ny Man of Mine:

Likes a Good Buffet

“I want a renaissance faire wedding. With a castle and moat and magicians.”

Autumn looked down at the tip of her ballpoint pen and forced herself to write renaissance faire in the theme heading. It was a little after six on a Saturday night, and she was in her office planning the Henson/Franklin wedding. Renaissance, apparently. In the office next door, she could hear Shiloh clicking on the computer and talking on the phone. “You have to keep in mind that the venue you’ve chosen is fairly small.” She rose from behind her desk and straightened the red-and-black floral dress she’d bought at a vintage store in downtown Santa Cruz the last time she and Conner had gone on vacation to California. The soles of her red leather flats barely made a sound as she closed the door. Shiloh was a great assistant, but she tended to dial up the volume when she was excited. “I don’t know if we have room for a moat.” This was her first face-to-face meeting with the couple, but she’d had several phone conversations with the bride.

“Oh. Well how about snake charmers and jesters?”

She retook her seat and looked up at the young woman across from her. Carmen the bride appeared so normal with her clear blue eyes and straight black hair. She wore a sweater set and little brooch, but the ear tapers sticking out of her lobes like black spikes were a tip-off that some kind of freakiness lay beneath that demure sweater set. “I’m not sure we can get the permits for exotic animals at your venue.”

“Bummer.” Carmen snapped her fingers. “Juggling dwarfs. We saw that at a faire in Portland.”

Autumn hoped the bride was talking about little people who juggled as opposed to little people who were juggled. It was probably the former, but she’d heard of stranger things. “We might have better luck getting jugglers if we didn’t put height restrictions on them,” she suggested.

Carmen turned to her groom, Jerry. “What about pirates?”

“Pirates can be fun but totally unpredictable,” the groom answered as if they were talking about real pirates. “Grandma Dotti and Aunt Wanda are uptight and might have a problem with the pirates.”

Thank God for an uptight aunt and grandma. Autumn wanted all brides and grooms to have the weddings of their dreams. She wanted them to have everything they wanted, but she knew from experience that simple was always better. “If you have too much going on, it takes the focus off the bride and the groom. It’s your day, and the two of you need to be the center of attention.”

Carmen smiled. “That’s true. I’ve dreamed of my wedding day all of my life.” Traditional or alternative, all little girls had that in common.

“We want the servers in fools hats and masks,” Jerry added.

“And wearing our wedding colors.”

Which were blue and gold. She tilted her head as if she were giving the suggestion serious thought. While she wanted to give the bride and groom what they wanted, it was her job to keep it within their budget, too. “Well, those sorts of costume would have to be especially made for the reception. As opposed to rented, and your budget is…” She flipped a page like she’d forgotten and needed a reminder. “Twenty thousand. Twenty thousand is barely going to cover your catering, flowers, photography, and venue.” Twenty thousand was a lot of money unless you were talking about planning a wedding. “If you want the servers to have specially made costumes, we can always cut back on the food. Perhaps serve chicken as opposed to a roasted pig.”

The bride sat back in her chair and bit her lip. “Jerry and I met at a renaissance faire in Gig Harbor. We’ve always envisioned our wedding with a renaissance theme and a roasted pig.”

Autumn gave the couple her most reassuring smile. “And you can and will have a great wedding with a renaissance theme. I’ll talk to some of my vendors and see what kind of deals they can give you. In this economy, they are a lot more open to giving price breaks. And I’ll contact the local Society for Creative Anachronism and see what they can do, too. I think we can come up with something fabulous and still stay within your budget. I’m looking forward to helping you with this wedding. It’s going to be fun.” At least it wasn’t a pink princess theme, which was Autumn’s least favorite. “Have you picked out a dress,” she asked Carmen, and by the time the bride and groom left her office, they’d signed a contract, put down a deposit, and were upbeat and optimistic about their June wedding.

Autumn tossed her pen and pressed the heels of her palms against her brows. She wasn’t going to get rich planning weddings with budgets of twenty grand. Every little bit helped, and she was grateful for each job. But the commission off Carmen and Jerry’s wedding would barely pay the lease on her office for two months, which was why a lot of planners worked out of their homes, but not Autumn. She’d always believed that the image of success attracted success. Her office wasn’t anything big and splashy, just a seven-hundred-square-foot space she rented in a strip mall not far from her house; but it did give her the appearance of professionalism that a planner just couldn’t get from meeting clients in her home.

