Wild Justice (Delta Force Book 3)

by M. L. Buchman

  “Mierda!”

  They rode in silence until the dirt track narrowed. Where it turned south, she picked up the single file horse trail deeper into the Douglas fir and cedar woods to the north.

  “Can we just pretend that I don’t have a family?”

  “I dunno,” Duane rode easily as they took a small jump over a fallen alder. “Your grandmother is an interesting woman. And I suspect Consuela is as well.”

  “Consuela has some degree, an MBA maybe? I just never think of her as grown.” Or think of her at all, really, which was pretty shameful. “The others are slime.”

  “Yep, the others are slime.”

  She could have done without his easy agreement reinforcing the truth.

  “There’s one other exception,” he noted.

  “Who?”

  When he didn’t respond, she reined in Diablo and turned to face him.

  He sidled Genuine up alongside her until they were boot-to-boot. He had a strange half smile as she puzzled at it.

  With his effortless strength, he plucked her from her saddle and set her astride Genuine’s saddle facing him.

  “Oh,” was all she managed as she clung to him.

  “Where are we headed?” He kissed her lightly, teasing her lips with his taste of fine wine and deep earth.

  “Diablo knows the way,” she leaned out just enough to slap Nana’s horse on the butt, sending him ambling ahead. Letting go of all the madness, she lay her head on Duane’s shoulder and let the easy rhythm of horse and man lull her until she couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

  “It is my favorite place in the Hills.”

  Duane could see why. Diablo had led them to a small lake tucked deep in the forest. It wasn’t big, perhaps a hundred feet across. There was a clearing at one end, barely big enough for the two horses now grazing there. Medium- and old-growth trees circled the little lake, but the high afternoon sun managed to reach down to them from the patch of blue sky.

  “Too bad we didn’t bring bathing suits. I really wanted to see you in that bikini.”

  Then he turned and saw that Sofia was already stripping down.

  Sofia Forteza naked in the bedroom was one thing. Sofia Forteza naked in the forest was something else entirely. This wasn’t the lethal jungle of Venezuela; it was a haven in the gentle woods of Oregon. Here she was both the fantasy of the bedroom and the wonder of their first meeting in the wilderness.

  The water was cool and they swam and floated in it speaking of nothing. When they grew too warm, they paddled into the dappled shade made by the tops of the highest trees. When too cool, they swam back beneath sun shining down from the cap of sky. And the entire time he could not take his eyes off the woman beside him.

  “What the hell are you doing to me, Forteza?”

  “This!” Sofia pounded a palmful of water into his face. She tried to swim off, squealing with delight when he managed to snag her ankle. She was as rough and tumble in the water as she had been on the sheets. They were both going to be bruised after this, if they didn’t drown first.

  Somehow she broke free and bolted for the shore. He wasn’t a SEAL, but there was an honor to be upheld. They raced the length of the lake.

  Their shared calls of hitting the shore declared it a tie. Actually, Sofia had him by a hand length, not that he’d ever admit it.

  “My great-grandmother, she was a mermaid,” Sofia proudly declared as she stepped ashore, knowing she’d won, and began wringing the water out of her hair.

  “I’m descended straight from the Greek god Pan,” he swept her up in his arms and carried her over to lie on his clothes. Where some protection was also handy in his jeans pocket. “Pan was a big fan of hanging out with stunningly gorgeous nymphs.”

  “Hmm,” Sofia made a delighted sound. “Descendant of a lustful Greek god. Remember I was telling you about the Greek officer who I danced with in the shower. He—”

  He stoppered her merry laugh with a kiss, apparently the only way to silence her. No, he soon discovered, there were other ways. Or at least ways to elicit other sounds aside from coherent speech.

  Halfway through, Sofia rolled him onto his back and sat astride him.

  “I want you to see what I’ve been seeing.”

  “What, your magnificent breasts?” He caressed them with his hands so that she knew exactly what he was talking about.

