“Amelia, darlin’.” His husky voice, rumbling low in the chest pressed hard to her breast, made them tingle more than they already were. “We’ve grown close these past few months. I want you to remember how you feel at this exact moment.”
“How could I forget?” she asked dreamily, seeing that it was the best moment of her life.
“I’m going to hold you to that.” His tone, more so than his cryptic words sparked worry that evaporated some of the pleasant fog his kisses had created. Her brows knit together.
“I don’t understand, Jake. Is something wrong?”
But his thumb sweeping across her lips halted further questioning.
His eyes slowly searched her face, then he shook his head. “You are beautiful, Amelia.”
The sudden change of subject screamed of avoidance. “Now I know something is wrong. You’re scaring me.”
He chuckled, while his arms flexed, holding her tighter. “How is commenting on your beauty wrong? Don’t fret. I just want you to remember this moment, our first kiss.” He slid the edge of his thumb along her jaw, tucked it beneath her chin, and angled her face upward, touching his lips to hers once more. “One of many yet to come. We’ll talk more after I return, in a few days.”
“You’re expecting trouble,” she guessed. “That’s why it seems like you are saying goodbye. Don’t go.”
“It’s my job, darlin’. And I’m not expecting any more problems than we’ve had these past few months.”
She wasn’t convinced. “You’ll be careful?”
“Always.” He pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek, then her nose, and lastly her forehead, where he held his lips for three heartbeats—she counted. “I’ve got to get to work. I didn’t mean to disturb you, but you looked so lovely and relaxed here in your quiet place, I couldn’t resist.”
“I’m glad that you didn’t.”
He grinned down at her then grabbed his hat off the bench. Without looking back, he moved down the steps, his long legs carrying him up the path and out of sight in a blink.
Amelia sighed, unable to return to her relaxed state as she sensed something was terribly wrong. Too dark now to read, she shut her book and decided to go in. As she stood, she saw a scrap of paper on the bench beside her. She unfolded it and squinted in the low light. It took moving out from under the roof and straining in the last vestiges of daylight to see Jake’s small, masculine scrawl. It was the stage schedule for the next two weeks.
Thinking Jake might need it and hoping to snatch a few more minutes of his time, she rushed down the steps and up the path after him.
The big, three-story house she grew up in was separated from the stable and coach yard by a thick grove of bur oaks. There was a well-tended trail wending between the trees, leading to the business side. She headed that way.
Crossing through the dark shadows where the porch lanterns didn’t reach, she heard voices and slowed.
“It’s all set for the next Corpus Christi run.” Jake’s deep voice, although hushed, carried easily in the night air. She eased up to the corner of the house and peeked around in back. By the steps near the rear door, in the light from the big kitchen window, she saw him talking with someone.
“How many?” the other man asked. His dark hair, thin moustache, and his wide brimmed, flat crowned hat with the braided band told her he was one of the Mexican vaqueros her daddy had hired. He insisted on having someone fluent in Spanish on each bank run to help translate or negotiate, if the need arose.
“Four,” Jake answered. “In addition to me and the driver.”
“Is that enough? They usually have at least a dozen men, the five brothers take the lead while the others scout ahead and monitor their back trail.”
“The goal for now is to track, nothing more.”
“Amy.”
She stepped out of sight of the men when her name was called. Quickly turning, she saw her father walking toward her from the front yard.
“What are you doing out here in the dark by yourself?”
“Um, my book.” She held it up as she went to meet him. “I remembered I left it in the gazebo and was afraid it might rain.”
He glanced up at the cloudless sky, stars just beginning to appear in the bluish-blackness. “I doubt that’s about to happen, but I pray you’re right. A good shower would keep down some of this dust.” Then he turned his head and looked at the gazebo, which was clear in the other direction. With a frown, he moved past her and peered around the corner toward the back door. She followed him and saw the yard was empty, Jake and the other man gone from sight.
