Dateline: Kydd and Rios

by Janzen, Tara

  “Josh?” She peeked inside and called his name again. Still no answer.

  She looked back out onto the porch, her gaze drifting over the hammock hanging in the corner and the Formica dinette table strewn with large fishing lures. A couple of orange life vests hung from hooks in the kitchen wall. A wilting philodendron was pushed into a corner, its vines trailing up a length of fishing line tied to the porch screen. There was nothing there to remind her of the Josh she knew, unless she counted the dusty stack of newspapers and magazines next to the dying plant. It made her wonder just how well she did know him. It made her wonder what she was doing there.

  Sighing, she turned around, her flip-flops squeaking on the floorboards. Their time together had always been so intense, so fraught with tight deadlines, fast-breaking stories, and then the final disastrous two days. She still woke up in the middle of the night sometimes, covered with sweat, her breath caught in her throat, still feeling the remembered pressure of a gun at the base of her skull.

  Cardena had made a worse deal than he’d thought when he’d agreed to take her home. Halfway over the Caribbean, she’d come out of shock, surprising both of them with a near-hysterical collapse. The man was a saint. He’d talked with her, reassured her, listened to her babbling and crying, and in the end, he’d traveled with her all the way to Boulder, personally taking her to her aunt’s house. Saying good-bye to him had been almost as hard as leaving Josh.

  Almost, but not quite, which was why she found herself standing on this old back porch near the Texas-Louisiana state line. She lifted the hair off the back of her neck and looked around again. As long as he wasn’t there, he couldn’t kick her out. She might as well get comfortable.

  The moon sat cool and serene in the darkening rainbow of the sky, adding its clear light to the warm, humid night. Josh stopped his car halfway up the driveway and walked around the front of the house to get the mail. He picked the evening paper up off the front porch and scanned the headlines while letting himself in the door.

  Once inside, he tossed the paper on the couch and started stripping his shirt off over his head. That was when he noticed the kitchen light. More curious than wary, and realizing it should have been the other way around, he went to investigate.

  He could have left the beer bottle on the table, he admitted, and the back door did have a tendency to swing open in the slightest breeze unless it was hooked from the inside, but the sunglasses on the counter definitely didn’t belong to him. They were big and pink, and they were nested around a half-eaten roll of antacid tablets. A thrill of excitement he couldn’t control curled around the pit of his stomach. She’s here.

  He crossed the room, instinctively heading for the coolest spot in the house. Shaded from the moon and the sunset by large overhanging trees, the porch was dark except for the narrow beam of light coming from the kitchen. The yellow band streamed across the floor, split by his shadow as he opened the door wider.

  He stood there for a long time, leaning against the jamb and resting his head on his arm, watching her sleep in the hammock. A feeling of deep, unexplainable peace washed over him. He seemed to have spent so much of his life thinking about her. In the last month he’d come close to convincing himself she was nothing more than a strange infatuation he should have outgrown. That the way they’d lived their time together had as much to do with the clarity of his memories as the woman herself. Watching her sleep, he knew better.

  For whatever reason, the contours of her face touched him like no other. The shape of her, what he saw in her eyes when she smiled, pulled at some unknown place deep inside him.

  She was there, and he was going to make love with her that night—and he was going to hold on to her and see what they had come morning.

  He let out a soft breath, pushed away from the door, and walked back into the kitchen, content to let her go on sleeping and dreaming until—until dinner was ready. A broad grin spread across his face. She was here.

  Nikki awoke to a black velvet night and the chirping song of crickets. She knew exactly where she was, on Josh’s back porch on the sultry side of Texas. The house next door was where the gardening lady and the little boy lived.

  She stretched full out and relaxed back into the hammock, deciding she liked Texas. The dry Colorado air had wreaked havoc on her system after so many years in the tropical latitudes. She felt better here, more at home, more like she belonged.

