Red Leopard (The Vistaria Affair Series) (21 page)

“Wild mountain goat. There are many around here. Try it with the tapenade.”

Calli ate with a relish, for she was ravenously hungry. They had only had chocolate and some crushed cookies on the train.

“This is what you eat all the time?” Minnie asked.

“Often. People cook here more than they do in the city. It is traditional and it is cooler. Nearly two thousand feet. We have bigger mountains in the north.” He did not hide his pride.

The call to Uncle Josh went through just as she finished her bowl. Calli sat at the bar and swiveled so that the customers sitting a few stools along from her would not be able to easily eavesdrop—even if they did know English.

“Calli? I got your note. You’re in Pascuallita?”

“Yes, we just got off the train a while ago and we’re eating right now.”

He was silent for a moment. “I suppose there’s a good reason you’re up there?”

“Yes.”

“Should I be concerned, Calli? You left with no notice, in the dead of the night. And Pascuallita...I’ve heard rumors that Pascuallita would be where the rebels would strike first.”

“Have you heard that something might happen?”

“No but, just be careful. Duardo is with you?”

“Yes.”

This time his silence was even longer. “Is he armed?” Uncle Josh asked, his tone awkward.

“Not that you’d notice to look at him, but yes, he’s carrying a gun,” Calli said softly.

He sighed and she could see him in her mind, rubbing his hand through his hair. “Okay. Is Minnie there? Let me talk to her.”

* * * * *

After lunch, they stepped out of the tavern and looked around. The train station was directly in front of them, but because of the mountainous terrain, the platform lifted twenty feet or so higher than the road. Bright red, yellow and blue safety rails edged the platform and tubs of flowers sat beneath them, nodding in the little breeze that passed up the street. It was mid-afternoon, but lots of people still moved about the street.

“No siesta?” Calli asked.

Duardo shook his head. “No heat,” he explained. “Why sleep away the day?”

Even though it was certainly cooler at this elevation, there was still a mugginess in the air that reminded her they were in the tropics.

“Well, we’d better be tourists,” Minnie said, dropping her sunglasses over her eyes, hitching her heavy overnight bag over her shoulder and looking around with interest. “Where are the shops, Duardo?”

“Ah, shopping, of course,” he said with laugh. “How silly of me to forget a matter of such importance.” He arranged his bags in his left hand, tucked Minnie’s hand under that elbow and turned her to face downhill. “This way,” he instructed. He waved for Calli to walk along beside him, but he did not gently guide her with a touch to her arm or back as he had done in
el colinas
. The reason, when she figured it out, took some of the pleasantness out of the afternoon: he kept his gun hand free.

The narrow, winding streets in Pascuallita discouraged any vehicles with more than two wheels. The streets had been constructed around the original buildings, which had been built on the flattest piece of land to be had. The streets had been laid on the land that remained—the steepest land. Sets of steps and terraces broke up many of the streets, which further reduced traffic.

Bicycles could be seen everywhere and many of the younger people used skateboards and in-line skates, but most people walked. There was a lot of foot traffic and more of it the deeper they wound into the heart of the town.

At one intersection of three different streets, Calli heard her name being called from the street on her left. She looked that way, startled. At the far end of the street an open-topped jeep sat. Nicolás Escobedo leaned against the front grille, his arms crossed, a black hat shading his face, sunglasses obscuring the dark blue eyes.

Calli controlled the first impulsive sound of delight that came to her, but couldn’t stop herself from brushing past Minnie and Duardo and hurrying up the narrow little alley. She stopped in front of him, her backpack slapping against her shoulder. “You came,” she said simply.

“And you thought I wouldn’t.”

“I couldn’t see how.... Never mind. You’re here. Although
how
you got here...”

“Later,” he said and lifted his chin. “Duardo.”

Duardo and Minnie had followed her up the alley. Nicolás held out his hand, and the younger man dropped his bags and shook it, but didn’t smile.

“Anyone?” Nicolás asked.

“No.”

“You have my thanks.”

“For you,
señor
, anything.”

“I will take it from here,” Nick said, straightening up. “You will come to my house, yes?”

Duardo looked a little awkward. “No,
señor
, as much as I regret missing such an honor, I have something I must do.”

Nicolás dropped his chin to look over his sunglasses at him.

Duardo moved his feet and shrugged, and Calli realized that he had turned slightly red. “I will visit my mother. I want her to meet Minnie.”

Pleasure touched her, but Calli suppressed her smile. Minnie looked up at Duardo with a small smile of her own.

Nick nodded. “Of course.” He glanced at Calli. “Excuse me for just a moment,” he said and pulled Duardo aside. They dropped in low, quiet Spanish.

Minnie grabbed Calli’s arm. “Oh hell, now I’m terrified,” she whispered. “You don’t meet their mothers here unless it means something.”

“Which is just what you wanted, so why the terror?”

“What if she hates me? I’m American, I’m...I’m...I’ll never measure up.”

“You’ll be fine,” Calli assured her.

The two men finished their conversation and returned to the front of the jeep. Duardo picked up his bags again and picked up Minnie’s hand in his right. He nodded at Calli. “
Adios, la dama fuerte.
I will take good care of your cousin.”

Calli heard Nicolás chuckle as she touched Duardo’s arm. “Thank you, Duardo.”

She watched them walk back down the alley, suddenly shy—she battled her own terror. Deliberately, she looked at Nick, but couldn’t tell through the sunglasses whether he watched her or just happened to be looking in her direction.

“
Strong lady
?” he said.

She grimaced. “It’s not as picturesque as red leopard,” she returned.

