Chapter 9 - Heather

Chapter 9

Heather

Nazca, Peru

"So, there's something I need to tell you," Bon said as soon as they'd deposited Mom in the day spa.

It had been a near-impossible task to find somewhere for Mom to get her massage and facial. It turned out they were staying in an old converted farmhouse, the first place Bon had booked that didn't have a day spa attached. It was a traditional rustic hacienda, built around a courtyard with spreading shade trees and verandas with terra-cotta tiled roofs. It was utterly charming, but not the least bit luxurious. It didn't even have a restaurant or a bar. It had the same shabby enchantment Casa Suerte had, Heather thought, taking in the cracked terra-cotta tiles and the scruffy grass around the fountain. There were chickens bobbing around, and peacocks perched on a low wall, dozing. There was a pool, but it was half empty and mostly green with algal bloom.

"This doesn't seem like your kind of place," Heather said mildly, when they reached their shared room, which was utilitarian in the extreme. It had dark beamed ceilings, dusty tiled floors, and unadorned whitewashed walls. There was a small bathroom with chipped tiles and a shower without a shower curtain.

"A friend recommended it." Bon didn't look terribly impressed by the two stacks of bunk beds. "I suppose the verandahs are very pretty. And the courtyard would be lovely with some mowing and clipping . . ."

Bon had immediately gone online and booked Mom into a full afternoon of wraps and scrubs and facials and massages. Heather envied her mom's afternoon. Especially now that she was alone with Bon, and Bon had her scheming expression on. Heather should have booked herself for a massage too....

"I don't know if I can take more today, Bon," she sighed as they left Mom and the luxury hotel spa behind. She just wanted to go and sit in the shady courtyard outside their room and watch the peacocks.

"You'll like this bit of today, I promise."

"Has it got anything to do with your plan B? Because if it does, I don't like it just on principle."

"It does, and you won't just like it, you'll love it. Principles be damned." Bon took Heather by the arm and propelled her back to the farmhouse. "So, your father . . . ," she began.

Heather sighed. She wanted to forget Dad existed. "Do we have to talk about him? Seriously, let's just move on."

"Exactly. We want to help your mother move on. And I know just the person to do it."

"Bon. I'm tired. I'm struggling here. Just talk straight. I don't have the energy to try to guess what you mean."

"I've got a man lined up."

"What?"

"A man. For your mom."

Heather groaned. She hadn't misheard. "Please tell me you haven't hired some kind of male escort."

Bon laughed. "No, no escort. But he is pretty enough to be one, if he wanted to be."

"Who is this guy you're foisting on Mom?" Heather asked as they passed through the charming arched gate of their farmhouse and into the shady courtyard. "Who is he, and where ishe?"

"He's my hiking friend from Tucson. And he's here!" Bon smiled at Heather like she'd just handed her a winning lottery ticket.

"Oh my God." Heather stopped dead. "Your hiking friend? You don't mean your neighbor Paula's grandson?"

"That's the one! He's young enough to be fun, and old enough to be mature about it."

"About it?" Heather echoed.

"Exactly."

"I can't believe you, Bon." But she could. That was the problem. "You're seriously talking about hooking Mom up with your friend's grandson?"

"He's perfect. He's smart, he's kind, he has a sense of humor. But most of all, he's not likely to break her heart. He's the kind of guy who'll understand the situation, if you know what I mean."

Heather took in her grandmother's sparkling excitement. "Bon, not everyone gets over heartbreak the way you do."

Bon pursed her lips. "Well, your mother's way isn't working, is it?"

She had a point there.

Heather sighed. "And you convinced him to come to Peru?"

"No, he was already coming to Peru."

"So, what, we're crashing his vacation?"

"No, of course not. He invited me. Not on his whole vacation—originally just the hike to Machu Picchu. He had this whole thing about running to something that appealed to me, and I thought I might as well run to Machu Picchu with him as sit home on the couch in Tucson watching—I mean reading—Eat Pray Love. He asked his grandmother too, but she wasn't interested."

Good Lord. What kind of guy wanted to travel with someone else's grandmother? Voluntarily. "What do you mean, originally? So, we're crashing this bit of his vacation?"

"I asked first," Bon said defensively. "I didn't just turn up here. He didn't seem to mind. He said he was getting lonely and wouldn't mind the company."

Again, what kind of guy wanted to hang out with his grandmother's friend?

"And he's just fine with you foisting your middle-aged daughter on him?" Heather asked, disbelievingly.

Bon looked cagey at that.

"You are genuinely the craziest person I've ever met," Heather told her, "if you think some hot guy my age is going to take a swing at Mom. Especially if he doesn't even know she's coming! I mean, it's one thing if he's interested in being set up with an older woman he's never met, but this . . ." Heather threw her hands in the air.

"Your mom is a good-looking woman."

"A good-looking almost fifty-one-year-old woman."

"Haven't you heard, men like cougars these days," Bon said blithely.

