by Candace Camp
“It is?” Leslie glanced around in astonishment.
Cutter chuckled. “Yeah. It is.”
Leslie shrugged. “What do I know? I’m from New York—I don’t even drive.” She laughed. “Well, what do the people do, if farming’s too hard?”
“They farm anyway. They can scratch out enough to survive. They grow corn, mostly. Squash, chili peppers. There are plenty of trees around to supplement their food with fruit—breadnut, mango, papaya, guava. The majority of the population lives close to the coast or by a river or lake, and they fish. Those who live inland hunt for small animals for food.”
“Hand-to-mouth.”
“Yeah. Some have moved into La Luz for the jobs, but they aren’t better off. Wages are low, housing’s poor and they don’t have the opportunity to supplement their food with wild fruits or fishing.”
“Has San Cristóbal always been like this?”
“Just about. Revolution and poverty, that San Cristóbal’s story.” Cutter began to recount the country’s bloody, convoluted past, starting with the ancient Mayans, and the time slipped quickly away as they talked, so that before they knew it they had arrived at Chempua. Much to his surprise, Cutter found that he enjoyed talking with Leslie. She had a bright, active mind and a good sense of humor. Amazingly, he was almost looking forward to having her as a companion on this trip.
That was crazy, of course. As soon as the trip got rough, she would start complaining, and after a day or so, he was sure she would quit altogether and return to La Luz. That would be the best thing, especially with someone following them. There were too many dangers involved for a woman like Leslie, and she would end up being nothing but an aggravation for him.
When they reached the town of Chempua, Cutter left the highway and drove into the center of the town to a restaurant. As he had more than half expected, the white car followed them. Cutter parked the car and got out, glancing around casually. The white car was parking in the block behind them. “Still with us,” he remarked as they strolled away from the car.
“What are we going to do?” Leslie asked as they entered a small restaurant that was as loud and bustling as any of the most popular spots in NYC.
“I’m thinking. Do you have your cell phone on you?” He held out his hand, already knowing the answer.
“Of course,” Leslie handed it over, “What’s weird is that you don’t. And you can borrow it, by the way.” She added as he took it from her hand without a please or thank you.
“Go sit down at a table. I’m going to go back to the car so I can make a call.”
Leslie complied, following a smiling hostess to a table and sitting down to study a menu she couldn’t make heads or tails of. Moments later Cutter joined her, smiling. Leslie took her cell phone back from him and their fingertips grazed. She shoved aside the jolt she felt at it and concentrated on Cutter’s happy expression. “Your idea must have worked out.”
“It should. Have you ordered?”
“Are you kidding? I don’t even know what the menu says. But never mind that. Tell me about your plan. What are we going to do?”
“First, we’ll enjoy a nice leisurely meal, maybe a drink or two. Then we’re going to drive to the nicest hotel in Chempua, which I imagine you will find sadly lacking in the kind of amenities you’d offer at one of your establishments. It does, however, have running water and a bathroom in every room, which is more than you can say for some of the other places we’ll be staying.”
Leslie ignored his comments on the hotel and pursued her subject. “You mean we’re spending the night here? But how will that help us get away from the guys following us? I figured we’d drive on and try to lose them in the dark or something.”
“If my idea works out, we’ll confuse them a lot more than by losing them on the road. Chempua lies on the Rio Miedo, the same river that runs through La Luz. It’s one of the two major rivers running back into the interior, and you can as easily travel the river as the road. I just called the docks and asked if there were any boats scheduled to go upriver in the next ten or fifteen hours. Sure enough, there’s a cargo boat that’s leaving early tomorrow morning, about four o’clock.”
“And we’re going to take it?”
“Right. I’ll have to slip out without our friends and make sure the captain will sell us passage. If I can make a deal with him, we’ll sneak out of the hotel early tomorrow morning and be on our way. With our car sitting there in the parking lot and us supposedly in our rooms, the tail should assume we’re sleeping late and not even begin to wonder until we’re five or six hours on our way.”
