“Everyone’s looking for a fall guy, Coop. And you’re the most likely candidate. Getting mixed up with her isn’t going to help your case.”
Leaning his hips against Gene’s kitchen counter, Del folded his arms over his chest and scowled. “What am I supposed to do, let her be sent back to that hell hole she came from?”
“I’m not sure you’re going to have much choice.” Del’s scowl deepened. “Hold on, now,” Gene said, raising his hand. “I didn’t say we couldn’t work on it. But face it, in the end, you may have to let her go.”
The possibility left a hole the size of the Grand Canyon in Del’s chest. He wasn’t ready to face it yet. Wasn’t sure what he would do if it came down to it. He wasn’t just trying to save Elisa Reyes, he realized. He was trying to save himself. From a long, slow death by guilt. “What do you know about the investigation?” he asked to change the subject.
“Not much.”
Del snorted. “When you ask questions, people answer. And I know you’ve been asking questions. You’ve got to know something.”
“Nothing I should be telling you.”
“Come on, Gene. You’re not going to stonewall me, too, are you? I just want to know what’s going on.”
The creases in Gene’s face deepened. He aged a decade in the span of seconds. “They’ve got one dead gun dealer and one dead security guard. Nothing to suggest it’s not exactly what it looks like. An innocent man caught in the crossfire.”
“They verified his employment, that he was supposed to be working that day?”
“Ten minutes after the shooting.”
“And he’s not in any our of the databases, NCIC, Interpol? No ties to smuggling, gangs, drugs, any of the usual suspects?” If it could be proven that Eduardo Garcia had somehow been part of the gun deal gone bad, it would mean that he’d willingly put himself in harm’s way for the purpose of criminal activity. In the eyes of the law, he, then, not Del, was liable for his death. The investigators would declare it a good shoot.
Del would be vindicated. Not that it would make him feel any better.
Gene shook his head, deflating Del’s hope. “He’s so clean he squeaks.”
Desperation left Del’s throat raw. “What about the two that got away? Maybe they know something.”
“No sign of them. What about the woman? What did you get out of her? She know anything?”
Del’s head snapped up, eyes narrowed. “Is that why you think I brought her here? To find out what she knows?”
“She didn’t tell the DPS guys much. It occurred to me you could help your case if you got her to talk.”
Del cursed, loudly and violently, before yanking the back door open and stepping out. Gene caught it just before it slammed shut behind him. He chuckled. “Calm down, boy. I didn’t mean anything.”
When Del turned, Gene stood on the stoop with his hands in his pockets like a recalcitrant teen. “The hell you didn’t,” Del accused.
“All right, so maybe I just wanted to hear you deny it myself.” He took a step into the grass. “And if I question your motivations, you know others are going to. You’re taking a big risk hooking up with her.”
“What was I supposed to do, leave her lying on the side of the highway?”
“No, don’t suppose you could have done that.” Hands still in his pockets, Gene rocked heel to toe, waiting.
Del turned his head up to the sky. The stars were coming out on another perfectly clear Texas night. “It’s my fault, Gene.”
“And now you gotta fix it.”
“Yeah, if I can.”
“You can’t save them all, Del.”
Del didn’t want to think about that, not here, not now. No, but I can damn sure try to save this one.
But that thought pealed through his mind like church bells all the way back to the carriage house. In his apartment he couldn’t concentrate on the book he’d been reading for the maelstrom in his head. He couldn’t unwind, so he made himself a cup of decaf coffee and went out to sit on the back stairs to the apartment. Usually he found the view calming. He could see all the way to downtown Dallas. Watch the big lighted ball on top of Reunion Tower turn.
He could see that all was right with his corner of the world.
Only, tonight nothing felt right.
What if he couldn’t save her?
No. He refused to think that way. He couldn’t bring Garcia back to life. Maybe he couldn’t even repair the damage to his career or fill this great, yawning emptiness inside him. But he could damn well keep Elisa Reyes in the United States where she and her child would be safe.
He stopped, the surety of that one thought gusting through him like a gale-force wind. Whatever it took, he could not let Elisa Reyes be sent back to San Ynez. Whether she wanted his help or not, she would have it. He owed her that much.
And Del Cooper damn well paid his debts.
Elisa hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but she’d been so tired. The men’s voices—the politician and the policeman—had droned on. She’d listened, but her eyelids had grown heavy.
Now the night, and her chance to escape, was almost over. According to the clock by the bed, dawn would break in another hour, and she panicked as she remembered last night’s conversations.
She couldn’t go back to San Ynez. She wouldn’t let them send her.
Anger and fear razed her nerves, making her hands shake. She’d come to America to start a new life for her child. Eduardo was gone, but he would want her to stay, to give their child that life even without him. How could a parent not want that?
Silently Elisa rose and found her boots, her bag. She’d seen two cars in the garage the ranger called the carriage house last night. It didn’t take long for her to find the keys hung neatly in a cabinet by the door. Apparently the politician counted on the iron gate around his property and the ranger who lived above his precious cars to protect them. The lock on that cabinet wouldn’t stop anyone.