  She clamped her hands over his to keep them there, but nodded upward. “No. This!”

  Sofia, beautiful Sofia, framed against the pines and the blue sky as she slowly began rediscovering the rhythm they’d been building since the moment he’d dragged her onto his horse.

  “You aren’t of this world!” At least not any world he knew. His world was bounded by women fitting into a very clear role. Sex—sometimes good, sometimes great. Fun—while it lasted. Then safely gone. A space that Sofia refused to occupy. She kept bursting through the careful perimeter he’d staked and claimed as his own.

  What if she became more?

  She was going to be gone. After this mission or the next, she’d disappear back behind the invisible curtain of The Activity as neatly as the Wizardess of Oz.

  And when she did, what was going to happen to him?

  There was an easy answer. Keep it light. Keep it about the sex.

  But even as she did something with her hips that should be stamped Top Secret and Potentially Lethal—maybe a move straight from Mata Hari for eliciting information from unsuspecting men—Duane knew this was no longer about sex.

  She still clamped his hands to her breasts. He arched up his hips to reach deeper into her. She hung her head. Bracing on the edge, preparing for the moment of release. Her hair a wave darker than the oldest bark on the sheltering trees.

  Then Sofia looked at him. Her fathomless eyes were watching him, puzzling at the same question.

  If this wasn’t sex, what the hell was it?

  His release triggered hers, and this time she wasn’t the only one to groan with the power of it as it swept over them. He’d heard women describing their orgasms as “shattering.” For perhaps the first time, he understood. Those carefully constructed perimeter fences inside him were crumbling—fast.

  Even as they both slid from ecstasy to shudder to collapsing together until they were as close as two people could be, the question remained.

  If this wasn’t sex, what the hell was it?

  Chapter 16

  When they returned to the house, Sofia went to look in on Nana. She was sleeping fitfully. She shooed Duane away and sat beside her. It was over an hour before Nana awoke.

  “Still not dead yet,” Nana greeted her.

  “I’m not a ghoul. I’m worried.”

  “About what?”

  “About you. About the winery. About Duane.”

  “Mr. Jenkins strikes me as a young man very skilled at taking care of himself.”

  She helped Nana struggle a little higher on the pillow.

  “It will just take him some time to see the wider picture of how much he already cares about you.”

  “Okay. Now I’m more worried about Duane.”

  “You have the same problem, but you’ll get over it. It only takes time.” Nana signaled toward the glass of water at her bedside.

  Sofia fetched it, unnerved by Nana needing even that small bit of help.

  “I need to get you a nurse.”

  Nana flapped her hand at her. “Your sister, Consuela, already did. I gave the nurse the day off while you were here so that you wouldn’t have to worry.”

  “Well, that didn’t work, did it?”

  Nana smiled wryly, “I suppose not. She’ll be back in the morning.”

  Sofia chewed on her lip, unsure how to proceed.

  “Spit it out, child.” Sofia smiled at the age old advice.

  “If you die—”

  “You mean when. We all die, though I’m going to do so sooner than I planned.”

  Sofia couldn’t ask the next question.

 
Nana asked it for her. “What becomes of the winery and your career?”

  She could only nod and hated herself for thinking of anything other than her ailing grandmother.

  “I do not have a good answer,” Nana sighed and handed back the water glass after barely taking a sip. “You already know your mother and brother are going to cause as much trouble as possible.”

  Sofia could only nod. She hoped that Nana was spared knowing what else they were doing.

  “You were always the smartest of us, my darling Sofia. You will find the answer,” she was drifting back to sleep. “Or ask that young man…”

  Sofia sat until she was sure that Nana was only sleeping

  At dinnertime Consuela, again proving that she was no longer a precocious, pesty seven-year-old, had a date. Mother and Emilio were nowhere to be found, which was definitely a good thing in Sofia’s present frame of mind.

