by Diana Palmer
“Your neighbor looked very familiar, didn’t he?” Quentin asked suddenly.
She had to fight down a thrill at just the mention of him. “He should. Haven’t you looked at a newspaper recently? Canton Rourke? Founder of Chipgrafix software?”
“Good Lord!”
“That was him,” she said.
“Imagine, a mind like that,” Quentin mused. “He doesn’t look all that important, does he? I would have passed him on the street without a second glance. But he still reminds me of somebody…Aha! I’ve got it! The alien on that science fiction series…”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “He doesn’t really look much like him at all, once you’ve been around him for a while.”
“Sounds like him, though,” he countered. “Nice voice.”
He wasn’t supposed to like Canton Rourke. He was supposed to be jealous and icy and contemptuous of the man. She sighed. Nothing was going according to plan. Nothing at all.
Karie spent the next day with Janine while Quentin boarded a tour bus at his hotel and was gone all day and most of the night. He came over the next afternoon by cab, on his way to the airport.
“I had a great time at Chichñaen Itzñaa,” he told Janine. “Of course, the English whiz was on the tour, too,” he added sourly. “She’s from Indianapolis and is going back on the same flight I am. I hope they seat her on the wing. She knows all about the Maya culture. Speaks Spanish fluently,” he added with pure disgust. “Has a double major in English and archaeology. Show-off.”
She didn’t quite look at him. “Is she married?”
“Who’d have her?” he spat. “She’s so smug. Read the stelae to me before the tour guide could.”
She smothered a grin. “Imagine that.”
“Yes.” He still looked disgusted. “Well, it’s been a wonderful trip, Janine. I’m glad you talked me into it. I’ve got some great things to take back to my classes, including several rolls of film at Chichñaen Itzñaa that I’ll share with the archaeology department. Think your parents might like some shots?”
She hesitated to mention that they’d taken more slides of the site than most tourists ever would. “You might mention it to them,” she said tactfully.
“I’ll do that. Well, I’ll see you when you come home to visit your parents, I suppose. Any word on how your parents are coming along at that new site?”
She shook her head. “I’m getting a little worried. I haven’t heard anything in a couple of weeks, not even one piece of E-mail.”
“Hard to find electrical outlets in the jungle, I imagine,” he said and then grinned at his joke.
She didn’t smile. “They have an emergency generator and a satellite hookup for their computers.”
“Well, they’ll turn up,” he said airily, ignoring her obvious concern. “I have to rush or I’ll miss my flight. Good to have seen you. You were right, Janine. I did need a break.”
He brushed a careless kiss against her cheek and went back out to his waiting cab.
And that was that.
Janine was halfheartedly reading a tome on forensics while Kurt and Karie had gone out to the beach to watch a boy go up on a parasail, which she’d forbidden them to go near. The abrupt knock at the patio wall caught her attention. Her heart jumped when she found Karie’s dad standing there, dressed in lightweight white slacks and a tan knit shirt that showed anyone who cared to look just how powerful the muscles in his chest and arms were. For a man his age, he was really tremendously fit.
“I’m looking for Karie,” he said without greeting.
She was still stung from his cold words while Quentin had been poring over his photocopies. “They’re down the beach watching a parasail go up. Don’t worry, I told them not to go near the thing.”
He went to the railing, shaded his eyes and stared down the beach. “Okay, I see them. They’re wading in the surf, watching.”
“Oh.”
He turned back to her and searched her flushed face quietly. “Where’s the boyfriend?”
“Gone back to Indiana. You just missed him.”
“Pity,” he said languidly.
She laughed mirthlessly. “Right.”
He glanced at her computer screen. A word processor had been pulled up, but no files were open. “That’s obsolete,” he stated. “Why aren’t you using the new one?”
“Because it takes me forever to learn one.” She smiled at him. “I guess they’re all child’s play to you. I couldn’t write a computer program if my life depended on it!”
That was interesting. “Why not?”
“Because I can’t do math,” she said simply. “And I don’t understand machines, either. You must have a natural gift for computer science.”
He felt less inferior. “Something like that, maybe.”
“You didn’t go to school at all to learn how to write programs?”
He shook his head. “I worked with two men who were old NASA employees. They learned about computing in the space program. I suppose I picked up a lot from them. We started the company together. I bought them out eventually and kept going on my own.”
“Then you must have known how to get the best and brightest people to work for you, and keep them.”
He smiled faintly. “You aren’t quite what I expected,” he said unexpectedly.
“Excuse me?”
“Some academics use their education to make people who don’t have one feel insignificant,” he explained.
She smiled ruefully. “Oh, that would be a good trick, making a millionaire feel insignificant because I have a degree in history.”
“What do you do with it?” he asked unexpectedly.
She stared at him. “Do with it?”
“Yes. Do you teach, like your parents?”
“No.”
“Why not? Are you happy being a secretary and working for a slave driver?”
She remembered, belatedly, the fictional life she’d concocted. “Oh. Well, no, I don’t, really. But degrees are a dime a dozen these days. I know a man with a doctorate in philosophy who’s working at a fast-food joint back home. It was the only job he could get.”
