In Too Deep

by Janelle Taylor

  “It’s the first thing you need!” Magda argued. “Jenny, my dear, you’ve been living without love for so long that you think you don’t deserve it. Believe me, you do. Trust me on this one. And why not with Hunter, hmmm? He’s gorgeous and he’s got that strong, silent thing going that makes my knees go weak.”

  “Your knees,” Jenny reminded her.

  “And your knees,” she argued right back. “I think you’re ready for a fling.”

  Jenny gave an unladylike snort.

  “I think flings are fabulous. And cost-effective. A fling could help ease the worries fluttering around in your head. You could think back on it for the next decade. Why not have a guiltless one-night stand?”

  “That’s impossible,” Jenny pointed out.

  “Okay, two-night stand. Or the rest of the week. Wait a minute, it could even last longer. Why not? You could see each other when you get back!”

  “I don’t even know where he lives.”

  “Yet,” she said. “Yet.”

  Jenny sighed and shook her head. “I practically asked him to be my bodyguard. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  Magda nodded appreciatively. “Nice tactic.”

  “Oh, stop!” Jenny threw a pillow at her. “It wasn’t like that at all. It was—worse.” She covered her face with her hands and groaned. “I feel like I’ve been living someone else’s life these past fifteen years. Going through the motions. But I didn’t know it until now.”

  “If you want to have an affair, honey, just have one! There’s no need to explain.” She smiled at Jenny without artifice. “You’ve been waiting a long time for this without even knowing it. That’s what a trip south of the border is for.”

  “I just don’t want to do anything stupid,” Jenny murmured, drawing up her knees and hugging them with her arms.

  “Do something stupid. Break out.”

  Jenny glanced out the window again. “Maybe I will ….”

  The lobby of the Hotel Rosa was crowded with jade plants and philodendrons and willow bark furniture upholstered in bright colors. Arched doorways opened to the reception area, the pool, and a hallway that led to elevators and access to the beach. Jenny strolled up to the counter, tugging her straw bag over her shoulder. “I’d like to ring Hunter Calgary’s room, please.” The desk clerk punched numbers on his dial, then waved her to a guest phone hung on the wall next to one of the arched doorways. The line rang and rang with no answer. She hung up, disappointed. The hotel obviously didn’t offer automatic message service.

  What to do?

  Walking down the hallway toward the beach, Jenny stepped into a blinding day. Twenty feet away from the hotel, vendors plied her with Mexican hats, blankets, trinkets, and pottery. No amount of shaking her head and saying no kept them away, and she had to go back to the hotel. Here, the lounge chairs were all occupied and since she wasn’t a guest, she wasn’t entitled to use one anyway.

  The half-bald man who’d approached her that first night she’d met Hunter lay sprawled in one. Spying him, Jenny tiptoed out of range. She could tell by his pink skin that he’d been out too long already, and she thought the way he held his frosted drink to his forehead said more about the night before than the current day’s heat. It made her feel slightly sorry for him, and that brought her back to her own situation.

  What was she doing here anyway? Hunter hadn’t invited her. She’d just come to the hotel to … start a whirlwind affair. She almost laughed to herself. Who was she kidding? She couldn’t do this. Not with Troy in the background and her worries over Rawley and her own innate sense of what was proper. She couldn’t.

  Could she?

  Swiftly she turned back, considered leaving a note, then headed for the door to the street. Then, to her relief and consternation, Hunter strode into the lobby and up to the desk. Smoothing her skirt, Jenny took a deep breath, tried on a smile, and walked toward him. After her soul-baring of the night before—a memory that made her shudder now—she’d been terrible company, edgy and uncomfortable and embarrassed, and it hadn’t taken Hunter long to get the message and take his leave. But since her talk with Magda, she’d stiffened her resolve, at least to keep seeing him, and so she’d decided to take this flirtation a few steps further.

  The desk agent was handing him an overnight package. Jenny flicked a glance at it, then waited for Hunter to turn around and see her. When he did, he stopped short, and his hard expression brought all her doubts to the forefront.

