by Sable Hunter
“Do you know who Martina Delgado is?”
“I don’t know.” Aron smirked. “Could she be the sister of the woman you’re in love with?”
Brock didn’t look that shocked. “You are one perceptive cowpoke.”
“No, not really. I just heard Alessandra screaming her love for you at the top of her lungs back at the house.”
“What? Why?” Brock looked concerned, upset and scared for Alessandra, he presumed.
“Her sister, my beloved,” he said wryly, “just informed Alessandra that she has been chosen to marry the most eligible bachelor in Mexico, Joaquin Rios.”
As Austin watched, Brock’s face blanched white. “Over my dead body. Do you know who Rios is?”
“No. Hell, I don’t know who I am, much less a Mexican lothario.” He assumed it was not a mere rival for the señorita’s affections.
Brock looked around the bar, carefully.
“Who are you searching for?”
“Snitches. They’re everywhere.”
Austin was feeling like he was playing a bit part in an old movie. “What are you talking about?”
Philips leaned over and whispered. “Rios is the son of the second most dangerous drug lord in Mexico.”
“What?” To say Austin was shocked was putting it mildly. “Why would Martina even suggest such a thing? Why would she even consider marrying her innocent younger sister to a kingpin?”
Brock didn’t answer straightaway. He just stared at Austin Wade. Then, he asked, “If Rios is second, do you know who is considered the most lethal drug lord in Mexico?”
“No, I can’t say I do.” Austin had no idea where the conversation was going.
Brock smirked. “Diosa de la Guerra, Queenpin of the El Duro Cartel.” Austin felt sicker with every word Philips spoke. “Martina Delgado. Your fiancé.”
***
Tebow Ranch
“Jacob!”
Jessie’s voice yelling his name made Jacob levitate out of the bed. “What? What’s wrong?” He hadn’t been asleep too long, he didn’t think. “Are you sick, Sweetheart?”
“No. We’ve gotta go.”
“Go where?” He sat up in the bed.
“To the hospital. My water broke.”
“Oh, Lord.” Jacob got up and grabbed his pants, heading for the door.
“How about me?” Jessie was trying to get out of the bed. Her stomach seemed to be in the way of everything.
“Oh, yea, I guess we need you.” Jacob smiled sheepishly. “Not much use of me to go without you.” He helped his wife up, kissing her face every few seconds. “Do you feel okay?”
“Yes, I’m not cramping. There’s no labor pains to speak of…” Her voice sort of trailed off.” She watched her husband throwing things out of the closet, over his shoulder, one thing after another. “What are you doing?”
“Hunting the suitcase, we packed a suitcase. Didn’t we?”
“You already loaded it in the car. Remember?”
“Oh, yeah.” He turned to her. “Are you ready to go?”
Jessie sighed. This did not bode well. “I need to get dressed. My gown is wet.”
Jacob rubbed his face and took a deep breath. “You’re the one having the baby and I’m falling apart.”
“That’s okay.” Jessie kissed him. “I have it under control. Just help me to the bathroom.”
In a few minutes, Jacob was carrying her downstairs. “Isaac! Noah! Joseph! Nathan!” He yelled at the top of his lungs. “The baby’s coming!” People began pouring out of bedroom doors, shouts and whoops and laughter from the men and concern from the women. All were there but Noah. “Where’s Noah?” They were following him down the stairs. “Lord, look at that rain!”
“I don’t know. I’ll look for him. Maybe he had a date.” Joseph offered.
“Let me get the car for you. Just stand here.” Isaac took off. “I don’t want Jessie getting wet.”
Avery came up to them. “We’re coming with you.”
“Yes, we’re all coming.” Libby had joined them and Cady was hunting umbrellas.
“You don’t have to, I’m sure this is going to take a while.”
“Are you kidding, this is the first McCoy. We wouldn’t miss this for anything.” Nathan was grinning from ear to ear. “I’m going to be an uncle!”
***
Rosa’s Cantina – near Los Banos, Sonora
“Martina Delgado is no damn fiancé of mine,” Austin barked. All right the damn jig was up. “What the hell are we going to do?”
