When Jess led Raffaele to the center of the dance floor and turned to face him, he didn’t pull her close as she expected. Instead, he held her in a proper dance stance, with his left hand at her right hip, and his right hand lifting her left until their entwined fingers were at about shoulder level. He also left a good eight inches or so of space between their bodies as he started to move, leading her with the hand at her hip and his hold on her hand.
Jess followed his lead wide-eyed, rather amazed that she could follow. She had never danced “properly.” Most of her experience came from high school dances when she was younger, and dancing at bars or nightclubs once she was in university, and most of that was fast dancing. When it came to slow dancing in those environments, it had always come down to the guy just putting his arms around her waist, and her resting her arms across his shoulders while the pair of them leaned into each other as they shuffled around, or at least swayed back and forth until the music ended.
Jess had seen older couples dance like this, though. With this proper hold and the distance between them. Still, it felt odd and even awkward doing it. Not that Raffaele wasn’t a good dancer; he was. He was leading her with his hands, a little pressure on her hip, or by pulling her hand one way or the other. She found following him easy. But Jess didn’t know where to look. He was taller than her, his chest directly in front of her face, but she didn’t want to tip her head and look at his face; she was afraid she’d just blush and feel foolish. In the end, she turned her head to the side and stared at the other couples on the dance floor, and then out at the dark beach when they slowly turned and it came into view.
The night was shades of black out there beyond the deck lights, a world of shadows. Most were stationary—the huts and lounge chairs and beach umbrellas that were all still out. But some of the shadows were moving as couples drifted down to the beach for privacy, she noted. And then her eyes landed on one dark shape among all the others and Jess felt fear leap in her chest. It was a man, which was no surprise; there were a dozen or so of them on the beach, most with a partner, but some alone. This one, though, cut a rather distinctive figure, and then a second figure joined him.
“Jess?”
Turning her head reluctantly, she peered up at Raffaele in question.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “You stopped moving . . . and you’ve gone pale,” he added with a frown.
Jess hesitated, and then turned to peer out at the beach again, searching for the two men she’d thought she’d seen the first time, but they were gone. Did that mean Vasco and Cristo had never been there? Or that they had been there and had slipped away? Because that was who she thought she’d spotted down there on the beach. There was just no way to mistake Vasco’s hat, and she was quite sure the second figure had been Cristo.
“What did you see?”
Jess turned to find him searching the beach now, his narrowed eyes scanning the dark shadows and people. When he turned back to her, there was grim concern on his face.
“What did you see?” he repeated, his voice hard this time.
Jess opened her mouth to answer, but suddenly couldn’t remember what she’d seen. Frowning with confusion, she looked out toward the beach again and then shook her head. “It was nothing.” Sighing, she turned back to him and forced a smile. “I think I’d like to sit down now.”
“Of course.” Maintaining his hold on her hand, Raffaele wrapped his arm around her and ushered her back through the dancing couples to the table. Jess didn’t miss the irony in the fact that he held her closer to walk her to their table than he had while they were dancing. She also didn’t miss her body’s response to being so close. But then they were at the table and he was releasing her and pulling out her chair.
“Is everything all right?” Santo asked, eyeing the two of them.
Jess forced a smile. “Of course. I’m just hungry,” she assured him, and then reached for her wine, surprised to find the glass empty. She hadn’t realized she’d drank it all.
“I’ll order you another,” Raffaele murmured, turning to search for their waitress.
Jess opened her mouth to ask him to order her an iced tea instead, but he’d already caught the waitress’s attention and was gesturing to her glass. Shrugging, she let the order stand. Two glasses wouldn’t hurt her, she thought as she glanced over the food on the table. There was still a lot of it there. Oddly enough, though, her appetite was gone. But the gravy was there now, she noted, and since Zanipolo had only ordered it because of her, she felt she had to eat at least some of it, and so pulled one of the bowls closer to dip the fries in.
“So,” Zanipolo said after a moment, “you know we work for our family’s construction company. What do you do?”
“Oh.” Jess smiled faintly, and then paused to thank their waitress as she arrived and set a glass of wine next to her. Once the woman had left, she said, “I have two part-time jobs.”
