Collision Course: A Romantic Thriller Page 8

  Cooper was already stepping through the threshold and right into Ruben’s face.

  “What the fuck is going on?” he bellowed. “You call in sick, you don’t return messages from me or Suzie or Howard! What’s up, Ruby?”

  Ruben saw that Cooper was out of breath and his face was red with anger and his eyes clouded with worry.

  “You don’t look sick to me,” Cooper said.

  “That’s because I’m not.”

  Cooper’s face suddenly went wide with shock as he saw

  someone walk out of the kitchen. “Uh, hello.”

  “Ruby?” Zia was behind him now and her voice was soft and hesitant. “Is everything okay?”

  “Zia, this is my best friend, Jim Cooper. Coop, this is Zia.”

  Cooper put out his hand and Zia stepped forward. Because her right arm was in a cast, she offered him her left.

  “Very nice to meet…” Cooper stared at her, then at the cast, then at Ruben, and laughed before he could stop himself. “Very nice to meet you Zia. How’s it going?”

  She nodded silently.

  “Well.” Cooper breathed deeply and grinned. “Ruby? Walk me to my car?”

  “I’ll be right back.” Ruben tapped the door shut behind him. He wasn’t exactly sure how to deal with his friend, now leaning against one of the pear trees, looking quite smug.

  “Listen, I’m really sorry, Coop. I just haven’t had time to call you to explain.”

  “Explain what?” he asked with a dry laugh. “I’m a married man with a kid. I know all about this stuff.”

  Ruben looked away.

  “God. This sucks, Ruby.”

  Ruben’s eyes flashed. “I’m going to ask you to reserve judgment for a while. Can you do that? I really don’t need my best friend coming down on me right now.”

  “Is she still loopy?” Cooper stood up straight. “Please don’t tell me your taking advantage of a loopy girl.”

  “She never was loopy, no one’s taking advantage of her and she’s a woman, not a girl.”

  Cooper chuckled. “Fine, Mr. Sensitivity. So what’s going on? You said she was punked out with crazy red hair, didn’t you? What’s the story?”

  “It was temporary dye. I’m just trying to help her. She needs help right now.”

  Cooper lowered his chin and arched his eyebrows. “And you’re helping her do what, exactly? Forget her troubles? Perfect her blow job technique?”

  Ruben didn’t hit people. He rarely even got angry. He thought of himself as laid back. And he and Coop had always been loose with each other and what he’d just said wasn’t even out of line. But at that moment, he wanted to give his best friend a serious beat down.

  “Don’t ever say anything like that again, Coop. I am serious.”

  Cooper’s mouth dropped open. “Serious? How’s this for serious? Our story is breaking wide open and you are nowhere around! I found out Friday that Metro Internal Affairs is on to Salazar and Chisolm! Ruby, I’ve found seven more instances like the South Valley bust where there are huge discrepancies in what was found at the scene and what made it into evidence!

  “What?”

  “And one of your sources has been calling all day every day for you—she’s freaked out, has something urgent to tell you—and won’t leave her name or talk to me. I’ve called you at least six times, you big asshole, and you’ve just blown me off!” The air was roaring in and out of Cooper’s nose.

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Talk to me,” Cooper said. “What in the hell are you doing? Have you even checked your email?”

  “No.”

  “Fuck!”

  “I can’t think about work right now, Coop. I need a few more days with her.” Ruben ran a hand through his hair. “I promise I’ll call Howard right now, try to straighten things out, get us a little more time.”

  Cooper’s mouth still hung open.

  “And I promise when it’s all over I’ll tell you everything. But right now, as my best friend in the whole world, I need to ask you to cut me some slack and forgive me for disappearing on you. Can you do that?”

  Cooper shook his head and opened the driver’s side door to his Toyota sedan, then turned to Ruben. “Wait a minute. ‘Zia?’ Are you fucking kidding me? Don’t tell me this is some cutesy name you’re using because she doesn’t know who she is. Please, God, don’t tell me she still doesn’t know her name.”

  “No. Not yet, I don’t think.”

