Kitabı oku: «The Girl with the Golden Gun»
“You think I’m trash now, don’t you?”
Her directness rendered him speechless.
“I didn’t sleep with Tavio,” she whispered, frantic for him to believe her.
“I don’t care!”
“Okay. I don’t know why I bothered to defend myself—to you, of all people.”
She hated him for being able to compel her just by sitting across from her. “I hate you,” she whispered in a low, seething tone. Then she instantly regretted saying anything.
“Good.” He flashed her a ruthless white grin. “I wish to hell you’d figured that out before you seduced me and got yourself pregnant! Because now—for better or worse—we’re stuck with each other!”
“You can leave, for all I care! I don’t ever want anything from you again,” she said.
“You want out of here, don’t you?”
He took her silence to mean yes.
“You’re not calling the shots anymore, darlin’. I am. Listen, because I’m only going to say this once. You have to do exactly what I say. Exactly. Your life and mine depend on it.”
Also by ANN MAJOR
THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN SPURS
THE HOT LADIES MURDER CLUB
MARRY A MAN WHO WILL DANCE
WILD ENOUGH FOR WILLA
INSEPARABLE
The Girl with the Golden Gun
Ann Major
www.mirabooks.co.uk
Nobody has time to write!
So many people support me in big and little ways so that I can get a few words down on paper.
Professionally, I want to thank Tara Gavin, Karen Solem, Nancy Berland and all the talented people they work with. I want to thank everybody at MIRA. I want to thank fans, especially those who have taken the time to send me encouraging letters.
Personally, I thank Ted and my mother, who go without things they need too often, so that I can get the work done. My children and grandchildren are wonderful, too. I must also thank all my friends, who understand when I forget to return their phone calls.
I dedicate this book in loving memory to Sondra Stanford.
Smart Cowboy Saying:
When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
—From “Cowboy Quotes, Sayings and Wisdom”
www.Cowboyway.com
Contents
Prologue
Book One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Book Two
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Book Three
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Epilogue
Prologue
Black Oaks Ranch
South Texas
“When I’m through with you, you’ll have nothing and be nothin’, boy! Mia will finally see what a lowlife you are!”
Rain slashed the windshield so hard Shanghai Knight could barely see to drive. He speeded up anyway, slamming his foot down on the gas pedal with such a vengeance his truck weaved recklessly through the slippery mud.
He couldn’t get away from the Golden Spurs Ranch fast enough. Damn. He was such an idiot!
As if to knock some sense into himself, he hit his brow with the bottom edge of his fist. He’d give anything if Caesar Kemble’s taunts would stop repeating themselves inside his head like a broken record.
When he rubbed his right cheek and jaw, he only aggravated the painful bruise that Caesar had caused when he punched him, so Shanghai clamped both hands back on the steering wheel. It galled him to remember what quick work Caesar had made of him in front of Mia.
A few punches in the ribs and a few more below the belt, and all the fight had been knocked clean out of him long before Caesar’s men had picked him up and shoved him down the ranch house steps into the mud.
Every time he thought about Caesar standing over him in his dining room with his fists raised and that nasty grin on his face, Shanghai wanted to wheel around and go back. Looking prettier than a picture, Mia had knelt beside Shanghai stroking his face. How he’d hated her, of all people, for being a witness to his humiliation.
The wealthy Kembles despised the lowly Knights, and the Knights held an ancient grudge against the Kembles for stealing their ranch. Shanghai and Mia never should have become involved with each other.
They wouldn’t have if Caesar hadn’t damn near backed over her at Old Man Pimbley’s gas station when she’d been two. Shanghai had been twelve at the time and sneaking a smoke out back. At the risk of his own neck, not that he’d ever been one to mind that much, he’d thrown his smoke down and run screaming toward the truck. Not that Caesar had noticed. When he’d kept on backing, Shanghai had dived behind the truck and thrown her to safety. One of the big back tires had broken his leg.
When his cigarette butt had started a grass fire out back, Caesar and Old Man Pimbley had cussed him out for his trouble although Caesar had relented and paid to get his leg set. But the local gossips had made Shanghai into something of a hero, which had truly galled Caesar.
As Mia grew up she’d heard the story, and like the gossips, seen him as a hero, too. Thus, she’d developed a bad habit of following him around, her whiskey-colored eyes sparkling with adoration. He’d liked somebody admiring him, especially since it had rankled Caesar so much, until he’d started chasing girls his own age. Then her habit had gotten annoying since she was always watching him at the damnedest times.
Once when he’d been dating two girls at the same time, she’d called them both and told each one about the other. Mia knew how to make trouble, all right.
What did she think of him now?
Hell, why should he care?
Not many people admired the Knights much anymore. The Kembles were everything in Spur County—mainly ’cause they’d stolen from the Knights. Shanghai had grown up poor while Mia had been a princess from birth. If he worked for the rest of his life he’d never be able to earn a fraction of her wealth.
Everything about tonight was pure, raw hell. The weather was wild and wet, the road bad and Shanghai was breathing hard and driving way too fast. He’d made a fool out of himself, and tomorrow after Mia and Caesar got through bragging to all their friends, everybody in three counties would know.
If he had a fault, it was pride. He didn’t like feeling like he was nothing. He realized now that it was too late, that maybe he shouldn’t have gone alone to Caesar Kemble for a showdown on Kemble’s vast Golden Spurs spread.
Suddenly up ahead Shanghai saw the dark, familiar outline of the small, hunting cabin where he’d spent many a night when his daddy was drunk or just plain too mean to live with. Shanghai stomped on the brakes, causing the big old truck to skid on its bald tires. It hurtled through the mud and rain at a frightening speed and slammed into the bottom step that led up to the porch.
Wood splintered. Cursing silently, he cut the engine. He didn’t know what to do.
If he went home, his daddy might be drunk. If his old man saw his face, he’d figure out what had happened. Whether Shanghai confessed or not, his daddy would most likely start a fight. Caesar was going to do what he was going do.
He grabbed the steering wheel and laid his dark brow on it, remembering how filled with pride he’d been when he’d boldly slapped those documents that proved his ancestors had as much right as Caesar’s to the Golden Spurs Ranch onto Caesar Kemble’s massive dining-room table in front of Caesar and his foreman, Kinky. He’d eyed the men cockily, feeling full of himself. Rubbing his brow, Kinky had frowned.
