With a resigned sigh, Mariah sat beside him. Removing her sandals, she, too, dangled her feet in the water.
He reached behind his back into the darkness and produced a bottle of red wine and a glass. Without asking, he poured her a glass and handed it to her.
“Thank you, but that’s your glass.”
“If you won’t think I’m completely uncouth, I’ll just drink out of the bottle.”
“That’s okay with me.” Her ex-fiancé, Warren never would have done such a thing, but this guy wasn’t Warren. Thank God.
He took a swig, never taking his dark eyes off her face. She squirmed under his probing gaze. After taking a sip of her wine, she concentrated on the contents of her glass. It tasted good and warm. Just like he would. Oh my God. Like she’d know anything about that. What was wrong with her? Her mind just didn’t work that way. At least, it never had with other men. Yet now, it dived into the gutter where Mr. Scruffy was concerned.
“You clean up well.” He did a slow appraisal of her and sniffed. “You smell a hell of a lot better, too. What is that scent?”
She hesitated. “Uh—Erotic Poison.”
He grinned from ear to ear. “You can be my poison any day.”
She ignored his remark. “Uh, Rodrigo?”
“Hmmm?”
“I’m sorry I was a little abrupt earlier. Men haven’t been at the top of my list lately. I took it out on you.”
“I came on a little strong. I deserved it.”
“I’m sorry, also, that I was—”
“Stalking me?” His sexy mouth quirked in delight at her discomfort.
“No, that wasn’t it at all. I should have gone around to the front. I wanted to check first to see if you were home.”
“Afraid you might interrupt something?”
“Maybe. I guess.” She looked down at her hands. One foot separated them, yet the way her body overheated, he might as well be on top of her or—. She warned herself not to go there, but that all too familiar flush crept across her face again. Why hadn’t she stayed in her comfortable house and away from this hazardous-to-her-heart man?
“So why aren’t men at the top of your list?” His eyes sought hers. He leaned back against the dock and propped himself up with his elbows, giving her a good view of his long, lean body.
Mariah fought the urge to tell him the truth, but the urge won. “I had a blind date last night. After the guy finished his expensive meal and several shots of fifteen-year-old Scotch, he went to the restroom and either disappeared into a black hole or flushed himself down the toilet because he never returned.” Blind-date Mike’s abrupt exit hadn’t bothered her nearly as much as the tab he’d stiffed her with. Her already lean checkbook now bordered on anorexic.
Rodrigo stared at her as if he couldn’t fathom a man doing such a thing. Obviously, it’d never occurred to him, one point in his favor. “Why would he do that to a nice woman like you?”
“Because I told him I wouldn’t go home with him.” Mariah traced patterns in the water with her toes.
“What an ass. We aren’t all like that, Mariah.”
She shook her head, not buying his admission. Oh, but you are, Rodrigo, but you have a smoother approach than most.
He raised himself back to a sitting position and slid next to her until their shoulders touched. She leaned away from him, trying to be inconspicuous. He leaned closer. The skin on her shoulder smoldered from the casual contact.
“What brings you to my island, Rodrigo?” She attempted to distract him. It worked. He stiffened and moved away.
“My family.” He concentrated on the water, a scowl marring his perfect masculine features.
“Your family?”
“I needed a vacation. Away from them. The Delgados offered this place. They thought I could do some healing here.” He snorted and rolled his eyes.
She was quiet for a moment. “You’d be surprised how many people come here for that reason. Lots of them never leave.”
“That sounds ominous.” His scowl faded to a teasing, lopsided grin.
Mariah found herself smiling back. “Hardly. The Native Americans and Canadians considered this place holy, spiritual. They believed the islands, especially Orcas Island, had mystical healing powers.”
Rodrigo nodded. “And you? Are you here for that reason?” He took another swig from the wine bottle.
She shrugged, not willing to give away any more than she already had. “I inherited the farm from my aunt a year ago. It’s not a working farm anymore, just a few horses, that’s all. My aunt used to breed Andalusians. Sueño was my high school graduation present.”
