Lori stilled under Ramon’s piercing dreamy brown eyes, knowing he was waiting for a go-ahead signal from her.

Her body was taut, aching for his touch, and she didn’t want the feeling to slip away. What she wanted was to feel him all over her, inside her, tasting and teasing and probing places that were in desperate need of attention.

What the hell? How far can things go inside my garage? she rationalized, arching forward and flattening her breasts against his chest while stifling the moan of joy that crept into her throat. She let him push her back against the car, inviting Ramon to press closer and devour her mouth in a deep, probing kiss. As their tongues explored and flicked over each other’s in their search for satisfaction, Ramon’s fingers worked on the knot in the straps that held Lori’s halter top in place. When the soft white fabric fell to her waist, Lori gulped back her need, parted her legs and guided Ramon to stand between them.

She welcomed the feel of his tongue and the scorch of his fingers, loving the blistering press of his ample size as it grew hard against the flat of her stomach.

“Hey, Lori!” Brittany’s voice bounced against the closed garage door and jolted Lori out of her self-indulgent trance. “Oh, my God! It’s my neighbor,” Lori hissed, forcing Ramon to back away so she could pull up her halter top and retie the straps.

“Not a word,” she whispered to Ramon as she pressed the button to raise the garage door, pushing an explosion of black curls out of her eyes.

First Class Seduction
Anita Bunkley

www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author

ANITA BUNKLEY is the author of many successful mainstream novels and novellas and enjoys writing romance for her many fans. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters and an NAACP Image Award nominee, she is a recipient of a 2007 Career Achievement Award from RT Book Reviews. Anita lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband, Crawford.

Books by Anita Bunkley

Kimani Romance

Suite Embrace

Suite Temptation

Spotlight on Desire

Vote for Love

First Class Seduction

MILLS & BOON

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To my husband, Crawford, with love.

Dear Reader,

As an avid traveler, I often wondered just how exciting the life of an airline flight attendant could be. While preparing for this story, I spent some time chatting with a friend of mine who works for a major airline as an attendant. She agreed that her job can be very stressful at times, but meeting so many people from different cultures and nations is indeed a wonderful adventure.

While traveling, I love to observe fellow passengers, trying to guess where people are going, who their companions are and why they are taking a particular flight. My idea for First Class Seduction came to me during a recent flight to Italy as I watched a handsome man flirt openly with our very attractive flight attendant. When we arrived in Rome and departed the airport, I wondered if the two managed to get together. I hope so, as they made a very strong impression on me…and several other passengers!

Drawing story lines from real-life experiences is what I love to do, and I keep my eyes and ears on alert for any spark that can inspire my next romantic story. Living on the Texas Gulf Coast with Mexico as a close neighbor also inspired me to create this intercultural love story. I hope you enjoy my romance of flight and intrigue as we cross geographical borders and see love bloom between two very special characters.

If you love to travel, crave adventure and like a bit of mystery, this is the book for you.

If you want to drop me a line, please e-mail me at arbun@sbcglobal.net.

Read with love!

Anita Bunkley

Chapter One

Lori Myles finished her virgin strawberry daiquiri, slipped off her barstool, tugged down the hem of her ruffled miniskirt and accepted the stranger’s outstretched hand. Moving with precise steps in her black stilettos, she followed her new dance partner into the pulsing throng that was grinding and bumping to Usher’s latest single on Club Azule’s too-small dance floor.

The club, named for its spectacular view of Acapulco Bay, was a popular “in” spot in the resort town’s throbbing nightclub scene. The exclusive nightspot, tucked away on a quiet curve of the bay, dished out music that drew locals as well as tourists who wanted to socialize, enjoy the music and dance the night away.

Whirling strobe lights flashed overhead and cool neon color beams glowed in the semidark, providing Lori with a fractured glimpse of the man who was guiding her into the gyrating mob. He was slim, but his tight booty was high, round and encased in fitted jeans. His V-shaped torso, flanked by muscular arms that bulged impressively under a short-sleeved polo shirt, tapered into a wide leather belt studded with silver nails. His wavy black hair swept the ridge of solid shoulders as his slight jerk of a swagger sent the teardrop earring in his right earlobe into a dance of its own. As each burst from the strobe lights hit his golden brown skin, he glowed like copper money.

As soon as her partner elbowed space for them in the frenzied crowd, the music suddenly shifted from Usher’s fast-paced beat to a sensuous number by Mary J. Blige, changing the mood entirely. Some couples left the dance floor. Others slid into place, arms wrapped around each other to execute slow, sexy moves.

Lori gave her partner a quizzical look, wondering if he still wanted to dance. He responded by taking her hand and easing her into position, his arm circling her waist. She dropped her shoulders, sucked in a silent breath and tightened her grip on him, surprisingly shaken by the way his probing dark eyes were boring into her. Something told her that this man wanted to show off his stuff, and she planned to match him step for step.

Biting back a satisfied smile, Lori followed his lead, impressed by the near-perfect moves he was throwing down. In her opinion, this was the best way to spend a free evening—in the arms of a handsome stranger who was all about the music and the moves, and not into a lot of disjointed, phony conversation that served no purpose and went nowhere. She did not go to clubs to meet men, but to dance, and this guy was one smooth operator. He had not uttered a single word.

Fine with me, Lori thought, appreciating his lack of conversation. She spoke Spanish well enough, but rarely spoke to the men she danced with. No English was the best route to take. That way there were no complications, no false promises or drama, only a good time and a fast exit when it was time to leave.

At twenty-nine, Lori had worked for Globus-Americas Airlines (GAA) for six years, with a flying schedule that took her from Houston to Mexico City, and then on to Acapulco—a dream of a schedule that fit her carefree lifestyle as well as her love of travel and adventure. An avid dancer, Lori had come to Club Azule to escape her hotel and spend a few hours of her overnight layover having fun in Acapulco. Working as a flight attendant for GAA was exciting, but stressful work, and dancing was a good way to wind down after her long flight. Keeping things impersonal, uncomplicated, and stress-free was the only way to go. For her, a perfect night out meant bumping and grinding to music with someone who had no interest in anything other than a good time. Someone who shunned name-giving, requests for cell phone numbers, and questions about her plans for tomorrow. Why bother with all that nonproductive talk? By tomorrow morning, she’d be high in the sky, flying away from Acapulco, and on her way back to Houston.

When Mary J hit a high, soulful note and ended the set, Lori stepped out of her partner’s arms, nodded her thanks and turned to walk away. However, she was jolted to a halt when he tightened his hold on her hand and forced her to look at him.

“Thank you for the dance. It was beautiful,” he said in flawless English that had no trace of a Spanish accent. “You’re the most beautiful woman here tonight. And a hell of a dancer, too.”

His melodious voice, his gentlemanly manner and his striking good looks made Lori’s heart turn over. He sounded sincere, as if he actually expected her to be impressed by his words of praise. She tried to suppress a smile, but failed. Grinning at him, she lifted her chin, blinked her acknowledgment and started to pivot away, but he pulled her forward, placed two fingers beneath her chin and raised her mouth to his. Instinctively, Lori backed away, but when he leaned in and pressed a firm kiss on her lips, she froze. A buzz of heat flashed through Lori, carrying a warning signal to the rational part of her brain, which her lips obviously ignored. When her tongue touched his, the kiss intensified, and Lori sank into it with little hesitation, as if accepting a souvenir of her evening at Club Azule.

Standing on a dance floor in Acapulco and kissing a stranger—that was the craziest thing she’d ever done. But it seemed so natural. Why? She worried as the kiss broke off almost as quickly as it started.

Without a word, her handsome dance partner slipped into the crowd, leaving Lori to watch him go. He walked with his head tilted back, his shoulders high, as if he owned the world. As if he did as he pleased and got whatever he wanted, she thought. Hadn’t he just proven that by the moves he’d made on her? Lori could still feel his black eyes caressing her face and his muscular brown arms holding her close, and was oh-so-tempted to go after him. Just to talk to him. To find out who he was, and when he’d be at the club again.

But why bother? she decided. This has been fun, but it’s time to go back to the hotel and forget this ever happened. He’s long gone, anyway.

Shaking off crazy thoughts of seeking out her mystery man, Lori went back to her seat at the bar to settle her bill, but before she could ask for it, a mature man wearing a white suit and a charming smile offered her his hand. Lori checked her watch.

One last dance before shutting down for the night, she told herself. Exactly what I need to shake off that last go-round.

With a flip of her hair and a wide smile of greeting, Lori stepped into a hot salsa number with her new partner, wrapping her mind around her early call tomorrow morning instead of the kissing stranger she would never see again.

