They were getting close to the border. Baron fidgeted with his shirt where it hung over his shorts in the back. “It feels weird to not have a gun.”
Nessa wrapped a hand around his arm, loving the feel of his rounded bicep. It was as hard as rock. “We’ll just hope this is as calm as a stroll through any California market where you could walk around without a gun.”
“I never walk around without carrying,” said Baron.
“What? This whole time we’ve been together you’ve had a gun?”
“Of course,” said Baron. “Too bad it’s illegal to carry in Mexico.”
They reached the building labeled ‘Mexico’ in huge letters and walked in. A Mexican agent checked their passports and they were on their way.
“That was easy,” said Nessa as they stepped out of the building to a covered walkway.
“It won’t be like that going the other direction,” said Baron.
“What’s that?” asked Nessa, pointing to a huge arch ahead of them in the distance.
“Tijuana River Bridge.” Baron took her hand casually as if they walked hand in hand every day.
For a couple minutes, Nessa just walked, loving the feel of his strong hand, loving this connection with him. As badly as she wanted to uncover a drug deal today, she did not want the mission with Baron to end.
“How does this look?” asked Baron, coming to a stop in front of a clothing shop. It had some cute blouses.
“Great,” said Nessa. She didn’t take long picking out a white blousy cotton shirt with embroidered red flowers along the neck and short sleeves. She swapped for her “DEA shirt and jacket” in a dressing room.
“I love that shirt,” said Baron “I love you in that shirt.”
Nessa loved the shirt even more, but she especially loved his reaction to her in the shirt.
Baron handed a card to the cashier. “Expense account,” he explained, “just so you don’t object.”
Half a block later they repeated the quick trip into a store selling knock-off name brand clothes and bought a pair of shorts.
“Much better,” said Baron. “Now we match.”
“That wasn’t my idea of a fun shopping spree, but at least I don’t stick out. How are we on time?” She pulled out her phone. “Still got 45 minutes. Should we get a taxi?”
“Not here,” said Baron, pulling out his phone. “The taxis near the border are unregulated and unreliable. We’ll do Uber.”
“I thought you didn’t know enough about Tijuana to feel safe here,” said Nessa.
“I still don’t,” said Baron. “But I had a little time to cram on the way here and I’ve been trained to gather key bits of intel quickly.”
A car with an Uber sticker pulled up two minutes later. “Señor Baron?” asked the driver.
“Sí,” said Baron, opening the door for Nessa, then sliding in after her.
The driver asked a question in Spanish, and Baron answered without missing a beat. With a nod, the driver took off down street.
“How many languages do you speak?” asked Nessa.
“Can I count dialects?”
“Of course,” said Nessa.
“Eleven.” Baron looked aside as if … embarrassed? “And a half.”
“Eleven? Wait, what’s the half?”
After delaying half a second, he said, “Klingon.”
“You speak Klingon?” Nessa wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. “Like Star Trek?”
“Only a little.”
She hadn’t taken him for a Trekkie. “Big fan, huh?”
“Eh,” he said. “So so.”
“You called me the big nerd and you’re the one who learned Klingon for fun?”
Baron grinned and shrugged. After glancing around at the street, he said, “I thought learning a constructed language would help train my brain and it was either Klingon, Esperanto, or Elvish from Lord of the Rings.”
“Nerd,” she said, elbowing him in the side.
“Thanks,” he replied.
“So what are the other ones?”
“English, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Classical Syriac, Levantine Arabic, Mesopotamian—”
“Is that a real language?” She watched him for a sign of joking around, and saw him check out the windows again, as if ready for an ambush. “Or are you planning to awaken an ancient mummy by reading an old papyrus spell?”
Baron’s laugh was slightly forced. It was obvious he was growing uncomfortable the further they got from the main tourist centers. That was making Nessa nervous, which would probably just make him more nervous. There had to be something she could do to ease the stress.