  Josh watched her wake slowly, enjoying the length of bare leg hanging out of the hammock. A flip-flop dangled from her toes. He eased forward in his chair, taking a shrimp out of the ice-filled bowl on the table, but never taking his eyes off her.

  A soft crackling sound drew her attention away from the quiet night beyond the screen. She rolled her head sideways and found him sitting in the dark, peeling a shrimp and watching her.

  “Hi.” An easy smile curved his mouth.

  “Hi.”

  “Dinner is ready.” He nodded at the table.

  “What are we having?”

  “Shrimp, beer, and bread. All the basics.”

  So far so good, she thought. He didn’t seem inclined to kick her right out. Neither did he seem surprised to see her.

  “Were you expecting me?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Were you planning on coming to Colorado?”

  “No.” He shook his head. He wasn’t going to lie to her. He’d hoped to forget her.

  “Hmm.” She murmured a noncommittal sound, not knowing what to make of his answer, or of the queasiness it caused in her stomach.

  “Come on over, before the beer gets warm.”

  Outwardly calm, inwardly cautious, she slid out of the hammock and walked to the table. He’d cut his hair, shorter than she’d ever seen it. No unruly strands swept behind his ears or brushed the collar of his black polo shirt. The style gave him a harder, cleaner look, highlighting the lean angle of his cheekbones and the dark lines of his eyebrows. It made him seem more of a stranger.

  Under his ever-watchful gaze, she sat down and spent an inordinate amount of time arranging her skirt. Things were different between them, subtly awkward and not-so-subtly tense. She felt the change in his quietness. When she dared to look up, she saw it in his eyes. Suddenly she understood. He’d already reached a decision about her, about them. The pain in her stomach increased.

  “I don’t think I can eat,” she confessed, fearing the worst.

  “When was your last meal?”

  “I had a milk shake on the road.” Oh, why had she come like this? Unannounced, filled with expectations. She’d set herself up for rejection.

  He twisted the cap off a beer and set the bottle in front of her. “I’ve been doing some thinking about your stomach problems,” he said, picking up a shrimp and peeling off the shell. He handed it to her. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you that three regular meals a day wouldn’t cure. Eat.” It was a command, not a request. He tore off a hunk of bread and slathered it with butter.

  Nikki bit the shrimp off near the tail and chewed. He kept peeling and putting shrimp in front of her until she had a pile to match the two big pieces of buttered bread he’d added to her plate. And all the while, he kept talking to her.

  “I heard you lost your job.”

  The shrimp caught in her throat. She choked. “Don’t be too worried about it. Somebody else will pick you up. Drink your beer.”

  His confidence outweighed hers by about a hundred to one. With the help of the beer, she got the shrimp down. “David didn’t think so. He’s . . . uh, blackballed me on the East Coast.” The admission came hard, but the professional turn of the conversation was a minor relief. Bad as her employment situation was, it wasn’t what kept her awake at night.

  “Idle threats. You’re good. Everybody knows it. Have you sent your resume out?”

  “No,” she said softly, returning an untouched piece of bread to her plate. She felt awful. She couldn’t eat.

  “Why not?” He paused wi
th his beer halfway to his mouth, his head tilted in curiosity.

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. The strap of her slip fell off her shoulder beneath the cap sleeve of her white shirt. With a distracted move, she pulled it back up. “Maybe I need a little time off.”

  “For what?”

  To give myself some breathing room. To find out where I stand in life besides in the middle of political upheaval. To find out about you, and me . . . and love. She slowly looked up to meet his gaze across the table. “I don’t know what to say, Josh.”

  Her hesitancy stripped away the years, leaving her as unsure as she’d been one summer night so long ago. She’d come because she loved him, because her days and nights felt empty without him, and she didn’t know how to say those things to the man sitting across from her. Nikki Kydd, ace reporter, war correspondent, was at a loss for words.

  Josh watched uncertainty cloud her eyes, seeing the telltale signs of distress come over her. He wished he could tell her everything was going to be okay, but he didn’t know himself what the future held for them. They both took professional risks for granted, but he’d only risked his heart once, and he’d paid dearly for the loss. That she’d come to find him told him she’d been paying dearly too.

