Tomás’s eyes narrowed at Chance’s tone, but something seemed to give him relief, for his color returned, and he almost smiled. He picked up the shallow bowl and dusted his hand against his worn jeans as he stood.
“You think I won’t tell her about this?” Chance asked.
“You won’t tell her,” the man said, half-belligerently, half-fearfully. Then, when Chance said nothing, he added, as if making his point, “What are you doing in here, rodeo vaquero?”
Cowboy, Chance thought. Remember the cover. And yet maintain the upper hand. “I thought I smelled something burning. Then I saw the flames. And I found you in the barn either doing drugs or practicing some kind of voodoo.”
Tomás blanched anew.
Chance’s eyes narrowed.
“What are you going to do about it?” The question could have carried defiance, but Tomás sounded genuinely worried.
“Let’s see. I could ignore this. I could pound you into the ground for the sheer pleasure of it for lighting anything on fire in the middle of a barn. Or I could tell Señora McMunn just what I saw. Which do you think I should do?”
Tomás’s eyes widened, and he took a step forward. “Please, señor. Please don’t tell her.” He held out a blackened hand in supplication. “I need this job. Please.”
Chance looked from the hand to Tomás’s eyes. The man was afraid, all right, but not necessarily of Chance and his threat. He felt a frisson of concern snake down his back. Tomás didn’t know he was dealing with a federal marshal and didn’t have anything to fear from Chance other than losing a job he’d had only for a month. But Tomás was close to terrified.
Chance let him think he was considering the options he’d outlined, then said quietly and with deliberate menace, “No more drugs of any kind.”
Tomás nodded. And more of that unsettling relief crept across his features.
“And you stay out of the barn at night from here on in,” Chance said. He saw Tomás was inclined to argue and added, “It’s that or pack your bags tonight.”
After a brief struggle with his transparent inner-macho self, Tomás lowered his eyes and the hand he’d held out. Again, he wiped his palm against his thigh, leaving a second black streak across the jeans. “Si, señor.”
Chance still felt the tension in his shoulders. He held his hand out. “And I’ll take that bowl.”
“But—”
Chance didn’t have to say anything. He merely raised an eyebrow and kept his hand steady in the air between them. He didn’t take his eyes off Tomás even when he felt the lip of the bowl curve beneath his thumb. He took it and lowered it to his thigh, careful not to brush it against him but more careful not to look at it.
“Thank you, señor,” Tomás said, dropping his eyes to the floor.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Chance said. “If I ever catch you doing something like this again, I’ll kick your butt outta here so fast you’ll pass yourself at the border.”
Tomás nodded a couple of times and sidled around Chance, heading for the door. Before he could clear it, Chance whipped a hand out and snagged the man’s shoulder in a fierce, painful grip. “And, for what it’s worth, you might spread the word that if there are more fires of any kind around here, I’ll take care of the firebug personally. Got that, Tomás?”
“Si, Señor.” Tomás pulled free from Chance’s grasp and rushed from the barn as if on fire.
Chance listened to the groundskeeper’s retreat and stared thoughtfully at the bowl in his hand. He held it up and sniffed at it. It wasn’t marijuana, and judging by the lack of powder on Tomás’s face, it wasn’t garden-variety cocaine or crack, either. No hint of an alcohol base or other telltale signatures of accelerant. But if it wasn’t drugs, and it wasn’t a fire starter, what the hell was Tomás burning in a shallow kitchen bowl alone in the dark in a barn half full of horses?
No matter how dark his suspicions might be, no sophisticated lab existed in this empty barn—or in all of Carlsbad, for that matter. He would have to wait until morning to ship the bowl off for analysis. The home office would be able to tell him exactly what the charred remnants might be.
He would have to conjure up an excuse to get off the ranch in order to send it. He shook his head. He could almost hear Pablo’s voice cautioning him about the tangled webs he was weaving.
He walked the full length of the barn, looking in each of the stalls, occupied and otherwise, and went into a loft obviously never designed to hold hay, but which could probably house several dozen homeless people. Satisfied the barn was empty but for him, he crossed to the main doors and cut off the overhead fluorescent lights. He stood in the dark for several minutes, listening to his breathing and the rustle of the horses. He gave a last look behind him before stepping over the threshold and pulling the heavy barn door closed.
The air outside was chilly and pregnant with that special quality of freshness New Mexico’s air seemed to acquire after the stroke of midnight in any season. A million or more stars dappled the night sky around the thin slice of moon. He could easily pick out the Big and Little Dippers and, just rising, a sure sign of coming autumn, Cassiopeia.
He thought about what Jeannie had said that night on her veranda—before he’d kissed her, before she’d returned that kiss—something about being unable to pick out constellations here because of the number of stars surrounding them.
Unable to resist, he looked toward the main hacienda. The bedroom he thought of as Jeannie’s still had the light on. He stood watching it, wondering why it drew him, wishing it didn’t. Most of all, he found himself wishing she were aware that he’d put out yet another fire for her.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Chance swore softly, half jumping out of his skin. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Funny, that was my question,” she said. “Albeit without the expletive.”