She scooted into the middle seat and said, “You forgot one language, my boyfriend.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah,” she whispered in his ear. A quiver passed down his spine and she was close enough to feel it, as well as the goose bumps on his arm. “The language of love.” She leaned in front of him and returned the kiss he had surprised her with on the other side of the border.
Baron relaxed into her for the duration of the kiss, which wasn’t very long, but oh so sweet.
“Don’t know how I forgot that one,” said Baron. “It’s my favorite one, even though I’m still learning it.”
“You looked a little nervous,” she said, still in his space and only loud enough for him to hear. “So I thought I’d make you feel better.”
“As much as I appreciate it,” he told her, stealing a glance around her to see out the passenger side window, “and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’d rather be a little nervous. On my toes.”
“So no more kissing?”
In a quiet voice he said, “I’m so tempted to turn this into a real vacation and take you somewhere and kiss you like crazy.” He blew out a breath. “But I told you I was in on this mission, and so I’m not going to derail it.”
“Darn you and your Navy SEAL principles.”
The car came to a stop. Nessa looked up to see surf boards stacked outside of a small shop. They were here! It was on. Nessa thought she was going to die. She wasn’t a secret agent, she was a glorified data analyst. What was she thinking crossing international borders to bust up a major drug deal?
“Nessa,” said Baron. He put his hand on her arm. “Breathe.”
She was breathing, too fast actually.
“You’re ready for this, Dr. Dimmick.”
Nessa felt better. They could do it.
“Gracias,” said Baron, sliding out of the car.
Nessa repeated it and followed him out.
“Let’s hit the waves,” said Nessa. “Is that even what they say?”
“I don’t know,” said Baron. “Never surfed before.”
“What?” said Nessa. “Neither of us have surfed. Can we still do this?”
“Totally,” whispered Baron, “but we’re early. C’mon.” He led her into the shop next door and they bought a couple of tacos.
“Ok,” said Nessa when the tacos were gone. “Ten minutes. We can go now, right?”
“Let’s do it,” said Baron.
He took her hand again.
We got this, thought Nessa. We totally got this.
The surf shop was small, but they had merchandise floor to ceiling, covering all the walls. Baron already had sunglasses on, and he grabbed a pair for Nessa and handed them to her. Enough light came in the wide open front wall of the shop that it wasn’t weird for them to be wearing them. Next, Baron led her directly to the swimsuits. Nessa raised an eyebrow at him and caught him smirking at her.
“What’s your style?” he asked.
“Does it matter?” Nessa ran her finger along a row of string bikinis. “Not a whole lot of variety.” She had never worn any swimsuit so revealing.
“What do you mean?” Baron held up a tiny pink two-piece. “This one actually has a real butt instead of a g-string.”
“Oh, missed that one.”
Nessa looked around the shop. The only person there was a pretty yo
ung attendant. No shady guys loitering in the corner. No funky smoke pouring from a back room or funky chemical, meth lab smell. No kids looking up and down the street ready to warn the big dealers.
“You could pull it off,” he said, “but no pressure.”
As he put the almost non-existent suit back, Nessa pictured herself in one of them. Not that she was going to wear one today in front of Baron, or in public, but she didn’t mind his comment one bit.
“How about some shorts?” he asked.
Nessa moved to the stack of surf shorts. “Look! Matching!” She held up a short women’s pair and longer men’s suit. Both had the same pattern—large white and sky blue stripes with dark blue anchors.
Baron grinned at her. “You’re so cheesy. I love it!”
The sound of a truck’s engine rumbled from outside and Nessa found her head going automatically to check it out.
“How about these tank tops?” asked Baron.
Had he not noticed the truck, or was he just playing it cool? That was a dumb question, actually. He was a highly trained Special Forces guy. Of course he knew there was a delivery truck outside. In his baseball cap and sunglasses he just looked like any other handsome, buff tourist.
Baron was holding up a coral and green floral pattern top.
