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What Happens in Mexico...Stays in Mexico

Chapter One

Sharra Roberts woke up with the worse hangover of her life.  Laying utterly still, she tried to get her bearings and remember what the hell had happened to her.  Groaning aloud, she thought of the night before.  She had a faint memory of one too many tequila shots, dancing on a table and a pair of icy gray eyes, but that was all.  What happened after that, she had no idea.

She groaned again.  Here she was on the Mexican Riviera, and her first night out she had over indulged.  Cringing, she thought of what Frank would say.  She was the first to admit that her fiancé was a little stuffy and conservative.

Overwhelmed with all the last minute details of the wedding, she’d taken this time for herself, getting away from the gloomy central California weather of Fresno and her nitpicking, soon-to-be mother-in-law.  This would be her last fling at life before she settled down as Mrs. Frank Bingham, the respected wife of the town’s leading mortgage broker.

Carefully sitting up in bed, she cracked open her eyes hoping the pain in her head wouldn’t get worse.  As she looked around, her eyes popped open in shock.  She wasn’t in her own hotel room, but one that was totally unfamiliar to her.

Sharra’s heart pounded, making her head pound with it.  Where the hell was she?  Her gaze traveled around the room, noting with a frown that her clothes were strewn all over, something very unlike her tidy self would do.  She froze when she saw a pair of men’s cowboy boots tangled up with one of her silky thigh high stockings.

Lifting the sheet, she peeked under it.  She gulped and pulled the sheet tight against her as she confirmed her fears.  She was naked. 

She stared again at the big boots on the floor.  Where was she?  What had she done last night?  And who did those belong to? 

As if in answer, the owner of the boots came out of the bathroom.

“Mornin’  Sweetheart.”

Matt Sinclair watched the woman in his bed open and shut her mouth, looking for all the world like a cute blue-eyed guppy.  For one long moment he wished the thoughts he knew were going through her mind were true ones.

He’d come across the tiny redhead at The Parrot’s Nest Bar and Grill last night.  Trying to figure a way out of his own problems, he’d had no intention of being pulled into anyone else’s.  But when he’d seen Jose the bartender slip a mickey into her drink, he couldn't help himself.  He’d been too late to stop her from drinking the doped tequila, but he’d been able to prevent the gorilla who’d paid Jose to do it from taking her out of the door.

Matt ran his tongue gingerly over his teeth.  He hadn’t gotten away unscathed. The gorilla had gotten a few punches in before Matt had taken him out.  Once the goon had hit the floor, Matt had gone after the redhead, whom by that time had tipped another tequila down her throat and was dancing on the table to the cheers of the rest of the men in the bar.

            He’d held out his arms to her and been surprised when she smiled at him, stepping off of the table and into his arms.  Even hurting from the gorilla’s fists, Matt had been charmed by her flashing dimples.

            His fertile mind had decided their accidental meeting had been fated, so he’d checked them both into this hotel room.  He’d come up a plan that would help him fix the mess he was in.  Since he’d helped her out when she needed him, now she would do the same for him.

            As the lead investigator for Banyon Pharmaceuticals, he’d been sent to Mexico to track down a missing scientist and some data that he had stolen.  Dr. Herman Leftdetter had walked away with a formula for a new designer form of cocaine that would be worth millions on the black market.  Matt had tracked him to Puerto Vallarta and been lucky enough to catch the absentminded professor before he’d been able to sell the formula to the buyer.

            What Matt hadn’t planned for, was the sneaky professor getting hit by a drunk taxi driver.  He’d been killed instantly and never told Matt who the buyer was.  So instead of being able to track down the drug lord responsible for the theft, he was at a dead end.

            And if he wasn’t careful… he might be dead himself.  Seemed the drug lord didn’t take too kindly to Matt’s interference and had put a hit out on him.  Matt’s contacts said the man wanted the merchandise and he wanted Matt dead.  So now he had to get out of town…fast.  And the only way to do that was to disappear into the copious number of tourists who were swarming over the popular holiday destination and travel back to the states.  That way he could get the formula back to his employer and everything would be back to normal.

            They would be looking for a single man, so Matt had come up with an alter ego.  No one would think twice about him now… he hoped.  

He looked at the woman who was still staring at him wide-eyed.  Not his usual tall, leggy, brunette type, this woman stood only about five foot five with red hair and light blue eyes.  No tall slender model here, this woman had curves in all the right places.  Matt smiled.  It didn’t matter, she was still just right for him.  She would help him get home. 

