He didn’t answer, just waved a hand at the house. “Go on in,” he suggested, “before you get sunstroke. Mike had to run an errand, but the house staff will take good care of you.”
AJ shook her head slightly and frowned. “Look, Chance, let’s make a deal. I won’t coo at you—and you don’t patronize me, okay?”
He looked at her blankly. “Patronize? I—”
“I don’t need your protection from the sun and I don’t need a house staff to wait on me.”
“Prickly, aren’t you?” he asked, and she shrugged, but didn’t answer.
He was silent briefly, watching her before he matched her shrug with one of his own. “You did almost get torn to bits by the dogs,” he said, a little smugly. “You probably can’t fend for yourself nearly as well as you think you can.”
He left the car and walked toward her, a towering, menacing man. Not a spare inch of meat on him, but all breadth and muscle and height. He probably pumped iron, she thought. Beefed up for the job. Whatever, he was impressive—and the enemy’s right-hand man, she reminded herself for the thousandth time since they first met. He thought she couldn’t fend for herself? Satisfaction tugged her lips into a quick, secret smile. Let him think that until the day he found Rebel’s stall empty and she and the stallion long gone.
“Amused by the idea of guard dogs attacking?” he asked, with consternation.
“Not at all,” she assured him, her grin widening. “Just thinking.” She trailed her eyes slowly downward over his body. “And now, if you’ll excuse me?” She nodded at him as she turned back toward the house. “I’d hate to get sunstroke.”
• • •
Chance glanced at his watch. Eight thirty. He walked over to his window and glanced down into the huge patio behind the house, still almost empty. Not surprising, really; here, dinner at nine meant dinner at eleven or twelve. Traditions were to come late, eat late, stay late. Towers had invited quite a few of his friends. He often did, although his summer get-togethers weren’t as common as the ones he held every fall for his hunting buddies.
Chance smiled grimly. He’d learned a lot about Towers. Someone might think he’d worked here for ten or fifteen years, instead of just two. Two years. Had time ever moved more slowly? He moved away from his bedroom window, crossing the elegantly tiled floor to the dresser, and slowly pulled out the top drawer, rummaging under his personal items until he found the small metal case.
He really should hide it, he supposed. But Towers trusted him, the fool, and who else would look? If they did, who would recognize the photo of the laughing, middle-aged man inside the case? Even Mike Towers wouldn’t recognize his former trainer, the man whose life he had destroyed so meticulously, with such calculation. That man, Robert Newhouse, looked nothing like the man agonizing in a cell in Arizona, incarcerated for insurance fraud and the gruesome slaughter of three of the world’s highest-priced horses—horses Mike Towers had given him shares in. Nothing like the man who loved Chance like a son and who had taken care of him and Chance’s mother when her husband was killed overseas.
Before Robert Newsome went to work for Mike, he had been a respected trainer, able to work miracles with any horse that stepped onto a track or into a show ring. His reputation of kindness and insight into a horse’s psyche was legendary. Now, he was loathed when remembered, but largely forgotten.
His wife Emily remembered. She lived in Laredo now, clinging to Chance’s generosity and the hope of one day finding proof of her husband’s innocence. She believed in his abilities to clear Robert, more than he himself did. He’d thought once he managed to secure a job with Mike that the rest would be easy, and sometimes thought that Emily expected too much. Four years—two finding out who the real culprit was, then these last two getting within striking distance of Mike—seemed interminable. What if Emily gave up before he could accomplish anything?
There was so little hope, so little time. Too much had happened already. He thought with piercing sadness of the baby Emily lost during Robert’s trial; Emily almost lost her mind. She was still seeing a therapist, after a failed suicide attempt nearly ended her own life. What if Chance let her down? Saved neither her nor his uncle?
Robert would have never killed a horse. His uncle’s kindness ran deep. His tenacity in finding cures for injured horses was well known. But character wasn’t proof, and he had no proof. His uncle didn’t have an alibi. Mike had invited Emily to join María, his housekeeper, and Ella, his secretary at the time, for an overnight shopping trip to Dallas. He’d arranged for their flight, their ground transportation, and insisted on paying. Mike called it a bonus. To Chance—and in hindsight, to his uncle—it was the lead card in framing an innocent man. And so for these four years, Chance had been pursuing the truth, without success.
