by H. L. Wegley
“Who says?”
“God says, and I believe Him.”
“Then why are you doing it with me?”
“Because I promised Him that I would protect you, no matter what. And this is what ‘no matter what’ requires right now.”
She gave him a weak smile, maybe on the coy side of weak. “That's good to know. I suspected as much, but you should've told me. You're not ashamed of your faith are you, Drew?”
“Ashamed? Of course not. Are you ashamed of being Catholic?”
“If I was, I wouldn't be ashamed of it. But I'm just a non-denominational, evangelical Christ follower.”
“But I thought everybody in—”
“Then you thought wrong. The face of Christianity has changed in Mexico over the past thirty years.” She paused. “Well, I feel better now about doing something that's wrong.”
“But we're not doing anything wrong, Beth.”
“You said we were.”
“It's wrong in the sense that people shouldn't do things that have an appearance of evil or that tempt them to do wrong.”
“So I'm a temptation to you?”
Was she baiting him? “Beth, you are a frustration to me.”
“You didn't answer my question.” Her eyes narrowed until her dark eyebrows nearly touched.
Drew had never seen a woman with the kind of beauty Beth possessed. Any red-blooded male would be attracted to her. Being alone as they were, was a big temptation, even though Drew had vowed not to cross certain lines with a woman until he was married. “Yeah. You're a temptation.” He blew out his frustration and a sharp blast of air. “Now, why this line of questioning?”
“If you were me, wouldn't you want to know? We’re going to be spending a lot of time together until this thing with Suarez is over. So, I needed to know.”
“Are you satisfied, Beth? Because I'm not going any deeper into that subject.” He shook his head. “Women would be shocked if they could read men's minds.” Had he said that or just thought it?
She smirked. “Maybe you should shock me.”
He hit her head with a couch pillow, his blow only slightly softer than her blow to his head.
“My momma warned me about guys like you. Beta males who turn into abusers at the slightest provocation.”
“It's alpha males, but I'm not one of them. And you are not the slightest provocation, Beth. You are the most—” He gripped her shoulders.
Their eyes met.
Beth drew a sharp breath.
At that moment, the urge to kiss her leaped up from somewhere deep inside. The look in her eyes said she would let him even though she thought it wasn't a good idea.
Temptation had snuck up on them and it stared them in the face.
How was he supposed to deal with it? The Bible said flee temptation. But how could he flee temptation without fleeing Beth?
He had no good answer, so Drew pulled her closer, slipped his arms around her and held her. “I'll keep you safe, Beth. No matter what … safe in every way.”
“I believe you will, Drew West.” Her words came wrapped in a hoarse whisper. She looked up at him. “Didn't you have a question to ask me?”
“Yeah...” he tried to rewind the conversation to the question that preceded it, but with Beth's luminous brown eyes so close, the rewind button didn't seem to be working.
Since he couldn't do what he wanted, but needed to do something, drew kissed her forehead. It was sweet and salty from their day in the desert. A day he would never forget.
She relaxed against him. “Drew … the question?”
What he needed, but didn't have, was a switch that could toggle Drew West between Beth Sanchez mode and Drew’s paranoid protective mode. Without the switch, Drew’s distraction could get them killed.
Switch or no switch, you’d better flip something, dude.
For once, Drew appreciated the obnoxious voice inside that usually taunted him.
Where was he. “I was asking where you live, and if you think Suarez knows.”
Beth's relaxed body stiffened, and she stepped back from Drew. “For the past seven years, he didn’t know where I was, or I would be dead. But after today, he will quickly learn.”
“So where do you live?”
“Bryan, Texas. Not far from Texas A&M University. I live with a distant relative.”
“How will Suarez ‘quickly learn’ of this?”
“He has ways. He owns people in positions of responsibility. And he has money to bribe others.”
“That means we need to sneak in, get your things, and get out quickly.”
“What about my relatives? I need to tell them something.”
“Only if you can do it in a way that won't link you to them.”
“Drew, eventually, Suarez will learn where I was staying.”
“But we can't allow him to know more than that and neither can your relatives. Knowing too much will endanger them.”
“We'll be in College Station tomorrow. What if I called them from my department at Texas A&M? I'll tell them I'm out interviewing for jobs.”
“You'll need to tell them a little more than that, so they don't report you as missing after a few days. We don’t want both the police and Suarez trying to find you. Also, we’ll need to rendezvous with your relatives to get your things. So, I guess you’ll have to give them a list of what you want, and you’ll have to reveal a little about the danger you're in. Maybe you can tell them that you’re being protected. Let me think it through a little more.”
“Can I think it through too? After all, I know them.”
“Who exactly is them?”
“My aunt’s cousin, Sophia. Her kids are grown, so she took me in and treated me like a daughter.”
“Yeah. Guess you do need to tell her something, but not enough to endanger her.”
“And here's how we can do that.” Beth pulled him to the living room couch, then sat.
Drew sat beside her. When he looked down at his side, her hand was in his. It seemed natural. His hand, curled around hers, seemed to have found its home.
