Extreme Bachelor (33 page)

“No, no, what is this frown?” Adolfo asked,
and tenderly touched two fingers to the corner of her mouth. “What
has made you sad?”

Leah shook her head. “I’m not sad, I was
just . . . just thinking of how long I have been in L.A.”

“How long?”

She snorted, drank more wine, then shook her
head. “A lifetime, pal. A thirty-four-year lifetime.” She laughed
at her own lame joke and drank more wine, and noticed, a little
groggily, how Adolfo’s eyes sparkled mischievously when he laughed,
which he was doing right at that moment as he looked down at her,
and how his lips seemed so full and kissable.

Kisses
. She liked kissing, she thought, and propped her head, which
was suddenly feeling very heavy, on her fist. She liked kissing a
lot, but she would rather be kissing Michael than Adolfo. Not that
there was anything wrong with Adolfo, no—lots of women would be
killing themselves to kiss him. And she might kiss him, but really
she preferred—

“Hey!”

Trudy’s face was suddenly looming large in
front of Leah’s, startling her out of her wits and almost off her
stool.

“What’s the matter? You look drunk,” Trudy
announced to all of Washington State.

“I’m not drunk,” Leah said. Only . . . her
head did feel a whole lot fuzzier than it had just a moment
ago.

“Okay, so who is your friend?” Trudy asked,
smiled at a smiling Adolfo. “He’s really cute.”

“Thank you,” Adolfo said with a bow.

“Oooh, and he has an
accent,” Trudy gushed. “Could this be Adolfo?
The
Adolfo?”

A camera lens suddenly appeared over Trudy’s
shoulder, and it caught Leah off guard. Adolfo, too, apparently. He
suddenly stood up and turned away.

“Excuse me,” he said with a wink to Leah,
and walked in the direction of the men’s room.

“But wait! I didn’t get to meet him,” Trudy
pouted, plopping down on the stool Adolfo had vacated. “Girl,
Adolfo is hot.”

Leah moved to one side, away from the
camera. “What is with this camera?” she demanded jabbing a thumb in
the guy’s direction. “Does he have to film us?”

“What? Oh! That’s Chuck,” Trudy happily
shouted to be heard over the din. “Don’t worry. He’ll make us look
good. Right, Chuck?”

A man’s head appeared above the camera, and
he smiled a little leeringly at Trudy. “If you ask me nicely,
baby,” he drawled, and pointed his camera right at Trudy, who
struck a kittenish pose and smiled seductively for a moment before
turning her attention back to Leah.

“So that’s the guy, huh?” she asked
again.

“Yes, that’s him, the lighting guy.”

“I didn’t know they were here,” Trudy said,
her brow furrowing a little. Until she realized the camera was
still on her, at which point she instantly smiled, corrected her
posture, and sucked in her gut “Well, whatever,” she said, tapping
Leah’s arm. “You’re so not fair. Two hunks in one gig!”

“No, no, it’s not like that,” Leah insisted,
her head in her hands now. “It’s not what you think.”

“Right, whatever,” Trudy said cheerfully,
and stood up. “Just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do—” She turned to
the camera and in an imitation of Groucho Marx, added, “which
pretty much gives you license to do whatever you want to do.” She
laughed, looked at Leah, and her smile faded. “Hey, are you
okay?”

“I’m fine,” Leah said, although her head
felt as if it weighed one hundred pounds. “Just too much wine, I
think.”

“Don’t drink too much. You won’t want to
miss out on all the fun, right?” She laughed, and Chuck laughed
with her. “Okay, girl, talk to you later. I’m going to take my
camera around and show some of the Serious Actresses who I caught.
They’ll die. Are you ready, Chuck?” she asked, smiling at the
camera.

“I’ll follow you wherever you want to go,
baby,” Chuck growled.

“Well, now, that opens up a whole new world
of possibilities,” Trudy responded as the two of them went off.

As Leah watched her
friend’s figure turn watery, she decided that she’d definitely had
too much to drink and needed to go outside for some air. This was
weird. She wasn’t much of a drinker, but she wasn’t a teetotaler,
either—she could usually hold her own. Maybe she was feeling so
thick because she had drunk on an empty stomach. When Michael came
back—oops,
Adolfo
came back—she’d suggest some food.

