Not Quite Forever (Not Quite series) (4 page)

Mary went on to explain the morning’s mishap. “Oh . . .” she nudged Dakota, nearly spilling her drink. “And get this. He has some
in
at the hotel. Special guest or some such thing.”

She wasn’t surprised. Doctors had a way of making people bend to their will. Or so she thought anyway. “How so?”

“As he put it . . . he knows somebody who knows somebody.” Mary waved her hand in the air, the drink in her hand already hitting her empty stomach. “Staying in a suite on the top floor. How cool is that?”

Dakota found her eyebrow lifting. The hotel was one of the best in this part of Florida. Top-shelf never sucked in a place like this.

Cherry wandered off with another group of friends, leaving Mary and Dakota.

“Excuse me?”

Dakota felt the hand on her arm the same moment she heard the voice. Behind her, a blonde, somewhat familiar, flashed a huge smile and let her arm drop. “Are you Dakota Laurens?”

She twisted toward the woman. “I am.”

“I knew if I hit the bar early I’d manage to run into someone I’ve read.”

A fan.
“Easy to do at a conference. Are you a writer . . . reader?”

The woman shook her head. “No. Well, a reader, but not part of the book convention.”

The blonde wore a black dress, just short of her knees, with small straps and a pleasing dip to her cleavage. She looked the part of someone going out to paint the town instead of hanging in a hotel bar. Dakota glanced at herself, realized her red dress wasn’t exactly hotel-bar ready.

“Trent?” the blonde called over her shoulder and caught her companion’s attention. Together Dakota realized how she recognized them. The night before, from across the bar . . . sitting with Walt. “I want you to meet someone.”

Turning a practiced smile on the couple, Dakota extended a hand to the handsome man. “Dakota Laurens,” she told him.

His face was blank. No shock there. He obviously didn’t read her books. “Trent Fairchild.”

“I’m Monica,” the blonde said. “Sorry.”

“A pleasure,” Dakota said, meaning it. Fans and all their tongue-tiedness never got old.

Monica nudged the man at her side. “You remember, Barefoot. Our last trip to Houston . . . the layover.”

His face remained blank until Monica leaned in and whispered something private in his ear.

The grin on Trent’s face slid into something much more wicked. “
That
Dakota Laurens?”

Monica lifted her hands, nodded. His cheeks turned pink.

And
that
reaction never ceased to amaze Dakota either.

“I have a strange need to thank you,” he said. The laughter came easy.

Monica hid her face, but her embarrassment didn’t last long.

“Are you here with the doctor convention?” Dakota asked.

“We are. This is the first time there’s been such a lively crowd in the bar.”

Mary leaned in. “Romance writers love to party.”

Dakota introduced Mary and eased into small talk. “Are you both doctors?” Mary asked.

Trent placed his arm around Monica, pulled her closer.

“Nurse practitioner. Trent’s a pilot.”

“How does a pilot fit into your conference? Isn’t it about medical crisis or something?”

Before Trent could answer, another man, slightly taller, strong jaw with the same unmistakable DNA as Trent’s, moved beside them. “There you are. This place is a madhouse.”

Dakota looked around. It was a complete crush of people. The noise level made talking nearly impossible.

The newcomer was Trent’s brother, Glen. His gaze lingered on Mary a little longer than anyone else in their small party. The feeling was apparently mutual. Mary turned away slightly and fanned herself.

When Glen looked away, Mary caught Dakota’s eye and mouthed the word
hot
.

Looking out for her friend, Dakota asked a few pointed questions. “Are you a pilot, too, Glen?”

“Yeah.”

“Is your wife here with you?”

Glen lifted an eyebrow. His gaze fell on Mary. “I’m not married.”

Dakota finished her drink, set it on a nearby table, and winked at Mary before turning toward the party.

The hair on the back of Dakota’s neck prickled. Awareness that only a man could deliver from across the room shivered up her spine. Was he watching her? Did his gaze linger on the curve of her butt . . . the very curve of her body where she felt heat swimming along the surface?

Dakota let her eyes drop to the ground and feather over her shoulder.

He stood still in the entrance of the bar, women walking around him, eyeing him. His eyes swept her frame, his bottom lip sucked in between his teeth in a way that said a hell of a lot more than any words could.

Walt wore a button-down silk shirt and casual pants. His hair was still wet from a recent shower. Someone attempted to stop him as he moved toward them, but he brushed them off and kept moving forward.

“Hey,” Monica said the moment he made it within earshot. “I was wondering if we were going to see you before your date.”

The word
date
had Dakota lifting her eyebrows.

“Drinks, Mo. Not a date.”

Beside her, Mary chuckled.

“Drinks can be a date. I’ll bet some of your books have drink dates . . . right, Dakota?”

“I can think of at least one book that starts off with a drink date.”

Walt actually shuffled his feet. And was that a blush?

Adorable.

Monica glanced over their heads. “So where is she?”

Mary’s giggle turned into a laugh.

“I won’t embarrass you,” Monica continued.

“Too late,” Mary mumbled.

Dakota knocked an elbow into her friend’s side. “Getting a quiet drink in here isn’t going to be possible,” Dakota announced.

“I can see that.”

By now, the bar was four people deep and the temperature shot up several degrees.

“There are a couple of bars just down the block,” Walt suggested.

“Sounds good to me,” Monica said.

Looked like quiet drinks with just the doctor were going to have to wait.

“Let’s go.” Dakota took the liberty of latching on to Walt’s arm.

He didn’t miss a beat, just held on and started walking away.

“Wait. You’re Walt’s date?” Monica asked.

Dakota shook her head. “Nawh, it’s just drinks. Right, Doc?”

He laughed.