He and Beth had connected at a deep level of trust. There was a lot more to their connection, but Drew could keep none of it if he couldn't keep her alive. And his adversary was a demon-driven man who, according to the Border Patrol, ranked high on the FBI's most wanted list.
Was Drew West up to this task? He knew some martial arts and quite a bit about guns. But the truth to that question frightened him.
Please, God. You've got to help me protect Beth.
“Drew, are you listening? I said here's what we’ll do. When we get in town tomorrow, we go to the university, and I’ll call them from my department's business phone.”
“What department is that?”
“I have an MBA from Mays Business School.”
“But I thought you were only—”
“Are you going to let me finish?”
He nodded.
“There won’t be many people in the office now that summer school is going. And I can make sure no one is listening. I'll tell Sophia what's happening—no details—and I won’t disclose your name. I'll give her a list of the things I'll need, have her box them up and drive to the Goodwill. We’ll get the box behind the building, and then we leave. But you need to stay out of sight the whole time. Then she won't know who I’m with or where I’m going. I'm just going out for several job interviews.”
She was good. Drew put on a serious face. “You know, that's exactly what I was thinking.”
Beth pursed her lips and socked him in the shoulder.
Drew grabbed a couch pillow and pounded her with it.
She grabbed the other pillow and swung round house at his head.
Drew ducked.
Beth missed, lost her balance, and fell against him. She ended up in his arms.
Before he could react, Beth kissed him.
As kisses go, it wasn't long. But it was long enough to release the emotions building up in him like a cha
rge of electricity. When the voltage reached the necessary potential, it had jumped the gap between them.
The results, they peered into each other's eyes, breathing hard from their scuffle, both smiling after their discovery.
Drew cupped her cheek. “It's a good plan, Beth. Let’s do it tomorrow.”
“Yes, tomorrow. Because I don't think we should do that again tonight.”
So Beth Sanchez was completely distracted after kissing him. “Agreed. I'll put it on tomorrow's agenda.”
That earned him another punch in the shoulder.
Maybe she was only partly distracted.
She rubbed the spot on his shoulder in mock sympathy. “You can’t schedule things like that. It would ruin them. Besides, we should get some sleep. It's a six-and-half hour drive to College Station. But I've got one more question for you.”
“I thought only people like Suarez pounded other people to get information.”
“That was just a love—a friendly little tap. I can hit a lot harder. Want to see?”
“I believe you. What did you want to ask me?”
She sat quietly for a moment studying him. “Where are you taking me, Drew West?”
At this point, he couldn’t risk being too specific. Drew heaved a sigh. “My name should give you a clue.”
“We're going west?”
“Yep. To a horse ranch.”
Chapter 7
A loud buzz near Beth's head interrupted her dream. She opened her eyes and large red numbers screamed their message to her. 5:30 a.m. She turned off the annoying buzz.
Her horse was gone. Drew was gone. Well, the man in her dream seemed to be Drew. But then dreams never map directly to the reality of life. They are bent, skewed by the subconscious mind, or maybe they are, as Scrooge said after seeing Marley’s ghost, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese eaten the evening before. But for Beth, the spicy Chick-fil-A sandwich was a more likely culprit.
A click and a thump came from the living room.
Drew must be up, turning his bed back into a couch.
Beth slid out of her bed and put on the last clean change of clothes she had in her pack.
A knock sounded on the bedroom door.
“Beth, are you up?”
She yawned. “I'm up.”
“Are you decent?”
“Are you coming in?”
“That was my intent.”
“Then I'm not decent.” She grabbed her brush, ran it through her hair, and looked into the mirror.
This was as good as it would get this morning. She blew out a sigh. “I'm decent.”
Drew stuck his head in. “Just got off the phone with Hunter. We need to leave ASAP.”
“What's happening? Is everything—”
“Everything is fine. Were just taking some more precautions. Hunter rented us a car in his name, using his credit card. It's a one-way rental to Las Vegas. And I've got to get another cell phone before we leave town. So we need to go.”
“Las Vegas? Do they have horse ranches there?”
“I don't know, but there will be a car waiting at the Las Vegas airport. Its owner is loaning the car to us. He lives near a horse ranch.”
“In Nevada?”
“No. In Oregon.”
“So I'm going to a horse ranch somewhere in Oregon?”
“To some of the most beautiful country in America.”
If this had been a pleasure trip instead of fleeing to a hiding place, it would have been a dream vacation—riding horses in the American West. “Give me five minutes and I'll be ready to leave.”
“Okay. I'll check us out of the room. Bring your things to the office when you're ready.”
By 6:30 a.m., Drew had purchased a burner phone at Wal-Mart, and Beth was configuring it as Drew drove eastward on Interstate 10 in the Toyota minivan Hunter had rented and delivered to the Holiday Inn and Suites. The vehicle had tinted windows. That would make it difficult for anyone to recognize them as they drove by.
It seemed like a lot of trouble to cover their tracks, but with a clever, resourceful, and wealthy man like Hector Suarez, she and Drew had no choice. One misstep, one piece of information left in some business’s database, or in cyberspace, could lead Suarez to them.
