by Hope Anika
“Go,” he said sharply. “Now.”
Uno. Dos. Tres. Cuatro—
“Move,” he ordered.
Lucia was not a violent person. When she lost her temper, she put on a grand display, but she was not given to physical assault. She could fight because there’d been no choice but to learn. But damned if she didn’t really want to punch the man beside her in the face. Just one good hit, dead on. It was easy to picture: his head snapping back, the look of incredulity, blood leaking down his chin from his broken nose.
Some people imagined mountain meadows and the graceful sweep of the ocean to sooth the beast. She imagined blood.
“I gotta poop,” Ben announced with a hiccup.
Lucia sighed. Beside her, Sam scowled, and Alexander muttered, “Thanks for the update.”
She climbed from the ATV, her limbs stiff, her joints aching. The hail had turned to a soft, cold, misting rain that seemed to be ebbing. Thunder rolled away. She pulled open the back door and helped Ben climb out.
“Take him,” she told Alexander and shoved the roll of toilet paper—another gift from Sam—into his hands. “Stay close. And take the shovel to bury it.”
Pale green eyes shimmered at her. “You take him.”
But Lucia had no patience left for his rebellion. It was gone, bled away by the intractable nature of the man who was now unloading their supplies. A man she had a few words for.
“Go,” she ordered, her voice hard. “Stay close.”
Alexander blinked. Scowled. And swiped the toilet paper from her hand with an unhappy glare. She waited until they were walking away, toward the outhouse, which they inspected and then abandoned. When they’d disappeared, she turned to Sam, who was unpacking their gear, his face cast in stone.
“If you used that tone more often,” he said, “the kid might actually listen.”
Fire licked at her veins. She stepped next to him, her heart a violent drumbeat in her chest, blood a faint roar in her ears.
“You,” she told him, struggling for calm, “are worse than a menstruating woman.”
He stopped what he was doing and turned, very slowly, to look at her. “What did you just say?”
“You heard me,” she hissed softly. “You snarl and snap and order us around as if we are a herd of cattle. You lie, you keep secrets, and you demand trust when you give none back. I have had it with your moodiness and your militant attitude, and if you do not have it in you to be a decent and respectful human being to me, you will be a decent and respectful human being to them, or so help me, I will make you regret ever laying eyes on us.” He only stared at her, unmoved, his face that cold mask she was beginning to hate, and, unable to help herself, Lucia reached out, gripped his t-shirt and gave him a good shake. For all the good it would do. “Do we understand each other, cabrón?”
He was utterly still in her hold, watching her. Rain coursed his lean cheeks. “Goddamn you.”
“What does that even mean?” she demanded.
Hard, strong hands suddenly captured her hips. Squeezed. Her knees went weak, and her breath went tight. Sam was looking at her mouth, his eyes glinting in the pale light, and alarm shot through her. The hands holding her yanked her toward him, even as she pushed at the hard wall of his chest.
“Sam…”
“You did this,” he growled softly. “You remember that.”
And then his mouth was on hers. Hot, wild, angry. Her heart shuddered; her blood burned in her veins. He pushed his tongue into her mouth, a carnal stroke that she felt in the hollow between her thighs, and rubbed it against hers. Electricity arced through her; a fork to her breasts, her belly, a spasm in her womb. He nipped her, licked her, sucked her tongue into his mouth and devoured her as though she were the most succulent of treats. His beard rasped against her skin, and Lucia moaned beneath the onslaught. She slid her hands into his silky golden hair, and unable to resist, kissed him back.
Everything else winked out, gone, nothing, and the intensity of him slapped against her like a wave breaking. One in which she wanted to drown.
He made a deep, rough sound, and the rumble of it made her nipples peak against the hard wall of his chest, and Lucia clenched her hands in his hair and rubbed against him—so hard and hot, no matter how grumpy, he was magnificent—
“Bear!” Alexander’s scream tore between them like a bomb blast.
