Free Velvet Touch by Velvet Touch

You've
been here a whole week and there's still no sign of you and Jeremy Todd
beginning a torrid affair. Why is that? Isn't he proving interesting enough to
warrant at least a summer fling?"
    "That's none of your business!" Lacey was stung
into replying. Damned if she was going to admit to this man that she wasn't
finding the excitement she sought with Jeremy; that her relationship with the
young would-be writer was in danger of remaining merely a friendly association.
    Holt's face softened as he studied the warning signals in
Lacey's blue-green eyes. "You're right" He surprised her by agreeing
humbly. A little too humbly, perhaps, she decided cautiously. "But if it's
true that you haven't made any sort of commitment to Todd, you're free to have
dinner with me tonight, aren't you?"
    "Am I expected to leap at the opportunity of sitting
across the table from you and listening to your cautionary tales all
evening?" she managed crisply, taken aback by the unexpected invitation.
    But even as she chided him, Lacey knew she was going to
accept There was so much she wanted to know about Holt Randolph, not the least
of which was how far this restraint of his went It was pure female curiosity
driving her, she decided, and such curiosity could be a dangerous goad, but she
couldn't deny the impulse to satisfy it
    "I promise I won't lecture." Holt's smile was
sudden and beguiling. "If you'll accept the invitation, I'll give you my
word I won't say a single disapproving word about sowing wild oats."
    Lacey hesitated before tipping her head quizzically to one
side with a mocking expression.
    "Word
of honor?"
    "Word
of honor," he repeated solemnly.
    She
nodded. "All right. I have a feeling the evening's going to be hard on
you, though. How will you resist the temptation to try and set my feet back on
the straight and narrow?"
    "As you've observed, I can be a model of restraint
under certain circumstances. Just think how much fun you'll have teasing and
tormenting me all evening!"
    "You could be right" She grinned. "What time
shall I come up to the lodge?"
    Holt shook his head. "I'll pick you up. We're not
eating here tonight I feel like taking the evening off. George can handle the
brandy hour. There's a great place for salmon in the village. Six-thirty
okay?"
    "I'm learning to love salmon," Lacey told him
with genuine enthusiasm as she thought of the Northwest specialty. "I'll
be ready."
    She felt his eyes on her as she gravely excused herself and
went off to show Jeremy the inquiry letter from the engineering firm in Hawaii
which needed a documentation manager. Jeremy, at least, would be happy for her.
    But Lacey couldn't resist talking about it at dinner,
either.
    "Naturally there's nothing settled yet. The letter I
got today was only an expression of interest," she found herself telling
Holt several hours later as they sat by a window overlooking the island's quiet
harbor.
    The restaurant was one of those casual waterfront places
with a kitchen that contrived to rum out truly elegant fish. Holt and his date
had been greeted warmly by the friendly management and shown to the best table
in the house. It paid to go out with someone who had contacts in the
restaurant' business, Lacey had decided when a complimentary bottle of wine had
been sent to the table.
    "Hasn't there been anything else of interest in those
stacks of mail George gets for you every morning?" Holt demanded, watching
her dig into her appetizer of Steamed clams.
    "A couple of possibilities in California. One with an
architectural-engineering firm and one with a small college in Los Angeles.
Most of the rest of the mail has been the usual form letter thanking me for my
application and promising to consider me for any opening which occurs. But
that Hawaii job could be something really special. What an opportunity! Imagine
living in the islands for a year or two!"
    "You're already living on an island," he noted
wryly.
    "It's hardly the same thing!" she protested,
thinking of