by Joanna Wayne
“The boots and hat are my treat,” Damien said.
She shook her head. “Accepting your help is one thing. Accepting expensive gifts is out of the question.”
“Who said anything about expensive? Besides, you can’t live on a ranch and not have boots and a Western hat.”
“I don’t live on a ranch. I’m visiting one.”
“And everybody who visits the Bent Pine has to carry their weight. That means brushing the horses, cleaning the stables, maybe even mending a fence or two. Boots are a basic necessity.”
She picked up a pair and looked at the price printed on the bottom of the sole. “People actually pay that for boots?”
“Alligator,” Damien said. “Nice for dress wear, but not very practical. Sit down and we’ll have the salesman bring out a few pairs for you to try. You need the fit to be right in Western boots. Otherwise, your toes get squeezed.”
“I don’t know how or when I can pay you back.”
“Sometimes a smile and a simple thank-you are all the payback a man wants or needs.”
“I’ll work at remembering that.”
* * *
“NOW, THIS IS WHAT I CALL an airplane.”
Damien smiled and stood back for her to enter the cabin. “It does the job.”
She hesitated for a second, as a terrifying thought popped into her head. Ten months ago she’d stepped onto a lavish yacht and into hell. At the time, she’d known Caudillo as long as she’d known Damien now.
Her legs grew weak and she started to shake.
Damien grabbed her arm to steady her. “Are you okay?”
This was Damien, not Caudillo. And he hadn’t coaxed her onto the plane. She’d demanded that he let her go with him.
She knew his family. She’d left an innocent baby with his mother. She took a deep breath and regrouped. “Just a bit of déjà vu.”
He muttered a curse. “You’re thinking about the kidnapping.” He tugged her around to face him and used his thumb to nudge her chin so that she was forced to meet his gaze. “Are you afraid of me, Emma?”
She read the incredulous look in the smoky depths of his eyes, and the truth hit so hard she felt dizzy. She wasn’t only unafraid, she was falling hard for him. She could no longer convince herself it was a gratitude-based attraction. In spite of all she’d been through, or perhaps because of it, she’d let him into her heart.
“I’m not afraid of you, Damien. I just had a mini meltdown for a second there.”
“Good, because if you’re afraid of me, then I’ve done something terribly wrong to mislead you. But if you harbor a shadow of doubt about going on this trip with me, we can get off this plane right now and Tague can come and get you.”
“No doubts.” Except about her ability to cope with the tangled emotions that overrode her good sense.
“Tell me about the plane,” she said, hoping to guide the conversation into safer territory.
“It’s new. We—or rather Lambert Inc.—bought it after Dad’s plane went down. Not that aircraft malfunction caused the crash that killed him, nor was he even in one of our planes. But his death emphasized the need for getting the safest small corporate jet on the market. The one we previously owned was getting on in years.”
“Do you use it much in the ranching business?”
“More than you’d think. We do some innovative work at the ranch in feeding, breeding and even marketing, so I do quite a bit of guest lecturing at colleges with advanced animal-husbandry programs. And I like to see what ranchers in other parts of the country are doing, as well.
“We use it more frequently in the oil business, though. We own a larger jet, too, for moving personnel. Oddly, it comes out cheaper in the long run than constantly booking last-minute flights to drilling areas or chartering planes to handle hurricane preparedness when a storm kicks up in the Gulf.”
“Are you involved in the oil part of Lambert Inc.?”
“I’m part owner, so I sit in on major decision making, though Durk’s the CEO. He’s always taken to that part of the business. Tague and I both love ranching. Dad left the business entirely to Mother, but she immediately split it four ways so that she, Tague, Durk and I all own equal shares.”
“Ranching and oil. Isn’t that an unusual mix?”
“Not in Texas. The ranch was in our family for generations, so when oil was discovered on the land, my grandfather expanded into drilling operations, as well.”
“A good move,” she acknowledged.
“The company’s had its ups and downs, but then most do. Enough about business. All you have to do for the next few hours is sit back and relax. We’ll stop and refuel near the halfway mark. The flight plan is already filed.”
Emma dropped into a padded leather seat while Damien stored his small duffel and the stylish overnight bag Carolina had lent her.
She took a closer look at the plane’s interior. There were oval windows and seating for six, and she could tell that four of the chairs reclined. It was much roomier and more comfortable than she’d expected of a plane this size.
“Toilet is in the front. There are refreshments in the back, though I’m not sure what. And there are usually some magazines in that small cabinet above the coffeepot.”
“You sound as if you’re planning to parachute out and leave me on my own.”
“I’ll be busy in the cockpit.”
“Doing what?”
“Flying the plane. Though, to be honest, this baby practically flies herself.”
“You’re the pilot?”
“And you thought all I could do was ride horses and brand cattle.”
“You constantly surprise me.”
“And I’m just getting started. So sit back and buckle up. Weather’s good all the way. You’re in for one smooth ride.”
And then a night in a Miami hotel with Damien. As screwed up as she was emotionally, how would she ever handle that?
So much for promises of a smooth ride.
