by Lois Greiman
“I knew ya were…” He chuckled as if searching for an acceptable adjective with which to describe her. “It’s clear ya was…well…we’ll call it opportunistic, but I didn’t think ya’d stoop to that.”
She swung toward him without thought, without malicious intent, but apparently, her palm had malevolent ideas of its own. It smacked against his cheek before she had time to think, much less curtail her actions. “¿Cómo te atreves a juzgarme, cerdo? Vosotros dos, puta masculine!”
He didn’t so much as flinch. Instead, he quirked a brow in concert with his cocky lips.
“Señorita,” he scolded and tsked as he stepped toward her, “is that any way for a lady to talk?”
She retreated, breathing hard. He followed, not breathing at all.
“Dammit, Shepherd!” Kelsey snapped, sounding both stunned and angry. “Stand down.”
“Or maybe lady’s too generous a term.”
“Shepherd!” Kelsey snarled and lunged to stand between them. “What the hell’s wrong with you? I said stand down!”
He raised his gaze from Carlotta to Kelsey. Calm returned to his eyes. An expression of infuriating amusement settled by cautious degrees onto his usually affable face. “You’re right. Of course. My apologies, señorita, I didn’t mean to scare ya.”
“Scare me?” It was his amusement that irritated Carlotta the most. That look of offhand superiority that made her raise her chin. That made her force a laugh. “You are not the man enough to frighten me.”
His smile widened, but there was anger, barely banked, behind it. That much she knew, if little else. “No?”
“No!”
He nodded. “Why don’t you and me talk, then? Let Kels be about her business.”
“Don’t be an ass, Shepherd. I’m not going to leave you alone with this poor—“
“No!” Carlotta said and jerked her chin. “I am not afraid of this…this héroe fingido.”
“Héroe fingido?” Shepherd asked.
“Pretend hero,” she spat. “But you know what this meaning already, do you not?”
He brightened his smile, almost managing to make it look real.
She curled her lips at him. “Always you knew what we say while we so carefully nurse you back into the health.”
“So carefully…” He threw back his head and laughed before scorching her with his blue blaze eyes. Light glistened on his teeth, shimmered on the pearly snaps of his blue denim shirt. “Is that what you call it in your cesspool of a country?”
“Tu perro desagradecido! Probably you injured yourself just to gain our sympathies.”
He held his smile, but rage burned behind the façade. ”Injured myself.”
She shrugged; a dismissive shift of too-tight shoulders, knowing she was goading him. She had been told, on more than one occasion, that she could disturb the patience of a saint.
“Always you were the liar,” she hissed.
“Me?” The word was taut with tension, graveled with disbelief. He stepped toward her again.
“Hey!” Kelsey snapped and raised her arms as if to ward him off, but Carlotta snagged her sleeve.
“Thank you,” she said, catching the woman’s gaze. “But all is well. You may leave us. Por favor.”
Kelsey’s brows dipped in uncertainty. “Are you sure?”
“Sí,” she said. “This I am.”
“All right then. But I’ll be right outside.” The redhead’s tone was uncertain. She shifted her attention from Roy/Linus to her as if assessing their individual strengths before apparently deciding on an ultimate winner. “If you need help hiding his body or something.”
Chapter 4
¡Que demonios! Carlotta wondered, but in a moment, she was alone with Linus Shepherd. It was a situation that required all her attention, for though he had adopted a casual stance with one capable shoulder propped against the wall to his right, she could feel his nearness in every buzzing nerve ending.
Drawing a fortifying breath, she felt her nostrils flare, and her heart race as he raised his leisurely gaze from her chest to her face. “I knew ya was gutsy,” he admitted. “But I didn’t think ya’d have the nerve to come here.”
She forced a shrug and hoped to God she looked half as relaxed, a third as unconcerned as he. “It seems you do not know me so well as you thought, señor.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” he asked and chuckled. “Tell me, darlin’, what’s your real name?”
