Miranda's Revenge

by Ruth Wind

  “Not really.” He continued to look at her steadily, sorting through the possibilities. “But you do look very familiar. Very.”

  She twisted her mouth. “Or maybe you saw me in the tabloids. I was mixed up with an Olympic skier for a while last spring.”

  “Not likely.”

  Miranda shook her head. “I don’t know then.” The Siamese cat ambled over and rubbed against her leg, purring loudly. Miranda leaned over to scratch his back—and then it dawned on her. She smiled at James. “I bet I know. Come with me.”

  Without waiting to see if he followed, she lifted the cat with a grunt and headed into the retail area of the café. “Did you look around in here?”

  James came behind her, dressed in jeans and a soft, long-sleeved shirt that wasn’t quite chambray. Maybe polished cotton? The blue kindled a warm hue in his tanned skin. “Yes.”

  She pointed to a photo of herself propped on an easel nearby a display of her altars. “That picture?”

  He grinned and came forward. “Good detective work.”

  “Thanks.” She held the cat close, his tail swishing elegantly over her arm, his body a vibrating pulse of purr.

  James paused and surveyed the altars. St. Chocolata of the Cookie Jar, St. Renegada of the Dance Floor, who wore blue sparkles and high heeled shoes. “These are yours?”

  “Yes.”

  He bent closer.

  “I hope you’re not one of those Catholics who don’t have a sense of humor,” Miranda said.

  He straightened. “Not at all. Are you?”

  Miranda smiled. “Touché.”

  “I should be going,” he said. “I have an appointment with a mountain this afternoon. Will you call me when you know what you want to do?”

  “I already know we want to hire you. I can pay you now.”

  He looked at his watch. “Would it be possible for you to meet me at my hotel at about five? We’ll go over details then, and I’d like to talk with your sister Juliet and, was it your brother-in-law?”

  “Yes. Soon-to-be brother-in-law. He’s a tribal police officer on the Mariposa Ute Reservation, right outside of town. Juliet—not Desi, who is the one in trouble—is marrying Josh in two weeks.” She thought of her parents again for the first time and sighed.

  “You don’t want them to get married?”

  “What? Oh, no—I was sighing over something else. My parents are coming to town in a couple of days.” She raised an eyebrow. “My father thinks he’s going to run the Mariposa 50K.”

  “Your father is a runner?”

  “He’s lots of things, but yes, runner is one of them.”

  “And you don’t have a good relationship?”

  Miranda rolled her eyes. “No. My parents are—” she paused for effect, looked at the horizon, back at him with a bright smile “—narcissistic vampires.”

  He raised his chin, smiling just enough to make his eyes crinkle at the corners. “I see.”

  “You don’t,” she said with resignation. “No one does.”

  James laughed. The sound of it was as rich as cup of cocoa. Everything about him was chocolate, she thought whimsically. Dark chocolate hair, milk chocolate eyes, Viennese chocolate flesh. “You’d be surprised.”

  The cat wiggled in her arms and Miranda let him go. “I’ll see you at five at the Hotel Mariposa, then.”

  James took her hand and met her eyes directly. “I am looking forward to it.”

  She told herself the tingle in her wrist and shoulder was just a pinched nerve. Behind her, St. Chocolata chuckled.

  When James wandered out, Miranda turned to the little statue. “Oh, shut up,” she said, and headed back out in the day to tell her sisters the good news.

  And the bad news, she thought, remembering her parents.

  An extra week! Ugh!

  Chapter 2

  James spent the warmest part of the day running the toughest stretch of the race course, six miles of switch-backs and steep inclines on scree-covered trail, in the full brunt of sunlight. High altitude sunlight was a killer, he knew from his own childhood, and since Colorado—like his native New Mexico—was generally sunny, chances were good he’d face this hard sunlight on race day.

  It was demanding, but he was pleased at his performance, and made some notes to himself about how to add to his nutrition slate. He ran back to the hotel and showered, ate lunch and headed over to the police station to see what sort of reception he could scare up.