“Oh, honey,” said Nessa. “Are you teasing me or can you really not see how bad that clashes?”
He shrugged and stepped to the side. “Do any of these match?” From the position he’d taken up, he had a great view of the shop.
Nessa came to stand next to him, keeping her head facing down, but her eyes up. A clean-cut guy walked in, approaching the attendant. Even without the Thompson Produce shirt, she would have recognized the driver who she’d expected—Brody.
I knew it!
Nessa wanted to pump her fist and tell Baron she’d told him so. Not that he’d doubted her. Instead she picked up a pink tank top and held it up.
The delivery driver reached the attendant and they embraced immediately and shared a very intimate kiss. He said something to her in Spanish and she replied.
Baron, still as casual as a tourist, said, “This matches, but the one I picked clashes?”
“You’re kidding me, right?” she said.
The attendant led Brody to the back of the store, where the stock room would be. They were hand in hand, and Brody looked at her hungrily as he followed her.
“A tryst,” said Nessa under her breath.
“Yep,” muttered Baron. “A hook-up.”
A teenage boy came out of the back and sat on the chair by the cash register. He barely noticed Baron and Nessa.
Nessa was deflated. It wasn’t her fault that nothing illegal was going on, to her knowledge anyway. In fact, her data analysis was perfect and Brody, the little horndog, had proved it. He just wasn’t up to what they thought he was up to.
It would be almost exactly ten minutes until Brody came out and drove on, or so the data said. Baron and Nessa continued to browse, picking out every beach accessory in the shop—sunblock, towels, an oversized umbrella, snacks, soda, bottled water, and an assortment of stickers. She hoped it wasn’t obvious they were killing time and waiting for the tryst in the back room to be done. By the time Brody came out, they had a pile of stuff at the register as well as merchandise under both arms.
Baron was already at the register and told the teenager, “I think we got one of everything, so I guess we’re ready.” The kid smiled and nodded as he tallied up the purchase.
Under the guise of holding up another tank top, Nessa eyed Brody. The female store attendant didn’t come out with him, and he was carrying something in each hand. That was a little suspicious, but Nessa couldn’t see what he was carrying because of the display racks.
The female attendant came out of the back and chose just that second to come over to ask Nessa, “Do you need help?” It didn’t sound like she was suspicious of Nessa, it just seemed like she was trying to look like nothing suspicious had just happened.
The worst part was that Nessa didn’t dare follow Brody with her eyes, and never saw what he was carrying. “I’m fine,” said Nessa, dying a little inside as what she’d come all this way to see walked right out the door in the arms of the delivery driver.
“Wait,” said Baron. “Forgot one thing.” He went over to the very front of the store and grabbed a t-shirt off the rack.
Nessa wondered if he’d sneaked a glimpse outside and if he’d seen what Brody was carrying.
I can do this, she told herself, determined to stick to the undercover persona.
“Need to rent surfboard?” asked the woman. Nessa wondered why she was all of a sudden giving such good service when she had ignored them when they first came in. Oh wait, Nessa wasn’t the only one who had been waiting for Brody. This woman had to be ready for him when he arrived, and couldn’t be bothered with customers before then.
Then she realized the woman was waiting for an answer. They hadn’t rehearsed this. Were they renting boards here? Were they even really going surfing today?
“No thanks,” said Baron. He explained something in Spanish—maybe something about a hotel?—and the woman nodded, then went to the register to help the teenager ring everything up.
Nessa joined Baron at the counter, wishing the clerks would check them out faster so she could get Baron outside to sort through all the info.
Eventually the teenager finished adding all the purchases and turned the iPad toward Baron and said what Nessa assumed was a number in Spanish. Instead of giving him the expense card, Baron handed over a few bills.
Of course, no cyber trail that way. Nessa should have thought of that. They were out the door within minutes, carrying bags of goodies.
