Hot Prospect

“So you’ll sell me your ticket?” he asked.

“Sure,” she declared, trying to work up some enthusiasm.

Shaking her head, she rose from the floor, crossing to the desk where she’d stuck the travel packet. How silly was she? She’d gone from entertaining the mad notion that he was her karmic one-and-only True Love to figuring out he was someone else’s new husband, all in three seconds. So much for her psychic visions. She knew his name. How come she didn’t get the married part?

She glanced up. Funny, he wasn’t wearing a ring. And she did not get a married vibe from him at all, especially when you factored in his eyes being fastened to a variety of her body parts ever since he got here. Yes, he was a guy and guys did that kind of thing. But he just didn’t seem the type to be newly married and looking around, and she usually trusted her intuition when it came to guy matters.

Zoë considered this mystery for several seconds, before deciding there wasn’t anything she could do about it, and it was just too aggravating to contemplate. If he, his wife and his wandering eyes wanted to throw themselves into a newlywed encounter group, that was their business.

Wagging the Explorer’s Journey folio at him, she plastered on a wide, chipper smile. “This sucker was expensive and I’ll be glad to get it off my hands. But you do know it leaves first thing in the morning, right? Do you and your wife have time to pack?”

“I’m not married,” he said quickly.

She knew it! There was totally an unmarried aura just hovering all around him. She was thrilled for a second, realizing that her instincts had been right. But then she had another depressing thought.

“Oh.” Zoë crossed her arms over her chest. “So you’re taking your girlfriend. I thought you could only do the program if you were married. Although now that I think about it, doing it before you get married sounds like a much better idea. Or are you planning to just lie and tell them you’re married? Not that it matters to me.”

Slowly he asked her, “Why would I need to be married?”

“Because…” That gave her pause. He wanted to go on the Explorer’s Journey and he didn’t know? She narrowed her eyes. Feeling very shrewd, she inquired, “You don’t know what the Explorer’s Journey is, do you?”

He just looked at her for a long moment.

“You don’t!” she exclaimed. “I can tell you don’t.” Now this was getting interesting. Zoë advanced on him, her eyes wide with curiosity. “Why do you want to go if you don’t know what it is? Is your girlfriend making you go?”

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he said reluctantly.

Yes! Zoë felt like doing happy dances. She refrained. But she felt the triumph in her heart. She wasn’t wrong about him! Single, single, single!

But if it wasn’t for a relationship, then why did he want to go? “Is it for work? You have to go for like, official police reasons?”

“No.” Other than that, he kept his mouth shut. His lips looked even more intriguing pressed together like that.

Zoë was nothing if not persistent when it came to mysteries and puzzles. She drew a little closer. “You don’t think I’m going to hand over my tickets unless you tell me why you need to go, do you?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss this with you,” he said tersely. “And you said tickets, plural. I only need one.”

“Well, you certainly can’t go by yourself.” All by his lonesome? Mr. Cute Cop hadn’t done his homework, had he? She tapped the ticket packet against her chin.

“Why exactly is it a problem if I go by myself?” he asked. He was starting to sound a little testy. “What were you talking about before, about having to be married, or taking a girlfriend? What is this all about? What kind of exploration are we talking? North Pole? Mount Saint Helen’s? What?”

“Forgive me,” she said thoughtfully, looking him up and down, “but you don’t seem like the explorer type.”

“Neither do you.”

She shrugged, not at all concerned. “Are you going to tell me why you want to go? Or am I going to hold on to my tickets and my explanation of just what exactly the Explorer’s Journey is?”

Finally he muttered, “It’s none of your business, but the truth is… I have to find someone. I have reason to believe she’ll be on this tour.”

“She? So you have to find a woman.” Zoë was very close now, looking right up into his face, and she found this all fascinating. Her mind was working a mile a minute, considering possibilities. Not married. No girlfriend. Dying to go on the Explorer’s Journey to find a particular woman. “Is she your ex-girlfriend or something? She dumped you, hooked up with some other guy, got married, and now she’s going on the Explorer’s Journey with him. And you want to follow her. Why? Are you stalking her? Maybe you think you can get her away from the other guy? Or are you just torturing yourself?”

“You’re giving me a headache,” he said between clenched teeth.

“Oh, c’mon.” She jiggled his elbow. “Stalker? Win her back? Torment yourself?”

“None of the above. And why do you care?” he asked darkly. “I need to find her. She may be on this tour. That’s it.”

“Well, you can’t go by yourself.”

“Why not?” he snapped.

Zoë beamed up at him. “Because…if you must know…” She let her voice trail off. She was kind of enjoying letting him dangle now that she knew he was single. He was so very cute and his impatience only made him cuter somehow.

“Yes?” he prompted.

“Okay, okay. I guess you don’t watch Oprah, do you? Because the Explorer’s Journey has been all over Oprah. How to describe it?” She bit her lip. “Hmmm… I guess the closest I can come is to say it’s a kind of a combination of group therapy and a honeymoon.”

His eyebrows arched. “Group therapy? Honeymoon?”

