by Lois Greiman
He chuckled. Yachts. He could barely make the payment on his beat-up Silverado.
“And your spring breakage.”
He scowled before her meaning dawned. “Spring breaks,” he corrected.
“Sí,” she said and waved a dismissive hand. “We do not have these privileges. We must be diligent, must work like the dog if we wish to improve our places in lives.”
He shrugged. “Maybe your sister got tired’a workin’ like a Labradoodle. Thought she’d live a little while she’s breathin’ without an oxygen tank.”
“Sofia would do no such thing to…” She paused, pursed her sun-ripened lips. “…her future.”
Shep raised his brows, searching for the truth left unspoken…the facts just below the surface. “So she wouldn’t fuck up because she doesn’t wanna disappoint you.”
“Perhaps that is so. Perhaps her diligence is, in part, because of me and…” She stopped short, watching him.
“And Santiago.”
Maybe it was his tone that made her wince, but maybe it was something else. Something she wasn’t telling him. “No matter what you think of the señor, he has done much for us.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Shepherd agreed and let the anger seep in, raw and vicious. “So I guess this ain’t too much for him to ask’a ya.”
“What are you talk about?”
He smiled. “Come on, Lotta,” he said, gently testing the waters. Or maybe he was stirring the pot. “I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“Never did I think you were.”
“I know why you’re here.”
“Sí. You know because I told you. My sister, she is missing.”
“I’d like to believe ya, honey, but I’m gettin’ kinda tired’a bein’ the shmuck. You’re here,” he said, “to give the good doctor another chance to blow my head off.”
Chapter 6
“You are loco!” Rage swept through her. Rage and fear and guilt, colliding like outraged midfielders.
“Sure,” Shep agreed with such infuriating amicability that she wanted to smack him upside the head. Wanted to tear his heart from his chest. “I’m crazy to think you’d sacrifice me in exchange for your sister’s safe return.”
“Señor Tevio has nothing to do with this. He has no interest in you whatsoever.”
“You’d never be less than honest,” he continued evenly. “I’m nuts to think different.”
“Sí. You are that.” Her breath was coming hard. Her heart beat like a hammer in her chest.
“’Cause ya never gave me the notion ya cared for me.”
She hissed in a breath, remembering the time they’d spent alone. He’d been at death’s very door. Yet he’d remained unbroken. His strength had touched her. But there had been more that fired her attraction. Perhaps at the bottom of it, his boyish vulnerability had been just as alluring as his strength. Then again, maybe it was his other notable attributes that intrigued her, she silently admitted, and found it not altogether simple to keep her gaze from slipping down the length of his rangy body. “Just because I helped you does not mean I was in the love with you.”
He watched her, lazy lips quirking slightly, “So I imagined what was between us?”
She glanced away, not able to hold his gaze. “Sí. I am…I am sorry if you were confused.”
“Right.” He chuckled. “Well, at least we’ve straightened it out now.”
She gripped her bag tighter. “Sí, it is straightened.”
“And now, here ya are.”
“I did not…” She took a deep breath, trying to fortify her own strength. “I did not mean to make you become involved.”
“’Course not. But what could ya do? Your sister’s in trouble.”
Though she couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or earnest, she felt her stomach flip at the words. “She is all the family I have.”
He nodded, saying nothing.
“Surely, you understand.” She remembered his voice, little-boy lost as he called for a mama who would never return. But perhaps she was foolish. Perhaps he’d been duplicitous even then. Maybe his midnight ramblings had been nothing but a farce perpetrated to extract her sympathy as Señor Tevio had suggested.
“What makes ya think so?” he asked.
She scowled, wanting, against her better judgment, to know more. To understand, though she was certain she shouldn’t ask, shouldn’t care. “What family have you?”
There was a momentary pause then a devilish, lopsided grin. “None,” he said. “Never did have. Guess the good Lord thought a guy like me didn’t need nobody. I was born just this way.” He gestured to the length of his body.
