Worth the Trip Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  chapter 1

  chapter 2

  chapter 3

  chapter 4

  chapter 5

  chapter 6

  chapter 7

  chapter 8

  chapter 9

  chapter 10

  chapter 11

  chapter 12

  chapter 13

  chapter 14

  chapter 15

  chapter 16

  chapter 17

  chapter 18

  chapter 19

  chapter 20

  chapter 21

  chapter 22

  chapter 23

  chapter 24

  chapter 25

  chapter 26

  chapter 27

  chapter 28

  PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF

  Penny McCall

  The Bliss Factor

  “An entertaining romantic frolic . . . Fast-paced and filled with humor.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews

  “The author strikes just the right note . . . A terrific group of secondary characters round out the cast and contribute to some of the best lines and scenes in the book, many of which had me rolling with laughter. I thoroughly enjoyed The Bliss Factor and look forward to reading more books from Ms. McCall.”

  —The Romance Dish

  “The intrigue in McCall’s latest is hilarious . . . This romp gets two thumbs-up for adventure.”

  —Romantic Times

  “A fast-paced, action-packed book, incorporating humor and sensual romance with edge-of-your-seat suspense. I could not put this book down!”

  —Night Owl Reviews

  “Readers should buckle up and hold on as Rae and Con-nor race to beat the bad guys. I do have to say that The Bliss Factor did leave me blissfully happy.”

  —Manic Readers

  Packing Heat

  “A great story, nonstop action, snappy dialogue, witty humor, and chemistry between the hero and heroine that is white-hot. I’m very happy to give Packing Heat the highest possible recommendation.”

  —Romance Junkies

  “This action-filled novel will knock your socks off with intense chemistry and intrigue that holds your attention from the first page. An awesome read!”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “[A] fast-paced thriller . . . Action-packed romantic suspense.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  Ace Is Wild

  “Humor and witty repartee are sure signs that you are reading a McCall romantic adventure.”

  —Romantic Times (4 stars)

  “This story is a keeper . . . Don’t walk, but run to the nearest bookstore and pick up Ace Is Wild.”

  —Night Owl Reviews

  Tag, You’re It!

  “Razor-sharp repartee and sexy humor add fun to this high-stakes game of hide-and-seek . . . McCall is quickly making a mark on the romantic suspense landscape.”

  —Romantic Times (4 stars)

  “A keeper . . . I could not put this book down.”

  —A Romance Review

  “A humorous, exciting romantic suspense thriller starring two likeable protagonists and a horde of eccentric treasure hunters. The story line is fast-paced from the moment that Tag drops in on Alex and never slows down until he confesses everything, including his love.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  All Jacked Up

  “Here is one pint-sized librarian with plenty of moxie! Aubrey Sullivan and Jack Mitchell are like highly combustible oil and water, and their head-butting is sexy and amusing. After a debut like this, there’s little doubt that McCall has a bright future ahead.”

  —Romantic Times

  “A fast-paced bumpy ride with some surprising twists and turns that keep you on the edge of your seat. The chemistry between [Jack and Aubrey] was HOT.”

  —Romance Junkies

  “A fast-paced story full of suspense and excitement. Sure to get your pulse racing and keep your interest all the way through.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  MORE PRAISE FOR PENNY MCCALL

  “Smart, sexy, and fun, McCall knows how to deliver!”

  —Suzanne Enoch, New York Times bestselling author

  “A terrific new voice in romantic suspense: snappy dialogue, nonstop action, and sexy writing.”

  —Lori Foster, New York Times bestselling author

  “Penny’s writing is pure fun!”

  —Ruth Ryan Langan, New York Times bestselling author

  “Lots of witty dialogue and some laugh-out-loud funny scenes.”

  —Booklist

  Titles by Penny McCall

  ALL JACKED UP

  TAG, YOU’RE IT!

