Chapter One
Holly Weeks kept her dreams tucked inside her wallet.
The list of thirty-two items had been penned in black ink on white paper, folded into a small rectangle, and slipped into a special spot between her driver's license and, appropriately enough, her Discover card. Across its front, bold red ink and loopy handwriting fashioned the heading: My Life List.
Currently her list nestled inside the little red purse slung over her shoulder. The purse was new, bought to coordinate with the red polka-dot nothing of a dress purchased specifically for today's special occasion. It was short, sassy, and unlike anything else in her wardrobe. Holly loved it.
A seventh-grade math teacher in the Fort Worth ISD, she ordinarily wore tailored slacks and modest blouses to work, jeans and tee shirts at home. She chose comfort over style and kept dry-clean-only purchases to a minimum. The little red dress was an exception. It made her feel exceptional.
Today, Holly's agenda required something extraordinary. Today, she intended to accomplish goal twenty-one: I will do something deliciously wicked.
"If I can just get Justin to cooperate," she murmured as she sashayed up Main Street in downtown Fort Worth toward the Greystone Hotel. Holly had met Dr. Justin Skipworth last year while visiting one of her students at Children's Medical Center of Dallas. Since then he'd completed his residency and joined a pediatrics practice in Fort Worth. They'd been lovers for six months.
Justin was smart, handsome, generous, caring -- just about everything a woman could want in a man. His only less-than-desirable quality was a tendency toward stuffiness on occasion. Since stuffiness wouldn't get twenty-one checked off her list, Holly had dressed today for battle by adding take-me pumps, Saturday night makeup, and make-him-suffer perfume to the package.
She looked good. A shade trashy, but good. Justin was about to get the stuffy knocked right out of him. This was war and Holly was a determined woman.
She had developed both her attitude and her list three days before her thirteenth birthday, the very evening she and her dad returned to their empty house following her mom's funeral. As time passed, she focused her determination on refining the list -- adding, deleting, and checking off each dream that came true. Her attitude remained unchanged.
Holly revamped her list entirely at the age of nineteen. When a collision on the basketball court during a collegiate intramural game resulted in a badly broken leg and extended bed stay, she developed a TV talk-show habit. Under the influence of the daytime divas, she discarded all but three items on her original list, replacing them with goals more adult in both scope and content.
Four years ago on her twenty-first birthday, Holly celebrated by declaring her list complete and in its final form. She would make no more changes or deletions. Only check-offs.
She bought a special twenty-three-karat gold plate pen to use for check-offs, and she had set her thirty-second birthday as her deadline to get the job done.
Considering her circumstances, she thought it best not to drag it out any longer than that.
Today, she intended to use her check-off pen for the sixth time. She chose which goal to pursue at random and now, bright red checks added a splash of color up and down her page. Not enough color, however. She craved more red. Checking off twenty-one today would help. Then, depending on how it went, she might decide she'd met the requirements for number eighteen, too.
Holly grinned at the thought as she jaywalked across the street in front of the hotel. Pausing to snag a ball cap that the strong March breeze had snatched from a teenager's head and sent skittering her way, she caught it midair, earning a thanks from the young man and an admiring once-over from the parking valets. Feeling pretty, and unusually flirtatious, Holly winked at the teenager as she handed him his hat, then blew a kiss to the cute valet who risked his job by letting loose a wolf whistle as she approached the hotel's revolving door. The attention put an extra bounce in her already springy step.
I will do something deliciously wicked. Just the thought of it gave her the shivers.
She'd deliberated long and hard about just what constituted wickedness for this purpose. Anything illegal was definitely out. She certainly didn't want to act in a way that might cause harm or heartache of any kind to anyone. Holly wanted to do something juicy enough that she would remember it in the years to come. She wanted to do something naughty, not evil.
Eventually, Holly had concluded that her definition of deliciously wicked meant she need not step over to the wild side entirely. She simply had to dip her toes a bit.
She'd painted her toenails Louisiana Hot Sauce red in honor of the occasion.
Stuffy or not, Justin would love it. He was a man, after all. He'd love her nail color and the lingerie that matched and even the little henna tattoo she'd had painted on the inside of her thigh. And he'd love it soon. This very afternoon. Because in order to satisfy the requirements of item number twenty-one on her list, Holly intended to make love with Dr. Justin Skipworth in a totally inappropriate setting.
The very thought of it made her tingle. Wasn't it handy she'd managed to think of something that would satisfy both her list requirements and her hormones?
Justin would positively love it.
As she breezed into the hotel, Holly checked her watch. Three-fifteen. Exactly on time. Pretty darn good, considering she'd stayed to the very end of the softball game, where the Texas Ladies, of whom five players were Holly's seventh-grade pre-algebra students, faced off against the Be-Attitudes, a team containing four of Holly's religious ed students from church.
"Good afternoon, ma'am," a bellhop said when she sailed past him.
"Yes it is, isn't it?" Holly's gaze swept the lobby, searching, then settling on the man in jeans and a blue chambray shirt who straddled the grand piano's bench and idly one-handed a melody. She let out a little lovelorn sigh.
At thirty, Justin Skipworth was classically handsome, with sun-bleached hair, a straight blade of a nose, and light brown eyes framed in unfair-to-women lashes. Tanned, tall, and whipcord lean, he was the kind of man who looked comfortable and confident everywhere he went.
So why, she wondered, when he spied her, rose, and walked toward her with a lanky, long-legged stride, are his eyes shining with a nervous light?
"Hey, beautiful. That is some dress." He bent and gave her a quick kiss. "Mmm...you smell good, too. Who won the game?"
"The Be-Attitudes. Those church girls of mine are mean competitors. What did you do this morning?"
"Slept late. Dreamed about you."
Holly melted. "Oh, Justin. That's so sweet."
"No, not at all." His mouth twisted in a rueful grin. "My dream was a nightmare. I dreamed you jumped out of a plane."
At that, she sighed and made a show of rolling her eyes. Skydiving was number two on her list. While she kept the existence of her Life List private, she had mentioned her interest in a few of the activities, skydiving being one of them. Justin thought she was crazy.
At least she wasn't stuffy.
"Don't start, Skipworth."
"Not today. It'll hold." He gestured toward the lobby sign, which read antique fishing lure show, bonham ballroom, and added, "No sense spoiling a lovely afternoon filled with Musky Lipped Wigglers."
Holly chuckled and rose on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek, then give his earlobe a quick nibble and lowered her voice to a sexy purr. "It's the Bobbin Bass Bait I can't wait to get my hands on."
Justin winced. "I hope you didn't share that particular bit of news with your dad."
She put a theatric hand to her chest. "Tell