Autumn depended on the big events and big weddings, like the Savages’, to survive the leaner times and keep her business going. To put food on the table and pay the utilities. Although she hated to admit it, the money she got each month from Sam went above and beyond helping to pay her personal bills. She and Conner lived modestly, and she’d like to be able to say she didn’t use any of the child-support money Sam provided. She’d like to throw it all back in his face, but she wasn’t a martyr, and raising a child was expensive. She’d like to say she was socking the money away for Conner’s education, but Sam had that covered, too.

The amount Sam paid for one child was ridiculously high, but she was the only one who seemed to think so. Neither her lawyer nor Sam’s or even Sam himself seemed to think he should pay less. Which, she supposed, showed how much money the man made a year. She didn’t need half that much, and she’d put a lot of it aside so that when it had come time to buy a house, she’d paid cash. The house was thirty-five years old, but it was her and Conner’s, and they’d never be homeless. Never have to move around to avoid landlords and eviction notices like when she’d been growing up. Never moving from town to town, one step ahead of the repo man.

If Autumn did have a weakness, it was traveling. Every year, she took Conner on an awesome vacation. Usually in January because Januaries were notoriously slow months in the planning business. But with Conner in school now, they would have to take minivacations and wait until spring break to head off to St. Barts or Atlantis.

“Hey, Autumn.” Shiloh, Autumn’s twenty-five-year-old assistant stuck her dark head into the office. “I talked to Tasty Cakes, and they’ll do the cake for the Kramer anniversary for a thousand if we use them for the Peterson birthday party.”

“Fabulous.” The Kramer’s fiftieth wedding anniversary was planned for the second week in November and included three hundred family members and a five-tier wedding cake. “We can use the savings on better wine.” She flipped her wrist over and looked at her watch. Seven thirty. Free weekend nights were rare. “Don’t you have a date or something?”

Shiloh raised one dark brow over her brown eyes. “Don’t you?”

Autumn laughed. “Yeah right. I have a five-year-old.”

Shiloh rested a shoulder against the doorframe. “Not tonight you don’t.”

True, Conner was at the hockey game watching his dad skate around and punch people in the head. Sam had actually come through this time. Of course, it wouldn’t last. “No one asked me out tonight.”

“That’s because of the repellent.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your man repellent.”

She blinked. “My what?”

Shiloh’s mouth fell open. “I thought you knew. I thought you did it on purpose.”

“Did what on purpose?”

“Put on the man repellent. You know, sprayed yourself with ‘stay away’ vibe. If my friends and I are out, and we don’t want to be bothered, we put out the vibe.”

“I have a vibe?” She put a hand on her chest.

Shiloh shook her head, and the light caught in the sparkly headband she favored. “No! Geez, sorry.” She walked farther into the room. “Forget it. Forget I said anything.”

“That’s like saying my face looks like a dog’s butt, then telling me to forget you said it.”

“Your face doesn’t look like a dog’s butt. You have a really pretty face and a smoking body—and I mean that in a totally nonlesbian way.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Which is why I thought you put on the repellent. To purposely scare men away. We all do it sometimes.”

She scared men away? Seriously? When had that happened? She’d thought she wasn’t dating by choice. Not because men found her repellent, but come to think of it, she hadn’t been asked out in a really long time.

“I’m soooooo sorry, Autumn. Are you mad?”

“No.” She wasn’t mad. Just a little shocked and a whole lot confused. She couldn’t even recall the last time a man had even flirted with her.

Shiloh gave a weak smile, then asked in an obvious attempt to change the subject and fill the awkward silence, “So, what’s your brother doing tonight?”

She reached for an empty binder and pulled the rings apart. “Out somewhere.” She’d have to ask Vince if she had a bad vibe. He’d tell her the truth, maybe. “Why?”

“I thought I might call him.”

“You know he’s a dog?” She reached inside a desk drawer and pulled out a planning packet. She looked up, and added, “Right?”

“Sure.” Shiloh shrugged. “I don’t want to marry him. Just maybe have dinner.”

Uh-huh. Vince didn’t do dinner. “Shi—” She should warn her assistant. She liked Shiloh, and Vince wasn’t relationship material. He had issues.

“Yeah?”

Shiloh was a nice woman, and Autumn didn’t want to lose her as an assistant, even if she did think she sprayed man repellent on herself, but who was she to give anyone advice? “Nothing. Have a good night.”

“See ya Monday,” Shiloh said over her shoulder as she walked away.

“Lock the door on the way out.” She placed a business card in the binder sleeve, a packet inside, and snapped the rings shut. She hadn’t had a date in a really long time. She’d thought it was because she was just too busy. That she wasn’t ready. That it was her choice. Was there more to it? Did she really give off some sort of vibe?