Initially, he’d been hopeful. Some of the grooms who helped Robert off and on had given Chance a lead: someone named Bone. El Hueso, in Spanish. The grooms claimed to have seen Bone talking to Mike Towers on several occasions, even visiting the stable and looking at the horses. Unfortunately, Chance’s optimism faded quickly. The man might better have been named “Ghost.” He had yet to materialize along any of the paths Chance had pursued, and time and hope were running out.
As essential as Bone might be to his investigation, though, the nugget of information one of the grooms had given him kept his hopes alive. The man’s name was Eli, and he was one of Mike’s newer grooms—a timid young man with three children.
“You can’t tell anyone I met with you,” he whispered to Chance after agreeing to meet him at the horse show in Tucson. “If Towers or Bone find out—”
“Find out what?”
“There was a picture,” Eli said so quietly Chance had to strain to hear. “I don’t think anyone but me knows. Bone is—he’s evil. I told the police Robert wasn’t guilty. That he couldn’t hurt a horse.”
Eli hadn’t been able to meet Chance’s eyes as he continued. “That night, someone knocked at my door. Late. My wife and kids were asleep. I opened the door and Bone held out this—this horrible picture of one of the horses.” He stopped and swallowed hard.
“He told me Mike would always know where to find me. That if Mike wanted him to—God, Chance—Bone said he could do the same thing to my family as the horses.” Eli stopped and sniffed, looked away again, then turned back to Chance, distraught. “I couldn’t go to the police. They hadn’t believed me and I didn’t have the picture anyway. I—I couldn’t.”
He’d been furious at first that Eli lacked the courage to approach the police, but as he learned more about both Mike Towers and the power he wielded, he couldn’t fault him. Who could risk their own children, given the horror of those poor horses’ fate?
When the path in Arizona ended abruptly with the disappearance of Mike Towers’s probable henchman, but the promise of other physical evidence came to light, Chance forged ahead along the only path that seemed open. He had a master’s degree in criminal justice, along with certification as a peace officer in Texas. He’d studied martial arts during and after his time in college. He’d even worked in security for a Dallas firm with wealthy clients around the world, and the firm’s recommendation got him a job with Mike Towers when he returned to Texas, his home state.
Chance snapped the case shut and returned it to the drawer, then walked back to the window. Maids bustled around arranging food on a buffet table, while men in white guayaberas, pleats gleaming neatly, carried trays of drinks to the few guests who had arrived already. Chance looked down upon the blue expanse of pool, with its ostentatious waterfall at one end, and clenched his fists.
Towers had destroyed his uncle’s life in the blink of an eye. And Chance would return the favor—at any cost. Towers would fall. Die. The cold, hard word stabbed through his mind. He didn’t know if he could kill. But Towers—
A sudden rap on his door startled him and he jerked guiltily, almost as if the person outside could have fathomed his thoughts.
“Yes?”
<
br /> “Señor Chance?”
Relief flooded through him and he hurried over to pull the door open. “Rosita, come in,” he invited, reaching out to relieve the young woman of the baby she carried. She did, smiling up at him provocatively. She pursued him, but he avoided her advances and valued her friendship. And he cherished the time she let him spend with the little guy, too.
The baby cooed and patted his cheeks with pudgy little fists, laughing when Chance threw his head back, pretending to dodge the insistent blows to his face. “Easy, there, Gordito,” he grinned, using the baby’s pet name. No one called the baby by his given name—would be surprised, in fact, that he knew the given name. He hugged the baby close and thought about his unborn nephew. Had Emily not lost the child, he would be almost four now.
“¿Que pasa?” he asked, gently removing the child’s fingers from a too-intimate exploration of his nose.
Rosa grinned. “The little one adores you,” she announced. “And your nose!”
