Shotgun Daddy

by Harper Allen

  Del clasped it like a man grabbing a life buoy.

  “You know who would have gotten one hell of a kick out of us behaving like damn fools and being put on report for it, Riggs?” His voice was no longer frosty, it was rusty.

  Gabe jerked his head in a nod. “I was just thinking that myself. Jess would have had a field day with this, wouldn’t he?”

  Del didn’t answer. His grip on Gabe’s hand tightened almost unbearably, and the unshed tears in his eyes became more than a sheen. “You’re sure there’s no way he might have—”

  Gabe couldn’t let him finish. “No way,” he said hoarsely. “Point-blank shot to the temple. I—I saw his—” He squeezed Del’s hand as tightly as his was being gripped, and shook his head. “No need for details, but it would have been instantaneous,” he rasped. “It was Jess’s body those bastards drove away with, Del, not Jess. Caro’s right, this is his wake.”

  “I see.” Del’s lips moved once before he firmed them. He blinked, and it was as if the tears that had been standing in his eyes froze to a thin film of ice. He released Gabe’s hand. “That’s that, then. One of our own is gone.”

  It couldn’t just be his Marine Corps training that made it possible for him to step so quickly back into his spit-and-polish persona, Gabe thought quizzically. Hell, Bird and MacLeish were leathernecks too, and they hadn’t been able to hide their reactions anywhere near as well as their former lieutenant. Whatever ancestor of Del’s had passed down the gene for flinty gray eyes and the dogged determination that had helped him survive the loss of both legs, had obviously also bequeathed to him a toughness that didn’t allow for displays of emotion.

  He forced the lump in his throat to disappear. When he answered Hawkins his voice was steady. “Yeah, one of our own is gone. And like I told Tye when I phoned, there’s a chance it won’t end there. Caro and her baby have been threatened, which is why we’re here.”

  “Tye explained the situation.” Hawkins’s nod was curt. “The Double B’s already gone on full alert, Riggs. Joseph and Billy Tahe, who man the gate leading onto the property, have rounded up a few cousins from the Dinetah to beef up security on the ranch perimeter. Add to that the five able-bodied men right here in this room and a certain stiff-legged, iron-assed son of a bitch who can still fire a rifle pretty damn well, and I’d say we’ve got ourselves a tight setup.”

  “Stiff-legged, iron-assed chauvinist,” Greta interjected tartly. “Susannah’s a dead shot, and you know it, sweetie. Tess is no slouch with a handgun, either, and as a reclusive artist living on my own until recently, I got a crusty old ex-marine to show me how to handle a firearm, if you’ll remember. But it’s good to know us helpless females have you big strong males to protect us, especially since Susannah’s got baby Danny to keep her busy and Tess has her hands full with that nine-year-old hell-raising nephew of hers.”

  “Con’s and my nine-year-old hell-raising adopted son, as soon as the paperwork goes through,” the dark-haired woman who’d been introduced to Gabe as Tess smiled. Her smile faded. “Jess dead, and over something as stupid as money. I still can’t believe it.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  All eyes in the room, Gabe’s included, turned to Tye at his unexpected contribution to the conversation. But Tye, Gabe noted with some of his old impatience at his friend, didn’t continue immediately. As if it were a vital task, he lifted the coffeepot from the stove.

  Gabe’s impatience became irritation. “You know, Adams,” he drawled, “it’s a damn good thing you’ve given up your bodyguard-to-the-stars business out there in California and settled down here in New Mexico with Susannah. Quit milking the scene and spill whatever it is you have to say. You’ve got your audience in the palm of your hand and you know it.”

  Tye set the coffeepot down and faced him. “Not milking the scene, bro,” he said mildly enough that the hint of answering irritation in his voice was barely audible. “I’m just wondering how crazy this is going to sound to the rest of you. I know it did to me when Jess told me, but now I’m not sure.”

  “Jess was in touch with you?” For the first time since she’d reamed him out, Caro spoke, her tone strained. Everything about her seemed strained, Gabe noticed, from the added pallor in her creamy complexion to the way her fingertips went unconsciously to the bare skin of his forearm, as if she suddenly needed to feel the warmth of another human being.