But when Adolfo came back,
she found herself thinking about what he’d be like in bed instead
of food. He was really sexy in that Spanish-pirate sort of way. He
had nice, thick hands, which led to juicier, lascivious thoughts.
But they were only thoughts—no matter that Adolfo was handsome and
really smelled so good, and had those hands—she couldn’t any more
fall into bed with him than she could drink another glass of wine.
She really couldn’t fall into bed with any guy except one, and
she’d probably spend the next five years trying to get over
him
again
.

The thought sobered her a little, and she
glanced down . . . and realized she had, indeed, drunk another
glass of wine. How was that possible? What did that make, four
glasses? No wonder her head felt like a bowling ball and her legs
were so damn rubbery—

“Mi
amor
, you are funny in the face,” Adolfo
said suddenly, and leaned forward, cupping her face with his
hand.

“Really?” she asked weakly. “I am feeling a
little mushy inside.”

“Mushy?”

She made a face and wiggled her fingers.
“Mushy,” she muttered, and felt, all at once, very flushed.

Adolfo was instantly on his feet. “Come
then, you must take cold mountain air to be less mushy.”

“Do you think?” she asked uncertainly.
“Maybe if I just ate something—”

“Yes, of course, you must eat. But first,
you must walk. Come, then.”

“Okay,” she said meekly. “Just let me find
my feet.”

That proved easier said than done, because
her limbs felt so fluid. But she finally managed to put them down
one after the other with Adolfo’s help. He put his arm securely
around her waist, held her tightly against his side, and led her
outside, doing the walking for them both on the two occasions her
feet refused to cooperate.

As they passed through a sea of nameless,
swimming faces, Leah thought she should tell Trudy she’d be right
back, but with a very sickly feeling burgeoning inside her, she
just let Adolfo lead her out.

In the parking lot, the cold mountain air
did indeed feel wonderful on her flushed skin, but it didn’t make
her feel any better inside, and if anything, she felt even fuzzier.
She was only vaguely aware of Adolfo talking to her, asking her how
she felt, if she could walk, if she could look at him. On the
inside, however, Leah was panicking—she knew she’d had too much to
drink, but she didn’t think she’d had so much to be so suddenly
incoherent and unable to move her limbs. Something felt seriously
wrong with her body. This didn’t feel like a drunk, this felt like
a coma.

She felt the slide toward
oblivion and could do nothing to stop it. The last thing she
remembered was Adolfo’s smiling face before her. “You will be
fine,
mi amor
. I
will look after you as if you were my own.”

THE next thing Leah knew, it was daylight.
At least she thought it was—it was hard to make out what was behind
the yellowed and torn roll-up blind on the window. But whatever it
was, she was slowly coming to the realization that not only was she
absent from camp, she was in a strange, lumpy bed with musty sheets
in a room that looked like it was built in the Stone Age.

How she had landed here was something that
was not coming to her very quickly. Her first thought was Michael,
but then she remembered that they were not exactly close at the
moment.

She moved to sit up, but her heavy head was
pounding, and she could only manage pushing up to her elbows to
have a look around.

It was a cabin, a run-down, cluttered cabin
bedroom. The paint on the walls and ceiling was peeling. The
bedspread was threadbare chenille, and the sheets smelled of
mothballs and Ben-Gay. There was a small vanity dresser with a
tarnished mirror, the top of it stacked with papers and books and a
couple of bottles that looked like Milk of Magnesia.

Great. She was in some granny’s cabin.

With a moan, Leah closed her eyes. Her night
out with the gang had left her feeling like her head was physically
detached from her body. Her vision was blurred, and her mouth felt
like a truck had run through it.

Wherever she was, she had to get out of
here.

Leah blinked several times to clear her
vision and sat up, and only then did she realize she was wearing
nothing but a bra and panties. Well, if it wasn’t clear what she’d
done before, it certainly was now. But honestly, couldn’t he at
least have taken her to a nice hotel room or somewhere other than
his granny’s bedroom?

In answer to that
question, Adolfo suddenly appeared, breezing into the small room
wearing nothing but boxer briefs and munching on a section of an
orange. “
Buenos dias, mi
amor
! How do you feel?”