He leaned against the wall, with his hands in his pockets. “How fast do you type?”
“A little over a hundred words a minute.”
He whistled. “Pretty good.”
“Thanks.”
“If I can get the refinancing I need, you can come to work for me,” he suggested.
Was he trying to make up for his behavior when he’d said he was sorry he’d ever met her? She wondered. “That’s a nice offer,” she said.
“Think about it, then.” He shouldered away from the wall. “I’ll go get Karie and tell her I’m back.”
“They won’t have gone far. Have you found out anything about that man who was watching her?” she added, concerned.
He scowled. “No.”
“I guess that’s good.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” he said absently. His eyes met hers. “Has he turned up again?”
She sighed. “He’s been around. He bothers me.”
“I know. I’ll keep digging and see what I discover.”
She was staring at the computer, sitting there like a one-eyed predator, staring at her with its word processing program open and waiting.
“Busy?” he asked.
“I should be.”
He held out a hand. “Come along with me to get Karie. Your work will still be there when you get back.”
She smiled, tempted. This was going to be disastrous, but why not? It was just a walk, after all.
She turned off the computer and, hesitantly, took the hand he offered. It closed, warm and firm, around hers.
“I’m safe,” he said when she flushed a little. “We’ll hold hands, like two old friends, and pretend that we’ve known each other for twenty years.”
“I’d have been four years old…”
His hand contracted. “I’m thirty-eight,” he said. “
You don’t have to emphasize that fourteen-year jump I’ve got on you. I’m already aware of it.”
“I was kidding.”
“I’m not laughing.” He didn’t look at her. His eyes were on the beach as they descended the steps and walked along, above the damp sand.
Kurt gave them a curious look when he saw them holding hands. He waved, grinned and went back to chasing down sand crabs and shells, the parasail already forgotten. Karie was much further down the beach, talking to some girls who were about her age. She hadn’t looked their way yet.
“When are your parents due back?” he asked.
“God knows,” she replied wearily. “They get involved and forget time altogether. They’re like two children sometimes. Kurt and I have to keep a close eye on them, to keep them out of trouble. This time, we’re a little worried about pothunters, too.”
“Pothunters? Collectors, you mean?”
“Actually I mean the go-betweens, the people who steal archaeological treasures to sell on the black market. Sometimes they already have a buyer lined up. This is a brand-new site and my parents think it’s going to be a major one in the Mayan category. If it’s a rich dig, you can bet that they’ll be in trouble. The government can’t afford the sort of protection they’ll need, either. I just hope they’re watching their backs.”
“They should be here, watching the two of you,” he murmured.
“Not them,” she said on a chuckle. “It’s been an interesting upbringing. When I was twelve, I sort of became the oldest person in my family. I’ve taken care of Kurt, and them, since then.”
His fingers eased between hers sensuously. “You should marry and have children of your own.”
Her heart leapt. She’d never thought of that in any real sense until right now. She felt the strength and attraction of the man beside her and thought how wonderful it would be to have a child with him.
Her thoughts shocked her. Her hand jerked in his.
He stopped walking and looked down at her. His eyes searched hers in the silence of the beach, unbroken except for the watery crash of the surf just a few feet away.
The sensations that ripped through her body were of a sort she’d never felt with anyone. It was electric, fascinating, complex and disturbing. They seemed to talk to each other in that space of seconds without saying a word.
Involuntarily she moved a step closer to him, so that she could feel the heat of his body and inhale the clean scent of it.
He let go of her hand and caught her gently by the shoulders. “Fourteen years,” he reminded her gently. “And I’m a poor man right now.”
She smiled gently. “I’ve always been on the cutting edge of poor,” she said simply. “Money is how you keep score. It isn’t why you do a job.”
“Amazing.”
“What is?”
“That’s how I’ve always thought of it.”
Her eyes traced his strong face quietly. “This isn’t a good idea, is it?”
“No,” he agreed honestly. “I’m vulnerable, and so are you. We’re both out of our natural element, two strangers thrown together by circumstances.” He sighed deeply and his lean hands tightened on her shoulders. “I find you damnable attractive, but I’ve got cold feet.”
“You, too?” she mused.
He smiled. “Me, too.”
“So, what do we do?”
He let go of her shoulders and took her hand again. “We’re two old friends taking a stroll together,” he said simply. “We like each other. Period. Nothing heavy. Nothing permanent. Just friends.”
“Okay. That suits me.”
They walked on down the beach. And if she was disturbed by his closeness, she didn’t let it show.
Karie was now talking to an old woman holding four serapes, about a fourth of a mile down the beach from the house.
“Dad!” she cried, running to catch his hand and drag him to the old woman. “I’m glad you’re back, did you have a good trip? Listen, you know I can’t speak Spanish, and I’ve got to have this blanket, will you tell her?” she asked in a rush, pointing to an exquisite serape in shades of red and blue.
He chuckled and translated. He spoke the language so beautifully that Janine just drank it in, listening with pleasure.