  At the Mariposa station, he was met with the chilly stonewalling he’d expected, though they did tell him to come back and talk to Sergeant Moore if he wanted. He wanted. They wouldn’t make him an appointment, but begrudgingly admitted the Sarge had headed to the closest “big” town—Gunnison—and would be back at suppertime.

  His next stop was the library to read on the Internet everything related to the case. He Googled the main players: Desdemona Rousseau, a veterinarian with a large animal practice in town and a wolf rescue center on her land in the mountains; her late, murdered husband Claude Tsosie, a Native American artist; Christie Lundgren, an Olympic skier and Claude’s mistress; and a tangle of businessmen, politicians and land developers. He made notes and created a list of questions.

  After he made his notes there, he headed over to the local newspaper offices, the Mariposa Times, which had covered the story of Desi and Claude from the beginning. Taking out the reading glasses he cursed every minute of every day, he perched them on his nose and scrolled through hundreds of inches of copy on the murder and the ensuing investigation.

  Glamorous life he led.

  By the time he returned to the hotel for his late-afternoon meeting with Miranda, he had amassed a number of facts and a long list of questions. It was a lot more complicated than he’d originally imagined. Maybe Desi was innocent, despite the fact that ninety-nine percent of the time, a spouse was the culprit when an unfaithful partner was found dead. But he had a nose for things, and in this case, a lot of people would have gained something from Claude Tsosie’s murder.

  The Hotel Mariposa took up an entire block. Built in 1875, at the height of the Colorado gold rush, it was suitably ornate, appointed with carved wood and elegant banisters and enormous blocks of stained glass depicting stories from classical mythology—Diana and her wolves, Persephone and her descent into the underworld, and a copy of Botticelli’s Venus, rising from an oyster shell.

  The vast center lobby rose seven stories, the room opening onto balconies that circled upward and upward to a conservatory roof made of wrought iron and glass netted with chicken wire. He wondered how it survived the hailstorms around here. Obviously it did.

  On the ground floor, trees—some probably at least fifty years old—grew in gigantic pots, and an eye-popping display of bougainvillea splashed downward from each level, the fuchsia-colored blossoms glowing in the cool light.

  It was a great spot. James was glad one of his buddies—a skier who loved the Mariposa slopes—had tipped him off to it. His room was a little on the small side, but it looked both into the atrium and to the San Juan mountains, and boasted a claw-foot tub he’d love after punishing his body in the race.

  The lobby was busy, with ectomorphic runners of both sexes and many ages checking in and sipping lemon water at the huge, heavy bar. He wasn’t the only one here early to put in a few hours in training. The race was in three days. He would rest on Thursday and Saturday, very easy runs. Most of them would.

  Amid the runners, a handful of family groups, honeymooning couples and vacationers were mixed in, along with the usual hard-drinking college kids.

  Miranda stood out as vividly as if a spotlight shone down from the ceiling. Perched on the edge of a tapes-tried chair in a simple white blouse and a fluttery green skirt, she looked like a Botticelli, with her rippling red hair and long limbs and the wide, smooth oval of her face, dominated by eyes the color of the Albuquerque mountains, deep, deep blue.

  She didn’t see him immediately, and he was pleased to have a mo
ment to compose himself. She was exactly the sort of woman he tried to avoid—beautiful, troubled, fierce, independent. She didn’t need a man, didn’t want one, and yet, passion leaked like a damp fragrance from every pore on her body.

  Which he wouldn’t mind licking, head to toe.

  The thought, bawdy and vivid, shocked him. He was not the kind of man who ordinarily had such thoughts, and yet, there it was, along with the others he’d been hearing since first setting eyes upon her in the coffee shop.

  Lots of thoughts. Hot and elaborately detailed erotic thoughts.

  He paused and took a breath, let it go slowly. Ridiculous. All his life, he’d seen what heedlessness did to a person, to families, to lives. He wouldn’t indulge the fantasies, and eventually, they would go away. When he’d composed himself, he moved forward. “Hello, Miranda. I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

  As if startled, she turned abruptly, but didn’t stand. “Hi. I saved you a spot. I was afraid it might get busy in here.”

