by Alice Orr
“Do you really believe Citrone Blue can tell you those things?” Slater asked.
“Yes,” Phoenix said too vehemently for a public place. “I do believe that.”
The tears trembling on her lashes made Slater wish he also believed what she obviously wanted so much to be true. He couldn’t bring himself to disillusion her more right now, even if she would have listened to him. He watched her hurry out of the lanai lounge and noted that she was headed toward her room, but he didn’t follow. Slater signaled for the waiter to bring the check. Four new customers were already lurking nearby, eager to claim the table Slater occupied. He couldn’t help thinking that their experience here was almost certain to be more enjoyable than his had been.
Chapter Eight
Phoenix came here to make a new life, or at least to begin one, but this wasn’t it. She’d always stayed on top of whatever happened to her for as far back as she could remember. Even when she made mistakes, like signing Beldon Laurent as a client, they were her own mistakes and she accepted full responsibility for them. She also took it upon herself to correct those mistakes. When her research into Laurent’s background revealed the kind of man he really was, she resigned the job. She’d never done anything like that before. She liked to finish what she started, but that rule of thumb didn’t apply when it came to compromising her ethics. Working for Beldon Laurent, or anybody like him, would take her in a direction she didn’t intend to go. She’d said no to that as soon as she saw it happening. Now she was saying no again, but it was a lot harder this time.
Maybe she could use the whirlwind of it as an excuse for the way she’d allowed Slater McCain to walk in and take over her thoughts and, even more so, her emotions. Phoenix had been swept into the vortex of that whirlwind as surely as if a tornado had touched its funnel to her life and set everything about her tumbling out of control. He’d happened to her just that fast, too. One minute she was sitting there minding her own business, the next minute he appeared, and nothing had been the same since.
Of course, Porfiro Sanchez had been involved as well, and Slater helped her out of an awkward situation there. To be fair, she had to give him credit for that, if she cared about being fair right now, which she didn’t All she cared about at the moment was to be left alone. A small voice at the back of her brain told her that not wanting to be alone had made her vulnerable to Slater in the first place. She squashed that thought before it barely made itself heard. She wasn’t in the mood for reasonable reminders. She was, in fact, in the mood to tear something apart.
Phoenix had been pacing again. It was a habit she’d picked up from her grandfather. She could still remember him, charging back and forth from fence to fence across the narrow yard of their New England home. She could tell how caged he felt just by watching him. As a boy he’d dreamed of wild adventures. As a man, he lived within confines as clearly marked at the fence around his backyard. His short time in Mexico had been the only real freedom he’d ever known. That sad reality was the undertone of every story he told Phoenix about those magical days. Even as a little girl, she’d understood that
She’d see him lurching from one boundary of his lawn to the other, like an animal in a trap, and all she would want to do was help him escape beyond the limits of those neat, white fence pickets back to the land of freedom and adventure. She’d manage to do that, too, by getting him to tell his stories. She might have heard them dozens of times before. She might even notice the way details, and sometimes even entire scenes, changed from one telling to the next Phoenix didn’t care. All that mattered to her was the way her grandfather took off into his story as if he’d stepped on board a jet airliner and been whisked away. Memory and imagination might mix together at will. The test of harsh reality had never been as important as the story itself and the way it carried both teller and listener on its wings to a more exotic and exciting place than their daily world could ever be.
Her grandfather would stop pacing and hold her on his lap then while the story blossomed around them. She remembered those stories fondly and well, but she hadn’t forgotten the way he paced the yard or the frustration that brought that pacing on. She felt herself gripped by that same kind of tension now, driving her back and forth across the tile floor of her room until she half expected to look down and see a path worn there. She wished she could tell herself a story, as her grandfather would have done. Unfortunately, words didn’t possess the same calming magic for her that they had for him. Action had always been her antidote to frustration. When things got out of hand in her life, she got moving and did something about it, just like she’d done something about Beldon Laurent. She would do something about Slater McCain, too. She simply had to figure out what that something should be.
Too bad the Beldon Laurent solution wouldn’t work here. She’d run away from that situation. She wasn’t going to do that again. Being here in Mexico was the beginning of her fresh start in life. She wasn’t about to leave. She wasn’t going to allow a man, no matter how attractive he might be or how powerfully his presence might act upon her senses, to knock her off the top of her life and out of control. Meanwhile, the memory of just how attractive Slater was and how forcefully he could set her emotions spinning threatened to derail the determination Phoenix was building with each path paced across her room. She knew she mustn’t let that happen. Phoenix all but ran out onto her terrace. She grabbed hold of the wrought iron railing and leaned there, gripping it amidst the fuchsia flowers as if to restrain herself from taking off at a fast pace once more. What was it she had to accomplish anyway? She didn’t have an answer to that.
“I have to stop this,” she said out loud with so much vehemence that a passing seagull was frightened into a banking dive away from her.
