by Dana Marton
They fell silent as they ate. He was almost finished when Consuela lifted the giant vat of soaked corn she’d been preparing behind the counter and headed for the back door, struggling with the weight. She was probably taking it to the outdoor pantry.
Walker set down his fork and pushed to his feet. “Let me help.”
He needed a moment outside anyway, away from Clara, to think.
He didn’t get that moment.
“I’ll go out with you,” she said, and followed him as he took the vat from Consuela and carried it outside.
Forty pounds of corn at least. No wonder Consuela had been bent over. Walker carried the weight easily, while the woman hurried ahead of him, thanking him over and over and showing the way.
The fenced backyard was the hens’ and the roosters’ dominion, the chicken coop in the back, under a forty-foot-tall tamarind tree that provided shade. Beyond that, another fenced-in area served as a sizable kitchen garden. Walker recognized the tomatoes and peppers, eggplants, onions, beans, but had no idea about some of the other greens.
Another world. He’d never known anyone who grew their own vegetables. He couldn’t imagine the kind of steady, settled life that allowed a man to eat tomatoes he himself had grown. For a fleeting moment, the odd thought that he wouldn’t mind trying came into his head, but he batted it away.
He followed Consuela to a shed and put the vat on a rough-hewn table that already held a dozen other covered containers. The woman thanked him again and busied herself, so he nodded and headed back out to where Clara was trying to coax a hen with baby chicks to come closer to her.
He smiled at her earnest expression, only half paying attention as a door in the fence opened to his right, and a young man appeared in the opening, wearing local garb and his best Sunday sombrero. For a moment, Walker wondered if the guy was here to court Consuela’s oldest daughter, but the next second, the man pulled a weapon.
Ruger Old Army revolver, seven-and-a-half-inch barrel, .457 caliber, single action, six-shot cylinder. The information flashed through Walker’s brain in a fraction of a second as he went for his SIG, swiping at Clara to push her behind him.
But then the darndest thing happened. Clara ducked under his arm in a fluid motion, put herself in front of him, and fired her Glock at the guy, three shots in rapid succession.
All three found their target, taking the guy down, but not before he managed to squeeze off a shot of his own that went wide—the four claps of gunfire coming in rapid succession.
The chickens were running in every which direction and clucking in panic, stirring up clouds of dust as they flapped their wings, immediately reducing visibility, which was no longer an issue, luckily, since the attacker was done for, shit out of luck—and life—by that point.
Unfired weapon in hand, Walker ran to the body. He didn’t recognize the guy. He took the Ruger, stuck it into his waistband, then looked back incredulously at Clara, his jaw clenched so freaking tight—
She had blood on her side.
How the hell?
Jesus. Arctic cold spread through his veins. Shit.
The damn bullet had ricocheted off something.
He barely registered when Consuela, wide-eyed and pale, poked her head from the shed.
“Call the police,” Walker ordered, then tackled Clara, picked her up in his arms, and strode inside with her, up the stairs as she beat his chest and protested.
“Put me down, dammit! This is not necessary. Walker!”
He carried her straight to the bathroom and set her down, pinned her to the wall with his hands on her shoulders. “What the hell was that?”
They were nose to nose, and he was yelling, because he couldn’t help himself. His chest heaved. His mind was a black hole of swirling rage. She was hurt. “Why did you do that?”
She looked at him as if he’d gone mad. “He was going to shoot you. Who was he?” Then she said, “I’m fine. I swear.”
“Probably one of Pedro’s nephews.” El Capitán had about a dozen. They were just the kind of little shits who’d ignore cartels orders in a hotheaded moment.
Walker sucked in air. Why was his chest so tight? He hadn’t been hit. “You’re bleeding. Dammit, Clara.”
Then something occurred to him, so he checked the Ruger he’d taken away from the attacker.
He bit back a curse.
“Pure lead bullets. If it’s in you, we’ll have to take it out.” He took a calming breath. “Do you want to go to the hospital? Or I could take you to the nuns at St. Lupe’s.”
He shoved the gun back into his waistband, then grabbed for the hem of her tank top and pulled it up. When the soft material slid back down, he yanked the damn thing all the way up and over her head.
She wore a simple sports bra that did nothing to settle him down.
Oblivious to his unsteady control, she was looking at the injury halfway up her rib cage, gingerly touching the tips of her fingers to the ripped skin. “It’s just a surface wound. Didn’t even break a rib.”
That should have relaxed him, but it didn’t. He had her inches from him, semitopless, pinned to the wall. Bleeding and not caring about it.
He wanted to shake her. Then he wanted to fuck her.
He couldn’t go there. But he couldn’t release her either. He put his hands back on her shoulders, pulled her flush against his chest, and sealed his lips over hers.
* * *
For all his innuendoes and come-ons, Clara had never thought that Walker meant any of it. He was an action-hero fantasy man, and she was… She wasn’t the kind of woman action heroes ended up with on the silver screen.
