Because that was what she did. When she’d needed to get out of Hack’s Crossing, who had helped her escape? When she’d wanted to go to college, who had helped her get in? When she’d needed a job at the newspaper, who had pulled some strings for her? And when that job had turned out to be working on columns that didn’t satisfy her, who had she asked to drop a few words in the right ears to help her get reassigned? How could she expect Mason to see her as an adult woman who could stand on her own when every time she needed or wanted something, she looked to him instead of herself?
Boy, nothing like a little soul-searching and self-enlightenment to top the day off right, Lou thought as she took another sip of her soda. Still, she suddenly felt as if a very heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Now she had a chance to grow up and prove herself with this story on Sonora. There was more at stake than her journalistic abilities. And this time, she wasn’t going to blow it.
Settling more comfortably into her chair, she flipped another page of her notebook and went back to work. And so caught up in her writing did she become, she scarcely noticed when the sun began to sink in a slow blaze of pink and gold into the ocean outside the window beside her. Nor did she pay much attention when uniformed waiters began to set the tables around her, absently declining when asked by one of them if she wanted to order dinner. She only became aware of how late the hour had grown when she finally glanced up from her work to see the dining room nearly full.
Then she remembered that people on Sonora ate dinner pretty late. Usually not before eight-thirty or nine o’clock. She looked at her watch and was shocked to discover it was nine-ten. She’d been sitting in the dining room for five hours, working on her story. Mason was going to be frantic.
She hastily began to gather up her things, stuffing her notes and pens into her canvas messenger bag, unconcerned about whether they remained in order. A voice at the back of her head reminded her that today was the day she started living life for herself and stopped worrying about what Mason thought. Lou told the voice she’d think about that tomorrow. When she’d scooped everything up off the table, she turned to hurry out, but halted in her tracks when she saw Mason barreling through the dining room toward her. Uh-oh…
Her heart thumped more erratically with every step he took, and for a moment, she actually forgot to breathe. He may have been pale and haggard-looking when she left him this morning, but he’d recovered magnificently. Wearing his journalist’s uniform of white shirt and khaki trousers, he was showered and shaved, and even seemed to be a little more tanned than before. He stopped inches before he would have run her over, towering above her and looking as though he wanted to throttle her. She should have remembered he had a strong constitution.
“Where the hell have you been?” he said in lieu of a greeting.
Lou took a deep breath and told herself to remain calm. Mason wasn’t her keeper. She didn’t have to answer to him or anyone. “I’ve been working on my story,” she said, relieved her voice belied none of the nervousness she felt.
“I called Michaud,” Mason told her. “He said your last interview was scheduled for two o’clock this afternoon and that you left the mayor’s house a little after three. I repeat, Lou. Where the hell have you been?”
“Here, dammit,” she snapped, unmindful of the curious gazes they were earning from the other diners. “Right here in the dining room. I’ve been organizing my notes and working on my story since four.”
“That leaves an hour unaccounted for,” Mason said.
Okay, that did it. Lou had had enough. “A whole hour, huh? You want to know what happened in that hour? Okay, fine. I was kidnapped by human traffickers who put me to work in an opium den, where I wantonly performed unspeakable sex acts with corrupt heads of government. But when I started enjoying it too much, they put me to work in the mines instead. Around three o’clock, I dug up an emerald the size of Rhode Island and used it to buy back my freedom. After that, I had a bite of lunch and did a little shopping. Then I came back to the hotel. Okay?”
Her West Virginia accent had returned in full force, Mason noted. That meant she was pretty mad. All right, so maybe he was overreacting a little. But he’d been worried sick about her all day, and it had been way worse than his bout with conch-fritter-itis. When she hadn’t come back to her room by late afternoon, he’d had no choice but to go out and look for her. This trip was her first time outside the States. There were things she didn’t understand about foreign countries, things that could get her into trouble. He just wanted to keep an eye out for her, that was all. He just wanted to make sure she stayed safe. Why couldn’t she understand that? Why did she always have to get so mad at him?
As he watched her watching him, he felt all the fear and anxiety leave him in a rush. Now that he knew she was fine, he could relax. With just the hint of a smile, he pointed out quietly, “There aren’t any opium dens on Sonora.”
When he smiled at her like that, it was impossible for Lou to stay angry with him. Meeting his gaze steadily, she replied, “The way you reacted, you’d think there was one on every corner. And the company I’d find there would be preferable to what’s here. At least there—”
Lou stopped herself before she pointed out that at least there she would be treated like a desirable woman. Even though she had a new outlook on her relationship with Mason, it still felt weird discussing sex with him, even in jest.
“At least there what?” he prodded.
“Nothing,” she mumbled, feeling heat seep into her cheeks.
“You were going to say something about those unspeakable sex acts, weren’t you?”
“No.” She felt her cheeks burn more.
Mason laughed. “Come on, I’ll buy you some dinner on the Standard’s expense account. You’ve already got the best table in the house. I’m surprised the maître d’ didn’t throw you out on your can for sitting there for so long without ordering anything.”
