating like a pig—thanks to her brothers’ spectacularly inept efforts at air-conditioning repair—and didn’t feel like being gawked at by some preppie-style prince who obviously didn’t belong in Falco’s Pizzeria. But as their gazes collided and locked, she’d felt a surge of attraction so powerful that she gasped aloud and grabbed for the side of the cash register she’d been tending for nigh on eight hours.

She’d tried to turn away, but found herself unable to do so. Her pulse had kicked like a chorus line. Her stomach had fluttered wildly. Nothing she’d experienced with any of the long line of neighborhood guys she’d dated during the five years since she’d celebrated her sweet sixteenth had prepared her for such a primal response.

Her ogler had flushed, obviously embarrassed. Obviously affected, too.

And then, astonishingly, he’d smiled at her.

It hadn’t been one of those hey-baby-I’m-so-sexy grins she was accustomed to fielding from the local lotharios. Rather, it had been a quirking of flexible male lips, punctuated by a glint of even white teeth.

There’d been a trace of surprise in the expression. As though the smile represented a surrender to impulse by someone not usually given to succumbing to hormonally generated whim.

Lucy had reciprocated. Briefly. Breathlessly. If Chris had blinked, he probably would have missed it.

Despite the fact that she’d been accused—not completely without justification, she was willing to concede—of being a tease by several of the neighborhood Romeos, she hadn’t been trying to be coy. Her control over her facial muscles had simply been too iffy for her to attempt a full-scale smile.

Lucia Annette Falco had not been hunting for a husband the day twenty-four-year-old Christopher Dodson Banks walked into her family’s restaurant. She’d hoped to make a happy marriage eventually, of course. But not until she’d proven herself. By herself. To herself. For herself. And not until she’d firmly established her emotional and economic independence from her family.

She’d never imagined herself tying the knot while she was still two semesters away from earning her bachelor’s degree in business administration. And even if she had, she certainly never would have envisioned a scenario in which the cause of her decision to reroute—some might suggest derail—her professional ambitions would be an Ivy League-educated lawyer who was the scion of one of Chicago’s most prominent families!

Lucy’s breath hitched in her throat as she suddenly recalled the disapproving expression she’d glimpsed on her new mother-in-law’s perfectly made-up face as she and Chris departed for their honeymoon. She quickly shoved the memory aside. She’d find a way to deal with Elizabeth Banks, she assured herself. But not on this, the first night of her married life.

“I can’t believe we actually did it,” she whispered, scarcely realizing that she’d spoken aloud. The enormity of the commitment she’d made washed over her like a wave. For a moment, she felt as though she might drown.

“Well, we did, sweetheart.” Chris hugged Lucy close, pressing his lips against the crown of her head. He inhaled sharply. The scent of a fresh floral perfume—and of warm feminine flesh—hazed his nostrils. Desire swirled through him like a zephyr. “You and me. Together. In front of a huge horde of witnesses.”

“I told you I had a lot of relatives.” There was an apology implicit in her soft voice. And an edge of defensiveness, too. The potentially troubling implications of both were lost in the rush of sensation unleashed by the stroking search of her hands.

“True,” Chris acknowledged thickly, plucking the pins from her hair and scattering them on the floor. Lucy’s family—boisterously affectionate, abundantly extended, the antithesis of his own limited network of blood kin—was something he envied her. Still, there had been more than a couple of instances during this evening’s nuptial festivities when he found himself growing irritated by the number of guests who seemed to believe themselves entitled to lay claim to his bride’s undivided attention. “But having to face all of them in the same place at the same time was a little overwhelming.”

“Overwhelming,” Lucy repeated in an odd tone, then shivered ardently as he finessed the nerve-rich skin of her nape. “I know... what you mean.”

Perhaps she did. Perhaps she didn’t. Chris decided that it wasn’t particularly important at this particular time. What mattered right now was that, after too many hours of being forced to share her, he finally had the woman he’d promised to love and honor as long as they both should live all to himself.

Was it selfish to want her so exclusively? he asked himself, unzipping Lucy’s dress and sliding it off her smooth-skinned shoulders. She accommodated his efforts with a provocative little shimmy, then began undoing the buttons on the front of his shirt. Was it wrong to resent her seemingly endless interest in other people’s problems?

Maybe, he conceded, sucking in his breath as he felt the delicate rake of fingernails against his hair-whorled chest. But it also struck him as being profoundly human.

They kissed again. Chris feathered his mouth back and forth, deepening the intimacy of the caress by carefully calibrated increments. Lucy’s lips grew pliant, then parted. He eased his tongue between them, absorbing his bride’s languid sigh of pleasure with a throaty invocation of her name.

She was so...different... from the kind of woman he—to say nothing of his parents, friends and professional colleagues—had expected he’d one day woo and wed. Not just in appearance. But in upbringing and outlook, as well.

This had unsettled Chris at the start of their relationship, and he’d tried to go slowly because of it. He hadn’t doubted Lucy. He’d doubted himself.

He was self-aware enough to recognize that he wasn‘t—and probably never would be—entirely comfortable with the unearned privileges and unavoidable responsibilities that went with being the sole heir to the Banks family fortune. He’d needed to be certain that his desire to get involved with Lucia Annette Falco wasn’t the manifestation of some long-deferred impulse toward rebelling against his birthright.

It had taken a fair amount of soul-searching, but he’d finally satisfied himself that his feelings were not the product of a postadolescent identity crisis. Which had been terrific, up to a point. Unfortunately, all the clumsy scrabbling around in his psyche hadn’t help him figure out why he was drawn so intensely to a young woman with whom, by most objective standards, he seemed to have very little in common.

He’d replayed over and over again that first, heady moment when his eyes had connected with Lucy’s, attempting to make sense of his instantaneous hunger for her. While Chris was no stranger to physical passion, he’d never before encountered a female who could make his mouth go dry and his palms start to sweat simply by looking at him. He’d eventually abandoned his quest for a rational explanation of what had happened, deciding that he’d probably have better luck trapping a lightning bolt between his hands during a thunderstorm.

The woman with whom he’d tumbled so precipitately in love was neither classically beautiful nor all-American cute. Her brows were too strongly marked, her jawline was too stubbornly angled and her gaze was too direct to qualify her for inclusion the latter category. As for the former—well, her nose missed being aristocratic by several significant millimeters, while her lush-lipped mouth was a degree or so off plumb and bracketed by dimples.

The thing was, Chris hadn’t registered a single one of these flaws—if flaws they were—the first time he saw his future wife. Nor had he stopped to question why, after years of squiring lithesome blue-eyed blond debutantes, he’d suddenly found himself bewitched by a voluptuous brunette cashier at a pizzeria.