From the opposite side of the dance floor, Ramón Vidal watched Lori execute a sensuous salsa routine with her new partner. A shimmer of interest slid through him, making it impossible for him to tear his eyes off the woman who was not like any he’d ever met at the club before. Her silky tan skin reminded him of sweet almonds. Her dark hair, flying free as she swung from side to side, created a sensuous frame around her heart-stopping face. Luscious full lips called to him from across the room, begging for another kiss, and her sexy round hips, swinging with the beat of the music, initiated surges of desire—and even jealousy.

Why do I feel like I want to get close to her? he wondered. He didn’t even know the woman’s name, let alone have any claim to her. He never picked up girls in clubs, and tonight would be no exception. With a flip of his wrist, Ramón slapped a $20 bill down on the bar and squeezed his way through the crowded club to the front door. Once outside, he took a long breath to clear his head. Staring across the dark waters of Acapulco Bay, he swept two fingers across lips that still burned from the luscious hot kiss he’d just shared with a stranger. A beautiful stranger whose touch had sparked jolts of desire that both disturbed and excited Ramón.

Chapter Two

Though it was six o’clock in the morning, Lori awoke alert and energized despite her late night out. Since she never drank alcohol while on the job, tired feet were usually the only reminders of the fun she’d had the night before. Eager to get on with her day, Lori took a hot shower, applied the minimal makeup that kept her morning routine easy—mascara, blush and a little lip gloss—secured her long black hair into a fancy twist to keep it off her face and then snapped her suitcase closed.

Wearing her navy blue and red GAA uniform, she rolled her flight bag into the elevator and across the hotel lobby, where she dropped her room key into the fast checkout and exited through the sliding-glass doors.

Outside the hotel, a white van was waiting to take the flight crew to the airport. Since Lori was the first to arrive, she settled into a seat in the middle row and stared out the window, fingertips at her lips, her mind returning to the gorgeous guy whose mini-seduction had left her wanting more. After her final turn on the dance floor, she’d looked around the club on her way out, hoping to see him one more time. However, he had vanished as quickly as he’d appeared, like the seagulls that swooped out over the bay and slipped into the swirling clouds.

Tilting her head back against the seat, Lori closed her eyes, slightly uneasy with the thought that she actually hoped to run into her mystery kisser when she returned to Acapulco. Why was her mind so crowded with thoughts of that guy? All he had done was kiss her. Besides, bringing a new man into her life was not on her social agenda. As far as Lori was concerned, a committed relationship would compromise her independence and complicate her fast-paced schedule.

The alarming experience she’d had with her last boyfriend had cured Lori of making impulsive, emotional moves. Devan Parker’s face flashed into Lori’s mind. He was the man who’d cemented her vow never to get tangled up in a serious relationship with someone she barely knew.

Last year, when Lori met Devan in the elevator at the airport parking garage in Houston, she’d smiled at the handsome brother wearing a sharp pinstriped suit when he pushed the Down button for her. At five in the morning, she’d been rushing to check in for work, with a cup of coffee in one hand and her rolling bag handle in the other. He’d been hurrying to catch a flight to Los Angeles.

Devan’s earthy cologne had filled the elevator with an intoxicating scent that pushed Lori’s interest into overdrive. He was the most attractive, polite and sexy-looking man she had met in quite a while, and by the time the elevator reached the terminal, she’d handed him her business card and had taken his.

Three days later, Devan sent her a text message, asking Lori to meet him for lunch at the Italian restaurant inside the Marriott Hotel near the airport. She agreed, and at warp speed, they tumbled headfirst into a relationship that exploded with adventuresome sex, fancy dates at trendy clubs and silly fun days just hanging out in the city. Devan infused Lori’s tightly scheduled life with excitement, and she willingly allowed him to consume every minute of her free time. Falling for Devan had happened so quickly and so easily, she should have known the affair wouldn’t last…or end as smoothly as she’d hoped.

“Hey, early bird,” Phyllis Marshall called out, climbing into the van, followed by Sam and Allen, fellow crew members who were also juggling cups and navy blue flight bags.

“Up and out, that’s me,” Lori joked, mentally closing the door on the past to zero in on the long workday that lay ahead.

“What time did you get back last night?” Phyllis inquired, stowing her bag in the luggage rack at the front of the vehicle before focusing on Lori.

“A little after twelve,” Lori replied, scooting over to make room for Phyllis to sit beside her, while the two male flight attendants settled into seats in the rear.

“I don’t see how you do it,” Phyllis remarked, stifling a yawn. “I went to bed at nine and still, could have used a few more hours in the sack.”

Lori shrugged and raised a brow at Phyllis, who at fifty-one, was the senior flight attendant and self-proclaimed mother hen of the crew. Her salt-and-pepper hair, wise blue eyes and authoritative voice inspired respect and trust. When Phyllis doled out her motherly advice, her much younger crew members usually listened, convinced that she cared about them and would have their backs if things got rough. At her age, and after a long career with GAA, Phyllis knew the business well and was generous in her support.

“Hotel rooms bore me,” Lori responded in her defense. “I can only take them for so long and then I have to get out and check out the local scene. Watching TV and eating room service meals drive me nuts. Dancing relaxes me. It’s like a good workout, only much more fun.”

A flicker of her bright blue eyes was all that Phyllis offered.

“You could have come to the soccer game with me and Sam,” Allen called up from the back of the van. “The fans in this town are absolutely wild. I was beginning to think we might not make it out of the stadium alive when the home team lost. Hell, it was a mob scene in there!”

While the two guys discussed the soccer game they’d attended the night before, Lori turned back to Phyllis. “You should have come. I found a great club on the beach. It had walls of glass and a fabulous view of the ocean. Really a spectacular place. The men here really know how to dance,” Lori said, giving Phyllis a brief overview of her night out on the town, but omitting the fact that her Latin dance partner had kissed her and then disappeared.

Phyllis, who rarely ventured out of her hotel during layovers, made a sound in her throat that told Lori she was not particularly impressed by her coworker’s description of her latest layover adventure.

“You need to be more careful,” Phyllis warned. “American women out alone are targets for all kinds of scams and dangerous schemes. What do you get out of going to those clubs, anyway?”

“A good time,” Lori answered, not particularly worried about Phyllis’s concerns. Lori had chosen a career as a flight attendant so she could travel, meet new people, experience different cultures. Hiding out in fear in a hotel room when she could enjoy one of the most beautiful cities in the world was not her idea of fun. “Besides, I can protect myself,” Lori went on, turning from Phyllis to look straight ahead as the van pulled onto the highway leading to the airport. “I have a black belt in karate, remember?”

“What good is that if some man puts a drug in your drink? Takes you away in his car and you wind up getting raped, beaten or left alone in some strange place?”

Lori’s head whipped around, jaw raised as she shook her head in disbelief. “Really, Phyllis! You need to stop. Nothing like that will ever happen to me.”

“How do you know? It could. Happens all the time. There was a story on Worldwide News last night about a woman in Brazil who…” Phyllis persisted, rattling on about a bizarre tale of drugs, international kidnapping and identity theft that she had seen on TV the night before.

“You’ve been watching too many true-crime programs,” Lori commented with a flip of her hand.

Phyllis made a grunt in response and went on. “Criminals make a lot of money off naive people who don’t pay attention to what’s going on around them. Million-dollar ransoms are common,” she finished, pressing her lips into a hard line to emphasize her point.

“Maybe,” Lori hedged, not wanting to get into a back-and-forth with her coworker over a hypothetical situation. “But I don’t make enough money to be a target for anything other than a spin on the dance floor,” she admitted to Phyllis.

But I sure would love to feel my mystery kisser’s arms around me again, Lori thought, wishing she’d bent her rules at Club Azule and gotten personal with her Latin hunk.

Chapter Three

When the sleek black Mercedes pulled up to the Passenger Drop-off area at Mexico National Airport, Ramón turned in his seat and faced his brother, Xavier, who put the car in Park.

“Congratulations again, bro,” Ramón said to Xavier, flashing a proud smile at his elder, and only, sibling. “You’re gonna be the best judge in the state of Guerrero,” Ramón predicted. “Probably make it to the Mexican Supreme Court one day.”

Xavier Vidal assessed his brother’s face with a steady, solemn gaze. “That is definitely part of my plan,” he stated with the kind of confidence that validated Ramón’s prediction.

At forty-two, Xavier was ten years older than Ramón, but the two brothers were very close. Their parents had emigrated from rural Mexico to the United States when Xavier was five years old, becoming U.S. citizens by the time Ramón was born in Houston five years later. After graduating from law school at the University of Texas, Xavier returned to Mexico to open a law practice in Acapulco, leaving his baby brother behind.

“Thanks for coming down for my swearing-in ceremony,” Xavier said, placing a hand on Ramón’s shoulder.

“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Only wish Dad could’ve come with me,” Ramón replied, swallowing the emotional lump that rose in this throat as he recalled his father’s disappointment when Ramón insisted that he stay home.