            Sharra stared at the man who stood in the bathroom door, grinning at her.  She let her eyes travel over his towel-clad form.  Easily over six feet tall, he had a hard powerful body rippling with muscles.  When his arm rose to rake his fingers through his shaggy black, shoulder-length hair, she could see the strength in his chest and forearm.  She blinked as she felt a stirring low in her abdomen.

            Sharra bit her lip.  He was eye candy all right, with that long dark hair, silver-gray eyes and chiseled face and jaw.  Everything about him appealed to her on a very basic level.  And she had been without for a long, long time.  The few times she’d been with Frank hadn’t been that satisfactory.  She had chalked it up to wedding nerves or the fact that she just couldn’t feel that way about a guy, but this man was proving her wrong.  Was that why she’d come home with him last night?

            She sucked in her breath as he sauntered over and leaning down, pressed a hard kiss to her astonished mouth.  Unexpected heat coursed through her at the touch of his caressing lips on hers.  Her own lips warmed and clung to his instinctively and her hands reached up to grab his hair and bring him closer.  She forgot all about him being a stranger.  All coherent thought fled.

            Matt’s body clenched with sudden arousal.  Whoa!!!  He hadn’t expected his kiss to be tolerated, let alone returned.  Without thinking, he reached down and pulled her tight against him, molding her body against his.  He caressed her, enjoying the silky feel of her skin.

            He groaned aloud as she softened against him.  God… she felt good.  He’d seen everything when he’d undressed her last night to put her to bed, so he knew the womanly curves that the wrinkled sheet hid.

            For the first time he was tempted to put the job aside and just allow himself to feel.  In a way… he had the right.

            Appalled at himself for even thinking about touching her, Matt pulled back, ending the thought and the kiss.  His job might require him to lie, cheat and steal, but he’d never been in a position to have to bed someone to keep his cover, and he didn’t intend to start with her.  If he made love to her, it wouldn’t be because of a lie.

            Sharra looked up at the dark stranger, seeing the anger on his face, war with the desire.  Suddenly, she realized she was sitting virtually naked in a bed, kissing a man whose name she didn’t even know.  Maybe the tequila hadn’t worn off yet.  She blushed… all the way down to her toes.

            “Errr…” she said softly.  “I know this may sound ridiculous… but I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

            Matt sighed inwardly.  He hated what he had to do, but he had no choice.  He had to get the formula out of Mexico safely.  Lives depended on it.  If the drug cartel got their hands on the coke formula, thousands of people could be killed if they used the stuff.  The woman in his bed was his ticket home, so he had to make this work.  Smiling seductively, he set out to charm her, touching a finger to her cheek.  “I thought that would have been self explanatory.”

            Sharra blushed harder.  Oh, sweet Jesus… it was just what she’d feared.  She’d slept with the guy.  Stricken, she stared up at him.  “I don’t even know your name.”

            Matt’s jaw clenched, hating himself for the pain he saw in her eyes.  “Come on Sweetheart,” he said, ignoring his own self disgust.  “You should know it.  After all… it’s the same as your own.”

            Sharra frowned at him.  “Your last name is Roberts too?”

            “No,” he chuckled at her confusion.  “It’s customary for the woman to change her name.  Now, your last name is Sinclair.”

            Sharra did the guppy mouth again.  “What are you talking about?”

            Matt swallowed once, before dropping the bomb on her.  “It’s usually what happens when you get married.”

            Sharra shot to her feet so quickly; she knocked him off the bed.  She dragged the sheet with her, but not before Matt had gotten a glimpse of two perfect white breasts.  “Are you crazy?” she shouted, wrapping the sheet around her.  “We can’t be married.  I have a fiancé back home!”

            Shit!  That was a complication he hadn’t foreseen.  When he’d gone to her hotel room to pick up her stuff, there hadn’t been any sign of a fiancé in her life, and she hadn’t been wearing an engagement ring when he found her.  Picking himself up off the floor, he put on an angry look.  It wasn’t hard.  The thought of her belonging to someone else pissed him off.  “I don’t know about any fucking fiancé, but I do know you’re my wife!”  He reached out and grabbed her hand, bringing her ring finger into view.

            Sharra stared at the golden wedding band that adorned her finger.  “It’s a ring,” she said stupidly.  “I’m wearing a wedding ring.”

            Matt almost laughed at the incredulous look on her face.  He lifted his own hand up to her.  “You made me get one too.  In fact, you said it was the only way you’d marry me.”

