Free A Holiday Fling by Mary Jo Putney Page A

that."
    Her imagination caught fire. Glittering costumes, formal dancing, passionate creativity. "Elizabethan. They did spectacle so well."
    "Excellent." Simon grinned. "We also want to broadcast the video sample you showed me next week, as well as the film version next year."
    Greg, who had been listening with interest, exclaimed, "You’re kidding! It’s just a seat-of-the-pants video."
    "The seat of some very professional pants," Simon replied. "We have a late-night BBC2 slot that isn’t well filled, so I convinced the programming head that your Revels would be a refreshing change."
    In other words, even more money. Jenny felt like turning cartwheels. "Wonderful! Let me introduce you to my mother. She’s president of the community center board and in charge of all negotiations. I warn you, though, she drives a hard bargain." She signaled her mother, made the introductions, and then withdrew to circulate through the cast party.
    Maybe the barn wouldn’t be condemned to stockbroker hell after all.

 
     
     
    Chapter 9

     
    Knowing they might achieve their goal made the cast party riotous, but even so, Greg and Jenny left early. He had plans for the rest of the night.
    At the cottage, he climbed from the car, then halted in amazement when he saw that the sky was starting to pulse with sheets and bands of colored light. "Good God, it’s the northern lights, isn’t it? I’ve never seen them before."
    "Even though England is so far north, I’ve only seen them a time or two myself." Jenny came to his side. "How splendid. A perfect end for a magical night."
    Greg opened his jacket and drew her inside, wrapping his arms around her waist so that she was snuggled cozily against his chest as they watched shimmering greenish rays that rippled like scarlet-edged draperies. "When I was a kid, I used to have dreams like this, where I saw moving pictures on the night sky. I think I was crossing drive-in movies with what I’d read about the aurora."
    "So you saw movies in your dreams even when you were a child."
    "I’m afraid so. I never dreamed of being a star. Just of filming them." In silence they watched one of nature’s greatest shows. He supposed the aurora borealis was a good metaphor for their affair—lovely and evanescent, gone almost before it was identified.
    The night was getting colder, but Greg wasn’t. As the veils of light faded, he kissed the edge of her right ear. She turned toward him and lifted her face. The warmth where their bodies touched was a deeply sensual counterpoint to the winter night.
    "You’re just a little bit of a thing," he murmured affectionately. Catching her around the waist, he lifted her onto the rear end of the Jaguar, her long skirt falling over the dark finish in soft folds. He leaned forward to kiss her throat. "Perched here, you look like an advertisement for the good life. Buy a Jaguar and beautiful women will flock to you." Warm breath exhaled softly against her cleavage. "Except that this is the twenty-first century, and the beautiful woman bought her own luxury car."
    She laughed, wondering why intimacy brought out the Tarzan/Jane instinct even in strong-minded females like herself. She adored knowing that he was bigger and stronger than she, capable of fighting off saber-toothed tigers while being tender with her. She drew him tightly against her. "You make a wonderfully sexy dragon, Greg. Shall we play Beauty and the Beast?"
    Her words were sparks on tinder. Intoxicated by the performance and the exhilaration of success, he took advantage of the night’s privacy to make swift, urgent love to her. Soft fabric, warm, intimate flesh, rapturous response. No wonder women used to wear long skirts in the past, because the sensual possibilities were entrancing.
    She responded with feverish intensity, as hungry as he. With Greg, she felt young again, willing to open up and take risks and lose her heart.
    "Jenny," he whispered, "Jenny, love..." Words failed, only touch and scent and