Chapter 7

FRIDAY, 6:00AM

WHEN DEREK started awake, several seconds passed before he remembered he was in Atlanta at the resort where Steve was to be married on Saturday. Other memories of the previous night were too ludicrous to believe. When he lifted his heavy, aching head to find he was alone in the room, he nearly laughed aloud with relief. Those were some strong pills he'd taken for his cold. For a while there—

Derek chuckled despite his headache. No way.

From the filtered light coming through the floor-to-ceiling windows to his left, he estimated the time to be around 6:00 a.m. Typically, he'd be rolling out of bed for a bike ride, weather willing, or a run on the dilapidated treadmill that sat less than five steps from his bed. Then he'd shower and arrive at the office by seven-fifteen.

But at the moment, he needed more cold medicine, hallucinogen or not. He pushed himself out of bed gingerly, tossing the still-damp towel twined around his legs to the floor. Holding his head so it wouldn't explode, and swallowing to moisten his dry throat, he stumbled through the semidarkness to the bathroom and pushed open the door. By the illumination of the skylight, he felt along the vanity for the box of cold medicine, but instead came up with a perplexing object, flat and flexible, with ties and mysterious textures.

Bewildered, he groped for the light switch and flooded the room with light. He blinked at the pink-and-black thingamajig in his hand for an entire second before a shriek sounded behind him. Derek swung around to see a person sit up in the bathtub, and when he registered the dark coat and the blond hair, he grasped the horrifying fact that he hadn't been hallucinating after all. Gripping both sides of the tub as if she were in a sinking lifeboat, Pinky looked at him and screamed.

As if he'd taken a bite from the forbidden fruit, Derek suddenly realized he was naked. He thrust the top of her costume over his privates, straining from their morning call, and backed up against the counter. "What the devil are you doing in the bathtub?" he thundered, grimacing at the pain in his temples.

She pushed a mop of hair out of her eyes. "Sleeping."

The woman was a bona fide nutcase. "I can see that," he said calmly. "But why are you sleeping in the bathtub? "

"Because," she mumbled, "you were in the bed." She spit hair out of her mouth. "I can see your butt in the mirror."

He clenched and opened his mouth to say something he hadn't yet thought of, but the phone in the other room rang. Backing out of the bathroom, Derek sneezed twice on his way to answer. He flung the corset on the bed and managed to grab a handkerchief before he yanked up the handset. "Hello?"

"Hey, man, what's going on over there?" Steve Larsen's voice sounded concerned, but a little indistinct, as if his last drink was not in the too-distant past. "I came back to the hotel a few minutes ago and they wouldn't let me past the gate. Something about a quarantine?"

Derek stretched the phone cord taut in order to reach his jeans on the valet. He jerked them on as he answered Steve. "Yeah, several of the guests have come down with something, and the CDC put the entire facility under quarantine."

"That's nuts. For how long?"

He sat on the bed and leaned forward to cradle his head in his hands. "The top guy said at least forty-eight hours."

Steve cursed. "Which means we'll have to postpone the rehearsal and the dinner for tonight. Maybe even the wedding." He swore again, this one causing Derek to wince. "My mother is going to be irate, and I don't know how I'm going to break it to Janine."

The topic of their conversation walked into the room. With her bare legs and feet sticking out below her wrinkled black raincoat, she resembled a bag lady. A very fetching bag lady, Derek realized with a start. "Steve," he said, loudly enough to gain her attention, "Janine already knows about the quarantine."

"What? How does Janine know?" Steve asked. "Wait a minute—how do you know that Janine knows?"

Derek watched her face crumble with dread as he mulled over how best to break the news to his friend. She bit her lower lip, beseeching him to... what?

"She's here at the hotel," he said, nausea rolling in his stomach. Only his brother Jack made him feel this way: protective, yet taken advantage of. He hated it.

"At the hotel?" Steve shouted. "Where? How?"

Janine Murphy, Derek decided, was a big girl who'd gotten them both into a big mess and she and her big blue eyes could take responsibility for it. "She's... I'll have her call you when I see her," he finished lamely, ridiculously warmed at the expression of gratitude on her face. "Are you at your place?"

"I'm at a friend's," Steve said. "But I'm going to my folks' house to break the news to my mom before she hears it on television."

"Television?"

"There were at least four TV crews in front of the hotel," Steve offered. "And so many uniforms we thought a bomb had gone off. By the way, what's Janine doing at the hotel?"

For a few seconds, he panicked. "Looking for you, I suppose." Derek strained to remember what she'd said when she'd crawled on top of him, but he'd been kind of distracted at the time by her roaming hands.

"So where did you run into her?"

"We... saw each other in the lobby," he hedged, looking to her for affirmation. She nodded. And it wasn't exactly a lie, though he hated covering for the minx.

