Goodbye Arizona (3 page)

When he knocked on her door a couple of hours later, all ideas of bedtime—for sleep or frolic—had evaporated.

Chapter Four

Deb blinked furiously to ease the itch in her eyes while she dragged herself to the door. Moving was like walking through mud: slow and disagreeable. She battled with the knob, nearly losing the war. Finally, she managed to open the door, and Marcus stormed in, neatly shoving her inside.

She started to protest but then she saw his face. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Clare. Clare Holiday.”

Her sluggish brain counted up to five, the five nominees for the Sue Award: Sybil Reiner, Clare Holiday, Tonya Lee, Lisa Wolski, and R.J. Flint. Deb stumbled back onto the bed. “Is she—” The last word stayed stuck in her throat.

Marcus slouched next to her, shaking his head. “I don’t know. Paramedics didn’t say much.”

She obtained the whole story a piece at a time, through half-answers and incomplete sentences. Rachel had done her “show-must-go-on” talk, then Marcus had taken the stage. Midway through the lecture, Clare Holiday had started to hiccup and gasp for air. Her throat had inflated to alarming proportions. Someone had an EpiPen and injected her with epinephrine. She was unconscious when the ambulance bulleted off to the closest hospital.

Marcus lay on his back, his head on her lap. “She was on the list.”

“It’s a coincidence.”

When he said nothing, Deb insisted, “Marcus, it has to be! She had an allergic reaction, that’s all. Maybe an insect bit her, or she ate something at breakfast she didn’t know would induce the reaction…”

From that angle, the shadows dug deep around his eyes. She ran her index finger along the tiny scar above his right eyebrow. Deb brushed his temples, rubbing a little. He closed his eyes with a loud exhale. Encouraged, she followed the strong line of his jaw. His skin was too warm for her taste. Deb squeezed his shoulders, her thumbs pressing hard in the trapeze muscles. Marcus mewled in pain and pleasure.

“You’re awfully tense. When was the last time you had a massage?”

The young man opened one gleeful eye. “Are you offering?”

“Sure I am.”

Deb stretched to grab the phone and dialed. “Hi, room 267 here. I’d like to book two massages for this afternoon, please. Yes, two o’clock is perfect. We’ll be there. Bye!”

“That’s not exactly what I had in mind,” complained Marcus.

She grinned. “I know.”

His dark gray eyes reflected the light, a sign the tempest still raged inside him, fed by lassitude, worry, and helplessness. Her Marcus always tried to shoulder the world. She hated herself for adding to his burden. “I have to call the
Traveler
. They left two messages already.”

The objection she anticipated never came. Marcus was looking out of the window. She followed his stare. The view from her room was cut by the north wing of the building and a black patch of asphalt from the backyard parking lot. Somehow, the black and beige colors enhanced the electric blue of the late morning sky.

“What is it?”

Instead of answering, he pushed up on his elbows, brows furrowed.

“Marcus?”

“Hum? Sorry, nothing. The thought’s gone.”

He lay back on the pillows, wrapping his arms around her waist so she joined him. “I suppose they want you to investigate for them. Sybil’s murder is all over the net already.”

She rested her head on his chest, unsure if she liked the quiet or if she was annoyed, he took the time to surf the web before coming back to her. “Thank you, Twitter.”

“Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr—the whole thing is buzzing like a hive. I’m surprised no one started a blog yet: The Phoenix Curse—Anasazi’s Last Prophecy Comes to Haunt us…”

“Nice title. You should write books.”

“Shut up, Deb.”

Her giggle morphed into a sigh as he closed her mouth with his. Deb turned in his arms, nestling closer. The kiss warmed and blossomed in kind, gentle brushes of lips and breaths. The caress overwhelmed her senses, as potent as his caveman conquest of the night before.

Suddenly, she wanted nothing but to stay like this, alone with him, away from the world, no responsibility, no agenda, just the two of them. Safe. Happy. “Let’s leave, Marcus. Make Eden happy. Keep R.J. alive for a while longer, and let’s go.”