“Sueño is a beautiful stallion,” Rodrigo stated as if to impress her with his knowledge of horses, only his attempt crashed and burned.
“Sueño is a gelding, not a stallion.”
“Oh.” Rodrigo’s face fell. “I thought all male horses were stallions. What’s the difference?”
Mariah stared open-mouthed at him. “You don’t know?”
“How should I know? I’m a city boy.”
She smiled a slow, wicked smile, turning his teasing back around on him. “Rodrigo, to be gelded is every man’s nightmare.”
“You mean?” Rodrigo instinctively pressed his legs tightly together. “He doesn’t have any—?”
“That’s right.”
“Oh, shit.”
“You are a city boy.” Mariah threw back her head and laughed.
At first annoyance crossed his face, then he joined in. At least the man could take a joke. “And proud of it. So, you’ve lived here a year?”
“I have nothing to go back to in Seattle. The firm I worked for cut back, and as the newest employee, I was laid off.”
“You’re making the farm your home?”
“I’m trying, but it’s tough, and I can’t bear to sell it. It’s been in my family for over a hundred years. Plus, a camp for under-privileged kids leases one corner of the property. It’d probably be closed down if I sold it. Unfortunately, the taxes on all that waterfront and acreage rival a small country’s national debt.”
“I can imagine. What kind of work do you do?”
“I’m an interior designer. I’ve been doing design jobs here on the island, but there’s not a lot of business. When the economy is bad, that’s the first thing people cut. I did the Delgados’ house.”
“Oh, yeah, I think you mentioned that. You did a wonderful job.” She could tell he was impressed.
“Thank you.” Damn, she was blushing again.
“Where’d you work in Seattle?”
“I worked for large firm, very prestigious. I designed interiors for the very wealthy—and very demanding. It was a high stress job with long hours. I loved it, but it consumed me. My riding suffered, so did my personal relationships.” She hesitated. She didn’t want to get into a discussion with him about her failed engagement to Warren. “I started there fresh out of college and was working my way up when I lost my job.”
“I have that problem, too, working to the point where I don’t have a personal life.”
“Are you on vacation for an entire month by yourself? I mean is there someone else joining you?” Mariah regretted the words the minute she said them, but she had to know. Did he have a wife or girlfriend?
“All by myself.” He frowned and stared at the water lapping at his feet. “That’s odd for me. Usually, I never get much time alone. Now that I have it, I don’t know what to do with it. I’m at loose ends.” He gave her a crooked smile. “And no, I don’t have anyone right now if that’s what you’re asking.”
Mortified, Mariah stammered, “I wasn’t asking. It’s none of my business.”
“Sure it is. I asked you out, so it is your business. And you? Do you live alone in that big farmhouse?”
“Uh huh. Just me.” She swallowed and studied the stars in the sky. A slight breeze cooled her skin and rustled the tree branches. “When the weather is like this, there isn’t a prettier place on earth.”
Rodrigo looked around, as if seeing everything for the first time but said nothing.
The evening flew by as Mariah talked about her riding and her connection with horses. Rodrigo seemed genuinely interested. They finished off the bottle of wine, while the conversation flowed, easy and relaxed. Yet, as comfortable as it was, he sidestepped answering personal questions with the expertise of a seasoned politician.
He behaved like a perfect gentleman. He didn’t touch her or come on to her. Maybe he’d lost interest in her as anything but a friend. Well, that would be her luck, considering she found him bone-jumping attractive. He made her feel like melted butter on warm bread. She wanted to be soaked up by his heat, even though she’d be safer grappling with rabid shoppers during Nordstrom’s sale of the year.
Well after midnight Mariah regretfully climbed to her feet. “I really have to go, Rodrigo. It’s been nice talking to you.”
“Let me walk you home, bella. It’s dark. You shouldn’t be out here alone.”
