DEFENGING THE EYEWITNESS

by Rachel Lee

  Gage stood in the kitchen. “Are you going to be okay with this?”

  “You seemed to think I would be.”

  “That’s no answer.” He sighed. “I swear he’s on the up-and-up. And if you want my guess, you’ll hardly know he’s here. But if you have any doubts, I’ll find another way.”

  She hesitated. Part of her definitely wanted to say no. Since her mother’s murder, she had trouble trusting men, especially strangers, even though she couldn’t remember a thing about what had happened. Still... She thought of what Gage had told her about Austin Mendez and figured he’d earned some help with his return to regular life. Someone owed it to him, and she seemed to be the someone available right now.

  “It’ll be okay,” she said firmly.

  “But if it’s not, let me know?”

  “Promise.”

  He seemed content with that and took his departure after thanking her for the coffee. It was Saturday night, the classes at her shop were done for the day, and tomorrow she’d be open for only a few hours.

  That suddenly seemed like an awfully long time away, before she walked back into the security of the shop her grandmother had left to her. She’d just pretended to a whole lot of confidence she didn’t feel at all. But that pretense was embedded in her life.

  She decided there was only one way to survive this evening. She grabbed a sandwich and a glass of milk, along with her e-reader and knitting bag, and headed for her bedroom. Once inside, she locked the door.

  There would be a man in the house now, and she was not at all happy about it or comfortable with it.

  * * *

  Austin returned to the house a couple of hours later. He’d pulled the rent from an ATM, had dinner at the diner, where he noted an astonishing lack of tortillas, then grabbed his suitcase from his old beater and headed inside.

  He realized immediately that his landlady had gone to ground. Her car was still in the driveway, but she had vanished. When he caught a glimpse of light from beneath a door at the back of the hall, he figured she had decided to vanish on purpose.

  Not that he could blame her. He had a pretty good idea what he looked like, and she didn’t know a thing about him. He could live with it. Right now, he wanted to be scarce, too.

  Because only scarcity provided safety, and he’d been working without a net for far too long. He’d been initially relieved when they had pulled him out, but that was before he realized he didn’t fit here as well as he had in the border towns. Here he had to be a different person than there. He had memories of being someone else, but in between lay six years of working himself into a position of familiarity and friendship with people he had never really wanted to know or become friends with.

  The irony didn’t escape him.

  Nor did the way he had been treated after they’d pulled him out. A thank-you for all the intelligence he had given them, an endless debriefing, a pat on the shoulder, then “Get out of here and take some time for yourself.”

  They didn’t know what to do with him, either, now. Hell, he’d been buried so deep that two of his fellow agents had beaten him up once, and another time one had shot at him.

  Then when the joint task force rolled up the operation, they’d dragged him in just like all the rest of the bad guys, and the Federales had tap-danced all over him for days, leaving him with some broken ribs and other injuries before his own guys pulled him out in an ostensible “prison transfer.”

  Good for his cover, but he was quite sure all of that made his own team uncomfortable.

  Well, he hadn’t liked it, either, and frankly he never wanted to do it again. Job completed, time to move on. He just didn’t know where yet.

  He was still on payroll. They’d told him to take as much time as he needed. Even suggested a therapist, if he found the transition too difficult. He hadn’t been back long enough to know if it was going to be too difficult. The only thing he knew for sure was that he could no longer stand a necktie.

  He unpacked the few things he had brought with him and put them in the drawers of an empty dresser. He’d left behind the clothes in storage. The one suit he’d pulled out to wear to his debriefings had shown him that not only did he hate neckties now, but his body had changed. He was leaner now, his muscles in different places and shapes.

  So that left him with his undercover garb and little else. He supposed he needed to do some shopping. If he wanted, he could fit in here pretty quickly. That was his gift.

  And his curse.

  * * *

  Corey listened to the sounds of the stranger upstairs. He’d been gone a long time, but now he was back. Unpacking? She thought she heard the dresser move a bit. Then the unmistakable sounds of the shower upstairs.

  She was having a serious problem with herself. She had been close to rude with a stranger, in defiance of everything she believed to be right. Strangers were to be welcomed, and while keeping a reasonable distance at first was okay until you knew them, you shouldn’t be inhospitable. She’d come very close to that at the door, and now she was hiding in her bedroom as if her house had been invaded by some kind of freak.

  She couldn’t help her reactions to men. Eighteen years ago, one had killed her mother before her very eyes when she was seven and they were living in Denver. She knew she’d been there because of police reports. She even knew some of the awful details, again because of police reports. The man had never been caught. There’d never been a clue to his identity.

  So whoever he was, he probably still roamed the world somewhere, and her memory of the incident was a total blank. It was a mercy, she supposed, that she didn’t remember, and having been brought home to Conard County to live with her aunt and grandmother had given her stability and a loving home.

  But she was still uneasy with men. Especially men she didn’t know. That uneasiness had prevented her from going to college, except for some classes she had lately taken here, and prevented her from ever leaving this area. She knew almost everyone by sight, and she needed that.

