Peru
Ignoring Penelope as we hiked the Inca Trail was harder than it sounded. I heard her laugh, and I was immediately jealous of whomever made her do it. I saw one of her Renegades boost her up when part of the trail got steep, and I wanted to break his damn hands. I saw her smile at me when no one was looking, and it was all I could do not to kiss her stupid—consequences be damned.
Agreeing to a secret relationship hadn’t contained the blast zone—it had turned me into a territorial, growling jackass.
Checking all forty-six students into the hotel in Aguas Calientes took longer than I wanted, but everyone was settled, dinner was done, the sun was set, and I finally sat at the bar with a Peruvian beer in hand. Camping would have been a better experience for the students, but the last thing I wanted to deal with was the Renegades doing stupid shit like jumping over the fire. It just wasn’t practical for this size trip, so hotel it was. It was modern, clean, and had a great open-air bar with slow-spinning ceiling fans, and we were at the base of Machu Picchu, which meant tomorrow’s hike would be easy compared to today’s grueling expedition.
I glanced in Penelope’s direction, where she sat in a curved booth, surrounded by her friends. Her hair was up and her skin had a sun-kissed glow from hiking all day. She looked beautiful, and damn if that smile didn’t make me want to steal her away.
As if she felt me, our eyes locked for a precious, heated second before I studied the label on my beer. I needed to be better. Safer. Hell, I couldn’t figure out how the whole group didn’t already know about us, because I was pretty sure my feelings for her were etched on my face every time I looked at her.
“Man, I need one of those,” Lindsay said, taking the seat next to me and blocking my view of Penelope. “You sure you want to hike up that mountain tomorrow when there’s a perfectly good shuttle?” She looked at me with a desperate plea in her eyes.
“Pilsen Callao,” I ordered from the bartender, then turned to Lindsay, trying not to laugh. She was exhausted and looked it—definitely not the time to poke fun. “What fun is that? Everyone wants to look back at their life and say, ‘I hiked to Machu Picchu.’ I have yet to meet someone who wants to say, ‘I rode the bus.’”
“I’d ride the damn bus,” she muttered, but perked up when her beer arrived. “Thank you,” she said to the bartender, then me.
“No problem. You know, if you want, you can offer that to the students. Anyone who wants to avoid the hour-and-a-half hike in the morning can take the bus with you.” It chafed me to say it, but I needed to make sure all students were capable of making it to the top, and we’d had more than a few stragglers today.
The look of relief on her face sent a pang of guilt through me. Not everyone on this trip was as in shape as the Renegades, and I needed to keep that in mind.
“You want to give them another few minutes and then do bed check?” Lindsay asked.
“Bed check? Are they in high school?” I openly laughed.
“No, but according to the State Department, Peru has one of the highest crime rates in Latin America, including kidnapping.” Her wide eyes told me she wasn’t backing down.
“Okay, I’ll take the boys, you take the girls?” I offered.
She glanced nervously at Penelope’s table. “Will you take those? I know you’re their faculty advisor, and something tells me they don’t listen well when they’re not in class.”
I looked over to where the friends were lost in conversation, no doubt hashing out the final details for the stunt the day after tomorrow.
“They’re not that bad. You simply have to speak on their wavelength,” I told Lindsay. When had I become protective of the Renegades?
When you claimed one of them as yours.
“Well, wavelength or not, I’ll call for curfew, and then we can make the rounds?”
“Sounds like a plan.” I finished my beer as Lindsay sent the students to their rooms.
I officially felt old.
“Can I ask you a question?” Lindsay asked, taking the chair next to mine again in the almost-empty bar.
“Absolutely.”
“Are you seeing someone?”
I nearly spat out my beer. Chill the fuck out, she doesn’t know. After managing to swallow, I gave her my full attention. “Why?”
“Because you put out the just-friends vibe, and I’d rather know that you’re taken—or gay—as opposed to racking my brain to think up ten different things that are wrong with me.” She finished with a shrug, like my answer didn’t matter.
“There is nothing wrong with you, and yes, I’m seeing someone,” I said, my chest swelling with an unfamiliar emotion at being able to admit my relationship in this small way.
“Oh.” Her entire posture lightened. “Well, then that makes sense. She must be something special.”
Penelope’s face took over my mind. Her smile, her frown, her ocean-blue eyes when she was pissed. Her reckless need to push every limit, and the fragile vulnerability she kept so tightly guarded.
“I can honestly say that there is no one in the world who compares to her.” My words were soft but echoed into the deepest corners of my heart.
“Lucky girl.”
“Lucky me.”
We split up and headed for different floors of the hotel. After grabbing my roster, I found most of the Renegades in the hallway in various states of pajamas.