Inside the convertible with the leaping jaguar on the hood, she fumbled with the keyring. Quietly. She had to be quiet, or the ranger would hear.
Pushing the only key she hadn’t yet tried into the ignition, she dropped the whole ring. Ay, Diós. Then she crossed herself for her transgression. When she bent her head to retrieve the keys, the seat creaked beneath her. The rich smell of leather filled her senses as she groped around the floorboard.
When she finally got a grip on the keys and raised her head, she found the ranger standing just beyond the front bumper. His thick forearms were folded over his broad chest, and the starlight behind him gave his gray eyes a silvery glow, pinning her in place.
“Going somewhere?” he asked.
Breaking the eye contact, she shoved the key home and twisted. The engine purred to life. Before she could put it in gear, though, the car dipped and jounced. She jerked her head up. Her eyes widened at the sight of the ranger’s boots clomping across the polished hood. He easily hopped over the windshield and landed in the seat next to her. “Don’t mind if I tag along, do you?” he asked. “Just to make sure Gene gets his car back.”
She flinched at the implication that she was stealing the car. Of course, she was stealing the car. But it was necessary. Her child’s life was at stake. “Let me go,” she said, angling her chin.
Casually he reached over and switched off the ignition. “I can’t do that.”
“Why? What do you want from me?”
“Nothing. Except to help you.”
“So that you can clear your conscience?”
His eyes turned cold. “Lady, it’s going to take a lot more than you to clear my conscience.”
“Then let me go.”
“Go where? San Ynez?”
Her anger flared to match his. Her hands clenched around the steering wheel. “No. I can’t go back there.” Going home meant certain death. She couldn’t escape the soldiers with a baby.
“Where, then?”
“I will find a place.” She could take care of herse
lf. She’d been taking care of herself—and a lot of other people—for eight years now.
“On the street? What kind of life is that?”
“Is it worse than starving in San Ynez? Being hunted by military police who protect the coca fields and massacre their own people?” She forced herself to take a deep breath. “I will survive.”
“And your baby?”
Elisa’s cramped stomach muscles fluttered, reminding her of the child within. She could take care of herself, she was sure of that. But a baby? She could stitch an open wound with a sewing needle, defuse an antipersonnel land mine with a screwdriver and a stick. But she knew nothing about babies. Delivering them or caring for them.
He had a way of striking at the core of her fears, this ranger.
“At least he will have a chance,” she said, laying her hand protectively over her middle. Del followed the movement with his eyes, his lips tightening.
“There is another way. For both of you.”
She didn’t want to ask how. Wouldn’t trust him even when he answered, despite that dependable-looking face and the sincerity in his expression. But how could she keep silent with all she had at stake? “What way?”
“There are immigration lawyers. They can appeal your case to the INS.”
“So that La Migra knows right where to find me when they’re ready to throw me out? No.”
“Gene Randolph has contacts in the State Department. He might be able to push something through. A hardship application or political asylum.”
Elisa laughed in disbelief. “Put my fate in the hands of Immigration and a politician?”
“Give the system a chance. No one wants you to suffer because of what happened to Eduardo.”
To her horror, her eyes suddenly warmed, watered. Despising the weakness, and blaming it on hormones, she blinked back the tears. “I trusted the system once, in my country,” she said, when she was sure her voice wouldn’t shake. “I went to the university and studied economics and English. I worked within our government to build industry and commerce. I spoke to student groups about making our country stronger, improving trade relations with America and Europe. I was giving this speech when a colonel in the army of San Ynez, Colonel Sanchez, decided he should run the country, not the elected president. With the troops behind him, he overran the presidential palace. Presidente Herrerra was taken to sea and killed, and Sanchez became our new leader. I was thrown in jail, chained and interrogated as a dissident for three days before I escaped with my brothers. So forgive me if I do not easily trust the system.”
She expected the ranger to be shocked, then to argue that that was San Ynez. This was America. The great, infallible America.
He surprised her. His expression warmed, not with anger, but with understanding. His mouth almost smiled, as if a weight had been lifted from the corners with the making of some great decision. He covered her hand on the steering wheel with his, lifted it, held her fingers lightly. His hands weren’t smooth; she knew that from other times he’d touched her. But for the first time, she realized she liked their coarseness. Roughened hands were a sign of strength. A symbol of a man’s dedication to a cause, be it chopping wood or plowing fields. She wondered how Ranger Cooper had earned his calluses.
“Okay then, don’t trust the system,” he said, his voice a smooth contrast to his rough hands. “Just trust me.”
She stared at him, unsure what to say next. She couldn’t trust him. He was policía—the worst of the worst in her country. But something about him tugged at her, made her want to believe. Perhaps just her emotions, run away again.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking the last few hours, and there is one sure way to guarantee you can stay in America.”
“Eduardo was the only way.” Her voice sounded faraway, small.
“No,” he said. He paused. When she brought her eyes back to his, his chest rose and fell with a single deep breath before he spoke. “You can marry me instead.”
Chapter 4
“¿Estas loco? I cannot marry you!”
Elisa jerked her hand from the ranger’s. The soft scrape of his callused palm on her fingertips shot a tingle of awareness up her arm. Or maybe that was just shock. A physical reaction to an emotional jolt.