She wasn’t the lushly voluptuous type who inspired blind lust, or the fragile gamine who would bring out a man’s protective instincts. She was average looking, in reasonable shape, nothing to drive a man wild, really.
But all the heat and humidity of the deep jungle was there with them suddenly in the room. She was so confused, she kissed Walker back.
His wide chest rose, and his hands loosened on her shoulders, his mouth gentled as he licked her lips, nibbled on her bottom lip, kissed his way across her mouth, then nudged her to open herself to him.
Like she had a choice.
Because, sweet Jungle Jesus, Light Walker could kiss.
She was by no means an expert in the kissing department, working from limited experience, but the way her knees wanted to fold, her nipples tightened and all the blood rushed to the V of her thighs…wow.
He…
Wha…
Wow.
He conquered, he plundered, he mastered.
And she let him. They might have struggled for dominance regarding her investigation, but she saw no reason to fight him on this.
He kept changing the angle, pressing hard, then gentling, then sweeping in again, as if he couldn’t kiss her deeply enough, as if he couldn’t get enough of her. Walker kissing her like this was a heady and unsettling experience for which she had not been prepared.
She was so dazed, she felt cross-eyed by the time he pulled back. They were both breathing hard.
That deserved a moment of consideration, actually. She made Light Walker lose his breath. She felt her self-confidence triple on the spot.
He kept his hands on her shoulders and watched her with a frightening intensity, like a lion or a jaguar might watch his dinner. His muscles were tightly coiled. Ready to pounce was the only description she could come up with for his body language. He pressed his lips together, relaxed them, pressed them together again, his gaze on her lips that felt tingly and swollen.
“Why did you do that?” she asked, weakly, but, hey, the fact that she could talk at all was a minor miracle.
“You needed to be kissed.”
For some reason, the tone of masculine satisfaction in his voice needled her. “I needed it? Really?”
“Fine, I needed it.” His gaze stayed on her lips.
She floundered, wanting to blame him for making her want him. “You can
’t just grab someone whenever you feel like it. You have to ask.”
He watched her as if trying to puzzle her out. “I know you’re not indifferent to me. We’re adults. We could make each other feel good. Why not?”
“You don’t just do things because they make you feel good. You have to consider all the consequences.”
“I considered you. I would make you feel good too. I don’t need to write columns of pros and cons about this. Sex is a natural human function.”
Nonononono. They were not having sex!
She gave a warning growl. His eyes flared with heat in response. So she took a step to the side, which caused his hands to fall off her shoulders. She breathed easier with that connection broken.
Her reprieve didn’t last long. He stepped right after her, and put his hands back on her. “Fine. Can I kiss you?”
Oh.
Her brain stopped working again.
He searched her face. She had no idea what he saw—blinding desire and bewildering confusion were her best guesses.
“I can’t,” she said while she still could.
He closed his eyes for a moment with a tortured expression. A groan rumbled up his chest. When he opened his eyes, his hands slid from her shoulders to her hands. “Okay, a no is a no.”
All the air seemed to be gone from the room, which was strange, because the small window high up the wall stood open.
She let him draw her to a plastic stool next to the sink and push her down on it. Then he brought over the first aid kit that’d been hanging on the wall.
“I’m going to clean that wound,” he said.
She barely heard the words. Light Walker had kissed her. He needed to kiss her. She still had trouble breathing.
“It’s just the adrenaline,” she tried to explain. “Shots have been exchanged. Blood has been spilled. It’s natural to—”
“Bullshit.” He held her gaze. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you for days.”
He had to be exaggerating. How many days could it be? They’d only known each other for three—although, they’d been the three most intense days of her life, without contest.
She briefly considered that she was still sleeping and dreaming this entire episode, but then he dropped his gaze from hers and spread some kind of disinfectant on her torn skin, and the sharp sting convinced her that she was very much awake.
The air left her lungs in a hiss.
“Try to learn a lesson,” he muttered, and reached for the gauze.
His massive shoulders this close to her, his arm brushing across her naked stomach as he moved, his hot breath caressing her side when he crouched to see better, were more than she could handle. She kept her eyes on the far wall and held her body motionless.
Unbearable, bewildering minutes clicked by like that.
When he finished, he picked her up and carried her out of the bathroom. Thank God for his T-shirt, or they would have been skin to skin. She had trouble breathing as it was.
“You don’t have to carry me,” she protested.
He didn’t respond. He just kept going.
He carried Clara into their room and deposited her on the bed, then moved to her suitcase, rifled through it, discarding tank top after tank top, coming up with a modest blue T-shirt and bringing it back to her.
“Put this on.”
She did. Fast. Because wearing nothing but a bra in front of Walker was seriously fraying her nerves. For good measure, she folded her arms across her chest, not even caring that her wound pulled and burned.
He cast her a grim, hard-eyed look.
“Don’t you ever do that again,” he said in a voice she’d only heard in movies, usually from hard-core assassins.
She had a feeling he wasn’t talking about her turning down a second kiss, and he confirmed it by saying, “I swear to God, the next time you step between a bullet and me, I’m going to shoot you in the back.”