Caesar hadn’t even bothered to read a single page. He’d said simply, “This don’t mean nothin’! Hell, you’re nothin’, kid.” Then he’d punched him in the jaw and knocked him out cold.
A girl’s screams had startled him back to consciousness. He’d been sprawled flat on his back under the table when he’d felt little bits of shredded papers raining down on him and the tenderness of soft cool fingers brushing his face.
He’d said, “Ouch!”
Then she’d been yanked away by her father.
“Mia! I’ll tan you, too, if you don’t get back upstairs with Lizzy where you belong!” Caesar had yelled at her.
“You’d better not kill him!” she’d whispered fiercely, crossing her arms over her chest.
“I don’t need your help, little girl. I’ll be just fine!” Shanghai had muttered, feeling shamed by her tenderness but most of all by the fact that she’d seen his sorry ass sprawled on her floor.
“Fine? That’s why you’re lying there flat on your backside all busted up?”
Her words had hit a nerve. He prided himself on being tough.
He’d stared at her through slitted lashes, pretending to ignore her ’cause Mia hated being ignored more than she hated anything. Even so, he saw the redheaded teenager place her hands on her hips as she hovered over him like a guardian angel. Tonight she’d worn skintight jeans, a T-shirt and red boots. When she’d sprinted back up the stairs, he’d noticed that she filled out her jeans and T-shirt with a woman’s shape now.
She was too young to look so grown-up. Mia had exasperated and charmed him for years by chasing him anytime she got the chance. He would have felt easier with the bean-pole shape, freckle-faced kid that she used to be.
Mia had made a habit of disappearing from the Golden Spurs Ranch for long stretches and wandering about the county on horseback. Anytime she’d gotten hurt, she’d come crying to Shanghai. Anytime she’d made a good grade or had won a prize at school, she’d had to tell him first even if it meant riding over to Black Oaks.
Once when her daddy had told her he was going to shoot a torn-up mongrel sheepdog she’d found bleeding to death on the highway, she’d carted the pup to Shanghai in her red wagon.
He’d told her her daddy was right for once, and it would be a kindness to shoot him. But when she’d left the mutt and her wagon, the beast had given him a baleful stare. Shanghai had taken the dog to the vet and nursed it back to health. He still remembered how her eyes had shone, when she’d come back for her wagon a month later and had seen the black-and-white mutt napping on his front porch.
“Don’t you dare tell anybody I saved him,” he’d warned her. “They’d think I was plum crazy.”
“Cross my heart.” She’d hesitated. “What do you call him?”
“Dog.”
She’d knelt and petted the animal. “Can I name him?”
“What’s wrong with Dog?”
“I—I’d call him Spot.”
“That’s as bad as Dog.”
“Not quite, is it, Spot?”
Spot had wagged his tail fit to be tied, and it was Spot from then on.
Shanghai put the memories of her childhood aside. She was a Kemble and all grown-up now.
No sooner had her door slammed upstairs tonight than Caesar had resumed tearing up the documents. Then he’d started pounding the table. Shanghai had found himself staring up at the underside of the table where the name, Mia, was scrawled dozens of times in bright red crayon alongside Lizzy’s name, and he’d imagined Mia a cute kid with red pigtails under the table up to mischief with her sister.
Then Caesar had distracted him by raking the last of the ruined documents he’d brought onto the floor beside Shanghai and shouting they were garbage just like he was.
“Get out, you lowdown, lying thief. You aren’t a damn bit better than your daddy. And we all know what he is—a lousy, no-good drunk. But at least he knows that he lives under my protection, which is more than I can say for you. You think you’re somethin’! Well, you’re nothin’! When I tell him what you tried to do tonight in my house, in front of my little girl…you’ll be lucky if he ever lets you set foot in his place again. He owes me. And so do you. So does this whole damn community. You Knights don’t have any friends around here unless I allow it. Don’t you ever forget it. Without me—you’re nothin’, boy. Nothin’!”
Suddenly Caesar’s red face had changed. “You’ve given me an idea, boy. A helluvan idea. A real winner. I know how I’ll get rid of all you Knights, once and for all.” He’d gone to a small cabinet, opened a drawer and pulled out a couple of fresh decks of cards. “I’ll hunt up that daddy of yours, and we’ll have us a friendly, little game of poker. That’s what we’ll do. We’ll have a few drinks. Then I’ll tell him what you did here tonight.”
“No….”
Caesar had laughed at him.
Shanghai despised himself because in the next breath he’d begged and apologized.
“Please—I’m sorry. Please—leave him alone!”
Caesar had guffawed again. “Everybody in three counties knows that cards and liquor are a fatal combination for your old man, boy. Kinky! Eli! Get him out of here!” Caesar turned back to Shanghai. “When I’m through with you, you’ll have nothing and be nothin’, boy! Mia will finally see you for the lowlife you are!”
“Don’t you go near my daddy!”
When Shanghai had fought Eli and Kinky, Caesar had called for more cowboys. It had taken five of the bastards to fling Shanghai down the stairs into the rain.
When Shanghai had pulled himself to his feet, the last thing he’d seen was pretty Mia Kemble leaning out of her upstairs window. When he’d looked up, she’d thrown something down to him and then banged her window shut.
Pretending not to give a damn about her, he’d rammed his dripping Stetson with his lucky turkey feather on his head even harder than she’d slammed her window. Curious, he’d picked up the object she’d thrown. When he’d realized it was a red rose, he’d pitched it back into the mud.
Now that he was at his hunting cabin, Shanghai dreaded his daddy finding out that he’d gotten in a fight with Caesar. He might never let Shanghai go home again. His father didn’t care if the Kembles had robbed the Knights of practically all their land. He just wanted to drink and gamble. Caesar kept offering to buy their last fifty thousand acres and his father kept refusing to sell, mainly because he and Cole begged him not to. The land was Shanghai’s heritage, Cole’s, too; part of their souls.
No use thinking about it. Shanghai knew he’d started something tonight that couldn’t be stopped.
As he got out of his truck, he stood in the rain for a moment to inspect the mangled bottom step he’d just smashed. Damn.
He sprang to the second step, which was still sound, just as the sky flashed livid white fire and then went black again. Every timber of the tiny hunting cabin shook when thunder exploded again.
He threw open the front door, ripped off his wet, Western shirt and hung it on the back of a tattered leather chair where it dripped water onto the scarred oak floor. Then he went to the fridge and grabbed a couple of beers. He downed the first beer and paced restlessly.