Taking in his expression, she said slyly, “That’s right. And let me tell you, Jake, I can’t see you enjoying either all by yourself.”

He recovered quickly. “Yeah, but…somebody must go solo on this thing.” He sent her a quick glance. “People break up all the time. But, hey, they already paid the money, so why shouldn’t one of them go ahead and take the vacation? Like you. You broke up with your boyfriend, right? A few weeks ago.”

“He was my fiancé. Ex-fiancé. And that’s why I wanted to cancel my tickets. I sure wasn’t planning to go without him.”

Pacing farther away, over near the bookcase, Zoë shook her head, hoping they could change the subject. She did not need to be thinking about her lamented love life right now. She picked up the deck of tarot cards again, absently shuffling them.

His eyes measured her. Gruffly, in a way that told her it had nothing to do with the Explorer’s Journey, he asked, “So when were you supposed to get married?”

“Well…today.”

“Oh.” He lifted his shoulders in a very small shrug. “Sorry. That’s a tough break.”

“Yeah.” Zoë kept her mouth shut. There was no way she wanted to discuss that at this moment. Just don’t be nice about it, will you, Jake? Don’t be nice to me. I don’t want to lose control and melt all over you. Turning back, she asked, “So, Jake, tell me, are you going on this tour or not?”

He started to nod, but stopped suddenly. “That’s the second time you’ve called me Jake. But I never told you my name.”

Uh-oh. She covered quickly. “You must have.”

He shook his head.

“Wasn’t it on that identification thing next to your badge?” she tried.

“My ID was half a room away from you and you were upside down at the time.”

She bit her lip. “I have good eyesight.”

“Must be X-ray vision.” His expression was very guarded. “So how did you know my name?”

Zoë shrugged, shuffling the cards with more enthusiasm. “Listen, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is…oops.” She’d dropped a card again. How very strange. Just one card. And she knew before she turned it over what it would be.

Yep. Her breath caught in her throat. Two swans, hearts, flowers, a pair of tiny kissing cupids flying in the air.

“The damn two of hearts,” she muttered. This was getting ridiculous.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“The card, Jake. The card I keep pulling.” She held it up to show him the picture. “The two of hearts.”

“Fortune-telling cards?” He made a derisive snort. “You don’t believe in that junk, do you?” His tone grew more mocking. “Don’t tell me. It’s magic. That’s how you knew my name. You read it off one of your cards.”

“Don’t be absurd. I told you I saw it on your ID.” She should’ve been insulted. But she decided not to be. Okay, so he was misguided and cynical. But he would learn. She had faith. She’d dealt herself the True Love card. She’d felt the connection between them. Didn’t she feel this very minute that she could see right through him, clear to his heart?

Well, yeah, but…yikes. Even for her, this was taking a leap. He was self-righteous, he was way too honest, he had no apparent sense of humor, and he was…big. Very big.

Zoë chewed on a nail as she considered exactly what she was proposing. Nuttier than a fruitcake. Not likely to impress Jake.

But she was who she was. And Zoë Kidd was not afraid to take a risk. After all, how bad could it be? She’d expected to be going on this trip, anyway. In fact, she’d been looking forward to it. Meditation. Deep thinking. Personal growth. Surely she could do those things, make a break with the past, move on, and learn to be a better person, even if Jake was along. Even if he didn’t seem likely to be cooperative.

She sent him a quick glance. Okay, so he clearly wasn’t the meditation-and-deep-thoughts type. And he was more than a little intimidating, with that glower and the sizzle of sensuality she couldn’t ignore.

“Oh, yeah. That,” she said under her breath. “If I went along, what would I do about that?”

“What did you say?”

But she didn’t answer, still speculating on this wild idea. Could she really do this?

The eyes, the shoulders, the body that looked hard and hot in all the right places…and those lips. A girl could get lost in those lips for a long, long time. Could she not do this?

If he was intimidating, he was also yummy, no two ways about it. Yummy in a once-in-a-lifetime way. Although it seemed unlikely, he might just be her True Love. That idea made her stomach flutter again, but she squashed the fear. Maybe she wasn’t considering this as a selfish path to True Love. Maybe it was because he was on some sort of mission that she could help with.

Good for her, good for him.

She could no longer ignore the fact that her intuition was pushing her in his direction. Hard.

She mashed together every ounce of courage she could muster. “How badly do you want to go on this trip?”

“I have to go,” he said flatly. “Just name your price and I’ll buy.”

“But you only want one of my tickets.” She moved closer, waving the two of hearts. “And what will I do with the other one?”

He shrugged. “If you’ll only sell them together, then I’ll buy both and toss one.”

All in a rush, she said, “I’ll let you buy Wylie’s. But I’m keeping mine. I want to use it.”

A half smile curved his adorable lips. “You want to use it, huh?” he asked dryly. “For what?”

Zoë smiled. The True Love card felt hot against her palms as she pressed it between both hands. “If you want to go, Jake, you’ll need a partner. So I’m going with you.”

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