Then she looked up, saw the afternoon shadows lengthening and understood that she was in for a rough night if she didn’t face what lay out there waiting.
Chad would likely know the answer, but today’s encounter still rankled. Chad might believe Eli was in the area, but that was a long way from proving it. If Eli were still as good at hiding himself as he’d once been, Chad would need to examine every inch of ground for many square miles to have hope of finding him.
Chad didn’t know, as Gaby did, Eli’s former hideouts. He might not still be in any of them, but now that she was certain he hadn’t left Chamizal, she had a place to start.
But first, she had to make herself confront the place where her father had died. She was not a coward, and she dishonored her father by her fear. If she were to help Eli prove he was not her father’s killer, she would need every ounce of courage she’d spent years alone developing.
He had work to do, damn it. She was in no position to make an ultimatum. There wasn’t time for him to go to her again tonight.
But he had to see her. That simple.
A wry half-grin curved his mouth. There was nothing simple about his Gaby, never had been.
Not his Gaby anymore, though. No matter how his body tightened at the mere thought of her, now that he’d caught the scent of her. Pressed his skin against hers.
Oh, hell, why didn’t he just admit he was going, no matter how illogical it was? He was more than halfway there already.
Eli went to alert suddenly. Motion in the distance. He grabbed the binoculars from his pack.
Then relaxed as the nameless dog raced toward him. Poor guy, torn between his rescuer and a woman Eli would like to curl up with himself. Yearned to have his hands all over—
He swore and yanked his mind away from something that wasn’t going to happen, a dream even a naïve boy with only a basic understanding of the mechanics had cherished.
Damn, how he’d wanted to be her first. For her to be his. However much he’d known that yielding that barrier would spell their doom. Would it have been so much worse, after all? Maybe he’d been wrong, trying to protect her, to shield himself from heartache. There had never been any future for them, but would the past years have been easier with memories to cling to?
No way they could have been harder. Impossible dreams were as hard on the soul as unquenched passion was on the body. He’d had his share of women since, but he knew to his bones that there was something missing from even the most heated sex when your heart stood apart and merely observed the process.
He’d had plenty of sex, yes. Been an attentive partner and made sure he’d never left a woman unsatisfied.
But he was still a virgin when it came to truly making love.
The dog charged at him abruptly, butting Eli’s leg with his head, then darting away, toward—
Gaby’s house.
Eli took off running.
He covered the quarter mile or so in record time, every step a beat of the metronome of fear that he would be too late, that somehow the same people who had murdered Gaby’s father would have gotten impatient and not waited for her to go. He’d thought she’d be safe because no matter what a bastard Chad was, he would never harm Gaby, not when he could marry her and control her land that way.
But maybe Chad’s partners had a different game plan, another schedule. Maybe Eli should have been camped right on Gaby’s doorstep instead of trying to protect her by exposing the smugglers first.
In his mind, he could still see the burned skeleton of his mother’s house. Still smell the ashes that had clung to his nostrils for months.
Still see the smoke rising from Frank Navarro’s funeral pyre.
Please. Let her be okay. Please.
When he came in sight of the still-standing house, his knees nearly buckled with relief. He leaped to the back porch and beat on it. “Gaby—” he shouted.
When there was no answer, he couldn’t wait any longer. He charged through the unlocked door and raced through the house, but every room was empty.
The dog, however, still whimpered.
“What?”
The animal raced for the back door. Once it was opened, he arrowed around to the side. The momentary reassurance fled. Eli leaped from the porch and pushed through the stand of mesquites toward the rubble where her father had died—
And saw her on the ground, unmoving.
“Gaby—” He tore through the charred beams and fell to his knees beside her, yanking her into his arms, reaching to check her pulse—
Tears tracked through the soot stains on her face. Her eyes opened. “Eli?”
“You’re all right? You’re not hurt?”
“What?”
He began to thrust her away, feeling like a fool, but his relief was too great.
Instead, he crushed her close. Started to speak but didn’t. Thank God, thank God was all he could think. A world without Gaby in it, however distant, would be barren.
Then she slid her own arms around him, and he thought no more. “Gaby.” Her name was a prayer, the beat of her heart the rhythm of his life.
Once they had created a world together, shared by only the two, a universe in which anything was possible. In this moment, they were children again, for Eli’s only childhood had been lived by Gaby’s side, those precious months when he’d experienced a freedom he had never found again.
His body wanted hers, yes, but this was his oxygen, the closeness he’d known with no other. How had he lived without air for so long?
But all too soon, the world impinged on them. The dog whimpered. Paco neighed. Birds sent out a last call before darkness fell.
Eli realized that they were out in the open, however near twilight was, in a land where visibility could extend for miles.
And tonight he had work to do.
His tension must have communicated itself to Gaby, for she leaned away from him a bit. Laid one hand on his cheek, her eyes softening, focused on his mouth. “Eli,” she whispered, and the simple sound of his name spoke volumes.
He wanted that kiss.
But not more than he wanted her to survive. Whatever she’d done to him.
He drew back. “I have to go.” But he looked around them. “Why are you out here?”
