First Things First

by Barbara Delinsky

  She ended her story breathlessly, convinced she’d done it right. Theoretically, she was covered from every angle. If David McGee or Norman Schialli wrote that she’d been asking around, Sam would already know. Linda Huntington and the rest would fall among those “other names” Beatrice London had given her to call. Her general reference to “asking questions” in Cancun would cover her contacts with the Mexican authorities, and the good professor from Merida would have nothing to tell Sam that he hadn’t already heard.

  Rather pleased, she tipped the beer bottle to her lips and savored the cool brew. Her timing was perfect, for Sam seemed to be deep in thought. Almost absently he began to stroke her waist. Far from absently she struggled to contain her urge to lean back into his hand. Then it stopped moving and he sought her gaze.

  “Who are you, though?” he asked very softly.

  Chelsea wasn’t sure how to respond. On the one hand, he looked almost mystified, and she wanted to believe that he, too, was stunned by the strength of the attraction between them. On the other hand, if he doubted her story and suspected something …

  “What do you mean?”

  His eyes cleared. “Where do you come from? How long have you been writing? What else were you doing with your life before you popped into mine?”

  Relieved by the apparent innocence of his curiosity, she smiled at him, then sat up straight. “I was born in a small mill town in New Hampshire, where I lived until I went off to college. I graduated with a major in English Lit and taught for a year at a junior college in central Massachusetts.”

  “Only a year?”

  “I didn’t really like teaching. I guess I don’t have the patience for it. No, maybe patience is the wrong word. I guess I just found I wanted something more … personal.”

  “I’d have thought teaching was personal.”

  “Not at the place I taught. The classes were large and the kids didn’t particularly want to be there, so they never sought me out on any kind of personal level.”

  “Did you switch to another school?”

  “I thought about it,” she mused, absently scratching a mosquito bite on her neck until Sam set down his beer and pulled her hand away. “But I felt I was floundering. I wasn’t sure what I really wanted to do. And if you’re not committed, particularly when discipline is a problem since the students aren’t much younger than you are, you’re in trouble. I was very definitely in trouble.”

  “So … you turned to writing.”

  Chelsea was momentarily jolted. Up until then she’d been telling the truth. She’d been lost in it actually, as though it were the most natural thing in the world for her to be spilling her thoughts to Sam. Concentration hadn’t been necessary. In fact, she’d been looking at his hand holding hers, at his fingers, which were well formed, long and strong. Now, though, the fabrication had to begin and she needed all of her wits. Taking her hand from his, she wrapped her arms around her waist.

  But he instantly spread his large hand over her back. “You’re not feeling sick, are you?”

  “No, no. Of course not.”

  He relaxed. “I wasn’t sure. When you clutched your stomach … people often do get sick when they first come to Mexico.”

  “Not me,” she announced. “I’ve got an iron constitution. I never get sick.”

  “Glad to hear it,” he said with the same slash of a grin. “Go on then. Tell me about your writing career.” He was fingering her damp curls, which barely reached the collar of the shirt she wore. He was evidently a toucher, another cause for surprise. She’d assumed Samuel Prescott London to be physically remote. At the moment, she almost wished he were, because she was having trouble thinking with his hand touching her and his thighs spread that way.

  “What do you want to know,” she managed in a slightly garbled voice. Between her guilt and his touch, her composure was next to nil.

  “Were you successful right off the bat?”

  “No.” She swallowed. “Writers have a pathetically low average income.” She’d read that recently in the newspaper. “I had to find other means of supporting myself.”

  “And …?” he prompted.

  “I took to tending bar.”

  His hand dropped away from her and she began to breathe more easily. “Tending bar? You were a bartender?” His eyes lit up so brightly that Chelsea’s cheeks flushed.

  “Uh-huh. I was a bartender.”

  “That’s terrific! What a different thing to do with your life!”

