The bar was fairly crowded, but the thundering music and thrashing limbs of the other nightclubs was thankfully missing. People sat beneath umbrellas which were slowly being removed from the tables because there was no threat of rain. Jenny ordered a sparkling water, glad to observe the clientele here at—she squinted at the name on a matchbook from the wicker basket on the bar—the Hotel Rosa was closer to her age.
Hotel Rosa. She’d accidentally wandered into the very place she’d planned to check out for their wonderful Mexican cuisine. Smiling to herself, she wondered if she ought to live a little and order something more exotic to drink. With that, she picked up a laminated drink menu and wondered who in their right mind would order a Flaming Volcano. Something about tabasco and rum and a jalapeño pepper. She shuddered.
Three men asked to buy her a drink. She shook her head each time and finally ordered a Corona. Once the beer, with its wedge of lime, was placed in front of her, she glanced around. Her three would-be suitors were standing by. This was a circumstance she hadn’t imagined, though she should have. Sighing to herself, she debated whether to give it up for the evening and catch a taxi to the villa after all.
One of the suitors wedged himself between Jenny and the customer seated on the stool next to her. Jenny inwardly groaned. He was young and buff. He had that “I know what women want” attitude that always annoyed her.
“Come here often?” he asked, stupidly grinning like a jack-o-lantern. The older man on the stool got up and left in a huff, shooting Jenny’s newfound friend a look of disgust as he left.
“Not really.” Jenny fought the urge to be unpleasant.
“You come in on the cruise ship?”
“No.”
“Just visiting?”
She nodded. “Staying with friends.”
“Yeah?” He glanced around. He might be in good shape, but he was losing his hair, and he kept running a palm over the thinning strands, self-conscious, yet unable to keep from drawing attention to himself. Jenny felt a pang of something like empathy in spite of her disdain. Tom’s shaven head seemed like a much healthier approach. “So, where are they?” he asked.
“My friends are still down the way,” she said, inclining her head to the door.
“Meeting you here?”
“Hope so.”
“Mind if I keep you company till they show?”
Her smile froze. She wanted to scream at him to get lost, but she just couldn’t speak. “Not at all,” she heard herself say, then glanced at her reflection in the mirrored wall behind the bar and sighed.
What am I doing here?
What the hell is she doing? Hunter asked himself, feeling weary all over at the naiveté of women. They picked up men the way they picked up stray animals. Like this half-bald bozo with his tongue practically hanging out.
And you’d think Jenny Holloway would know better by now.
Tossing down the rest of his beer, Hunter wiped the back of his hand over his lips. He hadn’t expected her to just turn up like this. Sure, it was the Hotel Rosa, but it was her first night and he’d expected her to crash at the villa with her friends. He’d been here a day already and had driven up past Villa Buena Vista, scouted out the surrounding area and returned to the hotel. He’d thrown open the doors to his balcony, lain down on his double bed, listened to the ceaseless dull roar of the ocean, and fallen into a comalike sleep until he wakened, shocked, dazed, and confused.
As he understood it, depressed people sometimes slept for days or weeks, never wanting to rise and face their problems. On the other hand, it had been so long that he’d actually slept more than a few minutes at a time that it could be a sign of healing. Grimacing, Hunter had decided he really didn’t give a rat’s ass what it meant, and it was lucky he didn’t have to tell some shrink that.
The upshot was he’d stumbled awake and headed downstairs for some food. Allen Holloway had been right about the cuisine. The chili relleno was delicious. He scooped up some of the cheese-stuffed pepper and turned it around on the end of his fork, staring at it. Wow. If Jenny had come down here to learn the Hotel Rosa’s secrets, he was all for it. The idea of her opening a restaurant in Santa Fe suddenly held new interest for him.
But for the moment…
The guy bothering her had moved closer, his beefy arm lying across the bar, his sunburned head thrust toward her. The loser really deserved to be grabbed by the back of his thick neck and thrown into the street. Was she humoring him? The way she smiled and courteously responded to his inane questions needled him. Losers like this guy were all over this trashed-out planet and Hunter had seen way too many of them. When did women learn? He would have thought a woman as wealthy as Miz. Holloway would have ignored a barfly, but she was being so downright friendly it boggled his mind.
