He didn’t buy it. “You traveled here alone to begin with.”
“But that was work. I didn’t plan on leaving the hotel where people knew me until Avery arrived. I can try and reschedule for tomorrow . . . unless Avery is still under the weather.”
Victor sat back, a smirk on his lips. “If you want me to go with you, just ask.”
She opened her mouth, pretending surprise. “The thought never crossed my mind.”
“Really?”
She didn’t meet his eyes. “No. You probably have plans.”
“My plans slipped out the back door on Saturday, freeing up my life’s schedule.” He leaned forward, grabbed her bill, signed his name and room number, and stood. “Go get your bathing suit on. I’ll meet you out front in thirty minutes.”
He left without waiting for her reply.
“This is a bad idea,” she whispered to herself, right before she left to do exactly what he suggested.
Chapter Thirteen
Shannon wore large rimmed sunglasses, her hair pulled back into a ponytail, and a cover-up that hid her swimwear underneath.
Victor didn’t have much of a chance to say hello before he jumped in the back of the van in board shorts and a T-shirt. Something he hadn’t worn in years.
Shannon tensed at his side.
Leo, their private tour guide, drove them away from Tulum’s beach road and out onto the main highway. He explained the history of the area and the booming tourist trade that had popped up over the past dozen years. The more the twentysomething-year-old kid talked, the more relaxed Shannon became.
Thirty minutes into their drive, Shannon unfolded her crossed legs and tight arms. She asked Leo several questions as they moved toward their first destination.
“The government doesn’t help to provide electricity and water to the hotels where you’re staying,” Leo told them. “Each hotel has their own generator and drives in their drinking water.”
“That must be quite an expense,” Shannon said.
“Part of the bill you pay to visit, yes?” he asked.
“It isn’t cheap.”
Victor knew firsthand how much Shannon and Avery were spending for their deluxe accommodations. Lesser hotels and smaller rooms without views probably did cost less, but it still wasn’t a budget vacation, even though some might think anything in Mexico would be.
“Worth it, I hope,” Leo said. “We need all the tourists.”
“Is the cartel as bad as what our media tells us it is?” Shannon asked.
Leo glanced in the rearview mirror. “Every country has their problems.”
Translation: yes!
Victor glanced at Shannon. Maybe her line about female traveler alerts was a thing. Sometimes he forgot how great it was to own a Y chromosome.
Leo pulled off the main road and down a rutted dirt path surrounded by the rain forest. He stopped at a checkpoint and said something in Spanish to the man standing there.
“I have an arrangement to visit this part of the beach. All these homes are private. No hotels.”
They drove for about two miles. Shannon pointed out the homes to him, suggesting the ones she liked and those she didn’t.
Shannon could see that even though the road leading to the place wasn’t anywhere close to what you’d find in the States, the houses were for the wealthy. Various stages of construction were taking place, building materials piled up along the short driveways or monitored gates.
“I keep looking for the monkeys in the trees,” Shannon said, staring out the window.
“We have tours for that, too.”
“Trying to sell us on another day, Leo?” she teased.
“A man needs to make money.” He laughed.
“Let’s do today first.”
Leo pulled into a small clearing that looked like it could be a parking lot and cut the engine. “You have sunscreen on, right?”
Shannon nodded, looked at Victor.
“I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
Leo looked over his shoulder. “Americans always fry.”
Shannon dipped into her bag and removed suntan lotion. “Here.”
Becoming a lobster was probably not the best way to spend the rest of his time in Tulum.
They stepped out of the car, and Victor poured a generous portion of lotion into his palm. He yanked off his T-shirt and oiled up his chest, arms, legs, and what he could reach on his back.
Shannon watched him while Leo stepped toward the man with the kayaks and snorkel gear.
After making a few slapping motions on his flanks, Victor turned to her and smiled. “Would you mind getting my . . .” He turned his back to her and handed her the sunscreen.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you planned this,” she said before he felt her small palm slide over his shoulder blades.
He hadn’t planned any of it, but that didn’t make her touch any less inviting. There was nothing suggestive or sexual about it, but his mind didn’t seem to know that.
