Rendezvous in Rio

by Danielle Bourdon

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2015 Danielle Bourdon

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503947566

  ISBN-10: 1503947564

  Cover design by Jason Blackburn

  For my husband, Michael.

  Through the ups and downs, thank you for being there for me.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  Trouble had a way of finding Madalina at the most unusual, unexpected moments. Like now, with her hair in rollers, one eyebrow plucked (and one not), face covered in green paste that had dried and cracked on her skin. She thought she looked downright reptilian, not the way she wanted to answer the insistent ringing of the doorbell.

  Trotting out of the master bathroom, pink silk robe fluttering around her ankles, she dashed down the stairs as the doorbell chimed yet again.

  “I’m coming!” Madalina called out, unsure that her voice would carry across the expansive foyer, through the thick wood of the front door, to whoever awaited so impatiently on the other side. She paused at the last second with her fingers on the dead bolt, a tingle of unease spilling down her spine. Lulled into a sense of complacency over the last two months, trusting in the gated community to keep her and Cole safe, she cautioned herself to remember that danger could still present itself any unexpected moment. However, she doubted anyone wanting to do her or Cole harm would ring the doorbell so brazenly right on the front porch for anyone to see.

  Peering out the four-by-four-inch security window set in the door, she made out the shape of a blonde head and what appeared to be a bouquet of flowers. The frosted glass of the little window made picking out minute details impossible unless she opened the window itself, which always made her feel like a medieval overlord.

  The fact that the person carried flowers eased some of Madalina’s tension; Cole had probably decided to surprise her with a bouquet, nothing more, nothing less.

  Flipping the bolt over, she opened the door. The sweltering Southern California day ushered in a gust of heat.

  A slender girl with bright blue eyes, a pixie smile, and dimples cocked her head like a bird, as if she couldn’t at first figure out what she was looking at.

  Madalina pretended that she wasn’t wearing the green paste or had half-plucked brows, and smiled. If the delivery girl hadn’t been ringing the doorbell as if Armageddon were on her heels, she would have had time to at least wash off the avocado mask. “Can I help you?”

  “Delivery for Miss Madalina Maitland,” the blonde woman said.

  “I’m Miss Maitland.” Madalina took note of the pale pink orchids, along with a sealed envelope that the woman thrust forward. Accepting both items, thinking it odd for Cole to send orchids instead of the roses he usually chose, Madalina signed her name across a clipboard and bade the delivery girl good-bye. The effervescent woman bounced down the front steps as if she had springs on her feet.

  Closing the door, Madalina turned the mailing envelope over and read her name carefully handwritten across the front: Madalina Maitland. It wasn’t Cole’s script. His was sharp and slightly slanted, as if he wished the pen were a sword. This writing appeared cautious, measured, deliberate. Straight up and down, with a visible tremor in the lines of each capital M.

  The sudden chime of a grandfather clock (six resonant gongs) reminded Madalina that Cole was due home anytime. He’d been gone three days on a mysterious mission, three days that had felt like an eternity. Cole’s position in his father’s company—a private security firm that worked on secretive contracts for the federal government—wasn’t his only employment. Sometimes Cole accepted side projects that kept him occupied for days at a time. It wasn’t their first work-related separation as a couple; she’d learned to weather his absence by putting in extra hours at her clothing boutique. Any second he would walk in the connecting door from the garage, prepared to take her on a date that he’d promised upon his return. Just last evening she’d received a single text from his phone.

  Tomorrow night. Semiformal. Be ready.

  And here she stood, paused in the foyer, flowers and envelope in one hand while she debated whether to take the time to open the envelope or flee upstairs to finish preparing for the date. He might have sent her a love poem or a pretty card, or maybe tickets to a show after dinner. There could be hints or clues about their evening, which was the better probability. He knew she loved surprises and figuring out puzzles. Catching her reflection in a mirror across the foyer, she gasped and bolted for the stairs. She looked like the creature from the Black Lagoon—in a pink robe.

  The envelope would have to wait.

  She hit the stairs at a run, rollers threatening to bounce out of her hair. In the beginning when Cole had left to travel for his secretive missions, Madalina had worried that his absence would have a negative effect on their relationship. To her surprise, not only had there not been a “cooling off” between them but their affection and passion raged hotter than ever. She missed him every second he was gone and couldn’t wait for him to get home. Judging by his sometimes-lascivious text messages and brief but heartwarming phone calls, he missed her just as much. She wasn’t to the point that she looked forward to him leaving, but she’d learned that the coming home and reconnecting was rewarding and exciting all by itself.