            Sharra cringed.  Frank had refused to consider wearing a wedding ring.  He’d said they were old fashioned.  Had that bothered her deep down, so that she’d made it a condition of this hasty marriage?

            Matt saw the painful thoughts chase over his face, and cursed.  Hell, he hadn’t wanted to hurt her.  He’d exaggerated to make her believe him.  She’d mentioned the ring, once he’d put hers on her, but it hadn’t been a demand, but a sighing wish before she’d all but passed out on him.

            Sharra worried the ring on her finger.  “Are you telling me that I married you last night?  Some stranger whose name I still don’t know?”

            “You know my name, and I know yours.  My name is Matt Sinclair, and you are my wife… Sharra Sinclair.”  He’d found her name out when he’d gone through her purse on the way to his old hotel to get his suitcases.  He brought them to this hotel, getting away from all who knew he was involved with finding the formula.   Luckily, he’d registered in the old hotel under an assumed name.

            “My name is Sharra Roberts.”

            Matt scowled.  “Maybe we had a few too many tequilas and threw caution to the wind, but I didn’t force you to marry me.”  He went on, hating the lies he had to tell.  “You wanted to marry me.  It was all your idea.”

            Sharra sank back down on the bed.  What had she done?  It had been her idea?  “But I don’t know you,” she whispered again.

            Matt felt something pull in his chest.  He knelt and put his big hand on her thigh.  “Hey,” he said, waiting until her troubled eyes met his.  “We may have done this a little backwards, but we are good together.”  He grinned.  “I kinda like being your husband.”

            Sharra suddenly saw Frank’s disapproving face in her mind’s eye.  He would be so angry.  Not only because she’d cheated on him… even though she didn’t remember it, but now she would have to postpone the wedding, and the whole town would know what she’d done in Mexico.  He would be so embarrassed.  Frank’s reputation was everything to him, and he would be furious if Sharra sullied it.

Frank had warned her that this whole idea of a vacation was unnecessary, but she’d ignored him…incensed at his insistence that he could run her life better than she.  They hadn’t been talking when she’d left yesterday.  Now it seemed she had proven him right.

            “He’s going to kill me.”

            Matt frowned, feeling suddenly protective.  “Who?”

            “Frank …my fiancé.”  Sharra met his gray eyes with hers.  “We’re supposed to be married in two weeks.”

            “So what are you doing in Mexico without him?”  Matt felt an alien sense of possessiveness come over him, totally ridiculous in the circumstances.  Her Frank was a fool for letting Sharra out of his sight.  She wouldn’t be in the position she was in now, if he’d had any sense about him.  Then Matt grinned.  Maybe he should be thanking old Frank.

            “I wanted some time to myself,” Sharra was explaining.  “One last vacation…alone.”

            “One last fling?”

            “No,” Sharra said sharply.  “I don’t do that sort of thing.  I don’t cheat!”

            “Maybe that’s why you wanted to get married,” Matt shot back angrily.  “So you couldn’t call it cheating.”  He cursed when he saw her eyes fill.  Great…he was handling this just perfectly.  Way to go Sinclair.  That’s the way to charm.  He shook his head.  He didn’t get why he was taking her horror at being married to him so personally. Hell, she thought he was a one night stand, gone wrong.  His thoughts were jerked back when she stood again.

            “I’ve got to fix this.”  Sharra looked around.  “Where is the license?  We can get it annulled.”

            Matt frowned.  She was smart, thinking of that, but he couldn’t risk losing his cover now.  “We can’t get it annulled,” he lied.  He smiled at her sexily.  “We consummated the marriage…remember?”

            “No, I don’t remember,” Sharra said, feeling herself redden again at the reminder of her inexplicable behavior.  This just couldn’t be happening to her.   Panic flared in her eyes.    “We’ll just tell them that we didn’t.”

            Matt shook his head.  “Not me, sugar.”  He continued with the same sexy smile, lying without compunction.  “I’m Catholic.”

            “But I can’t be married to you,” Sharra shouted, her control finally giving way.  “I’ve got a wedding in two weeks.”

            “Better cancel it.”

END OF CHAPTER ONE

* Chapter One * Chapter Two * Chapter Three * Chapter Four * Chapter Five * Chapter Six *

* Chapter Seven * Chapter Eight *  Chapter Nine *  Chapter Ten * Chapter Eleven *

 * Chapter Twelve * Chapter Thirteen * Epilogue *