At sixty-one, Tomás Vidal, who had suffered two heart attacks in the past four years, resided in an assisted living center near Ramón’s condo in Houston. Ramón visited his dad every day, made sure he had everything he needed and kept him up-to-date on family news. Since Ramón and Xavier were all the immediate family that Tomás now had, the three Vidal men were very close.

“I know Pop was upset, but his heart was so weak that any travel is too risky,” Xavier agreed.

“Yeah, but it’s so hard for him to accept.”

“I know…I’m glad you live close enough to keep an eye on him.”

“Dinner once a week at Hugo’s. No exceptions or excuses allowed.” Ramón laughed.

“I know he loves that,” Xavier replied.

“He does. And as soon as we sit down at his favorite table, his face lights up. He even flirts with the waitresses.”

Xavier grinned, slapped Ramón on the arm, and said, “Well, give him my love. I’ll call next week, after things settle down.”

“Will do.” Ramón reached around, grabbed his carry-on bag off the back seat, and patted the outside pocket. “I got your swearing-in ceremony right here on DVD, so Pop can see you taking your oath of office.” Ramón shook his head and chuckled under his breath. “He’ll probably invite everyone in the center over to his room to watch this with him. He’s very proud of you…and so am I.”

Xavier nodded, lips compressed in understanding. “Well, next time you come to Acapulco, you’ve gotta stay at the house.”

“I will. I promise.”

“And we’ll spend some time just hanging out,” Xavier added. “Sorry I couldn’t hit the club with you last night, but with all the people in town, and the crowd at the house…”

“No problem,” Ramón interrupted, knowing that Xavier had been swept up in a whirlwind of congratulatory lunches, dinners and parties all weekend. “I understand, bro. Not much was happening at Azule anyway.”

The blast of a taxi driver’s horn alerted Xavier that he had been at the Drop-off stand longer than allowed. “Hey. Gotta go,” he said to Ramón, who quickly opened the passenger-side door. “I’m blocking traffic and you’re gonna miss your flight. Later!”

“Yeah, later!” Ramón echoed. He shook his brother’s hand, got out and slammed the car door shut, but remained at the curb as Xavier nudged his luxury car into the long line of vehicles clogging the exit from Mexico National Airport.

Ramón adjusted his sunglasses and thought about his comment on the club scene last night. Not much was happening at Club Azule. Really? If that was the case, why did his encounter with the most attractive and intriguing woman he had ever danced with keep flashing like a Technicolor video in his brain?

Ramón turned and headed into the terminal, thinking about the weekend, glad he’d made the trip to see Xavier take an honored place in Mexico’s judicial system.

“Good for him,” Ramón murmured to himself, a deep sense of satisfaction coming over him. He admired his older brother very much, and the age gap between the two had seemed to narrow over the years. It was as if the older they got, the closer they became, and now, even though they lived more than a thousand miles apart, they talked, texted or e-mailed each other almost every day.

Just as he entered the terminal, Ramón’s cell phone rang, breaking into his mental musing. Checking the phone’s screen, he saw that Keith Harris, his business partner in Houston, was calling. Punching the trackball, he greeted Keith, and was upset to hear that the installation of a security system for a major furniture retailer in Dallas was a week behind schedule. As the co-owner of the high-tech security company, Vida-Shield, Ramón was constantly putting out fires.

“Who’s at fault—the site foreman or the supplier?” Ramón asked Keith, pissed off that one of his most complicated jobs was only half finished and already over budget.

“Both,” Keith replied.

“Need me to fly straight into Dallas, instead of coming home?” Ramón asked, knowing he could not let this situation deteriorate any further.

“No,” Keith said. “I’m on my way up there now. I’ll check in after I get a handle on what’s happening.”

“Good. I’m about to board my plane. I’ll call as soon as I land,” Ramón replied, thankful that he had such a competent and trustworthy business partner.

Inside the terminal building, Ramón scanned the flight board for the gate number for Globus-Americas Airlines flight 565, eager to get home to Houston and back to work. Maybe then, he’d be able to get last night’s dance-floor kiss out of his mind.

Chapter Four

Moving up from the rear of the plane with an armload of pillows, Lori left her fellow crewmembers, Sam and Allen, hanging out in the back to monitor the dwindling space in the overhead bins. She squeezed past passengers stuffing bags of all shapes and sizes into the narrow bins, knowing that space was going quickly. Soon, leftover bags would need to be checked back at the plane’s main cabin door, tensions would begin to mount and wrestling oversized duffel bags from surly passengers would begin. However, the one-hour, fifty-five minute flight from Acapulco to Houston, with a short stop in Mexico City, would give everyone plenty of time to calm down.

Boarding always produced the most problems, snafus and complaints during a flight, stressing out the flight attendants, whose main goal was to get carry-ons stowed and everyone seated as quickly as possible so the captain could depart on time.

As soon as Lori reached the first-class cabin, she handed the pillows to a family of four seated in the last two rows and then took their drink requests. Two sodas for the kids and two champagne mimosas for the parents. Lori nodded her understanding at the harried-looking mother who seemed to have struggled to get her sullen preteens settled into their seats.

While Phyllis prepared the drinks, Lori approached passengers seated in the emergency exit rows to determine if they were willing and able to assist in case of an emergency. Even though one of the passengers was quite elderly, the wiry little man assured Lori that he was up to the task.

When Lori returned to the first-class cabin, she met the agent working the flight. The agent handed her a copy of the manifest, which listed first-class passengers, passengers with special needs or meals, and any gate connections. She glanced at it, turned to face the passengers seated in the forward cabin and started her walk-through to get a head count.

However, she had not taken two full steps when she froze in the center aisle, her eyes riveted on the man sitting by the window in row 2, seat A. Was it possible? Was that her mysterious dance partner from the night before, calmly leafing through a magazine? Quickly, she checked the passenger list. Ramón Vidal—destination: Houston, Texas. Squinting at him, she did a double take. Yes, he was the man who’d burned her lips with his fiery kiss and branded her heart with an ache that wouldn’t go away.

Drawing in a calming breath, she moved right up to the edge of his seat to make sure he saw her. “Well, hello,” Lori said, trying to sound as casual as if she’d just run into a classmate from her college days, aware that everyone in first class would hear every word she said.

Ramón lifted his head, slid his sexy brown eyes up to hers and then hit her with the most adorable half smile Lori had ever seen, making her body tense and her nerve endings flare.

“Well…hi. You work here?” Ramón asked, looking bewildered as he glanced around, half turning in his seat.

“That’s right. I’m Lori, your flight attendant and I’ll be taking care of you during our flight to Houston.” Even though the plane hadn’t left the tarmac yet, her insides were tumbling around as if they’d entered a rough patch of turbulence. She held on to the nearest seat back to maintain her balance and looked down at the manifest again, determined to hold her emotions together. “Uh, so, you’re Mr. Vidal, right?” she inquired, shifting her attention back to Ramón, thankful that no one was sitting beside him.

“Yes, that’s me…but you can call me Ramón,” he offered, giving Lori a wink that revved her pulse like a jet engine preparing to take off.

“Would you like something to drink?” she asked, slipping into her perkiest passenger-request mode, knowing she couldn’t ask him what was really zipping through her brain: Why did you kiss me and disappear? Why did you have to wind up on my flight? Why are you making me so damn nervous? Would you like to go dancing again?

“Oh…sure. Coffee. Black.” Ramón paused, reconsidered and then added, “And a Bloody Mary, too. Extra spicy.” He lifted his index finger, as if to stop her from moving on, his half grin exploding into a full-blown smile. “I hope you enjoyed yourself at the club last night. I sure did.” He rested his head against the back of his seat. A glittering ray of sunlight streamed through the cabin window and lit the teardrop earring in his left ear.

“Yes, I did have a good time,” Lori murmured, not about to expand on the topic as she pivoted away from Ramón and turned to the passengers across the aisle.

“Would you like something to drink?” she asked the Middle Eastern couple sitting across from Ramón. As soon as they’d given Lori their order, Ramón leaned across the empty seat next to him and forced Lori to glance back.

“So, you’re gonna give me first-class service all the way, right?” he teasingly called over to her.

Lori sent a scowl of warning at Ramón, whose sensuous expression was begging her to forget about helping the other passengers and sit down beside him so they could chat. But that would never happen. She had too much to do to let him become a distraction.

“Yes, sir, first-class service all the way,” Lori replied with a mental jerk, her words clipped and tight. “If you need anything at all during the flight, Mr. Vidal, don’t hesitate to ask,” she finished, ignoring his request for her to call him by his first name. “Globus-Americas wants you to be as comfortable as possible.”

“Thanks, I’m sure you’ll do everything to my satisfaction,” he assured her, pinning Lori with that same dark look he’d zapped her with in Club Azule.

