ANYTHING YOU CAN DO...! Harlequin Duets June 2002 EXCERPT “I know you live and sleep newspapers, Lane, but do you have to read one while we’re having coffee?” “You’re drinking bottled water, Stacy,” Lane pointed out to her sister in a stage whisper. “And I can’t help it. I need it for camouflage.” “Camouflage? Why on earth do you need camouflage?” “Remember the story I told you about what happened when I got off work after my first day at the Times?” Stacy’s eyes went wide. “You mean when you had sex with Clay Crawford on a crowded beach minutes after you met him?”

Lane cringed inwardly both at Stacy’s description and the volume of her voice. A well-heeled woman at the table behind them shot her a shocked glance and shook her frosted hair in dismay while nudging her cappuccino-drinking companion. Lane smiled radiantly at both of them.

“It was almost sex on a secluded beach hours after I met him,” she whispered, struggling hard to maintain her unflustered exterior. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d refrain from announcing that juicy tidbit to everyone here.”

Looking anything but contrite, Stacy gave her a broad, knowing smile. “At least you admit it’s a juicy tidbit.” Nevertheless, she lowered her voice. “Are you going to tell me why you brought up that story now?”

“Only if you promise not to look toward the entrance of the coffee shop.”

“Clay Crawford is here?” Stacy’s blonde ponytail whipped around with her head at the declaration, and Lane had to strain to keep the newspaper in place.

“You promised not to look, Stacy.”

“I did not.” Stacy said, making Lane regret asking her to meet at the coffee shop to talk about her ambivalence over her impending job interview. “You asked me to promise, but I didn’t get around to doing it.”

“Stop looking, Stacy.” Lane tried to sound pleasant, but she could have been talking to the newspaper for all the attention Stacy paid her.

“Wowzer!”

Lane didn’t mean to lower the newspaper, but the connection between her brain and hands seemed to have gone haywire. She met with a sight as delicious-looking as the piece of double-chocolate fudge behind the cashier’s glossy glass counter.

Sex on two legs.

That’s how she’d thought of Clay Crawford ever since he slanted her his devastating smile and she’d temporarily put her brain on ice to follow him into the most sensuous experience of her life.

A single glimpse was enough to remind her why she’d succumbed to temptation. Clay was everything she didn’t want in a man and everything, unfortunately, that sent her pulse rate shooting through the roof so that she half expected plaster to rain down on her head.

The privileged son of the Miami Courier’s wealthy publisher, he was hotter than the sun that beat down on Miami Beach. But as he stood inside the doorway, he acted as cool as an iced café latté.

The top of a reporter’s notebook stuck out of the pocket of a tawny sports jacket he wore with an exquisitely cut pair of khakis, clothes probably tailor-made for him. They covered a body that was certifiably drool-worthy. She was qualified to know. She’d seen the glorious length of him all but naked, had caressed the sleek skin over his sinuous muscles, had pressed her lips against his warm flesh.

His thick, slightly wavy hair was inky black. His back was to her, but she knew it fell over his strong, wide forehead in charming disarray.

The teenage girl behind the counter eyed him from under her flapping lashes as she took his order, giggling at something he said.

“Golly!” Stacy said. “Don’t tell me that’s your Clay.”

“He’s not my Clay,” Lane said with false calmness as she got back behind the cover of newspaper.

“As far as I’m concerned he is.” Her sister kept talking, obviously no longer bothered by the black-and-white newsprint between them. “I know you, Lane. You’re the least promiscuous person I know. You don’t have sex with just anyone.”

“It was a year ago, Stacy. And I keep telling you it was almost sex. I stopped him before we got that far,” Lane whispered, but the entire truth was that he’d been the one who’d stopped. She’d wanted… Well, Lane wasn't going to let herself think about what she’d wanted.

She needed to focus on the next morning when it had been driven home to her exactly why she needed to stay far, far away from Clay Crawford.

“Sex is sex,” Stacy said, then stopped abruptly. “Oh, my. Would you look at that?”

“At what?” Lane asked, but she couldn’t see anything through the newspaper.

“At the hunk-a-thon. Another one just walked in. He’s talking to your hunk. I think they’re together.” Stacy swore. “I’m going to ask the man at the next table to move his head so I can see around it.”

“No, don’t!” Lane implored. “And please stop staring. I don’t want to draw Clay’s attention.”

“Maybe I could see better from here,” Stacy said, and Lane heard a scratching noise as her sister repositioned her chair. “Oops.”

An instant later, Lane felt a warm splash of liquid hit her lap and heard her sister’s shouted apology. Trust Stacy to knock over Lane’s cappuccino instead of her own water. She pushed her chair back and got to her feet, automatically soaking up the mud-colored brew with the first thing available, which happened to be the newspaper.

With a feeling of doom, Lane raised her eyes toward the front of the shop. They locked with Clay’s, which were a grayish shade of blue that reminded her of the ocean on the misty night she’d lost herself in his arms. He grinned and inclined his head in acknowledgment. She tried to swallow, but found that she couldn’t.

She gave him a curt nod and very calmly, very deliberately broke eye contact while ignoring her pingponging heart.

She returned her attention to Stacy as she continued to blot her skirt. “Please tell me he’s not coming this way.”

“I can’t.” Stacy grinned. “Because he is. And he’s bringing the other hunk with him.”