by Ruth Wind
“No kidding.” James settled on the stool, pulling out money as the man fixed their drinks. “You ever run the Mariposa?”
“Nah. Too far and crazy for me, man. I was always a rambler.” He put the drinks down in front of them. “That’ll be $6.50.”
James paid and picked up his drink. “Thanks.” He pointed to a booth in a dark corner, and they headed over there, slid into the anonymous gloom. The room smelled of a hundred years of tobacco soaked into old wood and beer spilled a thousand times on the floor, of bar cleaner and patchouli incense, which was oddly appealing. “Do you want to play some music?” he asked Miranda.
“Sure. Let’s choose together.”
He grinned. “Okay.”
They walked over to the jukebox and flipped through the tunes, laughing at the possibilities. “I don’t even know half this stuff,” Miranda admitted. “But I like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.”
“Everybody knows the Beatles and the Stones,” he said. “Let’s be more adventurous.” Raising his head, he called out to the bartender, “What should we play for you, man?”
“Procol Harum, ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’, if you don’t mind,” he said, wiping down the bar. “I fell in love to that song, once upon a time.”
“Got it.” Miranda wanted Janis Joplin, a song he didn’t know called “Turtle Blues” and he chose a couple of Santana tunes his dad always loved. Then he said, “Pick something for no reason except it sounds cool.”
Miranda chewed her lower lip, and her hair fell down beside her face, lit from beneath. “Velvet Underground is a cool name.”
He punched the numbers. As the music came on—not too loud, which he appreciated—he grinned at Miranda. “This place is great. Thanks.”
“My pleasure. I found out about it one night right after I got here. I’ve been meaning to come here ever since. It’s like a time warp.”
He looked around. “No, I could take you some places that are time warps. This one is just retro, nostalgic.”
She nodded. “I’d agree with that.” She faced him, arms crossed on the table. “So where would we go in Albuquerque? Tell me about your town.”
Her eyes shone in the dim light, and her mouth framed an invitation with every word she spoke, and he wanted to see her laugh, so he said, “Well, if you want to go back in time, we could head on over to Joe’s White Horse, which was probably sitting right on that corner when Pancho Villa was riding, and I’m pretty sure nobody has ever mopped the floor since.” He sipped his soda. “Of course, you would need to bring a pistol.”
He was rewarded with her low, earthy chuckle, a sound that vibrated all the way down his spine. “It sounds like something out of that movie Desperado.”
It startled him. “You know that movie?”
“I love that movie!”
“No kidding! Me, too.” The idea he’d been forming of her—a bit of an intellectual, a cosmopolitan, maybe a tiny bit of a snob—shuffled around to fit this new bit of information. “I’m surprised you do, though—it’s really bloody.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “But it’s cartoony. It’s so campy.” She raised an eyebrow, acquiescing to the obvious with a one-shouldered shrug. “And it doesn’t hurt that Antonio Banderas wears pants with silver buttons.”
“Ah,” he said, “the mariachi look can be done, señorita.”
The smile that edged across her mouth then, slow and knowing, just about knocked him out. “I might take you up on that, señor.”
A Rolling Stones song came on and the bartender whooped and clapped his hands. “Time to dance, folks!” He rolled out to a postage-stamp-size square of floor toward the back of the room, and started dancing beneath a ball that flashed yellow, orange and blue in slow, globby flower patterns.
Miranda laughed. “Far out, man.” She stood up and held out her hand for James. “We can’t leave him out there dancing all alone.”
“I’m a terrible dancer.”
“Men always say that. I don’t care. No one else will, either.”
They were not the only ones drawn by the exuberance of the bartender, who was obviously the owner. Some of the backpackers and a couple of the biker couples joined him, too. James, feeling awkward, joined in as well as he could, if only for the sheer pleasure of watching Miranda dance.
She had graceful arms she used like a hula dancer’s, and a naturally sinuous swaying form that drew the eye down her long, slim form. Beneath the shifting lights, her skin took on one color after another, as if she were a painting, and her hair swayed and flowed, her eyes glittering in great fun as she looked up at him.
