Lessons from a Latin Lover Read online

  “But we already do, Carson and I. I told you that.”

  Forget Carson, he wanted to say. But he was the reason they were here, of course. So Joaquin raked his fingers through his hair and said, “There must be things about him that you don’t know. What makes him tick? What drives him? What matters most?” He was talking off the top of his head, just wallowing in the green magic of her eyes. “Do you know all that?”

  “I—maybe not,” she admitted. “Or I wouldn’t be doing this, would I?”

  “Exactly. So you focus. You pay attention to him. You ask questions. Yes?”

  “Okay, yes.” She sipped her beer and did that quick tongue thing to her lips again.

  Joaquin felt his blood run hot and did his best to distract himself. “So you try, all right?”

  She touched her upper lip with her tongue. “You mean, ask about what he—you—most care about?”

  “Yes.” And stop doing that thing with your tongue!

  “All right.” Molly nodded, pressed her lips together and looked down into her glass a long moment, then she lifted her gaze and met his. “Are you afraid to come watch Lachlan and the kids play soccer?”

  “What?” He stared at her, gut punched.

  “You don’t come. I know he’s asked you. But you never come.”

  His jaw clenched. “I don’t talk about soccer,” he said harshly.

  She looked genuinely surprised. “Why not?”

  “Because—” He hesitated. He didn’t want to continue. Didn’t want to go there. But there didn’t seem to be any way out. The noise and commotion in the bar swirled around them, but he didn’t hear any of it. He heard the roar of blood in his head and the echo of Molly’s frank question.

  “Wrong question?” she asked gently when he didn’t reply at once.

  His fingers tightened on the glass he held. He let out the breath that seemed to be choking him. “No,” he said honestly. “I asked for it.” Because he had. He’d challenged her—and she’d challenged him right back.

  “I don’t talk about it because it makes people uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable.” He swallowed. “It hurts.”

  He expected some platitude, a you-don’t-know-how-lucky-you-are comment like many he’d heard when people learned he’d recovered from the paralysis with no real lingering physical damage.

  But Molly didn’t say that. She didn’t say anything for a moment. Then she nodded. “It must,” she said. “I can’t imagine, having your life snatched away in an instant.”

  That was it, exactly.

  “I saw what Lachlan went through when he quit. He needed to find his place, find out what he was without soccer being the focus. But it was his choice when he left. The way it happened to you—” she lifted her eyes and met his gaze sympathetically “—it must be like losing a part of yourself, like losing a limb.”

  “My heart.”

  He had never said that aloud. Had never admitted to anyone how deep the loss had cut. He’d been stoic, determined. First to recover, to play again. Then to cope resolutely when he could not. His whole demeanor had been unstintingly positive. Relentlessly upbeat.

  Of course he was lucky. He knew that. He even said it when everyone else did. And he would be fine, he assured them all. And he’d bottled all the pain and disorientation up. It seemed insignificant compared to other peoples’ problems. It was insignificant. He knew that.

  He had so much to be grateful for that it seemed churlish to complain about the one thing he couldn’t do. So he never had.

  He still didn’t complain, but because Molly sat there, sipping her beer, focusing on him, listening to him, encouraging him by her silence, he talked.

  Slowly, wryly almost, he talked about what soccer had meant to him from the time he’d been a little boy. How it had been a way of being himself and not just a part of the Santiago corporate empire. Playing soccer was to do something that no other Santiago did. His father had rarely even come to see him play.

  Molly had been surprised at that, and indignant on his behalf. But Joaquin had shaken his head. “It didn’t matter to me,” he said. “I didn’t do it for him. I did it for myself. Soccer was mine. It was where I belonged. Where I grew up. Where I learned what mattered.”

  He talked about how he loved the blend of teamwork and individual skill, of talent and sheer hard work, of a hundred things he hadn’t even realized he thought or felt. About the challenge and the glory and how you didn’t get one without the other. About how it called forth reserves he didn’t even know he had.

