Seizing her window of opportunity, Anamaría put part one of her impromptu plan into action. “Señora Miranda, would you mind bringing Alejandro some water? It’s important for him to stay hydrated.”
“Ay, si, I will get it right away. Anything else, nena?” his mom answered.
“Maybe a small snack. I’m sure he’ll need to take his pain medicine soon. Right?” She directed the question to Alejandro.
Lips pinched with obvious discomfort, he nodded.
“¿Un sandwich de jamón y queso?” his mom asked.
“A ham and cheese sandwich would be great. Grilled, maybe?” Anamaría pressed, anxious to get his mom out of the room for as long as possible.
Not that Anamaría had any keen interest in being alone with him. But something wasn’t right, and he’d made it clear he didn’t want his mom to know.
As soon as the older woman left and the slap of her Kino sandals on the tile floor faded, Anamaría leveled a stern stare Alejandro’s way.
“Truth. On a scale of 1-10, what’s your pain level?”
“One,” he grunted as he pushed his hands into the mattress and tried shifting his position on the bed. His sharp intake of breath and full-body wince belied his answer.
“Try again, and don’t bullshit me. After what you’ve been through, this is no time to play He-man.”
“I was always more of a Batman fan, remember? You know, dark and dangerous. Lots of toys to play with.” His full lips twisted in what remembled more of a sneer than his cocky grin. The angles and planes of his haggard, yet somehow still handsome face tautened with anguish.
Heaving a beleaguered sigh, Anamaría set her backpack on the low dresser to the right of the door.
“Look, cut the crap, okay? It’s obvious neither one of us really wants to be here.” Her back to him, she unzipped her bag, purposefully keeping her gaze away from the square mirror hanging on the eggshell painted wall over the dresser. “Me, in this room. And you, anywhere on the entire island. But we can’t change that, so don’t make it any harder or more uncomfortable than it needs to be. Let me do my damn job, appease your mother, and then we don’t have to see each other again. Deal?”
The words sliced her throat like shards of her broken heart forcing their way up. She swallowed past the pain. Reminded herself of her vow to no longer allow a ghost from her past to haunt her present.
“You look good,” he said, his voice gruff.
Her stupid heart tripped, then lurched into a higher gear. Hands trembling, she cursed the injustice of her reaction to his words.
Unwilling to let him see the effect his too little-too late declaration had on her, Anamaría ducked her head, pretending to search for something inside her backpack.
“Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you look like death warmed over,” she countered.
If death sported several days of sexy scruff covering a square jaw, highlighting his angular cheeks and full lips, not to mention a head of thick, black curly hair, windblown and mussed in a carefree style some paid hundreds of dollars in hair product to achieve.
Not that she had noticed or anything.
Behind her, Alejandro gave a hoarse chuckle. The raspy sound sent an unwanted shiver of awareness skittering down her spine.
“What are you talking about, I just got off a cruise,” he complained.
“Practically a stowaway. Leave it to you to hitch a ride on a cruise ship because you’re not medically cleared to fly.”
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
And he’d obviously had no will to return home until he’d been forced.
She’d known this already. Still, hearing his confirmation hurt. Not that she planned to let him know.
Shoving aside her wallet inside her backpack, she grabbed the first aid kit. “Well, unlike the rest of the passengers, you neglected to disembark with a relaxed smile and new tan lines. And that souvenir of yours…it kinda blows.”
“I’ve been better,” he mumbled.
That made two of them.
A look under her lashes found him bent forward, tracing a finger along the top Izilarod ring.
“I’m wondering, is this is a new look or were you already going for gaunt and haggard before you went and slipped off that rock ledge while you were…” She set the kit and the bottle of sterile water on the dresser top. “Exactly what were you doing in the El Yunque National Rain Forest, climbing up the side of a waterfall, alone, anyway?”
When he didn’t answer, she glanced in the mirror again, surprised to find him staring back at her.
Dark eyes hooded, he lay sprawled on top of the comforter, a white and navy checked pillowcase covering the pillow tucked behind his back, matching the two under his knee. His lanky frame was too thin. His skin too sallow. And damn it, his magnetism too strong.
A couple months ago, his image on her cell phone screen had appeared larger than life. Mimicking the photographs that made him a sought-after talent. Broad shoulders and chest evident under a form-fitting grey tee tucked into a pair of black jogging pants cinched at the ankles. Muscular arms looped around a young guy on his left and a strikingly beautiful woman on his right, Alejandro shot a cocky, confident grin at whomever snapped the photo captioned “Ready to celebrate a successful shoot on location at El Morro, Viejo San Juan, Puerto Rico” followed by the camera and Puerto Rican flag emojis.
He didn’t post pictures of himself very often. When he did, she occasionally allowed herself a peek. Nothing more.
Even then, she couldn’t help noting the laugh lines raying out from the corners of his nearly black eyes. The faint grooves on either side of his mouth. Testaments of the laughter in his life. The joy he found in wherever he was and the people he spent time with.
The fact that she