He was twenty-four. What the hell was he going to do with the rest of his life? Cowboying and rodeoing were all he really liked to do. Not that he could stay here when there was no future at Black Oaks. At least not in the business of cows and calves and horses. Livestock prices had collapsed too many times, and Daddy had borrowed way too much money. There was only his kid brother, Cole, to consider.
Hell, Cole was twenty-one, which meant he was all grownup…even if he was still in college. It was time for Cole to be on his own.
Shanghai didn’t want to leave his home, but he hadn’t liked feeling like nothing on Caesar’s floor with Mia watching. If he stayed here, he’d be nothin’ all his life.
He sank wearily into the leather chair near the open window. The only thing he’d ever done to make money besides working Black Oaks was rodeoing. He was good at bronc ridin’ and bull riding. When he donned buckskin chaps with silver conchos, pointed cowboy boots with spurs and his Stetson, people cheered and screamed and then patted him on the back when he rode well. They went wild when he won. Pretty women threw themselves at him.
He was too tall and powerfully built for the sport, and he’d have to be damn good—the best ever—to make it really pay. Good or bad, you could get yourself stomped or gored to death in front of thousands. Champions died of injuries as small as a broken rib nicking an artery.
What choice did he have?
Hell, he’d been beaten up all his life, hadn’t he? A man could become famous riding bulls, as famous as any Kemble, at least for a spell.
Nobody wrote country songs about lawyers or doctors, did they? He reckoned he could take about as much pain as any man.
His black brows slashed together as he watched the rain hammer the earth. Caesar had destroyed the sheaves of old journals and ancient bank documents he’d slung on the table—all the evidence he’d been gathering for nearly two years to prove that his family, the Knights, had as much right to the Golden Spurs Ranch and its staggering mineral riches as the Kembles did.
What should he do next?
A bolt of lightning crashed again. Shanghai’s heart beat faster. He rubbed his sore jaw. After his quarrel with Caesar Kemble, the storm more than matched his mood. Since Caesar had refused to even talk about making a fair settlement, maybe he should think about finding a real lawyer. But he couldn’t go to a lawyer until he reassembled at least some of the evidence Caesar had destroyed. Besides lawyers cost money.
Even though it was so obvious the Knights had been swindled, his father had told him not to fight the Kembles.
His father could go to hell. Most people probably saw his daddy as an easygoing, shiftless soul, who had a weakness for the bottle. But they didn’t know. His old man could get really drunk, and when he did, he always went after Shanghai.
There was no talking to him then, no arguing with a drunk.
The lights in his kitchen flickered twice. Shanghai wouldn’t have minded the thunderstorm if he’d been in a better frame of mind. Water was scarce in south Texas.
He was stretching his long legs out when he heard a car door slam and quick, light footsteps followed by a timid knock at his door.
Not wanting company, Shanghai hunkered lower and ignored the light taps.
Thunder crashed outside and was quickly followed by brilliant lightning. Then the world went dark again as the rain continued to pour down.
The door rattled as a girl’s hand pulled it open. “Can I come in?”
Mia’s soft whisper cut through the noise of the storm and sliced bits out of his bruised heart. Shanghai sprang to his feet as if she’d pelted him with buckshot. Then pain licked through him from the beating he’d taken from her daddy.
“Go away!” he growled. “You’re the last person I want to see.”
“Not till we talk.”
“Damn your hide, girl. Git.” His mouth hurt so badly he could barely speak. He rubbed it before he thought and orange stars flashed in front of his eyes. Damn.
When she didn’t leave or say anything, he bit his lips in frustration. Then quick as a panther he flung his empty long-neck so savagely into the trash can, it burst. Broken glass tinkled to the bottom of the can. His boots made hollow sounds that rang on the oak flooring as he stalked heavily to the front door, which he slammed open wider with enough force to show her she wasn’t welcome.
Shanghai flipped on the outside light and saw her through the screen. She sure as hell looked different with her long red hair flowing like fiery amber about her pretty face and slim shoulders. Despite his injuries, he tensed when he saw that she sucked in a quick breath after looking at his bronzed shoulders and torso. Then she blushed.
She’d changed out of her jeans. Why the hell had she done that? She looked so soft and feminine and sweet. Her beauty caused a hard knot to lodge in the base of his throat. He’d never seen her in a damp, clingy white dress before; never guessed that a tomboy kid like her could have such a good figure. She was still wearing her bright red boots, though, and she was holding a mud-spattered rose.
What happened to the kid with red pigtails he’d felt so easy around?
He ran a hand through his black hair and inhaled a quick, raspy breath.
“Where’d you get that damn-fool dress?”
“Borrowed it from Lizzy.”
“Figures. You should have borrowed some shoes, too.”
“Her feet are longer than mine.”
Since he was bare-chested and black and blue all over, she could probably see every mark her bullying father had inflicted.
He stood up straighter, maybe to intimidate her. “I wasn’t expecting company. I’d better put on my shirt.”
“No. It’s probably soaking or something. You look…good.” She blushed again and lowered her eyes.
“You shouldn’t throw away the presents people give you,” she said, pulling the screen door open.
When she twirled the rose under his nose, he grabbed it and threw it on the floor.
“Girl, don’t you know better than to come looking for me—tonight…after…”
Shanghai notched his chin higher as he remembered regaining consciousness and finding Caesar Kemble standing over him, his hand still clenched into a fist and that awful grin on his face.
“I shouldn’t have gone to your house tonight,” Shanghai said. “And you shouldn’t be here now.”
“Don’t you care that I hate what my daddy did to you?”
“No, I don’t care.”
“Why do you hate me?”
“Well, maybe ’cause your bunch has been stealing from my bunch for umpteen generations. Maybe tonight I want to be alone to sulk and drink and nurse my hatred for all things Kemble—including you.”
“I saw you ride that bull last weekend at the Kingsville Rodeo. You were great.”
He inhaled a couple of long, embarrassing breaths while she stared at his chest, and he tried not to stare at hers.
“You’re very young,” he muttered.
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Plenty. Don’t you know nothin’? You’re not a kid anymore.”
“I didn’t think you’d ever notice.”
“Go home.”
“No.”
“I’m twenty-four.”
“So?”
“I’ve already got a girl.”
“Wendy! I know.”
“So go chase boys your own age.”
Some of the sparkle went out of her eyes. Still, she was a vision in that white dress. He couldn’t very well throw her off his porch into the rain. Not when he didn’t trust himself to touch her.