  And that surprises you, Riggs? This time the voice in his head was his own, and it was roughly sardonic. For a woman who’s been protected from the seamier side of things for most of her life she came through the events of this evening like a trooper, but it has to have taken a toll on her. She saw the man she was going to marry killed. She nearly got killed herself. And now she’s worried sick that her daughter might be the target of that bastard Leo. I’d say she’s earned the right to a little strain.

  Which still didn’t change the fact that having those slim fingers on him made it hard to concentrate, he admitted to himself reluctantly. Hell, just standing next to her made it difficult to concentrate, which was why he’d tried to keep his distance from her today, both physically and emotionally.

  He was going to have to try harder, but not just yet. He covered her hand with his.

  “When did you speak with him, Adams?”

  “Three days ago. He was leaving for his Mexican trip, he said, so he didn’t have much time to talk. But he asked me to set up a meeting with all the Double B’s for when he got back.”

  Tye frowned. “Jess said he’d stumbled upon a link between everything that had happened recently at the ranch, and Del’s past in Vietnam. He said it was all part of a bigger picture, and that if his guess was right, the Double B and everyone connected to it was in more danger than we could possibly imagine.”

  His frown turned into a scowl. “I think the kidnapping was a ruse. I think Jess was killed because of what he found out.”

  Chapter Six

  This time it wasn’t Jess bound to the chair, Caro realized numbly, it was Gabe. And the gunman standing guard over him was Del—not Del as he was now, but Del as he would have been thirty years ago, when he’d been in Vietnam and, as she’d learned, part of a mysterious group called Beta Beta Force.

  She knew it was a dream. She’d known it was a dream when it had come to her the night before, and the night before that, her first one at the Double B. But knowing didn’t help. There was always some new and terrible twist she hadn’t anticipated, and tonight was no exception.

  The events played out with the same inexorable sense of doom they always did. The truck began to accelerate. Gabe’s agonized gaze met hers one final time before lifting to the man standing over him. The young Del’s face was a mask of pain and regret, but as if he had no choice in the matter, slowly he placed the barrel of the gun he was holding to Gabe’s temple. Just as he began to pull the trigger, the night exploded in a firestorm of brilliant light and flames, and Caro, now holding Emily, tried to run from the inferno.

  But she tripped instead over the briefcase full of bearer bonds and fell to the ground, screaming out her daughter’s name as Emily flew from her arms…

  Jerking bolt upright in bed, Caro flung the light cover back and sped across the pine-planked floor to Emily’s crib a few feet away, the nearly full moon outside supplementing the dim illumination provided by the night-light she’d switched on earlier in the evening. She bent over the crib, her heart still thudding painfully in her chest and the residue of the nightmare clinging to her like tendrils of fog.

  “What is it?”

  The low query came from the darkness behind her. Whirling around, she choked back the scream that rose in her throat as a shadowy but instantly recognizable figure advanced.

  “For goodness’ sake, Gabe! I’m checking on Emily, that’s all. And why were you lurking outside my bedroom door anyway?”

  “I wasn’t.” His reply was still low-voiced. “I was inside, princess. You got a problem with that?”

 
; “You were—”

  In the hushed room her indrawn breath was sharp. Suddenly all too conscious of the thin nightdress she was wearing, Caro turned and padded swiftly to the bed. She slipped on the matching robe, knotting its tie-belt securely around her waist before confronting him again.

  “Let me get this straight. You were in the room while I slept? You were watching me?”

  “Watching over you.” He sounded bored. “Don’t get all hot and bothered, princess. I certainly wasn’t, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  He inclined his head at the screened window. “Grappling hook over the sill, rudimentary climbing skills and a bottle of chloroform. That’s all anyone would need to up the hostage count to include a mother and her child.”

  “You’re forgetting they’d have to transport me and Emily out a window and off the property,” she snapped. “I somehow don’t think they’d find it all that easy to accomplish.”

