On the other hand, she thought, in a way it was just like him-scruffy and eccentric, but with a certain rakish charm.
Rakish charm? She sucked in a breath as somewhere in the back of her mind alarms began beeping a steady warning, like the monitors in an ICU. Not the ones that bring the crash cart at a dead run, more like the ones that cause the nurses on duty to glance up, maybe come over and make a few minor adjustments, then go on about their business. Nothing to worry about, not yet, the alarms said. Just be on the alert.
McCall parked the VW on a widened-out spot on the dirt road, close to the side of the cliff near the base of the steps.
“Do you mind taking a load up now?” he asked as he got out of the car, pocketing his keys, and began pulling canvasses out of the back seat. “Saves a trip.”
“Sure.” Already out of the car herself, Ellie folded her seat forward and began tugging on canvasses.
“Here, take these.” He dumped his own load into her outstretched arms. “I’ve got a system. Go on up-it’s unlocked. I’ll catch up with you.”
“Right,” said Ellie as she cast a dubious look upward.
But the steps were neither as steep nor as rickety as they looked, and she arrived at the top safely and only slightly winded. The steps ended at a flagstone pathway, flanked by bird-of-paradise and lily-of-the-Nile and some drought-resistant succulents, which led to a wide three-arched veranda. The veranda was the same stone and plaster as the house itself, with the same type of thatched roof, and a floor made of flagstone, like the path. Unexpectedly enchanted, Ellie paused in its deep shade to look out on the view of thatched roofs, palm trees, and pale aqua-blue water. Clouds were building along the horizon, where a line of ultramarine marked the beginning of deep water, like a line drawn with a dark blue Magic Marker.
“Nice view,” she said to McCall, who was just then stepping onto the flagstone pathway, canvasses tucked under both arms.
It occurred to her that in spite of being a fairly heavy smoker, he seemed to be in good physical condition. Certainly no more out of breath after that climb than she was. She told herself that was a good thing to know, given the fact that he was going to be her temporary partner in what could very well be a dangerous assignment. She told herself that was the only reason she’d noticed.
“Hadn’t noticed,” McCall grunted, in response to her comment. But he gave her a look as he passed her, and even in the veranda’s deep shadows she could see the bright blue gleam of irony in his eyes.
McCall held his body rigid and hoped she wouldn’t hear his heart beating as he reached past her to open the heavy wooden door, then waited for her to enter his house ahead of him. He held his breath, too, but it didn’t help much; it seemed her orange-blossom scent was already in his senses to stay. He wondered if he’d absorbed it through his pores.
She gave him back the look as she stepped carefully around him, the same amused, sardonic one he’d given her. “You don’t lock your door?”
He followed her into his house and kicked the door shut behind him. “Everybody around here knows I don’t have anything worth stealing. Like I said-my needs are simple. I live a hassle-free life. At least, I used to,” he added darkly, looking around for a place to stash the canvasses. Normally they’d go on the couch, but since it looked as if he was going to be needing that later on, it didn’t seem like a good choice. Finally he just lowered the whole stack to the floor near the front door and leaned them against the wall. Good enough-they’d be going back out soon enough.
He devoutly hoped. If this whole smuggling mess didn’t wind up getting him killed, which, given what he’d seen of these people so far, seemed a distinct possibility.
And this his first Good Samaritan act since he’d adopted this new care-and-hassle-free life. The irony in that made him laugh, a brief and mirthless snort.
“Here-let me have those.” He relieved Cinnamon of her burden-he supposed he was going to have to call her Ellie now that he knew her name, but in his mind she was always going to be Cinnamon-and added those canvasses to the stack on the floor.
Then he straightened, and was suddenly aware of the fact that for the first time in a long time there was a strange woman occupying his house. A woman he was intensely attracted to. And had no business being attracted to. Dammit. He had to resist the impulse to fidget, couldn’t find any worthwhile use for his hands.
“Ah…okay. That’ll do for now. We can get the rest later. You, uh…want to go look at that envelope now, or you want something to eat first?”
