Santiago Sol

by Niki Turner

“A black mark on the soul of my nation,” he said, shaking his head. He speared a bite of artichoke.

  “After she returned to the United States, she campaigned to reconnect families separated by war and violence. She traveled to Cuba, Cambodia, Vietnam, Haiti...” Tansy waved her hand. “She’s an amazing woman.” There was no need to tell this man Eva’s daughter had stolen a family heirloom, and Tansy was supposed to return it.

  “And will you visit all those other nations for your research as well?”

  “Definitely not.” Just the idea made Tansy a little queasy. She squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath.

  “So you’ve never been to Chile before?”

  “This is my first time out of the United States.” Tansy knew she was breaking some traveler’s code of wisdom, but his demeanor was soothing, and he was a much better distraction than the appetizer.

  “Are you taking a tour?”

  “No.” Tansy hesitated. Thanks to Eva’s attorney, she had the address of an aparthotel and some possible contacts for the Sandovals. Other than that, she wasn’t even sure how to get through customs. She brushed hair from her face to hide her shaking fingers and announced in what she hoped was a breezy, confident tone, “I’m just going to ‘wing it,’ as they say.”

  ****

  Sebastian’s mouth tightened. He’d seen her hands shake, noticed the way she tensed every time the plane shuddered or groaned or bumped through turbulence. It was part of the reason he’d engaged her in conversation. In his experience, distracting the poor souls he encountered who were afraid of flying was often the only way to ease their constant tension. Now he wondered if her trip would end in a greater disaster. For the most part, Chile was a safe nation in terms of violent crime, but he doubted this young woman would make it from the baggage carousel to a taxi with all her belongings intact.

  “¿Hablas español?”

  She faced him, and he acknowledged with surprise the sudden, low hum of attraction. He’d already appreciated the swing of her hair—a rich, buttery shade of caramel with golden highlights—and the delicate shape of her profile, but he hadn’t paid much attention otherwise. Sebastian had dated Brazilian models, Argentinian heiresses, and a few Mexican television stars, but he’d never been drawn to any American women, due, he surmised, to a lifetime of negative references to his American-born mother.

  This woman was pretty in a quiet sort of way. Not the sultry beauty he was usually attracted to. The wide eyes she turned on him were a bright, quirky hazel, the kind that reflected everything from her feelings to her fashion choices. They were set in a pixie face with small features and smooth, pale skin. Her cheeks were flushed—because she was nervous, or too warm, he didn’t know—but the effect ratcheted the hum into a buzz at the base of his skull.

  “I don’t,” she replied. “I took two years in high school, but it didn’t stick with me. I think you have to be around a language all the time to really become fluent in it.”

  He had to blink twice to remember what he’d asked her.

  “I’m sure it will be all right. America tends to be the only country where its populace speaks one language,” she continued.

  The flight attendant returned, this time to present options for the main course.

  Sebastian chose the beef, with a glass of Chilean Merlot. He’d been raised on a vineyard. Not having wine with dinner was tantamount to blasphemy.

  She selected the beef entrée and a soda, and when the flight attendant moved down the aisle she faced him and grinned. “You’re a miracle worker! I think I’ve found my appetite. I hate to fly, and you distracted me. Thank you.”

  “De nada. You’ve made an otherwise boring flight more enjoyable.”

  The flush on her cheeks deepened to a dark rose, and she fiddled with her napkin. “What about you? Are you headed home?”

  Home. The word slammed into his gut like a cannonball. His quest had been an abject failure. Of his grandfather’s two qualifications for claiming his inheritance, Sebastian was stymied on both counts. The walking stick was still missing, and Sebastian was still unmarried. He’d hoped that finding the walking stick would make up for his lack of a wife. Now, he had neither.

  When the main course arrived, the woman beside him prayed over her food, which prompted him to bow his own head. He thought of the conversation he needed to have with his grandfather and felt deflated. He glanced at the woman beside him. Perhaps it was time for an uncharted detour. If he could protect a naïve young woman from harm in the process, all the better.

