Chapter 13
Leaving her to rest on a padded chair, Shep approached the front desk. For a moment, a whole second in time, he debated renting two rooms. But she was so sad, so alone, so vulnerable. It would be caddish of him to leave her unprotected. So instead, he inquired once again about any sightings of Sofia, paid, and clutched the keycard in his hand before returning to her side.
“Ya okay?” he asked.
“Sí. Of course,” she said and rose to her feet. Her eyes were awash, her expression a confusing meld of pride and embarrassment. Tears, it seemed, were not something she wished to share…at least not with him. He had no idea why that made him both angry and disappointed.
“Come on,” he said and was mildly surprised when she followed him. Odd, he thought. It wasn’t as if other women had refused to accompany him in similar situations. But none of them had been Carlotta Elaina Perdilla-Osorio.
He stopped at the appropriate door, sliced the card through the reader, and followed her inside.
She turned to face him, brows rising. “What you do?” she asked. “You do not think to stay here in this room.”
He managed to waylay the weird-ass pleas that threatened to escape his lips and cracked up a grin instead. “Would ya believe me if I said there was only one room available?”
“I think not.”
“How about if I said I could only afford one.”
“So you are not truly Americano?”
He laughed at her continuing misconception of his countrymen’s wealth.
“Well?” she asked.
“I’m as American as chicken-fried steak,” he admitted.
“Chicken fried…” she began quizzically but lifted a hand as if unwilling to be sidetracked. “The point is this…you have the money for another room.”
“I suppose,” he admitted. “But leavin’ you alone don’t seem right.”
“Truly?” He didn’t think her brows could get any higher.
“I’m just tryin’ to keep ya safe.”
“This is the reason you are in my room?”
“Why else?”
She turned and walked away. But in truth, Carlotta Osorio never walked when she could sashay, never simply glanced over her shoulder when she could peer through the flowing waterfall of her hair with those dark-magic eyes—as she did now.
“Why else?” he asked again, but it was all he could do to keep his gaze from slipping down her body, over those goddess shoulders, those far-superior-to-earlobe breasts.
She studied him in silence and oddly, he couldn’t quite hold her gaze. “Ya don’t think I’d try to take advantage of the situation do ya?”
She snorted. “You will sleep on the floor.”
“On the…” He glanced at it. It was ceramic tile. The whole thing. As unforgiving as a bed of nails.
“On the floor,” she repeated, “or in the hall.”
“You’re tough.”
“What did you think?” she asked and raised her haughty chin an extra notch. “That I was easy? That I was the puta?”
“Nope. Always assumed ya was tough as a grizzly and pure as the driven snow.”
She narrowed her eyes at him then shook her head. “You lie,” she said and tossed her all-encompassing bag onto a nearby chair.
He placed splayed fingers over his chest and plopped his ass unceremoniously onto the bed. “Ya cut me to the quick.”
“What is this quick?” she asked.
“The quick?” He leaned back on one elbow, watching her as she pulled a trowel, fuzzy socks, and a flashlight from her bag. For a woman who constantly looked as if she’d stepped from the glossy pages of a fashion magazine, it was surprising that she carried only one duffel. On the other hand, that single bag seemed to contain everything from cosmetics to power tools. How exactly did she do that? “It’s the tender part of a horse’s hoof.”
She paused with a small, silky garment slung over one arm. Just the sight of it did something funky to his…everything. “I have cut you to a horse’s hoof?” she asked.
“It’s just a sayin’. If ya drive a nail too deep into an animal’s foot, you’ll hit the quick and make it lame.”
“Ahh,” she said, “I forget, you are the cowboy.”
“How about you?” he asked.
She sauntered to the bathroom, paused in the doorway to glance back again. The light from behind cast a dark halo over her midnight hair. And in that moment, he was certain that if he lived to be a doddering old man with nothing but a few stray hairs and a smattering of teeth, he would never forget how she looked just then. Femininity personified. Beauty, strength, mystery. “What is it you mean by this?”
He managed to continue to breathe, to shrug, as if his heart hadn’t just stuttered in his chest at the sight of her. “If ya had to sum yourself up in one word, what’d it be?”
“This is the silly question,” she said. Without closing the bathroom door, she plopped her bag onto the vanity and dug out a toothbrush.
He saw her bend, watched her burbling cascade of hair flow past her shoulders, and thought of several words for her. Irresistible was at the top of the list, but he would resist. Damned if he wouldn’t. He’d help her find her sister…if the girl actually was missing.
“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with silly,” he reminded her as she disappeared behind the door. “Mama used to say that silly beats sad all to hell.” That wasn’t exactly true. What she’d said was that he shouldn’t mourn for her. Shouldn’t waste his time on sorrow. Because she’d know, and when they met again on the far side of now, she’d be pissed. Only she never really got pissed. But there was no need to be entirely honest. In fact…he thought, but in that second, Carlotta stepped into the room, causing his heart to hiccup, his brain to stumble. She’d changed clothes in the seconds she’d been out of sight. Had slipped into a satiny, off-white something. It wasn’t particularly revealing, yet it somehow managed to transform her from gorgeous traveler to irresistible seductress.
“Up,” she said and shooed him aside.
He didn’t tell her that that particular ship had already sailed and managed to sit, though he was pretty sure standing would be impossible. She’d probably have to roll him onto the floor like a death-stiffened corpse to remove him from the bed, and he wasn’t at all sure she wouldn’t do just that.
“You may have a pillow,” she said and, lifting the nearest one from its place at the head of the bed, slapped it against him.
Pain pinged through his injured arm like the rip of a well-shot arrow.
She scowled in the act of turning away, narrowed her eyes, and swung back toward him. “What is wrong?”
“Nothin’,” he said and, against all odds, forced himself to stand.
“Your arm.” Somehow, she managed to look both disapproving and concerned. “It yet hurts.”
He shook his head. When in doubt, deny. It was the credo of every young prankster raised by a caring but crotchety grandfather.
She scowled and moved closer.
“Just my heart,” he said. “Can’t blame the old ticker for takin’ a hit at the sight’a ya in that thing.”
She ignored both the compliment and the lie. “Let me see.”
“Ya oughta be more careful, Lotta. There are all sorts’a guys out there who’d take advantage’a this here situation.”
“Sit!” she ordered.
“Listen, woman…” he began, but she stopped him.
“Sit and remove the shirt.”
“You can’t tell me—“
“Remove it, or I will not allow you to assist me.”
He huffed a laugh. “And I suppose ya think that’s some kind’a hardship?”
She eyed him, making him wonder, rather uncomfortably, if she might understand him better than she should. Better, in fact, than he understood himself.
“It ain’t like it’s an honor to serve ya.”
She shifted. Just the slightest bend of her body, the simplest adjustment of weight so she watched him from a tilted angle as if examining his soul through the dark sweep of her lashes.
He held her penetrating gaze as long as he was able, then, “Dammit sideways,” he mumbled and sat on the bed to unbutton his shirt.