Still, the last thing Shanghai needed tonight was a sassy virgin from the Kemble bunch to tempt him even further down the road that led to hell.
“Can I come in or not?” she whispered again.
“No!”
She laughed as she pulled the screen door open and sashayed past him.
“Are you out of your mind? How many times have I warned you to stay the hell away from me, girl?”
She pretended to count her fingers and then stopped. “Way too many.” She went to his cooler, opened it and grabbed a beer. Then she popped the top off using the edge of his table. She would have taken a long swig of the stuff if he hadn’t grabbed it from her and taken a healthy pull himself.
“You’re not exactly the obedient type, are you?” He watched her as he took another long pull.
“Are you?”
That stopped him cold.
“I was worried sick about you,” she said. “I had to come.”
Her big, golden, long-lashed eyes met his. Again he noted the raindrops glistening like diamonds in her red hair. Most of all he fixated on that single sparkle that clung to the tip of her cute, upturned nose. She was wearing lipstick and eyeliner for a change.
“If you’re looking to get yourself seduced, little girl, follow cowboys like me home and then throw yourself at them.”
“You’re not like that, and we both know it. You’re nice.”
“Nice? You don’t have the gumption God gave a horsefly. Guys aren’t nice. They’re all out to get you.”
“Where’s Spot?”
“At the house.”
Her teeth chattered, and she rubbed her arms to warm herself.
“If your daddy catches us together here, he’ll get one of his bought-off judges to railroad me into some prison until I’m old and gray. Come back when you’re eighteen.”
“What if some other girl…like Wendy Harper gets you before then?”
He didn’t answer.
“I’m all wet and cold. You could offer me a blanket or your shirt or something.” She swallowed a quick breath, and he realized she was even more nervous than he was. Then she picked up the damp shirt that hung on the back of his chair and slipped her arms through the sleeves. When the long sleeves dangled many inches longer than her hands, she began to roll them up.
“Why can’t you ever do what you’re told?”
“Because then I don’t get what I want.” She paused, pulling his shirt close against her body. “Can I help it if I grew up spoiled instead of with a great big chip on my shoulder weighing me down?”
“What if I grabbed you and snapped you against my chest? What if I gave you a kiss or two, would you leave me alone then and go chase somebody closer to your age?”
She straightened up to face him. Beaming brightly, she puckered her lips. “Cross my heart and swear to die.”
“You’re hopeless. Girls are supposed to let the guy do the chasin’,” he said.
“That’s stupid. You’d never chase me.”
“You’re too young.”
“When I’m all grown up, eighteen, would you really want…”
“You’re a Kemble.”
“Kiss me,” she whispered in a low, hypnotic tone. “If my daddy runs you off like he said he would, this might be my last chance. Then I’d have to live my whole life without knowing…what you’re like.”
Hardly knowing what he did, he strolled closer, leaned down and pecked her cheek lightly with his lips. The kiss accomplished, he intended to jump free. “There. Now go!”
“That’s not the kind of kiss I meant, and you know it!”
Her gentle hands circled his wide shoulders, and she seemed to melt into him as she clung tightly. Even as he fought to loosen her grip, he heated where her warm breath brushed his cheek. He noticed that her damp body, although slim and petite, nestled against his huge frame, felt more like a woman’s body than a child’s. Damn her hide, she was a perfect fit.
His heart thudded painfully. He should burn in hell for this alone.
“On the lips,” she pleaded. “Kiss me like you kissed Wendy at the rodeo.”
“You little spy!”
“Just once—please.”
He yanked himself loose. Still, he admired the way she went after what she wanted. Nothing had ever been handed to him, either.
She put her hand to her cheek. “My skin burns where you…”
It was the damnedest, most unaccountable thing, but his lips burned from the chaste kiss he’d given her.
One taste of her sweet, velvet skin had rocked him. She was innocent but willing and utterly, utterly adorable.
He wished he was ten years younger so he could crush her close and not feel like he was Satan’s spawn.
He couldn’t stand another second of this, so he stomped out of the house and stood on his porch and watched it rain.
She raced after him.
“Now you really have to go,” he said roughly. “You promised.”
She shook her head. “That was only if you kissed me on the mouth.” Her voice fell so softly, he had to strain to hear it over the downpour.
Being protective of a Kemble was not a role he felt comfortable with. Not when she was so all-fired beautiful.
“Mia—”
When he turned and saw her backlighted by the porch lamp, he had to remind himself again she was jailbait. Standing there in her wet dress with her big eyes fastened on his mouth, she personified fresh, young sensuality and femininity.
“Go,” he said.
“How come you still wear that turkey feather I gave you in the brim of your hat?”
“That doesn’t mean anything, girl.”
His heart thudded. Inside his jeans, he was hard and swollen.
He wanted her. Even though it was wrong.
Before she could answer him, headlights flashed, and he heard a car down the road.
“Go to the kitchen. Don’t make a sound. If anybody finds you here, I could end up in jail. Do you understand how serious this is?”
For once she obeyed, and he shut the door behind her. Scarcely had she hidden herself, than his own father stormed up to the porch.
As usual he was drunk. His thick florid face was set in a mask of hatred as he stumbled up the steps. “I—I lost the ranch tonight…or what’s left of it…to Caesar Kemble. Because of you.”
Shanghai sank to his knees and fisted his hands. If someone had slammed a shovel against his spine, he couldn’t have felt more broken.
“It’s your fault.”
“Right,” Shanghai whispered. “Blame somebody else like you always do.”
His father weaved drunkenly. “You had to go over there and stir him up. He came looking for me just like you knew he would. And you just sat here and let him lure me into a game of cards. Entice me with the finest liquor. When it was over and he’d won Black Oaks, he told me you went to his house and strutted around like a bantam cock, like you thought you were somebody, like you thought you were as good as him.”
“I am as good as him.”
“You’re a loser, born to a loser, who’s sprung from a long line of losers.”
“I’ll drive you home and put you to bed, Daddy.”
“Don’t act so damned superior.”
“It would’ve happened anyway!”
“The hell it would! You’ve got high-and-mighty airs, but you’re no better than me. Caesar said it was time all of us Knights got what we deserved—nothing! But that’s not the only reason I came over. Kinky called him and said Mia’s run off again. Caesar said she was upset because he hit you, and they think she might’ve come over here. I don’t reckon you know where—”
Shanghai shook his head just as a pot crashed in the kitchen inside the cabin.
“Who the hell’s in there with you then?”
“Nobody.”
