*  *  *

  And here, for your reading pleasure, is our free romance excerpt:

The Beginning

It was commonly understood around O’Rourke’s Bar and Grill that Charlie Donohue and Caroline Bradley were just not meant for each other. Like oil and water or chalk and cheese, the ex-Navy cook and the beautiful shop owner were a bad match, and although O’Rourke’s was filled with inveterate matchmakers, even the most determined of the lot had to admit this was one match that would never happen.

Not that they hadn’t tried to bring the two together. Dinner invitations. Extra tickets to a Princeton theatre production. Cookouts and charity balls and all manner of obviously phony reasons designed to bring a reluctant man and an unwilling woman into close proximity.

Nothing worked. Months passed and, one by one, the matchmakers at O’Rourke’s threw their hands up into the air and admitted defeat. “Opposites don’t always attract,” said Professor Scotty MacTavish, the wisest of the group. “It would serve us well to remember that.”

And so the notion of Caroline Bradley and Charlie Donohue becoming Caroline-and-Charlie faded away and the two very single adults settled into an adversarial relationship that suited them both, if not the rest of the group at O’Rourke’s.

Not that Caroline willingly spent a great deal of time at O’Rourke’s, mind you. If it weren’t for the fact that her best friend Samantha had married the owner’s son, she wouldn’t be caught dead parking her pricey stilettos under one of the scarred pine tables scattered about the smoke-filled tavern. Caroline liked champagne and strawberries; O’Rourke’s offered Coors and salted peanuts. Her idea of stimulating conversation ran more toward obscure indie movies while the “A” topic at O’Rourke’s was whether the Giants would go all the way to the Super Bowl.

On that fateful afternoon when it all began, Caroline was perched on the edge of a rickety wooden chair with her elbows resting lightly on the sticky tabletop, doing her best not to notice the noise and the smoke and the general air of good-natured pandemonium that was the hallmark of the bar and grill. One thing she couldn’t help but notice was that most of the pandemonium seemed to center around the brawny figure of Charlie Donohue. He’d spent the better part of the last hour lugging beer kegs down to the basement while O’Rourke’s silver-haired clientele cheerfully offered suggestions on how to lighten his load. Charlie Donohue was proportioned on a heroic scale; tall, with wide shoulders and narrow hips, and he hoisted those beer kegs as if they were down-filled pillows.

It wasn’t that she’d been paying a great deal of attention to the short-order cook, but it was a trifle difficult to ignore 6’3″ of rippling masculinity on parade. When he caught her looking at him, his impertinent wink made her remember why she didn’t like him in the first place.

She cleared her throat and turned her attentions back to her best friend. Across the table, Sam was nursing a large glass of iced water and lecturing Caroline on the miracle of childbirth for the thousandth time in the past eight and one half months.

“It’s a whole other world out there,” Sam expounded. “When I had Patty twelve years ago, they still treated you as if you were sick, not pregnant. Why, except for this gigantic belly and breasts the size of watermelons, I’m as healthy as a horse.”

Caroline feigned a swoon. “Please remember I’m the one who passed out when Lucy gave birth to Little Ricky.”

“That was a rerun,” Sam said, laughing. “Little Ricky must be sixty by now and losing his hair.”

“It’s the principle of the thing. I firmly believe childbirth should be left to those best suited for it.”

“You have the equipment,” Sam pointed out.

“I have the equipment to run the New York Marathon, too, but you don’t see me lacing up my Adidas and heading for the starting line.”

“You’re a terrific godmother, Caroline. I know you’d be even more terrific at the real thing.”

Sam’s blue eyes went misty and Caroline reminded herself that hormones were powerful things; Sam couldn’t be held responsible for taking it upon herself to promote the joys of marriage and motherhood. Caroline liked men just fine, thank you, but she didn’t want to own one. Why that should bother so many people was entirely beyond her.

“Remember who you’re talking to?” she asked, summoning up her best dumb blonde voice–the one men seemed to love. “I went from diapers to dinners a deux with no stops in between.”

“You’re terrible,” Sam said with a laugh. “I seem to remember a bout with braces and skinned knees–”

“Shh!” Caroline ordered as Charlie Donohue walked past their table. “I have a reputation to uphold.” She’d worked hard to create the image of a beautiful and pampered woman with nary a care in the world. That very image was responsible for making Twice Over Lightly, her rent-a-designer-dress boutique in Princeton, the phenomenal success that it was. Lacroix fantasies, Karl Lagerfeld extravaganzas, and Chanel originals like the one she was wearing, all vied for attention in her elegant shop. Somehow she had managed to bridge the gap between middle-class pocketbooks and aristocratic tastes, making her clientele feel special the moment they walked through the door–even if they could only be Cinderella for one night.

Sam grinned as Charlie stripped off his work shirt and, muscles rippling in his white cotton t-shirt, hoisted another keg of beer. “Impressive, isn’t he?” The look she cast Caroline was pointed.

