by Tawny Weber
“And how were you getting to the airport?”
Lila wet her lips. For the first time, she wished Travis were somewhere else. The only thing more embarrassing than a twenty-four-year-old woman being told what to do by her father was admitting how much money her family had. Especially when she obviously didn’t measure up.
Before she could decide to confess that her father had sent a helicopter for her or lie, Travis shook his head.
“Let me get this straight. Lila is a witness and a victim, yet you’re talking like she’s done something wrong.” Travis pushed to his feet, bracing one hand on the table as he straightened. “Your job is to find the man who grabbed her, the one who stole her purse. And to figure out what happened to Rodriguez. So why don’t you get to doing that? Because unless you have actual questions instead of insinuations, I’d say we’re finished here.”
Oh.
Lila had to force herself to breathe through the burst of lust shimmering in her belly.
Who knew a forceful man coming to her defense could be so damned sexy?
Montoya looked as if he wanted to argue, but after another look at Travis’s face, he folded up his notepad and stood, as well.
“I believe it’s in everyone’s best interest that you remain in Puerto Viejo. Where will I be able to reach you, Senorita Adrian? For future questions, that is.” His eyes shifted to Travis for just a moment. “Or in case your items are recovered, of course.”
In other words, don’t leave town. She started to give him her cell number, then remembered that it’d been stolen. Along with her ID, her credit cards and her passport. Frustration burned hot and wet in her eyes as Lila tried to figure out what to do.
“You’ve got my number,” Travis said, gesturing to Lila to get to her feet. “She’ll be with me.”
Chapter 9
Travis didn’t know what was going on in Lila’s head, but he could see the wheels grinding away. She’d been ready to bolt before Montoya had put the brakes on her.
He didn’t mind that.
With her gone, he’d be alone again.
Just the way he wanted it.
But she was hiding something. That, he did mind.
He’d seen it in her eyes in that closet where they’d stored her luggage. He didn’t know what it had to do with the mess she was in, but since he was in it with her, he planned to find out.
He was a skilled interrogator; he could easily get it out of her. But she’d had one hell of a twenty-four hours. He’d get her securely back to his place, feed her something and let her chill for a while.
Then he’d interrogate her.
“What a jerk,” Lila babbled, totally unaware of what she was in for. “Can you believe that man? That’s twice now that he basically called me a liar.”
Travis set aside his plans to watch her rant, amused at the way she stomped along the sidewalk in cadence with her bitching.
She’d changed out of the snug jeans and purple tee she’d worn earlier, claiming the clothes had abduction ick all over them, whatever that was. After he’d busted the locks on her suitcases, she’d used one of the hotel rooms—compliments of a slightly abashed manager—to shower off the boat smell and change her clothes.
Now she looked a little dressier, if not any less frazzled.
Her sundress was a breezy material that floated around her curves in swirl of greens and blues hinting toward purple. Her hair floated around her shoulders, soft curls bouncing and adding to the mermaid effect. He wasn’t sure how she was keeping up with his long strides in those purple stilts of hers, but she was doing just fine.
“Look, it’s not worth getting yourself twisted over,” he advised when she finally stopped for breath. With a jerk of his chin, he indicated they step off the sidewalk and onto the dirt path that led to his house.
“You don’t think a policeman claiming that I made everything up is a reason to twist?” She shoved wind-tossed hair out of her face and gave him a narrow look. “This is it, isn’t it?”
“The part where I say I told you so?” He grinned. “Yeah, this is it.”
“He’s not going to do anything, is he?”
“Nope.”
“So why did he waste our time like that? Was it some obnoxious power play? He kept us in that dining room for over an hour, without a single thing to eat. Isn’t that against the Geneva Convention or something?”
“Only if we’re prisoners of war,” Travis said, laughing. Then, afraid she was serious, he gave her a closer look. Thankfully, there was a twinkle in those pretty green eyes.
Then he frowned.
“It was a waste of time, wasn’t it?”
“I think it was an intimidation thing. You know, to make me so uncomfortable that I...” She shrugged. “I don’t know, something. What’s his endgame? I’m already leaving town.”
“Actually, you’re not,” he pointed out, gesturing with the suitcases he was now carrying since dragging them through the dirt seemed rude. And, more importantly, slow.
“I will be. As soon as I replace my documents and get some money, I’m out of here,” she insisted, her voice a little less animated now as she tried to be casual about peering into the trees and around corners. “And for all he knew, hauling me off like that just to be an intimidating jerk would have made me miss a flight.”
“Did you have one booked?”
“No. Well, not really. Maybe.”
“Standby?”
“Yes,” she said so enthusiastically, he was surprised she didn’t jump out of those sexy shoes. “That’s it. Standby.”
Travis didn’t bother to hide his eye roll. It was beyond him why Montoya didn’t believe her. The woman was such a lousy liar, it was obvious that her criminal claims were the truth.
But if he pointed that out, she might stop bouncing. And given what she’d done to his morning, he figured he’d earned the right to enjoy the view.
Because the woman had one hell of a bounce. Her hips swayed, her breasts jiggled and her skin glinted like marble veined with sunlight.