  His enthusiasm was contagious and she smiled. “‘Different’ was one word for it. There were nights when I cursed it, when I’d get home at two in the morning smelling like an alcoholic, with nothing but aching feet to show for ten hours’ work.”

  “But there must have been fun times too. I’d think you’d meet some pretty interesting people. Where did you work? What kind of places?”

  For a minute Chelsea couldn’t answer. It struck her that an hour before she never would have dreamed Samuel Prescott London would be carrying on such an animated conversation with her, on such a topic, no less. But … this wasn’t Samuel Prescott London. This was Sam. Funny how she couldn’t think of him now any other way.

  Realizing she was staring at him, she blinked and shifted her gaze to the far wall. Then she squinted. “Is that a light fixture?”

  Sam glanced fleetingly to where she was looking. “Uh-huh. There’s one in each room.”

  “I saw electrical wires leading to some of the huts I passed on the highway today. Electricity … plumbing … yet the huts themselves are so primitive.”

  “They’re not much different from those the Maya built fifteen hundred years ago,” he informed her, a note of respect in his voice.

  “I’ve read about the people of the past, but it’s strange. Surely, with radios and all, today’s Maya have some idea what’s going on in the outside world. You’d think they’d want to improve on palm leaves and sticks.”

  “What’s to improve on when palms keep out the rain? They provide natural ventilation for the heat, and they’re free for the taking. The same thing’s true of sticks. It’s not as though we need insulation down here. The air never cools that much.”

  “But there is electricity and plumbing.”

  “Only in the most elementary sense, and even then not universally. Fifty percent of the huts do without both. I guess I just lucked out. It gets pretty dark at night, and I wouldn’t exactly trust a kerosine lamp. Nor would I care to traipse across camp to the john.”

  “How did you get this place?”

  “The old man who’d been living here died shortly before I arrived, so it was empty. I hooked up the shower myself, but the rest of the, uh, amenities were intact.”

  “You’d lived in other villages before this one?”

  “A couple. I’ve been here for four months though. It suits me just fine.”

  “Don’t you miss the comforts of home?”

  “Nah. Well, maybe just once in a while. But this life is so simple, so basic. I’ve learned a lot by being here. I took a hell of a lot of things for granted and in so doing missed out on some of the greatest joys of life.”

  “Like …?”

  “Simple survival. Eating food that you’ve grown yourself. Drinking water from the well.” He shot a glance at the roof. “Taking shelter from the rain. Lots of things, some small, some not.”

  “Don’t you miss work?”

  “I do work, harder in some ways than I’ve ever done before but much, much more pleasantly.”

  With this statement, Chelsea knew she had her own work cut out for her. She would have argued further, but she didn’t want to sound pushy. And she was supposed to be studying the Maya, not criticizing their way of life. “Tell me more about these people.”

  He shook his head. “Tell me more about you. We were talking about your bartending adventures. Where was it you worked? In Boston?”

  She hesitated for just an instant. Her gaze had fallen to his chest, to the faint swel
l of one breast, to the dark nipple that nested amid a whirl of tauntingly soft hair.

  Blaming the sudden heat of her cheeks on the beer, she set the bottle aside, then shifted on the bench and clasped her hands around her knees. “Yes,” she murmured, still slightly distracted. “I work at …” She had to think for a minute. “I worked at Icabod’s. It’s on Park Street …”

  “I know just where it is. Terrific place. I’m told they make great Harvey Wallbangers there.”

  Chelsea couldn’t help but laugh, remembering the parting discussion she’d had with her boss. Sam’s innocent comment brought her fully back to reality. “That’s Icabod’s, all right. But I’m sure I’ve never seen you there … well, not in your present form, at least.” She teasingly dropped her eyes down his body again. This time her gaze landed on the small birthmark that lay on the inside of his thigh, perilously close to the ragged hem of his shorts … and his sex …

  “No,” he said huskily and took a sharp breath, which mercifully drew her attention upward to his ribs. But he was suddenly cupping her chin and she next met his gaze. “If you keep looking at me that way, my present form will change all the more. And if that happens I can’t be held responsible for my actions,” he warned softly.