  In the master bathroom, a luxury accommodation of his-and-her everything, she set the flowers and envelope aside. Rushing through the rest of her routine, she scrubbed the avocado mask from her cheeks; yanked the rollers from her hair; and brushed the long, dark layers into a loose style of soft curls. Bent at the waist, dragging the brush through the strands upside down, she flipped the mass back when she straightened—and yelped in surprise at the black-clad figure standing behind her. The mirror reflected the image of a man lurking just off her flank, a man who hadn’t been there moments before. For a heartbeat she was sure it was the Chinese agents again, here to demand another dragon. She’d given up one already, a collectible left to her by her grandfather. It only took her another second to realize it wasn’t an intruder at all, but Cole. His height and breadth gave him away. He watched her with hooded eyes and a curl of a smile at the corners of his mouth.

  �
��Cole!” Madalina wished she could have presented herself coiffed and pristine, rather than pink-cheeked, wild-haired, and still in her robe. At least the green mask was gone. She clapped a hand over her thundering heart, as if that might return the beats to a more normal cadence. The hairbrush hit the granite countertop with a clatter. He smiled wider and pulled his hands from his pants pockets, closing the distance between them with two strides.

  “Surprise,” he said belatedly, sounding amused. Affection surfaced in his gaze, along with a healthy amount of desire.

  Madalina threw herself into his arms with a quiet laugh, allowing him to pluck her effortlessly off the ground and ease her into a gentle spin. “You’re so sneaky. I love it,” she whispered, just before he took her mouth for a kiss.

  The rumbled syllables of his reply got lost in the tangle of their tongues. Madalina dragged her hands through his hair, which had grown just past the tops of his shoulders. A thick layer of dark whiskers scraped her tender skin when he changed angles, deepening the connection of their kiss. By the time he nipped his way free of her lips, Madalina found herself pinned to the bathroom wall, one leg hooked around his thigh. Cole had a way of distracting her from everything else.

  “Did you hear me say that I missed you?” His husky voice was just a murmur.

  “Tell me again,” she said, staring up into his eyes. The fusion of blue and green never failed to entrance her.

  “I missed you,” Cole replied on cue.

  “I missed you, too.” In that moment she cared little that she wasn’t dressed to the nines. His body felt heavenly through the thin silk robe, the contours sharply honed, muscles tight and taut. Too many layers would have obliterated the hard physique that she loved to run her palms over. A glimpse of the bouquet in periphery prompted her to add, “Thank you for the flowers. I was going to open the envelope as soon as I changed.”

  A flicker of confusion came and went in his eyes. “I didn’t get you flowers, love.”

  The surge of desire Cole had stoked so easily with his hands and his mouth was slow to fade. She tilted her head back after another brief, stolen kiss. “You didn’t? Then I wonder who did.”

  Cole glanced over his shoulder to the long countertop where the orchids sat in their clear glass vase. His brows pulled together in a frown. “Your parents, maybe? Lianne? It’s not your birthday, is it?”

  “My birthday is in October,” she replied, reluctant to unwind her arms from around his neck. October was weeks and weeks away. She thought her parents would have sent a woodsier, earthier type of arrangement if they’d bother to send flowers at all. Nothing as elegant as orchids. Her coworker and best friend, Lianne, would have sent something wilder, sexier, with a lot of color. “Not my parents or Lianne, I don’t think.”

  “A secret admirer?” Cole asked next, an amused gleam replacing the confusion in his eyes.

  “You’re my only admirer, and that’s the way I like it.” Madalina nipped Cole’s jaw, drawing his attention back to her. He shifted his hands, gripping her raised leg with more power while trapping her harder against his front. Their body signals were trending toward a tryst—except now he’d stoked her curiosity with his own. She could see that he was caught between wanting to haul her off to bed and setting her down to investigate the bouquet further. There was still their date, too, and she instinctively knew there wasn’t time for all three. “The envelope that arrived with the flowers should give us the answer.”

  He grunted, glancing between her eyes and her mouth, shoulders flexing under the dark shirt. Madalina thought he might forgo everything—including the date—and have his way with her anyway. After another moment he pressed a hard kiss against her mouth and let her feet find the floor.

  Stepping around him, dragging her fingers across his midsection, she headed to the counter and swept up the envelope. The scent of Cole’s cologne, something subdued and musky, clung to her skin. She would smell like him for the rest of the night, even after daubing on a bit of her own perfume.

  “Is there a return address?” he asked, looming at her back. He stared over her shoulder, one hand resting possessively on her hip.

  Madalina wanted to find out whom the flowers were from and get back to Cole. She hadn’t lied when she’d said she missed him. A quick scan of the front and back of the envelope produced no return address. “Nothing. Though this arrived by personal delivery, so I suppose whoever sent it wouldn’t need to leave that on the envelope.”

  “Hurry up and open it,” he said.

  “I am hurrying.” Sliding her finger under the edge of the flap, she separated the paper at the crease and fished inside for whatever awaited.