She tossed her head. “Irritating and arrogant?”
The grin quirked up another quarter of an inch. “Strong as a bull, and quick as a cat.”
“Ahh, well that explains much,” she said, but couldn’t help remembering his small voice in the dark of the night--Stay with me Mama. I’ll be good. I promise. Don’t go.
“Or it would,” she added, pushing the haunting memories from her mind. “If I were naïve enough to believe a singular word you say.”
“Naïve?” he said and laughed. “Surely, ya ain’t tryin’ to make me believe you’re less than innocent.”
“Innocent!” she scoffed. “That I am not. But my sister”—she swallowed, fighting the tears—“she is just that. Always working for the better future. She studies to be the lawyer. Did you know this?”
“Ya may have mentioned it.” He said the words in a way that suggested she’d mentioned it a score of times.
She raised her chin a notch and continued. “Because of this hard work, she is the best in her class.”
“Always?”
“What?”
“Her grades ain’t dropped lately?”
“No. Of course not.” She looked angry again, angry and defensive. “Why would you ask such a things?”
He ignored the question. “And there weren’t no other signs that somethin’ was wrong?”
“No,” she said, but she fidgeted, just a little. “None of which I was aware.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Sofia…” She scowled, thinking. “Always she has been independent.”
“And?”
“And perhaps, of late, she thinks me… What is the word?”
“I can think’a a bunch of ‘em,” he said and hoped to God his tone was derisive rather than appreciative.
“Protective too much,” she said.
“Overprotective?”
“Sí. But…” She shrugged, looking small and lost.
“Maybe if ya back off a mite, she’ll come on home.”
Rage flashed like wildfire in her eyes. “Still you believe she would do this on intention!”
“Maybe.”
The anger remained, but it was smoldering now. “I suppose it is difficult for you to understand familia since you came to this Earth as a fully formed bastardo presumido.
He chuckled. “Let’s be logical here, darlin’. I mean, it’s only natural that she’d wanna spend some time with her friends. She does have friends, doesn’t she?”
“Of course, she has the friends. She is a wonderful girl. Everyone, they love her. But she would not neglect her studies.”
“Even over the holidays?”
“What holiday you speak of?”
“Thanksgivin’s comin’ right up.”
She scowled a question.
“You musta heard’a Thanksgivin’,” he said.
“Sí. It is when you Americanos celebrate stealing the lands of the native peoples.”
“Interesting perspective,” he admitted. “But it ain’t gonna do much for Stouffer sales.”
She scowled in confusion for an instant then, “You are the idiota.”
He refrained from laughing out loud. “So, what’d ya do when ya didn’t hear from her?”
She paced, brow wrinkled. “I was muy busy at the restaurante. The liquors, they had to be ordered,
and the salaries paid. Felipe has been ill. And—“
“Guilt ain’t likely to help much, honey.”
She swiveled toward him, brows gathered over snapping eyes. “Who says I feel the guilt?”
“Me.” He kept his gaze steady on hers.
She drew a breath as if to berate him, then winced and exhaled shakily. “I was to make her plump.”
“What?”
“Sofia, as a baby, she was not so big as a loaf of the bread. Too small, the doctor say. He did not expect her to live. Always, she was the skinny one, though Mama fed her the rich sauces, the sweet desserts.” She nodded as if remembering. Winced as if pained. “I promised, upon Mama’s death, that I would look after my sister. That I would not fail.”
“No one’s sayin’ ya failed, Lotta. We don’t even know if she’s in trouble yet. It’s only been a few days.”
She nodded as if trying to believe. “When is it that Señor Durrand will return?”
Shep shook his head, exhaled a snort.
“Something amuses?” she asked.
“Yeah, somethin’ amuses. The fact that ya think Gabe’s gonna find your sister’s funny as hell.”
“He found you, did he not? When you were sick. Off of your head with the delirio, he found you!”
