by Beverly Long
Cruz laughed and opened up Jana’s door. She was in a car seat, belted in like an astronaut. He was shocked to see how big she was. Granted, it had been more than a year since he’d seen her.
“Hey, darling, remember Uncle Cruz?”
She stared at him with big brown eyes.
“Your mom is on her way to spend your inheritance so you’re going to hang out with me,” he said. “I have a reputation for being very good with four-year-old women.”
She wasn’t crying but there weren’t any smiles coming his way. She did let him unbuckle her car seat and accepted his hand as he helped her crawl out of the car.
Elsa knelt down before her. “You’re going to stay with Uncle Cruz for two nights. Then I’ll be back to pick you up. You’ll be a good girl for him, won’t you?”
Jana nodded and Elsa gave her a quick, hard hug. When his sister stood up, there were tears in her eyes.
“I’ve got this, sis,” Cruz said. “It’ll be fine.”
“I know. It’s just hard to leave her.” Elsa looked around. “Where’s Meg?”
“Working,” Cruz said, trying to keep the tone light.
She studied him. “I don’t know what’s going on here, Cruz, but please don’t get hurt again. A year ago I wasn’t sure you’d bounce back.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m tougher than I look,” he added.
She frowned at him. Then gave her daughter one more quick hug and got in the car without another word. Jana watched her drive away, still not saying anything.
Cruz felt about as competent as a rookie at his first domestic disturbance. He stuck his hands in his pockets. “Are you hungry?” he asked.
She nodded.
“There’s a McDonald’s two blocks away.”
For the first time, she smiled. He held out his hand and she took it. “I like pancakes,” she announced.
“Coming right up,” he said.
* * *
MEG PUSHED PAPERS around on her desk for the first hour. Yes, she had work to do. She always did. But there wasn’t anything that couldn’t have waited until Monday. There was no special project that Scott needed help with.
She wondered what Cruz and Jana were doing? Cruz didn’t know the area well. The least she could have done is taken a few minutes to get him acclimated. But she’d been so focused on her own panic that she hadn’t been able to think of anything else.
Tonight she’d make an effort to be a little more helpful. She could make him a list of kid-friendly locations. She’d done the same for lots of other guests.
Although he was clearly getting perks that not every guest had access to.
She put her head in her hands. How could she have been so stupid? She’d slept with him. Not that there’d been much sleeping. Just a bunch of orgasms and other good stuff. Like having her hair stroked. And the insides of her thighs kissed. And her heart squeezed when she’d looked up and he had his head thrown back, the veins in his neck tight, as he poured himself into her.
Well, sort of. Luckily, he’d had some condoms in his travel bag. It had been touch and go for a minute the first time. Things had escalated quickly and suddenly he’d been inside her. She had enough sense to choke out that she wasn’t on the Pill any longer. He’d stared at her, a thousand questions in his dark eyes. But somehow he’d had the good sense not to ask any of them. Instead, he’d got suited up and they’d continued on, without missing a beat.
If his sister hadn’t called, they might still be in bed. They would have had to call for nourishment and some more condoms.
The irony did not escape her. She’d been afraid to walk into the hotel looking tipsy yet she’d have been perfectly fine letting the front desk know that she was in need of birth control. Post haste.
Her brain had exploded. Either before, during or after one of those fabulous orgasms. That could be the only explanation.
It wasn’t much of an excuse but it was the best she had.
She wanted to blame it on the alcohol. She’d drunk too much. No debate there. But she hadn’t been too drunk to know what she was doing. She’d sat in the chair, nursed her beer and thought about what-ifs. What if Cruz hadn’t stopped the man? What if she’d been stabbed? What if Cruz had been hurt? What if he’d been killed?
It had suddenly been too much. And the only thing that could make it better was a couple of hours in his arms.
And then morning had come as it inevitably did. When his sister had called, it had been clear that he wanted to help her out, that he wanted to spend
time with his niece. And Meg wasn’t going to stand in his way. She’d made that decision twelve months ago. There was no need to go back and revisit it.
