twisted and tied the scarf around her hair to disguise its color.
Finn cocked an eyebrow at her. “The crapshoot here being that Joaquin’s not all that smart.”
“Yeah. There is that. Still, I’m hoping someone drummed the idea into his head, because I think it’s my best chance to shake him.” She blew out an impatient breath. “But this is just a long-winded way around saying thank you for saving my butt. And that I hope you enjoy the rest of your time in El Tigre. It’s a great country.” Studying him, she tried to imagine him as a big nightclub kind of guy or wine enthusiast, both of which Santa Rosa offered. Somehow, though, he struck her as a bit too earthy to be either. “What brought you down here, anyhow?”
“The prospect of hiking this part of the Andes and maybe seeing a little of the Amazon.”
“Hiking, huh? That’s your idea of a vacation? Busting your butt, breathing thin air and sweating like a pony?”
His teeth flashed white. “Darlin’, that’s my idea of pure heaven. And one of the biggest perks? Not once in the wild have I gotten tangled up in a female’s problems.”
“Wow. You’re just an all-around silver-tongued devil, aren’tcha?” She sank to sit cross-legged on the floor and fished the pared-down version of her professional makeup kit out of her tote, then looked up to raise an eyebrow at him. “I bet people tell you that all the time.” Still, as they slowed to enter the first station she had to admit that if she was any example, he might have a point. Considering the only thing she’d contributed to his day so far was the prospect of getting shot or stabbed. Not to mention, until they were free and clear, the target she’d painted on his back.
“You should change your shirt,” she said. “And if you have a hat, it wouldn’t hurt to put that on, either.”
She half expected him to thump his chest in a me-big-man macho display, but he merely reached over his shoulders and grabbed two fistfuls of his Rat City Rollergirls T-shirt and hauled it off over his head.
Whoa! All the moisture in Mags’s mouth dried up as she stared up at his very nice, very buff upper torso. Honestly, a woman could light candles to that body.
The door swished open to display a couple of locals standing ready to board. When they saw her and Finn, however, they moved to the next car and a moment later, the door closed again. The gondola glided out of the station.
She was peering into a mirror, sponging foundation that was several shades deeper than her natural coloring onto her face, neck and hands, when the gondola jerked slightly as it approached her station. Nerves jittered through Mags’s stomach but she feigned calm while applying a coral lipstick that went with the scarf.
Fake it till you make it, that was her motto.
She threaded big silver hoops through her ears and returned the kit to her bag. After pulling out and donning her long-sleeved SPF shirt, she climbed to her feet.
As their car swung around the turnabout toward the debarkation point, she followed an impulse she knew she’d be smarter to suppress. She turned and crossed the short distance between her and Finn. Reaching up, she wrapped her palms around the back of his warm-skinned neck, curling her fingers to hold him in place. For one suspended moment, she looked into his eyes, which were now shaded by the bill of a faded Mariners cap. Then, rising onto her toes, she kissed him.
She’d intended something swift and sweet—a thank-you of sorts. But the instant their mouths touched, electric shock–like impulses hurtled through her veins and all she could think was gimme. And before she knew what was what, her lips had parted and she was kissing the bejeebers out of a man whose name she hadn’t even known a half hour ago.
Not that Finn was exactly a slouch when it came to getting with the program. Big-palmed hands slid down her back to grip her rear as he slanted his mouth over hers.
It took every drop of willpower she had to lower her heels back onto the floor, but she did so, breaking their connection. Stepping back, she touched a knuckle to her still-tingling lips. Then she slung the strap of her bag back over her head and, in an attempt to minimize anything that might set off recognition from Joaquin, positioned its bulk on the opposite side from where she usually wore it and slid on a pair of shades.
The doors whooshed open and she met Finn’s eyes. “Thanks again, Finn Kavanagh,” she said in a voice that sounded rusty. “You did your mama, three sisters, two grandmothers and boatload of aunts and girl cousins proud.”
Stepping out onto the platform, she slid on her iPod earphones. Then, pretending to move in time to music she hadn’t turned on, she carved a path for herself through the thankfully crowded station.
* * *
FINN STEPPED INTO the car’s open doorway to watch Mags salsa her way through the throng waiting to board. He ignored the people clumped up in front of the gondola even as they surged forward the second Mags cleared it. He was bumped and jostled but refused to budge. Instead, he did his best to keep Mags’s brightly patterned head-cover thing in view as his gondola inched along in one direction while she moved in and out of view in the opposite.
He was happy as a monkey with a peanut machine to have his vacation back, but he had to admit that while the past he-didn’t-know-how-many minutes had been far from relaxing, which, face it, was his chief goal for the next two weeks, they had sure as hell gotten his blood pumping. And as he’d watched her sit on the floor and transform herself with the help of only a few items, he’d found himself downright mesmerized.
And then there was the three-hundred-pound gorilla in the car. Her kiss.
Man. He hadn’t been expecting that and it had knocked his socks off.
Licking his bottom lip as if a ghost taste might have survived, he felt the cabin door trying to close against his side and stepped out onto the platform. He could always catch another car. But before he went whistling on his merry way, he intended to make sure Mags made a clean getaway.
His gondola glided away, then out through the turnabout and he crossed to one of the center pillars to get out of the flow of still fairly heavy foot traffic. With coloring closer to the El Tigrians, he didn’t stand out in the crowd the way Mags had before she’d worked her magic with the scarf and her face paints. Yet even so, he was an obvious gringo. So he found a spot in the shadow of a column that at least partially concealed him as he kept an eye on the two remaining cars that had entered the terminal behind his. Best-case scenario, Joaquin had caught the car still approaching. If that were the case Mags would be in the wind before the guy cleared his gondola.
But, of course, that would’ve been too easy, and even as Finn watched, Joaquin pushed past an elderly couple who were exiting the furthermost gondola, then stopped dead to survey the crowd. The cabin’s remaining few occupants split to flow around him like a stream circling a boulder.
The cartel enforcer, or whatever the hell he was, stood silently as seconds stretched into eternity. His gaze intent, he appeared to be sectioning the area into quadrants and scrutinizing each closely. After several moments that felt like hours to Finn, Joaquin turned back as if he planned to catch the next group of gondolas already entering the station.
Finn breathed a silent sigh of relief.
Prematurely, as it turned out, because Joaquin suddenly spun around, then leaped up onto a bench against the inside wall and stood on his toes, obviously craning to see something. Seconds later, he leaped down from the