“No, no, no,” screamed the good girl inside. “That would be nice,” the bad girl she didn’t know existed said out loud and batted her eyelashes at him. His grin grew wider, as if anticipating she didn’t know what.
They walked together down the beach, picking their way through the darkness. Sometimes, their bodies bumped into each other causing Mariah to giggle nervously.
His voice interrupted her thoughts as they neared her house. “Mariah, what happened to your stairs?”
“They’re rotted, and I’m worthless as a carpenter. I use that trail through the rocks up the bank.”
Rodrigo reached for her hand and helped her up the steep bank onto the lawn. He stopped, turned to face her, and regarded her with an unreadable expression. Her heart sashayed right up next to him, and her body followed. She leaned into him, and he met her halfway. As their bodies touched, the electricity between them practically crackled. He tightened his grip on her hand. Long fingers wrapped around her smaller ones, encasing them in his gentle strength. His other hand rested on her waist.
Those mocha eyes beckoned to her, tempted her. She succumbed and slid into their depths. The oxygen was forced from her lungs. Giant butterflies fluttered in her stomach. Her reckless heart pounded like a conga drum. Every cell in her body somersaulted like a hoard of out-of-control bungee jumpers.
Mariah tore her eyes away from his to preserve what was left of her sanity. She stepped away, breaking the contact with his body. Blinking furiously, she dared to glance at him again. All she saw this time was a handsome man with a bad haircut and lousy taste in clothes.
“You okay?” His voice sounded odd.
Okay? Hadn’t he felt it? How could she have just taken that wild ride alone? She studied him more closely. He looked a little disconcerted, but he hid it well.
He let go of her hand. “I’ll be by tomorrow morning to fix those steps for you.”
“You will?”
“Sure. I’m pretty handy with a hammer.”
“You really don’t need to do that.”
“I want to. It’ll be good for me to do some physical labor.”
“I can’t afford to pay you.”
He grinned, as if she’d just said the magic words. “It’s not money I’m after.” He winked at her. “Adios, amor.”
“Goodnight,” she whispered long after he’d disappeared from sight.
* * *
Rico threw a bunch of tools in the back of Max’s old pickup truck along with several boards of varying sizes. He’d told her the truth about being handy. As the only man around the house during his teenage years, it had fallen on his shoulders to repair almost anything that broke.
He looked forward to doing something with his hands. Of course, he could think of better places for his hands than on wood and nails. Somehow, he’d resisted kissing her last night. He wasn’t sure why, but his well-tuned instincts told him to take it slow with this one. Unfortunately, while he waited for her to heat up, his own cooling system boiled its way to overload.
He’d never forget the way she looked up at him and tilted her head. Then she parted those luscious red lips of hers in an invitation to be kissed. He’d held back his stampeding testosterone with superhuman force, giving a new definition to Iron Man. He had to wait. Have patience. Damn good things came to those who waited. In no time, she’d be begging him to do more than kiss her.
Rico parked in her driveway and waved at her as she rode Sueño in the arena. She waved back. He watched for a few moment, fascinated and turned on. Watching a woman ride a horse could be surprisingly erotic. Pulling himself away from her tempting image, he gathered his stuff together, carried it to the edge of the lawn, and went to work.
A few hours later she joined him with some deli sandwiches she’d bought down the road in Deer Harbor. He pounded his last nail in the repaired stairs and sank to the lawn beside her.
“Thanks.” Rico took the sandwich she offered as his stomach growled its approval. “I’m starved.” He wolfed down his sandwich and half of hers then looked for more.
“How can you eat like that and not be as big as a house?”
“Nervous energy, I guess. I work out, too.” He caught her giving his body a shy, yet appreciative, once-over. So she did notice.
Mariah leaned back against the base of a tree and crossed her ankles. “I’ve been wondering, You said you came here to get away. Why?” A shadow of a smile played at her lips.
“Because of my life,” he said without thinking.
“And what is your life like?” Looking down at her hand on his arm, she quickly removed it.