Once they were airborne, Lori got busy serving passengers, but couldn’t escape Ramón’s insistent attempts to monopolize her attention. If she paused by his seat, he made some remark about his love of Acapulco and how much he looked forward to visiting the city again. When she bent down to hand him a drink, he would add a tidbit about some place she should try to see the next time she was there. As she walked up and down the aisle during meal service, he had no problem stopping to make some new request. Another Bloody Mary. A more interesting magazine. A pillow, please? More coffee. Help with the earpiece before the movie came on.

As the miles slipped by and the plane zoomed toward Houston, Lori grew more and more irritated, yet intrigued, by the man who seemed to want to become her new best friend. Or more than that, she decided, amused with his determination to attract her attention and occupy her time.

Deep into the flight, Phyllis squeezed past Lori with a food tray and threw her a What-in-the-world-is-going-on? kind of look. Lori cut her eyes and jerked her head toward the galley, where she cornered Phyllis and confessed everything. “That’s one of the guys I danced with at the club last night. We danced and then…well, he kissed me and walked away.”

“Kissed you and disappeared?” Phyllis probed, touching her tongue to her upper lip as she refilled a coffee cup for the father of the still-sulking preteens. “Come on, Lori. More than a dance and a kiss must have happened,” Phyllis said. “Mr. Vidal is practically undressing you with those gorgeous brown eyes, and anyone looking at him can tell the guy is totally smitten with you. What went on that you aren’t telling me?”

“Nothing else, I promise,” Lori groaned, placing china and glassware on a tray. “And the kiss was not that much of a deal, really. Anyway, I never thought I’d see him again.”

“But there he is, chatting you up and feeling you up with his eyes.”

“Kinda looks that way, huh?” Lori admitted, feeling as if Ramón Vidal were still staring at her.

“Damn straight. So what are you going to do?”

“About what?” Lori tossed back.

“About him! I have to admit he is kinda sexy. Why don’t you find out what you can about him while you have him captive?”

“Absolutely not. I’m not going to go out there and grill him for information.”

“Oh, go on. Just talk to him. He might be a keeper.”

Lori snapped a white linen napkin at Phyllis, like a punctuation mark to end their conversation. “Please. I am not looking for a keeper and you know it.”

“Hey, don’t be so sure. Everybody needs somebody, sometime, Miss Play-the-Field. I’ve been widowed for ten years, but I knew what it was like to have a good man in my life. You deserve that, too.”

“I’m not about to rush things.”

“I understand your concern about getting involved again after what you went through with Devan Parker, but your I-don’t-want-to-be-attached attitude ought to be wearing thin by now. Go on. Your mystery man is so eager to talk…See what you can find out about him.”

Muttering an unintelligible reply, Lori finished preparing her tray and then headed out to serve her passengers.

Once food service ended, the crew tidied the cabin and dimmed the lights for in-flight movie and TV-watching. Taking advantage of the break, Lori returned to the forward galley to stash supplies while Phyllis headed to the rear of the plane to see if the guys in the back needed help getting their passengers settled in for the rest of the flight.

“Mind if I stand here and stretch my legs for a minute?”

Lori’s head whipped around. “Oh. No,” she told Ramón, not totally surprised to see him standing in the galley entry, coffee cup in hand. “Be my guest,” she added. “It’s a good idea to get up and walk around.”

“I don’t know about walking around…all I want to do is stay right here and talk to you.” His velvet-smooth voice was low and controlled.

“Yeah? About what?” Lori asked in a flirtatious manner, deciding that Phyllis might be right. Maybe it was time to put old fears behind her and stop throwing roadblocks in front of every man who threw out a pickup line.

The hum of the jet engines filled the silence as Ramón considered how to answer. He wanted Lori to talk about herself—to tell him what she liked, what she wanted, what his chances were of getting closer to her. But why would she tell all to a stranger she’d only just met in a club the night before? No, the best way to get her to open up was for him to open up first.

“Why don’t I tell you a little about myself?” he started, taking the easiest route.

Lori shut the door to the microwave oven, nodded her approval and smiled. “Sure. What would you like me to know about you?”

“That I’m single, straight, and I work hard every day.”

“Oh? Doing what?” Lori asked.

“Keeping people safe,” Ramón replied.

“Interesting. Were you in Mexico on vacation?”

“No, visiting my brother, Xavier. He’s just become a district judge in the state of Guerrero.”

“Good for him. So your brother lives in Acapulco?” Lori asked.

“Right. In a spectacular house on the bay.”

“Then you’re…I guess…you’re Mexican?”

Ramón chuckled at Lori’s hesitation to probe deeper into his ethnicity. His bronze skin, dark wavy hair and lack of an accent often left people confused about where he was from. While growing up in Houston, classmates and teachers had called him everything from mixed-race black, to Italian and even Middle Eastern, and he had learned over the years not to take offense, but to speak with pride about his Mexican-American heritage.

“Born and raised in Texas. My parents emigrated to the United States from Mexico and became naturalized citizens before I was born. My mom passed away a few years back, but my dad still lives in Houston. Only a few miles from me.”

“You said something about keeping people safe. Are you a policeman?” Lori asked.

“No, I own a security company. Alarms, burglar systems, that kind of stuff. It’s called Vida-Shield Security. My partner and I specialize in state-of-the-art systems for residences, businesses and government agencies.”

“So…if I ever needed protection, you’d be the one to call?” Lori joked.

“Absolutely. Here’s my card. As it says right there…We’re experts at keeping strangers out of your home.”

“That’s funny,” Lori tossed back, chuckling softly as she scanned his business card and read from it, “Let the experts keep strangers out of your home.” Again, a low laugh escaped her throat.

Her humorous response took Ramón by surprise, and he watched her closely as he asked, “What’s so funny about alarm systems, burglar bars and passcodes to stop criminals in their tracks?”

“Oh, it’s not that. It’s just that Globus-Americas’ motto is, “‘We’re experts at making strangers feel at home.’”

Ramón fingered his earring, smiling. I’d sure like to let her make me feel at home, he thought, determined to make headway while he had the chance because once they landed, they would go their separate ways and maybe never see each other again. He had to make an impression that would last beyond the moment the plane hit the ground. “Well, I can certainly testify that you do your job well,” he replied. “And I hope we won’t be strangers very long.”

Lori gave him a look that sent a ripple of anticipation through Ramón when she tossed her head back and tucked his card into the skirt pocket of her uniform. “Never know when I might need a safety check,” she teased, breaking the sexual tension that was connecting them like an invisible length of wire.

Ramón stepped closer to Lori, filling the tiny galley with his frame and blocking her from leaving. Attracting women had never been a problem for Ramón, but he was very choosy about the ones he dated. He didn’t go out a lot, but when he did, he made sure he spent time with women who intrigued, attracted and impressed him. Lori did all three, in a big way, and getting to know her was going to be a pleasure. He placed two fingers on the side of Lori’s neck, bent down and brushed his lips over hers. “I can’t think of anything I’d enjoy more than keeping a woman like you safe from harm.”

Chapter Five

Twin rock waterfalls on either side of the entry to Brightwood Estates welcomed Lori home. As she drove up the cedar-lined road that wound its way toward her house, she admired the meticulous landscaping of her subdivision. Passing blooming oleanders, vibrant crepe myrtles and colorful hibiscus as large as dinner plates, she congratulated herself once again on buying her house when she did, because real estate prices had soared in the past four years. Five minutes from Bush Intercontinental Airport, her neighborhood was convenient, quiet and strategically located near one of north Houston’s largest shopping malls.

Lori swung into the driveway of her two-story, Tuscan-style home and beeped her horn at Brittany Adams, her next-door neighbor, who was outside clipping roses from the bright pink bushes blossoming in front of her mini-French chateau.

Brittany had become Lori’s friend as soon as the two women met and discovered that they were sorority sisters. Brittany was a former teenage TV celebrity who had starred in a black family sitcom similar to the Cosby show. Cast as a sassy, smart, but devious teenager, she had helped push the sitcom to number one in the ratings with her crazy antics, near-potty-mouth one-liners, and troublemaking schemes. However, the show ran its course, and was canceled, throwing sixteen-year-old Brittany into a tailspin that left her confused, drug-addicted and broke. A six-month stint in rehab ended her dependence on prescription painkillers. After winning a nasty lawsuit against her stepfather/ manager, she left Hollywood for Houston with a hefty bank account, determined to live a “normal” life.

Now, at thirty, Brittany was no longer the gawky teenager with braces and corkscrew curls who had exploded on the small screen with an angelic brown face and a tongue as tart as acid. Leaving Hollywood, she had gone to great lengths to transform her looks so that no one would ever recognize her as the child star gone wild, and she loved the anonymity that came with her new life. Now she was a stylishly slim, mature young woman who sported a chic short hairstyle, designer jeans and beaded T-shirts, even to do her gardening. She lived very well off her syndication royalties, shopped at high-end stores, drove a silver Jag and insisted that her California rat-race lifestyle was behind her, even though she was writing the pilot for a show about a female detective—a series in which she hoped to star.

