Red Leopard (The Vistaria Affair Series) (27 page)

He frowned a little. “There has never been a woman I wanted to see this, to bring here, to my place. Until now.”

She stared at him. “You’re not joking, are you?”

His hand, the one that did not prop up his head, had dropped to her waist. Now he idly stroked her skin, making the quiescent nerves twitch a little. “No joke,” he assured her. “You are the only one who has ever found her way this far into my life.”

This time she had no water and no time to disguise her reaction. The tears sprang without warning and rolled down the sides of her face. She did not dare say a word, for she knew she could not speak without sobbing. She did not wipe at her tears for she didn’t want to draw attention to them, either.

Nick wiped them for her. “Such courage,” he said. “You’ve dared much, haven’t you? Yet you’re overwhelmed by the mention of your own achievements. You think so little of yourself, Calli. I wish I could teach you to see better, to see how I see you.”

“I’m sorry,” she said at last when she thought she could speak and not betray herself further. “I didn’t mean to spoil the mood.”

“Nothing you could do could spoil the mood right now.” He brought his hand down to rest on her again, this time over her breast. “This is the time I like best, when the physical needs have been filled and raise their demands no more. Then, in the moments after it’s just emotion. Feelings.”

“Happy ones, they should be,” Calli said, and gave a little sniff.

“Happy, sad, regretful, it doesn’t matter what they are, for they are nearly always
truthful
ones and that is when you learn the most, if you watch for them.”

She put her arms around his neck and drew him down to kiss him, but did not answer. Above all else, she could not afford to let him see the truth.

* * * * *

They lingered by the pool until the sun was high.

Hunger drove them indoors in search of food. By the time the meal was prepared they were so ravenous, they did not bother with the dining room. They ate standing up in the kitchen.

After her last mouthful, Calli burped.

Nick laughed. “For such an uncivilized meal, only a very civilized espresso will finish it off properly.”

“God yes, coffee!” Calli agreed.

Right by her elbow, a phone rang. It was so unexpected she jumped sideways and turned to look at the counter, her heart hammering. Only Nick’s jacket lay there.

He reached past her to pick up the jacket and pull out a cell phone from the inside pocket. His eyes had narrowed, as if he was thinking hard, and his mind was miles away. In Lozano Colinas, she realized. That’s was where his mind was.

“
Sì?”
he answered. His frown deepened. Then he took a deep breath, the kind a person takes when they’ve received bad news. His eyes closed briefly.

Calli’s heart began to beat so hard it hurt. It wasn’t just the knowledge that this call marked the end of her time here. It was also the news that Nick now heard, that made him look suddenly much older than his thirty-plus years.

“
Gracias
,” he murmured and ended the call. He dropped the phone onto the jacket and leaned against the counter, his head low.

Calli rested her hand on his shoulder, unsure of whether he wanted comfort or not, but unable to stand by and watch him suffer alone. She didn’t prompt him to tell her about the call. He would, or he would not. She had no right to insist on anything, anymore. She simply shared her empathy in silence, knowing it was one of the last things she could do for Nicolás Escobedo before he went back to his life and the country he loved.

Finally, he straightened and picked up her hand and held it in both of his. His sigh gusted out. “Fighting has broken out at the mine on Las Piedras. Two Vistarians were killed.”

“Fighting? Who is fighting who?”

“Vistarians,” he said simply. His expression was bleak. “It’s the rebels, Calli. They’ve come down from the mountains, much sooner than we thought they would, and not where we guessed they would strike first.” He pushed his hands through his still damp hair. “I have to go.”

“Of course you do.”

“You must return to the city, you and Minnie, and you must wait for your Uncle to return from the mine. The army has standing orders to evacuate any foreign nationals, especially any Americans, as a first priority if violence breaks out. They will get him and his people out and back to the city. You must stay with him until we know if this is the beginning of a sustained attack or if it’s simply a skirmish.”

