Miranda's Revenge (8 page)

It really was a remarkable view, she thought, admiring the levels of blues, layer upon layer into the distance, contrasted by soft green falls of long-needled pines and rattling aspens and the clay-red earth.

Which made her think of Desi's dirt-smeared cheek, her wan and fearful expression in the hospital this morning. Had it been an accident or something more sinister? Who could do such a thing?

She ate a strawberry and thought of Max, telling her that he still thought of her. Asking for—what? Absolution? Attention?

And as she broke a graham cracker in half, she thought of James's fingers drifting over her throat inside the church, thought of the dash into the alley, the press of his body against hers, the thrust of his tongue in her mouth, so expert.

With a soft moan, she bent her head to the table. What a day!

From within the house came a clatter, and Juliet's voice called, “Hello?”

“Backyard,” Miranda called back.

Juliet came through, wisps of hair falling out of her ponytail in just the right way. Her cheeks were flushed. “It's hot!” she said, popping open a can of soda.

“How's Desi?” Juliet asked. “I had an emergency and didn't get back to the hospital this afternoon.”

“She's okay. Broken wrist, broken clavicle, bumps and bruises, but the baby seems absolutely fine. They're keeping her tonight, and I guess she'll stay with Tam for a day or two. Josh picked up the dogs, so don't worry about that.” She took a long swallow of root beer.

“How did your day go? Find anything? Solve the murder for all time?”

“Not yet. I've got to make some phone calls in a few minutes, but I was starving. There is no real food in this house, in case you haven't noticed.”

“Probably won't be for a few days, either. I ate with Josh and Glory. We have too much going on and we'll be eating out or with our parents.”

Memory slammed her and she jerked her head up. “Our parents are going to be here tomorrow, aren't they?”

Juliet took a breath, blew it out. “Sadly, yes. They're staying at the hotel.”

“All the better to avoid them.”

“Right. Well, maybe it won't be so bad. They're getting older now, you know. Mom just turned sixty-nine. How much trouble can two old people be?”

Miranda just looked at her. “My mother,” she said succinctly, “will never be an old person.”

Juliet chuckled. “True. But it's my wedding. You can't blame me for hoping.” Tugging the scrunchie from her hair, she said with an arched brow, “So…James. A little chemistry there, huh?”

“No,” Miranda said, as if her sister had lost her marbles.

Juliet snorted. “Right.”

“There isn't. Or if there is, I'm not going to let it go anywhere.”

“You've got to let your guard down sometimes, sister dear.”

“See, there's where you're wrong. No, I don't.”

Juliet nodded, her mouth tipped in a tiny smile. “That's what I thought, too.”

“I'm pretty sure there's nothing more annoying than a woman smugly in love with one of the last five good guys on the planet.”

“Touché.” Laughing, Juliet stood. “I'm going to take a shower, let you make your phone calls.”

Miranda shrugged. But as Juliet left her, she wondered what was going on in James's mind, to make him come on to her, then put up walls to keep her out. She fingered her cell phone, brought up the outgoing calls list and saw the Hotel Mariposa on there. What if she just called and asked? Reasonably. Maturely.

Nice trick, that.

And yet, she was tired of wishy-washy men. Seeing how Tam looked at Desi, and the way Josh lit up when Juliet came in a room made her want the real thing for herself. This business of hot and cold, up and down, madly in love, then…not. Forget it.

The number she did dial was for her friend Alexis, a fellow artist who would know the numbers Miranda needed in the art community. She planned to talk with Renate under the guise of being an artist seeking a gallery, but she also wanted to call other galleries, see what the art community had to say about the Bavarian dealer and her famous dead client.

Back in his hotel room, James lay flat on the bed with the idea of a nap. His body eased into the mattress, and he mentally ran over his body, checking for sore or tight spots. A little weariness on the back of his left hamstring, up into the glute. Running uphill, he tended to lead a little hard with his left foot. His shoulders were tight. Low in his groin was thick tension.

Not from running, at least physically. He was adamantly running away from Miranda Rousseau and her blasted lace bras and Botticelli hair and quivering lush lips. The taste of her lingered in his imagination—hints of chocolate and spice and the long heat of a summer afternoon. It was all too easy to imagine her long white body stripped of all its protective layers, beneath his in this very bed. Her skin would be delicately white, run through with bluish veins, her pubic hair as red and startling as her hair.