"She's a sweetheart, isn't she?" Steve asked. "I know she doesn't exactly stand out when she enters a room," he continued, causing Derek to raise his eyebrows. "You probably noticed she's kind of a nature girl."

The image of Janine in that very unnatural pink getup was seared on his brain. "Um, no, I didn't notice that," he said wryly, certain his sarcasm was lost on his hungover friend. Janine frowned and scratched her bare foot with her other foot.

Steve laughed, then lowered his voice in a conspiratorial tone. "But underneath those tent-like clothes, Janine has a nice bod."

"She sure does," Derek said without thinking, then coughed and added, "She sure does seem like a nice girl, I mean."

Her eyes widened and a hint of a smile warmed her lips. He wanted to shake his head to let her know he was only talking for Steve's sake, but once again, he didn't have the heart to hurt her feelings.

"You sound horrible, man. Do you have whatever is going around at the resort?"

"Maybe," Derek admitted.

"Well, do me a favor and don't touch any of my stuff."

Steve's casual guffaw irritated him. Derek surveyed Pinky's elfin frame, tempted to inform Steve just how much of his "stuff" he'd already touched.

"And do me another favor," Steve added. "Keep an eye on Janine for me, would you?"

Derek pursed his mouth. "That should be easy."

"If you know what room she's in, I'll call her myself," Steve said. "Or I'll check with the desk."

"Um, no." Derek rushed to stop him. "She's staying with..." He rolled his hand to indicate he needed help.

She put her fingers in her ears, then pinched together the fingers of her right hand and started punching the air.

"She's staying with the operator," he said, but Janine stopped, disgusted with his guess.

He splayed his hands, at a loss. She mouthed something emphatic several times before he covered the phone. "What?"

"I'm with the doctors, Einstein," she hissed. "This—" she repeated the motion "—is using a stethoscope, not a switchboard!"

He frowned, then uncovered the phone. "I mean, she's staying with the medics... on the slim chance she can help."

His words garnered another dark look from Janine, but Steve seemed convinced. "Oh. Will you see her?"

"I'd say that's a safe bet," Derek said.

"Just tell her to call me."

"You left your phone here," Derek said.

"Oh… right. She can call me at my parents'."

"Call you at your parents'," he parroted for her sake. "I'll let her know."

"Thanks. Hey, I'm sorry as hell you got caught in this mess, man. By all rights, it should be Jack holed up with the plague, eh?"

"Just one more reason to kick his ass when I see him," Derek grumbled, then said goodbye and hung up.

For a few seconds, neither he nor Janine spoke. Fatigue pulled at him. He rubbed his scratchy eyes.

"You really shouldn't do that."

He stopped. "Shouldn't do what?"

"Rub your eyes like that," she said. "You could scratch your corneas."

Derek stared at her, feeling luckier by the minute to be unencumbered by a female. "I don't need your advice, medical or otherwise."

She nodded, then he was horrified to see the shimmer of tears in her eyes.

"Oh, no," he said, feeling like a heel. "Don't cry. I shouldn't have snapped at you. I'm sorry."

"It's not you," she whispered. "It's the wedding, and now this q-quarantine..."

"Are you feeling ill?" He'd hate to think he'd given her whatever he had. Derek bit down on the inside of his cheek—there he went again, caring.

"I don't think so." But her lower lip trembled.

He stood and walked over to her, then gently clasped her shoulders and turned her around to face the bathroom. "Why don't you take a nice, long bath?" he said in the voice he saved for his most neurotic clients. "I'm sure you'll feel much better."

She nodded mutely and disappeared behind the closed door. The water splashed on and, too late, he realized his cold medicine was still on the bathroom vanity. Derek blew his nose, then lowered himself to the floor for push-ups before he had to stop and sneeze again. He gave up and pulled an accordion file marked Phillips Honey from the bag he'd repacked, along with three pint-size clear plastic containers of Phillips's products: nearly transparent wildwood honey, pale yellow honey butter and a mahogany-colored sourwood honey with a chunk of the waxy honeycomb imbedded in its murky depths.

Derek stared at the honey, willing a brilliant idea to leap to his blank pad of paper. After a few seconds without a revelation, he numbered lines on the pad from one to twenty. He would start with trite ideas, but sometimes when he reached the end of the list, something fresh would occur to him.

A honey of a taste.

How sweet it is.

He kept glancing toward the bathroom, wondering what she was doing in there.

Sweet, sweet surrender.

He tossed down his pen in disgust.

Picking up the container of light honey, he rolled it between his hands to warm and loosen the contents, then opened the flip-top lid and squeezed a tiny dollop onto his finger. He smelled the translucent stickiness, jotting down notes about the aroma—sweet but pungent and a little wild. He tasted the honey, sucking it from his finger, allowing it to dissolve in his mouth, wondering why, instead of images of warm biscuits, the nutty sweet flavor of the honey evoked images of the woman bathing in the next room. Probably because she was a nut, he reasoned, then massaged his aching temples.

