She softened—and almost laughed—because she’d actually been thinking the same thing. She was a pitiful caregiver for Ellie. But that would change soon. She’d learn fast.
“This trip was a way for me to get to know my niece. I’m the youngest in my family and I’ve never really been around babies before.”
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
She shook her head. “The connection kept going out before any of the web pages loaded.”
“Yo, Gil!” Marco called from the front door of the villa. “Mind giving me a hand here?”
“Be right there,” he called out. Then he turned to Sonny. “How old is she?”
“Five months.”
“Some doctors don’t start babies on solid food until they’re a little bit older.”
She cocked her head to one side. “Can I trust that information comes from experience?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he looked around the small kitchen and picked up a banana. “If Cooper can’t find anything, I’ll go out tomorrow. In the meantime, you should mash up a banana. I’m pretty sure it’s harmless.”
She felt her brow crease. “Is that really necessary?”
His eyebrows raised. “Mashing could help you take out some of your aggression toward me. We may not have enough bananas to satisfy that, though.”
She rolled her eyes at his attempt at humor. “I have no desire to take my aggressions out on innocent bananas. What I meant to say is, are we really going to be here so long that I’ll need more supplies than what Cooper gets today?”
The glint in his eyes showed amusement. “You’re already unhappy with the accommodations? I can call management to see if they have better digs.”
“Don’t get funny with me,” she said, ignoring the sudden thrill she got from looking at the flash of light in his dark eyes. “I want to go back home. I just want to know how long it’ll be before we can return to the United States.”
He hesitated and put the banana he’d been holding back on the counter with the others. “I’m not leaving Colombia without your brother. So if you’re planning on leaving when I do, you can expect to stay as long as it takes to find him.”
“Gil! Have a heart. It’s hot out here,” Marco yelled impatiently.
She closed her eyes as he turned away. “Then we may be waiting a long time,” she muttered.
Sonny had uttered her words quietly. However, Gil abruptly turned back and stared at her. His dark eyes didn’t look as ferocious as they had when he’d walked into the kitchen a few minutes ago. They’d softened some. He was actually handsome when he looked at her this way. She didn’t feel frightened at all. Well, not frightened of him.
“Is there something you want to tell me, Sonny?”
She thought about it a moment. She’d already told Gil she didn’t know where her brother was and it was clear he didn’t believe her. Could she trust him enough to tell him the truth about Ellie and what she did know? How could that possibly help her situation?
At this point, no matter how much of a mess he’d made for her back at the airport, she had to trust that he’d keep her and Ellie safe. At least for tonight. Stepping outside the walls of the villa would only open them up to trouble if Eduardo Sanchez and his people were to discover she and Ellie were here.
She shifted the baby in her arms. Ellie had one hand tangled in the hair that had fallen from Sonny’s ponytail, and was reaching for Sonny’s earring with the other.
Gently easing her hair out of the baby’s grip, she said, “Did they give you a sheet for the crib?”
Disappointment clouded those dark eyes she couldn’t seem to stop looking into.
“Yes.” Gil left the room without another word and suddenly the small kitchen felt empty.
* * *
“You think she’s sending us on a wild-goose chase?” Cooper asked, straddling the backward chair with her elbow propped up on top of it and her chin resting on her palm.
Gil sighed and took a swig of his beer. On a hot day like this he would have already had a few. But he was working. His next drink would be coffee.
“Who knows?”
When Gil had caught Sonny on the computer earlier, he was sure she’d been trying to contact her brother. And he’d been pissed. Not that he blamed her. If he were in her shoes, he’d do the exact thing. But he didn’t need Cash Montgomery getting wind that his team had come down to Colombia. It was a sure bet Cash would be long gone before they could catch him.
He should let it go—it wasn’t like Sonny was the first person to lie to him. Family members of fugitives were a funny bunch. They wanted to help their loved ones, but they always seemed to do it the wrong way and get themselves in trouble. He’d hate to see that happen with Sonny.
“Don’t sweat it. It’s not the first time you two have been conned by a pretty girl.”
Cooper laughed at the face Gil made, but it grated on him that maybe there was more than a little truth to her statement. At least this time. He’d always been careful to separate his job from his personal life. But with every moment that past, with every glance in her direction, Gil realized he did indeed find Sonny Montgomery very attractive. Okay, more than that. Something about her kept her on his mind, even when she wasn’t in the room.
He turned away from Cooper’s snickering and looked into the kitchen where Marco was perched on a stool, working furiously on the computer. Getting up from the sofa, Gil made his way into the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee. The first sip told him the coffee had been sitting a while—it was like sludge going down his throat.
“There may not be anything to find, Marco,” he said.
“I’m already halfway there,” Marco said, spinning in his chair to face Gil. “If she emailed Montgomery, we’ll find out.”
“You look frustrated.”
Marco snarled and shook his head. “It’s eating messages.”
“What?”
“She put something in here. It wasn’t here before.”
“Maybe the computer got a virus?”