  Her blouse gaped just enough that, from this vantage point above her, he could see nearly all of her right breast, a supple expanse of flesh ending in a bra made of cream lace. His forehead burned and he had to swallow hard to move his gaze away.

  With his head down, he said, “Thank you.” He settled on the chair next to her. Their knees pointed diagonally toward each other. A lock of her hair fell on the arm of the chair. Brilliant, glistening, shiny as metal.

  To give himself a moment, he flipped open his notebook. “I came up with a few questions.”

  “Wow,” she said, leaning forward to touch his notebook. “Isn’t that a Clairefontaine?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Yeah. My sister sends them to me. She lives in Paris.”

  She said reverently, stroking the surface, “The paper is so smooth. I love it.”

  “Yeah,” he said, and cleared his throat. “But you tell anybody I said that, and all deals are off.”

  She grinned. “I suppose liking French paper might undermine a man’s image a bit.”

  “You think?” He flipped to the page where he’d written his questions in blue ink, and took out a black pen now. “I spent the afternoon getting up-to-speed, and I’ve got a lot of questions here.”

  “Okay. Let’s get to those in a minute. I have some things for you first.” She handed him a manila envelope. “The signed contract and a check for your first payment.”

  He accepted it, tucked it into the soft-sided case he carried. “Thank you.”

  A woman dressed in black jeans and a golf shirt with the name of the hotel on the breast stopped, a tray in her hand. “Can I get you two something? Fat Tire is on special today.”

  “Fat Tire?” Miranda echoed.

  “Ale. Made in Colorado.”

  “I’ll have one,” she said. “James?”

  He shook his head. “I’m in training. Just water, thanks.”

  “Ah,” Miranda said as the server scurried away. “A true runner. My father never gives up his martinis.”

  “He doesn’t run to win.”

  She blinked and then a tiny smile moved over her pink mouth. “You speak your mind.”

  “More than I should, probably.”

  She measured him. “Do you run to win?”

  What he thought was, why run any other way? What he said was, “I try.”

  “Do you have a chance?”

  “To take my age group, yes.”

  Her eyebrows raised. “I’ll be at the finish line to see what happens, then.”

  He grunted.

  “Or will that make you nervous?”

  “No,” he said. “There are a lot of people on the finish line, usually. One more won’t make a difference.”

  “I see.” A cool wind blew through the words.

  James cleared his throat quietly. “That sounded rude. I apologize. It’s just that, after that far, you’re not really thinking about anything except how much it hurts.”

  “Ah.” With a quizzical frown, she asked, “Why do it if it hurts?”

  “To see if I can.” Even talking about it, he felt the lure of the upcoming run in his limbs, tugging at his calves and ankles, his lungs. It was never possible to explain to a nonrunner why the pain after ten miles or twenty—or in this case, twenty-one—felt so exhilarating. He’d stopped trying.

  She leaned forward and he saw another flash of her cream-encased breast. A buzz moved along the outside of his ears. “If I were to make a nicho to the saint of running,” she asked, her long white hands laced together lightly, her forearms resting on her thighs, “what would she be called?”

  “Anything you want. There is no patron saint of running.”

  “There must be. There’s a saint for everything.”

  He lifted a shoulder. “There’s not.”

  She inclined her head. “That’s very interesting. I’ll have to see what I come up with.”

  “Irreverent.”

  She met his gaze, her mountain-blue eyes snapping. “Yes.” She added no apology and he liked her for it. He smiled, and for a moment, he let himself look at her, and she looked back, and something unwound from his chest, his shoulders.

  The server brought the drinks, and James took advantage of the moment to flip his notebook to the relevant page. “Can I ask my questions now?”

  Sitting in the hotel lobby, with the murmuring sounds of other conversations filling the space of the atrium like swishing water, Miranda felt abuzz. Her limbs were fizzy. The back of her neck prickled. She wanted to stare and stare at James Marquez with his chocolate hair and chocolate eyes and burnished cinnamon skin.