Caroline shrugged, almost as if male pulchritude made no difference at all. “Denim work shirts are simply too outre for words.”

Sam groaned and took another sip of water from her icy beer mug. “No French words today, please. It’s too hot. Charlie may not be a GQ cover boy, but he’s a damned good cook. My father-in-law’s lucky to have him here.”

“I think I liked you better before you got pregnant,” Caroline observed, fanning herself with her latest copy of Vogue. “You’ve become entirely too domesticated, if you ask me.”

“I haven’t asked you. Besides, you have no one to blame but yourself for my condition.”

Caroline arched one pale blond brow. “Really, Samantha?” she drawled. “Perhaps you should sit in on one of your daughter’s hygiene classes.”

Of course, Caroline knew exactly what her oldest and dearest friend was talking about. Caroline and her goddaughter Patty claimed full credit for bringing the reluctant caterer and the intrepid reporter together. Today, however, she felt like being difficult. “I have retired from the matchmaking business,” she declared with a wave of her exquisitely-manicured hand, “and I advise you to do the same.”

Sam’s dark blue eyes widened in mock surprise. “Matchmake? Whatever do you mean?”

Even in French Caroline’s comment carried an earthy punch. “The music teacher, for one.

“He asked for your phone number, Caroline. I didn’t volunteer it.”

“I choose my own male companions, thank you very much.”

“Like that snooty professor?” Sam wrinkled her nose.

“Alfred is a lovely man. Is it my fault you prefer jocks to intellectuals?”

Sam’s laugh bounced off the walls of the dimly-lit bar. “You may be able to fool the others with that line, Caroline, but I’ve known you way too long to let you get away with it. That soap opera star you dated last winter had his doctorate in hairspray not quantum physics.”

“So I’m a sucker for a pretty face. Is it a crime?”

Sam angled her head back toward the bar where Charlie Donohue was talking to the afternoon bartender. “Charlie’s not half-bad.”

Caroline shuddered. “I may be a world-class flirt, but I do have my standards.” They watched as he shrugged back into his shirt, laughing as he talked to the afternoon bartender. It wasn’t that Donohue was bad-looking. Quite the contrary. There was something so brazenly male about him that she half-expected he would start beating his chest and drag off the next available woman to his cave. She preferred men whose appeal was a bit more subtle. And yet even Caroline’s breath caught as his powerful back muscles strained against the confines of the material and she coughed to cover the moment.

Unfortunately, Sam knew her too well. “Denim doesn’t look so bad all of a sudden, does it?”

Caroline hid her grin behind her glass of iced tea. “I’ll admit he has a certain rough charm but he’s not my type at all.” And Charlie’s type, she was sure, wore spandex dresses and stiletto heels and looked up to Madonna as a cultural icon.

Sam leaned back in her seat and glanced at the wall clock near the juke box. “Murphy’s late. Is that going to throw a monkey wrench in your plans?”

“Not a major one.” Sam’s husband had volunteered, after some not-so-subtle urging, to help Caroline move a truckload of “gently-used” designer dresses into the storage room of her shop. She pushed back her chair and stood up, smoothing the sleek skirt of her Chanel. “Why don’t I go back to the store and get started. You can send Murphy over when he gets home.”

Sam looked from Caroline to Charlie and back again at Caroline. A sly smile darted across her face.

Had Caroline seen that smile, she might have had a chance to change things, but the smile disappeared before Caroline noticed it and her fate was sealed.

#

Charlie Donohue rarely did anything he didn’t want to do, so when Samantha O’Rourke asked him to pitch in and lend a hand to her pal Caroline, the word “no” was on his lips before Sam had finished her sentence.

“No?” Sam’s dark blue eyes narrowed. “You said no?”

He tempered his lack of enthusiasm admirably. “It’s not that I don’t want to help out, but it’s happy hour. I’ve got to man the skillet and start turning out the burgers for the hungry hordes.”

“I’m sure Bill wouldn’t mind if you took a few hours off, would you, Bill?” She aimed her smile at her father-in-law and Charlie watched, amazed, as his crusty employer crumpled before his eyes. “See?” She sounded triumphant. “Murphy was going to help Caroline with the coats but he’s been delayed and besides, I was hoping he’d be around tonight.” She patted her belly absently then launched her final salvo. “You never know. Junior might decide to make a surprise appearance.”

Bulls eye. Charlie could say no to just about anything, but he couldn’t say no to a pregnant woman who apparently was ready to deliver her baby any moment. To his dismay, he found himself agreeing to drive over to Caroline Bradley’s hot-shot boutique and help the small blond whirlwind unload a truckful of mink coats.

“You’re a doll, Charlie.” Sam planted a kiss on his cheek. “Caroline will be so pleased.”

“Not when she sees me, she won’t be.”

“Of course she will,” Sam protested a shade too vigorously. “She’s just so absorbed with her business that she hasn’t had time to get to know you.”