Drew and Beth had planned to get out of Texas and hide half a continent away. It was a good plan if they were meticulous in executing it. And Drew had accepted her input into the plan to get her things from Sophia’s place in Bryan. He had treated her like an equal, not like some fragile female who might be bruised by a pea twenty mattresses underneath her. And he respected her strength, as proven when he smacked her on the head with the pillow last night. All things considered, this arrangement appeared to be working out far better than Beth had hoped. The horse ranch was frosting on the cake.
As a result, Beth had, for the first time since her father's death, opened her heart enough to let another male inside the door.
Girl, you did more than let him inside the door. You kissed him.
“It wasn't actually a kiss, not a real one.” She had done it again. Having a conversation with oneself is fine if a person were alone. And Beth spent a lot of time alone. But this time—
“It seemed real to me.”
“That's not what I meant.”
“Yeah. So you say now. It wasn't real at all. How did it feel, Beth? Real or phony?”
“Drew … sometimes I talk to myself. Okay? You’ll just have to get used to it. Don't pay any attention when I do that. It's mostly nonsense.”
“I agree.”
“If you'll stop bothering me, I'll finish setting up your new cell phone. And don't you have something better to do like making sure no one is following us?”
“Nobody is following us … except that sixteen-wheeler that keeps bugging me. Doesn’t he have cruise control?” Drew glanced her way. “Beth, how's your ankle?”
“The swelling is much better. It's fine, unless I try to run on it.”
“That's good. But we should pick up some adhesive tape first time we get a chance.”
Was Drew worried or just being cautious? “Tape’s not very comfortable. Do you think I need to be ready to run at a moment’s notice?”
“I hope not. But when we get to Oregon, we’ll be riding horses.”
The smile on her face grew “Real horses? Not ponies or plow horses?”
“Yep. Quarter horses. Equine dragsters. Can you ride?”
“My ancestors were Spaniards. Horses are in my genes.”
“I’d say it’s more like Spanish royalty in your jeans. I mean your jean shorts.”
“It's shocking what goes through men's minds.”
“Using my words against me? I can see I’ll have to watch what I say.”
“No. Just don't say what you watch.” She gave him her best imitation of a smirky smile.
“Fine. I’ll watch in silence … are you really a blue-blooded Spaniard?”
“Only the part of me that's not Native American.”
“You've got Native Americans in Mexico?”
“Sure. Yaquis, Aztecs, Mayans, Apaches, Zapotecs, several tribes, just to name a few.”
“Which are you?”
“Aztec … we think. What are you, Drew?”
“I'm a mutt.”
“Come on. If I have to tell, so do you.”
“Okay. German, English, and enough Cherokee to be a member of the tribe.”
“So we're both European mixed with indigenous tribes.”
“Yeah. But I have a strong suspicion that you are a lot more blue-blooded than you're admitting.”
She didn't like discussing her aristocratic Spanish history. Beth Sanchez was from a middle-class family, nothing special. “Drew, we have people trying to find us and kill us. You don’t seem to be worried about that.”
“I'm not worried, yet. The first real shot at us—if Suarez has the resources you described—”
“He has a lot of resources. Don't underestimate him.”
&nb
sp; Drew's eyes took on the intense look she had seen when Drew confronted Suarez by the river. “That won't happen, Beth. His first chance of finding us comes when we get to College Station and you contact your relatives.”
Drew was right. Beth needed to weigh every word when she talked to Sophia. Saying the wrong thing could get Sophia, Beth, and Drew killed.
* * *
Suarez’s phone rang and played the Hawaii Five-0 theme. He looked at the display. 1:15 p.m. It was a call from Ramon. Maybe it was good news.
“El Capitan, here.”
“Hector, she just called her aunt or cousin, whoever lives here.”
“But you do not have the capability to listen to the call, so what did you find out?”
“She called from a number at the University. Probably to set up a rendezvous. The girl will want some of her things if she's not coming back to stay.”
“That is correct. Watch the house, Ramon. If anyone leaves, follow them.”
“If I spot West and Sanchez, what should I do?”
“You don't have the kind of weapons to ensure they will be killed. Get the vehicle description and license plate number. Once I have that information, we can make plans to upstage this grand event being planned in Pecos. Having no witnesses means no case and no trial. Call me as soon as you have seen them.”
Suarez ended the call and placed another call to a former Special Forces soldier, a weapons sergeant, now a meth head. His brains weren’t completely fried, yet. He could give Hector a whole smorgasbord of weapons to choose from to blow up a car. And the sergeant had most of them in his weapons cache.
Now, Suarez just needed to know which vehicle to obliterate.
* * *
Beth turned in at the strip mall entrance and drove the van behind a large Goodwill store.
Drew had curled up in the passenger-side floorboard. It was best that Sophia not see him or hear his name.
Beth parked the van so she wouldn’t block the unloading area at the rear of the store. The trees and adjacent buildings blocked the view behind the Goodwill store for anyone not in back of the building.
There was no one there. Only Drew and Beth.
After a minute or two, Sophia's minivan rounded the corner.
Beth stuck her arm out the window and waved at Sophia, then pushed the button to open the rear door of the van.