by KaLyn Cooper
“You’re a lucky woman.” Those were the last words Jillian heard before the doors opened and Jack all but shoved her and the cart through.
Warm, moist heat blanketed her. She wanted to stop and take everything in. Men were lined shoulder to shoulder, some with family names on placards, others with hotel logos. Small buses, transport vans, and taxis lined the raised island ahead.
“Keep your head down,” Jack instructed. “Don’t make eye contact with anyone.”
With one hand on her back, the other on the cart, Jack guided her to the Rover. He grabbed the car seat and bent into the open back door. Jillian’s view was impressive. He had a trim waist and a swimmer’s powerful butt that rippled under soft dark jeans. He struggled for just a moment to lock the car seat in place but had obviously done this before.
“How old are your nephews?” Jillian asked and dug out a container of cereal snacks for Addi, who had started to fuss. Although she’d slept on the long plane ride, it was hours past her bedtime.
Jack backed out of the vehicle and looked at her. “Our nephews,” he corrected pointedly. “Preston is six going on thirty, and Grayson is four, probably going to jail before he graduates from high school.”
“Do you see much of them?” Jillian asked as she buckled Addi into her seat.
“No, not really,” Jack said and lifted suitcases into the back of the vehicle.
Jillian came around to the rear to help load. She picked up one of the boxes of Jimmy’s papers and started to lean in just as Jack turned and ran smack into the box and, by default, her. She was jostled backward from the impact and lost her step.
“Whoa.” The deep male voice registered, but her thoughts were on remaining upright.
Her fall was halted when the box she held tightly stopped moving. She was able to stabilize her stance quickly. She looked at the box and saw it hadn’t spilled. Large hands secured it in place, and her. She followed corded forearms, up toned biceps, and past broad shoulders to a face carved in sharp-angled stone.
Jack held her gaze. He had the most beautiful eyes. In the dim parking lot lights, she caught glints of light green and blue, which confused her brain at first. When she settled on them, they were the color of jade swirled around blue topaz.
“Jillian, you okay?” At the sound of his deep voice, she glanced away.
“I’m fine,” she quipped.
“Sorry, I didn’t realize you were so close.” Jack took the heavy box and easily placed it in the back. She picked up the next box and was sure to stay far enough away so their crash didn’t happen again. The box hadn’t fared the flight well. The bottom had broken loose from her taping job, and the whole thing twisted in her arms. Jack grabbed the bottom and lifted it from her grasp.
“What is all this stuff?” Jack asked as he set the now opened box into the car and picked up a few of the top sheets.
“It’s the materials Jimmy and I both used for our doctorates.” Jillian was glad she hadn’t choked on his name this time. “Your mother requested they be returned to the family. I believe the original research was conducted by your grandfather, but some of the manuscripts date back to the fifteen hundreds.” She pointed to a box still on the cart. “Those translations are what I need to use while I’m here to finish my research.”
“Uh huh.” Jack stared at one of the sheets.
“Someone, I believe it may have been your grandfather—but it looks more like a woman’s handwriting so it might have been your great-grandmother or her mother or even her grandmother and I’m just too tired to wrap my head around all those ancestors and generations—but anyway, she translated the Mayan tales into Old Spanish, which everyone knows is very different from modern Spanish, which is what we were all taught, so I’m not sure it’s accurate, but I intend to sort all that out while I’m here and finally finish my doctoral thesis.” She’d run out of air. She picked up the next box. When she turned, Jack was staring at her.
“Breathe.” His single word hit her like she’d walked into a wall.
“I’m sorry.” Darn it all, she’d been babbling. “When I talk about my work, I get excited, and sometimes I don’t know when to shut up. I forget not everyone is as fascinated by Mayan folklore as I am.”
Jack said nothing but glanced down at the papers in his hands.
The corners of Jillian’s mouth turned up when she recognized what he was looking at. “Jimmy made that map from his research. He swore his, I mean your, grandfather was onto something. He used to tell me stories about spending summers here with you and him helping your grandfather search for Mayan treasures.”
