Our Red Hot Romance Is Leaving Me Blue Read online

  “I’ll go in there with you, miss,” Brad Pitt said.

  They walked back into the room and Sophia perused the wreckage. Now everything was dusted with black fingerprint powder. When she had satisfied herself that nothing was missing, she told Brad Pitt, “I’m going to repack my things. I need another room. Preferably one close to the lobby. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

  With the security guard gone, Sophia scraped her toiletries off the bathroom vanity into her makeup bag with a one-armed sweep. In a matter of minutes, she repacked her suitcase, glad she had brought very little with her.

  She emptied the wine bottle down the bathroom sink, then returned to the room to put the remaining food in a sack. The open box of chocolate-covered cherries caught her attention. A piece sat there in its little paper cup and a half-moon bite had been taken out of it. The gooey white fondant center had spread over the bottom of the paper cup and the cherry sat there only half covered by a chocolate shell. She never bit into a chocolate-covered cherry for only half a bite. Doing so was too messy. She preferred putting the whole candy into her mouth and chewing and savoring the delicious mix of chocolate and rich fondant and maraschino cherry.

  Someone besides her had bitten into that candy. Her breath caught, her pulse quickened. “Oh, my gosh,” she whispered.

  With trembling fingers, she gingerly picked up the tiny white cup and placed it in the center of her palm. She carefully closed her fingers around the candy and closed her eyes, willing an image to come to her. Soon a sensation began to course through her and a filmy vision emerged.

  She was sitting at home in her living room, cozy and comfortable, with a bowl of popcorn, watching a movie. On the screen, a man was tossing her things around her hotel room, looking in earnest for something, but the vision didn’t reveal what. He was small, but he was not a juvenile. Nor was he a vagrant. He was well-dressed. Something was familiar about him, but she didn’t know what. If she knew a man that small, surely she would remember him.

  The image that had been conjured up from the oil company business card reappeared. She had assumed that man meant Justin harm, but perhaps she herself was who he wanted to harm. Perhaps the image wanted to harm them both. An unexpected shudder passed over her. With a gasp she opened her hand and the candy fell to the floor.

  Gran Bella had been right. She would keep quiet about this and watch and wait. Perhaps the image in her vision would make himself known.

  Sitting now in the safety of his SUV, John Patrick was bathed in sweat, giddy from an adrenaline rush. Yet, he chuckled. He knew he wasn’t living right, so how could he explain that things were falling into place for him?

  That Justin’s lady friend was staying at the Blue Mesa Inn, a hotel that still had keyed locks, was purely good fortune for John Patrick. The Blue Mesa was a nice enough place, impeccably clean inside and out, American owned and operated, but still a little behind times in the way of security. John Patrick had learned at an early age how to break in to locked doors. The knowledge had come in handy when his old man had locked the liquor cabinet or the desk drawer where he kept cash for emergencies.

  John Patrick reviewed the events. As soon as Felicia had dropped off to sleep, he had left the house and driven to Odessa and the Blue Mesa Inn. Even earlier than that, after discreetly following Justin’s lady friend to the hotel, he had pried her room number out of the nitwit at the reservation desk. His plan had been to pretend he had the wrong room and use his charm to work his way into a conversation with the woman and find out who she was. Justin had been so evasive about her identity, John Patrick felt he had no other choice. But when he found that she wasn’t in, he had taken advantage of the opportunity for a little breaking and entering, and had sneaked into her room to see what he could learn.

  Hearing the key in the door’s lock, he had quickly ducked into the bathroom, stepped into the tub and drawn the shower curtain closed. He stood there like a statue, holding his breath while the woman came into the bathroom twice. He had no idea what he would have done if he had been discovered. Mercifully, she finally left the room entirely, allowing him time to step out, grab a towel and wipe debris and footprints from the bottom of the tub and take the fire-exit stairs to the outside. And he believed not one damn soul had seen him.

  The break-in hadn’t given him all of the details he wanted, such as a portfolio or an interoffice memo might, or something else that would tell why Justin’s lady friend was here. The only information he gleaned was that she was a size eight and wore a 34C bra. And from a luggage tag, he learned that her name was Sophia Paredes of El Paso.