With a groan, he rolled over on his belly. Enough.

He hadn't been smitten by a woman in a long time, not since RitaValdez when he was twenty-one, and his ego and self-esteem were freshly bruised by his recognition that he did not have the temperament to be a good priest. He'd gone to the police academy instead, and Rita had sauntered into class that first morning, all siren curves she tried to contain and could not, her long, dark eyes and red lips an invitation she tried not to issue.

They were from the same general area, the high, secluded mountains of northern New Mexico, and she had as many bruises as he did—her heart had been broken by an early divorce, and she'd come to Albuquerque to get away from the reminders of how she'd failed to do the one thing that was expected of her.

He resisted her until the end of their academy training, then asked her to dinner and she invited him back to her apartment, where he, at long last, sated his insane lust for her in a session that lasted what felt like days. He could not get enough of her—her beautiful curves, her laughing mouth, her long hair tangling on the pillow. When she was dressed and he saw the upper curve of a breast, he would think with satisfaction that he'd tasted that entire slope.

She'd broken his heart, but only in the way that a first love always breaks a heart. They grew apart and Rita was smart enough to know it wasn't going to last so she broke it off. Cleanly, with great compassion, so that they didn't have to hurt each other by one or the other falling in love with someone else. He'd moped for months, but in the end, he had found other women attractive.

Not like this. Not this instant, furious, almost irresistible attraction. Everything in him was drawn to her, as if she were a magnet and he needed to touch every cell in her with every cell in him.

And vice versa. He knew she was feeling the same thing, the inexplicable need to meld. He'd tasted it in her kiss, felt it in the way she pressed upward into him, her hands restlessly pulling at his shirt, weaving over his shoulders and hair.

Troubling him was the gulf between them in terms of class. She had traveled widely, been all over the world, lived in New York City. She was an artist, a successful one, and he was a private eye. She was white, raised by East Coast bohemians. He was Latin, raised by a ranch hand and a housewife in a cottage where he slept in a room with three of his brothers.

In some ways, he was the superior, perhaps. He could think more clearly. He had faith and she had none. He had steadiness of purpose and dedication and athleticism.

Perhaps what he offered was a balance for what she gave.

It felt important, this meeting with this woman, as if many things had had to be arranged in order for them to meet. A song wound through his head, a line about seeing his children in her eyes.

Madre!
It didn't have to be such a big drama. He rolled over and picked up the phone.

Two hours later, the information was compelling enough that Miranda thought maybe she
should
call James, just to let him know what was going on.

As she was considering it, the phone rang in her hand. She saw the hotel number and tossed her head, putting as much coolness in her voice as possible. “Hello?”

“Hello, Miranda,” James said in his softly accented voice. “I called to apologize. I have a story I would like to tell you if you wouldn't mind.”

“I already told you we don't have to do this.”

“Perhaps that's true,” he said agreeably, “but it appears that my brain will not stop giving me visions of that kiss we shared this afternoon. It was rare and good. Will you give me a second chance?”

All at once, Miranda was furious. “No,” she said.

A thick, long silence at the other end of the line. Then, “Very well. My apologies.”

Coolly, she said, “I made some phone calls this afternoon, as you asked, and I'll be happy to meet with you in the morning if you like.”

A soft pause. “All right. At ReNew, then? Eight o'clock?”

“Yes. That will be fine.”

“See you then.”

Miranda hung up with a sense of virtuously overcoming some dire temptation—Black Forest Cake or a pint of Cherry Garcia. She jumped up and went into the house to find Juliet dozing on the couch, her mouth open softly. Poor thing. She'd been running around like crazy. She left a note on the counter:
Gone to get a sandwich.

It felt good to get outside and move, Miranda thought. Whenever she came to Mariposa, it was as if she became someone else, a woman who liked to be outside and walk around, who traded in her high heels for walking sandals and delicate silk T-shirts for cotton tanks.

Which was the real woman? Which was the fake? Was she a city girl? Or a mountain mama? Was she the restless wanderer, seeking new friends and new experiences in villages and cities the world over? She didn't know.

Unbidden came a question: What setting would create the best environment for her work?

It startled her enough that she stopped dead in the street and looked up at the mountains around her. At the sky. The colorful humans streaming by. Some little voice inside of her said, we want some peace and quiet.