  ACE IS WILD

  PACKING HEAT

  THE BLISS FACTOR

  WORTH THE TRIP

  Anthologies

  DOUBLE THE PLEASURE

  (with Lori Foster, Deirdre Martin, and Jacquie D’Alessandro)

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

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  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  WORTH THE TRIP

  A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / November 2010

  Copyright © 2010 by Penny McCusker.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-44523-5

  BERKLEY® SENSATION

  Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY® SENSATION and the “B” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To Cameron, my new light and to Ian, Erin and Mike still shining bright

  chapter 1
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br />   “NO, HOLLIE, I’M NOT DATING ANYONE,” NORAH MacArthur told the perky blond host of Chicago in the Morning for at least the fifth time, with enough sarcasm to make the live audience snicker and Hollie frown at her. At least Norah thought it was a frown.

  Hollie’s eyes narrowed slightly, but the rest of her face stayed Botox smooth. “But you wrote this book on relationships . . .” she said, not even holding it up for publicity’s sake—publicity being a very loose term since Chicago in the Morning was in the ratings basement and only a handful of episodes from gasping its last televised breath. “The Gender Bridge, or How to Create Your Mate,” she read off the cover, sounding perky with an edge of snark.

  Norah appreciated the snark, but she could do without perky. She got her fill of perky from the coeds who crowded into her classroom on a daily basis, thinking she knew the secret to finding a husband. She might have told them that bouncy breasts, buns of steel, and pretty faces were enough to accomplish that task all on their own, but they knew that better than she did. Men were slaves to visual stimuli, after all.

  But Hollie required verbal interaction, which she proved by clearing her throat daintily and prompting, “You were saying?”

  “The Gender Bridge,” Norah began with what she considered admirable patience, “is intended to demystify the workings of a relationship and give the reader some tools for bridging the communication gap between the sexes. Both males and females are preprogrammed to think and behave in certain ways. So many couples break up or get divorced, when all they really need is to read behind the words and behaviors of their partners.”

  Hollie smiled, just her mouth moving. It was train-wreck freaky, but Norah tore her eyes off the expanse of frozen, pink forehead, trying to stay in the conversation this time so she didn’t get nervous. When she got nervous she tended to blurt out whatever was on her mind. Since her mind stored every useless fact she ran across, there was no telling what might come out of her mouth, but it almost always made her look like an idiot. She hated looking like an idiot . . . and she’d completely lost whatever conversational volleyball Hollie had just lobbed her way.

  Myra Newcastle, student advisor at the college where Norah taught, turned agent extraordinaire and the perpetrator of Norah’s current predicament, stood in the wings, both hands fisted in her spiky red hair and a panicked look on her face.

  Hollie wasn’t happy about the dead air, either. Hollie was probably taking Norah’s inattention as an insult. “Your book is subtitled, How to Create Your Mate. Can you tell us a little bit about your claim that any woman can turn the man of her choice into the ideal mate?”

  She shot Myra a look, since the subtitle had been her idea. “Actually, Hollie, I haven’t guaranteed anyone anything. We’re all bombarded by perfection. Television, movies, the Internet, and especially magazine covers. Men subconsciously use those images of airbrushed models as a comparator, and consciously as status symbols, so women feel pressured to reach that impossible level of perfection, and if they can’t achieve it naturally, there’s always plastic surgery, liposuction, Botox . . .” Norah tried not to, but her glance twitched up, just for a split second, to that smooth, dead forehead.

  Hollie attempted displeasure. She almost managed to pull it off. “And reading your book does what?”

  “Twenty-first century relationships are under enormous pressure even without the evolutionary difference between male and female,” Norah said evenly. Either Hollie had something against her, or she was trying to bump her ratings. Norah had no idea why Hollie would dislike her at first sight, but whatever was behind the woman’s antagonism, Norah wasn’t about to be played, not by a piker like Hollie Roget. Norah had spent half her life being manipulated by a master, and she’d learned how to fight back. “The basis for attraction is biological reproduction. There are physical characteristics that stimulate sexual arousal—youth, beauty, scent. Symmetry of features is a big one. But once you’ve gotten past the attraction phase, there are ways of securing affection.”

  Holly’s artificially plumped lips thinned as much as they were able, but Norah bulled on, making sure her explanation was peppered with words like hypothalamus and neotenic. By the time she was done, the sparsely populated studio audience was near catatonia and her agent was all but hysterical. Hollie was sharpening her claws.

  “Well, Norah,” she sniped, “it would seem to me that someone who speaks with such authority on relationships ought to have some firsthand knowledge.”