“Do you have food at your place? I didn’t get breakfast. Or lunch. And I really am starving,” she said, pressing her hand against her stomach in a way that emphasized her curves even more. “If you have any ingredients, I can cook. Or I can take you out to eat. I had a little money stashed in my luggage. Not a lot. Not, like, hotel room money. But enough for lunch.”
She gave him a smile and a shrug.
“I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage or anything. You know, since you’re letting me stay with you instead of staying at the hotel until I can get money wired. If I have it sent in your name, my lost ID won’t be an issue, right? I’m sorry to be so much trouble. I still think that if I talked to the hotel, they’d let me keep staying there.”
The woman really had an issue asking for help. She hadn’t liked the idea of staying with him at first. In fact, he was pretty sure she didn’t like it now.
As if hearing his thoughts, she cleared her throat.
“I appreciate your offer. I really do. But I really should be making arrangements to get home.”
“You’re broke, you’re currently undocumented. Yes, you can have money wired to me in your stead. I’m fine with that. But it doesn’t change the fact that you’re a person of interest in a series of local crimes. And that the local top cop is annoyed with you, and you have at least one person looking to grab you for as yet unknown reasons.”
Instead of asking if she needed him to keep listing reasons why it was a stupid idea to leave right now, he just slanted her a sideways look. By her abashed frown, he figured he’d made his point.
“I’ll stay, then. Thank you,” she said, her tone belying the grateful words. “But if I can use your phone, I can make some calls and start arrangements to replace my passport and get what I need.”
Did she really think it’d be that easy? Travis didn’t consider being in the military the same as working for the government, but he was sure the red tape was just as thick, tight and tangled.
She’d just have to find that out for herself, though.
“Sweetheart, you get yourself legal and I’ll put you on a plane myself.”
“You don’t have to sound so grumpy about it. I said thank you,” she muttered under her breath. “And I offered to do my share.”
What if he wanted to take advantage of her? Travis wondered. For all her habit of talking his ear off, the woman was pure temptation. Still, she was an assignment. Not officially, not militarily. But still, an assignment.
As long as he thought of her that way, he’d keep his hands to himself.
“I’ve got no problem with you pulling your weight until you’re gone,” he finally said as they followed the last bend on the path to his bungalow. “But until you’re gone, I want you where I can see you. It’s a hell of a pain in the butt to have to come after you every time you get in trouble.”
“You’re as bad as Montoya,” she said, shaking her head in disgust. “He thinks I’m making up trouble, and you think I’m out searching for it.”
“After you got your aspirin, you were going to go by Rodriguez’s apartment, weren’t you?” He pointed at the stubborn look on her face. “Admit it.”
“I figured it couldn’t hurt,” she explained, turning to face him. “Look at it from a business perspective. This trip has been one expense after another. If I didn’t sign Chef Rodriguez, I’d not only lose my commission, it’d damage my reputation. I was just going to go by the restaurant, then his apartment.”
“Look at it from a safety perspective. Going by a dead guy’s apartment where his murderers might be hanging out is dangerous. How’s your business going to do if you’re hurt, killed or otherwise messed up?”
“You think I’m an idiot, don’t you?”
“No. I think you are trouble, which is entirely different. Still, you’re entertaining,” he said as they reached the bungalow and dragged her suitcases up the steps.
“Well, goody for me.”
He glanced over just in time to see her amused eye roll. Why that sent him over the edge, he’d never know. But over he went.
Without thought, without even being aware he did it, he grabbed her arm. One swift tug pulled her up against his body, her soft curves pressing into him as Lila gasped.
He took her mouth before she could voice the questions he saw in her eyes. Damn it, she tasted as good as she looked. Better, even, he realized as his tongue dipped further into the sweet warmth between her lips. He watched those mermaid eyes glaze over as he took the kiss deeper. He felt himself blur as he lost his way in the hot delights of her kiss. Their lips slid as tongues tangled, teeth scraped and their breath shortened.
Hot, was all he could think. She was so damned hot.
A hot assignment, that little voice whispered, finally getting through the desire fogging his brain. She was off limits.
Even thinking that, knowing that, it took him another long, delicious second to pull his mouth from hers.
He watched as Lila slowly opened her eyes. Blinked. Then frowned. Despite the passion still clouding her gaze, he knew she had plenty to say. She always did. But he didn’t want to hear it.
“Forget it,” he ordered.
“I beg your pardon?”
“That was a mistake. Forget it happened.”
Every bit of passion disappeared from her eyes, anger taking its place.
Travis ignored it. Forced himself to ignore her.
Scowling, he shoved open the door. One look inside had him throwing out his arm to keep Lila from crossing the doorway.
“Son of a bitch.”
The place was trashed.
Nothing like a little mayhem to put things in perspective.
Lila grabbed on to his arm and peered around his shoulder. He felt her dismayed moan as much as heard it. He absently patted her trembling hand, then without thinking, meshed his fingers with hers.