“Hey, how’s it going, Brit?” Lori called over after lowering her window. “Your roses are beautiful, as always. My mother would be so envious. Her roses aren’t doing that well this year.”

Brittany clipped one more bud, waved it at Lori, and then approached her car. “Tell her to hang in there. Dallas is gonna get its share of rain this week.” She cocked her head at Lori in a questioning pose. “So you’re back already?” Brittany remarked while pulling off her gardening gloves to examine her fancy manicure for chips. Today, her ever-changing nail design was an intricate, multihued Indian pattern in various shades of blue.

“It was a short run. No stop in Mexico City this time. Came straight through from Acapulco.”

“How’d it go?” Brittany asked, now focusing on her neighbor instead of her nails.

“Really kinda strange.”

“Strange? How?” Brittany asked.

“Well, there was this guy on the plane…I danced with him at a club in Acapulco the night before and this morning, there he was…on my flight! And he started coming on to me like crazy.”

“You call that strange?” Brittany quipped. “Please. Call it good luck…that is if he’s got it goin’ on.”

Lori grinned. “He had it goin’ on all right.”

“Good. So what happened? You gonna see him?”

“I dunno. I’ve gotta think this one through. I can’t jump in too fast and have another situation, you know?”

“Uh-hmm,” Brittany murmured in agreement. “After Devan…I do understand.”

“Anyway, we left it at a handshake at the airport, but I do have his card,” Lori replied, not quite ready to share her true feelings about her encounter with Ramón. Besides, she wasn’t sure how she felt about him. She only knew that his kiss had shaken her up and awakened feelings she wanted to explore. The man’s image was taking up residence in her head, and Lori was sure they’d meet again one day. She stretched her neck, tilted her head to one side and gave Brittany a choppy wave. “Gotta go…I’m exhausted.”

“After you get some rest, come over for dinner. You remember Janice and Tom Evans—the newlyweds who just moved in over on Willow Trails?”

“Yeah, nice couple.”

“Well, I invited them over for dinner yesterday. We barbecued. I’ve got plenty of leftover chicken and ribs.”

“Umm, sounds great. Think I will take you up on that,” Lori decided, pressing the remote to raise her garage door.

After parking her car, Lori grabbed her luggage and entered her house through the connecting door that led into the kitchen. Leaving her rolling bag by the entryway, she went to the back window and opened the plantation blinds to let some light into the room. Turning around, she reached for her bag, but stopped dead in her tracks, unable to believe her eyes.

“My God. What happened here?” she hissed under her breath, though a scream was rising fast in her throat. The sight that greeted Lori was shocking, terrifying. Her heart thumped in fear as she eyed the scene in terror.

Swirls of bright blue paint were splattered over every surface of the room. The glass tabletop was smeared with a childish finger-paint scrawl, as were the granite kitchen countertops, the stainless-steel refrigerator and the center butcher-block island. Even the imported Italian wall tiles that Lori had paid entirely too much for, were emblazoned with jagged symbols and lines that made no sense at all. Thinking that the vandals might still be in the house, she quickly stepped back, eager to get out of the house before she became their next victim.

On her way out, Lori brushed her arm against the paint-splattered doorjamb, but saw nothing on her skin. Turning around, she stepped deeper into the room and slid a trembling finger over the blue graffiti on the front of the refrigerator, realizing that the vandals must have done their thing some time ago because all their trashy artwork was bone dry. Because of that, she doubted that anyone was still there.

More angry than frightened, she ran toward the front of the house, stuck her head into her champagne-and-sage-hued bedroom and gaped at the bright yellow stripes painted down the middle of her satin, queen-size bedspread. Lumps of the same color paint had dripped onto the carpet and dried into lumpy pools that looked like ugly egg yolks. Stepping around the mess, she peeked into her master bath and cursed out loud. “Damn, damn, damn!” The glass in her antique oval mirror had been shattered. Shards of glass littered the vanity and the floor.

From the bedroom, Lori hurried to inspect the rest of the house, including closets and jewelry boxes and found that, luckily, there was no more damage and no valuables missing. Infuriated, she punched 911 into her cell phone and screamed at the operator who answered.

“I need the police! Right away! My home has been vandalized!” she shouted, unable to control the adrenalin pushing her emotions into overdrive.

“My address?” Lori gulped down her fear and centered her thoughts, forcing herself to focus. “Fifty-two-seventy-one Falls Trail Drive.”

“The police are on the way. Are you hurt?” the operator wanted to know.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Are you still inside the house?”

“Yes.”

“Get out now.”

“I’ve looked through the house. No one is here.”

“Leave anyway. Go outside and wait for the police,” the take-charge operator ordered. “Did you walk in on the vandals?”

“No, I just returned from a three-day trip to Mexico,” Lori explained, exiting the bedroom. “I’m a flight attendant…I’m away a lot. Never had any trouble. I can’t believe this…” She stopped abruptly, glanced back at her ruined kitchen, and then yanked the front door open and hurried across her driveway toward Brittany, who was still outside preening her rose bushes.

“What’s the matter?” Brittany asked, seeing the terror on Lori’s face. “Trouble at Globus? Who’s on the phone?”

“The police.”

“What?”

“Right. You won’t believe this, Brit. Somebody vandalized my house. Everything…is covered…with…graffiti,” Lori sputtered as she described the scene.

“Shit! You gotta be kidding,” Brittany snapped. She threw her clippers to the ground and grabbed hold of Lori’s arm. “Nobody’s inside, right?”

“No, but it’s a mess in there. Did you hear anything last night? See any suspicious-looking people hanging around?” Lori wanted to know.

“No. Nothing. As I said, Janice and Tom came over for dinner. We had the outdoor speakers turned up pretty loud while we were on the patio. They left about ten. Must have happened after I went inside. I didn’t hear anything unusual.” Brittany glanced back at Lori’s house. “Did they kick in the back door? Break a window?”

“I don’t know…I didn’t look to see…” Lori stopped, turning around to focus on the black and white patrol car with whirling red and blue lights that swept up to the curb and jolted to a stop.

Pushing her cell phone into her uniform pocket, she approached the tall black man who unfolded his towering uniformed body from the squad car and hooked his thumbs into his holster belt. “Officer. Thanks for coming so quickly.” Lori rushed to welcome the policeman.

“Detective Clint Washington,” he told Lori, without extending his hand. He surveyed her house with inquisitive eyes, seemingly already on the case and primed for action. “What happened here?” he asked, listening as Lori described what she’d discovered on her return home.

“Let’s check it out,” he stated with calm authority, striding off. His long legs devoured Lori’s brick-paved walkway in five giant steps, leaving Lori and Brittany to tag along behind.

Once inside, they went into the bedroom, and then checked the master bath. “We do have a few good fingerprints, here on the edge of the basin,” he told Lori. “That’s encouraging. I’ll get the crime scene investigation team out here right away. You can go ahead and sweep up the broken glass, but don’t touch the paint smears, okay?”

Lori nodded in relief, hoping the prints might help the police catch whoever did this.

“Are you sure nothing of value was stolen?” Washington asked after he’d inspected the rest of the damage and determined that the vandals had cut the wires to Lori’s alarm box and broken a window in the dining room to get into the house.

“Certain. Nothing is missing, I checked everywhere I could think of,” Lori assured him. She watched him open a pad of forms and begin to fill one out.

“So this was for kicks?” Brittany snapped in disgust. “I can’t believe some damn sicko would do this just for fun.” Brittany directed her anger toward Detective Washington, whose shoulders leveled off at the top of the petite woman’s head. “That is some crazy shit, you know?” she blurted out.

Lori cut her eyes at her friend, warning her about her language. Back in the day, Brittany’s startling potty mouth might have been a ratings winner when she was playing a rebellious teenager on a television sitcom, but that kind of language was definitely out of place when dealing with the police.

“Oh, excuse my language, detective,” Brittany muttered. “But I’m sure you know what I mean.”

“Unfortunately, I do,” the policeman agreed, turning intensely serious eyes on Brittany. “This kind of vandalism happens all the time. It’s June. School just let out. Kids with too much time and too little to do wind up pulling stunts like this for kicks. Just last week, two streets over, we had the same kind of thing—only red paint that time.”

“So what are the police doing about it?” Lori demanded, fear now shifting into outrage. “Can’t you catch the punks who are ruining the subdivision before they strike again?”

“You’re just one of many on my watch. The kids will slip up, and we’ll catch ‘em, but in the meantime, keep your eyes open for any suspicious activity. Might want to get a dog. A barking dog does a good job of scaring prowlers off.”

“A dog?” Lori rolled her eyes and pressed a finger to the company name embroidered on her blouse. “As you can see, I’m employed by Globus-Americas. I travel all the time. No way can I take on the responsibility of a dog.”

