Dateline: Kydd and Rios

by Janzen, Tara

  Nikki slipped the satchel strap over her shoulder and tried not to think about how dirty she felt. When the chaos had started, the waterworks had been the first casualty. Travinas and Aragon were probably bathing in champagne in the palace, she thought, laughing at the great joke of a coup d’état they’d pulled off. She’d see how hard they laughed when she exposed their corrupt deal to the world. Aragon would be branded for the traitor he was and—she hoped and prayed—the world would demand the release of the woman he’d unjustly imprisoned.

  Without bothering to close the door behind her, Nikki walked out of the room and down the steps to the street. Fifteen minutes of hard walking brought her to the Palacio de Simeon. As she’d expected, the place was swarming with media people. They filled the street leading up to the palace entrance, and spilled into the mob of San Simeonites crowding the parkway. The best of them were jostling for position on the broad granite steps of the connecting government building.

  Light from the dying sun gilded the avenue of palms and turned the marble columns fronting the palace into shafts of mauve and pink. The roof of every car was filled to capacity with men and boys whose families and livelihood now depended upon the whims of General Travinas.

  Nikki’s gaze skipped over the native countrymen, and went directly to the men on the steps. From personal experience she eliminated more than half of the reporters, doubting the depth of their gratitude for the story she could give them. A few of the men looked too green, too lost in the commotion. Others looked too drugged and boozed out. The longer she looked, the more unsure she became. Maybe she hadn’t thought this thing through well enough. Maybe she should opt for a ticket out of the country and try to garner support from the safety of the United States. Maybe she should . . . maybe . . . maybe . . .

  The sudden doubts sent a slowly curling wave of nausea down to her empty stomach. She gritted her teeth and tightened her hand around the satchel strap, her knuckles white with strain. A tickling stream of sweat rolled down her face. Another matted her lashes, and she wiped at it with the back of her dirty hand. She couldn’t leave, would never, ever leave, she silently vowed, reaching deep inside herself for the courage she needed. What chance would her mother have if she abandoned her? For all of her doubts, the answer came quick and sure—none. Then she saw him.

  Coal black hair gave him a Latino look, but his clothes had “Made in the U.S.A.” stamped all over them. He was tall and broad-shouldered, and his eyes were light. He was too young to be burned out, and the way he was fighting his way to the front of the crowd told her plenty about his drive. He was perfect—or rather, as good as she was going to get.

  With a barrage of Spanish insults and a few well-placed elbow jabs, she made her own way up the government building steps to his side.

  “Hey, señor. Habla español?”

  “No, I—” Josh stopped short, his jaw slackening in disbelief as he stared down at the girl tugging on his sleeve. Dressed in rags, she was dirty, and absolutely beautiful. A short crop of white blond hair, barely a shade darker than her pale skin, surrounded a face of purely feminine delicacy. Sea green eyes framed by golden lashes stared back at him, narrowed to an unsettling degree of scrutiny and flashing with impatience. “No, I don’t,” he finished in confusion.

  Perfect. Nikki thought with an inward sigh of relief. “Then you need me. It just so happens I’m available right now—Hey, watch it, gringo!” she snapped at a reporter trying to shove his way past her. When the man didn’t retreat, she elbowed him in the side and leveled him with a stream of cussing that left no doubt in Josh’s mind about her command of the Spanish language. “A hundred dollars a day”—she looked back up at him—“but I’m negotiable.”

  “I don’t have a hundred dollars a day.” Her outlandish request brought a grin to his face.

  Had Nikki been of a mind, his smile might have struck a responsive chord somewhere in her emotions. He’d certainly graduated from the tall, dark, and handsome school of good looks. But she had serious business to conduct.

  “Don’t worry. Like I said, I’m negotiable. We can work something out later. Right this minute, there’s a story happening, but you’re in the wrong place for it.”

  Josh glanced around him at the crush of reporters and photographers, each and every one of them waiting for a statement from the new president. “All of these guys can’t be wrong,” he said with another grin.