  Cooper stared at him for a second in disbelief. “Later,” he said. He got in and drove away.

  “What is this all about?” Howard asked. “I don’t mean to pry, but if you’re asking me for two weeks off out of the blue I need to know if you’re in some kind of trouble.”

  “I’m not in trouble, Howard. I’ve got some things I need to work out.”

  “Ruby.” Howard’s voice sounded even more pinched over the phone. “We have a wonderful employee assistance program that I know has helped some of our staff through rough spots and…”

  “I don’t need a therapist, Howard. I just need time off. I’ve never asked for something like this and I wouldn’t unless it was urgent.”

  “Does this have anything to do with the scene with Kovac the other day?”

  Ruben had to think for a minute. What scene? God, that seemed like years ago!

  “No. Nothing to do with Kovac.”

  “You’re certain about that?”

  “I’m certain.”

  Howard let loose with a sigh of resignation. “All right. Just keep in touch. Take care of yourself. And please seek out professional care if you need it.”

  Ruben grinned. “I will. Thank you.”

  “Ruby, you’re the best reporter I’ve got. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Thank you, Howard. And we need a few extra weeks on the evidence story.”

  He snorted. “I’ll give you three more weeks. That’s it. Not an hour more.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  “Ruby, don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Nope. Nothing stupid. You know me.”

  The first stop in Santa Fe was clothes. Zia said she didn’t mind wearing the blue ribbed shirt and jeans every day, but Ruben didn’t believe her. He gave her three hundred dollars to go shopping. She kissed him on the cheek and promised to pay him back as soon as she got her money.

  He left her in the fitting room of a boutique she seemed to like. It sold the kind of stuff Gina would wear, Ruben thought – hand-woven cotton and wool things and funky purses and other girl stuff. Zia assured him she was fine, so he wandered down the street into a jewelry shop, where he bought the first long gold chain he saw.

  She was waiting for him on the sidewalk.

  “Wow.”

  Zia had shed the hand-me-downs and now appeared in an ankle-length wrap skirt in muted greens and a pale green cropped V-neck sweater. Ruben’s eyes immediately went to the narrow gap between the sweater and low-riding skirt and saw the exposed belly button.

  “Do I look different?” Her hair fell in a sheet of blond satin over her shoulder and sparkling gold earrings dangled along her neck.

  “Yeah.”

  “Like the shoes?”

  Ruben laughed. She’d bought a pair of ankle boots in green suede with a big chunky heel. She spun around for him, and her hair whipped across her face as she giggled.

  “You fit right into the Santa Fe scene,” he said. “I got something else for you.”

  He exchanged her shopping bag for a long narrow jewelry box. Zia looked at him, puzzled at first and then she blushed. She opened it.

  “For your key,” he said.

  A sad smile moved across her face, and she handed the box back to him. For a moment he thought she had refused his gift, but then she reached under her hair and pulled the string over her head.

  “Can you fix it for me?”

  Ruby tore the string with his teeth and looped the chain through the top of the key. She held her hair to the side while he reached aro
und her and closed the clasp. Ruben inhaled the air close to her neck and laid his hands lightly on her shoulders. When she let her hair go, it fell in a heavy cascade over the tops of his fingers.

  She turned to him and his hands fell to his sides.

  “That was very sweet, Ruby.” She popped up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “Can we walk for a while?” She took his hand in hers.

  It was just another sun-drenched, seductive Santa Fe day. The brazen blue sky and red rolling hills provided the backdrop for the city’s showy accessories: a bright red painted door, the robin’s egg blue window sash, the line of red ristras along a porch, the rich green Spruce and Pine, the ornate white of the wrought iron park benches.

  The Palace of the Governors stretched out before them with its colorful, noisy open air market, crawling with tourists, Native Americans, musicians, and the usual New Mexican fringe element.

  Zia wanted to see everything, and they stopped at nearly every blanket spread out upon the sidewalk to examine pottery and jewelry and leather goods. They roamed into nearly every gallery and boutique in downtown Santa Fe.