A knock on the room door interrupted his rambling thoughts. Derek pulled his sweatshirt over his head and ran a hand through his hair, then checked the peephole to see two sets of suited shoulders. He opened the door to Dr. Pedro and a tall blond man who introduced himself as the general manager. The doctor carried a black leather bag, and the manager sported a clipboard that held down a one-inch stack of papers. Both men appeared weary, their eyes bloodshot.

"Mr. Stillman," the doctor said. "I understand you're not feeling well. I need to examine you, draw some blood and record your symptoms."

Derek invited them inside. The general manager hung back, then peered around warily as he entered. "Isn't Janine Murphy in this room?"

A strange sound emerged from the bathroom. The men stopped and Derek identified the low noise as… singing? He looked at Mr. Oliver and nodded toward the closed door. "Janine." When she hit a particularly off-key note, he felt compelled to add, "I, uh, don't really know her."

The doctor offered him a tight smile. "She informed us of your, um, unusual circumstances." While Derek pondered that conversation, the shorter man pulled the straight-back chair toward the foot of the bed. "Shall we get started?"

Derek sat in the chair and allowed the doctor to take his vital signs. "What's the status of the quarantine?"

"Still on," the man muttered, while peering into Derek's ears with a lighted instrument. He made notes on a pad of yellow forms.

"Have you identified the illness?"

"Yes," the doctor replied. "But not the source. Open your mouth and say 'ah.'"

Derek obeyed, realizing he'd have to drag answers out of the man. Meanwhile, he watched Mr. Oliver pivot and take in details of the room. The man stopped, his gaze on the pink-and-black bustier lying on top of the bedcovers where Derek had tossed it after using it as a shield. With an inward groan, Derek resisted the urge to jump up and discard the misleading evidence. Mr. Oliver's perusal continued, this time stopping to stare at the stash of honey on the nightstand. One of the manager's eyebrows arched and he slid a glance toward Derek.

Great. He thinks I'm doing kinky things with the woman braying in the bathroom.

"Your throat is irritated," the doctor announced.

Derek gagged on the tongue depressor, then pulled away and swallowed. "I could've told you that."

"When did you arrive at the hotel?"

"Yesterday, around three o'clock."

"When did you first start exhibiting symptoms?"

"Around five o'clock, I guess."

"Describe your symptoms."

Derek shrugged. "Congestion, sore throat."

"Body aches?" the doctor prompted.

He nodded. "Some."

"Vomiting?"

"No."

"Diarrhea?"

"No."

Mr. Oliver stepped forward. "Did you eat in the hotel restaurant?"

Derek nodded.

"When and what did you eat?" the manager continued.

"A burger and fries, around four o'clock."

"What did you have to drink?" Dr. Pedro cut in.

"Water and coffee."

"Decaf?"

"No, I was tired and needed a caffeine boost."

"Have you eaten anything else since you arrived?" the doctor asked.

Derek shook his head.

"Honey, perhaps?" The general manager nodded toward the nightstand with an amused expression.

He frowned. "Only a taste. And just this morning."

"What else?" Dr. Pedro asked, scribbling.

"Some over-the-counter medicine I picked up in the gift shop."

"I'll need to see it."

Derek jerked his thumb toward the bathroom where Pinky was still bellowing. "It's in there."

The doctor gestured toward the bathroom. "Is Ms. Murphy ailing?"

"Sure sounds like it, doesn't it?" Derek asked wryly, then rose. "Give me a minute… or two." He walked over to the bathroom door and rapped loudly. The singing, thank goodness, stopped, although he could still hear the hum of the Jacuzzi and the gurgle of bubbling water.

"Who's there?" she called.

He rolled his eyes. "Derek. I need to get my medication."

"Just a minute." A rustling noise sounded through the door. "You can come in."

With a backward glance to their visitors, who seemed rapt, he opened the door and leaned inside, blindly patting the vanity.

* * *

BEHIND THE closed shower curtain, Janine held her breath as he rummaged on the vanity for what seemed like an eternity. Finally she inched the curtain aside to peer out. He was leaning inside the room, stretching his arm across the counter, but unable to reach the bright orange box at the far end.

"I said you could come in," she repeated, although grateful for his attempt at discretion.

Wordlessly, he stepped into the room to grab the box, then caught her gaze in the mirror.

For a few seconds, they were frozen in place. An erotic tingle skipped across her skin, sending chills over her shoulders and knees—the only part of her not submerged in the bubble bath. Even fully dressed, the man emitted a powerful sexual energy that spoke to her. His hands, his arms, his shoulders, his face—all of him radiated a strength and masculinity that stirred her insides in the most confounding way, which might explain why her normal levelheadedness had abandoned her, and impulsiveness had taken its place.