“Yeah,” said Charlie. “Right.” If you asked him, Caroline Bradley was a cross between Scarlett O’Hara and Donald Trump in the body of a petite Marilyn Monroe. She was opinionated, flirtatious, with a spun-sugar face and an acid-etched tongue that she didn’t hesitate to use on anyone who didn’t see the world through the same pair of rose-colored glasses as she did.

He remembered the first time he saw her. He wasn’t due to start work for a couple of days, but he’d decided to stop in the bar and get to know some of the regulars. O’Rourke’s had struck him as a man’s kind of place. Lots of dead fish hanging on the walls, plenty of smoke, a wall-mounted TV permanently set to the Sports Channel. A place where a man could relax. Forget about his troubles. Enjoy a brew and a ballgame.

He pushed open the door and stopped dead in his tracks. There, perched atop an old piano like Michelle Pfeiffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys, was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. She wore a black dress that clung to her small but curvy body. Her hair was pinned atop her head, tendrils curling about her elegant cheekbones.

She was exactly the kind of woman he dreamed about regularly but made a point to avoid. He ambled over to the bar, steering a wide path past the piano. Bill O’Rourke was behind the bar.

“Something, isn’t she?” Bill pushed a draft toward him.

“Do they always crowd around her like that?” From the stool where he sat only her shiny blonde head was visible in the crowd that surrounded her.

“Always.” Bill explained that the vision was Caroline Bradley, best friend of his daughter Sam.

“What is she, a singer?”

“She runs a dress shop.”

Charlie angled another look in her direction. For some strange reason he was beginning to feel angry with the woman. “Is she going with one of those old-timers?”

Bill chuckled. “I don’t know who she’s going with. All I know is those guys would do anything for her.”

“Does she hang out here a lot?”

“Only when she drops in with my daughter-in-law Sam, but when she does, watch out! She takes over the piano and before you know it, every man in the place is in love with her.”

What in hell was a looker like the beauteous Ms. Bradley doing wasting her time flirting with the Over the Hill Gang? She hadn’t so much as given Charlie a second glance and he was closer to her age by at least a good fifty years.

“Want an introduction?” asked Bill, eyes twinkling with mischief.

“Forget it. She’s not my type.”

Bill’s laugh was loud and boisterous. “Pal, she’s any man’s type.”

“Not mine.”

“Yeah,” said Bill, refilling Charlie’s beer mug. “Right.”

Charlie wasn’t lying. He had no use for women who collect men’s hearts like charms on a bracelet. You’d have to be blind to miss what she was up to over there, fawning all over the old men. Practicing her skills. Sharpening her weapons. Killing time until better prey came along. Everything about her looked expensive, from her hair to her fingernails to the pale suede shoes on her small feet. A man could go broke trying to keep her in pantyhose. Yeah, Caroline was beautiful–you’d have to be a fool not to notice–but Charlie never much cared for women fancied themselves as southern belles. Especially not when the southern belle in question lived in central New Jersey.

He had to hand it to her, though, he thought as he drove the back roads from Rocky Hill to Princeton. She had the old geezers at O’Rourke’s eating out of the palm of her hand. Scotty almost fell over his orthopedic shoes every time she swept into the bar, smelling like expensive perfume and dripping sugary compliments. Even Bill O’Rourke, who was about as hard-boiled as you could get outside of Charlie himself, turned to geriatric mush when she batted her false eyelashes in his direction.

Not that Caroline Bradley spent any time batting her eyelashes in Donohue’s direction. She still didn’t like him any more than he liked her and that was just fine with Charlie. He’d bumped into her once over at the Princeton Marketfair movie complex. He and a friend were waiting on line to see Schwarzenegger’s latest when Caroline and her boyfriend of the moment came sweeping out of the newest French flick. Charlie had raised his bag of popcorn in salute and it was clear by the horrified expression on her face that she wished he was invisible–or, at least, dressed in something preppie and safe like her pal. A Coors t-shirt seemed okay to Charlie but then there was no accounting for taste, especially not around Princeton. The geek she was with was a case in point.

So there he was on his way over to her precious second-hand dress shop. If she’d looked horrified that evening at the movies, he could only imagined how she’d look when he showed up on her doorstep, ready to manhandle all those frilly ball gowns or whatever the hell it was she’d made her fortune hawking.

Most of the rush hour traffic had disappeared by the time Charlie turned onto Nassau Street and made his way to the shop. The late afternoon sun was strong and he slipped his Ray-Bans on, still squinting behind the dark lenses. A few aging prep school grads strolled down the street toward Palmer Square, still lean and tan in their tennis whites. The hell with old soldiers never dying, he thought with a shake of his head. Preppies seemed to go on forever.