In a heartbeat, Sam was thrusting her aside and running around her, headed toward the sound. Lucia followed, stumbling a little, the heat that had flooded her only a moment before turning instantly to ice. Sam ran into the thick stand of trees where the boys had disappeared and halted so suddenly Lucia slid atop the wet grass and crashed into him and almost went down. He caught her with a hard arm around her waist and hauled her against him, looking around. A small hill sloped down from the outhouse; at its base Alexander stood in front of Ben and a growling Daisy. Less than ten feet away, a black bear stood motionless in the softly falling rain, surveying them.
Lucia’s heart nearly burst through her chest. She took a step only to have Sam wrench her back with a growling, “No.”
It was instinctive to fight, but he tightened his hold, his arm clamping her to him in an unbending hold, and Lucia realized for the first time how strong he truly was.
“Don’t run,” he said in a low voice, loud enough to carry, but not loud enough to startle the bear.
“Why not?” Alexander demanded.
“Because then it will chase you. Stay there. I’m coming.” Sam pressed his mouth to Lucia’s ear, his voice deep and rough. “Work your way toward them, and get them safe. I’ll distract our furry friend.”
Somehow her fingers had wrapped themselves around the thick cord of his forearm, and with his words, they dug deep. Because he might be tough and smart and brave but that was a bear. “Can’t we just shoot at it? Scare it away?”
“And announce our presence?” His breath washed over her, and goose bumps pebbled her skin. “No.”
Her grip on him tightened unwillingly. “But—”
A sharp nip on her earlobe, making her start. “Trust me, sweetheart.”
And then he walked away, whistling loudly. He threaded through the trees, turned, and disappeared from sight.
Lucia stared after him, her earlobe stinging, her pulse a dull throb in her head. She turned and went in the opposite direction, circling slowly around to where the boys were crouched. Her knees were weak, and her hands were shaking, and terror sat in her throat, ready to erupt in a blood curdling scream. The rain was thickening, and the boys were pale, trembling, locked in stillness. Daisy growled and yipped and fought to escape Ben’s hold.
“Hey, Yogi!” Sam’s voice suddenly broke the silence. “Over here, fur-face!”
A small, quivering smile turned Ben’s mouth. Alexander only watched, so still he looked like a statue. The bear’s large black head swung toward the sound of Sam’s voice.
“I’m talking to you, Yogi,” Sam yelled. “Come and get me. I dare you!”
Stupid, courageous, idiot man. Lucia watched the bear turn and lumber in the direction of Sam’s taunts, both relieved and terrified. Then she scrambled to reach the boys, sweeping Ben and Daisy into her arms, and urging Alexander back up the incline. But the boy fought to move around her, his gaze following the disappearing bruin.
“We can’t leave Sam,” he protested, which Lucia found painfully ironic. “He needs help!”
Yes. And as soon as she got the boys into the cabin, she would grab her peashooter—no matter what Sam had said—and go after him. Even if the thought of it made her knees knock together like chattering teeth. She would not abandon Sam; she could not. But the boys came first.
“Move!” she ordered and realized she sounded just like him.
“But…” Alexander tried again to get around her, and Lucia tripped him. He sprawled into the wet grass and glared up at her through the rain, which had turned into a steady downpour.
“That was mean,” he muttered.
“Get up,” she said, ignoring the guilt that brushed her. Better bruised and safe than bear brunch. “I will go after Sam.”
“You promise to save him?” Ben asked, his eyes huge and dark. Tears clung to his thick lashes and he was sucking his thumb. That he wasn’t screaming hysterically astounded her and helped to calm her own panic.
She tugged his thumb from his mouth and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Sí, monkey. I promise.”
She hurried around the front of the cabin, Alexander on her heels. The door was shut, but not locked, and as they stepped into the dim, gray interior, the musky scent of mildew assaulted her senses. It was a sparse, one room cabin, with a small woodstove in the center. A stained mattress atop a sagging metal frame sat in one corner; a makeshift kitchen with a scratched metal sink and row of pine cupboards along the opposite wall. An old wooden table, two chairs, and a single, cracked window made of leaded glass.
Lucia set Ben and Daisy down on the bed.
“Watch them,” she told Alexander.
“Take your gun,” he replied, fear shimmering in his pale gaze.