“You lyin’ son-of-a skunk! Caesar’s on his way over here, you fool!”
His father rushed past him, whipped the screen door open and stormed through the house.
Mia screamed from his bedroom. When Shanghai ran inside, his father was dragging her out from under the bed by the hair.
“Let go of her,” Shanghai yelled, shoving him in the back.
“It’s not what you think, Mr. Knight,” Mia began. “He didn’t do anything. It was me. All my fault. He told me to go, but I—”
“I got eyes in my head. He’s bare-chested and you’re wearing his shirt. You were in his bed.”
“Under his bed. I told you. I came over here on my own,” she said.
“How long has this been going on?” his father yelled.
“Nothing’s going on,” Shanghai said.
“She’s here, in your bedroom. It’s the middle of the night. She’s underage. You’ve got a wild reputation and you’re madder than hell at her father. And you’re trying to tell me that you didn’t touch—”
“What do you care? You’re the one who gambled the ranch away!”
His father lunged at him. “That was your fault and you know it! You set me up tonight! Laid a trap. I should’ve seen it coming. You’ve been a wild ’un since the day you was born.”
“Wonder where I get it?”
“Not from me! ’Cause you’re not mine, boy! The only reason your scheming mother married me was to get a daddy for her no-good bastard.”
“You’re lying!”
His father lunged. Together they crashed onto the floor. When Mia leaned down to try to pull them apart, his father slugged her.
Unconscious, she slumped like a limp rag doll to the floor.
Instantly Shanghai forgot his father and dropped to his knees beside her. Smoothing her hair from her face, he touched her throat.
“I didn’t mean to hit her,” his father gasped, all the meanness going out of him at the realization he’d hit Caesar’s daughter. “I meant to knock some sense into you. Not that that’s possible.”
“I think she’s okay.”
Shanghai picked her up in his arms and laid her on his bed. As he held her wrist and found her pulse, which was strong and steady, he saw headlights on the road outside.
Shanghai glanced up at his father and felt an utter coldness. “Somebody’s coming. Go see who it is. I’ll stay with her.”
Her eyes flickered open, and she smiled at Shanghai. “This is where I’ve always wanted to be—in your arms.”
“You’re gonna be okay,” he whispered, stroking her brow.
“It’s Caesar Kemble.” Through the doorway Shanghai could see his father was cowering drunkenly behind the front door. “He swore I could stay at Black Oaks till I died, but if he finds you and her here, he won’t honor that. He’ll have us both locked up for the rest of our natural born years—if he doesn’t shoot us on the spot.”
His father had gone so pale and looked so terrified Shanghai felt sorry for him.
“You never saw me tonight,” Shanghai said. “I wasn’t here. You don’t know where or why I went—understand? You’ll ask questions and act worried. You’ll pretend that you’re concerned about your missing son.”
His father nodded, as if trying to understand, but his eyes were too glazed with booze.
Shanghai turned back to Mia.
“Your daddy’s outside,” he told her, reluctant to leave the brat until he was sure she was okay.
“Run,” she whispered. “I’ll catch up to you when I’m all grown-up.”
In spite of himself he smiled. “When you’re datin’ age, you’ll have every eligible bachelor in Texas chasin’ you. You’ll forget all about the likes of Shanghai Knight.”
“No…I’ll find you when I’m all grown-up. I swear. And I’ll make you love me!”
He laughed.
“I will. Somehow I will.”
“You do that then, little darlin’. But if I don’t git—now—there won’t be much left of me to find or love!”
Funny thing. His last act on the way out the door was to lean down and grab that dang-fool rose she’d pitched at him.
Then he hightailed it out the back door.
BOOK ONE
Smart Cowboy Saying:
You get used to hanging, if you hang long enough.
—L.D. Burke, Santa Fe
One
Fifteen years later
Big Bend National Park, Texas
Where was the damn plane?
“Where are you, you little shit? Why don’t you be a good boy for a change and just come to Daddy?”
DEA Division Director John Hart squinted as he lowered his binoculars and shoved on his sunglasses. His pale blue eyes burned from eye strain from searching the skies so long for one tiny airplane.
So far the seizure was going off as planned. Except for one skinny, dark kid in ragged jeans, who’d run like lightning, eluding his best agents and their bullets, his men had rounded up Octavo Morales’s ground crew. At this very moment the bastards were cuffed and cursing him as they sweated like pigs in a sweltering van parked out of sight in a sharply cut canyon beside the trickle of water that was the Rio Grande.
No way was Hart driving the traffickers to El Paso. Not when the pilot was rumored to be Morales’s half brother. It was hard to be patient and wait, but Hart wanted this plane, its cargo, the pilot and the woman. He wanted them badly.
Ah, the woman.
Mia Kemble.
He still couldn’t believe it.
Bringing Mia Kemble home to the Golden Spurs Ranch was going to be bigger than the seizure. Way bigger. Just thinking about who she was and what this could mean for him made his pulse speed up. His name would be all over the papers. He’d be a hero.
It was high time. Wasn’t he capable and ambitious? Hadn’t he worked hard for the agency for years? Hadn’t he played it straight? Hell, for the past two years he’d worked his butt off on Operation Tex-Mex-Zero, which was an international Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force investigation into the Morales-Garza (MGO) drug organization.
Since the U.S. Mexico border was the primary point of entry for drugs being smuggled into the United States, and he worked El Paso, he’d naturally been forced to play a big role. Operation Tex-Mex-Zero involved seventy separate criminal investigations conducted by dozens of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, including Mexican and Colombian police officials.
Hart hated working on task forces. There were always too many egos and too much bureaucratic horseshit. When things went wrong, everybody got paranoid. Nobody cooperated. He’d been blamed for mistakes others had made. In the past year he’d gotten himself shot at twice by traffickers—once at point blank range. If he hadn’t been wearing his vest, he’d be dead. He was damn sure he’d been set up, too.
Hell, he was nearly as sick of lawmen as he was criminals. Where had his hard work gotten him? He’d been passed over for all the big promotions for guys who knew how to kiss ass or blow their own horns.
Then the Sombra had contacted him, and things had started to change. He didn’t know who this guy was or why he had it in for Morales, but if Hart could rescue Mia Kemble, get Morales’s half brother and make a major seizure to boot, all in one day, the name John Hart was going to be big on the Texas border. Maybe not as big as Morales, but big enough to suit John Hart. At least for a while. What he really wanted was to get Morales alone and chop him into little pieces.