She settled back on her heels, careful distance between them. “I had to face it.” She brushed at her cheek with the back of one hand, smearing the soot. “I—I had this notion—Never mind.”
He’d erected this barrier he longed to knock down. “Tell me.” If he couldn’t hold her, he could at least listen.
Gaby bit her lower lip. “My father always wore my mother’s wedding ring and a lock of her hair around his neck. I didn’t know if—”
She had always been the bravest person he’d ever met. “I haven’t found anything.”
She lifted a startled gaze. “You’ve looked?”
“I’m damn sure not trusting Chad Anderson to perform a fair investigation. He never even called in a crime scene unit from DPS.”
“He could have?”
Eli nodded. “Should have.”
“But…why not?”
He wasn’t ready to have this conversation. “There’s a lot you don’t know about what’s been going on around here, but—” He glanced out at the gathering shadows. “—I don’t have time to tell you right now.”
“Why not?”
He fought impatience. She was far too intelligent and insightful to be satisfied with a pat answer, but he didn’t want her involved any more than she had to be. He turned the tables on her. “When are you going back to New York?”
She blinked. “Why?”
They were all but strangers, yet he had known her soul and she his. How much trust was left between them, after all this time?
“I can’t say. Give me tonight, and I swear I’ll come back and answer your questions.”
Her eyes pored over him. “Just how dangerous is this?”
“Not much.” He hoped the lack of light would hide the lie.
“I showed up last night. You didn’t.”
“I was at Juanita’s.”
He swore softly. “Leave her out of this.”
“Eli, what’s going on?”
“Gaby, I can’t—” He stood. “I’m outta here.”
She grabbed his arm. “Promise me you won’t take any unnecessary chances. And don’t expect me to like this. Or to wait past morning.”
“I can’t be seen here in the daytime.”
“Then get home before dawn.”
Home. How sweet the sound of that. “Go inside and lock up good. Is your father’s rifle still there?”
She frowned. “Yes, but—”
“I know he taught you to use it. Still remember how?”
“Eli, don’t go. Leave this up to Chad.”
He couldn’t help his snort. “The day I trust anything to Chad Anderson is the day they put me in the ground. Now get inside, make sure that rifle is loaded and lock the doors. Take the dog with you.”
“Eli, let me come with you.”
“Do not even think about following me. I mean it. Don’t intervene in things you don’t understand.”
She tensed. “It’s your fault if I don’t.”
“Please. Just give me until dawn.”
She hesitated for a very long time, staring off into the distance. Finally, she lifted her face, and he could see the shimmer of fresh tears. “If you get yourself hurt out there, I am never forgiving you.”
He smiled. Risked one stroke of her hair.
They both went very still.
“I’ll be back before you know it.” He stepped back from her.
“Vaya con Dios, Eli.” Then she turned away and let him go.
Chapter Nine
Eli slipped on the shoulder holster and settled the nine millimeter inside, then checked the ankle piece and adjusted the belted sheath for his knife. He’d never learned to like being armed, but some of the places he’d traveled, being a journalist was no protection. Once he’d accepted the necessity to defend himself in the midst of unrest, he’d made being competent at it his mission. He’d enlisted the help of the best warriors he’d encountered.
Right now, for Gaby’s sake as much as his own, he was glad he had.
He donned the tactical vest with its many utility pockets containing everything from rudimentary medical supplies and water purification tablets to the ever-useful fishing wire and extra clips for his weapon. Then he strapped on his night vision goggles, but left them flipped up for now. It was nearly full dark, but an inevitable result of their use was a loss of visual acuity, along with a nasty change in depth perception. He’d make better time without them for now. It was still a week until there would be no moon. His eyes would adjust.
The smugglers wouldn’t act just yet, though pinpointing the date could be iffy. Law enforcement was only too aware that the darkest night was the ideal time, so a savvy smuggler didn’t necessarily wait until then.
Not that these smugglers had to worry all that much. The sheriff was one of them.
More than one of them, actually. He was the boss, following in his father’s footsteps.
All Eli had to do was prove it. Determine exactly what was being smuggled and obtain proof. He’d tried once before, of course, as a teenager, to find the evidence to free his mother from the former Sheriff Anderson’s stranglehold. Melanie Wolverton had made mistakes in her life, yes, and Eli knew she wasn’t innocent of involvement with the operation. But she had begun trying to free herself after her lover had had her son beaten within an inch of his life. He’d learned that, years later, from Juanita.
Eventually, his mother had died for her rebellion. Her death had served as a warning to all the others involved, Gaby’s father included. But when Frank Navarro knew he was dying of lung cancer, a greater fear had roused him, and he had asked Juanita to send for Eli. How Frank had been certain that she knew where to find him, Eli wasn’t sure, but a man who fears for his daughter, however estranged, can be resourceful in his defense of her.
Gaby’s father had made the long journey from wishing for her to marry Chad Anderson to being terrified for her to be anywhere near him. Thus it was that he’d sent for the very man he’d forced to leave her.
The same man who had spent nine years trying to forget her.