The guy leaned in even closer, struggling for a look down her blue denim sundress for a quick peek at a pair of beautifully rounded breasts. Hunter automatically reached for his beer. Finding the bottle empty, he squeezed his fingers into his palms until his hands were balled fists.
Wait, he cautioned himself, as he fought an urge to lunge forward and forcefully remove the bozo from the scene. He shifted his weight, counting silently to himself. It wouldn’t do to attract attention to himself that way. Wait…
Jenny didn’t seem alarmed. Observing her closely, he recognized the faint signs of female boredom. Instantly he relaxed. She was just being polite. As long as her overeager friend kept to a certain level, she could handle things herself.
Snorting at the realization, Hunter lifted a desultory hand at the waiter standing by the bar, then pointed to his empty bottle. The beer was replaced and he picked the bottle up by the neck. He was sprawled on a caned chair in the corner of the patio, partially hidden by the trunk of a thick tree whose gnarled roots had already lifted some of the red floor tiles. It was a massive miscalculation by the owners. A few more years and the tree would topple over, possibly taking a patron or two with it. But it served its purpose tonight.
Hunter hadn’t expected Jenny to appear so soon. It was actually his second night on alert, because he’d arrived a day ahead of her. Last night he’d walked around the hotel grounds and wandered down the streets, stopping in at the nightclubs to witness some world-class tequila drinking and gyrating bodies in the skimpiest clothing outside of the beach.
He’d rented a Jeep today. A Wrangler. The tourist vehicle of choice, it appeared, and his own personal favorite. He’d gone to the airport to wait for Jenny’s flight to land; then watched her as she drove off with a woman whose wild red hair, bracelets, skimpy dress, and loud exuberant manner earned her sidelong looks from the tourists and locals alike. He’d winced at the way the woman had ground the gears. Tough to hear a vehicle treated that way.
Following Jenny Holloway was getting interesting again. She was responding to the man without encouraging him. She didn’t have to. She was encouragement enough just sitting there. Her hair lay in lush, thick waves against a smooth neck and back. She was slender in the right places and curvy in the others, unlike other rich women who made thinness an obsession.
But she was rich. She was Allen Holloway’s only daughter. Hunter had done some research on the man himself before committing to this assignment, only to learn the expected, though unpalatable truth: Holloway owned half of Texas and most of New Mexico.
Okay. Maybe that was an exaggeration. But the guy was loaded. Supremely loaded. Hunter had suffered through the pains of being involved with the very rich: his ex-wife had possessed way too much money and that dependence on the almighty dollar had been the main reason that marriage had failed.
That, and his own bad attitude about the whole thing, Hunter knew. It was a fact. Pure and simple. And boy, could Kathryn be an out-and-out bitch. But then he’d married her for all the wrong reasons, too. The three “S”s. Sex, stupidity, and sentimentality.
Once a fool, always a fool…
Except the mistakes of romance were behind him now. His disillusi
onment over Kathryn meant little compared to the death of his sister Michelle. In fact, he hadn’t really thought about Kathryn much the past few years. She called now and again, and though he tried not to listen to her, she managed to convey enough information to remind him how lucky he was that it was over. She’d married again, divorced again, and had gotten into fitness in a way that had turned her thin as a whippet. Unlike Jenny …
His breath caught. Was the slimeball putting his hand on her thigh? She swung her legs to one side, as if she’d anticipated the move and with a quick turn she was off the stool, saying good night and dipping her head to hide her expression. Hunter wanted to squeeze the lounge lizard’s neck for ruining this perfect observation. Now, he was going to have to think fast and with a couple of beers under his belt, it was the last thing he wanted to do.
But providence saved the day. Geneva’s friends, in a whirl of drunken gaiety and noise, swarmed into the bar. One of the women caught her heel on a broken tile heaved up by the tree roots, then whirled like a pinwheel as Hunter half stood. She cried out, slammed an elbow into the tree trunk, then landed with a plop in his lap, cropping them both to the chair, hard.