“Two?” Raffaele asked with interest as she dipped a fry in the gravy and popped it into her mouth.
Jess nodded as she chewed and swallowed, and then took a drink of her wine before explaining, “I’m still a student, which kind of messes with the hours I can work, but my employers work around my classes.”
“What do you study?” Raffaele asked as she picked up another fry and repeated the dipping and eating.
Jess swallowed and picked up her glass again, but merely held it as she answered, “Well, originally my major was psychology and I planned to be a clinical psychologist. But now I have a double major, psychology and history. I’ve decided to teach history instead.”
“Why the switch?” Raffaele asked with interest. “Didn’t you like psychology?”
“Oh, yes. I enjoyed it a great deal,” Jess assured him, and then admitted with wry amusement, “And I was very good at it. My test scores were always in the top percentile, often even one hundred percent, and I got my master’s.” Pausing, she grimaced slightly and then added, “But books are wholly different than reality, and my part-time jobs helped convince me I might do better in a different field.”
Raffaele raised his eyebrows with curiosity. “And what are your part-time jobs?”
“I work part-time at a counseling center where I . . . well, I counsel,” she said with amusement.
“And the other job?” Zanipolo asked.
“I sling drinks at a local bar . . .” she said wryly, and then lifted her glass and grinned at them before downing the rest of her drink.
“Another?” Raffaele asked attentively when she set the empty glass down.
“Yes, please. But iced tea this time. Two is my limit for alcohol. I get wonky after that.”
Nodding, Raffaele turned to search for their waitress, and found himself staring at the woman’s bosom. She’d apparently approached to see if they needed anything and now stood next to him.
“You want something, sí?” the woman asked brightly as Raffaele jerked his eyes to her face.
“Sí,” he said at once, offering an apologetic smile. Raising his voice a little to be heard over the murmur of the crowd, he added, “My lady friend would like an iced tea, por favor.”
“One Island Iced Tea,” she said with a smile. “Anything else?”
“No, that’s it, gracias.”
She nodded cheerfully and hurried away, and Raffaele turned back to the table as Zanipolo commented. “So, Jess, counseling and bartending. As jobs go, I don’t think you could choose two more polar opposites.”
“Not really,” Jess said with a grin, and assured them, “In truth, bartending is really just more counseling, but with people who are liquored up and more honest and forthcoming with their issues.”
Raffaele smiled faintly, but thought it was a shame they couldn’t do that with Santo—get him liquored up so he’d relax and discuss his issues. A grunt from Santo drew his attention to the fact that his bald cousin was staring at him, narrow-eyed. He’d probably heard his thoughts, Raffaele realized, and grimaced, but quickly turned his attention back to Jess as Zanipolo asked with amusement, “And counseling people, both sober and drunk, convinced you that you shouldn’t counsel people?”
“Basically, yes,” Jess admitted with a crooked smile. “I find it hard to separate myself emotionally from what I’m hearing. From their pain,” she explained, her expression growing solemn. “A clinical psychologist needs to remain objective to help their patient. I couldn’t do that.”
“It must have been hard when you came to that conclusion. I mean, all that time wasted on one degree, only to have to switch to another,” Raffaele said solemnly.
“Not really,” Jess said, her smile returning. “I got a lot out of it.”
Raffaele tilted his head, his confusion, he knew, plain on his face. It made her smile widen.
“In truth, I took psychology mostly so I could figure out how to fix myself,” Jess admitted now, and then said more seriously, “I think that’s probably why most psychologists get into it.”
“Fix what?” Raffaele asked with surprise. “You seem perfectly fine to me.”
“Well, sure. Now.” Jess added the word in a tone as dry as dirt. She then explained, “Counseling is pretty much free on campus, and the professors are happy to muck about in your head if you’re a psych major and they like you. I’ve had loads of counseling over the years. But I went through a nightmare childhood. All the abuses: physical, sexual, and mental.”
Raffaele frowned. “Your parents—”
“No.” Jess shook her head and explained, “My birth father died before I was born, and my birth mom when I was two. After that I was in the foster care system. That’s where the abuse happened. By the time my parents adopted me at age eight, I was one damaged kid,” she admitted, her gaze perusing the other dishes on the table.