Shep scowled, punctuated it with a scornful huff. “Yeah, he found me. But that’s just ‘cause he was spurred by the I-told-ya-so’s.”
She raised a brow. “I do not believe I am familiar with this thing.”
“He warned me not to go to South America. Damn know-it-all’d jump off a bridge for a chance to tell me to my face that I fucked up.”
“If he can find you, he can find my sister.”
“Listen, I see what you’re sayin’. But the truth is, Durrand couldn’t find his ass with both hands and a divinin’ rod. Not since Eddy showed up, anyhow.”
“Who is this Eddy?”
“His wife. He’s crazy ‘bout her. I mean, he’s always been crazy, but now…” He snapped his hands away from the sides of his head as if his cranium were exploding. “Anyway, if ya think his little bride’s loco enough to let him go gallopin’ off to Colombia with a gal carryin’ enough baggage to fill a 747, you’re off your cayuse about a mile and a half.”
She scowled quizzically as if wondering which phrase to question first then shook her head and spoke. “What of Florida?” she asked.
“What?”
“Would he gallops off to Florida?”
“What’re ya talkin’ ‘bout?”
“I have the reason to believe she is there.”
Chapter 7
Shep watched her, wondering. It was possible, he supposed, that she was telling the truth. But how much more likely was it that she was here to betray him, to seduce him? Anyone who’d known him for more than eight seconds realized he was a sucker for exotic beauties. Even more so when the beauty in question had the eyes of Madonna, the body of Rhianna, and the sultry, come-if-you-dare voice of Miranda.
“Florida,” he said, and somehow managed to keep his tone level, his disbelief at a low ebb.
“Sí.” Her pop-star body was tense, her classic-art eyes smoldered. They were brown. Just brown. Or so he told himself. But it was a lie. They were jasper pebbles beneath chuckling currents, a high-spirited bay on a misty morning, an intoxicating ballad of whiskey and want, a…
And good God, when had he become such a sap? A sap who’d tried—and failed—to drive her from his brain since the day Durrand arrived at Shep’s bedside. The day he’d escaped Santiago’s confines. The day she had run back to his captor. But the funny part…the real kick in the ass, was that despite the fact that bullets had buzzed like mad hornets, Shep would have followed her if Durrand hadn’t coldcocked him with the unforgiving butt of an AK-47. Knocked him senseless before dragging him into purgatory. Or…what some folks would call safety. And yeah, those same folks might think Shep was an ungrateful son of a bitch for his lack of gratitude, but some people didn’t understand jack.
Like why he couldn’t forget her mouth. Those honeysuckle lips that crooned and soothed and tempted.
“Florida,” he said again, trying to keep what limited wits he had, trying to keep his eyes off those lips.
“Sí.”
“In the good old US of A.”
“Is there another such place?”
Damned if he knew…or cared… but he cleared his head of trivialities and remembered watching Santiago’s man die. Watched his fingers curl hopelessly against his constricted throat as his employer, the man Carlotta admired above all others, looked on with delighted interest.
Shep then resolutely recalled every agonizing injury he’d sustained because of the fairer sex. Remembered gunshots and stabs. Kicks, punches, and burns. Hell, there were even a few bite wounds.
No one had ever accused him of being overly bright. Not where women were concerned, at least. He settled his hips with feigned nonchalance on the edge of Kelsey’s desk.
“Truth be told, I thought ya was smarter than this, Lotta,” he said.
Her eyebrows, those animated ribbons of silk, lowered a quarter of an inch. “Of what do you speak?”
“Don’t ya know there ain’t no such thing as coincidence?”
Her brows dipped lower over her ruler-straight nose. She could express more with that flawless forehead than most people could say in a damn thesis.
“Ya shoulda picked somewhere less likely, honey. San Cabos is popular when the weather’s crappy like this. Or St. Louis. Hell, even Dallas woulda made more sense.”
