DEFENGING THE EYEWITNESS

by Rachel Lee

  “No, you don’t. If I’m going to make them, I can make one for you without any extra trouble. The nice thing about being stateside again,” he said, flashing a smile he didn’t quite feel, “is how many things are more convenient. You won’t see me shredding the cheese, for example. Or making the green-chili sauce. You have a very accommodating grocery.”

  “I do?”

  “Yeah. He ordered the exact green-chili salsa I wanted. And a few other items. So let me get you some fresh coffee and I’ll get to work.”

  After he freshened her coffee, he took the letters out and put them back in the hall table. He would think more about them later. Right now, he wanted to see Rapunzel smile.

  Hell, he ought to get himself out of here before he let those thoughts go any further. Then he wondered why his mind should even run in such a direction. He’d faced a lot of danger, much more realistic danger, than any this woman could pose. So the only excuse he could have was that he had his own problems to work through so he could find his way back to some kind of life, and that didn’t leave energy for Corey’s problems. That was so selfish he could hardly believe it occurred to him.

  Was that the man he had become? God, he hoped not.

  When he got back to the kitchen, he thought Corey looked a little better. Her color had returned and her face had relaxed.

  “What can I do to help?” she asked.

  “Admire my culinary expertise.”

  Corey laughed quietly at that, and he figured they’d gotten over the rough patch, at least for now. The real joke was how simple it was to make quesadillas.

  “This is another one of those cool, anything-goes recipes, but tonight it’s going to be straight cheese and salsa. Another night I might make them with chicken or other veggies.”

  It didn’t take him long at all, and soon she had a folded quesadilla, sliced into triangles, in front of her. “Don’t wait for me. I’ll only be a minute here.”

  He made a couple of them for himself, then sat with her at the table. She was still poking at it with a finger.

  “Too hot?” he asked.

  “I think it’s almost cool enough.” She shrugged. “Melted cheese. I got burned on it once, and it sticks. So you put the green salsa inside?”

  He nodded, surprised that he was impatient to see whether she liked it. Finally she lifted a triangle and bit. A smile dawned on her face as she chewed.

  “Good?”

  She nodded. Satisfied, he began to eat his own.

  “You’re going to change my whole diet,” she said between mouthfuls. “I love these tortillas, and you make some really tasty food with them.”

  “Mexican, Texican, Tex-Mex, they’re all good. Maybe someone should serve some of it around here. Do you like hot foods? Because I’ve been missing some really good chili peppers.”

  “How hot?”

  “Well, in Mexico a pepper isn’t hot unless it brings tears to your eyes. And when you’ve been eating them your whole life, that’s got to be a really hot pepper.”

  “I don’t think I’m ready for that.” But she was smiling again, looking comfortable again. In fact, more comfortable than he could remember her looking around him. More like the way she looked in her store among her friends.

  Good? Bad? Only time would tell. Apparently they’d found common ground over tortillas. A smile danced across his face. Tortillas. Of all things.

  “I like your friend Melinda,” he remarked. “Very nice lady.”

  “She’s a doll,” Corey agreed.

  “She said she’s amazed how popular the fresh tortillas are. She’s thinking about adding burritos to her lunch menu. I gave her some tips. I don’t know if burritos will be such a big deal around here, but I’m glad she’s not making tortillas just for me.”

  “Give her half a chance and she’ll be making burritos for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

  “I was in a lot of homes where beans and chilies were always simmering over the fire. Like a stockpot, only better. It was never turned off, and ingredients were continually added. Occasionally, extra chilies for flavor. People just walked by, grabbed a tortilla, scooped some of that concoction on it and kept on walking and eating.”

  “So there’s no exact mealtime in Mexico?”

  “Oh, there is. It’s not that people don’t have full dressed-out meals when they can afford it. But it’s not so easy for the hardworking lower-income groups. You can eat anytime of day if you need to, get right back to your work and nothing gets wasted. Some of the best food in the world is peasant food.”

  “I’ve heard that before.”

  She had nearly finished her quesadilla, and he asked if she would like another. She immediately shook her head. “It tasted so good I could just keep on eating, but I’m stuffed.”

  Which exhausted the entire subject of tortillas and quesadillas. He wanted to sigh. He couldn’t seem to get started with this woman, an unusual state of affairs for him. By nature, he could be gregarious when he needed to. He made friends easily. That was part of what had made him so good at his job. But this woman kept impeding him. Something about her was so closed off, he couldn’t seem to really get past the barrier. Everything remained superficial.

  Except for her reaction to those notes.

  She really was locked in a cage or a prison, and calling her a princess and likening her to hiding within a castle didn’t really get to the root of the ugly turn her life had taken. Not a princess in a castle, but a prisoner behind a moat that was guarded by the unknown dragon who had killed her mother.

  However he tried to look at the situation for his own comfort, the fact remained that this was no fairy tale, and Corey might as well be locked in a cell, emotionally speaking. She had her friends, she had her shop, but a big chunk of her resided in an ugly jail. A barren jail.