“I have no idea what the fascination is,” he said.
She shrugged, an exaggerated movement meant to call attention to the low-cut knit top she wore. He determinedly ignored the display and kissed the baby’s cheek.
“You’re wanted downstairs,” she told him curtly, and he smiled at her.
“Ayy, Rosita,” he scolded, the affectionate form of her name taking the sting out of his words. “Give it up. I’m not worth your time or trouble.” He handed the baby back to her reluctantly, then leaned over to kiss her forehead. “Friends, okay?”
She nodded slowly. “Bueno. Friends. But you could be much more—we could be.”
“Who wanted me?” he asked, briskly, discouraging any more personal conversation. “Towers?”
“Yes. He’s in his study. He hasn’t gone out yet.” Her tone filled with disdain, as it always did when she spoke of the man. She’d never confided the reasons, but Chance suspected she, too, had an agenda for staying here. He doubted she was here for the money. In fact, Towers paid only certain members of his staff well. Yet in spite of her contempt and dislike of the man, he knew she’d followed him here from Arizona, as had the housekeeper María and several of his other staff members.
She turned away, carrying the baby down the hall, calling over her shoulder. “Go quickly. He’s in an awful state, even for him.”
“Any idea why?” Chance asked, and she shook her head.
“No. But I’m taking mi angelito away right now!” She hugged the baby and hurried on toward the nursery. Towers spent little time or attention on the baby, but given his temper, it seemed well advised to keep the child away from the man. Poor Rosa. He didn’t envy her position at all, for whatever reason she stayed. Maybe his plans for Towers would affect her in some positive way. What was that Spanish saying: “Muerto el perro, se acaba la rabia”? The logic held in English. Kill a rabid dog, stop the disease. Sighing, he headed down the curved staircase to the first floor.
“In trouble, Landin?” Jaime Bustos asked as Chance reached the bottom step. Jaime, a large, beefy man, held the same position he did, without the title, and the two of them didn’t like each other. Chance didn’t bother replying, just ignored him as he usually did when they crossed paths.
The chandeliers were all on and light glinted off the gold-framed mirrors and decorative hangings in the hall that lead to the study. He knocked and pushed the door open when Towers ordered him in.
“What’s up, Mike?” he asked. While he usually used the more formal “Mr. Towers” around guests, the millionaire had always insisted on being addressed informally in private. He seemed to view Chance as one of his cronies rather than an employee. Usually. When something upset him, he treated Chance like anyone else in his employ: as a not-quite intelligent piece of furniture to be kicked and pushed around, or discarded completely. He was upset, his face livid, as he waved a paper in Chance’s direction.
“Did you see this?” he demanded, agitated, and Chance shook his head.
“What is it?”
“A threat! A threat on my life, and you’re nowhere to be found! What the f—what the hell am I paying you for?”
“May I see that?” Chance kept his own tone businesslike, calm. Upsetting Mike further served no purpose.
The page Towers handed him was nondescript copy paper. The single sentence of type said, “You’re a dead man.” The line was at the top of the page—nothing unusual about the spacing, the spelling, nothing unusual at all as far as he could see, except maybe that it was in English instead of Spanish. Here, on the Nuevo Laredo side, one might have suspected an attack from Towers’s Mexican enemies, rather than those from the U.S. side.
If, of course, there were anything at all to this. He looked at the letter one last time, then at his boss, who was pacing back and forth across the large, carpeted study in agitation.
“How did you get this?” he asked, and Mike turned and came back over to the desk, letting himself collapse into his leather chair.
“A little boy came up to the truck while I was in the bank,” he said with disgust. “Jaime saw him walk right up. When the kid stepped up on the bumper, he yelled and the kid ran. But when Jaime checked, he found the letter inside the bed. The kid dropped it in.”
Chance considered the information, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Jaime again. Mike trusted him. But Chance always thought his behavior was off in some way he couldn’t identify. In fact, many of the recent incidents of implied or direct threats had reached Mike when Jaime was watching over him. “You should have taken me instead of Jaime,” he muttered after a moment, and Towers banged a hand on the top of the polished desk, rattling the framed pictures and gold pen stand.