“Look, I don’t care who sleeps with whom—” Whistles interrupted me, and I grinned, shaking my head at my careless use of that phrase around a bunch of college kids. “What I meant was that I don’t care who is in what room, but Miss Gibson is worried about crime and kidnapping and dastardly deeds, though I can’t see anyone putting up with you bunch long enough to demand a ransom. So pick a room and stay there. I’m starting at this end for bed checks.”
The hallway cleared, and I went room by room, checking names off my list. The fifth door I checked was opened by Penelope. She wore drawstring pajama bottoms, a tank top, and bare feet, and yet she’d never looked sexier to me as she smiled softly. It was a look I wanted to see often, and preferably in my condo in L.A., if we made it off the ship intact.
You will.
By fall, maybe I’d see her in my apartment in Boston.
“Just Rachel and me,” she said, opening the door so I could see inside.
Rachel waved from her bed, then, slipping headphones on, went back to whatever she was doing with her camera.
“I figured she’d be bunked up with Rhodes,” I said to Penelope.
“She’s on Penna duty,” she answered. “They’re not going to leave me alone until I somehow prove I’m back to normal.”
“And how are you supposed to do that?”
“Probably by getting on that damn motorcycle,” she answered. “We have the live expo coming up, and I still haven’t so much as sat on my bike.”
I leaned against her doorframe. “Are you ready?”
“I don’t know, but I feel like I’ll get there eventually, which is better than I felt a month ago.”
“That’s progress.”
She looked over at Rachel, who head-bobbed with whatever music she was listening to, then whispered, “This is harder than I thought it would be.”
“I know. Trust me, I know.”
“I wish you could kiss me good night.” That spark I loved so much lit in her eyes, and I almost cursed our arrangement.
But denying myself now so I could have her later was worth everything.
“Me, too. Though I’m not sure I’d stop at kissing you,” I whispered quietly.
She stepped back into her room, door handle in hand. “Good night, Dr. Delgado.”
“Miss Carstairs.” I inclined my head toward her, retreating as she shut the door. This secret bullshit really, truly, purely sucked.
…
“Okay, everyone gather around. Let’s get some actual learning done here,” I told the students as we settled into an open area in Machu Picchu, head count complete.
The hike had been slightly treacherous, steep and unforgiving. Some of the paths had turned to mud due to last night’s rain, but I hadn’t heard a single complaint from the thirty-one students who came with me. We’d met the bus at the entrance to the site and come the rest of the way as a group.
The site itself was a damned marvel, and I couldn’t wait to get through this portion of the expedition so I could explore.
“First off, make sure you’re staying hydrated, and if you’re feeling short of breath, don’t panic. We’re up here at eight thousand feet, so it’s mostly the altitude.”
Lindsay smiled at me, and I knew it was because she was one of the people struggling to catch her breath even though she’d arrived with the bus. I scanned the rest of the students and found Penelope with an arched eyebrow in Lindsay’s direction.
Real subtle, baby. I barely contained my smile, but managed.
“Okay, welcome to today’s session of Latin American history, on location, if you will. Who can tell me why Machu Picchu is so special?”
“The Inca ruled for only a hundred years, and to accomplish something like this in such a short time is amazing,” Leah answered.
“Good. Yes. Archeologists believe that it had to have been ordered by the first Incan emperor since it took about fifty years or so to build. What else?”
“It was completely abandoned, which is probably what saved it from Spanish destruction, seeing as they demolished almost every other holy Incan site during their conquest,” Luke Ruiz threw out. “They never found it.”
“Correct, again. Why it was abandoned continues to be a mystery. While smallpox and civil war had both already done their part to weaken the empire, there’s no sign of war here. In fact, it looks like it was stopped mid-construction. What else?” I looked around the group.
“Logically, it shouldn’t be here.”
Her voice slid over me like warm caramel.
“Go ahead, Miss Carstairs,” I prompted, daring myself to look at her as she answered. I locked down every muscle in my face, determined not to show any reaction that might give me away.
“Its location is sacred, the river beneath us, the four tallest peaks at every direction. Spiritually, militarily, culturally—it’s exactly perfect for the Incans in every regard.”
God, it sounded like she was talking about us, or maybe I had us on the brain so much I could twist anything she said. “You’re absolutely right. But the same could be said for a hundred other sites of ruins from civilizations all over the globe.”
“But this one geographically shouldn’t have lasted a century, let alone six,” she said.
Bingo. Her brain was as much of a turn-on as her body was—hell, even more so.
“We’re surrounded on both sides by two earthquake-prone fault lines on this ridge.” She pointed to both ends of the site. “But more than that, Machu Picchu gets two and a half times the amount of rain as Chicago during the rainy season, and is known for mudslides in the surrounding area. Seeing as it was built almost six hundred years ago, the site should have washed away long ago.”
“Mudslides, yay,” Rachel said with jazz hands.
Landon laughed and put his arm around her shoulder.
Penelope rolled her eyes.
