Get a Clue

_{Chapter 2}

Cooper Scott stood butt-ass-naked, freezing cold and dripping wet in the bathroom doorway, holding the vibrator his mystery guest had just dropped. Bad enough that he'd quit his job, shocking everyone he knew. Bad enough that he wasn't getting laid, now that he'd sent a pretty woman screaming like a banshee into the night.

A woman carrying a vibrator.

He could still hear her, pounding down the stairs in those ridiculous, towering high-heeled boots that were all for show and had absolutely no practicality.

Who would wear such things to the Sierras at the onset of winter, in the middle of an insane storm like the one they were facing?

He had no idea, but he supposed, as she was in his house, he needed to find out. Well, not his house, exactly, but his rented vacation house.

And a stunning one at that.

His brother James had sent him here with strict orders to "get his shit together," not mentioning that the place was at least ten thousand square feet of pure luxury. Log-cabin style, it had gorgeous mahogany flooring, pine trim, soft, buttery interior walls filled with rustic prints and old-time equipment such as hare-bone snowshoes and antique wooden skis.

But if the decorating was glorious, old western style, the actual appliances were state of the art, with everything placed and designed for ultimate comfort. He had a week to live in style here, a week in which he'd intended to do nothing but ski his brains out and maybe find a pretty ski bunny to keep him warm at night.

And, as James had ordered, "get his shit together."

As long as he avoided thinking, he was good. All he wanted to do was recover from the job that had nearly sent him to the loony bin, and figure out what the hell to do with the rest of his life.

No sweat.

He'd gotten here from San Francisco via his truck, which was probably buried in the driveway by now. The drive had been treacherous at the least, and given how the snow was still coming down, he doubted he could get off the mountain if he'd wanted to. But the staff that was supposed to greet him had been nonexistent, the house cold as an iceberg. He'd found the heating control and cranked it, but as yet, nothing had happened.

He'd taken a hot shower anyway, intending to start a sizzling fire in all the fireplaces he could find, but instead had been interrupted by a woman watching him soap up. Hoping she was one of the promised staff members, maybe someone who could cook-God, he was starving-he grabbed a thick, plush white towel from its neat pile on the granite counter.

There had been all sorts of toiletries laid out for him on the countertop, including a basket filled with condoms in varying sizes and colors, which had amused him earlier.

How long had it been since he'd needed a condom?

Too damn long, he knew that much.

Towel around his hips, he stepped into the bedroom just as the lights flickered. Perfect.

The electricity was going to go. Then he could be cold, wet, starving… and in the dark.

Another power surge, making the lights dim with an odd hum, and from somewhere below came the sound of a thud and low cry. Dropping the towel, Cooper grabbed his jeans, jamming first one leg and then the other in, hopping as he made his way out into the hallway, still shirtless and barefoot.

Up here at an altitude of sixty-five-hundred feet, daylight didn't slowly fade, but vanished in the blink of an eye, and today had been no exception. Full darkness had fallen. Any starlight was muted by the heavy snowfall, so the three overhead skylights and the wide range of huge windows in the rooms below were useless.

The lights were flickering nonstop now, offering only a sporadic glow from the wall sconces lined up in the empty hallway. "Hello?"

No answer. Of course not. What had seemed like a beautiful, welcoming house in the daytime suddenly didn't seem so welcoming. Still, he wasn't alone, he knew that much. He might be close to a nervous breakdown, but he wasn't seeing things.

He reached for the banister, just as the lights stopped flickering and went out completely.

"Don't panic, don't panic," Breanne whispered to herself. She'd flown down the stairs and across the hardwood floor at the base of the curved staircase, thankful for the lighting, stingy as it was, because she wasn't happy in the dark. That went back to the days of too many brothers, and too many times they'd happily tortured her. Once she'd even been locked in a closet and left there by accident.

But she was a grown-up now. "You're tough," she said out loud. "You're impenetrable." She wondered where Scary But Gorgeous Naked Guy was.

Coming after her.

At the thought, she tripped over her own two feet and went sprawling face-first across the shiny floor.

That's when the lights went out.

Then, from up above somewhere, she heard footsteps.

For years her brother Danny had been telling her she needed an exercise regime, some sort of weight training to give some tone to her body, and she'd always shuddered at the thought because she and exercise mixed like oil and water.

Now she wished she'd paid attention. Kickboxing, taebo, karate… Hell, anything aggressive would have been nice.

In the complete dark, she pushed herself up off the floor, breathing like a lunatic, probably looking like a deer caught in the headlights. Only there were no headlights, nothing but an inky blackness that had her stomach falling to her toes.

No groom.

No electricity.

Stuck in a house with a naked guy.

Screwed.