“Please save Sam,” Ben pleaded, and a fresh wave of tears slid down his cheeks. “He’s my best friend!”
“I will, monkey, do not worry,” Lucia said grimly. “That bear will not know what hit him.”
But when she turned to leave the cabin, she found Sam standing in the open doorway, watching her. Soaking wet, unharmed, his brilliant gaze glittering with a look she couldn’t read.
“Sam!” Ben cried and wiggled from the bed to race across the cabin. He threw himself against Sam’s legs. “Are you okay?”
Lucia had been baffled by Ben’s immediate, inexplicable trust of Sam ever since she’d first witnessed it, but watching Sam lift Ben into his arms, she suddenly understood. Ben saw with crystal clarity who Sam was. He had none of her fear or prejudices or burden of experience; he had only his gut. And he went with it.
“Right as rain, monkey.” Sam ran a hand over Ben’s head, a tender, protective motion Lucia didn’t expect. “How about you?”
“I’m glad you’re okay. Lucia was coming to get you.” Ben laid his head against Sam’s chest, his small hands curled tightly into Sam’s wet shirt. “She was gonna shoot that bear!”
Sam’s gaze moved to her; his brows arched. “I told you no.”
Which made her want to punch him in the face again. Heat crawled into her cheeks, and his eyes fell to her lips, and suddenly she could feel the rasp of his tongue stroking hers, his fingers pressing into her hips, the hard wall of his chest against her breasts. The vibration of the sound he’d made echoed through her. And she grew damp as she stared at him, ready, even though he was three feet away, even though he held Ben, and Alexander stood, watching silently.
As if he was still touching her. Dios mío.
This was so not good.
“I was going to do what was necessary,” she replied finally, unwilling to back down.
She was not a dog. She did not take commands.
“To save me?”
She saw a flash of humor in his bright gaze and his mouth curved, which she didn’t appreciate, but acknowledged was just as alluring as the quiet, competent charisma woven into his skin. Her belly tightened, because he was not a man who smiled often. She did not need to know him well to know that. And it was a beautiful smile, at her expense or not.
“Of course,” she told him brazenly. “We will need a fire.”
He laughed softly, and need flushed her skin, and damn the man, she smiled back.
Chapter Twenty
“Mr. Cruz, he is a good man.”
Isabel watched Tony struggle to reign himself in. She shouldn’t have sensed his anger as strongly as she did—not after only forty-eight hours in the man’s presence—but she could almost feel it, like the rasp of a rough tongue against her flesh.
We need to talk, he’d said. And Isabel supposed she should be angry with what he’d disclosed: his history with Lucia and her brother, Elian; the complicated and problematical addition of a U.S. Marshal to the equation (something Isabel was secretly rather glad for, because the idea of Lucia Sanchez and those boys at Ivan Dragovitch’s mercy was the stuff of nightmares); and last, though never least, Tony’s determination to “burn Cruz at the fucking stake.”
The man was furious. He’d alternated between apology and defiance while making his confession, and if nothing else, he’d been sincere. He’d also been very blunt.
“I’m fucking trusting you, Isabel. Don’t make me regret it.”
Isabel had not yet decided what she would do with the information he’d disclosed. Because, although she was a federal agent, and it was her duty to report everything he’d told her, Isabel was also unorthodox in her approach to both information and its disclosure to her superiors. The rule book was all fine and good—there were plenty of agents who needed it—but oftentimes it was simply superfluous. She was perfectly capable of determining what was pertinent and what wasn’t; there was no need to muddy the waters with inconsequential data.
Right now, the presence of Sam Steele was not pertinent to her investigation. Nor was Tony’s relationship with Lucia or her brother. If she’d believed Lucia had orchestrated the allegations of abuse due to her brother’s history, Isabel would have immediately shared the information with her peers. But she did not. The drawing she’d discovered in Alexander Cruz’s room, the excessive security at Cruz’s remote cabin, his open and derisive manipulation of federal law enforcement—those were all perfectly legitimate, material indicators that necessitated further investigation. Indicators she would utilize to pursue the truth, regardless that she already knew who and what he was.
Monster. She could see it. She could always see it.