The Chihuahua Desert was hot, rugged country even in early spring. Hart’s armpits were ringed with sweat. Watchful for snakes, he grabbed his backpack off the ground and then squatted in the scant shade of a nearby boulder and kept his eyes trained on the sky. A dozen of his men were hidden behind other rocks, but he preferred his own company.
He shook out a cigarette. Lighting it, he inhaled deeply. Then he pulled out a crumpled photograph from his shirt pocket and studied the redheaded beauty on the magnificent, black horse. Next his gaze turned to the tall, sinister-looking man with her, who held the bridle.
Morales.
Hart inhaled again. Even now, having studied the images dozens of times, the picture still had the power to shock him.
What the hell was Mia Kemble doing with that drug-smuggling, murdering son of a bitch, Morales? The bastard had to be balling the panties off her. And she had to have more tricks up those panties of hers than a talented border whore, or why else would he risk keeping her alive?
Her plane had crashed fifteen months ago in the Gulf of Mexico in the dead of winter. Everybody in Texas believed she was dead. Hell, her own father and husband had had her declared legally dead—no doubt to get their hands on her money. Her husband had even remarried, her twin sister, of all people.
All John Hart knew about the mystery was that it was lucky as hell for him that the bitch was still alive.
Where the hell was the plane?
Impatient, he lifted his binoculars again.
Two
Chihuahua Desert
Northern Mexico
Be careful what you wish for.
The desert wind was blowing hard outside. Despite the close, suffocating heat, Mia shivered convulsively as little pebbles pinged against the fuselage of the Cessna 206 like buckshot. Her nerves were on fire. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could stand being locked up in this tight, dark space.
What was wrong? Had she been set up? The plane, which sat on a dirt runway outside the tall walls of Tavio Morales’s immense outlaw compound, should have been airborne for el norte, translation—the United States—hours ago.
Mia felt faint and slightly woozy as well as nauseated from the marijuana fumes, which reminded her, of all things, of the woodsy, slightly sweet stink of skunk urine back home on the Golden Spurs Ranch. Mopping at the sweat on her brow with her sleeve, she plucked her soaked blouse off her breasts. Then a gust rocked the plane so hard the towering bales shifted in the cargo hold, several of them falling on her.
When they struck her cheek, knocking her down, she screamed. Then she clamped a hand over her mouth. Being locked up was horrible, but being crushed was even worse.
Her heart thudding, she wriggled free of the heavy bales and sat up, straining to listen for the running footsteps of Tavio’s thugs outside or a nervous spray of machine gun fire. When nobody stomped up with assault rifles or machetes, she fought to calm down, sucking in big gulps of air. All the deep breathing did was to make her grow even woozier from the marijuana.
In the total blackness, the thin walls of the sweltering Cessna felt like they were closing in on her. To calm herself, she tried to imagine that she was loping bareback on one of the Golden Spurs’ endless green pastures instead of lying here trapped in this airless prison fearing imminent suffocation.
Ever since she’d gotten locked in the attic as a child at the Golden Spurs and that big, yellow-eyed rat had bitten her, causing her to have those awful rabies shots, she’d been afraid of two things—rats and being locked up. Then, after this year, her list of scary things had grown much longer.
Now here she was, a stowaway in a coffinlike cargo hold that was as hot as a furnace and getting hotter, and all because she was so desperate to get back to her little girl and her mother and her father and the Golden Spurs.
She wanted her life back.
Would she die here instead? Probably. Her throat tightened. Who would raise her little girl, Vanilla, then? Watch her grow up? Who was raising her now?
Her mother? Lizzy? Had Lizzy watched Vanilla’s first step? Heard her say her first word? Lizzy. Always Lizzy.
Vanilla would be a feisty toddler now. Was she chubby or slim? Docile or as ornery as a terrible two could be? What Mia wouldn’t give to know.
Everybody she loved believed she’d been dead for more than a year, which gave her an eerie, unsettling sensation. It was as if the real her had ceased to exist. If something went wrong in the next few hours, Tavio would probably torture and kill her, and her friends and family would never know she’d been alive all these months, thinking of them, longing for them. Shanghai would never know how much she still loved him in spite of everything, either. Not that he would care.
“Oh, Shanghai…” As she sat in the dark, feeling lost and alone, she willed him to think of her, to remember her, at least sometimes.
The nightmarish seconds ticked by like hours. What was Tavio waiting for? Would Marco, his half brother, who was to be the pilot tonight, ever climb in and rev the engine? Would they ever take off? And what if they did? Would DEA agents really be there to save her as Julio had promised? Could she trust Julio?
It got so hot her skin prickled and burned as if she had a heat rash. She had to get out of here, to feel fresh air on her face and soon, or go mad.
No. Ever since Julio had risked his life to hide her, assuring her the plane was flying into a trap, she’d known this was her best shot at freedom. Clenching her nails into her palm, she fought to hold on to her sanity and courage.
Somebody up there had a twisted sense of humor. Mia wasn’t naming names because she didn’t want to tempt fate.
“I don’t want to sound whiney…Yes, I know I have abandonment issues because Daddy didn’t want me and neither did Shanghai, not even when I told him I was pregnant with our baby after that night in Vegas. Yes, I know I prayed for the next man I met to be struck by a thunderbolt and love me so much, he’d never want to let me go.
“But Tavio Morales and his sick obsession? A drug lord?”
Mia knew it wasn’t a good sign about her sanity that she talked to herself so much. But could a woman, who’d gone through even half of what she had with Tavio and his criminal army for more than a year, remain entirely sane? She knew she was only holding on by a thread.
Fifteen months ago she’d been married to Cole Knight, having married him because he was Shanghai’s brother and for a host of other wrong-minded reasons, which was ironic because everyone in Spur County had thought Cole had married her to get her stock in the ranch.
When things had settled down, she’d had a new baby daughter, Vanilla, to raise and had been working with the horse program at the ranch. If her life hadn’t been totally what she’d wished for, at least it had seemed all planned out and stable.
On a whim, because Daddy had said he was flying, too, she’d chosen to fly with Cole the day he’d crashed their plane into the Gulf of Mexico. Cole was probably dead, and there had been times, hellish times, that she wished she were dead, too, like when she’d heard screams coming from that forbidden zone at the compound. Listening to those pitiful cries, she’d suspected that Tavio’s men were torturing their prisoners before they murdered them. From her bedroom window, she’d seen blindfolded, handcuffed people brought to those buildings against the north wall of the hacienda, and she’d never seen any of them leave.