  “Nice place you’ve got here,” she whispered, taking refuge in the inane statement, before his silence consumed her. She forced her gaze away, looked around the porch, focused on a distant spot of moon-shadowed lawn. “How did you find it?”

  “My family used to come here when I was a kid. A couple of my dad’s brothers lived in Port Arthur. We’d all go fishing, have family reunions, that sort of thing. I think the fishing drove my mother nuts. One of my uncles still lives across town. My aunt Rosa lives down the street.”

  “You bought this house?” she asked, clued in by his tone of voice.

  “A year ago. The price was right, and I needed a place to come home to. Sometimes”—he smiled slightly—“most of the time these last few years, when I was on assignment, the thing I hated most was the feeling of impermanence, of not having one special place that was mine.”

  “And before?”

  His smile disappeared and a gentle longing darkened his eyes. “Before I started hating it, I had you, Nikki. You were home.” His voice trailed off into a silence filled with the soft heat and night sounds of summer.

  Nikki stared at her plate, unable to face the sadness she’d caused between them. Leaving had seemed right at the time. Not easy, but right. Given another chance, knowing the loneliness she’d feel, the chances she’d have to take, she’d try another way. At eighteen, she hadn’t been able to see this far into the future.

  “Are you finished eating?”

  “Yes.” The word was barely a whisper.

  He rose from the table and picked up her plate. “Maybe you’ll do better at breakfast.”

  She doubted it, doubted if she’d even be there for breakfast. She didn’t want to run again, but neither did she want to continue hurting them both by trying to hang on to something she’d already thrown away.

  His footsteps faded into the kitchen, and she walked over to the screen door. A warm breeze rustled the leaves on the trees, wafting the scent of flowers onto the porch. Josh’s home. The thought crossed her mind slowly, filling her with heartache. He’d found his place, his refuge from all the chaos in the world. She was happy for him.

  So why are you crying?

  Because he found it without me.

  She smeared the tears across her cheek and took a deep breath. This was crazy, hanging around and working herself into the blues. He had never planned on coming to Colorado, not even when she’d left him in San Simeon. Take the hint, Kydd, she told herself. Make a clean break.

  “How’s your mother doing?” His voice came from close behind her.

  “Better than any of us expected, physically.” She steadied herself with another lung-filling breath. “My Aunt Chloe is cooking up a storm, trying to fatten her up, but Mom always was slender. The hardest thing for her is adjusting to freedom and accepting Victor’s death. They were only married for a year, but she did love him.”

  “Is she in therapy?”

  “Three times a week. My mom’s a big believer in taking care of problems.”

  “Like her daughter.”

  Nikki thought she’d made a pretty good mess of her problems, so she didn’t say anything.

  “I met her in Sulaco, before she left,” he continued, moving to her side and resting his shoulder against the screen door. “We had a long talk. She’s a strong lady, Nikki. I know you’ll always worry about her, but she’s going to come out okay.”

  “I think so too.” Now was the moment to make her break, to find the right words, to say good-bye.

  “What about you?” he asked softly, surprising her.

  She made a slight turn and glanced up at him. His eyes, darkened by the night, met hers, clear and penetrating and close, so very close.

  He bent his head and brushed his lips gently across hers, tasting her tears. “Why are you crying?” he murmured, his hand sliding up to cup her face.

  “I . . . miss . . . you,” she said between his brief, teasing kisses, feeling new tears replace the ones she’d brushed away.

  “Don’t miss me tonight, Nicolita.” He followed the dampness up her face, kissing her cheek, her temple, her brow. “Stay for a while.” His hands framed her face, lifting her mouth to his. He kissed her long and fully, taking her sadness inside himself and giving back sweet love.

  His mouth moved tenderly over hers. The strength and warmth of him wrapped around her. He tightened his arms and drew her closer.