He stopped for a light across the street from the book store, tapping his broad fingers against the wheel. Too damn crowded in town, if you asked him. In the two years since he’d breezed into the area, he’d seen a change. Condos springing up everywhere. New construction where old farms used to be. The hand of progress everywhere you looked, generally gumming up the works and pushing civilization where it had no business going.

The light changed to green, and he shifted his truck into gear.

Not that he was a crusader or anything like that. He pretty much took life as he found it, not taking the problems too seriously, not letting the good times slip away from him. His years in the navy had given him a hatred of bureaucracy and a love of freedom, two attributes that made it hard for a thirty-five year old man to make it big in the United States today.

He made a left at the next corner and angled into a parking spot behind the U-Haul van parked in front of Caroline Bradley’s shop. Not for him the seven day work week, busting his behind so secretaries could dress up like socialites. Whatever it was driving Bradley on, it had paid off in spades. Even second-hand, you didn’t buy the clothes she hung on her curvy little body with peanuts and, if he had any real estate smarts at all, this Princeton address came with a pricey monthly rent attached to it.

The door to Twice Over Lightly was open. He stepped inside the quiet shop and was hit immediately with a gentle wave of perfumed air, cooled by a silent central air conditioning unit hidden somewhere out of sight. Yeah, she had bucks, no doubt about it. Big bucks. The walls were washed a smooth ivory color with a wallpaper border in some fussy, female print bisecting it where the walls met the ceiling. Pots of flowers, all pinks and violets, rested on odd tables scattered around the room, tables that sat next to chairs so delicate they looked like they’d collapse if a hummingbird perched on one of them. He could easily imagine Caroline in one of those chairs, one leg crossed over the other, as perfectly suited to her dress shop in Princeton as he was to the bar in Rocky Hill. He fingered a gold mesh gown on one of the skinny mannequins near the door. He had seen spider webs thicker than the silky threads that kept that dress together. Hell, this was probably the kind of get-up the perfect Miss Bradley wore to unload a truck. It was hard to imagine her getting her manicured hands dirty. He doubted if she’d ever worked up a sweat in her entire, pampered life.

“Anybody here?” he called out. His voice sounded like a foghorn in the hushed, female stillness of the empty shop. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Hey! Someone could walk out with a mink coat.”

“I wouldn’t try it.”

He turned in the direction of the steely, silk-coated voice. It sounded like Caroline Bradley but that was where all resemblance ended. “Caroline?”

“Who did you expect?” Her tone was edgy. “This is my store.”

He couldn’t believe he was looking at the same ultra-chic woman who’d been sitting in O’Rourke’s less than an hour ago. Instead of an upswept hairdo, she wore a ponytail. The high heels and sheer hose had been replaced by bare feet and the designer dress had given way to shorts and a t-shirt. He couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d appeared in a gorilla suit.

“Close your mouth,” she snapped. “Haven’t you ever seen a woman in shorts before?”

“Not on you.” Not bad, he thought, gaze roaming the surprising length of her slender legs. Some interesting surprises had been hidden by those high-fashion threads she usually wore.

She ignored the quasi-compliment and peered out at the street. “Where’s Murphy?”

“The A-Team’s busy,” Charlie said. “If you don’t need the help, say the word and I’m out of here.” He sure as hell didn’t want to be where he wasn’t wanted. He noted with pleasure the way her chiseled cheekbones reddened. Score one for the blue-collar worker.

“I need the help.” She gestured toward some huge white boxes stacked ceiling-high in the corner of the store. “The fur coats have to be put in storage in the back.”

“What do you have back there, a big closet or something?”

She pushed her pale hair off her face with impatient, stabbing motions and sighed theatrically. “An air-conditioned store room.”

He glanced at the stacks of boxes. “Must be a pretty big room to fit all of them inside.”

“And there are more where those came from,” she said. “Look, if you don’t think you’re up to it, Donohue, I’ll ask the teenage boy down the block to help me. I hear he lifts weights.”

Now that stung. The quickest way to a man’s ego was through his masculinity. He swung one of the boxes up onto his shoulder. “Which way?” he said, his voice more a growl than anything human.

She pointed toward a long hallway at the rear of the store. “Straight through. Last door on the right.” Her eyes lingered on his bare arms. “It’s freezing in the storeroom. Maybe you should put on a sweater.”

“Worry about yourself,” he said heading toward the storeroom. He doubted if anything could be colder than her attitude.

The phrase bull in a china shop leaped out at Caroline as she watched Charlie Donohue make his way down the spun-sugar pink hallway toward the storage room cum fur vault. She closed and locked the front door and hung up the embroidered CLOSED sign. Not that there was any crime to speak of in Princeton, but when you had an inventory like hers, it paid to be careful. If only she’d thought to lock the door before Donohue showed up….

“I’m going to kill you, Samantha,” she said aloud, reaching for the telephone. She dialed Sam’s number, waited, then slammed the receiver back into its cradle. Busy. Sam was probably on the telephone with Scotty, crowing about sending Donohue in Murphy’s place. Of all the outrageous, idiotic stunts! She hoped Sam was enjoying her victory because Caroline intended to prove that victory Pyrrhic the first chance she got.