* * *
HELL OF A DAY. EVEN ON Sunday, a man couldn’t get any peace anymore, Sheriff Garcia lamented. No matter how many deputies the county hired, the worst of the mess always ended up on his desk. Taxpayers complained about his salary. He’d like to see them walk in his shoes for a day and sing that song.
He picked up the file Deputy Hagen had compiled for him on the stabbing victim out near Bent Pine Ranch and went straight to the fingerprint report.
Julio Gonzalez. Definitely in the system. Garcia scanned his mile-long rap sheet. Burglary, bad checks, using stolen credit cards, drunk and disorderly, sexual assault. He ran the gamut.
Fourteen arrests and… He counted in his head as he went through the lists. A total of six months and fourteen days in jail. Deported twice.
All the honorable, honest, hardworking, law-abiding Hispanics in the state of Texas, and Julio Gonzalez had to show up dead in his county and create a king-size headache and a ton of paperwork for Garcia.
But this gave all the credence he needed to Emma Smith’s claim of self-defense. No cause to arrest her on murder charges, but he would need a bit more info from her to complete the bureaucratic reports. Mainly he needed her Social Security number.
If the baby weren’t involved, he could have left it at that.
Garcia ran a quick check on the name Juan Perez in Dallas. There were no outstanding arrest warrants for anyone by that name. Always a good sign.
He shoved the paperwork to the back of his desk. Tomorrow would be soon enough to handle that.
He’d make the trip out to Bent Pine Ranch himself. It might give him a chance to see and talk to Carolina. Best catch in the state of Texas. Great looking for her age. Hell, she looked good for any age. More money than God. And she didn’t have a mean bone in her body.
Not that she was anywhere near through grieving over Hugh. Not that he could fill Hugh Lambert’s shoes. But then neither could anyone else in Texas.
It didn’t hurt to remind Carolina that he was around an
d still aboveground for the day she did decide she needed a man.
* * *
DAMIEN ADJUSTED THE STRAP of Emma’s travel bag, which he’d had to insist to the bellhop he was capable of carrying, and pushed the elevator button for the third floor. The hotel wasn’t exactly what Damien had envisioned when he told the company travel agent intimate, comfortable and on the beach, but it would work. And it went a long way to helping him understand what she meant when she said “chic.”
Emma had been exceptionally quiet on the taxi ride to South Beach and that worried him. He’d known a trip back to the Caribbean would upset her, but she hadn’t given him a lot of choice in that.
If it was the two of them spending the night together that concerned her, then welcome to the club. His feelings for her were all mixed-up with his need to protect her and a nagging suspicion that she still hadn’t totally leveled with him.
That didn’t make the physical attraction any less real, and it was growing stronger every second he was with her. They had some kind of inexplicable chemistry going on between them that the professors at Texas A&M had never covered in class.
But after what she’d been through with Caudillo, she needed a friend and protector a lot more than she needed some horny cowboy making a play for her just because his heart and head couldn’t seem to keep things straight.
When they reached the room, he slid the key card and shoved open the door.
Emma let out an undecipherable cry and charged past him and into the room.
“Is something wrong?” he asked, following her to the double glass doors. “We can always change rooms or even hotels.”
“Are you crazy? Look at that view. It’s glorious.”
He had to agree and he loved the joyous lilt in her voice. Maybe this was the perfect hotel after all.
She pushed the doors open and stepped outside. The wind caught her silky hair, tossing it around like summer hay. His chest tightened as the kind of lustful thoughts he shouldn’t be having danced through his mind.
She turned to him. “May I use your phone? I want to call and check on Belle before I get too enthralled by the scenery.”
“Sure thing.” He handed it to her. “I’ll use the hotel phone to have room service send up a bottle of wine. We can have it on the balcony. Red or white?”
“No. No wine.” Desperation stole the lilt from her voice. “I know this sounds weird, but it’s just that Caudillo always…”
“’Nuff said,” he interrupted.
“How about a beer instead,” she offered. “I haven’t had a cold beer in months.”
“Now you’re talking my language.”
By the time he’d ordered the beers and a crabmeat appetizer, Emma was off the phone.
“All is well. Carolina said Belle is being a perfect baby,” she announced as he joined her on the balcony.
“And I’m sure Mother is spoiling her rotten.”
She handed him his phone. “Belle needs spoiling. She lost her mother.”
The way Damien Briggs, the son of Melissa Briggs, had needed spoiling when he’d lost his mother. The nagging doubts that had plagued Damien when he first found the birth certificate set in again.
“Do you think a woman could ever love an adopted child the way she loves her biological one?” he asked.
“I think it depends on the mother. Some mothers don’t even love their biological children. But if you’re asking if I think it’s possible, the answer is absolutely. Love doesn’t shrink the heart. It grows it and makes room for more love.”
“That sounds like something my mother would say.”
“I didn’t hear it from her, but I did hear it from a very wise lady. I hope to have lots of kids one day, both foster children and my own, and prove her right over and over again.”
“They will be very lucky kids.” Almost as lucky as the man who shared that family with her.