“But how will we sneak away?”
He shrugged. “Depends on the location of our rooms and what our friends do. Since they’d be rather conspicuous in the lobby all night long, I suspect they’ll stay in their car outside and watch the front door. We’ll take the side or back entrance.”
“That’s what we did last time,” Leslie reminded him dryly. “And look where it got us.”
Cutter frowned. “I know. I would have sworn I gave both those guys the slip this afternoon. There must have been a third person I didn’t see. I never would have dreamed that. It seems like more men than you and I would warrant. But then, maybe they’re hoping we’ll lead them to Mora.”
“But how do you know there isn’t another man here, too?”
“It’s unlikely. I didn’t see another suspicious car besides the white one.”
Cutter ordered their drinks and food, then turned to Leslie. “Looks like our tails aren’t risking coming inside to eat. They must be watching the car. So while you sit here waiting for the food, I’ll make a side trip to the docks. They’re not too far away.”
“How are you going to keep those men from following you?”
He grinned. “I’ll leave through the kitchen. I’ve been to this place before; that’s one reason I chose it. From the restaurant’s back door I can go right into the back door of a department store that faces the next street. I’ll catch a taxi there, go to the docks and hopefully be back before you finish dinner.”
Cutter left their table and sauntered toward the bathrooms, but instead of turning right into the men’s room, he turned left and disappeared into the kitchen. Leslie swallowed nervously and took a sip of the fruity alcoholic drink the waiter brought. It tasted so much of the fruit that it seemed to have hardly any alcohol in it. Leslie sipped at it repeatedly as she tried to appear as if she were waiting for her companion to return from the bathroom.
The cocktail was soon gone. Feeling silly sitting here alone with Cutter’s full drink sitting in his place, she traded her empty glass for his and drank it, too. By the time the food arrived, Leslie was too relaxed to worry about what the other diners thought of Cutter’s protracted stay in the restroom. In fact, she realized that she was inclined to giggle to herself and she was forced to the conclusion that the drink had had more alcohol in it than it had seemed too.
She poked at her food. The two successive drinks had been large and had filled her up so that she wasn’t hungry. Hardly noticing what she was doing, she drew trails with her fork in her food and pushed the gooey beans up into a little hill. She looked across the table at Cutter’s plate and wondered if she ought to mess it up, too, so that it would look as if Cutter had been there.
The phantom diner. A grin broke across her face, and it was all she could do not to giggle. Leslie glanced around the room. Maybe people were beginning to wonder about her absent companion. There was a man over there who was definitely staring at her. Where was Cutter? It had been an awfully long time. What if something had happened to him? Maybe she ought to go after him. But no, that was silly. She didn’t know where he was. And Cutter could take care of himself.
She pulled out her phone. She should do something constructive. She’d been meaning to look up San Cristóbal and now that she’d seen a bit of it she was even more curious. She opened her browser and looked up the Wikipedia entry for La Luz.
Luckily she wa
sn’t so tipsy that she couldn’t get immersed in reading about a new subject. Leslie quickly exhausted every link about La Luz and moved on to the Chempua entry. It was weird reading about a place she was currently in, but didn’t know well, and she was almost tempted to go outside to see if she could spot any of the historic buildings she was reading about. And maybe she would see Cutter coming back. Before she could decide whether that would blow their cover or not, she spotted Cutter winding his way back through the restaurant.
He strolled to the table and sat down, not looking as if he’d just dashed to the docks and back. “Miss me? We’re all set.”
“Hello, Cutter.” Leslie beamed at him, flooded with relief.
Cutter stared. He glanced down at her plate, which resembled a topographical map, and finally his gaze came up to rest on the two large, empty glasses. He looked back up at her. “You had two Red Sins?”
“Two whats? Oh, that drink? Yes.” Leslie slid her phone back into her purse. Cutter was way more interesting than any Wikipedia article. “As a matter of fact, I did.”