  “Hi,” she said, feeling like an idiot. “I hoped I’d run into you. I thought I was a little over the top last night, and I wanted to prove I have some sanity.”

  “You weren’t over the top.” The package swung downward from his other hand, seemingly forgotten for the moment. “I was planning to call you today.”

  “You were?” she asked lightly.

  “I was thinking we could go for a drive down the coastline.”

  “Sure.” She nodded eagerly.

  “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  He touched her arm reassuringly and then headed for the elevators. The car rumbled downward, collected him, then rumbled back upward again. Jenny sank into a chair and settled in to wait, wishing she didn’t feel like she’d interrupted something.

  She’d seen the package. Hunter wanted to kick the wall in frustration. It wasn’t anything he’d had to have, but he’d made the mistake of asking for some information from Ortega. The Santa Fe sergeant had squawked and complained and demanded Hunter come back to work, but he’d grudgingly sent the information along anyway, asking a lot of questions that Hunter refused to answer.

  Quickly he ripped the FedEx package open and scanned the contents. A small newspaper notice about Geneva Holloway’s elopement with Troy Russell and a picture. Several more articles concerning the civicminded Allen Holloway and his good deeds. A couple on Holloway’s real estate acquisitions. Information he’d already seen once during his investigation over Michelle’s death, but it now held new meaning for him.

  He examined the picture of Russell and Jenny. It was a quickie snapshot, something Jenny had probably had done in a hurry since Hunter believed Allen Holloway would not have wanted the world to know about Jenny’s marriage, no way, no how. Her smile was wide and a little forced; Russell’s was a knowing smirk.

  Hunter felt a familiar resentment burn in his chest and he took several deep breaths to clear away the feeling. The clearest emotion he could name was a bloodthirsty desire for revenge. That hadn’t waned. That hadn’t been tempered by his depression.

  With Jenny waiting downstairs, he shoved the articles into a side pocket of his bag, threw the bag on a chair, grabbed his keys, and hurried back to the elevator.

  Ten minutes later they were outside a grocery store in the center of town. Jenny gazed at him with smiling blue eyes, and Hunter couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt that he was deceiving her, even if it was in the name of a greater good.

  “So, what’s in store?” she asked.

  “Come on.” He held the door for her and they headed down the crowded aisles. The first thing he searched for was a bag, something about the size of Jenny’s beach bag, and then he started throwing items inside the grocery cart: cheese, bread, wine and Mexican beer. “A picnic,” he told her. “See something you like, throw it in.”

  “Mmm …” She tilted her head. “How about some greasy tortilla chips?”

  “Whatever vice you’re into.”

  “Watch it,” she scolded. “You nearly ran over that little boy’s foot!”

  The boy gazed at them with huge, liquid brown eyes. He glanced in their cart and made a face, clearly disgusted with their choices. Jenny took a look inside his mother’s cart and saw more traditional Mexican cuisine supplies: corn husks and refried beans and tortilla shells. Jenny smiled at him and he smiled back, his front two teeth missing. Glancing at Hunter, he scowled fiercely, then ran away after this show of strength.

  “I should have taken off a toe,” Hunter sa
id mildly.

  “You don’t seem to have a way with children,” she teased. Then hearing herself, “Ever had any of your own?”

  “No.”

  “Are you married?” she suddenly asked, the words jumping to her lips. Despite her dithering about approaching him, she’d never once considered this. Her own naiveté shocked her. She felt almost ill.

  “Divorced,” he admitted after a long moment.

  “Oh.” Her heart rate slowly returned to normal and she offered him a wan smile. “We’re the same.”

  “From the sounds of it, mine wasn’t quite as ugly as yours. Ugly enough, though.”

  “How long ago?”

  He didn’t want this conversation. He hated getting personal, and he really didn’t want to go over it with Jenny. “Years.”

  “Why?”

  He gave her a sharp look.

  “Why did you get a divorce?”