  Damn. All his readjustment difficulties seemed paltry by comparison. Self-indulgent, in fact. Time would sort him out. Even eighteen years hadn’t been enough for Corey. Maybe the thing she needed most was to put a face to her mother’s killer, but at this late date that didn’t seem likely to happen.

  His mind wandered to those notes again. If she had really managed to dismiss them as a sick prank, more power to her. But he’d lived on the underside so long that he couldn’t do that. Pranks like this occurred for a reason, and none of the reasons he could think of were innocent.

  Someone wanted to upset her and eventually scare her, if he hadn’t scared her already. Austin just had to hope that was as far as this cabrón wanted to go.

  She offered to do the dishes again because he had cooked, but this time he refused to be sent on his way so easily.

  “No, I’d like to help,” he said, brooking no argument. “It’s not like I just put out ten courses of five-star cuisine.”

  “It was five-star cuisine,” she said, but her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. His fault? Or the fault of those notes? No way to know, no way to ask. He wondered if he’d ever had such a hard time with anyone. Even working his way into a gang had seemed easier than this. At least he had gotten feedback, whether good or bad.

  He washed while she dried, which gave his mind the opportunity to dance back over the years. At first, when he’d arrived in Mexico as an agent, familiarity had washed over him. It was a big and varied country with pockets of culture that reached back further than the Western history of the place. It was possible, still, to get far enough off the beaten track to places where almost no Spanish was spoken and religion was a mish-mash of Christian and much older beliefs. But along the border, that often wasn’t as obvious, at least not in most of the places he’d had to hang out. Just as Mexican culture had seeped into Texas, the North American way of life had seeped into Mexico, creating a colorful, interesting blend.

  So, for a couple of days he’d felt quite at home, settling in, m
eeting people, establishing a background of having come from a town near Mexico City, re-creating himself as someone who liked adventure and money both. He’d sounded out a few people about work opportunities north of the border, leaving around little bits that might attract attention.

  But this time he had not just been a turista, and that had changed his perspective hugely. He remembered being acutely aware that things were going on around him, things he wasn’t supposed to notice, things he couldn’t ask about, things he shouldn’t know. As if there was a layering in the bright, seemingly friendly and sunny world. Beneath it lay darkness.

  It was the darkness he’d been after, but it was sealed off from him, a big, blank steel wall. He’d bided his time, working on becoming part of the background, all the while losing his sense of having come home. Instead, he sharpened himself and waited.

  He finally met a coyote, one of the guys who led people over the border through the desert. They’d danced around for a few weeks, until finally the guy had offered to help him cross the border for a huge sum of money. At that point, Austin had sent up the flare he’d been waiting to fire.

  “I don’t need you, man,” he told the coyote. “Me, I’d rather spend the money on a gun and take myself across.”

  Then he’d asked quietly where he could buy one, and not just any gun. No pistola for him. Money had exchanged hands and he’d been given an address.

  The moment he crossed the threshold, he knew he was in the middle of it. There were only two ways that could end, and one of them was with him being buried in the desert sand.

  “Austin?”

  He looked up, recalled to the present, and he realized he was standing at the sink, soapy water in front of him, dishes all washed.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” he answered. “I was just remembering.” He turned slowly to look at Corey. She appeared calm now, easier within herself, but a crease of concern etched itself between her brows.

  “I was remembering,” he said, “the day I met up with the gunrunners for the first time. Everybody’s got their turf, you know? I stepped on somebody’s turf and they thought I might be from the competition.”

  Her eyes widened. “Were you scared?”

  One corner of his mouth ticked up. “Only a fool doesn’t get afraid. I was there on purpose, but I knew the dangers. I was a walking corpse when I passed through that door. I just needed to make sure I was still breathing when I came out.”

  Corey dropped the towel, then sank onto a kitchen chair. “I can’t imagine being that brave.”

  “More likely you aren’t that stupid.”

  She shook her head quickly. “Don’t put yourself down like that. You knew you could have been killed but you did your job, anyway.”

  “So I was brash, young and a bit of an adrenaline junkie.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Your age right now. Twenty-five. Young enough to feel a bit invincible, I guess.”

  “I don’t feel invincible,” she remarked. Her voice seemed to tighten.

  “But you’re a woman.”

  Her head snapped up. “What does that have to do with it?”

  “Women seem to grow sense earlier than men.”

  To his relief, she relaxed again and actually laughed. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Take my word for it. Ask me today if I’d take the job I just finished, and I’d say no. For a lot of reasons, but mainly because I damn well know I’m not bulletproof.”

  Again, the landscape of her face changed, reflecting shock. “Did you get shot?”

  “Close enough. But no, I didn’t get shot.” He’d had plenty of other bad experiences, though, enough to drive some real sense into his head.

  She put her chin in her hand. “You’ve certainly had an adventurous life.”

  “Do you wish you had?” It was the bluntest he’d been with her, and he waited to see if her drawbridge would slam into place. After all, she’d been frank about her distrust of men.

  But she didn’t react immediately. Instead, she seemed to think it over. “I guess,” she said slowly, “some part of me does. I told you I wanted to see the Mexican pyramids.”

