“Where’s Clay?” asked Kino.
Gomez noted the position of Kino’s hand and kept his hands in plain sight.
“Tracking on foot,” said Rubio. “Should be here in about thirty minutes. Anyone hurt?”
“Yeah. Lea’s ribs are broken. Barrow was snake bit and Anthony DeClay was stunned.” Kino gestured over his shoulder.
“Barrow?” said Rubio, his voice echoing surprise.
“Captain Barrow?” asked Gomez.
Kino nodded.
“He did this?” asked Rubio.
Kino understood the astonishment he saw reflected in their faces. He’d never seen it coming, either. “Yeah. He’s been trafficking through here for years. Used to work up in Tucson and they moved him here. Thought having a man in border patrol would help their success rate.”
“No wonder we were always in the wrong place,” said Nesto. “He was sending us on wild-goose chases.”
“Explains why he was always trying to get me to check in,” said Rubio. “I thought he was just a control freak.”
“He put homing devices on all our vehicles,” said Kino.
The two Shadow Wolves exchanged a glance.
Rubio lifted an arm and gestured. “Come on, son. Let’s get you two out of here. We’ll bring Miss Altaha to the hospital and then swing back for DeClay and Barrow.”
Kino took a look at the helicopter and realized it wasn’t one of theirs. It was larger and it was armed. One of the pilots glanced at him and nodded. The sleeve of his navy blue jacket was emblazoned with yellow letters. FBI.
“Whose chopper?” he asked Rubio.
“A Fed. Luke Forrest. He your boss?”
Kino had always thought of Gabe, Clay and his uncle as his bosses. But not anymore. Now he saw them for what they were and had always been. The most important thing a man could have—his family—and they had his back in good times and bad.
“He’s my uncle.”
Clay again, realized Kino, or Gabe, getting him what he needed, as always. And his uncle, who had helped him so many times, had now sent him the resources to get Lea out fast. The gratitude choked him and his vision blurred.
Kino wiped his eyes on his shirt and then helped Lea into the chopper. They lifted off a moment later. The journey that would have taken hours would now be only minutes.
“Destination?” asked the pilot.
“Regional hospital in Pima,” answered Kino.
“Yes, sir.”
Below them, Kino spotted Clay on the ground and waved. Clay signaled back and turned around. Clearly, he was interested in finding his brother and not the man who had abducted him. It was Kino who had come here for the Viper. Clay had come here only to watch over his little brother. Family first, his father had always said. Why hadn’t Kino realized that meant the living? Clyne, Gabe, Clay, Jovanna, his uncle Luke and now Lea. That was who mattered because that was who he loved.
They reached the road and Kino looked down to find a legion of vehicles including DEA, FBI and border patrol. Even if Barrow had succeeded in his plan, he was not getting away this time.
Nesto handed Kino his radio and Kino spoke to Clay.
“Heading to the hospital,” Kino said.
“Meet you there, little brother. How is Lea?”
“Banged up. Clay?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks, brother. You saved me. Out.”
Lea’s color continued to drain from her skin and now she had a cough. Each spasm made her sweat and grimace. He tried to get her to drink, but she said she felt too nauseous. They touched down in the parking lot and a crew rushed out to meet them, transferring Lea to the gurney.
At the ER, Lea was stripped of clothing, hustled into a hospital gown and wrapped in white sheets that emphasized that her usually cinnamon skin was an unnatural gray. He knew she was dehydrated and was relieved when they started the IV. They tried to usher him to the waiting room, but he said she was his witness. But now she was not just a witness. She was the love of his life and he would stay with her through this and anything else that threatened her.
Her condition scared him more than snakes or guns or the dangers of the desert. Because Lea was the one thing he could not afford to lose.
Kino did leave her briefly to give the FBI agents a quick rundown of events before he left them so they could board the helicopter back to the scene. In his absence Lea had been taken to Radiation. He found her in a familiar curtained cubicle. He searched her face and noted her color returning.
“What did they say?” he asked.
“More of the same. The fractures are a little worse.”
That news caused him physical pain.
“But the lungs are fine. It’s just hard to breathe and talk.” She smiled and her eyes seemed less bright. “They gave me something for the pain.”
He took hold of the hand that was clear of medical equipment and leaned in to kiss her forehead. “I’m so sorry.”
He pressed his forehead to the place he had just kissed. She squeezed his hand.
“I’m not.”
Kino pulled back, surprised.
“We got him. You did it. You avenged your father and your family, caught the bad guy and a second one, to boot. You should be so happy.”
Kino frowned.
Lea narrowed her eyes. “So why don’t you look happy?”
“Because I was all wrong. Chasing after that guy. You almost died, and convincing my brother to come down here with me and join the Shadow Wolves put him in danger, too. What was I doing it for? You heard him—my father was exactly the kind of man that I arrest. Why couldn’t I see what was right in front of me?”
“He was your dad. It’s natural to put him on a pedestal.”