She added a quizzical head tilt to the visual symphony.
He laughed. “Alright, I’ll play along. Pretend I wasn’t already plannin’ a trip to the sunshine state. What makes ya think your sister’s in Florida?”
“The card post.” She said the words as if he were rather simple…which, honestly, he couldn’t entirely disagree with. Considering their history, he should have taken one look at her and hightailed it for the hills. Instead, he shifted his weight and scowled.
“What’re ya talkin’ ‘bout?”
“This!” she said and, pulling a piece of cardstock from the side pocket of her bag, breathlessly handed it over.
He glanced at the image on the front, flipped it to read the handwritten text, then raised his gaze slowly to hers. “You’re kiddin’ me, right?”
“I do not kid. Why I kid?”
“Your sister sent ya a postcard tellin’ ya she was havin’ a hell of a time in New Orleans, and ya expect me to believe she’s been drug to—“
“Huh!” she spat, almost literally. “The naïve one is you!”
He canted his head, curious and more than a little surprised. He hadn’t been called naïve since… Come to think of it, he didn’t believe he’d ever been called naïve.
“She is not in this place of New Orleans!”
“She’s not?”
“No! The person who took her only wishes me to believe as much. She is in Florida. In Coral Gables para ser preciso.”
“Where?”
“En la ciudad de Coral Gables.” She was speaking gunfire fast now, peppering the barrage with Spanish. “The picture on the front tells me as much.”
“How’s that exactly?”
“It looks to be just like the jardines of Fairchild Botanic.”
He could manage nothing more than a blank stare.
“Do you not see? We have always wished to visit that grand conservatorio. And here, look…” She stabbed the end of the written note with a scarlet-painted nail.
“I wish you were here,” he read then began at the beginning again:
Dearest Carlotta,
My apologies for failing to inform you of my plans. A friend afforded me a chance to visit New Orleans. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. You know how I’ve always wished to see this place. I’m having a wonderful time…our favorite foods, quaint lodging. All the things we so enjoy.
Wish you were here.
Love, Sofia.<
br />
“¿No lo entiendes?”
“No,” he said. “I sure as hell don’t understand.”
“You are not only naïve! You are the blind one. Do you not see how these letters differ from her others?”
“So it is your sister’s handwritin’?”
“Por supuesto! You think her abductor a fool? No. He is clever. Diabólico. .” She straightened abruptly. “I must go to Coral Gables.”
“But it’s postmarked New Orleans.”
“That is all part of the táctica to unlead me!”
“Unlead…”
“To make me believe she is safe. Happy.”
“She says she’s safe and happy,” he reminded her and tapped the card with a practical fingertip.
“Huh!” She threw up her hands as if shocked by his stupidity. “How can I reach Señor Durrand?”
“Good God, will ya forget about Gabe? He’s not gonna help ya.”
“Then I will go myself!”
“To Coral Gables. Because the postcard was mailed from New Orleans?”
“Because the h, e, l, and p, they are too wide.”
He paused. “What?”
“Sofia’s handwriting! It is muy precise. Ever since she was the child, it has been such. Each letter is perfectly formed, taking up no more and no less space than the last.”
Sofia, he decided, must be as uptight as a champagne cork and had probably gone off the deep end months ago. “So let me get this straight. You’re tryin’ to make me believe she’s bein’ held against her will.”
“Obviamente!”
“And ya know this because those four letters are too sloppy.”
“Too wide!”
“Too wide,” he corrected.
“And because she would not leave without telling me. You think I do not know my own sister?”
“Not well enough to guess what city she’s in by the size of her…” He threw up his hands in hopeless frustration. “Besides…shit…maybe she was drunk when she wrote this.”
Carlotta jerked back as if slapped, tottering before steadying herself on killer, three-inch heels “My sister does not use the strong drink.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. He himself had downed his first Budweiser at the ripe old age of twelve. “Tell me the truth, honey, do ya even have a sister?”