"Does this man?"

"I don't know, but we'll find out. The main thing is, your mom will be around a beautiful younger man for the next couple of weeks. She'll have a chance to be a woman. Not a wife, not your mom, not my daughter. A woman. Just trust me, will you? Even if nothing happens between them, he's lovely and kind and very charming. It won't be a chore for her to hang out with him. Or for you. But you keep your hands off, you hear? He's not for you. You've got your sexting, let her have this."

"Trust me, the last thing I want is your friend's grandson," Heather said dryly. "My life is complicated enough as it is. And I'm not sexting anyone." Her heart pinched at that. Somewhere here in Nazca was the man she wasn't sexting. . . .

"Good. About keeping your hands off, not about the sexting. You should be sexting at your age. Now, are you ready to play nice? He's waiting for us."

"What? He's here now?"

"Of course. Why else do you think we're in this godforsaken farmhouse?" Bon clucked as she looked around the rundown courtyard, with its dribbling fountain and tired peacocks.

"I like the farmhouse," Heather told her. She'd grown tired of shiny, hermetically sealed luxury. She liked feeling like she was actually in the country she was traveling through.

"I'd like it better if it had a Jacuzzi, but we can't always get what we want. Now, let's go rustle him up and have a drink while we wait for your mom to come back all relaxed and glowing. And amenable," she added. "We'll find somewhere with a dash of romance, so when she comes in, he'll be open to seeing her charms. And vice versa."

Heather sighed. This vacation was going to be the death of her, and they hadn't even started the trek yet. "And then what? We all merrily head to Cusco and hike up to Machu Picchu together?"

"Of course. I only decided to go to Machu Picchu in the first place because of him."

"You mean this whole thing is just a scheme to get Mom a boy toy?" That seemed ridiculously convoluted. Surely there were hot young men in Phoenix?

"Don't be daft," Bon huffed as she crossed the courtyard. "Machu Picchu is for me. This stuff with your mother is just a bonus."

Right. Some bonus it was, Heather thought, as she watched Bon cross the courtyard. Why couldn't her family just be normal? Wasn't it enough to be in Peru? Heather really didn't want to hang out and be polite to Bon's neighbor's grandson. Or watch Bon play matchmaker. With the grandson and her mom. Gross.

But she followed Bon anyway. Because that was what she was here for.

"Now, he said he was in room 10," Bon muttered, checking her phone to make sure she'd remembered right.

"That's literally right next to us," Heather said, pointing.

"Well, that's convenient, isn't it?" Bon hooked a sharp left and made for room 10.

Room 10's casement windows were thrown open, and the unbleached muslin curtains shivered in the stirring breeze. Heather could hear soft music playing. It was something that teased the edge of memory, a plaintive voice over a slow thudding bass guitar. Something eighties sounding.

She knew it but couldn't place it. I've lost you . . . Repeated. She knew this. How did she know this? Heather paused by the window, trying to find it in her memory, but it just kept slipping out of her grasp.

Bon marched right up to the thick wooden door just as the bass guitar kicked into a winding solo, and she gave the door a military knock. "Yoo-hoo!" she called.

After a beat, she pounded again.

The door swung open, and Heather froze. "Hey, you made it!" Stepping over the threshold of room 10, and hugging her grandmother, was Romeo. As in, her Romeo.

Heather couldn't move. She felt like she'd been struck by lightning, fused in place. Like sand that had been blasted into glass on a beach during a lightning storm. She was frozen and breakable all at once.

"Well, hello stranger," Bon said, hugging him back like he was her own grandchild.

Something tumbled in the lock in Heather's head, and she knew where she'd heard the song. It had been playing in the wine bar in Barranco, when they'd shared a bottle of Argentinian malbec, caught in the eerie web of magic that kept throwing them together. It was a cover of "Age of Consent," the old eighties song by New Order. It was more wistful than the original; the offbeat wistfulness suited Romeo, Heather thought dazedly.

Still hugging Bon, Romeo flicked his gaze in her direction, and he was struck.

He froze too, her glass equal.

This was what Bon had been talking about with Jimmy Keays. Lightning. Wordless, senseless, irresistible. Kind of frightening.

"Despite the dramas, we made it," Bon chattered gaily. "What is with this farmhouse? I told you I liked comfort. What kind of girl do you take me for?"

Romeo pulled away from Bon, his gaze fixed on Heather.

He was wearing the same jeans and the faded blue T-shirt she remembered from Lima. His hair was the same tussle of curls, and his inky eyes were fixed on Heather with that intensity that made her float.

Bon seemed to realize that she'd lost his attention and followed his gaze to Heather. "Oh, that's right, you haven't met my granddaughter. This is Heather. Heather, this is Owen."

"Heather?" he drawled. His pointy lips twitched in that amused way they had, and one dark eyebrow rose lazily. Her memory hadn't done him justice. "So, you're Heather." And then he smiled, a white, slow, slightly dazed smile.

