He pulled the curtains shut and turned. “I worry what the Elsons are going to do about US being here now. That’s going to change their normal plans to transport the drugs.”
She snorted. “They’ve probably been running this gig for at least a year. That’s how long they’ve been a part of the Guatemala drug ring. This ranch was abandoned. It was a perfect setup for everyone concerned who wanted to drop drugs into the US without anyone seeing it happen at all.”
“If anything happens, Salt Lake will alert us,” she said. “Until then? We wait and watch.”
“This puts us in more danger.”
She quirked her lips. “Yes. What we have to rely on is that the Elsons think we’re stupid and completely unaware of their activities. They may leave us alone. At least, for now.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Hey, I need to soak my ankle in that horse bucket you brought in from the barn earlier. It’s in the kitchen. Can you help me?”
Gabe knew she wasn’t the kind of woman to ask for help. She was, in her own way, letting him know he was important to her, that she valued him. “Sure. Meet you in the bathroom?”
“I’ll go sit on the toilet seat, take off my boot, the ACE bandage, and my sock. You do the rest?”
“Sure.” It wasn’t like this was new, because he’d been doing it since she sprained her ankle. Still, he looked forward to that brief contact with her. And he wanted to really be there for Anna, not just be a fixture in her life because of the mission.
In no time, he had the rubber horse bucket filled with very warm water and Epsom salts. As he knelt and guided her foot into the water, he heard Anna groan with pleasure. “I have a confession to make,” he told her, looking up at Anna. Her hair was mussed and he wanted to thread his fingers through that thick, shining mass.
“Oh?”
“I like helping you. It makes me feel good, and I was wondering if it did you, too?” He saw merriment dance in her eyes.
“It’s mutual. You’re a great mother hen, Cowboy.”
He moved the water around with his fingers. Sluicing the water on her lower leg gently over her swollen black, blue, and purple flesh, he said, “Our parents drilled into us that we never get through life alone. That we need one another.” He pulled his hand out of the water and took a small towel, drying it off. “I really appreciated you telling me about your young life. I want to tell you about mine if you want to hear it.”
“I’d like nothing better, Gabe. You’ve been pretty off-limits in a personal way to me since we’ve met.” She gave him a smart tap on his broad shoulder. “You can’t steal a kiss from me and not open up.”
“I did steal it, didn’t I?” he said, and he saw her lips curve ruefully, a glitter of challenge in her gaze.
“Yeah, you did.”
“Truth be told, I wondered if it would be the last time I saw you. I knew following the Elsons I could get killed. It was selfish of me, I admit, but I wanted to see how you tasted, how you smelled, to touch you at least once.”
“I like your excruciating honesty,” she murmured, lifting her ankle out of the bucket.
Gabe provided her with a towel to wrap it in and stood, removing the bucket so she could set her foot on the rug. By now, they worked like the good team they were. He had a plastic bag of ice chips and he gently wrapped it around the ankle for about five minutes. The heat and cold were ordered by the doctor and helped by reducing the swelling and supporting better circulation in the injured area. “Are you pissed at me for doing it?” he asked, and he glanced up at her after gently wrapping the ACE bandage around the bag of ice.
“No. It took me by surprise, is all. But it was nice. I guess I intuitively knew what you were doing. You were going into an unknown situation and yes, if you were discovered, the Elsons would try to kill you. It was a dangerous moment. I felt Ace would give you first warning, though.”
He rested his hip on the back of his boot, his other knee flexed, inches separating them. “Normally? I ask a woman if she wants to be kissed. I don’t take for granted she wants me to do it.”
“I like a man who asks and doesn’t assume. But”—she touched her temple where he’d kissed her earlier—“I understood what you did and why you did it.”
His lips twitched. “Were you thinking along similar lines at that moment, then?”
“Busted. Yes . . . yes, I was.”
He chuckled. “We’re a pair,” he said, and he looked at his watch. “Another two minutes of icing.”