She raised her brows and allowed a smile, just a little twist of lacquered lips. She’d reapplied her makeup minutes earlier, worn her most flattering dress, her most seductive shoes…just in case Gabriel Durrand was, like every man in her acquaintance thus far, influenced by a shapely figure, a pretty face. “You think I am the liar about my name?”
“Isn’t that what ya do in your country? Your good friend for instance. Seems like he’s got himself a couple a monikers. Buen Sanador, the good doctor, for his medical shit. Señor Tevio for his ahh-shucks-I’m-nothin’-but-a folksy-farmer charade. And Timoteo Santiago for his…less law-abiding adventures.
“But wait, ya don’t believe he’s anythin’ less than a saint, do ya?”
She increased the wattage of her smile, though he was close to the truth. For years, she had believed…had tried to believe…that her supporter was nothing more than a gentle doctor, an admired businessman, a trusted friend. But what did she believe now that her world had been torn to pieces?
“I am not the one to lie about who I am,” she said simply.
“Ya sayin’ ya told me your real name? Honest to God?” He chuckled. “I’m impressed. And honored.” He held the smile carefully in place. “Anythin’ else ya told me that wasn’t a damn lie?”
“Why is it you care?” she asked and trailed a fingertip along the rich grain of Kelsey’s desk. “You have your easy life here in America.” She raked him with her gaze, taking in the tooled leather of his cowboy boots before moving slowly back up his endless legs, his sculpted chest. “Your fine clothes. Your…” She paused, breath held. “¿Adoradora esposa?”
His brows jerked up a notch. “Ya think I’m married?”
She shrugged her disinterest. “In truth, señor, I neither know nor care.”
“I’m wounded,” he said and placed long, splayed fingers against his chest. “Heartbroken.”
She chuckled, circling him. “For that, señor, a heart would be required, would it not?”
“You’re accusin’ me of bein’ heartless?”
“Was it not you whom I tended while your wounds healed?”
“Wounds caused by your beloved countrymen,” he reminded her.
She ignored the accusation, though the truth of his words stung. “Was it not you who vowed never-ending adoration?”
“What I offered was to take you with me,” he said, and his face darkened.
“Sí, you did that,” she agreed. “And when I refused, you swiftly left, flew from my country without the other word. But maybe in America that is how long never-ending lasts.”
“So the fact that your good friend, Santiago, was taking potshots at my head didn’t seem like a good enough reason for me to hightail it?”
Guilt boiled up, spun her toward him. “He believed you meant me harm!”
“Bullshit!” he snarled.
“I owe him my life!” she snapped. “My sister’s life. My—“
“He’s a murderer!”
She drew in a deep breath, steadied her mind, changed tactics. “You believe this? You believe him to be the monster? And yet you made no effort to save me from him?”
“No effort?” He snorted. “I practically got myself cut in half tryin’ to save you.”
“Sí. For a moment!” She raised her hand, index finger and thumb pressed tightly together. “One tiny grain of time. Then you ran like the spineless perro!”
A muscle, taut with anger, jumped in his jaw. “I didn’t think my lifeless corpse was gonna be real beneficial for you, chica.”
“Sí, you were in danger then. But what of later? Maybe you had no phone with which to call? No internet? No post office from which to mail so much as a letter?” Her voice had risen against her will. She admonished herself, calmed her breathing.
“Listen…” He took a step toward her, but she raised her hands, palms out.
“It does not matter,” she assured him, finding that patient tone that some found more galling than her rage. “I care not what you think.”
“Sure.” He grinned, watching her as he settled the hard curve of his hip against the desk behind him. “That’s why ya traveled a couple’a thousand miles to find me.”
Her breathy huff sounded appropriately surprised, endlessly amused, she thought. “You believe I came for you?”
He shrugged. “Ya coulda gone anywhere in the big ol’ US of A, yet ya landed here, where I just happen to be. Kinda coincidental, don’t ya think, sweetheart?”
“It is so like a man…and an Americano…to believe yourself to be the center of the universe.”
