Desert Inferno, which I wrote in the 1990s, is as pertinent today for the border issues as it was when I wrote it. Some things don't seem to change much. When I decided to bring it out in 2011, I did have to change a few things, if I wanted it to be today. It also has a little harder language than some of my books although soft for today's contemporary romances.
~~~
As Jake entered the swamp-cooled bar, the air
was almost as hot inside as out. The humid air hung as heavily as the cigarette
smoke. Mac, elbows leaning on the bar, looked up and recognized Jake.
"Howyadoin'?" he asked, grinning as he whipped a glass from the shelf
and filled it with cold beer from the tap.
"Don't ask," Jake responded.
Loosening the buttons of his shirt, he leaned back against the bar, turning to
let the air from the fan blow across his chest, drying the sweat on his body
and offering the only cooling, short of a cold shower, he could expect from the
night. At home he had only a small fan to circulate the air.
“Mac, this place is like an inferno. When you
going to turn on the air conditioning?”
Mac’s face took on an aggrieved look. “Hey that
stuff costs money. It’s not that bad-- yet.”
Krista Bernard walked boldly up to the bar. She
smiled up as she sidled her rounded, jeans-clad hips nearly to touch his thigh.
"Buy a lady a beer?"
Jake looked around the room. "There one
here?" he asked with a faint smile, not surprised when Krista slapped his
arm.
Mac brought Krista a beer as Jake reached into
his pocket and brought out the fresh pack of cigarettes he'd purchased on his
way back to the office.
"Thought you quit," Mac chided with a
shake of his head.
Jake lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply.
"I did."
"How many times that make?"
"I don’t count."
“One of these days they’ll make me turn this
place smoke free. That talk is spreading.”
“When it does, you’ll lose business.”
"Have a hard day, big guy?" Krista
asked, fluffing her straw blond hair.
Ignoring the question, Jake exhaled the smoke.
"I heard a kind of unusual body was found
down south. You in on that?" Mac gave the bar a cursory wipe with his
cloth.
"What’s your source?" Jake asked. He
should have been surprised at how fast Mac knew what was going on, but it had
long since ceased to amaze him.
"Tony."
Jake took another long drag on his cigarette
and felt himself begin to unwind for the first time in what seemed days. “The
county’s out checking the site.”
"Tony said it was a broad found the
body."
Jake snorted. "That’s the part got your
interest?”
“I like the ladies. So’s that a crime?"
“Well Tony was wrong for once. She was no
broad.”
"What other kind is there?" asked Mac
grinning. To him, all women were broads.
"No category for this one. Where do you
file spoiled, beautiful, rich girls?" Jake asked taking a swig of his
beer.
"How do you know all that? Look her up,
Jake?" asked Krista.
"Didn’t need to. It was written on her
tight, little ass."
"You did some looking then?" Mac
asked with a chuckle.
"I’m human." Shaking his head, he
thought how hard he had tried to avoid looking as he finished the beer in a
gulp and ordered another.
"So, the babe was a looker?" Mac
probed for more details, hopefully salacious ones. The picture over the bar was
one of the sexier ones of Angelina Jolie. It wasn’t there for the customers.
Jake surveyed the room casually, noting two men
and a woman at one table and a couple at the back booth. He shrugged off Krista's
hand, as she tried to pull him to a table. "Not hanging around
tonight, kid," he said, shaking his head. "Got a killer headache. It’s
been a long day. I'm going home to bed."
"That's what you always say," she
complained. "When are you and me going to have some fun?" Her
large lavender eyes were luminous and demanding as she pulled on his arm.
"Maybe when I’m in the mood for fun,"
Jake said tersely, stubbing out his cigarette.
"Except you never are," she
complained.
Jake looked down at her thoughtfully. The lines
and hardness in Krista's eyes told him her life had been anything but easy. She
was older than him-- by how many years he could only guess. He knew of at least
one husband, but the rest of her life was as closed a book to him as his to
her. He shook his head. "I told you before, Krista. Find yourself a
boyfriend. That's what you need--a guy who'll be there for you."
"Not you?" she asked with a tight
smile.
Jake shook his head. "The last thing I
want in my life is a woman--any woman."
"Not even the one from today," she
snapped, angrily, the lines deepening around her mouth.
"Like that’s an option."
"You’re right. No guy who looks like you'd
have a chance with a rich bitch." Her laughter at her own joke was loud
and piercing.
Jake didn’t look at her, not surprised at how
quickly she had gone from teasing and flirting to taunting. It wasn’t the
insult that got to him. It was the vagaries of the female mind. One minute
they're coming on to you like you're catnip--the next, spitting venom like a
rattlesnake.
Krista smile turned to a frown. "Lordy,
Jake, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that."
"A woman never does," Jake said.
It was not like he cared. He didn't need
complications in his life; and from what he'd seen of relationships between the
sexes, they were always complicated. His rule had been to keep the
connection under the sheets and never see any of them in the cold light of day.
A woman he ran into regularly, like Krista, didn’t qualify—even if he had found
her sexually appealing, which he didn’t.
Jake reached into his wallet to pay for his and
Krista's drinks.
"You think that guy was murdered?"
asked Mac as he took the bills.
"Didn’t Tony already tell you?"
"Just that there was something odd about
it."
Jake shrugged. "It’s a county
problem so far as I can see."
"They doing an autopsy?"
Jake nodded, not volunteering anything. Toxicology
would tell them if the man had been under the influence of a drug. It might
explain the odd behavior. It wouldn’t explain the marks of torture on his body.