  “Irreconcilable differences. We couldn’t stand each other,” he added helpfully.

  She ducked her head, trying to think of something to say and settled for a helpless little shrug. Hunter found the tortilla chips and tossed them in along with a plastic tub of fresh salsa. They wove through the other carts and families and stacked displays of goods and finally stopped in the long line snaking toward the register.

  “I never went grocery shopping with Troy,” Jenny said. “Not once.”

  Hunter thought that over. “I never went grocery shopping with Kathryn.”

  “Maybe that’s where we made our mistakes,” she said lightly.

  “I don’t think Kathryn ever went grocery shopping. We had a cook who took care of all those mundane chores.”

  Jenny blinked. “Really.”

  His grin was twisted. “I married into wealth. Not a mistake I intend to ever make again.”

  Why was he telling her this? What purpose did it serve? Even as the questions crossed his mind, he knew, he knew. He didn’t want to want her. He didn’t want her to want him. He was throwing up roadblocks right and left even while he reached out to her from some inner desire that couldn’t be controlled.

  She made no response to that as they gathered their groceries and headed to the Jeep. On the road, she held her hair back with one hand as the wind tore through the open windows of the vehicle and Hunter accelerated out of town.

  “Tell me about yourself,” she half shouted to be heard.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Where you grew up, where you went to school, how you met Kathryn, when you knew the marriage was over … anything.”

  Hunter groaned and shook his head. He opened his mouth to deny her, but she wagged a finger at him. “Fair’s fair. You tell me something about yourself, I’ll tell you something about myself.”

  He was going to have to lie, and though he shouldn’t care, he did.

  “I’ll start,” she said, when he remained stubbornly silent. “Fact one: I’m an only child. Definitely a brat. I thought I owned the sun, the moon, and all of Texas. My mother tried to exert some influence but she hadn’t a prayer, really. Too headstrong. Too arrogant …” She darted him a sideways look and her voice fell. “Not a nice little girl.”

  Hunter shot her a quick smile. “You just painted a picture of my ex-wife.”

  “Ouch.”

  “She had her good points.” He turned the wheel and they sped around a corner. “I just wish I could remember what they were.”

  “Double ouch.” Jenny pointed a finger at him. “Okay, it’s your turn now.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “No, no. You have to offer it up. Don’t make me work for it.” Folding her hands primly in her lap, she was forced to close her eyes as she let the wind take charge of her wildly whipping hair. It was all he could do to keep from reaching over and smoothing it back. He wanted to see that smooth cheek, that roses-andcream complexion, that gently curving jaw line.

  “I was born in Phoenix and my family moved to Las Vegas. My father gambled his paychecks away and my mother cleaned hotel rooms. My sister Michelle sketched caricatures of hotel guests and became quasifamous around town. I dragged myself through college.” Hunter stopped. To this point, he’d stuck to the truth, but he was going to have to veer off track quickly. He didn’t want her to know he’d been a cop.

  “What did you study?”

  He slid her a look as they turned down a particularly breathtaking stretch of coastline. “It’s your turn.”

  Jenny smiled. “All right, I went to college, too. Studied literature and philosophy and boys for one full semester before Troy …” She gazed out toward the sea. A boat was dragging a white, billowing cloud of sail behind it and a parasailor. She could see the tiny black form of the person beneath the parachute.

  Hunter pulled into a look out with a rocky climb down to the beach. The half mile stretch of sand below was private, hemmed in on either side by huge boulders. Private and vendor-free. He yanked on the emergency brake and looked at her. “Ready for a walk along the beach and then a picnic?”

  “It’s your turn now,” she reminded him, climbing from the Jeep.

  He gathered up the picnic bag and they both scrambled down the slick black rocks to a beach with silver sand. Stashing the bag behind a large rock, they took off their shoes and strolled along the edge of the surf, feeling it bubble around their bare feet, teasing and retreating, and teasing again.

  “I went into business. Worked in security. Married Kathryn and eked out a living for about two years before I felt like blowing my brains out. She found someone else. We divorced. I quit my job and now you know everything there is to know about Hunter Calgary.”