“I’m kind of hungry, actually.” She said that absently, with her back to him as she was strolling toward the French doors that opened out onto his garden. Enclosed on two sides by stone and plaster walls and on the back by the same rock that formed the foundation of his house, it was pretty much the way he’d found it-an untamed riot of bougainvillea and hibiscus and lots of other stuff he’d never bothered to learn the names of.
“I believe in the ‘live-and-let-live’ method of gardening,” he explained as he hurried to beat her there, nervous as a new mama dog with one pup, wondering what she’d be thinking about it-about the garden, his house…him. Wondering why in hell it mattered.
She was looking at him, smiling, eyes glowing with it. Then she sort of started and gasped, “Oh-my God!” when he opened the doors. But it was in pleasure, not dismay.
“Meet Carmen,” he said gruffly, as a raccoon trotted huffily past his feet and, pausing only to give him a scolding growl, trundled off toward the kitchen. “She’s not really tame,” he went on to explain, as Ellie turned her fascinated gaze on him. He felt obscurely pleased with her reaction, and awkward and self-conscious because of it. “Just thinks my kitchen is part of her scavenging territory, and gets testy when I shut the door on her and she can’t get to it. Actually, I’m not even sure she isn’t a he-” he batted at a monarch butterfly that was bobbing drunkenly through the doorway just then, managed to shoo it back outside then quickly shut the doors “-but it didn’t seem polite to ask.”
“Live and let live,” Ellie said, in a voice thick with suppressed laughter.
“Right…”
“Won’t he-or she-need to, uh…” she gestured toward the closed doors.
“Oh, Carmen lets me know when she wants to go-” He broke off, swearing, interrupted by a racket of furious squeals and screeches. Ellie was right behind him as he dodged into the kitchen. He wasn’t surprised to find the raccoon on the countertop with her paws up on the side of the refrigerator. From the top of the fridge a pair of round, wide eyes stared down at him in sleepy outrage.
McCall clapped his hands-a futile exercise, he knew, but it allowed him to maintain the illusion that he was still boss of his domain. “Okay, get down from there. That’s not part of the deal. Come on-get.”
From behind him came a whispered, “That’s a potos flavus.”
He waited while the raccoon-taking her sweet time about it-selected a plum from the bowl of fruit on the counter and made her way down the row of partly open drawers to the floor. Then he reached up to retrieve the smaller of the two combatants from the top of the fridge. “It’s a kinkajou, actually,” he said, keeping his tone bland. “She doesn’t much like having her nap interrupted.” But his self-consciousness was gone, and he wondered how it was that a run-of-the-mill pet-shop owner happened to know the scientific name of such an obscure little animal.
“I’ve never seen one.” Ellie was extending a cautious hand toward the kinkajou, who was now occupying her favorite perch on McCall’s left shoulder with her long tail wrapped around his neck.
“She doesn’t take much to strangers,” he said, just as the kinkajou was perking up and leaning toward Ellie, nose quivering to beat the band.
“What’s her name?” Her voice had gone soft and sing-songy, with almost none of that rough little edge he was getting used to and, in fact, beginning to like. And he saw now that the fingers she was extending toward his passenger were holding a grape.
“Inky,” he answered, holding his breath. He wasn’t surprised about the grape, not really. After all, he’d learned from personal experience that this woman’s arsenal of weapons included bribery. He just wondered how she could have known that grapes were Ink’s all-time favorite treat.
Her eyes flicked to his face. They had that glow again, that warm golden shimmer that made him feel a tickle of laughter under his own breastbone, and farther down, a nice little nugget of a different kind of pleasure altogether. “Not Kinky?”
He grimmaced. “Cute-but obvious, don’t you think? No-I started calling her Inky because she likes to annoy me while I’m painting. I paint in the evenings, mostly, which is her active time. She gets into the paint…you know, makes a mess of things.”