  Nikki sank against him for everlasting seconds, stealing a share of the pleasure found in his kisses, in his hard body pressed to hers, in the strong arms holding her. It would be so easy to convince herself that this was all they needed, this intoxicating excitement spreading through her from the inside out. His mouth was warm, wet, consummately skilled in the erotic dance.

  But she was no longer a young girl, and in all her life, nothing had taught her more about the pain of consequences than the loving and leaving of Joshua Rios. The flash of reason shocked her into breaking off the kiss. She stepped back, saw the confusion narrowing his eyes, and she wondered when she’d grown up. A heartbeat ago, she’d held everything she wanted in her arms, or so she thought.

  “I’m in over my head.” Without meaning to, she spoke her thoughts aloud.

  “Me too . . . but I’m willing to take a risk.”

  The rough sound of his voice startled her into looking back up. “Josh, we need to talk.”

  A woman, he thought with a ragged sigh, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the door. He’d found the answer to Quico’s question. Yes, Nikki was a woman now. After a moment, he opened his eyes and looked down at her. “Talking is just one of the things we need to do, Nikki, but we’re not going to do it here. Come on.” He slipped his hand inside hers and drew her into the kitchen, across the living room, and up the stairs to the second floor.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at the relative safety of the living room they were leaving behind.

  “My bedroom. It’s a great place to talk. Believe me. I’ve been talking to myself in there every night for the last four weeks, and mostly I was talking about you, so you should feel right at home.” He mounted the stairs with purposeful strides, barely giving her a chance to protest.

  “I don’t think this is what I . . . what I had in mind,” she stammered.

  “And I think it’s exactly what you had in mind. It’s certainly what I had in mind, what I’ve had in mind for the last three years.” He strode into the bedroom, released her hand, and immediately stripped off his shirt. “You might as well take your clothes off and get comfortable. We’re here for the duration.”

  His matter-of-fact tone shocked her almost as much as his suggestion. “I will not.” She enunciated every syllable with conviction. �
�And neither will you!” she added with alarm when his hands went to his belt buckle.

  “Don’t be shy, Nikki.” He turned on the bedside lamp, which was in the middle of the large oak-floored room, next to the bed. The perimeter of the room was filled with a couple of desks—one holding a typewriter, the other a computer—their respective swivel chairs, a stereo system, and a pair of filing cabinets. A ream of paper spilled over the typewriter desk. A ribbon of computer paper flowed off the other. “And don’t worry. I’m not going to seduce you again.”

  “Again?” She jerked her attention back to him, and her breath caught in her throat. Whether by accident or by design, she’d forgotten how beautiful he was, how light and shadow played across the muscles of his chest and arms, how warm and dark his skin looked. She curled her fingers into her palms and stared helplessly at him.

  “Like the last time, the first time,” he explained, crossing the room to her and stopping a mere breath away. He raised his hands to the top button on her blouse. She quickly covered them with her own, but his fingers stayed put. One eyebrow lifted over darkening blue eyes, and he pushed the first button through. “I was in bad shape that night, Nikki, more than a little desperate.” Another button slipped through his fingers and hers, and the buttonhole. “When I came to your room, I thought we could just talk”—he softly emphasized the word—“but then you started to cry, and I knew I wasn’t leaving without having you, whatever it took. I never gave you a chance after that, not one.

  “But tonight”—he’d worked his way down to the waistband of her skirt, and he slipped his hand inside—“tonight I’m going to give you every chance you want, every chance you need.” Her skirt fell to the floor. His hands slid up her body to her shoulders, burning a path across her breasts before pushing her blouse off her arms. “You can say yes . . . no . . . maybe. You can tease me, Nikki. I won’t mind, but I’m not going to seduce you. You’re a woman now, and women don’t like being seduced. They like to . . . talk.” His gaze drifted from her face to her breasts, hidden by the delicate flowering of lace on her slip. He took a deep breath and let it out. “So what do you want to talk about?”