Kino now recognized what he hadn’t been willing to admit, even to himself. His dad had loved him, but he had been one of the bad guys. Kino thought of all the people who had tried to tell him that and the fights he’d got into because of their words. Yeah, he had a blind spot where his dad was concerned and it had almost got Lea killed. How would he have lived with that?
Kino sat on the stool beside her bed and pressed her hand to his face. “If anything had happened to you, I’d never forgive myself.”
“You got him. He won’t be hiring any more men and women to risk their lives as mules, and they won’t have those filthy drugs to sell, either. You did that.”
“There will be another one to replace him.”
She nodded. “That’s true.”
“So what have I accomplished?”
“You saved my life.”
He smiled. If he never did a thing again, it made everything worth doing.
“And it’s a life to be proud of,” he said.
Her smile faded and she looked tired and drawn once more.
“I don’t know what to do now. The migrants will keep coming. They need water. But I don’t think I belong here anymore. What does the military call it? Shell shock?”
“PTSD—post-traumatic stress disorder.”
“Yeah. Well, just thinking about going out there now makes me feel sick.”
Kino knew what he wanted and he prayed that what she’d said to him out there in the desert hadn’t just been the pain and the fear and the exhaustion. Lea had said she loved him. He sucked in a breath, determined to find out if she meant it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Lea stared at this beautiful, driven man who sat beside her bed. She was grateful, but she knew that their time together was drawing short. He had done as he had promised. She was safe. But his life was in Black Mountain and hers... Well, where did she belong? Not here. Not anymore. Back at Salt River, her mother and father had made a life, but her older sister had already left, unwilling to live where she was merely tolerated.
Kino was Apache. Not just by blood but by every measure of what it meant to be one of his tribe.
And she wasn’t, not wholly. She wished she could take back the words she had spoken to him. Not because they were untrue but because they would make him feel sorry for her and sorry for having to leave her. What else could she do? She had shown him and told him, and though she was not full-blood Apache, she knew the meaning of pride and stoicism. She would not weep or beg him to stay. And she would not try to hold what could not be held.
“Lea, what you said out there. Was it true?”
She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could disappear. The humiliation was almost as deep as the pain. Only there was no medication for this kind of pain, was there?
When she opened her eyes it was to find him staring anxiously at her. Lea took a painful breath and set her face in the mask of unreadable stoicism learned through long practice.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I had no right to just blurt that out. Please forget I ever said that.”
He straightened and his expression changed. He shifted his weight and, for a moment, looked unsettled.
“Oh” was all he said. His eyes scanned the room. “Forget it,” he said, as if to himself. Then his eyes flashed back to hers and she saw that intensity, that maddening and wonderful passion that showed in everything he believed in and everything he loved.
They stared as the medical machines all around them chirped and bleeped and pinged.
“Forget it because it is not true,” he asked, “or because this is a difficult truth?”
“Kino, I know we have differences. Lots. Too many, maybe. And nothing about that has changed. Not really.”
“I disagree. I think everything has changed.”
She felt a stab of hope between her ribs, right over her heart. “Everything?” she whispered.
He rested a broad callused hand on her forearm and stroked all the way down to her fingertips.
Despite the pain and the medication and the exhaustion, her skin tingled and her body zipped to full sexual awareness of him.
He leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers, taking her mouth in a kiss filled with possession and promise.
When he withdrew, her heart monitor was bleating and her face flushed.
“I need you, Lea, all of you.”
“Why?”
“Lea, I know we are different, but those differences are good. I ground you to the earth and you lift me to the sky. You bring out my humanity and I bring you reality. I am practical and you dream of possibilities.” He traced her hand across his jaw and pressed a kiss into her palm. “I am hard and you are soft. You bring me balance and love.”
She could not keep the astonishment from her voice. “I thought that you would be leaving. That this was all finished.”
“This is only just beginning,” he said.
“But I’m Mexican, half-Mexican.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it does. Because it’s my mother. Have you thought about this, really thought? I have no clan. If we stay together, if...”
“If we have a family?”
“Yes. They will have no clan.”
“But they will have you as a mother. I can think of nothing better for my children.”
“But...but you said that being Apache was who and what you are. That it was more than nationality. It was a way of being. You said you couldn’t imagine ever being with someone who wasn’t Native.”
“Lea, are you saying that you don’t think you are Apache?”
It was hard to say out loud, so she held his gaze as she nodded.
“But you are an Apache woman. You’re stoic, brave, resourceful, enduring. And you care for your family...only, for you, Lea, your family is the entire world. Don’t ever say you aren’t one of us. You are. In fact, you are the best of us.”
Lea kept her expression blank but the tears of joy gave her away. Perhaps she was not as stoic as he’d thought.
“You believe that?” she whispered, hope rising to push away her sorrow.
“With all that I am or will ever be.” He stroked the back of her forearm with an easy, gentle touch and finally captured her hand. “Once I thought that finding my father’s killer was the most important thing in my life. It isn’t. The most important thing, Lea, is you. I want to spend every day for the rest of my life proving that to you.”