It had been her smile that initially snagged his attention. He’d seen her flash it at a slick-looking character in sunglasses and felt a strange stab to the heart. A surge of possessiveness had swept through him. He’d wanted that frank, feisty and oh-so-feminine expression directed at him—not some other guy.

After her smile, he’d focused on her skin. He’d longed to touch it. To taste it. To discover whether it carried the flavor, as well as the look, of sweet cream and sun-ripened apricots.

Her hair had compelled his senses, too. He’d yearned to free it from its haphazard ponytail and run his fingers through the long espresso-colored strands. To bury his face in the glossy tumble and breathe in its dusky fragrance.

As for the issue of when he’d noticed her breasts and exactly what he’d felt the urge to do with them—

“Mmm...” Lucy leaned back against the supportive circle of her new husband’s arms, her loosened tresses shifting against her shoulder blades. She was hazily aware that she was ahead—or was it actually behind?—in the disrobing process. While she was down to a pair of pale silk stockings and a few fragile of pieces of lace-trimmed lingerie, Chris was still fully clad from the waist down.

“Mmm, indeed,” he concurred, his normally cool eyes sparking emerald green and topaz gold from beneath partially lowered lids. Their expression was very focused. Almost fierce. His hands drifted down her back, curving seductively against her bottom. The warmth of his palms penetrated the fine fabric of her panties, kindling a melting heat between her thighs.

A tremor of uniquely feminine anticipation skittered through Lucy’s nervous system. She shifted her hips, conscious of the thrusting rise of Chris’s masculinity. She watched his nostrils flare on an abrupt exhalation of breath. A rush of color darkened the skin over his cheekbones. A thrilling sense of power—familiar in some ways, but far too new to be taken for granted—suffused her.

Although she hadn’t reached age twenty-one untouched or ignorant about the facts of life, Christopher Dodson Banks was the only lover she’d ever had. They’d begun sleeping together two months after their first date. In some ways, she’d been more of the aggressor on that initial occasion than he.

Which was not to imply that he’d been passive. Indeed not. Although reticent about public displays of physical affection, Chris was-intensely passionate in private. Making love with him was... well, it was a far cry from the whambam-in-the-back-seat encounters she’d heard about in the girls’ rest room! He was inventive. Uninhibited. And unwaveringly intent on ensuring that what was good for him was even better for her.

“You’re kidding me, Luce,” her maid-of-honor-to-be, Tina Roberts, had said one night about six weeks ago. They’d been sharing confidences and cannolis after a long day of shopping for her trousseau. Tina, who’d gone all the way and then some her freshman year of high school, was the only one of Lucy’s girlfriends who knew she’d been a virgin until Chris. Tina had also had a fair amount to say on the subject of how dangerous it could be for a girl to fall in love with the guy to whom she gave her physical innocence. “Without being asked?”

Lucy had fiddled with her pastry, wondering whether she’d been too forthcoming. “He said he enjoyed it because I...enjoy...it.”

“He wasn’t just trying to get you to—”

“No, Teen.” The answer had been quick and unequivocal. It hadn’t mattered that her companion was immensely more experienced than she. She’d felt very, very sure of her answer. “Chris isn’t like that.”

Tina had tapped her flashily manicured nails on the edge of the table at which they were sitting, an oddly wistful look flitting across her face. Finally she’d heaved a long-drawn out sigh and observed, “I guess that old line about still waters running deep is true, huh? I mean, I’m not blind to your fiancé’s appeal, hon. He’s cute. He’s classy. And even though I’ve never seen him do anything more than hold your hand, I can tell he’s crazy for you. Still. I never would have pegged him as a tiger in the sack.”

Lucy rose on tiptoe, brushing her mouth against Chris’s. Their lips caught and clung, the caress escalating from airy to erotic in the space of a few increasingly frantic heartbeats.

“I love you, Chris,” she whispered fervently. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too, Lucy,” he answered, then bent and lifted her. She locked her arms around his neck and kissed the side of his throat. She could feel the wild jump of his pulse. The faintly salty tang of his skin seeped onto her tongue.

He carried her into the suite’s elegantly furnished bedroom. Lucy glanced around wonderingly, absorbing a myriad of sensual details.

Flowers blossomed luxuriously out of a variety of vases. Roses, mostly. Brilliantly scarlet. Blush pink. Ivory pale. Her favorite copper-coral, too. There were arrangements of exotic-looking orchids and fragrant freesia, as well.

An iced bottle of champagne was nestled in a silver bucket that had been placed on a nightstand to the right of the bed. Two slender long-stemmed glasses sat next to the bucket. Lucy’s vision blurred for a moment as she realized that the glasses were engraved. The letters L and C had been etched into the bubble-thin crystal, their curving lines intertwined like lovers.

“Oh, Ch-Chris...”

“Happy honeymoon, Lucy,” the man she’d married said as she faltered on the verge of sentimental tears. “And happy New Year, as well.”

The king-size bed’s coverlet and blankets had been neatly turned back, revealing an inviting expanse of snowy-white linen. Bracing one knee against the edge of the mattress, Chris placed her down on the cool, crisp sheets. He then stroked his fingers though her hair, fanning it out against the pillowcase.

His movements were slow. Deliberate. Precise. As though he had all the time in the world at his command and intended to utilize every single second of it.

Lucy gazed up at her husband, mesmerized by his concentration and control. Lifting her left hand, she placed it gently against his right cheek. A gold band glinted on her ring finger, along with a flawless square-cut diamond, the precious symbol of the pledges she’d made less than seven hours ago in accordance with the word of God and the statutes of the state of Illinois.

Straightening, Chris kicked off his shoes. Then he stretched out on the bed and took her into his arms. She molded herself against him, tilting her face upward, wanting to feel his mouth on hers once again.

Their lips met. Fused. Their tongues teased and tantalized. The taste of him merged with the taste of her and became the honeyed essence of mutual desire.

Lucy moaned softly, moved sinuously. Experience had taught her some of the things that excited the man she loved. Instinct instructed her about most of the others. She let her hands roam up and down his back and torso, relishing the sleek ripple and release of well-toned muscle and sinew.

The catch on the front of her bra gave way to the coaxing of clever but not-quite-steady fingers. Cool air eddied briefly over freshly bared skin. Lucy shivered, catching her bottom lip between her teeth to mute a whimper of anticipation. A moment later, she felt the claiming cup of her husband’s palms against her naked flesh. She closed her eyes, arching into the allurement of his caress.

“Beautiful,” she heard Chris murmur in a reverent, rough-velvet voice. His hands were urgent, yet exquisitely gentle. He seemed to understand even better than she did where and how and when she wanted to be touched. “You’re so beautiful.”

