Hot and Bothered (2 page)

When she did reach her new temporary home, she was ready to run in stilettos all the way to Cabo San Lucas, nearly a thousand miles south. The monstrosity was a small, aluminum-sided trailer that hadn’t seen a bath since Roosevelt was in office. Teddy Roosevelt. Heat radiated off the sides. Reflected, she hoped. One corner had a huge dent as if a Mack truck had hit it. She wouldn’t have been surprised if it had. An antenna hung drunkenly over the roof. She prayed the inside was in better shape.

Pedro opened the door, and the blast of heat and things better left buried was unlike anything she’d felt or smelled up till then.

“It needs an airing out,” Pedro said with a confidently dismissing tone.

“So I see.”

“I will help her,” a younger woman volunteered.

“See? Rosa will help you. She charges only six pesos an hour.”

Rosa got very still, and Judith knew she was getting gouged again. She really ought to say thanks but no thanks. Unfortunately, this was the perfect place for her to hide out while she decided what she would do. It was a little inconvenient.… Okay, it was appalling, but it wasn’t forever. She could do this. With a good cleaning.

She could see the people needed the extra money, so she understood the high prices Pedro quoted. If she were in their shoes, she’d be doing the same thing.

She forced a smile. “That’s fine.”

A cheer went up from the crowd as if they’d all hugely enjoyed the cabaret she’d just provided. They dispersed, Rosa promising to come back after she finished her dinner.

After a lengthy internal debate, Judith took a deep breath and went inside her new home. One glance around told the story.

She raced outside. “Pedro!”

Pedro turned around. “
Sí?
”

“There’s no … bathroom.”

“You take a shower down the hill. Four pesos.”

“I mean a … ladies’ room.”

“A ladies’ room?” Suddenly he caught on. “You mean a toilet?”

She nodded, feeling heat come into her face that had nothing to do with the outside temperature.

He waved a hand. “Up over the hill are the outhouses. You use them. One peso each time.”

Judith staggered back in horror. Every muscle in her body told her to demand her money back and get out of there as fast as she could. But she didn’t move. She wasn’t sure if she was rooted in shock or fear. Whatever it was, she wasn’t going anywhere fast.

Something caught her eye, and she glanced up to find the beautiful fisherman standing on his patio, staring at her. He wore a white T-shirt and khaki shorts, but the power he exuded was undiminished. She couldn’t see his face, but she knew his expression was intense. Myriad sensations seemed to shoot through her, far stronger than she’d felt the first time she saw him. Something told her he would be far more trouble than any trailer or any Collier could ever be.

If she had wanted to run before, it was nothing compared to now.

What was a woman like that really doing in Cala Puesta del Sol?

Paul Murphy walked out of Pedro’s half-done house on one side of the hill, heading toward the trailer village on the other. Pedro was further along toward a permanent home than anyone
else in the
ejido
, mostly by working early mornings and evenings, like tonight. Paul’s uncle Ramón said Pedro would be the second official resident of Sunset Cove. Uncle Ramón was technically the first, since he had built the house Paul now lived in. Paul considered the place a necessary investment, since he had a thirty-year lease. If Pedro could have done so, he would have finessed the house out from Paul’s uncle. Pedro finessed enough as the
ejido
’s official. The
ejido
gave any Mexican the rights to a plot of land unoccupied or unused for five years no matter who actually owned it. The phrase “Use it or lose it” had an entirely different context in Mexico than in the States. Pedro watched local land activity, and if anything was eligible for a claim as common land, he claimed it for the
ejido
. Paul’s uncle might live in Tijuana, but Ramón and Pedro had had several tussles already. Paul’s presence at least ensured he looked after his uncle’s local interests.

Between that and Paul’s refrigerator business, Paul had plenty of time to think. Maybe too much time to brood. Only one thing still hurt after three years, and that was Amanda.