She scowled. Right. For how long would she like it?

You'd have to be insane not to appreciate this, she thought, coming onto Black Diamond Boulevard. Long, gold light poured through the break in the mountains at the end of the canyon as the sun sank toward the horizon. It was perhaps an hour till sundown, and the entire valley was saturated with a light so astonishing she wanted to bottle it. The artist in her tried to name it—
gold mist, topaz haze, yellow gauze—
but none of them were quite right.

Half the town was out on foot. She nodded and smiled as she passed other amblers, the odd cyclist riding home from the trails, the packs of hikers coming into town after hiking the trails from Ordway, just over the other side of the mountain. The bakery she had in mind was packed with people waiting, so she veered off to her left, walked a couple of blocks over and dipped into the organic grocery store instead. She'd just pick up the makings of a sandwich and take them back home.

Grabbing a chunk of foccacia, she headed down the narrow aisle and turned into the dairy aisle, and there—of course—was James. He didn't see her right away, his head bent over something in his hand. His silky black hair fell forward like water, touching the high cut of cheekbone. He was lean and still, like a wolf, wearing a neatly pressed red cotton shirt tucked into a pair of jeans. Walking sandals that matched her own on his feet. Reading glasses on his nose.

She could have slipped away, forgotten the cheese, left it alone. But he looked so…
good.
On so many levels. Honorable good. Responsible good. Healthy good. Delicious good. Sexy good.

And instead of retreating, she stood her ground, waiting for him to feel her gaze and notice her. When he did, his expression immediately blazed into something happier, and that was good, too. “Hi,” he said with a crooked smile. The glasses made him look different, more approachable and interesting.

“Hi.” She moved toward him. “There were too many people at the Bread Company, so I came here instead.”

He nodded. Pleased. Waiting.

“I guess,” Miranda said, “maybe it's a sign.”

“Ah.” He took his glasses off, met her eyes full-on. “Then perhaps you would have a picnic supper with me and we can tell our stories, hmm?”

A soft red cloud surrounded them, streaked with the gold of hope, and Miranda breathed it in, smelling fresh grass and the vanilla notes of ponderosa pines. “All right. Where do you want to go?”

He smiled. “That is a surprise. Come with me.”

M
iranda felt both shy and exhilarated as they wandered through the old-fashioned little grocery store, picking out things for their picnic. Brown-skinned pears and white cheese and the cheesy foccacia bread she'd already chosen. Imported ginger beer in brown bottles, her choice; big pink and green cookies from the bakery section, his choice. Fragrant turkey breast, cut fresh from a bird just taken from the oven, skin crackling brown and shiny. It smelled so heavenly, Miranda's mouth watered.

Neither of them had a pack, but Miranda had brought a canvas bag with her and they loaded everything into it, then James led the way down the street to the trams that ran eighteen hours a day to carry tourists and workers back and forth to the restaurant at the top of the mountain and the bedroom town of Allen, a mainly residential area on the other side of the mountain where the workers in Mariposa could afford to rent apartments.

As they waited for a car, James said, “How is your sister? Any word?”

“She's staying the night in the hospital,” Miranda said, and repeated what she'd told Juliet. “I'll go see her in the morning. The sari guy is coming from Denver.”

“Hop on,” James said as a car rolled up, slowly moving.

She ducked into the car and he settled beside her. It swung a little beneath their weight, then slowly moved up the mountain. “There is someone bringing saris to Mariposa for you to look at?”

“Yes. Desi needs something to wear for the wedding, and I shopped all morning trying to find something. I finally thought a sari would suit her.”

“It seems a long way to come to sell saris.”

She shrugged. “He'll be paid well for his trouble.”

“Ah.” He picked up her hand, held it. “Do you mind?”

“No.” She folded her fingers around his and admired the expanding view, more spectacular with every foot. The car moved at a leisurely pace up, rising over an aspen grove, thin white arms shaking round leaves in the breeze, and a winding road and areas that would be ski slopes in the winter. A knot of backpackers made their way down a path, their long day almost at an end.

“I've always wondered what it would have been like to travel that way,” James said.

“It's great,” she said. “Why didn't you?”

His eyes on the hikers, he said, “I grew up in a little town in New Mexico. It would not have occurred to any of us to do something like that. Going to Albuquerque or Pueblo was a big trip, you know.” He grinned, teeth white and perfect, as if to belie to his small-town roots.

