Outsider

by Diana Palmer

“What?” she wondered.

  “Sarina, we didn’t use anything,” he said heavily. “Baby, you could already be pregnant.”

  Her delicate features lifted in a warm, comfortable smile. “I suppose I could,” she replied, overwhelmed with pleasure at the way he looked—wondering and happy, all at once.

  He chuckled. “You wouldn’t mind?”

  She shrugged. “I love kids.” The smile faded. “Except…”

  “Except that we aren’t married,” he said for her. The smile grew softer. “When we get this case solved, we’ll make decisions. Okay?”

  She felt as if she could walk on air. “Okay, Colby.”

  He kissed her again and reluctantly let her go.

  They walked around the property, discussing its merits. Colby felt her presence, as she seemed to feel his, because her face flushed. He reached beside him for her hand and locked it tight into his. He felt as if he were vibrating with need. He wondered if she felt the heat as he did. He looked down at her and saw eyes almost burning with hunger. His lean fingers tightened almost painfully around hers as Cy joined them at the front gate.

  “How much of the land is in pasture?” Colby asked, trying to make his voice sound normal.

  “About two-thirds of it,” Cy said. “The rest is in hardwoods and a stream runs through it. You’d have good water. Well? What do you think?”

  “Where do we find this Andy Webb?” Colby asked abruptly, and smiled at Sarina’s obvious delight.

  Cy grinned. “I just happen to know where his office is. Climb in!”

  JUST THAT QUICKLY, Colby made the decision to buy the property. He didn’t know if Sarina would want to live on it with him permanently. There would be hard decisions to make, for both of them, if she did. But Bernadette would have both parents and security. Perhaps he could sell the idea to her on that basis. He knew that he was never going to survive letting her out of his life again. She and their daughter had already become part of his very soul.

  Cy drove them back to the ranch, where they had sandwiches and coffee. Then they left, reluctantly, to go back to the hotel.

  Colby stopped at Sarina’s door, hesitating, because this was a small town and they weren’t known. They had separate rooms. It had never bothered him before, taking a single woman into his room during long trips abroad. But now, in this tight-knit community where he was considering setting up house, he didn’t want to do anything to sully her reputation. And she didn’t know about that so-called annulment. It was a card he wasn’t ready to play.

  He tugged her against him, liking the clean, sweet smell of her body and her hair, which she wore in a ponytail today.

  “How’s the arm?” he asked gently.

  She smiled, trying to appear calm when her whole body tingled at the contact with his. She wanted nothing more than to drag him inside her room and push him down on the nearest bed. She knew he wouldn’t resist. She knew he wanted her just as badly.

  “It’s much better,” she said at once.

  He lifted an eyebrow and tugged her closer. “You wouldn’t be trying to seduce me?” he drawled with twinkling eyes. “Because I have to tell you, I’m easy.”

  She smiled back. “What if I am trying to?”

  “You’re out of luck, pretty girl,” he murmured. “I have something a lot more permanent in mind than a stolen hour. Especially with an audience.”

  “Audience?”

  He quirked an eyebrow to their side, where the proprietor of the hotel was sweeping off his porch. Not that it was dirty…

  She laughed softly. “Small towns.”

  “Yes. I think I might like to live here, Sarina,” he said after a minute. “I’ve never really belonged anywhere, except on the reservation. But I’ve grown too far away from it to be able to go back. Here, I’d be among old comrades, people I’ve known for years, people who share my own history.”

  “You mean, give up working for Mr. Ritter?” she asked, a little worriedly.

  He met her eyes. “I’d like to give it a try. A real try.”

  “Oh.”

  He scowled and tilted her face back up to his. Her eyes were dark, sad. “What’s wrong?”

  She drew in a slow breath. “I don’t actually work for Mr. Ritter. I work for the DEA, out of the Tucson office,” she said. “I have to go back.”

  “Do you? Why?”

  She caught her breath. “Because it’s my job! I have to make a living, Colby,” she persisted.

  He slid his hand under her left one and tugged it up to his broad chest. “You might be pregnant,” he reminded her. “Do you really want to have another child alone?”

