Out of Control (3 page)
As she got closer, she could see the latticework of faded scars on his back, scars that meant he’d been lashed, beaten within an inch of his life. Even knowing they were there, even faded as they were, she was still taken aback by the sight. She knew they weren’t his only scars. He had others on the lower half of his body as well.
“Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones.” It wasn’t until she said it again, until she was within ten yards of him that he stopped working and turned, wiping sweat from his brow with his forearm.
The men in the village often worked without their shirts, but they always made a point to cover themselves respectfully when she came around. Jones just looked at her, his dark hair slick with sweat, his usual four-day growth of beard darkening his chin, his tanned muscles gleaming.
Lord, he was . . . masculine. And she was staring, which was pretty dumb since she’d seen him without a shirt quite a few times before. In her bed, even. With some tropical form of the flu that had knocked him off his feet—quite literally.
She’d held him and wiped his face with a cool cloth after he’d been violently sick. During the three days that the bug had gripped him the hardest, she’d wiped him clean in some other places, too.
She’d dozed beside him, on a cot, for three nights until his fever broke. She’d stayed on that uncomfortable cot for another night, as he slept a full twenty-four hours, regaining his strength.
And then he’d left. Without a word, without a note of thanks, without giving her a chance to ask him about those scars. She’d come back to her tent, and he was gone.
She’d sent Manuel up to Jones’s camp, to make sure he was all right, but both Jones and his Cessna were gone.
A week later, she came back to her tent to find a package on her bed. Two new sets of sheets and towels to replace the ones he’d soiled. And books. Ten of the most recent bestsellers, both fiction and nonfiction. Obviously, he’d taken a look at the overflowing bookshelves in her tent and noted her love for reading.
It seemed kind of odd that a man who was that perceptive—who would know to buy her books rather than something more traditional like chocolate as a thank you gift—hadn’t noted that her interest in him wasn’t merely that of nurse for her patient.
She’d sent him a note, thanking him for the books and inviting him to the village’s traditional Sunday evening barbecue.
He hadn’t shown.
She’d sent him a second note, inviting him to come calling whenever he found the time.
A month had passed and he’d never found the time.
As he looked at her now, his eyes were so completely devoid of emotion, Molly felt a surge of satisfaction. He was working so hard to hide what he was feeling—therefore he must be feeling something. It was probably embarrassment, but she preferred to think it was deep remorse for not having responded to her invitations.
However, there was neither time nor reason for small talk or embarrassment on either of their parts.
“I’m here to call in the favor you owe me,” she told him. “I need a ride into Parwati for a sick child, the boy’s mother, and myself.”
Jones didn’t bat an eye at the idea that he owed her a favor, even though she herself believed nothing of the sort. She hadn’t helped him when he was sick because she’d expected to get something in return. Her world didn’t work that way, but his did, and she used that now to little Joaquin’s advantage.
“I can take you tomorrow,” he said.
Molly shook her head. “This child needs to get to the hospital now.”
“Now.” He took a drink from the water bottle he wore clipped to his belt, his eyes never leaving her, as if she were some kind of poisonous snake that might attack if he dropped his guard.
So she attacked. “I don’t think he’s going to be alive tomorrow. You know I wouldn’t even be here if this weren’t life and death.”
The muscle jumped in the side of his jaw as he glanced at his watch. He swore softly. “I can only take you one way. I’ve got a . . . job that starts tonight, and I won’t be back near Parwati for a couple of weeks.”
Molly nodded, nearly giddy with relief. He could take them. “That’s fine.”
“It’s hardly fine. It means you’ll have to take the mule trail back up the mountain.”
She smiled at his pitiful attempt to discourage her. “Oh, well, then . . . in that case, forget it. I’ll just let the little boy die.”
He didn’t laugh at her joke. “That’s not what I meant. I meant, I’ll take the kid and his mother—you don’t have to come along.”
“They need someone to go with them to the hospital. To translate for them.” Joaquin’s mother would need a hand to hold. “I’m going.”
He shrugged as he headed toward the Quonset hut. “Suit yourself. But I need you back here, ready to leave in twenty minutes.”
“I’m here and Joaquin and his mother are already on their way.”
He laughed humorlessly. “Pretty sure of yourself, weren’t you?”
No, but she was pretty darn sure of Jones. When a man like him booted his lunch on a woman’s only pair of running shoes, it was a pretty sure thing that he’d be desperate to make it up to her. “Just hopeful,” she told him.
“After this,” he said, “we’re even.”
“Hey.” Ken knocked on the front window of the car. “You know, it’s not a real smart move to have the car running while it’s up on a . . .”
He realized he was looking down at a young woman who’d hiked her skirt all the way up to the tops of her thighs. She had the AC on full blast and her blouse unbuttoned so much that he could see the lace of her bra. It was red. Holy God.
“Uh, up on a jack,” he finished.
Dear Penthouse, I never thought I’d write a letter like this, but . . .
“Oh, my God,” she gasped, and wrestled her skirt back down with one hand while she buttoned her blouse with the other. When she was covered again, she pushed the button and the window slid down with a whir. “I’m sorry. Excuse me. I was just so warm. I was trying to cool down and—”
“Relax—I didn’t see a thing,” he lied. “Why don’t you turn off the car and I’ll give you a hand with that tire?”
She looked at him. Looked at him again over the tops of her sunglasses. She had wispy blond hair that curled around her face. Her eyes were an almost electric shade of blue and loaded with complete horror. “Oh no!”
“What, are you trying to earn your Girl Scout flat tire badge or something? You need to do this yourself or you won’t win enough points?”
“No,” she said. “No, I’m . . . No.”
