"This car isn't used to having to stay cool," she muttered, and he laughed. She liked his laugh. "Joe, are you really Canadian? Where from?"
"Victoria."
He wasn't exactly a man of many words. She let the silence flow over them and it was nice, glancing over and seeing him watching the mountains out the window.
A long time later he asked, "How long have you been driving?"
She said "Seven years," then realized what he meant and corrected, "Four days. I left Vancouver on Monday. I—Oh, damn! There's another one of those peligrosa things." It took all her concentration to keep the car on track. She couldn't look at him but had the feeling he was frowning again.
"There's a bit of a side road at the top of this hill. On your left. Slow down and pull over."
Pull over? Her eyes swept over the empty mountains and she felt the heat rise up from inside her. "Why?" she demanded, more of a gasp than a question. Out here, all alone, only his overwhelming maleness and—
"You're tired." She glanced over and he wasn't even looking at her as he said absently. "I can drive for a while."
It was too tempting to pass up. She spotted the side road. It was really just a track. She got the car off the road and pushed the shift lever into park.
Without discussing it, they both got out of the car to exchange places. They passed in front of the hood ornament and she asked, "You do have a driver's license?"
"Yeah. A Mexican one."
So it had been a long time since he'd been home. She wanted to ask, but his face was closed, forbidding intimacy.
"Why don't you go into the back seat and get some sleep," he suggested.
Sleep, while someone else drove. It sounded like heaven.
Chapter Three
Joe eased the car up over the last horrifying curve and onto the top of the mountain. In the back seat Dinah half sat, vaguely alarmed, then sank back when she realized that they had gained a high, flat plateau. More empty, desert land. She could smell steam.
"Is the car overheating again?"
He didn't answer. Ahead, there was a shack by the side of the road. The car jolted as its wheels left the road and bumped over hard-packed dust, then came to a stop in front of a shack built from crooked sticks and old plywood. At the door to the shack, a woman in a long, colorless dress stood watching. Joe turned off the racing engine and swung the car door open.
He said, "Let's see if she'll let us have some water." He sauntered towards the shack, while Dinah sat up and tried to stop feeling like a sleepy, baked clam. If only she could take her jeans off and have a cold shower! Water! A cool drink of water would be heaven!
She saw then that he was carrying the plastic jug, holding it up to show the woman as he talked to her. Dinah stumbled out of the back seat and followed him, realizing that he was after water for the car, not the people!
"I'm thirsty," she muttered as she watched him crouch beside a big barrel. He had the jug immersed in a shallow cut-off barrel that was set up beside the big one. Between the two barrels was a plastic hose set up to siphon. Watching the water, her tongue slipped out to wet her lips.
Joe said curtly, "Don't drink this water."
"Why not? Isn't it good?" Despite the tattered jeans and the pack filled with what might be all his worldly goods, she believed he knew what he was doing. He was that kind of man. Dressed like a civilized being, he could probably conquer the world without firing a shot.
"It's hot." He lifted an arm and rubbed sweat from his forehead. She envied him his balance, crouched sitting on his heels while he worked. He said, "This water's hotter than your bath at home."
He looked up and seemed to see everything. The way she had one hip thrust out, as if her legs were tired, her whole body tired. The way her thin cotton shirt clung to her damp, overheated body. The dust streaking her face. With the car windows open they were developing a coating of dust over their bodies and everything else in the car. He smiled oddly then, and she had a vision of him watching her as she sat soaking in a deliciously tepid bath. She hugged herself and found her bottom lip caught between her teeth.
She shook her hair back, stiffened her lips and stared at the water. "I'm too thirsty to care if it's hot." She tried to get her heart to stop beating so wildly. Was it this exotic, strange country that had her heart thundering and her mind painting images of a man and a woman alone?
"There's probably nothing wrong with the water." He sounded as if the water were the last thing on his mind and she had the conviction that he was having the same thoughts she was, although he managed to look as if he didn't care beans about anything. He stood up and walked to the car, then set the jug down. "We'd better let the car cool off a bit. As for the water, most of the water on the Baja is good for drinking." He jerked his head towards the shack. "But her husband hauls the water in from lord knows where. She told me to go ahead, help myself, but it's obvious that every drop of it came in on a pick-up that probably isn't in any better condition than the one I was riding in earlier."
"Oh." Her thirst intensified with the knowledge that water was at a premium here. The woman at the shack was watching them and Dinah wished she could go over to her, talk to her and be friendly. "I wish I knew some Spanish," she muttered. She swallowed the dryness. "If I was on a camping trip at home, there'd be a stream within a hundred feet or so."
He walked over to the Mexican woman. Dinah had to admire the way he moved, the way his body spoke strength and grace and man without being all that obvious about it. She watched him talking to the woman, saw her smile and then laugh. Joe laughed too, then she opened a deep chest and Joe was handing her something that looked like money, then bringing Dinah a cold bottle of Coke.
She pressed the delicious cold bottle against her cheek, closing her eyes in a sensual joy at the coolness seeping into her face. "Thank you, Joe. What do I owe you for it? Is that how they make a living out here? Selling pop?"
"Partly. She sells meals too. Hungry?"