He pulled a key ring out of his pocket. “I think it fits you perfectly.” He opened the passenger door of the jeep for her and moved around to the driver’s side and settled in the seat.

“What did you mean when you said ‘anyone’ to Duardo?” she asked.

He paused with his hand on the keys, already inserted in the ignition. Then, he started the engine. “I asked him if anyone had followed you from
las colinas
.”

She shivered. “How did he know to watch out for that?”

“He’s one of the best captains in the Vistarian army. When I asked him to bring you here, he knew what I expected of him.” Abruptly, he switched off the engine and turned to face her in the seat. He took the sunglasses off and reached out to pull the edges of her shirt aside. She realized he checked to see if she still wore the medallion, and he smiled a little when he saw it there. Then he drew her forward and kissed her, and his lips were warm, firm and demanding. His tongue swept into her mouth and she could feel her shyness, her awkwardness, and the sense of unreality slipping away.

This was Nicolás. Nick. He was real and hot beneath her fingers.

He drew back a little, but his hand rested loosely around her waist. “No more worrying,” he declared. “You made a decision back in the city to accept the risks, yes?”

“Yes.”

“So did I. We do not worry about the future now. Just this moment.”

“Well...okay.”

He shook his head a little. “No, Calli. I mean this. Here, I am me. Just me. Nicolás, that you call Nick.”

She gave a little smile and tapped his jacket, down low on the left hand side, and her fingernail rapped against metal as she had known it would. “No, you’re not
just
Nick,” she said softly. “You will never be just Nick, but that’s okay.”

He studied her, that same cool assessing look he had given her in the prison cell. Then he swiveled back to face the steering wheel and put on his sunglasses. “I think, perhaps, you are even more of a realist than I.” He put the jeep into gear and took off with spinning wheels.

She tried to calm her jumping heart. “You don’t like that?” she said, lifting her voice above the engine noise.

“Right now, no,” he said. He smiled a little. “But that’s just because you’ve made me feel foolish. You are right,
la dama fuerte
. We accepted risks, which means we can’t afford to ignore them or pretend they’re not there. So...home, by the most direct route and without scenic stops. There, at least, we shall be as secure as we can be.”

He drove through a maze of streets and it seemed that he backtracked sometimes. She realized he worked to avoid the terraced roads a car could not use. Then they were beyond the town and driving along a narrow mountain road with a sharp drop down to Calli’s right. They headed northwest, further into the mountains.

“How far?” she asked.

“Twenty minutes, more or less. Depends on the weather.”

“Rain?”

“Fog,” he said. “Makes turning the hairpin bends an exercise in caution.”

“You live very much out of the way?”

“Just enough.” He paused while he negotiated a sharp curve. “About five years after I got back from the States, I brought up half-a-dozen slice farms and built a house at the top of them.”

She took a moment to absorb the wealth of information in that simple statement. Nick liked living out of the way. He’d acquired at least six properties to build a house upon. His out-of-the-way property was not a little cabin in the woods, then. “Slice farms?” she said at last.

“I’ll show you one, later,” he promised. “My neighbors still work their farms.”

“And you lived in the States while you studied, right? Philosophy and economics.”

“Mmm.” His attention had drawn to the road ahead and he slowed the jeep, creeping around a bend. Hidden on the other side of the blind corner, a dozen or so mountain goats meandered across the road. He beeped the horn to encourage them to move out of the way. They wandered to the side, barely pausing to look at the jeep.

“You knew they were there?” Calli asked.

“They were on the side just there when I came down the hill earlier.”

“They look just like the ones we get back home.”

“They probably are. The British traders introduced a lot of western ideas and animals into Vistaria in their efforts to make the world England.”

“You don’t like that, do you?”

He took a while to answer. “I grew up listening to my mother’s stories of Belfast and the mighty English fist. No, I don’t like it. Not for Northern Ireland, nor for Vistaria.”

She didn’t know how to respond, for she had caught a glimpse of the passion he had for his country, the dedication he brought to his work. She represented a country that most of his fellow Vistarians viewed as a threat. Yet she sat here beside him on her way to—

“Tell me about your dreams, Calli,” he said, making her jump a little.

“Dreams?”

“You said you dreamed of us. Together.”

“I did.” The quick montage of images, faded by constant review, flipped through her mind, but still they had the power to stir her, to catch her breath with their power and their raw sensuality.

“Tell me about them,” Nick coaxed, his voice low.

She licked her lips, suddenly shy again. Even when she had lived with Robert, she had not discussed such intimate details as dreams and fantasies. She couldn’t recall if she’d even had them.

He glanced at her and smiled a little. “Ah, Calli, it’s clear you’ve never been with a man who cares about such matters. But I do. I want to know what’s in your heart, your mind, your soul and every inch of flesh and blood in between.”

She deliberately changed the direction. “You said you dreamed of me, too.”

“I can tell you my dreams but I’d rather show you and for that I need both hands free.”

“Show me?”

“Oh yes,” he said, his voice lower still and suddenly a little hoarse. “I have the details memorized.”

She shivered, despite the sun.

“Give me the one image that has stayed with you,” he said. “I know there must be at least one. A moment from your dreams. Just as you did that night at
Ashcroft’s
, when I touched your breast. You said you had dreamed it, only—”

“The reality was better than the dream,” she finished. Despite her awkwardness at discussing such intimate details aloud, she grew warm, moist and her nipples began to tingle. She shifted her legs, the thighs rubbing each other and the heated folds of her cleft moved against each other. Delicious friction. “Your hand on my hip,” she said, and her voice was husky, too.