“These are good,” Zani said, sliding a plate of breaded something-or-other toward her. “I’m not sure what they are, and they’re a bit spicy, but bursting with flavor.”
As Raffaele watched her select one of the breaded nuggets, he said, “But things got better for you once you were adopted.” The words were a hopeful suggestion. The thought of this beautiful, vibrant woman being abused as an innocent child was extremely distressing to him, and he wished he’d been in her life earlier, and able to protect her.
Jess paused with the breaded treat in hand to smile wryly and say, “Oh, yes, but for a long time, I couldn’t escape what had happened. It was stuck in my head like a rut in the road. Even when I slept, the abusers visited me in my dreams. So, of course, I became one angry, hurting, and suicidal teen.” She shrugged. “I knew there had to be something better, a happier way to live. So I took psychology hoping to heal myself and find it.”
“And did you?” Santo asked, his voice a deep rumble. “Have you escaped your past? Or do your abusers still visit your dreams?”
Raffaele glanced at his cousin solemnly, knowing it wasn’t idle curiosity that made him ask that. Santo was obviously interested in healing. Perhaps a 3-on-1 could be avoided, after all.
Jess considered his question seriously. “I haven’t escaped it, per se. You just can’t escape the past, or erase it like it was never there. It happened. But I learned to accept it, and even appreciate it.”
“Appreciate it?” Santo asked sharply, his disbelief evident.
Jess smiled wryly. “Yeah, I know. Sounds crazy, right? But I really did luck out with my adoptive parents, and with them came a really awesome family full of wonderful grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Well, not counting Allison,” she added dryly, and then continued. “I might never have had them if my life had taken a different path. And,” she added, “I’ve learned to like myself. To value how strong I am, a strength I gained from surviving so much.”
“And you don’t think you could have been strong without the abuses put upon you in your past?” Santo asked.
Jess shrugged. “Maybe. But probably not.” Tilting her head, she asked, “Have you ever heard the saying ‘Strong winds, strong tree’?”
Santo shook his head.
“Well, my father—the one who adopted me,” she added, “he was a horticulturalist. He worked for the government doing Lord knows what. I know he had to visit a lot of government parks and lands. But anyway, he taught me that strong winds make strong trees, because the winds force the tree to send out a deeper root system to withstand those winds. Of course, having a deeper and larger root system helps the tree in other ways, in getting water in a drought and so on. So that adversity while the tree was young and growing makes it stronger later . . . if you see what I mean?”
Santo nodded.
“Well, I really think that’s true of humans too,” she said solemnly. “I mean, I’ve counseled a lot of people since starting work at the clinic, and what I’ve found is that the ones who had it rough when younger tend to bounce back better when life kicks them in the teeth as an adult, which you know happens to everyone. We lose the people we love, we’re robbed, we find ourselves on a pirate ship full of . . . er . . . bad guys,” she finished in a mutter.
Grimacing, she continued, “Anyway, in my opinion, people who experienced adversity earlier in their life tend to withstand and come back from that kind of stuff better as an adult than people who didn’t have adversity while young. In fact, people who were protected and cosseted while young often don’t seem to have learned the coping skills needed to handle stressors as an adult, and they’re the ones more likely to completely fall apart when adversity does hit them.”
Expression turning solemn, she added, “I’d rather be a strong tree than one that will topple over under the first big wind. And I am. I appreciate that.”
“And the dreams that haunted you?” Santo asked, his body tense.
Jess met his gaze, and something about her expression made Raffaele think she knew she was looking at another of the walking wounded, someone with a troubled and painful past that still haunted him.
