by Lora Leigh
"Your dream woman, huh?"
"She doesn't back-talk me."
"She can't get on the kitchen table with you, either. I'd remember that one if I were you."
He turned back to look at her, and even in the dim glow of the penlight, his gaze was frankly sexual.
"Oh baby, that one is just set in stone," he murmured. "You have nothing to fear."
She rolled her eyes at him again as he turned back to the car, moving into it to begin searching the interior. Maggie drew in a deep breath, rubbing her hands against her arms as a nervous chill raced over her flesh.
The garage was damned creepy. There were too many shadows, too many places where someone could hide. She stared around the dark interior, her eyes struggling to pierce the darkness of the corners, the long shadows cast by the multitude of boxes, appliances, and only God knew what that had been stacked against the walls. If she wasn't mistaken, she had even glimpsed the hull of an old motorcycle hanging high on the far wall.
"You're a pack rat, Joe," she muttered.
He grunted from inside the car, the shadow of his large body moving in the interior as he searched each nook and cranny. He was thorough, and though her freedom depended on finding the information, she was beginning to pray it wasn't here. If it wasn't here, then she couldn't be implicated, and there would be no reason to fear Joe's distrust.
Tucking the small handgun he gave her into the back pocket of her jeans, Maggie bit her lip and waited in nervous fear as Joe took his good ole, easy time searching. He worked his way from the passenger side, back to the driver's side, searching under seats, along the sides, the carpet, the walls, anywhere that Grant could have hidden whatever it was he hid.
As he knelt at the driver's side door again, he ran his hands along the sides of the seat, pushing beneath it, then paused. She heard his muttered curse, heavy with bitterness, a second before he pulled a small package from beneath the seat.
"He cut my seat," Joe muttered. "Bastard. It took me two years to find that seat."
He sat back on his haunches, staring down at the dark package in his hands.
"Is that it?" She moved closer.
"Yeah." His voice was heavy with distaste. "I pretty much bet this is it. Feels like a few discs, a video, pictures." He felt around the wrapping. "I think we have it."
The garage door opened abruptly.
"And here Santiago was certain our friend Grant was such a liar."
The heavily accented voice was followed by four large bodies stepping into the garage, weapons raised, and their guns sure as hell looked bigger than hers and Joe's.
"Down."
A hard hand locked around Maggie's wrist, jerking her down, as Joe pulled her around the side of the car and toward the long shadows cast from the junk piled along the walls.
She expected gunfire. Pain. Blood.
"Get them," the order was harsh, commanding, but the sound of bodies moving behind them was the only indication that the Fuentes gang was in pursuit. The fact that they weren't firing guns yet made her even more nervous.
"I'm going to assume you are going to be difficult about this," the voice sighed as a bright light suddenly flared and began sweeping through the garage. "Don't risk your lady's life, Agent Merino. Give us the package and we will leave as quietly as we came in."
Maggie felt the tenseness of Joe's body just as she heard the lie in the stranger's voice. They would never make it out of there alive, no matter what they did.
"Jose, kill them now. You are making Roberto's mistake in attempting to play with them," a younger voice hissed. "Finish them off and we leave."
"Shut up, Santiago. Roberto was less than the piss running down his father's leg. He had no concept of the lessons Carmelita tried to teach us, whereas I paid careful attention. I will defeat this American dog on my own terms. Is this not so, Agent Merino?" He laughed slyly. "There is no triumph in a quick death. A humiliating life is another matter."
Maggie had a feeling Jose had no intentions of allowing them either choice. She could hear it in his voice, feel it in the tension whipping through the room. She stayed down, pressed against the side of an old washer, with Joe in front of her, completely hiding her. She bit her lip, fighting back her harsh breathing, forcing herself to stay utterly silent as the flashlight swept through the garage.
Crouched low, with decades worth of junk heaped around them, Maggie bit her lip as the sound of footsteps neared. They were searching around the stacks of accumulated boxes, appliances, and miscellaneous junk heaped six to eight feet from the sides of the large garage. It was a mess. Thank God.
She held her breath as the footsteps passed and moved away, the bright flare of the light skirting inches in front of where Joe crouched.
"Agent Merino, we can do this the easy way, or we may do it the hard way. If you make me exert effort, then I will take your woman and play with her a bit before I allow her to die. I will let you live long enough to watch. Or you can hand over the package easily, and you may just walk away."
Maggie shuddered at the offer as Joe reached back, gripped her wrist again, and they began moving slowly through the shadows, hunkered low, working around along the side of the garage toward the far wall. The direction they were going would have them
coming up behind the men standing at the doorway. If they moved further into the garage, then there was a slim chance for escape.
"How disappointing," Jose finally sighed. "But, I'll enjoy punishing you for the effort I must make."