Cruz Montoya was a good man. She wanted him to be happy. To have a houseful of kids. To have a wife who wasn’t damaged by her own past. He deserved to be able to trust the mother of his children. He should never have to worry if his children were safe.
And if he ever found out what she’d done, he’d never stop worrying.
* * *
CRUZ HAD BEEN happy enough to eat breakfast at McDonald’s and hadn’t really even minded when Jana had insisted upon eating lunch there, too. She almost had him talked into a third trip for chocolate chip cookies when he felt the imaginary hot scorch of his sister’s disapproval square between his shoulder blades.
Instead, he steered his rental car into the parking lot of a small grocery store where he bought a bunch of bananas, a package of grapes and a quart of milk—he figured if Jana didn’t drink it all, he could shove the remainder into the minibar. After all, Meg had emptied a couple shelves the night before.
She wasn’t on birth control. What the hell did that mean? She’d always faithfully taken the Pill while they’d been married. Was she leaving it to Slater? Was he sterile? Was she trying to get pregnant?
Was it even possible that she and Slater weren’t having sex? His mind had whirled with unanswered questions all day.
“Now where are we going?” Jana asked, skipping alongside him.
They’d spent the morning at the aquarium and the afternoon at Kiddie Park. “Back to the hotel to watch movies. Uncle Cruz is exhausted.”
“I’m not tired,” she said.
“Of course not,” he said.
They were still a couple miles from the hotel when he saw something that made him do a double take. Charlotte. Walking down the street, hanging all over some guy.
Cruz took another look and almost ran into the car in front of him that had stopped for a red light.
Mason Hawkins. The man was Mason Hawkins. He’d put on some pants, washed his hair and ditched the potato chips.
They were deep in conversation and Charlotte reached up to touch the man’s face. Cruz wanted to jump out of the car and demand to know what the hell was going on. But he had Jana and the light was changing. He pressed on the gas.
Ten minutes later, he and Jana were back in the room. He took off her shoes, washed the grime of the day from her face and hands, and had her crawl up onto the bed. He made her comfortable with some pillows and then they flipped through the in-room movie channel until she picked one about a dolphin that didn’t have a tail. He pressed Select and settled back against his own pillows, strangely content to be watching a kid-friendly movie.
Fifteen minutes later he heard a card slide into the door’s electronic lock. Meg walked in the room. She looked tired. Beautiful, but tired.
Officer Burtiss stood in the doorway. “Same time tomorrow, Meg?” he asked.
She nodded. “That would be great.”
He looked at Cruz. “Will you need me anymore tonight, sir?”
Cruz looked at Meg. She shook her head. “No, that should do it,” he said. “Thank you.”
Officer Burtiss stepped back into the hallway and closed the door. Meg kicked off her shoes, set her briefcase and purse on the floor and sank into the chair in the corner of the room. She smiled in Jana’s direction.
“How long has she been sleeping?
”
“Since about thirty seconds after we started the movie. Of course, she wasn’t tired.”
“Did you find your way around the city okay? I probably should have made a couple suggestions.”
No, she probably should have come with. Then he could have solely focused on the day rather than his attention being splintered between watching and enjoying Jana and worrying like hell about Meg. He was still mad about her abrupt insistence that she had to work. “I think the hotel has a concierge for that, don’t they?”
She started to respond, stopped and said nothing. Now her tired eyes were filled with hurt. It didn’t make him feel any better that she’d gotten the point. “Never mind,” he said, waving his hand. “Anything new happen today?”
She shook her head. “I’m going to take a shower.”
She was in the doorway, between their rooms, when he remembered what he’d seen. “I saw Charlotte today,” he said. “She was with Mason Hawkins.”
Meg frowned. “My Charlotte?”
He nodded. “You hadn’t mentioned that there was a relationship there.”
“Because I didn’t know there was one. Are you sure?”