And then she felt his mouth. His hot, hungry mouth, closing over the tip of her right breast. Licking. Laving. Sampling. Sucking. Each time his lips exerted their suctioning pressure on the burgeoning peak, there was an answering throb deep within her body.

Lucy opened her eyes. She uttered Chris’s name on a shaky whisper, her fingers spasming against his shoulders. Her nails bit briefly into the taut flesh of his upper arms as he transferred his attentions to her left breast. Again he suckled, drawing her aching nipple deep into his mouth. Again she experienced the yearning clench of response in her womb.

Chris kissed a path upward from Lucy’s bosom, drink- ing in the soft, swooning cry she made when his lips finally reclaimed hers. He was starving, he thought dizzily, and she was a feast to sate all his senses. But the more he tasted of her—the more he touched, smelled, heard and saw—the more acutely he hungered.

“Yes,” she said on a sigh when he finally ended the kiss. “Oh, yes.”

He undid her sheer stockings and carefully peeled them off. Lucy watched silently as he did so, her expression ratcheting up old appetites at the same time it roused new ones. Her cheeks were flushed, almost feverish-looking. Her ripe mouth was moist and trembling.

My wife, he told himself triumphantly, touching the ball of his thumb against the plain gold ring that now adorned his left hand. My... wife.

He charted the shape of her legs with his hands in ardent, appreciative stages. From her prettily pedicured toes to her well-turned ankles. From her well-turned ankles to the backs of her knees. From the backs of her knees to the satin-cream skin of her inner thighs.

His fingertips hovered for an instant at the apex of her limbs, brushing lightly against the dampened fabric that shielded the entrance to her feminine core. His mind flashed back to the first time they’d made love. To the crazy jumble of emotions he’d experienced knowing that he was to be the recipient of something that could be surrendered only once.

He’d felt awed.

He’d felt unworthy.

He’d felt invincible.

He felt much the same right now.

“Chris—” Lucy began in a half-suffocated voice, propping herself up on her elbows.

“I need you, sweetheart,” he said huskily, sliding his palms over the silky fabric of her panties and hooking his thumbs beneath the lace-trimmed top edge. “All of you.”

Her dark lashes fluttered down a fraction of an inch, veiling a wildfire kindling in the depths of her expressive eyes. The corners of her lips curled in the start of a smile that sizzled through his bloodstream. A throbbing heaviness invaded his loins. Desire clawed in his gut like a jungle cat.

A languid lift of lushly feminine hips.

A swift downward tug by long-fingered male hands.

The last scrap of Lucy’s lingerie fluttered to the plushly carpeted floor, leaving her naked.

Chris swallowed convulsively, struggling for control as he surveyed the newly revealed flesh and the lovely triangle of dark, glossy curls. He disciplined himself to ease up, shift back. Forced himself to get to his feet.

He opened the buckle of his belt. Unzipped his fly.

Shucked his trousers and the briefs beneath them down his legs in a single seamless movement.

Kicked the garments off ... and away.

Lucy’s breath jammed in her throat at the sight of Chris’s sleekly powerful physique and flagrantly aroused masculinity. She’d been afraid the first time, she dimly remembered. Not so much of the hurt, although she’d been warned that was inevitable. No, her deepest fear had centered around the awful possibility that she’d fail to please at something it seemed all her friends found as natural as scratching.

There had been no hurt. A moment of discomfort, yes, but one so buffered by tenderness that she could scarcely be sure she’d really experienced it. And if she’d been less than adequate in her innocence, she hadn’t been able to discern it. Chris had responded to her as though she were Eve incarnate.

She dragged her gaze slowly upward, conscious of the pound-pound-pounding of her blood. She could hear it, hammering in her ears. She could feel it, pulsing in the tips of her toes and fingers.

Dark eyes locked with hazel ones, much as they’d done on a hot summer night barely six months before.

Lucy lifted her arms.

Chris rejoined her on the king-size bed.

They kissed. Caressed. Rolled across the crisp white sheets in a tangle of perspiration-sheened legs and arms. She found herself laughing with joy one moment, gasping in shocked pleasure the next. She said her husband’s name over and over again. He murmured hers, and a dozen different endearments besides. Then, in a lightning-quick change of mood, he nipped at the lobe of her right ear and began whispering a litany of darkly delicious promises.

His hands were everywhere. Testing. Tempting. Torching her flesh. She reciprocated in kind, charting the strong expanse of his shoulders, the long, taut line of his torso and the flat plane of his stomach. The shallow indentation of his navel held her strangely in thrall for several shuddering seconds, and then she shifted her tactile attentions downward a few inches.

“Lucy.” Chris speared his fingers through her hair. “Oh...Lucy.”

“Yes.” The word was an affirmation. An invitation. “Yes.”

They rolled over again. She ended up beneath him, feeling the nudge of his knee between her thighs as his mouth took hers in another searing kiss.

She opened eagerly, arching upward in welcome as Chris filled her with a strong, sure thrust. A glorious sensation surged through her veins. She wrapped her arms and legs around him as her consciousness narrowed to exclude everything but the moment...and the man.

Chris groaned hoarsely, his embrace tightening. His spine bowed, the intimacy of his possession of her increasing by a few ineffably exquisite degrees.

Closer. And closer still.

She shuddered, her body convulsing on the brink of sensory overload. Her brain seemed to blank out, as though it were too overwhelmed to form anything approaching a coherent thought. Then, suddenly, she shattered.

An instant later, she felt her partner do the same.

Lucy had wondered if it would be different, making love as husband and wife, not simply man and woman. In the midst of a molten flood of ecstasy, she learned that it was. Deeply, indescribably different.

She’d never dreamed that it could be better.

She should have.

Chris liked to cuddle afterward.

This had taken Lucy by surprise. According to her female friends, most guys were savvy enough to understand that most girls expected some foreplay before the main event. Unfortunately, these friends averred, disappointingly few members of the opposite sex had gotten it through their thick skulls that women craved a little afterplay, too.

“They get off,” Tina Roberts had once informed her with a disdainful gesture. “They want you to tell ‘em it was great. They roll over and start-snoring. And if they don’t sack out right away, they reach for a cigarette or the TV remote control. Then they tell you to bring ’em a beer. Or make ’em a sandwich. You want to prolong the mood? Forget about it. You know that joke about the guy who says his ideal girl is one who’ll put out, then turn into a sausage pizza? Well, I’m not laughing.”

“So, Mrs. Banks,” Chris murmured, brushing Lucy’s forehead with his lips. His hand skimmed lightly over her hip, triggering an echo of breath-stealing bliss.