“Well, then, a more effective alarm system might help,” the detective suggested, handing Lori the police report to sign.

With a sigh, Lori signed the paper, took her copy and then escorted the officer out. As she watched him drive away, she felt discouraged and very uneasy. “I doubt the police will ever catch the punks who wrecked my house,” she said to Brittany as they turned and walked up the driveway.

“He sure was fine,” Brittany murmured, ignoring Lori’s comment.

“Fine?” Lori’s head whipped around. “What are you talking about?”

“Detective Washington. Big feet, long legs. A killer smile. Umm, he’s got it all going on.”

Lori punched Brittany on the shoulder. “Get outta here! You’re checking out the brother when we need to be pushing him to do his job? Brittany Adams, you need to quit.”

“Hey, my radar is always on, and he was one good-looking black dot on my screen. He’s obviously well employed and wasn’t wearing any rings.”

“Girl, please,” Lori sighed in frustration. “The last time you got involved with a policeman, you wound up chasing the guy out of your house with a pot of hot coffee in one hand and a kitchen knife in the other.”

“Nat Chavis was FBI, not local,” Brittany defended. “And it was a mug of hot coffee, not a pot.”

“Whatever,” Lori quipped. “All I remember is that he treated you like a suspect and you snapped when you found out he’d bugged your cell phone.”

“Nat was a fool…he underestimated my intelligence,” Brittany said calmly, chin raised. “But this Detective Washington, now, he looks like a man with good sense.”

Lori paused at her front door and pinned her neighbor with a warning expression. “Let’s just hope he uses his good sense to get the fools who trashed my house.”

Brittany came up beside Lori, nodding. “But…as the handsome, intelligent, hopefully single detective said, one police car can’t be everywhere all the time. If thieves and vandals want to get in, they’ll find a way.”

“Yeah.” Lori grimaced in agreement. “I get the impression that we’re kinda on our own.”

Brittany grunted. “Well, I’m not gonna put bars on my windows and doors to keep some punk-ass kids from spray painting my living room, and I refuse like hell to buy a gun. Just my luck I’d wind up shooting the mail carrier in the ass.”

“Unfortunately, it all comes down to making it hard for someone to get in,” Lori observed, her mind turning back to what the officer had said. What you need is a better alarm system.

“Brit, I gotta go,” Lori quipped, giving her neighbor a quick wave goodbye.

“Need any help cleaning up?”

“Naw. I’ll sweep up the glass, but I’ll have to leave everything else until the crime scene investigators are finished. I’ll be over later. Save me some ribs.”

Inside her house, Lori reached into her skirt pocket, removed Ramón’s business card and stared at it, her heart lurching in her chest at the thought of hearing his voice and seeing him again. She picked up the phone, pressed in two numbers, but then stopped.

“I’ll call first thing in the morning,” she decided, not yet ready to trust her voice. Not ready to betray her feelings for a man who was quickly winding his way into her heart.

Chapter Six

Ramón slid the bacon and spinach omelet he’d just made onto a plate and sat down at the breakfast table in his condo. It was only seven-thirty in the morning, but he had already completed his daily three-mile run, showered and was looking forward to breakfast. Ramón wasn’t much of a cook, but he could put together a hell of an omelet. Since he watched his diet carefully, he ate a light lunch and dinner was most often a steak and fresh vegetables at the Big Tex Steak House two blocks from his house.

With a flick of his thumb, he scrolled through messages on his cell phone while eating, replying to those that required a response, deleting a bunch of spam. The three days he’d spent in Acapulco with his brother had put him behind schedule, but now that he was back in Houston, it was time to get on track and back to work.

After he finished reading and responding to his e-mails he shifted his focus to the workday ahead. He had two commercial estimates to prepare, a whole-house installation to inspect and equipment to pick up at the electrical supply house. But before he did any of that he wanted to drop by the assisted living center and say hello to his dad.

While plotting his day, his cell phone rang and he quickly recognized Lori’s name and number.

“Vida-Shield Security,” he said, using his business greeting and tamping down his excitement over the fact that she was calling.

“Ramón Vidal, please,” Lori said.

“This is Ramón.”

“Oh, great. This is Lori Myles…from the airplane. Remember me?”

“Of course. How could I forget?” Ramón responded, intentionally lowering his voice in an attempt to sound relaxed and calm. “Glad you called. Wasn’t sure you would.”

“Well, before you get too excited…I have to tell you, this is not a social call. I need your help.”

Ramón squinted at the sliding-glass door leading onto his patio, where hanging baskets of ivy and ferns created a lush, quiet retreat. He considered her remark and decided that it was better to be needed than ignored. At least she’d turned to him. “Okay…shoot. What can I do for you?” he offered as casually as possible, thrilled that she wanted his input on whatever was on her mind.

“I’m not sure where to start. I’m still so angry I can hardly talk about what happened.”

Ramón’s initial pleasure at hearing from Lori quickly shifted to alarm. She sounded so intense. So frightened. And so different from when they’d chatted on the plane. Something terrible must have happened. “What’s going on?” he asked, listening as she described the scene that greeted her when she arrived home. He got up from the table and began to pace his kitchen, frowning at the floor, disturbed by what she was telling him.

“All right. I know you’re upset, but try to calm down,” he encouraged, sensing how nervous she was. During the flight to Houston, she had been the epitome of calm, a poised professional woman who was totally in control of her emotions, but now she was rattling on in a nervous sputter that sent off bells of alarm. “Are you okay?” he wanted to know when she finally paused to catch her breath.

“I’m fine,” Lori assured Ramón.

“Where’d you sleep last night?”

“Next door…at my neighbor’s house.”

“Good. How do you feel today?”

“Shaken up and mad as hell. I don’t understand why my burglar alarm didn’t alert the police when the vandals broke in.”

“Do you have a wireless alarm?” Ramón inquired.

“Yes, I think so,” Lori replied.

“That means your keypad, circuit board, backup battery and siren were most likely all in one unit,” Ramón added.

“Yeah, probably so. It came with the house, so I never paid much attention to what kind of system I had,” Lori said.

“Well, the burglars could have completely disabled your unit before it had time to send a signal to the police.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Ramón confirmed. “Happens all the time.”

“The detective who came out to take the report was nice,” Lori added. “But he wasn’t very encouraging. He said there’ve been a few incidents like mine since school let out. Local kids who are bored, he thinks.”

“Yeah, sounds like that,” Ramón agreed. “But that doesn’t make them any less dangerous than hard-core criminals. If I were you, I’d take this seriously.”

“I plan to. That’s why I called. The vandals destroyed my system. Smashed the control box and stripped all the wires. Think you can you fix it?”

“I can try, but if you have an all-in-one unit, I’d replace it. They’re extremely vulnerable and create a false sense of security. What you need is a hardwired cellular system that communicates an alarm signal in less than thirty seconds. Let me take a look at what you have and we can go from there. I can come over this morning, if you want,” Ramón offered, surprised by how easily he was agreeing to rearrange his schedule and how much he already cared about Lori.

“Would you?” Lori asked.

“Of course.”

“Great. The crime scene investigators were here at daybreak. They got what they needed and left. Now I need to find someone to deal with all this paint,” she went on, voice raw with indecision. “This mess is gonna require a lot more than a mop and a broom. Paint is everywhere. My mirrors are shattered. The carpet is ruined. I can’t…I don’t…”

When Lori’s voice cracked and the phone went silent, Ramón flinched, stung by Lori’s frustration, as well as her shock over what had happened. He’d been in the home security business long enough to sense how she was feeling right now. She was hurt, stunned and confused about what to do.

“First thing you need to do is call your insurance company,” he offered.

“I did. They’re sending someone out today,” Lori said.

“Good. I can give you the name of a restoration company I’ve used. They do a good job and accept whatever insurance pays.”

“That would help a lot,” Lori replied, clearly relieved.

“Be sure to take pictures before the cleaning service deals with the paint, too,” he added.

Having been inside vandalized homes more than a few times, Ramón could visualize the scene: precious treasures trashed, carefully appointed décor ruined. In an instant, everything that had once been clean and shiny was now dirty and ugly, sullied by an intruder’s touch. The emotional toll that such an incident took could be very heavy.

“Okay, I’ll bring some plywood to board up your broken window,” he told Lori, wanting to do whatever he could to ease her anxiety. No way was he going to let her go through this alone.

“What’s your address?” he asked, grabbing a pen to scribble the street name and number on the back of a dry-cleaning receipt as he calculated how far away she lived. “Hold it together, okay? I’ve got a quick stop to make and then I’ll call you when I’m nearby.”

Tomás Vidal wiped a tear from his eye and then looked at Ramón, who was seated beside him in the recreation room of the assisted living center. “What a wonderful thing to witness,” Tomás whispered in a quiet tone. “My boy is now a federal judge. Amazing, but not surprising. He worked hard to make it, you know? I remember when your mother and I left Mexico and came to Texas. Xavier was just a boy. And now he’s a big-shot judge. I only wish your mother could have lived to see this day.”