His daughter’s letter, the first he’d ever received from her, hurt even worse than he could have imagined. He had no idea how she’d snuck it past Tracy. He knew damn well his ex-wife wouldn’t have mailed it for Amanda. The child’s scrawl showed the first signs of adulthood in her
request for him to attend her Holy Communion. How could he go? She was only nine and couldn’t understand why her father was no good for her. He had to be the strong one, for her sake. But, God, the temptation …

Paul set the thought aside as he drew even with the woman’s Mercedes. He stopped to assess it. A Mercedes was a helluva car to drive down that dirt road, where more than one tough vehicle had lost an axle. Car trouble he could understand. Gas stations on this part of the peninsula were rare. But Pedro had said she wanted to rent a trailer … and Pedro had rented her the worst.

He knew he ought not to care, but he couldn’t help looking in on the
Americana
.

He headed to the heart of the village, to the trailer in question … and stopped to stare. The woman had a wild red paisley bandanna wrapped around her hair. Her face was as red as the material. She awkwardly applied a wet rag to the dirty inside front door of the trailer. Her outfit had undoubtedly cost a fortune and was covered in streaks of dirt and grease so black, the stains would never come out. She looked taller up close, with well-defined curves. Her breasts jiggled as she worked, and he found himself unable to look away from the delicious sight.

Holy hell, he thought, feeling as if someone had just punched all the air out of his body. Whoever she was, she caused a physical reaction
in him all out of proportion to the situation. Maybe he’d been isolated for too long and that was why she could generate such a response in him. Probably any woman could.

Rosa emerged from the interior and his flaring pulse immediately returned to normal. He looked back at the
norteamericana
, and his pulse started pounding again. Okay, so Rosa was like a kid sister.

Rosa had a pail full of black water. The woman took the pail from Rosa and tossed the water onto the ground. She didn’t pour it over a plant or somewhere else where it could do some good. Instead, the woman poured it right smack into the dirt, where it did nothing. Paul’s entire body went into a spasm of shock, and Rosa gave a squeak of protest. Water was precious in the Baja. He should know. He paid a hundred and fifty dollars a month in rent and three times that for water trucked in during the same period.

“That’s costing you a fortune,” he said to the American woman.

She glanced up. Her eyes widened. He could see her makeup, once perfectly applied to perfect creamy skin, was as streaked as her outfit. Perspiration trickled down her temples. Not sweat, he thought. This wasn’t the kind of woman who would sweat. Her eyes were a blue-gray and feathered with thick lashes. Her face wasn’t model thin, but it didn’t need to be. She had a kind of sexy Earth Mother look to her that appealed
to a man in a way runway sophistication never would.

“You’re American!” she exclaimed, smiling in relief.

“Yes.” To his horror, Rosa headed to the public cistern, obviously to fill up again. He was about to protest, knowing the truck wouldn’t come for another week, but the
Americana
interrupted.

“Oh, it’s so lovely to see a familiar face,” she said, her smile broadening. “I’m Judith—”

“But I don’t know you” was all he could get out, while staring at her mouth. It looked so soft and sweet … and vulnerable to a man’s plundering. Damn, but he wanted to plunder.

“Of course you don’t,” she said. “I should say it’s good to hear a familiar accent here—”

Paul bristled. “Not everyone has Harvard vowels—”

“Of course not. I don’t mean to insult anyone. It’s just that I know only a few words of Spanish and feel like I’m talking at cross-purposes.”

Paul blinked. He wondered who wasn’t speaking the English language well, and had a feeling it wasn’t he. Still, this Judith must be from the North or east of the Rockies, despite her car’s California license plate. Most southwesterners spoke a fair amount of Spanish. He got down to the matter at hand. “You shouldn’t be wasting water.”

“Oh.” She glanced around, then frowned. “But I have to clean this place. It really needs it.”

“Are you having car trouble or something?”

She shook her head. The bandanna slipped a little, revealing strawberry-blond hair streaked with red-gold. “No.”

“Fishing vacation?” He couldn’t imagine it with her clothes and car.

“Oh, no.” She smiled again, sending his blood flowing warmly in his veins.

Paul gazed at her, completely bewildered. She had no car trouble and wasn’t fishing, so why was she paying a month’s rent on a broken-down trailer? He tried again. “Are you an archeologist or anthropologist or sociologist?”

“Good Lord, no! Why would you think that?”

