by Lois Greiman
“Maybe you should describe her,” Shep suggested.
“Oh, sí…she is more taller than me. And skinny. No matter what we do, she has always been the skinny one.”
“Okay.”
“Her hair, it is dark like mine but…” She held her hands a foot from her ears. “How you say…”
“Sexy as hell?” the boy intoned.
Carlotta shook her head in frustration. “Tupido.”
“Bushy,” Shep said.
“Sí. Bushy. And she wears the…what they are called…la copita “
Shep was stymied.
She motioned restlessly toward her stultifying eyes. “For to see better.”
“Glasses,” Shep supplied.
“And her scent…it is of peaches.”
“She smells like peaches?”
“You have seen her?” Carlotta asked, gaze hopeful on the boy.
“Sorry.” He shook his bi-colored head.
“But you will ask the others?”
“Yeah. Sure. But… hey, maybe I should get a pic of you…to…help out with the.…you know…”
Shep did know and seriously doubted it had anything to do with finding Sofia and a hell of a lot to do with time alone in the shower.
“Very well,” Carlotta agreed.
The kid retrieved his phone from the floor, fumbled madly for a few seconds then managed to snap a picture…or ten. “Hey, I should probably get your number, too, in case, like…I see her or something.”
She rattled off the digits. “You will call if you hear of anything?”
“Count on it.”
“That is kind of you. You have my many thanks. Can you now direct me to the closest garden?”
“Garden?”
Apparently, there was something about Carlotta Osorio that made men forget the definition of certain words…and how to avoid acting like morons, Shep deduced.
“Sí, plants, trees,” she explained.
“Oh, sure. With flowers and shit. Mariposa Park’s kinda pretty.”
“Mariposa. How do I arrive there?”
“I could show you the way, if you want,” he said and took an eager step forward, but Shep caught his gaze, silently discouraging.
“I found Abdul Ghafoor in a couple thousand miles of desert. I think I can manage this,” he said and hoped it was true as he turned to follow Carlotta down the skinny hall into the interior of the building.
“You do not have to be the rude one,” she said, tossing the words over her shoulder.
“I actually think I do,” he countered and remembered, with some surprise, that there’d been a time, only a few days before if he remembered correctly, that he’d been considered at least marginally charming. “Where’re we goin’?”
“To eat the pie of limes.”
“I thought you didn’t like it.”
“I do not.”
“Table for two?” Blessedly, their host was female and didn’t, at first sight of Carlotta, forget the definition of any two-syllable words, offer to sire her children, or feel the need to blather on like a mynah bird on speed.
“Sí,” Carlotta said and followed the woman’s wending path between the tables.
As for Shep, he couldn’t help but notice that though the two women carried a similar amount of weight, there was something about the arrangement of those pounds that varied wildly.
Carlotta slipped onto the vinyl booth, already waving away the proffered menu. “This we do not need.”
“You know what you want?”
“I will eat the key lime pie.”
“And you, sir?” asked the hostess, eyeing Shep with a practiced and maybe somewhat appreciative gaze.
“Half a cup of coffee.”
“Half a cup?”
“If it ain’t too much trouble. And could I get some cream? The kind that’s seen the underside of a real, live cow?”
She smiled, cracking a dimple on each cheek. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“And enough sugar to jumpstart a rhino.”
The dimples deepened. “Be right out.”
True to her word, she returned in a matter of minutes, carrying the requested items on a tray. “Anything else I can do for you?” she asked when their orders had been distributed.
“We’re looking for someone,” Shep admitted as he reached for the coffee.
“Oh?”
“My sister,” Carlotta said. “Perhaps you have seen her?”
She glanced at Carlotta, noticing, maybe for the first time, the outrageous curves: hair, breasts, waist, hips. “She must not look like you or I’d have noticed Rube passed out by the front desk.”
Carlotta scowled uncertainly and shook her head. “She does not.”
“She’s sixteen,” Shep said. “Young-lookin’ for her age. Thin, fuzzy hair, glasses.”
“Sorry,” she said and slipping another handful of sugar packets onto the table, added, “Don’t OD on that stuff.”
“I’ve built up an immunity.”
She chuckled and let her gaze glide down his chest with appreciative leisure. “Life ain’t fair,” she deduced and left.
“What does she mean by this?” Carlotta asked.
“That I’m a hell of a guy,” he said and used enough sugar to send a pachyderm into a diabetic tailspin.
Carlotta snorted and sampled the pie. “And what of this Rube passing out at the desk?”
He watched her for a moment. Maybe she was fishing for compliments, but why, he wondered, noticing the lofty cheekbones, the midnight eyes, the touch-me hair. A woman with bait like hers would never have to cast a line.
“She means she hasn’t seen your sister,” Shep said and took his first sip of coffee before infusing cream.
Carlotta licked her lips, set her fork aside, and rose to her feet.
“What’re ya doin’?”
“We leave this place.”
“The pie’s that bad?”
“It is that good.”
“Then why—“
“My sister, she has the terrible tastes in desserts. She would never like this,” she said and sashayed from the restaurant.