No. Yes. Maybe. She reached inside another desk drawer and pulled out a remote. God, I don’t know. She turned on the television across the room and clicked around until she found the Chinooks’ game. She watched for a few moments, hoping to see Conner’s face in the crowd. She was a single mother. A small-business owner. A very busy woman. Way too busy for a relationship just then, but that didn’t mean she wanted to repel men.

“The puck is shot up ice by LeClaire, who tries to pass to Holstrom,” the hockey commentator announced just before the whistle blew. “Five and a quarter left in the second period, and icing is called.” The camera zoomed in on Sam’s jersey. On the Chinook swatting a puck with its tail, then the lens panned up to his face beneath the white helmet resting above his brows. His blue gaze looked up at the scoreboard. The Dallas Stars were up by a goal. “That man right there is a huge part of the Chinooks’ cup-winning defense,” the commentator continued. “He’s always one of the biggest, most intimidating guys on the ice.”

A second commentator laughed. “If you see LeClaire coming, it’s best to get out of the way. With his team down by one, he’ll be looking to put the big hurt on someone.”

Sam skated into a face-off circle to the left of his own goal. He put his stick on the ice and waited, his steely blues focused on the opponent across from him. The puck dropped, and he fought for domination, battling it out. He shot the puck up ice, but it was stopped by a Dallas player who had the audacity to skate along the boards toward the Chinooks’ goal. The “big hurt” Sam put on him lifted his skates a foot off the ice and rattled the Plexiglas. A Star slammed into Sam, who turned and threw a punch. Several players from both teams piled on, and Autumn couldn’t tell if they were hitting each other or holding each other back. Gloves and sticks hit the ice, and two referees finally blew their whistles and skated into the middle of the scrum. Sam pointed to the left and argued with the ref, but in the end, he straightened his white jersey, picked up his gloves and stick from the ice, and skated to the penalty box. His eyes narrowed, but a smile twisted one corner of his lips. He wasn’t at all sorry.

Of course, Sam was rarely sorry about anything.

She remembered the first time she’d looked up into those blue eyes. She’d been so incredibly naïve, and he’d been so impossibly handsome. She’d been alone in Vegas. All alone in Sin City. She’d been a small-town girl, and Vegas had been foreign and like nothing she had ever experienced. Maybe if she hadn’t been alone, she wouldn’t have been so vulnerable to Sam’s evil ways.

Maybe if she hadn’t paid nonrefundable money for the seven-day, five-night vacation package to Caesars Palace, she would have taken one look at the debauchery in those beautiful eyes and run home. Maybe if her mother hadn’t warned her about the decadence in Vegas, she wouldn’t have been so intrigued to see it for herself.

She’d spent the previous two years caring for her mom and taking care of her affairs after her death and she’d needed a break. A vacation from her life. She had a list of everything she wanted to do in Vegas, and she was determined to wring every last dime out of that vacation.

That first day by herself she’d spent walking up and down the Strip, staring at all the people and collecting stripper/hooker cards. She’d window-shopped at Fendi, Versace, and Louis Vuitton. She’d found a pink bead bracelet at a sidewalk vendor and played a few slots in Harrah’s because she’d read somewhere that Toby Keith stayed at Harrah’s. But she’d only fed the slots until she lost twenty bucks. Even then, she’d been very tight with her money.

She’d lounged by the pool, and that night she put on a white sundress she’d bought at a Wal-Mart in Helena and hit Pure. She’d heard about the nightclub inside Caesars. Read in People and Star magazines that celebrities hosted parties in the bar.

At first, things inside Pure were slow. She sat within the stark white interior and rolling pastel lights, nursing a few drinks and wondering, “Is this it?” Is this what everyone raves about? But by eleven, the bar picked up, and by midnight she was dancing and having a good time. By 1:00 A.M., the dance floor was a crowded mash of warm bodies, and she was in the middle of it, moving her butt to Jack Johnson, letting go, being young, and having more fun than she’d had in years.

Within the mix of hot bodies and warm tequila glow, she’d become instantly aware of a pair of big hands on her waist. For a second or two she hadn’t thought much of it. The floor was crowded, and people were bumping into each other. She took the touch for an accident, but when it became obvious to her booze-soaked brain that the touch wasn’t accidental, she threw an elbow into a solid wall of muscle and looked over her shoulder. Way up into baby blue eyes and a face that dropped her jaw. Yellow light slid through his hair and lit him up like a golden god.