“So how did you get to Albuquerque? That's where you live now, isn't it?”

“Yes.” He gestured to bring her attention to the peaks coming into view over the trees. “My sister's husband joined the Army during the first Gulf War, and they moved to Albuquerque. He, uh, didn't adjust well when he came home, so I went to live with her and her two kids, help out. A man in the house, so to speak.”

“How old were you?”

“Seventeen.” He raised one side of his mouth. The expression was rakish, charming. “Full of everything but sense.”

“Been there,” she said.

“Her husband was unreliable, drinking too much and never home, and when he was, he was not really there, you know? His eyes looked inward. He killed himself about six months into my time there, a Gulf War casualty. There have been a lot of them.”

“James! I am so sorry!”

James shrugged. “He needed some help he didn't get, to deal with the things he saw. Stinking bodies. Blown-up vehicles. Alice had three little boys. I lived with her, after, taking care of the boys while she worked two jobs.” He leaned into her, and pleased in some wordless way, Miranda leaned back. “I learned to cook and clean and give everybody baths.”

“Better than I ever did,” Miranda said. “There's always been someone to do that for me.”

“Such a little princess,” he said, and stung, she looked up, but he was smiling.

“I guess I am in a way. So, didn't you hate it, having to do all that when you were a kid?”

“No, I liked it. I had to sleep on the couch, but it was still better than back home, which was too many people all the time, too much noise, and my dad smoking cigarettes all the time. I mean, I don't blame him. Everybody smoked up there and he was a hardworking man without many pleasures, but I hated it.”

“Did you always run?”

He nodded. “Long as I can remember. One of the teachers in my middle school was a marathoner, and I thought it was incredible that somebody could run that way. I found out I had some talent.”

Miranda grinned. “
Some
talent?”

“A little.” He looked at her. “You're teasing me.”

“A little,” she echoed. So close, she could see the places along his chin where his beard would come in. A freckle by his eye. The tiniest threading of pale gold through his dark irises. She knew she should look at the view, but looking at James was better.

“Look!” he cried, and pointed at a hawk sailing below them.

She laughed in purest delight. Higher in the air than a hawk. Imagine!

They sat there like that, holding hands, looking at the view, the only sound the motors pulling the tram up the hill. At one point, it stopped, the car swinging gently high above a slope carpeted with thick green grass and wildflowers. “What happened?”

“Sometimes they just stop it for a minute to get something on a car, or help somebody off. Who knows?”

“Not a bad place to spend a few minutes,” she said. “Quite a view.”

“Yes, there is,” he said and touched her cheek.

“Sweet talker.”

In a moment, they started moving again, and in another moment, the car bumped into the housing where a boy opened the door for them. Miranda and James jumped out.

He gestured for her to follow and they headed uphill, past the restaurant and the ski patrol. Miranda had to stop and catch her breath after only a few feet. “Wait! I can't breathe.”

“Sorry!” He peered at her face. “Are you light-headed? Headachy?”

“Light-headed. A little dizzy.”

He smiled gently. “We're at about twelve thousand feet or better. Not a lot of oxygen up here.”

“It feels funny.”

“We're just going to that group of trees right there. Do you see them?”

Miranda breathed in through her nose slowly, feeling better. The trees were about a few hundred feet away, up a gradual slope. “Yes. I can do that.”

“We'll just go very slowly. Don't talk.” He took the bag she had slung over her shoulder. “Once we're sitting down, it should be okay, and we're going down on the way back.”

She nodded. It took all of her concentration to put one foot in front of the other, and she had to stop twice on the hill to catch her breath. “Damn,” she exclaimed the second time. “I feel like an old lady!” Sweat popped up along her neck and she raised a heavy arm to her hair, pulling it over her shoulder.

“You're doing great, actually.” He gave her a bottle of water. “Have a big sip. It's easy to get dehydrated up here, too.”

Miranda breathed, drank, handed him back the bottle and started trudging toward their destination.

At last, they made it to the trees. A wide, flat rock sat on the hill, a perfect granite table, and Miranda collapsed on it. “Finally!” With a not-entirely-fake gasp, she fell backward and closed her eyes, breathing in the fine, oxygen-depleted air. It felt lighter than any air she'd ever experienced, but she also felt a bit like she was underwater. Her senses felt a little watery.

