Framing Felipe, page 10
“Just stay where you are. Get used to it. Is it so terrible, being there?”
“Terror wouldn’t be the word I’d use to describe it. I just…”
His fingertips danced down to her waist, and lingered at the small of her back. They
tickled the stretch of exposed skin between her shirt bottom and her pants’ waistband, and
Sarah drew in a sharp breath, her gut and things much lower contracting.
FRAMING FELIPE – 63 – Holley Trent
No, it wasn’t that she found him abhorrent at all. It was just…she didn’t know how they
could possibly sustain such a coupling. Or if he’d even want to. She didn’t do casual, and
although her attitude sometimes had a tinge of misandry about it, the truth was, she
tolerated men just fine. At least the ones she considered her equals—Eric, Patrick, her
father, her brother. It was a short list, really.
Given what she was, though, she wasn’t sure she was capable of the give and take
required to keep any sort of real relationship from exploding upon impact.
It’d been a long time since she’d even tried.
And Felipe? Well, he was a circus performer with no home and a lot of baggage.
“Bésame.”
“I don’t want to kiss you,” she lied.
“Why not?”
Of course he would ask that. She didn’t have a good response, so did the next best thing
and turned the tables on him. “Why do you want me to kiss you?”
He didn’t pause at all. “Eventually, I think, you’ll give all of yourself to me. Your lips are
just the start.”
She pushed up onto her elbows and stared at his placid expression. Cocky bastard. She
didn’t know if she wanted to smack him or…
He narrowed his eyes. “Is this uncomfortable for you?”
She had to think about it—really, truly think. It wasn’t her proximity to him that set off
her sensors. Having her body pressed against his wasn’t really that bad a place to be. What
really set her alarm bells off was the little voice in her head whispering that if she gave him
an inch, she’d want to give him a mile. She would give him everything she had, and she had
no idea why.
She didn’t like that.
“Let me up. I need to check on Eric. Maybe help with those apples, if it’ll speed things
along. I’m hungry.”
He let go of her, but didn’t budge from his reclined state. There was an intensity in his
eyes she didn’t like. It told her he wasn’t done with the subject.
FRAMING FELIPE – 64 – Holley Trent
She had both feet on the floor when Eric strode in whistling, pushing a portable
catering table in front of him with the help of the line cook. “I’ve got all your favorites,
Sarah. Whipped sweet potatoes, succotash, devilled eggs…”
This was one of the reasons Eric was on her shortlist. Sarah laughed and strode to the
serving table Eric unloaded plates onto.
“Enjoy it. Once the folks upstairs start smelling it, they’ll make their way down and
disturb your romantic interlude.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “Go away.”
“I will.” He winked and sauntered backward toward the kitchen. “But not because you
told me to.” He blew a raspberry.
She mumbled, “Ass,” while uncovering the serving dishes.
“Runs in the family,” he called back.
Felipe walked over, hands stuffed into his jeans pockets, and eyed the spread. “Known
him long?” he asked.
“About as long as I’ve known Astrid.”
He wrapped his fingers over the back of one of the chairs and edged it away from the
table slowly, his eyes trained on the seat. “You have…history?”
She stopped scooping succotash and gave him a look he didn’t see. “History?”
Now he trained his eyes at her, but it wasn’t the clear gray of his irises she paid much
attention to. It was the fine, twitching muscles in his jaw hinges. “Do you have…a past? With
him?”
“You mean, did we date?” Any other man she would have told none of your business, but
somehow, it felt a lot like Felipe’s business.
“Yes. Date, I guess. He is your… ex novio?”
Did all men think that if you were friendly with a guy it was because he’d been in your
pants before? She shook her head and resumed filling her plate. “No. Just a dear friend.”
Footsteps on the staircase beyond the north wall made her speed her pace. The other
guests would arrive soon. She grabbed a second plate and heaped portions onto it as Felipe
seemed frozen—fixated, even. “We’re a close-‐knit group,” she said and bobbed her head
toward the pile of utensils on the table.
Finally, he nodded and selected two of each utensil.
FRAMING FELIPE – 65 – Holley Trent
She grabbed tongs and plucked the biggest, juiciest chicken portions out of the tray.
