by Dana Marton
Conquering the stairs took forever.
Jamie and Keith rushed to help when the procession reached the top. Apparently, they’d been securing the hallway up there. She’d met all of Ryder’s team now, several times when they were out on her land. Out of the six-man team, only Ray was missing, probably back at the office to coordinate things from there. He had a broken leg, his cast a lot more cumbersome than the brace she was wearing.
They exited the building at the back of the mill, among giant wire reels of copper, aluminum and steel. Not a single worker in sight.
“I guess when the INS says lockdown, they mean lockdown,” Grace murmured to Ryder.
Several ambulances waited by the tractor trailers in the back. Due to a still-existing threat of violence, INS hadn’t cleared the medics to enter the building, apparently. But they went to work the second the girls had been led to them. INS agents secured the area, hanging back for now, letting the ambulance crew do their job.
The young women couldn’t open their eyes in the bright sunlight and were quickly helped into the back of the ambulances. The medics, half of them Hispanic, started IVs, all friendly and smiling, speaking to them in Spanish to reassure them while their injuries were checked.
Ryder’s team rushed back into the building, but he remained at her side. “When the medics are done with the girls, I want them to look you over.”
“I want world peace.” She moved away from him, ready to go home and take a shower, then remembered that he was her ride.
She hated to ask a favor of him, but she did it, anyway. “I’d really like to leave. Do you think I could borrow your SUV?” She’d had pretty much all she could handle for one day, and he had all his buddies here. Catching a ride wouldn’t be an issue for him.
He watched her for a wordless second, dropped the keys into her palm, then held out his hand. “I want the gun.”
Of course. It was evidence. She handed the weapon over. He tucked it behind his back, next to his own, then lifted a hand to her face and rubbed his thumb over her chin.
“You’ve got a few smudges here.”
Her nerve endings came to life.
“The thought that those bastards touched you is killing me,” he said.
“Not to worry. I didn’t go down easy.”
He gave a reluctant, dimpled smile.
He stood too close and the air got sucked out of that small space between them all of a sudden. She couldn’t move back, just kept staring at him. His desert-honey eyes watched her and his gaze softened. For a second, his thumb brushed against the edge of her lip, and desire leaped to life inside her, sharp and insistent, stealing her breath.
“Grace.” Her name was a whisper on his lips.
“Yo! Are you coming, man?” Mo shouted through one of the upstairs windows.
Ryder dropped his hands. “I need to talk to you later,” he told her, “when I’m done here.”
Since she couldn’t form words, she feebly nodded, then turned her back and walked away from him.
She didn’t stop until she was at his SUV. She got in, then leaned her forehead against the steering wheel. The car smelled like him: man and gun oil and a faint trace of aftershave.
She wanted not to like it, but she did.
God, she really did need some time away from him. She’d been getting under his spell somehow, little by little. She wanted a break.
Later, she would call him to find out what happened with the girls, to make sure they were taken care of and to offer to help if she could. They could talk, although, she was afraid it’d be all just him yelling at her for getting into so much trouble. But for now, she needed to get out of here.
She drove out of town, her mind a jumble of images. And by the time she reached the quiet country roads, she realized that while she needed time away from Ryder, she didn’t want to be alone. So she took the turnoff toward Dylan’s ranch. Girlfriend time.
The Rogers place was well kept, new roof, a row of yellow roses trimming the wraparound porch that held a half-dozen rockers. Comparing it to the abandoned-looking Cordero ranch made her a little sad. Maybe she could stay an extra few days, hire a couple of guys and work on the house a little.
Not that she changed her mind about not wanting to stay. But if she ended up selling, the place would bring a better price if it didn’t look ready to collapse. Dylan wanted only the land. Maybe she could sell the house with a couple of acres separately.
“Gracie!” Molly ran out the front door as soon as Grace parked in the driveway, followed by three excited dogs. “Is that a new car? I didn’t recognize it. How have you been?” As she got closer, she slowed, her eyes going wide. “Oh, my Lord… Are you all right? What happened? Your ankle, I know about, but…were you in an accident?” She glanced with confusion at the car, which was spotless, then back at her.
“I’m fine.” Grace dusted herself off, a little self-conscious suddenly.
She supposed she did have a few new scratches and bruises, and her clothes did show signs of her being rolled around in that basement. She wasn’t sure how much she could say, considering that Ryder was working on a top secret mission. But word of what happened at the mill would get out. The workers would be talking about immigration officials descending.
“INS raided the mill,” she said.
“How on earth did you get caught up in that? Never mind that now. Let’s get you off your feet. Come in, come in.” Molly linked arms with her and dragged her toward the house. “You look like you’ve been through a stampede. Let me fix you up a little.”
That little fix-up, as it turned out, meant a scented hot bath, every scratch disinfected and bandaged, clean clothes, and a hot meal of burritos and a cold margarita. But by the end, Grace did feel considerably more human.
“I missed you,” Molly said when she stopped fussing and they were sitting at the kitchen table.
