The rifle? Photos.
She stiffened as another missing piece from the night locked in. Tom had taken photos of her stashing the rifle. He'd brought them with him to Curundú, threatened to show them to Luis this morning. He'd also promised to tell Luis what he thought she planned on trading the rifle for. A rifle that was still concealed beneath the spare to her Blazer—in the hacienda's driveway. That bastard. No wonder he'd tossed her the ring. It was nothing more than a distracting bone to keep her out of his way while he moved in for the kill. Hers.
The betrayal socked in harder than all the knocks she'd taken in her entire life combined, surpassing even the throbbing in her chest. The now screaming need in her blood and in her brain. The hell with a cab. If Tom had gone back to the hotel to shower and change, she still had time. A chance. She grabbed the vial from the desk, shoving it into the only concealing crevice left to her as she shot across the room. The one inside her bra. "Do you have a car?"
"Sure."
She whipped out her hand. "Give me the keys."
"I don't—"
"Dammit, Juju, you and I both know you have an ulterior motive for restocking this container and it doesn't have a thing to do with friendship." She stepped close until she was staring directly up into that dark, enigmatic face. "Give me the keys and I'll give you what you want when I return them."
His brow lifted. "And what's that?"
But he knew. They could both feel it—him—throbbing between them and it wasn't Tom.
She confirmed it. "Luis."
She watched as Juju weighed his friendship with Tom against his darker, more selfish interests. She knew the exact moment she'd won. She wasn't even surprised. Not even with the guilt that followed. By then, she'd come to understand what Juju had been referring to earlier. Different paths can be walked in different ways, yet end up in the same place.
All she had to do now was get there before Tom.
* * *
Her heart was still slamming against her ribs as she rounded the final turn in the hacienda's private driveway. It nearly crashed through as she came bumper to bumper with Tom's jeep—literally. She slammed on the brakes in the nick of time and jerked the steering wheel to the right. Unfortunately, the motion brought the front end of Juju's ancient pickup within an inch of the jeep as Tom swerved into the circular driveway in front of the house. Her hands shook as the truck's engine died. Her entire body ached. She was sweating, too. So much, she couldn't grab the handle to the driver's door long enough to open it. The metal lever kept slipping out of her fingers.
Blast those pills.
Her stomach surged, confirming the onset of the Percocet withdrawal. Don't think about it. It would all pass.
But he wouldn't.
Anna flinched as the jeep's door slammed shut. She was still trapped inside the truck as Tom stalked up to her door, the fire in his eyes and in his step at complete odds with the dark, cool blue of his suit and tie. And then, she wasn't—in the truck, that is. Before she could stanch the wave of dizziness, he'd yanked open the door and hauled her out, pressing her up against the truck and pinning her there as he had the morning before.
"What the hell do you think you're doing, woman?"
"What am I doing? How about you? You couldn't even give me a chance, could you? Yes, I'm late. But according to your friend, you know why."
Both of them froze as the front door to the hacienda opened thirty feet away. A mutinous Pepe glared out across the lawn. "¿Señorita? ¿Necesita usted alguna ayuda con el gringo?"
She had a feeling the irony of that particular question phrased that particular way wasn't lost on Tom, any more than it hadn't been on her. She was sure of it as he turned back.
Steel-blue eyes stared down at her. "Well? Do you need help with the gringo?"
"¡Ningún gracias, Pepe!"
She didn't catch Pepe's response. She did catch the satisfaction that flared in that already superheated stare. She waited until she heard the door to the hacienda slam before she dropped her glare to the arm blocking her path.
"Do you mind?"
When Tom refused to honor her request, she tried shoving him out of the way. Unfortunately, he didn't budge. She pushed harder. Physics sent her flailing back into the truck. This time, the back of her head connected with steel and she gasped, but not at the sting. Not even at the strong hands that snapped up to grab her arms and right her.
"Are you okay?"
She blinked up at him as the floodgates in her brain ripped even wider, and then all the way open as the entire night's events began crashing in.
"It's coming back, isn't it?"