Marry him? He could not be serious.
But one look at his pewter eyes, glowing in the dim light, convinced her that he was serious. Deadly so. He did not just stare at her. He focused his entire being on her. He looked at her as though the rest of the world had faded away, as if nothing else existed except him and her and the moonlight and the ridiculously expensive car in which they sat.
The supple leather seat groaned as she scrambled away. Pulling her feet onto the seat, she jammed her back into the corner between the passenger seat and door and drew her knees to her chest. Even at this distance, the ranger was too close, too sincere and much too intense.
“It wouldn’t be a real marriage,” he explained as calmly as if he were showing her how to use a blender. “I mean…it would have to be legal. But it would just be a piece of paper between us. It wouldn’t mean anything. Not really.”
She knew he was talking about…intimate relations, and decided not to respond to that implication. Sex with the ranger was the last of her worries. Too outrageous to ponder. “It would mean a great deal. It would mean I would be bound to you. Dependent on you.”
“Only for two years. After that the INS considers you a resident regardless of your marital status. You can divorce me and stay in the States. Legally.”
Elisa gulped in a breath. She could not spend two years with him. She could not spend two minutes with him without her pulse dipping and jumping like a monkey swinging through the trees.
“Why?” she asked. Her breath came out like a whisper. “Why would you do this?”
He closed his eyes a moment, and the light played off the broad brush of his eyelashes. When he looked at her again, the metallic glimmer of his irises had dimmed. Tarnished.
“I can’t give back the things I took from you—the husband you deserve and a father for your child. But I can give you a home here, in the United States. A safe place where your baby can get an education. See a doctor. Live.” He swallowed. When he spoke again his voice was deeper. Rougher. “I can’t give you back the love you lost, or happiness. But I can give you security. I can give you peace.”
Peace. The illusion again. The dream.
A cold knot of anger hardened inside her. “I’ll take nothing from you. Not even peace.” She fumbled for the door latch, determined to get away.
Quick as lightning his hand flashed out, captured her wrist. “Because you hate me that much? Or because you’re too proud to admit that you need help?”
She pulled once, experimentally, on her arm, but found the circle of fingers around her wrist as inescapable as the coil of a hungry boa constrictor around its prey. “It is not pride that causes my mistrust, Ranger, but self-preservation. You are policía.”
“I am a man trying to do the right thing.”
“And I am a woman trying to save my child. I cannot accept your help.”
“Because I’m a cop?”
“Because you killed Eduardo.”
“I didn’t know he was there.” His voice rasped like a dull saw on hardwood.
“Tell me, Ranger. If I claimed I did not know the speed limit on the road outside was thirty-five miles per hour, and you found me going sixty, would you still write me a ticket?”
The ranger’s eyes narrowed. Not in a glare, but as if he were in pain. “I made a mistake. But I’m trying to make up for it now. I won’t hurt you.”
She looked pointedly at the hold he still had on her arm. Her fingers were beginning to tingle from the lack of blood. “You are hurting me now.”
His gaze dropped guiltily to where his broad hand circled her wrist an instant before his fingers uncoiled with the force of a broken spring. Shouldering the car door open behind her, Elisa left him without looking back.
She hurried her gait. Gooseflesh prickled her skin, but not from fear. The ranger wouldn’t hurt her, not physically. She wasn’t sure when she’d come to believe that, but she knew it now. Felt it soul deep.
The danger he posed to her was emotional. He threatened her sense of self-reliance. He exposed her weaknesses.
For years she’d taken care of herself and many others. She could take care of herself now. Herself and a baby.
At the entrance to the Randolph estate, she grabbed the iron gate, rattling it angrily when it refused to yield.
The ranger stepped up behind her, close enough she could feel his moist body heat mingle with the dry heat of the night. “It’s secured. Won’t open without a code.”
A code he had, but would not share, no doubt.
Panic rose up in her throat. She was a prisoner here, as she had once been in San Ynez. Glancing up, she hooked a foot on the lowest bar and started climbing.
“Hey, hey!” he said behind her, a moment before one thick arm encircled her waist. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Leaving,” she said kicking her legs futilely as he pulled her off the fence. Her blouse was hooked on a wrought iron prong. When he reached to free it she landed a solid blow on his thigh.
He winced, tightening his grip on her waist and capturing her flailing legs between his thighs. “Let me help you, God damn it.”
Weakly she crossed herself, automatically muttering an appeal for his forgiveness for the transgression of cursing. Her shirt ripped free of the fence, exposing the rise of one breast. The ranger stumbled backward, still holding her.
“You want to help me, Ranger?” she cried. “Help me escape.”
He spit a strand of her hair out of his mouth and set her on her feet, turning her toward him. “So that you can pick cotton in the sun all day with a baby strapped to your back? Or scrub someone else’s floors on your hands and knees and pick up some rich kid’s hundred-dollar toys while your kid plays with a stick in the dirt? Because those are the realities of life for a female illegal alien in this country. And that’s if you can find work at all. Work that doesn’t require you to be flat on your back, that is.”
The Last Honorable Man Page 5
