the dusty road stretching through the desert landscape like something out of a Western movie.
He didn’t talk any more as he drove, and after some miles he turned off up an unmade track, along the edge of a bluff that terminated in a rocky col overlooking a valley beyond, where he parked.
As they got out the heat and the silence enveloped them. Nic jammed a wide-brimmed hat on his head, offering her one for herself, which she dutifully donned against the glare of the lowering sun. He then helped himself to a backpack holding twin water bottles and the mandatory emergency kit.
‘It’s about a ten-minute hike now,’ Nic said, and set off up a trail that led higher among the rugged outcrops.
Fran followed nimbly, and as they gained height saw the valley beyond fill with deep golden light, the azure sky arching above. It seemed very far from anywhere, with only the wind keening in her ears. Eventually they reached a flat outcrop affording a ringside view of the sight they had come to see and they settled down, backs against the warm rock behind them.
‘Now we wait,’ Nic said.
He passed her a water bottle and Fran drank thirstily. So did he. Before their eyes the sun was starting to lower into the horizon, turning deep bronze as it did so. Fran gazed, mesmerised, glad of her sunglasses as the sun seemed to fuse with the earth, flushing the azure sky with a halo of deep crimson until finally it slipped beyond the rim of the ever-turning globe and the sky began to darken.
She slid the dark glasses from her face, and saw him do likewise. Then he turned to her.
‘Worth it?’ he asked laconically.
She nodded. ‘Oh, yes,’ she breathed.
Her eyes met his, held, and for a moment—just a moment—something was exchanged between them. Something that seemed to go with this slow, unhurried landscape, desolate but with a beauty of its own, lonely but intensely special.
A thought occurred to her, and she heard herself give voice to it.
‘I don’t know your name,’ she said. She said it with a little frown, as if it were strange to have shared this moment with him not knowing it.
He gave her his slow smile, holding out his strong, large hand.
‘Nic,’ he said. ‘Nic Rossi.’
He gave his birth name quite deliberately. He didn’t want complications—he wanted things to be very, very simple.
She took his hand, felt its strength and warmth. Felt more than its strength and warmth.
‘Fran,’ she said. Her smile met his. Her eyes met his. Acknowledging something that needed to be acknowledged between them. The fact that, whatever was going on, from this moment she was no longer a hotel guest and he was not part of the security team, or whatever his role was.
That this was something between them—only between them.
‘Doc Fran,’ Nic murmured contemplatively, his eyes working over her. He nodded. ‘It suits you.’
He didn’t release her hand, only drew her upright as he climbed to his feet as well.
‘We need to head down before the light goes,’ he told her, and carefully they made their way back to the SUV. ‘Hungry?’ Nic asked. He kept his question studiedly casual. ‘Because if you don’t want to head back to the hotel yet I know a diner nearby...’
He let the suggestion hang, let her choose to answer it as she wanted.
She gave her flickering smile—the one that told him she was hovering between holding back and not holding back.
‘That sounds good,’ she answered. ‘A change from the hotel.’
He gunned the engine and they headed off, headlights cutting through the desert dusk that had turned to night by the time they drew up in the car park of a roadside diner.
It was a typical western diner, with a friendly, laid-back atmosphere and staff in the customary western outfits that went with the setting.
They ate at a table overlooking the desert, making themselves comfortable on the padded banquettes. Fran stuck to iced tea, but Nic had a beer, and they both ordered steak.
Hers was so massive she cut off a third, placing it on Nic’s plate. ‘You need to feed your muscles,’ she told him with a smile, refusing to let herself think that it was a strangely intimate gesture.
He laughed. ‘I’ll trade you my salad,’ he said, and pushed the bowl towards her.
‘Salad’s good for you!’ she protested, and pushed it back.
His hand was still on the bowl. Did her fingers brush against his hand? She didn’t know. Knew only that she pulled her hand away and that as she did so she felt it tingle, as though, maybe, she had made contact. Electrical contact...
She started to eat her steak. Made some remark about its tenderness. Any remark.
What am I doing?
The question framed itself. Rhetorical. Unnecessary. She knew what she was doing—knew perfectly well.
I’m on a date. Not official. Not announced. Not planned. But a date, all the same. We’ve watched the sun go down together, and now we’re eating together.
And what would they do next together?
She didn’t answer that one. Didn’t want to. Not yet. Not now.
Instead she asked a question—something about the desert. After all, he worked in this region—he must know more about it than she did. And, whatever Italian-American locality he came from originally, right now he was way more a native here than she was.
He answered the question readily, and all her other questions, but sometimes he shrugged and said he didn’t know. So they asked the diners at another table, obviously locals, who assumed they were tourists.
Fran did not enlighten them.
They also assumed they were a couple.
Fran did not enlighten them on that either.
Supposing we were.
The thought was in her head. Tantalising. Making her wonder. Speculate. Was that why she was sharing dinner with him now? Because she was accepting that she was willing to take things further between them?
But just how far?
She felt her mind thinking ahead. An affair? No, maybe not even that. A—a fling. That was more like it. Something out of the ordinary in her life...something that wouldn’t happen twice—because he was from a world different from her, as she was from him.
But that doesn’t matter.
Her eyes went to his face again, slid down over his strong, muscled body. The flicker of electricity came again—a kind of current flowing between them, strengthening, or so it seemed to her, with every circuit that it made. She didn’t know why...knew only that it was powerful and enticing.
Why not? Why not take this opportunity if it comes? I need to move on from Cesare. I need something...different. It would be good for me—mark a new chapter in my life.
Would Nic Rossi—so entirely different from any man she’d known before, so rawly, powerfully attractive to her—be it?
The question circled in her head. They’d finished eating—steaks demolished, side orders too—and now Nic was leaning back in his chair, letting his weight tilt it back, easing his broad shoulders. Relaxed, leonine, powerful.
Sexy as hell.
The phrase forced its way into her head. It was not one she’d ever used about a man. Not a phrase that had fitted any man she’d ever known. Not even Cesare. Her lips twisted. Cesare would have loathed any woman calling him that. Nic, she suspected, with another