“This wasn’t my idea,” she said when Donohue came back into the front room and hefted another stack of boxed fur coats.

He cast a perfunctory glance over one brawny shoulder. “Who said it was?”

She straightened her own shoulders. “It needed to be said.”

The perfunctory glance turned curious. “Why?”

“That should be obvious.”

“The only obvious thing in this room is the fact that we both want to get this over with as fast as possible.”

Caroline wasn’t used to being dismissed quite so nonchalantly and she bristled. “Look, why don’t we just call it a day? I’ll phone Sam and–”

“Forget it,” he broke in. “I gave her my word.”

“You don’t have to look as if you promised to walk naked through a hailstorm.”

“If you’re giving me a choice, I’ll take the hailstorm.”

She bit her lip. What on earth was the matter with her, wanting to smile when she’d been insulted? “I’m sure Murphy wouldn’t mind helping me out tomorrow.”

He stacked a third box in his arms. “Sam’s nine months pregnant. Why don’t we humor her? When her hormones are running normally again, she’ll forget all about this matchmaking stuff.”

“That’s disgusting.”

His thick dark brows lifted. “Hormones?”

“Your attitude. That has to be the most sexist remark I’ve heard in years.”

“Fact of life, Bradley. You’re ruled by hormones from the day you’re born until the day you die. Especially when you’re pregnant.”

“Right. And I suppose you’re an expert in pregnancy.”

“Doesn’t take an M.D. to see what’s what.”

“Ridiculous! We’re ruled by our intellect. Our sense of reason. Our–”

He was still laughing as he disappeared back down the hallway once again. Caroline barely restrained herself from tossing an antique vase at his head. The fact that she had been guilty of a similar notion about Sam’s pregnancy earlier that afternoon didn’t absolve him of his guilt. Of all the idiotic, outdated notions, his statement about hormones took the cake. Sure, Sam was a touch more weepy than usual these days, but this wasn’t the Dark Ages, for heaven sake.

Grabbing two fox capes from a chair near her Louis XIV desk, she hurried back toward the store room. He was bent over a stack of coats by the door to the store’s tiny bathroom, an impulsive after-thought she’d had added to the storage area when she renovated the building last year. “I suppose you also think women should be kept barefoot and pregnant.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth.” He rose slowly, unfolding inch by powerful inch, until he towered over her. Dear God, he was enormous. He certainly had never looked so…so imposing back at O’Rourke’s Bar and Grill.

Why couldn’t he at least have the decency to be less aggressively male, surrounded by fur coats and fancy dresses? He looked absolutely ridiculous standing there in his close-fitting t-shirt and even closer-fitting jeans with the hole in the right knee. Oh, Caroline knew plenty of men with holes in the knees of their jeans, but those men had bought said jeans complete with fashionable holes scattered hither and yon. She had no doubt Charlie Donohue had come by his state of disrepair honestly.

“I know all about your type,” she said, living dangerously. “Yeah?” He took a step forward. She said a prayer and held her ground. “I could tell you a few things about your type too, lady.”

“Oh, really?” She drew herself up to her full five feet one inch. “I’m sure I’d love to hear.”

“You’re some rich guy’s spoiled little daughter who has some time on her hands between dates so daddy bought you a store to keep you busy until he hands you off to some poor human bank account you’ll call a husband.”

“You’re more perceptive than I would ever have imagined,” she drawled in her best spoiled little rich girl’s voice. She’d tried for many years to cultivate her to-the-manner-born persona, and it was gratifying to know how well she’d succeeded. “Now if you don’t mind, it’s been lovely but I think we should say goodnight.”

“That’s it?” He looked almost disappointed. “I cut you down to size and you stand there like Princess Diana, saying thank you and goodnight?”

“I could recite the Preamble to the Constitution, if you like, but that won’t change things. This was a rotten idea of Sam’s and we’d be smart to cut our losses before there’s bloodshed.”

She headed toward the big metal fire door that separated the storage room from the rest of the store but Donohue stepped in her way. “Not so fast.”

“Joke’s over, Donohue,” she said, heart beating faster. “Let me pass.”

“You’re making me feel like a louse,” he continued. “Go ahead. I’ll give you one free insult and we’ll call it even.”

“I don’t make it a habit to insult people, Mr. Donohue.”

“I’ve watched you shoot down guys at the bar, Bradley. Your mouth should be declared a lethal weapon.”

She ducked around him and was practically at the door when, to her horror, he gave it a push and it clanged shut. The sound rang in her ears.

“You idiot!” She forgot to modulate her voice as she pounded on the door with her fists. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Idiot,” he repeated with a grin as he leaned against the door. “Not bad, but you can do better. One good insult and I’ll open the door and–”

She whirled to face him, eyes blazing with fury, fists aching. “Don’t you understand?”

