Even though they had to share the narrow sidewalks with hundreds of other tourists, Miranda saw San Antonio’s River Walk as an oasis of sunshine, trees, and flowers. Here and there, waterfalls cascaded over rocks. Shops, restaurants, and hotels lined the winding green rio and footbridges arched over it, reminding her of Venice.
“Want to take a tour boat ride?” she asked.
Eli shook his head. “Too hokey.”
She stopped in front of a busy Mexican restaurant. The tantalizing smells made her stomach growl. “Want some lunch?”
“Too crowded.”
“Okay, we’ll try somewhere else.”
“This whole place is too crowded,” he grumbled.
“Well, San Antonio is the number-one tourist destination in Texas.”
He stepped aside to dodge a stroller and bumped into a laughing couple walking a poodle. “Let’s get out of here.”
“All right, how about La Villita?” She pointed toward the historic village just above the river, where dozens of art galleries and shops occupied antique buildings made of stone and adobe.
“Do you think it will be any quieter there?”
“Probably a little.” She took his hand and led him over a footbridge. “Why are you so grouchy today?”
“I can’t take two steps without smacking into someone. And it’s hotter than hell.”
Miranda sighed dramatically. “We’ll find a quiet place where you can sit down in air conditioning.” And after we eat, we can visit the galleries.
Following her tourist map, they quickly located a restaurant rich with Old World charm and ducked inside its thick stone walls. A waiter seated them at a wooden booth and handed them menus. As Eli perused the extensive wine list, she watched his expression shift from annoyance to enthusiasm. He looks like he’s reading a good book, she thought. He was still studying it when the waiter returned to take their orders.
“I’ll have a glass of the Meditrina Pinot Noir,” he said.
“With all those choices, why don’t you try something more exotic?” Miranda asked.
“Maybe I will later. Right now I’m feeling homesick.”
So that explains his bad mood, she decided . “I’ll have a—” She almost ordered a daiquiri, then remembered the sexy Jamaican bartender she’d met in Colorado and changed her mind. “The same.”
After Eli had taken a few sips of his wine, Miranda said, “I still don’t understand why those French thugs went after you instead of your boss. It doesn’t seem fair.”
“Lots of things aren’t fair. The Coahuiltecan Indians who once lived along this river probably don’t think it’s fair that white men took over their land. The way blacks and other minorities have been treated doesn’t seem fair either. Look how many years it’s taken us to elect a black president.”
“I wonder how many more it will be before we finally elect a woman.”
As she spoke, Miranda heard the indignation in her voice. A sense of injustice burned in her chest. She thought about the women hanged during the Salem witch hunt, and the women around the world who’d suffered abuse for millennia. Although each generation offers more rights, freedoms, and opportunities to its females, the playing field still isn’t level. She waited for Eli to respond, but he seemed lost in his own thoughts.
The waiter served their lunch: buffalo burgers and sweet potato fries. Eli ordered a glass of Chateau Pique Caillou Bordeaux.
“Checking out the competition?” she asked.
“I guess you could say that.” He bit into his burger and chewed contemplatively.
After eating in silence for a few minutes, he returned to the subject of Meditrina. “The way I see it, I’ve been targeted because I know more about the day-to-day, hands-on part of the operation than Troy does. He’s a businessman, not a grower. Coyote used to oversee the vineyards. When he left to start Fortuna, I took on most of his responsibilities.”
“Is risking your neck tracking down bad guys part of your job description?”
“No, but I want to see justice done. I intend to do what’s necessary to bring that about.”
Miranda gazed at his handsome face, sea-green eyes, and golden hair. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. Trying not to reveal her concern, she asked, “Was your friend Coyote able to offer any help?”
“Not much, but it was good seeing him and hanging out with winemakers again. I really liked his place, too.” Eli dipped a couple of fries in ketchup and popped them in his mouth.
“Sounds like you had fun.”
“Yeah, I did.”
Something in his tone set off warning signals. He seems a little too keen about it, she thought. “Do you wish you were back there instead of here?”
“Of course not.”
Now he sounds defensive. Is there something he’s not telling me? Maybe he met a woman there. She felt a pang of jealousy as she pondered the possibility. Well, I didn’t tell him everything about Clint, so I guess I don’t have a right to be upset, she rationalized. It’s not like we’ve got any sort of commitment.
“Miranda, are you okay?”
“Fine.”
Eli frowned. “When women say they’re ‘fine’ it usually means just the opposite.”
“How’s the wine?”
“Pretty good,” he said. “You changed the subject. Are you mad at me?”
“I just wanted us to have a good time, but you’ve been in a pissy mood all day.”
Tears stung her eyes. She’d invited him to meet her in San Antonio to celebrate her luck at the roulette table—her treat. However, he didn’t appear to be enjoying the experience as much as she was. Maybe I should’ve stayed at the riverboat casino with Clint.
“Sorry,” he said, stroking the back of her hand with his fingertips. “I’m hot and tired and I don’t like crowds. We did the Alamo and the Governor’s Palace this morning, then the River Walk. After we finish lunch, you’re probably going to want to poke around in all these shops and art galleries, right?”
“Well, yes…”
“How about a compromise? While you shop and visit the galleries, I’ll go back to the hotel and relax at the pool. When you’re finished, c’mon back and we’ll have a nice dinner together, wherever you want to go.”
“Can we go dancing, too?”
“That might be pushing it,” Eli said, and chuckled. “Let’s see what condition my feet are in at that point.”
After she showed him her purchases—a tooled tin cross set with colorful stones, an alligator belt studded with conchos, and a hand-painted pottery armadillo—they went downstairs to the Menger Hotel’s famous bar for a drink before dinner. They sat at a cherrywood booth and Eli ordered two of the bar’s legendary mint juleps.
