She narrowed her eyes. “But how did you know that?”
“It’s a no-brainer, darlin’—you were way too awestruck by the number of my siblings.” He made a rude sound. “Only someone who’s never dealt with a brother or sister of her own would have that reaction.”
“Maybe I was just astounded that your folks would continue having kids after they rolled you off the production line. No, wait.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You must be the baby of the family. Otherwise, they surely wouldn’t have risked having more like you.”
To her surprise he laughed. “Good one. I’ll have to remember that for Kate.” He met her gaze. “The actual baby of the family. But getting back to you, you had your parents’ undivided attention and you want me to believe you weren’t spoiled rotten?”
It was her turn to snort. “This may come as a shock to you, Kavanagh, but I don’t particularly care what you believe. But as for Nancy and Brian’s undivided attention—my ass, I had that. They shipped me off to boarding school in the States when I was thirteen so they could concentrate on other people’s kids.”
“Whoa.” He stared at her, and for a second she felt a hint of vindication. She knew playing the unwanted-kid card was not cool and, yes, probably smacked of juvenile gamesmanship. She usually put a much better face on things so people wouldn’t realize how much it had destroyed her to learn her parents’ love had come with an expiration date. But he was just so darn smug that it had slipped out.
Apparently she’d misread what she’d taken for sympathy, however. He merely raised those expressive brows and gave her a cool look from his dark, heavily lashed eyes. “And you’re complaining about that? I wish I’d been sent to boarding school. I had to share a bedroom with three brothers.”
“Oh, poor you.” She had to swallow a hot ball of rage at his lack of appreciation for something she’d have given everything she had to possess. “It must have been hell having to put up with companionship and always having someone on your side.”
“Hey, you live in a twelve-by-twelve-foot room with a bunch of big slobs, then we’ll talk.” He thrust a forefinger at her ever-present tote. “You got a bottle of water in that thing?”
She pulled one out and barely resisted throwing it at his head. She did shove it a little harder than necessary into his stomach and took her satisfaction where she could when a quiet “Oof!” burst from his throat.
That contentment died an abrupt death when he lifted his shirt, studied the rock-hard abs he’d exposed and said, “Sure hope that doesn’t bruise my delicate skin.”
Damn him.
It didn’t help that he was Mr. Self-Possessed while she felt like a cartoon character about to have steam explode from her ears with a strident end-of-shift whistle from the sheer overload of bottled-up frustration.
And, fine, lust as well.
But she would cut her tongue out before she’d give him the satisfaction of knowing he was getting to her. Watching him turn away to pour the water into the radiator, she acknowledged that it was too late to unsee the hard ridges of his abdomen and the silky stripe of dark hair that bisected it. She could, however, shove it into a far, dark corner of her mind. And act like the adult she’d been since striking out on her own at eighteen.
But, good Lord. If she behaved this Maggie-middle-school over spying a little man skin, she’d clearly gone far too long without getting any.
She was going to have to do something about that when she got back home.
WHAT THE HELL are you doing, Kavanagh?
It was an excellent question, but Finn shrugged it aside in favor of transporting his backpack and an old beat-up carry-on suitcase Mags had retrieved from the trunk of the car into the tiny room they’d rented for the night in an El Tigre version of a B and B.
He gave the place a cursory glance. Boardinghouse was probably a more accurate description and he gazed over his shoulder, curious to see Mags’s reaction to their accommodations.
She didn’t even seem to notice. She looked worn-out and discouraged as she trudged behind him, that big ol’ purse of hers, which she’d been hauling around with such panache, all but dragging on the floor.
Something about the discouragement her posture conveyed made his gut clench.
Not that her expression lasted once she noticed him looking at her. Because the instant she did, her slightly cleft chin jutted skyward.
Masking the involuntary smile wanting to spread across his face, he dropped his pack and the suitcase to one side of the doorway just inside the cramped accommodations. Then he took one look at the narrow bed and any inclination to smile was wiped away. “I’ll take the floor.”
Given a choice, he’d have taken a different room. But of the three townships they’d come across during the hours spent driving south toward the Amazon, this was the only one that had offered a place with rooms to let. And this room had been the sole vacancy.
“Don’t be silly,” Mags said. “You paid for the room—you oughta sleep in the bed.”
“I’m a hiker, darlin’.” He tapped his backpack with the side of his foot. “I have everything I need right here.”
Looking around, he gave the room a closer inspection. The bedspread was threadbare but immaculate, and not so much as a fleck of dust marred the small scarred dresser next to the bed or the carved crucifix hanging above it. The only other amenity to grace the tiny room, a sturdy wooden chair, held two neatly folded towels and washcloths. All four were thin in texture but blindingly white beneath the light from the dresser lamp.
He turned back to Mags. Her I-don’t-need-your-stinking-help attitude, which seemed to blink on and off like 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.