Lucy snuggled close, planting a kiss on the ridge of his collarbone as she savored the strength of his encircling arms. She could feel the steady drumbeat of his heart. My husband, she thought proudly. This is my husband.

“So, Mr. Banks,” she returned after a few moments, relishing the words.

“How do you feel?”

A giggle tickled at the back of her throat. She released it, then replied, “Married.”

“Me, too.” Chris chuckled deep in his chest. The sound rumbled against her ear, stirring nerves that had just begun to settle.

“Do you like it?”

He turned his head slightly, a lock of light brown hair falling forward onto his brow. His gaze met hers. “More than I can say.”

They kissed. Slowly. Sweetly.

They kissed again. Still slowly. Still sweetly. But with a lick of heat beneath the sugar.

“Would madame care for a little liquid refreshment?” Chris eventually inquired. His skin was flushed, his voice a note or two lower than it had been the last time he spoke.

Lucy moistened her lips, enjoying the glinting response she saw in the depths of his hazel eyes. “Very much.”

He sat up, seemingly at ease with his nudity. She watched him pluck the champagne bottle from the silver bucket, then strip off the foil and undo the restraining twists of wire. He performed the movements with deft efficiency.

As he reached for the engraved crystal flutes, she levered herself up beside him. She saw one corner of his mobile mouth quirk as she draped the sheet around her. She supposed it was a bit late for modesty, given her wanton, wedded behavior of just a short time before. Still ...

“Chilly?” Chris teased, handing her the glasses.

“Not at the moment.” Her response was demure.

“Well, let me know if the situation changes.”

“And if it does?”

“Then I’ll find a way—” the cork succumbed to the pressure of his thumbs with a soft pop “—to get you warm again.”

Lucy extended the flutes. Forget warm, she thought, her fingers tightening on the fragile crystal stems. She was already feeling hot.

The wine poured out in a frothy stream, bubbles dancing in its pale depths like pinpoint jewels. Ice cubes clinked as Chris set the bottle back in the silver bucket. She gave him one of the glasses she was holding, her fingertips brushing his as they completed the handoff. The brief contact sent an electric tingle arrowing up her arm.

“To us?” he proposed huskily, his eyes steady on hers.

“To us,” she concurred.

They toasted and drank deeply. The sparkling wine danced down Lucy’s throat like liquid sunshine. It was the most delicious thing she’d ever tasted.

“I think we should make a resolution,” she announced boldly when she lowered her glass. She’d never known such a sense of completeness.

“A resolution?”

“To live happily ever after.”

Chris smiled in a fashion that made her head start to spin. Her bloodstream seemed to be fizzing. “Together.”

“Abso—” she hiccuped “—lutely.”

Lucia Annette Banks—nee Falco—and Christopher Dodson Banks went their separate ways less than twelve months later.

One

“It’s not right, Lucy,” Tiffany Tarrington Toulouse declared, a combination of frustration and concern muting the usual sparkle in her pale gray eyes. “A lovely girl like you, spending New Year’s Eve alone. You did the same thing last year. And the year before that.”

Lucy Falco suppressed a sigh. She’d never told her colleagues at Gulliver’s Travels that the holiday under discussion had very bittersweet associations for her. Although nearly everyone in the office was vaguely aware that she’d gone through a divorce about a decade ago, she’d avoided offering any concrete details about her marriage or the bustup that had followed.

There were two main reasons for this. Her position as office manager of the Atlanta-based travel agency was one of them. As much as she genuinely liked the men and women she supervised, she felt a managerial responsibility to keep her private life separate from her professional one. That this “responsibility” was at odds with her penchant for getting involved in other people’s personal problems was something of which she was well aware. But there it was.

The second reason she shied away from explaining why her marriage had ended was that she was no longer sure she knew. What she once would have cited as incontrovertible fact—that Chris had been the unmitigated wronger and she the blameless wrongee—now seemed to her to be open to at least some degree of argument.

Which wasn’t to say that she regretted her divorce. She didn’t. Not... really. Given the life she’d built for herself in the wake of it, how could she? The woman she was today was pretty much the one she’d aspired to be before the sweltering summer night Christopher Dodson Banks walked into Falco’s Pizzeria and turned her world upside down.

Would she have become this woman if she’d stayed married? A decade ago, Lucia Annette Falco would have said absolutely not. But lately, she’d begun to wonder.

A decade ago, she also would have maintained that her marriage had been unsalvageable. She’d begun to wonder about the validity of that assessment with increasing frequency in recent times, too.

“There’s always a lot of end-of-the-year business to be taken care of, Tiff,” Lucy said, dropping her gaze and making a show of shuffling through the files on the top of her antique burled-cherry desk. “I have a huge backlog of paperwork to wade through.”

“If there’s so much to be done, why did you give everyone the rest of the week off?” the older woman asked challengingly, fluffing her frothy mane of silvery white curls with an extravagantly beringed hand.

“Because I felt like it.”

This deliberately outrageous explanation stopped Tiffany for a moment. But only a moment. She rose from the tall wingback chair in which she’d been ensconced. “Lucia Annette Falco—”

“I appreciate your concern,” Lucy told her, meaning it. “But not having plans to party hearty on New Year’s Eve doesn’t mean I’m socially deprived. I’m simply not into swilling champagne and kissing strangers at the stroke of midnight.”

Tiffany arched a well-plucked brow and pursed her plum-glossed lips. Then, with a sassiness that belied her sixty-plus years, she retorted, “Don’t knock it unless you’ve tried it.”

Lucy had to laugh.

Clearly sensing an opening, the older woman reverted to her initial theme. It was a characteristic response. For all her flamboyant fluttering, Tiffany was an expert at manipulating other people for what she considered to be their own good. She was also as tenacious as a lockjawed terrier when she got her teeth into something. It was little wonder that she was one of Gulliver’s Travels’ most successful agents.

“You don’t have to stay out all night,” she coaxed. “But what’d be the harm in dashing home and putting on something extra-pretty, then meeting Hastings and me for a teensy-weensy libation at the Buckhead Ritz?”

“Oh, I’m sure Hastings would just love to have me horn in on your big date,” Lucy riposted. Hastings Chatwell Lee IV, as she and everyone else at the agency was aware, was Tiffany’s latest beau.

“He’d rather have me all to himself, of course.” The response was smug. Tiffany Tarrington Toulouse was a woman who was gloriously sure of the irresistibility of her feminine charms. “But if it’d make me happy to have you come along...”

There was no need for her to finish the sentence. From what Lucy had observed, Hastings Chatwell Lee IV would lie down like a rug and let himself be stomped on by a herd of hobnail-booted hippos if he had an inkling that it would please his silver-haired sweetie pie.

