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Sliding one hand free of the roll, she reached for the knife and passed it to him. Finn sliced off the length he needed, then turned back and bent over the engine compartment. Mags leaned to watch over his shoulder as he peeled the plastic strip from the tape a few inches at a time, wrapped the revealed silicone tape around the damaged hose and repeated the process, meticulously overlapping each rotation around the tube.
To distract herself from the display of muscle that shifted beneath his skin with every flick of his wrists, she said, “You always bring an emergency roll of tape on your vacations?”
“If I’m going hiking, I do.” He gave her a dark-eyed glance over his shoulder. “Which was my intention, you might recall.”
It was difficult to forget, since guilt over the way she’d dragged him into her mess still made her squirm. But she’d said she was sorry umpteen times since they’d gotten away from Joaquin, so she bit back the fresh apology rising her throat. She had to keep reminding herself that she hadn’t deliberately drawn him in to her mess, that he’d actually inserted himself. Working to let go of her tendency to make it all her fault, she merely said, “Yes.” But she couldn’t resist giving his shoulder a commiserating little there-there pat.
It was unyielding but hot under the damp cloth beneath her fingers and she whipped her hand away. Because, really, it was one thing that she’d kissed the man when she believed she’d never see him again. But now that they were practically living in each other’s pocket, she’d be wise to keep her hands to herself. She cleared her throat and forced lightness into her voice when she said truthfully, if with a slightly sarcastic tone, “You’re a handy guy.”
“I am that, darlin’. There!” He straightened.
She was still hovering over him and his shoulder blades made contact with her boobs, flattening them against the wall of her chest. She took a hasty step back.
And almost fell on her butt when the molded rubber heel of her Tevas caught in a divot in the optimistically termed highway.
Long, work-roughened fingers closed around her upper arm to halt her backward momentum. “Easy there.” He pulled her upright and gave her a comprehensive once-over before he turned her loose.
“Thank you. But I could’ve—”
“Done it your own self,” he said sardonically before she could complete her sentence. “Yeah, yeah. Been there, heard that.”
She huffed out a put-upon sigh and rubbed a hand over her lips with enough vigor to shift them about as though they were made of Silly Putty. The feel of them beneath her fingers reminded her of what she could do to features with her tool kit of tricks. That in turn reminded her of what she was good at—and what she wasn’t. She dropped her hand to her side.
“Yeah,” she sighed. “I do like doing things myself.” A girl was much less likely to be disappointed if she didn’t allow herself to become dependent on others. “But, much as I hate to admit it, I would’ve fallen on my keister without your help. So thanks again.”
He looked down at her, his dark eyebrows drawing together. “Dammit, I wish you’d stop doing that.”
“What? What did I do wrong this time?”
“Acted reasonable.”
She felt her mouth drop open and snapped it shut. “And that’s a bad thing?”
“It is when it messes with my conviction that you’re a thoughtless, spoiled brat.”
“Excuse me?” Her hands hit her hips. “I’ll cop to being thoughtless at times. But I’m here to tell you I’ve never been spoiled in my life.”
“Uh-huh.” He gave her a quick up and down perusal. “You’re an only child, right?”
“Yes.” She narrowed her eyes. “But how did you know that?”
“It’s a no-brainer, darlin’—you were way too awestruck by the number of my siblings.” He made a rude sound. “Only someone who’s never dealt with a brother or sister of her own would have that reaction.”
“Maybe I was just astounded that your folks would continue having kids after they rolled you off the production line. No, wait.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You must be the baby of the family. Otherwise, they surely wouldn’t have risked having more like you.”
To her surprise he laughed. “Good one. I’ll have to remember that for Kate.” He met her gaze. “The actual baby of the family. But getting back to you, you had your parents’ undivided attention and you want me to believe you weren’t spoiled rotten?”
It was her turn to snort. “This may come as a shock to you, Kavanagh, but I don’t particularly care what you believe. But as for Nancy and Brian’s undivided attention—my ass, I had that. They shipped me off to boarding school in the States when I was thirteen so they could concentrate on other people’s kids.”
“Whoa.” He stared at her, and for a second she felt a hint of vindication. She knew playing the unwanted-kid card was not cool and, yes, probably smacked of juvenile gamesmanship. She usually put a much better face on things so people wouldn’t realize how much it had destroyed her to learn her parents’ love had come with an expiration date. But he was just so darn smug that it had slipped out.