  Her eyes held his for a piercing second. “All of these guys,” she said coolly, “are going to get half a story, the one the government dishes out like pabulum. If you don’t have the guts to find out the other half, then I’m talking to the wrong man.”

  Her words challenged him on every level: his intelligence, his credibility, his ambition, and his manhood. Coming from a slip of a girl, they angered him. Backed up by those implacable green eyes, they dared him. She was serious, damn serious, and despite her non-native looks, he found himself believing in her.

  “Where?” he asked, praying his instincts were right. He’d spent his last dime getting south to the action, and if he wanted to eat for the next week, he had to make the trip pay off quick. For a free-lancer, that meant coming up with something the other guys didn’t get. For a skilled photographer who was still a novice reporter, that meant finding someone who could help him. This girl might be the someone.

  “Follow me,” she said, already moving away from him.

  Josh hesitated for a second, but only a second. Whatever was going to go down, it was going to do so pretty damn quick. This was not the time for indecision.

  Fighting his way out of the crowd, he kept his eyes trained on her hair, the brightest spot of life in the pushing and shoving mass of humanity. She seemed to have an inborn skill for finding every opening, and only his longer stride enabled him to catch her at the bottom of the steps.

  “Where are we going?” he asked, running to keep up with her.

  “Around back.”

  “Why?” While they jogged along, he checked both of his cameras for readiness.

  “Travinas will enter through that door.” She gestured at a small portico on the side of the palace and kept running.

  “So why don’t we stop?”

  “Because while he’s going in, I think some other people are going to be coming out the back. And that’s the story we want.”

  “You think?” Josh grabbed her arm and jerked her to a stop.

  “Yes!” She shook herself free and glared at him. “I think! Which is something you better start doing!”

  Dammit, he thought, feeling like a fool. He’d given up a hard-won spot on the stairs and followed some green-eyed witch to the deserted back of the building where she thought there might be a story. Muttering in disgust, he turned toward the front entrance.

  “Look, mister.” The edge in her voice cut right through him and stopped him in his tracks. “I’m giving you the chance of a lifetime. Take it, and you can have your name on the front page of the New York Times. Walk away, and you’ll be peddling your stuff to the smallest rag in the States.”

  Josh sighed and let his chin fall to his chest. He wanted to be the best. When people talked about photojournalists, he wanted his name on their lips. He was young, adventurous, and dedicated to the truth of the camera—and he’d jumped in over his head by traveling so far from home. It was easy enough to follow the crowd, but he wanted to be a leader.

  Without turning around, he asked, “Who do you think is coming out the back door?”

  “Enrico Aragon de Manuel.”

  “The deposed president?” he asked incredulously, glancing over his shoulder.

  “Yes.”

  Josh shook his head in disgust. She’d taken him for a ride. He didn’t have the faintest idea why, but she had. “Everybody knows he left the country yesterday.”

  “Everybody knows nothing,” she insisted. “My sources say he’s been holed up in his bedroom and Travinas knows it.”

  “His bedroom?” At this, Josh turned ar
ound, letting all his disbelief show on his face. “Are you crazy?”

  “Crazy like Aragon. He cut a deal with Travinas. He gave them his cabinet members in return for safe passage and a hacienda in Rio de Janeiro. While Mendez, Cavazos, and Estrada go to prison, he’s going to the lap of luxury.”

  Her information hit him like a thunderbolt.

  It also splashed his name across the front page of the New York Times. Dateline: San Simeon—Aragon Betrays Own Government—story and photos by Joshua Rios. It was also the first and last time he had a byline all to himself. All the succeeding ones read: Kydd and Rios. Ladies, she had insisted, always preceded gentlemen. . . .