Ellie gave a delighted laugh as the kinkajou flicked out a hand and snatched the grape from her fingers, then retreated with it in triumph to her nest on top of the refrigerator. She turned back to her host, shivering and giddy with the particular thrill she always got from a close encounter with a wild creature. She was breathless, dusting her hands, ready to say something…she didn’t know what, maybe something about her pleasure and excitement at actually meeting a kinkajou. Then her eyes met McCall’s, and her hands went still and her breathing stopped, and every thought of kinkajous and conversation went right out of her head.
Those alarms were going off for real now-the crash cart was undoubtedly on its way.
“What?” she asked. McCall had said something, and she was utterly at a loss.
“Would you like to wash up?” A polite host’s question, but his voice sounded sharp, edgy.
“Oh-yes, thanks.” She was almost to the kitchen door in what felt like full and ignominious retreat before it occurred to her to ask, “Where is it? You do have a bathroom…inside?”
His skewed smile flashed briefly. “To me, hassle-free includes indoor plumbing. Go through the big room-there’s a door opposite this one, that’s my bedroom. Bathroom’s on your right.”
“Right,” said Ellie, breathing again. Breathing as if she’d just come up those stairs of his at a dead run. What was the matter with her?
She finally left the kitchen on wobbly legs, and with a stomach full of butterflies such as she’d not felt in years-probably not since eighth grade, standing on the steps of the school gym waiting for Jimmy Rockingham to screw up enough courage to ask her to the Halloween dance.
She was halfway across the living room when she heard her host say-apparently to the kinkajou, “What’re you looking at? Thirty seconds, and she’s got you eating out of her hand.”
Laughter bubbled up inside her and she clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle it. The laughter felt good, but it didn’t do a thing to banish the butterflies.
She made her way across the big central living room-and living did describe it, for it seemed to serve many purposes-walking carefully, mindful of her still-wobbly knees and the hand-woven Mexican rugs scattered here and there on the uneven quarry-tile floor. She paused to smile at the raccoon, who was crouched on the rug closest to the French doors fastidiously washing her face and hands, having apparently already polished off the plum. When she saw Ellie she waddled over to the doors and paused there to throw an imperious look over one shoulder.
“Yes, Your Majesty, of course, Your Majesty,” Ellie murmured as she went to open the door for her. Or him. Given the raccoon’s size, she suspected it really was the latter.
Her butterflies and spaghetti legs were gradually fading, to be replaced once more by that Alice-in-Wonderland sense of bemusement. Since she’d arrived in this town, nothing seemed to be turning out the way she’d expected. She, who had always been so sensible and careful, had had her purse stolen, then recovered by a man who’d have made her hold on to her purse a little tighter if she’d seen him coming toward her down the street. She’d been accosted by thugs in a bar, then “rescued” by that same man, who incidentally was the very image of the kind of man women were warned to stay away from in bars.
Finally, and most incomprehensibly, she’d lost her partner, and acquired a new one-yes, that very same unsavory-seeming beach bum, in spite of the fact that he claimed to have no interest in helping anybody. Live and let live, wasn’t that his motto? He seemed a confirmed and unrepentant social dropout, with no concern for anyone or anything but numero uno-but he’d refused the money she’d offered him. He barely knew her, seemed not even to like her very much, but he’d agreed to help her out of an impossible dilemma. He behaved the way she’d imagined an antisocial dropout would behave-cranky and sarcastic and downright rude-but today in the cantina he’d put his body between her and an armed thug. He looked like a beach bum-sunburned, scruffy and unshaven, perpetually scowling-but seemed clean and smelled like nothing more unpleasant than paint and turpentine. And his mouth, when she’d kissed him, had felt warm and firm and had tasted, not at all unpleasantly, of tobacco.
Her stomach fluttered alarmingly, and she drew a quick hard breath as she pulled the French doors shut and latched them. Another surprise, she thought as she watched the raccoon disappear into the garden’s riotous foliage. In her experience it took a man with a gentle and generous soul to respect and appreciate wild creatures, much less form bonds of mutual trust with one.