Apparently she’d misread what she’d taken for sympathy, however. He merely raised those expressive brows and gave her a cool look from his dark, heavily lashed eyes. “And you’re complaining about that? I wish I’d been sent to boarding school. I had to share a bedroom with three brothers.”
“Oh, poor you.” She had to swallow a hot ball of rage at his lack of appreciation for something she’d have given everything she had to possess. “It must have been hell having to put up with companionship and always having someone on your side.”
“Hey, you live in a twelve-by-twelve-foot room with a bunch of big slobs, then we’ll talk.” He thrust a forefinger at her ever-present tote. “You got a bottle of water in that thing?”
She pulled one out and barely resisted throwing it at his head. She did shove it a little harder than necessary into his stomach and took her satisfaction where she could when a quiet “Oof!” burst from his throat.
That contentment died an abrupt death when he lifted his shirt, studied the rock-hard abs he’d exposed and said, “Sure hope that doesn’t bruise my delicate skin.”
Damn him.
It didn’t help that he was Mr. Self-Possessed while she felt like a cartoon character about to have steam explode from her ears with a strident end-of-shift whistle from the sheer overload of bottled-up frustration.
And, fine, lust as well.
But she would cut her tongue out before she’d give him the satisfaction of knowing he was getting to her. Watching him turn away to pour the water into the radiator, she acknowledged that it was too late to unsee the hard ridges of his abdomen and the silky stripe of dark hair that bisected it. She could, however, shove it into a far, dark corner of her mind. And act like the adult she’d been since striking out on her own at eighteen.
But, good Lord. If she behaved this Maggie-middle-school over spying a little man skin, she’d clearly gone far too long without getting any.
She was going to have to do something about that when she got back home.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_dea23f50-2624-58d3-bd01-f3d6bee85eef)
WHAT THE HELL are you doing, Kavanagh?
It was an excellent question, but Finn shrugged it aside in favor of transporting his backpack and an old beat-up carry-on suitcase Mags had retrieved from the trunk of the car into the tiny room they’d rented for the night in an El Tigre version of a B and B.
He gave the place a cursory glance. Boardinghouse was probably a more accurate description and he gazed over his shoulder, curious to see Mags’s reaction to their accommodations.
She didn’t even seem to notice. She looked worn-out and discouraged as she trudged behind him, that big ol’ purse of hers, which she’d been hauling around with such panache, all but dragging on the floor.
Something about the discouragement her posture conveyed made his gut clench.
Not that her expression lasted once she noticed him looking at her. Because the instant she did, her slightly cleft chin jutted skyward.
Masking the involuntary smile wanting to spread across his face, he dropped his pack and the suitcase to one side of the doorway just inside the cramped accommodations. Then he took one look at the narrow bed and any inclination to smile was wiped away. “I’ll take the floor.”
Given a choice, he’d have taken a different room. But of the three townships they’d come across during the hours spent driving south toward the Amazon, this was the only one that had offered a place with rooms to let. And this room had been the sole vacancy.
“Don’t be silly,” Mags said. “You paid for the room—you oughta sleep in the bed.”
“I’m a hiker, darlin’.” He tapped his backpack with the side of his foot. “I have everything I need right here.”
Looking around, he gave the room a closer inspection. The bedspread was threadbare but immaculate, and not so much as a fleck of dust marred the small scarred dresser next to the bed or the carved crucifix hanging above it. The only other amenity to grace the tiny room, a sturdy wooden chair, held two neatly folded towels and washcloths. All four were thin in texture but blindingly white beneath the light from the dresser lamp.
He turned back to Mags. Her I-don’t-need-your-stinking-help attitude, which seemed to blink on and off like a light in a defective socket, was nowhere to be found at the moment. During a stop a couple of hours back—the last one just before the sun went down with such startling speed—she’d washed off the dark makeup she’d applied in the gondola. And sometime between then and now her fair skin had lost its natural glow, her cheeks their wash of pink.
Squatting in front of his pack, he pulled his ultralight sleep pad out of the deep pouch on the pack’s side and unfastened the straps that attached the sleeping bag to the rucksack’s bottom. He carried both to a spot as far removed from the bed as he could manage and unrolled them. In less than a minute he had his nest prepared and, giving it a pat, he glanced up at Magdalene.
Only to see her sitting on the side of the bed, staring vacantly down at the long, pale fingers she’d threaded together in her lap.
