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She sighed and glanced at the clock. It was late, but she was too wired to sleep.
She glanced at the clothing lying in a shameless tangle on the floor beside the bed. The intimate memories flooded her, making her shiver and then feel warm all over. She groaned.
How could Reed have left her like this?
She lay still for a moment, fantasizing about having him still with her. Making love to her again. Sleeping in a damp, tangled heap. Waking to make love again.
It should have been that way, damn it. A woman’s first experience shouldn’t be wham, bam, thank you, ma’am! Especially when she was so dizzy in love with the guy that she couldn’t even think straight.
She couldn’t lie there any longer, or she’d start crying. And she had no intention of ending this amazing evening in tears. Shoving herself off the bed, she wrapped herself in a short terry-cloth robe and started straightening the room. She would hate for the maid to see it that way—and maybe doing something would help her relax enough to get to sleep.
She tossed her discarded underthings into the bag with other items to be washed, and neatly hung the oatmeal-colored slacks-and-top set in the closet. A lock of dark hair fell into her eyes, and she blew it back. Which reminded her…
She looked around the room, then frowned when she didn’t see the silk scarf she’d tied her hair back with earlier. What had she done with it? Had she been wearing it when Reed had undressed her?
Undressed her. She smiled and half closed her eyes, remembering…
And then she shook herself back to the present and started searching for the scarf. It was her favorite, a special gift from Granny Fran. She would hate to lose it.
Fifteen minutes later, she had to concede the scarf wasn’t in her suite.
Sitting back on her heels after a futile search beneath the bed, she mentally backt
racked, trying to picture the last time she remembered wearing it. Had she lost it sightseeing?
No. She could distinctly remember her hair whipping in the wind as she’d toured the aquariums. She’d been too distracted with her worries about Reed to pay much attention then, but obviously the scarf had already been lost.
Her mind flashed a sudden, painfully clear image. Reed and the redhead, sitting so cozily on the bench, Reed’s arms around the woman’s sexy shoulders. Celia whipping around, storming away. Her hair streaming behind her as she bolted.
She must have lost the scarf then. She’d had it until that point, as far as she remembered.
Was Reed with that woman even now? Was the redhead the reason he’d hurried from Celia’s bed?
She shuddered as the unwelcome questions pushed their way to the front of her mind. Was this why she’d been concentrating so hard on the missing scarf? Had she been trying to distract herself from the ugly suspicions that had crept into her mind even as Reed had left her?
There was no reason to think he was with the other woman, of course. No reason at all.
But still Celia worried.
As Damien had pointed out, she really didn’t know Reed at all. The only thing she really knew about him was that she’d fallen deeply, desperately in love with him. And that she would be devastated if he’d been using her, for whatever reason there might be.
She took a deep, sharp breath, forcing herself to be calm. Reed wasn’t with the other woman, she assured herself. He couldn’t have made love to her so tenderly, so perfectly, only to leave her for someone else.
“Hog-tied and branded,” he’d called himself. He’d damned well better believe it.
She was snapping a pair of jeans at her waist when it occurred to her that “hog-tied and branded” had seemed an odd way for a tax accountant from Cleveland to describe himself. He’d sounded like a typical Texan when he’d drawled the words.
She impatiently pushed the thought aside. Reed had been in Texas for almost two weeks now, steeping himself in the history and flavor of the area, even spent several hours at the Alamo. Was it any wonder he’d been so heavily influenced by his surroundings?
She pulled a knit top over her head and laced her bare feet into leather sneakers. She slipped her room key into the pocket of her jeans as she left the suite by way of the long, blessedly empty hallway.
Chapter Thirteen
Even as she dressed, she hadn’t paused to ask herself why she was doing so, where she intended to go. Once outside, she headed straight for that bench beneath the scraggly palm trees. She wasn’t checking on Reed, she assured herself. She just didn’t want to lose the scarf Granny Fran had given her.
She couldn’t have said why she found herself staying in the shadows as she crossed the compound, avoiding the pools of light cast by the many overhead security lamps. She’d certainly spent a lot of time roaming these grounds in the middle of the night, she thought wryly. Which wasn’t at all the sort of adventure she’d had in mind when she’d arrived.
She was just rounding the end of her building, near the storage area, when she heard men’s voices. She stopped, knowing she was hidden from view of the speakers. It was only sensible, she told herself, to find out who was there before she blundered into their sight.
