One Tough Marine

by Paula Graves

  Because as the news camera zoomed in on the window of the motel room he and Abby had fled the night before, he spotted four curving slashes of rusty red painted across the grimy glass, forming the loose shape of a shark’s head and dorsal fin.

  He’d seen that mark before, in a dusty shanty town on the outskirts of Tesoro, Sanselmo’s vibrant but dangerous capital city. There, working a tip from a disgruntled rebel, Luke and his small band of investigators had come across the scene of a brutal murder of a man, his wife and his three children. Painted on the walls and the windows in their blood, the same shark-shaped symbol had marked the work of the assassins.

  Los Tiburones. The Sharks.

  Eladio Cordero’s enforcers.

  “THINK THE MEN turned on each other? Maybe one killed the other?” Abby couldn’t wrap her mind around the turn of events, and Luke’s grim silence wasn’t helping. “But why leave the body there?”

  Luke stared at the now-muted television. The news broadcast had long since switched over to regular programming, some sort of sitcom, judging by the slapstick antics.

  Abby paused in the middle of her restless pacing to look at him. “You’re scaring me. Say something.”

  “I’m just trying to figure out what to do first.”

  “What to do? What can we do?” Nervous energy sparked through her until she thought she would crawl out of her skin.

  “The Yuma authorities will track down my family soon to see if they’ve heard from me. They’ll be worried.”

  “Do you think the victim was one of the guys following us?”

  “It’s possible. But they were trained operatives.”

  “Maybe the killer was, too,” she pointed out.

  Luke’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Maybe.”

  “Are two different groups after whatever Matt stole?” The remains of dinner sat like lead in her belly, making her queasy. It was bad enough to be in the crosshairs of one set of ruthless pursuers. If there was a different group out there trying to track them down—

  “I don’t think there’s a connection,” Luke said.

  Abby stopped pacing. “Then it’s a hell of a coincidence.”

  “They happen.” Luke got up, grabbed his jacket from the back of the lounge chair and slipped it on.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “I need some air.”

  She stared at him, more certain than ever that he was keeping something from her. He’d been acting funny since he came in for dinner. The news from Yuma had only made it worse.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” she asked.

  He ran his hand over his jaw. The contact between his palm and his beard stubble made a swishing sound, surprisingly loud in the silent belly of the RV. She felt his internal struggle like tangible energy swirling around them, sparking lightly through her nervous system. When he lifted his hand in wordless response and slipped out of the RV into the night, she felt as if something inside her had snapped.

  Odd, she thought, to feel so connected to him again after all this time, after all that had torn them apart. Connected enough so that his clear rejection just now felt as if something had been ripped asunder inside her.

  Almost from their first meeting, she’d felt drawn to Luke Cooper, first as Matt’s Marine buddy, then as her own dear friend. Exactly when her feelings had changed from friendship to attraction, she wasn’t sure. By the time it happened, she and Matt were already experiencing the trouble that would destroy their marriage, and she had long since begun hiding her emotions deep inside, as much to spare herself pain as to keep others from knowing her true feelings.

  She’d certainly buried them too deep for self-analysis, so it had come as one hell of a shock that night hours after Matt’s funeral, when a comforting embrace between two grieving friends had exploded into combustible desire.

  After Luke had left her bed the next morning, never to return, she’d had plenty of time and distance to figure out the tangle of emotions Matt’s death had unearthed. Like the fact that she’d been head over heels in love with her husband’s best friend for far longer than she liked to admit.

  She’d thought, for a few sweet hours, that he might feel the same for her.

  But all that had happened since had proved her wrong.

  “HELLO?” SAM COOPER SOUNDED WARY over the phone. Luke wondered how much his brother already knew.

  “It’s me.” He kept his voice low. Their campsite seemed to be in the middle of the quickest route between more distant campsites and La Paloma’s main building, where bathrooms, a public laundry and other amenities were located. Though most campers had already retired for the night, a few still wandered about in search of supplies and treats.