“Hey,” he said softly, rising to his feet. He reached to stroke soothing fingertips to her shoulder, making her jerk and her gaze lock with his. He stroked his thumb over the spot he’d touched. “Didn’t the lady at the desk say something about a bathing room?”
She nodded. “Down the hall.”
“Why don’t you go grab a shower and I’ll see about getting us some food.”
For a moment she simply looked at him, then visibly gathered herself. “You speak Spanish?”
“Sure.” When she merely looked at him, he admitted, “A smidge, anyhow. I understand more than I speak—provided it’s not too rapid-fire.”
Her lips tipped up in a slight smile. “Unfortunately, it requires more than a smidgen in most of these out-of-the-way villages. The people who live in them tend not to travel far from home, so they don’t have the same familiarity working with tourists that their city counterparts do. Add to that how late it is and—” She rose to her feet. “You take the first shower and I’ll go talk to Senora Guerrero about where we can buy some food. I didn’t realize until you brought it up, but I’m starving.”
He watched as she walked from the room and wondered where this weird urge to comfort her, or cheer her up had come from. Hell, he’d grown up with sisters who could manipulate like nobody’s business to get what they wanted. Consequently, his more usual first response when presented with a female who looked at him with big, sad eyes would be to question if he was being played. Not to feel an urge to fix what ailed her.
So why the hell had he wanted to fix things for Magdalene?
He shrugged and let it go. She wasn’t his sister and she’d spent most of their time together bending over backward trying to get him to step away from her problems, not take care of them for her. Besides, offering her the shower had led to her assigning herself a task. And if nothing else, that seemed to give her back some of her energy.
So his job here was done.
He rummaged through his pack for a bar of soap and cautiously sniffed his T-shirt’s underarms to see if he dared put it on again after his shower. Fortunately, his deodorant had held up, but the shirt was limp and still slightly damp. Santa Rosa had been warmly springlike, cradled as it was in the foothills of the Andes. But with every foot of elevation lost and each mile farther south that they’d driven, it had become hotter—until sweat had pretty much been the order of the day. And looking at his watch, Finn saw that although it had just turned ten, even with the small room’s louvered window open, the night was hot and still.
But not quiet. There was a cantina on the corner and the sounds of guitars and merriment were a faint rhythm in the air. At the window insects clicked and whirred as they threw themselves against the thin screen. And somewhere among the cacophony of crickets out in the darkness, frogs croaked and an unidentified creature occasionally barked in a tone eerily seal-like.
He dug through his pack again to retrieve the Rat City Rollergirls T-shirt he’d changed out of in the gondola, then picked a towel up off the chair and headed down the hall. He washed his clammy shirt in the sink, wrung it out as best he could and carefully spread it over the basin. Then he stepped into the shower.
The space was narrow, the water pressure weak, and regardless of how cautious he tried to be, he couldn’t avoid bumping his shoulders or occasionally knocking an elbow against the enclosure walls. The water, however, was wonderfully cool. And when he stepped out several moments later, he felt refreshed.
But he still didn’t have a clue what he was doing here. He and Mags had stopped in a small town below Santa Rosa so she could call her neighbor from a landline. Her cell phone was low-tech and didn’t support international calls. Not that his smartphone was appreciably better. Coverage was spotty everywhere except in cities and more well-populated towns.
On the bright side the woman had been home, but it had taken her a while to find the correct letter from Magdalene’s mother and get back to them with the general location where Nancy Deluca had believed the grow farm to be.
At no time during their wait and the several additional hours they’d driven had there been any sign of Joaquin. So Finn could probably let her take it from here and get back to his vacation.
Except he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that the minute he turned his back, Joaquin or someone like him would track her down. And the thought of leaving Magdalene on her own to twist in the wind chafed against every behavior he’d been raised to adhere to when it came to women. So he was sticking until she found the grow farm. And if his decision didn’t exactly thrill him?
It was still accompanied by a strange feeling of relief.
* * *
THE MERE SCENT of the rice and beans and the two fat shellfish-filled empanadas on the tray Mags carried cheered her up. She’d expected to be directed to the cantina for such a late meal, but Senora Guerrero had happily insisted on heating up leftovers for her and Finn.