“Once I accepted my past and decided I probably wouldn’t be me without that past . . . it seemed to lose a lot of its power over me,” she said slowly. “A lot of my anger slipped away, and a lot of . . .” Jess frowned, and then said, “When it’s happening, you start to feel like you must have deserved or caused the abuse . . . which is really just a kind of self-defense mechanism. You think, well, if I just hadn’t angered him, he wouldn’t have hit me. I should walk more quietly, clean better, do whatever better, and he won’t hit me again. Or if I hadn’t worn that skirt he wouldn’t have raped me. Or if I hadn’t walked down that road, or hadn’t gone to that party . . .” She paused and shrugged. “But that’s just your mind trying desperately to figure out why it was you and not someone else, so that it can find a way to prevent it happening again. Because to acknowledge that it was them and not you, and that you could encounter that kind of abuse or torture again no matter what you do . . . well, that’s scary as hell. And, I think, the nightmares are your mind struggling to come to terms, not only with what happened, but with the knowledge it could happen again.” Shrugging mildly, she added, “But that’s just what I think.”
“And why do you think that?” Santo asked.
“Because when I decided I liked myself, and accepted my past as a part of me, that made me the way I am, and acknowledged that bad things probably would happen again no matter my choices, but that I would survive them as I had everything else . . .” She shrugged. “The nightmares stopped coming. It wasn’t overnight, but it didn’t take ages either.”
She waved the breaded treat around briefly, and added with a wry smile, “At least those nightmares about my childhood. I still have nightmares on occasion, but they’re just your standard type nightmare: being lost or trapped, falling or drowning, being naked in public, flunking a test, that sort of thing. And that’s how it went for me. Doesn’t guarantee it will go that way for others.”
Raffaele watched Santo consider that for a moment, and then glanced to Jess and said, “You said you didn’t think you were a good counselor, and yet you still counsel?”
“Well, perhaps it’s not so much that I’m not a good counselor, as that counseling wasn’t necessarily healthy for me since I empathized too much with my clients.”
“And yet you still do it,” Raffaele said quietly.
“I need to eat,” she said with a shrug. “And working at the clinic pays well. Besides, I don’t really counsel anymore. Mostly I’m on intake. I interview new clients, and decide which of our counselors would best suit them. Apparently, I have a knack for that. So, I’ll probably do it until I finish my history degree, and then teacher’s college.”
Sitting back, she shook her head. “Boy, I sure turned into a Chatty Kathy, didn’t I?” she said almost apologetically, and then shook her head again and admitted, “Wine tends to loosen my tongue. I should probably eat more to soak it up.” With that, she finally popped the breaded treat into her mouth and began to chew.
The change in her was almost immediate and somewhat alarming. Her eyes widened with dismay, her mouth stopped moving, and then she flushed bright red and began to search the table almost desperately for something. Raffaele wasn’t sure what was happening, or what she was looking for. He was about to ask when the waitress arrived with her iced tea. Jess didn’t even wait for the woman to set it down, but snatched it from her hand with a gasped “Gracias” as she raised it to her mouth. She gulped down the contents of that glass like there was a fire in her stomach she needed to douse.
Or a fire in her mouth, Raffaele corrected when Zani offered an apologetic, “I did warn you it was spicy.”
Jess lowered her nearly empty glass to glare at the man.
“Sí, spicy,” their waitress said brightly. “There are ghost peppers in the . . . how you say? Breading?” She didn’t wait for a response, but moved a bowl of creamy dip toward Jess. “The sour cream, she helps, sí? Try.”
Jess didn’t hesitate. She pulled the bowl toward herself, grabbed a spoon, and began to scoop up the thick dip and transfer it to her mouth like it was soup. After a couple of spoonfuls and much swishing it around in her mouth, she sighed and sagged in her seat. Apparently, the fire was out. Or at least the worst of it was, he guessed when she then reached for her iced tea.
“Better, sí?” the waitress asked with a sympathetic smile as she watched her gulp down the last of her drink.
Jess started to nod as she took the glass away from her mouth, but then paused and moved her tongue around the inside of her mouth as she now stared at her empty glass, a frown slowly claiming her lips.
“What’s wrong?” Raffaele asked with concern.
“This isn’t iced tea,” she said with dismay, glancing from him to the waitress.
“It should be. I ordered you iced tea,” he assured her, and glanced to the waitress in question.
“Sí. Is the iced tea. The Island Iced Tea,” the woman said brightly.
“Island Iced Tea?” Jess asked slowly, and then her eyes narrowed. “Long Island Iced Tea?”
