A Fare To Remember

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  Question was, would he share?

  “So, Mario. Where did Roman go this morning?”

  He eyed her suspiciously. “Some meeting Uptown.”

  She knew that already. “Where Uptown?”

  “You want the specific address?”

  She shrugged indecisively.

  “He had me drop him off just north of Central Park.”

  Mario’s voice dipped a bit. They weren’t best buddies or anything, but Rachel knew a dodge when she heard one. “Dropped him off? Not at a specific building?”

  Mario pursed his lips. His eyes narrowed and he scrunched his bushy, salt-and-pepper eyebrows over his kind, but shrewd, brown eyes. “Why you asking so many questions all of a sudden?”

  She expelled a breath, not realizing she was holding the air so tight in her chest. “Roman and I have been seeing each other for almost four months, Mario, but I don’t know a thing about him. He’s so secretive. Guarded.”

  “This didn’t bother you before,” he said, grabbing his coffee cup again and downing the last of the potent brew.

  Rachel took another ravenous bite of her breakfast. “It bothers me now,” she replied, her mouth overstuffed.

  Mario grinned. “Things getting serious?”

  Rachel nearly choked. “No!”

  Liar. Liar, liar, liar! Truth was, Roman had been around too much lately. Before, he’d come and go with such irregularity, Rachel hadn’t invested much in him or their interactions. Naturally free-spirited, she hadn’t craved commitment and consistency from the men in her life. Not, at least, until Roman started showing up more often. Now she couldn’t seem to take her mind off him.

  Mario’s doubtful gaze forced her to amend her denial. “How can things get serious if I don’t know anything about him?”

  “Did you ask him?”

  She rolled her eyes. Of course she’d asked. Roman simply had very persuasive means of turning her attention to other matters. Like sex.

  “He’s elusive,” she replied.

  “Elusive? The last thing you need is a guy with something to hide. Dump him,” Mario offered.

  “Just like that?” Rachel couldn’t believe she was objecting. She’d kicked other guys out of her life for lesser crimes than keeping their personal information close to the vest. “What do you know that you’re not telling me?”

  “Nothing. I just think you should cut your losses before you get hurt if this Roman ain’t being straight. There are a lot of great guys out there, Rachel. Maybe you need a little help finding one.”

  Rachel frowned. Mario had a reputation for matchmaking, but so far, he hadn’t attempted to work his magic on her.

  “I’ve never had trouble finding men, Mario, but thanks for the offer.” She finished up her pastry, her mood dampened. “I can’t believe you think I should dump a perfectly amazing guy just because he won’t tell me details about where he grew up or where his parents live now or what company he’s currently working for as a media consultant.”

  Mario shook his head. “Guys who are so secretive usually have something big to hide. Maybe he’s married.”

  Rachel swallowed and the light and flaky meat pastelito thunked to the pit of her stomach. “He’s not.”

  “You know that for sure?”

  “It’s one of the few questions he’s given me a straight answer to. I don’t think Roman lies. I think he avoids telling me more than he thinks I need to know.”

  “And that’s not good enough anymore?”

  Rachel’s gaze drifted over her shoulder, back to her building, back to the stoop at the top of the stairs where she and Roman often groped and grabbed each other while she searched desperately for her keys so they could make love halfway up the stairwell inside or perhaps, if they were lucky, just after falling through her front door onto the living room carpet. Their lust had been a constant, insatiable part of her life for the past four months, but suddenly, this morning, she realized sexual desire simply wasn’t enough.

  Or, more likely, the suspicion had been brewing for weeks.

  “Tell me where you took him, Mario. Please.”

  Mario’s gaze darted to Iris, who was now tending to a line four or five deep. The morning rush had started and both he and Rachel knew he wouldn’t be able to exchange a private word with his favorite coffee-stand owner for at least another two hours, maybe three. He flipped off his hat, ran his hand through his graying dark, curly hair, and then rubbed a bit at the rather thick stubble on his leathery cheeks.