“Huh? Oh. It’s forty-eight hours packed into a twenty-four-hour day and that doesn’t include time for sleeping. In fact, this is my first real vacation in about eight years.”
“That’s a long time. What do you do?”
He hesitated the briefest of moments. “I’m in the international trade business.”
“That must be high-stress and demanding, but exciting.”
“Yeah, it is.” Or was, once upon a time.
“Do you import or export merchandise?”
“A little of both.” His evasive answers seemed to frustrate her. Even so, her next question caught him off-guard.
“Did you come to Orcas to heal?”
He frowned. Personal questions made him uneasy. He didn’t want to think about all the reasons he’d banished himself to this island. “Mariah, I’m here to escape my life and forget about stuff for a while. I’d rather not talk about it. I just want to enjoy this time together without my past influencing what happens between us. Can you accept that?”
She looked puzzled. “I’m not sure what you mean, but okay.”
An uncomfortable silence stretched between them. He tried to think of something to say to ease the tension, but she beat him to it.
“You must speak fluent Spanish?”
He laughed. “Sí, better than I speak English. Do you speak Spanish?”
“No, just a little. After the basics, I took every art class I could. Oh, yeah, there was a futile attempt to learn Italian. I don’t think being bilingual is in the cards for me.” She worked that lower lip of hers between her teeth again. God, that turned him on. “You called me a bella.”
“Sí, it means beautiful.”
“I know what it means. I’m not, you know.”
“Not what?”
“Beautiful.” She fidgeted with her napkin and stole a look at him through lowered lashes.
He stared at her in silence. If she was any other woman, he’d swear she was fishing for compliments. Not her. She didn’t know she was beautiful. He didn’t understand how that could be possible, but it was. Her refreshing innocence would be his undoing. It turned him on more than any blatant seduction ever had.
“Mariah, I think you are beautiful.” So would every other male on the planet with the gift of eyesight.
She blushed a very attractive deep rose color. “Thank you.” Abruptly, she st
ood and tested the stairs he’d repaired, walking down and back up. Rico waited for her on the top step.
“Rodrigo, thanks for fixing those stairs. I don’t know how I can repay you....”
“Go out with me tonight. Please.”
“I’d love to, but I can’t. I’m meeting my friends at a bar in Eastsound for drinks. We planned this over a week ago. How about a rain check?” She graced him with a radiant smile.
Her smile warmed his heart, made him feel good about himself. She felt familiar to him, like an old friend, someone he’d known before and always. He planned on knowing her again, every inch of her. That feeling, coupled with his loneliness, drove him to pursue her in ways he’d never bothered to pursue a woman.
She was going to be his little piece of heaven on this island known for its magic. He didn’t know how he knew that, but he felt it deep in his bones.
Chapter 3—La Cantina
Rico leaned one elbow on the counter and nursed his beer. Locals dressed in jeans and t-shirts and tourists in garish colors and loafers packed the small bar. Glasses clinked together as a rotund waitress balanced a tray of drinks and sidestepped near disaster as someone backed into her path. Rico turned sideways on the bar stool and watched Mariah at a table across the room.
Dios, she was stunning with that little upturned nose and delicate high cheekbones. Her hair shone like polished mahogany, cascading over her shoulders and down her back. He’d be having fantasies tonight about that luxurious mane draped across his bare chest and his dick. Those eyes, those meadow-green eyes—he wanted to lie down naked in that meadow and let his skin absorb her warmth. And that mouth. It tempted and tormented a man to kiss it thoroughly or engage it in a few other lascivious activities fabricated by his deviant mind.
Her flowered sundress stopped at mid-thigh to give him a good view of her delectable legs. He visualized those long legs of hers wrapped around his waist, urging him to completion. The dress dipped modestly low in front and temptingly low in back. He suspected it sported a designer label judging by the quality. He bet it clung to her cute little bottom when she stood up. Stand up for me, baby.
Save the Last Dance Page 3