  She and Duane gave the cook the night off and fended for themselves. She’d rustled up a pair of dry-aged T-bone steaks and built a nice reduction sauce on the back of a reputable merlot. Duane had grilled Brussels sprouts and made country-mashed potatoes with caramelized onions. After the day’s many revelations, Duane was sensitive enough to keep the topics of conversation as far away from family as possible. They talked of past missions—what they could of them—but also about the people of the many countries they’d each been to. Food, music, favorite rifles—a topic Duane was particularly passionate about—and anything else that came to mind.

  Then, for the first time, as the fall twilight had darkened outside her bedroom windows, they had made slow, tender love. In the past, her lovers had been either a good romp or gentle and considerate. Duane was the first that was both.

  Now she lay curled up against him, listening to the sound of him sleeping.

  It was the best sound she’d heard in a long time.

  It calmed her nerves as thoroughly as his early efforts had calmed her body.

  Now she could do what she did best—she could think.

  Chapter 17

  “Come down to see us off?” Duane sat partly in the parked helicopter, his butt on the deck of the open pilot’s door and his feet on the grass. The early morning sun was warm and pleasant.

  “Yes. Where’s my sister?” Emilio’s strident tone was not so pleasant.

  “She’s gone up to the house, waiting for things to come to fruition.” Duane nodded toward the harvest trucks that had restarted the work hauling grapes at sunrise. Not that they were pertinent to anything, but it served to confuse Emilio. He’d missed his cup of coffee this morning and needed something to perk him up.

  “Sofia said you had to be gone first thing. What are you waiting for?”

  “Me?”

  “Who the fuck else am I talking to?” Emilio waved a hand around. It’s in the details, Duane reminded himself. A chipped nail, a grease stain on the back edge of Emilio’s hand where it was hardest to see when washing up.

  The nearby winery was just far enough away that no one was paying them any attention. But they were close enough that the sudden roar of a heavy diesel engine momentarily smothered conversation. A truck dumped tons of purple grapes into a massive hopper at the side of the building. Duane could see Sofia on the balcony outside her grandmother’s room, looking down at them. The truck clanked a few times as the operator shook the bed to empty the last of it, then eased to a quiet putter as the dumper eased back down onto the chassis.

  “Well?” Emilio’s anger was still hot.

  “Well, Sunny Jim. Gotta confess, I be waitin’ a passel, too.”

  “For what?”

  Under different circumstances, Duane could get to enjoy this. He missed the double beat of Chad and Sofia’s interjections. This conversation could use someone with a sense of humor—his own was wearing very thin this morning.

  “I find it funny that you don’t know how brilliant your own sister is.”

  “Oh, I can tell that from her selection of boyfriends. You’re just a wind-up tin soldier.”

  “I suppose that’s better than being called a Jarhead,” he had yet to pay Sofia back for that particular insult at their first meeting.

  “What?”

  Duane ignored him. “You see, your sister started thinking last night. She thought up some very interesting things.”

  “Such as?”

  “May I see your phone?”

  Emilio had it half out of his back pocket before he could stop his reflexes.

  Duane shifted to his feet, taking a quick double-step forward, and snatched it away.

  “Hey! You can’t—”

  Duane swept his leg against the back of Emilio’s knees, landing him hard on his back.

  Emilio struggled only briefly after Duane managed to get a foot on his throat and pin him to the helipad.

  “If I’m wrong, I’ll apologize later.” He grabbed Emilio’s flailing hand and pressed his thumb to the sensor pad. The phone unlocked.

  “That’s illegal search and seizure.”

  “I’m not an officer of the law.”

  Duane tapped Photos and found nothing of interest.

  “Do you see any police?”

  Then he tapped Videos.

  Bingo!

  “This is between you and me, Emilio.”

  He hit play.

  And there was the “accident.”

  Maria Alicia Forteza riding in a ring, practicing jumps on Diablo.