Oh yeah. Every single humiliating moment. Her, him, standing in the dark. Tom at the door in his suit and with his jacket hooked over his shoulder. Her, in nothing but her panties and bra…daring him. Inviting him. She closed her eyes. Begged the dizziness to return. Maybe then she could just pass out. She felt him push her hair from her cheek, then trail his fingers down the side of her face.
"Hey, it's okay."
She refused to open her eyes. "No, it's not."
"Nothing happened, Anna. Nothing."
Oh, a lot had happened. She was convinced of it as the next memory ripped in. She could still feel the absolute rage that had radiated off Tom as he pushed her up against the wall and lit into her. And then, the denial that had slipped free because she just couldn't hold it in any longer.
I didn't betray those men. Foster did.
Tom caught her as she swayed.
"Christ, Anna, are you already—"
"No." But she had been last night, hadn't she? There was no escaping it. She'd been so out of it, tripped so high, her barriers knocked so low, that she'd babbled it all.
She'd blown her cover. Completely.
So why was she here? For that matter, why was she even alive? Wild Man's confounded conscience again? She forced herself to meet Tom's eyes and not to flinch in shame as his hand came up to smooth her hair from her face as it had so often through the night…and the rest slipped in. She remembered everything about this man now, about these hands. The way they'd come back to her time and time again, in that rat hole she'd grown up in, and then on the couch in Juju's office. His hands had checked her breathing and her pulse, smoothed the sweat from her brow. An hour later, they'd caressed her face and gently, steadily massaged her shoulders and neck, soothing the ever-looping roller coaster of anxiety and fears that had inevitably returned. These hands had drawn her close again and again, whenever her emotions had gotten the best of her, settling her head against Tom's solid chest, combing through her hair while she'd lain there and cried. Any other man in his purported position would have taken advantage of her initial offer and then left her in Curundú in disgust.
That's when she knew.
Deep down, she'd known it all along. Tom Wild might be one heck of an actor, but he was no monster.
He was no Luis.
He tipped her chin up, looking directly into her eyes as he confirmed her prayers with a simple, wry smile. "Kinda ironic, isn't it? Two blind mice, each so busy watching the other run, they both forgot about the blessed chunk of cheese?"
"Please, say it. Spell it out. I need to know I'm not dreaming." Or worse, hallucinating.
He leaned close, his recent shower and the crisp, breezy aftershave he'd splashed over his carefully groomed morning-after scruff teasing into her lungs. A shiver coursed through her as he pushed the remaining strands of hair from her neck so he could spill his whispered confession directly into her ear. "You're not dreaming, honey. I'm undercover, too. Major Thomas Anthony Wild, U.S. Army Delta Force. I was brought in after Manny was murdered. He was ATF and an old SF buddy."
Manny.
She closed her eyes. Mourned. "I'm so sorry."
"I know. I gathered that last night. And the night before when that bastard tossed you his pen. I also gathered you tried to stop Manny from bleeding to death. I owe you for that. I read the police report. It couldn't have been pretty."
"It wasn't."
She shivered again, and this time it wasn't from Tom's heat or his proximity. It was the memory. This one of blood. Tom shifted against the cab of the truck, bracing his arm above her head as he leaned into her. She knew why. Anyone watching from the house would assume he was simply a recent bedmate unwilling to let her or the night go just yet. He drew his finger beneath her chin, gently lifting her face to complete the illusion. "That's why you went to Sam's, isn't it? You walked out on Luis and Foster?"
"I cracked."
She didn't deserve the compassion that slid into those dark, gorgeous pools of blue. Not after what she'd done to him last night. His sigh bathed her lips. "It happens, honey. You've been in too long and under far too deep. I did my research, remember? You aren't even trained for this. I'd say you've done damned well considering." He must have picked up on her lingering guilt, because there was a wealth of pain in his next sigh, and even more disappointment. "I was right, wasn't I? Outside the Iguana? I just didn't have the right deaths in mind. You took up the pills because of Manny."
"No."