Still, she needed evidence. Proof beyond a shadow of a doubt. That put her and Tony on the same page.
For now.
“A very good man,” the woman who sat before them added. “Like a saint!”
Tony’s hands fisted, and a rough breath blew from him like a whale surfacing. He was doing everything he could not to shatter the frail old woman he faced. Rosa Sanchez, who’d just returned from Arizona and nearly nine months of breast cancer treatment, who was Donavon Cruz’s former nanny and the woman Lucia Sanchez had replaced. Her age was only fifty-three, but she looked a decade older, her illness—or its cure—turning her haggard and faintly yellow. Lines of pain and exhaustion carved her into rawboned hollows, and her dark eyes were sunken and joyless.
She wore a shapeless caftan in pale blue, which matched the scarf wrapped around her head, and her feet were covered in thick black socks. They sat in her son’s living room, a small, square room with a love seat, two recliners and a set of TV trays. Her son was at work; her daughter-in-law had gone to pick up the kids from school.
“You never saw any hint of abuse?” Tony asked—growled—and Rosa shook her head. Again.
“No,” she insisted. “Never.”
But her pulse beat furiously, and the hands in her lap were fisted and white-knuckled around her wooden-beaded rosary.
Isabel looked around the modest, two bedroom home, and said, “Who is paying for your treatment, Mrs. Sanchez?”
Rosa’s eyelids flickered. Isabel felt Tony’s gaze touch her, but she only waited.
“I have…insurance,” Rosa replied.
“That Mr. Cruz pays for?” Isabel asked.
Color flushed the woman’s cheeks, spots of bright pink that only served to highlight the yellow-gray tint of her skin. “Yes.”
Tony leaned forward, his gaze narrowing, but before he could speak, Isabel continued, “Generous of him, to insure a former employee, especially one so critically ill.”
Rosa only blinked, lines drawing her mouth tight. “I told you: he is a good man. When I got sick, he said he would take care of me.”
“Why?” Isabel wanted to know.
“I was with the family for many years, some of them not so good.” Rosa shrugged
. “Mr. Cruz said he was grateful.”
“Not so good?” Tony repeated.
The lines around Rosa’s mouth deepened. “The death of Mrs. Cruz was very…difficult. He loved her very much.”
Isabel swallowed the urge to snort. Based on the research she’d done, the death of Mrs. Cruz had amounted to little more than a brief article in the society pages and an abbreviated obituary. There’d been no investigation into the car accident that killed her—a single car roll over—and no autopsy. With no other living relatives, there’d been no one to protest. Thus, Eleanor Cruz had passed with barely the blink of an eye.
According to an interview in Las Vegas Today, Eleanor had met Donavon Cruz at GenTek. She was the executive assistant to the head researcher; Cruz its biggest shareholder. A Cinderella Story! the magazine had proclaimed, Love At First Sight! After marrying Cruz, Eleanor quit her job and gave birth to their first son: Alexander Matthew Cruz. Soon after Alexander was born, Eleanor stepped from the public spotlight. She no longer accompanied her husband to events; the boards, non-profits and various organizations she’d volunteered for were given notice of her resignation. Five years later, Benjamin Alan Cruz was born—not in a hospital, but deep within the confines of the Cruz estate—and from that moment forward, Eleanor Cruz became a shut-in. She never left her home, was never photographed, and did not communicate with anyone outside of her children and her staff.
That she’d suddenly decided to climb into her car—after staying hidden within her home for years—and go for a drive into the desert, where she then died in a single car accident no one witnessed, was worse than suspect. It was laughable. Obvious. And yet no one had investigated. No one argued.
No wonder Lucia had met such resistance; no one was willing to cross Donavon Cruz.
No one, Isabel thought, but me. Tony. And Lucia Sanchez.
“And what of Lucia Sanchez’s allegations?” Isabel asked. “What do you think of those?”
Rosa shook her head. It was not lost on Isabel, that the woman was clinging to her rosary like it was a lifeline. As if holding it afforded her absolution, no matter the lies she told. “Lucia…she is a good girl, but there is ugliness in her past. I believe she is just…confused.”