“I missed you, too. How is Logan?” she asked at last. Molly had gotten pregnant right out of high school. She’d never told anyone who the father was, not even her best friend, but had been adamant about keeping the baby.
“In school. He’s smart as a tick, that kid.” She grinned. “You wouldn’t believe how big he is. And thank God for that. We’ve had issues.” She rolled her eyes.
“Such as?”
“That know-it-all Missy Nasher’s kid calling Logan a bastard in class.” Some red crept onto her face. “I put up with her and her phony friends calling me, well, whatever they called me all those years after I got pregnant. But I swear, she’s not going to start in on Logan. I’m about ready to go down to the shop and have a talk with her. I’m only cooling it because Logan begged.”
“There are things I love about small towns, and there I things I hate about small towns,” Grace said. “People just need to get over themselves.”
“Most of them are fine folks. The rest of them can go to hell,” Molly said with a lot of feeling.
Grace nodded. “I hope I’ll get to see that boy one of these days. I’ll come back again. And thank you for breakfast this morning,” she added, remembering suddenly. Morning seemed years away.
Molly gave a little wave. “Don’t even mention it. Now tell me how you came to be at the mill. I mean how insane is that? You go about your business and get caught up in something like this. The world just gets weirder and weirder.”
“I went there to talk to Bobbi about Tommy’s dirt bike. Ended up right in the middle of the roundup.”
Molly’s expression turned fierce as she reached for her cell phone. “You know what? I’m going to give Shane a piece of my mind about that.”
“Had nothing to do with the sheriff. He wasn’t even there. It was all INS.”
She set the phone down with a disgusted look on her face. “You should file an official complaint.”
“I came here for a few days of peace.”
“You brought Tommy back.” Her face saddened. “You must feel so alone without him. He was something, wasn’t he?”
“What would I have to do for you to take pity on my clueless brother and marry him?” Molly asked after a minute.
“He’s a successful businessman. He’s hardly clueless.”
Molly shrugged. “It’s all about the money these days. I barely see him. All he does is work. When he’s not out hunting with those new shady-looking buddies of his. Not on your land,” she added quickly.
Around here, pretty much everyone knew about Grace’s safe haven agreement and people respected it.
“What shady-looking buddies?”
“Outsiders. From West Texas, I guess.” Her tone added a wealth of meaning to her words. “Too many people moving in. What do people have to move for, anyway? They should just all stay where they’re at.”
Grace grinned. Molly had always hated change. She hadn’t moved a chair since Grace had been here the last time. She kept the house spotlessly clean, but she hadn’t updated much in the past couple of years.
“Do you ever get lonely out here?” Dylan had his apartment in Hullett, and Grace suspected he stayed there a fair share of his time.
“I’ve got Logan and the dogs. Hogs and horses, too,” Molly said, then straightened suddenly. “Speaking of which, Skipper has a bad back. I thought maybe you could look at him in a few days when your ankle felt better. I was going to call you about that.”
“Now is as good time as any.” Grace looked around for the dog, but they seemed to have all gone outside. “One of your margaritas and I feel no pain. You always had a heavy hand with the liquor,” she said as a private joke. In fact, Molly rarely drank. But back when she’d gotten pregnant with Logan, some of the mean girls had started a rumor about her and drinking.
Molly just laughed at her. “That’s why I have so many guests.”
“Brings in the gentleman callers, does it?”
“Don’t believe the gossip.” She gave another laugh. “If everything they said about me in Hullett was true, I’d have blisters.”
Grace winced. “O-kay. How about that dog, then?”
Since she had a drink, she was going to hang around for a while, anyway. She didn’t drink and drive, as a rule, not even on slow country roads with no traffic.
The three dogs ran up to them the second the back door opened. Molly patted and hugged them with the same outpouring of love that she did everything. It was a shame that someone like her would be alone, Grace thought, and wondered if she might end up like this someday, all alone. Except, she wouldn’t even have the ranch—if she sold it to Dylan—and children to visit her when she got old, like Molly had Logan.
The thought grew into a hard rock inside her chest.
And for some reason made her think of Ryder.
Chapter Ten
Ryder paced the porch in front of her door. The only thing keeping him from breaking through that door was that he knew Grace wasn’t inside. His SUV wasn’t in the driveway.
He’d borrowed Jamie’s car to come here to make sure she was all right, and couldn’t find her anywhere. She wasn’t answering her cell phone, either. Maybe she hadn’t retrieved it in all the chaos. He planned on staying until she returned. Jamie shouldn’t need the car for a while; he was the operations coordinator and had plenty of computer work at the office.
The man was supposed to work mostly at the office, anyway. He’d lost both legs overseas on a mission. He’d left the SDDU for a while before the Colonel had brought him back on the team. He’d been in a wheelchair at the time, brought in for office work specifically. He’d gotten some fancy prosthetic limbs since, however, and now you couldn’t keep him from the field for anything.
