“Girls gave you a hard time?” he asked.
She nodded.
“You know why, don’t you?”
“I’ve heard that jealousy explanation, but that doesn’t mean anything to a lonely little skinny girl. How did we get on this? The counter girl said there’s no nightclub life to speak of, but after ten the Mexican restaurant has dancing. There’s a bar that the students go to, called Northtown.”
He nodded. That was bar that was having the problem with Sangsue.
“She said it’s next to the train tracks. There’s another building next to it, kind of attached, and sometimes it looks like there’s a lot of people inside because of the cars, but then it turns out the other building is having a banquet and Northtown is almost empty.”
Ian smiled. “That woman ought to work for the tourist bureau.”
“I know. She acted like she’d been waiting for me to come and ask. So do you want me to call one of the restaurants?”
“Don Quixote’s sounds good.”
From the moment they entered the restaurant he was pleased with the choice. The restaurant was long and narrow; it reminded him of the European places where he’d had some of his best meals.
There were pictures of Spain on the walls, but he thought the atmosphere felt more Italian or even Portuguese. They were seated at a window table. It would have been a great location to view the five o’clock after work exodus, but that moment had passed. As it was, some of the downtown bars were slowly losing their happy hour crowd. There were men and women in their late twenties and early thirties milling about. He looked around the periphery to see if he could find any Sangsue watching them. They appeared safe.
“The woman at the hotel said there are two bars down here. One caters to the administrative assistants and secretaries crowd, and the other one the lawyers and court house folk. I told her we were interested in students. . .”
“How did you know I needed that?” Ian asked.
“Rico mentioned it when I talked to him.”
Ian nodded.
“I like the vibe here—do you feel it?” Nesta asked.
He smiled. “I do. It’s very comfortable.”
She noted that in the year and a half they’d called themselves a couple, Andre had never taken her to a place as nice. Stop thinking about him, she told herself. It’s over—isn’t that what he said?
A middle- aged woman with a face younger than her white hair came to the table. She was short, barely five feet, with pale blue eyes that crinkled with a favorite teacher’s kindness when she smiled. “Good evening. Welcome to Don Quixote’s. Is this your first visit?”
“Yes,” they said in unison.
“My name is Rosa. My sons are the owners, and I’m your humble waitress tonight.”
“What’s good?”
“Everything, I hope. I’m also one of the cooks. I would recommend our homemade sangria to start.”
“That sounds good, but I’m driving.”
“One glass won’t bother you. And you’re going to eat, right?”
“That’s true.” Nesta looked at Ian. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all.”
“Two sangrias. . .”
“Wait? I—” He looked at both women.
“It’s a white wine sangria. You’ll love it,” the waitress said.
Ian didn’t like sweet wine, but he didn’t want to hear himself saying that. “Sure, I’ll try it.”
“Two sangrias, coming up.”
“She’s cute,” Nesta said as soon as she walked away.
“You’re cute,” he responded before he had a chance to censor himself.
“Thank you.”
They both looked at the menu. Why did I say that? he asked himself. She’s going to think I’m flirting with an engaged woman. How disrespectful is that?
Why can’t I just tell him the truth about this silly ring? she asked herself. Because he’ll think I want him to hit on me. And then what happens tonight when he wants me to dance to the music? She looked at him and remembered how he looked without his shirt. He'd been literally breathtaking. Just the thought of that perfect chiseled chest made the blood rush to her face.
Rosa returned with a carafe of liquid that was the color of pink lemonade and two stemmed glasses. “I must say you two make a lovely couple.”
They laughed. “We’re not a couple,” Ian said.
Rose put a glass in front of each of them, poured a little over a half a glass in each and then deliberately studied them both. “Maybe you just don’t know it yet,” she said with a knowing smile.
Ian waited to see if Nesta would correct her, but she just smiled too. It bothered him to have the woman think they were on a date, but he wanted to appear as laid back as his driver. He remained silent.
“Are you ready to order?”
“What do you recommend?” Nesta asked.
“Do you like seafood?”
“Love it.”
“Then I would recommend Paella Marinara for two.”
“Qué es en sí?” Ian asked.
“Oh my, that was very good. How does a man with your accent have such perfect inflection?”
“I lived in Brazil for many years,” he answered in Spanish.
She looked at him carefully, and Ian felt a chill run down his spine. “That’s not what I hear. I heard a hint of a Castillion accent.
“Mi maestro habla español Castillion.”
