Crazy Cool by Tara Janzen

first time, made love to her when she’d been frightened. He’d been seeing her for a week, coming over to the Brown Palace, having lunch and dinner with her, sometimes showing up for breakfast, sometimes taking her out, wondering what kind of strange gig he’d landed in—a beautiful girl who lived alone in the fanciest hotel in Denver, with unlimited room service and some sort of power over the manager, who seemed to be at her beck and call. He hadn’t asked a lot of questions, because he hadn’t wanted to answer a lot of questions. Street rat, car thief, these were hardly the things he’d wanted her to know—so he’d just gone with the moment, falling crazy in love with a girl he knew he could never have. Then one night she’d taken a phone call in the suite, and it had come out who she was, Senator Marilyn Dekker’s daughter.
    He distinctly remembered his blood instantly running cold. Jet-set playgirl princess he could have handled. Senator’s daughter had sounded like the perfect way to get busted, and his first thought had been to get the hell out of there and never come back. She’d known it, too, and that night, she simply hadn’t let him leave, not that it had taken much to keep him. A few kisses, her soft hands on him, everything she’d already given him that week would have been enough to hold him at her side, but that night she’d given him more, and he’d taken it all. He’d taken her, and she’d taken him, blowing his mind in the process and sleeping like a baby the whole rest of the night.
    He hadn’t slept a wink. He’d lain there, wide-eyed, wondering what in the hell had happened and waiting for the cops to bust down the door and throw his ass in jail for nailing a senator’s daughter. Eventually, they had. He’d been convicted of murder, but he’d always known his true crime had been sleeping with an American princess.
    “It’s just for a minute, just long enough for me to grab a pack of cigarettes without you starting a riot.”
    She shot him a look of exasperation. “I’m hardly likely to start a riot.”
    “You already have, babe.” He let the words sit there between them, let them sink in, let them give her a little warning about where he was coming from. No, he didn’t like her, and he didn’t like the situation they were in, but neither had his memory short-circuited. He remembered plenty, and her dress wasn’t helping matters.
    He held the jacket up again. This time she took it.
    She wasted no time in rolling up his sleeves and pushing them up her arms, instantly transforming his he-man suit jacket into part of her bad-girl ensemble. As the coup de grâce, she slipped both of her hands inside the collar and freed her hair, sending it sliding down the back and over the side of his coat.
    Thank God Mama Guadalupe’s sold Faros, because he definitely needed a cigarette.
    At the back door, he pressed a palm-sized call button and in seconds, a small panel in the door slid open. Two eyes peered out of the hole.
    “¿Que?”
came a voice to go with the eyes. A rectangle of light spilled through the darkened doorway, accompanied by a cacophony of noise and the smell of food.
    “Es Cristo,”
Hawkins said, bending down so the person on the other side of the door could see his face.
    “¡Cristo!”
came a glad cry, before the panel was slammed closed. He heard the sound of locks being opened, and within seconds, the door swung out, revealing a scene of chaos: Mama Guadalupe’s kitchen.

C HAPTER
    7

    K ATYA HESITATED at the door, taken aback by the wall of heat and steam that came pouring over the threshold. Hawkins put his hand on the small of her back and pushed her forward. The temperature inside the kitchen had to be close to a hundred degrees. A dozen waiters, busboys, dishwashers, and what-have-you, along with a dozen cooks, were all talking at once, chattering, yelling, all moving in the confined space. Dishes clattered, people shouted out orders, food sizzled and