He pulled out his wallet and paid for the serape, handing it to Karie as the old woman gave them a toothy grin and went back along the beach.
“Don’t do that again!” he chided his daughter. “It isn’t safe to wander off without letting anyone know where you are.”
“Okay, I won’t. I spotted her and this blanket was so pretty that I just had to have it. But I couldn’t make her understand.”
“I’ll have to tutor you,” he mused.
“Yes, you will, and Kurt, too. I’ve got to show this to him! Glad you’re home, Dad!” she called over her shoulder.
She tore off back down the beach toward Kurt, the serape trailing in the wind.
“You speak Spanish beautifully,” Janine said. “How did you learn it so fluently?”
“At my mother’s knee,” he replied. “I told you that she was from Valladolid, in Spain.” He smiled. “I went there when I finally had enough money to travel, and found some cousins I’d never met.”
“Were your parents happy together?”
He nodded. “I think so. But my father worked long hours and he wasn’t very well. My mother was a cleaning lady for a firm of investment brokers, until she died. I’m sorry Karie had to be torn between two parents. She still loves her mother, as she should. But now there’s a stepfather in the picture. And he’s a little too ‘affectionate’ to suit me or Karie. So we find excuses to make sure she has time alone with just her mother.”
She lifted her eyes to his. “What happens if he shows up while she’s there?”
“Oh, I had a long talk with him,” he said easily, and one corner of his mouth curved. “He knows now that I have a nasty temper, and he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life as a soprano. Consequently he’ll keep his hands off my daughter. But Marie wants custody, and she’s been unpleasant about it in recent months. I’ve told her how I felt, and she knows what I’ll do if she pushes too hard. I may not have money, but I’ve got a hot temper and plenty of influence in the right places.”
She smiled. “Is it really true, that men with Latin blood are hot-tempered and passionate?”
He pursed his thin lips and glanced at her. “If we weren’t just old friends, I’d show you.”
“But we are, of course. Old friends, that is.”
“Of course!”
They walked on down the beach, content in each other’s company. Janine thought absently that she’d never been quite so happy in her life.
They reached the beach house and she started to go up the steps.
“I have to fly to Miami in the morning on business.”
“You just got back from New York!” she exclaimed.
“I’m trying to regroup. It’s wearing,” he explained. “I’m meeting a group of potential investors in Miami. I’m going to take Karie along with me in the Learjet this time. Would you and Kurt like to come?”
Her heart leapt. She could refuse, but her brother would never speak to her again if she turned down a flight in a real baby jet.
“Will the plane hold us all?” she asked with honest curiosity.
“It seats more than four people,” he said dryly.
“You’ll have to have a pilot and a copilot…”
“I fly myself,” he replied. “Don’t look so perplexed, I’m instrument rated and I’ve been flying for many years. I won’t crash.”
She flushed. “I didn’t mean to imply…!”
“Of course you didn’t. Want to come?”
She shrugged. “Kurt loves airplanes and flying. If I say no, he’ll stake me out on the beach tonight and let the sand crabs eat me.”
He chuckled. “Good. I’ll come by for you in the morning.”
“Thanks.”
“De nada,” h
e murmured. His eyes narrowed as he studied her. He glanced down the beach, where Karie and Kurt were now oblivious to the world, building a huge sand castle near the discarded serape that Karie seemed to find uninteresting now that she owned it.
“What is it?” she asked when he hesitated.
“Nothing much,” he replied, moving closer. “I just wanted to answer that question for you. You know, the one you asked earlier, about men with Latin blood?”
“What quest…!”
His mouth cut the word in half. His arm caught her close against the side of his body, so that she was riveted to him from thigh to breast. His mouth was warm and hard and so insistent that her heart tried to jump right out of her chest. The light kisses that had come before were nothing compared to this one.
Against his mouth, she breathed in the taste of him, felt his teeth nibble sensuously at her upper lip to separate it from the lower one. Then his tongue shot into her mouth, right past her teeth, in an intimacy that corded her body like stretched twine. She stiffened, shivering, frightened by the unexpected rush of pure feeling.
“Easy,” he breathed. His slitted eyes looked right into hers. “Don’t fight it.”
His mouth moved onto hers again, and this time there was nothing preliminary at all about the way he kissed her. She felt the world spinning around her wildly. She held on for dear life, her mouth swelling, burning, aching for his as the kiss went on and on and on.
When his head finally lifted, her nails were biting into the muscles of his shoulders. Her hair was touseled, her eyes misty and wild, all at once, as they met his.
Her mouth trembled from the pressure and passion of his kiss. He looked down at it with quiet satisfaction.
“Yes,” he whispered.
His head bent again, and he kissed her less passionately, tenderly this time, but with a sense of possession.
He let her go, easing her upright again.
She couldn’t seem to find words. Her eyes sought reassurance in his, and found only a wall behind which he seemed hidden, remote, uninvolved. Her heart was beating her to death, and he looked unruffled.
“You’re young for a woman your age,” he remarked quietly.