He nodded. “It’s weird because I got the feeling the other night at the dinner that she might have a thing for Slater.”
Now Meg was shaking her head, as if it was too much to take in. “I think she admires Scott. We all do for what he’s been able to do with the hotel.”
Cruz rolled his eyes.
Meg ignored him. “But she certainly never said anything about Hawkins. I guess I do recall a couple times that I walked into the office and he was there but she always had some excuse. He was dropping off invoices for me to sign. We’d sent up a check request without a signature. Things that made sense to me.”
“When he lost his job, she didn’t say anything? Didn’t try to plead his case?”
Meg shook her head. “No, but there is something that suddenly makes more sense, though. When we terminate an employee because of their misconduct, we protest their unemployment claim. This saves the hotel money. And most of the time, we win. But we didn’t win his and when we investigated why, we learned that our protest never reached them. It never got faxed in. Charlotte was responsible for making sure that happened. I didn’t think too much about it. She handles a huge workload and every once in a while, something is going to fall through the cracks.”
“Now that you know, do you intend to say something to her?”
“I don’t know. I need to think about it.”
He nodded and she left the room. He leaned back against his pillows and closed his eyes. An hour later, Jana stirred. She opened her big brown eyes, arched her back like a cat, gave him a sweet smile and slid off the bed. “I’m hungry,” she said.
He was, too. It had been more than six hours since lunch. He got up, poured Jana a glass of milk and grabbed a banana. He turned to hand it to her and realized that she’d spied the barely open door to Meg’s room and had made tracks.
He poked his head around the door. Meg was lying on the bed. There was an open book next to her. Jana had crawled up and was sitting next to her, Indian-style. She was leaning forward, studying Meg, who was perfectly still, sort of like a deer caught in headlights.
“So do you live here?” Jana asked. “This is the nicest house I’ve ever seen.”
“I work here at the hotel. I’m staying for just a few days.”
“Mama said that you used to be Uncle Cruz’s wife.”
Meg swallowed. “That’s right. I knew you when you were born,” she added.
“How come you’re not married anymore?” Jana asked.
Cruz felt his chest tighten up. Yeah, Meg. How come?
“I...” Meg’s eyes lifted, resting on him. She pressed her lips together. “Grown-up reasons, Jana.”
Jana pointed at Meg’s hands. “You have pretty nails. Can you paint mine?” she asked.
Meg smiled. “I could probably do that. As long as it’s okay with your uncle.”
“Fingers. Toes. Knock yourselves out,” Cruz said, grateful that the little girl had moved on to other topics. Meg had left him because she didn’t love him anymore. That’s what she’d told him a year ago and based on her actions this morning, nothing much had changed.
He put Jana’s snack on the table next to the bed. “Jana and I were thinking dinner sounded good. Would you mind if we ordered in?”
“I want macaroni and cheese,” Jana piped in.
Meg smiled. This time it reached her eyes. “I think the kitchen can manage that,” she said. “I’ll have the salmon.”
Cruz rounded out the order with a steak, wine for Meg and a beer for himself. Then he shaved and jumped in the shower. He had just finished dressing when there was a knock on his door.
“Room service.”
Cruz looked through the peephole. There was a young woman on the other side, holding a tray. He slipped his gun into the small of his back before carefully opening the door.
“Hi,” he said. “You can just put it there.” He motioned to the table closest to the door. Once she had the table set, he scrawled his name on the charge slip. She wished him good-night and left. He locked the door behind her, then poked his head around the connecting door.
Jana was still next to Meg. The little girl was on her back, her arms stretched out like a zombie and her feet flexed, evidently so that she could admire her freshly painted fingernails and toenails. Meg was sitting up, bent over her leg, touching up the polish on her own toes.
They looked...perfect. Connected. Their dark hair was almost the same shade. They could have been mother and daughter.
Cruz felt the burn in his chest. Someday Meg would have someone else’s child.
“Cruz?” Meg lifted her head. “Did you say something?”
