Blind Date Disasters & Eat Your Heart Out

happened to be all she was wearing. Her hair was in her face, her skin hot and clammy, a reminder of what she’d been dreaming about. “I’ve got to do laundry,” she told no one in particular.

“No kidding,” Dimi said as she came down the hall and looked at her sister. She wore Cami’s favorite sweater, and as she zipped it up with one hand, she pocketed Cami’s mascara with the other. “I can’t find a thing to wear in this mess.”

“Try your own place,” Cami grumbled. “Or go to Mom’s, you moocher.”

“Mom doesn’t have near the same quality in makeup. And you might think about pulling those covers back over yourself. You have a man down that hallway, a tall, dark, sexy man who would probably fall at your feet right there on the floor if he came in here and saw you lying there like that, all rosy and glowing.”

Cami looked at herself. Her skin was indeed glowing, and her nipples hard. “I’m not rosy and glowing, I’m cold,” she muttered, but she burrowed beneath the covers. “And don’t even think about stealing my last bag of chips. That’s my lunch.”

Dimi shrugged and headed toward the door. “While you were moaning in your sleep, a client called.”

Cami straightened. “Somebody wants something sewed?”

“No, a real client. A design client. Seems Mrs. Brown’s son got himself in trouble on another so-called blind date she’d set up for him, and that woman wasn’t quite as forgiving as you. He’s in jail, and she’s furious with him. She wants to make it up to you by sending her very rich, very best friend over this afternoon. This friend needs her ten thousand square foot home redecorated.”

Cami leaped to her feet. “Oh, my God. Really? You’re not just saying that because you look really awful in my sweater?”

Dimi looked at herself. “I look great in this sweater.”

“No, you look awful. Pale.” She wanted that sweater. “Fat,” she added with inspiration.

“Well, shit.” Dimi took it off and threw it at Cami, who slipped into it, wisely keeping her smile to herself.

“I really have a client?”

Dimi moved toward the door. “Looks like. Don’t date her son, and you should be fine.”

“Yeah.” But nerves worked their way to Cami’s tummy, and she sank back to the couch. Annabel immediately jumped on top of her.

“Mew.”

“Oh, Annabel.” She hugged the squirming cat. “I’m really on my way.” Burrowing beneath the bushel of covers, she allowed herself to dream. It was almost too much to imagine. She’d wanted this for so long, had worked at it harder than anything she’d ever worked at before.

And now it might happen.

It would happen.

She was fixing up her place. And she had her first real client. Then sounds coming from down the hallway registered.

Tanner.

He was an enigma to her. Tall, dark and intense. Very attuned to his work. Passionate. Passionate about his work, his father, about everything in his life.

She thought of all that passion aimed at her and quivered.

Silly. Though she’d read about it in novels, it had never really happened to her before. Why it was happening now, with a man like Tanner, her virtual polar opposite, she didn’t know.

He sang off-key, talked in bastardized Spanish to his laborers and swore like a sailor when he didn’t know she was listening. He also spoke gently to her cat, even when Annabel continued to steal anything of value and chew it up.

Her dream came back to her, vividly. There’d been no doubt who had been making love to her. He’d been highly sensual, earthy and uninhibited, and in return, he’d made her that way, too. He’d done things to her, shown her things she’d never imagined before.

It was his voice. It sent shivers down her spine and made her want to please him. This need for him was awesome, she thought, sinking deeper in her covers. And terrifying.

Thank God it had all been just a dream.

TANNER FOUND HER like that an hour later, fast asleep beneath a pile of blankets. He’d come to work exceptionally early because he’d wanted to get a few things done before he did it.

Before he kidnapped Cami and took her on a fantasy date.

It made little sense, this need to show her a good time. But he’d rationalized it to her as needing to get her out of his system, and he’d go with that.

“It’s time,” he said, lifting her in his arms.

She slept like the dead. Murmuring his name, she set her head on his chest.

“I’m having the best dreams this morning,” she told him groggily.

It was almost no longer morning, and she wasn’t dreaming, but he grinned and kept his mouth shut.

“Hey. Wait.” Suddenly wide awake, she lifted her head to pierce him with those dark, dark eyes.

From beneath the covers engulfing her, Annabel poked her head out, as well.

“What are we doing?” Cami asked him.

“Going on that date. Without your cat though. Scram, Annabel,” he said.

“Mew,” said the cat.

“No,” said the woman.

Tanner sighed. “I thought we agreed to get each other out of our systems.”

“No, you agreed.” Cami shoved against his chest, and he put her on the ground. “I’m date cursed, remember?”

“I’m willing to take the risk.”

“I’m not.” Grappling with her blanket, which she had wrapped around her like a sarong, she flashed him a good amount of leg. He saw bare thigh and caught a glimpse of yellow polka-dot satin. He had to swallow hard. “You’re not wearing very much.”

“I need to do laundry. And you’re changing the subject.”

“Just come with me. This one time.”

“Where?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“I don’t like surprises.”

“You’ll like this one.”

She stared at him for a long moment, then relented ungraciously. “Fine. If it gets you out of my dreams, let’s just do it.” She grimaced. “I meant do it as in go on this date, not do it as in…as in… Oh, you know.”

He laughed. “So you have ulterior motives for this date, as well?”

“Absolutely.”

“See, now that’s the way to approach going out. On your own terms.” He was proud of her for that. “Take what you want, Cami. Always take what you want.”

Her eyes darkened all the more, and she looked at his mouth. “I think I’m going to like this new me.”

God help him. So was he. “Let’s go.”

CAMI STOOD on the banks of the Truckee River, dividing a look between the raft Tanner had dropped at her feet and the turquoise blue waters. “You’re taking me rafting?”

“Not exactly a cruise, I know.” Tanner handed her an oar. “But just as fun.”

While he held it in place, she stepped gingerly into the gently rocking raft. “And we’re doing this so we can stop thinking about each other, right?”

Tanner sat across from her and looked into her questioning eyes. He saw a good amount of apprehension and a fear he was only just beginning to fully understand. “I think you should tell me about these dreams,” he teased, pushing off the shore with his oar and setting them in motion downstream. “Since you seem so adamant about getting rid of them.”

She blushed. “They’re no big deal.”