Baron took the bag out of one of her hands, transferred it to his hand that was already carrying a bag, then interlaced fingers with her. Nessa almost forgot they were just playing undercover. It would be so nice to just relax on the beach with him for the rest of the day, but she had to know more about what he’d seen.
They turned toward the beach and didn’t speak until they reached the sand and were relatively isolated. Keeping her eyes on the shoreline ahead, Nessa said, “Did you see what he was carrying? Did that seem uber suspicious to you? Are we really going surfing? Wait.” She stopped and turned toward him. “Did you say something about a hotel? And will you please wipe that adorable smirk off your face?”
“No, to that last question,” said Baron. “I can’t remember the rest of the questions in order, so I’ll just tell you the plan. I told them we were going to get boards from the hotel, and yes, we are going surfing. We don’t want to blow our cover.”
“And the hotel?” She was almost positive that was just part of their cover story, and wasn’t really going to happen.
“Yep,” said Baron. “Doing that too. There could be eyes anywhere, and us being there at that exact time might make us suspicious, just in case anyone is watching us.”
A hotel! The two of them? As much as Nessa loved being with him, and how perfect a weekend together would be, Nessa would wear a string bikini to church before she hooked up with a guy. She opened her mouth to object, but Baron didn’t let her get a word out.
“We’ll get a room with two beds. I’m not going to try anything, but I think it’s really important we keep up the charade. Especially since something suspicious is definitely going on there.”
“What?” asked Nessa, too interested to feel the full impact of relief at the moment. “What was he carrying out of the shop?”
“Coke,” said Baron.
“Holy cow! Cocaine? Just carried it out of the store, just like that?” It was hard to walk casually when she wanted to either turn and face him, or run like a little girl and wave her hands in the air in celebration.
“No,” he said with a chuckle. “Coca Cola.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
Nessa was back at the bottom of the roller coaster. All that for a boot
y call and drink stop? No, that didn’t make sense. All of it together didn’t make any sense.
“But there’s gotta be more to it,” she said. “Right?”
Baron nodded. “There’s gotta be. I’m sure of it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really. Strong work, Dr. Dimmick. You cracked it.”
Nessa’s grin was as wide as the ocean along the horizon. She’d done it. Back to the top of the roller coaster again. “Not a bad partner, huh?” she said, nudging his muscular side with her elbow. “I bet you feel really bad now about treating me like a kid.”
“I felt bad before,” he insisted. “Now I just feel stupid.”
Nessa pulled out her phone. “I’m calling Sutton.”
“Not yet,” said Baron.
“We have to call now. There’s still time to stop him at the border.”
Baron shook his head. “That’s exactly what we don’t want to do.”
“You aren’t making any sense. It’s the entire reason we came to Mexico.”
Baron winced and said, “The reason we came is because you were coming with or without me, and I refused to let you go alone. I’m sorry that I didn’t even think to tell you this until we got here, but we can’t do anything today. Even if we would have seen him carrying out the other kind of coke, we couldn’t do it.”
“Why not? We don’t have to go to the border. Sutton could make a call to the Border Patrol, give him a description and a license plate.”
This time Baron stopped and turned toward her. “I know how much this means to you, and I know it stinks to high heaven.”
“It doesn’t have to,” said Nessa. “We could save a life today.”
Baron turned on the smolder switch on his brown eyes, trying that spell he sometimes cast over her. Nessa didn’t think he was doing it on purpose. But she was strong. She could resist him, and even win him over.
“Nessa, if the mule gets singled out at the border after months without any problems, and the Border Patrol goes straight for his very unsuspicious bottles of Coke, who are the suppliers going to look at?”
Arg! He was right. She hated it, but he was right. Nessa and Baron would be in danger in that case. “No!” she exclaimed, kicking sand into a dust cloud in frustration. “Let’s get out of here. Right now. Go back across and there’s nothing they can do to us.”
The Honest Warrior: Navy SEALs Romances 2.0 Page 7
