Hot and Bothered (7 page)

She’d had enough of his nonsense. “You are stinking drunk. Go to bed, Paul.”

“Is that a proposition?” He leered at her.

“Now you
are
being disgusting.” She took a
step to the door, but he beat her there. He put a hand over the knob, forestalling her own. Even in his condition he was quicker than she could ever hope to be.

“Don’t leave,” he said.

She gazed up at him, seeing the naked pain in his eyes. She said the only thing she could think of. “You’re a good man, Paul.”

“How can you say that when you know what I did?”

She had never felt so inadequate in her life. “But you said the bust went wrong. It was an accident. Wasn’t it?”

“Doesn’t matter. It was a kid. A kid! I might have been exonerated, but no one looked at me the same after that. Hell,
I
can’t look at me the same. I should have been killed that day, not some kid.”

She wanted to put her arms around him, but sensed that he would just throw her off. “Maybe if you talked with a counselor … maybe if you cried …”

He laughed. “The tears ran out years ago. Even tried to drown myself in drink too. It didn’t work, although tonight’s a relapse.” He took a swig. “One thing I learned down here is that I have to live with myself as I am. That’s what I do now.”

Neither of them spoke for the longest time. Judith wanted to burst past him and get out. She told herself she should leave him, give him the
solitude he seemed to want. She needed to study the paperwork on the merger anyhow. Still, she stayed. An odd sensation began to flow through her in the darkness, in his nearness. A surety, but of what kind she couldn’t identify.

“You’re right,” he said finally. “I should go to bed. Come in with me.”

“Ah … Paul,” she began to say, realizing just how dangerous things really were.

He took her hand. “I just need a friend tonight.”

She didn’t know what to answer, which was a common problem around this man. She sensed a deep sadness within him and couldn’t turn away. Her resistance overruled by his plea, she allowed him to lead her into his bedroom.

This room, like the living room, was uncluttered, almost spare, with primitive art and wall hangings.

“Turn your back. I sleep in the nude.”

Judith stared. “Paul, I can’t.”

“Just turn your back until I get under the sheet. I need a friend, not a lover. Lie to me if you have to, Judith.”

She turned her back. What in God’s name was she doing? Something incredibly foolish, and yet she couldn’t reject his request. If she did, he would think she thought him a monster too. She didn’t. Not for a single second. Not because of some awful accident.

She heard the rustle of the sheets being
pulled back and the settling of a body within them.

“Okay.”

She turned around. To her relief, he was only a lump in the bed, not some manly outline that would send her all aflutter.

“Lie down next to me until I fall asleep.”

Suddenly she was all aflutter. “Paul …”

He made an exasperated noise. “Just lie down on the top, dammit! Is that so hard to do?”

“No.” She was being wishy-washy again. She walked to the other side of the bed and gingerly lay down on top of the sheet. She kept her feet off the edge of the mattress, so she wouldn’t get her sandals on the turned-down spread.

Paul took her hand and set it on his chest, covering it with his warm, strong fingers. “You don’t hate me, do you?”

She smiled to herself at the ridiculous question. “No.”

A part of her was growing unsettled at the feel of his form through the thin sheet. His chest hairs peeped out from the material and tickled her palm in the most delicious way.

“Thanks,” he said. “I think I needed this.” He seemed to let go of all the tension within him and relax. His breathing became more sonorous. She realized he was falling asleep. Lying in the bed with him was almost pleasant … or would be very pleasant if it wasn’t damnably sensual. She began to see why he wanted to be “tucked
in.” From time immemorial, the warmth of another human body was comforting. The presence of another could make one’s problems and fears fall away. This was all he required of her, and she gave it to him gladly.

He was so still, she thought in surprise. Awake, Paul seemed to vibrate from a myriad of energies and emotions. Under her hand his chest rose and fell steadily. His fingers gripped hers tightly, almost like a lifeline. She wondered how she would get free without disturbing him. She supposed she’d have to wait it out.

But it was good lying next to him like this. So good.

“Mandy.”