“Oh, it’s a virus alright. And Sonny put it here.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I have the best anti-virus protection on this machine that is available and it isn’t touching it. I hit something and the page disappears like it’s melting. I’m getting bounced all over creation. I hate to say this—I mean, in a big way—but I’m totally impressed by what she did, even though it pisses me off. And I’m feeling just a bit deflated she did it to me.”
Gil slapped Marco on the back. “Don’t worry. I’m sure your balls are still intact.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
Cooper chuckled, earning her a fleeting glare from Marco.
With any luck, by nightfall they’d have an idea of how to find Cash. If there were any tracks to be found, Marco would find them.
He blinked to get some moisture in his dry eyes. The day was crashing down on him. It wouldn’t be long before he’d need some serious rest, but he’d have to wait until he had a chance to talk to Sonny again.
She’d holed up in the bedroom since their interaction in the kitchen. He hadn’t meant to jump on her. She’d looked terrified when she’d turned around and seen him standing at the kitchen door. Yet she didn’t back down. She just lifted her chin and said her piece as if she had every right to use the computer.
He’d almost congratulated her—she had chops, that’s for sure. First at the airport and then here sneaking to the computer. But then he’d reminded himself why he was in Colombia in the first place.
Walking through the living room to the far corner, he pushed open the French doors that led to a small private courtyard. Although the villa was big, he needed some space. Some space away from everything that reminded him of Sonny Montgomery.
Stepping outside, Gil found the night air was warm and didn’t cool him off the way he’d hoped it would. With coffee cup in hand, he sat down on a bench in the center of the
courtyard next to some potted plants. The moon was bright. Not quite full, but getting there. A chaise lounge would be nice, he thought. He could sleep under the stars like he used to in the military.
He’d always liked nights like this. They brought clarity even if they didn’t bring answers. The black sky had always seemed like a comforting blanket that protected him when he needed to find solace after a hard day. He had a hard time finding that comfort now. He was on edge—and part of him knew that was because of their houseguest.
Something about the way Sonny had looked at him when they’d first arrived at the villa still didn’t sit right with him. He prided himself on the job he did capturing fugitives who deserved to be brought to justice. But Sonny had looked at him as if he might really hurt her and the baby. She believed that he could. And that bothered him more than he wanted to admit.
He shook it off. It didn’t really matter what Sonny Montgomery thought about him or his job. His boss was going to be out a cool million if they didn’t succeed in finding Cash Montgomery. If that meant that Sonny had to miss her plane and stay a few days longer in Colombia, then so be it. Life was full of inconveniences.
He drained the rest of his coffee and grimaced. When the hell did I get this grumpy?
Besides, he’d already told her she could leave if she wanted to. She chose to stay. There had to be a reason she was sticking with the man who was hunting down her fugitive brother instead of just taking off on her own. Yeah, she said she had no money left, but that may just be another lie.
Maybe it’s not what she’s hiding. Maybe it was what she was hiding from.
Yeah, that thought had occurred to Gil big-time over the past few hours while she and the baby were napping in the other room. The question was, what—or who— was she hiding from? And what did that have to do with Cash Montgomery?
* * *
Sonny had slept too long.
She only wished Ellie had, too. She’d checked the clock by the bed and saw that it was three a.m. Cooper was sound asleep in the next bed, breathing heavily as if she were deep into her REM state. Every so often, when the baby started to cry, Cooper stirred but didn’t wake up.
That was good, Sonny decided. If she was going to get another crack at the computer, she was going to have to sneak out without Cooper knowing.
But first she had to rock Ellie to sleep again. It would be a long night for all of them if Ellie didn’t sleep.
She wished she’d taken Baby 101 before she’d insisted on coming down to Colombia. Serena had filled her in, and her mother had, too. But everything she’d done thus far had been a piece of cake compared to taking care of Ellie.
She recalled how she’d thought both her mother and her sister-in-law were making such a fuss. Sonny was female, after all. Shouldn’t taking care of babies come naturally to all women?
Apparently not.
She rocked Ellie back and forth, trying to calm her crying. Do all mothers feel like complete imbeciles in the beginning stages of motherhood?
“Oh, sweet pea, your momma is going to have my head on a spit if I don’t take care of you properly,” she crooned, nuzzling Ellie’s pudgy wet cheeks.
Even as she said the words, she knew it wasn’t true. Serena would be so happy to have this beautiful baby back in her arms that nothing else would matter, least of all any minor mistakes Sonny made along the way.
The baby continued to fuss in her arms. Afraid that she would wake up Cooper, Sonny grabbed the baby’s blanket from the crib and went to the living room.
The light was on and the TV was turned down low. The screen showed an anchor speaking Spanish, talking about an upcoming festival. Sonny followed most of what he said although his dialect was different from the Spanish she knew. It didn’t really matter what the news anchor said as long as it wasn’t about the baby. She kept her ears open to any news of Eduardo Sanchez, though. She’d understand what that name meant for her in any language.
As she paced the living room in her bare feet, her eyes drifted toward the kitchen. There was no light on, which meant that Marco had finally gone to bed. He kept the computer password protected, but that was easy enough for Sonny to get around. She hoped the virus that she’d put on his computer would keep him busy most of the night so he wouldn’t uncover any more information about Aztec Corporation or find information that might lead them to Cash. Their interference would only threaten the rescue Dylan and his team was working on.