Miranda admired the paneled ceiling and beveled mirrors. “I read that this is a replica of the House of Lords’ Club in London.”
“It’s also where Teddy Roosevelt recruited his Rough Riders to fight in the Spanish-American War,” he said. “I think one of his bullets is still lodged in the wall over there.”
“I wish men would find a way other than fighting to settle their differences.”
“Sometimes there’s no alternative. If a guy tries to move in on your territory and you don’t want to give it up, you have to fight him.”
“Why do people feel they have a right to take somebody else’s property anyway?
Can’t they just be satisfied with what they’ve got?”
“What if a guy doesn’t have enough to provide for his family, or his tribe? He might feel justified taking what he needs from someone who has more.”
“I guess a person can always justify his behavior if it suits his purposes,” she countered. “I bet if women ran the world, we wouldn’t have wars.”
Eli laughed. “Probably not. You’d all be too busy shopping.”
She punched him lightly on the arm. He grabbed her hand and pressed his lips to her palm, then her wrist, slowly working his way up the soft skin of her inner arm.
“Mmmm. You taste good,” he said. “We’d better go to dinner soon, otherwise I’ll have to take you upstairs and eat you instead.”
Even in July, Mi Tierra in San Antonio’s Market Square was festooned with Christmas lights. Eli and Miranda stuffed themselves with Mexican favorites—nachos, chalupas, tamales, enchiladas—then moved to the restaurant’s bar where a Mariachi quartet strolled from table to table, performing traditional music. As they sipped margaritas, a Latin dance band warmed up in the adjoining room.
Several couples were already dancing to the lively beat. Miranda tapped her foot and watched them, marveling at their grace and dexterity. Those women make it look so easy, even wearing three-inch heels.
“How do your feet feel now?” she asked.
“Better,” he said. “I still won’t be much of a partner, though. I can’t salsa or rhumba or whatever it is they’re doing.”
“Well I’m not very good at it either, but I took a few classes at an adult ed center back in Salem. I can show you the basics.”
A strikingly handsome, dark-skinned man with a moustache, who might have been forty or sixty, approached their table. He smiled and nodded at Miranda, then spoke to Eli in Spanish.
“What’s he saying?” she wanted to know.
“I think he’s asking to dance with you. Go ahead. If you want to, that is.”
Miranda accepted the man’s hand and he led her to the dance floor. “No español,” she apologized.
He shrugged and smiled, as if to say, no problem. He swept her through a rapid merengue, then a salsa and a cha-cha. Guided by his strong arms and fluid movements, she found herself flowing with the rhythm as naturally as if she’d been doing this all her life. When the man pulled her close for a tango, she glanced at Eli. Her lover wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to her; he was busy chatting with a couple at the next table.
If this man tried to move in and take me away, would Eli fight to keep me? she wondered. The idea went totally against her feminist sensibilities, yet something primal deep within her wished Eli would step up and claim her as his woman. As the thought flitted through her mind, another primitive part of her responded to the Mexican man’s embrace and she leaned against his agile body. A buzz of excitement stirred between her legs. I see why they call this the “dance of love.”
When the music stopped, Miranda extricated herself from the man’s arms. He raised an eyebrow and searched her face with his sparkling dark eyes, as if to say, things were just starting to get interesting.
“Gracias,” she said, smiling as she walked away. Her body still tingled from his touch. Time to collect Eli and go back to the hotel.
At this time of night, they had the Menger Hotel’s swimming pool all to themselves. The cool water felt good on her hot skin. Eli backed her to the side of the pool and pressed his hard cock against her. He opened her lips with his, his tongue seeking hers, teasing, twirling, then retreating, inviting hers to follow. She explored his warm mouth, slowly searching for and finding what she wanted, and sucked his tongue back into her own mouth.
Kissing’s like dancing, she mused.
He slid his hands inside the top of her bikini and toyed with her nipples. She sighed and wrapped her legs around his hips, grinding her pussy against his bulge. He eased off the bottom half of her swimsuit.
She giggled against his neck. “What if it floats away?”
He scooped up the tiny triangle of Spandex and hooked it over her arm. Then he freed his swollen cock from his trunks and stroked her with its head. Miranda arched against him, moaning softly. Her whole body ached with longing. Letting the water buoy her up, she opened to receive him. As he thrust into her, the hard edge of the pool bit at her back, but she barely noticed. The only sensation that mattered was the heat his piston generated as it pumped her cylinder.
Pleasure gushed through her, and she felt his cock pulsing as he came inside her.
Not until after their passion had ebbed and he’d withdrawn did it register that his cock was bare. I was so hot, I didn’t think.
She pulled away and stepped into her bikini bottom, then pushed herself out of the pool. She felt his juice leaking from her pussy. Okay, don’t get freaked out, she told herself. It’s highly unlikely that he has HIV—I’ve never known a straight man, except junkies and hemophiliacs, who got AIDS. Still, he could give me clap or chlamydia.
Eli laid his hand on her thigh. “Miranda, is something wrong? Did I come too soon?”
“We didn’t use a condom.”
“Does that worry you?”
“Should it?”
“Of course not. I’m clean. I’m always careful.”
“We weren’t this time,” she reminded him.
“Do you want me to get tested? I will if it’ll ease your mind.”
“I don’t know.”
He climbed out of the pool and sat beside her, their feet dangling in the water.
Putting his arm around her, he pulled her against him. She laid her head on his shoulder.
“Miranda, you’re special to me. I wouldn’t put you at risk. Really, it’s okay.”
Can I believe him? she wondered. If he’s my future husband, he won’t hurt me, will he? Wouldn’t Dad’s vision have shown if Eli had some kind of disease?
“I don’t want this to be a problem between us,” he said. “We’ll both get tested so we’re in the clear. Then I can stop using those damned condoms.”