24/7

by Yolanda Wallace

  Table of Contents

  Synopsis

  Praise for Yolanda Wallace

  By the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Vacation Stretcher

  Day One

  Day Two

  Day Three

  Day Four

  Day Five

  Day Six

  Day Seven

  Vacation Stretcher

  About the Author

  Other Yolanda Wallace Titles Available via Amazon

  Books Available From Bold Strokes Books

  Synopsis

  Finn Chamberlain is a travel writer with more passport stamps than friends. Her career keeps her constantly on the go, leaving her precious little time for relationships. And that’s just the way she likes it—until a charged encounter with a beautiful stranger causes her to call her unsettled life into question.

  Luisa Moreno is an officer with the Mexican Federal Police. Her chance meeting with Finn Chamberlain was supposed to be a one-time thing, but it leaves her wanting more. When Finn’s life is threatened, it’s up to Luisa to save her. Will Luisa’s rescue attempt be successful, or will she lose much more than her heart in the process?

  Praise for Yolanda Wallace

  The War Within

  “The War Within has a masterpiece quality to it. It’s a story of the heart told with heart—a story to be savored—and proof that you’re never too old to find (or rediscover) true love.”—Lambda Literary

  Rum Spring

  “The writing was possibly the best I’ve seen for the modern lesfic genre, and the premise and setting was intriguing. I would recommend this one.”—The Lesbrary

  Murphy’s Law

  “Prepare to be thrilled by a love story filled with high adventure as they move toward an ending as turbulent as the weather on a Himalayan peak.”—Lambda Literary

  24/7

  Brought to you by

  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.

  24/7

  © 2016 By Yolanda Wallace. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-62639-620-3

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, New York 12185

  First Edition: March 2016

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Cindy Cresap

  Production Design: Stacia Seaman

  Cover Design By Sheri (graphicartist2020@hotmail.com)

  By the Author

  In Medias Res

  Rum Spring

  Lucky Loser

  Month of Sundays

  Murphy’s Law

  The War Within

  Love’s Bounty

  Break Point

  24/7

  Writing as Mason Dixon:

  Date with Destiny

  Charm City

  Acknowledgments

  Most of my books are inspired by conversations that begin with the famous last words, “What if?” This book is no different.

  My wife and I were on vacation in Mexico when we noticed the security personnel patrolling the beach next to our resort. Two tequila shots later—okay, maybe three—24/7 began to take shape.

  Travel and food are two of my favorite pastimes. I was able to indulge my love of both while writing this book. I hope you enjoy the journey.

  My thanks, as always, to Radclyffe for taking a chance on me when she signed me to my first contract, to Cindy Cresap for making me a better writer one editor’s note at a time, and the rest of Team BSB for their hard work and dedication behind the scenes. You rock!

  Thank you, Dita, my wife/travel companion/first reader, for always being there whether I feel the need to experiment with a new recipe, plan a trip, or talk through a plot point.

  And last but not least, thank you to the readers for your continued support and encouragement. You make the late nights and long weekends worth every second.

  To Dita.

  Thank you for choosing me as your travel partner.

  Vacation Stretcher

  Finn Chamberlain settled into her seat at the bar closest to her gate and ordered a Corona, having learned long ago that Mexico’s signature beer tasted far better on the north side of the border than it did in its home country. As soon as her plane landed in Cancún, it would be Presidente all the way.

  After the bartender placed the beer in front of her, Finn took a long draw from the bottle and checked her watch. Only two more hours before her plane departed Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport for the last of her series of flights. Perhaps one day, she thought with a sigh, she could convince Brett Madison, her editor, to pop for a direct flight instead of one with a slew of connections. But she wasn’t holding her breath.

  Direct flights were more expensive, and Brett—like most people in charge of the slowly dying medium known as print magazines—liked to keep operating costs low whenever possible. If the circulation numbers didn’t start trending upward soon, Finn feared she might find herself strapped to the wing or shoved in the cargo hold instead of sandwiched between two strangers in coach on her next flight. No matter. As long as she got where she was going, she didn’t care how long it took to get there or how many “inadvertent” elbows she received from her traveling companions along the way. Being able to tick another country off her bucket list made everything worth it in the end. Usually. The nasty case of dysentery she caught in Mozambique a few years ago had put her theory to a serious test. And the horde of pickpockets in Rio had nearly caused her to lose her faith in humanity. But that was then. This, as they say, was now.

  “Is this seat taken?”

  Finn looked away from the talking heads on one of the flat-screen TVs mounted above the bar. She tuned out their discussion of the travails of the latest multimillionaire athlete with impulse control issues and turned to face a beautiful Hispanic woman with tawny skin, shining black hair, and the brownest eyes she had ever seen.