  That was enough to work on.

  Justin sat in his truck parked in his driveway for a long time, the upbeat emotion resulting from the pleasant dinner he had just had with Sophia overridden by dread of entering the house again. Guilt assailed him. He still loved Rachel, missed her more than he could ever express, but he was drawn in an inexplicable way to Sophia Paredes. At the same time, common sense told him nothing was wrong with that. He needed to move on. He was lonely. And he was too young to become a celibate hermit. All of his friends told him he could find someone—should find someone—and maybe have a couple of kids.

  He was more confused than ever.

  He pumped up his courage and stepped out of the truck. Entering the front door, he saw nothing different. The afghan was still folded on the end of the sofa. No magazine out of place, no roses on the coffee table. He walked into the kitchen for a glass of water and automatically glanced at the refrigerator door.

  Whoa!

  A new message was spelled out on the slick surface:

  BLEV IN SP

  “Oh, my God,” he whispered and began to shake all over. He quickly set down his water glass and gripped the edge of the counter. After a few seconds, the trembling passed. He looked around the room, “Rachel?” he asked softly. He stood in the center of the kitchen and made a circle, looking around the room. A shiver crept up his spine, but he was met with nothing but silence. “Are you here, Rachel? What are you trying to tell me, Rachel?”

  nineteen

  Sunday morning. Debbie Sue loved Sunday mornings. She had risen early and was dressed and had coffee on to drip when she looked across the kitchen and saw Buddy, his shoulder braced against the doorjamb. With his thick black hair sleep disheveled, his shadowed unshaved jaws and his body-builder physique, he looked bad-boy sexier than any grown man who was a serious-minded Texas Ranger should.

  “Hey, Flash, whatcha doing?” he said.

  She sailed over, planted a kiss on his lips and handed him a mug of freshly made eye-opening brew. “I tried not to wake you, honey-bunch. I intended to sneak out and give Rocket Man a sudsy bath and a massage. Lord, he’s cantankerous when he doesn’t get his rubdowns.”

  “Poor old horse. He’s probably got arthritis.” Buddy lifted his mug and sipped. “I’ve got a touch of it myself. When you finish with Rocket Man, wanna give me a massage?”

  Debbie Sue grinned, returned to the counter and dropped slices of bread into the toaster. “Not on your life, cowboy. The last time I agreed to give you a massage, I lost almost a full day.”

  He gave her his best Elvis snarl. “Can’t help it if I’m a hunk of burnin’ love.”

  Debbie Sue laughed with sheer delight. Last year, Elvis’s famous blue suede shoes disappeared in the middle of Salt Lick’s first-ever Elvis birthday celebration and Debbie Sue and Edwina had found the thief. Ever since, Buddy had been doing his imitation of Elvis’s trademark routines. If his tough-as-leather peers saw him this morning, they wouldn’t believe this was the starched shirt, don’t-baffle-me-with-bullshit James Russell Overstreet Jr. they knew.

  This was her personal, private Buddy, sharing the side only she ever saw, which made the moment all the sweeter. To Debbie Sue, his letting another woman see this part of him would be the worst kind of betrayal.

  In seconds, the toast popped up. She covered the slices with mounds of butter, then grabbed a paper towel an
d her mug and headed for the back door. “I’ll be at the barn if you need me, King.”

  “TCB, Little Mama.” Buddy pointed a finger at her and curled his lip, though, admittedly, seeing his lip curl wasn’t that easy, hidden as it was under his thick black mustache.

  When she approached the corral, Rocket Man nickered and pranced and displayed youthfulness that was no longer his. He had been her best friend and companion for more than twenty years, and properly cared for, he could last many more. She knew of people who had thirty-year-old horses. That’s what she wanted for her Rocket Man—more years filled with warm, sudsy baths and massages.

  A foot from the corral her cell phone blared “The Eyes of Texas.” She dropped the remainder of her toast on the ground for the birds and dug the phone from her back pocket. Checking the face plate, she saw the caller was Justin. She hadn’t heard from him since he had called about his brother-in-law last night. “Hey Justin, how’s your brother-in-law?”