"Found it," he said with a tight smile, holding up the box.

"Good," she said inanely, supremely aware that only a paper-thin curtain shielded her nudity from his eyes.

"Um, the doctor and the general manager of the hotel are here," he said, nodding toward the door. His grin was unexpected. "You're keeping everyone entertained."

Her cheeks warmed and she returned a sheepish smile. "I didn't realize anyone could hear me."

"They want to know if you're feeling okay."

She nodded, suddenly wanting the other men to leave and wanting their conversation to continue. "Has the quarantine been lifted?"

"Nope. Looks like we're stuck here together for the day."

An unbidden thrill zipped through her. She studied Derek's face for his reaction to the news, but his expression remained unreadable, although he began to tap the box of medication against his other hand.

"Guess we'll have to make the best of it," he added lightly.

Her breasts tightened and she curled her fingers into such a tight fist, her nails bit into her palm. Could he hear her heart beating?

Suddenly he straightened. "I'd better get back to the doctor and the manager."

"I'll be out soon," she felt compelled to murmur as he headed toward the door.

He hesitated, his hand on the doorknob. "Take your time," he said, although his voice sounded hoarse.

When the door closed behind him, Janine leaned back against the smooth surface of the tub and allowed a pressing smile to emerge. Sliding deeper into the water, she ran her hands over her body. She raised her right leg and watched the suds drip from the end of her bright pink-polished toe. Without too much difficulty she could imagine Derek facing her on the other end of the tub, naked and slippery, their legs entwined. She lazily lowered her toe to the shiny chrome faucet and outlined the square opening. Feeling uncharacteristically wanton, she cupped her breasts, reveling in the textures—silky smooth and achingly hard. Long-denied sensations seized her, and she gave in to the lull of the warm bubbling water. After a moment's hesitation, she closed her eyes and slipped a washcloth to the apex of her thighs.

Holding it from corner to corner, she drew the wet nubby cloth over the folds of her flesh, sighing as tremors delivered wonderful, quivering sensations to her extremities. This was how she wanted her man to touch her, with gentle, firm strokes, knowing when to take his time and... and... and... when to speed up. She pressed her lips together to stifle the moans of pleasure that vibrated in the back of her throat. As the waves of release diminished, she sank farther into the luxuriously warm water to enjoy the lingering hum. Oh, Derek...

* * *

DEREK TORE his gaze from the closed bathroom door and tried to concentrate on the doctor's words. The only part of Janine he'd seen was her face, surrounded by wet blond hair, but with little imagination he could picture her slender body on the other side of that shower curtain, buoyed by the water. He ground his teeth against the image, then realized the doctor had said something and was waiting for a reply.

"Excuse me?" He put a finger to his temple to feign the distraction of a headache.

Dr. Pedro smiled as he scrutinized the box of medication Derek had handed to him. "I said I'm glad Ms. Murphy is still feeling well."

"Right." With a swift mental kick, Derek reminded himself that while they were in the middle of a serious medical situation, he was obsessing over his unexplainable attraction to Steve's bride. With sheer determination, he pushed all thoughts of the woman from his mind.

Dr. Pedro directed Derek to keep taking the medicine for his symptoms. Afterward he quickly drew a blood sample from Derek's forearm, then stood to leave. "If your, um, roommate starts exhibiting symptoms, please call the front desk and I'll be notified."

Mr. Oliver extended a sheet of green paper. "These are a few guidelines concerning movement about the property during the quarantine, how your meals will be delivered, how information will be disseminated, et cetera."

Derek exhaled noisily, then accepted the sheet. "How serious is this situation?"

Dr. Pedro's mouth turned down. "We had to transport three people to the hospital this morning, but we're optimistic they'll respond to an antibiotic IV."

Derek sobered. "How long will we be confined?"

"Until the source of the bacteria is detected, the method of contagion identified, and the incubation period has passed."

"Worst-case scenario?" he asked.

The doctor shrugged. "Two weeks."

Derek's knees felt rubbery. "I have to sit down." He dropped to the side of the bed, reeling. He was going to have to resist Janine for two weeks? Plus, in two weeks the Phillips Honey account would be long gone, and possibly his company's viability. Jack, where the hell are you?

"But that's worst-case scenario," Dr. Pedro reminded him.

The men walked to the door, their heads bent in discussion. When the door closed, Derek lay back on the bed, holding his head and wondering if the situation could possibly get more bizarre.

"Derek?" Janine yelled from the bathroom. "Derek!" Her voice held a note of panic that brought him to his feet.

He raced to the door and pressed his cheek against the smooth surface. "What's wrong?"

"I'm stuck."

Derek frowned. "What do you mean, you're stuck?"

"I mean my big toe... it's stuck in the bathtub faucet. Help me!"