“I’d have planned it better,” he told her.
Her fingers ran to his lower back, right above the waistline of his swim shorts.
“How so?” she asked.
“I’d be lying down instead of standing on the side of a road.”
“If we were back at the hotel, I’d suggest you lie in the shade.”
He glanced over his shoulder, caught her staring at his back. “Not sure I buy that.”
She snapped her hand away, closed up the sunscreen, and handed it to him. “You might want to get your face. Skin cancer leaves holes after the doctor cuts it out.”
“See, you care.”
Shannon rolled her eyes and walked toward Leo.
Victor followed, laughing.
Shannon waited for the last second to shed her cover-up. Even though all the important parts were covered, she couldn’t help but feel naked when Victor looked at her.
In his defense, he did try to look away, but failed.
She didn’t spend any serious time at the gym, never really had to. The yoga studio she had a membership with saw her a couple of times a week, but she wouldn’t say she had one of those bodies. Still, Shannon knew she looked better than a lot of women wearing bikinis on the beach. She’d always thought of her body as long and willowy. Partly because she never grew out of a B cup bra. In her college years, she’d wanted more curves. But as she grew older, she embraced the body she’d been given and dressed to enhance what she had.
Like now . . . with her sun-kissed tan, her white bikini crisscrossed over her back, holding her breasts in place, while the adequate bottoms hid enough but showed off a lot.
Avery had whistled when she helped secure the top before Shannon left that morning. “Way to pull out the big guns,” she’d commented right before returning to the bathroom and revisiting the liquor from the night before.
If it wasn’t for Avery yelling at her to leave her to die in peace, Shannon would have bailed on the day.
But she’d been in Avery’s position before and preferred to suffer alone.
Shannon looked up to find Victor staring.
Channeling her inner Avery, Shannon turned to the side and cheated her butt to the man. “Do I have something out of place?”
He narrowed his eyes, cleared his throat. “That suit should be illegal.”
His honest groan empowered her. “It probably is in Dubai.”
Leo heard them, laughed, and handed them their snorkeling gear.
On the shore, Leo helped her into the front of the kayak and encouraged Victor to climb in the back. Once they were all set, Leo rowed in front of them into the bay.
“I haven’t done this in years,” Shannon told Victor over her shoulder.
“I can beat that. I haven’t done this at all.”
“Really? Not even at summer camp?”
She matched Victor’s pace with the paddle, digging left and then right, until they found a rhythm that would take them away from shore.
“I never went to summer camp.”
“That’s a shame. The best things in life happened at summer camp.”
“What kinds of things?” Victor asked.
“Things like this. Kayaking, getting dumped in the water from a canoe. Campfires and ghost stories. First kisses.”
“Ohh, tell me about those.”
She grinned. “The ghost stories?”
He splashed her with his paddle. “The kisses. What was his name?”
She looked back at the memory. “Russell Lipski.”
“Lipski? You’re making that up.”
“Why would I lie about a name like that?”
Victor laughed. “How was Mr. Lipski?”
“Cold, wet hands. Dry lips. It was over before it started. I ran back to my cabin to tell the other girls that he’d kissed me. What about you? What was her name?”
“Wendy Simmons,” he said in a dreamy voice.
Shannon looked over her shoulder, caught him smiling. “That good?”
“She was older than me.”
The image of a teenage cougar came to mind. “How much older?”
“Fifth grade when I was in fourth.”
Her jaw dropped. “Your first kiss was in fourth grade?”
“It was the last week in school before summer.”
“I’m not sure that’s any better.”
Victor laughed. “I think Wendy did it on a dare, but that didn’t stop me from bragging about it all summer long.”
“So it was never repeated?” Shannon turned around, kept rowing.
“Nope. Wendy’s parents moved them away that summer. I was devastated until Halloween.”
Shannon was afraid to ask. “Why Halloween?”
“Because Mia Fletcher dressed up like a cat and made me forget all about Wendy.”
Laughter caught in her gut. “Men are so easy.”
“That we are. Isn’t that right, Leo?”
Shannon glanced at their guide, rowing alongside them.
“It’s a curse, I’m afraid.”