“Ohmigod!” she declared, slipping around unsteadily so that Hunter clung to her with all his might. She wasn’t heavy, but she was drunk as a skunk.
Jenny appeared instantly and grabbed her friend’s arms. “Magda? You okay?”
The redheaded pal squinted at her. “Olé!”she cried, laughing like a hyena. Hunter couldn’t help but smile, and when Magda swung around to look at him, she declared, “Whoa, whoa! What have we here? Good heavens! A good-looking man. Hey, Jenny. Look what I found!” She collapsed into a second fit of hysteria.
Jenny Holloway’s blue eyes regarded Hunter with gratitude and a hint of suspicion. “Good catch,” she said softly.
Hunter righted Magda onto her feet. She moaned in dismay at the broken strap of her sandal. “Never pay more than a hundred dollars for a pair of shoes,” she declared, stumbling toward the bar. “It’s just not worth it.”
A hundred dollars for those hemp strings and strips of leather? Hunter thought in shock. A hundred dollars plus? Instantly he kicked himself for being surprised at anything the rich did. He knew better. He knew so much better.
“Do I know you?” Jenny asked curiously and Hunter’s pulse leapt in spite of himself.
He glanced at her, keeping his expression neutral. What the hell was going on here? He wasn’t certain what to think of his sudden sensitivity. He hadn’t reacted to anything in so long that for a moment he sat in silence, marveling. He decided to ignore his feelings and answered flatly, “No.”
“Oh.” She stiffened. “I guess not. You seemed … familiar. Sorry.” She shot him a fleeting smile. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
The bozo took the opportunity to step up. “You all need a ride somewhere? I could drive you.”
“No, thanks.”
“Hope your friends aren’t driving,” the guy pointed out, as Magda and friends headed for the bar.
“We cabbed it,” Jenny assured him in a voice that had grown colder by the syllable.
Hunter was amused by the exchange. The guy just wouldn’t get the message. Jenny had been patient and polite, but she was becoming out-and-out annoyed. About time, too, he felt.
“Well, if you want a driver, I’m offering,” the guy responded. With that he pulled a card out of his wallet and Hunter noticed he wasn’t as fast on the draw as he purported to be. Bozo had downed a few too many Mexican beers himself.
“Probably not a good idea for you to be behind the wheel, either,” Hunter observed.
The man threw him a belligerent glance. “Yeah?” he challenged.
“You’re trying to hand her your insurance card.”
He glanced down, muttered a curse and searched on.
Jenny said firmly, “Thanks, but we’re fine. I really have to get back to my friends.”
He cursed again, swept his hand over the back of his head, threw Hunter a furious look, then staggered outside.
“Hey, good-looking!” Magda waved Hunter to the bar. “Join us.”
Hunter hesitated. The open seat was right next to Jenny Holloway. Gathering up his half-downed beer, he ambled over. His days of following her without her knowing it had just come to an end.
Jenny wasn’t sure whether to wring Magda’s neck or kiss her. The only man in the bar worth noticing was the dark-haired stranger who’d caught her, but Jenny was worn out. At this point she just wanted to go back to the villa.
Still, as he unfolded himself in a slow-moving, sensual way, she couldn’t help the thrill of feminine awareness that swept through her. When his jeans-clad legs moved into her line of vision, she had to ignore the way his belt lay low on his hips and the taut muscles of his bare forearms. Nope, she reminded herself. Physical attractiveness was only skin deep. She’d been there and back.
“What’s your name, Tex?” Magda asked, checking him out, but much more boldly than Jenny.
“Hunter.”
“That a first or a last?”
Jenny swallowed a smile. You had to hand it to Magda. Always uninhibited.
“First.” He signaled the bartender who promptly snapped the cap on another beer and slid it across the bar.
“Well, Hunter, what are you doing here?” Magda asked.
“Reliving Night of the Iguana.”
Jenny gave him a long, long look. “That was shot here in Puerto Vallarta.”