If she were doing an academic study of some kind, it would explain the incongruities she presented. But he was prying. For a man who had vowed years back not to care anymore, he was doing a lot of nosing around with this woman. He shrugged. “No reason.”

A funny look came over her face, as if she just realized her surroundings. “I’m on a … vacation of sorts. This is such a beautiful cove. I couldn’t resist staying here.”

Paul had had a good deal of bull pushed at him in his time, but this one smelled the worst. If Judith wasn’t a person in trouble, then he hadn’t been an L.A. cop for ten years. She gazed at him
expectantly, clearly hoping he’d accept her at her word. If he cared, he told himself, he wouldn’t.

“People say that when they come here,” he said, determined not to care. Unfortunately, the words tasted like ashes in his mouth. Something caught his eye. Rosa was returning with the water. “You better tell Rosa to stop using the water. It’s trucked in only once a week for the people.”

She slumped. “I suppose you’re right.”

“I am.”

Rosa had other ideas when told they shouldn’t be cleaning. She spat them out in voluminous Spanish. Paul had spent most of his life speaking the language, nearly exclusively over the past three years, but natives still spoke it at a pace that was faster than the American ear could truly follow. Rosa’s point, however, was made. The trailer would be cleaned.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said helplessly. “I don’t understand—”

“She says the trailer needs to be cleaned,” Paul said.

“
Sí
,” Rosa added. “It must be cleaned for the pretty lady.”

“Thank you,” Judith said, “although how you can say I look pretty is beyond me.”

Paul could say a lot on the matter, but he didn’t. He wasn’t supposed to care. Yet when he stared into Judith’s hopeful eyes, something that had hardened to steel inside him took a direct hit. Cracks were beginning already. The feeling was
one he didn’t like. “It’s your money, lady,” he said, and turned and walked away.

Judith stared after the strange man, surprised by his abrupt rudeness. He had asked her all kinds of questions that she had been foolishly answering, when suddenly the faucet of curiosity had been shut off.

He’d been so damned attractive up close that she’d just babbled on in her worst way. His face was lean, with a wonderful square jaw and the dark reddish tan of someone who spent his time in the sun. His lips were so perfectly formed, they could have been carved by Michelangelo. The first lines of maturity radiated out from his eyes, putting him easily in his mid-thirties. And those eyes, she thought, so dark and fathomless. She’d been left wondering what went on behind them at the soul.

Thank goodness, Rosa had argued about the water. She could not imagine how she would survive a night in the trailer in its current condition. The thought of the dirt … and worse …

She shuddered, thinking that she would have lain down like a lamb in front of a lion with that man. Rosa had saved her from disaster. But that was the whole point of being there, to stop being a pushover.

What the water cost didn’t matter. She had plenty of money with her.

She smiled without humor. Whoever had said money could buy happiness was wrong. Money had never made her happy. In fact, it had made her unhappy in many ways. She would give it all up—the Collier wealth, even the name—just to be left alone, but she knew she couldn’t do that. People were now depending on her to make the right decision when the time came.

She wondered what that man had thought of her, especially as grimy as she was. She glanced at her once-perfect French manicure. The white polish had worn off the tips of her nails, and several of the nails were broken. She knew her makeup had streaked, what with the way she’d been perspiring, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if her face was as grimy as her hands. And her clothes …

Part of her wished he’d seen her under normal circumstances in San Diego. The more logical part of her preferred this new image, though, for she could ill afford to have anyone show a personal interest in her just then. She’d done enough damage to being inconspicuous as it was.

“Who was that man?” she asked Rosa.

“Paulo. His uncle owns the house over there.” She pointed to the beautiful glass and stucco house on the opposite side of the cove. “He came here from some trouble in Los Angeles.”

Judith turned and looked at the house. “Paulo” was just topping the hillside, his well-conditioned
figure easy to discern, even in the near dusk. So he was in trouble too. She felt a tug of emotion for the man, then steeled herself against it. Unfortunately, the thread of sympathy was already pulling tight around her heart.

She and Rosa, mostly Rosa, finished the washing of the trailer. Sweat drenched Judith by the time they were done. She wondered if she could get a shower on a loan, since she didn’t have any pesos yet, then decided she was too tired to deal with another negotiation.