“Get ourselves killed if we’re not careful.” Brock drank a long swig of beer.
Austin held his head in his hands. “Let me get this straight. Martina runs a drug cartel?”
“Yep, a huge operation. She runs drugs from South America all over the United States. Heroin, cocaine, marijuana, meth...hell, I’ve even heard she’s selling women. That’s why this shit doesn’t really surprise me.”
“Tell me the truth.” Austin had to know. “Have you ever seen me before? Did I live with the Delgado’s before my surgery? Were we really engaged?”
Brock waved his beer bottle in Austin’s face and bent over to be sure he could be heard over the music. “I don’t claim to know everything.” He paused for emphasis. “But I’ve been at Los Banos for two years and I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
“Son-of-a-bitch,” Austin muttered. “So, who the hell am I?”
“That I don’t know. Since you’ve been here, they’ve been close-lipped on everything. Martina has commandeered newspapers and magazines. She’s even put the ranch on closed circuit television. We only see the programming she approves of. All I can tell you is this...if your name is Austin Wade, I’ll eat Tomas’ sombrero.”
“We have to do something. I want out of here.”
Brock studied the tabletop, like he was reading a manual. “You can’t just walk off. You don’t know what you’re dealing with. Shit, she’ll have you killed in a heartbeat if she thinks you’re betraying her. That’s one of the reasons that Alessandra and I haven’t eloped. She hopes to negotiate some type of separation from her. My baby thinks her sister loves her enough to let her just walk off with me if she convinces her how much we love each other and how much happier she’ll be just living a normal life.”
“You don’t look convinced.” Austin observed dryly.
“I don’t trust her, but I love Ali to distraction. I’d die for her, man.”
“So, you think Martina will just let you two walk away?”
Brock was silent for a moment. Then, he shook his head. “I don’t think there’s a chance in hell.”
“Then, I think we ought to take down the whole damn operation.”
“I’d think you would want to get out of here and go back to where you came from.”
Austin slammed his beer bottle down. “I don’t know who I am.”
“I bet there’s information at the house, somewhere. Or you could go to one of the newspapers in town. I bet they’d know.”
“Do you think that would work?” Austin looked skeptical.
“I think you’d be dead in an hour.”
“Hell, so do you have a plan?”
“Well, maybe.” Brock pulled his hat down over his eyes. “The thing is, I don’t want Alessandra hurt. I love her. I fully intend to marry her if I get her out of this hornet’s nest.”
“Yea, I don’t relish hurting Tomas, either. We need to think.” Austin sighed. “First, I need to find out my name.” He put a hand to his head. A headache the size of Bevo was tromping through his head. He groaned. “I graduated from the University of Texas.” The memories were coming back. The headaches seemed to bring them.
“Well, don’t let her know, for God’s sake. Act dumb. You’re more on the inside. Why don’t you play along and start gathering evidence? Find out your name and get lists of suppliers, dealers, lieutenants. Hell, get a hierarchy of the whole hell-hole.”
“To give to whom?” Austin had no
knowledge of the political workings of the Mexican government.
Brock smiled. “This I know. We’ll give the information to Cisco Salazar. He’s the newly elected Attorney General of Mexico and I think he’s on the up and up. The war on drugs was his platform. We can gather documentation and help him build a case.”
“This is war.” Austin held out his hand.
“War,” Brock agreed.
A sense of urgency and purpose filled Austin’s heart. Everything within him wanted to get to the bottom of this fiasco and fast. He wanted to go home—wherever the hell that was.
***
On the way to the hospital – between Tebow and Austin
“Skye, huh?” Joseph grinned at his younger brother.
“Skye, yea. You gotta problem with that?” They had just made a run for the truck in the pouring rain. “God, this is some storm.”
“Bad night for a baby to be born.”
“Turn on your brights, Joseph. I can’t see a damn thing.” Noah was still buttoning up his shirt. Joseph had come banging on the door to the hunting cabin to inform him that Jessie was in labor. He had been visiting the beautiful Skye Blue, their foreman Lance’s sister. “How did you find me?”
