LITMIR.BIZ

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on the backyard where Gabby lay gnawing a rawhide bone beneath an ancient cypress, he said, “There’s a small hot tub in the corner of the pool with room for three.”

      “You, Gabby and your current girlfriend?” He heard a smile in her voice, and curiosity.

      “Are you trying to get me to come clean about my personal life, Joanna?”

      She turned, putting them in closer proximity yet maintaining an intangible distance. “It’s really none of my business, but I imagine you’ve had a woman in your hot tub before.”

      He had, but not in a while. “I’ve been too busy to utilize my hot tub. Not today, though. Are you game?”

      She frowned. “Are you nuts? It’s forty degrees outside.”

      “That’s why they call it a hot tub.”

      “It’s also still daylight.”

      He propped one hand on the window beside her head, leaned closer and lowered his voice. “Are you shy, Joanna Blake?”

      “I’m a mother, for Pete’s sake.”

      “And mothers are forbidden to use hot tubs?”

      “Mothers don’t have the kind of figures most twenty-year-olds have. At least this mother doesn’t.”

      He allowed his gaze to slide down her body and linger in certain places. He wanted to do the same with his hands. “I seriously doubt that.”

      “You’re seriously wrong.” A blush stained her fair cheeks. “Besides, I don’t own a decent swimsuit.”

      “Who said anything about a swimsuit?”

      She turned back to the window. “What’s in that building over there?”

      Obviously she was more interested in continuing the tour than his suggestion. “It’s a pool house with an attached garage. I keep my bike in there.”

      “Ten speed?”

      “Harley.”

      Once more she faced him, this time hugging herself as if she needed protection from him. “You own a motorcycle and live in a mansion. I’d say you are a walking contradiction, Doctor.”

      He wished she’d call him by his first name. Right now he wasn’t the doctor. Right now he was a man in the company of a woman that he wanted too much. “Is that a problem?”

      “Not really. It’s just that you’re not at all what I thought you’d be. At least at first.”

      “And what was that?”

      “An average male on the make. Your generous nature surprises me. So does your attraction to material things.”

      He took a step back, guilt dogging his steps as he made his way back to the table and reclaimed his seat. “I’ve heard it all before, that old ‘the love of money is the root of all evil’ clause. But once you’ve been without it, money’s not a bad thing to have. I imagine you know that.”

      “Yes, I do.” Joanna joined him at the table and sat across from him with her blue eyes trained on his face. “I take it you didn’t have much when you were growing up.”

      “I had next to nothing. My parents were migrant farmworkers, chasing the next job. After my father died, my mother moved from California to Texas. She worked as a fruit picker during the season and hired out as a domestic the rest of the time.” And a midwife at night, something he didn’t care to discuss.

      “What happened to your father?”

      Rio didn’t like dredging up the past, but he’d left himself wide open to her questions. “An industrial accident involving some kind of machinery. I don’t know many details.”

      “I’m sorry.” She sounded as if she truly was.

      “Don’t be. I don’t remember him. I was too young when it happened.”

      She rested her cheek on one palm. “So what made you decide to become a doctor?”

      A long story, but he’d try for a condensed version. “My mother worked for a retired colonel. He knew I had an interest in medicine, so he took me under his wing since he didn’t have any kids.”

      Joanna leaned forward. “Did he put you through medical school?”

      That, and hell on earth. “Yeah, but first he put me into boarding school when I turned sixteen. I hated it. They made me cut my hair, robbed me of my heritage so I’d fit in. I’ve worn my hair long ever since.”

      “Your culture’s very important to you, isn’t it?”

      “Some aspects, yes, some not.” Especially those that defied logic.

      “But you believe in your…What did you call it?”

      “My onen. Mayan mythology. The sun god is a jaguar. It also foretells the arrival of foreigners.”

      “Foreigners?”

      “Yeah. I think my mother chose that for me since I was born in the States. But she swore it came to her in a dream. I have a hard time believing it.”

      He’d never put much stock in dreams before he’d met Joanna Blake, before she had begun to disturb his own dreams. Surreal dreams. Sexual dreams.

      Maybe his mother had been right to give him the onen. Joanna had come into his life, foreign to him, with a deeply engrained love for her child and a strong conviction in her work ethic. The consummate mother. A woman who deserved a considerate man to attend to her needs. Some of those needs Rio would have no problem tending, others he wasn’t so sure.

      Suddenly he wondered if this was the woman his mother had told him about, the stranger who would change his life for the better. A nice thing to consider, if he really believed in all that mystical stuff. Maybe he was just too jaded to believe in forever-after or love. He sure as hell didn’t intend to settle down, conform to what society considered fitting—a marriage license and the average two kids.

      Joanna remained silent with her elbows propped on the table, palms forming a resting place for her cheeks. She stared off into space as if she’d left him mentally, if not physically. He had a good idea where her thoughts had taken her.

      “You’re thinking about your son,” he stated.

      Joanna looked up, startled. “As a matter of fact, I was.”

      “When was the last time you talked to him?”

      She straightened and fidgeted with a corner of the cloth place mat. “Two days ago, when I told my mom I was moving.”

      “I bet it’s tough on him, being without you.”

      She smiled a sad mother’s smile. “It is. Tough on us both. But he’s a strong little boy. He’s had to be.”

      Rio wanted to know more about her, what made her tick. What made her sad other than the absence of her son. “Tough divorce?”

      “In some ways, yes. Especially on Joseph, not that he had a great relationship with his father.”

      “So his father’s totally out of the picture?”

      “Very much so. I don’t even know where he is. Not that I want to know.”

      Sorry bastard. “Does Joseph ask about him?”

      “Sometimes, but like you, he was too young to remember much about his dad. Joseph’s the best thing that came out of my marriage. He’s always been my strength.”

      The unshed tears glistening in Joanna’s blue eyes caused something deep inside Rio to hurt for her, made him want to take away that pain he saw all too clearly, even though she tried to hide it with a weak smile.

      “Call him now, Joanna.”

      She looked surprised

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