“It’s a tempting offer, Tiff,” she acknowledged after a few seconds. “But I’m going to pass.”

A hint of steel entered Tiffany’s eyes. She opened her mouth, plainly intending to press her case. She was forestalled by the precipitous arrival of a gangly young man whose buzz-cut platinum hair and small silver nose ring were in striking contrast to his starched white shirt—complete with pocket protector—crisply ironed khaki pants and spit-polished penny loafers.

The young man’s name was Wayne Dweck, and he’d recently joined Gulliver’s Travels as a part-time office assistant. Wayne was passionately interested in computer technology and so-called alternative music. It was Lucy’s impression that he spent the bulk of his free time alternating between surfing the Internet and slam-dancing.

“‘Scuse me, Ms. Toulouse,” he said, a bit breathlessly. “But you’ve got a seriously expensive long-distance phone call. Some guy named Sergei, from St. Petersburg.”

“Sergei from St. Petersburg?” Lucy lifted her brows inquiringly.

“Sergei Illyanovich Gennady,” Tiffany elaborated with an airy gesture. “I met him last summer, on that singles cruise I took. You remember. The one to the Galapagos Islands. Such a nice man. It’s hard to believe he was a godless Communist for most of his life. He’s probably calling to wish me happy New Year.” She turned a beaming smile on Wayne and patted him on the cheek, her rings glinting. “Thank you, dear.”

The nostril-pierced part-timer turned beet red, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down like a Ping-Pong ball on a choppy sea. “N-no problem, Ms. Toulouse. My p-pleasure.”

Tiffany returned her crystalline gaze to Lucy. “You think about what I said,” she instructed firmly, then pivoted on her heel and walked away. There was a hint of Mae West in the sway of her hips.

“She is so... totally...cool,” Wayne declared in an ardently admiring tone, sagging briefly against the door frame.

“She’s totally something, all right,” Lucy wryly agreed.

“She should have her own home page on the Web.” The gawky office assistant ambled forward and plunked himself down in the chair Tiffany had vacated a short time before. “Do you think she’d mind if I started one? I could call it Travels with Tiffany, and I could post pictures from all the trips she’s taken. Maybe get her to write some commentary. I could link it to some of the other outstanding babe sites, too.”

Lucy bit the inside of her cheek, struggling to keep a straight face. “I think Tiffany would probably be Battered by the idea. Why don’t you talk to her about it first thing next weak?”

It was difficult to believe that Wayne could blush more vividly than he had a minute or so earlier, but he managed it.

“You mean, like, face-to-face?” he gasped, gripping the arms of the wingback chair. “On a ... reality ... basis?”

“Mmm-hmm ...”

There was an uncomfortable pause. After much squirming, Wayne finally said, “Maybe... Maybe I’ll E-mail her about it. I kind of have trouble keeping my head straight when she’s there in the, uh, flesh, you know? I get sort of warm and woozy. The first time I was introduced to her, it was right after I’d had lunch at that Mexican place over on Spring and I was scared I was going to blow burrito chunks in front of her. I’ve pretty much got that under control now, though. Not the warm and woozy part. The potential hurling.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“The thing is, I think Ms. Toulouse in one of those women who was born with megapheromones.”

“Excuse me?”

“Pheromones. Like, sex chemicals. Bugs secrete them, big-time.”

“Oh.”

“It has to do with smell, mostly. Human pheromones, that is. I mean, sometimes you sniff somebody, and wham. Instant attraction.” Wayne cocked his head, his brow furrowing. “Did that ever happen to you, Lucy?”

Her pulse stuttered. Memory assailed her, sending a ripple of heat coursing through her body.

The subtle appeal of expensive spice.

The more provocative allure of natural male musk.

Chris’s scent.

Oh, yes. Lucia Annette Falco knew what it was like to “sniff” a stranger and plunge headlong into love. Or lust. Or some irresistible blending of the two. And although it had been nearly ten years since—

“Lucy?”

She started, more than a little appalled at the waywardly erotic direction of her thoughts. She’d come to expect a certain amount of nostalgic weirdness from herself on New Year’s Eve. But this was ridiculous! It was even worse than the eager way she’d devoured that newspaper profile of Chris she happened to run across a few weeks back.

“I’m sorry, Wayne,” she said, shutting her mind to the memory of the distinguished-looking black-and-white photograph that had accompanied the laudatory article. “Yes. It happened to me. I once... sniffed...a man and was attracted to him. But it was a long, long time ago.”

“Well, I wasn’t trying to be nosy....” Wayne stopped, frowning. Then he started to snicker. “Nosy,” he repeated. “About whether you ever got turned on by smelling some guy.” The snickering became snorting laughter. “Heh-heh-heh. Nosy. I like that.”

Lucy didn’t, for a variety of reasons. She gave the young man a few seconds to recover from his self-induced amusement, then reclaimed control of the conversation. “Shifting to a more serious subject, Wayne,” she began, in her crispest executive voice. “What’s the status on the new software?”

The younger man blinked several times, clearly lost. “The new software?”

“That Mr. Gulliver ordered.”

“Oh, yeah. Of course.” Wayne grinned broadly, back in the loop. “It’s cool. Cutting-edge, but easy to upgrade. Mr. G. really knows his stuff. I was just finishing installing it when that Sergei guy called for Ms. Toulouse.”

“Good work.” Lucy was a firm believer in positive reinforcement.

“Thanks. I’m gonna wait a couple of weeks before I start programming the specialty functions. ‘Cause, like, I figure people need time to get used to the basic system before they can decide what kind of shortcuts they want.”

“That sounds sensible.”

“Just one thing.” Wayne’s expression became wheedling, underscoring his youth. “Are you sure you don’t want me to load the encryption system I showed you last week? I’ve been using it at my workstation since Christmas. It’s awesome, Lucy.”

“I’m sure it is.” So awesome, she didn’t have a due about how it worked or why the agency would want to utilize it. About the only thing she remembered from the enthusiastic demonstration Wayne had given her was the sequence of keystrokes that supposedly enabled him to send coded E-mail anywhere in the world.

“Well, then—”

“We’re not the Pentagon, Wayne.”

“Jeez, I hope not! Do you have any idea how easy it is to access most of the Defense Department’s data banks?”

Lucy stiffened, flashing on a scenario in which Gulliver’s Travels was invaded by federal agents and shut down as a hotbed of hacker activity.