As far as a Penthouse encounter went, the promising start had petered out. She was either apologizing or looking at him as if he were an ax murderer.
Whoever she was, she had grease on her nose. She had grease on her cheeks, on her neck, on her chest, on her arms and her hands. She had grease all over her designer clothing, too.
Beneath all that grease, she was unbelievably pretty. Delicate looking. With that hair and those eyes, that angelic face, she looked like a fairy princess—a very grubby fairy princess.
As Ken watched, she took a Kleenex and used it to keep herself from getting the key dirty as she turned off the car.
She didn’t bother to be so careful as she reached down to slip her shoes back onto her feet. He could see her discarded pantyhose next to her on the seat and the day got even hotter.
He opened the door for her to keep her from having to use a Kleenex to do it. She first slipped her million-dollar pair of legs out of the car and then followed with the rest of her body, careful to keep her skirt from riding up again, much to his disappointment.
Ken tried not to think about the way her skirt hugged her hips, tried to forget he’d seen that pair of pantyhose she’d left back in the car, tried to ignore the burning question of the day—did she have anything on at all, underneath that skirt?
She was even shorter than he’d guessed, and had to tilt her head up to look at him, which was cool, since he was not extremely tall himself.
“Please,” she said in a husky, low voice that belonged to a stripper named Chesty Paree, not some sweet, Disney-big-eyed pixie. “I’d love it if you could help.”
He’d gotten out of his truck with the intention of helping—whether she was a little old lady or a three-hundred-pound corporate CEO named Bob. But this was just too good to be true. She was pretty, she was red hot, and she wasn’t wearing a wedding band on her left ring finger.
He could feel the testosterone flooding his system. Big Strong He-Man to the rescue. Why, sure, lil’ lady, I’ll save you. You just sit back and get ready to screw me blind in appreciation.
Oh, please Heavenly Father, don’t let him say something stupid or hopelessly rude that implied he was unable to think about anything but sex. Even though it was true—98 percent of the time he was completely unable to think about anything but sex.
But despite his errant thoughts, he was simply going to change her tire and then wave as she drove away. And then he was going to go home, unload his melting ice cream from his grocery bags, go for a swim in his pool, have an early dinner and veg out in front of the TV, watch some of the shows he’d videotaped this past week. The closest he was going to come to having sex tonight would be lusting after Buffy or Seven-of-Nine.
And in a month or two, he’d finally stop thinking about this woman, this nice, well-to-do, intelligent, and completely undeserving-of-any-lewd-thoughts woman, and her underwear. Or lack thereof.
Please Jesus, as long as he was asking for divine favors, don’t let her be a mind reader, okay?
“But I don’t think anything short of explosives is going to do the trick,” she was telling him in that voice. “I managed to get one of the bolt thingies off, but it took twenty minutes. The others I worked on for close to an hour, but they didn’t even budge. What I’m really ready to do is blow this stupid rental car to hell.”
Ken laughed, wishing he could see her eyes again. But they were hidden behind her sunglasses. “My neighbors might not like that very much.”
“What neighbors?” she asked. “I’ve been out here for hours and not a soul drove past.”
“It’s a dead end.” And on a Friday night, everyone but the most pathetic losers went straight from work to the local bars. She was lucky he was such a dweeb, and that for him, a hot Friday night meant watching TV, alone. “What are you doing down here, anyway?” he asked her.
She stared at him as if he’d suddenly started talking to her in one of the funky languages that his pal Johnny Nilsson spoke so fluently.
“Did you get lost?” He simplified the question.
She cleared her throat and gave him the strangest little wavery smile. “I was . . . just driving around. I’m in town for only a few days and . . .” She cleared her throat again.
Man, she was a terrible liar. Apparently she was too polite simply to tell him that he’d crossed the line and asked her a question that was none of his goddamned business.
He crouched down next to the tire. “These lug nuts are tight.” He had to put some muscle into it to get them to move.
She sighed as he got the second one off. “God, I’m such a wimp.”
“I’ve got slightly more body weight to throw into it.”
“Couldn’t you sweat just maybe a little?”
Ken laughed. “Believe me, babe, I started sweating as soon as I walked over here.” Oh, crap, that sounded as if he’d meant . . . He glanced up at her, and found her looking at him over the top of her sunglasses again. Blue eyes. “I mean, as soon as I got out of my truck,” he tried to clarify. “Hot day, you know?”
Yeah, right. Ah, he was smooth as shit.
But she nodded as she hid behind her sunglasses again. “I thought it wasn’t supposed to get this hot in San Diego.”
“This is unusual. This heat should break by tomorrow.” Yes, they were talking about the weather. He’d definitely freaked her out. Freaked himself out as well. “I’m looking forward to getting home and jumping into my pool.”
“You have a pool?”
The third and fourth lug nuts dropped into his hand. “Yeah, it’s the reason I rented this house—it’s just down the street. The house is nothing special, but the pool’s huge. I can actually swim laps.”
“That’s what I need right now,” she told him. “A swimming pool. You can swim laps, but I’d like one of those floating chairs with a place to put a drink. And a frozen piña colada, please. A large one.”
Man, he was stupid. She must’ve been incredibly thirsty—out here God knows how long, in this kind of heat . . . “I’ve got some pop and some beer in the truck. Help yourself.”
“Are you sure?” She held herself back, but he knew from the way she was standing that she wanted to run to his truck and rip the door open. She was incredibly thirsty, but terminally polite.
“Grab me a Coke while you’re at it, will you?”
Ken glanced up to see her actually use the tail of her blouse to keep from getting grease on the door of his truck. That gave him a glimpse of her pale stomach and another flash of that red bra, Jesus save him.
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