She was a self-proclaimed city girl, she reminded himself. Feisty and independent, not easily cowed or intimidated. Give her a scary downtown alley with a drunk leaning against the wall, or an obnoxious construction worker blocking her path any day. Anything but the big, open, scary, dark space where the unknown waited just out of sight. Bears, spiders, coyotes…

Oh, and a gorgeous naked guy with a low, sexy voice in her shower.

Maybe people found gorgeous naked men in their showers all the time out here. Maybe it was a way to greet the newcomers. Maybe… maybe she was delusional because her day had gone so badly.

She slipped her hand in her pocket and gripped the comforting weight of her cell phone. Normally she'd have mace there as well, but who'd have thought she'd be needing any on her faux honeymoon?

Pulling out the phone, the digital display lit up, providing a tiny, welcome bit of light. No bars, though, which meant no reception. She actually shook the thing, as if that would help. She'd heard about this, of course, and she'd seen the "Can you hear me now?" commercials, but having grown up in a city where people walked around with their cell phones permanently attached to their ears, where there were no mysterious pockets of low reception, she'd never had this problem.

Hell of a day to experience it now.

She should never have gotten out of bed, should never have donned that lacy white wedding dress she'd loved, never gone to the church to marry a man simply because it had seemed like a fun, exciting thing to do, and because her mother had suggested this was her last chance to get it right.

And she sure as hell wished she would stop falling for "I love you" when what a guy really meant was "Do me, and also my laundry, while you're at it."

She shivered again. Or maybe that was still. Her clothes, still wet and extremely cold against her skin, had stuck to her, probably steaming because despite her bone-deep chill, she'd also begun to sweat in sheer terror.

And then she heard it, a sound from behind her in the dark.

Just a slight scrape on the floor, which could have been a rat, a mere creak in the wood, or…

A footstep.

Oh, God.

Ballsy or not, this experience was quickly growing beyond her. She stumbled forward and fell into the front door. Grasping the handle, she wrenched it open.

Icy wind and snow greeted her, blasting her in the face, sliding down her collar. To add insult to injury, the horizon was pure black-no city lights, no stars, nothing but a velvety darkness. Still, propelled by fear, she took a step forward.

And sank up to her thigh.

Once when she'd been little, her grandma had given her one of those snow globes of San Francisco. Shake it up and it snowed down over the city.

In fact, it did snow in the city. Once in a blue moon. During those times the wind would slip in from the shore, chopping and dicing at any exposed skin. But in those rare events she simply stayed indoors. There was lots to do inside: hang out with friends, seduce a boyfriend, drink something warm…

But today was a whole new kind of cold. And this fluffy, powdered-sugar kind of snow, thick and currently up to her crotch… she'd never seen anything like it. Too bad she'd dressed for a chilly day looking at the snow from the inside.

Torn between sinking into the snow, never to be heard from again, or facing the dark, terrifying house, Breanne stood there in rare indecision for exactly one second, during which time another gust of wind hit her, sending her backwards a step, onto her butt in the doorway. More wet cold seeped through her denim.

Quickly scrambling to her feet, she fought the wind and slammed the door shut, then whirled around and flattened herself to it, blinking furiously, trying to adapt to the dark.

But there was no adapting, especially when out of that inky blackness came a low, almost rough masculine voice. "Hello?"

Oh, God. That didn't sound like Gorgeous Naked Guy. Biting her lip to keep quiet, hands out in front of her, she tiptoed toward the reception desk where she'd first seen the note about the honeymoon suite. There'd been a phone there… Her fingers closed over it.

Teeth chattering in earnest now, she lifted the receiver to her ear, ready to call… she had no idea. It didn't matter; she'd take the Abominable Snowman, for God's sake.

No dial tone.

Okay, this wasn't happening. This couldn't really be happening. She'd stepped into some alternate universe-

She heard a click, and then a small flare of light appeared, and a face, floating in the air.

Breanne clapped her hands over her mouth to hold in her startled scream and pressed back against the wall as if she could vanish into it.

Once for Halloween she'd gone into a haunted house with a group of friends, smug and secure in the fact that having grown up with brothers, she couldn't be frightened. And indeed, her friends had all screamed their lungs out while she calmly walked through, her mind rationally dismissing each scare. Oh, that was just a CD of scary sounds. And there… just a skeleton-fake, of course. And that dead body swinging overhead? With all the blood? Just ketchup.

But this was real. Her hollow stomach and slipping grip on her sanity told her that. And while she really wanted to remain cool, calm, and collected, her heart threatened to burst right out of her chest, even as she registered the truth.

The floating face wasn't really a floating face at all, but a man holding a flashlight up beneath his chin.

Not Gorgeous Naked Guy.

No, this man was the same height but stockier, and in his twenties. He wore a hoodie sweatshirt over a baseball cap low on his forehead so she could only see a little of his face, but what she could see was overexaggerated by the beam of the flashlight, giving him a dark, almost Frankenstein-like glow that had her breath backing up in her throat.