Heather broke out of her glassy freeze. "And you're Owen." Owen. He didn't look like an Owen. Owen made her think of stoned surfer dudes, not . . . him.

"Owen Ortega León," he said, regarding her curiously.

Heather took a breath. "Heather Russo."

Bon shot her a dirty look and Heather blinked. Oh. She'd forgotten for a moment what was happening. This was Bon's Owen. Not her Romeo. Or rather it was Bon's Owen and her Romeo.

"Stop smiling at my granddaughter like that," Bon scolded him, slapping him on the arm. "You'll have her all in love with you and I won't allow it. Besides, she's taken."

Romeo—um, Owen—lost his smile at that.

"No, I'm not," Heather said hurriedly.

"She is. She's been sexting madly this whole trip."

Heather turned bright red. "I have not!"

Romeo—Owen—seemed caught somewhere between amusement and confusion.

"Besides, I've got someone else I want you to meet," Bon said brightly. "Come on, put some shoes on and turn off that racket. Let's go get a drink." She pushed him back into his room, and while he obediently, and somewhat dazedly, gathered his things, Bon leaned over and hissed in Heather's ear. "You have one job," she ordered, "and that's to keep your hands off him. He's not for you, he's for your mother."

"No," Heather blurted, horrified, "he most certainly isn't."

Bon's periwinkle eyes flared wide. "Don't you dare tell me you've fallen for him already? I mean, I know he's ridiculously good looking, but you only just met him!"

"Bon," Heather pleaded, trying to get a word in edgewise.

"No." Bon covered Heather's mouth with her hand. "I won't hear it." And when Romeo—oh God, Owen—emerged from his room, Bon took him by the arm and frog-marched him ahead, leaving Heather to follow.

Owen turned to see if she was coming with them and in his expression she saw wary, starry, black amazement.

Because this kept happening to them. They were endlessly colliding marbles.

Heather gave him a helpless shrug. God, if he hadn't thought she was a stalky serial killer before, he really might now.

"You know, Heather's very tired," Bon said abruptly, when she realized he was glancing back at her granddaughter. "She's had the worst day. Why don't you take the time to rest in your room, honey, while Owen and I catch up." It might have been worded as a question, but Bon's tone was imperative.

"I'm not tired," Heather protested. "Not anymore."

"She should definitely come," Owen said. He slowed his step so she could catch up and Bon scowled at her. Go away, Bon mouthed.

"Bon," Heather sighed. "There's something you need to know."

* * *

An hour later, Bon glowered at them both over the rim of a huge frosty margarita. It was her second. She hadn't taken the foiling of plan B very well. "I wasted all that money on massaging your mother too," she muttered.

Heather had confessed that she and Romeo/Owen had already, ah, met.

Owen took the weirdness of the situation in his stride, and Heather guessed he'd known her grandmother long enough not to be shocked by her.

They'd found a little bar a couple of blocks away from the farmhouse. It was a retro wonderland straight out of the seventies, with heavy wooden furniture and orange tiles on the floor. They sat at a table out the front between potted olive trees, in the buttery late sun.

"I can't believe you've been sexting Paula's grandson," Bon accused Heather over her first margarita. "You knew I had plans for him."

"I haven't been sexting," Heather told her shortly, blushing again. "And I didn't know he was Paula's grandson."

Owen was annoyingly sanguine, sipping his beer and watching the drama play out. He rested his chin in the palm of his hand. "To be fair," he said lazily, "you never asked if I was Paula's grandson."

Heather rolled her eyes. "Forgive me if that's not my first question every time I hit on a man."

"Best add it to the multiple-choice quiz."

"Sure. Are you (A) Paula's grandson, (B) Not Paula's grandson, or (C) Prefer not to say?"

"I'd pick D. Paula's grandson and prefer not to say."

Bon glanced back and forth between the two of them, eyes narrowed. "You two haven't just met," she accused. "You're too familiar for that."

"It's been more than a week," Owen acknowledged. "But we only spent three days together."

"Clearly a lot can happen in three days," Bon said tartly, taking a gulp of her margarita.

Heather reached for the wine list. She'd stuck to sparkling water so far, wanting to keep her wits, but she'd run out of stamina for this situation now.

"What are you getting?" Owen asked.

"I feel like chardonnay."

"Get a damn bottle of the stuff," Bon complained. "If I have to sit here and watch you flirt with my plan B, I'll need some too." She polished off her margarita.

"I'll split a bottle with you." Owen leaned back in his chair.

Heather headed inside to order. She felt flushed and overwhelmed. Romeo was here. And he knew Bon. It was surreal. She ordered the wine and checked her appearance in the mirror on the wall next to the bar. She was as flushed as she felt, her cheeks glowing like she had a fever.

"You look good."

Oh God. He appeared behind her in the mirror.

"I thought I'd come help you carry the wineglasses. Bonnie said you'll need one for your mother too." He stepped close behind her, his hands finding her waist. He dropped his head until his lips were against her ear. "We have to stop meeting like this. Heather."