  “I’m at loose ends for a few days. Would you allow me the honor of introducing you to my country?”

  Her eyes widened. “I... I don’t know. I mean, I don’t even know your name.

  “Sebastian. Sebastian MacKenna.” The name was out of his mouth before he could reconsider.

  “MacKenna? Is that a Scottish name?”

  “Irish. My great-great-grandfather emigrated to Chile in the 1800s,” he replied. “You haven’t answered my question, or told me your name.”

  She smiled. “Tansy Chastain.”

  “Mucho gusto, Tansy Chastain. Pleased to meet you.” He lifted her hand and brushed his lips across her knuckles in the European fashion.

  “Please don’t take this the wrong way, Sebastian,” she said, “But I’m not sure I feel comfortable keeping company with someone I just met.”

  Sebastian leaned back. “No offense taken.” He raised his almost untouched glass of wine. “I hope you will find Chile a hospitable nation. But please take care.”

  ****

  Tansy blinked gritty eyes and stared, uncomprehending, at the movie on the flat-screen monitor in front of her. She glanced at Sebastian. He was sleeping again, this time without the mask. She looked at his lips and a curl of pleasure flickered in her belly. No one had ever kissed her hand before. His warning to “please take care” rattled through her head. Part of her wanted to accept his offer, but another part was as wary of him and the effect he had on her, as she was of navigating a strange nation alone.

  She tried to read, but her lids kept drooping. Unfortunately, every time she dozed, the plane tilted or lurched, wrenching her from sleep with every nerve on alert.

  It was with relief that she saw the sun rising over the Andes’ sharp, angular peaks, tinting the snow-covered mountains a rosy pink. The view was dramatically different from her own familiar Rockies, and certainly nothing like the rolling green Appalachians where she’d spent a few summer vacations as a child.

  The pilot’s voice announced their descent to the Comodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport, and the other passengers shifted and roused themselves.

  Tansy yawned. The first thing she wanted to do in Chile was sleep.

  3

  She and Sebastian exchanged polite good-byes as they deplaned, and then he went one way while she was directed toward the line for foreign visitors. She smiled. Sebastian would be a good memory from this adventure, and a fun story to share with Eva when she returned to Colorado.

  She flushed with pride when the customs agent stamped her passport. Then she followed the crowd to collect her luggage. A young man jostled her near the baggage carousel, nearly knocking her down. She apologized, unsure if she’d gotten in his way, but he brushed her aside and disappeared. She grabbed her suitcase as it came around and dragged it off the conveyor.

  One of the wheels had popped off her suitcase somewhere between Denver and Santiago. Dragging the handicapped bag, she limped toward the customs area, trying in vain to figure out what she was supposed to be doing.

  A uniformed inspector snatched up her suitcase and flipped it open. The pink dress unfurled itself, exposing the walking stick. The inspector peppered her with questions, pointing at the walking stick. Heart pounding, Tansy attempted to explain, in pathetic Spanish, that she was returning it to a family friend. Eventually, the inspector grunted and waved her on, leaving her with the impression he didn’t think she was bright enough to pull off a smu
ggling scheme.

  Tansy found the TaxiOficial counter, whose website had promised “safe travel in one of their almost-new cars.” She handed the young man behind the counter the address of her aparthotel. He looked at it, tapped something into his keyboard, and shook his head.

  “It’s going to be very expensive,” he said in well-spoken English. “Are you sure you don’t want to take a bus?”

  “It’s all right, I can manage.” She rummaged through her bag for the envelope containing her traveler’s checks.

  The envelope was gone. Her heart lurched. She dropped to her knees on the polished floor in front of the counter and dumped the contents of her bag. Her passport was there, and the list of possible contacts, but her wallet, with her credit cards and her Colorado driver’s license, and the envelope with the traveler’s checks, were missing. A sodden blanket of cold horror settled over her.

  “No,” she whispered, remembering the young man at the baggage carousel.

