Red Midnight Read Online Free PDF Page A

place in his icefire gaze, but it wasn’t the recognition she was accustomed to. He seemed totally unimpressed, and actually irritated!
    “It’s all right,” he said curtly. So this, Jarod thought, is Erin McCabe up close. Beautiful, yes, that she is, but—graceful?
    The irritation suddenly left the stranger’s face. His left brow raised slightly, and one corner of a firm mouth curled as if with an inner amusement.
    “Really, I’m terribly sorry—let me pay for the cleaning—”
    “It’s all right!” he repeated, and though low, his tone was a velvety murmur that Erin suspected few ever challenged. But her own lack of coordination served to irritate her. She wouldn’t have been the recipient of such a tone if she’d been paying attention, and she would have been paying attention if it weren’t so late, if Casey hadn’t made her nervous, if she didn’t have a five o’clock call…. She opened her mouth to insist, but his tone was final.
    He turned, and the strange interlude was over. Erin gave herself a mental shake. She felt as if she had suddenly been released, and yet she had never been held. With a touch of bemusement she hurried on toward the door and the night air, forgetting the incident entirely as she saw a taxi she was determined to flag down. At this hour, if she didn’t attract the cab, they could wait hours for another one.
    “Oh, thank you!” Erin gasped as she crawled into the cab and shimmied over for Casey to join her. Breathlessly, she gave the address of their apartment building and leaned back into the seat with a sigh, closing her eyes.
    “He was gorgeous, in the weirdest way!” Casey began muttering. “I mean, he isn’t handsome—not like Christopher Reeve or Michael York or Richard Chamberlain—but there’s something about him. Those eyes … so compelling! Or maybe it was his chin—I love a strong jawline. He certainly wears his clothes well.”
    Erin slowly and warily opened her eyes. “Casey—who or what are you talking about?”
    “Him!” Casey supplied incredulously. “Come on, Erin, you’re the one who stumbled into him!”
    “Oh,” Erin muttered, frowning as she tried to recall the face. Surprisingly, she found it easy. It is his eyes, she thought. But she certainly wasn’t going to say so and add fuel to Casey’s fire. Besides which, his attitude was a little blunt. No, crude. She had certainly apologized.
    “Suave but ruggedly tough,” Casey was continuing. “A man’s man. And a lady’s man! Maybe he does look a little like Christopher Reeve. Those blue, blue eyes, and. that dark hair! Except his has some silver streaks here and there. He must be a little older. I think I’m in love.”
    “Really?” Erin queried with cryptic amusement. “What happened to Bob?”
    “Well, I love Bob!” Casey said demurely. “But good heavens, Erin, that certainly doesn’t mean I don’t have eyes anymore!”
    Casey continued to chatter. Erin closed her eyes again, praying they would soon reach home. Her head was pounding, she needed to sleep, and she was so eager for her trip that her work days already seemed merciless. Casey was a wonderful friend, but Erin was afraid she’d scream and throttle her if she listened much longer.
    Nor did the remaining two days before Erin’s trip improve any. On the morning before her flight, she found herself finishing up a commercial after being warned by her agent that failure to do so might result in a lawsuit. With barely an hour to spare, she nervously gave up all attempts to hail a cab and pulled her little Mazda out of the garage, deciding that at least she could park it at JFK. As luck would have it—she seemed to be following Murphy’s law to a T, everything possible was going wrong—she, who never inched over fifty-five, was stopped for speeding. The policeman, apparently charmed by her nervousness, magnanimously decreed he would not give her a ticket but a warning. However, as his “warning” escalated into a