“Mmm,” her father murmured. “Let’s go inside. It’s getting late.”
“But it’s barely eight o’clock,” she replied, although she took his proferred arm and strolled with him to the door.
“Morning comes early,” he answered vaguely, glancing toward the rear of the house once again. He seemed off, somehow, or had she imagined it?
Her suspicions had grown after that evening. Adding two and two together in her head, she kept coming up with a million, instead of four. The strange conversation in the gazebo, finding him skulking around in the dark and the meeting with the new vaquero. It was after that, when she decided to be more cautious around Jake. And now, as he prepared to hand over the gold so easily, it was clear he wasn’t fit to oversee the safeguarding of her daddy’s company, either.
Steele, bah! The men said his last name suited him perfectly, that he never got rattled or flustered, and in fact, had nerves of steel. It was true; he hadn’t lost his temper, and the men talked, so she would have known, if he had. Laid back, easy going, cool as a cucumber, is how they described him. Unlike the last foreman who had been an ill-tempered hot head. For that reason, because Jake was the polar opposite, he had a reputation as a quick draw, and was smarter than a whip, Gerard Banks entrusted him with the security of his business and his livelihood.
Boy, howdy, was that turning out to be a huge mistake.
The robberies continued, increasing in frequency, despite the salaries they were bleeding for protection.
It was what brought her here today, baking in the airless stove on wheels as it made its weekly fifty-mile trek between Beeville and Corpus Christi. At least she hadn’t chosen the longer hauls to San Antonio or Laredo.
Temperatures in July in south Texas reached upwards of one hundred degrees in the shade. Inside the sealed-up coach with its stagnant air, it had to be one hundred and ten. She was drenched with sweat, such that her cotton blouse adhered to the wet skin of her back, and droplets dripped off the ringlets that framed her perspiration beaded face. Opening the heavy curtains would have gleaned perhaps a slight breeze in the hottest part of the day as well as more dust. Any other time, she would have ripped the drapes wide open and hung out the window in a most unladylike fashion. Not now, and she blamed Jake for her misery, because if he were doing the job her daddy was paying him to do, she wouldn’t be hiding in this cook stove on wheels, waiting, watching, and practically melting.
A smattering of angry Spanish met her ears. Unable to keep from it, she raised the edge of the dust-coated heavy curtain and peeked out.
“Land sakes alive!” Amelia’s heart raced, pounding against her breastbone like it would leap clear out of her chest. Her anxiety grew tenfold when she heard the nervous whinnying of several horses.
What she saw made her stomach clench with panic. Foremost, the six armed bandits wearing bandanas over their faces. One had dismounted and had his gun aimed at Jake’s head as they approached the coach. Despite the soaring temperature, a chill ran up her spine. Something about him was familiar. He wore a bandana, masking half of his features, like the others, but she sensed she’d seen those dark brown eyes before and the wide brimmed hat. But from where?
She didn’t have time to piece it together now. If the bandit saw her, she was in deep trouble. Scrambling backward, she ducked out of sight just as the door was wrenched open. The shifted cargo resting against it fell ou
t and allowed sunlight to flood the interior. She squinted from the sudden brightness, but when no one shouted, “Ah ha!” or hauled her outside, she inched back further, trying to make herself as small as possible and hopimg she wasn’t discovered.
Afraid to breathe or so much as blink, she didn’t dare move to relieve the pain of whatever it was that was digging sharply into her lower back. Her heart stuttered as boxes were shifted and a sliver of space appeared between the two crates in front of her. Jake’s frowning face came into view.
“This may take a while,” he muttered. “It’s a damn mess in here.”
Panic gripped her as he removed a mail sack and several boxes. Thinking she’d be exposed any moment, she slumped in relief when she heard him softly exclaim, “Here it is.”
He didn’t say it loud enough for the lead bandit’s privilege, because he demanded impatiently, “What’s taking so long, Rodrigo?”