Eli tripped on a hummock of desert grass and yanked his thoughts away from how he’d come to be here and back onto his purpose, which had only become more urgent. Perhaps Gaby would believe him if he explained everything he knew to her, but he didn’t know the woman she’d become, and he couldn’t risk it. She had been forged in the fire of New York, its fast pace, its demand for excellence.
That was a different crucible than the one that had created him, fueled by deceit and cruelty, polished on the whetstone of loneliness that had become his refuge.
Gaby was no longer the soft, idealistic, wide-eyed dreamer he’d loved. Life had stolen that from her, and he grieved for it.
The loss was only one of many he was determined to avenge.
A voice ahead, a low murmur, and Eli froze. Crouched low and snapped his goggles into place. He listened with his full attention, then, once he pinpointed the direction, slowly crept to the top of the rise ahead, angling for a creosote bush to provide cover.
There. Though the goggles didn’t operate at maximum effectiveness at this point in the lunar cycle, Eli had no trouble picking out two figures ahead, lounging against the side of a pickup. One was lighting a cigarette, and Eli had to glance away from the quick flare. Only to the side, though—he needed to see a face.
He bellied closer, keeping the sparse vegetation between himself and the men. He needed information, not a confrontation, though he burned for the latter. Wanted badly to assure Gaby’s safety by removing every last threat. Would welcome the relief valve of a fight.
But these men were only the tip of the iceberg. Chad Anderson and his counterparts were Eli’s goal. Putting them away for life, so that Gaby would never have to worry again.
Not that she understood enough to worry yet.
But he did.
“—six days,” the smoker was saying. “The western route this time. Usual merchandise going south, boss says, but something special headed this way.”
“Wonder what it is?” his companion asked.
“You want to stay healthy, you don’t wonder nothin’. Boss don’t like questions.”
“Yeah.” The second man was silent for a minute. “But I don’t get using the western route. It’s slow as hell. Got to stay out of sight of the old man’s place while his daughter’s there, you think?”
“Maybe. But boss ain’t happy about her hanging around, I know that much.”
“Do we need another fire?”
The hairs on the back of Eli’s neck rose. It was all he could do to remain still.
“It’s possible.” The smoker chuckled and cast the butt of his cigarette to the ground. “But that woman’s a fine piece, I hear. Boss got other plans in mind, maybe.” He stood and walked toward his pickup. At the driver’s door, he paused. “Like to see her myself.”
Eli couldn’t hear but a snippet. He had to find out more. He rose to a crouch and sidled as quickly as he could manage to get within hearing range.
“Manuel—” the first man bellowed in a different direction. “What the hell’s taking you so long?”
At the sound of movement just off to his left, Eli froze, his position exposed and cover too far away for the speed of the footsteps he heard.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” said a third voice.
Eli crouched low and scanned the area around him, just as he felt more than heard the presence.
“What the—” The rustle of clothing, a belt buckle jangling—
Eli drew and whirled. Heard a commotion behind him, just as the man reached for his own weapon.
Eli fired first, a
nd the man groaned and collapsed as his own shot went wide. Eli revolved to face the new threat, but his foot caught on a small rock, and his ankle twisted. He struggled for balance but lost. As he fell, he felt a sharp sting in his left arm.
The fallen man began to rise just as two more sets of footsteps pounded in his direction. Eli managed to get on his feet and scrambled toward the rise behind which he’d hidden earlier.
How he hungered to stand his ground and take them out, one by one, simply for the threat they posed to Gaby, the sly snickers that accompanied the innuendoes about her.
But it was three against one. He was a decent shot, but these were trained mercenaries. His odds weren’t good, but even more important was that if he were downed, Chad Anderson would frame him for Frank Navarro’s murder. He’d make certain that Eli went to prison.
And Gaby would be alone. At the mercy of the man behind her father’s death. A murderer who was the son of a murderer.
Eli had no choice but to make his escape.
However badly he wanted to do otherwise.
So, just as the boy had once done, the man, bleeding and limping, stole through the night like a shadow.
Keeping the long view in mind, while desperate to return to Gaby.
Please don’t come after me. Not tonight. Not ever.
Go back to New York and stay safe.
Gaby paced the dark kitchen, pausing now and again to stare at the horizon. She longed for dawn to come but was equally afraid of its arrival without any trace of Eli. She’d done as he asked, locking doors and windows and keeping the rifle handy, though it was an odd and unwelcome sensation to be afraid in her own home. She’d experienced many emotions in this place, but never fear.
What on earth was going on? He’d been genuinely upset when he’d found her in the remnants of the burned barn, as though he seriously expected someone to have hurt her. Who—and why? The person responsible for the fire wouldn’t care about her.
She’d contemplated calling Chad under the guise of asking for an update on his investigation, but she doubted her ability to continue hiding her knowledge that Eli was nearby. She’d kept one big secret for a long time, yes, years ago. No one had been aware that she and Eli were meeting at night. But she and Chad had broken up over her visits to Eli in the hospital, and though Chad had soon wanted to make up, by then she’d understood that there was something between her and the half-wild boy, some connection deeper than either of them had ever experienced.
Guarding Gaby Page 9
