Jinxed!

6

IT’D BEEN A ROUGH NIGHT.

And it hadn’t been because Wes had stayed up half the time making sure Erin was taken care of, either. No, he hadn’t minded running a washcloth under water so he could put it on her forehead. He hadn’t even minded going to the gift store for aspirin and those “seasick” bracelets, which were like sweatbands with a bead that pressed against the pressure points on your wrist to cancel the nausea.

Uh-uh. The night had sucked because, once again, he and Erin had been getting so damned close to what he wanted. But it’d also been much too far away.

Fighting his pent-up, eternal state of arousal and the hope of the closeness that might come out of all this, he left Erin sleeping and went to a buffet, bringing back some breakfast for them to share. But upon his return, he found her out of bed and in the shower. So he left the pastries and took a quick trip to the fitness room, where he worked off a load of frustration on a rowing machine.

Of course, that didn’t do crap. He was still wound up and ready to blow. Last night’s candy-coated games and intimacy had only given him a taste of what was in store with a woman like Erin, and it wasn’t enough.

Not nearly enough.

When he came back to the cabin, Erin was off somewhere, so he showered and, by the time he stepped out of the small bathroom, she’d left a phone message for him to meet her for a fresh-air Ensenada jaunt. She said she’d be in the atrium, where she was accessing her business e-mail via a bank of computers. He didn’t feel the same compulsion, seeing as Wall Street was closed.

No, he felt a much different urgency. But when he saw her in the Internet Café, her complexion was still a little wan, so he didn’t suggest going back to the room. She was right: the fresh air and solid land of an off-ship excursion would do her good.

Now, as they checked out and strolled down the gangplank to encounter the cool, misted air outside, Wes told himself that, yeah, this really was the right thing to be doing: being a gentleman and not jumping all over her when she was under the weather.

A gentleman, he thought, biting back a smile. Sure.

Immediately off the deck, they entered a building with a sign that said Welcome To Ensenada and that held an assortment of tourist shop stalls. Some sold imitation designer watches, some sold salsa and colorful Mexican blankets.

Erin meandered over to a table decorated with a selection of leather bracelets. Lingering over a particular one with flowers, she held it against her wrist, smiled a little, then put it back down.

“You don’t like it?” Wes asked, surprised to find that he was actually into watching her shop. But, hell, didn’t every one of her moves hold him in thrall?

“It’s not me, I think.”

He glanced back at the bracelet, straightforward in its elegance. She’d look great wearing it, even though the band was simple and no doubt inexpensive. She was worth diamonds, he thought, but there was something about her that made him think more of a buried earthiness where diamonds would be discovered and later polished to a shine.

When Erin wandered over to a toy stall, he quickly asked the shopwoman, “¿Cuánto?” and paid the ten American dollars she asked for. No normal wheeling and dealing today.

Tucking the purchase into his leather jacket pocket, he grinned at the woman, thinking that Erin would be surprised later by seeing the bracelet. Misinterpreting his gesture, the shopkeeper blushed and tucked a strand of black hair behind her ear.

Oops.

Wes turned around, joining his…What was Erin to him? Girlfriend? Bed buddy? More?

He turned over that last possibility in his mind as Erin bought something from a different shop. Seconds later, she turned from the salesman to show Wes what it was, her gray eyes twinkling.

“It’s for one of my nephews,” she said, showing him a small jack-in-the-box.

A nephew. A sign of everyday life outside of this cruise. For some reason, the mention of that sort of thing scared Wes, maybe because it drove home that she’d become far more important, far more real, to him in just a couple of weeks than any other woman in the course of his lifetime.

“How old is he?” Wes asked as they started to walk toward the building’s exit.

“Three. Look.” She turned the side crank on the box, and “Pop Goes the Weasel” chimed out. She hummed along with it.

But when it came time for the surprise to burst out, she stopped.

“Hey,” he said. “Don’t tell me that’s cursed, too.”

She cracked up, and he reached over to complete the song. When it ended, the clown exploded out of the container, and she flinched.

She put a hand to her chest, laughing. “I’m not so good with…well, things I can’t predict.”

For some reason, there was more to what she was saying than the literal. He thought about her fidgeting whenever she talked about franchising her candy shop, thought about the look in her eyes every time they started to kiss.