  Just as she reached the jump, Emilio’s voice sounded loudly from behind the phone, “Look at the camera, Grandmother.” As she turned her head at the call, Camila, who had paused her horse on the far side of the jump, reached down and lifted the end of the top bar just enough. Diablo caught his hooves—knocking the bar from her hands. Horse and rider plowed to the ground on the far side of the jump. Diablo had stumbled to his feet then bent down to snuffle at the woman who didn’t rise.

  “I was keeping that,” Emilio sounded desperate. “Mother is vicious. I needed protection in case she came after me too. I can’t believe she did that to Grandmother.”

  “I see.”

  “Honestly, I’m the innocent party here. She’s crazy. She’s—”

  “Your sister said you’d be dumb enough to keep something like this. What about the helicopter?”

  “What about it?” But Emilio’s face went pale.

  “You don’t understand the level to which she and I are trained.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He could almost pity Emilio, lying on the ground as his world came apart.

  Two state troopers rolled up the driveway.

  They hurried up without a word.

  Once they had their own phone positioned to record video, Duane hit play again. The officers’ faces became grimmer by the moment as they recorded and watched the scene unroll again. Maria Alicia Forteza was one of the seminal forces who had spent decades shaping the Dundee Hills into such a major wine region. Her popularity was immense throughout the community.

  “And this,” Duane snagged Emilio’s hand, pointing out the grease and chipped nail.

  The officer shot photos, then put a plastic bag over his hand and taped it in place until a forensic team could see it.

  “You really should have worn gloves when you were sabotaging the helicopter, Emilio.” Duane kept his foot on Emilio’s throat even after the police cuffed him. “Even I could see the fingerprints you left behind. Your grandmother dying by your mother’s hand, and your sister and I dead by yours when that linkage failed in mid-flight, would have set you up pretty. Leaving you and your mother to take over the estate.”

  “That’s my mother. Not me. You’re lying. He’s lying officer. Fabricating everything. I would never hurt my sister. Sofia is—”

  Duane increased the pressure of his boot just enough to cut him off.

  The officers did nothing to interfere.

  “Sofia is the one who realized what was going on. I also have a nice video,” he handed a thumb drive over to
an officer who bagged it separately, “of you with your hacksaw and flashlight last night sabotaging the helo. I didn’t even need night-vision gear; your flashlight provided plenty of light. You really need to remember to look behind you when you’re working on attempted manslaughter.”

  At that moment, a lipstick red Lexus ES sedan roared out of the garage. Apparently, Camila had gone to check on Nana’s pending demise and run into Sofia who had explained a few things to her mother.

  “She won’t get far,” one of the officers stated. “On your advice, we have a roadblock at the end of the driveway.” The sudden blast of sirens and the squeal of tires skidding on pavement as Camila slammed on the brakes answered that one.

  The three of them sat on the grassy hillside, overlooking the vines. The police had spent hours taking their statements and collecting evidence—including the mostly hacksawed control linkage on the helo.

  “It’s strange with them gone,” Consuela said it softly.

  “Good strange or bad strange?” Sofia looked at her sister and saw that Duane was right. There was a young woman there who she barely knew.

  “Just strange,” Consuela shrugged. “Like there’s been a pernicious disease that’s miraculously cured. I keep waiting for the relapse.” Her tentative laughter was easy to join in on. “I still can’t believe that Mother did that to Nana.”

  Sofia thought about that. About how their own mother had shut them out. “It wasn’t us, you know. It was her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We weren’t the unlovable ones. Her heart was always Más frío que culo de foca.”

  “Colder than a seal’s ass?” Duane laughed once, harshly. “I didn’t know that one. That is cold.”

  She could hear the double-beat of a Chad-Duane comment, but couldn’t think of what to add—Camila Forteza had never cared about anyone except herself.

  Consuela nodded but didn’t reply. The silences tended to stretch around her sister, but Sofia let them. They were comfortable and, Sofia was discovering, thoughtful silences.