  “Like …the Hulk,” she stammered, trying for a joke but failing badly because his lips remained parted, warm and inviting, and she was mesmerized and her heart had begun hammering … .

  “Not quite,” he murmured seconds before he captured her lips. He slid his fingers along her jaw, through her hair and to the back of her head, where he held her while his mouth stroked hers to full response.

  It didn’t take much. Chelsea felt she was drowning in a sea of fire and the only way she could save herself was by clinging to Sam’s lips, taking the moisture of his mouth, letting his breath fill her lungs with life. She was weak all over and trembling by the time he released her lips to whisper against her cheek, “What is it with us, Chelsea? I’ve never been so damned hot before.” One hand continued to hold her head, the other roamed her back and her hips, slipping beneath the hem of the shirt, coming to an abrupt halt on her bottom. “My God, you’re not wearing a stitch under this, are you?” His touch seemed to burn her skin, but the sensation must have been mutual because he quickly jerked his hand away.

  Needing something to hold, she nervously retrieved her beer. “Everything was … was dirty and sweaty … maybe I shouldn’t have, but I wanted to be clean …”

  He hauled her against him then, pressing her face to the chest she’d so helplessly admired moments before. His skin was warm and man-smelling, and its spattering of hair was a gentle cushion. Nothing, though, could cushion her from the hardness she felt at her hip. And nothing could free her from the arms wrapped around her. In turn she clutched the neck of her beer bottle for dear life.

  “We’re gonna have to do something about this,” he rasped. “I mean, I’ve never laid eyes on you before but you make me want you like there’s no tomorrow.” He pulled her head back and commandeered her gaze. “I don’t do this all the time, Chelsea. I swear. I don’t come on to women this way. There’s something in you … something in me too … something between us …”

  “I know,” she breathed shallowly. “I know. I don’t understand it, but it gets out of control. I’ve never felt this way. It scares me, Sam.”

  “We hardly know each other.”

  “I know.” Her gaze was locked with his and she could see the dilation of his pupils.

  “Maybe we should see where it leads.” His voice was thick and his chest pressed her breasts when he took an unsteady breath. “Maybe we should let ourselves go.” He put a hand to the pulsing vein in her neck, then slid it down her throat to the point where her shirt parted. “I could undo this button, then the next. But I don’t think I’d be satisfied until I’d seen all of you, and then I wouldn’t be satisfied until I’d touched you and tasted you, and then I’d want—ah, hell, I want it now—to be inside …”

  His words were as inflamatory as everything else about the man. Chelsea reeled under the sensual onslaught. Samuel London was supposed to be inhibited, at least that was what Linda Huntington had said. This Sam, though, was saying it all. He was about as uninhibited as any man she’d ever known or imagined. But she was too caught up in the moment to begin analyzing the change.

  “We …can’t,” she said, feeling more frightened than ever. It was heady knowledge that Sam shared the need that coiled deep in her belly, but it didn’t absolve the fact that they were practically strangers. Or that she’d never been loose. Or that she’d been hired to come here.

  He sighed and rested his forehead against hers. Her skin bore the same fine sheen of perspiration as his. “I know. It’s not the right way for us … . You will stay though, won’t you?”

  “Stay?” Her eyes widened and her voice rose and her gaze skittered past Sam toward the door. “My Lord, the car! I was supposed to be back in Xcan to see about getting it fixed!”

  Sam loosened his hold on her. “What happened to it?”

  “It just … stopped. I hitched a ride to Xcan but there wasn’t anyone there who could help me right then. But he should be back by now.”

  “In the rain? I doubt it. You can’t go back out in that, Chelsea. I mean, you could, but it’d be silly. The car will be okay. It’s a rental anyway. Let the rental agent worry about it.”