“Do you think it’s just a skirmish?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “The timing, the location, goes against all good strategic thinking, so there’s hope this is a single moment we are dealing with. But until we know for certain I want you in the city and safe.”

“Is the city safe?”

“Safer than Pascuallita.” He picked up the cell phone again, paused to think, then punched in a number. The conversation, all in Spanish, seemed to be with two people for after a short time he paused, then his manner became more abrupt and brusque. He closed the phone with a snap and thrust it into the jacket. He put the jacket on.

“Pack your things, Calli. Quickly. We must leave at once.”

Chapter Fourteen

Calli had heard that Pascuallita was four hours away from the city by road. Duardo managed the trip in three hours and fifteen minutes—a jolting, panic-inducing race that wiped any lingering emotions Calli may have held from leaving Nick.

Nick had driven her to Pascuallita and on the northern edges of the town, Duardo and Minnie stood waiting, Minnie’s bags at their feet. The phone call Nick had made just before they’d left his house had been to Duardo, she realized, setting up this meeting.

Duardo wore civilian clothes still, but he had his jacket folded up and tucked under his arm. From the way he carried it, Calli knew he had a gun inside the folds.

Without word or greeting, he threw Minnie’s bags into the back of the jeep with Calli’s. He hoisted Minnie up into the back, too, and Nick showed Calli how to unfold the two small jump seats there. She climbed into the back with Minnie, while Duardo settled behind the wheel of the jeep and Nick moved over to the passenger seat. Their unspoken coordination made it look like they were reading each other’s minds.

The sensation was eerie. Calli knew she watched two men well-trained in military arts going about their grim business. Because they were so well grounded in their work, no communication was needed.

Duardo pushed the jeep into gear and took off, wheels spinning. Calli grabbed at the rails surrounding the back of the jeep. Minnie gripped her other hand and held on as the jeep roared and rocketed downhill towards the coast. They turned onto sealed road after ten minutes, and ten minutes after that Calli saw the striped boom gates that marked the entrance to the army base. Duardo’s base.

Duardo pulled up right next to the boom gates, the red and white timber almost brushing Nick’s shirt sleeve. There came a shout from the gate house and a soldier wearing fatigues and a machine gun slung over his shoulder ran over to lean on the boom gate and lift it up.

Nick got out of the jeep and moved up to Calli’s side.

“Minnie, come to the front,” Duardo said.

Nick glanced around, checking for observers. With an acute disappointment, she realized that there would be no kiss goodbye, no soft words that would linger and give her comfort later.

“Go,” she said. “There’s no need to say anything.”

His hand, hidden by his body, rested over hers on the edge of the jeep. “I would have it otherwise. I would have asked for more time.”

She took a breath and swallowed, pushing back the childish wail building in her. “Really?” she breathed.

His eyes locked onto hers, holding her gaze. “Really,” he said softly.

“
Señor
,” Duardo said quietly. A warning.

Nick dropped his hand from hers. “Duardo is a very good driver and he knows the road to the city well. He will get you back to the city. Stay there. If the fighting continues, then you must leave the country as soon as you can. Promise me you will do this, if it comes.”

“I promise.”

He nodded and turned away. The soldier with the machine gun escorted him down the access road. Another jeep, this one painted in camouflage greens, waited with two soldiers in the front. The little back door hung open and waiting for Nick. The engine ticked over.

He didn’t look back.

Calli took another deep, controlled breath to fill the corners of her lungs and clenched her jaw.

“Do up your seatbelt,” Duardo said quietly to Minnie, who buckled her belt immediately. Duardo turned his head towards Calli. “You must hold tight, yes?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice thick with unshed tears.

He nodded and dropped the jeep into gear and drove off, accelerating hard.

The wind whipped her hair into her eyes and gave a legitimate reason for the tears that spilled down her cheeks.