Chapter 10
The café on the corner of 5th and Grant was little more than a snack bar. They’d already tried three other restaurants. Miami, it seemed, was serious about key lime pie, but they hadn’t spent more than five minutes at any one establishment.
Jet lag, or maybe just your garden-variety fatigue, was beginning to set in. Shep glanced at Carlotta. Her shoulders had begun to lose their starch, her face its stony determination. But he wouldn’t be sympathetic. Not a hardass like him.
“This looks like a popular spot,” he said. Twenty feet away, a girl in appropriately named shorts pressed her length against a half-naked boy, kissing him with enough enthusiasm to suck the lungs from his chest.
Carlotta scowled at the couple. “My sister did not come here for the pleasure.” The starch was back in her spine, with maybe a thin whip of whalebone added.
“If ya say so,” Shep said and didn’t allow the grin that threatened to appear at her snooty tone.
“I do. She would not disgrace her family so.”
The waitress had left moments before on her quest for yet another slice of pie.
“So you’re stickin’ with the idea that she was taken against her will.”
“Of course.”
“By who?”
“Whom?” she corrected.
For a second, he wondered how he had sunk so low as to be whommed by a haughty Colombian whose first language was not even English. But the sight of her sumptuous curves shrink-wrapped in slinky scarlet reminded him. Still, he raised a brow and tried to summon a bit more composure than the half a dozen men who had recently made fools of themselves on her behalf.
Carlotta glanced at the tablecloth, looking chagrinned and admitted, “I do not know who took her.”
He did. He knew in his gut-shot belly and was determined to tell her. Make her aware that Santiago
still held a grudge, that the drug-running bastard had concocted this elaborate plan to get revenge. That she wasn’t fooling him. That he wasn’t a complete idiot. That... But in that moment, he realized she was crying.
“Hey,” he said, but even that bit of empathetic genius failed to stem the tears. She put a hand over her face, hiding her eyes. He tried to remain unmoved. Tried to remember the litany he had just been chanting in his mind. About how she wasn’t fooling him. How he wasn’t a complete moron. But God Almighty, it was entirely possible that he actually was. And even more probable that a glacier wouldn’t remain unmoved.
“Hey,” he said again, building on his social acumen.
She turned her face away.
He gritted his teeth, reminding himself that he was no pushover. No patsy. No bleeding heart dupe. But the ache in his left biceps strongly suggested otherwise. “It’s gonna be alright.”
She shook her head. Face scrunched, makeup smeared, she looked lost and miserable. Against all probability, she also looked even more beautiful than she had when she first stepped through Eddy’s office door.
In the end, there was nothing he could do but crouch beside her chair, whisper something nonsensical, and pull her gently into his arms where she sobbed quietly. It was either that or be attacked by the bevy of men who were watching with varying degrees of concern and testosterone-driven outrage.
“It’ll be alright,” Shep murmured again.
“How? What am I going to…?” Her voice cracked beneath the weight of her emotions. “I have broken my vow to care for her.”
He glanced over her head. The angry males were nudging closer as if moved by some indefinable element they could neither understand nor control.
And hell, what was he supposed to do now? Tell them it was all bullshit? That she was a consummate actress and he the hapless boob just along for the ride? Because even though he knew it to be the truth, it didn’t feel that way. It felt real and immediate and…intimate.
“We’ll find her,” he breathed and allowed himself to run one almost steady hand down the length of her feather-soft hair.
“How? I cannot sample all the pie in America.”
He found her chin, lifted her face toward his. It was piteously lovely. “If she’s here, we’ll find her,” he promised.
She opened her mouth, those scarlet lips, maybe to protest, but he brushed a thumb across the plump surface, shushing her.
“We’ll take another look at that postcard. If she’s half as smart as ya say, all we have to do is follow the clues. Right?”
Perhaps she planned to protest again. Instead, she nodded.
“But first, we gotta get some real food. And sleep,” he added.
“There is no time,” she protested. “We must—“
“We have to refuel, Lotta. Clear our heads. Take time to think things through.”
She acquiesced silently, shoulders slumping as she rose to her feet. He slipped his arm around her waist and could almost, but not quite, resist the sliver of possessive pride that sliced through him.
Chapter 11
They sat across the table from each other in a small inn some might have considered quaint. It was said to have impressive gardens, but the darkness had prevented them from ascertaining the truth of those words.
Instead, they shared a quiet meal inside. It hurt Carlotta to admit the truth, but she had to confess that Linus Shepherd was right. Not to his face, of course. She wasn’t an idiota but she did feel somewhat renewed after the meal. She’d needed the calories, the energy, the hope that good, honest food could supply, and had left it to Shepherd to question their waitress regarding Sofia. The server, comfortably broad-hipped and solicitous, knew nothing but agreed to pass the inquiry along to the rest of the staff.
Lapping the last suggestion of gravy from her fork, Carlotta glanced across the table, only to find Linus watching her with raised brows and tilted lips.
“How was the steak?”
She gave him a casual shrug and pushed her plate aside. “Not as good as Mama’s.”