  He started slowly, but as he talked, it was as if the trickle became a flood, and once begun, he couldn’t stop.

  Molly didn’t try to stop him. On the contrary, she nodded, listening intently, rarely speaking except to ask a question or make a perceptive comment.

  So he was stunned when, not long after, she said, “I guess we’d better let Michael lock up.”

  “What?” He looked around to see that almost everyone had cleared out and the bartender was wiping down the bar. Disbelieving, he stared at his watch. It was nearly one. “I talked the whole night?” He was mortified. “Why didn’t you tell me to shut up?”

  Molly laughed. “Because I didn’t want you to. Easier for me to listen.”

  He grimaced, aware of how much he had told her that he’d never told anyone else. The woman was a sorceress, he thought irritably. “I was supposed to be teaching you,” he said gruffly.

  “You did.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “You gave me some confidence. It’s nice to know that a superhero can bleed like everyone else.”

  He stared at her. “What?”

  She winced and her face flushed. “Sorry. Lack of tact strikes again. I just meant, you’re always so capable. So in control. Nothing every bothers you. It was…I don’t know…comforting, I suppose…to discover you’re human, too.”

  “I’m glad you’re happy now,” he said crossly.

  “Don’t.”

  He frowned. “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t spoil it.” She gave him a smile—a genuine, heart-felt Molly McGillivray smile that did odd things to his insides. “It was very nice. Really. I don’t mean your pain was nice. But that you…shared it.” She shrugged awkwardly. “I had a good time.”

  “Listening to me spill my guts.” He still didn’t like it. He hated feeling exposed, but it was his own fault. “Come on,” he said gruffly. “I’ll walk you home.”

  “You don’t—” she began, then stopped and smiled. “All right.”

  An agreeable Molly McGillivray was more unnerving than a contrary one. Especially when she waited politely for him and rested her hand on his arm as they went out the door.

  “I thought we weren’t touching,” he said.

  “That was then,” she said breezily and patted his arm.

  Definitely unnerving. But he went along with it, steered her out the door and down the steps and onto the pavement where he expected she would pull back. But she didn’t.

  Everything he’d told her earlier about touch and connections was absolutely true. And the feel of her fingers on his arm made him increasingly aware of it.

  “How am I doing?” she asked.

  “What?” He dragged his mind back to the purpose of the exercise. “Fine.” He cleared his throat. “You’re doing fine.”

  Too damn good as a matter of fact. First she got him to spill his guts. Now she was turning him on with the merest touch of her fingers.

  “There’s almost a full moon out tonight,” she said.

  “I didn’t notice,” he said, walking a bit faster, wanting to get her home.

  “I would think that would be something I should take advantage of.”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” he said sharply.

  She stopped. “What do you mean?” she looked at him wide-eyed and guileless, and he could see her very clearly in the moonlight she’d just mentioned.

  “I mean you need to take it slowly. One ste
p at a time.”

  “But you said I was doing fine.”

  “Who’s teaching whom?” he snapped.

  She looked chagrined. “You’re saying I’m being too forward?”

  “No! Yes! I—” He raked a hand through his hair. “I just think you need to, um, pace yourself. Let Carter take the lead.”

  “Carson doesn’t seem to want to take the lead,” she reminded him. “If he did, we wouldn’t be doing this.”

  “Right,” he said distractedly. “But it’s late. And you’ve done enough for one night.” He started to take her hand and head up the hill, then thought better of it and jammed his into his pockets. But he did start walking, and was relieved when she hurried to catch up with him.

  Neither spoke the rest of the way up the hill to her house. He opened the gate and held it for her to go through, which she did. But instead of going straight on up to her door, she stopped.

  “Should I invite you in?”

  “No!” He swallowed and moderated his tone. “Not on a first date,” he explained.

  “But it wouldn’t be my first date with Carson.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said firmly. “Go on in now.” Before he changed his mind and took her up on it. “Good night.”

  Molly smiled at him. “Buenas noches, Joaquin. Gracias.”