Ramón closed the DVD player they had been viewing, set it on the coffee table and looked at his father, his mind suddenly turning back to the days they had spent together deep-sea fishing in the Gulf. Setting out before dawn, looking forward to a day at sea and a huge catch to bring home had been wonderful. But those days were gone forever. Never again would he go fishing with his father, whose health was deteriorating very quickly. It pained Ramón to see Tomás Vidal withering into a shell of a man right before his eyes. His father’s thick black hair was now nearly all gray, his once bright eyes no longer shone with the gleam of life that Ramón remembered and the skin around his thin lips was more puckered with tiny wrinkles than Ramón had seen on his last visit. With each passing day, Ramón knew his time with his father was getting shorter, so he wanted to make each moment they spent together count. Bringing along the DVD of Xavier’s swearing-in ceremony had brightened Tomás’s day and given him much to discuss with his fellow residents at the assisted living center.

“Pop,” Ramón began. “I know Mom is up in Heaven watching us right now and she knows what’s going on.”

Tomás laughed and winked at his son. “She always knew what was going on with you two boys. Not much escaped her, you know?”

“For real,” Ramón replied. “She was on my case every day.”

“That’s why you and Xavier turned out to be such fine young men. Because your mother taught you how to appreciate what you have and how to make the most of the talent God gave you.”

“I’ve tried to make you proud, Pop.”

“And you have,” Tomás agreed, reaching out to take hold of Ramón’s hand. “But there is one thing I want you to do, Ramón. Time is moving on, son. You need to do what your brother has done. Get married and start a family so I can enjoy more grandchildren before I leave this world.”

Tilting his head back, Ramón let his father’s words sink in, realizing how true they were. He gave his father’s hand a firm squeeze, and said, “I’m working on that one, Pop. Just be patient, okay?”

When Ramón walked into Lori’s house, he did a double take and then smiled. The last time he’d seen her she had been dressed in her GAA uniform, looking spiffy and totally in charge. Now she was wearing black stretch pants, thong sandals and a skimpy white halter top that showed off smooth tan shoulders and a lot more cleavage than he had seen on the dance floor. She looked like a teenager with her hair, now freed from its neat French twist, falling loosely around her face in a soft cascade of jet-black curls that brushed cheeks devoid of makeup.

Lori propped her broom against the table in the foyer and grinned at Ramón, sending a jolt of pleasure straight into his gut.

“Hi,” she said, wiping her brow with the back of one hand. “You just called! Either you were already close by or you broke the speed limit getting here. Which is it?”

“I wasn’t that far away. Stopped to see my dad.”

“Really? Where does he live?”

“Old Mill Assisted Living Center.”

“Oh, yeah. Over on Huffman near Broad?”

“Right. After I left him, I headed straight here. And yes, I did keep an eye on my rearview mirror for any black and whites that might be on my tail,” he said with a wink, knowing he’d rolled through that last stop sign at the intersection leading to Lori’s street—after looking both ways, of course.

During the drive to her house, he’d thought of nothing but how shaky her voice had sounded on the phone, how anxious and panicky she must be. He was not about to leave her house until he had done all he could to make her feel safe. “Give that to me,” he told Lori, taking hold of the broom. “Go sit down and watch TV or something. Let me take over from here.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” she said forcefully, tugging on the broomstick, her eyes squinting in earnest. “Sweeping up glass, I can do. Fixing a trashed alarm? No. So you get busy with the alarm, while I clean up the rest of this glass.”

“You’ve got a deal. Show me where the control box is and leave it to me,” Ramón agreed.

“It’s in the garage. And it’s stifling hot out there. I can hook up a fan if you want.”

“No, I’ll be fine,” Ramón commented, following Lori through the kitchen toward the door to the garage. However, walking behind her, what he really wanted was to place both palms on her sweet round hips, which were so deliciously encased in her black Capri pants. The sight was too beautiful for words. Sucking in a breath, he ripped his eyes away from her perfectly shaped rear end. The last thing he wanted was for Lori to turn around and see the growing bulge in his pants, though he knew there was no way to slow his growing desire to possess her completely.

Once Lori restored as much order to her trashed bedroom as possible, she stripped her bed of ruined linens, stuffed them in two heavy-duty trash bags and headed through the kitchen to the garage. There she paused in the doorway and drank in the delicious sight of Ramón, shirtless, standing in the garage with his back to her while removing the broken control box.

Lori’s heart did a jerky flip, sending pulses of heat between her legs and into the pit of her stomach. He looked so damn good with his longish black hair tied back with a red handkerchief and his smooth V-shaped torso glistening back at her. Lori ran her tongue over her bottom lip and gulped back the surprising surge of desire that rose within her. As she watched him twist wires and adjust levers, she realized that he was singing the song they had danced to in Club Azule. Was that a coincidence, or was he trying to send her some kind of a message?

Damn he’s hot! Why did he have to take off his shirt? Show me so much skin? Tempt me like this when the last thing I need is to get tangled up with a stranger?

“There’s a radio over there on that shelf,” she said casually, stepping into the garage.

Ramón’s head swiveled around in surprise. He flashed a killer smile at her, sending more pulses of heat through Lori, who drew in a short breath to cool down. After depositing the trash bags in the large rolling bin, she went over to the cluttered shelf, picked up a battered boom box and handed it to Ramón. “Here. Put it on any station you want. Then you won’t have to sing to yourself.”

Ramón reached out, as if to take the radio, but covered her hand with his instead. With an insistent tug, he guided her closer, slipped his hands beneath her arms and cupped her elbows with his palms. Only the small blue radio that Lori was holding prevented her body from molding flush to his. “No, thanks,” he replied in a husky tone. “I’d rather listen to my own singing…unless it rattles you.”

His remark slid over Lori like a layer of sweet syrup, easing through her veins to pool in her chest. He had a way of saying the most mundane things in the most sensual way, stirring up emotions that threatened Lori’s composure.

“Don’t worry. You could never rattle me, unless I allowed you to,” she countered, setting the radio down, shifting her hips to one side while eyeing Ramón with a dare of a gaze.

“Never?” he repeated. “You sound awfully sure about that.”

“I am.”

“Hmm. Okay. Let’s give it a test. Does this rattle you?” he whispered, feathering a finger along the side of her neck and down to rest on her bare shoulder.

“Not at all,” Lori replied, luxuriating in the shivers initiated by his touch, knowing it was pointless to deny that she was getting all hot and bothered. “In fact, that feels pretty good,” she admitted, knowing she was telling the truth.

Encouraged, Ramón graced her with a misty half smile and then dipped down to graze his lips across hers in a brush of a kiss before pulling back to check her reaction. “How about that?”

Lori felt the muscles in her tunnel of love contract, relax and then tighten again as she connected with the yearning expression darkening his features.

“Getting close,” she admitted, watching him with guarded eyes as his self-assured smile widened, brightening his face.

With just a touch on her cheek and a light brush of a kiss, he’d turned on the kind of sexual heat that Lori knew spelled trouble. There was no denying that his effect on her was too dramatic to ignore, too delicious to dismiss and too intensely inviting to pass up. However, she planned to keep a tight rein on the pace of this rapidly evolving encounter and not get caught up in the drama of too much togetherness too soon. Yes, Ramón did rattle her, but she liked the feeling of not knowing what to expect. He made her want to do things she shouldn’t even be thinking about, let alone hoping would happen.

Ramón’s heart was racing like a video on fast forward. In front of him stood the most beautiful and exciting woman he’d met in a long time, with her gorgeous face, vibrant energy and a teasing attitude that turned him on. He flattened his palms on the backs of her arms and inhaled her scent—delicate, sweet and as intoxicating as deep red wine. God, how he’d love to ease her down on the concrete garage floor and take her this very minute, and from the signals she was sending out, she just might be down with such a move.

During his drive to her house, he’d thought of the delicious press of her thighs on his, the warmth of her breasts filling his hands, the touch of her fingers on the erection that was now swelling in his pants. Now with tentative steps, Ramón guided Lori to the side of her car and positioned her back against the driver’s-side door. He leaned over her, inching closer until the buds of her hardened nipples burned twin spots of desire into his bare chest. Bracing his hands against the car on either side of Lori’s face, he locked her in place and studied her features with languorous eyes, not about to rush her into anything, though he sure as hell wasn’t going to let an opportunity like this pass him by.

Lori stilled under Ramón’s piercing, dreamy brown eyes, knowing he was waiting for a go-ahead signal from her. Her body was taut, aching for his touch—and she didn’t want the feeling to slip away. What she wanted was to feel him all over her, inside her, tasting and teasing and probing places that were in desperate need of attention.

