"Thanks. Word'll probably get out sooner or later, but it doesn't have to happen today."

As he finished up his steak, Mandi said, "I'll see you later, Ed. Give me a call around seven or drop by the room."

"Seven. You got it." Cade stood up and picked up the bag and the bill, then said, "Later, all. I'll tip the waiter when he makes my change," and headed for the register.

After paying the bill, Cade took the stairs to save time and reached Beth's room in moments. He let himself in, put the card on the desk, and went to the bed. Beth seemed to be in deep sleep, but as he turned away, she spoke.

"Hi, there."

"Hi, yourself, lady. I brought you some food."

Smiling drowsily up at him, she said, "Such service. Maybe I should keep you, Cade. What do you think about that?"

"I think you'd be disappointed, ma'am. I turn into a plain ol'

inconsiderate, garden variety man on weekdays and I get downright mean on holidays. Hope you like steak for lunch."

Sitting up, Beth said, "Steak is fine, Ed. I'll bet you don't change at all, really. I'll bet you're like this all the time."

He shrugged. "Maybe so. Doesn't matter. You have to fly back to D.C. tonight and I'll be in Florida by tomorrow. Let's just play some more and make the best of our time together."

Tossing the sheet aside, Beth stood up. Cade eyed her nakedness as she walked over to him and embraced him for a moment, then kissed him.

"You're a nice man," she said quietly. "You're good in bed, too. I could do a lot worse, I think, if you were up for it."

Kissing her, Cade said, "Thanks, milady, but you're still too young and beautiful to settle for less than you deserve. Try me again in a few years if you can manage to stay single."

With a sardonic chuckle, she said, "Well, h.e.l.l, I've managed this long, haven't I?" and opened the restaurant bag to begin unpacking it on the desk.

As she sat down to eat, she eyed Cade and asked, "Am I going to be the only naked person in this room?"

Pretending vast surprise, Cade said, "Oh! Yes'm, I'll get right to that.

Very sorry, ma'am. I was so wrapped up in eyeballing your gorgeous bod that I just completely forgot. You know how it is, don't you?"

Laughing, Beth said, "Yeah, sure. I know how it is," and dug into her food.

A few bites later she asked, "Hey, Cade. If I'm so gorgeous, how come all the other guys don't act like you?"

"Simple ignorance, ma'am. They don't know how."

"So how did you become so knowledgeable?"

"I had a good teacher early in life."

"Who was she?"

"One of my teachers in high school."

Glancing up incredulously, Beth asked, "Really?"

"Yup. I was sixteen. She was twenty-six and kind of pushy, just like you. I learned a lot at that lady's knees."

Beth nearly choked with laughter. "At her knees...? Uh, yeah, well, I suppose... That's where you'd have been..."

Patting her back, Cade said, "Yup. Most of the time, too, as I prefer to recall. Just try to breathe for now, Beth. Talk later."

Beth managed to eat most of her steak and Cade finished what she couldn't, then they spent the rest of the afternoon like newlyweds on a honeymoon.

At six-forty-five her ride to the airport pulled up at the front doors and -- to Cade's surprise -- Beth hugged him and kissed him long and hard.

Holding her close, Cade whispered, "Somebody might see."

Snickering, she said, "Screw 'em. There were cameras in the halls, anyway.

Everybody who doesn't know now will know by tomorrow. I'll deal with it."

"Would saying 'thank you' sound trite, ma'am?"

"Not if I say it first. Thanks, Cade."

Then she made a show of glancing at her watch, making an apologetic face and an excuse about long check-in times these days, and hurried into the waiting car.

They waved good-bye as the car rolled down the ramp, then it turned left at the street and she was gone. Cade sighed once, then turned to go back upstairs.

A tall, thirtyish, brunette woman in a sharp, shades-of-green skirt and jacket business ensemble asked, "Your wife?"

Stopping to meet her gaze, Cade said, "No. A friend." After a short pause, he added, "A very nice lady."

The woman had ice-gray eyes like fine gemstones that were nearly on a level with Cade's. Her face at first seemed rather plain, or perhaps she simply wore no makeup, but her strong character shone through her features like a beacon. A very impressive woman.

Her full lips parted and Cade realized she was speaking again as she said, "Are you all right?"

Shaking off her spell, Cade said, "Uhm. Yes, ma'am. Sorry. You have...

unique eyes. They're a color I don't see often enough. Very lovely." With a grin, he added, "I guess they kind of shorted out my little brain for a few seconds. Excuse me, but I have to be somewhere shortly."

Taking his cell phone out of his pocket as he left her, he dialed Mandi's number, even though he'd felt her watching since Beth and he had left her room with her luggage.

Mandi answered, "Hi, Ed. Andrea's here. I've filled her in. Come on up to the room."

"On my way, milady."

A toddler on a leash managed to get loose and came running Cade's direction as his mother tried to call him back. When the kid neared him, Cade's arm flashed out and snagged the kid's collar. He constrained the thrashing little beast at arm's length as he continued talking to Mandi.

"Gimme an extra few minutes, ma'am. I have to return something to someone down here."

Laughing, Mandi said, "So I see. Good collar, Officer Ed."

The woman arrived to collect her child and Cade got underway again. On the fourth floor landing, he thought he heard voices and looked up and down the stairwell. n.o.body either way.

He turned a bit and listened a little harder. Some guy was trying to arrange a rental car. The other voice he heard was apparently that of a rental agent on a phone, and the voices seemed to be coming from the other side of the fourth floor hallway door.