Lea sagged back in the bed.
“Really?”
Kino kicked the stool away and knelt at her bedside, her hand now trapped in both of his.
“Lea, will you marry me?”
* * *
CLAY AND KINO filed their paperwork and finished their last report for the Shadow Wolves. Their captain, Rick Rubio, was there to shake their hands.
“You both are welcome back anytime. We need more guys like you. And if you got any more like the two of you up there in Black Mountain, send them my way.”
“Will do,” promised Clay.
They exited the small station. All that was left was to pick up Lea at the Oasis office where she had been helping Margie Crocker transition from area supervisor to regional director. Kino had been right about the media coverage. They had descended like the locusts of old, but Lea was a charismatic spokesman and, given her recent experiences, she was in high demand. In every interview she managed to bring the subject away from her and onto the people crossing a desert without water. And just as they had hoped, donations had flooded in and new volunteers were applying daily.
Clay walked with Kino out into the dry desert heat.
“Look at that,” said Clay, pointing.
There over rocky cliffs, white clouds billowed.
“It’s not the rainy season yet,” said Kino, stopping to look at the unfamiliar sight.
“Might just rain, though.”
“I miss the rain,” said Kino as they reached Clay’s battered brown truck and swung up into the front bucket seats.
“I miss a lot of things,” said Clay.
Kino paused. “Hey, I never asked you. How did you find our trail? From the hospital, I mean?”
“There aren’t that many ways out of town. Rubio had called in everyone and we started running the highways. He’d also called Barrow, but couldn’t reach him. About that time we got the trace on both of your phones. That put us right at the spot you left the road. I took over the tracking from there.”
“You’re the best tracker I know.”
“Captain said that, too. I’d even consider staying if not for the heat.”
“Save a lot of lives, catching them before they die out there in that desert.”
“Yeah. I’ll think on it. For now, I want to get back home and help Gabe and Clyne.” Clay started the truck. “I heard from Gabe. They’re back in Black Mountain. Grandma is dyeing leather again.”
Oh, boy. That meant she was back at preparing the all-important traditional buckskin dress for the Sunrise Ceremony.
“But what if we don’t find Jovanna by next July?” asked Kino.
“We’d better. She’s started a guest list and she’s enlisted her sister and her sister’s daughters for the cooking.”
“Don’t get me wrong—I want to find her. But she’s been missing for nine years.”
“She’s alive,” said Clay.
“She was alive when they placed her in foster care,” corrected Kino.
“Gabe says he can’t take any more time off. There was a spike in crime while he was gone.”
“I’ve got a few more days of leave left,” said Kino.
“I thought those were for your honeymoon.”
“We will honeymoon—in South Dakota.”
Clay laughed. “Most folks go to Vegas or Sedona. Lea is all right with that?”
“It was her idea.”
Clay’s eyebrows rose at this information. “I think she will be good for you.”
“I hope Grandma agrees,” said Kino.
“Will it make a differen
ce?”
“Not to me. But it’s important to Lea. She’s worried about the no-clan thing.”
Clay nodded.
“You coming back to testify against DeClay?”
“If they call us.”
“I heard that Barrow’s family didn’t even claim the body. He was cremated.”
Clay glanced at Kino.
Kino knew the look. Clay had something on his mind. “Spit it out.”
“Did you know when you left him that he’d die?” asked Clay.
“You taught me all I know about rattlesnakes,” Kino said.
“Is that why you left him?”
Kino thought back to the last time he’d seen Barrow. There had been no more threats, no smugness or air of authority. Just cold fear in those eyes as he’d faced his own mortality.
“I left him because I’d lost the need to kill him. I just wanted Lea safely away.”
“Terrible death, that,” said Clay.
“Yeah,” agreed Kino.
“No worse than he deserved,” said Clay.
Clay pulled up and Kino jumped out. Lea emerged from the Oasis office as if she’d been looking out for them. He kissed her long and deep and she melted against him. His hold was light, deferential to her healing body. Even with the bandage wrapped around her ribs he knew that she was very tender. But with time she would mend and they would marry.
He stepped back and she stared up at him dreamily.
“I’ve missed you,” she sighed.
“It’s only been three hours.”
“Too long. Way, way too long.”
Clay already had Kino’s duffels out of the back of his truck and beside Lea’s car. From here Clay would head to Black Mountain and Kino and Lea would visit her home in Salt River, where Kino would meet her family.
Clay and Kino embraced, each thumping the other on the back.
“See you at home,” said Clay. He then kissed Lea gently on the cheek before returning to his truck alone.
“Ready?” Lea asked Kino.
To begin the rest of his life with her? Yes, he was more than ready and willing and eager.
“You bet,” he said and lifted his bags into Lea’s car. “Let’s go home.”
* * * * *
We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Intrigue story.
Harlequin Intrigue, Box Set 1 of 2 Page 54