  Her soft Spanish sent a curl of desire right through him. “Buenas noches, Molly,” he said gruffly. “Now go inside.”

  She started to move away, then stopped. “What about good-night kisses?”

  He felt a strangling sensation in his throat. “Molly!”

  “I know, I know. I’m rushing things. It’s too soon. I’m too pushy.”

  She said it all for him, so he didn’t have to answer, which was good because he didn’t have the words and he would have been happy to kiss her senseless. Instead he silently pointed toward her door.

  Molly grinned, then reached out and touched his hand fleetingly. “Thanks.” Then she turned and hurried away. He breathed easier as he shut the gate.

  But on the porch she stopped and looked back. “Joaquin?”

  “What?” He kept his voice carefully neutral.

  “When do I get my next lesson?”

  “We’ll see.”

  “I need—”

  “We’ll see, Molly!”

  He had to recover from this one first.

  CHAPTER THREE

  IT WAS A BIT LIKE walking on a tightrope, this seduction business.

  Exhilarating. Heady. Awesome.

  A little bit scary when you got right down to it. The sizzle, the spark, the almost electric connection she’d felt every time she’d stared into Joaquin Santiago’s eyes last night was like nothing Molly had ever felt before.

  She’d practically been caroming off the walls when she’d got home. Her brain had been buzzing with all the things he’d told her—about himself, about his life, his family, his feelings about soccer—all of it so totally unexpected, so completely not the sort of inane boy-meets-girl small talk she’d expected he would drill her in, that she couldn’t sleep.

  She tried. But she tossed and turned and muttered and rolled. She tangled herself in the sheet and twisted so much that once she almost fell out onto the floor. Finally she got up and made herself some of Auntie Esme’s sleep potion which, with its reliance upon a generous dollop of rum, on top of the beer she’d drunk at the Grouper, finally did the trick.

  So she slept. But even in sleep, her brain was busy creating the most incredible dreams. Vivid dreams. Sensual dreams. Erotic dreams.

  Molly couldn’t remember ever having had an erotic dream in her life. But she did now—and all of them were about Joaquin Santiago!

  Last night she’d been eager for more lessons. Today she realized that it was a very good thing Hugh had deputized her to fly a bunch of tourists to Nassau for the whole day while he was in Miami.

  It would give her a little breathing room, some time and distance to regain her equilibrium and sort out the dreams—and the feelings—Joaquin had evoked last night.

  They were, she reminded herself as she gobbled down her breakfast and ran a comb through her hair, nothing more than the feelings she’d been hoping for. Feelings of awareness of herself as a woman, of sexual attraction for a man, of the desire to flirt with him, the urge to entice him. And more.

  In fact they were exactly what she’d been looking for.

  Of course they were about the completely wrong man!

  But—and it was important to keep this firmly in mind—at least the feelings existed.

  Deep down in a place Molly didn’t even want to acknowledge, she’d begun to be afraid they might not. Ever since her brothers had courted and married their wives, Molly had begun to realize that what existed so far between Carson and herself was nowhere near as intense as what existed between Lachlan and Fiona and Hugh and Sydney. Recently, though, she’d begun to worry that the problem wasn’t her lack of feminine wiles, but, in a word, frigidity.

  After last night she was no longer worried about that!

  She grinned now, feeling lighter and still more exhilarated than she had in weeks. Maybe she would go shopping for a dress while she was waiting. She’d feel better about doing it there where local eyes wouldn’t be speculating on just exactly what tomboy Molly was up to.

  Maybe she would wear it for her next “lesson.” Grinning, Molly hurried down the hill toward the dock where a group of tourists already gathered waiting for her by the launch that would take them out to the sea plane for their journey to Nassau and a day spent doing the galleries and museums learning about the cultural blend in Bahamian art.

  “Hope I’m not late,” she said to Sophy, the tour leader.

  “You’re right on time,” Sophy said. “We just got here, too. We picked up a last-minute participant who needed to get to Nassau. I hope that’s not a problem.”