Hearing the name made all the answers to her questions fall into place, especially when the rest of the conversation she’d had with her father that night came flooding back.
After taking only two steps toward the front porch with him, she turned and asked, “The new vaquero you hired, what’s his name?”
Her father had cocked his head, his eyes narrowing in question. “Why do you want to know?”
“Oh, just curious. You know I like to meet all the employees, but I must have missed him.”
He relaxed, as though relieved it was nothing more than her natural curiosity. “His name is Rodrigo Alvarez. I’ll introduce you tomorrow.”
Heaven help her! Rodrigo, the bandit, was also the vaquero she’d seen with Jake that night. The memory of the way he’d searched his pockets for the schedule he’d left in the gazebo made her chest clench painfully, her heart breaking as the truth became clear. The man whose eyes haunted her dreams, with the deep, sultry voice that made her heart race, the only one she’d ever given her heart to, was in on it. He was also the man her father had come to rely on, entrusting him to save his company from going under, but in reality, all this time, had a hand in robbing him blind.
No, it couldn’t be. This had to be a horrible coincidence. Rodrigo was a name common in Mexico, as ubiquitous as his dark hair and his flat-crowned banded hat. If she could only see his face, to confirm he sported the same thin mustache, then she could be sure.
Unable to keep from it, she craned her head, trying to catch a glimpse of the man in question, but her gazed collided with eyes as blue as the sky behind him.
Jake froze, lips parting in shock, but only briefly. Then his jaw clenched shut, and a muscle began to twitch in his cheek. Out of anger, perhaps, or fear. Either way, her presence had rattled him.
She had a small flash of satisfaction at seeing he wasn’t quite as unflappable as everyone claimed. Then she wedged herself further into the shadows formed by the mail bags.
“The cargo shifted during the trip. I’m looking…” he called over his shoulder before he leaned in. “Stay down and don’t make a peep,” he ordered in a hushed tone as he lifted a rather large sack and dropped it right on top of her. Once again, she couldn’t see a thing. But he had concealed her quite thoroughly, protecting her, too.
She heard metal scraping against wood and knew it was the strongbox being removed before the door was slammed shut again.
Unwilling to be kept in the dark any longer, she scrambled out from under the bag and crawled back to the window.
Peeking out, her eyes homed in on Rodrigo, who was waiting to accept the box from Jake.
Damn! With the bandana, she just couldn’t be sure. Then he did something that sealed it. The bandit winked conspiratorially at Jake as he approached.
What kind of criminal would be so familiar and casual with their victim unless they were in cahoots?
Case closed, guilty as charged. Amelia felt sick.
Her gaze sought out the other bandits. All wearing the same blue bandanas, all with dark brown eyes, but none looked like Rodrigo. Their attempts to conceal their identities were pointless; their photographs had been plastered all over every newspaper in southern Texas.
The one in the middle, gesturing with his double pistols aimed at Jake, was the leader, Renaldo, the oldest brother in the notorious Viejo gang. He had been making trips across the Rio Grande to the region around Laredo and been robbing the stage lines blind, her father included. She recognized him by the jagged scar running vertically from his temple down his cheek and beneath the bandana.
The articles listed four other brothers, with black and white, grainy images of Tomas and Mateo. Carlos and Diego weren’t pictured. There was no mention of a Rodrigo. But that didn’t matter. He must be a cousin or a hired man, sent to infiltrate her father’s company to feed information back to the gang.
No wonder they knew when and where to strike. They had a spy on the inside, two to be exact. And one oversaw the schedule and security.
Her horror turned quickly to anger as she watched the man she’d fawned over, fantasized about, and kissed passionately hand over the strong box filled with the bank transfer. Granted, he had five guns aimed at his chest, and those were the ones she could see, but he did so without the slightest hesitation.
“They must be paying him well to be a Benedict Arnold,” she muttered under her breath. Her comment hung in the dense, dusty air as Renaldo ordered Jake, Old Park, and the other outriders down on the ground, hands behind their heads, and one of the other bandits quickly gathered their discarded weapons.