  Three

  Where was he? Nikki wondered, glancing up from her tattered notebook. A couple of men out of the motley crew hanging around the bar waved in greeting and she responded in kind. There had been a time when she’d avoided the other reporters covering the Latin beat. By nature they were an aggressive, wild bunch, professionally and sexually, with few scruples. But young as he was in comparison, Josh had made it clear they’d better not mess with Nikki, or with him for that matter. Her instincts hadn’t let her down in her choice of a protector. Of course, Josh didn’t mess around with her, either, a possibility that raced through her mind more and more often, though never as disturbingly as it had that afternoon in the jeep.

  The memory brought an uneasy warmth to her face that had nothing to do with the sultry weather. She brushed her cheek with the back of her hand and shifted in her chair, returning her attention to the notebook. Josh was Josh, and she was Nikki. They were partners, business partners and friends, and both relationships were comfortable. The other possibility was a mystery she didn’t have any idea how to unravel.

  “Hey, Rios,” one of the reporters called. “Find anything out there today?”

  “Nothing you can’t read about in the Times.” Josh’s distinctly rough voice drew her attention like a magnet.

  She glanced up and saw him coming out of the hotel’s back door, and she felt her disconcerting blush deepen. His clothes hid the curves and angles of all the hard muscle she had memorized in bits and pieces during their months together: Josh taking his shirt off to douse himself in a mountain stream; a flash of strong legs out of her peripheral vision as he changed clothes in camp; the strength of his arms in one of the rare moments when he felt it necessary either to hold her back or hold her down. She wished she could quit thinking such crazy thoughts. They would only lead to trouble or heartache, both of which she already had in abundance.

  Watching him made her wish an impossibility. Thick black hair swept back from his face, though a lock in front fell across his forehead in damp strands. Layers of the ebony silk brushed the turned-up collar of his khaki shirt. Tight jeans, worn to a soft perfection, hugged his lean hips and covered the tops of his boots. A year in the tropics had toasted his skin to a deep mahogany brown, but his eyes were still the same strange, shifting blue, and she prided herself on being able to read them like a book.

  He stopped at the bar and glanced over at her, cocking his head questioningly. At her nod, he ordered two beers. She saw him pause for a minute, counting the wad of bills in his hand, then say something else to the bartender.

  Curiosity, overlaid with a big dose of apprehension, pushed all the crazy thoughts out of her head as he picked up a bottle of tequila to go with the beer. Something was wrong, and her misgivings grew with every measured step he took toward the table.

  She waited for him to settle into a chair before blurting out the worst possibility she could think of. “You lost the film.” She would kill him if he’d lost the film.

  “No,” he said wearily, passing a hand across his face and peering at her over the tips of his fingers. He’d worn a hole in the carpet, pacing his room, and he still hadn’t come up with the right words. Every time he’d gotten close, the image of her face had intruded. Those clear green eyes, the curve of her cheeks and brow, the soft perfection of her skin—they’d all conspired against his common sense and seduced him into giving free rein to his forbidden fantasies. All he’d accomplished in his hours alone was a frustrating state of arousal, something he’d guarded against for weeks. He felt like a fool.

  “Is the typewriter acting up?” she asked, visibly relieved about the film.

  “No.” He reached for the tequila and poured a good two inches of it into an empty water glass. It wasn’t enough, but it was a start.

  “Did somebody die?” Her voice softened to a whisper as she leaned across the table, diminishing the distance between them.

  Josh glanced up into her not-too-innocent eyes and felt his gut tighten. For a girl her age, she accepted death too easily. He should have gotten her out of Central America a long time ago. Pure selfishness, he thought, not liking the truth or himself.

  He’d used her to achieve fame and glory—and she’d helped him get both. That she’d been using him, too, didn’t ease his guilty conscience. It was time to let her go, before he used her for something else, something very personal, deeply sensual, and wrong enough to turn guilt into self-loathing.

  Only in the darkest recesses of his mind did he acknowledge a fear he didn’t dare voice aloud even to himself: if they made love, he might never let her go. The green-eyed witch with the young blossoming body and white-gold hair was capable of consuming him. Even now, faced with reality instead of fantasy, his body and emotions continued to dominate his nobler instincts, filling his mind with the imagined taste of her mouth, intensifying the almost painful ache between his legs. To have her just once would be a disaster. Please, Josh, try—for one more night—to keep your brains above your belt.

