Page 18 of Falling for the Enemy

“Not sure. Mind melding? Not ruling out time travel.”

I laughed, leaned back and stretched out my legs. I caught Jack staring at them. I supposed I’d done the same to him. That reminded me of my earlier thoughts. “Do you ride bikes?” I asked and motioned toward his muscular legs.

“I bike and run.”

I looked over at him. “Never would have guessed.”

“That’s because there’s a whole lot you don’t know about me, Lo.” He leaned back and pulled the sunglasses off the top of his head. The sun was shrinking away for the day, but it still left behind a sharp glare.

“Guess we’ll be discovering a whole lot about each other in the next two weeks.”

He didn’t lift his head from the back of his chair. “Guess so.”

Chapter Twelve

JACK

The room was hot and stuffy. The overhead fan did nothing more than add an additional buzz to a room that was already buzzing with insect life. Norman had pressed in earplugs and put on a sleep mask, and before I could even close my eyes he was mumbling in his sleep about snakes.

I pulled on my shorts, shirt and shoes and headed out to the hotel bar. A vodka on the rocks was the easiest sleep tonic I could come up with given the circumstances. There were a few people at small tables inside the dark, dank barroom. Vintage Bad Company was blasting out of a jukebox, and cue balls clacked from the next room. I hadn’t seen her sitting at the bar until I passed the dimly lit area. She was talking with the young bartender in fluent Spanish. A white smile nearly split the man’s face in two as he laughed at something she said. Her tanned shoulders were highlighted by a white tank top, and she’d pulled on a pair of khaki shorts. She had an incredible pair of legs. Since there were only a few people at the bar counter, it would have been strange and blatantly obvious if I sat several barstools away.

Ava and the bartender were still laughing at something she said when I sat on the stool. She glanced over. “Well, well, look who came in to be social.”

“Just came in for a vodka, hoping it will knock me out.” I held up a finger to the bartender. He looked disappointed that someone else had pulled the beautiful woman’s attention away from him. “Vodka on the rocks please.”

“How is Norm?”

“Sleeping like a baby with his earplugs and one of those satiny eye covers. Half expected him to pull a teddy bear out of his backpack.”

Ava chuckled. “You’ve got to give him credit for doing his thing and not caring what anyone else thinks.”

“I guess we could all do with a little more of that.” I raked my hair back with my fingers. Suddenly I wished I’d at least glanced in the mirror before I walked out of the room. Not that I’d expected to run into Ava in the bar.

“So, I’ve dropped a confession about my insomnia. What about you? I know you’re not an insomniac because you slept like a baby through a mostly rough flight.”

“That took years of training on hundreds of long flights. Trust me, that flight was like floating on a sea of cream compared to some I’ve been on.”

The bartender handed me the drink. “It was rough enough to make you grab my hand.” I took a sip as she glared at me with that amazing green gaze.

“I’d been in a deep sleep. You know, that luxurious state of bliss that those of us without insomnia can manage any place and any time. So, you see, it didn’t matter whose hand it was, I instinctively grabbed for it because it felt like I was falling in my dream.”

I took another sip of vodka. It went down smoothly, and I was considering a second. “Then I won’t flatter myself intothinking that you grabbed my hand and used my shoulder as a pillow because you felt comfortable enough with me to take advantage.”

She laughed. “Take advantage of what?”

“My good nature, and obviously I exude that protective, strong kind of character that made you think I could somehow keep you from falling out of the sky.”

“First of all, you and I have different definitions of what ‘good nature’ is, and as I said, I could have just as easily grabbed Hank’s hand. You just happened to be on my right side.”

“And Hank’s was probably still sticky from the pastry you shared with him.” I put up a finger for one more vodka and pointed to Ava’s empty wineglass, too.

“No, I’m good,” she told the smitten bartender. He flashed her a smile before turning around to fill my glass.

“Come on, one more glass with your ole work chum.”

“I’ll wake with a headache, and since it seems all of the actual directing and management for this group will fall to me?—”

The bartender placed the next drink in front of me. “This was your project. I’m just along as a second staff member.”

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