The whole incident—even with Park’s attempt to do his job and defend the cargo—took no more than fifteen minutes. Then they were wheeling their horses, and with a few whoops and hollers over the loot—over five thousand dollars’ worth of gold and greenbacks the bank would never see—they rode off.
Chapter 2
The echoes of pounding hooves hadn’t faded when she struggled to the exit of her cramped prison cell of more than eight hours. It wasn’t easy, but she cleared the stacks of boxes and bags, slammed open the door, and stiffly hopped down.
“Isn’t there a man among you who’s worth his salt?” she cried. “Go after them! Or do I have to do it myself?”
Five pairs of shocked eyes turned her way. The sixth pair, already dark with anger, narrowed as their owner, who had advanced warning of their surprise passenger, climbed to his feet.
“What in the hell, Amelia!” he exclaimed while stalking toward her. As he drew near, she noticed he clutched his hat in his hand and his overlong wavy brown hair shone like burnished gold in the midday sun. He was a scoundrel and a thief, but she couldn’t deny he was one of the handsomest criminals she’d ever laid eyes on.
What she didn’t understand, when his broad chest, wide shoulders, and taller than average frame clearly bespoke the strength to do good instead of evil, was why couldn’t he just go after the damn robbers? Digging deep, she strengthened her resolve to hide her feelings and not reveal how crushed with disappointment she was.
Directly in front of her now, he towered over her petite frame, glowering down at her. She stood her ground, although she was at a definite disadvantage, especially when, to meet his gaze, she had to angle her head back and tip her chin way up.
When she did, she found he’d settled his hat on his head, and the brim shadowed eyes which had been dark before and had now turned stormy. His gaze swept over her and she tried not to flinch, knowing she must look a fright after sweating buckets since early that morning.
His eyes darted to the side, then stared long and hard through the open door of the full to the brim stage. Looking down at her once again, he bent near, not stopping until his nose was a scant inch away.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he closely repeated in a shout. “You’ve been riding closed up in this July heat since we left. Did you even think to bring water?” Her lips compressing tightly gave her foolishness away and made him roar. “Woman, have you lost your mind?”
“Not that I’m aware. What about y
ou, Mr. Steele? Has the sun taken its toll on your brain? Because if you had full control of your faculties, you’d be doing what my father hired you to do and go after them. A job, need I remind you, my father is paying you good money to do.”
She bit her tongue before carping at him more or asking if his other employer had offered him higher compensation, deciding out in the middle of nowhere wasn’t the best place to accuse him of being a fraud and a crook.
But her barbs had found purchase beneath his skin, as evidenced by the muscle twitch increasing in pace in his jaw, something oddly fascinating to her, for some reason.
It should have made her feel many other things, satisfaction for getting under his skin or fear, at the very least—he was a large, angry man, twice her size and strength, after all. A hint of self-preservation wouldn’t have been amiss, either. But all this came in hindsight as he leaned in, his eyes so close she had to blink to keep from going cross-eyed.
“Your concern should be for your father, who must be out of his mind with worry.”
Regret swept through her. She had considered leaving a note but worried, as an early riser, he’d find it in time to send riders after her. Instead, she sent word by the cook that she was indisposed—a bold-faced lie.
She shoved her guilt deep, stowing it away to deal with much later, and gathered enough bluster to retort, “My relationship with my father is none of your concern. The five thousand dollars you just lost is. I suggest you go fetch it.”
“I don’t take orders from you, Miss Banks. Thank Heaven and providence for that.”
“You should be grateful you don’t. If you worked for me, you’d have been out on your… ear, months ago. Daddy has confidence in your ability, for some bizarre reason. I, on the other hand, do not, and will apprise him of your actions here, upon my return.”
Hero Undercover: 25 Breathtaking Bad Boys Page 106