“Well...” Joseph laughed as he flipped on the lights and illuminated the narrow country lane which connected the hunting cabin road to the main ranch highway. “It wasn’t that hard. You were gone. Your truck was still at the house. Your horse was gone, so you couldn’t have gone far. You’re perpetually horny.”
“Very funny,” Noah grumbled. “Nothing happened.”
“Only because I interrupted you.” Joseph pushed his Stetson back on his head and grinned.
“No, I want to get to know her, take her on a date. Skye’s a lady. I like her.”
“Well, I do, too,” Joseph affirmed. “We’ve all been hoping you’d start seeing Skye. We want you to be happy, Noah.” He said that like he was worried Noah didn’t believe him.
“Joseph. I need to tell you something.”
“What?” He slowed down at the stop sign and turned left onto the main highway toward Kerrville. “Hold on, let me see where the rest of them are.” Joseph called Cady and talked for a few seconds. “They’re almost at the hospital.”
“How’s Jessie?”
“The contractions are pretty far apart. She’s afraid this might be a false alarm.”
“You think so?”
“Hell, I don’t know. They said her water broke.” Joseph shrugged his shoulders. “This is our first baby. We’re all sorta new at this.”
“I guess by the time your babies are born, this will be old hat.”
“Yea, Aron’s will be next.” They grew quite. Joseph cleared his throat. “What did you want to tell to tell me?”
“I dreamed about him tonight,” Noah confessed. “That’s why I was with Skye.”
“You did?” He slowed the truck down a bit, listening to his brother.
“I woke up in a cold sweat. The dream was his funeral. We were all standing around his casket. I watched them lower him into the ground.”
“God.”
“I couldn’t stay in the house, so I took Shawnee and just rode. When I stopped, I was at the cabin and Skye was running out toward me. Lightning was striking all around us.”
“It was just a dream, Noah. That doesn’t mean it will come true.”
“No, I know that.”
Both sat silent. “This is crazy.” Joseph sighed. “We have such a wonderful family. Jacob’s baby is being born. We’re all finding love. And Aron has to go and get himself damned lost!”
“What do you think happened to him?” Noah asked quietly, as if it were wrong to even say the words out loud.
Joseph hesitated before he answered. “Cady says he’s coming home. Harley says he’s coming home. I believe in magic, brother. So my money’s on Aron McCoy being home for Christmas. What do you say?”
“I say, I hope you’re right.”
Chapter Six
Los Banos Ranch
On the way from Rosa’s, the two men firmed up their plans, agreeing on the next time they’d talk. They decided to meet at the ranch dump site. Not too many people were eager to go there. It was where all manner of garbage was hauled, including the dead bodies of livestock. “How about in a week, high noon?”
“Agreed.” Austin felt like his head was about to split in two.
After they’d parked, Brock asked him to keep an eye on Alessandra. “If things go to hell, get word to me and I’ll take Ali out of here.”
“You got it.” Austin nodded. “To tell you the truth, I’ve got to come up with a plan. I don’t have a clue how to start this.”
“I’m just glad we’ve decided to do something.” Brock drove off, leaving him standing in front of the ranch house. He stared at it for a moment, sensing another time when he’d looked at this same vista. The home was typical Spanish stucco, with fountains in the circle drive and beautiful arches all across the wide front. He’d come to buy cattle, which made sense. Tomas had known him. Hell, it was all slowly coming back.
Two sentinels stood on the front, their guns undoubtedly close at hand. Knowing him, they nodded respectfully. Making his way into the house, he noticed all was dark. He didn’t linger, even though his stomach was growling. His head ached like a son-of-a-bitch, and all he wanted to eat was painkillers. As he walked up the stairs toward his suite, he wondered if she kept files in her room. He’d check and if she didn’t, he’d just have to pay attention to her, shadow her. She would think he was being romantically attentive, which was the farthest thing from his mind.