  “Psychologists counsel people every day, schizophrenics, kleptomaniacs, even murderers, without any practical experience—”

  “So you’re admitting that you don’t have any experience in relationships. Why should anyone trust what’s little more than theory?”

  The audience woke right up. They weren’t sure what was going on, but they scented tension, like the burn of ozone on the air just before a lightning strike. The only question was, who was about to become a scorch mark on live television?

  “My book is based in science. Sound science. It was written for the general reading audience, but I never expected this kind of—”

  “Success? It’s on the New York Times bestseller list. Millions of women are buying your book expecting to learn how to handle the men in their lives.”

  “It was never intended as a how-to manual for women who can’t . . .”

  “Women who can’t what? Women who can’t get a man?”

  “No—”

  “Now there is something you know about.” Hollie plowed right over her, brandishing a sheet of paper. “I happen to have your dating history here.”

  “Oh-h-h-h-h,” the audience chorused while Norah’s face heated and her mind went blank, except for a very vivid picture of her throttling Hollie before God and the city of Chicago. “You researched my personal life?”

  “It’s what any responsible journalist would do before an important interview.”

  “I doubt Barbara Walters does a sexual history on her guests.”

  “She interviews world leaders, famous actors, really important people. I’m just interviewing you.”

  Right, Norah thought, with a slight puff of laughter, and even though she knew it was just Hollie being passive-aggressive again, putting down another woman to assuage her own lack of self-esteem and establish control and power, Norah still couldn’t help but buy in, just for a moment.

  After all, she described herself as medium, so why shouldn’t everyone else? Medium height, medium size, medium reddish brown hair that was medium length and somewhere between curly and straight. Her eyes were blue, but it was a medium blue, not crystal and bright, not dark and mysterious, more like the color of well-worn jeans. A comfortable color. Heck, even her life was medium.

  She liked her life, though, and she was satisfied with the way it had been progressing. She taught psychology at the Midwest School of Psychology, founded over fifty years before and quickly becoming one of the preeminent universities dedicated to its chosen course of study. Norah had spent the last three years half in, half out of a relationship with the dean of the college, but she’d ended it not too long ago, and they’d remained friends.

  She wasn’t insanely happy but she wasn’t desperate or depressed, either. The most ambitious moment of her life had been when she agreed to write a book on psychology for the general public. Through some freak of luck, and with the help of an amazing agent, she’d actually found a publisher. Myra had predicted her book would live a short but useful life among the self-help ranks before fading quietly into oblivion.

  By some cruel joke of fate, it had become a phenomenon. Norah didn’t want to be a phenomenon. She’d rather skip the whole Chicago in the Morning experience, being interviewed by a vapid quasi-journalist who considered her cereal box heavy reading. Norah didn’t like fame, and she hated the public persona she seemed to have acquired, thousands of lonely women wanting her to give them the secret to turning some emotionally stunted man into the ideal life partner. Of course, she hadn
’t been raised by Father Knows Best. She hadn’t been raised by her father at all, which might explain why she was so fascinated with relationships. She’d always wanted to understand why her mother had stayed married to a man who constantly disappointed her. And she wanted to give other women the tools to avoid that kind of lifelong heartache, which was why she’d written the book. She hadn’t expected it to become a manifesto for finding any husband.

  She opened her mouth to tell Hollie as much, and caught her agent out of the corner of her eye, breathing into a paper bag, her eyes pleading. The producer behind the camera was having apoplexy over the dead air space. Hollie just looked smug, something she had no trouble getting across since smug didn’t rely on any Botoxed facial features. She lifted that damning sheet of paper and opened her mouth.

  Norah snatched it out of her hand, gave it a cursory glance, then handed it back. “Let me save you some time,” she said to Hollie, whose smirk only widened because, she must be thinking, she’d not only blindsided her guest, she’d made her angry enough to speak without thinking first. Poor, clueless woman. “I’ve dated, like all women, and every one of those relationships has ended, some of them badly. Success is a wonderful thing, but it’s often our failures that define us. As I said before, I didn’t set out to write a dating manual, but who better than someone who’s been in the trenches?”

  “You’re single, aren’t you? It says so right here on this paper. Why should we take advice from a woman who can’t attract a man, let alone keep one?”