Just What She Wants by Barbara Elsborg Page A

watched him limping. Maybe the reason for his crankiness. Should she take her bag back? Would he be insulted? It was his leg not his hand with the problem.
     
    “Have you twisted your ankle?” she asked.
    “No.”
    “Pulled a muscle?”
    “No.”
    “Do you only have one leg?” How the hell did that come out of my mouth ?
    He glanced at her. “No.”
    “No legs?”
    He opened his mouth and then closed it again, but she saw his lips twitch. Hopefully in a smile not a grimace. She wanted to see what lay behind his dark glasses. More than wanted. A desperate desire. Why hide his eyes?
    He walked up to two women standing next to a cart piled with mountains of matching luggage. Indie checked out their sparkling jewelry, pretty dresses, perfect hair and heels, then glanced down at her creased low-slung jeans, white T-shirt, and flip-flops. Well, her T-shirt had started off white, but red fibers from the plane blanket she’d shivered under most of the flight had messed it up. How could there be a draft on a plane? She’d been tempted to ask if someone hadn’t closed the door properly, but they might not have realized she was joking.
    “Hi, I’m—” Indie broke off her introduction when the two women turned their backs to follow their luggage to the door. Not a hardship to walk behind Kyle. She pinned her gaze on his lovely backside. She could look at men’s backsides all day as long as she didn’t get caught. A perfect butt flexed a few feet in front of her. But when she lifted her gaze to his arm and saw the long scar running down the back, she felt bad she’d pressed him about his leg. She knew what it was like to be pushed to answer questions when you wanted to forget something had ever happened. Zip mouth now .
    As glass doors opened, Orlando greeted her with a blast of hot, humid air, and she smiled. Overhead lay a cloudless sky and she instantly cheered up. Exactly what she needed. A week in the sun at an exclusive resort. A week with no Christmas. A week doing just what she wanted and no one would know. She’d be like the little dog in the poem by Rupert Brooke except she didn’t want to die when the sun went down.
    Inside the parking garage, Kyle and the skycap stopped next to a people carrier sporting the Heden logo. While they loaded the luggage in the rear, she climbed in and sat behind the two blondes.
    “Hi, I’m Indie,” she said, assuming they hadn’t noticed her earlier.
    “I’m Dina, this is Trudy. You from England?”
    “Yes, London.”
    “Love that accent,” Trudy said. “Been here before?”
    “To the States but not Orlando.”
    She almost hadn’t come today. But whereas Lisa had an excuse that would ensure she’d get her money back, Indie hadn’t. She thought it unlikely “policy holder wimped out” would appear anywhere in the small print of her insurance policy, though she’d wanted to check. But Lisa had sounded so upset on the phone at the idea of her not going, she’d given in.
    Kyle climbed in the driver’s seat and turned to them. “Should take us about an hour. Water and soda in the cooler.”
    She stared out the window, yawned, and closed her eyes as the pair in front chattered to one another. She hoped the adult-only resort was nice. It had been too expensive to book for more than a week. She and Lisa had planned to spend the second week of their vacation at a cheapo motel while they visited the theme parks. The idea of doing it on her own didn’t fill her with joy.
     
    Indie awoke with a jolt when someone shook her arm. She looked into Kyle’s sunglasses inches away from her face and her stomach lurched.
    “We’re here,” he said.
    “Would…would you take off your glasses?” she whispered.
    The moment seemed to stretch, and then he licked his upper lip and pulled back. She thought he’d walk away but he took them off.
    The breath caught in her throat. His eyes were a liquid green, like English fields after the rain, a green that belonged to the first