The one with his ‘friend’ in it had taken a young man instead of waiting for us. I sincerely hoped I was wrong in suspecting some sort of con to take advantage of unsuspecting tourists. It might have been worth following up on, but I wasn’t here for a story, so I tucked the idea away for possible future use.
I was caught up in my own thoughts enough that I didn’t hear the answer Clay had given. It would’ve been nice to know if he’d been appalled at the idea of us being married or if he’d simply laughed it off and said we were ‘just friends.’ I didn’t know which would have hurt worse, but I hated the fact that it hurt at all.
“Tess?”
I blinked, mentally scolding myself for drifting off. I was a fucking journalist, for crying out loud! Paying attention was in the job description. How the hell was I going to make a career at writing hard-hitting, ground-breaking news stories if I couldn’t concentrate long enough to realize that Clay was trying to put my bag in the trunk of a cab?
“Are you okay?” he asked as he opened the rear passenger door for me.
“Jet lag,” I said tersely. “I flew in from the East Coast this morning.”
The moment he slid into the back seat with me, I knew sharing a cab had been a mistake. The scent that I’d tried to replace with all the smells of a new country was impossible to get away from in here. It surrounded me, slid over my skin, bringing with it all the memories I’d worked to forget.
“Did you move back to DC?” he asked. “Or did you guys move somewhere nearby when you left?”
When you left without a word.
“We moved to Arizona.” I pretended I didn’t understand what he wasn’t saying. “My mom’s family was from there. I didn’t stay there for college though. I went to NYU. I’ve been a New Yorker ever since.”
“My parents still have a house there,” he said. “New York, not Arizona.”
“I assumed as much since your dad’s still a congressman for New York.”
Shit. I hadn’t meant to reveal that I’d kept at least some track of his family over the years. I’d always told myself that it was because I lived in New York now, but I’d always known the real reason.
No matter how much I wanted to deny it, Clay had never been far from my mind.
Seven
Clay
I was staring, I knew, but I couldn’t help it.
Tess Gardener.
She was sixteen years older than the last time I’d seen her, and even more beautiful than I’d ever thought she’d be. Her dark brown curls looked more tamed, but those unique indigo eyes of hers hadn’t changed a bit. She also hadn’t grown past five feet, or if she had, it was only an inch or two. She probably still got carded, but she didn’t look like a child, for which I was grateful. The sorts of things I was thinking about her were definitely adult.
I couldn’t even blame it on the erotic dream I’d had before I’d known who she was. I hadn’t been in control of the dream, but I had found her attractive when I’d first seen her. Now that I knew who she was, I found myself trying to memorize every line of her face, looking for the places that she’d changed as well as the places where she’d stayed the same. My gaze traced the gentle curves of her lithe body, seeing the way she’d filled out while still keeping her tiny frame. I’d never really been picky about body shape when it came to women, but I’d never been with a woman so delicate.
“Have you been to this hotel before?” she asked, glancing out the window as she chewed the side of her thumb.
She was nervous, I realized. It was only then that I felt what had probably been there from the first moment we’d reunited.
Tension.
Not the good kind either.
“No, it’s my first time in Costa Rica. What about you?” I watched her closely as she answered.
“First time.” She dropped her hands into her lap, twisting her fingers together the same way she’d done when she had been trying to break the same habit as a kid.
“What brings you here?” As soon as I asked the question, I knew I should have avoided it. Once she answered, she’d most likely turn around and ask me the same thing. I didn’t like the idea of one of the first things I told her in years being a lie, but I couldn’t tell anyone that I was an FBI agent working on foreign soil without permission from either government.
Finding a missing Red Care team sounded like something good, but politics made everything tricky. That was why I was here instead of the Secretary of State sending in anyone official. Still, a part of me felt like I was missing something about this request.
“I’m a journalist,” she said matter-of-factly, like she didn’t care what I thought.
“That’s great!” I might’ve laid the enthusiasm on a little thick, but I needed to push her, to figure out if her personality had changed so much from when I’d known her before, or if her terse demeanor was something to do with me.
She gave a brief nod of acknowledgment and added, “I’m with the New York Times, and I’m doing a piece on vacation destinations.”
I was about to give her another congratulations when she tugged on her earlobe. Just like chewing on her thumb was her anxious tell, that earlobe tug was another tell. One that told me she was lying, or at least not telling the whole truth.
Instantly, every red flag went up, and I went from wondering if she was pissed at me for some reason to trying to figure out why she’d lie to me about why she was in Costa Rica. While the details for reasons to deceive were numerous, the simple reasons were few. I just couldn’t figure out what hers could be.
“What about you?” she asked. “Are you here on business or pleasure?”
She was tanned enough that most people probably wouldn’t have noticed the slight flush that spread across her cheeks when she said the last word, but the same way I knew how to tell if she was lying or worried, I knew what her skin looked like when she blushed.
