LITMIR.BIZ

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her on the bed, slipped a pillow under her head and kissed her lightly. She clasped her hands behind his head and pulled him closer, kissed him back.

       This part was for him, she thought magnanimously. She’d had her multiclimax—now it was time to be generous, let Tanner enjoy the satisfaction he’d earned.

       Oh, God, had he earned it.

       Except that when he eased inside her, she was instantly aroused, every cell in her body screaming with need. She couldn’t do it; she couldn’t come like that a second time without disintegrating—could she?

       She was well into the climb, though, and there was no going back.

       They shared the next orgasm, and the one after that.

       And then they slept.

       It was dark in the room when Olivia awakened, panic-stricken, to a strange whuff-whuff-whuff sound permeating the roof of that old house. Tanner was nowhere to be seen.

       She flew out of bed, scrambled into her clothes, except for the panty hose, which she tossed into the trash—what was that deafening noise?—and dashed down the back stairs into the kitchen. Ginger, on her feet and barking, paused to give her a knowing glance.

       “Shut up,” Olivia said, hurrying to the window.

       Tanner was out there, standing in what appeared to be a floodlight, looking up. Then the helicopter landed, right there in the yard.

       Olivia rubbed her eyes hard, but when she looked again, the copter was still there, black and ominous against the snow. The blades slowed and then a young girl got out of the bird, stood still. Tanner stooped as he went toward the child, put an arm around her shoulders and steered her away, toward the house.

       He paused when the copter lifted off again, waved.

       Sophie had arrived, Olivia realized. And in grand style, too.

       “Do I look like I’ve just had sex?” she asked Ginger in a frantic whisper.

      “I wouldn’t know what you look like when you’ve just had sex,” Ginger answered. “I’m a dog, remember?”

      “BEFOREYOUSTART yelling at me,” Sophie said, looking up at Tanner with Kat’s eyes, “can I just say hello to Butterpie?”

       Tanner, torn between wishing he believed in spanking kids and a need to hold his daughter safe and close and tight, shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. “The barn’s this way,” he said, though it was plainly visible, and started walking.

       Sophie shivered as she hurried along beside him. “We could,” she said breathlessly, “just dispense with the yelling entirely and go on from there.”

       “Fat chance,” Tanner told her.

       “I’m in trouble, huh?”

       “What do you think?” Tanner retorted, trying to sound stern. In truth, he was so glad to see Sophie, he hardly trusted himself to talk.

       He should have woken Olivia when he got the call from Jack’s pilot, he thought. Warned her of Sophie’s impending arrival.

       As if she could have missed hearing that helicopter.

       “I think,” Sophie said with the certainty of youth, “I’m really happy to be here, and if you yell at me, I can take it.”

       Tanner suppressed a chuckle. This was no time to be a pal. “You could have been kidnapped,” he said. “The list of things that might have happened to you—”

       “Might have,” Sophie pointed out sagely. “That’s the key phrase, Dad. Nothing did happen, except one of Uncle Jack’s guys collared me at Grand Central. That was a tense moment, not to mention embarrassing.”

       Having made that statement, Sophie dashed ahead of him and into the barn, calling Butterpie’s name.

       By the time he flipped on the overhead lights, she was already in the stall, hugging the pony’s neck.

       Butterpie whinnied with what sounded like joy.

       And Olivia appeared at Tanner’s elbow. “We’ll be going now,” she said quietly, watching the reunion with a sweet smile. “Ginger and I.”

       “Wait,” Tanner said when she would have turned away. “I want you to meet Sophie.”

       “This is your time, and Sophie’s,” Olivia said, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Tomorrow, maybe.”

       It was a simple kiss, nothing compared to the ones they’d shared upstairs in his bedroom. Just the same, Tanner felt as though he’d stepped on a live wire. His skeleton was probably showing, like in a cartoon.

       “Maybe you feel like explaining what I’m doing here at this hour,” she reasoned, with a touch of humor lingering on her mouth, “but I don’t.”

       Reluctantly Tanner nodded.

       Ginger and Olivia left, without Sophie ever noticing them.

      ATHOME, OLIVIA showered, donned a ragged chenille bathrobe and listened to her voice mail, just in case there was an emergency somewhere. She’d already checked her cell phone, but you never knew.

       The only message was from Ashley. “Where were you?” her younger sister demanded. “Today was Thanksgiving!”

       Olivia sighed, waited out the diatribe, then hit the bullet and pressed the eight key twice to connect with Ashley.

       “Mountain View Bed-and-Breakfast,” Ashley answered tersely. She already knew who was calling, then. Hence the tone.

       “Any openings?” Olivia asked, hoping to introduce a light note.

       Ashley wasn’t biting. She repeated her voice mail message, almost verbatim, ending with another “Where were you?”

       “There was an emergency,” Olivia said. What else could she say? I was in bed with Tanner Quinn and I had myself a hell of a fine time, thank you very much.

       Suspicion, tempered by the knowledge that emergencies were a way of life with Olivia. “What kind of emergency?”

       Olivia sighed. “You don’t want to know,” she said. It was true, after all. Ashley was a normal, healthy woman, but that didn’t mean she’d want a blow-by-blow description—so to speak—of what she and Tanner had done in his bed.

       “Another cow appendectomy?” Ashley asked, half sarcastic, half uncertain.

       “A clandestine operation,” she said, remembering the black helicopter. That would give the local conspiracy theorists something to chew on for a while, if they’d seen it.

       “Really? There was an operation?”

       Tanner was certainly an operator, Olivia thought, so she said yes.

       “And here I thought you were probably having sex with that contractor Brad hired to build the shelter,” Ashley said with an exasperated little sigh.

       Olivia swallowed a giggle. Spoke seriously. “Ashley O’Ballivan, why would you think a thing like that?”

       “Because I saw you leave with him,” Ashley answered. Her tone turned huffy again. “I wanted to tell Brad and Melissa that I’ve decided to look for Mom,” she complained. “And I couldn’t do it without you there.”

       Olivia sobered. “Pretty heavy stuff, when Brad and Meg had a houseful of guests, wouldn’t you say?”

       Ashley went quiet again.

       “Ash?” Olivia prompted. “Are you still there?”

       “I’m here.”

       “So why the sudden silence?”

       Another pause. A long one that gave Olivia plenty of time to worry. Then, finally, the bomb dropped. “I think I’ve already found her.”

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