  “No, it isn’t.” Finn nudged her backpack and rolling carry-on out of the way with her foot. “Feel free.”

  “Thanks.” The woman straddled the bar stool, dropped a rucksack between her feet, and raised a hand to get the bartender’s attention. “I’ll have what she’s having,” she said in slightly accented English before flashing a dimpled grin. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”

  “Yeah, me, too.” Finn wanted to kick herself for not coming up with something more original, but she felt so tongue-tied she could barely remember how to speak English, let alone form coherent sentences. Wit was too much to ask.

  “Maybe next time, eh?”

  “Maybe.”

  Finn turned back to SportsCenter, but regarded the woman out of the corner of her eye. The woman was wearing a form-fitting white Henley with the sleeves pushed up to her elbows, revealing wiry but powerful-looking forearms. Her jeans fit her like a second skin, hugging narrow hips and corded thighs. Her black boots and olive rucksack hinted at a military background, but her ramrod-straight posture and squared shoulders truly brought the image home. Finn took another sip of her beer and considered the unlikely possibility that her accidental encounter with her new drinking buddy could be the first of many instead of the once-in-a-lifetime
meeting it would probably turn out to be. Nah. No way she could ever get that lucky. Not in this lifetime.

  The woman wiped her hand on her jeans and extended it toward Finn. “My name’s Luisa. What’s yours?”

  Finn introduced herself, impressed—and a little aroused—by the firmness of Luisa’s handshake. Strong women had always been her weakness. And even though they had just met, she could already tell Luisa was a 5′8′′ bundle of kryptonite.

  “This may seem like an odd request,” she said, “but will you take my picture?”

  Finn pulled a miniature Porky Pig figurine from her backpack and offered Luisa her phone.

  “Sure,” Luisa said curiously. “Who’s your friend?”

  Finn glanced at the toy in her hand while Luisa lined up her shot. “It seems stupid, I know, but I take him with me on every trip. He has nearly as many passport stamps as I do.”

  “Is he your mascot or your good luck charm?”

  Luisa pressed a button on the phone’s display screen. Finn heard an automated click as the camera captured her image.

  “A bit of both, I guess. I bought him while I was on spring break during my freshman year of college. We’ve been hanging out together ever since.”

  “I’ve always admired his fashion sense,” Luisa said after she returned Finn’s phone. “The blazer and bow tie with no pants thing is rather daring, don’t you think?”

  “Porky’s my role model in some things, but not in others.” Finn slipped her phone into her back pocket. “When I want fashion tips, I turn to She-Ra. She’s a much snappier dresser than Porky. In fact, Cosmo once named her one of the fifteen most stylish cartoon characters of all time.”

  “Nice choice.” Luisa openly looked her up and down. “You would look great wearing her breast plate, boots, and arm guards, but I would ditch the headpiece if I were you.”

  “Point taken.”

  Finn took a sip of her beer to hide her smile. Luisa not only got her slightly off-kilter sense of humor, she shared it as well. Finn couldn’t remember the last time she had felt such an immediate kinship with someone. A coupling that felt right in every way.

  Try never.

  “Thanks for the picture,” she said. “One more to add to my growing collection.”

  “No problem. You made it seem as if you and Porky travel a lot.”

  “We do.”

  “That could be good or bad, depending on your perspective. Where are you two headed this time?”

  Finn was hesitant to reveal details of her personal life to anyone, let alone a stranger, but something about Luisa made her want to reveal herself inside and out. There was a word for it in Hungarian. A word that didn’t have an English translation. Szimpatikus. When you met someone for the first time and your gut told you they were a good person. Finn’s instincts told her Luisa was worthy of trust. And a whole lot more.

  “Cancún,” she said. “What about you?”

  “Mexico City.”

  “The first time I traveled there, the altitude gave me a nosebleed.”

  Despite the ominous beginning, the trip had turned out to be a pleasant one. Finn had always longed to go back but hadn’t been able to find the time. But if Luisa would be waiting for her when she arrived, she would definitely try to fit a flight to Mexico City into her busy travel schedule.

  “That happens sometimes,” Luisa said, “but the body learns to adjust. Are you headed to Mexico for business or pleasure?”

  “A bit of both, actually.” Luisa arched her eyebrows in a silent request for more information so Finn tried to fill in some of the blanks without making a fool out of herself in the process. “I’m a writer for Bon Voyage, a travel magazine based out of San Francisco, where I live. The editors give contributors twenty-four hours’ notice before sending them on a seven-day, all-expenses-paid trip to their next destination.”

  “And your current assignment is Cancún?”

  Finn took another sip of her beer to calm the familiar stirrings of resfeber, the Swedish word for the restless beat of a traveler’s heart before a journey began.