Joe moved quickly along a row of boxes before pushing her between a higher stack and an old dresser. There was a maze built through the stacks of junk, haphazard and less than safe, but with a few hidden passageways that seemed more by accident than by design.
They moved into the narrow tunnel, easing slowly behind the dresser as the sound of footsteps began to near their hiding place.
Joe paused behind the dresser, crouched, and waited as the footsteps passed before moving slowly out of the impromptu tunnel and into a mess of old clothes hanging from a long rack. Maybe being a pack rat wasn't such a bad thing after all.
"Americans are so interesting." Amusement filled the voice that spoke from just in front of the rack of clothing a second before the glare of a flashlight illuminated the floor. "Come out my friends, let us talk for a bit."
As the rack of clothing began to move, Joe kicked into action. Before Maggie could do more than gasp he pushed her back behind the heavy dresser and opened fire.
Maggie scrambled through the unnatural tunnel, her hand fumbling behind her as she attempted to reach the revolver tucked into her back pocket.
She had just moved to the other side of the dresser when the boxes that lined the tunnel crashed around her, and cruel fingers reached in, latching into her hair.
"No!" Her fingers formed claws as she tore at the fingers holding her, fighting the grip as she was jerked from the safety of the boxes.
"Redheaded whore!" A heavily accented voice hissed at her ear as one arm was jerked behind her back, her hand pressed against her shoulder blades as she cried out in pain.
"Do you hear her cries, Merino?" the voice called out as the gunfire was silenced. "I have your whore now."
She was shaken like a rag doll as she fought against the pain ripping through her shoulders and her scalp. She was dragged through the dimly lit garage and brought to a stop next to the man she had met in her home, introduced as Juan Martinez. This was Jose Fuentes, not Martinez, and he was just as frightening now as he had been the year before, when he met with Grant.
"She's very pretty, my friend." Jose gripped her jaw in his hand, twisting her face around until she was forced to stare up at him. "I warned Grant when he married her that he had chosen one he could not tame. I was correct in this assessment, was I not?"
She fought his hold, tears filling her eyes from the burning pain tearing through her shoulders as her captor twisted her arm more forcibly behind her back.
"Let her go, Fuente
s," Joe snapped. "She doesn't have what you want."
Jose Fuentes held her head in place, refusing to allow her to look over to Joe as he glanced to his side.
"Ah, there you are, Agent Merino." His smile was sickly evil, a twisted parody of humor. "It is very kind of you to join us."
"Jose, get the package from him and we will leave," Santiago snapped. "We have no time for these games."
"We have time for whatever I wish, boy. Diego is not here to listen to your sniveling. You follow my orders."
Jose tightened his grip on Maggie's face as she finally whimpered with the pain.
His teeth flashed within the expanse of scarred, dark flesh as he chuckled at the sound.
"She's a strong woman. Women such as this, they fight the drug Diego created. They are the enjoyable little tramps once they succumb, both fighting and pleading for the agony to come."
Maggie shuddered at the threat as Jose released her face and stared back at her sneeringly.
"I think I will let our Agent Merino live," he sighed. "After I relieve him of the package it would appear he has dropped."
Breathing harshly, Maggie turned her head to the side, seeing the shadowed form of Joe standing tall, his hands raised behind his head as one of Jose's men stood behind him. The package was no place to be found.
"Let her go." He nodded to Maggie. "She has nothing to do with this."
"She has much to do with this." Jose ran the backs of his fingers over her cheek as she jerked back in response. He chuckled a second before backhanding her. "Grant made certain he teased us often with tales of what a cold little wife he had. I do so enjoy breaking in such women. Frigid little bitches who think their bodies are too good for a little rough, sweaty sex."
The pain ripped through her mind as the blow blinded her, nearly tearing her neck from her shoulders with the force of it. Sagging against the man holding her, Maggie fought to catch her breath as she heard the rough laughter that echoed around her.
"I will take Senora Samuels with me," Jose stated then. "The videos make us much money. She will bring quite a price from those viewers who enjoy watching the battle between the needs of the flesh and the denials of the mind. I will take her in payment for my trouble."
"Then you can forget the package."
Maggie's eyes widened as Jose's gun came up to her head.
"I can kill her now."
"Same deal. I know where the package is, you don't."
"I will find it once you are both dead," Jose snarled furiously. "I do not need you to find the package."
Joe glanced around the shadowed garage before turning back to Jose, his lips kicking into a grin. "Good luck."
A tense silence filled the garage as Jose's and Joe's eyes met in a battle of wills. Moments later, Jose bent, the hiss of a knife sliding from an ankle sheath sliding over Maggie's nerve endings like a serpent's warning.