“Yep.” He took a pull at his beer and swung around on the stool, regarding her in a way that sent off strange vibes inside her.
“Are you a fan?”
“A fan?”
“Of the film.” Jenny felt a little tongue-tied. As she spoke she could feel her pulse thunder ahead as if it had joined some race in progress.
“Never seen it. Is it good?”
“I have no idea.” She laughed, but it was a flirtatious noise that made her cringe inside. She had to get out of here. “I’ve never seen it either. Supposed to be good, though. The hotel where it was set is supposed to be south of town, I think. I’m not sure.”
She was babbling. With determination she signaled the waiter and pointed to Hunter’s beer. “I’ll take one of those, please.” Something to drink would give her mouth something to do besides make a fool out of her.
“What’s it about?” Hunter asked her.
“What?”
“Night of the Iguana?”
“Oh.” She swallowed from the bottle, pleasantly surprised at the foamy light bitterness. Beer wasn’t a thing she normally drank. “Lost souls and revelations, I think.”
He arched a brow. “Maybe I should see it.”
She wanted to stare at him, examine the lines of his face and the hard curve of his jaw. He was handsome, she decided, but it was a masculine kind of attractiveness that had a lot to do with intensity and power. She suspected his nose had been broken, maybe more than once, and there was a scar on his chin that reminded her of Harrison Ford. “Do you have a lost soul?” she asked lightly.
“I think so.” A brief smile and flash of white teeth dazzled her. It was quickly over, extinguished, like dousing a flame with water.
“What’s your last name?” she asked.
A long moment passed. She wondered if he were seriously considering withholding that information, then he extended his hand.
“Hunter Calgary, and you are?”
“Jenny Holloway,” she answered a bit breathlessly, shaking his hand. His palm was strong, warm and dry and held all the masculine strength she’d noted. Her mind spun. What the hell was wrong with her? She was acting like a giddy teenager.
“Jenny short for something?” he asked.
“Uh, yes. But not Jennifer…it’s Geneva. After my grandmother.”
“Geneva,” he said, rolling the syllables on his tongue as if he were tasting the effect.
Jenny watched his lips, fascinated. She shook herself to attention
and turned to Magda who was once again moaning about her ruined sandals. “I have to go home,” Jenny said, shaken. “Really. It’s late and I’m exhausted.”
“Really?” Magda screwed up her face, silently pleading for her to relent.
“Really.”
“Well, we won’t let you leave!” Phil declared. “We’ve got to dance!”
“No.” Jenny grabbed her purse and slid from the stool, desperate to be away. “Sorry.”
“One dance.” Phil swept her into his arms and they swayed to a soft Latin beat while Jenny kept one eye on the broken tiles to avoid a snapped sandal or a twisted ankle.
She humored him for the length of the song, but finally shook her head and pulled away. “Party on,” she told him, turning toward Magda and the others. Hunter Calgary was nowhere to be seen.
With a feeling of disappointment way out of proportion to the event, Jenny hugged Magda and Phil and extricated herself from their arms, kisses, and pleas. She would get a cab and find her way back to the villa.
But the bozo barfly was waiting for her outside and she inwardly groaned as she stepped onto the street. “I got a car right over there,” he said, pointing down the street:
“No, thank, you.” Jenny was polite but firm.
“Now, come on. I’m not gonna bite.”
Jenny turned to walk away, her senses on alert, listening to see if he followed her. Sure enough, his footsteps fell in line behind hers.
“Hey!” he yelled, irritated. “Hey!”
Jenny walked faster. “Please, please, please …” she murmured aloud.
And then Hunter Calgary stepped out of a parked Jeep Wrangler and simply grabbed the man by the arm, jerking him around.
The man grunted and ducked his head, as if he were going to charge. Hunter waited on the balls of his feet, legs apart, arms away from his sides. He’d been attacked by the best of them, and he wasn’t going to be taken by surprise by a guy who might or might not be the kind who liked to fight.
But bozo stumbled a bit. He was a hell of a lot drunker than he believed. “Back off!” he growled at Hunter.
In Too Deep Page 6