“Unlock the door.” He looked down at her. “You do have the key, don’t you?”

“There is no key, you idiot! We’re on a timer.”

“You have a phone in here?”

“So the minks can call their mothers? Get real, Donohue! Face it: we’re locked in here until tomorrow morning.”

ii

“I have to hand it to you,” said Donohue. “You had me going there for a minute.” Locked in the fur vault with the enemy until nine o’clock the next morning. Talk about unjust punishment. “Now open up.”

She swung on him with all the self-righteous fury of the condemned. Her delicate fist landed a punch right in the middle of his solar plexus and he ducked one to his jaw. He grabbed her wrists; he could encircle both with one hand. Under different circumstances, that might have given him a rush of pleasure. At the moment, however, he was more interested in self-preservation. If he wasn’t careful, he could end up a castrato.

“Do something!” she cried. “I’ll go crazy if I’m stuck in here with you.”

“You’re not exactly my idea of a swell evening yourself, lady,” he muttered, dropping her hands and stepping out of reach. He glanced at his watch. Six p.m.

Fifteen hours until the door opened again in the morning.

Fifteen long hours alone with a crazy woman.

And he’d thought combat was scary.

Charlie pounded on the door, aimed karate chops at the lock, and searched in vain for a window or an emergency switch–anything that would get them the hell out of that fur-lined ice box. He turned himself into a human projectile aimed at the door hinges but no dice.

“They told me the security system was foolproof,” said Caroline, voice trembling.

“They were right,” Charlie growled. “Fort Knox doesn’t have a security system like this son of a bitch.”

“Must you?” she asked automatically. “It’s bad enough we’re locked in here together. You don’t have to be crude on top of it.”

“Crude?” His laugh made her want to punch him again. “I haven’t begun to get crude.”

“Keep it to yourself then. I don’t need a bar room vocabulary lesson, thank you.” She knew all the words; she’d even used a few of them herself on occasion. However she wasn’t about to grant him so much as an inch. If she let down her guard for an instant, he would be running roughshod over her as if he owned the place.

He muttered something about “ice princess” and she murmured “simple-minded cretin,” then they both fell silent. What was there left to say, when you came down to it? She was certain her vocabulary of insults paled compared to his. Besides, there was the matter of her image to be considered, although how she would maintain her cool, calm, and collected persona for the next fifteen hours was beyond her.

She glanced around the room, cursing herself for not having the presence of mind to put in a skylight at the very least. But, no. She had to listen to the “experts” who told her that sunlight was the arch enemy of fine fabrics. “No windows, Ms. Bradley, and plenty of air-conditioning year round. Fur vaults must be cool and dark,” she’d been told. “Think hibernation!” Great for grizzlies, but not exactly optimal conditions for two adults trapped together against their wills.

If only there was some way out of this mess. Her gaze fell upon Donohue who was pacing the length of the room like a caged beast. He was big and strong. Why couldn’t he fling himself at the door just one more time? Surely the locks, wonderful though they were, couldn’t withstand another assault from all of that coiled male outrage. She opened her mouth to tell him so, but the look he shot in her direction convinced her to keep her own counsel, at least for the moment.

His jet black brows seemed permanently knotted over the bridge of his nose and his jaw was set in granite. She’d already pummeled him once and gotten away with it. From the expression in his eyes, she doubted if she would get away with a similar stunt again.

No, she thought, sitting on a box in the far corner of the room, right near the sables and minks. The thing to do is concentrate. She’d never once met a problem she couldn’t solve with her wits and she’d be damned if she let this one get the better of her. There was no way she would spend the next fifteen hours alone with only Charlie Donohue for company.

Absolutely no way on earth.

#

The first sixty minutes of the captivity of Charlie and Caroline ticked away with the slow and deliberate rhythm of a funeral dirge. Caroline felt a scream lodged somewhere deep in her chest. Charlie wanted to see if he could pull a Rambo and blast through the walls with fists instead of an Uzi. The incessant hum of the industrial-strength air conditioning unit made it seem even colder than it was–and that was saying something.

“Moron,” muttered Caroline from the safety of her spot near the fur coats.

“Ditzy blonde,” growled Charlie from his position by the door. Neither acknowledged the other’s words or, for that matter, the other’s presence in the growing-smaller-every-minute store room. The clock on the wall showed 6:59. And then it showed 7:00. “I feel like I’ve been here for eons,” said Caroline, more loudly this time.

“Solitary confinement would be easier than this,” said Charlie, equally loud.

“A sophisticated adult would have inquired about a timed lock system.”

“Bull,” said Charlie, determined to let her know exactly how he felt about sophisticated adults. “Anybody with a brain would have a fail-safe system for emergencies.”

Caroline lifted a patrician brow in his direction. “And, pray tell, how many emergencies does one encounter in a fur vault?”