"I—No, it's too hot."
"Before we go, we'll buy another pop. She deserves to make something off us. She's not going to take money for the water. You can buy the next one. Do you have any pesos?"
"Yes. I got some in San Diego. I've no idea what they're worth yet, though.” She dug out a bill to show him.
"That's worth about two bucks." He had tipped his head back and sent a long stream of Coke down his throat. She found herself licking her lips and wondering if it wasn't time she got involved with a man again, really involved. Not Joe. He was just an attractive stranger, a drifter, a man who avoided closeness. She knew that about him instinctively, or perhaps because of that year before Leo had taken her in. She didn't need a man who was an emotional cripple. If she had anyone at all, it would be a man who could reach out and touch and love and give, a man who would stay.
She left Joe fussing with the car, and walked to the single palm tree that offered shade. Then she found herself involved in an exchange of smiles with the daughter of the woman from the shack. The little girl was very shy, but seemed fascinated by Dinah. Finally, after a very wide grin, the girl ran away and disappeared into the shack. By that time, Joe had the radiator open and was feeding water into it.
"Can I help with that?" she asked.
He shook his head, and she picked up his empty bottle and took the empties back to the woman. She managed to make herself understood with sign language and felt a ridiculous victory when Joe looked surprised to see her coming back with two more of the soft drinks.
"Did you pay her?"
"Of course I paid her." She opened her palm and showed a handful of big, chunky coins. "I got about five pounds of change."
He grinned. "I take it you've never handled Mexican money before. Get back in the car. I'll settle up with her for the deposit on the bottles and we'll go on. We'll have to run the heater." He rubbed his hands along the thighs of his jeans before he picked up the empty plastic jug. "I'll get one more jug of water to take with us in case we need it aga
in."
"What did you say?"
"Is said we'd take water—"
"The heater." She stared at his hair. It was clinging damply to his head. He didn't show much sign of discomfort, but he was getting hot, just as she was. He might be suffering from heat stroke. "You didn't really say that we were going to run the heater? In the car?" She giggled, then sobered because he looked serious.
He pushed his hair back and it stayed, held by the dampness of perspiration. "If you want to get this car south, we've got to keep it cooler than we have been."
She followed him to the barrel. "You said the heater. You don't turn the heater on when it's a hundred and—"
"It's part of the same system." He stood up with the water jug, tipping a little of the water into his hands and rubbing it over his face before he put the cap on the jug. "The heater and the rad are connected together. Open up the heater, get more radiation, better cooling of the engine." He sounded as if he were talking to a child, overly patient. "Hopefully it'll be enough."
"I don't believe it." She got into the passenger seat because he was already heading for the driver's seat, and she was not about to fight for the right to drive. She didn't care if she ever negotiated another curva peligrosa in her life! The door on his side slammed and she muttered, "It's a hundred and twenty degrees outside and you're talking about putting the heater on as if it were deep winter in Canada."
He grinned at her, his hands on the wheel. She found herself looking at those hands. A small scar on the baby finger nearest her. She couldn't see the fingers of his left hand, but just a few minutes ago she'd seen them plainly, had recognized the hint of a depression on his ring finger. A wedding ring, but not any longer. Had he left some woman behind when he went wandering?
He said, "I thought they'd finished going metric back in Canada. What's this hundred and twenty business?"
She jerked her eyes away from his hands. "Fahrenheit," she said as she snapped on her seat belt, then stared at her jeans. She hated to think he was right about the heater. She hated to think there was a woman somewhere crying for him. "I'm metric on buying meat and gas, but for temperatures I'm holding out. You wouldn't do this thing with the heater just to make me miserable, would you?"
"No." He seemed amused by her question. "Actually, I'd guess it's only about ninety-five degrees today. If you're hot, take off your jeans."
He was peeling his T-shirt off, revealing a chest that was even more muscular than she had imagined, covered with a fine mat of curly, light brown hairs. She stared at the dark circle of a small, male nipple almost buried in the surrounding hair. She swallowed.
"Don't worry, I'm not about to take advantage if you strip off." There it was again, that deep husky tone that was almost laughter. She swallowed something hard in her throat, then lifted the pop bottle and gulped a big mouthful of Coke. The liquid had been out of the cooler only ten minutes, but had already lost its iciness.
When she had confidence that she could speak, she said, "I'm not worried." She wasn't, not exactly, but she couldn't sit here in the seat beside him in just her panties and her blouse, her legs bare and her mind exposed every time he glanced at her. "I'm not all that hot," she lied.
"You will be." He reached for the air conditioning control and pushed it up, all the way to ‘hot’.
It wasn't too bad at first. They ran along the flat land, then down and down into a valley, the windows open and warm, dry air buffeting them from outside. Then they started to climb again and the engine started that pinging sound, racing without really developing power. Heat belched out of the vents, overwhelming the milder warm air blowing in the open windows.
In the next few hours she learned that an engine got a lot hotter climbing up hills than going down. When the engine heated, so did the inside of the car. The air blasting her slowly returned to ordinary-hot each time they went downhill, then turned into a furnace blast as they climbed.