  “Not so much the city itself. That story has been told more times than I can count. There’s only so many times you can write about drunk college students puking outside Carlos’n Charlie’s or getting into fights in Señor Frog’s and make it seem fresh. I’ve been tasked with writing an article on SOS Tours, a travel agency geared for lesbians. The company’s only been in business for about three years and they cater to a niche market, but their footprint is getting bigger every year. They’ve done cruises until now. Cancún is their first resort trip. Based on the rave reviews they receive from their clientele, it won’t be the last. Their first trip was rather inauspicious, though. It was a cruise to the Caribbean, and their first stop on shore was greeted by a horde of anti-gay protesters. After the women poured a shit ton of money into the local economy—I’ve heard estimates as high as a million dollars—the protests evaporated into pleas for a return visit.”

  “Money has a way of changing people’s minds, if not their hearts,” Luisa said cryptically. Her clouded expression cleared almost as quickly as it had appeared. “Have you done something like this before?”

  “Embedding myself with five hundred partying lesbians in various stages of undress, as well as sobriety? No, not even close. My column is called ‘Flying Solo.’ I focus on what life is like for single travelers, so I’m not used to being part of a group.”

  And that was just the way she liked it.

  In the six years she had been working for Bon Voyage, Finn had visited all seven continents at least once, and had more passport stamps than she could count. Not bad for someone who an amateur fortune-teller had once predicted wouldn’t travel much.

  But her current assignment was the first of its kind. On her previous outings, she had explored her destination on her own, organically and with no predetermined agenda in mind. The perfect gig for someone who preferred being left to her own devices instead of forced to travel in a pack. This time was different. This time, she wasn’t being asked to unearth some previously unknown factoid about a selected city but to write a review on one of the fastest-growing companies in the travel business. She was pleased to see a lesbian-owned business thriving in troubled economic times, but she wasn’t planning on giving the company a gushing review just because she and the owners shared similar interests. If the women at SOS Tours wanted positive publicity, they would have to earn it.

  Luisa’s full lips puckered in appreciation. “Your job sounds like fun.”

  “Except for the occasional travel nightmares, it usually is.” Finn felt herself begin to relax and open up the way it was only possible to do with a stranger—or a new friend. “I get a thrill each time my cell phone chirps. Because each incoming email could mean the start of a brand-new adventure.”

  Luisa shifted in her seat and turned toward Finn. “This might sound like a stupid question, but given such short notice, how do you know what to take with you?”

  “That’s actually a very good question, not a stupid one.” Score one for practicality. “I never know when the call might come, so I keep two bags packed at all times. One for cold climates and another for warm. But all I really need when I travel are a camera and my passport.”

  “Don’t forget about Porky.” Luisa grinned mischievously. “And a change of underwear might be nice.”

  Finn nodded in agreement. “I keep two days’ worth in my backpack just in case. I learned that the hard way when I went to Sri Lanka last year and my luggage ended up in Singapore. I wound up going commando, which in certain climates is not as much fun as you might think.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” Luisa shook her head at the bartender’s invitation to see a menu. “Since you travel so much, you must have a lot of souvenirs.”

  Finn shrugged. “Not really. I like to travel light. I don’t feel the need to collect trinkets. I collect memories instead. Experiences.” Things that wouldn’t tie her down and ma
ke it difficult to embark on a new journey—or impossible to leave the latest behind. Her nomadic career made relationships difficult, to say the least. It was hard for her to form a lasting connection with someone when she didn’t know which city she’d be waking up in from one day to the next. “The only thing I try to bring back from a trip is a word deeply ingrained in the culture I’ve just visited but has no counterpart in English.”

  Luisa’s smooth brow furrowed in confusion. “Such as?”

  “In Japan, for example, there’s a word for the sunlight that filters through the leaves of trees. In Brazil, there’s a word for the act of running your fingers through your lover’s hair. In Norway, there’s a word for the euphoria you feel as you begin to fall in love.”

  “Leave it to the Norwegians to try to describe the indescribable.” Finn’s heart skipped a beat when Luisa focused her beautiful brown eyes squarely on her. “Tell me more.”

  Finn took a sip of beer to alleviate a sudden case of dry mouth, then paused to clear her throat.

  “In Yaghan, a language indigenous to Tierra del Fuego, Chile, there’s a word that’s hard to pronounce and even harder to spell—mamihlapinatapai.”

  “What does it mean?” Luisa asked eagerly.

  Finn met her expectant gaze. “It’s the silent acknowledgment and understanding between two people who are wishing or thinking the same thing but are both unwilling to initiate.”

  Luisa smiled as if to acknowledge the unspoken fact that the word could be applied to them. “I hate when that happens.”

  Finn lowered her eyes to watch the slow movement of Luisa’s tongue as it curled toward her upper lip to capture a stray bead of beer that hung there. Finn was tempted to lean over and have a taste.