15. Hormones

The three of us are having dinner in a restaurant down the block from the hotel when my phone rings. Sands snickers as "I've Got Friends in Low Places" gets louder and louder as I try to find it under all the accumulation in my bag, including my "wounded" tee shirt. The bright yellow El Dorado tee I'm wearing is at least clean, although the dive we're in looks like it's used to tacky tourists.

"Yeah?" I answer shortly.

"Kate, where the hell are you?" my boss asks.

"Don't panic, everything's under control," I say. "I've tried to call you, but one or the other of us was out of service range."

"Under control? There's a house full of dead Mexicans here! I'd hate to see what you call out of control."

I inhale sharply. "You're at the house?"

"Yes, I'm at the house. As soon as Lee got back, I had him turn around and fly me down here. Now, where the hell are you, and what happened to Lucifer?"

"I'm having dinner with him right now. We're in El Dorado. Here." I extend the phone. "Sands, will you kindly reassure RC as to your continued survival?"

The ex-agent takes the phone from me. "You were worried about me? Aw, how sweet." He listens. "You are? Really? Yeah, seven sounds about right. He did? All seven? Yeah, the kid's a pistol. Sounds good to me. Okay. Back to you, sugarbritches." He waves the instrument in my direction and I take it.

"So, what's up?"

"How soon can you get back here? We need to sit down and have a strategy session about this cartel - I'm not going to keep running down here every couple months."

"That wasn't my idea." As Sands would say, this latest development really cramps my style. It's one thing to exchange meaningful looks with George in Sands's presence, something else entirely around my employer, who misses nothing. "We'll be there in a couple hours."

"Come to the warehouse. It's more secure."

"Will do." I hang up and jam the phone back in my bag, steaming. Too bad I can't give Sands his car keys and send him back to town while I make sweet music with George. No, I have to go be the designated twink while they come up with some damn crazy scheme to take out the bad guys.

"What's wrong?" George wants to know, watching me.

"We've been ordered back to Culiacan for planning. Tonight. My employer doesn't want to have to come running down here every couple of months."

"Bullshit," snaps the blind man. "Fighting cartels is like mowing the lawn. Doing it once doesn't mean it's done."

It's a good thing I was almost through with my meal anyway; I've just lost my appetite. At the moment, I'd cheerfully shoot Sands - he popped back into our room minutes after George finished sewing me up with a greeting of "Are you decent?" - and dragged us out to dinner.

Over drinks, I'd proposed our return to Culiacan - in the morning, allowing tonight for whatever was going to happen with George to happen. That's just been shot right out of the water. I'm so furious, I wouldn't mind plugging my boss, either. Damn, a day and a half in Mexico and I'm turning into a regular gun bunny. Sands is grumbling under his breath and chewing his pork like he wants to rip somebody's throat out. Then George rests his hand on mine, and to my horror, tears spill down my cheeks.

"I've got to go gas up the car," I blurt out, and hurry away from the table before he can say anything.

Hormones, I tell myself. It's gotta be hormones. I'm PMS-ing like crazy, that's why I'm horny enough to bark and ready to shoot everybody in sight. I keep telling myself this as I drive around El Dorado looking for a service station and take care of the Batmobile's depleted tank. That's undoubtedly why, once the tank is full, I pull into a quiet corner of the parking lot and cry for twenty minutes. Hormones don't have to make sense. I don't have to rationalize them. Never mind that I haven't cried since my mom's funeral, more than a decade of tears pent up for every tear-jerking movie, cute puppy dog, beautiful sunset lonely grieving caring needy moment. God, what an idiot I am. No, it's just hormones.

I get a cold can of soda from the gas station's vending machine, and hold it against my eyes to help reduce the puffiness.

Pull yourself together, woman, I say to myself. Go back to the hotel and get them and go do what you have to do. Doesn't matter what you want to do - or who you want to do, don't kid yourself. Okay, so he's a hot guy. The world is full of hot guys. He's not worth having a meltdown over.

Maybe the pep-talk's helped, or maybe the hormone surge has run its course for now. Once I've stopped sniffling, I point the Batmobile toward the hotel.

Dawnie-7: The guidelines for ratings have always seemed a bit vague to me, so I try to make my smut as classy as I can. Passion without porno, if ya know what I mean.
mssparrington: I've got a special fondness for hurt-comfort. And all those pain-killing endorphins the brain produces can make you a little crazy.
Mojave Dragonfly: Gracias! The idea for the title occured to me early on, I was just waiting for the right plot circumstances to use it.