“Sí.” She nodded happily. “Té helado Long Island. I’ll get you another.”
“No! I didn’t want the first,” Jess cried at once, but the waitress was already bustling away to fetch another drink. Shaking her head, Jess set the empty glass down with a groan. “Oh, God.”
“What’s wrong?” Raffaele repeated, frowning now as well.
“What’s wrong?” she echoed with disbelief. “I already had two glasses of wine. That’s why I asked for iced tea. I didn’t want to get pickled.”
“But she says it was iced tea,” Raffaele pointed out with confusion.
When Jess scowled at him, Zani put in, “I told you we don’t drink. But Raff and Santo don’t even hang around with people who drink. He has no idea what a Long Island Iced Tea is.”
Jess nodded grimly, and then turned to Raffaele to explain. “A Long Island Iced Tea is pretty much pure alcohol. Vodka, rum, gin, tequila, triple sec, and a bit of sour mix over ice with literally a splash of cola for color. In the States, it’s pretty much like two, or three or sometimes even four, drinks in one. But from the size of the glass, the skimpy use of ice in it, and the way they’re so liberal with the booze here at the resort, this one was probably more like five or six drinks in one.” Closing her eyes, she shook her head and sighed. “I should have recognized at once that it wasn’t iced tea, but my taste buds were traumatized at first. It was only after the dip soothed them a bit that I even realized there was something off about the tea.”
“Oh.” Raffaele glanced at the empty glass and then back to her face. Her color was still high, but now he wasn’t sure if that was from the heat of the ghost peppers in the breading, or from the alcohol.
Sighing, Jess pushed her chair back from the table, saying, “Guess I’d better go see about that new room key and find my bed before the alcohol reaches my system. Thank you for the company, guys. And for all your help,” she added as she got to her feet. Pausing then, she glanced to Santo and smiled. “Especially the loan of your shirt. I’ll bring it down here to you as soon as I can get into my room and change.”
Raffaele had got up when she did and now took her arm to steady her when she swayed. “I’ll walk you up to the lobby,” he announced solemnly, and wasn’t surprised when Santo and Zanipolo decided to accompany them.
“I can’t believe I messed up with that drink order,” Raffaele said grimly several minutes later as he watched Jess talk to the man at the resort’s registration desk. It was a long walk from the beach restaurant to the lobby in the main building and her gait had grown more and more unsteady as they’d traversed the distance. Her speech had also started to be affected, so that she was slurring the occasional word.
“You didn’t mess up, the waitress did,” Zanipolo said soothingly. “Although, to be fair to her, it was loud in the restaurant, and most people probably don’t drink alcohol-free drinks at night here.”
Still feeling responsible, Raffaele grunted at that, and then muttered, “I can’t believe one drink could be this effective so quickly.”
“Well, she had two glasses of wine before the iced tea, and as she said, that one Long Island Iced Tea is probably the equivalent of five or six drinks the way they mix their drinks here,” Zanipolo said wryly. “I’ve noticed the bartenders are all pretty liberal with the booze. They seem to think drunk guests are happy guests.” He pursed his lips then and added, “It is a shame, though. She was really opening up and revealing a lot about herself before that happened. But the Long Island Iced Tea thing kind of brought a quick end to all that.”
“Hmm,” Raffaele muttered, and then heaved a sigh that released a good deal of his tension. Zanipolo was right. Jess had revealed a lot about herself in the restaurant, and all of it had just made him like her more. She’d obviously had a very tough childhood, and yet didn’t lay some sob story on them. Instead, she saw it as a positive, a strength even, and used it as such. He admired her for that. It kind of made him look at some experiences in his own past a little differently, as shaping tools rather than just bad experiences. It made him wonder what Santo had come away with from the conversation, and he glanced to his cousin and friend. But Santo’s face was often hard to read, and it was now as well.
Thinking he’d talk with Santo a little later and do a little probing to see how he was doing then, Raffaele turned his thoughts back to Jess and suddenly asked what he’d been wondering about since the dance they’d shared. “What did she see when we were on the dance floor?”
“I don’t know,” Zanipolo admitted, watching Jess too, but his expression was troubled now.