He tipped her chin again and leaned closer, so close the plea in his eyes blocked out the sky. "Anna, don't. We may not have known each other long, but I'd say we know each other better than most, wouldn't you?"
"Yes."
"Then don't lie to me. Please. Not about the pills. Anything but that."
He wasn't going to believe her. She couldn't blame him. Given his past with his mom and Lord only knows what with his ex-lover, nothing short of stripping down again and, this time, peeling her bra off to boot would convince him.
"So…what do we do now, Major Wild?"
He wasn't happy, but he backed off. "We eat. Last night convinced me that it's time to force your cousin's hand. It's better if I do it alone. That way if it backfires your cover's still safe. We both know your cousin wants us together. I'm convinced it's so you can keep me in line. Let's go with it. All you've got to do is walk in looking like you do and he'll assume we spent the night together. Excuse yourself right away. Tell him you need a shower. He's bound to buy it."
She flushed.
"I didn't mean it like—" Someone screamed deep inside the house, severing the rest. "What the devil was that?" Tom grabbed her wrist and spun around, dragging her around the back of the jeep and across the lawn before she could answer. A moment later, she didn't need to. The front doors slammed open. Pepe stood in the arch, huffing for all he was worth.
"¡Vengas, vengas! ¡Señor Ortiz está enfermo!"
Luis was ill?
"Oh, my God—his diabetes!"
She twisted her wrist until she was clutching Tom's hand and, this time, she dragged him. Pepe scowled at Tom as they reached the front steps until she assured her friend that Señor Wild had Army medical training. Pepe's massive paws lashed out half ushering, half hauling them both through the entranceway, across the inner courtyard and straight into her cousin's study. Luis lay slumped over his desk, his barely touched meal still on the silver serving tray atop the buffet behind him.
Idiot! He might as well have skipped his insulin.
She automatically checked the wall beside the display case containing his Kama Sutra miniatures. The picture that concealed the wall safe was still in place. Luis had missed his insulin. By the time she turned back to the desk, Tom already had her cousin laid out on the floor and was halfway through the ABCs of first aid.
"He's breathing, but his pulse is dangerously low." Tom snapped at Pepe, "Get an ambulance—a helicopter would be better. Now." Pepe tore out of the room. Tom turned to her. "Where does he keep his glucagon?"
"In the safe with his insulin."
"Get it."
"I can't."
His hand whipped out, locking about her arm. "Dammit, Anna. I know what he's done, but this isn't the—"
"You don't understand. I don't know the combination. He doesn't trust me, not really. He never did. He's gotten so paranoid since I moved away he's afraid someone would spike his syringes or his insulin. That's why he keeps it in there."
Tom cursed viciously.
"I'm sorry."
"It's okay. We gotta break in, that's all."
Break in? Sheer panic set in. Her head started to throb, along with her chest, with a vengeance, surpassing the body aches. She snapped, taking out the sudden, selfish need the only way she could—the only way she ever would again—with sarcasm. "You're the explosives expert, buster, not me."
"You got a stick of C4 and a blasting cap handy?"
"What?"
He shook his head grimly. "Neither do I." He turned to bend over Luis, his next curse even darker and more base as he straightened. "I have to start CPR. Go to the safe."
"I told you, I don't—"
"Now."
She went. Two seconds later, she was across the room, beside that god-awful Kama Sutra collection, wrenching the frame of an antique map of the Americas aside. She stared at the huge, taunting dial. "Now what?"
"Start with his birthday, turn it into numbers."
Of course! Three excruciating months in this gilded cage, and she'd never even thought of that. Tom was right, she wasn't trained for this. She ripped through the numbers as she cursed Foster for the hundredth time that morning alone. He could have taught her that much, at least. She stopped on the last two digits of Luis's birth year and tried the catch.
"Nothing."
She spun around as Tom finished breathing into her cousin's mouth and shifted to work on his heart. "Double it."
She whipped back to the safe and spun through the revised figures, then tugged the catch. "That's not it."