The thought of the generously poured glasses of wine the older lady had included didn’t hurt her vastly improved outlook. The woman was a love. During their chat as the senora assembled the meal, Mags had admitted how exhausted, yet wired, she felt. Mrs. G. had promptly splashed some rich red wine into a glass for her, then poured the rest into the additional two goblets to add to the serving tray.
Mags acknowledged she was running on fumes. She’d rolled out of her cushy pillow-top bed in LA at zero-dark-thirty this morning and felt as if she’d been awake for a straight two days rather than the nineteen or so hours it had actually been. And the minute, the very instant, she finished eating, she planned to grab that shower, then tumble into bed.
What she didn’t intend to do was turn herself inside out any longer stressing over Finn’s involvement in her mama’s drama. He seemed okay with it—at least for the most part. She’d simply have to find a way to be so as well.
Arriving back at their shared room, she balanced the tray on one hip and freed a hand to turn the doorknob. After taking the platter in both hands once more, she used her left hip to push the door all the way open, then backed into the room, turning as the tray cleared the opening. She spotted Finn over by the chair, spreading a wet T-shirt atop his damp towel over the chair’s back. “You ready to eat?”
“Oh, hell, yeah.” He inhaled deeply through his nose. “Man, that smells good.” Finger-combing his hair back, he came over to her and took the tray. “Oh, God, you even scored us some wine. You are a goddess.”
“I know, right?” She shot him a grin. “About the wine, that is, not the goddess part. Give me hot food and a nice glass of red and for this moment, at least, life is good.”
He looked down at the platter in his hands. “Where do you want this?”
She liberated a plate, balanced her cutlery atop it and sank to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of the bed. She patted the tile next to her hip. “Right here is fine.”
“Works for me.” He handed her a glass of wine and sat down next to her with his own food and drink. For the next several minutes the only sound in the room was the clink of silverware against the brightly patterned crockery and the slight tap of their glasses when they set them back on the tile floor between sips of wine.
After scraping up the last of his empanada, Finn set his fork on his plate and the plate on the tray and rested his head back against the side of the bed. “I’m beat,” he said. “I’ll take the dishes downstairs while you take your shower, then I’ve gotta hit the sack. I’ve been up since three a.m.”
“You just came in today, too?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Yes. And I only had a half hour’s more sleep than you.” She climbed to her feet and started gathering her towel and a few toiletries together. “I’ll be back in five minutes.”
It wasn’t much longer than that when she returned to the room, but Finn was already sound asleep, an occasional snore erupting between deep, regular breaths.
She couldn’t prevent herself from staring at him as she towel-dried her hair. He hadn’t bothered unzipping his sleeping bag and he sprawled atop it in a posture that combined side and stomach sleeping. She knew it was hot in the room, but she found it hard to ignore the fact that he wore nothing but a pair of black-waistbanded, gray boxer briefs.
One muscular up-drawn leg stuck out to the side and his head was cradled atop biceps that looked much too hard to be comfortable. His back was an art-class study in wide shoulders, long, supple spine and the hard, rounded curve of a butt that gave way to yard-long, leanly muscled legs. And all that bare skin gleamed with good health beneath the lamplight he’d left on for her.
Pulling off the shorts she’d donned to traverse the hallway, she folded them atop her suitcase, then applied lotion to her arms and legs. Dressed in only her undies and a tank top, she quickly braided her damp hair, turned off the lamp and, tossing back the spread, slid between the sheets.
She fell asleep the instant her head hit the pillow.
* * *
IT FELT LIKE five minutes later when someone shook her shoulder. Trying to shrug the irritant aside, she rolled onto her side.
But the touch returned with even more insistence, and she cracked an eye open. “Mmmph?”
“Wake up, senorita,” Senora G. said in an adamant whisper. “You have to leave.”
Mags pushed up onto one elbow and blinked up at the older woman, trying to make out her features in the dark room. “Leave?” she repeated in confusion. “Why?”
“I walked over to the cantina to have a drink with my neighbors and a man came in demanding to know if we’d seen a couple answering to your and Senor Finn’s description.”
A cold dose of water to the face couldn’t have worked better to wake her fully. “A young man?”
“Sí. I did not like his looks.” A slight displacement of air against Mags’s face suggested Mrs. G. waved her hand. “Not his looks,” she amended. “His...manner.”
“If he’s who I think he is, you’re right to be leery of him. His name is Joaquin and he works for a dangerous drug lord.” Hearing a rustling, she raised her voice slightly. “Finn, are you awake?”