“Oh, hey...” the young man forged on, apparently oblivious of the alarm his previous—and pray God, rhetorical—query had triggered. “Speaking of security and breaking into things. You know how we’ve been wondering what they’ve been storing in the vault next door? Well, a friend of a friend of a friend of mine knows this guy who’s related to somebody in the police department, and he says he heard—”

“Wayne!”

The source of this urgent exclamation was Jim Burns, another one of Gulliver’s Travels’ top agents. He was short, superenergized and given to wearing plaid shirts with polka-dot ties. His rather checkered résumé included stints as a short-order cook and a used-car salesman.

“Jimmy?” Lucy questioned, instantly concerned. The last time she’d seen her co-worker looking so distressed had been the day he discovered that the cruise package he’d put together as the grand prize for a local Halloween charity ball had landed the couple who’d won it in the middle of a modern-day pirate drama. The aftermath of the episode—the capture and prosecution of the members of a drug-smuggling operation—had been front-page news. Fortunately, Gulliver’s Travels had suffered no negative PR fallout. Not only that, the couple who had gotten caught up in the adventure had already booked another trip through the agency. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m being overrun by aliens from a parallel universe!”

She gawked. Aliens from a parallel universe?

“Did you try the death beam?” Wayne asked calmly, unfolding his lanky frame and getting to his feet.

“Nonfunctional.” Jimmy pulled out a handkerchief and blotted his perspiration-sheened brow. “Even worse, I forfeited my powers of transmogrification when I cut a deal with the Fungocians on level three.”

“You cut a deal with the Fungocians?” The office assistant was visibly startled. Even his nose ring seemed to quiver with disbelief. “Jeez, Jimmy. They’re the scum of the universe!”

“I thought I could double-cross them before they double-crossed me.”

“Never going to happen, dude.” Wayne glanced at Lucy. “‘Scuse me. I gotta go kick some alien butt.”

“Have fun,” she answered ironically.

Jimmy lingered in the doorway after the younger man exited. “Sorry about that, Lucy.”

She brushed the apology aside, not really upset at having had her conversation with Wayne interrupted. “Another computer game?” she asked knowingly.

“A Christmas gift from the kids.”

“Ah.”

The agent shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I was only fiddling with it because things have been really slow.”

“No need to explain, Jimmy.” And there wasn’t. Jim Burns had his share of eccentricities. But when it came down to the crunch, Lucy knew he could be counted on to deliver for the agency. If he wanted to spend his spare moments fighting aliens from a parallel universe, she had no objections. “I know how quiet it’s been. I’m about ready to tell everyone to pack it in till next year.”

“Give us a jump on celebrating the auld lang syne, eh?”

“Something like that.”

“Everybody’s really excited about having the rest of the week off, you know.”

“It’s no more than you deserve. The agency had a terrific fourth quarter. Mr. Gulliver is going to be very pleased.”

“Have you heard from him lately?”

“Not since I got that fax requesting all those honeymoon brochures.”

“He actually got hitched on Christmas Eve, huh?”

“So I gather.”

“I’ll bet there’s quite a story behind that marriage.”

“Probably.” Lucy kept her voice noncommittal. What inside information she had about their elusive boss’s sudden plunge into matrimonial waters, she didn’t intend to share. Nor was she about to mention her unwitting but undeniably crucial role in the affair. “I don’t think we should go digging around trying to find out what it is, though.”

“Butt into Mr. Gulliver’s personal life?” Jimmy shook his head in unequivocal rejection. “No way. Nosiree. What he wants me to know, he’ll tell me. What he wants to keep private, I’m gonna keep my nose out of.” He paused, his expression turning thoughtful. “It kind of creeped me out in the beginning, you know. Mr. Gulliver’s only communicating with us through faxes, E-mail and over the phone, that is. And it was always business, business, business-with him. But I started sensing a change of tone right after Thanksgiving. Well, no. A little before that, actually. I mean, even though you said you’d square it away with him, I expected to get fired once he found out about my booking Josh and Cari Keegan on a cruise that turned out to be a front for drug runners! But the boss was really understanding about it. And then he personally picked up the tab for the agency’s Christmas open house—”

“The First Annual, Fabulously Famous Gulliver’s Travels Holiday Party, you mean,” Lucy corrected, invoking the grandiose title by which the bash was known around the office.

“Yeah. Right.” Jimmy grinned reminiscently. “That was some blowout, huh?”

“That it was.”

“Think the boss might spring for another shindig around Mardi Gras?”

“Jimmy!”

“Just kidding. Although it would be a good way to recycle those masks Tiffany bought for that big New Orleans promotion we did about eighteen months back.”

“I can definitely picture you wearing the one with the purple plumes,” she retorted with a quick laugh.

“Nah. I’ve got my eye on the alligator headpiece.” He winked. “Speaking of holiday shindigs—what kind of plans do you have for tonight?”

The query caught Lucy off guard, although it probably shouldn’t have. She managed a casual shrug and reverted to-the paper-shuffling ploy she’d used with Tiffany. “Oh, this and that.”

“Meaning you’re going to stay home by yourself. Just like last year. And the year before that.”

She looked up. She did not want to go through this again. “You think there’s something wrong with that?”

“No. Of course not. I mean, you have mixed feelings about the holiday, right? I can understand that.”

Lucy’s heart seemed to skip a beat. “You...can?”

“Sure. For all the hoopla, New Year’s Eve is really a time for taking stock. And that can be a little depressing. You find yourself looking back on all the things you intended to get done in the previous three-hundred-sixty-odd days and realizing that you never got around to doing any of ‘em. Then you feel compelled to make a bunch of resolutions that you know deep down you’re never going to—”

“I don’t do that.”

The ex-used car salesman eyed her curiously for a few moments, plainly taken aback by the sharpness of her assertion. Lucy shifted uneasily, wishing she’d kept quiet.

“You don’t?” he finally asked.

An echo reached Lucy across the distance of eleven years. Words from her wedding night. Words that were etched in her brain. Imprinted on her heart.

I think we should make a resolution.

A resolution?

To live happily ever after.

Together?

Absolutely.

“Not...anymore,” she clarified, tempering her tone and disciplining her features to hide the pain she was feeling. No matter that the passage of time was supposed to heal all wounds. It still hurt to remember how she and Chris had toasted the resolution she’d proposed. How they’d pledged their mutual love with words and deeds.

They’d made a beautiful, beautiful beginning together. But where had they ended up, a little more than twelve months later? In divorce court, citing irreconcilable differences!

“Yeah, well, I can understand that, too.” Jimmy gave a little chuckle. “I’ve got this photocopied list I haul out once a year and read over. I’ve had it—gosh, I don’t know—a decade, easy. It’s the usual stuff. Lose weight. Get more exercise. Start putting money away for retirement.”