  “Miss?” The clerk leaned over the counter and peered at her. She resisted the urge to panic, and battled back tears. “Would you like me to reserve the taxi?”

  “That won’t be necessary.” The familiar voice rolled over Tansy like warm honey. She jerked her head around.

  Sebastian, somehow looking fresh and... expensive...despite his unshaven jaw and tousled hair, stood there. He dropped to his haunches and helped her shove her remaining belongings back into the tote.

  “I thought you left,” Tansy said, flipping the flap on her bag shut.

  “I did. And then I told my driver to bring me back.” He shrugged, smiled in a way that warmed her to the core. “I gather you need a ride?”

  She grimaced. “I need more than a ride. I need a brain, too. Someone snatched my wallet and my traveler’s checks.”

  Sebastian clucked his tongue. “Lo siento. I’m sorry.” He stood, and held out his hand to her. “Please, let me help you.”

  She didn’t have much choice, she realized, letting him pull her to her feet. The clerk stared at Sebastian, then glanced from one to the other, frowning.

  “I’ll see to it that the señorita reaches her destination,” Sebastian said. There was an authority in his voice she hadn’t heard before, and the clerk nodded.

  “Sí, Señor. Of course.”

  She offered the clerk a faint smile, but his gaze remained on Sebastian, who hefted her suitcase as if it weighed less than the jacket he’d slung over one arm, and then walked away. She trotted after him feeling very unsure of herself.

  He led the way outside, and she got her first lungful of warm, moist Chilean air, tainted by diesel fumes from the line of taxis at the curb, but wonderfully tropical after the arid frigidity of Colorado.

  A man in a classic, black chauffeur’s uniform stepped around a limo wedged between two yellow cabs.

  “This is Ben, my driver,” Sebastian said. Ben took her suitcase and put it in the trunk, then returned to open the passenger door for them.

  “I’ve never ridden in a limousine.”

  “There’s a first time for everything.”

  Tansy settled into a leather seat that hugged her tired frame like a lover.

  Sebastian seated himself beside her.

  With a honk of the horn, the limo pulled out of its space.

  “I can’t thank you enough,” Tansy said. “I don’t know what I would have done.”

  “Pickpockets and thieves abound in Chile. I have to ask you again, will you please let me play host for a day or two? Just until you get your bearings?” He smiled, generating a thousand watts of charm. If she could harness that energy, she’d be a rich woman.

  “What’s in it for you? I’m inclined to be a bit less trusting than usual at this point.”

  He chuckled. “A pleasant diversion from months of work on a very difficult project that has since succumbed to failure.”

  “Was it a very great loss?”

  His dark head fell back against the butter-smooth leather. “The worst.”

  She was tempted to reach across the console that divided them and touch him. Instead, she balled her hands together in her lap. “What is it that you do, exactly, Mr. MacKenna?”

  The quicksilver eyes snapped open. He waved his hand. “It’s difficult to explain. My business...” He inhaled, then exhaled. “...is very diverse. Everything from international finance to copper mines to vineyards.”

  “It sounds very interesting.”

  He stared out the opposite window, giving Tansy an opportunity to examine him. She could see tiny furrows marring his otherwise smooth brow, and tension tightening those generous lips.

  “Not so much. I suppose it could be, but my employer is very conservative, muy traditional. He rules his empire with...cómo se dice...” He looked at her, holding up one hand and closing it in a tight fist.

  “An iron hand?” Tansy offered.

  “Sí. You have no idea.”

  “And you are looking for a way to delay telling your boss the deal you were working on fell through.”

  “Exactly,” Sebastian replied. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Just for a few days.” The entreaty in his expression was irresistible.

  Tansy searched her spirit for a warning, a red flag, an alarm of some kind. Nothing. If the man was the head of a sex trafficking ring, or the son of a Colombian drug lord, or a run-of-the-mill serial killer, God didn’t see fit to warn her. “All right.”

  He perked up. “All right?”