“I can handle rewrapping it, Gabe.” She twisted a look up at the curtained window. “I’m worried about what the Elsons are going to do next. I don’t feel like hanging drywall or anything else right now. I want to check into the Pred camera feed via my laptop. I really think we need to stay informed.”
He briefly touched her shoulder. “I agree. Once you get your ankle wrapped and you’re mobile, you can do that. I’ll go out and fix us breakfast. Hungry?”
It was her turn to chuckle. “Yes. In many ways. But for breakfast? I’d like steak and at least three eggs over medium, please.”
“You got it,” he promised, and he left the bathroom.
May 2
Ace’s loud, throaty bark ripped Gabe out of a deep sleep. What the hell?
A moment later, his radio went off, screaming a beeping warning that he had on his bed stand. Instantly, he leaped out of bed, feet onto the cold wooden surface. Dressed in a pair of dark blue pajamas, he rushed to the window that faced the Elson place. He jerked it open, and his eyes widened. There was an eighteen-wheeler backing slowly up beside the house, both Elson brothers and six other men at the rear of it, guiding it toward the barn. There was a bright light illuminating it, the sliding door open from what he could see.
“Gabe!”
Anna’s voice was low, urgent as she pushed into his room.
“Over here,” he rasped, holding out his hand toward her. She was in a long, flannel nightgown.
“My radio warning went off.”
“Ace heard it and woke me, then my radio took off,” he said, positioning her in front of him along one side of the window. It would be foolish to stand in the center of the window and possibly be spotted by one of those drug soldiers.
“The Pred has this all on video,” she said, watching intently through the window. “Look at all those pickups! Where did they come from?”
“We don’t know. Look at those men. They’re armed.”
“Drug soldiers,” she spat.
Gabe was glad there were no lights on anywhere on their property. He didn’t want to have these weaponized strangers looking at them as a possible threat. “Stay here while I get dressed. I want to get our weapons ready.”
“Roger that,” she whispered, her full attention on the Elson property. Ace remained with her, the ruff on his neck standing up. Taking her cell phone from her pocket, she turned it on while Gabe grabbed a pair of jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and socks, disappearing out the door and moving toward the bathroom. Within a few minutes, he came back, dressed, their M4s locked and loaded. He placed them on the bed behind her.
“Go get dressed,” he said, “I’ll take over.”
She handed him the cell phone. “Look, Pred video. It was running a loop between the valley and the Elson ranch. It will tell you everything. I’ll be right back.”
Urgency thrummed through Gabe as he watched both the video and what was going on next door. The truck turned off, all lights doused except the one above the sliding door to the barn. He watched all six men disappear behind the truck. He didn’t have long to wait. The stash of drugs in the barn were carried out by the men. They were fast and efficient.
Then, he saw three of the men trotting out beside the truck, disappearing into the darkness. In a few moments, three pickup trucks were being backed alongside the eighteen-wheeler. In the beds, beneath tarps that were rapidly released, Gabe saw those huge bales that had been dropped in the valley. His mind spun with questions. Luckil
y, the video in their barn was taking all of this in.
“They’ve got the bales out of that meadow!” Anna said, coming back into the room, dressed. Her hair was up in a ponytail. Around her waist was a holster carrying her Glock. She stood opposite Gabe at the window, remaining hidden for the most part, watching the drug activity.
“They’re efficient,” he muttered. “They’ve done this dance more than a few times.”
“Seriously,” Anna agreed, scowling as she watched them. “No one seems to be paying any attention to us.”
“Let’s keep it that way. Are the Elsons crazy? Don’t they realize that kind of noise from that truck would wake the dead?”
She shrugged. “Half their brains have been eaten away by the drugs they use. They don’t think like normal people, Gabe. At least, that’s my experience out in the jungles with these killers.”
“I know you’re right. Maybe we’ll get off lucky tonight.”
“We’ll see,” she said tensely. “They’re backing those other three pickups to the truck now.”