  “I’ll do you one better,” he said with a grin. “I’ll show you.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “HE DIDN’T GO INSIDE?”

  Rachel leaned forward on the dash, straining her neck to look up at the tall residential building where Mario had dropped Roman off. The place was swank. Two doormen. And a security guard. Did he live there?

  “Nope. Got into a dark sedan parked at the curb,” Mario replied.

  Rachel sat back, bouncing against the worn leather seat. “Did he talk to anyone? Wave at the doorman?”

  Mario shook his head. “Paid his fare, left me a generous tip and got straight into the other car.”

  “Does he always do that?”

  Mario scrunched his nose as he thought deeply. “Nah, but sometimes. I kinda noticed this morning that I usually don’t see him go inside. So out of curiosity, mind you, I waited.”

  Rachel turned and eyed Mario with new suspicion. “Did he know you were watching him?”

  Mario glanced aside, and then pretended to adjust his side mirror through his open car window. “I wouldn’t know.”

  Rachel eyed her friend suspiciously. Mario had a reputation for being a bit of a busybody. And he wasn’t telling her the whole truth.

  “After you dropped him off, did he wait for you to leave before heading toward the other car?”

  Mario’s expression displayed exaggerated thought. “Guys like him don’t like to be watched, that much I can tell.”

  “So you…”

  Mario sighed and gave up trying to be cool about what he’d done. “I made a U-turn and double-parked at the corner while he crossed. There were cabs all over. He probably didn’t know it was me.”

  Rachel swallowed a chuckle. She’d known Mario for nearly three years and she’d pegged him long ago as the curious sort. He’d caught more than one guy casing Iris’s corner with the intention of robbing her, and he’d averted several muggings of fares he’d dropped off in questionable parts of town.

  “What made you stop and watch?”

  Mario adjusted his cap. “Can’t say.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  He eyed her boldly. “Can’t. It’s just gut instinct.”

  Rachel grabbed the seat belt and strapped it across her body, which keyed Mario to put the car in gear and start the return ride back to her apartment. “We didn’t learn much.”

  “No, but we could learn more,” Mario suggested. “I mean, if you want to.”

  Rachel’s heart skipped a beat. “How?”

  He arched a brow.

  She knew how. Next time Roman left her apartment, she and Mario would follow him.

  Did she really want to go behind Roman’s back? Spy on him? Part of her abhorred the inherent childishness of the prospect, but the other part-the part that didn’t like to be taken for a fool-was interested.

  “What would I have to do?” she asked.

  “A little detective work,” Mario said, as if the idea were as natural as breathing. “Nothing complicated or illegal.”

  She eyed him skeptically. “Stalking someone isn’t illegal?”

  “Hey, can you help it if he leaves and you just happen to be going in the same direction?”

  “You’ll need more than one cab,” Rachel pointed out. “Our job would be easier if he gets into a car that knows we’re tailing him.”

  Mario smiled broadly. Clearly, he liked the way she thought, which surprised her. Rachel really wasn’t one for cloak-and-dagger stuff.
But she had been around the block, and well, if a good thriller was on television, she usually tuned in.

  “I can call in a favor,” Mario said.

  Rachel remained silent for the rest of the trip. After Mario pulled up in front of her building, he handed her a business card with his cell phone number inked at the bottom. “You call me next time he’s at your place.”

  After an instant of hesitation, Rachel snatched the card. She offered Mario money for taking her Uptown, which he refused, then promised to call him unless her common sense got the better of her, which she didn’t figure had much chance of happening.

  Determined not to waste the entire day thinking about Roman or what she might discover if she followed him on one of those mysterious mornings when he left her at the summons of his pager, she headed toward the gym. On the short walk over, she couldn’t help thinking about her mother, her sisters-the poster women for trust issues.