She nodded, but he could see she wasn’t convinced. How could he tell her in lived in Spain briefly over a hundred years ago?
They agreed on the Paella Marinara for two, and Rosa left the table.
“I apologize for speaking in Spanish. I know it’s rude to do that, but I like to practice , at first shocked, and then he cracked up, causing her to join him. He loved the way her eyes twinkled when she laughed. “How did you come to speak fluido Spanish?”
“My father thought it was a good idea to have a Spanish day so I would know a second language. When I was growing up we all spoke Spanish on Wednesdays and we watched Spanish television.”
“Is he from Spain or Latin America?”
Nesta laughed. “No, that’s the funny part. We all had to learn it so we could speak to each other.”
“Your parents sound like delightful people.”
“I guess that’s one way to describe them.”
Chapter Four
As they finished the bowl of vanilla ice cream they’d decided to share, unknown to the other, both Ian and Nesta were trying to remember if they’d ever enjoyed a meal more. The food really was as good as the desk clerk had described, but it was the company that made the evening perfect.
Ian was feeling a bit tipsy from the sangria. Halfway through dinner he’d decided to give up on trying to eliminate the big grin on his face. Nesta was funny in a self-deprecating way, but even more importantly, she found him amusing too. She had the opposite reaction of most people he met: she never seemed to take him seriously.
She told him all about her first year away at college and all the different excuses her parents made for dropping in on her. She made her only child upbringing sound like a sitcom. He wondered if she would allow him to meet her parents, and he prayed that the news they were bringing her wouldn’t be sad.
“I still need to stop by the bar the students frequent,” he told her as they waited for the check.
“Really? Why?”
He didn’t want to lie to her, but he couldn’t tell her about his job unless he was planning to wash her of her memories. He didn’t want to wash her because he wanted her to remember their evening.
“It’s work related.”
“And because it’s GAN, I can’t know. Am I right?”
“Kind of. I don’t work for GAN, but the work I do is for a member organization.”
She put the last teaspoon of ice cream in her mouth and closed her eyes, savoring the experience. It looked sexual to him, and he had to look away to remain in control.
&n
bsp; “It’s like a teacher is connected with the PTA or the teacher’s union, but she doesn’t work for either.”
Nesta nodded. He could tell her mind was mostly on the ice cream. The look on her face was making him hot in places ice cream is not meant to affect.
“I like the GAN members I’ve met, but you’re the most normal one so far.”
“I guess I should thank you.”
She laughed with her big, pretty white teeth, breaking the line of the most perfect mouth he’d ever seen. As if she’d heard his thoughts, she opened her purse, pulled out a tube of deep red lipstick and applied it perfectly without the aid of a mirror.
The move left him frozen in lust.
She noticed his expression. “I’m sorry. I’ve read that woman shouldn’t do that at the dinner table, but I forgot until I was half way through it.”
“That’s not why I was looking at you.”
“Did I smear it all over my mouth?”
“No, it’s perfect. Your lips are perfect, and that was one hot move.”
His words froze her in lust and fear.
He snapped himself out of it when he saw her discomfort. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. You’re an engaged woman.”
“Ian, I need to tell you about that.”
A beat ahead of his mind, his heart skipped. Somehow his body reacted from the words his
brain hadn’t quite translated yet. It was the expression on her face that had alerted him.
Something was wrong; something immediate and sad had changed in the two happy hours since they’d left the Indiana motel.
“What?” was all he could say. The Hunter in him knew whatever it was, it wasn’t a physical danger. His instincts that measured those kind of dangers had given him an all-clear soon after they’d entered the restaurant, and his Dogon-Hunter mode hadn’t returned.
About the time he was finishing his salad, he’d decided the color of her big brown eyes was a combination of terra-cotta and rust. The rust circled the lighter center. Without hearing whatever was causing those innocent pools of brown joy to squint into nearly straight lines, he was already sorry for the mood change.
“I’m a single woman,” she said, and then she waited as if she needed him to confirm.
He nodded.
“Most of my clients are businessmen, usually from the East Coast, in Chicago for meetings or conferences. They arrive at the airport and I take them to their hotels.” Again she stopped and waited for his nod. “They’ll ask about the weather, then a few recommendations for good places to eat. A lot of them want to try an authentic Chicago pizza. By the time we get to the nightlife questions, I can almost see the little wheels turning. No offense, but most of them are white guys.
Sometimes I get the feeling this is the first conversation they’ve ever had with a black woman.