Phoenix released her grip on the rail and turned smartly on her sandal heel back into her room. She did know what it was she needed to accomplish after all. She needed to understand. This man had come into her life, then backed away, then charged in again, like a bull in a china shop. Why had he done that? She could understand his first interest and even his second thoughts afterward. What she didn’t comprehend was his behavior this afternoon, barging in on her conversation with Citrone Blue and acting like a complete idiot. Ordinarily, Slater came across as much too poised to make a fool of himself that way.
The sharp edge of suspicion nagged at her brain. Something was not quite right here, not what it appeared to be. A blank space needed to be filled in; what was off balance had to be identified and maybe set right before she could even begin to put Slater McCain out of her mind and her heart. She hadn’t a clue what that out-of-kilter element might be. She didn’t know enough about Slater to begin to figure that out. “But I can correct that,” she said and set the seagulls swooping again.
Quickly, Phoenix changed from her sundress to cutoff denims and a pale yellow T-shirt. She slipped the back strap off one of her heels and kicked the sandal across the room. It slid under the bed and was quickly followed by its mate. She grabbed her sneakers from the open closet and pulled them on. She’d need sneaker traction for what she had in mind.
SUNSET HAD PASSED and night was falling fast in its wake. Phoenix was grateful for that. Her plan depended on darkness to succeed. She’d called Slater’s room, ready to hang up if he answered, but he wasn’t there. That was what she’d hoped for. Still, she couldn’t help imagining the sound of his voice rumbling low and throaty along the wires between his room and hers. The buzz of the unanswered ring had been a poor substitute for the thrill she knew she would have felt to hear him say hello.
Phoenix was out her door and hurrying down the corridor before she could think any further about Slater’s voice and what it could do to her nerve endings. At the end of the corridor, she slowed herself to a less conspicuous pace and walked down the few steps to the courtyard in front of the hotel office. She didn’t take the direct route to her destination, along the walk past the lanai lounge and the restaurant. She’d be observed by too many people t
hat way. Instead, she crossed the courtyard toward the flower gardens. Her sneaker soles squeaked against the smooth, red tiles. The pathway through the gardens was made of rougher stones set into concrete. She could walk more swiftly there than on the slippery tile.
Lights from the tall lampposts shimmered against the deepening velvet dark of the Acapulco evening and brightened the pathway enough for her to see where she was going but little more. That meant no one else would be likely to see her clearly, either. Still, she kept her head tucked down and turned away from the buildings. Late supper talk and laughter drifted down to her. For a moment, she longed to be seated at her usual table with a cup of Spanish coffee in her hand. She hurried faster still, trying to outdistance temptation as she went.
She was out of breath by the time she reached the top of the curving path. The warm, Mexican night had moistened her bare arms with a soft sheen. She was now facing the long building where Slater’s room was located. After hesitating beneath the overhanging red tile roof, she moved onto the path which fronted that building. A glance up and down the path and back across the gardens told her the coast was clear. Everyone was inside the restaurant and lounge enjoying the evening among friends and friendly strangers. This was the perfect moment for what she had decided to do.
Phoenix slipped around the corner of the building into the dark shadow of the roof’s edge. She moved, smooth as a cat, to the rail at the rear of the building and climbed over it. A stone ledge about a foot wide ran along the cliff side of this wing of the hotel, just as it did along hers. She’d viewed that ledge many times while leaning against her terrace rail on those lonely nights that now seemed too far away to be real. So much excitement had intervened between then and now that she had difficulty imagining a lonely moment.
Phoenix could hardly believe she was standing on that very ledge now, sidling her way along the railing that bordered the terrace to each of the rooms in this wing. Slater was four rooms down. She was busy keeping track of where that would be when it occurred to her that one of these terraces might be occupied. She hadn’t considered that possibility when she came up with this plan. She also hadn’t considered exactly how scary it would be sidestepping along this narrow place high above the rocks and pounding sea. One wet, slick spot or single shaky foothold and she could be history. Phoenix felt her stomach tighten and begin to turn. She forced her attention back to the terraces and to her sideways course.
Fortunately for her, the occupants of the first three rooms were either tucked behind their terrace doors or out for the evening. She was grateful for that because she wasn’t sure she could survive any delays. By the time she made it to the fourth terrace, her knees had begun to tremble. She grabbed the railing hard and flung one leg over it as the trembling traveled to other parts of her body. That was when she made the mistake of looking down. She hadn’t meant to. It just happened, and in that unintentional instant her fate was nearly sealed.
Suddenly, Phoenix was unable to move. She was stuck to that spot by what felt like an irresistible force. One foot dangled above the terrace floor. The other was still on the ledge. She could hear the waves smashing against the rocks below. She could see white, churning foam, just visible enough in the silver moonlight to make the breath catch in her throat. She tried to swallow, but she couldn’t manage that any more than she could muster the ability to move.
Phoenix had never realized how terrified she was of heights before. She had no choice but to overcome that terror, at least for the moment, now. To do that would require an act of will. She drew her breath in even more tightly, as if to fill herself with the nerve she needed. She spoke to herself inside her mind so intensely her lips moved. “I can do this,” she said, thinking the words slowly and deliberately once and then again. At the same time, she concentrated on putting that dangling foot back on the ledge, then pulling her other sneaker sole free from the ledge while she shifted her weight toward Slater’s terrace.