She watched Jack sneer and toss the papers back in the box. “Crazy old man.” He turned to the cart and stacked the last four boxes then picked them all up at once.
“No, let me help,” Jillian called and grabbed the smallest box off the top. She cradled it to her chest and fought the heat and tears that rose from deep within. Tucked inside the cardboard, encapsulated in bubble wrap, was a small antique wooden box that contained the second most important thing in her life. The first was secured in the car seat. She needed them both to complete a promise she’d finally fulfill within the next two weeks.
“I got it.” Jack lifted the remaining boxes with ease and set them in the Rover before closing the door. “I’ll just be a second while I take this back.” He pointed to the cart.
“Oh. Okay, then. I’ll wait for you in the car.” Jillian watched him stride away, disappearing into the night. The tightness in her chest eased, and she took a deep breath. Then a second.
Jack Girard was all man, more man than she could stand to be around. He was surrounded by a force field of male testosterone, and she wasn’t comfortable around men to begin with, but this man…well, she gulped hard. He flat-out made her nervous. She hoped they wouldn’t be spending much time together during her visit.
She kissed the box before she laid it reverently on the seat next to her daughter. Addi’s head had lolled forward in sleep, as it so often did, and with motherly gentleness, Jillian carefully moved the little noggin until it rested against the side of the car seat.
“I love you, Addison Elizabeth Girard.” She kissed her daughter’s forehead. “And your daddy loved you too.” With a soulful glance at the box on the seat, Jillian quietly closed the back door.
She slid into the front passenger’s seat and softly closed her door. The familiar baby snores sent relief through her body, washing away tension that had built up all day. Checking her watch and noting it was shortly after midnight, she hoped her early-bird child slept in late for once. The back of Jillian’s head touched the headrest, and she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath.
She was finally there, in the land where the Spanish conquistadores had met the Mayans almost five hundred years ago. She was so close to finishing her thesis she could taste it. Soon her dream would become a reality. Then her world would slow down to a manageable pace.
Chapter Three
The driver’s door opened, and Jillian jerked, startled by the sound. She must have dozed off for a second.
Wordlessly Jack started the car and pulled out of the lot. She shifted in the seat and peered out the window. Palm trees flew past as they sped down the four-lane highway in silence.
Jillian’s world was never quiet. Between her daughter, who once she learned to talk never shut up, and her students, she was usually surrounded by noise. While studying, she preferred hard-pounding dance music in the background that seemed to push her through all those times when she was so tired and should have gone to bed. But she never slept well in bed. It had been their bed, the one she’d shared with Jimmy, the one they’d created Addi in, the one she’d been resting in just before she answered the door to the police. All too frequently, she fell asleep on the couch, book still in hand.
She had to make changes in her life; she knew that. Once she finished her thesis, she promised herself.
Jillian slid a glance at Jack. In the glow of the dashboard lights, he seem
ed bathed in shadows. Somehow, that was appropriate. He was a dark man. The blond beach-bum façade seemed more like an act to her than the man who lived underneath with deep secrets. Always a loner, she’d learned to read people at an early age, watching everyone and everything from the wall. Maybe that was why anthropology had become her specialty.
Jack glanced her way. “It’ll be another forty minutes before we reach the house. If you want to sleep, I’ll wake you when we get there.”
“I am tired, but I’m also pumped. I’ve never been to Mexico before. Actually, I’ve never been outside of the United States before today,” she confessed. “I was so excited when the man stamped our passports.”
“Really?” She heard the incredulity in his voice. She probably sounded like a silly child to this worldly man.
“Yes. I’ll bet your passport is filled with stamps from all over the globe. Jimmy told me you traveled a lot with your job.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, but we rarely stopped by immigration.”
“Then how did you get in? They herded us like cattle through immigration and customs. I thought the policeman was going to pull his gun when I chased Addi through the door at customs.”
“You’re lucky you’re pretty. Otherwise he would have.”