  “Hurry faster,” he rumbled near her ear.

  “You’re distracting me,” she said, fingers coming into contact with a thick fold of paper. Madalina pulled the paper out and set the envelope down. Silence descended in the bathroom as she opened what turned out to be two pages, one tucked neatly into the other.

  What she discovered was the very last thing she expected to find: a note from her late grandfather, written in painstaking longhand.

  Madalina,

  In 1967, during one of my many travels, I met a man in a small Tibetan village who became something like a brother to me. We spent months meditating together on a plateau overlooking the valley and would often take exploratory hikes across the wild terrain. He was a man of great sensitivity and emotional depth who contemplated the mysteries of life as thoroughly as I do.

  On one particular day, after a meandering walk through a bustling marketplace (there were six rickety stalls and perhaps twelve feisty buyers, which is about as bustling as that market gets), he guided me into the foothills behind the village. I thought we were going to our usual spot, the little plateau, but no. Not this day. Instead, he silently wove our steps beyond the plateau to a short cliff of large rocks jutting up out of the dirt. He slipped between the shadow of two boulders after setting his walking stick aside; I followed. Behind the boulders, carved into the cliff, was a depression eight feet deep, four feet wide, and barely six feet high (I know this because I am a touch past six feet and had to bend my head to fit inside). I recall that I thought his silence was unusual as he led me to the back of the cave, whereupon I discovered a natural shelf in the rock. A ragged-looking box sat on the slightly crooked ledge, but it wasn’t there that he led me.

  To the right, a half a foot from the cave wall, my friend rolled away a large rock and, kneeling in the dirt, scooped away the top layer of silt with his hands. He exposed an object wrapped in cloth. From the cloth he withdrew a medium-size wooden box in much better shape than the one on the ledge. Still old, to be sure, but not as weathered as the other. Dragons adorned the top and sides, deeply carved and exquisitely detailed. I was quite impressed with the box by itself.

  “Walcot Nagel,” my friend said, “I know you to be an honorable man who cherishes individual freedom as much as I do. More than that, you love the earth and its beings, which is why I must entrust this gift into your care.”

  Now, Madalina, I admit that I wasn’t expecting to be gifted with anything at all. My friend was a poor man, with little more than a thatched hut, a few articles of clothing, and his walking stick making the sum of his possessions. So when he opened the lid and exposed the rather rustic dragon, with its cerulean eye, I at first thought (shockingly) that my friend had stolen the object. It was not an expensive-looking dragon (not jade or jeweled or tipped in gold), but carved of stone, the details somewhat faded along the body. Yet it would fetch a tidy sum, at least enough to feed my friend for a month or two. Dragons are revered in that part of the world and easy to sell. My friend was not a thief, however, and he asked nothing of me in return for the gift—except one thing.

  To take it with me out of the country.

  “Things that need to be free must remain so,” said my friend, a cryptic look in his eyes. “These do no
t belong in glass cages.”

  I should have taken note of his plural usage at that time, but was distracted by the circumstance. I asked him, “What would you have me do with it?”

  “Take it away from here when you leave. I know you will depart this village in the coming months, for you are a man whose spirit flits from one place to the next, restless as old ghosts. You cannot help but follow.” My friend smiled, but only with his eyes. Then he said, “Take it and hide it in a far corner of the world, so that it may remain free. Otherwise, it will fall into the hands of those who wish to contain it, those who refuse to accept that the dragons need to be in the elements to work their magic.”

  “This thing can work magic?” I asked, clearly disbelieving.

  “In a sense. This is the Rain Dragon, Walcot (it was always pronounced ‘Wulcut’ on my friend’s tongue). He brings thunderclouds and rain. Without his influence the fields would go fallow, and the people would have no water.”

  “But he is in a box in the ground. How is that free?” My question was not meant to antagonize, only to clear up my own confusion. I am, as you know, dear Madalina, a man of nature, of earth, of the elements. I’m happiest out among the trees and meadows and deserts of the world. The concept of magic, any kind of magic, clashes with what I can see and hear and feel. I wanted to understand. To see or feel or hear this magic, as well as make the distinction between a box and a glass case, both of which seemed like cages to me.

  “He can be moved inside, outside, or elsewhere. Here,” my friend said, gesturing to the small cave, “I can let the Rain Dragon work. He is not relegated to a forever life under false lights and airless containers. When I put him back in the ground, he is surrounded by the wood of the box—a natural element—as well as the earth. Do you see, Wulcut? This is nature, and the Rain Dragon is a part of it.”

  I thought I was beginning to understand. I suggested, “It’s similar to how you and I prefer to sit on the plateau, under the sky, in the wind, rather than sitting on a couch indoors. One is a natural environment; the other is fabricated.”