Both Kino and Clay looked at Lea.
“I’ve never heard of him. But Margie would be the one to arrange for repairs. I just drive the trucks and fill the tanks.”
Lea had finished her meal, or rather, her appetite had left her. So they threw out the remains and the three headed to the door. Lea climbed into the passenger side of the SUV and Kino and Clay paused outside the driver’s side.
“You know he’s going to suspend you,” said Clay.
Kino shrugged. “I don’t have a choice. You’ll be all right?”
“Don’t worry about me. Worry about her. Seems like she’s found a nest of rattlers all on her own.”
“Yeah. I guess so,” said Kino.
“Hey, no calf roping tonight.”
Kino smiled and gave his big brother a quick bear hug, and Lea heard him say, “Thanks.”
Then Kino was in the SUV and they all headed out into the night. At the first fork, Clay turned his truck in the opposite direction and Lea was alone with Kino.
“Did he say you’d be suspended?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“But why?”
“For disobeying a direct order. I’m supposed to be on that hunt tonight.”
“But you’re staying with me instead,” she said, working it out.
He gave her a smile mixed with a deep sadness, and she felt a welling of gratitude. It was just gratitude, wasn’t it? Her hand on her knee twitched as she tried to resist the nearly irresistible need to reach across and touch him.
Somehow she managed to keep her hand where it was.
Lea thought of Clay’s odd words at his departure and a suspicion rose. She arched a brow at him. “‘Calf roping’?”
Kino raked a hand through his hair. “Just an expression.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s not an expression. Sounds more like code.”
Kino sighed, clearly debating something. Well, she wasn’t giving up so easily. She placed a hand on her hip and waited him out.
“We call it calf roping. It means sleeping with a woman. And before you go there, we were both in the rodeo for a while and it just seemed funny at the time.”
“Hmm. Do you always talk in code?”
“It’s common. Police radios aren’t secure. Border patrol’s, either.”
“What other code words do you use?”
“Well, if I tell you they won’t be codes.”
She cast him an irked look.
“Okay, okay. Here’s one. If we mention our mother’s name it means we’re in serious trouble. All my brothers use it.”
“What’s her name?”
“Tessa.”
“Have you ever had to use it?”
He’d never been in that much trouble. But this hunt felt different. He was certain he would find his father’s killer. But after that...he was not certain.
All he did know for sure was that he would never stop until he found the Viper and made him answer for his crimes.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
As Kino drove toward the safe house, Lea waited for the answer to her question.
Kino’s face went hard. “Clay used it once.”
The conversation had turned from playful to deadly serious. Lea saw that in his posture and expression. She let go of her irritation and touched his arm. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
“Sometime, maybe.”
“Okay, then. What will we do now?”
“I got you some clothes. You can shower up. Get out of that body armor for a while.”
She didn’t ask him if the vest was necessary. He wouldn’t have asked her to wear it if it were not.
“What about you? If I’m wearing yours, then you’re not protected.”
Kino lifted his shirt, showing her that he, too, was wearing body armor. She didn’t know if that revelation made her feel better or worse.
“Tomorrow we go see Chief Scott. I’d like to know he can be relied on in a pinch. In the meantime, if you recognize anyone, Uncle Luke wants me to call him in.”
“What did your uncle say about me?”
Kino gave her a rare look of surprise.
“You had him check me out, too, right? I would if I were in your shoes.”
“He said you are a hell of a dancer. Won a lot of contests against more experienced women at powwows. He said you have a lot to prove.” He glanced at her for a long moment and she felt her belly cramp.
“Lea, why didn’t you tell me you have no clan?”
She sucked in a long breath and let it go. The tightness in her stomach remained. To have no clan was to have a mother who was not Apache. He knew.
“My mother is Mexican.”
“An illegal, according to my uncle.”
“Not anymore. She’s married to a full-blood Apache.”
“Your father?”
Lea nodded.
“Is that why they’re so important to you? The water stations?”
Lea sat back against the seat, listening to the hum of the tires on the asphalt and thinking of all her mother had told her.
“I’m like them. If not for my father, I might be crossing the desert right now.”
“How did your mother get in?”
“She worked with a coyote. Only they call themselves pollero—chicken farmers. The people they guide are pollos—chickens. The man was experienced and had a good reputation for not...not bothering the women. There was supposed to be a truck. The truck was going to meet them on some highway and take them to Dallas. But my aunt fell on a rock and banged up her knee. It swelled and she couldn’t keep up, so the pollero left them.”
“Texas border?”
“Yes,” said Lea. “Texas.” She spit the word as if the taste were unpalatable. “My mother was pregnant with my older sister. That’s why they had to leave. Her father threw her out. She was sixteen. That’s why they made the journey, took the risk. They had no supplies. Just the clothes they wore. My mother tried to find water but she thinks she just walked in circles for two days in the July heat. They had no food, no water. Nothing.” Lea felt the familiar twist of her heart at this point, thinking of what had happened next. Imagining the choice her mother had faced. “My mother knew she could stay with her sister and die or try to get help.”