The way he said her name made her shiver. She met his gaze in the mirror. "Do we? Owen."

"But I'm not sure we could stop it," he admitted, pulling her backward an inch until she was hard against him. He rested his chin on the top of her head as they stared at each other in the mirror. His hands gave her waist a squeeze. "I could run to Antarctica and probably find you there among the penguins. You just keep turning up."

"Like a bad penny?"

"Like an unusual penny."

His body was warm against her. It felt good. Right.

"And now we're climbing Machu Picchu together?" she asked, transfixed by the idea.

"Looks like it. Us and your grandmother."

"And my mother," Heather groaned, closing her eyes and thudding the back of her head against his chest. "Oh God, this is a nightmare."

"Should I be offended?" He didn't sound offended.

"Not because of you. Because of them. They're . . ." She groaned again. "You're going to see them. And I don't like people to see them till they know me." And sometimes not even then.

"I know you," he said, pulling away as the bartender put the wine and glasses up on the counter.

"No, you don't. You know this forward, fun person named Juliet, who wears peasant skirts and drags you into the shower. But that's Barranco Heather. Those people"—Heather gestured jerkily outside, where her mother had joined Bon at the little table under the potted olive trees—"those people come with Regular Heather, and they're a fucking mess. I'm a mess around them."

"I'll make a note," he said, gathering up the glassware. "Good choice of wine, by the way. Chilean chardonnay is great. Chalky. Acidic. Really interesting."

"Stop it," she begged, snatching the bottle of chardonnay off the counter. She thanked the waiter and headed outside.

"Stop what?"

"Stop being so perfect. It's not fair. At least try and even the playing field. I can't keep up with perfect when they're around."

"I could see if my grandmother will do a FaceTime call? Would that help? You could add my crazy family to the mix and meet Regular Owen."

"I don't believe you have any crazy," Heather grumped. "You're just trying to make me feel better." She paused at the threshold; Mom had joined Bon at the table. "Okay, get ready for it." She gave him a sympathetic look. "And I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"Everything that's about to happen." Heather plastered a smile on her face and headed into the fray, Owen following, still annoyingly calm. He just didn't know better.

"Hi, Mom."

"Hello, darling." Sandy was all shiny and loose from her massage and facial. Her skin had a rosy glow, and her smile was hazy. Heather hadn't seen her this relaxed in years. "And who is this?" Her periwinkle-blue eyes drifted to Owen, who was putting the glasses down on the table.

Heather glanced at Bon. "You haven't told her?" she asked waspishly as she slipped into her chair.

"Told me what?" Mom was giving Owen a curious and appreciative once-over.

Heather could see Bon's sourness as she noticed Mom's appreciation. She knew exactly what her grandmother was thinking: Plan B would have worked.

Well, a day spa clearly worked too, judging by Mom's demeanor.

"This is Owen," Heather said nervously. How was she going to explain this . . . ?

"Well, hi, Owen." Mom fixed him with a coy smile and held out her hand for him to shake.

Bon kicked Heather under the table.

"Lovely to meet you . . . ?" Owen paused, waiting for her to fill in her name, but she just kept giving him that daft, coy smile.

"Her name's Sandra," Heather said shortly. This was so wrong, watching Mom fawn over her . . . her what? Her Romeo?

"Lovely to meet you, Sandra." Owen shook Sandy's hand with infinite politeness. He didn't give any sign that he knew Heather's mom was hitting on him as he took a seat at the table.

"Lovely to meet you." Mom registered that he'd joined them and shot Bon and Heather a quizzical look. But she was relaxed enough to take it in stride. "I'm sorry for the state of me, I've just come from the spa."

"Nothing to apologize for. You look very serene."

"I am." Mom gave a breathy laugh. "You know, I realized as I lay there that I haven't been touched in months."

Oh God. Just no.

"This is Paula's grandson," Heather told her mother. "The one Bon's been hiking with in Tucson. Remember?" She gave her a significant look.

Mom's forehead furrowed, and then a light switched on. "Oh. Oh!" She gave her own mother a disgusted look. "He's far too young for you."

Owen didn't so much as flinch. He simply splashed the chardonnay into their glasses.

Bon rolled her eyes. "I never touched the boy."

"I can vouch for that," Owen agreed, passing Mom a glass of wine.

"But Heather can't say the same." Bon was even sourer about it, now that she had evidence her plan might have worked.

"I can also vouch for that," Owen agreed. He grinned at Heather as he passed her wine too.

"You're not helping," she warned.

Mom was frowning as she tried to take in what was happening. "I don't understand."

"This is the guy Heather's been sexting, and right under my nose." Bon ignored the glass Owen was holding out to her and reached for the one left on the table, in a pointed snub.

"No, she hasn't," Mom protested. "She's been sexting Shawn."

Owen's eyes narrowed.