“Are you okay?” James asked.

She opened one eye. “Is this a test? Because I think I'm flunking.”

“Not at all.” He gave her a pear. “Sit up and look at your reward.”

Miranda flung an arm over her eyes. “It's the mountains. It's Mariposa,” she said. “It's always spectacular. One
Sound of Music
view after another.”

He laughed. “Was I right about the altar?” He nudged her. “Sit up.”

“You were, sir.” She hauled herself upright. And looked.

And blinked.

“Wow.” The rock sat on a small mesa, surrounded on all sides by the harsh, craggy peaks of the San Juans, all at an altitude of thirteen thousand to fourteen thousand feet. The Mariposa valley divided them neatly, and far, far below twinkled the first streetlights in the dusky shadows. It looked like a toy railroad town, with plastic broccoli trees and traffic lights changing from green to red and teeny, tiny neon signs. From this vantage point, she could also see Allen on the other side of the mountain, far more spreading, with bigger parking lots and open fields and parks.

But the most spectacular thing was the sun, which hung like a molten gold ball to the west. Long, long bars of light arrowed into canyons and misted over certain streets and cast shadows of boulders three thousand feet below.

She grinned at James. “Okay, so it's better views than
The Sound of Music.
”

A low, earthy chuckle escaped him and he started putting their supper out on the sparkly gray rock.

“You actually run up here, don't you?” she asked suddenly.

“I do.” The words were not the least apologetic. He bit cleanly into a pear, chewed meditatively. “It's like nothing else.”

“I keep wondering how my father is going to do this race. I mean, he's old—like seventy-five. Who does a long run like this when they're seventy-five?”

“Lotta people. Some tough old birds out there. Is your dad like that?”

Miranda almost snorted, but a sudden vision of her father coming down a mountain in Zurich, sweaty and pleased, flashed in memory. “He's always liked running, and I think he specifically likes mountain running. He did it a lot it Europe.”

“The race is Saturday. When will he be here?”

“Tomorrow,” she said with the inevitable sigh. “They're coming from the house in the French Alps, so I'm sure he's been training along with drinking his martinis.”

James grinned. “It's good to see a woman who is so devoted to her parents.”

“I haven't heard you talk about yours.”

“My father passed about three years ago. My mother is—she just is a woman of her times and her place.”

Miranda started to feel better, more acclimatized. She broke off a chunk of bread and spread soft cheese on it. “Is she part of the story you were going to tell me?”

The brightness bled from his face. “No.”

“I'm sorry,” Miranda said. “Don't go there if you don't want to. I apologize.”

“It's all right.” He broke a piece of cookie off the main body and ate it. “You asked why I did not become a priest. People generally assume it was a woman. It was, but not in the way most people think.”

Miranda tightened her hand. “James, let's not talk about anything dark or sad or in the past, all right? We have this beautiful view, and this good food, and—” She took a breath. “I guess I'm just tired of thinking about what once was, instead of what is.”

For a long moment, he looked at her, his beautiful mouth sober. Then he leaned in and kissed her, very gently. “Thank you.”

The tenderness in his lips made her heart catch. Bending her head, she focused on the food. “Now, tell me how you became a private detective. I think I remember reading on the Web site that you were a cop.”

“I was,” he said. “It's a simple story. I felt I could do more good working independently. Often, a difficult case requires more time than can be afforded by the police.”

“That makes sense.”

“It occurs to me, Miranda, that you are a very good listener. I have told you my stories and you have not told me yours.”

“You haven't told me why you gave up the seminary.”

His eyes darkened dangerously. “We're leaving it in the past, remember?”

“Yes. You're right.” Twisting the stem from a pear, she shrugged. “I don't have very good stories.”

“Oh, come on. How did you become an artist?”

“I think I always was one. I clearly remember the first time I discovered felt—color you could hold in your hands. It was just so thrilling, being able to handle it and cut it and glue it. I made a bunch of little wall hangings for my sisters and I.” She grinned, remembering the bead-crusted works. “They were so good to me, those two.”

“Did you go to art school?”

“I did. And studied in Europe, and I got lucky, met some of the right people and got into a good gallery where the mass marketers found me. So I can have money and be an artist, which is sort of rare.” She swallowed pear and raised a finger. “Which makes me think of Claude, who is a highly valued commodity now that he's dead, and the phone calls I made this afternoon.”