  “After what just happened at the airport, I admit I’m in need of some assistance,” she said. And some money, but she had to trust that Eva’s attorney would understand her predicament and wire more.

  “Wonderful!”

  He grinned, and for a minute she thought she’d been hit with a heart defibrillator.

  “What would you like to see first?”

  “My aparthotel,” Tansy replied, then smothered a yawn. The limo seats were too comfortable.

  “Very good. The address?”

  She pulled out the paper and handed it to him. He peered at it.

  “Las Condes—a good district.” He rattled off the address in Spanish to Ben, who nodded. “We’ll get you settled in your aparthotel, you can rest today, and I’ll pick you up for breakfast tomorrow to start our tour. How does that sound?”

  “That would be lovely, thank you.”

  They were approaching the city proper. Tansy recalled some of the early research she’d done for Eva’s story. Six-and-a-half million Chilenos lived and worked in Santiago, separated by class into various districts, like many North American cities. From her viewpoint in the limousine, it looked very little like the third-world nation she’d anticipated and very much like any other modern urban area. She let her head fall back against the headrest

  She didn’t know when or how long she’d dozed until Sebastian patted her hand.

  “Your aparthotel,” he said. “This is it.”

  She peered through the tinted window at a towering modern structure. A uniformed doorman stood outside a wall of sparkling glass doors. Manicured ornamental bushes in huge urns flanked either side of the entrance.

  The chauffeur helped Tansy out of the vehicle.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He nodded, and went to get her crippled suitcase from the trunk.

  Sebastian leaned across the seat and looked up at her through the open window. “Will you be all right checking in by yourself?”

  “I still have all the reservation information, thank goodness.” She patted her bag.

  “Excellent. We’ll eat at Melba’s and come up with a plan—all the things you’d like to see in Santiago during your stay.” He seemed pleased by the idea of playing the part of her tour guide.

  “If you’re sure...”

  “We’ve been over this. You’re doing me a favor by taking my mind off my recent troubles.”

  “All right, then. I’ll see you in the morning.” The window slid closed, and she turned to se
e the doorman scooping up her suitcase and heading for the front door. She followed him into the marble-floored lobby of the aparthotel, where she was relieved to discover the front desk clerk spoke beautiful English. The woman explained the housekeeping, laundry, and grocery services, handed Tansy a room key, and directed her toward a bank of gleaming steel elevators.

  ****

  Sebastian sank back into the leather seat. The Las Condes aparthotel was safe, well-managed, and expensively-appointed. He knew. He owned the building, and lived in the penthouse. The corners of his lips turned up at the irony. The car circled the building once, and then dropped into the underground parking garage.

  He was surprised to find himself anticipating Tansy Chastain’s company. He’d had more than his share of arranged “dates” and demanding business associates, and found he liked the idea of introducing her to his city without the pressure of closing a deal or fulfilling any romantic expectations. He closed his eyes and swiped a hand through his hair. For a couple of days he would just be Sebastian. It would be good practice for the simpler life he’d be leading once his abuelo knew he’d failed.

  The limousine swooped into an open parking space. Would he be able to keep the penthouse once he was no longer in line for the inheritance? His driver got out, went around to the back, and extracted Sebastian’s bag, then opened the door for Sebastian.

  “Gracias, Ben.”

  Sebastian picked up his carry-on bag and turned toward the elevator, but Ben’s voice arrested him. “Señor? The woman at the airport...you don’t want her to know who you are?”

  Sebastian flinched, knowing Ben had overheard her call him Mr. MacKenna. He wasn’t used to being deceptive. “It’s complicated. I’ll be showing her around the city for the next few days. Kind of a vacation.”

  “Will you be needing my services, then?”

  Sebastian glanced down the row of vehicles that belonged to the Sandoval fleet. “Why don’t you take a couple days off? Go visit your grandkids in Osorno.”

  Ben nodded. “Thank you, sir.”

  Sebastian’s conscience prickled. “I’m not planning to take advantage of her. I’m just...”