When he came to his room, Austin didn’t even turn on the lights. He fumbled his way to the bathroom and did his business, finding something in the medicine cabinet he hoped was close to acetaminophen. Foregoing another shower, he turned off the bathroom light and moved to the bed, throwing back the cover and crawling in.
Only to find it was already occupied.
Goddamit! “Martina!” After what he’d learned tonight, he felt like he’d just found a fuckin’ viper between his sheets. This woman was the head of a high-powered drug operation. She was responsible for countless deaths and she’d kill him and anyone he cared about at the drop of a hat. Of that he had no doubt. “I can’t deal with you tonight. My head is splitting. I feel as bad now as I did before the surgery. I’m having nightmares, seeing visions, people and places that I have no idea who they are or where they’re coming from.” If Austin had been thinking clearly, he wouldn’t have said so much, because the Diosa honed in on the fact his memory might be returning like a blue tick hound on a fox’s scent.
“I’m so happy!” She laid her upper body on top of his, cradling his face and pressing kisses on his chest. “You are finding yourself, Austin. What have you remembered? Tell me, so I can celebrate with you.” At her words, Austin realized his mistake. Her words were warm, but there was an icy layer beneath them. The lie dripped from her tongue like acid. She was crafty; he had to hand it to her.
“Oh, nothing specific, really. I’m getting impressions of a ranch and college.” Surely that was generic enough not to set her off. Nausea made his stomach roll.
Interesting. Okay, he was here in her arms and she intended him to stay there. Snuggling up to him, Martina decided it was time to put the second part of her plan in action. “I’ll make you feel better.” She soothed her hand over his chest, tangling her fingers in his chest hair. “Tomorrow, I’ll make you a doctor’s appointment. We need to see how you’re progressing. Maybe there’s a shot or a pill they can give you for the pain.”
Austin didn’t doubt that he needed to see the doctor. Brain surgery was nothing to mess around with. But could he trust her? Not as far as he could throw her, that was for sure. “I don’t know, Martina.”
“All I want is for you to be all right.” Truer words had never been spoken. “Hopefully there is a drug the doctor can give you to ease your pain.” It was time to call Emily Gadwah. If
anyone had an answer for her, it would be Emily.
“This has been hard for me,” Austin confessed.
“I know.” She leaned up and pressed a kiss to his forehead. He was sweating. “I want to take away all of your troubles.” If only she could, she’d replace all of his forgotten memories with new ones full of love and happiness—with her. Another thing she needed to do was make peace with her sister and get Esteban off her back. After seeing Alessandra fall apart at the suggestion she marry Joaquin, Martina could not force her. She had two soft spots in her heart—one was her sister and the other was Aron. Now, being in his arms was sheer heaven.
Austin took it as long as he could. His head hurt, true. But sleeping by this lying Jezebel was making his skin crawl. “I can’t lay here. The pain is making me sick to my stomach.” Pulling his arm out from under her, he left the bed, walking to the window. “You just rest, darling.” The word stuck in his throat like a cockle burr. “I’ll rejoin you as soon as I feel better. I’m going to take a walk.” Grabbing his pants and a robe, he stopped by the bed. In for a penny, in for a pound. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and felt the bile rise from his gut.
“All right,” Martina purred. “I’ll be waiting. Don’t be long.”
If she only knew, Austin wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Sweet dreams.” Bitch.
***
Hospital – Austin Texas
“The baby’s not coming tonight.” Jacob let out a long breath. “Jessie’s not in labor. They’ve induced and induced and little B. T. McCoy is refusing to budge. I guess he’s gonna be stubborn like his uncles.” He looked at his brothers.
“Is there anything we can do?” Isaac asked. He’d just flown in from Mexico. He and Roscoe had gone down to check out a lead on Aron. It was another dead-end. This time the family was relieved, remains had been found, but they proved to belong to a much older man.
“No, you might as well all go on back to Tebow. I’ll call you when something happens.” He walked the whole family down to the lobby before returning to Jessie. Walking into the birthing room, he smiled at his lovely wife, who was at the moment trying to push herself up in bed. “What do you think you’re doing?”
