“What are all the posters for?” Trent asked.

Walt explained the second conference taking place and Monica’s eyes lit up. “Really? Romance novels?”

“Don’t tell me you read that garbage,” Walt said with a roll of his eyes.

“Don’t judge. There’s enough blood and guts in the world. Books help me escape.”

Trent shared a glance. “Everyone has a vice. Besides, it helps her midflight.”

How a pilot and a woman phobic of flying ever managed to get together . . . Walt would never know.

“Reading is not a vice,” Monica corrected.

Trent pulled her close in the booth and kissed her cheek.

Walt’s gaze moved to the end of the bar and he realized Laker Girl had moved on. Only an empty glass sat at the bar.

Chapter Two

Walt moved past the hordes of women standing in line in front of the conference room door and couldn’t help feeling a dozen eyes rolling over him. He knew, without a doubt, that the women in this line weren’t there waiting for his riveting conversation about improvising medical tools in the field of emergency medicine. Between the canvas bags hoisted over their shoulders sporting half-naked bodies and the names and accolades of an author’s achievements printed on T-shirts, Walt knew he was walking into the wrong room.

Scanning his itinerary, he confirmed the time and room before he pushed inside the double doors.

Chairs were set up in rows of ten separated by a middle aisle, giving the capacity of over a hundred places for an audience to sit. In the front of the room was a single table where two women, one blonde with massive curly locks rolling down her back, and another with long, straight dark chocolate brown hair, stood with their backs to him. The women were speaking with a heavy-set man wearing a three-piece suit. Management.

The man turned as Walt approached and clutched his notebook to his chest. “You must be Dr. Eddy.”

He set his briefcase on the table. “I am.”

“I’m Robert Cruise.” The man extended his hand.

At that moment, the brunette turned on her pointed heel.

Walt found himself drawing in her appearance in slow and measured degrees. The sexy arch of her foot should have looked ridiculous in four-inch heels. Did she know how bad it was for a woman to wear spikes on the ends of her feet? That thought was brief, and then hell yes, there is a god and he loves a woman in strappy shoes swamped his brain. From there, tanned, smooth skin slid up shapely calves until they met a skirt with a slit that gave sight to the perfect amount of thigh.

Her maroon skirt hugged her hips, cinched at her waist, and fanned up to a white silk button-up shirt that wasn’t quite secure right above her creamy breasts.

Walt blinked, twice, and tried to remember he was at a conference and not in a nightclub.

“There seems to be a conflict.”

Walt snapped his eyes to the lips speaking. Her voice was dark honey that should have been reserved for a professional phone operator for the truly desperate, or the sick. Yet nothing . . . absolutely nothing looked ill about the woman standing in front of him.

Her dark eyes laughed, even when her crimson lips hardly held a grin.

“It appears we’ve double booked a few rooms this week,” the hotel representative explained. “With two conferences going on at the same time . . . things like this happen.”

“My session begins in ten minutes,” Walt told Mr. Cruise.

“We’re searching for another room to accommodate you.”

For one brief moment, Walt thought Robert might be speaking to the woman and her blonde companion, who seemed to have taken a few steps back.

“To accommodate me?” He pointed a finger to his chest.

“Yes, Dr. Eddy. We’re very sorry. This entire wing was only supposed to house the guests of the novel convention. All the medical professionals were supposed to be based on the third floor.” Robert pulled the back of his hand across his forehead and shuffled his feet. “There was a computer glitch . . .”

“I understand,” Walt told him. No need for the man to have an MI over the ordeal. Considering Robert’s girth and sudden onset of perspiration, a heart attack might already be in progress.

The brunette’s half grin moved on to a full laugh.

Walt tilted his head and brought her into focus. She stepped around the presenters’ table and kept a giggle close to her lips. As she attempted to control her mirth, Walt recognized her.

Laker Girl. Remove the hard-on-inducing clothing, the heavier makeup, and all the polish that went with it, and there she was. The woman who’d sat at the bar last night sucking back whiskey and listening to other patrons’ conversations moved in front of him . . . competed with him for the very space they stood.

“You find this amusing, Miss . . . ?”

Her eyes met his and she leaned over the table, planting both hands firmly in place. “Laurens. And yeah, I do.”

The blonde rapped her knuckles on her friend’s arm. “Dakota!”

Dakota . . . snazzy, a national landmark more than a name . . . a beautiful woman full of life. Yeah, the name suited her.

“What?”

“Maybe we should move to another room.” The blonde was in a much more agreeable state than Miss Laurens.

“I’m guessing there are more women out there here to listen to me than professionals here to listen to the good doctor.”

Walt envisioned the women standing in line, knew without a doubt Dakota was right.

In any other situation, Walt would have simply smiled and left the room, but something about Dakota Laurens sparked something inside him and made him want to get under her skin. Something made him want her to stop laughing and to take notice . . . of him.