Heather shook her head at him. "I haven't been sexting anyone. They're just sex obsessed."

Mom doubled down. "Sure. And that's why you keep messaging under the table at dinner? It has nothing to do with messaging Shawn?"

"And under the covers in bed when you think I'm sleeping," Bon agreed.

"I was messaging him," Heather snapped, jerking her wineglass in Owen's direction.

"And the spiciest it got was when she photographed boats," he said mildly, taking a sip of the chardonnay. He nodded appreciatively. "Good choice, Juliet."

"Uh-oh, Sandra, they've got pet names already. You know what that means," Bon said ominously.

Heather gave Owen a disgruntled look. It had got spicier than boats. He'd photographed himself getting out of the shower. Her gaze dropped to his chest, hidden beneath the soft blue cotton, remembering the sight of the water droplets clinging to his collarbones and the wet whorls of dark chest hair.

"What?" Heather's mom's serenity was evaporating, fast. "What do you mean you were messaging him?"

Heather felt herself slouching like a teenager. "I don't see that it's your business."

"But how? Is he from Chicago? Is that how you know each other? And what about Shawn? And why is he here, in Peru?" Mom's gaze was flicking between Heather and Owen.

"Pet names mean love," Bon declared. "Don't they, Junior?"

"Aren't you going to drink your wine?" Owen asked Heather, his lips twitchy with amusement. The shadows from the olive trees shivered across his face, and he held his wine loosely in one hand, looking for all the world like he was on the most peaceful holiday of his life. The man could be a seasoned politician, Heather thought sourly, he had such grace under pressure.

"Oh my God, is this why you got that peasant skirt?" Mom gasped, as though she'd just found the answer to an ancient riddle. "I knew something was up!"

Heather took a deep breath. She was on her own raft, she reminded herself, as she took a sip of the wine. "Wow, it's chalky," she said.

"All minerality," Owen agreed. He slid his sunglasses on as the sun glinted between the shivering shadows. Heather wondered if it was also to help him hide his expression, as her family ramped up their craziness.

It was a good move. Heather fished her own sunglasses out.

"I can't believe you're cheating on Shawn," Mom accused. Her face was flushing sunburn red.

"You know some mothers are happy when their daughters meet an eligible guy," she told Owen, pretending her mother wasn't there.

"How do you know I'm eligible?"

"We are still here, you know," Bon told them archly. "It's obscene to flirt like this in front of us."

Heather felt her raft catching on the rocks.

"Especially when neither of us have anyone to flirt with."

"You have Junior," Heather reminded her sharply.

"Oh, he's no fun. He never flirts back anymore." But she gave his cherry wood box a reassuring pat, to show she was only teasing.

"When did you start this affair?" Mom demanded. "Is this why you and Shawn keep taking breaks? He says you've been acting weird."

Heather caught herself grinding her teeth. "We broke up, Mom. We didn't take a break." Damn Shawn. "And why have you been talking to him?"

"He's distraught. You know how much he loves you."

"I don't think I gave you enough of an advance apology," Heather told Owen. "I should have said I'm deeply, truly sorry."

"You don't need to apologize to him—his family holds a torch for his ex too. Paula's always telling me that she was The One," Bon assured her.

Heather glanced at Owen, but he was unreadable behind his sunglasses.

"And, honey, while I'm annoyed you upended my plan, I can't blame you." Bon saluted Heather with her wineglass.

"What's this plan you keep talking about?" Owen asked Bon.

Heather met her grandmother's eye. "Don't you dare tell him."

"Is this that cougar/gigolo thing from the first day I met you?" Owen asked, exasperated.

"Oh God. You already told him?" Heather covered her face with her hands and wished she could just disappear.

"Relationships take work, Heather." Mom hadn't even registered their conversation. She was still off down her rabbit hole with Shawn. "You can't just run off and have an affair every time things get hard, like your father does."

"Did," Bon corrected. "Past tense."

Heather clenched her jaw so she wouldn't grind her teeth. Trust Mom to twist Heather's life into a mirror image of her own, and one in which Heather was cast as Dad. "I am not having an affair," she said stiffly. "We've broken up."

"Shawn doesn't seem to think so."

It's okay to set boundaries.Violent, necessary boundaries.

Heather pushed her wine away. "If you keep talking about Shawn, I'm going back to the hotel."

"Farmhouse," Bon corrected.

"Honey, he loves you," Mom said.

Heather took a deep breath. "I'm leaving now."

"You don't know how valuable that is. Not all men are like your father. Shawn is loyal. He's a good man. Don't screw it up because of Nick."

"Me breaking up with Shawn has nothing to do with Dad."

"Of course it does."

Heather stood. Her heart was hammering with rage as she grabbed her bag.

"I'll walk you back," Owen volunteered.

"I'm sorry about this," she apologized again. She couldn't read him behind the sunglasses. It made her nervous. What must he be thinking?

God, she missed Barranco. Life had been simpler when she was all alone with him.

