The Cowboy's Wife For One Night

“It’s a fundraiser meet and greet,” Jack scoffed. Jack was head of research at Cal Poly, where Oliver chaired the hydroengineering department. They’d been working on a lightweight drill and pump that could withstand the extreme desert conditions of Africa and Asia. And over the last four years, these fancy events had become standard operating procedure, before and after every summer, Christmas and spring break spent in the field. But after the success of their drill during last year’s sabbatical, the university had been so pleased with the prestige Oliver and Jack had brought to the school that they had decided more torture, in the form of these cocktail soirees, was in order.

Particularly now, to raise some money for Jack and Oliver’s March trip next month.

Which would explain why they were here, on the cliffs of Santa Barbara, miles from the university, in an effort to bring up the big bucks from Los Angeles. Water for Africa was a popular charity in Hollywood.

“Just try, Jack.”

“Christ, Oliver. The university is trotting us out like trained monkeys—”

“For Mia. Try to get your head out of the dirt for one night.”

Right. Mia.

“It’s been over a year—”

“I know how long it’s been,” Jack said. A year and two months, almost to the day.

The excitement about seeing her, when he remembered, was bright and hot, shooting out sparks.

But these maps...

“When is she supposed to arrive?” Oliver asked, and Jack swore, checking his watch.

“Any minute,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”

He hung up and ran a hand over the scruff covering his chin. He’d wanted to be dressed. At least showered by the time Mia showed up. Like being clean-shaven would somehow make this reunion easier.

But the maps had arrived and he’d gotten distracted.

Jack closed his burning, tired eyes. Jet lag dogged him. Not to mention the malaria he was barely over. He was thirty-five and he felt a hundred and five.

The truth was, he was tired of the desert. Tired of the sand. The heat. The militias. Of coming home sick, only to turn around a few months later to go back. He was tired of never being able to meet the need, of feeling, every time he left, like a failure. But he couldn’t tell Oliver. He couldn’t tell anyone.

This had been his dream, water for the thirsty. And to give up on it now felt shameful. Selfish.

And this whole situation with Mia was making his crappy mood worse.

Calling Mia like this...not quite the reunion he’d dreamed about.

I owe you, she’d written in response to his email asking her to come to this event with him.

Owes me, he thought, turning the words over in his mind like a spit of meat over a fire. Logically, that was true.

But there were thirty years of friendship between them. A thousand emails. Promises made and kept.

Mia could be prickly. And his being out of the country for the last year had no doubt made her very prickly, despite the daily emails.

This reunion of theirs was going to be unpredictable. And not being able to prepare for Mia’s mood in advance made him nervous. Was she going to be angry? As happy to see him as he was to see her?

He didn’t know and it was making him crazy.

Someone pounded on the door to his hotel suite. The windows rattled like mortars were being dropped. There was a pause and then more pounding.

It was her. Not that he knew by the pounding. It was his internal barometer, which measured pressure and changing dynamics better than any equipment he carried into the field.

Warning, that barometer whispered. Be very, very cautious.

He ran his hand across the front of his worn tee-shirt and crossed the room, his shoes soundless on the hardwood.

He was surprised to feel his heart pounding in his chest. Nerves? he wondered. Excitement?

A month ago he’d stared down a truck full of hostile militia and now he stared at the mahogany door, anxious about what stood on the other side.

It wasn’t the same kind of anxiety. Mia wouldn’t have weapons. He hoped. But she’d be armed with something far more tricky and insidious. Something he couldn’t negotiate with and had never known how to handle.

His past.

He opened the door and, as expected, it was her.

Mia Alatore.

And his heart slipped the reins of his brain and he was just so damn glad to see her. To have her here. It might be selfish of him, but she just made him feel good. The world fell away, the maps disappeared, and his whole existence was Mia.

“Good God, Jack, I thought I was going to drive right into the ocean before I found this place. You didn’t tell me we’d be hanging over a cliff.”

A whole lot of attitude in a tiny package.

She barely came up to his shoulder. Her too-big plaid shirt hung loose on her body. A ball cap, beat up and white with dried sweat, sat low on her head, keeping her eyes shaded.