This was the very reason
she didn’t drink to excess, because she always wanted to be dead
certain she knew who she was in bed with, what she was doing, and
if she at least enjoyed it. Her mouth dropped open, but no words
came out. What did one say the morning after one did something she
really wished she hadn’t done, but wished she could at least
remember—
hey, was it good for me,
too
?

Jesus, how did she get out of this mess now?
And speaking of getting out, she looked around for a clock. If she
missed the all-call for the boats this morning, she’d be toast.

“You are pale. I will
bring you orange juice,
si
?”

“No thanks,” Leah said, pulling the cover up
around her neck. “What time is it, anyway?”

“Time.” Adolfo chuckled, popped the rest of
the orange section in his mouth, and wiped his hands on his boxers.
“Time is irrelevant,” he said with a smile.

“Oh-kay. But do you have a watch?” she
persisted.

He plopped down in an old greenish-gold
Naugahyde chair and grinned. “Perhaps I do.”

One thing was certain—Leah was definitely
not in the mood for post-coital fun and games.

IN the camp, Michael and Jack were gearing
up for another day of rafting—actively separating the non-rowers
from the rowers on a sheet of paper—when Trudy burst into their
cabin looking so panic-stricken that Michael’s first thought was
that someone had drowned. Her dark hair was sticking up in really
strange places, and she was wearing only a skimpy little sleep
shirt that barely covered her butt, fur-lined boots that rose
mid-calf, and dark aviator shades.

“Good morning,” Jack said, obviously taking
her bizarre appearance in stride. “Is something wrong?”

“Yes! No! I don’t know—but I think something
is really wrong,” she exclaimed through chattering teeth. She
folded her arms across her body and held on tightly. “Leah didn’t
come back to camp last night.”

Michael felt his gut drop. He grabbed up a
jacket and put it around Trudy’s shoulders. “Calm down, Trudy. Are
you sure she didn’t come back? Maybe she’s just in another
tent.”

“No, no, I checked,” Trudy insisted, tears
welling in her eyes. “The only other place she’d land is with
Michele and Jamie, and they didn’t see her last night, either. She
didn’t come back,” she said again. Her bottom lip was starting to
tremble, which was a sure sign that she believed something had
happened to Leah.

Michael’s heart began to pound. “When was
the last time you saw her?”

“Last night, at the Italian restaurant in
town,” Trudy said as she pulled the jacket tightly around her. “She
was drinking wine with Adolfo, the Italian guy.”

Michael’s stomach twisted. “Italian?” he
asked. “Or possibly Spanish?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know! Maybe. He went
to the restroom before I got to meet him, but he was really
good-looking, and he had an Italian look. I think.” She looked at
Michael. “Maybe he was Spanish. I don’t know.”

Now Michael felt absolutely ill.

Trudy was looking at him, waiting for him to
speak. “I think maybe she hooked up with that guy. Only I don’t
know who he is, except one of the crew—”

“The crew?” Jack interrupted. “What makes
you think he’s part of the crew?”

“Leah said so. Lighting.”

Michael and Jack exchanged a look. The crew
was in Bellingham. It was possible one of them had come out, but he
doubted it—they had too much to set up before filming began on
Tuesday.

“What?” Trudy demanded, looking first at
Jack, then at Michael. “Why are you looking at each other like
that? You know something, don’t you?”

“We don’t know anything. But don’t worry,
we’ll find her,” Jack said smoothly. “You’re right, she probably
hooked up with the light guy and just needs a ride back to
camp.”

“I don’t know,” Trudy said uncertainly. “I
thought so, too, at first. But Leah . . . Leah isn’t like
that.”

Michael glanced at Trudy, but she wasn’t
looking at him; she was looking at the floor.

“I mean, okay, she’s
human, obviously, and the guy really was handsome . . . but of all
of us, Leah is the least likely to just hook up with a guy she
doesn’t really know. That’s why I’m so worried. But then again,
like I’m saying, he was
really
handsome, and you know how that is.”

Juan Carlo—if it was truly
Juan Carlo as Michael feared—was not
that
handsome.