For a second, my mind was flooded with ideas of what she would look like flushing from pleasure rather than embarrassment. What other parts of her body would reveal that rush of blood? How would it look against white hotel sheets?
Fuck.
I needed to stop thinking like that, or I’d have a reason of my own to be embarrassed. I didn’t mind letting a woman know how attractive I found her, but I also had standards regarding when I got up close and personal about things. While Tess and I had a history, we were still feeling around where we stood with each other in the here and now.
And the fact that I was about to lie to her didn’t bode well for any future friendship, let alone anything more than that.
“I’m taking a vacation.” I hoped my words didn’t sound as wooden as they felt. “I had a lot of time saved up, and I just closed a huge case, so the timing was right. I work for the FBI out of the Denver office.”
“Field agent?” she asked.
I rubbed my hand across the back of my neck. “Profiler, actually. I ended up going the psychology route in college. I’ve done some teaching, but also worked cases too.”
I needed to shut up before I slipped and told her my real reason for being there. It was too easy to forget that too much time had passed for me to be able to know how much I could trust her. I hated feeling that way, but I had to be practical. If I got caught, I wouldn’t be the only one in trouble. I couldn’t risk my career simply because I’d run into an old friend.
Half-truths and deflection would need to be the way I communicated with her until I learned more about the person my friend had grown into.
Eight
Tess
He was lying.
All right, so I hadn’t been entirely forthcoming either, but I had a good reason. What could he need to hide about going on vacation? Unless he wasn’t here alone. Or he was meeting someone.
Instantly, I flashed back to that last night and Brianne’s comments about Clay being a player. Just because he was in his early thirties now didn’t mean that anything about him had changed. Plenty of grown men still behave
d the same way they had as teenagers, especially when it came to relationships.
I hated this. I hated that I felt the need to lie to him about why I was in Costa Rica, and I hated that he’d been just as deceitful. Even after what he’d done, I wanted to be able to trust him with the sort of whole-hearted trust that came with having known each other for years.
As much as I loathed admitting it, I still felt something for him. Attraction. Desire. Something stronger that was too laced with bitterness to be as pure as it once had been.
I needed to get away from him as soon as possible, or I was going to be in a shitload of trouble.
“That’s a hotel?”
Clay’s words turned my attention to the view through the car window, and I immediately understood his question. While far from unpleasant-looking, Hotel Santo Tomas looked more like an apartment complex or some sprawling mansion in one of the southwestern states, somewhere like New Mexico or Arizona. I hadn’t really paid any attention to the pictures that had accompanied my search results when I’d made my reservation.
“Hotel Santo Tomas,” the driver announced as the car came to a stop.
I reached for my purse, but Clay was too fast for me. He smiled at me as he paid for the ride, but there wasn’t anything condescending or patronizing about it. If there had been, I could’ve felt justified in my desire to smack him.
“You can pick up a round of drinks with our meal,” he said.
“Is that your way of asking if I’ll eat with you?” I asked, giving him my best insulted look.
If anything, his grin widened. “I figured if I actually asked, you’d say no.”
“I guess you don’t know me as well as you think you do,” I replied. “I wouldn’t have turned down a meal with an old friend.”
“In that case,” he responded smoothly, “will you go to eat with me? I promise to let you pay if you want to. Cross my heart.”
Damn him for knowing exactly how to get me to do what he wanted. He’d worded things too perfectly. I wasn’t competitive, exactly, but I hated being predictable. To me, predictability equaled unoriginality, and while journalism didn’t require the sort of wild creativity that brought fiction to life, reporters needed their own brand of unique thinking to produce standout work.
I wanted to get started on my search immediately, but I was tired and hungry. My body had yet to adjust to the time change, and my stomach was protesting. The fact that I hadn’t eaten much since I’d gotten that call from my mom didn’t help matters much. Not because I was convinced that something bad had happened to Brianne but because I’d been busy trying to find a flight and a room and everything else I’d needed to get here as soon as possible.
I deserved to take an hour or so to adjust, get something to eat, and clear my head. If anything, a clearer head later would produce better results than a muddled mind sooner. Besides, Clay’s father was still a US Congressman. Knowing the Kurth family might help me find Brianne faster. I planned on talking to some people at the embassy, and it was highly likely that name dropping would get me places I couldn’t have gotten on my own.
I knew I was talking myself into accepting Clay’s invitation, but I made good points.
“All right,” I said. “Once we get settled into our rooms, we can go grab something to eat.”
He didn’t know it, but this was a test to see just how pleasant our reunion was going to be. Sitting in a restaurant, discussing our lives, was one thing. If he suggested room service, I would have a few select words for him before I told him to never speak to me again.
“That works for me,” he said as he climbed out of the cab. When he turned around with his hand out, I was tempted to ignore it, but that would’ve been rude, and things were still polite between us.