“So if this site is perfect for what the Inca needed, and yet pretty geographically flawed, why is it still standing?” I asked Penelope.
She tilted her head, then straightened and looked around at the ruins, the sky, ground, anywhere but me. “Because they built a strong foundation.”
“How?” I challenged.
She met my level gaze, a slight smile curving her lips. “They started from the ground up, terracing the mountain to hold it in place.”
“So it’s all in the foundation?”
She nodded. “They layered topsoil, sand, and then granite chips so that the terraces never flooded, never had a reason to give way. Then they brilliantly channeled that water through a connected system of fountains that harnessed the local spring as well as the rain, providing clean drinking water to the population.”
God damn, I wanted to kiss her, to scream out to the world that this gorgeous, brave, smart-as-hell woman was mine. “So they turned their greatest weakness into a strength.”
“Exactly.”
Just like we will. She didn’t need to say it; her eyes did all the talking for her.
I ripped my gaze off her before it gave me away. “Okay, who wants to tell me about the granite-cutting techniques?”
Another student answered, then another, and twenty minutes later, I’d managed to complete the entire session without looking at Penelope again. I finished up telling them about the importance of the position of the altar and the prevalence of child sacrifice in Incan culture that had been uncovered by high-altitude archaeologists in the Andes at even higher elevations than we were.
Then I reminded them of our meet-up time and set them free to wander.
I hiked the various levels of the ruins for an hour, answering questions from students, asking my own of the guide. The best part of having a two-hundred-person-a-day limit for visitors to the site was that it made it so much less crowded.
How was I lucky enough to be here? To have come from where I did—with almost no chance of survival, let alone thriving? This was a sight my grandmother would most likely never see, one that my mother never had the chance to—and never would.
But Elisa would.
She would have the life she’d worked so hard for—the one she deserved. She’d lived long enough in his shadow, under his thumb, and in two more months she’d get the freedom every woman deserved, especially one as kind and smart as my little sister.
My failure wasn’t an option.
I walked carefully as I descended the carved stone steps. All it would take was one misstep and I’d fall three hundred feet down the cliff. Curving around one of the structures, I found Penelope and her friends examining the stonework on the inside of what had been a home.
“Hey, Doc,” Wilder said, his arm around Leah.
“What are you guys up to?” I asked, standing on the opposite side of the room from Penelope. “Tell me you’re not planning any stunts here. I’d hate to have to kick your asses.”
Wilder laughed. “Nawh. We might be entitled assholes, but we’re not disrespectful entitled assholes.”
“Good to know,” I told them. “You guys make it down to the lower terraces yet? You still have enough time before we have to head out. There’s a storm coming in.”
“That’s what we get for visiting in the rainy season,” Leah answered. “Pax, want to head down?”
“If you’re asking if I’ll walk you down to look at some really old walls holding up some really old terrace work, then yes,” Wilder said.
One by one, they filed out, until it was just Penelope and myself.
“You should go with them,” I said softly.
“There are a lot of things I should do,” she retorted with a grin that nearly took me to my knees. There was something about her smile that was captivating and addictive, infusing me with the joy she felt.
“Go,” I ordered softly, wishing she could stay, that I could have just a few minutes with her.
She sighed but nodded, brushing past me as she went out of the stone-enclosed house. “I can’t stop thinking about your hands,” she admitted softly, staring straight ahead at the skyline.
Those hands she was talking about clenched. God, the woman loved to keep me on edge. I glanced at our surroundings, making sure there were no students in earshot. “I can’t stop remembering every single inch of you,” I whispered across the eighteen inches that separated us. “Or thinking about how I’m going to explore those inches with my mouth the next time I get you under me.”
“Cruz,” she whimpered, her gaze shooting toward mine. Her breath hitched, and as much as I wanted to congratulate myself on being able to rile her with nothing but a few words, I wasn’t much better off.
Virgin. She’s a virgin. Slow down.
“Go meet up with your friends before we find ourselves in trouble, Penelope,” I half ordered, half pleaded.
She gave me one last, searing look and then left me standing there, watching her walk away.
…
My phone beeped with the monotone ring that signaled an international call as I balanced it between my shoulder and ear.
Two rings later, Elisa picked up.
“Hello?”
My chest loosened, the same way it always did when I heard her voice. “Hey, I got your email, what’s up?”
“Cruz! I’m so happy you called! I wasn’t expecting to hear from you for another few weeks.”
“Well, when I get an email from my little sister telling me it’s urgent that I call, I find the time. Besides, you lucked out—we’re still in Lima for one more day, so I have service.” I moved the phone to my other hand and finished unpacking. We’d gotten back from Machu Picchu only a couple of hours ago, and I was due on deck in a few moments to get ready for the next stunt before we pulled out of port.
“Guess what?”
“You found a way to dig a tunnel to Miami.”
