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“I can do you a solid on this one,” Garcia averred with a grin. She was attractive in that really badass, I’ll-seduce-you-before-I-kill-you sort of way.
Nikki gave a mental shake of her head. That might have been a bit morbid.
Still, Garcia had chestnut hair with honeyed highlights and bronze skin that set off her deep, grass-green eyes. She had sculpted facial features and a curvy body
that was so toned, it was difficult to classify her as hot…or lethal.
“Dr. Kane,” she said in an insistent tone. “I owe you big-time for all of this. I screwed you over in the absolute worst way. Not intentionally. Not on purpose. I was just…so desperate. And I’m paying the price for that. I’m going to lose my job, most likely. I can’t argue that fact. So please, just let me do something to help you. Let me get you off this campus and take you where you can put your feet up, you can eat, have a drink—or several—and I swear to you, you will be in the absolute best hands imaginable.”
Garcia sucked in a breath.
Then she quickly added, “You will be so heavily protected, you won’t even subconsciously glance over your shoulder. Castillo knows it—that’s why he let me follow you.”
“I need food,” Nikki repeated. “Low blood sugar and all that. I’m seriously about to—”
“But you won’t.” Garcia took her arm and led her to a fancy sports car.
Nikki’s brow crooked. “You stole a Lamborghini?”
“No, of course not.” Garcia laughed. “It’s mine.”
They slipped inside and Garcia revved the engine.
“Just take me to the nearest fast-food joint,” Nikki instructed. “I need a milkshake, six cheeseburgers and a few orders of fries.”
Garcia shot a look her way. “You’d put that where?”
“In my fucking stomach,” she lobbed back.
Garcia snickered, completely unfazed. “I’m just sayin’. You’re not exactly one who looks like she’s ever had a burger, let alone one with cheese on it.”
“And you look as though your mother is a terrible cook.”
It was meant as a compliment.
How it came out… Nikki couldn’t even do a mental rewind to make a determination. Or form an apology if one was warranted.
Her appetite was eating her brain.
“Just hang on a few minutes more and I will prove you wrong on that count, Dr. Kane.”
“Jesus, enough with that already,” Nikki said as she sort of sank into the rich leather seat, losing some strength in every body part. “It’s Nikki. You might have ruined my life, but you also did save it. In New York.”
“I’ll do it again.” She made a quick turn onto a side road that was all cobblestone—not exactly grand for Nikki’s half-ravaged brain, because it rattled the fuck out of it.
Garcia pulled into a dirt parking lot in front of what appeared to be a sprawling Mexican village—in the middle of the Virginia hills. Well, cleverly tucked away in said hills.
Nikki basically fell out of the car and stared up at the gorgeous stone buildings with vines crawling up the walls and verdant bougainvillea lining the perimeters, all dusted with snow. There were numerous open archways and courtyards and fountains that likely shot up spectacularly in warmer months.
Garcia said, “My great-grandparents bought this land decades ago and built this homage to their village in Mexico on it. We call it Little Tijuana—though I have no idea why. They were from Todos Santos, outside of Cabo San Lucas. Whatever.” She gave a shrug.
Nikki passed under an archway, one that opened up into the main courtyard. It was abuzz with activity and the decadent, spicy aroma that wrapped around her senses, caressing them, and which nearly danced on her taste buds, made her say, “Oh, my God. You totally brought me to the right place.”
37
The courtyard was decorated in festive holiday fashion. There was a twenty- or thirty-foot-tall tree in the center, vibrantly lit. Strands of Christmas lights were also draped from the corners of one two-story building to the other, crisscrossed, and glowing in multiple colors.
Everywhere Nikki looked, there were gorgeous stone picnic tables—round tables with sparkling mosaic-tile insets and curved seats—and piñatas strewn from the trees. People milled about and too-many-to-count grills, smokers and cooking stations were set up. Precisely where all the heavenly scents came from.