Then the bartender’s song came on, and Miranda slowed to a twirling flower, drawing him in and around her. He did his best to follow, smiling at her encouragements, knowing he probably looked like an idiot, but it didn’t matter, because no one—male or female—could possibly look at him while Miranda was there, burning, a flame, a painting, a scarf floating on currents of music.
He had never seen anything so beautiful in his life.
And he knew that her dance was for him, to coax him, capture him. Hypnotize him. Make him her slave.
He might once have believed in love, or seen a woman he thought was beautiful. He had not. As long as he lived, he would remember these moments when Miranda danced to Procol Harum and then “White Bird,” washed in color, in sound.
They were sweating. The swell of her breasts was washed with perspiration that glistened yellow, blue, white, and he lifted a finger to trace a line through it, just one finger. Her eyes turned dark as he lifted her sweat to his lips and tasted it. Her nostrils flared, and her lips parted—consciously or unconsciously?—and she ran a hand down the length of her hip.
And then, the song was over, and something loud and raucous came on, something a lot of others must have approved of, because customers crowded the floor. Miranda and James were shunted off to a dark corner, and there, against a velvet curtain that must have come from an old-fashioned movie theater, he pressed into her, taking her mouth with all the passion he wanted to expend between her legs. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him—hard, so much strength!—into her body, arching so her breasts crushed into his chest. Their legs slid together, scissor-style, so the yearning, over-heated, throbbing parts of them were pressed together in promise of the relief they could offer, one to the other.
She tasted of sweat and beer and something hot he thought must be her own flavor, because it heated and intensified as they kissed, her tongue and his sliding together, and around, along each side, front to front and back and away to corners of a lip, to the bow.
He was madly, painfully, intensely aroused, and it took everything in him to shove his hands in her heavy weight of silky red hair, next to her damp skull, and pull himself away. Hold her away so he could look down at her eyes.
She stared up at him, her chest rising and falling against his, arousal and exhaustion. “Holy…damn,” she said, and swallowed. “I’m not—” she floundered for words “—you are…this is…”
“Hot,” he said, and brushed her hair away from her face.
“What will we do about it?” she challenged.
Something in the jutting angle of her chin made him realize it meant more to her than she’d let on. There was more innocence in her than she wanted to claim. She played the cynic, but who was a cynic other than a fallen romantic? To disbelieve, one had to once have had faith.
So he gave her a grin and told a half-truth. “For a few days, we’ll just dream, hmm? I have a race to run.”
“You mean, you can’t…when…?”
“Can’t is a strong word.” He felt himself coming under control and pulled away from her gently. Under cover of the crowded dance floor, they got back to their seats. “If I want to win, it’s better to save my energy. Even…build it up.”
She tossed her head in saucily. “So, you’re just using me to heat up your machine, huh?”
He laughed. “Only because you are very, very good at
it.”
Sliding into her seat, she grasped her beer and took a long gulp. “Glad to be of service.”
He, too, drank deeply of his soda and glanced at his watch apologetically. “Speaking of that run, I need to get back—I need to get a jog in tomorrow morning, stay loose for Saturday. Can I walk you home?”
A softness bloomed in her dark blue eyes. She nodded. “That would be nice.”
He lifted a hand at the bartender on the way out. “’Night, guys,” he called. “Have a good one.”
The night was cool and starry, and as they headed into the residential district, it was also astoundingly quiet, the trees swishing in a high breeze, a faraway dog barking at some imagined creature in the hedges. Through the windows, they could see living rooms, dining rooms. Televisions flickering blue, heads on couches. An old woman sat on her porch with a dog at her feet. “Evening,” she said, her voice carrying easily across her damp grass to the sidewalk where they walked.
James held Miranda’s hand and felt like he was in a play, in an imaginary world conjured up by some fifties television show. “This place is unreal,” he said.
“It is,” Miranda said, shaking her head. “I think that every time I come here. It’s almost like it wants to seduce you or something.”