For an endless moment, nothing happened. Then, gradually, a single inch at a time, Phoenix willed herself across the railing. Her gaze stayed riveted to the perilous sea below until the very last minute when her foot was finally planted, solid enough to bear her weight, on the terrace floor. She pulled the other leg over then, nearly falling to the tiles from the numbness that still remained of her terrified paralysis. Her ability to exhale had begun to return when she noticed the damage she’d inflicted on the bougainvillea. Broken leaves and blossoms were strewn along the terrace floor. She scooped them up and tossed them over the railing then did her best to rearrange the vines so the crushed and crumpled section wouldn’t show. She was only partly successful in that effort at camouflage. She could only hope that Slater wouldn’t notice.
Inside the terrace door, his room was pretty much as she remembered it. He was definitely not a neatness freak, but the place was livable. A long-sleeved shirt, a T-shirt and a pair of dark slacks had been tossed over the back of a chair. Tall, black boots, too warm to be worn in Acapulco, were next to the bed with a pair of calf-length black socks draped over the tops. She pulled open the drawers of the dresser and found them empty except for two pairs of boxer shorts and another pair of black socks. Phoenix resisted the temptation to imagine the briefs on Slater’s body.
The closet was equally bare and notable more for what wasn’t there than for what was—no bathing suit, no beach clothes, not a piece of warm weather wear to be found. Phoenix looked around the rest of the room. There was no camera or film, no guidebooks, either, not even a tube of suntan lotion, none of the usually essential trappings that go with even the most bare bones vacation in the tropics. She was pondering what that might mean when she heard a key turn in the door.
Chapter Nine
Slater had come back to La Escarpadura. He’d meant to clear his head, but he was as confused as ever. That confusion turned from bad to worse when he opened the door to his room.
Phoenix was sitting on the bed as if she couldn’t be more at home. She’d stacked pillows behind her against the headboard and was reclining there as she paged through the sports magazine he’d bought at Kennedy Airport before getting on the plane for Mexico. He remembered slipping that magazine into the drawer of the nightstand after he got here. He hadn’t looked at it since. Seeing it now made him wonder if she’d checked out the contents of the dresser and closet, too. She wouldn’t have found much if she did. Slater traveled light. He also never wrote anything down. He carried what he had to know in his head, and most of the rest of what he needed was on his back. The khakis, loose shirt and loafer-style shoes he had on were an exception to his usual one outfit plus an extra shirt packing limit. The warm Acapulco weather had forced him to expand his wardrobe for this trip.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I thought we should talk.”
“The last time I saw you, you gave the impression you’d rather jump off that cliff out there than talk to me.
Slater watched her closely. He wasn’t a big believer in sudden changes of heart. While he was watching, he tried not to dwell on how good she looked in those jean shorts she was wearing. She had her legs crossed, so the shorts rode high up the golden skin of her thigh. He could see just a peek of flesh above the deliberately ragged cuff, but he could imagine the rest. His fingers longed to reach beneath that cuff to the place where more than just the color of her skin was pure gold. He wanted nothing more than to leap on her now and finish what they’d started in the moonlight on his terrace. He might have done just that, but Phoenix swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up before he could act on what he was thinking.
“What exactly were you up to in the lounge this afternoon?” she asked.
“Do you really want to know?”
“Yes, I do.”
She had her hands on her hips, and that made her breasts push out against the front of her T-shirt. He could make out the outline of her nipples. He had to force himself to pay attention to the conversation.
“I was trying to get you to listen to that Citrone Blue character with your head instead of your heart,” he said.
“You don’t know anything about that man.”
“I know a phony when I see one.”
“Is that right?” She removed her hands from her hips and curled them into fists at her sides. “Then I imagine you must have a hard time looking in the mirror.”
Slater didn’t really want to know what she meant by that. He had to ask all the same, just in case her remark had something to do with his being undercover. It wasn’t likely she could have found out about that, but he had to check it out anyway. He was about to do that when the phone rang. He was happy to put off what he considered hazardous duty for a while.
“Excuse me,” he said as he walked past her to pick up the phone from the bedside table where she’d tossed the sports magazine.
“Hi there, hotshot.” The voice on the other end of the line was one Slater definitely didn’t want to hear.
“I’m busy right now. I’ll have to call you back later.”
“I don’t think so, sport.” SideMan sounded as tough guy slippery as Slater remembered him to be.
“Where are you calling from?”
“A lot closer than I’ll bet you’d like me to be. In fact, I’m maybe a mile away from you right now.”
What Slater’d dreaded had happened. Laurent had his thug on the trail after all. Slater kept himself from heaving a sigh as he turned away from Phoenix and lowered his voice so she wouldn’t hear.
“Where can we meet?” he asked.
“Now you’re talkin’,” SideMan drawled. “You just hike yourself down to a little club called La Esperanza. It’s on the main drag. I’ve got a feeling you can figure out the rest.”
“I’ll find it,” Slater said. “You wait there for me.”