  “Are you okay?” Sam asked. “We heard—”

  “I know. I’m fine. We’re fine.”

  “We?” Sam, alone among Luke’s six siblings, knew the reason for Luke’s self-imposed exile, how solitary Luke’s life had become. His surprise was evident.

  “Abby Chandler’s with me.”

  “Where are you? No, don’t tell me.”

  An ache had settled in the middle of Luke’s chest, growing in intensity since his realization that he was Stevie’s father. He’d hoped calling his brother would help him regain his focus. Sam had been his emotional safety valve since he’d forced the truth out of Luke a couple of years ago, after Luke had made the latest in a series of lame excuses to avoid going home. Sam had flown cross-country to confront Luke, who hadn’t been able to keep the secret from his brother once they were face-to-face.

  Sam had understood Luke’s reasons for staying but insisted on keeping in touch. They used disposable phones, switching them out every time the minutes ran out. Luke had picked up his latest phone on a quick stop driving out of San Diego.

  “I thought you wanted to stay as far from Abby as possible.” Sam knew what had happened the night of Matt’s funeral. Once Luke had confessed his biggest secret to his brother—Eladio Cordero’s vow of vengeance—revealing his other secrets to Sam had been a relief.

  “She has a son, Sam. Named Stevie.” Luke swallowed hard. “He’s two.”

  Sam’s tone of voice changed immediately. “Yours?”

  “Abby behaves as if he’s Matt’s.”

  “You haven’t asked her directly?”

  “We’ve been a little busy, what with the black-clad goons tossing our houses and Los Tiburones leaving their bloody calling cards on the window of the motel room we’ve just vacated.” Luke looked around to make sure no one had overheard. “I’m not inclined to ask at the moment.”

  “Because of Cordero.”

  “I killed his son. If he knew I had a son of my own—”

  “Got it,” Sam said quickly. “Cordero’s behind the murder in Yuma, right? I saw the mark on the window.”

  “I think so. But why now? Why Yuma? They haven’t made a move toward me in almost three years. Not since Matt.”

  “You still believe the accident was murder?”

  “Yes.” Forensics hadn’t been able to state, unequivocally, that the brakes had been tampered with. But Matt Chandler had been too good a driver to lose control of his car on a shallow incline the way he had, or hit the retaining wall at such a high speed that the car had folded like an accordion. “I’m just not as sure now that Cordero was behind it.”

  He condensed the events of the past couple of days for Sam, keeping an eye out for any campers paying too much attention to him as they wandered past the picnic table where he sat. “The goons in black throw a whole new wrinkle into Matt’s death. But if they thought he had something on them, why wait three years to hunt down Abby? She wasn’t in hiding. The only reason I can think of is that the investigation into Voices for Villages has made things a little too hot for someone.”

  “Any chance the men in black were Los Tiburones, too?”

  “No, these guys definitely weren’t Cordero’s type of thugs. I’d guess ex-military.”

  “So, maybe connecte
d to the gentleman from Foggy Bottom instead?” Sam asked.

  “It’s possible, isn’t it? These guys might have been part of the arms-for-drugs market I was investigating.” Luke’s head was beginning to throb with weariness and stress. He’d been anticipating Cordero’s next move against him for a long time. That it had coincided with the threat to Abby and Stevie was a nightmare. “Weird that Sanselmo figures into both of my problems, isn’t it?”

  “Has me wondering if it’s just a coincidence. The arms network sold to El Cambio. Cordero’s cartel helps finance El Cambio,” Sam pointed out.

  “But we never found any direct connection between the gunrunners and Cordero himself. Believe me, I looked for it.” Luke leaned forward on the picnic table bench, tucking his coat closer around him. The temperature was dropping rapidly now that the sun had set. He needed to get back into the RV soon, before Abby started to worry.

  “Well, I’ve got a new wrinkle for you, one that may explain why it took this long for someone to start looking for whatever it is that Matt Chandler stole. Janis Meeks has dropped off the radar. She’s cleared out her office, and nobody at Voices for Villages is saying why, or where she might be.”