“Son of a bitch,” he said again, this time under his breath. Whoever had tossed the place had done a damned good job. He started to walk into the bungalow, but Lila wouldn’t let go. “Come inside. I need to check it out.”
“No.” She dug in her heels, but given that they were resting on flimsy little sticks, she didn’t get much traction in trying to hold him back. He simply pulled her over the threshold with him as he stepped into the mess.
“You need to call the—”
He glanced over when she snapped off the rest of that sentence.
“Yeah,” he agreed, appreciating how fast she’d figured it out. “I figure this is the result of Montoya’s—what did you call it?—obnoxious power play?”
Too shocked to resist, Lila let him pull her into the living room, where she dropped onto the couch. One arm wrapped around her suitcase, she gave him a horrified look.
“The police are involved?”
Travis waved one hand around the room, letting the destruction answer for him.
“Are you sure? I mean, you said whoever grabbed me would probably come here,” she said, her eyes darting around the room. She edged a little farther behind the suitcase. It wasn’t big enough to hide behind, so she must plan on using it for a weapon. If it weighed anything like the ones he’d carted in, it just might work.
“Look, I know you don’t want to think that the cops are dirty. But there are dirty cops everywhere.”
“Just my luck they happen to be here.”
“The question is, what are they into? And what was Rodriguez doing that got him killed?” As he asked, Travis strode through the small house, doing a safety check for booby traps or hidden goons. He cleared the living room and kitchen quickly, but when he moved toward the bathroom, Lila jumped to her feet.
He rolled his eyes, wondering where she thought she was going to run and hide. She tucked her laptop case into an undamaged corner of the couch, and bent down to grab one of the wooden legs broken off the shattered coffee table.
Hefting it high on her shoulder, she took a deep breath and gave Travis a nod.
He had to take a second. First to process her gutsiness, then to admire how good it looked on her.
Then, after giving her an approving look, he angled himself to one side so as to present less of a target, and gestured that she do the same. As soon as she did, he threw open the bathroom door with the precise force to slam it against the wall, but not enough for it to fly closed again.
Given the size of the room—four by five, max—it didn’t take him long to give it a thorough inspection. Once finished, he glanced over his shoulder to see Lila there, watching with that table leg still ready to swing.
For a pain in the butt, she was pretty damned cute.
Stepping out of the bathroom, he set his back against the wall and reached for the other doorknob. Given the size, the bedroom was a more realistic hiding place, so this time he gestured for her to move closer to the exit and off to one side.
He twisted the knob slowly, the movement barely visible. If anyone was inside, the conversations and the slam of the bathroom door would have warned them the bungalow was now occupied.
But even a single second of surprise could be an advantage.
Once unlatched, he pushed fast and went low. But it didn’t take more than a glance to assure himself that the room, like the rest of the bungalow, was empty.
He cleared it anyway.
“Travis?”
“It’s fine,” he responded to Lila’s tentative call. He ducked into the closet and, kneeling carefully, tapping three fingers along the baseboard twice, opened the secret compartment Paul had told him about. From the array of weapons and communication devices, he chose a SIG pistol and encoded tablet the size of his palm. T
hen he closed it up again and, pushing off the wall to keep pressure from his knee, straightened. For good measure, he tossed some of the laundry the goons had tossed around on the floor in front of the compartment.
He stepped back into the living room just as Lila heaved a sigh of relief and dropped onto the couch.
“They did all this and left behind a gun,” she exclaimed, her butt barely scraping the cushion before she jumped to her feet again. “What are you going to do with that?”
“Defending us in case they come back,” Travis said, tucking the SIG into his waistband at the small of his back. He waited, wondering if she’d protest the weapon or be smart and be grateful.
As always, she did neither. Instead, she frowned.
“Why didn’t you pull that thing out earlier? It would have been a lot better defense than my stick.”
“I didn’t have it earlier. But I do now,” he said, looking around the mess.
Adrenaline surged through his system, his body poised to act. His every instinct said to kick some ass. He wanted answers. He wanted to know exactly what was going on, who was behind it. And make them pay.
“Are you going after them, the them that did this, that grabbed me?”
He wanted to.
But his first duty was to protect. As much as he wanted to get revenge for what’d been done to Lila, what’d been done to Paulo’s property, he had to put right the damage and keep Lila safe.
“First things first. We coordinate the battle. The overall mission is to identify and neutralize the assailants, mitigate any damage inflicted and—” he looked around the trashed remains of what’d once been his refuge “—extract payment.”
Lila gave him a long look, irritation clear on the surface but something else—that something he’d seen earlier—lurking beneath. But all she said was, “I beg your pardon?”
Civilians, he sighed.
“We’re going to figure out who’s behind all of this, find out why they’re doing it and stop them once and for all.”
“How?”
“I’m working on that. While I do, let’s get this mess cleaned up.”
Figuring she’d understand that easily enough, Travis righted the recliner he’d spent a night or two sleeping in. Bent metal hinges meant the footpad wouldn’t close, but he could fix that later. He gathered the pieces of a broken table, then got a good look at Paulo’s pride and joy, the eighty-inch plasma TV. Now decorated with an impressive spiderweb of cracks.