  But she forced herself to be professional. “I’ll answer what I can, but we might want to talk to my sisters and soon-to-be brother-in-law. They’re going to meet us in a half hour, if that’s convenient for you.” She plucked a single peanut out of the bowl on the table. “I wasn’t actually here when it all happened.”

  “That’s fine. Are they coming here?”

  “No, Desi’s partner runs a pub just down the street, The Black Crown. You’ll like him—he’s a New Zealander, an ex-rugby player, and the pub is wonderful—he has beer from all over the world, if that’s your thing.”

  He gestured at the glass of Fat Tire in front of her. “It must be your thing.”

  “I spent a semester in Oxford and adore English ales, I have to admit.”

  Was it her imagination or did a shutter fall between them? “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Oh, right. You don’t drink while you’re in training,” she said, and found herself fluttering a hand toward his knee, away. “Would you rather meet somewhere else? It’s just a good place to get some supper, too, and I know you need plenty of carbs if you’re running like that. He has plenty of that kind of stuff, too.”

  “We can meet there, that’s fine.”

  She inclined her head slightly. “So why am I getting the feeling that you’ve gone all stiff on me?”

  It was only as the edges of his lips came up the tiniest bit that she realized the double entendre. She grinned. “Or actually, chilly, is what I meant, but I think I’ve teased you into a grin, haven’t I?”

  A sideways smile made his eyes crinkle at the corners. “Hard to resist.”

  Miranda let go of a bark of laughter, nudged his knee with her fingers. “So, tell the truth, Monsieur Marquez. Do you disapprove of drinking?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t drink much except beer—just never developed a taste for it, but I can’t say that I’m terribly sophisticated about it.” He picked up his water, sipped it, scanned the bar. “I haven’t had much chance to travel.”

  Ah, a proud man. “I was born with terrible wander-lust,” she admitted truthfully. “I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t dreaming of far away.” With a shrug, she added, “When you want something that much, you tend to make it happen, don’t you think?”

  “How old were you?”

  “Nineteen,” she said, smiling. “Perfect timing. I
was dying to escape my parents, and they paid for my semester, then I spent the following summer backpacking with some other kids all over Europe.”

  He nodded, still a little stiff, and Miranda wanted him back, focused on her, that thrumming, shimmering thing going on between them. “So where were you at nineteen?”

  “Seminary.”

  Miranda let go of another burst of laughter, thinking of her irreverent saints. “Oh, brilliant!” She shook her hair out of her eyes. “Did you become a priest?”

  “I did.”

  Her heart fell. “Are you a priest now?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, good.” She put her hand on her chest. Then she realized she’d tipped her hand, and bowed her head. Embarrassed.

  “Are you blushing, Ms. Rousseau?”

  “I could be, Monsieur.”

  “That would be Señor, wouldn’t it?”

  She laughed. “I suppose it would.” Then she sobered and looked at him, curiosity welling up like a monster. “I would like to hear your story,” she said frankly.

  “Not likely,” he returned with as much directness. “I don’t tell it very often,” he said, his hands laced between his legs, his large eyes direct. Maybe too direct. She found herself sliding toward the fall, the dive into those dark, deep irises, wanting to put her fingertips on the edges of his eyelid, brush the thickness of his lashes.

  “I suppose not.”

  Then that direct gaze shifted, swept over her face, touching her hairline and brow, her lips and throat, her chest and hands. Miranda raised her eyes and smiled, very, very slightly. The silvery connection blazed for a moment, as they exchanged visions of what might be to come, what they might whisper to each other in a future moment, when there was no murmuring of other voices, no barriers of clothing, nothing but their bodies and skin and voices, trading secrets. A distinct prickle burned over her flesh at the thought, rolling from throat to groin, nape to hips in a sudden wash that made her touch her brow, lift the big glass of ale and take a long, cooling swallow.

  “Maybe,” he said in a gruff voice, “we should go over a few things here.”