His body responded first, inviting hers into the seducing dance they had shared for years. Hips brushed and locked, fingers laced together. She longed to give in. Deb cupped his neck for another kiss. The short hair on his nape teased her palm. No other man would ever make her feel this alive, cherished, the way he did. It used to scare her. In the last fourteen months, she’d come to accept it. “Please, Marcus. Take me home.”

****

He’d heard the same words before, whispered in the heat of passion, or chocked in tears. He’d said
yes
before. Marcus stared into those witchy eyes, so clear they would make crystal jealous. She worried about him, he realized. Funny, of the two of them, he always thought he was the one who cared the most, the one who stayed behind and brooded.

Marcus pressed his forehead to hers to murmur, “I can’t. Not yet. I have to finish this.”

“Why? I don’t understand.”

Her eyes brightened to a pulsating green. He kissed her cheek gently. Her shaky draw of air almost emptied his lungs. Marcus released her reluctantly and straightened up. “I promised you R.J.’s first interview. It’ll explain everything. Come on.” He offered his hand. “I’ll buy you lunch.”

****

An hour later, they sat in an authentic cantina, with the biggest enchilada he’d ever seen between them. Deb cut a corner of her share. The spiced aroma from the corn tortilla made his mouth water.

“Are you sure you want to talk about this here?”

The little restaurant was full. Waitresses in immaculate peasant dresses circulated among the tables, handing plates and taking orders all at once. The crowd chattered over the Latin music, or yelled at the barista to pump up the volume so they could follow the recap of the Diamondbacks’ ball game. No one paid attention to them, and no one could hear anything in that noise anyway.

Marcus nodded, chewing a bite of meat and pastry.

“All right, then. Why romance?”

He swallowed his food, blinking when the chili pepper sauce scorched the back of his throat. “I prefer to call it ‘romantic suspense’. I’ll give you the whole story. I’ll answer all your questions. But there are probably some things you won’t want to publish.”

“Really. And why is that?”

The emotions that engulfed her earlier appeared to have settled down again, so the woman he faced was the sassy, tough-as-nails Deb he loved word sparring with. She fascinated him. “Because it all started in San Francisco.”

While she digested the news, he forked more enchilada. “I suffer from writer’s block.” Deb opened her mouth to protest, most likely since he had six novels under his belt, alter ego or not. He pointed the fork at her to shut her up. “If I didn’t put out a new sci-fi novel since
Ayin
, that’s because I can’t. I’m stuck. Every piece I try to knit is awful.”

She couldn’t stop herself. “But you published two novels in fourteen months! Considering the writing/editing process, that’s nearly a miracle.”

“I got lucky. Eden hooked a publisher with the first ten chapters of
Midnight Gold
. I was writing like a maniac. By the time she finalized the contract, my first draft was finished.” He paused to sip some water. “Anyhow, neither book is in my original genre. When you joined me in Frisco, I was desperate. Eden had suggested the change. New place, new people, new interests. She thought it would help.”

“Did it?”

“No.”

“You never said anything.”

He hadn’t. Out of shame, or because he couldn’t bear to have her question, argue, pull or push. She was very good at pushing.

He remembered those weeks—months— all too well. The frustration, the anger, the failure… He’d tried to write. He’d tried his hand at new plots, worked out different angles. He’d researched futuristic weapons, perused issues of scientific magazines. He’d followed Philae and Rosetta’s twitter accounts. And nothing.

Every new attempt dug him deeper into his hole. He couldn’t put two sentences together without agonizing over them for hours. He kept going back to the beginning to adjust a detail, or to change a verb. He woke up in the middle of the night to rewrite one paragraph, and deleted pages in the morning. He was miserable, and growing more frustrated by the day.

So when she’d stopped on her way to some new adventure, Deb seemed to be the exact distraction he needed. The distraction he thought he needed. Until… “The pages you read were the only bits I had managed in weeks.”