The irony was she would have drowned if Tavio Morales, who’d just stolen a yacht, no doubt, after murdering its owners, hadn’t been so high on his crack-laced cigarettes he’d seen diving into those stormy, icy forty-foot seas and plucking her to safety as an adventure.
She knew he’d removed her wet clothes that first night, that he’d wrapped her in blankets and warmed her with his own body. Not that she liked to think about that. Since that night, he’d never held her or stroked her or even kissed her because he was waiting for her to want him, too.
She loathed his attentiveness and deadly patience. Obsessed with her, he’d nursed her back to health and brought her to his rancho in the Chihuahua Desert. He’d treated her as kindly as a man of his sort keeping a woman prisoner knew how, she supposed.
When he’d found out she liked horses, he’d let her groom and ride his fine, Polish-Arabian stallion, Shabol. Except for those horrible, forbidden zones, she’d been free to roam and ride Shabol as long as she stayed within the confines of the high walls surrounding his adobe mansion.
When she’d wanted something to read, he’d brought her newspapers. Sometimes he ranted about the stories written about himself and his operation by a certain Terence Collins, who was a liberal reporter for the Border Observer in El Paso.
Even though there was no free press in Mexico, these articles were translated and reprinted in all the Mexican papers owned by Federico Valdez, whom Tavio seemed to hate with a special vengeance. The coverage incensed Tavio mostly because his business ran more smoothly if he kept his affairs quiet. But also she sensed some deep personal vendetta between him and Valdez.
Tavio had threatened the reporter, and Collins had printed every threat, which added to his fame.
Tavio would turn red as soon as he saw his name in a headline or a sidebar. “I will kill him!” he would say as he wadded up the paper. “I will kill them both.”
“No,” Mia would plead.
“Soon! You will see, Angelita.”
Publicity made the officials Tavio bribed look like fools who couldn’t do their jobs. If Tavio got too much press, he explained, the federal police comandantes would be forced to demand expensive drug busts to make themselves look good. The United States would put pressure on the politicians in Mexico City, who might demand his imprisonment or death. After all, individual drug lords were replaceable.
Tavio was camera shy and banned all cameras from the compound because he didn’t want recent pictures of himself in the newspapers.
But despite his problems he thought of her happiness. When he realized how lonely she was in her room with nothing except week-old, Mexican newspapers to pore over, he’d sent his brother-in-law’s girlfriend, Delia, to be her maid. Delia was sweet if down-trodden, but dear Delia couldn’t be with her all the time, either, so he’d rescued a kitten his men had been about to use as target practice and had given it to her. She’d named the poor little black cat Negra.
When Delia had confided to her about her troubles with Chito, Mia had observed Chito more closely. He was Tavio’s second-in-command, and the worst of a bad bunch. A man of dark temperament, he was as sullen as Tavio was outgoing. Chito always wore a grisly necklace made of real human bones. When he gazed at Mia, he formed the habit of stroking his neck, as if to call attention to the gruesome ornament.
Tavio spent time with her himself, of course. He liked to drive around in the desert in his truck shooting at whatever poor creature darted in his path. When he could, he took her with him on these outings. They were always trailed by jeeps full of armed bodyguards.
Strangely she did not find him totally unattractive. If he hadn’t had that scar across his right cheek where a bullet had creased him, he would have been as handsome as a movie star. A born leader, he was ruggedly virile and charismatic. Unlike his men, who were mostly short, dark and stockily built, Tavio was tall with light skin, thin fine features, an ink-black mustache and bright jet eyes that flashed with intelligence and intuition.
He liked people. He paid attention to them. He understood them. When he turned those eyes on her, she was terrified he could read her thoughts. Once he’d told her that when he knew a person’s weaknesses and strengths, he knew how to use him.
“People are my tools,” he’d said in Spanish, which was the language they usually spoke for she was more fluent in his tongue than he was in hers. “I have to know who can do what for me, no?”
And me? Why has he toyed with me so long?
His mother was the most feared curandera, or witch, in Ciudad Juarez. His men believed he had special powers and that was why he could manipulate people so easily.
He was as fierce and brave as any warrior or pirate king. He was a good father and son. His mother had had some sort of breakdown, and he called Ciudad Juarez constantly to make sure she was being properly cared for.
He was smart, a criminal genius probably. He ran a huge empire that reached to the highest levels in the government from this remote rancho. Army comandantes came to visit him on a regular basis. They strutted around his mansion and barns and he let them take whatever they wanted. Always, they left laughing with thick wads of pesos stuffed in the bulging pockets of their uniforms. Politicians from Mexico City came, as well. When they drove away in the stolen trucks he’d given them, he cursed them for being so greedy. Then he bragged to her, usually in front of an audience, that he had protection at the highest levels in Mexico.
Tavio was responsible. He took international phone calls on his various phones. He worked hard, sometimes day and night, as he had for the last three days and nights, taking pills and chain-smoking those crack-laced cigarettes she hated because they made him edgier and less predictable. He was a highly sexual man, and she was increasingly unnerved by the way his eyes followed her.
He bought her beautiful clothes, including French lingerie, but she refused to wear them. She never smiled at him, either, for fear of charming him.
He wore a gold-plated semiautomatic in a shoulder holster and had a habit of shooting at targets that took his fancy.
Despite his kindnesses and obsession to have her, Mia never forgot that he was a vicious, notorious drug lord, who claimed to be the most powerful man in all of northern Mexico. He said he was linked with another powerful cartel headed by Juan Garza in Colombia, and she believed him.
Terrible things happened here. Hostages were brought here, some of them girlfriends of Tavio’s men, girls whom the men said had cheated on them. Sometimes she heard screams and then gunshots. She had watched men carrying heavy sacks out into the desert and feared the worst. Tavio had touched her red hair once and told her she would be smart to love him because there were many graves in his desert.
“Women you have loved before?” she had whispered.
He had laughed with such conceit she’d known there had been countless women before her. She’d sensed how his awesome power had corrupted him.
“Are you threatening me?” she’d asked.
“No, my love. But I am not a patient man.” His soft voice had been deadly.
“You are married to Estela.”
“This is different—you and me. For you—I send my wife away. This make Chito, her brother, very mad, and that is a dangerous thing to do. I am not like other men. I bore easily. I live for danger. Still, I cannot divorce my wife, the mother of my sons. Not even for you. I am Mexican. Catholic.”