  “No, Nikki, nobody has died, at least not anybody we know,” he said, sliding back in his chair. A wry grin lifted a corner of his mouth as he shifted his gaze off into the night and fell silent.

  Nikki never took her eyes off him. Through the long quiet moments she struggled to figure out what was going on behind the tense mask of his face. She thought she knew all of his moods, but she’d never seen him quite so strung out. Still, she felt it was best to let him take his time. Sooner or later he’d tell her what was bothering him. She reached for her beer.

  “You drink too much,” he said without moving an inch.

  She paused with the beer halfway to her mouth, looking at him in confusion. “Well, hell, Josh. Nobody exactly recommends drinking the water.”

  “You swear too much, too.”

  “Couldn’t be the company I keep,” she parried lightly, trying to ignore the uneasiness edging back into her mind. Something wasn’t wrong; she was wrong. What had she done? Was he still mad about the night before? No, she decided, he never held a grudge. Besides, she’d been right. His Spanish was atrocious. For a reporter in Central America, let alone one named Rios, not knowing the language inside out and backward was a severe handicap. How he’d grown up on the Tex-Mex border without picking up at least a smattering of the lingo was beyond her. He must have worked hard at remaining ignorant, which didn’t fit in with his natural curiosity about everything else under the sun.

  She barely had time to throw out her first idea before he agreed with her.

  “You do keep bad company, Nikki. As a matter of fact, I can’t imagine worse company than me for a seventeen-year-old girl.”

  “I’m eighteen, and you need to give yourself more credit, Josh.” Only her smile added a teasing note to the words. The rest of her face remained coolly impassive, her eyes assessing.

  He discounted the difference with a slight shrug. Then he swallowed half the glass of tequila, pulled an envelope out of his shirt pocket, and tossed it over to her side of the table.

  The envelope landed softly on the rough wooden table, but the sound blocked all others from her mind. She kept her eyes glued on his, her smile fading into a grim line. She didn’t need to open the envelope to know what was inside. She’d seen a hundred plane tickets.

  “Dammit, Josh,” she said through clenched teeth,
flipping the envelope back at him. “We’ve been through this before, and the answer is always the same. No.”

  “This time it’s yes.” The ticket came back at her.

  The simplicity of his answer unnerved her more than the hardness of his voice. He was supposed to counter with one of the dozen or so reasons he’d formulated over the last twelve months, such as her safety or her worried relatives or the completely ludicrous one about her reputation.

  She picked up the envelope, then let it drop back to the table. She couldn’t win playing his game.

  “You wasted your money . . . as usual,” she said, throwing the argument back at him, deciding to clear out all the problems at once and hopefully distract him.

  Josh recognized the ploy. She’d used it many times successfully, running circles around him with convoluted logic. But not tonight. Tonight he’d win and, through the winning, lose her.

  “You’re going home.” And she was, no matter what he did or said. The situation was out of his hands.

  “I am home,” she snapped impatiently. He’d picked a helluva night for a fight, she thought. They were both jumpy and tired from their run through the jungle. And he couldn’t have chosen a more volatile subject if he’d searched the seven seas. He knew it, too.

  Josh saw the sparks of anger in her eyes, the tightening of her mouth, and knew with a sinking heart that the end was near. He’d made her good and mad, and maybe that was for the best. Maybe in her anger she would find relief from his betrayal—for he’d betrayed her absolutely and irrevocably. He accepted what he had done, but it didn’t make telling her any easier.

  “Better check your passport again, Nikki.” He stalled a moment longer, wanting to hold their friendship for just a few more seconds, wanting to watch her and know she still cared enough to fight with him before she shut him completely out of her life.

  Her eyes flashed with defiance. “Forget it, Josh. You can’t make me go.” She held her head a little higher, her shoulders a little straighter.