“Lucky for the silverware.”
She raised a regal brow.
“For a minute there, I thought ya was gonna eat the fork.”
She tossed her head. “It is not my concern that you prefer women who look like the…escobas.”
“Like brooms?”
“So flaco they could be used to sweep the floors.”
He leaned back in his chair, grinning, stomach as flat as a tortilla. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Anger brewed within her, but maybe it was infused with a dram of insecurity. Still, she brushed her hair behind her shoulder and reminded herself that she didn’t care what he thought. “I will never be one of those…” She paused to purse her lips. “…estrecho chicas you prefer.”
He chuckled, leaning sideways a bit to rest an elbow on the arm of his chair. “How do you know what I prefer?”
“I could fit Kelsey Durrand through the ring on my little finger,” she said and lifted the indicated digit.
“I’ll tell her ya said so.”
She shrugged again. “You may tell her whatever you so wish. I do not care what your ameguita thinks of me.”
Humor kicked his lips up another notch. “You think Kels is my girlfriend?”
“I care not of that either,” she said and, arching her back, stretched her shoulders.
“Keep doin’ that, and we’ll have to call in a medic,” he said.
“¿Qué?”
“That,” he explained and nodded toward her chest.
She glanced down. “Because of my pechos?”
“Yeah,” he said, voice dry. “Because of your pechos.”
“They are just the parts of the body, sí,? Like the elbow or the ear.”
“So ya just wore that heart attack outfit ‘cause it’s so damned comfortable?”
“This? No,” she admitted. “I wear it because it make men do as I wish. I just do not understand why.”
He snorted but didn’t argue.
“All I wish for is to find my sister. It is well worth the aching feet and rude stares.”
“All right.” The grin slipped a bit but didn’t disappear completely. Even when he’d teetered on death’s front door, he’d not lost his sense of humor. And perhaps, if she were being entirely honest, she’d admit that she admired that. “Let’s see it.”
She frowned.
“The postcard,” he said. “Let’s have another look.”
“Oh. Sí,” she said and began searching, pulling a paperback, an embroidered hand towel, and a screwdriver from her bag.
“What all do ya have in that thing?” he asked.
She didn’t deign to answer, but returned to her search, scrambling her possessions toward the bag’s opening before they disappeared again.
“Was that an electric saw?”
“Here,” she said and, placing the postcard on the table between them, shoveled the rest back into her satchel.
Shep shook his head and picked up the note.
He skimmed it for the second time. Then began again at the beginning, reading aloud. “Dearest Carlotta.”
“There!” she breathed, bending close and stabbing the cardstock with her index finger.
He looked up, perhaps surprised that she had already found a flaw.
“You don’t like your name?”
“Of course, I like my name. It is the beautiful name. But it is not what she calls me.”
“What does she call you?”
She paused, half wishing she hadn’t begun down this road, but her sister’s safe return was all that mattered. “Mandón,” she said.
He repeated it slowly with a quizzical lilt.
She nodded and wiped the condesation from her empty beer mug. “Your country, it is short on the hops, perhaps?”
It took him a moment to catch her meaning but in a second, he motioned toward a waiter.
“Yes, sir?”
“Another beer for the lady,
please.”
“Oh, no,” she demured, then shifted her head slightly, “unless you wish for one.”
His glass was still half full and, for a second, she thought he might laugh at her, but he remeained atypically somber.
“Two,” he said, and the waiter hurried off.
Silence fell between them. He studied her in the quietude. “Bossy?” he guessed finally.
She fiddled with her spoon. “I have no idea of what you speak.”
“Mandón,” he said, and now his grin did break free. “If I ain’t mistaken, it means bossy.”
“Perhaps it could be translated such,” she said. “But this is not how Sofia mean it.”
“No?”
“No. It mean…motherly, wise.”
“If I remember my Spanish right, it means—“ he began, but she was already waving away his ridiculous interpretation.
“It does not matter. The point is here, she calls me by my given name.”
“So?”
“So, it is yet the other clue.”
“Another clue?”
“Sí. That she wishes to return to our home.”
He gazed at her. Perhaps, she thought, there was a bit of disbelief in his expression.
“It is the name she used for me when we were but children.”
He waited.
“Living with our parents in the safety of our little hacienda. But she no longer calls me such.”
“Uh-huh. So, how about this?” he asked and lowered his gaze to the note again. “My apologies for failing to inform you of my plans. What does that mean?”
“She could not inform me because she was taken against her will, of course, but she cannot admit this.”
“Okay. This? A friend afforded me a chance to visit New Orleans. I couldn’t pass—“
“Huh!” she spat. “Friend? What friend? I have contacted all whom were taking the classes with her.”
“Maybe she met someone outside’a school.”
“When? How?” She shook her head. “She does not have time for such frivolities. Always she has the nose in the book.”
“Things change. Maybe she needed a break.”
“She did not.”
“Carlotta—“
“And look at this,” she said, stabbing the postcard again. “You know how I’ve always wished to see this place. What does this tell you?”