Lucy forced a smile. “Those are all good things to resolve.”

“Must be, considering I keep resolving ‘em over and over.” Another chuckle. “Anyway. If you really want to spend tonight all by your lonesome, that’s your privilege. But I’m taking the family downtown to watch the Big Peach drop at midnight, and if you’d like to come along—”

“Thanks for the offer, but I’m really looking forward to having a quiet evening in.”

“Are you sure? You’re more than welcome to join us.”

“I’m positive.”

Jimmy hesitated, seeming to debate whether to shift into his pitchman mode. “Okay,” he finally said, apparently persuaded by something in her expression that this was one sale he wasn’t going to make. “It’s your call. I, uh, guess I’ll go check on how Wayne’s doing with aliens.”

“Don’t make any more bargains with the Fuzziewhatsises.”

“The Fungocians. And I won’t.”

“See you next year, Jimmy.”

“Count on it, Lucy.”

Two

Chris Banks sat on the edge of the king-size bed in his hotel suite, staring at the telephone. He was contemplating what he knew was either the second-best or the second-worst idea he’d ever had in his life, and the circumstances that had brought him to the point of acting upon it.

Do it, Banks, he told himself. Just...do it.

He reached for the receiver.

Picked it up.

Pressed nine to get an outside line.

Then, meticulously, he punched out the seven-digit telephone number that he’d gotten from directory assistance less than a week ago.

One ring.

He hadn’t known where his ex-wife was living when he began exploring the possibility of becoming the executive legal counsel for an Atlanta-based philanthropic foundation. He’d picked up that information during a wholly unplanned—and not particularly pleasant—pre-Christmas encounter with Lucy’s former maid of honor, Tina Roberts.

It had happened at the perfume counter of one of Chicago’s biggest department stores. He’d been doing some last-minute holiday shopping.

“Can I help you?” a nasal female voice had inquired.

“I hope so,” he’d answered wryly, looking up from the mind-boggling display of fragrances he’d been examining. He’d felt a jolt of recognition as he focused on the saleswoman who’d addressed him. “Tina?” he’d blurted out. “Tina ... Roberts?”

The woman had stared at him. She hadn’t spoken.

It was Tina, he’d thought. She’d been about fifty pounds heavier and considerably blonder than the last time he saw her, but it was definitely she.

“You...probably don’t remember me,” he’d said after a few awkward seconds, debating whether to extend his hand. Something in Tina’s artfully lined eyes had warned him that it would more likely be snapped off than shaken. He’d opted for self-preservation over politesse and kept his hand by his side. “It’s been quite a while. I’m Christopher Banks. I used to be married to—”

Two rings.

“I know who you are.” The response had been curt. “And my name’s Tina Palucci now. What are you doing here? I heard you lived in New York.”

“I do.” He’d been startled by the fact that someone from Lucy’s neighborhood circle had apparently been keeping tabs on his whereabouts. He’d left Chicago for a clerkship in Washington shortly after his divorce was finalized. He’d then moved on to the partnership track of a well-known law firm in Manhattan. “I’m back visiting my family for a few days.”

“Oh. Right. Your family.”

His gut had tightened at the way she inflected the final word. Good sense had dictated that he terminate the conversation as quickly as possible. But he hadn’t been able to. Compelled by a combination of emotions too jumbled to sort out, he’d asked, “Have you seen...Lucy...recently?”

Tina had given him a scathing look, apparently deeming him unworthy to utter his ex-wife’s name. He hadn’t been inclined to challenge whether her hostility was justified.

“Lucy’s in Atlanta,” she’d said.

“Atlanta?” He’d been stunned to the point of stupidity by the coincidence. “G-Georgia?”

“Whaddya think? Atlanta, Wyoming?”

“You mean, she—she lives there?”

“That right. She’s the office manager of an agency called Gulliver’s Travels.” Tina had used the words like a gauntlet, clearly relishing the opportunity to smack him across the face with some salient facts about his ex-wife. “It’s a great job. She’s made a terrific life for herself. Lucy’s very successful.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” And he had been. “I always expected that she would be.”

Three rings.

Chris forked his free hand through his hair. The foundation had flown him to Atlanta for a final round of interviews yesterday. A firm offer had been made over breakfast this morning. He’d promised a firm answer within a week.

He’d intended to head back to Manhattan to mull his future. Mother Nature had had other plans. When he checked in for his return flight at Hartsfield International Airport, he’d been told that there’d be a departure delay because of weather conditions in the New York metropolitan area. About an hour later, his flight and scores of others had been cancelled.

Having less than no desire to spend New Year’s Eve camped out at the airport, he’d gotten on the telephone and started calling hotels. The first seven places had been booked solid by holiday revellers. The clerk at the eighth had perkily announced that there’d been a last-minute can-celation and she could offer him a suite. He’d snapped it up without asking the price, reeling off his credit-card number to guarantee the reservation. He’d then grabbed a cab and gone back into Atlanta.

So here he was, stuck in the city his ex-wife now called home, on what would have been their tenth wedding anniversary had he not behaved like a—

Four rings.

Pickup, followed by a whisper of static.

And then, a mellifluous female voice. It was a voice that Christopher Dodson Banks hadn’t heard for nearly a decade.

Except in his dreams.

“Hi, there,” the voice said, sending a tremor of response racing through his body. “You’ve reached 555-3827 and this is Lucy Falco’s answering machine. Unlike some of my kind, I have faith in humanity. I truly believe you’re going to do the right thing and leave your name, number and a brief message after the beep. But just in case you’re contemplating some other course of action, please be advised that I’m equipped with caller ID. This means that I have your number stored in my data bank and can track you down if you hang up on me. So be smart. Live up to my high opinion of you and leave a message.” Beep!

Chris’s heart was hammering against his ribs. He opened his mouth to speak.

Nothing came out.

After several seconds he closed his mouth. Then he replaced the phone in its cradle. His hands were shaking.

“Damn,” he whispered. “Dammit to hell.”

Chris sat motionless for nearly a minute. Finally he reached for his suit jacket, which he’d taken off earlier and laid beside him on the bed. He extracted a slim leather-bound appointment book and began thumbing through it. He was stalling, and he knew it. There was no need for him to look up the address of the business establishment he had in mind. Like Lucy’s home telephone number, he could recite it by heart.

Gulliver’s Travels. 2511 Peachtree—

Chris slapped the appointment book shut and glanced at his wristwatch. It was a few minutes before five.

Just about closing time, he reflected with a grimace. Maybe even past it, given that this was New Year’s Eve. Chances were, Lucy was long gone from her office. Chances were, she was out of the business mode and into the social groove.