* * * * *

Duardo pulled up at the apartment as the sun slid low on the horizon and they climbed from the jeep stiffly. Everything sounded muffled, for the wind and the roar of the jeep engine had desensitized Calli’s hearing. Duardo had not been content to sit behind slower traffic for longer than necessary and at times had slipped between the vehicle he was overtaking and oncoming cars with only inches to spare. He was very familiar with the road and knew exactly how much he could risk.

Once, he braked hard and stayed behind a wagon pulled by a 50s vintage Oldsmobile, even though the road ahead seemed clear. He’d shaken his head. “Too much traffic. More than usual. The news has scared them.”

A few seconds later she saw why he had not tried to pass the wagon. The road turned into a very sharp left turn, moving further down the valley, even though the terrain continued to slope smoothly along the cliff side, deceiving the eye. As soon as they had made the turn, he dropped the jeep into a lower gear and passed the truck with a snarl of the engine.

That had been one of the few times he had spoken and the only time he had shared his thoughts.

Now he carried Minnie’s luggage into the apartment, pausing while Calli unlocked the door. Minnie stayed at the jeep. Inside, Beryl struggled to her feet from the sofa, her eyes widening when she saw Duardo. He merely nodded at her and went back to the jeep.

Calli followed him. “You’re going back to Pascuallita?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not fit yet,” Minnie said, but she said it in a way that told Calli she knew that her argument would not sway him.

He shrugged. “I will be needed, anyway.”

“I know.” She sighed.

He pulled Minnie to him, his hand in her hair and Calli looked away, moved and embarrassed by the tenderness on his face as he looked down at her. She walked away until she could no longer hear the words in their whispers. When the jeep engine started up again, she turned back.

Minnie stood with her arms wrapped around her, as if she were cold, watching as Duardo turned the jeep around. He waved and drove away and as he turned the bend down the road, he waved again.

Then he was gone.

Minnie dropped her head and Calli moved to put her arm around her shoulders, knowing she wanted comfort. But she did not cry and she didn’t seem sad. She looked at Calli with a crooked smile. “He’s off to be a soldier. That’s what Duardo is, and I love him for it.”

* * * * *

Three hours later, Joshua arrived home, dusty and wrinkled, but calm. He took a moment to assure Beryl he was unharmed, as she fluttered around him. “They got us off the island first. Then they went back to help the Vistarians,” he said. “Escobedo said no harm would come to Americans, but I never thought they would sacrifice their own countrymen in order to live up to that promise.”

“Sacrifice?” Beryl said sharply.

“Two died in the first attack,” he said. “Two more, later. They were civilians, working the trucks. Hell, I knew one of them.” He sighed.

Calli thought of Duardo, itching to get back to base, but detouring by more than six hours to make sure he got her and Minnie home safely. Nick, who’s first thought and first action had been to arrange that safe return. “Vistarians are an honorable race. They have strength of character you don’t see very often these days.”

“No, by God,” Joshua agreed. He plucked at his sweaty shirt. “I need a shower, and then we must make plans and phone calls.”

* * * * *

For the next twenty-four hours they all remained in the apartment, with the television on the government station. The only other commercial Vistarian channel had abruptly gone off the air at midnight with no announcement or warning. The government channel faithfully reported the news as it developed, the anchorwoman speaking in subdued, sedate tones. Joshua, who’s Spanish was stronger than anyone’s, translated when asked but mostly he sat staring at the screen, his brow wrinkled, deep in thought.

They tried CNN, available on cable, but the States had not yet taken any notice of events in Vistaria and the major headlines focused on the President’s tour of a Detroit automobile factory. The Acapulco station merely mentioned that there had been a riot at the Garrido silver mine in Vistaria, but spent twice the air time reporting on Jose Escobedo’s daughter, Carmen, vacationing in Acapulco for the summer holidays, energetically celebrating her graduation from Yale law school with various American and Mexican celebrities who gravitated to the seaside resort every summer.