  Her eyes were tormented. “Of course not. It isn’t that…”

  “Then, why couldn’t you work here in Jacobsville?”

  She blinked. “The DEA doesn’t have an office here,” she stammered.

  “There are several law enforcement agencies here in the county,” he said. “Every town has a police force. Cash Grier, Jacobsville’s police chief, is especially hard on drug dealers. So is the sheriff, Hayes Carson. Cy says they’re both always complaining that they don’t have enough investigators.”

  “You mean, leave the DEA and go to work here?” she questioned slowly.

  He nodded. “I could hit Eb for a job at his school. I’m a master interrogator. I use methods that aren’t in any book of rules. And I have a reputation with intelligence gathering and martial arts. I think I could find a place for myself.”

  She could hardly believe what he was saying. But he actually seemed to be serious. “Bernadette and I could come and visit you at the ranch…”

  “You and Bernadette could live with me, at the ranch,” he replied, very solemnly. “I’ve made a hell of a lot of mistakes in my life. Most of them have hurt you. Now you have to decide whether or not you think you can spend the rest of your life with me, here.”

  Her lips parted. It was like a dream come true. There were obstacles. There were concerns, like moving Bernadette to a strange town where she’d have to give up her friends and make new ones. But just the thought of it was tantalizing.

  “Think about it for a week or two,” he told her. “You don’t have to make decisions tonight. As I said before, at Downey’s place, we’ll talk about it again, after we break up this smuggling operation. How about that?”

  She smiled with her whole heart. “Okay,” she agreed breathlessly, laughing.

  He smiled back. “Okay.”

  She reached up tentatively and touched his cheek with just the tips of her fingers. “I never even hoped that you might consider something permanent.”

  He caught her by the waist and tugged her closer. “I like the idea that you might be pregnant, by the way,” he whispered, loving her soft flush. “We might think about having several more children while I’ve got the stamina,” he whispered wickedly.

  She blushed. “I’d like that,” she whispered back.

  “I know something I’d like better, just at the moment,” he murmured, bending. His hard mouth brushed over her soft one with a lazy, gradually insistent pressure that made her body ache all over.

  She reached up and held him close, moaning as his arms contracted and he deepened the kiss.

  It was all he could do to stop. He pulled away, his body taut, his face rigid. “Not yet,” he ground out.

  “Spoilsport,” she chided breathlessly.

  He burst out laughing. “I’m trying to make an honest woman of you!”

  “I’m already an honest woman. We can still have sex. It’s okay.”

  He wondered how he’d lived so long without her. He gathered her up close in a warm, affectionate embrace and rocked her against him, still laughing. “You’re going to be a handful,” he mused.

  “You’re going to love it, too,” she shot back.

  He sighed, putting her slowly away. “I have to get some sleep. So do you. Tomorrow, we’re going to put out feelers and see if we can’t flush some drug dealers. I’m impatient to get this operat
ion finished.”

  “Funny,” she murmured, “so am I.”

  He let her go. “Sleep tight.”

  “You, too.”

  “Breakfast at seven,” he reminded her. “I want to get an early start.”

  “Suits me. Good-night.”

  He wrinkled his nose at her. “Good-night yourself.”

  HE DIDN’T SLEEP. It was a shock to find her willing to live with him. He hadn’t mentioned marriage, but he was certain she understood that was what he meant. They were still married, and he had yet to tell her. There was time, he decided. Now, there was all the time in the world.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE WIRE COLBY HAD placed in Brody Vance’s car paid off the very next day. Hunter called Colby on his cell phone with news.

  “The tip you got was apparently right on the money,” Hunter said, alluding to the young gang leader’s anonymous conversation with Colby, who hadn’t mentioned his identity to Hunter. “The Dominguez woman’s feeling safe,” he told the other man. “She’s considering moving the shipment tonight, or tomorrow night, to Jacobsville. We don’t know where it is, but we have some idea of where it’s going. Was there a honey operation down there at anytime?”