In a near-‐whisper, she added, “When you’ve got to keep a lot of secrets…” She used two
cloth napkins to cover the heaping mounds of food. “…you trust few people. You know
that.”
He nodded. “I…I do.”
“Well, Eric wins by default because he’s Astrid’s brother. He cares about all of our sorry
asses. Too nice for his own good, probably.”
Felipe at the far end of the great room’s table seemed poised to deposit their utensils
onto the top.
“Wait…” she said. “Not here.”
He looked up at her, his expression quizzical.
The small room had filled. There were already eight people standing about waiting to
serve themselves.
Felipe didn’t seem bothered by it, but to Sarah, it was as if she’d been dropped into the
middle of a stampede. She didn’t know these people. Didn’t trust them.
An older woman smiled as she walked past and said, “Glad this heat wave is letting up a
bit, aren’t you?”
Sarah returned her smile, weakly, and managed a high-‐pitched “Mm-‐hmm,” in
response, nodding her head too fast, too franticly.
An elderly man followed the woman, saying, “She’s never been much for the heat.” He
winked at Sarah and rested a hand on her shoulder.
She flinched, but fixed her face before the man could take offense. She could see Felipe
in her peripheral vision, moving closer.
Good. A buffer. She shifted her weight to the other hip and flexed her tired wrists, which
had become stressed from the weight of the dinner plates.
The man droned on, his hand still on her shoulder, squeezing. “I remember when I was
kid and it was hot like this—”
Felipe stepped in and grabbed the plates. “Querida, estás cansada. Vamos. ”
Her mouth opened then closed without a word as she fixed on Felipe’s gaze.
What’s wrong with me? Brain is like cotton.
Felipe’s lips parted once more. “¿ Querida, estás bien?”
FRAMING FELIPE – 66 – Holley Trent
She could hardly make sense of the words. The only things that seemed significant in
the universe at that particular moment were Felipe’s lips. His mouth. Tongue.
She swallowed the lump in her throat.
“¿ Querida?” He nudged, now insinuating himself so close, the older man dropped his
hand.
She gave a long blink and blew out a ragged exhale. Play along. Smiling at the stranger,
she apologized. “Uh. Lo siento. ”
The man covered his belly with his hands and chuckled. “Honey, you don’t speak
English? Just as well. My wife says I don’t half speak English, either.”
He laughed again at his own joke, damn near wheezing.
His wife intervened. “Lord, don’t talk those folks to death. Come on and fix your plate.”
Sarah offered the stranger an apologetic little smile as she backed away, and pried the
utensil rolls from beneath Felipe’s arm. Still playing along, she wrapped her arm around his
waist and him guide her to the staircase. They climbed them without her paying much
attention to the rises and runs, and then they were in front of a room that must have been
theirs. Felipe’s backpack hung on the knob.
Sarah grabbed the bag, and tried the knob. The doors were usually unlocked when
guests weren’t in their rooms. The old locks didn’t work well with their keys anymore. Most
guests, fortunately, were civilized enough not to steal.
She pushed, and the door swung inward, and let Felipe stride ahead to set the dishes on
the small table.
Sarah lingered in the doorway holding Felipe’s bag, taking account of the mauve shag
carpet she hadn’t paid much attention to before. The walls were a dusky pink color plucked
from the floral-‐print wallpaper border’s 1980’s palette. That had been the last update to
the décor, and Eric knew a makeover was overdue. He had one planned for summer.
There was no overhead light, only a thirty-‐year-‐old bronze floor lamp that leaned
precariously into the far corner behind the single wingback chair, so Felipe strode over and
clicked it on. He next sunk into the chair and made quick work of removing his shoes.
She hadn’t noticed how dated the place was before. She probably shouldn’t have been
paying too much attention to it, but Felipe’s presence was giving her pause where she
FRAMING FELIPE – 67 – Holley Trent
normally would have had action. Normally, she would have sat and ate, décor be damned.
But him being there made her watch and wait for his next move.
“Come in, querida.” He tossed his shoes beside the chair and made a come here gesture
with his hands.
“You don’t have to call me that. I know it was just a front for that guy.”
She nudged their bags inside and pushed the door closed over the carpet’s high pile.
She wondered what Eric planned to replace the shag with as she locked the door.