Lea lowered her head. “She left her.”
Lea felt the tears gliding down her cheeks, falling to her lap. The Apache in her would not cry, but the Mexican side wept for the aunt she would never know.
“My aunt said...said she’d catch up. But they both knew it was a lie. My mother followed the trail of the others. She walked through the night and she found a road. Do you know who finally picked her up?”
“An aid worker?”
“No, an Apache. My father. He was a bull rider touring on the rodeo circuit. He gave her water. And he saved her life.”
Kino glanced at her.
“Did they go back for her sister?”
Lea nodded. “My father is also a good tracker.” She bowed her head. “Or he was. He followed the trail. My aunt was still there. But she was gone.”
Lea wanted to tell him the rest of it, but something made her hold her tongue. Her intuition told her that Kino would not approve of what her mother had done to pay for her freedom.
Lea could see little of his expression in the light from the dash. What did he think? Was he wondering how a man could marry a woman with no clan? A woman outside the tribe whose children would also be without clan. For some it was impossible to think of marrying anyone other than an Apache. Her father said that a person could not always choose the calling of their heart.
“It must have been hard for you. On the rez, I mean.”
It had been. The differences were s
ubtle, but they were there. Her nose wasn’t quite right, her skin color was different and then there was her size.
“I was the smallest in my class.”
Kino nodded. “Doesn’t explain the pacifism. So I asked him about that specifically. Luke says you started that after...” His words fell off.
“My dad is in a wheelchair. He doesn’t work for HUD anymore.”
“Uncle Luke says it was a drive-by.”
Lea nodded, thinking of that day. Seeing her father in the hospital when she was thirteen, his big body propped up on pillows in the narrow bed. His legs still as stone.
“Bullet shattered his spine. L-5,” said Kino.
Lea squeezed her eyes shut. “Did the report say that he was just trying to fix an outdoor water line? He was working, making things better for our tribe, and they shot him.”
“Why?”
“Why?” she repeated and gave a slow shake of her head. “How can you ever answer that? People were angry over some evictions. After ignoring every warning and plea HUD had sent them for over a year. I know there was some nasty hate mail at HUD. My mother talked about it. She had to go to public meetings that turned into shouting matches.”
“I heard about that. The trouble over evictions. Protests. We had them, too.”
“My dad was wearing a HUD shirt that day. Maybe that was the reason they shot him in the back.”
Kino’s fingers flexed upon the wheel as he reasserted his grip. “Did they ever catch the shooter?”
“No.”
Kino slowed as they drove along the road dotted with residences tucked back beyond the vegetation. Had he realized that they both had fathers shot in gun violence?
Kino sat forward, peering into the shafts of light from the headlights. His mouth dipped at the corner. “I don’t understand. How could that make you a pacifist?”
She stared at him, his face glowing blue in the light of the dashboard. “It was that or follow the path you walk.”
His jaw ticked and his brow swept down over his dark eyes. But he said nothing. Lea understood his choice. She had considered it, too, driven by the need for vengeance, battered by the hatred that pounded at her soul. She had prayed and prayed over what to do.
Kino cast her a perplexed look. “Don’t you want to know who did this? Don’t you want him brought to justice?”
“Of course I do. I think he should be arrested and stand trial. But if you are asking me if I, personally, want to extract justice? The answer is no. I do not. In fact, I have forgiven him.”
“But he’s still free.”
“And he has to live with what he did.”
Kino shifted in his seat. His voice was flintlike. “The man who killed my father is remorseless. He’s not losing any sleep. I know he isn’t.”
“Even worse for him, then,” Lea said and meant it.
His brow wrinkled as he cast her a baffled look.
Kino slowed at a cutoff and glanced at the mailbox illuminated in the high beams. The post was that distinctive shade of pale blue favored for entrances because many deemed the color protective against evil spirits. He’d heard it called Virgin Mary blue since it resembled the color often depicted in her robes.
“This is it.” He turned the wheel and in a few minutes they’d jostled up the dirt road and to a small ranchero backed up to a rocky outcropping.
“One way in and out,” said Lea.
“Easier to secure.”
“This is FBI property?”
“A safe house. They have them everywhere. It’s fully stocked.”
“Nice.” She released her seat belt and left the vehicle gratefully, stretching her tired muscles and then following Kino to the porch. There was a wreath of dried peppers beside the door. Kino removed it to reveal a sunken metal box in the wall. There was a keypad and Kino punched in a code that caused a beep and a click. The small metal door swung open.
“Spy stuff,” said Lea, impressed as he retrieved a key.
“It’s just a lockbox.”
She raised her eyebrows. She’d never seen anything like the front door. It appeared to be wood at first glance, but was actually metal. She brushed her fingers over the surface, which still held the warmth of the day even though the temperature was now dropping with the emergence of stars. Her mother had told her of this, the blazing hot days and freezing nights. Lea glanced up at Kino.