  Luke clutched the phone more tightly. “And now there are people looking for some mysterious thing Matt may have stolen.”

  “I can’t think that’s a coincidence,” Sam added.

  “No,” Luke agreed. “But the question is—did she drop off the radar on her own, or was she pushed?”

  “Maybe you should stop worrying about who’s connected to whom and just concentrate on keeping clear of everybody who’s after you,” Sam said firmly. “Do you have a plan?”

  “Yeah. I think in cases like these, there’s safety in numbers.” Luke smiled at the image that rose in his mind of himself, his brothers and his feisty sister, running around the lake house driving his parents insane. Like all siblings, they’d bickered and fought, but let anyone outside the family give any one of them trouble, and they were all on the same team.

  “Does that mean what I think it means?”

  “Yeah,” Luke said, his smile fading quickly. Even though he knew it was his only choice, the last thing he wanted was to make his family a target of Cordero’s brutal sense of justice. And just being around him was putting Abby and Stevie in double danger. “But I wish there was another choice. I wish—” He stopped, rubbing his hand over his tired eyes. “I wish I could put Abby and Stevie on the next bus to God knows where and get as far away from them as I can. I don’t need this headache on top of everything else. God knows, they don’t need me.”

  “I think you’re wrong about that,” Sam answered. “I’ve been telling you all along that you don’t need to make yourself an exile just because Cordero’s gunning for you.”

  Luke wanted to believe Sam was right. But if anything happened to the people he loved—

  “Listen, I’ve got to run. Kristen and Maddy are waiting for me to start the DVD. It’s princess night again.”

  Luke could hear Sam’s eyes rolling, but he also couldn’t miss the overpowering love in his brother’s voice when he spoke of his daughter and his new wife.

  “Okay,” he said, just about to ring off when a new, horrifying thought occurred to him. “Wait, Sam—call Hannah. Her in-laws need to take a trip ASAP to somewhere where they’re surrounded by people they can trust.” If Los Tiburones could find the motel in Yuma, there was a chance they could have tracked Luke to his next destination. He couldn’t bear it if something happened to the Pattersons because they’d gone out of their way to help him and Abby.

  “Already done,” Sam answered quickly. “They saw the newscast, made the connection and felt the sudden urge to roam. They should have been on the road a couple of hours ago.”

  “Thank God.” Luke breathed a long sigh of relief. “If you hear from them again, thank them. And apologize for me.”

  “Take care of yourself, Luke.”

  “Thanks, Sam.” He rang off before the hot burning behind his eyes turned into something more embarrassing. Tucking the phone in his pocket, he headed back inside the RV.

  Abby was sitting cross-legged on the sofa bed, her tense gaze lifting to meet his the second he walked through the door. “What the hell’s going on, Luke?”

  “Nothing,” he lied, then softened the deceit with a bit of truth. “I called my brother Sam to let him know I was okay.”

  “I thought we weren’t supposed to use our cell phones.”

  He pulled the disposable phone from his pocket and waved it at her. “Disposable. Picked it up back in San Diego when I bought some supplies for the trip. Nobody knows to trace it.”

  “Oh. Is everybody back home okay?”

  He felt guilty because he hadn’t asked that question directly. But Sam would have told him if anyone in the family was in some kind of trouble. “Yeah. Seem to be.”

  She unlocked her fingers, which had been clasped tightly in her lap, flexing her joints as if they’d grown stiff. “I’ve been sitting here imagining the worst.”

  He sat beside her on the sofa. She scooted over to make room but stayed close enough so that he could feel her body heat, warm and inviting, against his side. “Because I didn’t tell you where I was going?”

  Her smile was a little self-conscious. “I guess I should be used to being out of the information loop by now.”

  He turned to look at her. “No, I should have told you.” He probably would have stopped long enough to tell her his plan had he not been so blindsided by the realization that Stevie was almost certainly his son.