He drew a deep breath to quell the adrenaline rush her unexpected presence had injected in him and even more ruthlessly slew the desire to give in to the urge to reach into the darkness and drag her ghostly form to his. Instead, he managed a half-genuine chuckle. “You scared the bejesus out of me. You must walk like a cat.”
“You were busy staring at my window,” she said.
“I’m busted.”
“You aren’t close enough to the window to fit the profile of a Peeping Tom.”
“Not nearly, no,” he agreed, smiling.
“So you must be yearning from afar.”
“Busted again,” he said with a ragged laugh.
“There are only two things I don’t understand,” she mused.
Chance grinned, enjoying the exchange enormously even while he distrusted this new side of her. “What’s that?”
“How turning on every light in the barn would help you watch my window…”
The lady once again proved she was no fool. “Ah. And the second thing?”
“What you are doing with one of the kitchen bowls.”
If he’d had any doubts about her ability to handle a bunch of kids, he didn’t harbor them any longer. The tone of her voice made him feel about ten years old with one of his cousin’s broken toys in his thieving hand.
“I’d rather talk about how pretty you look in the starlight,” he said.
To his surprise, she chuckled.
“What’s funny?” he asked, a crooked smile lifting his lips.
“You. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that he who flirts after midnight turns into a frog?”
“Mom must have skipped that one.”
“I see that.”
“I’m glad you pointed it out.”
“You’re not going to tell me what you’re doing with that bowl or why all the lights in the barn were on, are you?”
“I’m—a Druin,” he said.
“If you mean Druid, I’m not buying it because I don’t really see you holding a ceremony in the barn. Especially since Druid ceremonies are almost always conducted during a full moon.”
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“That’s what I was trying to conjure up,” he offered.
To his relief and delight, she uttered a bark of laughter. “Okay. I get it. You’re not going to tell me the truth.”
“No,” he said. “Not tonight, anyway.” And for some reason, perhaps because the stars were so brilliant or because he could feel the heat emanating from her, or maybe just because something about her brought out something in him, his words sounded like a promise.
“I wonder if you ever will,” she mused.
I will, he wanted to tell her. Instead he said nothing at all.
“I thought someone was messing with the barn. Like the fire the other day,” she said. All the humor had drained from her voice.
“Nope,” he said. And wondered if he should tell her about himself now, so she could stop worrying because he had it all in hand. That the man messing with her barn had been Tomás and that she should get rid of the man, but he’d rather she didn’t so he could watch the man himself. He opened his mouth to tell her part of that, if not the whole. He felt the words forming on his tongue. He tasted them every bit as surely as he’d tasted her on a moonless night on her veranda.
“Okay,” she said.
And his mouth closed. He wasn’t ready to tell her yet. He had to know if Tomás was in El Patron’s pay. Had to know what was going on around the ranch. Had to save the day for her without her ever being the wiser. And if he told her the truth now, she might not keep him on as ranch hand. Might not appreciate being lied to. Might just ask him to pack up and leave every bit as quickly as he’d threatened Tomás.
No, it was far better to keep his mouth shut and have her keep him around so he could stand a close watch, even if she knew nothing about it.
“So you were just out talking to the horses?” she asked.
“Nope,” he said again and gave a short chuckle. “I’m just an insomniac cowboy with an urge to see where I should park my horse when I bring it.”
“And I suppose you were seeing if that bowl would slide under the stall doors so the horse could have a midnight snack?”
He glanced at the bowl and back at her. He grinned. “Something like that.”
“And staring at my window?”
“You know exactly why I was doing that,” he said, and if she didn’t hear the rough honesty in his voice on that one, he did. And it scared the hell out of him. Fast horses, faster women—that had been his trademark for years. Even Doreen had used it a few days before. What was he doing standing outside a fancy barn in a puddle of starlight talking to a woman who wore vulnerable like a perfume?
But he liked this midnight version of Jeannie, a little feisty and quick with her tongue.
“That’s good,” she said, and he realized he’d lost the thread of their conversation. “I’m not sure if I could handle your explanation. I have a feeling there’s a lot more to you than meets the eye but I’m not willing to look a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak.”
“Straight from that horse’s mouth, I thank you,” he said.
She chuckled again and, for the umpteenth time, he had to quell the urge to take her into his arms. This time so he could sample her laughter. “You’d better get back to the hacienda before you freeze,” he said gruffly.
“Yes,” she agreed, but didn’t move.
He took a step forward, close enough to her that he could drink in her warmth, the fresh-from-her-bed scent of her skin.
She realized she hadn’t moved because she wanted him to kiss her again, to fold her into him and press those fire-hot lips to hers, to blot out the worry, stem the concerns and make her forget everything but the feel of him against her. She ached to have him make her heart race with longing and sweet oblivion. When he closed the scant distance between them, when she felt the heat radiating from his body, she couldn’t withhold the sigh that escaped her.
“Señora McMunn, you are courting trouble,” he said.
