Burned Deep (Burned 1)

I’d tried all morning to keep my focus on my game—mostly for my dad’s sake. But in the back of my mind were thoughts of Dane Bax and 10,000 Lux. I tried to play it off, to myself, that all I was really interested in was a call from the HR department about my application. Another internal lie, of course. I wanted to see him again. I wanted to know if that magnetic force had been a fluke. Though that sort of curiosity wasn’t exactly sane.

“Let’s move along,” my dad said. He glanced toward the fairway and the foursome who had been breathing down our necks—my fault—since we’d started earlier in the mornin

g. “They didn’t want to play through, but let’s not needlessly hold them up. Especially when there’s a storm moving in.”

He was so golf-PC. I grabbed my ball and clubs and we headed to the cart. He drove us up to the clubhouse and we found a table on the patio overlooking the eighteenth hole—the one that had just slaughtered my confidence. Making the gloomy weather quite suitable.

While the server brought our usual round of drinks without us even placing the order, since my dad was well known on just about every course in the Southwest, he finished tallying his score, three under par. His shoulder must be hurting him. He’d left the limelight years ago and was now the GM and occasional instructor for a private golf club.

Tossing aside his pencil, he asked, “How was yesterday’s big soiree?”

I gave him a knowing smile before taking a sip of iced tea. “You don’t really want to talk about that. You hate weddings.”

And I didn’t like torturing him with details of starry-eyed couples. Nor was I inclined to mention my chance meeting with Dane Bax. It already felt too obsessive that, as exhausted as I’d been the previous evening, when I’d closed my eyes it was the gorgeous man with the hypnotic green gaze that flashed in my mind.

“Everything else okay?” my dad asked.

“Sure.” I didn’t worry him with the mini–rescue scene that had played out at Grace’s bar. Though that wasn’t far from my thoughts, either. Particularly Dane’s role in the whole thing.

Changing the subject to a safer one, I chatted my dad up on news of The Open Championship while we ate lunch. Then we parted ways outside and I loaded my clubs into the SUV and drove to my townhome.

I spent the first part of the week reorganizing myself following the rushed preparations for the Delfino-Aldridge affair. I had papers strewn all over my kitchen counters and table. Meghan’s mishmash of ideas for flowers and decorations were plastered across the corkboard that hung above my desk in the spare bedroom, mostly pages from magazines that we’d torn out or images from the Web she’d given me so that I could get a full visualization and come up with more definitive suggestions for her.

I was long overdue for actual office space, but since I always met clients at their venue of choice or in their home I chose not to waste the money. Not that I could really afford the extra expense at the moment without making serious sacrifices to my budget.

I wanted an office, though. Dreamed of someday having a large, elegant one that would bedazzle my brides and their parents. A little more hustle and bustle would be nice, too, as I’d mentioned to Dane.

Not surprisingly, I checked my smartphone about a dozen times more frequently than normal, hoping for a call or an e-mail from 10,000 Lux. Though there was no sense in denying that I wished he would call. He had my number, after all.

I found myself fantasizing about him asking me to bring a résumé to his office, personally, saying mine had apparently gotten lost in cyberspace. I was actually tempted to do just that without the open invitation. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more appealing the idea became.

When I had everything in order, I wrapped up a few details for a Halloween wedding still a couple of months away and prepped for a new client I’d be meeting with the following week. I also had a bridal show in Phoenix that required paperwork and a vendor booth selection to consider.

All of that taken care of, I printed my résumé with the Delfino-Aldridge wedding added as a highlight. I willed myself to find the nerve to drive to 10,000 Lux and deliver it to Dane. But then I thought back to the last visual he’d had of me—soaked to the bone—and decided he’d likely forgotten all about me the moment the door had closed on his Venom F5.

Too bad I couldn’t dismiss him quite so easily.

Too bad I was preoccupied with him every moment I wasn’t engrossed in something that required my full brain capacity. The very reason I kept myself immersed in details, details, details.

I even stopped in at Grace’s bar over the weekend. She complained about her latest date not being able to tear his gaze from the TV when they’d stopped into a pub for a drink before dinner the night before. It’d gone downhill from there. I commiserated with her over a glass of wine.

The following Wednesday, I parked in the partially paved, partially dusty lot of Tlaquepaque, a rustic yet high-end complex of restaurants, art galleries, and boutiques in a lovely traditional Mexican village setting, complete with cobblestone walkways and vine-covered stucco walls. The full sycamores created a canopy overhead and the sound of Oak Creek running strong and steady echoed through the archways along with a trilling breeze laced with sultry humidity.

El Rincon was one of my favorite restaurants, with a patio on the bank of the creek. I’d reserved a table for the consultation with my new client and her extremely excitable mother. The future mother-in-law was also present, looking anxious and trepid, as though she really didn’t want to be there. I was used to this sort of dynamic and knew to work the group to make sure everyone felt included and involved. It also helped to order margaritas.

We debated the pros and cons of three local resorts they were contemplating for the reception that would follow the ceremony in a friend’s backyard, which had an astounding view of the Mystic Hills and the glass-veneered Chapel of the Holy Cross that sat amid red-rock buttes, looking like a giant cross wedged between the rocks. A stunning sight to see, but the sacred Native American land was also believed to emit an energetic spiritual force, its vortex drawing the New Agers and worshipers to it in droves. Not something I’d wholly subscribed to, but I still found it all very interesting.

I was in the middle of my spiel on the difference between popular resorts L’ Auberge and Los Abrigados when I saw him.

Every fiber of my being went on high alert. I faltered mid-sentence, my gaze following him across the patio as a flurry of dried leaves nipped at his heels. Dane Bax joined three others at a large, round table, one of them being the same salt-and-pepper-haired man he’d met with in Grace’s bar.

Dane wore black pants with a robin’s-egg-blue dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up his sinewy forearms, displaying an expensive-looking watch. Titanium, I guessed. He took a chair, set his laptop bag at his feet, and dug out a slim black leather portfolio that he placed before him.

When he glanced up, his eyes landed on me. A flicker of surprise crossed his face. Then his look turned intense. Smoldering. Heat flashed through me.

I had no idea how many seconds—minutes?—passed. Eventually, he released me from his captivating gaze and launched into reviewing paperwork with his associates.

I vaguely heard my name in the background, along with the distinct sound of a knife tapping gently against a water glass.