He didn’t smile or say anything. Not even “hello.” He just looked at her, his hands lightly resting in the curve of her waist, not a bit sorry that he was touching her. Blue and green lights flashed across his face as sex rolled off him in hot waves. His gaze held hers, and she knew trouble when it stared down at her. She knew it by the tumble in her stomach and the catch in her breath. She knew she should run.

But she didn’t. Instead, she stood there, feeling the pulsing beat of the music through her feet up to her heart. She stood there, staring into those mesmerizing blue eyes like she’d fallen into some bizarre, dizzying trance. Either that, or she’d downed more tequila than she thought.

He lowered his face and asked next to her ear, “Are you afraid?” His deep, rough voice touched the side of her throat and raised the tiny hairs on the back of her neck.

Was she?

No, but she definitely should be. Maybe it was the alcohol or Vegas or him. Probably all three. She shook her head and he pulled back and looked into her face as an easy, confident smile pushed up the corners of his lips.

“Good.” He raised one of her hands to his shoulder and once again rested both palms in the curve of her waist. “That’s real good.”

For such a big guy, he could move. He was fluid and at perfect ease with his body. He pulled her closer until the front of her sundress almost touched his blue T-shirt. Almost. She could feel the heat of his chest and smell the scent of soap and skin and beer. He moved his hips with hers, his knee finding a spot between her thighs. Her hands slid across his hard shoulders to the base of his wide neck. This wasn’t happening. This sort of thing didn’t happen to her. Not the pounding in her heart or the hot pulse down low in her belly. It wasn’t real. He wasn’t real. He certainly wasn’t on her to-do list.

His lids lowered a fraction as he looked down at her, her body in perfect time with his, his hips flirting with hers but never actually touching. “I saw you,” he said next to her ear. “And I like the way you move.”

She liked the way he moved, too. Any man who could move like he was making love on the dance floor had to know how to make love in the bedroom. Autumn wasn’t exactly a virgin. She’d had a few boyfriends. Some of them had even been pretty good in bed, but she had a feeling that this guy knew things. The kinds of things that came with lots of experience and dedicated practice. Things that turned up the heat in her abdomen.

“Are you a dancer?”

She was almost insulted, but this was Vegas. “Like a stripper?”

“Yeah.”

“No. Are you?”

He laughed. A low rumbling next to her throat. “No, but if I were, I’d give you a free lap dance.”

“Bummer. I’ve never had a lap dance.” She had a feeling he couldn’t say the same.

“I’ve never given one, but for you I’d be willing to give it a try.”

As she pulled back to look up into his face, his lips slipped across her cheek and brushed the corner of her mouth. She sucked in a hard breath, and her chest got tight.

“But not here,” he said. “Come with me.”

She didn’t know him. Didn’t even know his name, but she wanted to. She wanted to know all of him. She wanted to go anywhere he wanted to take her.

She should run.

This time she listened. She took a step back, and his hands fell to his sides. He raised one brow, and before she lost her mind completely, she turned. He reached for her. She felt his hand on her arm, but she kept on going. One foot in front of the other, all the way up to the sixth floor. She shut herself inside her room and locked the door. Him out or her in, she wasn’t sure.

This sort of thing did not happen to her. She didn’t dance like that with guys she didn’t know. She didn’t stare at their lips and wonder what it would be like to kiss them.

Her mother had been right. Las Vegas was a decadent, morally dangerous place, and she should have heeded the warning. Nothing was real there. Not the canal at the Venetian, the volcano at the Mirage, or the people at Pure. Handsome men did not look at Autumn Haven as if she were the only woman in a bar filled with beautiful women. And she, Autumn Haven, did not contemplate sex with complete strangers. Not even strangers who looked like the guy in the bar.

She packed her bags, but when she woke the next morning, her head cleared, and she decided she’d overreacted. She’d had too much to drink and blown everything out of proportion. Her memory of the night before was a bit hazy, and she was fairly sure she hadn’t really contemplated hooking up with some random guy. The touch of his hands on her waist hadn’t been as hot, and he wasn’t as impossibly good-looking as she recalled through her tequila goggles. But even if it was all true, the chances of its happening again were as about as likely as running into that same guy in a town crammed with hundreds of thousands of guys.

She spent most of the morning in her room getting over the slight headache she had earned the night before. After lunch, she put on a black bikini with gold hearts she’d splurged on at the Fashion Show Mall the day before. She slathered herself with sun screen, dumped it along with several magazines in her beach bag, and headed down to the pool.