“Never mind Jaime! He’s been with me since before you were, and I trust him absolutely! We’ve been over this before! What I want to know is—can you keep me safe or can’t you?”
“No.” Chance clipped the word, meeting Towers’s incredulous gaze implacably. “No, I can’t—if you insist on ignoring my advice and doing whatever you want. You travel with those armed guards of yours—all of whom had records when I checked them out—and you make needless trips without even telling me. Here, I can protect you. Out there—you’ve seen the carnage.” He shrugged. “I hope Jaime is as trustworthy as you think he is.”
Mike worried his lip with his teeth while he fiddled with a spotless notepad on his desk. “Look,” he said finally, in a conciliatory tone, “you have to understand. Things aren’t the same here and back in the States. That’s why I usually don’t have you over here. I hired you mostly to watch the Laredo place, and didn’t think I’d need you over here in Nuevo Laredo. You’re more useful on the other side in some ways. You can carry over there, but since you’re American, you can’t legally carry a gun on this side. Wouldn’t worry me if you carried without telling anyone out in public, but if you got caught, keeping you out of prison wouldn’t be worth the time or money I’d have to pay to fix it.”
Chance paced over to glance out the window, thinking. “I can head on over to Laredo,” he offered. “I came because you told me, to, but—” He held his breath, hoping that Mike wouldn’t take the suggestion. He’d pretty much exhausted his search for anything related to his uncle’s case when he’d been on the Texas side. Mike might be the devil in amiable disguise, but he attended civil functions and donated to a lot of good causes, so he had been away from the house a lot. If the pattern held true here—
“Hell, boy, if I’d wanted you there, I’d have left you there.” Mike snorted. “I decided I wanted you here where there’s more going on. Kidnappings, theft, and the cartels fighting in the street—you’re good to have around. No one cares if you carry a gun on these grounds, so you’re worth plenty to me here on the ranch. But out on the streets, you’d just call attention to me. And Jaime and the others may have records, but they’re loyal—because no one can pay them more than I can, and they know that. They’re big here, because of me—and they know that, too. Yeah, I’ve seen the carnage
. And the bodies hanging from bridges. No way in hell am I going to end up like that. My men are from here. You’re not. They don’t call attention to themselves like you do. I don’t have to worry about them. Trust me on that. Whoever wrote that threat isn’t from this side, I’m almost sure. The warning is in English.”
Chance waved the paper, which he still held, impatiently in the air. “Damn it, Mike, what does that prove? It’s not difficult to translate one sentence from Spanish to English.”
Towers colored and scowled, but didn’t contradict him. “So … do you think it’s from this side? And for real?”
Chance put the letter back on the desk, tightening and relaxing his shoulders to relieve tension. He couldn’t afford to upset Mike enough that he lost his job, and his boss didn’t like being confronted. He had to keep his job, while keeping the man alive until he had the proof he needed. Some days he could barely keep from just walking away. He couldn’t. Robert and Emily needed him, and he owed them. “Real, yes,” he agreed. “We’d be stupid not to think that. But I’m actually inclined to agree that it’s not from this side.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you watch the news?” Chance supposed he was being rude to his boss, but the man’s ignorance annoyed him. “Things may have been quiet recently, but if you’ve made enemies—here you would have been gunned down in your car, not warned so that you could defend yourself.”
Towers nodded. “True.” He gave a heavy sigh of relief. “You know, I’m not going to worry. Not tonight.” He forced a smile and ran a hand through his gray hair. “That’s your job. And I have a party.”
“Just don’t leave it without telling me, okay?”
“Sure.” Towers grinned at Chance, his anger and worry fading away. “Unless of course—but never mind. You’re not interested in my little encounters.”
“You know, even a woman can pull a trigger,” Chance muttered, but Mike just laughed.
“Some of ’em sure do pull my trigger,” he said. “Got some fine ones coming out tonight, too. Party time!”
Texas Temptation Page 77