A Seductive Proposal Read Free

bathed in cream. He’d like to see her bathing in cream.
    He cleared his throat and fixed his gaze elsewhere.
    He hadn’t expected this on a Jeep tour in Sedona at the hind end of June. He hadn’t even wanted to take a tour. Trekking up to the Rim had been Brad’s idea.
    Now he thought Brad might just be some kind of genius.
    But he needed his thoughts elsewhere. He had a critical reason for obtaining the winery. In a little over a month, he had prospective clients out of the Napa Valley wine country coming into town. He’d been working the contact for the past eighteen months and had secured a commitment from three couples to visit Arizona at his invitation. Their combined investment portfolios amounted to just over two hundred million, even after the ups and downs on Wall-Street in recent years. Red Canyon Vineyards would provide the best environment to bring the deal home. He knew it in his gut the way he knew summer storms brought lightning.
    Tomorrow he’d secure a meeting with the owner of Jumpin’ Jeep Tours and make an offer way beyond her expectations.
    His executive assistant, Sheila, had already had a proposal rejected about a month ago, which had told him the direction he needed to go. He wasn’t concerned about the woman’s initial refusal. A first ‘no’ meant nothing.
    Sheila had since collected some general data on the owner. He had the file in his trunk but hadn’t looked at it yet. He would tonight then he’d put the finishing touches on his offer.
    Although, as he glanced at Carly, he thought there was a good chance he wouldn’t get to that file until much later tonight.
    Who would have thought?
    Something so extraordinary in Sedona.
    And she drove a Jeep.
    He fixed his eyes on the road.
    “You take this trip every day?” he asked.
    “Five days a week, four times a day.”
    “Do your teeth ever rattle?”
    “Five days a week, four times a day.”
    He laughed.
    “Hold on,” she called out.
    He wanted to hold on and then some.
    * * * * * * * * *
    Carly shifted and urged her Jeep up the winding, gutted road. She told the tour that dynamite had forged the route in the early nineteen hundreds. Those were the days when ordinary citizens could just light up stick after stick, blast away at a hillside, and make a road. Who could do that today?
    Schnebly Hill pointed the way to Flagstaff, which in turn had been a lumber town that purchased the fresh fruits and vegetables grown in Sedona. Flagstaff now housed a university and supported the trucking industry along Interstate 40.
    The Japanese tourists chattered in quick bursts. Quint turned around and addressed them in their language. He spoke for some time. Carly saw in her rear-view mirror that the foreign tourists now smiled and nodded.
    “Did you just translate for me?” she asked.
    He said, “Sure,” just like that.
    Her mind fired up in several directions all at once. What kind of man knew Japanese? Where had he learned it? When?
    She spoke French un petit peu, but he had translated words like dynamite and produce . She didn’t even know plate and rug in French. That he knew Japanese did something to her.
    She shifted and coaxed the vehicle over one of the many boulders that jutted from the road. She shifted again and hurried through another low patch. She knew every rut, bump and boulder of the road by heart. As she worked her gears, she talked about the ancient junipers and Ponderosa pines. Quint offered a few words to the group in back.
    “How do you know what ‘juniper’ is in Japanese?” she asked.
    “I lived in Tokyo for a year.”
    Carly felt a little dizzy…again. Quint had been places, had adventures, had the drive to strike out and accomplish the extraordinary. Needful sensations moved through her, powering her desire, beating at her resistance. She admired him. She envied him. Not that she felt discontent with her life in Sedona, au contraire, but he had moved out into the world.
    She pulled over to give the tourists a