“Yes.”
She walked quietly beside him. “Desi says that the lady of the mountain calls certain people here.”
“That’s what they say about Taos, too. And other people hate it. Hard to imagine anyone hating this place, though.”
“People do, though.” She paused. “This is my sister’s house. Or at least it will be her house for another week or so.”
He halted, but didn’t let go of her hand. Looking at the window instead of her face, tilted up toward his, he said, “Miranda, this has been one of the best days I’ve ever had. I mean that seriously. Thank you.”
Her husky voice said, “Me, too.” Raising on her tiptoes, she kissed his cheek. “Good night.”
He let her go. “Sweet dreams, Miranda.”
Inside Miranda found Juliet asleep on the couch, Josh’s silly soft red dog snoring beside her. The television flickered without sound, and there were stacks of shower thank-you notes ready to be addressed. Feeling buoyant and alive, Miranda silently picked them up and carried them over to the table where another stack, already hand-addressed, awaited stamping. It was pretty easy to see where Juliet had left off. She made a cup of tea and bent over the task. A small thing she could do.
Juliet started awake about twenty minutes after Miranda had come in, and stiffly sat up. “How long have you been here?”
“A while. Why don’t you go to bed properly? You need your beauty sleep.”
She shook her head. “If you don’t mind too much, I think I’m going to go sleep with Josh. It’s getting harder and harder to sleep in my own bed, without him. It’s just…not right.”
“I do not mind in the slightest. I was surprised you were sleeping here anyway.”
“We want the wedding night to be special, to have a marker.”
“Then I think you have to stay here tonight, sweetheart.”
Juliet looked ready to cry. “I have nightmares sometimes.”
“About the rape?” Miranda moved to sit beside her sister on the couch, rubbing her shoulders lightly. Juliet bore it better than usual—none of the girls could manage casual touching very easily. Their mother had been so very terrible about it. It felt odd to Miranda to be rubbing her sister’s shoulder blades, but she kept it up anyway, her hands feeling hot, as if they had medicine in them. And who knew? Maybe they did.
Juliet sighed. “Yeah.” She rubbed her face with both palms. “Yes. My therapist says it will get better as time goes by, and honestly, it is, but sometimes—one shows up. Less often when I’m sleeping next to Josh.”
Miranda smiled. “If I were a nightmare, I wouldn’t want to cross Josh, either.”
Juliet laughed, and then to Miranda’s complete surprise, she turned and gave her a big, hard hug. “Thanks, Mirrie. Maybe I can handle staying here if you’re here.”
For one fleeting moment, Miranda felt the comfort of her sister’s arms without fear, a safe and solid place where she might, if she required it, land. And Juliet would catch her. An unnamable emotion welled in her heart, closing her throat for a long moment, and Miranda—mistaking it for fear—pulled away in hasty panic. “Is there…um…anything you want me to do in the morning? I’m going to stop by and see Desi, of course, and I’m going to meet the sari guy sometime in the early afternoon, but I’m happy to run errands or whatever you need.”
Juliet gazed at her sister for a moment, then brushed a strand of hair from Miranda’s forehead. “You have the best hair of all of us. Desi’s is nice, but yours is like a magic cloak or something.”
“If it was, I would long ago have used it to make myself invisible.”
“No,” Juliet said, smiling gently. “You never wanted to be invisible. You want to be seen.”
Stung, embarrassed, Miranda pulled back. “No, I didn’t. Don’t.”
“Nobody who wears her red hair to her rear end is trying to be invisible.” Juliet grinned. “Nobody who wore a purple tutu and red fishnet stockings to school wanted to be invisible. Nobody who—”
“Okay, okay!” Miranda had to laugh. You might be able to posture around a lot of people, but a sister always called your bluff. “Maybe not.”
“It was because of our parents, of course. They ignored you, Mother and Daddy.”
“Except when they didn’t.”
“Right.” Standing, Juliet yawned. “We should get some sleep so we can deal with them cheerfully tomorrow.”