  “Cy mentioned one, at the back of his property,” he replied. “He said the holding company still owned it, although it’s been derelict since Lopez’s operation was shut down here.”

  “Bingo!”

  “Listen, can you talk to Cobb and tell him to take the surveillance off the warehouse, just for today and tomorrow, and make sure that Vance overhears it?” Colby asked.

  “Are you nuts?”

  “We don’t need to know where it is, Hunter, as long as we know where it’s going, don’t you see?”

  Hunter paused. “I suppose you’re right. But it’s risky.”

  “Not if we have Eb and Cy and Sarina and myself down here waiting for it, with any backup Cobb feels comfortable sending,” he added. “I wouldn’t mind having Ramirez along,” he said reluctantly. “I don’t like the guy, but Cy says there’s nobody better in a tight corner, and I found that out firsthand during the last raid.”

  “Cy’s right,” Hunter told him. “Okay. I’ll send him down to Cy’s today. He can get a motel room and be there when the dam breaks.”

  “Take good care of Bernadette,” Colby warned. “I don’t think Vance would hesitate to have her snatched if he could get to her. She’d be a great bargaining tool. By now, the outfit is sure to know that Sarina is a DEA agent.”

  “I spent several years working for the CIA,” the other man reminded him, tongue-in-cheek.

  “So did I,” Colby returned, “but it’s still better to spell everything out. Isn’t it?”

  “I guess so,” came the resigned reply. “We’ll make sure Bernadette’s safe. You and Sarina look to your own backs. This is a dangerous crowd.”

  “So are we,” Colby said with a grin. “But just in case, you watch your own back.”

  “Got you.”

  Colby debated whether or not to tell Sarina that he’d asked Rodrigo to come down and join the operation. Some part of him was still jealous of the attention the other man got from Sarina and Bernadette. He decided, finally, to let it be a surprise. It was safer.

  COLBY RELAYED what Hunter had told him to Cy and Eb and Sarina as they all sat around the dining room table at Cy’s later that day.

  “I’ve made a few phone calls,” Eb added, toying with his coffee cup. “We’ll have plenty of local law, as well as the feds. It looks like we’re going to shut down one of the biggest drug operations in south Texas sometime in the next forty-eight hours, if Dominguez doesn’t get cold feet and change her mind.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Eb said solemnly. “This is a dirty business. I don’t want it in my county.”

  “Neither do I,” Cy added. “Did Colby tell you he’s buying Hob Downey’s place?”

  “Are you?” Eb asked with a grin. “Then how about signing on with me? I need someone to teach martial arts.”

  “You’re as good as I am,” Colby replied, chuckling.

  “But I don’t have the time to do administration and teaching as well, not with a child to raise,” Eb replied. “I’ll pay you double what Ritter’s offering, and you can set up your own curriculum.”

  Colby pursed his lips. This was more than he’d hoped for. “Autonomy?”

  “Complete autonomy,” Eb agreed. He cleared his throat. “As long as you don’t try to teach interrogation tactics to any of my students.”

  Colby gave him a droll look. “Spoilsport.”

  “The deputy director of the FBI had a lot to say about your presence in Africa after the embassy bombings,” he replied. His eyes said more than the words did.

  “They sent me home,” Colby said, shrugging. “Beats me why. I was only asking simple questions.”

  “It was the way you were asking them, and what with,” Eb mused.

  Colby glared at him. “I got results.”

  “And the Bureau got lawsuits,” Eb nodded. “No interrogation tactics. Period.”

  Colby shrugged. “Okay. But if we ever need information from a hostile force…?”

  “You’ll be first on my list,” Eb promised. “Well?”

  Colby extended his hand and shook Eb’s. “Put me on the payroll. I’ll need to give Ritter two weeks’ notice.”

  “All right!” Eb laughed.

  Sarina met Colby’s searching eyes and smiled so brightly that his heart skipped. No need to ask if she was pleased with his decision. He felt warm inside.

  But before he could speak, there was a knock at the door. Lisa opened it to admit a tall, handsome Mexican with laughing dark eyes.

  “Was I expected?” he asked when Colby glared at him.