She glared at him. She’d had no intention to step into the path of the damn bullet, but she’d seen the guy aim at Walker, and the next thing she knew, she was there. As much as he aggravated the living daylights out of her, she cared about him, and maybe even liked him, but she’d rather step in front of an entire firing squad than admit that.
When she’d seen that gun aimed at Walker, she’d acted as she’d been trained, as she’d practiced, and then the attacker was dead and—
Sitting on the bed, Clara suddenly felt as if a freight train hit her. She gasped for air, but she couldn’t breathe. She cast a desperate, panicked looked at Walker who was next to her in a split second.
His entire demeanor changed. He dropped onto the mattress and pulled her onto his lap, smoothing his hand down her back without a single question, as if he knew exactly what was going on, as if he’d been expecting this.
“Hey. It’s okay. You did what you had to. You saved my life, Clara.”
She gasped for air. “I killed someone.”
She’d trained to do just that. She’d thought she’d been prepared to do it. But thinking about shooting someone and watching her bullet slam into a real live person were not the same.
“The first time is hard.” Walker held her, soothing her, kissing her forehead.
She sagged against his solid warmth, against his steady heartbeat, against the comfort that he offered. “God, I’m a horrible investigator. This is part of the job, isn’t it?” she said into his neck. “I have to be able to handle it.”
“You’re a good person.”
She heard his words, but all she could think was that she’d killed a man. Ended a life.
Minute after minute passed as she tried to process what that meant, how it changed her. The hundreds of hours she’d spent at the firing range, shooting at paper targets hadn’t prepared her for any of the emotions that sliced through her now. Nothing ever could have.
She could see the guy’s face in her mind—so young—and the way he’d crumpled.
Walker made reassuring sounds into her hair. Still, at least half an hour ticked by before she could breathe without struggle.
“He was no innocent,” Walker told her. “He was going to shoot me down in cold blood. If you had to do it over, would you change anything?”
She thought about Walker crumpling to the ground instead of the attacker. “No. I know there was nothing else I could have done. But it doesn’t mean I like what I’ve done.”
He probably thought she was an idiot. He certainly had no trouble doing his job.
But his eyes held understanding.
“You’re a hell of a quick draw,” he murmured, sounding as if he was proud of her.
Clara pulled back, but only far enough so she could look at him more fully. She wasn’t ready to leave the fortress of his arms yet. “I’m sorry. I can’t believe I fell apart like this.”
“You didn’t fall apart. You had a panic attack. It’s a pretty common response to this kind of stress.”
“I bet Navy SEALS don’t have panic attacks.”
He held her gaze. “You’d be wrong about that.”
She blinked at him in surprise.
“Nobody is invincible,” he said.
But he sure seemed to be. He looked hard enough to be unbreakable. His body, anyway. His eyes, for the moment, were filled with warmth and tenderness. So much so that her throat tightened. She wanted to go back into his arms, burrow into his embrace, find shelter against his wide chest again.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. He was her facilitator.
All this was beyond unprofessional. The kiss had been a mistake. A momentary lapse of judgement. She needed to simply forget it. It was not going to happen again.
She slipped off his lap and made herself walk over to the window, stared out unseeing for a long moment before she turned back to him. Okay. Better. She just needed a little distance.
She bit back a groan. She did not want him to see her acting weak.
But his gaze held no judgment as he watched her. “Do you want to go back home now?
”
“Do you want me to go back home?” Maybe he thought she’d be a liability. And maybe he was right. God, she hated that she was even thinking that.
“I’d prefer if you were safely away,” he said without hesitation. Paused. Then added, “But I need you tonight to break into the Tamchén jungle camp with me and help me find Rosita, and to see if the noseless man is there. I have a way to get us in for about half an hour, but I can’t search the whole camp in half an hour by myself. So we’d go in, then we’d split up. Your decision.”
He needed her. Clara was pretty sure those were words Light Walker didn’t utter often. “Are we a team right now? For this particular mission tonight?”
“Yes.”
Good enough, she decided. No way was she giving up. She wanted Rosita, and right now, Walker was the only person who could help her get near the girl.
So Clara pulled her back straight and said, “I’m in.”
Chapter Fifteen
They had to go down to the police station to give statements. One skinny guy who looked like he had indigestion sat behind the front desk. He appeared less than happy to see them.
Walker figured there were probably three policemen on duty altogether this morning. The entire force had been called in last night, so most everybody would be sleeping, the station running with minimum staffing. The other two policemen were dealing with the dead body in Consuela’s backyard. Worked for Walker.
He recounted the attack for Skinny, telling the guy almost word for word what Clara had just finished saying. Then they signed papers.
Then Walker had a sudden idea and said, “I have to make another report. I had my car parked at the cantina yesterday. I was out of town with friends for the day. By the time I came back, the cantina was burned out, along with the cars in the lot. I need some kind of official paperwork on that for the insurance company. I’m sure they’ll be asking for a police report.”