  He wanted to ask her for the truth. The question burned on his tongue. But he’d meant what he’d told Sam—he didn’t want to know for sure. Not right now. It was better for all of them to table the question as long as Cordero was gunning for him.

  “Luke, there’s something I need to tell you about Stevie—”

  No, he thought, don’t say it. “He’s okay, right?” Luke stood up, putting distance between them. He headed toward the back of the RV, where Abby had earlier set up a place on the bed for Stevie to sleep, since they’d had to leave the crib behind in Yuma. He found the small boy curled up between two pillows, sleeping peacefully.

  His heart clutched, the breath leaking from his lungs. His son. In the low light from the RV cabin, Stevie’s sleeping face seemed almost as familiar as the face Luke saw every morning in the mirror. How had it taken him so long to see the resemblance?

  You didn’t want to, a quiet voice in his mind reminded him. Claiming him as your son is too dangerous.

  “He’s fine,” Abby said quietly behind him.

  He turned to look at her. Her dark curls were still damp from the shower, and her face was scrubbed shiny clean. She’d donned a pair of loose-fitting sweatpants and an old Padres T-shirt that had seen its best days a long time ago, but he’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life.

  God, he’d missed her. Her quirky sense of humor, her quick mind, her feisty spirit—all of the things that had drawn him to her the minute Matt introduced them. She’d been off-limits as anything but a friend while Matt was alive, of course, but he’d found himself willing to take those crumbs from her as long as he didn’t have to say goodbye.

  He’d been through hell and back a dozen times over, in any number of dangerous global hot spots, but walking away from Abby’s bed had been the hardest thing he’d ever done.

  And sooner or later, God help him, he was going to have to walk away from her again.

  Maybe he should go ahead and do what he told Sam—drop her and Stevie off at the nearest bus stop, hand them all the cash he had on hand and tell them to run as far from civilization as they could get.

  But as strong and smart as Abby was, she was no match for the men who had broken into his house the day before. And while he got the feeling those men weren’t going to indulge in violence for its own sake, he didn’t doubt they were ruthless enough to grab Stevie and use him to torment Abby.

  He
couldn’t let that happen. Not to Abby.

  Not to his son.

  Abby’s eyes narrowed as she looked up into his face, as if she was reading the storm of thoughts swirling behind his eyes. He tried to clear his expression, but she was always more perceptive than was good for her.

  “Do you think I don’t know there’s something else going on with you?” Her voice was soft and low, but there was steel running through it.

  He cupped her elbow and led her away from the bedroom area. She pulled away when they reached the front, turning to face him with fire in her eyes.

  “I spent eight years living with a man whose every word was a cipher. I could never be sure of the truth, even when he spoke it. So please, Luke, don’t lie to me. I don’t care how hard the truth is, I want to hear it.”

  Tell her, another voice whispered in his mind, a completely different voice from the hard voice that had warned him of the dangers of letting Stevie into his life. This was the voice that had talked to him the night of Matt Chandler’s funeral, the one that told him the light shining in Abby’s eyes when she gazed up at him in that darkened living room was more than just friendship.

  Abby’s expression shifted suddenly, and he knew she’d read him again. She knew he was keeping things from her and felt the implicit rejection of his deceit, even if she didn’t understand the true reason for it.

  She turned suddenly to leave, and even though his brain was screaming at him to let her go, he couldn’t keep from reaching out to hold her in place. He closed his hands around her arms, pulling her back around to face him.

  At her soft gasp, he eased his grip, but he didn’t let her go. He slid one hand up her arm and over the curve of her shoulder, brushing his fingertips over the ridge of her collarbone. Thrilling at the softness of her heated skin, he lifted his forefinger and placed it against her throat to feel the wild hammering of her pulse.

  “Luke.” He could tell by her look of consternation that she’d intended the word to convey protest, not the sweet seduction that spilled from her lips instead. She tried to pull away from him, but even though he knew he should let her go, his grip tightened on her arm again.