  “Oh, he’s fine. It was a false alarm. Sorry I didn’t call you last night and let you know. I got tied up.”

  Debbie Sue could only hope he didn’t mean that literally. “Well that’s good, I guess. Has anything else happened at your house?’

  “Not a thing. Maybe y’all scared off whoever, or whatever, it was.”

  “Hmm, I wonder. Did you get a chance to speak to Sophia?”

  “Yeah, we, uh…well…uh, we had dinner last night. It seemed the reasonable thing to do.”

  Good Lord, the guy was stammering. Well, well, well. Wouldn’t Edwina Perkins-Martin, matchmaker extraordinaire, like to know this development? Debbie Sue straightened from assembling brushes and grinned. “Reasonable. Right.”

  “I mean, I did agree to pay for her meals while she’s here. I figured taking her to dinner was the smartest thing to do. That way, I can keep an eye on the expense.”

  Debbie Sue grinned all the more. “Oh, absolutely. Smart thinking. You’re right. Food was part of the deal all right, and you don’t want to let the cost of it get out of hand. Did y’all decide a time to reschedule the séance?”

  “Tonight. Seven o’clock. I hope that’s okay with you and Edwina.”

  Debbie Sue bit down on her lower lip. Man, this was a predicament she hadn’t counted on. Sunday was always and would forever be the one day of the week that was hers and Buddy’s alone. Edwina and Vic felt the same about their Sundays. Between Buddy’s job taking him all over half a dozen West Texas counties, sometimes with no more than a minute’s notice, and Vic’s long-haul schedule, a free Sunday was a prized day. Vic might even be leaving on a haul tomorrow.

  “Well, I don’t know…”

  “Oh, gosh, I’ll bet you don’t work on Sundays,” Justin said. “Doing the séance would cut into the time you and Edwina have with your husbands, wouldn’t it? You’ll have to excuse me. I’ve taken off work for the next couple of weeks and when I’m not following my routine schedule, I completely lose track of time.”

  “I know what you mean,” Debbie Sue said. “It’s just that—”

  “Please don’t apologize. It’s me who should apologize. I didn’t think.”

  “But it’s your money we’re talking about,” Debbie Sue said. “If we don’t do it tonight, Sophia could be here another day or more. And you’d have to pay for it.”

  “Yeah, I see what you mean,” Justin said slowly. But then in a much brighter tone, he said, “I guess I’ll just have to deal with it.”

  Oh, yeah, Debbie Sue thought. Edwina would definitely like to know about this new development.

  Debbie Sue agreed to tomorrow night and snapped her phone case shut. “Rocket Man,” she said, scratching the horse’s ears, “something’s haunting Justin Sadler and I don’t think it’s his ex-wife.”

  Sophia awoke to the sound of air brakes outside her shrouded ground-level hotel-room window. Her new room at the Blue Mesa Inn was exactly the same as the one she had vacated, except for a ground-level view of the front parking lot instead of a weedy vacant lot. And that was the worrisome part of her move.

  Before going to bed, she had engaged the chain and the deadbolt and wedged a chair back under the doorknob—in case someone broke through the other hardware without waking her while she slept ten feet away. She half expected visions of the mystery man to haunt her slumber, but she had slept undisturbed until the big rig jockeys started their engines. Unfortunately, the light-blocking curtain did nothing to block out noise. She rolled over and glanced at the bedside clock radio. Ten o’clock? Surely it wasn’t really ten o’clock. She often told her friends that if she slept past seven in the morning they should call an ambulance for her.

  She plodded to the bathroom, stopping briefly to pick up the small carafe that was a part of the courtesy coffeemaker the hotel furnished. Assembling it took more dexterity and patience than she owned this morning. She overfilled the coffeemaker and the excess water spread across the vanity. Crap. She grabbed a bath towel and soaked up the water.

  Reaching back, she turned on the shower and allowed it to run while she gathered her toiletries from the suitcase she had thrown together the night before. In the bottom was the box of chocolate-covered cherries. She lifted it out, removed the lid and stared at the half-eaten piece.