“Can the Princetonese, Bradley, and give me a hand.” He hunkered down and began prying away at the base of one of the door hinges.

“You’ll never be able to move it like that,” said Caroline, glancing at her brand-new French manicure. Fifty dollars and two hours about to go down the drain. “You need tools.”

“Right,” said Charlie, “and I’m using the ones I have.” He waved those big hands of his in her face and Caroline gulped at the sheer power they represented. “Now give me some help.” He paused, his own gaze resting on her perfect fingernails. “That is, unless you’d rather spend the night with me.”

“Move over,” said Caroline, “and let’s get this damn door open.”

#

Seven o’clock became eight.

Eight o’clock gave way to nine.

And by nine-fifteen it had become crystal clear to even the most pigheaded of optimists that an escape hatch was just not in the cards.

Charlie sank to the ground and held his head in his hands. Caroline thought his posture a bit extreme but then who was she to talk? The notion of spending the next twelve hours in his company had her teetering on the verge of tears.

“This is terrible,” she said, her voice breaking on the last word. “We’re trapped and it’s all because of you….”

Charlie looked up, about to fire off a wisecrack in his own defense, when he caught the glisten of tears in her eyes. She looked so pathetic standing there next to him. So delicate. So female.

Now hold on a minute. That was dangerous thinking. She might look like a porcelain doll, but she packed one hell of a wallop. Remember that, he warned himself. Even if she was remarkably curvy beneath her t-shirt and tight jeans. Even if her big cornflower blue eyes looked wide and vulnerable.

Even if he felt an answering stir deep inside him, that primitive male urge to comfort and protect.

Just remember that the ultra-feminine, extremely pretty Caroline Bradley swung her fists first and asked questions later.

Still it took Donohue until nearly ten p.m. to convince himself to stay on his side of the makeshift fur vault.

#

And as for Caroline, she was deeply immersed in self-pity, wondering what sin she’d committed to deserve a fate like this. In her darkest nightmares, she’d never imagined anything as dreadful as being locked in her own store with Charlie Donohue for company. That is, if you wanted to consider his presence as company. The two of them hadn’t exchanged a civil word since he first walked through her front door. If only Sam had kept her matchmaking nose out of Caroline’s life and let Murphy help unload the furs into the storage room. Only a crazy person would have thought putting Caroline and the O’Rourke’s short order cook together alone in close quarters was a stroke of romantic genius. Not that Sam had intended for them to be locked together like this, but sometimes fate had plans that mere mortals would never understand.

Caroline cast another surreptitious look in Donohue’s direction, doing her best not to notice the interesting play of muscles along his back and biceps.

Come to think of it, Donohue was behaving awfully well, considering the circumstances under which they’d found themselves. Another man might have taken advantage of the situation, dousing the overhead light and turning the storage room into a wolf’s lair with Caroline as the lamb on her way to the slaughter. There were advantages to being trapped with a man who didn’t find you the least bit attractive, even if that fact stung her ego.

Donohue, through pacing for the moment, sat down on a crate near a collection of beaded Arnold Scaasi gowns and broke the silence. “I’d kill for a burger and fries,” he said.

Caroline, stomach rumbling at the thought, sighed. “One of Sam’s Torta Rusticas.”

“Torta Rustica?” asked Donohue. “What’s that?”

“Meat loaf,” she mumbled.

“You’re kidding.”

“A very fancy meat loaf,” she said, trying not to smile. “Not the usual fare by any means.”

“Meat loaf is meat loaf.”

“That’s like saying wine is wine.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth.” He looked as if he were holding back a grin and not altogether succeeding at it.

“There’s a world of difference between Thunderbird and Pouilly-Fuisse.”

“Like the difference between the two of us,” he observed.

Ah, there it was: the killer grin a weaker woman would gladly die for. Caroline was glad she was above such obvious temptations. “Exactly,” she said coolly. “Like the two of us.”

“I’d still kill for a burger.”

Suddenly Caroline leaped to her feet. “It’s not a burger with fries, but I have something that’ll do in a pinch.” She hurried to the far corner of the room, pushed aside two fur coats and uncovered a grocery bag from Food Town. “Cheese, stone wheat crackers, and champagne.” She raised the bottle in a gesture of triumph. “And what do you think of that, Charles?”

He hadn’t been called Charles since before he joined the navy, but the name sounded kind of nice rolling off her elegant and eminently kissable lips. “Better than C rations,” he said with the right note of casual interest. “You make a habit of storing midnight snacks in here?”

“I had to pick up a few things at Foodtown this afternoon,” she said with a self-conscious laugh. “This seemed as good a place as any to stash them.”

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Your date must be wondering where you are.”

Was it her imagination or did she detect more than a slight note of curiosity in his voice? “I don’t have a date tonight, Charles.”

He looked at the Brie, the fancy crackers, and the champagne. “You bought all this stuff just for you?”