“Six drug soldiers, six pickups,” he said. “Everything in the barn and their trucks are being put into that one eighteen-wheeler.”
“I want to know where it’s going,” she said.
He handed her the cell phone. “There’s a text from Salt Lake HQ,” he told her.
Squinting, she read the text. “They’re on top of this. The Pred video is being sent to them in real time, too. We’re to remain where we are. Try not to arouse suspicion.”
“It will blow my mind if the Elsons think it hasn’t awakened us.”
“They’re too busy counting the money they’ve probably just been handed by the leader of that truck brigade,” Anna growled.
“I’m sure Salt Lake is rubbing their hands in glee over this. It’s going to give them a helluva lotta leads on regional contacts and city contacts and where they’re taking this truck.”
“I’m wondering if they won’t stop the truck at some point,” Anna said.
“If they let the truck go, DEA will find out where their stops are to offload the drugs and who the dealers are. They’ll get a LOT more information that way.”
“Yeah, but they don’t want all those drugs on the street, either.”
“It’s their call, not ours. When this is all over? I want to go back to what the video showed up in that valley where the drugs were dropped. How did these pickups get up into that meadow? What’s the route?”
“I was thinking the same thing. Also? How often do they do this drop into that meadow? I’m sure there’s a plan in place. These drug lords aren’t stupid. In the jungle, I would watch them place drug stashes in certain villages for dealers to pick up. They never dropped it twice in the same spot. They are really careful about that.”
“Yes, they did that in Tijuana, across from San Diego. The drug lord I worked for had a lot of different ways to get the drugs across and into the US. About once every three months, he might have us drop the drugs in the same spot. Maybe four times a year. That way, Border Patrol wouldn’t start putting a pattern together on these drops.”
“Well, we’re in the thick of it now,” she said, giving him a dark look. “How much do the Elsons trust us? Do they think we woke up? What did we see? For all we know, the drug lord has already given the order to have us killed. That’s what they do.”
“They’re done,” he said. Looking at his watch, he said, “Fifteen minutes, tops.” He watched the pickup trucks leave and then the eighteen-wheeler pulled out behind them. The Elsons slid the barn door shut, turned off the light, and disappeared into the rear door of their house.
It was dark once more.
Anna let out a sigh and straightened, pulling the curtains closed. “Let’s go watch the Pred video from the valley and try to piece this whole operation together.”
“I’m making us some coffee, first. It’s three A.M. There’s no way I’m going back to sleep. My adrenaline’s up.”
“Mine too. I’ll go to my office. Bring me coffee? I need it, too.”
Gabe nodded and headed out of the bedroom for the kitchen. Anna turned toward the office and Ace went with her.
* * *
“They’ve got a tidy plan in place,” Gabe said, sitting next to Anna at her laptop later. The Pred video ended.
“We need to get a forest service map of that area. It shows they came in on a little-used dirt road from the west side of that meadow.”
“No road showed up on the property blueprint,” Gabe said, setting the emptied coffee cup aside. “The US Forest Service has roads like this all over the Salt Mountains. They are usually firebreak roads, so hotshot crews can get back in there to fight a wildfire, if it happens. They are nearly impassible except for a high-chassis pickup truck or maybe an ATV type of vehicle. From the look on that video, the road is muddy and pretty much ungraded or not cared for at all.”
“But why would it be there in the first place?” Anna asked, sitting back in her chair, holding his scowl. “What’s in that valley that makes it important to them to put in time and money and a grader and bulldozer in order to create it?”
“I don’t know. We need to make a call to the Teton County office in Jackson Hole, and snoop around.”
“What if the druggies made that road by simply running their pickups back and forth on it? I saw them do a lot of that in the jungles where they had important drop-off points.”
Rubbing his unshaven chin, he said, “Good observation.”
“Do we want to alert the Forest Service about this? Right now, it’s classified and only the DEA and the ATF know about it. We should probably ask them first?”