He sighed the name in his sleep. Tears welled in Judith’s eyes. He was right. She did have a sympathy for him.

And maybe more.

As he awakened, Paul winced automatically against the sun streaming in the window. The light pierced his eyes, the inside of his mouth was dry, and he had a headache the size of the Grand Canyon pounding in his head.

He was lying half on his stomach, a slight breeze of air crossing his bare rump. Just as well he’d kicked off the sheet, he thought. The room was damn hot.

A feminine murmur came from behind him.

Paul flipped over, wreaking havoc in his body even as he grabbed for the sheet to cover his middle. Pain jabbed everywhere from his head to his toes in protest to his too-quick movements.

Judith lay next to him. A fully clad Judith. He had a moment to contemplate her state of dress and his lack of it before her eyes opened.

She tensed, although she didn’t seem as surprised as he to find herself in his bed.

“What the hell happened?” he croaked.

She made a face. “You asked me to tuck you in.”

“I must have been drunk.”

“You were.”

Of course he was. Everything came rushing back in vivid detail. Usually he didn’t drink because it didn’t dull the pain, only sharpened it. He covered his face with his hand, embarrassed at the display she had witnessed. He’d been vulnerable last night, full of self-pity, his feelings as naked as he was under the sheet. And then he’d been like a two-year-old, wanting to be tucked in. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been like that with anyone. If she hadn’t been scorched by his confession, the bedtime business must have turned her off completely. “Oh, God. What you must think of me.”

“I think you were entitled,” she said.

She thought he was entitled. He doubted it. Drinking never solved anything. Neither did his rendition of
Bedtime for Bonzo
. He’d looked just
plain stupid, and in front of her. Lamely, he said, “I don’t think I meant you to stay all night.”

“I fell asleep. I’m sorry.” Her voice was stiff, as if she were embarrassed now.

He looked over at her. She was lying on her back, looking at the ceiling. He couldn’t help grinning. His male ego wasn’t thrilled to have had a woman fall asleep on him. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been
on
him, otherwise things would have been different. But she had stayed with him. She couldn’t think he was a terrible human being. She couldn’t. “I didn’t mind,” he said. “It’s nice to wake up next to someone.”

“Yes.” She got out of bed before he could stop her. “I better go. Although how I’m going to walk through the village with what everyone will be thinking—”

“Don’t worry about it. It may even be better for you, since the men will think I now have a claim. This is a very macho world here. Wait a minute and I’ll get up and make you breakfast.”

Her eyes widened. “Thank you, but no. I have my
Fruiti Lupis
.”

She started to walk out of the room. He wrapped the sheet around him and got out of bed. His head was still banging in protest to each movement, but this was more important.

“Please stay,” he said, catching up with her.

She shook her head. “I’ve stayed long enough.”

Her perfectly cut hair was tousled, and she
had a crease mark from the bedspread on her cheek. If he hadn’t had morning breath, he would have kissed her. He did anyway. On the cheek. Perfume lingered faintly on her skin, like the last wisp of a summer’s dawn. He wanted more, but restrained himself. “Thanks.”

Her face turned pink, making her seem like a schoolgirl. “You’re welcome, I think. I’d better go home.”

This time he let her go. But as he went into the kitchen, the sheet still wrapped around his middle, he was grinning to beat the band.

She didn’t hate him. She knew the worst about him, and she didn’t hate him.

But what was her worst? And why did he think he didn’t want to know?

Judith pulled back the tarp and contemplated her car. In its hidden position on the seaward side of her trailer, the gold Mercedes gleamed in the blazing sun. The detailing it had been given weeks before still protected the paint and chrome’s perfections.

The damnable thing would stand out like a yellow brick road if she took it onto the lonely highway. For someone who didn’t want to be found, she wouldn’t be missed if she drove it. But to ride with Pedro … Paul had been right. She’d seen Pedro’s old Cadillac shooting up the dirt road. Its front end had bounced up and down
like a jack-in-the-box, the back end swerving from side to side every time the car braked. To get into it would be suicide.

“Need a ride somewhere?”