“Tell me I’m wrong,” he said and straightened, to saunter toward her.
“You are wrong,” she vowed and refused to back away, though perhaps caution truly was preferable to rash bravery.
“So ya didn’t want to see me?” They were inches apart now.
“I would not cross the Plaza Botero to see you!” she spat, and yet his nearness made something inside her twist…like a blade in her heart. She could remember every word he had spoken to her. But it was the things he’d said in delirium that were most deeply engrained. The sorrow of the warrior mourning his fallen comrades. The agony of the child who had lost his mama.
“So why are ya here then?” he asked.
She shoved the memories from her mind. He was neither a hero nor a boy. He was a man…and an irritating one. “I try to help when I believe someone for which I care is in danger. Unlike some.”
For a moment, she thought he might actually strike her, but finally, he laughed. “So I was right. Santiago’s gone AWOL?”
“No. You are not right,” she said. “It is my sister who is missing.”
Chapter 5
“What?” Shepherd drew back, marshaling his senses. What the hell was it about this woman that made him lose them? Yeah, she was hot. But it wasn’t that. Okay, it wasn’t just that. It was her toughness. Or her tenderness. Or her… Hell, he didn’t have a clue what it was. “Your sister’s missin’?”
He watched her draw a breath, watched misery drench her striking features. Or was it all a ploy? An act perpetrated for reasons as yet unknown?
“Please,” she said, “say you will contact Señor Durrand regarding my situation. He has but to call this number.” She handed him a card and tried to turn away, but he caught her arm. She jerked from his grasp but didn’t retreat.
“Slow down. Wait just one damned minute. Let’s start at the beginnin’. I thought your sister was in a boardin’ school kinda deal.”
She nodded slowly, as if reluctant to share even that much, but finally she clasped her hands and inhaled shakily. “Aspaen Gimnasio Iragua. She was…is…a muy bien student there.”
“What happened?”
“I do not know.”
“How long’s she been gone?”
“I spoke to Principale Vargas. Sofia participated in her classes on Friday last.”
Today was Thursday. “What about the weekend? Was she around then?”
Carlotta scowled, looking angry, but was there a hint of guilt clouding the rage? “l…we do not speak so often as I would like. We“—her hands, as expressive as an artist’s, fluttered—“we are the busy ones. She with her estudios. Me with my job.”
“When was the last time ya saw her in the flesh?”
There was the slightest delay then, “I have not seen her since the Christmas.”
“Is there a problem between the two’a ya?”
“No! Of course not. Why would there be? We are the sisters. She is the sweet girl, and I am…the same.”
He watched her and wondered if the lady protested too much. She was nervous. That much was certain. But why? Because she was lying, or because she was scared? Or both. Maybe she was scared because she was lying. Or lying because she was scared. The thought drove a stake dangerously close to his heart, but he ignored it, reminding himself that he had no wish to act the fool again. In fact, if she planned to betray him a second time, she should damned well be terrified. “Okay.”
“But usually, I hear from her on the Sundays when she is finished with her estudios.”
“Not this week?”
“No.” She turned to pace. “And she has neither returned to her classes.”
“Ya talk to her roomies?
“Roomies?” She scowled over her shoulder at him.
He ignored the fact that she looked as perfect as a sculpted image with her hair drifting freely against the soft contours of her face. “She does have roommates, right?”
“Oh, sí, I spoke to them.”
“How ‘bout her friends?”
“They know nothing.”
“Maybe they’re lyin’? Maybe she took off and asked them not to tell.”
She snorted, seeming to find the idea ridiculous. “Sofia would do no such thing. Always she is busy with her schoolwork. She has no time for such”—she made a dismissive motion with her hand—“frivolidades.”
“How old is she?” he asked and thought regardless of her age, he had not yet reached that level of maturity.
“We will celebrate her seventeenth birthday in four months’ time.”
In fact, Shep mused, he kinda hoped he’d never be so ancient that he wouldn’t… Wait a minute!