Gentle? Generous? Cranky, crotchety McCall? It seemed unlikely, and yet…who would have guessed he’d have a house like this? So simple, only three rooms, not counting the bathroom-this one in the middle, with kitchen on one side, sleeping quarters on the other-but in a modest way, gracious, with sturdy rattan furniture, couch and chairs with cushions big enough for relaxing in, tables laden with reading material and artists’ supplies, an artist’s easel, and ceiling fans lazily swishing. Small, but with a feeling of light and space. Cool, even on a hot afternoon like this one. The word comfortable came to mind.
And yet, this McCall didn’t seem at all a comfortable sort of man.
Who was he, really? Or rather, who had he been? Where had he come from, and what had brought him to this place, and this life?
Did he have a first name?
Curiouser and curiouser…
Noises were coming from the kitchen-cupboard doors banging, dishes clinking, water running, and a tuneless whistle that might have been annoying if it hadn’t reminded her so much of her brother, Eric. Eric, whom she seldom saw these days, and missed so much…
Like an unexpected rain shower, the sadness of that thought dampened her curiosity and scattered the last of the butterflies. Quickly, now, she found her way to the bathroom, trying hard not to notice the bedroom as she swept through-which was, of course, impossible. She’d been prepared for the dimness of drawn shades, the clutter of clothing and unmade bed, and so wasn’t really surprised, since everything else about McCall had been so unexpected, to find light and space instead, and the bed neatly made beneath its veil of mosquito netting.
The bathroom was spartan but clean. She made use of its facilities as quickly as possible, then paused on the way back through the bedroom to study a framed photo that was standing on top of a high dresser near the door. She’d noticed it on her first pass through the room, probably because it was the only photo of any kind she’d seen in the house-in contrast to her own apartment in Portland and her parents’ house near Sioux City, Iowa, where every available space was always crowded with photographs and family mementos.
This one was most likely a blowup of an old snapshot, black and white and slightly blurry, of a man and a woman-or boy and girl, actually; they looked very young, probably still in their teens. The couple were dressed in the style of the late 1950s. The girl wore a Lucille Ball hairdo, a white blouse with the collar turned up in back and a scarf tied around her neck, pedal pushers and flat-heeled shoes. The boy wore his dark hair in a James Dean ducktail and was dressed in skin-tight jeans and a Marlon Brando-style white T-shirt. Ellie could see a pack of cigarettes tucked into one rolled-up sleeve. The boy was slouching against the front fender of a late-fifties model car, the
kind that was all chrome and fins, while the girl stood by smiling at him adoringly-if perhaps a little too indulgently.
Ellie pulled the photo closer and peered at it, searching for a resemblence between this young man and the artist she knew only as McCall. Impossible to tell, really; the styles were too different, the details blurred…
“Yeah, that’s my parents,” McCall said, startling her so much she gasped and knocked over the picture with a clatter. He reached calmly past her to set it to rights. “That was taken when they were in high school. About a year before my mother got pregnant with me.”
“I wasn’t trying to be nosy,” Ellie said, her voice gone raspy with embarrassment, heart beating like a jack-hammer. “It was right there, I couldn’t help but notice-”
“It’s all right,” he drawled. But his eyes, for once, seemed shielded. “I just came to tell you lunch is ready-if you’re interested.”
“Oh, yes-thank you. I’m starving…”
What the heck, she thought. In for a penny… “So, is that the only picture you have?” she brazenly asked as she followed her host into the living room. “Of your family, I mean. Brothers and sisters?” A wife? He’d mentioned an ex… “Do you have any children?”
“Nope.” He waved her past him toward the round rattan table, cleared now of painting supplies and set with woven place mats, heavy glazed crockery plates with a bright Mexican design, and the kind of inexpensive flat-ware that sometimes comes in picnic baskets-flimsy metal with bright red plastic handles. And as a centerpiece, the fruit bowl from the kitchen-blue and white ceramic, piled high with tropical fruits. It reminded Ellie of a still-life painting by…she couldn’t think of his name, the French impressionist who’d fallen in love with the South Seas.
“No napkins,” McCall said gruffly, handing her a folded dish towel. “I don’t have company very often.”
The Seduction of Goody Two-Shoes Page 8