Mia had been amazed that he, a notorious drug lord and addict, saw himself as a religious person. Estela had had such jealous fits of rage when he’d brought Mia home, throwing pots and pans at Tavio, that Tavio, to preserve the peace, had personally driven her and their two sons in an armed convoy of jeeps to another walled and heavily guarded mansion he owned in Piedras Negras.
If only Shanghai could ever have been half so fascinated by her as Tavio, none of this would ever have happened. When she’d gotten pregnant and had tried to tell him, he would have listened and believed her. She wouldn’t have thought she had to marry Cole. She wouldn’t have been in that plane crash.
Suddenly her eyes stung. What was wrong with her that the men she’d wanted, first her father and then Shanghai, hadn’t loved her, and a criminal like Tavio did?
The wind was picking up. Rocks hit the fuselage like bullets now. Gusts made the plane shudder. Where was Marco?
Wrapping her arms around herself and bending over, Mia swallowed.
She had to get out of here!
Suddenly she heard shouts outside. The cockpit door was slammed open. Then Chito yelled, “Angelita, come out! We know you’re in there.”
Tavio didn’t know her real name because she’d been afraid to tell him. When she’d pretended she suffered from amnesia, he’d nicknamed her Angelita.
“Tavio, he send me. The peasant, Ramiro, he tell him hours ago where you are. Tavio pay Ramiro. Then he break many things with his gun. He say to surround the plane until you get so hot you come out. But you don’t come out, and he’s scared you’re dead. And we have to fly.”
When she didn’t answer, Chito yelled at his men to unload the plane and drag her out. It took them less than ten minutes to unload enough of the heavy bales to reach her. They shouted to Chito when they found her, and he then climbed inside. As always he had a gun in his belt and a knife, which she’d seen him throw with deadly accuracy, in his cowboy boot.
With a low growl, he crawled toward her, grabbed her wrist and yanked her from the plane. She fell to the ground so hard, she lay there stunned for a minute.
“Get the hell out of here,” he told his men, who at his gruff tone, sprinted toward the high adobe walls of Tavio’s desert fortress.
When she would have run from Chito, he grabbed her hand and tugged her unwillingly behind him until they reached the compound. She thought he would take her to Tavio’s mansion in the middle of the compound. Instead he headed for the forbidden buildings that lined the north wall. Opening a door of one of the low dwellings, he threw her across the threshold. The tiny room was dark and dank and reeked of urine and feces and vomit.
He screwed a low wattage bulb into a socket. In its dim light she saw chairs, ropes, a cot, slop buckets, whips, handcuffs and electric cattle prods.
When she gasped, he grinned.
Did he intend to torture her, rape her? Had Tavio given her to Chito? With a cry, she turned to run.
Laughing, Chito slammed the door and barred her way.
“You run from Tavio,” Chito said, his thin smile chilling her, as he fingered the irregularly shaped bone fragments strung on a gold chain that Delia said came from Pablito’s skeleton, a fellow drug dealer Chito had shot for double-dealing and dragged behind his jeep in the desert for hours while he drank tequila. “Maybe you want me instead?” He leered at her.
“Go to hell!”
He laughed, but his black eyes were as cold as ice chips as he leaned down and placed a wedge of wood beneath the door. “Who are you, bitch? Who hid you in that airplane?”
When he lunged for her, she kicked him in the shin and then kneed him in the crotch.
He doubled over, grunting in pain. He tugged the knife loose from his boot. “Now Tavio will realize how dangerous you are.”
Adrenaline pumped through her as she raced for the door. He picked up a pair of handcuffs, shook them so they clinked and laughed at her when she pulled at the door and it didn’t budge.
“He has killed many for less, gringa. But you very sexy. I see why Tavio like you. If you are nice to me, maybe I put in a good word for you, so he don’t kill you. Now—who helped you?”
She hesitated and watched him warily, her gaze flicking to the white chunks of bone at his throat. He was small, only an inch taller than she was, but he was strong and muscular. He could kill her in an instant if he wanted to.
He had black hair and dark skin and a sullen mouth. He had a hair-trigger temper and suffered from paranoia. He didn’t get along easily with anybody. Not even Tavio. Delia frequently sported black eyes and bruises. Once Mia had asked her why she stayed with him.
Delia’s big brown eyes, which were always so sad and hungry had widened with a strange yearning. Then all the light had gone out of her thin, young face.
“You rich in America. Everybody rich. I see TV. Even the women. You don’t understand how it is down here. For women like me. Chito, he protect me. He don’t share me with nobody.”
“And that’s enough? Do you like him? Love him?”
“My father, he was worse. My older sister…she run away…to Ciudad Juarez.” She strangled on a sob as if there were some horrible end to that tale. “Chito, he help me. He give my family food and money. You lucky. Tavio, he protect you. You should be nice to Tavio.”
Suddenly Chito lunged for Mia, the lust in his eyes, his strength and the stench of his garlic breath bringing her cruelly back to the present. Catching her again even as she pummeled his thick chest, he dragged her screaming to the cot, where he threw her down. When she fell, her head struck a wooden bar on the cot, and she could only stare up at him in dazed confusion.
“Be still, or I will hurt you worse.” He smiled at her as he took his time unbuttoning his trousers.
She was struggling to sit up when the thick wooden door behind them crashed against the adobe wall. Suddenly Tavio was a black giant in the doorway, his legs widely spread apart. He twirled his golden gun idly.
Instantly the air grew even more charged with electric, hostile danger.
Sweat popping across his brow, Chito jumped back from the cot, his knife falling with a soft thud to the dirt floor.
Feeling like a trapped animal, Mia got up and hurled herself into Tavio’s arms and clung to him, shaking, even though he smelled of those awful crack-laced cigarettes.
“Why is your heart beating like a rabbit’s?” Tavio whispered against her ear, pressing her closer for a second. He turned toward Chito. “I told you to bring her to me. What are you two doing here?”
“Teaching her a lesson since you won’t.”
She scarcely dared draw a breath as the two men exchanged dark, dangerous looks.
“I will deal with you later for the trouble you cost me, Angelita. Go to your room,” Tavio said, releasing her in an instant. When she hesitated, his whisper grew vicious. “Go! Ahora!”
“Don’t kill him.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, woman!” Although his voice was soft, every word bit her, especially the last one.
And then to Chito he said, still in that soft, deadly tone as he knelt and retrieved the knife. “What were you doing with my woman alone—here? Why was she on that cot?” He began to curse and make crude sexual accusations that terrified her.
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