  They were in no hurry. They looked at paintings, sculpture, blown glass, watercolors, textiles and photography. They stopped for coffee and spent the afternoon wandering through the Museum of New Mexico.

  At one point, Zia turned to Ruben and said, “There’s so much beauty here it hurts my eyes.”

  He agreed. Because all day he’d seen nothing but her.

  They had a quiet dinner at the La Fonda hotel, the standard for New Mexico’s particular brand of relaxed elegance. Zia sipped her wine and sighed with pleasure as she leaned back against her chair and crossed her legs.

  Ruben watched with a lump in his throat when the wrap skirt parted halfway up her thigh.

  He could write poems about those legs, he decided. He could write songs. Speeches. Sonnets. Epic novels. Breaking news stories. He respected those legs not only for their beauty but for what they’d been through, what they were capable of. He tried not to stare. He failed. He imagined how those legs would feel beneath his fingertips.

  A band had started to play an interesting combination of Spanish-influenced pop and jazz tunes. Zia was turned in her chair, watching the couples sway to the soft strains of Spanish guitar.

  “So what other kinds of dancing do you do?” Ruben asked, grinning as he rested his elbows on the table. “The polka? The funky chicken? The Macarena?”

  Zia leaned her head back and laughed. Ruben loved to watch her laugh. He loved to hear her laugh.

  “I think could manage whatever the occasion might call for, Ruben.”

  “Oh really?” He put down his wineglass and walked over to her chair.

  “Would you care to dance?”

  She put her hand in his and they walked to the dance floor.

  Very slowly, Ruben wrapped his arm around her waist and slipped his hand up under the cropped sweater. He spread his fingers wide across her back, pressing his palm to her warm skin, taking in as much of her as possible. Zia moved close and tucked her cast against his chest, lacing her fingers in his.

  “Thank you for a wonderful day, Ruby.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Now keep your clodhoppers off my new boots.”

  He laughed. “I’m an excellent dancer, you know.”

  “Oh really?” She was nearly as tall as him in those boots, and he noticed how easily she fit against the contours of his body. Ruby moved her to the Latin rhythm with the gentle pressure of his leg against hers, the nudge of his pelvis and the turn of his hip.

  Zia felt herself relax. She put herself in his care as he rocked her, moved her, held her close. It was their Santa Fe paux de deus, she thought with a smile.

  Zia’s eyebrows shot up in surprise when Ruben suddenly turned her, placed his leg between her thighs and pulled her tight. The wrap skirt separated across the front of her body and she felt rough denim of his jeans against the inside of her thighs.

  “Oh, boy,” she said, closing her eyes for a moment. “You really are a good dancer.”

  “Thank you.”

  Ruben knew how close he was to simply going for it. He knew he could easily crush her with kisses, grope at her, make a complete ass of himself right here in the middle of the crowded La Fonda dance floor.

  He forced himself to breathe easy instead, give her room inside his arms, offer her softness.

  Zia responded to his tenderness and turned her nose and lips into the side of his neck and breathed him in while he moved with her. She loved the way he smelled, like wood smoke and clean paper and bronzed skin. She loved the feel of his strong upper arm and shoulder beneath her hand.

  She let her lips find the tender place beneath his ear. It wasn’t really a kiss, she told herself. There was no contact and release. She just stayed there, afraid to move, afraid not to.

  “You feel good to me, Zia.”

  “You feel good to me, Ruby.” She leaned against him then, the full press of her body melding into his. She let her head fall to his shoulder. “And you are a good dancer.”

  “I can’t fly like you do.”

  She giggled into his neck. “No. But sometimes it’s nice to keep both feet on the ground.”

  On the hour-long drive home they didn’t talk much. Ruben chose his favorite classical guitar playlist as mood music. Zia listened to the ripple and strum of the notes and watched the moon over the dark, uneven ridge of land.

  A whisper of a smile spread across her face and her body hummed with the remembered touch of Ruben, the delight she’d felt in his arms, the safety she felt there.

  “Ruben?”

  “Mmmm?”