She didn't complain, but when they went up the second series of twisting mountains, she undid her seat belt and drew her legs up onto the seat. That got her away from the direct blast of hot air, but it wasn't enough. Finally, desperately hot, she twisted her way out of her jeans and threw them into the back seat. Joe didn't comment.
He was fighting his own battle. His right foot was directly in front of the heater vent beside the accelerator. After a while he changed feet, holding the accelerator down awkwardly with his left foot while his right cooled. Experimentally, Dinah put her toes near the vent on her side, then jerked them back.
"Take my word for it. It's scorching."
"You're not kidding." She was barefoot. She thought she'd actually burned her big toe. She didn't wonder any longer why Joe kept changing feet on the accelerator, didn't comment about the lurch the car gave when his feet shifted.
The silence seemed more comfortable. She thought she had regained her equilibrium. She actually managed to look over at him without letting her eyes travel down over his bare chest to the play of muscles across his midriff. Maybe looking at that magazine with Sally had done something to her! Whatever it was, she had it under control now. She felt relaxed, enjoying sharing the heat and the mountains with him.
His voice interrupted the silence first. "Your first trip down here?—Yes, of course it is. You don't know the money, don't know the language."
She nodded but he didn't see. His eyes were on the road and she said fancifully, "Maybe I'll become a snowbird." She looked at the way the blue sky met the green mountains. From this far away, it looked like trees on the mountains. From what she had seen so far, it was probably cacti. "I'll spend the summers in Canada, my winters down here. I bet it never freezes here, and it doesn't rain much, does it? This land hasn't seen water in a long time."
He shifted his shoulders. He had a relaxed style of driving that was very expert. "Lots of people play the snowbird routine. Here in winters, north for the summers."
"Not me," she said, lying her arm on the open window to deflect more of the outside air towards herself. "That was just an idle fantasy. Wandering is for holidays. A person needs a home. Without my home, I'd be nothing, nobody." He glanced at her and she realized how intensely personal that comment had been. She turned away, looked out the window, and asked abruptly, "What kind of cows are those?"
There had been quite a variety in the color of the cows that grazed among the cacti. Most of them seemed to be unfenced, although Joe hadn't had to swerve to avoid one on the road yet.
"Beef cow," he said now.
She closed her eyes and tried not to see him. "Do you know that you talk in shorthand? No extra ands and buts, no picturesque adjectives. You sound like someone communicating by two-way radio, trying to get the information across as succinctly as possible."
"Probably." He grinned too, hearing the brevity of his answer. "I do talk on radio, sometimes more than I talk in person."
They drove in silence for five minutes before Dinah gave up waiting for him to explain and asked, "Why? Why do you meet more people on radio than in person?"
"I've got a sailboat down at La Paz. I've been cruising around. Sometimes it's a lot of miles between people."
His eyes raked over her scantily-dressed body and she felt suddenly aware of how white her legs were, how thin the cotton shirt, how silky the fabric of her underwear. Thank God, at least she was wearing a bra! She pulled at the fabric of her shirt, trying to get it away from its clinging grip on her flesh.
"Don't worry about it," he said, his eyes on the road again. "People have to dress lightly in this weather." She found her eyes following his naked torso to where his belt dug into the flesh above his waist. When he moved the steering wheel, she could see the muscles ripple all down his naked front. Then his voice lost the laziness, became deliberate. "I'm your opposite number, Dinah. I'm not even a snowbird because I stay in the latitudes where there's never snow. When things get uncomfortable, too hot or too cold, or even too complicated—I move on."
It was a warning—a ki
nd warning, she supposed. She was aware of him, and he was aware of her, too. He was telling her that he wasn't the kind of man she should set her sights on.
She said carefully, "I knew that." Her voice was only a whisper and she tried to strengthen it. "I didn't know about the hot and the cold, but when you walked up to me back there—when you walked out from behind that Mexican in the red truck ... I knew you were a men who always moved on before the roots started growing."
"Not always." Something crossed his face and she knew that the wife and children she had fantasized weren't waiting at home, crying for him. Whatever had happened, it had hurt him, left him alone, perhaps driven him out on this crazy rambling life.
Her lips were parted, but the rigid line of his mouth forbade those kinds of questions. "Have you been in Mexico long?" she asked instead. "Can you tell me about these mountains? Some of them look like hard rock, others are just a heap of gravel, but there’s nowhere it could have come from."
The tension eased as he told her about the land they were travelling over, the names of the cacti and the way the land had been formed by volcanic action.
"Some of it's sedimentary, too," he told her, becoming more enthusiastic as he realized she really was interested. "See that slope over there? You can see the layering from sedimentary deposits. At one time all of this was underwater, the ocean floor."
"I could go for a bit of ocean right now," she said wryly.
"A swim?" He smiled as if the idea appealed to him, too.
"Yeah." She wiggled her toes, shifting them to get away from that horrible hot air. "It sounds like heaven."
Heaven was when they arrived at a flat plateau that went for miles and miles, and Joe decreed that they could turn the heater off. The hottest part of the day was over, the sun about to set, and the car could take it easy along the flat.
"Better look for a hotel," he said as the rosy glow grew in the sky.
So Much for Dreams Page 4