  “I can’t do that!” she cried, gesturing wildly with the hand that held her beer. Fortunately the beer splashed out in the opposite direction. “It’s my responsibility.”

  Sam retrieved the beer bottle from her hand and set it by his. “Now it’s mine. I’ll get a message to Xcan, and the rental agent can pick it up there.”

  Needing to be free of the lure of Sam’s strong body, she stood up and walked toward the door, staring glumly at the rain before turning back to him. “I have to go back to Cancun. My suitcase should have arrived by now—”

  “There’s nothing in your suitcase you’ll need out here.”

  “But my clothes—”

  “I can easily get you some. And you look super in my shirt.”

  “But I don’t even have a change of underwear—”

  “Don’t remind me. I’m trying to forget that little fact.”

  “Think of how I feel—practically naked …”

  One side of his mustache curved up with his half smile, half grimace. “I am thinking about how you feel—practically naked—and it’s driving me mad.”

  Chelsea approached him, her expression beseeching. “I have to get back to Cancun, Sam. Tonight.”

  He thought about that for a minute, then slowly pushed himself to his feet. “Give me one good reason why. I can have the car taken care of. I can get a mesassage to your hotel and they’ll hold your suitcase. For that matter, I can have them check you out and hold anything you might have left in your room. We can drive in another day to pick everything up. It’s silly for you to be paying for a hotel when you can stay here for nothing.”

  “I can’t stay here.” She glanced frantically around. “I don’t even see where you sleep. Where would I sleep?”

  “I have a hammock in the next room. I can sling up another one for you.”

  “A hammock? I can barely sit in one of those things … forget sleeping.”

  He chuckled. “That’s what I said when I first got here. But all the natives sleep in hammocks. They’re much cooler than a bed and, once you get used to climbing in and out, far more comfortable. Besides, you’re probably exhausted. You’ll sleep.”

  “I don’t know, Sam. I’d really be better off in Cancun.” Something he’d said moments earlier registered. “You have a car?”

  “A Jeep, but if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, you can forget it. I’m not going out in this rain.”

  “Then I’ll go. If you’ll just loan me the Jeep—”

  “No way. It doesn’t even have a roof. You’d get soaked, and more tired, and then sick. Besides, it
’ll be getting dark soon and these roads are bad enough at night without the rain. With it, you’d be asking for trouble.”

  She looked away. “I’d be asking for trouble if I stayed,” she murmured softly, but he heard her and took the few steps necessary to cup her shoulders with his hands.

  “You really are scared, aren’t you?” he asked quietly, with neither criticism nor mockery.

  “Yes. I’m scared.” She was terrified of the power of what seemed to be an irrevocable magnetic attraction. Even now, though the hands resting on her shoulders might have been those of a good friend or a brother, she felt her blood heat. Forget the case. This was sheer survival. She was on the verge of going under, of losing what little control she still had over her senses.

  But she couldn’t forget the case, she realized. And at that moment, despite what arguments she gave, she knew she had to stay. That’s what the woman Beatrice London had hired would have done—stayed to get to know Sam, to worm her way into his thoughts and understand them, then alter them without his realizing it until he was on a plane bound for home. Her entire future was at stake, she reminded herself. She had to stay.

  Something in her expression must have conveyed her surrender because Sam spoke softly, gently. “Look at it this way. If you live with me for a time, you’ll have one fantastically authentic article to take back home with you.”

  She pouted, in part against the lie she perpetrated. “And you’ll have been spared poor Juana.”

  “That too,” he admitted, smiling. “Whaddya say? Will you room with me for a bit?”

  “Will you give me more of that stuff for my bites? They’re itching again.”

  His smile broadened. “I’ve even got insect repellent. You must taste damned sweet. Lucky mosquitoes—”

  “Sam?” she interrupted, feeling she had to say something more. “About the other—”

  He was right on her wavelength. “I won’t rush you, Chelsea. We’ll take it one step at a time. If something happens, it’ll be because we’re both ready.”