They’re surprised that it’s going so well. The next series of questions will be about my education. I tell them what I told you, about trying to decide between medical school and real life. I don’t get too many of them telling me how articulate I am anymore. I think a memo went out.”
They both laughed.
“But often, by the time we get to the hotel, a lot of them will invite me to join them for whatever is the next meal of the day. And I have to admit, most of them are very nice about it. In the biggest part of their minds they believe they’re only talking about a meal; their thoughts haven’t caught up with their bodies at this point.”
He nodded again, but now he knew what she was trying to say. He could definitely understand why a man would want to prolong his experience with her, but a part of him didn’t want to hear any more of the story. He hated these men he would never know. Dogon-Hunters are very territorial, and the irrational jealousy racing through him was making him so angry he wanted to crush the wine glass he was holding.
She continued, “the easy ones are the no-nonsense, point-blank proposition guys. Time is money to them, and they just offer me a price. . .”
“What?”
She nodded. “They do, really. I had a guy offer me a thousand dollars to strip, sit in a corner of his room and just watch him pleasure himself.”
“My God,” he said, interrupting.
She smiled. The expression on his face was stronger than she would have expected from her father if she’d been foolish enough to tell him. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not! How would he like it for somebody to make that kind of proposal to his wife or his daughter?”
“These things happen. As long as he keeps his hands to himself, I don’t care what they say.”
He wondered if there was any way he could get the name of this man.? He’d like to pay him a little visit. He took a deep breath and tried to relax.
She laughed again. “Seeing your reaction, I’ll never tell my daddy that story.”
Again, she was comparing him to her parent. “Do I remind you of your father?”
“In some ways you do. He’s tall like you, and all my girlfriends have crushes on him.”
Okay, he told himself. It’s a good thing. Then the thought hit. “Are you saying you think your girlfriends could have crushes on me?” His voice was teasing, but he wanted to know if there was still an opportunity.
“They’ll never get a possibility to ponder the question.”
“Why do say that?” He knew there was a good chance he would never see her again, but for her to voice it seemed ruder of her than he would have thought possible.
“I’d be a fool to introduce you to those vipers. Not before we have this talk.” She knew she was flirting and that she wasn’t particularly good at it, but time was running out.
“Okay, now I’m confused.”
She looked at his eyes and saw a perplexed little boy. She wondered if he would still have that much happiness in his expression when she finished telling him.
“It’s about this ring, Ian. I’m not really engaged.”
Chapter Five
Before she could finish explaining why she was wearing the ring, Rosa brought them the bill.
Nesta noticed that he left a very generous tip. That pleased her; during her junior and senior
years in high school she’d worked as a waitress.
“Since you’re driving, you must take home a bottle of our limonada,” Rosa insisted, handing
the bottle to Ian but speaking to Nesta.
“Thank you. I’ll be back. Maybe I’ll bring my parents tomorrow.”
“Oh, please do.”
They stood, and Ian was surprised again by her height. “So you were saying?” he said. He was eager to hear where this conversation was going.
“Let’s wait until we get in the car. Why don’t you sit up front with me?”
“I’d like that.”
He was polite. That was different from the guys she knew. Her male friends weren’t rude; they treated her like one of the guys. It was the treatment she’d worked years demanding. By the time she graduated from high school, her male friends understood her so well she found herself without a prom date. The boys at school could no longer imagine a girl under the baggy sweatshirts and jeans. A family friend’s son came through at the last minute. He made her evening what she described as “something out of a fairy tale.”
“You have good home training—that’s what my grandmother would call it.”
“Thank you.” Ian smiled thinking, about the vague memory he had of his grandmother. It was odd too because she had been a young grandmother by American standards, and yet she’d been dead for so long he could only remember parts of her, and one of those parts included a laundry bundle. she used to carry to the river.
He opened the door for her before taking his seat on the passenger’s side. The gesture struck her as a bit awkward since she was the paid driver.
“We’re not that far from Northtown. It’ll be on your side,” she told him.
“Okay. There was something you wanted to tell me about your ring?”
> “Right. I told you about the guys that prop. . .try to hit on me to explain that, like a lot of young women in the service industry, I wear a ring to slow down the aggressive guys.
Surprisingly enough, it won’t stop the true dogs, but it does seem to work well with the drunks and nice guys.”
He nodded. “And I guess you always have the option to tell the truth if you want.”
Scented Dreams ((A Dogon-Hunters Series Novel)) Page 3