He could imagine her, primping for a night on the town. Although she hadn’t devoted a lot of time to fussing with her appearance while they were together, there had been a couple of occasions during their short marriage when she pulled out all the stops.

Having never lived with a woman, he’d found himself utterly fascinated by Lucy’s grooming rituals. He’d been turned on by them, too, if truth be told. And as for what he’d felt when he got a gander at the finished product...

Chris clenched his hands. Despite his best efforts to block them, his mind’s eye filled with a series of images.

Lucy.

Brushing her long dark hair with slow, sexy strokes, then pinning it up in a style that just begged to be taken down.

Lucy.

Slipping on her lacy lingerie piece by provocative piece, offering a blood-heating preview of what would be waiting after the public partying.

Lucy—

Doing those things and more for another man.

Christopher Dodson Banks cursed under his breath, clamping down on a surge of jealousy he knew he had no right to feel. He’d had his chance, and he’d screwed it up.

He’d fallen head over heels in love with Lucia Annette Falco eleven and a half years ago. But as deeply as he cared for her, he’d lacked the insight—the sensitivity—to fully understand what kind of person she was and how she viewed the world. His failure to comprehend these fundamental truths had led him to commit an act of betrayal that precipitated the end of his marriage.

He checked his watch again. It was now five after five.

Gulliver’s Travels was an inexpensive cab ride away. He knew this because he’d mentioned its address to the hotel’s concierge and inquired about its proximity after he checked in. The concierge had consulted a small directory, then informed him that the location in question fell within something called the “convention zone.”

“It’s a flat fare if you take a taxi from this hotel,” the man had explained. “Quick trip. Very reasonable. You could walk it in, oh, twenty minutes on a nice day. But on a cold night like this...”

“I’m from New York,” Chris had returned. “Anything above zero is balmy to me.”

The concierge had smiled sympathetically. “I understand, sir. Still, we don’t recommend that our guests go out walking by themselves after dark.”

He had Lucy’s agency’s telephone number, Chris reminded himself. He could always call.

And then what?

Another hang-up? Or maybe an impersonal request that Ms. Falco contact Mr. Banks at her earliest possible convenience?

No, he decided. He needed to do this—whatever “this” was going to turn out to be—face-to-face.

He’d take the flat-fare taxi ride to the office where Lucy evidently had earned the professional success he knew she’d grown up dreaming about achieving. If the place was closed for the holiday, so be it. At least he’d know exactly where it was and what it looked like. If it was still open and his ex-wife was there...

He had to see her again.

It was that simple.

And that complicated.

He was poised on the threshold of a new year, a word away from embarking on a new job in a new city. What better time to try to atone for old mistakes?

Lucy hung up the phone with a sigh. Bad enough that she’d had to finesse her colleagues’ questions about her lack of holiday plans. Now her father and brothers—who, unlike her co-workers, were well aware of the reasons for her extremely ambivalent feelings about New Year’s Eve—had taken to haranguing her about the situation, too.

“You don’t have anybody to be with, you should come home,” her father had insisted in a call that came in shortly after she told the rest of the agency’s staff they could leave.

“I could be with somebody if I wanted to, Pop,” she’d countered through gritted teeth, deciding to sidestep the coming-home issue entirely. Although she’d moved to Atlanta more than three years ago, her father refused to acknowledge that she actually lived there. He regarded the town house she’d bought as a temporary address. A sort of residential aberration. “But I don’t.”

“Why not? You still carrying a torch for that ex-husband of yours?”

“No!” It was not an original notion. Her brothers had started hinting at the possibility shortly after she passed the big three-oh with no sign of a serious suitor lurking on the horizon. Several of her uncles and cousins had taken to alluding to it, as well. But this was the first time anyone had had the nerve to broach the subject head-on. “Of course not!”

“Good. Because after what he did to you—”

“Pop, I’m sorry.” She’d suddenly reached the end of her tether. She’d opted for an escape excuse that had proven effective in the past. “I’ve got a call coming in on the agency’s priority line. It’s probably my boss. Or a client with an international emergency. I have to go. Thanks for calling. Happy New Year. I’ll talk with you soon.”

Her eldest brother, Vinnie, had phoned five minutes later.

“Pop says you hung up on him, Lucy.”

“I didn’t hang up on him.” She’d soothed herself with an assurance that this was technically true. Hanging up on someone meant slamming down the receiver without saying goodbye. “There was a phone call I had to take. Urgent agency business.”

“Same kind of urgent agency business that came up the last two times I tried to talk to you?”

“Uh—”

“I hear you been usin‘ the ’I got urgent agency business’ line on Joey and Mikey, too. And some of the uncles. Even when they call you at home.”

Lucy had grimaced, realizing that she was going to have to come up with a new tactic for terminating conversations with her family. “I have a very demanding job. It’s important to me.”

“More important than your family bein’ worried about you?”

“I’ve told you before. There is no—repeat, no, that’s n-o—reason for anyone to be worried about me. I’m doing fine.”

“Right now, maybe. But when I think about the way you looked the night you walked out on that bastard Banks—”

“That was more than ten years ago, Vinnie!”

“So? You think the people who really love you are ever gonna forget the expression on your face? You think they’re ever gonna forget the sound of you cryin’ like you’d never stop?”

Lucy massaged her temples, her brother’s long-distance challenge echoing in her ears. She didn’t expect him to understand. She didn’t expect anybody to understand. How could she, given the tenuousness of her own grasp of what had happened and why?

She’d made a lot of mistakes on the night in question. Turning tail and retreating into the protective custody of her family had been the worst.

There was an awful irony about what she’d done. She’d expended a great deal of time and energy trying to persuade her many male relatives that she was more than capable of standing up for herself in what they universally agreed was a man’s world. But when push came to shove, she’d behaved as though her spine were made of over-cooked linguini.

For the first time in her life, she’d acted like a victim. Like a helpless, hapless female.

And she’d been paying for it ever since.

Lucy glanced at her watch. It was nearly half past five. Time for her to be off. She rose to her feet and began gathering up her things. Her purse. Her coat. Her scarf. The files she needed to—

The telephone on her desk started to ring. Every instinct Lucy had warned her that the individual on the other end of the line was one of her brothers. Or maybe one of her uncles, depending on how efficient the Falco grapevine was on this particular evening.

She hesitated for a moment, then made up her mind. “I love you, guys,” she said to the still-ringing phone. “But I’ll talk to you next year.”

She dashed out before she had a chance to relent.

Gulliver’s Travels was located in a small four-story building with a central lobby. The guard behind the security desk—a skinny guy with a mustache—leaped to his feet as she came around the corner, heading toward the main exit.

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