The betrayal still stung, nearly as much as the disappointment he had caught on her face while she read his lame attempt at a new scene.

“Is that why you were so angry?”

Marcus managed a smile.
Trust Deb to hit the right spot on her first try
. “I guess. Also, I
had
asked you not to read my work-in-progress, but you did anyway.”

She changed the subject. “But you’re writing now…”

“Yes. But I haven’t returned to sci-fi.”

He wondered if she grasped how hard it was, to crave for the futuristic, action-packed thrillers he loved and to dare not try.

“But why did you choose romance—sorry, romantic suspense?”

“Ah!” He leaned over the table to plant a kiss on her mouth, and enjoyed every bit of her blush when a party of six nearby catcalled. “Actually, that’s your doing, honey.”

“Me?”

“You left a book behind, something by Chloe Fielding.”

“You read it? After all you said about my taste in books?”

“Some stuff you read
is
terrible. But that one was good. I liked the characters’ study, the tone, the plot. I could nearly hear the characters bantering in my head. I finished that book in two days.

“The same night, I opened a new document and I started writing again. Looking back, I understand that the piece I was missing in my own work was a focus on people, more than action. What do the characters think? What do they feel? How would ordinary people react if they had to face extraordinary situations? They’re humans, not machines or superheroes. There may be a dozen ways to describe a fight. However, if I play with drama, add mystery, and a touch of lightness, that dozen grows to a hundred. It feels amazing. Once I started, I couldn’t stop writing. I probably beat a record.”

“
Midnight Gold
nearly did. It’s nearly nine hundred pages, Marcus! And
Storm Watcher
is nearly as long.”

“And it’s good.”

Deb laughed. “Yes, it’s very good.” She licked her lips. “I particularly liked chapters seventeen and thirty-four.”

He gasped when her bare ankle slid up his calf. She wore safari shorts and a demi-sleeve top that kept falling past her shoulder. Her round, smooth, delectable shoulder…

“Did you know Eden’s her agent?” he said.

“Whose agent?”

“Chloe Fielding’s.”

Her foot moved higher, and he nearly choked on his water. Her face lit up, as if she knew he’d just gotten hard as a rock. Of course she knew. She enticed him on purpose, biting into her lip until he couldn’t think of anything else, drowning him in those
undress-me
eyes…

Marcus upped the game. “Well, they say the best is to write about personal experiences. We had fun in Vegas…”

He signaled for the check. Deb gawped. “You didn’t. You… Oh, God!” She buried her flaming face in her napkin when the waitress came by to clear their table.

Marcus nudged her elbow. “It doesn’t matter, Deb. Come on, no one knows. Even you didn’t notice.”

“Well, now
I
know. Every time someone mentions that bit, I’ll—”

“You’ll think about us.”

“Right now, the only thing I’m thinking about is kicking you very hard in a very sensitive place.”

He winced in anticipated pain.

Deb hissed, “I hope for your sake that you don’t have more surprises up your ‘amorous’ sleeve. And for the record, it was a Jacuzzi, not a pool, and you weren’t as good as your hero pretends to be.”

His ego rebelled. “Let’s go back to the hotel, and we’ll see about that.”

“This was not a challenge. Can we go now?”

He threw a couple of bills on the table, wondering where the nice, intimate lunch had gone wrong. At least her ferocity had dampened the enthusiasm below his belt.

The midday sun burned cactus and palm trees to the ground. The red sand of Arizona vibrated like fire. Inside the car, the atmosphere was two degrees below frigid.

“Doesn’t the idiom ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’ mean anything to you?” Deb said.

“This is ridiculous. I’m not going to apologize for a sex scene between fictional characters.”

“Oh, that’s rich. First I was a tramp, now I’m a clown.”

“I never called you a—” He swerved at the last moment onto the access road to the resort. “This scene happens when the MFC realizes that making love with the right person is special. She had other lovers before. It doesn’t make her a tart. She’s not you, anyway.”