  “You’re right,” he agreed. “Which means maybe they’d take the simpler alternative, honey. We know Leo doesn’t draw the line at killing off his liabilities.”

  His words effectively robbed her of any further desire to argue with him. With an effort Caro curbed the impulse to look over her shoulder at the window and the night outside.

  “Why do you do that?” she asked shakily. “Why do you have to be so—so blunt when you’re talking with me?”

  “How else should I have phrased it? From what I know of Leo, he’s a pretty blunt type. I wouldn’t be doing you a favor to pretend otherwise.”

  She shook her head. “Even when I first met you. Even when the name Leo only belonged to a victim. When I left Larry’s chalet with you and I asked why you’d thrown him down the stairs, you didn’t just say he’d caused a man’s death. You made a point of telling me that he’d been responsible for Roswell getting his throat cut, as if you needed to make it clear to me right from the start that your world was full of a violence I couldn’t begin to comprehend. Why?”

  Her vision had adjusted to the dim glow from the night-light enough by now that she could see his quick frown. He exhaled, and Caro was sure she heard a muttered oath beneath his sigh.

  “I guess I do at that, princess.” His admission took her aback. “Maybe I’m trying to make it clear to myself that your world and mine are miles apart. I know I was that first night anyway.”

  “You didn’t have to, that first night. I threw up enough barriers to make sure you knew we had nothing in common, didn’t I?” She bit her lip. “You called me a bitch. I was one.”

  Maybe it was the setting, she thought, holding his gaze. It was the middle of the night, the house was still, and the small pool of light from the fixture near the baseboard seemed to isolate them from the rest of the sleeping world. In the crib beside them Emily gave a peaceful little gurgle, followed by a tiny baby snore. Right now she and Gabe were just a man and a woman keeping watch over a child. Life didn’t get much more basic than that, and somehow in such a situation the usual defenses and stilted subterfuges of conventional conversation fell away.

  She could never be totally honest with him. But it was suddenly important to tell him one particular truth.

  “The woman I was eighteen months ago…” she said, the corners of her lips attempting a smile. “If I met her today, I don’t think I’d like her any more than you did, Gabe. I don’t think I really liked her very much then.” She looked away. “I’ve always wanted to apologize to you for the horrible things I said the next morning. I tried to phone you a few weeks later, but you’d already dropped out of sight.”

  She made an unnecessary adjustment to the light blanket covering Emily. “It probably wouldn’t have made any difference if I’d contacted you before you left, though, would it.”

  “Probably not.” Although his reply was characteristically blunt, the usual brusqueness was missing from his tone. “I went to the desert hoping to find something. What happened between us just persuaded me to go looking for it a little sooner, that’s all.”

  This certainly was turning into a night for unexpected confidences, Caro thought. Why did that suddenly make her feel so off balance, so ill at ease?

  Because he’s more dangerous like this. The answer came promptly to her. You can handle Gabriel Riggs when he’s prickly, you can handle him when he’s being tough, but you’re absolutely defenseless against any hint of vulnerability from him. Fighting with the man is a whole lot safer than talking with him like this, so change the subject right now.

  Lightly she smoothed a wisp of hair from Emily’s cheek. Equally lightly she traced the delicate line—so delicate it looked as if an artist had dipped the tip of a feather in ink and drawn it—of one tiny black eyebrow, and ignored the advice she’d just given herself.

  “What were you looking for?”

  “Myself.” There was a touch of mockery in his reply. “I guess I thought if the desert was good enough for madmen and saints, I didn’t have anything to lose by giving it a shot.”

  She looked up from her daughter with a slight frown. “I don’t understand.”

  He shrugged. “The job had been getting me down long before Roswell’s death. I saw the worst of human nature on a daily basis, but I didn’t have anything to weigh it against. That’s against all precepts of the Middle Way, and I suppose I’m Navajo enough to think a life like that isn’t a whole one.”

  “The Middle Way?” Her brow cleared. “Of course. Balance and harmony in all things. It sounds like a good belief to me.”