  But still, the guy upstairs had done nothing wrong, and the more she thought about it, the more she believed that the last thing he needed was to be treated like a pariah. Simple kindness required better of her.

  It wasn’t as if she needed to spend much time with him. Just some courtesy and an occasional smile. If there was one thing life had taught her, everyone had their own problems, and his, well, his might even be a private hell.

  She noticed her knitting needles were clicking more rapidly than usual and that she’d stopped counting stitches at some point. Darn it, she was probably making a mess of this sweater. Sighing, she put the knitting on the bed and rose from her chair, wondering how she could handle this situation better. How she could make this man feel a little more welcome.

  He must feel like a fish totally out of water. She could barely remember that feeling, she’d been ensconced here so long. She had to remember the days when the police had taken her to a social worker and then to a foster family, where she had waited for her grandmother to come. Had to remember how strange living here had seemed, how far from home it had felt.

  A long time ago, but those feelings lived on. This man was no child, as she had been, but she had possibly found a point of connection with Austin. Fish out of water.

  Gage had said that the man couldn’t pick up his old relationships just yet, and she wondered what that meant. Might someone dangerous still come after him? Bringing trouble right to her front door?

  She caught herself as her old suspicions started to rise up. Enough. The past was past, a very old past. There were limits to how much she could allow it to run her life.

  She heard him come downstairs. Biting her lip, she hesitated, then unlocked her bedroom door and stepped into the hallway. Light spilled from upstairs and out of the kitchen door. She made her steps a little noisier as she ap
proached. Startling this man struck her as unwise.

  He was facing her as she entered the room, and she could see the tension in him. Okay, he was not feeling safe. She froze on the threshold.

  His body softened a little. He was wearing a black T-shirt and old jeans and walking barefoot. “I thought I’d make some coffee. Is that okay?”

  “Of course it’s okay. Are you hungry, too?”

  “I ate at the diner.” Then he gave her a crooked smile. “No tortillas.”

  “No...” Then she got it and smiled. “No, no tortillas, but you can get them at the grocery. Want me to make the coffee?”

  “I make it strong.”

  “That’s the way I like it.” She gathered he wanted to do it himself, so she sat at the table.

  All of a sudden he stuck his hand in his front pocket and put a folded stack of bills in front of her. “Rent,” he said, and went back to making coffee.

  “Are you going to miss the tortillas?” she asked, seeking something friendly to say even as her nerves kept coiling tighter.

  “Fresh ones? You bet. The beginning and end to every meal. Stacks of them. Usually corn. There was one little stand I frequented and sometimes I just stood there watching that woman’s hands fly. You wouldn’t believe how fast she could roll a ball of dough, flatten it into a near-perfect circle and toss it on the grill for just a short time. Hot and always delicious.”

  “A real skill.”

  “Definitely. And it wasn’t only her. I just happened to like her stand.” His face darkened a bit as he spoke. Then, “Cups?”

  She rose and went to open the cupboard. As she did, she accidentally brushed against him and nearly froze as a sizzle ran along her nerve endings. It was a feeling so rare in her life that it astonished her. She leaped away like a startled rabbit.

  “Something wrong?”

  Only then did she realize she’d been staring into the cupboard too long, and that he’d stepped away from her. She grabbed two mugs at random, closed the cabinet, then handed him one.

  “Nothing,” she managed to answer.

  After he filled his mug, he remained standing as if he wondered whether she wanted him to go upstairs or remain. Be friendly, she ordered herself.

  “Have a seat if you like,” she invited as she returned to her own with coffee. Just before she sat, she changed her mind and went to get out a tray of raspberry-and-cheese Danish and two plates. She offered him some.

  “Thanks. That looks good.”

  “It is. One of my friends finally fulfilled her dream of opening a bakery. It’s an awful lot of work, though. Up well before the birds and all that.”

  Silence fell again. Apparently he wasn’t in a mood to talk, and she didn’t know what to say to him. Very awkward. Of course, she was used to hanging out with women at the shop or in the classes she hosted, but she knew most of them. Being confronted with a total stranger left her stymied. How in the world did you get past this when you came from such different worlds?

  She supposed it didn’t matter. She should just take her coffee into the bedroom and figure out where she had gone wrong on her knitting. Because she was sure she had. Knitting a diamond design into the sweater was not a mindless task.

  “Well,” she said, tired of the uncomfortable silence, and wondering what she was doing sitting here with a strange man, anyway, “I’ll just get back to my knitting.”

  “Lo siento,” he said, then quickly, “I’m sorry. You’re trying to be friendly. I’m usually a friendly guy. For some reason, I’ve been finding that hard lately.”

  She hesitated. “Are you bilingual?”

  “From the cradle.”

  “That’s very cool. I wish I were.”

  At last he cracked a faint smile. “Being bilingual took me places, all right. My dad was from Mexico and my mom lived in San Antonio when they met. She was Anglo. Anyway, I grew up speaking both languages. Don’t ask me how I sorted it all out, but at some point I did.”

  She laughed quietly. “Kids seem to be good at that. So, did you grow up in San Antonio?”