Since they had no official team leader for this location yet, there was no one to tell him differently. Although, Ryder was pretty sure even a team leader couldn’t do much to rein Jamie Cassidy in.
Truth was, the team thing was still strange for all of them. They were used to being overseas, deep undercover, doing lone wolf operations that involved intelligence gathering, search and rescue and the odd assassination. But the current situation called for a different setup. And whatever the country needed, they were ready to do it.
He watched the road for Grace. He shouldn’t have let her leave the mill by herself, dammit.
By the time his SUV rumbled up the long driveway with Grace behind the wheel, the tires kicking up a cloud of dust, he worked himself into a fine state. He strode toward her. She’d been missing for close to two hours. Where in hell had she been?
Not that she had the good sense to look contrite.
She actually looked surprised to see him there. As if she’d expected him to just go about his job without checking to make sure that she was okay.
She was a major pain. An aggravation of epic proportions. Had a thorough dislike of authority. Never did what she was told.
He pitied the man who was someday going to marry her.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked as he got closer. “You’ve got that bossy, constipated look on your face. Like you’re about to start handing out orders, or deliver some military discipline.”
What’s wrong with him? “You didn’t come straight home.”
“I went to see a friend. No need to get your boxer shorts into a bunch.”
How the hell did she know he wore boxer shorts?
Okay, right, she’d cut his pants off him the night she’d saved him. Part of him wished he’d been awake for that. A completely inappropriate reaction. And further proof of just how much she messed up his head.
“Things can’t go on like this, Grace. You are going to pull back. You are not going to put yourself into harm’s way again. Do you hear me?”
Her face got all pinched for a second, then her lips narrowed and her eyes blazed with fury. “Because I’m damaged goods? Because I’m not as strong as you are physically and mentally?” Her voice rose.
“There are all kinds of strengths, Grace. You are—”
“Don’t you try to placate me. I know what you think when you look at me, that I’m a crazy freaking cripple!”
He stared at her for a second. “That’s not what I think when I look at you. Believe me.”
He stepped up to her, real close, got right in her face. Then he put his hands on her shoulders, pulled her even closer and crushed his lips against hers.
Ninety-nine percent of him needed a taste of her with a desperation that bordered on insanity. The one percent that could still think expected her to hit him over the head with something. But even the threat of pain couldn’t stop him.
He moved his lips over hers, angled his head for better access, gentled his hands on her and slipped them off her shoulders so his arms could go completely around her.
He tasted her bottom lip, then the top one, breathed in her fresh scent of soap, but didn’t spend much time wondering how she’d met up with a bath on her way home. The feel of her in his arms was too intoxicating to ponder anything else except how to get closer.
The full length of her body pressed against his felt like a miracle. He licked the seam of her lips, and when she yielded, his tongue swept inside, his throat releasing a primal groan that was so full of need it bordered on embarrassing.
He wanted her. All the way. Now.
On the hood of his SUV.
He backed her that way, lifted her, feeling damned gratified when her legs wrapped around his waist, her soft core coming into contact with his hardness that strained for her.
This was so right. So right.
Except… She was the wrong woman.
Not that the hormone surge that took over his brain gave a damn. She tasted like strawberries, and a very faint taste of good tequila.
He went on kissing her for another long minute.
Then, with great reluctance, he pulled away.
Her clear, emerald eyes had gone all soft. He stepped away from her all the way before he could go back for seconds like he wanted.
She slipped off the hood of his car and st
ared at him, frozen to the spot where she stood.
He summoned up whatever self-control he had and restarted his brain. “Where were you?” He’d be damned if he apologized for this kiss.
“At the Rogerses’ ranch.”
Exactly the wrong thing to say. Dylan freaking Rogers. He took two steps forward, reached for her and pulled her to him again. Was ready to claim her as his…
Then caught that sheer insanity at the last split second.
I shouldn’t be doing this.
But he couldn’t let go just yet, either. So he leaned his forehead against hers, hoping some great outside power, like say an earthquake, would somehow pull him away.
She didn’t punch him in the chin as she should have. She closed her eyes instead.
Which was all the encouragement he needed.
He kissed her gently this time, taking his time, savoring the moment. There. Nice and easy. He’d overreacted before. A simple kiss didn’t have to be unmanageable. Then he deepened the kiss and lost control all over again.
Chemistry hit him like a daisy cutter—the bunker-busting bombs the military used these days. No escape.
Possibly hours passed before the first thread of common sense returned. She was hurt. He was practically engaged. Well, as soon as he found the right woman. He needed to stop this.
But her lips felt too good under his; her taste intoxicated him. Okay. The end. Step away from temptation.
“Don’t do this,” he said in a raspy whisper as he pulled away.
Her heavy-lidded eyes cleared, then rounded, her eyebrows sliding up her forehead. Her hands moved up to her hips. “What do you mean don’t do this? I didn’t attack you in the middle of the driveway.” Color rose in her cheeks.
He tried to untangle his thoughts, but didn’t quite succeed. “I was talking to myself. I’m getting married.”