  She supposed the fact that their father had left them high and dry when Rachel was only ten should have explained the plethora of neuroses shared by the Marlowe women, but Rachel hated to think that she was such a textbook case of deep-seated issues. Wasn’t like every relationship she’d ever had imploded because she didn’t trust her man. Okay, maybe a few. But not…oh, what was his name? Sean? Yeah, Sean. She’d dumped him because she didn’t like football. And the man had been entirely obsessed with the game. Of course, he had played right guard for the Hurricanes at the time they’d been dating-hence the shirt she was wearing today-but that was no excuse for him to spend from ESPN’s College Game Day on Saturday morning until the last whistle on Monday Night Football in front of the tube.

  Yeah, that one hadn’t been about trust.

  Unfortunately, she decided as she yanked on the door to her gym, he’d been the only one.

  Rachel exchanged greetings with the receptionist in the too-tight sports bra, waved her ID card under the barcode reader, and, after scoring a bottled water from the vending machine, jumped on the first empty tread-mill she saw, the one with the broken distance meter. She groaned, but opted to use the clock on the opposite wall as her gauge. Not that she had anything pressing to do today. In fact, her life seemed incredibly up in the air-and she suspected it would remain that way until she figured out just what Roman was hiding from her.

  And Lord knew when that would be.

  A WEEK. ROMAN SNUGGLED closer to Rachel and lamented the fact that he’d only managed to stay away from her for a measly seven days. In his younger years, he would have cursed his lack of willpower. Now that he was older and wiser, he knew he was playing with fire, auburn-haired, green-eyed fire. Recklessness hadn’t gotten him to where he was in business. But taking chances with Rachel had invigorated his life to a level he hadn’t experienced in years.

  “Was that your pager?”

  Roman glanced at the bedside table. The annoying cube of technology was completely still and silent.

  He rolled over and caught a momentary glimpse of panic in Rachel’s dark-green eyes.

  Odd.

  “Duty’s not calling just yet. Why?” he said, slipping his hands over her bare belly and inhaling the musky, sweaty scent of recent, delicious sex. “Anxious for me to go?”

  She forced a smile. Forced. What was that about?

  “Of course not. I guess you’ve been here a little longer than usual. Call me Pavlov’s dog, but the longer you’re here, the more I expect you to leave.”

  He chuckled, but her instincts weren’t far off. He knew the pager would likely go off at any moment. His operation had been at a virtual standstill until last week, when new data had started to filter through. The Agency, the code name for the covert group of the highest level agents from various organizations under Homeland Security had sent word that a contact from a separate, even more secret division would soon provide needed information for his case. In all honesty, he’d had no business visiting Rachel on the eve of something so crucial to his mission. He should have been at the office, monitoring the situation firsthand rather than leaving the task to a subordinate or waiting for the contact to make himself known. But once this assignment was over, he knew the Agency would shuttle him out of New York at the speed of light.

  His obligations to the mission kept him from revealing the true nature of his job to Rachel, so he couldn’t utter anything close to a goodbye. And for all he knew, this was their last night together-his last chance to imprint her silky skin, sweet scent and warm touch into his consciousness. He didn’t want to waste time anticipating the moment he’d have to leave-this time, perhaps, for good.

  “You look nothing like anyone’s dog,” he said, his voice rough with renewed lust as his fingers inched over her breasts, eliciting a soft, seductive whimper from the back of her throat. God, the woman was like a drug.

  “You always say the right things,” she whispered.

  “And do the right things?”

  He scooted the sheet out of his way and encircled one taut, brown nipple with his tongue. The heady saltiness of her flesh danced in his mouth like the bite of fine caviar.

  She threaded her fingers into his hair, massaging his temples as he plied his mouth against her oh-so-sensitive breasts. He could make her come like this. He’d done it before, stirring her to madness when his own body wasn’t quite ready yet for another orgasm, but hers was primed and pliant.