“I’m pretty sure I can’t do cheerful. I will strive, very hard, for civil.”
“I can live with that.” She picked up a piece of paper and peered at it. “Oh, I forgot—your skier called again. Where did you go anyway? You’ve been gone forever.”
“Um…” She smiled, abashed and trying not to show it. “I ran into James Marquez at the grocery store and we went up to the top of the mountain for a while. Then had a beer at The Poppy Seed.” Unconsciously she stroked her mouth, thinking of the light blazing off his shiny dark hair, the taste of his lips, the endearingly awkward way he moved his hips on the dance floor.
“Not a drop of chemistry, though, huh?” Juliet grinned.
“Well. Maybe one or two.”
“He seems like a nice guy.” She yawned again. “The skier is quite insistent that he needs to see you, too. Feast or famine, huh?”
“I guess.” Miranda took the paper with Max’s number. “Did he say what he wanted?”
“Just that he had some things he needed to tell you and if you wanted to meet him tomorrow to give him a call.” She glanced at the clock. “Probably not at one-thirty.”
Stunned, Miranda stared at the clock. “Oh, my gosh! How did it get so late?”
“Time flies when you’re having fun.”
“We need to go to bed.”
“I think I said that.”
Chapter 10
James had left several messages for various people in town the day before, and when he returned from his long, slow jog the next morning, there was a stack of messages waiting for him at the desk. He leafed through them as he rode up to his room, arranging them in order of importance. A judge wanted to buy him a cup of coffee, talk about the land issues surrounding Desi’s land. Important. The cops had decided to talk to him about the evidence they’d collected—he grinned—a favor he’d called in from a senator, a guy he’d gone to school with.
And shockingly, Christie Lundgren, the skier, had agreed to meet with him as long as he didn’t bring Miranda.
Fair enough. He punched in Christie’s number before he even took a shower, and arranged to meet her in the coffee shop at the top of the mountain—her suggestion, not his—in an hour. He called the sheriff and agreed to meet the deputy in charge of the case at eleven, and then, frowning, he looked up the jud
ge’s name in his notes. Judge Yancy, the old judge who had offered to marry Desdemona after the murder, who seemed to be part of the land grab perpetrated by Biloxi and maybe some other shadow partners.
He also made a note to himself to check out the science behind the aquifer beneath the land. If it was worth billons as some of the articles said, a whole lot of people might be willing to kill for it.
Stripping off his sweaty vest and running shorts, he jumped under the shower. It was where he usually did his best thinking, in the shower, after a run. This morning, his head was packed with the silky red hair of a siren who’d danced him senseless the night before. All night, he’d tossed and turned, his body a furnace, thinking of her mouth, her delicate hands, her—
That was the trouble getting mixed up with a client. He couldn’t think straight. And somebody’s life was on the line if he couldn’t find out who really killed Claude Tsosie and why. Rubbing his body dry, he wondered grimly if the “accident” yesterday had even been an accident. And a hit-and-run was an awfully big coincidence under the circumstances. And if it wasn’t, then this was a lot bigger than a love triangle.
If it was a land grab worth billions, Desi’s best course of action would be to sell the land to the government with stipulations of leasing and energy or water rights into perpetuity. He had a feeling only the government could protect her properly. When that much money was at stake, people would do anything. He needed to talk to her about the possibility.
He dressed in a simple white running T-shirt and a pair of khaki shorts, and stopped to comb his hair in the mirror. As he met his eyes there, he told himself the other thing he had to get done was to tell Miranda the truth about why he’d left the seminary. He didn’t kid himself—this had the potential to be a serious connection, and he wanted everything out in the open.
Christie Lundgren was a pretty woman, and she was irritably fending off the advances of a square, muscular hiker when he arrived at the Top O’ the Mountain Morning coffee bar. It wasn’t his kind of place—too midcentury with all those little squiggles on parchment looking glass and mod-looking leather chairs. But he wasn’t here for the decor.
