Running Wild by Susan Andersen Read Free Book Online Page A

task. And if nothing else, that seemed to give her back some of her energy.
    So his job here was done.
    He rummaged through his pack for a bar of soap and cautiously sniffed his T-shirt’s underarms to see if he dared put it on again after his shower. Fortunately, his deodorant had held up, but the shirt was limp and still slightly damp. Santa Rosa had been warmly springlike, cradled as it was in the foothills of the Andes. But with every foot of elevation lost and each mile farther south that they’d driven, it had become hotter—until sweat had pretty much been the order of the day. And looking at his watch, Finn saw that although it had just turned ten, even with the small room’s louvered window open, the night was hot and still.
    But not quiet. There was a cantina on the corner and the sounds of guitars and merriment were a faint rhythm in the air. At the window insects clicked and whirred as they threw themselves against the thin screen. And somewhere among the cacophony of crickets out in the darkness, frogs croaked and an unidentified creature occasionally barked in a tone eerily seal-like.
    He dug through his pack again to retrieve the Rat City Rollergirls T-shirt he’d changed out of in the gondola, then picked a towel up off the chair and headed down the hall. He washed his clammy shirt in the sink, wrung it out as best he could and carefully spread it over the basin. Then he stepped into the shower.
    The space was narrow, the water pressure weak, and regardless of how cautious he tried to be, he couldn’t avoid bumping his shoulders or occasionally knocking an elbow against the enclosure walls. The water, however, was wonderfully cool. And when he stepped out several moments later, he felt refreshed.
    But he still didn’t have a clue what he was doing here. He and Mags had stopped in a small town below Santa Rosa so she could call her neighbor from a landline. Her cell phone was low-tech and didn’t support international calls. Not that his smartphone was appreciably better. Coverage was spotty everywhere except in cities and more well-populated towns.
    On the bright side the woman had been home, but it had taken her a while to find the correct letter from Magdalene’s mother and get back to them with the general location where Nancy Deluca had believed the grow farm to be.
    At no time during their wait and the several additional hours they’d driven had there been any sign of Joaquin. So Finn could probably let her take it from here and get back to his vacation.
    Except he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that the minute he turned his back, Joaquin or someone like him would track her down. And the thought of leaving Magdalene on her own to twist in the wind chafed against every behavior he’d been raised to adhere to when it came to women. So he was sticking until she found the grow farm. And if his decision didn’t exactly thrill him?
    It was still accompanied by a strange feeling of relief.
    * * *
     
    T HE MERE SCENT of the rice and beans and the two fat shellfish-filled empanadas on the tray Mags carried cheered her up. She’d expected to be directed to the cantina for such a late meal, but Senora Guerrero had happily insisted on heating up leftovers for her and Finn.
    The thought of the generously poured glasses of wine the older lady had included didn’t hurt her vastly improved outlook. The woman was a love. During their chat as the senora assembled the meal, Mags had admitted how exhausted, yet wired, she felt. Mrs. G. had promptly splashed some rich red wine into a glass for her, then poured the rest into the additional two goblets to add to the serving tray.
    Mags acknowledged she was running on fumes. She’d rolled out of her cushy pillow-top bed in LA at zero-dark-thirty this morning and felt as if she’d been awake for a straight two days rather than the nineteen or so hours it had actually been. And the minute, the very
instant
, she finished eating, she planned to grab that shower,