“She had a blank spot,” Santo announced, running one hand over his bald head with worry.
Raffaele stiffened and glanced to his cousins with concern. “Like someone erased her memory of what she saw?” he asked sharply.
“That would be my guess,” Santo admitted grimly.
“Mine too,” Zanipolo admitted.
“Then it was probably those pirates,” Raffaele said, turning his concerned gaze back to Jess.
“Probably,” Santo agreed.
“I feel ridiculous calling them pirates. They’re just damned rogues,” Zanipolo pointed out with irritation.
“But we can’t risk slipping up and calling them that in front of Jess,” Raffaele pointed out.
“True,” Zanipolo muttered with a sigh, and then shook his head. “Pirates, for God’s sake. The guy on the bus was even dressed as one, and so were the ones in Jess’s memories.”
“It’s for the tourists, probably lures them in in droves,” Raffaele pointed out grimly, and then shook his head and said, “I don’t get why they brought them back.”
“The tourists?” Santo asked.
Raffaele nodded. “Most rogues turn, kill, or torture their victims. They don’t just feed on them and send them home, or back to their hotel, like these guys did.”
“It is unusual,” Santo agreed thoughtfully.
“The one on the bus said—”
“Phew! For a minute there I didn’t think he was going to give me a new key card.”
Raffaele snapped his mouth shut mid-sentence and turned at those words from Jess as she approached them. Raising his eyebrows, he asked, “He was difficult?”
“I’ll say,” she said with a snort. “He kept saying I needed ID or Allison to verify I was me, that I could be anyone. And then he just suddenly changed his tune and couldn’t get me the card quickly enough. Guess he was tired of me begging,” she said cheerfully.
Raffaele turned to Santo and Zanipolo in question, but both men shook their heads. Neither of them had controlled the man at the desk and made him give Jess a new key. Mouth tightening, Raffaele peered around the lobby and then out the front windows and back, looking for any sign of the pirates. But he didn’t see the man he’d encountered by the bus, or anyone else who looked like a pirate.
“Wow! That Long Island Iced Tea is kicking my butt,” Jess said now, regaining his attention to see that she’d placed a hand on the back of the sofa next to them to steady herself. “It’s really starting to hit now. I should probably get back to my room while I can still walk straight.”
“We’ll escort you,” Raffaele said quietly, taking her arm, but urging her toward the front door of the lobby, rather than the door overlooking the steps. He didn’t trust her to be able to negotiate the steps in her state.
“So, you really think it is a good idea to let her stay in her room tonight?” Zanipolo asked as they made their way out of the building and walked under the porte cochere.
“Oh, I’m good,” Jess assured him. “It doesn’t matter if the vampirates have my original key card—it doesn’t have the room number on it. Besides, I probably won’t sleep anyway. I have to pack and make phone calls and stuff.”
When Zanipolo continued to look at him, Raffaele merely shook his head. He had no intention of leaving Jess by herself. He would help her pack her things, gather what she needed, and then try to convince her to come back to their room to wait until dawn. If that didn’t work, he’d stand guard outside the door to her room if necessary. He fully intended on sticking to her like glue until he had her safely on a plane out of Punta Cana.
“God, this place is sooo hot,” Jess complained suddenly, tugging fretfully at the collar of her borrowed shirt/dress as they started around the corner of the building and headed down the slanted path.
Raffaele grunted an agreement. The heat and humidity here were a bit extreme this time of year.
“We shoulda gone the other way,” Jess said now. “Then we coulda jumped in the pool on the way back and could could off.” Frowning, she shook her head. “Could could off. Could . . . cool . . . off,” she enunciated slowly and carefully, and then relaxed and grinned. “That’s it.”
Raffaele eyed her with concern. He had no idea how long it usually took for the effects of alcohol to hit a mortal, but he was guessing it had only been twenty minutes or so since she’d downed the iced tea. Of course, she’d had two glasses of wine before that. Still, he was quite sure her inebriation was going to get worse.
Jess suddenly pulled on the hold he had on her arm. She wasn’t trying to break free of him, he saw with relief. She was simply starting to weave a good deal on the downward slope.