  “Will you take me to Taos Pueblo? Can I meet your

  grandfather?

  Ruben sputtered, laughed, and turned to her. “Why do you want to meet Old Gallegos?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, really. Maybe to know this place better. To know you better. Does that make any sense?”

  Ruben smiled. “I guess. But if that’s what you really want, you should meet my Uncle Frank first. Would you like to go to the ranch tomorrow? Do you ride?”

  “Horses?”

  “I’ve already seen how you ride motorcycles,” he said, grinning in the dark.

  Zia wrapped her arms around herself and tried to think. “I don’t think I’ve ever been on a horse in my life.”

  “Perfect, then.”

  Ruben’s head was spinning when they separated that night. He sat slumped on the couch. In his mind’s eye he saw clearly what lay ahead for him: very soon now, he would fall prostrate on the floor beside his own bed and begin to beg, wail, and slam his forehead against the cold tiles until she relented, until she let him slip in next to her.

  Shit. He wouldn’t even bother spreading out the blankets on the couch tonight. He went into the kitchen, where he stood for the longest time just watching the moon hover over the cottonwoods as they rustled with the tiniest of new leaves.

  In the bedroom, Zia lay awake, listening to the quiet, thinking of Ruby. How close had she come to letting everything happen tonight? So very close. The scent of him, the feel of his muscle and bone, the warmth that rushed from him into her… she felt drunk by it.

  Zia rolled over, buried her face in the pillow and let loose with a scream. It was that insane kiss at the dance studio that had her this crazy! Why had she done that? Why had she gone to him that way? It was almost as if she needed to share the power with him, pass it on to him, in order to make it real to herself, but how could she explain that to him? She had intended it to be a sweet kiss of thanks, but her lips touched his and she nearly attacked the man! What was wrong with her?

  “Auugghhh!” She thudded a fist into the pillow.

  What was wrong? She wanted him, that’s what, and the truth of that terrified her. She had nothing to compare this to. She had no way of knowing if she’d ever ached for a man this way. She didn’t know if she’d ever felt this mix of joy and confusion being near a m
an.

  She inhaled deeply. All this was perfectly understandable. She craved the touch of another human being. She needed something warm and safe and close, something to push away the black terror and loneliness she felt moving up in her, ready to surface. The fear was so dark and sour she could taste it.

  That explained her need. That and nothing more.

  She didn’t want to hurt him. It was unfair to ask for his touch and his comfort and only that. It was wrong, but the alternative was unbearable. Her desperation was so complete that she told herself if he demanded more than what she offered, she would comply, just for the touch of his skin, for the warmth of something alive and real.

  Zia got out of the bed and with trembling hands, tugged at the wrinkled tee shirt and smoothed down her hair. She walked out into the dark living room, her bare feet upon the cool tiles, and knelt at the couch. “Ruben,” she whispered.

  He wasn’t there.

  She saw him at the kitchen door then, silhouetted in silver moonlight, and nearly gasped. One beautiful, graceful arm reached out to the glass, his strong neck was bent forward, the masculine line of his body outlined in stark shadows. At that moment she knew it was only a matter of time before she would gladly give him anything he asked for.

  “Ruben?”

  His entire body stiffened at her voice and the feathery touch of her fingers on his arm. He swore he heard the sound of his own heart breaking.

  “Please hold me.”

  He turned to her, displaying a jumble of love and agony in his face that pierced her heart. He reached to embrace her and she caught his hand.

  “While I sleep? I have no right to ask you, but…”

  Ruben pressed a finger to her lips. Without a word, he followed her into his bedroom and waited while she pulled back the covers and got in first, turning her back to him. He came in behind her, fully clothed, and pulled the covers over them both.

  The bed was warm from her body. The sheets smelled like her, spicy and clean. As she leaned back against him, Ruben was once again at a loss about what to do with his hands. And his heart. He was a stranger in his own bed. He was a stranger to himself.

  Zia reached around and found his arm, and pulled his hand against her belly. She sighed, and Ruben felt her body move under his palm.