"There's no point in sorrying all the time," Bon told her. "We're spending the next couple of weeks all together. If you keep sorrying every time we embarrass you, you'll never say anything else."

"She's not wrong," Owen told her, draining his chardonnay and rising to his feet.

"Poor Shawn." Mom sounded despairing.

"No, not poor Shawn," Heather snapped. "Shawn is just fine."

"Owen," Mom said, leaning forward and fixing Owen with an intense stare. "Take note of how easily she throws him aside. It will be you next."

Mom's words cut her to the core. She had to work hard to blink back the tears. "I'm not doing this, Mom. You're being completely insane. If you love Shawn so much, why don't you date him." She was done. "I'll see you back at the hotel."

"Farmhouse," Bon corrected.

Heather ignored her. As she strode off, she heard Bon sigh.

"Go on then, Romeo, go chase her down," Bon said. "I'll deal with Miss Misery here while you two enjoy yourselves."

* * *

"You weren't wrong," Owen said, catching up to her halfway down the block. "They are a lot." He'd taken his sunglasses off and hung them from the collar of his T-shirt, and his dark eyes were sympathetic.

"They're insane." Heather was tense, her body full of chemical stress.

"Eccentric, definitely," Owen agreed.

"No." She stopped dead and turned to him. "Don't minimize it. You'll never survive if you minimize it. You need to recognize it for what it is."

"And what is it?" He seemed genuinely curious.

"Toxic bullshit," she exclaimed, exasperated. "It's generational trauma is what it is." Heather ran her hands through her hair and tried not to cry.

"Right." He reached out and gently removed her sunglasses too. He tucked them next to his, hanging from the collar of his T-shirt. "Well, you're away from it now. Take a breath."

"I'm not away from it! I'm in a bunk room with it, and then on a trek with it."

"And with me," he said in a low voice, stepping closer.

She had to tilt her head to look up at him. "And with you."

"It's weird, isn't it?" He saw her frown at the word and his lips twitched. "Unusual," he amended. "The same bar in Barranco, the same casa, the same corridor, the same bathroom, the same Hop, the same trek. Our grandmothers, side by side in Tucson. What do you think it means?"

"It means that you'll keep finding yourself thrown under my bus?"

He laughed and took her face in his hands. "I like your bus." He lowered his head and brushed the lightest of kisses on her lips.

Heather felt like she'd been stung by a thousand bees all over. She was shivery and hot and cold with the force of his presence. "How?" she asked. "How is it you? Here?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. But here we are."

"Here we are," she agreed, distracted by the way the pads of his thumbs were stroking her cheeks as he held her face in his hands. God, it felt good to be touched with such tenderness.

"Admit it, you'd rather trek up to Machu Picchu with me, than all alone with them." He kissed her again, feather light, the tip of his tongue the lightest of teases against her lower lip.

Heather was floating and heavy all at once.

"What if," he whispered between feathery kisses, "we just surrender to this thing? Let fate do what it does and see what happens?"

"You say it like we've been fighting it," Heather managed to sigh. She felt drugged.

"We have. We went our separate ways in Lima." He gave her a slow, deep kiss. "And didn't share anything about ourselves."

"That's not true," she protested weakly, as she slid her hands up his firm chest to loop her arms around his neck. "You know I live in Chicago." And she knew he was still ruminating about his ex.

"Heather," he said her name like it was a charm. "What if . . ." Oh, more kisses. Kisses so languid and perfect she couldn't think. "Aren't you curious to see where this takes us?"

"I think it's taking us up to Machu Picchu with my crazy relatives."

The talking faltered as they grew increasingly more invested in the kissing. Romeo—oh, Owen—wrapped his arms around her and lifted her, until her feet were dangling. Heather took his advice and surrendered.

"I think we should continue this ‘what-if' in private," she managed to say between kisses.

"I'll surrender to that," he said thickly. He looked as drugged as she felt. "Come on, Heather Russo. Let's get back to the hotel."

"Farmhouse," she corrected.

He laughed and lowered her to the ground. "I'm never living that one down, am I?"

* * *

Nazca was a dream. Adding Owen to the dynamic changed everything for Heather. She and Bon and Owen had a great time flying over the Nazca lines, awestruck by the massive glyphs, the curling tailed monkey, and the stabbing beaked condor (although Heather got a little sick in the bumpy little plane), and then checking out the Paredones Ruins and the aqueducts, which were more than a thousand years old.

Owen, as usual, was a fountain of information about all of it.

"How do you know all this?" Bon demanded, after he'd described how the still-working aqueducts had been built, detailing the engineering of the spiraling channels. "You could be a tour guide. Or write for an encyclopedia."

Now that she knew his name, Heather had stalked Owen on Instagram. He was a photojournalist and seemed to spend his time being professionally curious. He'd been everywhere. His feed was a mix of gorgeous travel shots and really disturbing images of war zones, floods, fires, earthquakes, and the catastrophes of climate change. It was a far cry from her life, where she spent her time at a desk in a one-bedroom apartment. The most dangerous thing she did was eat yogurt that was a day past its use-by date.

