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.”