His mother would be the type who could love another woman’s baby as deeply as she loved her own, especially if it were her sister’s.
But not Hugh. Bloodline had been everything to him.
A knock at the door announced the arrival of room service.
“I’ll get that,” Damien said. His cell phone rang while he was signing the check. He took the call as he closed the door behind the waiter.
“Hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”
“No problem, Carson. What’s up?”
“I just came upon a new tidbit of information concerning your man Caudillo that I thought might interest you.”
“Keep talking.”
“He’s married to an American citizen who used to work for the ATF. They tied the knot on his yacht last year.”
“Do you have the woman’s name?”
“Emma Muran.”
Chapter Nine
Damien’s hand tightened on the phone. He’d been expecting some new twist to complicate things. He hadn’t expected a complete shift in the dynamics. “How credible is the information?”
“A marriage license was filed in Aruba. The wedding itself took place on Caudillo’s yacht while sailing on the Caribbean Sea. No exact location was given.”
“Were you able to bring up a copy of the license?”
“Yes, but don’t ask me specifics on how I did that.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. Was the license officially signed and documented?”
“Signed by Anton Klein, Emma Louise Muran, the ship captain who conducted the ceremony and two witnesses.”
“What’s the date of the marriage?”
“March 13 of last year.”
In the same month that Emma said she’d been kidnapped. Even the entanglements were becoming entangled.
“Don’t know if that information is important in any way,” Carson said, “but I thought I’d pass it on.”
“You done good, pardner.”
“I can’t wait to hear what this quest to find out about Caudillo is about.”
“One day soon.” The sooner, the better.
“Take care and watch out for the bulls.”
“The bulls are the least of my worries right now.”
Damien thanked him again and dropped the phone into his pocket. Then he grabbed the beers and food and headed to the balcony. Unfortunately, the sunset daylight had faded to twilight.
So had his mood.
Durk just might be right. His faith in Emma might be triggered by a body part other than his brain. But he wasn’t nearly ready to give up on her yet.
* * *
EMMA TOOK THE BEER FROM Damien’s outstretched hand. “Weirdly, I still love the sound of the surf,” she said as she settled back in the lounger. “At least Monster Man didn’t steal that from me.”
“Good.”
She sipped her beer and tried one of the canapés. “These are good. What are they?”
“Crabmeat bites.”
A tension that hadn’t been there before settled between them. “Is something wrong?” she asked.
“It could be. Does the date March 13 mean anything to you?”
The crabmeat bite rolled in her stomach. She turned away from the beach and stared at Damien. “That was the day I was kidnapped.”
“According to a document filed in Aruba, it was also the day you and Anton Klein—better known as Caudillo— were married.”
She jerked up so that she was sitting ramrod straight on the edge of the lounger. The abrupt move tipped the beer bottle and sent cold liquid trickling down her arm. “You have got to be kidding.”
“So you didn’t marry him?”
“Not unless marriage in the Caribbean means drugging a woman and taking her prisoner.”
“The wedding supposedly took place on his yacht.”
“I was on his yacht that night, but he drugged me within minutes after I came on board, and when I woke up, we were speeding toward Enmascarado. And, believe me, I wasn’t saying ‘I do.’”
She stood and walked to the edge of the balcony and then it hi
t her. She spun around and glared at Damien, anger boiling inside her. “You actually considered the possibility that I might be married to Caudillo, didn’t you?”
“It crossed my mind.”
“So why are you really here tonight, Damien? If you still don’t trust me, why are you sticking your neck on the chopping block? Is this some adrenaline rush for you, like skydiving or driving race cars?”
“No, I kinda like staying alive, and your getting indignant and all bent out of shape isn’t going to help things.”
“You think? I’ve told you things I thought I’d never speak of to anyone. I shared fears so real they haunt me day and night. And you think I forgot something like, ‘Oh, yeah, it wasn’t really a kidnapping. We got married’?” He walked over to the railing and reached for her hand. She pulled away.
“I believe you were held captive by Caudillo, Emma. I believe the stories of mental torture and that you’re still running scared, afraid that he’ll track you down and kill you. But look at this from my perspective.”
“Which is?”
“You started presenting an elaborate array of lies from the second I met you. Fiction ebbed to truth in bits and pieces. How am I supposed to know when I have all the pieces?”
Her anger began to wane. There was really no reason for him to trust her and every reason for him to have kicked her out of his house and out of his life the minute the sheriff showed up at his door.
“Point made,” she said. “But just to be clear, there are no more crystals of truth to drop on you.”
“Then we’re good?”
“Yeah, Damien. We’re good.”
“Then how about another beer, because there are more new developments than just the nonexistent wedding.”
“In that case I may need a full six-pack.”
She stayed at the railing while he went for the beers, looking out at the silvery stream of moonlight dancing across the water while her mind tackled the news. Caudillo was evil to the core, but he was not a man to do things without a reason.
But how could faking a marriage to her help him? There was certainly no money to inherit. No prominent family name to benefit him. As far as she could see, he had nothing to gain by claiming her as a wife. And he’d definitely never planned on setting her free.
