Page 6 of Sinful Escape

I hooked the microphone in place and strolled along the center aisle, counting the passengers.

Shit. Only twenty-seven were onboard; three were missing.

Checking my watch, I huffed. They were late. Someone was always late.

I stepped down the front steps and went to the side of the bus where the carriage doors were up. Ducking my head under the panel, I peered into the darkened space, searching for Roman. For a man more than six feet tall, he managed to maneuver the luggage inside the cramped space like a muscle-bound contortionist. “How are you doing with that luggage, Roman?”

“Nearly there.” He turned to me, squatting, and ran his hand through his thick, dark hair. It tumbled right back into place like he was posing for a photoshoot. “Are you ready?”

“We’re just waiting for a couple more victims.”

He laughed at my joke, and I couldn’t decide if it was genuine or not. Meeting new groups of people every month was a study in humanity. I’d like to think I’d become pretty good at reading people. Project Roman was off to an interesting start. I couldn’t quite read him. He looked more like he should be a model strutting along a runway than driving a tour bus.

But the way he was shoving those cases around, he wasn’t scared of manual labor. Which was a good thing—he’d be doing that exercise almost every day.

Despite heaving yet another massive case into position, he looked like he was ready to run a marathon. When he bent over in front of me, the bulge and flex of his muscles beneath his chinos caught my attention like an overflowing chocolate fountain. If I wasn’t careful, I’d drool.

He turned, and I snapped my eyes away.

Shit, Daisy. Stop that! He’s your co-worker.

I cleared my throat. “So, I hope your partner is prepared for you to be away a lot.”

His mouth gaped, and his eyes bulged at me like I’d proposed or something. “If that’s your way of asking whether or not I’m attached, then the answer is no.”

“What?” I gasped. “I . . . I wasn’t asking that at all. I was referring to my previous driver, Clancy. His wife didn’t like him being away all the time.”

“Ahh, si, si, Bruce mentioned that.”

“Right! That’s why I asked.”

“Well, I have four older sisters and Mamma is constantly trying to hook me up with my next girlfriend, so this will be a vacation in comparison.” He released a hearty laugh that I imagined would have the female backpackers giggling like schoolgirls.

At the sound of high-pitched cackles, I turned to three women exiting the glass doors of the tour company office. Assuming they were my final guests, I waved, catching their attention. “Over here.”

The stragglers aimed toward me lugging giant suitcases behind them.

“Hi, ladies. Leave your bags here and hop onboard so we can get moving.”

We were already fifteen minutes behind our scheduled nine o’clock departure, which was frustrating yet typical, especially when we had more women than men in the group.

Female tourists were slow. They congregated way too long in bathrooms. They lugged cases double their body weight. And they were easily distracted by cute fluffy animals, or worse, an Italian man in a three-piece suit. When the trio of women just about fell over their tongues at the sight of Roman, I added him to my list of female distractions.

I wasn’t like most women. For twenty-nine years I’ve been trying to define my identity. This job certainly helped.

And now I was about to lose it.

Black shadows darted across my mind like a flock of buzzards.

My heart clamped tight. I couldn’t breathe.

What am I going to do?

Chapter Two

Roman shut the luggage doors, snapping me from the black hole my brain was stuck in.

“Here we go.” When he looked into my eyes and smiled, it occurred to me that he hadn’t once glimpsed at my boobs. Either he was good at sneaking glances or . . . or I had no idea what to make of that observation. Maybe his preference was for long legs or a sexy ass. If that was the case, I was safe.

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