I wasn’t prepared for the sizzle when our hands touched, but I didn’t think anything could have prepared me. Our palms slid against each other for a moment, and then his fingers closed around mine. He’d always had long, almost delicate fingers, but there was no denying the strength in them. The years since I’d last seen him had either been extremely kind to him, or he’d worked his ass off to maintain the athletic body he’d had in high school. Knowing the type of person he’d been, I was willing to bet it was some of both.
He held my hand a few seconds longer than necessary, then released it with a reluctance that I was almost positive wasn’t in my head. Again, I reminded myself that the boy I’d thought I’d known had turned out to be someone entirely different. I couldn’t let myself fall into the trap of thinking the man would suddenly become the person I’d wanted him to be.
We entered the hotel together, and I considered purposefully separating myself from him to make it obvious we weren’t together, but then I reconsidered. As much as I was all about girl power, the fact was that a single woman traveling in a foreign country was in more danger than a woman traveling with a man. Especially when that woman was as small as I was.
I’d taken some general self-defense classes in college, but the first thing I’d been taught was that the best way to win a fight was to avoid one. Making it seem like Clay and I were traveling together, even if we were in separate rooms, would keep me safer than showing I was here alone.
Once we checked in, we headed to our rooms, which ended up being across the hall from each other. The more my day progressed, the more I was convinced that fate or karma or whatever was either having a hell of a time laughing at me, or someone was trying to play matchmaker a little too hard.
I unpacked, forcing myself not to hurry any more than I would have if I’d been getting ready for dinner on my own. Or lunch, maybe. With the time change, I had no idea what to call this meal. Once I’d finished getting everything settled where I wanted it, I freshened up, then headed back downstairs. I sent off a quick text to Clay to let him know that I was ready, but he was already waiting when I arrived.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I asked the desk clerk for his favorite restaurant with local cuisine and I got a name. It’s less than a quarter of a mile from here, which I thought would be the perfect distance for us to stretch our legs, but not far enough to tire us out.” The smile Clay gave me was uncertain, the expression looking foreign on his face.
“Sounds perfect.”
Dammit. That sounded almost flirtatious. Being a polite friend from the past wasn’t the same as being close friends.
I kept my mouth shut as Clay held the door for me, and I stepped back into the balmy January day. I’d lived in Arizona for three years before moving to New York, but mid-seventies and sunny the second day of January still weirded me out.
Clay made awkward small talk as he led the way to La Criollita, but I barely managed anything beyond nods and single word answers. By the time we were seated at the restaurant, I was more than ready to order some alcohol. I didn’t usually drink much – my body size had always made me a lightweight when it came to, holding my liquor – but between the issue with Brianne and then this whole thing with Clay, my stress level was higher than normal, which meant I was seriously considering drinking more than normal.
When the waiter came, Clay spoke to him in fluent Spanish. His accent was a little different than the waiter’s, but no more than an American-speaking person from Maine would sound different than one from Tennessee. Clay ordered a drink and appetizer for himself, then turned and asked me what I wanted. I didn’t know if he intended to order for me, but it didn’t matter because my Spanish was just as good as Clay’s.
I hadn’t liked my time in Arizona, but I had spent a decent amount of time with cousins who were only two generations removed from Mexico. As a result, my Spanish sounded more Mexican than Clay’s, but again, it was close enough that the waiter understood me.
“I thought you took German in school,” Clay said as the waiter walked away.
“I did.” I straightened my silverware, so I didn’t have to look at him. “Did you know that my mom’s maiden name is Sanchez?”
He shook his head. “I ca
n’t say that I did.”
“Her father came up from Mexico on a college visa and became a citizen a few years after he married my grandmother. He speaks English with barely any accent, and Ita speaks Spanish fluently, so my mom and all my aunts and uncles were raised bilingual. Other than my mom, all the kids married people of Mexican descent and raised their children bilingual too. Brianne and I had to work to catch up.”
“Seems like you did that well,” he said.
He took a long drink of his beer, and I took the opportunity to gulp a mouthful of margarita. My lips puckered as the taste registered. It was good, but I hadn’t expected it to be quite that sour.
He continued, “Working with the FBI, it’s always good to have a grasp of other languages. I took Spanish and Russian, though I’m not as fluent in that as I am in Spanish.”
“It’s made interviewing people for stories easier,” I said, running a fingertip over the salt covered rim. “Spanish is close enough to French and Italian that I can generally get my point across, so that gives me a few groups I can usually talk to without an interpreter.” I couldn’t suppress a smile. “And you’d be surprised how much people give away when they think you can’t understand the language.”
He grinned in return, and I had to look away. “Yet another reason my employer encourages us to speak other languages.”
I took another drink and reminded myself that it didn’t matter how gorgeous his eyes were when he smiled.
I would not fall for Clay Kurth again.
No way in hell was that happening.
Nine
Clay
I should have wanted to rush through dinner and get back to my room where I could start working on the reason I was actually in Costa Rica. I shouldn’t have wanted to linger over our beer and margaritas, making pointless conversation that never answered the real questions I didn’t have the courage to ask.
Finding Brianne: New Pleasures Book 4 Page 4