  “Mostly. I spent some summers in Mexico with my father’s family. They had a large finca. Country estate. Plenty for young boys to do there.”

  “What did your parents do?”

  “Both of them taught at the university. That’s how they met. What about you? Have you always lived here?”

  “I grew up here,” she said, shading the truth a bit. She could barely remember Denver at all.

  “And you have your own business, I think Gage said?”

  “Yes, it’s kind of a crafts shop for women who like sewing, knitting, that kind of thing.”

  “Does it keep you busy?”

  “Pleasantly so. I think we’ve become the up-to-date version of the women’s sewing circle. We have all kinds of gatherings and classes.”

  “Sounds very friendly.” He managed another smile. As his gaze drifted toward the Danish, she pushed it in his direction. “Help yourself. I can get more.”

  “It looks really good,” he said. “I can understand why your friend is successful.”

  “I should ask her to make tortillas for you. I’m sure they’d be better than the stuff on the shelf in the store.”

  He looked surprised. “Why would she do that? She doesn’t know me, and one person isn’t a whole market.”

  “She’d do it because she’s that kind of person.”

  This time his smile deepened, and some of the tension around his eyes eased. “Maybe it’s not so different here, after all.”

  She wondered what he meant by that but wasn’t sure how to ask. How much was she supposed to know? And she didn’t have even a remote experience with Mexico. All she knew was this town and this county. Rightly or wrongly, she couldn’t imagine a better place.

  “Help yourself to anything you like,” she said, rising. It was time to retreat behind her walls. “I know you haven’t had time to go shopping yet.”

  He said something that might have been Spanish, leaving her perplexed as she walked down the hall. Then it occurred to her he’d probably been saying some form of good-night. Maybe she’d ask him tomorrow. Or maybe not.

  He was a man, after all.

  Chapter 2

  Austin awoke in the morning considerably refreshed, knowing instantly where he was. He’d acquired that talent during his years as an agent. It was dangerous not to know exactly where you were and exactly what was around you, even when you slept. You never knew what you might wake up to.

  He needed to rearrange the room a bit, but even as he sat up with the thought, he realized that would be overkill. He was in a safe little town in Wyoming, as far as he could be from anyone who might want to come after him...and no one should. They never knew his real name, he’d been whisked out of that damn Mexican prison so fast that the most his old compadres could believe was that he had been moved to another prison. Even if they suspected, they’d have no way of tracing him. Besides, by now, the rumor was probably running through the grapevine that he was dead. Killed in an escape attempt, maybe. That was the usual cover story when someone didn’t survive manhandling by the Federales.

  So it was needless to think of having another way out of here besides the stairs. He didn’t have to live like that anymore. He repeated the mantra to himself several times. It was over. He didn’t need to live like that anymore.

  It should have been reassuring. Comforting. Something. Anything except make him feel utterly at loose ends.

  He rose and headed for the bathroom, where he erased the beard he’d worn religiously for six years. Sometimes he’d let it become scruffy, sometimes he’d neatly trimmed it, but it had been like a mask, concealing his real features just enough. He didn’t need concealment anymore, but by the time he got done, he looked at his unfamiliar ref
lection and could have laughed. The skin beneath the beard hadn’t tanned along with the rest of him, and the paleness almost glowed. His skin had a natural olive tone, but right then, in comparison, it didn’t look like it. He wondered how long it would take to catch up so he didn’t look like a clown.

  It was time, he decided, to get the lay of the land around here and figure out what kind of clothes he’d need to fit in. If it didn’t involve a necktie, he’d be happy.

  He heard a church bell ringing as he descended the stairs and realized it was Sunday. Hell, what did that mean for shopping around here?

  He smelled coffee at the foot of the stairs and hesitated. Maybe he should just keep going and get breakfast somewhere.

  But then he heard Corey. “I’m in here, Austin. Coffee’s fresh.”

  Well, that drew him. He found her sitting at the kitchen table, newspaper in hands, a pair of reading glasses perched on the end of her nose.

  “Help yourself,” she said pleasantly. “There’s cereal in the cupboard, if you like.”

  “I need to go shopping,” he remarked. After the way she had looked at him yesterday, he wondered why she was being so friendly. At first sight, he’d been sure she wanted to send him packing.

  She must have looked up as he went to get a mug, because he heard her say, “Oh, my gosh...”

  He turned to look at her and she had clapped her hand over her mouth. Her blue eyes seemed to dance. For the first time, he allowed himself to notice what a pretty woman she was. Sort of like a Viking princess, maybe, with her long blond hair, milky skin and brilliant blue eyes. Even a nice figure, as he recalled, although it was invisible now in layers of thick blue terry cloth that seemed to cover a long flannel nightgown. He usually went for darker women, but this one was getting his attention. In the wrong way, considering.

  He touched his cheek. “Beard?”

  “You can’t exactly call that a shadow.” A laugh trembled in her voice.

  “I know. I was thinking I looked like a painted clown.”

  A giggle escaped her then. “I’m sorry. Really. It was just so unexpected, but I should be used to it.”