As he rose he turned to Maggie once again, his hand lifting until the blade touched her skin. "How long would you last, my friend, as I begin slicing her open, inch by inch. Her beautiful face." The knife slid down her jaw. "Or these pretty breasts." It moved to her breasts as Maggie fought to shrink back. "It would be a shame to destroy such beauty, Agent Merino."
Maggie fought to make out Joe's expression, to see through the dim light provided by the flashlight Jose had aimed more at the floor rather than Joe. It left Joe's expression in shadow to her, though she was certain Jose had the required light to watch it closely.
She shook her head slowly as Joe watched her. It wasn't worth it. The Fuentes gang would continue to kill, to rape, and to maim if they were allowed to go free. But could she bear the pain Jose could deal her? She was horribly afraid she couldn't.
"Decide now, Merino." The blade pressed into the upper portion of her breasts, pricking the flesh. "There is no time left."
In more ways than one.
As Maggie's gasp tore from her throat, light flared in the garage, brilliant and intense as sirens began to blast through the interior. Maggie felt someone's rough hands jerking her away to the side as the feel of the blade biting into her flesh had her crying out in shock.
"Stay down."
She heard Joe's fierce order at her ear as she was dragged to the other side of his precious car, the sound of bullets pinging around it sending a flash of dread through her chest.
"Sons of bitches," Joe yelled. "Be careful of my fucking car!"
The garage doors flew open as Maggie's eyes adjusted to the light, the sight of black-clad figures pouring into the interior, sending jubilation rushing through her.
Within seconds it was over. Maggie rolled to her back, staring up at Joe as he leaned over her, his lips curving into a smile as she watched him in surprise.
"Looks like Craig knew me better than I thought he did," he grunted with a short laugh. "I'd have pulled that one over easy on Grant, Maggie. He would have never known I was gone until I didn't return."
"Craig did this?" Joe helped her to her feet, his arm curving around her waist as they watched the SWAT team gather up Jose, Roberto, and their henchmen, under the close supervision of Craig Allen, the district attorney, Mark Johnson, and the federal prosecutor, Andrew Johnson.
Craig turned to them slowly, his eyes watching them for long assessing moments before he lifted his hand, touched his fingers to his forehead, and nodded slowly.
"My car is ruined," Joe sighed.
Maggie jerked her gaze to the car. It was scarred with bullet holes from one end to the other.
"You can fix it." She was still breathing harshly, hardly daring to believe that it was all over. The information they needed was found, the Fuentes group was back in custody, and she was free.
"How about 'we' fix it?" He turned to her, staring down at her with sudden sobriety, his brown eyes almost black with emotion. "We could redecorate the house while we're at it."
"We?" she whispered.
"We." He nodded slowly, his fingers lifting to the bloody scratch on her chest before his gaze came back to hers. "I won't let you go again, Maggie. Ever. So for your sake, I hope you love me as much I love you, because if not, we're in for a hell of a battle."
"We're in for a hell of a battle anyway." She couldn't stop smiling. Couldn't stop crying as she threw her arms around his neck, felt his surround her and knew, in that moment, that her dreams had come true.
She was in Joe's arms, and he was talking forever. And forever was a good thing.
Epilogue
Three weeks later
Joe found the little plastic stick with the line running through the result window when he dragged himself out of the bed and stumbled into the bathroom.
Sleep wasn't something he had gotten a lot of the night before. Maggie, on the other hand—he had gotten a lot of her. He had taken her until he was certain sex would be the furthest thing from his mind for days. Only to reach for her again, impossibly hard, desperate to feel her coming around him.
He stared down at the home pregnancy test, hardly daring to believe what it meant. That in the weeks since he had her back in his bed, that a child had developed. The child he had dreamed of having with her every fucking night she had been married to Grant.
He had lived in fear of the other man announcing pending fatherhood. Certain that the moment he heard the news, life would crumble around him. Two years he had spent in hell, aching, tormented by memories of Maggie and a hunger that never slept. A hunger that still didn't sleep.
How had one tiny woman buried herself so deeply within his heart without his knowledge of it? Yet Maggie had. He loved her in ways he had never loved his first wife. In ways that still defied his own understanding. He would die for her. Without thought. Without regret. He would die for Maggie. And now for their child.
He reached out and picked up the stick, feeling his chest clench as emotion threatened to overwhelm him. And amazingly, he felt the erection between his thighs, his cock thickening, straining as arousal began to tear through him.
&
nbsp; Maggie was pregnant.
Joe blinked back the moisture that filled his eyes as the knowledge overwhelmed him, weakened his knees, and made him feel like whimpering in excitement and fear. Damn, he felt like a fucking teenager with his first woman now. His flesh prickled with awareness of the bond he was suddenly aware of, and his chest felt too tight as his heart seemed to swell with the overabundance of emotion flooding through him.
He backed slowly from the bathroom, his eyes on that small line of color in the result box of the test stick.