Damn. Had he done something extraordinarily unmanly like moan? “Dinner’s here,” he said.
Jana scrambled off the bed. “Yeah, is there ice cream?”
“Only if you eat your carrots,” Cruz said.
She stopped in her tracks. “Carrots,” she repeated.
Cruz nodded. “It’s chocolate ice cream.”
The little girl scrunched up her face. “How many carrots?”
“How old are you?” Cruz asked.
“Four.”
“Then five. You always want to be one carrot ahead.”
She considered, then smiled, showing her small, white teeth. “You’ve got a deal, Uncle Cruz.”
They pulled their chairs around the small table in the lower half of Cruz’s room. He opened the sliding glass door but kept the vertical blinds mostly closed. The sounds of the River Walk, rich with early-evening laughter and chatter, drifted in. Latin music was playing somewhere.
Meg took a sip of her wine and felt herself relax for the first time that day. She’d just lifted her glass for a second sip when her cell phone buzzed. She picked it up, recognized the number as Sanjoi from in-house security, and answered.
She listened, then very carefully put her glass down. By the time the call ended, she felt cold all over.
“Meg?” Cruz asked, already standing.
“Someone broke into my office and the damage is extensive,” she said, repeating what she’d heard. She lifted her head. “There’s blood. Smeared across my desk.”
Chapter Eleven
Cruz had no choice but to take Jana with them. He and Meg hurried down the hotel hallway, the little girl running to keep pace with them. She chattered, about dinner, about the day, misjudging their anxiety for excitement.
For her, it was just one more adventure.
For Cruz, it was just one more punch in the gut.
When they got to Meg’s office, he stepped out in front, blocking their view. One glance told him that that the outer area, Charlotte’s domain, was untouched. Sanjoi had his butt perched on the desk. He frowned at Cruz and nodded in Meg’s direction.
“It’s a real mess in there,” he said.
Cru
z looked through the connecting door. He could see the backs of two uniformed officers. They were standing in front of the desk. Between their shoulders, he got a glimpse of Detective Myers’s face. His eyes were focused down. Cruz took a step forward, the man looked up and Cruz could see a mix of frustration and anger on the detective’s face.
He turned to check Jana. Meg had grabbed a stack of yellow legal pads, some red pens and settled the little girl on the leather couch. “Can you please watch her?” she asked Sanjoi.
“Sure. I got one her age at home.”
Cruz stepped aside, letting Meg go first. It was her office, after all. But at the last second, he grabbed her hand and hung on. Her fingers were cold.
“Meg. Detective Montoya.” Detective Myers greeted them.
It was a repeat of her apartment, sans food. The glass on all the pictures had been broken, books had been shoved off shelves, and the walls and curtains sprayed with paint. Her desk had held up, even though it appeared, based on the dents and nicks in the wood, likely caused by a hammer or a similar tool, that the intruder had tried valiantly to break open the locked drawers.
Everything that had been on the desk was now on the floor. Cruz couldn’t focus on that, however. He was too busy looking at the desk. He’d been prepared. After all, they’d been told there was blood. But he hadn’t been prepared for the extent. The entire surface of the large desk was covered. A thick mat that had dried, in rough waves and ridges.
The intruder had taken his hand in a circular motion, like he was waxing a car.
“Whose blood is that?” Meg asked, her voice subdued.
Myers shook his head. “Not even sure it’s human,” he added.
Cruz could feel Meg’s grip loosen and he wondered if she was going to faint. “You’ve seen enough,” he said. “Go sit with Jana.”
She shook her head. “I left here at shortly after five, just a little over two hours ago. There are cameras in the hallway. He made a mistake. This time we should be able to identify him.”
“Your security department has already pulled the tape.” Myers walked over to the television and built-in DVD player that hung on Meg’s wall. He pressed a button.
The good news was that the camera had been working. The clarity was actually pretty good, certainly better than the grainy image that some cameras captured. The bad news was that the guy had been smart.