Jillian didn’t know what to say to that. First of all, she wasn’t pretty. She saw herself every day in the mirror and knew darn well that she wasn’t even average. She almost never wore makeup, which she knew helped her a little. Jaynelle, being the best friend she’d ever had in her whole life, had dragged her to the mall for one of those makeovers when she’d confessed that she had a thing for Jimmy four years ago. She’d even bought some of the expensive makeup but picked up the rest at Walmart, a little at each payday. Besides, who had time for all that in the morning when scurrying to get a toddler up, dressed, fed, and out to daycare?
Would the officer have pulled his gun on her as she chased Addi out of the customs area? She would never let Addison out of her sight, so whether he’d pulled a gun or even shot at her, her daughter was always her number one priority.
She was in a foreign country, but it was only Mexico. Wasn’t it like a brother nation? There was so much shared border. Besides, people were always trying to sneak into the United States, not into Mexico. She hoped. He wouldn’t have pulled a gun on her. She refused to believe Jack and knew her looks had nothing to do with it.
Mexico. The Yucatan Peninsula. I’m here. Finally.
She was more excited than she’d thought. Nervous, too, about meeting Jimmy’s family. She twisted damp hands and wondered if they would like Addi. Would they welcome her baby into their family or reject them both? They’d been so cold and distant at the funeral service, acting almost as if she didn’t exist, mostly talking amongst themselves. She’d tried to be hospitable, but they were upset that she’d done what Jimmy had wanted, not what his family had all but demanded.
As his wife, she was next of kin, and she’d followed his wishes to cremate his body. She tried to explain to them that as an archeologist, Jimmy didn’t want anyone digging up his bones in two thousand years and speculating about his life. He considered his daughter his legacy to the world.
Jillian turned and checked Addi one more time. Asleep. Thank goodness. She looked out the window through the darkness at the low, white buildings and short vegetation, interrupted by brightly lit concrete entrances to condo and timeshare resorts. She blinked heavily, letting her eyelids rest at the bottom for a long second.
For it being after midnight, she was amazed at the car and bus traffic on the four-lane highway.
She yearned to take it all in, but her day had started at five-thirty, like every day. Her daughter was an early riser, and just because Jillian was on vacation, sort of, didn’t mean Addi would want to sleep in also. Normally, they’d both have been asleep for hours by now. Jillian lost the fight to keep her eyes open, and they drooped closed.
When the car stopped, she jolted awake, her arms flailing as her eyes darted around. Ornate iron gates with a huge golden G in the middle slid open, and Jack drove the car onto a bleached tan driveway edged in larger red bricks.
Jillian stared up into palm trees, their size highlighted by discreetly hidden lights. For a moment, it looked like a theme park jungle ride as the headlights pointed one direction then the opposite, winding through the tallest ferns she had ever seen.
Ahead was a two-story home, pastel yellow washed in accent lights. Manicured shrubbery and a clipped lawn bowed beside a wide, curved stairway that rose up a slight incline to double doors. Before she could be sure it was balconies on the second floor, Jack passed the house on the driveway to the right side and swung into one of the six garage bays.
Glancing around, Jillian noted nearly every bay was filled. A silver BMW with the top down sat next to the Land Rover she was in. Beyond it was a Mercedes SUV and then a gleaming white Mercedes sedan. At the far end was a stripped Jeep Rubicon, its doors and top attached to the wall beside it.
Jack glared at the empty space and shook his head. “Damn, Levi,” he said under his breath. “If he so much as puts a scratch on my Spyder…”
Jillian was out of the car and reached into the back seat to retrieve her sleeping baby. With Addi in her arms, she followed Jack to a door with a yellow sheet of legal paper taped to it.
“If you’ll just show us to our room, I’ll come back and get our suitcases.” Jillian spoke quietly so as not to awaken Addi.
Jack ripped the note off the door and read it quickly. “Well, shit.”
The scowl on his face and harsh words punched her heart. “Is there a problem? We can go to a hotel. Let me call a cab.” Jillian juggled the baby to her other hip so she could dig her cell phone from her purse.