They were about as different as people could get.

It couldn't possibly work long term.

Could it?

Mom certainly didn't think so. She was still being a pain in the ass, a loyal batter for the defunct Team Shawn.

"I don't understand what's wrong with Shawn," she complained, ambushing her in the farmhouse courtyard.

"Nothing is wrong with him," Heather said stiffly. "He's just not for me."

"Did he cheat on you?"

"No." Heather was feeling that deep insidious guilt again.

"He didn't hit you?"

"Mom! No. I just don't want to be with him."

Mom looked profoundly wounded on Shawn's behalf. "You just don't want him." She looked like Heather was rejecting her.

"Let her be," Bon advised after the interaction had blown up into a proper fight, which had ended with Mom in tears. "She's got a lot to work through."

"And what about me?" Heather snapped.

Bon looked surprised. "You? Well, you're fine, aren't you?"

Heather didn't even know how to respond to that.

"You don't want S-H-A-W-N," Bon reminded her, eyes narrowing. "So, you're fine. . . ."

Yes. She was fine.

But even if she was fine, she wasn't always fine.

The thing was, she had liked Shawn at first. She liked them all at first. Then came a point where she freaked the hell out. And with Shawn it came at a club one night when she went outside to get some air and found Shawn in the alley talking to a blonde. And it was stupid, but her whole body had gone numb. Shawn hadn't been cheating—the blonde was dating Kyle, and he was there too, slouched against the brick wall on the phone to someone. But before she'd seen Kyle, Heather had felt that same cold flare of horror she'd felt seeing her dad holding hands with the woman at the mall when she was fourteen, and she'd felt an urge to run so strong she couldn't resist it. Get out, every nerve ending screamed. While you still can. She'd run and she and Shawn were (mostly) over after that.

If she really loved him, she would have fought the urge (wouldn't she?).

But the visceral power of that inner voice screaming Get out revealed a swamp of feeling she could only begin to guess at, and couldn't hope to get to the bottom of, let alone explain to anyone else.

It was just easier to say she was fine.

* * *

Nazca was the last stop they had time for on the Hop. After taking in a busy day of sights, they were back on the bus for an overnight drive to Cusco. Mom tried to sit with Heather, but Bon was having none of it.

"Stop getting in between the lovebirds," she scolded, dragging Mom off to the back of the bus instead. "You were young once. Have some sympathy."

"I was young and had you for a mother," Mom grumbled. "You never left me alone."

"You said the other day that I neglected you. Which is it, smother or neglect? Make up your mind."

"It was both. You were never consistent."

"They'll keep this up all night," Heather sighed as their voices faded to the back of the bus.

"Oh, you never know," Owen said, sliding in beside her. "They might kill each other before midnight."

"Don't get my hopes up." She watched as he neatly unpacked his bag. Phone, headphones, and book into the pocket in the back of the seat in front. Water bottle out. Light sweater out, just in case. "How come you're not carrying a camera?" she asked. "You're a photographer, but I've never seen you with a camera. Just your phone."

"I'm on vacation," he said, smiling. "You're not . . . doing what you do. What do you do?" His brow furrowed as he realized he'd not asked her.

"You haven't looked me up online?" Heather was surprised. It was odd for a man so curious. She felt a warning bell toll.

He shook his head. "No, I haven't. Come on, Juliet. Spill. What do you do?"

Juliet. The intimacy of it warmed her up. She had nothing to worry about, she soothed herself.

For now anyway. She was sure if they ever had to deal with each other in regular life that there would be plenty to worry about.

"I'm a software development quality assurance analyst."

His eyebrows went up. "Wow. That's a mouthful."

"Yeah. And not as glam as your job," she admitted, equal parts bashful and defensive.

"I wouldn't know. I'm not really sure what a software development quality assurance analyst is." He sat back and waited for her to explain, as the Hop pulled out of Nazca and hit the road to Cusco.

"It's boring," she said. "You don't want to hear. I test software, basically."

He kept watching her, waiting for her to continue.

She groaned. "No really. No one's interested. It's boring."

"I'll tell you if I get bored."

Heather dreaded seeing Owen get the same unfocused look of utter boredom Shawn used to have, as she explained the tests she designed and activated; the training programs she ran; the protocols she created.

"Hold on," he interrupted, "you mean you have to work out what kinds of things might possibly go wrong with new software?"

"Yeah."

"Wow." He cocked his head. "So, it's a bit like playing a really complex game of chess, without being able to see all the pieces."

"I guess so."

"Or maybe more like working out all the moves the chess pieces can make and all possible permutations of the game?"

"Were you on the chess team or something?" Heather asked, worried he was about to keep talking in chess metaphors. She wasn't into chess.

"Yeah," he said sheepishly. "Captain of the team."