“You think I can stop now that I’ve started? It just slips off my tongue. If it offends you,
I’ll try harder.”
“No, not offended…”
“Estupendo. ” He stood and loped to the dresser, grabbed one of the plates, and sat with
it on the edge of the bed.
She figured she might as well follow in suit. She felt dumb standing there by the door as
if he was going to do her some harm.
She pulled back the old flannel curtains and took stock of their position in the inn. A
relieved sigh escaped her lips. They faced the front lot, and not the woods. She’d never been
afraid of the dark and the thoughts of bogeymen didn’t scare her. After all, she was one of
those monsters, in a way. But she’d been on high alert for so many weeks on end, she was
having a hard time coming down. Everything was putting her on edge. Sleeping with the
woods, teeming with unknown threats, abutting their room seemed to be asking for too
much.
Her fingers jiggled the locks, testing them once, twice, ensuring there’d be no threat
from outside, then she let the curtains fall. When she turned, Felipe was twirling his fork
between his long fingers and watching her.
“You must think I’m neurotic.” She moved from the window, stopping halfway between
the food on the dresser and the bed. Which did she want more? Her hand flitted over her
belly, idly, as she took stock of her body. Am I hungry? Or more tired?
Tired seemed to be winning the battle, but she should eat a little something. While
undercover, she hadn’t been eating well or sleeping much. There hadn’t been time, and she
couldn’t be everywhere at once. She’d spent more hours at the club than she’d she
FRAMING FELIPE – 68 – Holley Trent
technically been on schedule to work. It was a solo gig, so that meant if she left, there would
have been no one else to watch over those girls and women.
And when she wasn’t at the club, she had infrequent meetings with her FBI contact, or
she’d been talking to people in the community, trying to extract information that would
help convict the club owners.
She’d been a perpetual motion machine, and now she felt like she could hardly move at
all.
She blew out a breath and dragged her tongue over dry lips. Finally, she grabbed the
edge of the second plate and sat next to Felipe on the queen-‐sized bed.
He’d already eaten half of what was on his plate in that short time.
She stared at her full plate, and found nothing appetizing about it.
Felipe reached across his body and nudged some hair back from her face. He said in
Spanish, “You know, this is the longest I’ve ever been apart from my brother.”
Oh, yes. Fabian. The cause of them being there in that room together in the first place.
She heeled off her boots as she pulled the tines of her fork through her sweet potatoes. “Are
you frightened?”
“That something will happen to him?” Felipe shrugged. “Yes and no. Like me, he’s
pretty adaptable. He can take care of himself, but he’s a bit of a bleeding heart. He’ll go
down in flames tending to everyone around him. Chances are good if he has the
opportunity to flee, he might not take it if he thinks there’s someone he can rescue.”
“Is that disgust I hear in your voice?” She picked up her chicken breast and took a small
bite, watching him watch her.
His eyebrows shot up. “No, not in the least. Yes, I think he’s nuts, but I think it’s just
something built into his constitution. He’s very generous in that way. I am not.”
She didn’t agree. Her psychic abilities were generally limited to making people want to
talk to her—apparently sometimes when she wasn’t even trying—but like Dana, she had a
good gut. She could read people, and her gut said Felipe was just as likely to go down in a
blaze of glory as Fabian. Her gut also informed her that she didn’t like that idea one bit.
Maybe it’s because he was too much like Sarah. The realization settled into her core
like a block of ice, and she set down her fork. Bold and reckless at the expense of herself.
That was Sarah to a tee.
FRAMING FELIPE – 69 – Holley Trent
Change the subject.
“How isn’t that you and Fabian haven’t mastered fluency in English?” she asked in
Spanish.
He reached over and plucked her roll off her plate, correctly assuming she wasn’t going
to eat it. “It’s just one of the ways Jacques makes it difficult for troupe members to seek
independence. If you don’t know the language, it’s hard for you to get help. To blend in. We
learned what we could from books and magazines, and whenever a native English speaker
joined the troupe, we’d try to practice with them, but not so much to rouse suspicion. I can
read English well, and write in it, but I’m slow with translating it as natives speak it. I’m
always a beat behind.”
As was Sarah with Spanish.
“If I ever see that Jacques guy, the very least I’ll do is punch him in the throat.” And she