“Is this place bulletproof?” she asked.
He nodded, opened the door with the retrieved key and flicked on the lights. Then he stepped aside to let her enter first. Kino closed and locked the door.
She didn’t know what she’d expected, but it was not the pleasant, cozy home. The living room had a three-sided sofa unit facing a huge flat-screen television mounted on the wall. The square wooden coffee table filled the space between the horseshoe-shaped couches. Beyond, a solid-pine dining room table sat against the opposite wall. The center of the table held a bowl of fresh fruit that looked so real she had to touch it and discovered a fresh mango right on top.
“How did he do that? You just called him today.”
She fingered the colorful serape on the wall and noted the tasteful paintings of adobes and mesas. Kino flipped on the kitchen light. The room was large and open, with a love seat on the back wall by the rear door and a counter with three stools. On the counter sat a glass dome protecting various cheeses, grapes and nuts. Two boxes of crackers sat beside the offering.
Lea’s stomach gave a rumble and Kino removed the lid. Then he retrieved two bottles of cold water from the well-stocked stainless-steel refrigerator.
“This place is like a dream,” said Lea, accepting the water.
She grabbed two hunks of cheese and followed Kino toward the doorway opposite the refrigerator. It led to a small conference area with laptop computers, a digital projector and fax machines, printers and a large copy machine. It looked as she’d imagined a corporate boardroom might look.
Past that was a hallway with two bedrooms.
Kino walked her into the first. There, on the bed, was her suitcase.
She gasped and flipped open the case to discover nearly all that she had carried with her from Salt River.
“He got everything except my bathroom bag,” she said.
“I’d check the bathroom.”
She did and there was her bag along with fresh towels and a large, inviting tub.
“Shower or food?” he asked from the door of the bath.
“Shower,” she said. She really wanted a bath, a long, hot soak, but promised herself that she would indulge before bed. She pressed her fingers into one of the fluffy white towels stacked on the counter and glanced back at Kino. Their eyes met and held. Her breath caught. His eyes slipped down her body. Was he picturing her in the shower or wrapped in one of those oversize towels?
For a moment she stopped breathing as her attention caught on the strong angle of his jaw and the stubble growing there. She stepped toward him, reaching.
His brow furrowed and he flinched as her hand touched his jaw. But then he pressed her hand against his cheek. His eyelids closed and he turned his head.
At first she thought he meant to drop a kiss on her palm, but instead he dragged his teeth across the fleshy mound at the base of her thumb.
His eyes snapped open, blazing with desire.
Her body quaked and she felt herself grow liquid, quickening with need. He released her with all but his eyes as he stepped back into the hall. It was all she could do not to follow him as he turned and retreated to the door across from hers.
Lea sagged against the counter, realizing that she wanted neither shower nor food. What she really wanted was Kino in her bed wearing nothing but a bath towel and a welcoming smile.
But did she have the courage to pursue what she wa
nted? What if she walked across the hall and offered herself to him and he pushed her away?
That possibility sent her to the shower, where she scrubbed away all the dirt and dust. But not the desire. That just burned hotter by the second.
She tried to focus on the reasons that sleeping with Kino was a bad idea.
He was working with border patrol, the very people that once hunted her mother.
Lea turned off the taps.
He didn’t approve of Oasis or their mission and regarded her efforts as tantamount to assisting the enemy.
She reached for a towel and tamped away the excess moisture from her damp skin, noticing the nubby texture of the fabric.
He upheld the law, while she was apt to break it, feeling she had an obligation to break those laws that were morally corrupt.
She toweled off her hair and dragged a comb through the tangles as she looked in the mirror at her reflection.
“He really believes that those people out there don’t matter, that their lives don’t matter. And he thinks killing his father’s killer will bring him peace. How could you want to share a bed with a man like that?”
It almost worked. She told herself she needed to open the door to let the steam out that fogged the mirror. But she followed the swirling moisture out, walking straight across the hallway to Kino’s room.
They were safe here. For the first time since the shooting she was safe and, regardless of the costs, she needed to feel alive.
The shooting had taught her something her mother already knew. Life was uncertain and time was short.
Kino’s shower was running until she rounded his bed. Then it switched off. She could see into the bathroom, because he’d left the door open. His clothing was on the floor. On the sink sat a razor and can of shaving cream, the nozzle still holding a blob of foam. On the opposite side of the sink on the countertop lay his holster and pistol. Here was the evidence of his profession. Her vision danced over the objects, fixing on the gun he used to kill. She looked away. Time enough for that later.
Next came the scraping of the metal rings on the metal bar. She turned to see Kino step from the shower, naked, heavily muscled and dripping wet. He gripped a white towel in one strong hand. He spotted her. His fist tightened on the towel and his eyes widened.
Harlequin Intrigue, Box Set 1 of 2 Page 48