Heat and humidity always accompanied Florida. The forced air conditioning of the hotel really didn’t let those inside understand the oppressive weather outside the doors.

Gray clouds blocked out the sun, but didn’t drop the temperature below eighty.

“Feels like a storm,” Trent said behind them as they ducked into the comfort of the air-conditioned bar.

“I’m glad we’re not flying,” Monica said.

“I love a good storm. We don’t get enough of them in California.”

“Is that where you’re from?” Glen asked Mary.

“Yeah. We haven’t had rain in so long even the tumbleweeds are becoming extinct.”

They found a table big enough for all of them and staked their seats. Walt pulled out Dakota’s chair and the gesture told her two things. One, he
did
think of this as a kind of date, and two . . . his mother taught him how to treat a lady.

Mary reached for a bar menu and started flipping through it. “I hope they have something other than fried food. I’m starving.”

“You haven’t eaten?”

“Convention food.”

Monica laughed. “Cheese, crackers, and fruit if you get in line first.”

“Exactly,” Dakota said.

Monica glanced at her husband. “I wonder if Jack is open to suggestions on convention menus. I know he doesn’t deal with them directly, but there has to be something better than cheese and crackers.”

Mary reached for the peanuts on the table, cracked a shell. “Who’s Jack?”

The question sat on the tip of Dakota’s lips.

“Morrison. Jack is my brother-in-law.”

The connection didn’t click immediately.

Walt leaned forward. “Jack Morrison, as in the owner of the hotels.”

Dakota found herself holding her breath. “Seriously?”

Monica confirmed with a nod while one of the servers approached the table.

After they ordered drinks, the conversation picked back up. “So where do all of you live?” Dakota asked.

Trent, Monica, and Glen lived in the Northeast, and surprisingly Walt lived about thirty miles from Dakota’s Orange County condo.

“How do you know each other?” Dakota asked.

“I used to work with Walt in Pomona. We both volunteered in the relief effort in Jamaica, which is where I met Trent.”

Dakota had an overwhelming desire to find a pen and start taking notes. Something triggered a memory . . . a story . . . “Fairchild and Morrison. Wait, are you the two who were trapped and thought dead?”

“That’s them,” Glen told her.

She’d read the story, heard about them on the news. A nurse and a local went missing, their names famous because of their connection to the hotel family and some airplane charter company.

“I remember the news. Wow, you guys are lucky to be alive.”

Monica grasped her husband’s hand. “We are.”

“They survived and eventually married. That’s a romance novel right there,” Glen said.

“Romance is everywhere,” Dakota reminded her friend.

Their drinks came and a live band slowly trickled in and started to set up.

Dakota
was incredibly intriguing to watch. Walt could practically hear the computer in her head typing away a new story while she learned about the lives around her. She talked about herself, but only briefly, even though Monica attempted to pull more information from her.

At first, Walt had been disappointed that their party of two turned into a party of six. But here, he could learn much more about her because of the curiosity of others. She became a writer “because it was the only thing she was good at.” Yet the more he listened, he knew she was probably omitting certain truths, or simply downplaying her success.

She was confident in a way few women achieved, but most wanted.

Hot! She was so sexy in her red slim-fitted dress with stiletto heels, dark almond-shaped eyes that sat against tan skin only achieved by someone living in a sunny climate, that he had a hard time sitting still. She didn’t look at you . . . she absorbed you with a glance, devoured you with her eyes, made you hers with a stare.

Dakota Laurens was the kind of woman he most definitely wanted in his bed, but didn’t dare go there. Walt always considered himself a strong man . . . self-sufficient, well respected . . . a damn good doctor. This woman could consume him. He knew that fact instinctively. No memo needed.

Yet he knocked back another drink and listened to her colorful tale of airport police and smelly cop cars.

“Wait!” Glen held up his hand. “You two are the reason I had to circle Miami for almost an hour instead of landing?”

Dakota giggled when she drank, and the South blossomed in her voice. “Blame Blondie here. She’s the one who yelled
bomb
.”

Mary had a hard time containing her smile. “I didn’t yell.” She lowered her voice and tried again. “I didn’t yell, Glen. Just so happened a little ol’ lady overheard us at that very moment.”

“We were in the back of a squad car for over an hour. I thought they were going to strip-search us.”

“It wasn’t funny.” Mary was laughing. “It wasn’t.”

“It was kinda funny.” Dakota continued to laugh until everyone at the table joined her.

The band hit the stage, welcomed the room that had managed to fill in the hour it took them to set up. Their first song brought a few people to the small dance floor and drowned out most of the conversation.

Walt pushed his chair closer to Dakota’s, leaned in since conversation with everyone else wasn’t possible with the volume in the room.

“I hope drinks with friends is working for you.”

“Your friends seem like good people.” She looked behind her and they both noticed Mary laughing at something Glen said in her ear.

The band hit a higher note, and Monica and Trent moved from the table and joined the dance floor.

The song swiftly changed and Walt noticed Dakota tapping her foot. He nodded toward the floor, and she agreed with a smile.

Dakota liked to dance.

He loved the smile on her face. Loved the way she closed her eyes, felt the music, and embraced it.

For over two hours they drank, ate . . . danced. None of the dances were slow, which probably was for the best. The crowd didn’t seem the type to sway on the dance floor, though Walt would have loved an excuse to hold something other than Dakota’s hand.

Against his better judgment, he was about to order another round of drinks when the lights in the room flickered and the PA crapped out with a loud squeak.

The lights returned but it was obvious that some of the power wasn’t back up.

The lead singer onstage tapped the mike only to move away and raise his voice from the useless amplifier. “Looks like that tropical depression is a little closer than the weatherman said.”

Walt remembered the news saying a low pressure system was headed over the Gulf, but he didn’t think it was anywhere close to Miami.