  “You were,” Cy agreed, shaking his hand. “Colby asked Hunter to send you down.”

  Sarina’s eyes widened like plates. Rodrigo lifted both eyebrows at Colby and smiled. “You asked for me?” he queried.

  Colby cleared his throat. “Yes, actually, I did. Cy told me about your participation in an earlier…undercover operation,” he said, without letting on that Rodrigo had been a merc. He had to choose his moves very carefully. Sarina might react badly if he ratted on the competition.

  Rodrigo’s eyebrows lifted even more. “Yes?”

  Colby shrugged. “You have an advantage on all of us about the operation in these parts. It would be stupid to leave you out. Especially now.”

  Rodrigo tried not to look smug. He couldn’t quite manage it.

  “And you can drop the smug expression,” Colby added with a glare. “Or something might accidentally slip.”

  Rodrigo knew what he meant. But he only chuckled. “I do not think it would matter much anymore,” he confessed quietly, with a knowing glance toward Sarina, who was openly staring at Colby as if he belonged to her. Which he did.

  Colby let go of the anger when he saw where Rodrigo was looking. His eyes met Sarina’s and she blushed. That amused him and defused the tension. He chuckled along with the older man. “Point taken. Let’s get down to business, shall we?”

  THERE WAS a comradeship in the group of former mercenaries that Sarina envied. She was good at her job. She’d been in life-and-death situations. But she felt as out of place as a turnip in the gathering.

  Her gaze went to the small town’s police chief, Cash Grier, who looked as out of it as she felt. He was standing on the sidelines while Colby discussed tactics with Eb Scott, Cy Parks and Rodrigo.

  Cash glanced at her and grinned. “Feeling out of place? Alone? Unnecessary?”

  Her eyes twinkled. “How did you know?”

  He shrugged. “I read minds.”

  “Nice talent.”

  “Actually it’s the way I feel myself,” he confessed. “I was never really part of a group.”

  “No? What did you do?”

  He leaned closer. “Naughty things. Very naughty things. However, I’m reformed now,” he assured her with a
grin. “Tippy and I are very pregnant.”

  “Tippy?”

  “My wife,” he replied. “I want a girl. She wants a boy. But we’ll be happy enough with either.”

  She smiled. “Congratulations,” she said, wondering how such a lone wolf sort of man had ended up married. He didn’t look the type.

  A tall, good-looking man in a sheriff’s uniform came into the room, grimaced as he saw the group of men and automatically made a beeline for Cash and Sarina.

  “I feel—” Hayes Carson began in his deep voice.

  “Out of place and unappreciated,” Cash finished for him. “And we know exactly how you feel. This is Sarina Carrington,” he introduced. “DEA.”

  “Hayes Carson, Jacobs County Sheriff,” the other man replied, extending a hand for her to shake.

  “Hey!” Cash called to the group.

  They all turned and stared at him.

  “Is this a closed operation, or do you take outsiders?”

  They laughed and joined the other three.

  “Sorry,” Eb Scott said, extending a hand to first Cash, then Hayes. “We were reminiscing.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Sarina joked. “You were all together in Africa.”

  “How did you know that?” Eb asked curiously.

  “Just an educated guess,” Sarina said, and she was giving Rodrigo a very strange look.

  He moved to her side, his hands deep in his pockets. He shot a glance at Colby.

  “He didn’t tell me anything,” Sarina told her partner of three years, with a glare. “But it’s hard to miss that you fit right in here.”

  Rodrigo grimaced. “I was not always a DEA agent,” he confessed.

  “No kidding?” she drawled.

  “Don’t give him any heat,” Cy told her firmly. “If it wasn’t for Rodrigo, we’d never have shut down Lopez. He got a leave of absence from the DEA and actually went undercover in Lopez’s operation. He damned near got himself killed in the process.”

  Sarina caught her breath. “You never told me!” she exclaimed.

  “Well, look who’s talking?” Rodrigo shot back. “Did you tell me you’d been married?”

  “I would have thought you would assume I was, since I had a child,” she replied.