He put his hands on her shoulders to spin her around, and Lou felt warmth permeate her entire body. “He’s too polite to do that,” she said. “I think he kind of has a crush on me. Besides, there’s still one or two tables left unoccupied.”
But the waiter who approached them when they were seated seemed relieved they were ordering nonetheless. As if to make up for her severe breach of restaurant etiquette, Lou started with a cocktail, then ordered soup, then salad, then wine with her entree and coffee with dessert. In between came a number of courses exclusive to the island of Sonora. Every time the waiter removed one plate from before them, he replaced it with a tiny serving of citrus sorbet. Mason told her it was to cleanse her palate before the next course, but she preferred to see it as extra helpings of dessert.
It was nice being pampered, she had to admit. But she didn’t think she’d like to live this way forever. She actually couldn’t wait to get back to Washington and start taking care of herself. Then again, why should she wait until then?
When they finally pushed themselves away from the table, Lou and Mason did so with some reluctance. As he signed the check and added a generous tip, she picked up her messenger bag and pulled the strap over her shoulder. It seemed heavier, thanks to the lethargy that followed such a sumptuous meal. All she could think about now was going back to her room and stretching out on the bed. But Mason had other ideas.
“Let’s walk off our dinner on the beach,” he said as he took her bag from her shoulder and transferred it to his own.
“Mason, I barely feel able to crawl to the elevators right now, let alone plod through sand.”
“Oh, come on,” he cajoled. “How often do you get the chance to walk along the beach in the moonlight?”
She lifted her eyebrows at his curious statement. Had it sounded just a tad romantic? “In Washington?” she asked. “Every weekend. The Maryland coast is only a couple of hours away, remember? Unless you’ve forgotten that your sister and brother-in-law have a house that sits right on Chesapeake Bay.”
“No, I have
n’t forgotten,” he replied. “It’s a damned nice house, now that they’ve fixed it up. Let me rephrase my question. How often do you get to stroll languidly along the pearly white, powder-soft beaches of the blue, blue Caribbean while the silvery moon hangs high in the sky?”
Lou stared at him as if his brain had just blown a gasket. What on earth had come over him? “That doesn’t sound like rephrasing to me,” she said, stalling. “That sounds like embellishing. Excessive embellishing at that. You know, if you’d written something like that for my technical writing professor at AU, he would have told you to—”
“Lou,” he interrupted.
“What?”
“We need the exercise.”
“Oh. Well, since you put it that way…”
They stopped off at the concierge’s desk long enough to check Lou’s bag, then headed through the palm-lined lobby of the Hotel San Sebastian until they came to the doors that led to the pool and, beyond it, the beach. The night was warm and balmy and quiet, the sounds of Madriga only faintly detectable thanks to the buffer of the hotel and the whisper of the surf. A handful of tourists were gathered by the pool, the men wearing pastel-colored guayabera shirts, and the women dressed in brightly flowered muumuus. They greeted Lou and Mason like old friends as they passed, lifting elaborate concoctions from the bar decorated with parasols and pineapples. When the two of them finally reached the beach, they removed their shoes and dropped them on the steps that led back to the pool then strode barefoot into the sand.
It was a beautiful night. Somewhere off in the distance, perhaps at another one of the hotels that lined the beach, strains of salsa music punctuated the darkness. A woman laughed, a sea gull cried out in delight, and the night breeze sifted through the palm trees like a lover’s breath. For a moment, Lou closed her eyes and listened to the sounds surrounding her. They and the cadence and fragrance of the ocean were bewitching. When she opened her eyes again and looked over at Mason, it was to find him gazing at her with undisguised curiosity.
“You look so thoughtful all of a sudden,” he said quietly. “What are you thinking about?”
Lou wasn’t sure what made her reply the way she did. Maybe it was because of the wine she’d consumed with dinner, or maybe because of the romantic aspects of their surroundings. Or maybe it was just because she was tired of hiding her feelings for Mason. Slowly, silently, she covered the short distance between them, put her hands on his broad shoulders and stood up on tiptoe to brush his lips softly with her own. No other parts of their bodies touched, and she didn’t draw any closer to him than was necessary. The kiss lasted only a moment, a brief, gentle caress that barely constituted a whisper. But for Lou, it was enough. For now.
When she stepped back again, her heart was pounding, and her breathing was ragged, as if her simple gesture had been an explosive sexual consummation. She studied Mason curiously. Amazingly, he had closed his eyes during her kiss, and when he opened them again, she was shocked to see a heated passion that rivaled her own burning in their pale blue depths. Then just as quickly, the fire was gone, replaced by cool calm.
“Why did you do that?” he asked. And if she hadn’t known better, she would have thought he sounded almost breathless.
Lou met his gaze levelly. “You asked me what I was thinking about.”
“You were thinking about kissing me?”
She nodded silently.
He shook his head in confusion. “Why? I don’t understand.”
For a long time, she only stared at him with a longing she felt all the way down to her soul and wished things could be different. Finally, she said, “Neither do I.” Then she pivoted and ran back toward the hotel.