  Her breath came in shallow pants and he could hear her accelerated heartbeat in her chest. She writhed on the bed and he knew if he dipped a hand lower, he’d find her sex wet with readiness. If he timed his ministrations just right, one flick of her clit would send her over the edge. Then he could kiss her hard and swallow the sounds of her release.

  With Rachel, he was no less than a hungry carnivore and no more than a man ensnared by an attraction more powerful than any other he’d ever encountered.

  Unfortunately, just before he could slide his hand to that precise spot that would drive her wild, the bedside table buzzed with the sound of his pager. He should finish what he started, ignore the device and his responsibilities and obligations and give this woman what she so richly deserved, but on the second, longer vibration, Rachel stiffened.

  The moment was lost.

  Damn.

  He curled away from her, grabbed the pager and pressed the button that lit the LCD.

  The number he expected flashed across the screen, along with the code that told him he had no time to lose.

  Rachel sat up, the sheet yanked tight across her chest.

  “Looks like our fun is over,” she said.

  He nodded. If she only knew.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “YOU’RE OUT EARLY.”

  Mario looked up guiltily, his mind grasping for an explanation for Iris, who’d caught him in the act of working out the pain in his sacroiliac. Rachel had called him just after midnight and for whatever insane reason, he’d decided to forgo his comfortable bed and instead spent his night off in the backseat of his cab, parked around the corner from his usual spot near Iris’s coffee stand. He’d paid a night’s wages to his pal Sam to meet him before sunrise and wait outside Rachel’s building. This Roman Brach person had piqued his curiosity. He didn’t want to see Rachel hurt.

  Unfortunately, pulling all-nighters in the backseat of a cramped vehicle wasn’t as kind to his old body as it used to be when he was on the force. Stakeouts had been his specialty back then. Now, they were literally a pain in the ass. And the back. And the neck.

  “Morning,” he said by way of greeting, trying to look as nonchalant as any man who was hanging out on the sidewalk long before the sun came up over Manhattan. “How you doing?”

  “I’ve been up since three baking, that’s how I’m doing.”

  Even when she was grousing, Iris’s melodious, accented voice caused a thrill in the center of Mario’s belly. Suddenly, sleeping in his cramped backseat didn’t seem so bad.

  “You smell great,” he said, inhaling the sugary scent of the fresh baked goods cling
ing to her worn pink sweater, the one she wore every morning until the sun came up, when she’d toss it over the back of the stool she kept near the cash register.

  “I smell like lard.” She smoothed a hand over her thick, bunned black hair as she moved in the direction of her stand.

  “More like fresh-baked dough sizzling with creamy butter and a dusting of cinnamon.”

  She stopped, the rolling cooler she tugged behind her knocking against her heels.

  “That was almost…poético.”

  He knew little Spanish, but he got her point. Besides, he was fluent in Italian and the languages weren’t so different. Just like the cultures. Just like the people.

  “I can wax with the best of them when it comes to food. Can I help you set up?”

  She resumed her walk, and like the dog he was, he followed. The minute they reached the front of Rachel’s building, she immediately started unlocking the door with the impressive collection of keys she extracted from inside her blouse.

  Oh, to be those keys.

  Stop it, Mario! Have you lost all your respect for women?

  He cleared his throat and looked away, suddenly feeling more like sixteen than sixty. He glanced up at what he thought was Rachel’s window. The lights were off. Or perhaps, on in the adjacent room only.

  “Where’s your cab?” she asked, once she had the coffee brewing and had tossed him a roll of paper towels and some Windex to clean the front of her display case.

  “Around the corner. I didn’t want any fares this morning.”

  “You still on the clock?”

  “Nah, it was my night off.”

  She eyed him suspiciously but didn’t ask any more questions until she had her stand nearly ready for operation. He’d helped her set up once before, about three months ago when she’d sprained her wrist. She hadn’t accepted assistance easily, but Mario could be fairly stubborn when he wanted to be.