"Try everything you can think of. Your aunt's birthday, yours, your mom's, the day his dad died, the day you left for the States. Anything. Just keep trying."
She did. She ran through all the combinations he'd suggested and then went back to double them all.
Not a single combination worked.
The lock wouldn't budge.
Luis was going to die. Manny's death would be for naught. Her career would never be revived, Foster would make sure of it. Hell, he'd probably find a way to take it out on Sam, too. She slammed her fist into the safe, wishing she could turn back the clock, the years. Back to when her mother was still alive, before her aunt had pushed her into that bus—
Another date.
She jerked her fingers back to the dial, knowing before she even started that the long shot wouldn't pay off. But it did. The lock popped. She swung the door to the safe open and grabbed one of the emergency glucagon injectors from within, leaving a trail of floating papers in her wake as she whirled about and tore across the room, reaching Tom's side as he finished his next breath. He shot her a flat-out breathtaking victory grin as he shifted to her cousin's heart.
"I knew you could do it. Now, pull up his shirt, remove the cap, pinch in the skin on his abdomen and inject."
Easier said than done, but she managed it.
By the time she finished, her hands were shaking worse than they'd been out in Juju's truck when she arrived.
"You did great."
No, he was doing great. She had no idea how long she'd been standing at that safe, spinning that dial, but it felt like hours. Meanwhile, Tom had been over here, still was over here, smoothly shifting from her cousin's airway to his heart and back again, over and over, as if he could keep it up all night. What if he had to? What if Luis—
She refused to consider that. Two blind mice. That meant Tom had as much information as she did. Zilch.
"Do you need a break?"
Tom shook his head and took another breath, before shifting down to her cousin's heart. Several more minutes passed. Then several more. A good five, ten minutes had to have passed by now. What was taking so long? She stared at Tom as he worked. The set to his jaw, the ironclad determination in his completely focused stare. Luis was still pale, placid. His lashes fanned out almost peacefully, as if he didn't even care that he was on the verge of slipping awa
y.
Is that what she'd looked like last night? Lying there, lifeless, while this man stubbornly refused to give up?
And he'd had to do this with his own mother? She scrubbed at the corners of her eyes before the stinging tears had a chance to let loose. God help her, she couldn't watch.
"Anna?"
She forced herself to turn back as Tom pulled his hand from her cousin's neck and sat back into the plush gold carpet. "He's breathing fine. His pulse is getting stronger. He'll be okay. Just give the glucagon another minute, maybe two."
It took less than one.
Her breath caught as Luis's lashes fluttered. In that moment, he looked so much like the teenage boy that had lain in a hospital bed all those years ago. Luis had adored her then. Mainly because, though she'd been all of eight, she'd been the one who'd gone to warn the neighbors that her cousin was not quite right that first time this had happened. Heck, even her aunt had let up on her for a while after. His lashes fluttered again, this time lifting all the way.
"Prima?"
"I'm here, Luis." She tipped her head to Tom, guilt and relief mixed into her smile. "Mr. Wild just saved your life."
Luis returned Tom's nod with a groggy one of his own. He was definitely coming around now. Luis opened his mouth, but his hoarse thanks were cut off as Pepe barreled into the room.
"¡El helicóptero aterriza!"
Correction—the helicopter had landed. She could hear the paramedics rolling the emergency stretcher across the inner courtyard. Juanita shrieked out a course correction, diverting the men from the staircase and into the study. From the vile curse that followed, someone had clipped himself on the stone mermaid and her gurgling fish. Whoever it was righted himself. A moment later, the stretcher shot through the door, a beefy EMS tech at either end. Her cousin's maid behind them. In under a minute, Luis was hefted and strapped aboard. Naturally, Luis protested the entire time. This wasn't necessary. He was fine now. He didn't need to see the doctor!
Anna finally stepped up and grabbed his hand. "Luis, please. I'm worried about you."
He held her stare for a moment, then sighed. "Very well. For you. Let's go!"
Pepe leaned down to murmur something in her cousin's ear.
A Dangerous Engagement Page 17