“I think we should ger our swimsuits and gofer aswim,” she slurred now, tugging again at the collar of Santo’s shirt, and then stopping and tipping her head down to try to see to undo the top buttons.
“Let me help you,” Raffaele said patiently.
“Oh, tank you,” Jess muttered, lifting her head to beam at him. “You’re so nice. And cute too. You’re a cuuuutie. And you don’ have greasy hair. That’s nice.”
Raffaele had no idea what the hell she was talking about with the greasy hair business, but he liked hearing she thought him cute. Still, he didn’t fiddle with her buttons, but instead simply scooped her up and began to hurry along the path, moving at a speed his people generally didn’t use in the open where they might be seen. He needed to get her to her room and have her help him gather everything before the full impact of the alcohol hit and she was unable to help. He had no idea what she’d brought with her, and didn’t want her forgetting something important.
“Oh.” Jess peered around wide-eyed when they reached the building and he began running up the stairs. “You’re fast.”
Raffaele grunted in response. What could he say?
“Which room are you in?” he asked as he hurried out of the stairwell and started up the hall with Santo and Zanipolo on his heels.
“Room 406,” she answered and then grinned. “Right above yours.”
“Yes,” Raffaele agreed with surprise.
“Jeez, it’s like it was fate,” Zanipolo said with wonder behind them.
Raffaele ignored him. As they neared the room, he asked, “Do you have your new key card?”
“Oh.” She looked concerned for a minute and then noticed it in her hand and held it up triumphantly. “Yes.”
“Good. Run it over the security pad,” he suggested as he stopped, and Jess did as instructed. She even managed to do it right the first time.
The moment the green light flashed and a click sounded, Santo reached past them to open the door.
“Thanks,” Raffaele muttered as he carried Jess inside.
“Is Allison here?” Jess asked, craning her head to look toward the bedroom as Raffaele carried her into the sitting room.
Pausing, he hesitated, and then turned to carry her into the bedroom. His gaze slid over the two double beds in the room and then to the open bathroom door. “No. Sorry.”
“Thass okay, she’d just be all bitchy and mean anyway. She’s a mean mean meanie,” Jess told him solemnly.
“Yes, she is,” Zanipolo agreed with amusement from behind them as Raffaele set Jess on her feet. “But you’re adorable.”
Ignoring him, Raffaele clasped Jess by the upper arms until she turned her attention to him and then asked, “Do you remember the combination to your room safe?”
“Oh. Yes.” She nodded. “It’s 2–2–2–2 ’cause there are two of us and Allison couldn’t remember anything else.”
“Okay,” he said with amusement. “Well, then, why don’t you go get your passport and stuff out of the safe, change your clothes, and then pack your bags. We’ll wait for you in the sitting room. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said agreeably, and staggered to the closet where the room safes were situated in this resort.
Raffaele watched her for a minute as she began to punch numbers, and then turned and moved out to the sitting room.
“Wow,” Zanipolo murmured as he followed him into the sitting room. “That iced tea is hitting her hard. She really doesn’t hold her liquor well.” When Raffaele glanced at him with a questioning frown, he shrugged and pointed out, “She only had two glasses of wine and the Long Island. The girls who follow the band could handle twice that easy and just be relaxed.”
“The women who follow the band drink like fish,” Raffaele said dryly. “No doubt they have a higher tolerance.”
“Yeah, but Jess works in a bar,” Zanipolo pointed out. “You’d think she’d have a higher tolerance too.”
“Why? Because she absorbs the alcohol through osmosis while pouring drinks for customers?” he asked sarcastically, a little miffed at what he saw as criticism of his mate. He liked that Jess had a lower tolerance. It proved she hadn’t used alcohol as a crutch to help her get beyond the tragedies of her past.
Zanipolo opened his mouth to respond, and then his eyes slid past him and widened incredulously before he said, “I think I just saw someone go over the balcony rail.”
Raffaele started to turn to look, but then froze as Jess screamed from the next room. Cursing, he turned toward the double doors just as she shrieked again. Leaving Santo and Zanipolo to deal with the Peeping Tom on the balcony, he hurried in to the bedroom.