“It’s just a toy designed to scare kids,” he said. “What’s to jump at?”

“Hmm, you make me wonder if I’m going to mentally scar my nephew forever.”

She tucked the toy into her shoulder bag, looking as if she might just reconsider giving it to the boy. She was also avoiding the real subject, but he let her get away with it, even as it ate away at him.

They left the building, finding themselves on a crowded sidewalk where they caught a bus to the town of Ensenada itself.

When they got there, they discovered a one-road strip teeming with street vendors, restaurant/bars and fellow cruisers who’d braved the iffy weather to explore outside.

They sauntered past a closed antique store, a place that sold metal sculptures, and one of many joints that offered cheap beer and booze to the delight of the college kids who’d embarked on this weekend getaway.

A little girl managed to persuade Wes to buy some gum, and Erin held back a grin.

“Easy target,” she said.

Stuffing his hands inside his jacket pockets, Wes fought his own smile and then they disappeared inside a minimall full of more stores. There, Erin delighted over some teeny leather purses and bought about five of them for her nieces who lived in Milwaukee.

As she scampered around the shops, oohing and ahhing over the shawls and kitschy T-shirts, Wes noted she’d made a sudden recovery now that they were away from the ship. Maybe it was because she was back on land.

Or maybe…

He didn’t want to ask himself if Erin was playing some kind of cock-teaser game with him by coming on this cruise and then avoiding what staying in a single cabin meant to a couple.

He blew out a breath, walking onto the sidewalk while waiting for her to buy a stack of those T-shirts.

Then it hit him: the niggling feeling he’d been so reluctant to identify.

He disliked what he’d become in life. Months before he’d met Erin, he’d started feeling uncomfortable in his careless skin: all the parties, all the dates, had started numbing him. Every weekend was the same old, same old, filled with cocktails, flirting, then a trip back to his condo. Rinse, lather, repeat. He’d gotten sick of himself.

But when he’d seen Erin across that room, laughing, full of life, he’d been attracted to what he’d never had: true feeling. And when he’d talked to her, she’d forced everything he’d been questioning into clear focus: he was disgusted with what he’d made of himself so far. Yeah, he was well off with the money, but what else? What really mattered? In her genuine way, down-to-earth, candy-shop-owning Erin had given him a glimpse into what could be. And when she hadn’t fallen all over herself to hop right into bed with him, he’d been intrigued, challenged, enlightened.

She could change what isn’t working, he’d thought, revitalized and even a little afraid of that conclusion.

But he was just Erin’s freakin’ “transition man.” There’d been no bones about that from the beginning due to that breakup she never wanted to talk about.

Rain began to sprinkle down from the sky, and Wes looked up into the gray.

What was he doing here?

“Wet alert!” Erin said as she barreled out of the minimall onto the sidewalk, clutching her teeming shoulder bag, grabbing his arm and hustling him to an overhang in front of a restaurant.

She was laughing again, infectious and cleansing. But he couldn’t smile with her this time. He was still swamped in his idiot, life-altering brooding.

“Hey, there.” She tugged on his arm, eyes wide and silvered with happiness.

Happiness? Why? Had he done something to make her that way? Was that his purpose as a “transition man”?

Erin wasn’t giving up. “What’s going on?”

He shook his head, extremely unwilling to get into it. He didn’t want to hear what she would say, didn’t want to know once again that he was just a passing thing. Hearing the truth-that she thought he could never change out of “transition” and into something else-would stab him.

The scent of spices floated out from the restaurant, woven with the heavier warmth of tortillas and beer. She tilted her head at him, as if trying to read what was going on under the facade he battled to uphold.

Then she stood on her tiptoes, placing a soft, unexpected kiss on his mouth.

The light pressure tore through him with more power than any climax. Shaken, Wes grabbed onto her hip, needing an anchor.

“Hungry?” she asked, her breath moist on his lips.

All he could do was nod, still overwhelmed by such a little gesture. He was hungry. Too hungry for her.

But she was talking about burritos and enchiladas, not anything else.

As she pulled him by the hand into the restaurant, he knew that maybe she could fill herself up with some lunch, but it wouldn’t help him one bit.

Because it wasn’t food he needed.