“On an empty stomach.” Cutter groaned. “That’s all I need, a drunk on my hands.”
“I’m not drunk,” Leslie protested indignantly. “I’m never drunk.”
Cutter cocked a disbelieving eyebrow and dug into his food. “It should make an interesting report for our tail—‘Anxious ex-wife staggers out of restaurant.’”
Leslie stretched as tall as she could in her chair and looked down her nose at Cutter. Her mouth was pursed slightly in an attempt to look severe, but she succeeded only in looking like a little girl playing grown-up.
“I never stagger,” she informed him haughtily.
“Mmm. Like you never get drunk?” Cutter grinned.
Leslie had no idea what an enchanting picture she made, cheeks slightly flushed, her dark eyes liquid and soft, a few stray wisps of hair escaping from the tight restraint of the bun and straggling around her face and down her neck. He had seen her looking aloof and beautiful, angry, even sexy, but he had never seen her looking amusing. He rather liked her this way.
“Try saying that you don’t stagger after you try to stand up.”
Leslie let loose a giggle, surprising herself, and she clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, my. I do believe those drinks were stronger than they tasted.”
“That’s putting it mildly. That’s why they call them Red Sins: they’re dangerous, but they taste so sweet.”
Leslie set her elbow on the table and rested her chin on the palm of her hand. She liked talking to Cutter, despite their arguments; there was something freeing about being with him. She didn’t have to worry how she looked, how she sounded. Nothing she said would pierce that thick hide, and he wouldn’t look at her with concern and remind her about her mother because Leslie was a little tipsy, the way her father would. The way she herself probably would tomorrow.
No, talking to Cutter was just fun. And fun was what she wanted right now. She gave Cutter a wide-eyed look. “Goodness. Is that what sin is like: dangerous and sweet?”
Her look went straight through him and exploded in his gut. She was being flirtatious. There was no other way to describe that overly innocent tone and expression. Her eyes were huge and sparkling with amusement. Her cheeks glowed. There was none of the tautness he had seen in her before. Before they left La Luz, she had changed clothes, exchanging her trim red suit for a full skirt and a cotton T-shirt, belted at the waist with a wide leather strap. It gave her a softer look, more casual and relaxed. Cutter decided she was very enjoyable to look at this way. To be frank, he thought, she was very enjoyable to look at almost any way.
“Yeah,” he said in response to her question, “that’s what sin’s like. Didn’t you know?” Everything in Cutter was calling him to touch Leslie, but he kept his hand pressed to the table.
“No. It seems quite bitter to me.” Leslie looked down at Cutter’s hand on the table between them. Why had she never noticed before how appealing his hands were? Long, slender fingers, tanned and strong. She bet his fingers were callused. Idly she reached out and ran her forefinger across the back of his hand, tracing the lines of his bones beneath the skin.
The movement of her finger over his skin sent delicious shivers all through her. Leslie didn’t know why she was talking to Cutter this way and she understood the need to touch him even less. Hadn’t this been just the thing she’d wanted to avoid earlier? But right now, she didn’t really care. This was too pleasant. No, not pleasant. Nothing about Cutter was pleasant. He was…exciting.
She studied him. The sharp planes of his face had softened, the pale eyes grown warmer. She noticed the shape of his mouth, the clear-cut upper lip and the fuller bottom lip; tiny lines ran out from the corners of his mouth, and to one side was a slight indentation that became a deep dimple when he smiled. His hair was soft and shiny, falling carelessly around his face. It really was a sin for a man to look this good all scruffy and disheveled.
Leslie thought that she would like very much to touch his hair; she wondered what it would feel like under her hands. She reached across the table and brushed her fingertips along the edge of his hair. His eyes widened and turned suddenly darker.
“I thought you’d ordered me to stop my macho sexual behavior…” Cutter said, but he didn’t pull away from her touch. “Not sure you really know what you’re doing—we should head back to the hotel so you can sleep it off.”