“I will.” He looked at his watch. It was six A.M. Already, the sky in the east was lightening. “Can you type a message to the night crew on duty in Salt Lake and get our marching orders?”
“Roger that.” She sat up and began to type.
Gabe looked around the quiet room. It was chilly. This house, if it could be called that, was a leaky sieve. They both wore layers of clothes, a sweater and a flannel shirt, in order to stay warm. He looked at the soft tendrils caressing Anna’s cheek. Her profile was one he could absorb twenty-four hours a day. He wondered if she didn’t have some Mayan Indian somewhere in her history. Maybe not, because her family, from what she’d shared, were from Spain, Castilian, the upper class, whose skin was frequently white, which set them apart from the poorer people of that country. A hundred years earlier her ancestors left Spain forever and settled in Guatemala, where many of their descendants still lived to this day. Anna’s grandfathers were governors in the Guatemala province where her family had their estancia. Anna’s father relied on his intelligence, abilities, and drive to climb the ranks of the military. Gabe knew how much corruption could be found in Central and South American countries. It had always been a part of them. Somehow, her father had resisted it all, a self-made man who worked hard and rose through the ranks honestly, earning his general’s stars.
And Anna was very much like him. Now, Gabe understood why she still, to this day, grieved the loss of her father. He had been a beacon of hope to the people of Guatemala. Many wanted him to run for governor, but he refused. Instead, he had been intent on cleaning up the infestation of drug lords who were using his country. And he’d gone a long way toward doing just that. Anna not only carried Spanish blood in her veins, but also qualities far more important in Gabe’s opinion: honesty, commitment, a penchant for hard work, and integrity. Her profile reflected not only of her strength of character, but also the softness he yearned to explore. He longed to share his growing love for her.
Gabe didn’t sidestep the word love. He knew what love was and what it wasn’t. And what he felt toward Anna was growing more within his heart every day. The last month, his sleeplessness and nightmares had turned into dreams of desire and, yes, lust for Anna. He was old enough to separate lust from love, although both of them started with an l.
Would there be downtime in this cat-and-mo
use game with the Elsons to focus on Anna? Now that he knew she wanted him, it was merely a question of how serious she was toward him. Gabe wanted a deep commitment from her, but wasn’t sure if it was at all possible. She was on loan to the US. Her home was in Guatemala, her mother was still alive and wanted her daughter to come home . . . but Anna couldn’t go home. Not with that million-dollar bounty on her head. Until all drug lords were eradicated from her country, if she went home, her parents’ estancia would become a target for all of them. And he knew too well that drug lords would kill innocent family members in order to wreak their revenge.
Sometimes, in quiet moments, he could see a faraway look in her eyes, and he sensed that perhaps she was homesick, wanting to share time and space with her mother, or walk the land of the estancia that she loved so much. Maybe she wanted badly to go home and live there. But Anna wasn’t stupid, and Gabe knew she wouldn’t go back to her country and leave her mother and their home open to attack by the drug lords.
He felt bad for her. In a way, she too was orphaned, but for different reasons than his unknown mother abandoning him. Maybe that was part of what drew them to each other? The loneliness? The desire to create a family out of nothing? He’d come to appreciate the human need for bonding and family. His two adopted sisters and Luke, his brother, were in the same boat with him. Maybe when such things were taken away from a person, they pined for family even more? And at his age? He wanted a family more urgently than ever before. As he quietly absorbed Anna’s profile while she worked on the email, the ache grew in his heart. He wanted this woman to be a part of him for the rest of his life. Gabe wondered if Anna wanted to create a new family. Was that a deep, aching part of her, too?
He had so many searching, intimate questions for her and none of them could be asked. Yet ...
Chapter Ten
June 2
“I think I’m whole again,” Anna told Gabe as she walked with him out to the barn. “My ankle is strong and reliable now.” Ace trotted at her side, prancing around, giving her quick looks, as if to celebrate her healing.
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