“Why don’t you check in for us while I get the bags from the back of the truck?” he asked as he stopped the pickup in front of the motel entrance.
She opened the passenger side door. “I assume the rooms are under the firm’s name?”
“Yep. Geneva said she reserved the last two rooms in Ros—” He stopped abruptly when a family of glow-in-the-dark aliens with oval-shaped heads and big, unblinking eyes walked past the front of the truck and got into a blue minivan.
“This is festival week,” A.J. explained. She couldn’t help but laugh at the incredulous expression on his handsome face. “You’ll probably see a lot of that sort of thing.”
“I saw the banners when we drove through town.” He shook his head. “But I didn’t realize they went to extremes with the alien thing.”
Getting out of the truck, she nodded. “It’s the anniversary of the Roswell Incident. People from all over the world converge on the town the first part of July to attend seminars, share the experiences they’ve had with extraterrestrials and participate in a variety of activities, including a costume contest.”
Caleb chuckled when another alien, this one with tentacles and silver eyes, waved as he drove past in a yellow Volkswagen Beetle. “Sounds like we’re lucky Geneva found rooms for us.”
“I’m really surprised she did on such short notice.” A.J. closed the truck door and, breathing a sigh of relief that she’d soon have a little time to herself, entered the motel lobby and approached the desk clerk. “I’m with Skerritt and Crowe Financial Consultants. I believe you have a couple of rooms for us.”
The smiling teenage girl behind the counter snapped her gum, then blew a bubble as she checked her computer screen. “Actually, we have you down for one room with a couple of beds.”
“There must be a mistake,” A.J. said, shaking her head. She knew Geneva Wallace was far too capable to make that big of an error. “Could you please double-check the reservations?”
Shrugging, the girl keyed in the information again. A moment later, she looked up, shaking her head. “It shows only one room reserved for the Skerritt and Crowe folks. But like I said, it does have two beds.”
A.J.’s temples began to throb. “Do you have another room available?”
The girl smiled apologetically. “Sorry. This week’s been booked solid for months. In fact, if we hadn’t had a late cancellation, we wouldn’t have had this room for you.” Snapping her gum, she looked thoughtful. “I’d say the closest motel with rooms available would probably be down in Artesia. And that’s real iffy.”
“Is there a problem?” Caleb asked, walking up to stand beside A.J.
“Apparently there’s been a mix-up and they only have one room for us.” She suddenly knew how Dorothy must have felt when the tornado picked her up and she came over the rainbow, crashing down in the land of Oz. “With the festival going on there aren’t any rooms available for miles. It looks like we’ll have to drive on to Las Cruces tonight.”
To her astonishment, Caleb shook his head. “It’s already dark, we’re both tired and some of the roads between here and there are two-lanes. Driving in unfamiliar territory under those conditions wouldn’t be a good idea.”
Desperation began to claw at her insides. Had he lost his mind?
“We can’t stay in the same room.”
“You can have the bed and I’ll sleep on the floor.” He made it sound so logical.
“The room has two double beds,” the teenage girl spoke up helpfully.
“We’ll take it,” he said, setting their overnight cases down to reach for his wallet.
If she thought she’d felt desperate before, A.J. was a hairbreadth away from an all-out panic attack. Tugging on his arm, she led him over to the seating area of the lobby for a private discussion.
“You can’t be serious.”
“We don’t have a choice.”
“What happens when the employees at the firm find out that we spent the night in the same room?”
He shook his head. “Unless one of us tells them, they’ll never know.”
“Don’t fool yourself. What do you think is going to happen when you turn in the receipt to accounts payable?” she asked, knowing that once word got out there was only one room on the bill, the gossip and speculation would run rampant.
“I’ll put it on my credit card instead of Skerritt and Crowe’s.” He sounded so darned reasonable, she wanted to stomp.
“But—”
He reached out and put his hands on her shoulders. “I agree, it’s a major pain in the butt that we can’t have our own rooms. But we’re both adults, A.J. We can handle this.” Before she could stop him, he removed his wallet from his hip pocket and handed a credit card to the girl behind the counter.
Her heart did a backflip. Maybe he could deal with the situation, but she wasn’t so sure about herself. Spending the entire day with him, first in the close confines of his pickup truck, then in the meeting with Mr. Ortiz, had more than taken its toll.
From the moment they’d left the Skerritt and Crowe offices that morning, her senses had been assaulted by the man. The scent of his woodsy aftershave, the timbre of his deep voice and the occasional brush of his arm against hers when he opened doors for her had charged every cell in her being with a restlessness she refused to define. If she had to spend an entire night in the same room with Caleb only a few feet away, there was a very real possibility she’d be a raving lunatic by morning.
As he sat on the side of the motel bed, Caleb took off his boots, then picked up the television’s remote control and absently flipped through the channels. He had to get his mind off the woman changing clothes in the bathroom.
Glancing at the closed door, he shook his head. He’d put in a hell of a day listening to her soft voice and watching her move with a catlike grace that he found absolutely fascinating. But it was the few times they’d brushed against each other that had him feeling like he was about to jump out of his own skin. What was there about A.J. that sent his hormones racing through his blood like the steel balls in an pinball machine?
She was the consummate professional and gave every indication that she was totally immersed in her career. And he’d learned the hard way to avoid her type like a bachelor avoids a widows’ convention. So why was she all he’d been able to think about from the moment he’d laid eyes on her? What was there about her that he found so damned compelling?