Running Wild. Susan Andersen

a light in a defective socket, was nowhere to be found at the moment. During a stop a couple of hours back—the last one just before the sun went down with such startling speed—she’d washed off the dark makeup she’d applied in the gondola. And sometime between then and now her fair skin had lost its natural glow, her cheeks their wash of pink.

      Squatting in front of his pack, he pulled his ultralight sleep pad out of the deep pouch on the pack’s side and unfastened the straps that attached the sleeping bag to the rucksack’s bottom. He carried both to a spot as far removed from the bed as he could manage and unrolled them. In less than a minute he had his nest prepared and, giving it a pat, he glanced up at Magdalene.

      Only to see her sitting on the side of the bed, staring vacantly down at the long, pale fingers she’d threaded together in her lap.

      “Hey,” he said softly, rising to his feet. He reached to stroke soothing fingertips to her shoulder, making her jerk and her gaze lock with his. He stroked his thumb over the spot he’d touched. “Didn’t the lady at the desk say something about a bathing room?”

      She nodded. “Down the hall.”

      “Why don’t you go grab a shower and I’ll see about getting us some food.”

      For a moment she simply looked at him, then visibly gathered herself. “You speak Spanish?”

      “Sure.” When she merely looked at him, he admitted, “A smidge, anyhow. I understand more than I speak—provided it’s not too rapid-fire.”

      Her lips tipped up in a slight smile. “Unfortunately, it requires more than a smidgen in most of these out-of-the-way villages. The people who live in them tend not to travel far from home, so they don’t have the same familiarity working with tourists that their city counterparts do. Add to that how late it is and—” She rose to her feet. “You take the first shower and I’ll go talk to Senora Guerrero about where we can buy some food. I didn’t realize until you brought it up, but I’m starving.”

      He watched as she walked from the room and wondered where this weird urge to comfort her, or cheer her up had come from. Hell, he’d grown up with sisters who could manipulate like nobody’s business to get what they wanted. Consequently, his more usual first response when presented with a female who looked at him with big, sad eyes would be to question if he was being played. Not to feel an urge to fix what ailed her.

      So why the hell had he wanted to fix things for Magdalene?

      He shrugged and let it go. She wasn’t his sister and she’d spent most of their time together bending over backward trying to get him to step away from her problems, not take care of them for her. Besides, offering her the shower had led to her assigning herself a task. And if nothing else, that seemed to give her back some of her energy.

      So his job here was done.

      He rummaged through his pack for a bar of soap and cautiously sniffed his T-shirt’s underarms to see if he dared put it on again after his shower. Fortunately, his deodorant had held up, but the shirt was limp and still slightly damp. Santa Rosa had been warmly springlike, cradled as it was in the foothills of the Andes. But with every foot of elevation lost and each mile farther south that they’d driven, it had become hotter—until sweat had pretty much been the order of the day. And looking at his watch, Finn saw that although it had just turned ten, even with the small room’s louvered window open, the night was hot and still.

      But not quiet. There was a cantina on the corner and the sounds of guitars and merriment were a faint rhythm in the air. At the window insects clicked and whirred as they threw themselves against the thin screen. And somewhere among the cacophony of crickets out in the darkness, frogs croaked and an unidentified creature occasionally barked in a tone eerily seal-like.

      He dug through his pack again to retrieve the Rat City Rollergirls T-shirt he’d changed out of in the gondola, then picked a towel up off the chair and headed down the hall. He washed his clammy shirt in the sink, wrung it out as best he could and carefully spread it over the basin. Then he stepped into the shower.

      The space was narrow, the water pressure weak, and regardless of how cautious he tried to be, he couldn’t avoid bumping his shoulders or occasionally knocking an elbow against the enclosure walls. The water, however, was wonderfully cool. And when he stepped out several moments later, he felt refreshed.

      But he still didn’t have a clue what he was doing here. He and Mags had stopped in a small town below Santa Rosa so she could call her neighbor from a landline. Her cell phone was low-tech and didn’t support international calls. Not that his smartphone was appreciably better. Coverage was spotty everywhere except in cities and more well-populated towns.

      On the bright side the woman had been home, but it had taken her a while to find the correct letter from Magdalene’s mother and get back to them with the general location where Nancy Deluca had believed the grow farm to be.

      At no time during their wait and the several additional hours they’d driven had there been any sign of Joaquin. So Finn could probably let her take it from here and get back to his vacation.

      Except he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that the minute he turned his back, Joaquin or someone like him would track her down. And the thought of leaving Magdalene on her own to twist in the wind chafed against every behavior he’d been raised to adhere to when it came to women. So he was sticking until she found the grow farm. And if his decision didn’t exactly thrill him?

      It was still accompanied by a strange feeling of relief.

      * * *

      THE MERE SCENT of the rice and beans and the two fat shellfish-filled empanadas on the tray Mags carried cheered her up. She’d expected to be directed to the cantina for such a late meal, but Senora Guerrero had happily insisted on heating up leftovers for her and Finn.

      The thought of the generously poured glasses of wine the older lady had included didn’t hurt her vastly improved outlook. The woman was a love. During their chat as the senora assembled the meal, Mags had admitted how exhausted, yet wired, she felt. Mrs. G. had promptly splashed some rich red wine into a glass for her, then poured the rest into the additional two goblets to add to the serving tray.

      Mags acknowledged she was running on fumes. She’d rolled out of her cushy pillow-top bed in LA at zero-dark-thirty this morning and felt as if she’d been awake for a straight two days rather than the nineteen or so hours it had actually been. And the minute, the very instant, she finished eating, she planned to grab that shower, then tumble into bed.

      What she didn’t intend to do was turn herself inside out any longer stressing over Finn’s involvement in her mama’s drama. He seemed okay with it—at least for the most part. She’d simply have to find a way to be so as well.

      Arriving back at their shared room, she balanced the tray on one hip and freed a hand to turn the doorknob. After taking the platter in both hands once more, she used her left hip to push the door all the way open, then backed into the room, turning as the tray cleared the opening. She spotted Finn over by the chair, spreading a wet T-shirt atop his damp towel over the chair’s back. “You ready to eat?”

      “Oh, hell, yeah.” He inhaled deeply through his nose. “Man, that smells good.” Finger-combing his hair back, he came over to her and took the tray. “Oh, God, you even scored us some wine. You are a goddess.”

      “I know, right?” She shot him a grin. “About the wine, that is, not the goddess part. Give me hot food and a nice glass of red and for this moment, at least, life is good.”

      He looked down at the platter in his hands. “Where do you want this?”

      She liberated a plate, balanced her cutlery atop it and sank to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of the bed. She patted the tile next to her hip. “Right here is fine.”

      “Works for me.” He handed her a glass of wine and sat down next to her with his own food and drink. For the next several minutes the only sound in the room was the clink of silverware against the brightly patterned crockery