  “Of course not. Always room for one more,” Molly said, beaming at the group. They were mostly middle-aged, mostly well heeled, mostly European travelers in search of a little art, a little culture and a not-too-far-off-the-beaten-path holiday, with a bit of shopping thrown in.

  “Gracias,” a smooth familiar masculine voice said, and the group parted enough so that she found herself staring into Joaquin Santiago’s deep-brown eyes.

  Completely unbidden, Molly’s heart kicked over in her chest, her brain was seized by a kaleidoscope of all the fantasies she’d entertained last night, and she was sure her cheeks had gone scarlet.

  “You! What are you—” she sputtered.

  “I believe we talked about more lessons?” He was smiling at her.

  “Not now!” Molly was horrified.

  “Lessons?” Sophy’s hearing was, sadly, excellent, her expression bright and inquisitive as she looked from one to the other of them. “What sort of lessons?”

  “Flying lessons,” Molly said quickly before Joaquin could even open his mouth. “He’s interested in taking flying lessons. We were discussing it last night,” she said, lying through her teeth.

  “Is that what you were talking about? I noticed you two huddling together at a table in the back at the Grouper,” Sophy said. “You looked very…intense.”

  “It’s a big commitment,” Molly said. Then she turned to Joaquin. “But today is probably not a good day. I’m going to be gone all day.” She gave him a speaking look, one which she hoped he understood meant go away.

  “Oh, I’m sure I can learn a lot just watching you.” He gave her one of his most dazzling smiles, his own expression daring her to challenge him.

  Molly didn’t take the dare. Not in front of Sophy and half a dozen interested bystanders. “Suit yourself,” she said gruffly. “But I’m going to be very busy.”

  “Not all day, surely,” he countered, then grinned. It was one of those flirting grins he bestowed on women he met in bars. She’d seen him do it a hundred times or more.

  Was this the lesson, then?

  She felt disoriented and con
fused and last night’s heady power was fast evaporating. Because she could think of nothing useful to say, she shook her head and turned away, trying to get her mind on her work and off Joaquin Santiago.

  “Come along,” she said to the rest of the group. “Let’s get in the launch.” She and Hoby the boatman helped everyone in. Molly made sure she stayed as far from Joaquin as possible. She didn’t need him distracting her, and she didn’t need him giving Sophy any information for the island telegraph. So she concentrated on talking to a couple from Oxford, all the while wishing she weren’t so aware of every move Joaquin made.

  When they reached the plane, she scrambled in and left Sophy to figure out where everyone was going to sit. It was something she normally did herself as it was a good way to chat with the guests and make them feel at home. But today she didn’t feel at home herself. So she settled in the pilot’s seat and made herself concentrate on the preflight checks. That way she could remain aloof from the group and not have to watch the scramble among the women in the group to see who would get to sit next to Joaquin.

  It was a bit disconcerting moments later to look around and find him climbing in to sit next to her.

  “What are you doing? You can’t sit up here!”

  “Of course I can. I have to,” he added piously. “How can I learn to fly if I don’t?” He was laughing at her and she knew it.

  She scowled furiously. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  He shrugged. “I’m not the one who told Sophy I was taking flying lessons. She said I must sit where I could see what you were doing.”

  Molly gave him a narrow, steely look. But he just smiled and shrugged again. “It was very kind of her.”

  “Oh, yes, very,” Molly retorted drily. “This is not funny. This is my job.”

  “And of course I will let you do it. I will be happy to watch you do it, querida. Maybe I will let you teach me to fly.”

  There was something in his tone, a soft seductive note that sent a shiver right through her.

  “Stop that!” she commanded. “I have to think. I have to focus.”

  He folded his hands in his lap. “I will be as silent as a monk,” he promised.

  Yeah, right. As if that would make her less aware of him sitting just inches from her. She could see his khaki-clad thigh without even glancing out of the corner of her eye. When she moved her arm, her elbow brushed his sleeve.