“No, no problem.” Jack’s voice was just above a whisper. His low timbre was gentle and instantly soothed her raw nerves. “I thought I’d put you in the pool house so you could have a place away from the rest of the family, but it seems my sister has moved in there with her two sons. I don’t want to put you on the second or third levels because the balconies aren’t built for children’s safety.” In what seemed like an unconscious move, Jack reached over and stroked Addi’s hair. “And she’s so little.”
Jillian wanted to pull her baby away. She didn’t want this man, or any man, touching her daughter. She fought the urge to turn and run. Jack was Addi’s uncle, though, and maybe that made a difference. He was part of her child’s family, and Jillian had to learn to deal with him.
His big hand seemed so tender as he ran tanned fingers over Addi’s white-blonde curls. The sides of his mouth kicked up as he did it a second time. Jillian wondered what it would feel like to be caressed with such reverence. She could almost feel his hands on her, that little grin a secret signal that he appreciated permission to touch…her.
Addi sighed at his magic fingers and melted into her mother with the boneless contentment only a child can have in the arms of a parent. Jillian knew exactly how her daughter felt and let out a deep breath. Jack was so virile, yet gentle with her baby girl. She wondered what kind of a lover he’d be. His muscled body could overpower her and easily force her to do anything he wished, but the way he stroked Addi’s hair showed her a softer side of this man.
“I’m supposed to put you in Ji—” Jack’s voice broke slightly, but Jillian caught it as his words invaded her sensual thoughts. “In Jimmy’s room.”
Jillian sucked in a sharp breath at hearing her husband’s name coming from Jack. No man, since the months shortly after the funeral, had spoken his name. Even the detective in charge of his case who’d appeared at her door the day before Addison was born had called him Mr. Girard. He’d told her that they had no leads and it would be filed as an open cold case, but his personal opinion was it was a random gang shooting. She’d occasionally wondered if that bad news had sent her into labor.
Jillian looked at the sleeping baby in her arms and kissed their daughter’s forehead.
“I
t’s right around the corner.” Jack opened the door, and she followed him into the house.
Jack stopped at the second door on the right in the windowless hallway and edged open the door. Jillian walked into a stark white bedroom with stucco walls. She barely noticed the king-sized bed to the right as her gaze fell on the view through the open wall of glass sliders.
“Oh, my,” she whispered on an exhale. It was more beautiful than any resort she’d lusted over online when considering a trip to the Mayan Riviera to complete her thesis.
A dark blue tile pool held center court. Squat accent lights created white rivers along pathways between potted plants the size of Addi’s kiddie pool back home. The house was actually L-shaped, proudly standing three stories, not two. The basement had been hidden by the slope of the front yard. The wide area stretched from her room on wave-patterned hardscape beyond the pool to a thatched covered building. That must be the pool house. It was bigger than her mother’s whole house back in Tennessee. She didn’t want to think about that place right now, hoping it was one problem she’d already handled.
She felt the ocean breeze that pushed the gauzy drapes into the bedroom. The smell of water filled her senses. Jillian was suddenly excited about seeing the Caribbean Sea for the first time.
Addi shifted in her arms, seeking a more comfortable position to sleep.
“Mother had Calita put a crib in here for Addi.”
Jillian jumped. She didn’t realize Jack was standing so close.
“Thank you.” She moved away discreetly by shifting her weight to the other foot and leaning slightly, a trick she’d used for years. More comfortable with their distance, she glanced in the direction he gestured. “That was very thoughtful. Addi could have slept with me. We do that sometimes. But this is wonderful.” She was babbling again so she shut her mouth.
Jack just nodded. “I’ll get your suitcases from the car.”
The beautiful white crib was tucked in the far corner away from the cooler oceanic air, five feet from the bed. Conveniently, a matching changing table laden with everything a mother could ever want or need stood at the foot of the crib. Dozens of diapers were stacked neatly underneath, and a pretty pink onesie draped over the edge.