What the hell? How far can things go inside my garage? she rationalized, arching forward and flattening her breasts against his chest while stifling the moan of joy that crept into her throat. She let him push her back against the car, inviting Ramón to press closer and devour her mouth in a deep, probing kiss. As their tongues explored and flicked over each other in their search for satisfaction, Ramón’s fingers worked on the knot in the straps that held Lori’s halter top in place. When the soft white fabric fell to her waist, Lori gulped back her need, parted her legs and guided Ramón to stand between them.

Lowering his head, he lifted one warm breast to his mouth and slid his tongue across the nipple before suckling it with a pull that ignited emotional flames in Lori. She welcomed the burn of his tongue and the scorch of his fingers, loving the blistering press of his pleasure-tool as it grew hard against the flat of her stomach.

“Hey, Lori!” Brittany’s voice bounced against the closed garage door and jolted Lori out of her self-indulgent trance. “Ohmigod! It’s my neighbor,” Lori hissed, forcing Ramón to back away so she could pull up her halter top and re-tie the straps.

“Not a word,” she whispered to Ramón as she pressed the button to raise the garage door, pushing an explosion of black curls out of her eyes.

“Hey, there you are,” Brittany said, walking into the garage, her focus shifting from Lori to Ramón and then back to her neighbor. “No answer at the front door, so I thought you might be out here.”

“Right, right. Just emptying the trash. Come on through,” Lori rushed to say, beckoning Brittany forward. “Brittany, uh, this is Ramón Vidal…from Vida-Shield Security. He’s fixing my alarm.”

“Oh, yeah. I saw his truck in the driveway. Hello, Ramón,” Brittany said with a nod in his direction. “Good idea to get that thing back up and running right away.” She turned back to Lori. “Need any help cleaning up over here?”

“Thanks, but I think we’ve got it covered,” Lori huffed, throwing a nervous glance at Ramón, who nodded his agreement and said, “Yeah, we’re doing just fine.”

Lori cringed at the hint of a smirk that tugged the corner of Ramón’s mouth and the sexy tone he’d used, certain that Brittany must be wondering what was going on.

“Ramón is gonna fix the broken window in the dining room, too,” Lori rushed to say. “And he’s arranged for a cleaning company to come out and deal with the paint.”

“You two are moving right along, huh?” Brittany observed.

“That’s right,” Ramón replied, reaching for his screwdriver and resuming his work. “Best to move quickly when you have a lot of ground to cover. Won’t take me long to make Lori safe again.”

“That’ll be a relief,” Lori remarked with a fast roll of her eyes at Ramón while making her way toward the door leading into the house. “Come on in, Brit. I can use a glass of water.”

“Me, too,” Brittany concurred, fanning her fingers in front of her face. “It’s too damn hot to stay out here.”

As soon as they were in the kitchen, Lori closed the door and leaned against it, her attention sharply focused on Brittany. “Okay…I know you didn’t come over here just to offer your help or get a glass of water, did you?”

“Hell, no. When I saw Mr. Security Expert get out of his truck, I knew I had to see this guy up close. Is he for real? Shit…where’d you find a hunk like that to fix your alarm system?” she asked, stabbing Lori with a skeptical expression. “The Yellow Pages or a personal hookup?”

Adopting an amused, but pensive expression, Lori paused, and then said, “Personal connection.”

“Okaaaay…so, he’s a friend?”

“I guess you could call him that,” Lori hedged, removing two glasses from the cabinet, which she filled with ice and cold water from her refrigerator door.

Brittany tapped a long acrylic fingernail on Lori’s kitchen counter, signaling her curiosity. “He’s a new friend, then? One I have neither seen nor heard of before today, and one who is hellafine.”

“On that we do agree.” Lori laughed conspiratorially.

“When did you meet him? Where?” Brittany demanded, accepting her drink from Lori.

“He’s the guy I told you about…the one I met on the plane yesterday. Well, no…before that when I danced with him in the club in Acapulco,” she finished in a stammer of words.

A burst of laughter made Brittany step back. “When you said he had it goin’ on, you really meant it.”

Lori locked wide innocent eyes on Brittany. “Did I say that?”

“You did.”

“Yeah, well, what’s your take?” Lori probed.

“I’m not saying anything,” Brittany shot back. “Just observing, and from the looks on your two faces when I walked into the garage, I’d say he’s in more trouble than you.” Chuckling, Brittany sipped her water, and then jerked her head toward the closed garage door. “Come on, let’s go back out there. I want to see more of your gorgeous new friend. In fact, I have a few questions for him.”

Back in the garage, Ramón had bad news. “Sorry to tell you, Lori, but your system is not worth repairing.”

Lori grimaced, shoulders sagging down in disappointment. “Damn. What do you suggest?”

“A whole new system,” he stated in a serious tone, going on to describe his most popular home security alarm. “It has a multilevel digital alarm that’s virtually tamperproof. I can take the measurements today, plan it out for you and install it tomorrow if you want.”

“Well, I guess so. Think insurance will pay?”

“I’m sure they will. If you give me your agent’s name, I’ll verify everything before I proceed,” Ramón offered, clearly enjoying the fact that he could be of help.

“Okay, I’ll get his member,” Lori said, turning to go inside.

“Ramón,” Brittany started as soon as Lori had left the garage, “What’s your opinion of burglar bars?”

“Not always a good idea,” he said, kneeling to put his tools into his toolbox.

Brittany walked up behind Ramón and stared at his bare back, shaking her head in admiration while mouthing the words, Too damn fine! “Why not burglar bars?” she asked.

Ramón stopped what he was doing and looked up at Brittany. “Well, they could cause more harm than good,” he said, sounding like an authority. “If you get trapped inside a house with those bars when you need to get out, you’re doomed. If you decide to install them, just make sure they have release latches on the inside.”

“Makes sense,” Brittany replied, unable to tear her eyes off Ramón when he stood up and pulled his T-shirt over his head, just as Lori retuned with the insurance agent’s number.

“Thanks,” he said, appraising Lori with obvious longing. “Tomorrow, I’ll install an entirely new system. There are several models to choose from. If you want…”

“Whatever you recommend,” Lori interrupted, confident that he would not steer her wrong.

“As long as it keeps those punk-ass vandals out,” Brittany spoke up. “Summer vacation has only just started. Who knows how bad this might get over the summer? We all gotta be prepared.”

“You might want to think about starting a community-watch program out here,” Ramón suggested, snapping on his red baseball cap.

“Humm. How’s that work? Are the police involved?” Brittany wanted to know.

“Oh, yeah. They partner with citizens’ watch programs all the time. They’ll help you organize patrols, provide training and serve as backup when you need them.”

“That sounds like a good, proactive approach. What would we have to do?” Lori inquired, intrigued by the idea of taking an active role in protecting herself.

“You just get the residents together and form teams to walk or drive the streets. You’ll send a message to the criminals that you’re not gonna sit back and let them take control of your neighborhood,” Ramón replied, going on to tell Brittany and Lori about other subdivisions in the area that had decreased crime substantially after starting such a program. “Act now and you put the punks on notice.”

Lori gestured toward Ramón, head slanted to the side. “Think you could come and demonstrate your ultrasafe home security systems at our next homeowners’ meeting?”

“Be happy to,” Ramón replied, tossing a spool of duct tape into his toolbox. “I’m at your disposal. All you have to do is tell me what you want.”

Lori blinked, tamped down a smile and exhaled a soft breath.

“Aaall right…” Brittany said, filling the awkward lull in a too loud voice. “Where do we start?”

“Call your homeowners’ association president and suggest a meeting with a rep from the police department who could come out and explain what’s involved,” Ramón offered.

“Well, Detective Washington was very nice. Maybe we should ask him to be our liaison,” Brittany volunteered.

“I’m sure you’d like that,” Lori agreed with a You’re-not-fooling-anybody look.

“He knows our situation and knows what’s going on,” Brittany said.

“Why don’t you give him a call?” Lori suggested.

“I will. I’ll call him right now and see if he’ll agree to help us,” Brittany said. With a choppy finger wave, she hurried down the driveway and across her lawn to disappear inside her house.

As soon as Brittany left, Lori lowered the garage door and turned to face Ramón. “Come on, I’ll show you where the broken window is.”

Without a word, Ramón reached out and slipped his index finger under the strap of Lori’s halter top. “Or we could pick up where we were before your neighbor interrupted.”

Lori hesitated for a nanosecond, seriously considering his proposal, but knew better than to act on her out-of-control desires. She quickly removed his hand from her halter top strap and said, “No way. We have too much to do. We can’t be messing around like this anymore.”

Lori pivoted around and started to walk away.

Ramón stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Why can’t we do both?” he softly urged, voice rough and low.

“Because well, we just can’t,” Lori stuttered, flustered by the beam of lust he was shooting at her in a seductive squint that was impossible to ignore. Now that she’d allowed him to sample her private treasures, he clearly wanted more. And she did, too.

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