“She’s sixteen?” he asked, awed. Somehow, when Carlotta had spoken of her sister in the past, he had assumed Sofia was little more than a child. “And she’s never run off with friends?”
“She is muy responsible.”
“Yeah, okay, I get that,” he lied. What was the point of being a kid if you couldn’t go batshit crazy every once in a while? “But she’s human, right?”
Some of the fear dissipated…only to be replaced by irritation. “She did not run off, as you put it.”
“Alright. Let’s assume that’s true for a minute.” He paced, mind racing. “How do ya usually communicate with her?”
She scowled at the question.
“Telephone? Emails? Smoke signals? What?”
“Sofia, she has the mobile phone.”
“A cell phone, good.” He nodded. There were ways to track such devices. If she had it with her—and what teenager didn’t tote her cell around like a puppy would a bone—there’d be a means to track her. “Are ya listed on the account? If you’re the primary contact, all you gotta do is call the phone company. Ask ‘em to—“
“Señor Tevio pays the bill.”
He felt her words like a physical blow. As visceral as a punch. But he fought past it. Unless she was lying—and he didn’t think she was…not about this—a girl was missing. A child, really. Still, he couldn’t control the bitterness in his voice. “So, what does the good doctor say?” He tried to keep his tone neutral, but it was beyond his capabilities. Could be that there was something about being drugged, handcuffed, and shot that made him a little bit testy.
“He does not know of her disappearance,” she said.
Doubts swarmed in like Colombian mosquitos, but he couldn’t turn away. Without Carlotta at his bedside, he would’ve died in the jungle. If not from sheer depression, surely from some idiotic attempt to free himself. Her presence had given him hope, something to live for. She’d made it possible to wait, to think, to heal. Though she’d betrayed him in the end, he owed her. And wasn’t that a pisser! “You didn’t tell him?”
“The señor has much with which to concern himself. I had no wish to bother him with my troubles.”
He watched her, wondering. “So where do ya think she is?”
“My country,”—she paused, winced, then brighten
ed, her optimism almost painful to watch. “It is a wonderful place, filled with beauty and life and goodness. But some people…” She shook her head. “We are not wealthy…not like you Americanos. And hunger…it makes people do the desperate things.”
There was a problem with her soliloquy. For instance, some Colombians were as rich as Midas. The murdering bastard she called Señor Tevio came to mind. Turned out there was a good deal of cash to be made in the cocaine trade. But she refused to believe the truth. So was the woman simply naïve? Could it be she actually didn’t realize her protector was a drug lord and murderer?
The fear in her eyes was real. Of that, Shep was certain. Almost.
“Do ya think she’s been kidnapped?” he asked.
“Querido Dios!” Her face, that delectable caramel confection, went pale, her knuckles white against the strap of her bag.
“Do ya?” he asked. Prisoners did not fare well in Colombia. He could attest to that fact.
“I do not know what to believe.”
“So you haven’t gotten a ransom note.”
She winced again, shook her head.
“Has Santiago?”
“No.” She reared back as if struck. “He knows nothing of the situation.”
That seemed unlikely. Why wouldn’t she go to her sainted hero for help? He wondered but didn’t broach the question. “If she’s not bein’ held for ransom, what could the motivation be?”
She shook her head. “I do not know.”
“Any other schoolgirls gone missin’?”
“No. Just..” Her voice broke again, but she soldiered on. “Just Sofia.”
“And you’re sure she didn’t take off on a lark.”
“How would she leave on a bird?”
“A lark. A laugh. A prank,” he explained. “Just for shits and giggles. It sounds like she’s got her nose to the grindstone pretty firm. Could be she just got tired’a havin’ it ground down to a nub. I know when I was in school—“
“We are not Americano.”
He watched her, assessing. “I got a feelin’ that’s an insult. I just ain’t’m just not sure how.”
“You people…” She narrowed her dark-river eyes. “With your limousines and your yachts and your—“