But she wanted to check that computer. But with the spotty Internet, it would be risky to try now with Ellie still fussing. It would take too much time. She didn’t want to risk waking up the whole villa and getting caught again. Besides, she’d already sent out the important email to her father and even managed to erase her footprint so Marco wouldn’t find it. She’d have to wait for the right moment to see if he responded.
The look on Gil’s face when he saw her standing at the computer earlier was one she would never forget. His expression had been hard, his eyes cold and full of contempt. Sonny wasn’t used to people looking at her that way and she hated even more that Gil had. But that didn’t make any sense. Why should she care what he thought after what he’d done?
Sonny wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination. She had a laundry list of flaws just like the next person. Stubbornness was up there at the top of the list.
Obviously she couldn’t count taking Ellie as a flaw. Taking Ellie from her captors was completely fair, since Eduardo Sanchez had hired someone to pose as a maid in her sister-in-law’s house, steal the baby and bring her to Colombia.
All of Sonny’s actions since the kidnapping were firsts in her life. Who would’ve thought two months ago that she would travel to Colombia and work with Lucia, a former undercover agent, to rescue her niece from a high-ranking Colombian gangster? Those were things her brothers did. Not her.
Well, it certainly wasn’t on any must-do-sometime-in-your-life list Sonny had ever written. And she hoped she never had to go through anything like the past few weeks again. She wasn’t sure she could. But it had been worth it. Even as Ellie fussed in her arms and she dragged herself across the floor in exhaustion, she knew it was worth it to have Ellie out of Eduardo Sanchez’s clutches.
And then there was meeting Gil. Why did his disapproval of her matter so much? She shook her head. The man was downright annoying. “I have to be crazy for thinking this way,” she said as she paced the floor.
“Something wrong?”
Sonny stopped short and swung around toward the sound of Gil’s voice, continuing to rock Ellie in an effort to soothe her crying.
It wasn’t working. The baby was rattled by the sudden sound of a male voice. So was Sonny.
Gil stood by the French doors leading outside, leaning up against the doorjamb. He was wearing a white T-shirt and loose-fitting blue jeans that had seen better days. His feet were bare and he held an empty mug on his index finger that was swaying back and forth. The warm Caribbean breeze filtered into the living room, lifting the sheer drapes up into the room and gently messing up his hair as he stood there looking at her.
Her heart hammered wildly in her chest. It seemed odd that she hadn’t noticed that the doors were open or that he was outside when she first walked into the living room. The flickering television should have given her a clue that someone was up. But her fatigue and preoccupation with the baby combined with all-consuming thoughts kept her from paying attention to those details. She’d have to make sure she was more on top of what she was doing so as not to be caught off guard again.
What the hell is it about this man that keeps me so off balance?
“The baby okay?” he asked.
“I can’t seem to get her to sleep.” Admitting it made her feel as much a failure as she’d felt earlier, walking away from the airport.
“Is she still feeding during the night?”
“I don’t have a clue.”
He raised his eyebrow as if to question her. It was a quick move. One
that Sonny would’ve missed had she not been looking directly at him. And then it was gone. Tears sprang to her eyes. Who was she kidding?
“She might have colic.”
Sonny looked at him skeptically. “How is it that you know so much about babies?”
Gil shrugged. “I lived in a house full of babies.”
“Yours?”
That earned her a quick grin and a shake of Gil’s head. “My mom and dad raised three of my younger cousins after my uncle and aunt died in a car accident when I was fifteen.”
“Oh, how awful. I mean, the loss of your aunt and uncle. Not that they raised your cousins.”
“I knew what you meant. You do what you have to do.”
Sonny couldn’t agree more. Why else had Serena trusted her to rescue her baby? It had to have taken a tremendous leap of faith on her part to trust Sonny that way. You do what you have to do.
“The two-bedroom ranch my parents owned was already too crowded, given that my room was the converted basement, but the kids had to go somewhere so they came to live with us. My five-year-old cousin roomed with my sister upstairs. And I went from having my own room to having a baby and a three-year-old bunk with me.
“Johnny, the baby, had colic. I learned real quick how to take care of him so I could get a good night’s sleep. He wasn’t much older than Ellie when he came to live with us.”
“Wow, five kids in two bedrooms.”
Gil shrugged. “It wasn’t so bad. Here, let me give it a try,” he said. Strong, capable hands reached for the baby.
She was tired and it would have been easy to hand the baby over to someone with real experience. But she held back. “Why don’t you show me?”
A flash of anger crossed his face and then it was gone. “You don’t trust me.”
“Trust is a big thing for me,” she answered quietly.
“I’m sure it is.”
Ellie was getting louder now.
“Sit right here with me while I hold her. I’m not going to steal her away.”
Sonny realized then that she was holding Ellie tightly, as if she’d be snatched away at any moment. This is what it had come to, she realized. The fear Eduardo Sanchez and his cohorts had instilled in her—and her whole family—made it impossible to know who to trust.
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