No, not the door; to one side of it. Cade stepped that direction and clearly heard the agent tell the guy that the kind of car he wanted would have to be brought in from the airport.

The agent's voice was much fainter than the other one, so he probably wasn't on a speaker phone. That seemed to mean that Cade was listening to both sides of a conversation over a regular phone or a cell phone.

"Look, I'm in a hurry," said the guy. "I'll head down to the lobby and get a cab. You just tell me who I have to see what all I have to do on the way, okay?"

Cade instantly opened the landing door and stepped into the hallway. The door to the room on his left opened and a guy with a suitcase in one hand and a cell phone to his ear hurried out of the room and down the hall.

'd.a.m.n,' thought Cade, suddenly far too aware of a myriad of sounds in the hall. 'What other changes could he expect?'

Mandi's idea that he might need supervision made more sense as he tried vainly to filter out some of the useless noise around him. Training was what he'd need.

As he approached his room, he stopped walking as he heard Mandi say, "Ed has been a bit difficult, Andrea. More than a bit difficult, in fact. I hate to say it, but converting him may have been a mistake."

A familiar woman's voice responded, "Oh, he didn't strike me as being all that terrible. You heard what he said about my eyes, didn't you? And the way he said it? And he was so polite when he excused himself and moved on. He called me 'ma'am'. Jerks don't act like that, Mandi."

"Uh, huh. He'll call you 'milady', too, but don't let it go to your head.

You know that horse you call a 'hardmouth'? The one who sometimes decides to go where he d.a.m.ned well pleases? You may come to think of Cade as a hardmouth, too."

With a snicker, Andrea said, "Well, if I do, I'll be sure to let you know.

But if he's no worse than what I've seen so far, he'll max out just fine, 'cause I'll bang his brains out all week."

Laughing, Mandi said, "Yeah, sure. More likely he'll tickle yours loose first." She took a breath and intoned solemnly, "Be warned," then burst out laughing again.

Laughing with her, Andrea said, "If he's that good, more power to him.

What's keeping him?"

'Uh-oh,' thought Cade, getting underway again just as he felt Mandi's gaze locate him.

A few steps later he tapped on the door as he used his keycard and let himself into his room.

Chapter Twenty-three

From long habit, Cade stood somewhat to one side of the doorway as he pushed it open with his left hand, then pretended to take a moment to put his keycard back in his jacket pocket rather than walk straight into the room.

The door swung gently open all the way to the wall before he entered the room, blocking the door's return swing with his right boot as he glanced around and continued his entry with almost no pause.

Mandi sat on the bed, Andrea sat in the desk chair. A bottle of champagne nestled in an ice bucket on the desk and Mandi's bags had been moved nearer the door because two blue suitcases had taken their place by the desk. There were no other people in the room and both women were staring at him.

"Well?" asked Mandi, "Are you coming in or not?"

Andrea chuckled as Cade replied, "Have you ever seen me just waltz right into a room, ma'am?"

Snickering, Mandi asked, "Not even your own room?"

Cade walked over to Andrea as he said, "I'm old enough to have old habits because I earned them the hard way. Your own room is the first place to expect an ambush. Especially on birthdays in military service. 'Surprise!', and all that."

Mandi snickered again, but her glance went to Andrea as if to confirm something.

As Andrea stood up to take his hand, he met her gaze for a long moment, and said, "And you are definitely a surprise. Hi. I'm Ed, and I hope to G.o.ddess you're Andrea, ma'am."

Her smile continued, but she asked, "G.o.ddess?"

"I'm a pagan. We mostly prefer G.o.ddesses if we bother with deities at all."

Andrea glanced at Mandi, who nodded and grinned as she said, "That probably wasn't a line, Andrea. He has a pagan website where he sells stoneware and pewter jewelry."

Returning her gaze to Cade, Andrea said, "I'll have to see it sometime. Yes.

I'm Andrea. Are you at all disappointed?"

Shaking his head, Cade said, "Not even a little. Are you?"

Grinning, Andrea said, "Mandi and I have been talking about you. I've decided that youth may not be everything. Could I have my hand back now?"

Pretending to notice that he was still holding her hand, Cade released it with a calculated 'Oh, I kinda forgot' shrug.

Laughing, Mandi said, "I think you've got his attention, Andrea. Let's have some champagne. Cade?"

Reaching to open the champagne, Cade said, "I'm on it."

The wire on the bottleneck broke when he twisted. Cade reached for his beltknife, flicked it open, wedged it under the wire, and twisted. The wire broke and he pried it off, then slapped his knife shut and slipped it back into its belt pouch.

In the mirror above the desk he noticed both Mandi and Andrea staring at him. Oh, well. Had Mandi somehow missed the fact that he'd been wearing a belt knife all this time?

He decided that was unlikely and finished opening the champagne, then poured some into each of the three plastic cups Andrea silently lined up on the desk.

In truth, he detested champagne, but he'd only ever met one woman who felt the same way about it.

Handing gla.s.ses to the ladies, he picked up his own and said, "Mandi, you're the honcho here, so you make the toast."

Andrea snickered and Mandi laughed, "Gee, thanks. Okay. Let's keep it simple. Here's to all good things. May there always be many and may they never end."

After clunking their cups together and sipping, Mandi sat back down on the bed and said, "I talked to John this afternoon; he now knows you've been converted." Noddingly indicating Andrea, she said, "Andrea's your instructor.

That's all he knows and that's all he needs to know."

She sipped again and said, "We have time for dinner before I leave for Vegas. Any suggestions about where to eat?"