“They might have been slightly strong, but I only had two drinks. I know exactly what I’m doing. And maybe I don’t want to sleep.” Leslie smiled provocatively.
Cutter caught her hand and pulled it down to rest against his cheek. His skin was warm and faintly roughened with a day’s growth of beard. Leslie moved her thumb gently across his lips, learning the different texture of them, tracing the shape. Cutter caught the ball of her thumb lightly between his teeth, pressing without hurting while his tongue darted like wildfire across the sensitive pad.
Leslie barely restrained a gasp, but she didn’t move. Then his mouth released her, and she brought her hand back reluctantly.
“Let’s go.” Cutter’s voice sounded hoarse. He tossed a bunch of brightly colored bills onto the table and came around to pull back Leslie’s chair. As soon as Leslie stood and started walking, she realized she really wasn’t very tipsy. It was almost scarier to realize these urges had been inside her and she hadn’t even needed to be drunk to act on them. She’d just needed the very flimsiest excuse to do what she’d been craving ever since Cutter had kissed her.
Cutter followed Leslie out the door and came up to walk beside her on the sidewalk. His arm curled around Leslie so that his hand rested flat on her stomach, and its presence there set up a tingling inside. His breath ruffled her hair.
Leslie gave a small sigh of contentment and snuggled into him. She hadn’t felt this good since…well, not since she could remember. She wasn’t drunk, even though it had been sweet of Cutter to try to give her an out earlier. She knew what she was doing. Where this was going.
They were both adults. And this was Cutter. He wouldn’t want any entanglements. He wouldn’t worry because she was being impulsive. It wouldn’t lower his opinion of her—that was already at rock bottom. And his kiss could melt a glacier.
Wasn’t this the sort of thing people did in exotic places—what happens in San Cristóbal stays in San Cristóbal? Put aside their normal behavior and their reasonable lives and just break free for a little while? It wasn’t in character for her, of course. But surely she could be out of character for just one night. She could forget about Blake and guilt and responsibility. She could just have fun.
Cutter opened her door and settled her inside the car, then went around to get in the other side. Leslie was lounging and faintly humming some pop song. She was definitely off-key. Cutter smiled and started the car. This was turning into one hell of an interesting day.
***
The hotel wasn’t far away, and they reached it quickly. Cutter par
ked the car in an empty lot beside the building and went around to open up the back. As he got out the luggage, Leslie opened her door and floated back to where Cutter stood.
“This is where we’re staying? I don’t know why you were so disparaging of it earlier—it’s a lovely hotel!” she exclaimed, looking up at the building next to them.
When Leslie had looked up Chempua in the restaurant earlier, she’d made sure to read about the hotels in the area—there was nothing to say she wouldn’t find a great investment opportunity while she was here—and this one in particular had caught her eye. It was a rather old hotel but with an air of grandeur, built of massive white limestone and ornately carved above the doors and at the corners. The doors themselves were of heavy, dark mahogany, over ten feet tall. A doorman dressed in red and gold opened the door for them as they approached.
Inside, the lobby was small and a little faded and tired in places but still had an air of elegance. According to what she’d read earlier, at the turn of the century Chempua had almost rivaled La Luz in commerce, being nearer to the plantations where the products were grown. This hotel had been built then, before the increase of production in the southern part of the country and the modernization of the roads had pulled much of the business away from the city and to La Luz. Time had eaten away at the gracious old place, but it was still lovely. She let go of Cutter and spun slowly around, taking it all in.
Cutter crossed to the desk to check in and pay for their rooms for the night and Leslie followed him. He handed a folded bill to a bellman and sent him up to their rooms with their bags. He wanted to drag Leslie up there too—immediately—but he held back. What if she was less sober than she now seemed and she regretted her earlier flirtation tomorrow morning? He took a deep breath and steeled himself, then turned to Leslie, who was obviously enamored with the charm of the place.
“Would you care for a walk?” he asked. “Take in the sights?”
“I would love that!” Her smile was dazzling. Cutter put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close to him again.