“Yes, I know,” she murmured and sighed as he slid his free hand along her jawline and into in her hair. Strong fingers curved around the base of her neck and drew her to him.
Instead of kissing her with the scarcely banked passion he’d exhibited that night on her porch, he brushed her parted lips with a feathery-soft touch. Teasing her with his tongue, cupping her jaw with his broad, firm palm, he kept the kiss almost out of reach. And, where the other kiss had driven all thought away, this one tantalized, making her quiver all over.
She leaned into him, following wherever he would take her. Her hands lifted of their own volition to grasp his shirtfront. Her action triggered a blast of fire inside him.
He dropped Tomás’s bowl and scarcely heard its metallic thud when it hit the ground. He pulled her roughly to him and kissed her with all the pent-up desire he’d carefully been trying to hold at bay. His fingers tangled in her silken hair, and his lips mauled hers with furious need and longing. And even as he thought he might be too rough, he couldn’t bear to stop, to let her go, to relax his hold on her.
When her grip on his shirt tightened, he felt sharp talons of raw, primal need lacerate rational thought. He wanted to lower her to the ground beneath them. He fought the need to haul her into the barn, spill her into a mound of soft hay in the nearest stall and take her with possessive savagery, and then, when the animal in him was sated, to oh, so slowly discover her every secret desire.
A stray vestige of sanity forced him to draw back, to end the madness that inflamed them. If he didn’t stop right then, he knew he never could. And from the low, throaty moan she issued, she wouldn’t call the halt he needed to hear.
Her eyes opened, and she looked as dazed as he felt. Her lips were parted, swollen and dewy from his kiss, and her breath came in short, shaky spurts. Beneath the hand bunched in her hair, he could feel her body trembling and that deliciously wild pulse beating in her throat.
“Good night, Jeannie McMunn,” he said over the need choking his throat. He released her hair and slowly extricated his hand from the cool silk.
“Good night, Chance Salazar,” she murmured. Equally slowly, she let go of his shirt and dropped her hands to her sides. He could see the confusion in her face, the uncertainty in her eyes.
And he couldn’t leave her that way. It would be better for her, and for him, if he tipped his hat and walked away. But when a woman gave herself that honestly, that openly, with just a kiss—though it was a kiss like none he’d ever encountered before—it was worse than cruelty to leave her with doubts in her eyes.
“I only stopped because if I didn’t, I couldn’t have,” he said raggedly, and with far too much truth.
As fiercely as she had grasped his shirt, she bunched the collar of her robe in a white fist and clutched it against her chest. “It…it’s been a long time since…” she whispered.
“Since?”
She shook her head and looked away, but not before he caught the sheen of tears in her eyes. Something wrenched inside him. He raised his hand, perhaps to touch her, maybe to draw her to him again. If she’d been looking at him, he might have done either, or been able to read her like that primer he’d thought her earlier. He might have known what to do, how to ease whatever pain she was suffering. But her averted face gave him no clue to her thoughts or how to divine them. He let his hand drop.
“Jeannie…I—” he started.
She shook her head and raised a ghostly white palm to stop him. “It’s nothing,” she mumbled. “It’s late. Good night.”
She didn’t run as she left him. She walked away slowly, her back straight, her shoulders squared, a sad but regal queen in starlight. But halfway across the broad drive, she raised a hand to her face, and he knew she was wiping away tears.
“It’s not nothing,” he said. “It’s something. Something important.” And for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why seeing her hide her tears from him made him feel worse than a veritable flood might have. And he didn’t understand why he wanted to run after her, swing her around to face him, hold her
against his chest and stroke away her pain.
A few moments later, the light in her bedroom window went out. Chance didn’t move.
Inside the darkened bedroom, Jeannie stood at the window, invisible to the man watching her home. She thought he could have been a statue, he stood so still.
She glanced in the direction of her nightstand and, while she couldn’t see it in the dark, knew the picture of her husband rested there. David, safe and loving and gone from her forever.
David would applaud her moving forward, but he would caution her, as well. “Be careful, Jeannie, love. Just be careful.” She could almost hear the timbre of his voice in the darkened bedroom. A shiver worked over her, and she looked at the man standing outside in the chilly night. How could one be careful when playing with fire?
Chance Salazar was lying to her about something. She sensed that with every fiber of her being. The call from the sheriff had clued her in to a potential vendetta between the two men. And there was more—the bowl in his hand, a scurrying Tomás running from the barn to the main house, not seeing her in his desperate need to get inside. And the way Chance avoided answering any question directly.
But Chance’s kisses carried more honesty than she cared to examine. She raised her fingers to her lips and found she could still feel him there.
Be careful, Jeannie, love.
“I don’t know what careful means anymore, David,” she whispered against her fingertips.
I love you, honey.
Jeannie gave a choked moan.
As she watched through a sheen of tears, Chance leaned over and picked up the bowl he’d dropped when she grabbed his shirt. He turned it over in his hands once and looked at her window. He nodded, almost as though he was aware she watched him.
She murmured his name when he finally turned away and disappeared into the shadows of the bunkhouse.
Cowboy Under Cover Page 10