"It's okay," Frankenstein said to her. "The phones go out all the time."

Oh, okay then. She'd just forget about the panic barreling through her at the speed of light. Her plan was to at least look calm. Get what info she could. "What about the electricity?" she managed, as if asking the time that tea would be served.

After that, she hadn't a clue.

"Yeah, that's new," he admitted, and shrugged as if to say he had no idea.

"Are you… the manager?" she asked, hoping the answer was "Yes" and not "No, I'm your murderer."

"No. The manager is… temporarily indisposed."

He didn't look so much like Frankenstein at all, she saw when he lowered the flashlight and his hood slipped back, revealing straight black hair to his shoulders, dark skin suggesting a Cuban descent, black eyes, and a long scar down one side of his jaw. "So who are you?" she asked.

But he'd already turned his back on her and was shining his light into the vast cavern that had been the great room before the lights had gone out. "I'll start a fire," he said, moving in that direction. "You should change your wet clothes."

She'd happily strip out of the sweater and jeans that had turned to sheets of ice on her body, but the two sexy nighties in her carry-on didn't have enough material combined to warm a gnat. "Are you going to tell me who you are?"

There was a snap, then a quick flare of light as he held the match to some kindling inside the huge stone fireplace. The resulting glow highlighted him from head to toe. He was built like a linebacker, wearing baggy jeans at least three sizes too big and low enough to reveal equally baggy boxer shorts. His sweatshirt strained across his shoulders as he glanced back at her, those dark, dark eyes of his landing on hers. "I'm Dante. The butler." He shoved up his sleeves, revealing heavy tattooing on both forearms, making him look more like a rapper than a butler, but what did she know about being either?

"Where were you when I first arrived?" she asked, trying to control her shivering but having no luck. Instead she continued to tremble, mixing up her innards like a shake.

"Yeah, sorry about that," Dante said.

"There's someone in my suite."

He gave a palms-up gesture. "A mixup with reservations. Don't worry."

Oh, okay. She wouldn't worry, then. Not. Unsatisfied with the vague answers, she stayed where she was in the doorway, still freezing, wondering what the hell to do.

"You going to get any closer to the heat?" her thug butler asked.

Heat. Her entire body craved it more than her next breath, but there was still the matter of the Naked Guy and his status, and much as she didn't want to be alone in this house of horrors, she really, really didn't like the idea of being here with these guys, either.

"Suit yourself." With a shrug, Dante faced the burgeoning fire, holding his hands out as if he was cold, too.

On the other hand, Breanne thought, if these guys were going to hurt her, it was probably best that she be warm so she could fight back, right? But before she could move, from above came the unmistakable sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. Breanne tipped her head back, but in the dark couldn't see. "Um, Dante?"

"Relax," he said from his perch by the fire.

Sure. She'd just relax. After she died of nerves. From the stairs, a pair of bare feet emerged, then denim-covered legs, long and tough with strength.

Her heart jolted unexpectedly into her throat. She knew those legs; she'd seen them with water and soap raining down the length of them. They'd been tanned and well defined, as if he used his body for more than sitting behind a desk balancing other people's checkbooks for a living as she did.

And he didn't wear underwear.

The unbidden thought caused an inane hot flash. All those male… parts, nestled against the denim.

Naked.

She began to sweat some more but didn't bother to say a word to Dante, because if he told her to relax again, she was going to come unglued.

Then a bare chest materialized, still gleaming from the shower, but no less jaw-dropping for it. She already knew the guy had a nice body, muscular without being beefy, lean without being scrawny.

His belly was ridged, carved into a six-pack she envied, since sit-ups were something she occasionally thought about but never actually did. He had a very light smattering of hair between his pecs that narrowed into a line down his belly that vanished into the loose waistband of his jeans, like an arrow toward the hidden prize-

He held up his hand, and in it was…

Oh, God.

The neon-pink vibrator, glowing in the dark now.

It was following her, stalking her, all the way down the yellow brick road to hell.

Naked Guy-not quite naked now-came the rest of the way into view, and unerringly turned his head in her direction, and though it was dark in the shadows where she stood, she knew his eyes landed right on her.

He had an odd awareness to him, as if he could see in the dark. As if he knew exactly what was going on around him at all times, a skill she'd never mastered in the best of times, to which today absolutely did not belong.

He also had the look of a man thinking things-things that, even with fear coursing through her, made her face heat and other parts tingle.

He smiled grimly, a lopsided smile that did nothing to dull the fact that he was amazing to look at-and terrifying, all at the same time.

With a pathetic little whimper, Breanne pressed back closer to the wall, swallowing hard, trying to decide if that had been an anticipatory "all the better to eat you with" smile…

Or simply a trick of the flickering firelight.