“Ha. Ha. You’re so very funny.”
“Tell me what’s up, imp.” I tossed my empty daypack to the bottom of my closet. I shouldn’t need it again for a month or so.
“They increased my scholarship!”
A lump grew in my throat. “Really? God, Elisa, that’s amazing. How much?” I already knew I was on the hook for her tuition, but between me and loans, we’d get her through Harvard if I had to get a job with Thunder from Down Under to pay for it.
“I got a full ride,” she whispered, as if saying it at full volume would somehow make it disappear.
“You what?” I sank to my bed, my knees unable to support me.
“A full ride! Tuition, room, board, all of it!”
My eyes drifted skyward, and I muttered a prayer of thanks, automatically switching to Spanish. Everything was coming together. Last year we’d thought she’d have to defer her acceptance until I could get to her next year, but here I was, here we were, and the pieces were starting to fit as if fate herself had designed the puzzle.
“Hey, you said English only,” she chided, a smile in her voice.
“I’m just…” I shook my head. “I can’t believe it. I mean, I can—you’re brilliant, but just knowing that it’s taken care of…I don’t have words.” Her tuition was paid. Her room, board, all covered.
“I guess I wrote one hell of an essay,” she joked.
If I wanted to, once this trip was over, I could decide not to teach. I could go back to the army full time if I wanted, or take up underwater toenail painting. Sure, I loved teaching, but I’d always chosen my profession for this one purpose—this mission.
Grandma’s house would be paid off, and Elisa’s tuition was taken care of.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“I feel like a lot of my future just opened up,” I told her honestly. We’d never had secrets between us, not from the moment she’d tracked me down seven years ago.
“I never wanted you to plan your whole future around me.”
“I know, and it hasn’t been a sacrifice, so don’t think that it has.”
“You give up too much.”
“Six more weeks, and then you’ll be on your way to Harvard. That’s all that matters. You have a whole wide world opening to you.”
“What about you? When this is over, what will you do besides teach? Finally settle down with that girl you took to Grandmother?”
I grinned. “Grandma. Grandmother is too formal for most use. And how would you know about that?”
“She does know how to email, you know. She said her name was Penelope, and that she was beautiful, driven, smart, and strong enough to handle your idiotic ways.”
“Is that what she said?” I asked, lying back on my bed. Hiking for three straight days had worn me to the bone.
“Yep. And she said that even though you swore up and down that you are just friends, you’re completely—what was the word she used? Smitten.”
Smitten. Infatuated. Captivated. Enchanted. Pretty much any of those descriptions worked.
“Did she tell you that she’s my student?”
She was silent on the other end for a moment except for the sound of one very long sigh. “Yes. She said you were fighting it.”
“Would you think less of me if I didn’t fight it? If I told you I knew her before she was my student? That us being here on this ship together is either the biggest coincidence or the greatest act of fate I’ve ever seen?”
“I would say that if you found a glass slipper, then you put it on her foot—or whatever. You know what I’m trying to say.”
“This isn’t a fairy tale, Elisa.”
“All love is a fairy tale if you look at it from the outside, Cruz.”
“If…if something happens, and I’m caught, I’d get fired. I’d be thrown off the ship.”
“Then don’t get caught.”
Why couldn’t I see everything as simply as my sister did? Oh, right, because I wasn’t seventeen and starry-eyed. “It’s a really big risk.”
“It’s a really big reward. Look, if I wasn’t involved—”
“If you weren’t involved, I wouldn’t be here in the first place.”
“Okay, well, forgetting all that. If I wasn’t in the picture, would you risk it for her? Your career? Your reputation?”
I thought about it for a second, everything Penelope and I had already been through in the five short weeks I’d known her. “I would risk my life for her. Hell, I already have.”
Elisa sighed. “See? Fairy tale. Are you in love with her?”
That soft burning in my chest made its presence known, and I pushed it away. “I’ve been officially, and very secretly, dating her for about four days now. I think that’s a little soon to be throwing that word around, imp.”
“Prince Charming knew in one night.”
“Prince Charming was too slow to catch Cinderella with one shoe on. I’m holding myself to a higher standard here.”
“Fair enough.” I heard a rustle in the background. “Crap. He’s home,” she whispered. “Talk again in a few weeks?”
My stomach turned queasy. Six weeks, I reminded myself. Then I wouldn’t have the constant fear to tote around with me like a fifty-pound weight around my neck.
“Just email me with a time. Love you.”
“Love you,” she whispered, and hung up.
I couldn’t think about what would happen next—whether or not he’d be in a good mood. If she’d hidden her Harvard paperwork well enough, every other scrap of information that could ruin our plan—or her life.
Putting the cell phone in my dresser drawer, I braced my hand on the top and looked myself in the mirror, making the same promise I had every day for the last five years.
I may have failed my mother, but I would not fail Elisa.
She would live.