  How could something as innocuous at a piece of chocolate missing its gooey center bring her such dread? In a sudden show of moxie she grabbed the paper container with her fingertips, carried it back to the bathroom and flushed it down the toilet. “Take that, you short, mysterious man.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the hotel’s ringing phone brought her out of the shower. She didn’t know how many rings she had missed, but given that no one except Justin and the Domestic Equalizers knew she was here, she rushed to answer and stubbed her toe on the corner of the bed box. Ow-owow. She grabbed the receiver and blurted a hello.

  “Hi, Sophia. This is Justin. How are you this morning?”

  Immediately, tension from the morning’s trivial events disappeared. His voice had a soothing effect that was wonderful, yet troubling at the same time. She was supposed to be here helping him and all she had done thus far was share meals with him, enjoy his company and elicit a reaction from an outside party by mentioning pearls. None of that was what she had expected on her first official spirit hunt. “I’m good, thanks. I’m a little embarrassed to admit I’ve been up less than an hour.”

  Justin’s laugh was so warm and sincere it surrounded her like a warm blanket. She smiled too, and tucking her foot and throbbing toe beneath her, took a seat on a nearby chair.

  “Uh, listen,” he said and she heard uncertainty in his tone. “Tonight isn’t going to work for Debbie Sue and Edwina. It was presumptuous of me to assume they’d be available. I feel terrible. So far you’ve come all the way up here for nothing.”

  Sophia suppressed her impulse to tell him he was wrong, that the time she’d been here, notwithstanding the break-in, had been wonderful. “I hope nothing’s wrong.”

  “No, not at all. It’s just that they want to be with their husbands, it being Sunday and all.”

  “Oh, that’s understandable,” she said, but she was already trying to figure out what she would do the rest of her day. She knew no women friends in the area other than Debbie Sue and Edwina. She had no spare money to shop. She didn’t even have the money to browse, with gasoline being so high. Her expenses might be covered, but she hadn’t been reimbursed for them yet. The only other person she knew was Justin.

  Would she be too forward to suggest they do something together?

  After a couple of seconds, he said, “I’m going to ride the horses again today. Would you like to come along? Debbie Sue says those two horses are kind of buddied up. It’ll help me if someone else rides the other one.”

  “Buddied up?”

  “That’s a horse term Debbie Sue used. When horses spend all of their time together, they don’t want to be separated. The one that gets left behind gets upset. It’s kind of like being barn-sour.”
r />   “Oh, I see. Gosh, Justin, I haven’t ridden a horse since I was a young girl. My best friend back home had horses, but like I said, it’s been years.”

  “Debbie Sue says it’s a skill like anything else. The more you do it, the better you get. Maybe it’s like riding a bicycle. Once you know how, it comes back to you, even if you haven’t been on a bicycle in a while.”

  “And the calmer the horse, the less you get bucked off,” Sophia added with a laugh.

  “Yeah,” Justin agreed, laughing also. “You’ve certainly got that right. These horses should be calm. They’ve been brushed and petted to the max in the last few days. So do you want to give it a try?”

  “I’d love to. I can be there in an hour. Should I bring something for our lunch?”

  “Thanks, but don’t bother. My fridge is full of food. We’ll throw something together here and take it with us. We’ll just turn this horse ride into a picnic.”

  “That sounds terrific, Justin. See you soon.”

  twenty

  Justin tossed the phone on his bed, plopped a Dallas Cowboy insignia cap on his head and walked outside.

  He had spring in his step and even whistled a tune as he marched to the horse corral. He felt great.

  The mares stood at attention, ears tipped forward and stiff, watching his every step. Perhaps their mood matched his. “Hey, girls,” he said as he slid the bar on the corral gate to the left and squeezed through the opening. “Ready to do it again?”

  The horses nickered and milled around. He took that as a yes.

  He dragged a blanket and saddle from its tree in the tack room and began to saddle the most cooperative horse, being careful to duplicate the steps Debbie Sue had shown him yesterday. When he had both horses saddled, he filled a bucket with oats and emptied it into the two feeders. Strangely contented, he watched the horses eat until an approaching vehicle caught his ear.