She nodded, busying herself with opening the package of crackers. “I believe in surrounding myself with the finer things in life.” She paused, then looked up at him. “Go ahead. You’re about to laugh at me, aren’t you?”

He filched a cracker and made short work of it. “Why do you say that?”

“Because men like you usually think the finer things in life are an extra six-pack and the Super Bowl.”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“Nothing particularly right about it, either.”

“You really are a snob, aren’t you, Bradley?”

“The name’s Caroline and yes, I suppose I am.” She’d worked hard to acquire the accoutrements of the “good life” and wasn’t about to make light of any of them. Especially not to a man like Donohue.

“Some women would take a burger and a ballgame over dinner at the Ritz any day.”

“And they’re welcome to both,” said Caroline magnanimously. “I, however, shall stick with the Ritz.”

Donohue took the bottle of champagne and wedged it between his knees. “Bet they don’t do it like this at the Ritz,” he said, proceeding to pop the cork.

“I wager you’re right,” she said, wishing they had some glasses. It was hard to imagine an elegant maître d’ with a bottle between his knees.

Her mouth dropped open in amazement as Donohue took a swig right from the bottle. “Good stuff.”

She was speechless as he handed her the champagne.

“Try it,” he said.

Gingerly she wiped the mouth with the back of her hand, ignoring his low, masculine chuckle. Tipping her head back she brought the bottle to her lips the way she used to drink Pepsi when she was a kid. The bubbles filled her mouth and throat and she sputtered then swallowed. “Delicious,” she said, aware of the golden liquid trickling down her chin and onto her t-shirt. She extended the bottle back toward him. He didn’t move. What on earth was the matter with him?

#

The droplets of champagne were beaded along the curve of her mouth, her delectable chin, spotting the rounded upper slope of her breasts. He wanted to lick them off her, drop by drop, until he tasted nothing but her rosy skin beneath his tongue.

“Charles?” She extended the bottle toward him again. “Is something wrong?”

Get a grip on yourself, man. He blinked hard, grabbed the bottle, and took another long swig. “Drinking on an empty stomach’s a killer.” He motioned toward the cheese and crackers with the half-empty champagne bottle. “We’d better eat something.”

“Can’t hold your liquor, is it?” she asked, taking the bottle and indulging in another dainty sip. And then another. “You surprise me, Charles, being a bartender and all.”

“Cook,” he said, tearing his gaze away from the subtle rise and fall of her chest in that snug t-shirt. “I’m a cook.”

“Well, this may not be up to your professional standards, but help yourself to cheese and crackers.”

He did, with gusto. A long time ago he’d learned about something called sublimation. It seemed that this was a case in point, substituting the taste of champagne and crackers for the taste of her mouth beneath his.

She brushed a stray lock of blond hair off her cheek with a carelessly graceful gesture that seemed to pierce his heart with the beauty of it. Champagne was dangerous stuff, to turn a practical, hard-hearted man like him into a poet. But then she was the stuff of which poetry was made–all delicate, shimmering loveliness with the hidden sparkle and strength of a diamond. .

He grabbed for the bottle.

#

Caroline didn’t know what she was enjoying most: the champagne, the Brie, or staring into Donohue’s green eyes.

Of course, green was too vague a term to describe the amazing color. Charlie’s eyes weren’t emerald or jade, but the deep, luminous green of a forest shot through with sunlight. Thickly fringed with lashes of the darkest jet, his eyes seemed to blaze with heat that found its target somewhere deep inside the pit of her stomach.

She giggled, a most unlikely sound coming from the sophisticated Caroline Bradley of Princeton. “I, for one, can hold my champagne quite well, thank you very much.” She took a dainty sip right from the bottle, and this time she didn’t bother to wipe the mouth first with her hand. “I wish we had utensils,” she said. “Utensils are what separate men from animals. Did you know that one of the first steps in human evolution was learning how to use eating utensils?”

He started to laugh, the sound beginning somewhere around his feet and moving upward, gathering in volume. “Where the hell did you go to school? The Shirley MacLaine University of Advanced Crystal Reading?”

She drew herself up with as much dignity as she could muster given the circumstances. Good Lord, but he was an attractive man. Words she never used, like “hunk” and “stud-muffin,” popped into her mind and out again. “Forks and spoons are responsible for western civilization as we know it,” she said, making it up from whole cloth as she went along. “If it weren’t for cutlery, we’d still be baying at the moon.”

He started to say something both profound and witty but instead found himself staring at the dimple in her right cheek. Funny thing. He’d seen her scores of times before tonight but never once noticed that incredible dimple before. That dimple was a work of art in the perfect canvas of her face. In vino veritas, the saying went. It suddenly seemed to Charlie that not only truth was found in the grape, but madness as well.

He took another sip and gave her a loopy smile. Not even the fact he was turning into a human icicle bothered him. Who would have imagined madness could feel so terrific?

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