And as Mason stood watching the tiny sprays of sand kicked up by her feet, he heard her quiet voice fill with anguish and echo across the darkness again, “Neither do I.”
Chapter Five
On Friday, Albert arranged for Lou and Mason to travel into the interior of Sonora so they could see how some of the smaller communities were faring and determine the opinions of those citizens about the changes taking place on the island. However, thanks to the events of the night before, Lou awoke in no hurry to see Mason—not until she could straighten out her feelings and reevaluate everything that happened on the beach after dinner.
What on earth had come over her last night? She couldn’t believe her behavior. It was as if another person had stepped into her skin and taken control. Still, it had been a very nice kiss, however innocent, and one she would welcome again. Only next time, it might be nice if Mason were the one who instigated it.
Throwing back the sheet, she rose from bed. As she saw it, there were two ways she could handle the situation when she encountered Mason this morning. Either she could act flustered and embarrassed, which was what her instincts commanded—and, she was sure, was what Mason would be expecting—or she could act cool and calm, and pretend nothing out of the ordinary had happened, which was doubtless how Mason would react. Reminding herself how she promised herself to take charge of her life, Lou chose to take the latter course. She was a big girl now, and it was time to start acting like one. She wasn’t on Sonora to pursue a romantic liaison with Mason—even if, deep down, there was a part of her still kind of hoping one would develop. She was here to investigate a news story. First and foremost, she was a journalist. Therefore, her job had to come first.
That settled, she went about her morning rituals and then called room service for breakfast. There was a knock on her door just as she finished tucking her sleeveless, dark olive cotton blouse into pants of the same fabric and color. She opened it absently, assuming her caller would be a waiter in the standard blue Hotel San Sebastian uniform, delivering her coffee and pastries. Instead, she saw Mason holding the tray filled with her order, looking scrubbed and handsome in a different white shirt from the day before and a different pair of baggy khaki trousers.
“Didn’t you pack anything to wear that has a little color to it?” she asked by way of a greeting, trying to slow her rapid-fire heartbeat at the mere sight of him.
“Look, I told you—”
“I know, I know,” she interrupted. “Khaki is the internationally recognized uniform of the press corps, spoken everywhere, blah, blah, blah. But you look so nice in blue.”
He didn’t respond, just kept looking at her as if she were someone he’d never seen before. Fearing he was about to make some reference to the night before and get their conversation off to a bad start, Lou tilted her head toward the tray.
“Are you moonlighting for the hotel, or did you mug the waiter who was bringing my breakfast to me?”
He looked down at his hands, seeming surprised he was holding anything, as if he’d forgotten all about it. “The waiter was about to knock as I was coming out of my room to go downstairs to the dining room. I told him I’d deliver your breakfast to you. Why did you only order something for yourself?” he added. “Didn’t you want to have breakfast with me?”
“Why were you going downstairs to the dining room alone?” she countered. “Didn’t you want to have breakfast with me?”
He stepped past her into the room. “Point taken.”
Lou closed the door behind him, searching her brain for something—anything—that would avoid a discussion of their kiss on the beach last night.
Lifting the lid on the tray, she said, “There’s more than enough here for both of us. They even sent up two coffee mugs.” She took the tray from him, set it down, and poured them each a cup of coffee.
“I guess the guys down in room service automatically think of us as a couple,” Mason said.
Lou faltered only a little at his statement, losing her grip on the croissant she had begun to tear apart, missing the piece that tumbled from her fingers when she tried to retrieve it. Mason deftly caught it in his palm and then waited until she looked up to meet his gaze before he gave it back to her. When he did, however, it wasn’t to place the bite-size morsel back into her hand. First, he took the
butter knife and slowly spread a generous helping of pale yellow across the bread. Then, his eyes never leaving hers, he lifted it to her lips, silently encouraging her to part them. She was helpless not to. Slowly—and not a little uncertainly—Mason tucked the bite of croissant into her mouth. But his fingers lingered as she closed her lips again, rubbing his thumb very gently across her lower one before dropping his hand back to his side.
The entire action lasted only a matter of seconds, but Lou suddenly felt as if a hundred years had passed. Mason was going to make it difficult for her to remain indifferent about their kiss of the night before. She mumbled her thanks, then snatched a napkin from the tray and wiped her mouth in an effort to dispel the sensation of his gentle touch. It didn’t work. She doubted she would ever forget the feel of his fingers caressing her mouth.
“Lou—”
“Mason,” she interrupted before he could say anything more. “Albert has given us the use of a Jeep today so we can drive into the interior of the island. I have a map of Sonora, and I’ve marked all the villages I’d like to visit. We can make the rounds in less than a day. It won’t take long.”
His expression suggested he was anything but pleased with the new turn of events. “How many times do I have to tell you that anything Michaud and the government officials arrange for us will be colored by their own pen? Don’t you see how—”
“This is something I arranged, Mason. Not Albert. Me.
Unforgettable Heroes II Boxed Set Page 7