She laughed uneasily. "I was picturing you as a football player or something."

"Baseball and basketball."

"Were you the captain of those too?"

"Only the baseball team."

Heather groaned. "We're so incompatible. I was never captain of anything. Although I did once go to a meeting for the Coding Club. But they weren't my type of people."

"What type of people were they?"

"Guys. Like all guys. And I walked in, and it was like I was the latest release game and they all wanted to play." Heather pulled a face. "I was just there for the coding, you know?"

"I get it. I left the photography club for a similar reason."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, but it wasn't because of the guys. It was because of Cami Walker. That girl was a serious stalker. You got any idea what it's like to be stuck in a darkroom with someone, only to discover they're developing photos they've taken of you? Photos you didn't even know they'd taken."

"Well, you are very photogenic. Objectively speaking."

"Am I?" He leaned closer, his smile wolfish. "Tell me about that."

"You just want me to stop talking about software QA," she laughed.

"No, I'm curious to hear more about that too."

"Liar."

"Heather," he said, his dark eyes warm, "I never lie."

She snorted. "Sure."

"I don't."

"Everyone lies sometimes. It's human."

He nodded. "Right. Okay. So I might tell a white lie now and then. Like if someone asks me if their butt looks big."

"Oh my God, are you telling me my butt looks big?"

"Your butt is perfect."

"See, you're perfectly capable of lying."

He put his arm around her and hauled her closer. "Come on, tell me more about software QA. I want to hear it."

"Liar."

"We've got a long drive ahead. Prove me wrong."

Heather settled in, under the curve of his arm, feeling her breathing slow and her mind settle. He had a way about him, that was for sure. He was solid, but not in a stuffy, intractable way. He was solid in the way that a tree is. A quiet, living solidity, radiating calm. He seemed awfully grounded for a man who wandered the world. The opposite of her. She was stuck in place but roiling like a raft on whitewater.

She wondered if she'd turn into a tree like him if they made this thing they had a longer-term thing. Or if her raft would just go smashing into his tree.

* * *

"Cusco was the major city of the Incan Empire," Encyclopedia Owen told her as they pulled into the city the next morning. They were still tangled together on the bus seat, his arm around her. They hadn't slept much. They'd talked softly, and made out like teenagers, and dozed lightly, then made out more. Heather thought she could probably have kissed him forever.

"It's beautiful," Heather sighed, taking in the ancient city at the foothills of the Andes. The breaking sunlight made the stone buildings glow gold and the terra-cotta tiled roofs burn orange. "Why don't you read me the rest of the encyclopedia entry?"

"Smart-ass," he said, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. But then he did, reciting a potted history of Cusco for her. He seemed compelled, like he couldn't have stopped himself even if he wanted to.

"Does your brain ever turn off?" she asked.

"No. It's a curse." He paused. "And a blessing. But most things are both, aren't they?"

"I don't want to get off the bus," Heather pouted when the Hop pulled over and Bon called down the aisle that this was their stop. "I like it here. I don't want to share a room with them."

"So, ditch and come join me."

"You're staying here too, right?" It wouldn't be hard to ditch, like the way she'd stayed in his room back in the farmhouse.

Owen laughed. "Too rich for my blood." He disentangled himself and slid out of the seat, so she could exit. "But I'm not far. I looked it up on Google Maps. It's within walking distance."

"What's wrong with her?" Bon asked, as she and Mom reached them.

"She's missing me already," Owen said lightly, but he wasn't meeting her eye.

Heather had a bad feeling about this.

"I'll drop my stuff off and come back later to hang out," he told her.

"You're definitely coming back?" she asked suspiciously. She hated how needy she sounded.

"Don't worry, Juliet. The universe would only send me careening back if I tried to get away." He laughed and got back on the bus, waving at her through the window as it took off.

"Heather." Mom blocked her path as she headed for the front door. "Wait." She gave an awkward, nervous laugh. "I don't want to fight."

"Me neither." But she also wasn't going to stand here and listen to Mom talk about Shawn.

"I've got a surprise for you, honey." Mom gave Heather a suspiciously shiny smile. "I know we've been rubbing each other wrong lately, but you must know I just want you to be happy."

Heather hoped this surprise was a solo room. Maybe then she could convince Romeo to stay....

"It's just inside," Mom said, gesturing to the arched doorway of the whitewashed casona.

Heather got about four steps inside before she registered who was standing there, waiting for her.

Shawn.

He was standing in the middle of the tiled entry hall, with a nervous, hopeful look on his stupid face. He was dressed in designer jeans and one of his bamboo T-shirts, and he was holding a giant bunch of Peruvian lilies.

Heather was too shocked to speak.

"Look who it is!" Mom said excitedly, grabbing Heather by the shoulders from behind and practically squealing with joy, all trace of her earlier dark mood gone. "It's Shawn!"

"Hi, Heather," he said, his usual naked longing radiating at her.

Heather wondered what the penalty was for murder in Peru.