She turned around, knowing the voice before she did. Paul stood behind her, his eyebrows raised in question. She hadn’t seen him for most of the day and she really hadn’t wanted to. She’d been overwhelmed with information and images about him from the night before and that morning, and needed time to sort them out. That she’d failed abominably had added to her confusion regarding this man.

He, however, seemed as forceful and self-assured as he had been on their first meeting. Clearly, he knew how to put his past behind him most of the time. She wondered if telling her about his self-enforced separation from his daughter had caused last night’s resurrection of that past. That was the one thing she thought shouldn’t be put away. One should never get past one’s child.

“I need to get clothes,” she said in answer to his question. A few T-shirts and shorts didn’t go far, especially in this heat. The money she had with her was dwindling at a rapacious pace, and she could not afford to whittle away more in almost daily laundering.

“I’m going into La Misión,” he said. “That’s a little town about ten miles north. They have
some shops. You’re welcome to hitch a ride with mge.”

She hesitated, knowing the more time she spent with him, the more confused she would become.

His smiling expression turned shuttered. “I understand.”

“No.” She put her hand on his arm. The tingle of awareness almost burned her palm. She forced herself to leave her hand there. Otherwise, he was bound to take it wrong. “I’d love to have a ride into town.”

“You sure?”

She nodded. “I’m sure. Let me get my purse.”

Inside her trailer, she drew a deep breath, feeling as if she were sinking further and further into an emotional quicksand. She would be there only a short time and she didn’t know how to have an affair gracefully. Her few experiences with sex had been disastrous. If there was one man she didn’t want snickering over sex with her, it was Paul.

Knowing he was waiting at the truck, she grabbed her purse, calculating how much cash she had left. She knew people budgeted, but she’d never done it before. Money, more than enough for her needs, came from her trust fund and other investments in quarterly intervals. It would be just her luck to run out of cash a couple of days before she had to go back to San Diego.

Frowning, she checked how much money she had, then paused, a thought striking her. She did have experience with budgets. At her mother’s insistence, she had worked for a few different charity organizations over the years, often dealing with fund-raising and then allocating those funds. If she just applied what she knew from that, she could handle her own money just fine.

Pleased she could put some of her life experiences to good use, she marched out of the trailer.

Paul had the passenger door open for her. She smiled briefly in thanks as she slipped into the seat. He slammed the door shut, then came around the truck and got in on the driver’s side. The engine started up with a loud whoom. He eased the vehicle over the bumpy dirt roadway to the wider bumpy dirt road that led out of the
ejido
.

They sat in silence for a time. Although not entirely companionable, the quiet wasn’t tense either. He eventually turned on the radio and pushed a station indicator button. A salsa station blared its wild rhythms.

Judith chuckled. “Somehow I didn’t expect you to like this.”

“It’s about the only thing I can get down here,” he said. “I give it an eighty-three. It’s got a good beat, and you can dance to it.”

“What?” she asked, frowning.

“Didn’t you ever watch
American Bandstand
?”

“No.” She coughed. “I missed out on a lot as a child.”

“Were you ill?”

“No. Just … out of it.”

She supposed that was the best explanation for her family’s lifestyle. Finishing school didn’t include many television shows.

“Too bad,” he said. “Although
Bandstand
wasn’t as good after it came to California.”

The conversation seemed to run out after that. She felt as if she were the cause. That was silly. A little silence was good for the soul, she told herself. She believed it for a while until she realized her gaze was focusing on his hands again. Silence could definitely be dangerous—and so could something else.

“I’m attracted to you,” she said.

The car jolted. So did her heart.

“You are?”

“I shouldn’t have said that. I … well, I haven’t had much experience, and I just blurt out something stupid sometimes—”

He broke in. “Thanks. It does wonderful things to my ego to hear that being attracted to me is stupid.”

She wondered how many more faux pas she’d commit with this man, then decided she didn’t want to know. He was still sensitive after last night, so she needed to be careful. “I just meant it was something I didn’t mean to confess.”

“I’ll take any confession you give.” He made
a funny noise. “Does this mean we’re not dancing around each other anymore?”