  “Mm-hm. So, what’s your relationship with Kathryn now?”

  “You keep forgetting the rules to your own game.”

  “All right.” She stopped walking and Hunter waited beside her. “As I’m sure you realized last night, Troy hurt me in every way he could. He was in a rage that I had no immediate money, but what really infuriated him was that I didn’t care. I used him too, I guess, as my ticket out of that house. When it all fell apart, I lost my courage and let dear old Dad take over again.”

  “You were pregnant,” he reminded her. “And he was physically abusing you.”

  She nodded.

  “And you’ve been on your own ever since, raising a son alone. Give yourself a little credit, Geneva.” He purposely used her given name though it sounded stiff and formal on his tongue. But it kept the distance. That little distance he needed.

  “My name’s Jenny,” she said on a whisper. “But you can call me Geneva, if you want …”

  And with that Hunter Calgary gazed into her serious blue eyes and leaned in for a kiss.

  Jenny had no idea what she felt as she sat directly on the sand and munched a cheese sandwich loaded with horseradish and dill pickle. Not exactly gourmet fare, but she’d never tasted anything better, never felt more ravenous. It was afternoon and the sun was beginning to set. She wanted the day to continue. She wanted to stay here with him and not have to face Magda, Phil, and the others. She wanted another kiss.

  How long had it been since she kissed a man? It was entirely too depressing to think about. And when he’d said her name, so seriously, so deeply, it had struck some deep chord inside her that had been left untouched too long.

  Hunter sighed, stretched out his long legs on the beach, tucked his hands under his head and closed his eyes. He wore jeans and a black shirt, no collar. Jenny was all too aware of how incredibly sexy he was. She took advantage of the opportunity to really look at him—the biceps that swelled under his sleeves, the rugged jaw, the dark brows and hair that waved just the tiniest bit away from sun-darkened skin.

  “It’s your turn again,” she said, tucking the remains of their sandwiches into the bag and withdrawing the taco chips and salsa. She unscrewed the lid of the jar as she crunched a chip. Then she replenished their wine glasses though neither one of them had swallowed more than a few sips.


  “I can’t think of anything more to tell you,” he said, eyes still closed, looking for all the world as if he were about to fall asleep right there.

  “Then tell me about your sister.”

  His eyes opened and he shot her a hard look. “My sister?”

  “Michelle, right? You said she drew caricatures. Does she still?”

  “No.”

  It was as if a cold wind had blown in from the sea. Jenny wondered what she’d said but Hunter was silent for a very long moment. “Do you see her much?” she asked tentatively.

  “I don’t see her at all.” He sat up quickly. “I don’t want to talk about Michelle right now.”

  “Okay.” Jenny swallowed, feeling chastised. “I don’t have a sister or a brother, but I’ve got a father with serious control issues and a stepmother who plays tennis, collects jewelry, and pretty much stopped mentally developing at age fifteen.”

  That brought a smile to his face. “But how do you really feel about her?”

  They were back on solid ground again. She was relieved. Munching another chip, she wondered if she should bring up the kiss. It had taken her wholly by surprise, and she felt she hadn’t quite surrendered to it enough to enjoy herself. But there was no time. One moment he was looking at her, the next he’d grabbed her upper arms, pulled her forward and kissed her. And there’d been a lurking urgency, though she suspected he’d desperately tried to hide it.

  Or maybe she was making too much of everything.

  Clearing her throat, she said, “I feel like I’m asking all the questions. It’s almost as if you know me already.”

  He didn’t respond to that at all, just leaned over and scooped a chip in the salsa jar.

  “So, what do you plan to do when this trip is over?”

  He exhaled heavily, cradled his head with his hands again. “Sleep for a year.”

  Jenny gazed at him, slowly connecting. “That sounds like burnout.”

  “It is.”

  “Is that why you quit your job?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So, my offer to hire you as a bodyguard won’t be accepted?” she asked lightly.