  “But you didn’t have to go looking in the desert for something to hold on to, you found it when you became a mother.” His gaze narrowed intently. “I couldn’t credit it at first, but over the past couple of days I’ve come to realize it’s true. You have changed. This little sweetheart’s the reason for that change, isn’t she.”

  “She’s pure innocence, Gabe,” Caro said simply. “And just looking at her makes me want to be the best mother I can be—the best person I can be. Does that sound silly?”

  “Not to me.” He took a step toward the crib. “In my line of work, sometimes it’s a relief to see pure innocence once in a while. Can I?”

  “Of— Of course.”

  Her heart suddenly in her throat, she moved aside to make room for him. This was why she shouldn’t have let her guard down with the man, she berated herself silently. This was exactly the situation she’d tried so hard to prevent, and now through her own incautiousness it was happening.

  Avoiding letting Gabe spend any uninterrupted time with his daughter hadn’t been too difficult. Since their arrival at the Double B he’d been preoccupied with bolstering the security measures at the ranch’s perimeter, had been engaged in long and sometimes heated conversations with Del and Con, and had met with a couple of FBI agents—former colleagues of Con’s from his days at the Bureau, apparently—to discuss Jess’s kidnapping and murder. And although he’d made it clear that she and Emily were never to be alone and unprotected, it had been easy to arrange to take Emily outside for some fresh air only when Daniel Bird or John MacLeish had been assigned to guard them.

  She hadn’t hidden Emily away. She’d just been very careful not to give Gabe the opportunity to take the kind of long, searching look that Del had directed at her daughter yesterday—a look that had been replaced by a quickly blank expression when the ex-marine had seen her watching him.

  The only thing that saved me then was that Del has no idea I knew Gabe before this week, Caro thought faintly. He saw something familiar in Emily, I’m sure of it. He just didn’t realize that what he was seeing was something of Gabe.

  But Gabe would have to be blind not to recognize that straight little nose as a small facsimile of his own, the dark hair as coming from a Dineh daddy, the strong bones already giving definition to those rosy cheeks as being a delicate version of his own carved features.

  And Gabe wasn’t blind. So any moment now he would—

  He reached into the crib, the bracelet on his wrist gleaming.
Inscribed inside with his father’s initials, it was all he had of the man he’d never known, apparently, just as a small enameled brooch-watch was all he had of his mother, Caro knew. Gently he extended his index finger toward one of Emily’s tiny fists, and the next moment Caro saw it being clutched tightly by her still-sleeping daughter—almost as if the child knew there was a bond between them.

  “She’s beautiful.” He looked up. “And she’s not Kanin’s daughter at all, is she.”

  Gently he disengaged his finger from Emily’s grasp. He straightened to his full height, one side of his mouth lifting as he held Caro’s frozen stare. “She’s all you. Okay, I’ll admit the dark hair had to have come from Larry, but she’s a princess through and through, like her mama. God knows where she got that stern little nose from, though.”

  He looked down at Emily again. Caro’s heart stopped for the second time as she saw the same uncompromising feature on his profile that he’d just noticed on his daughter.

  “My father,” she said swiftly, moving from the crib and hoping he would do the same. “She got the Moore nose. I only hope she didn’t inherit the temperament to go along with it.”

  “What temperament would that be?”

  In her relief at seeing him turn away from Emily, Caro almost missed the wry undertone in his question. Belatedly she caught it, and managed a smile.

  “The kind of temperament that leads to being dumped in a snowbank,” she informed him. Her smile faded into uncertainty. “You said you’d seen a change, Gabe. I hope it’s persuaded you that I can help you and the rest of the Double B contingent in trying to find out who was behind Jess’s kidnapping and death, because I’m tired of sitting around twiddling my thumbs while everyone else is busy. Tyler’s down in Mexico helping the federales search for Jess’s body, Connor’s in touch with the FBI, and Del’s been holding hushed telephone conversations with his high-up military contacts. I know Greta’s in Albuquerque on business, but Tess and Susannah have been running down some leads with the aid of Tess’s reporter friends on the tabloid newspaper she used to write for. I’m the only one who isn’t helping.”