From the hotel’s brochure, she knew that the pool was called Garden of the Gods Pool Oasis. Which pretty much described the elaborate pools, massive columns and urns, rows of palm trees and winged lions. In the brochure, she thought Caesars should have added decadent to the description. The Garden of the Gods Pool and Decadent Oasis

By the time she made it to the pools, it was a little before one in the afternoon and inching toward a hundred degrees. The sun toasted the top of her head, and she took a big floppy hat out of her bag and found a white lounge chair in one corner beneath a cluster of palms. Being a natural redhead didn’t mix with the hot sun. She either burned or freckled. Neither was an attractive option.

A cabana boy took her drink order, and she relaxed with a tall glass of tea. Not the Long Island kind. At least not right then. With her hat dipping over her left eye, she sat back with a Cosmo magazine and settled into an article about the most intense erogenous zones on a man. According to the article, it was just beneath the head of the penis called the frenulum. Autumn had never heard of it and brought the magazine closer for a better look at the diagram.

“There you are, Cinderella.”

She slapped her Cosmo closed and raised the brim of her straw hat. She looked way up into a pair of black Oakley’s covering eyes she knew were a beautiful blue. He was even bigger and better-looking in the sunlight. He wore a pair of gray Quicksilver board shorts and a white tank with large armholes around his massive shoulders.

“What are you reading?”

“Makeup tips.” She tried to act cool as she shoved the Cosmo into her bag. Like she wasn’t reading about penises and like outrageously good-looking men talked to her every day. “Have you been following me?”

He chuckled and sat on the chaise next to her. “Keeping my eyes open for you.”

“Why?”

He dug in his back pocket, then handed her the pink bead bracelet she’d worn the night before. “You lost this.”

This was Vegas. Nothing was real in Vegas. Certainly not good-looking men tracking her down to return a cheap bracelet. She opened her palm, and he dropped it in her hand, the beads still warm from his body. “Thank you.”

“I was fairly drunk last night.” His brows lowered, and he looked around. “So is there anything I need to apologize for?”

“No.”

“Damn. I was kinda hoping we got into trouble.” He returned his gaze to hers. “Why are you hiding way back here in the corner?”

“I’m not hiding. I’m just avoiding the sun.”

“Hungover?”

She shook her head. “I burn.”

He gave her that slow easy smile she’d seen the night before. The one she’d thought her tequila buzz had made up. “I could put sunscreen on your back.”

She lowered her hand from the brim of her hat and tilted her head to look at him. There was only one sensible option. Run away again before she got herself into trouble.

He held up his hands as if he were completely harmless. She wasn’t fooled. “I won’t touch you anyplace you don’t want to be touched.”

But she didn’t want to run. She was on vacation. Nothing counted on vacation. And certainly nothing counted in Vegas. Wasn’t that their motto? What happened in Vegas stayed in Vegas? “Sorry. I already put some on.”

“That makes one of us.” He looked up at the broiling sun and cringed. “I can practically hear my skin sizzle.”

She pointed up at the palm trees. “In the shade?”

“I’m sensitive.”

“Uh-huh.” She reached into her beach bag and pulled out a tube of sunscreen. “It’s SPF 40 and—” He whipped off his shirt, and she about fell out of her chair. Holy crap! He had big pecs and shoulders and a six-pack of killer abs. She’d never seen anything like him. Not in person, anyway. Not close enough to lick. Would probably never see anything like him again. Where had he come from? What did he do for a living? Lift small buildings? “What’s your name?”

“Sam.”

He looked like a Sam. “Autumn,” she said, and swung her legs over the side of her chaise. “Autumn Haven.”

He chuckled. “And that’s your real name? You’re not just shitting me?”

“Not shitting you.” She’d always hated her name. “I know. It sounds like a retirement home. Like Meadow Lakes or Summer Village.” She kept her eyes on his face in a desperate bid not to rudely stare at his chest and drool. Although really, staring at his face was no hardship. “Here you go.” She shoved the sunscreen toward him.

Instead of taking it, he lay back in his chair. “Your name doesn’t sound like a retirement home. More like one of those paradise destinations.”

A thin golden happy trail ran down the middle of his six-pack, circled his navel, and disappearing beneath the waist of his shorts, pointing the way to his paradise destination. God help her. She wanted to say something clever. Something smart and sexy, but she couldn’t think of anything. Not when the blood was draining from her head.

“The all-inclusive kind,” he added. “The kind that promises endless pleasure and an all-you-can-eat buffet.”

Autumn had a choice. Run like hell. Again. Run and save herself from endless pleasure and the all-she-could-eat buffet laid out in front of her like a smorgasbord of sin.

She rose from the lounge chair, looked down at all that yummy temptation, and popped the top of her Coppertone.