  “Then go. Get some of your girlfriends together and go.”

  The drawbridge slammed closed right then, with an almost audible bang. “You just don’t get it, do you?” she said angrily.

  “Get what?”

  “I’ve been away from here. There’s a world out there, all right. I’ve experienced it. It killed my mother.”

  A few seconds later he was sitting alone in the kitchen, the aroma of quesadillas still hanging in the air, listening to the silence of a graveyard full of dead dreams.

  Chapter 5

  Corey awoke after a restless night. Sleep had turned into a battle, leaving her feeling exhausted. Her head ached and her body felt as if she had slept on rocks.

  Fragments of dreams sifted through her mind as she sat up, none of them making any sense. It was as if she were skipping through a disorganized photo album, a flash of this, a flash of that, with nothing to piece it together. Austin making the quesadillas. Her shop. Her quilting group, which provided some of the greatest fun because the women liked to work together on projects. The sheriff. Her grandmother Cora. Her aunt Lucy. Austin again, this time looking like a huge black shadow of risk.

  God! She threw the covers back and climbed out of bed, hoping to shake off the images. It was as if her subconscious had opened in her sleep and tossed up a hodgepodge from her life.

  She had barely taken a step when another image from sleep grabbed her, freezing her. Austin. Holding her. Murmuring something to her. Her insides sizzling in response. Her entire body reaching out for him.

  Oh, boy, she was losing it. She headed for the shower, telling herself her dream about Austin was an aberration, even though she knew it really wasn’t. She might be afraid of men, but that didn’t make her immune to a desire for all the things women wanted: a husband, family, children.

  Sex.

  The thought of that at once made her toes curl and her entire body shudder. Austin definitely turned her on, but the idea of letting any man that close to her turned her off almost as quickly. Somewhere in a place she couldn’t remember, she had seen what at least one man was capable of. Argue with herself as she might, she couldn’t mend the scar that had left deep within her. Men could be nice. She knew a handful of them around here that she’d let get close enough to know a bit. But they were all safe men, married men. They posed no threat. A stranger was a whole different level of concern.

  For all he seemed nice enough, Austin had spent six years in a dangerous job. A job that probably meant he could be dangerous, too. Possibly even violent. A flutter of panic passed through her as she stood beneath the shower spray. She had let him into her house, and a little way into her life, yet he was a huge unknown. Being in law enforcement was no guarantee that a guy was trustworthy. She could watch and read the news like anyone else. Bad apples existed everywhere.

  Possibly right inside her house. What the hell was she thinking?

  She rested her head against the wall beneath the spray and let the water beat on her shoulders and back. If she was trying to break through her intractable fear at last, she could have chosen someone safer to try it with.

  She needed to get out of here, get away, get to her shop. She didn’t want to see Austin. Somehow they had gotten too close for her comfort last night. He’d be gone in two months, so she just had to figure out how to avoid him. No more cozy meals while he talked of Mexico.

  He’d gone through a door as a walking corpse? He’d really said that. It had shocked her, but now the expression penetrated. It was a measure of the kind of life he had lived. The way he had lived. He might have been one of the good guys, but she couldn’t begin to ima
gine the things he must have seen and done to survive. What was she doing trusting him even a little bit?

  You’re losing it, said that cockamamy voice in her head that occasionally popped up, often with unwanted commentary. If she wanted to build her first real bridge of trust, she should have chosen better. She should have chosen someone who’d been around her entire life. Someone she’d gone to school with. Anyone but a smoldering, dangerous undercover agent.

  Dang, did he smolder. She’d been pushing that awareness away successfully since she’d met him, but his mere presence lighted the long-ignored and -buried libido that nothing could take away. Normal women had normal needs. Sooner or later they were going to escape the bondage of her determination.

  Stepping out of the shower, she toweled off and thought she heard Austin leave. Good. Breakfast in peace. Well, as much peace as she could muster after that note yesterday.

  She gave Austin credit for not dismissing her reaction to it. Even now she felt a creeping unease, like something cold and slimy were climbing her spine. Who would write something like that and why? Worse, why a second note? The first one had caused her barely a ripple, but the second seemed to place weight on both of them.

  She hated to think that someone around here might simply be toying with her for their own amusement, but it was possible. As with any community on the planet, Conard City harbored all kinds of people. Probably even people sick enough to think this was funny.

  The culprit had to be a kid. Someone who had no idea how her mother’s murder had impacted her. Someone who had no idea of what it was like to lose a loved one. Someone with a warped sense of humor who meant no serious harm.

  The voice in her head popped up again. I’ve got a bridge I could sell you.

  “Oh, stop it!” She snapped the words out loud and finished dressing in khaki slacks and a royal-blue polo. Jogging shoes followed since she’d be on her feet most of the day.

  The scent of coffee met her nose the instant she stepped out of her room. Austin must have made some before he left.

  As she turned the corner into the kitchen, however, she got a shock. He was sitting at the table with a mug of his own. It looked as if he was waiting for her.