She blinked and brushed some hair from her eyes. “I suppose so, but he was trying to take me to someone I know...knew.”
“Don’t you think that’s suspicious? Why didn’t the person just come to you?”
“That’s what I was telling him when you appeared out of the shadows like some kind of night crawler.”
“Thanks for that visual.” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “And you weren’t telling him that. You’d already told him and it didn’t look like he was taking no for an answer, and then when I showed up like a night crawler, the dude pushed you and I’m the creep?”
“I didn’t say he wasn’t a creep, too.”
Josh closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath. “Are you going to tell me what that was all about?”
“Why should I?” She jutted her chin forward in a manner that told him she was ready for a long siege.
“Oh, I don’t know, because we were on a date and you lied to me to get away and meet some creep in an alley. I figure you owe me an explanation. I even bought the drinks.”
She sagged against the door, her once-proud shoulders slumped forward. “He said he could take me to my husband.”
Josh’s mouth dropped open. If she really thought Ricky Rojas was alive and well and living in Miami, he had some really bad news for her.
* * *
GINA FLINCHED AT Josh’s expression of shock. If they did have any chance at a normal, dating kind of relationship, she’d have to open up to him about her life at some point. She just didn’t expect it to be in a dark alley with her hands stinging from a fall and this suspicion between them.
Josh cleared his throat. “You’re married?”
“I—I don’t know.” She rubbed at a smudge of dirt on the thigh of her jeans. “It’s a long story.”
Josh reached across her and opened the metal door of the bar. “Let’s have another drink and you can tell me all about it.”
She poked her head into the bright hallway that led to the noise and conviviality of the bar, and it all seemed so normal. She’d never told anyone her story and it bubbled and hissed inside her like some malignant concoction. She might not want to tell Josh Edwards the whole sordid tale but eking out a little at a time just might ease the pressure.
“Why the hell not?” She swept past him into the bar and the door slammed behind him as he followed her.
They couldn’t find a table, but two stools beckoned at the end of the curved mahogany bar and they claimed them.
Josh rapped his knuckles against the wood. “Beer, please, whatever’s on draft. Do you want one of those minty things again?”
“I’ll have what he’s having.” She planted her elbows on the bar, hooking her feet around the legs of the stool.
Josh didn’t waste any time. He spun around on his stool, bumping her knees with his, and leaned toward her. “Let’s start with the basics. Are you married or not?”
“I was married to RJ’s father, but I thought he died over a year ago.”
Josh’s dark brows collided over his nose. “You thought he died?”
“Yes, but the scene was kind of chaotic at the time, and I never actually saw his dead body. I mean, I saw his body, but for all I know he could’ve been faking it. I was told he’d died.”
“Why would someone tell you that if it weren’t true?”
“There are reasons, and I can’t get into those.”
The bartender placed their beers in front of them and Josh absently clinked his mug against hers. “What makes you think he’s alive now? Just because that violent individual in the alley told you so?”
“That’s not all. There have been a couple of other signs...messages.”
“From him?”
Her hand jerked at Josh’s harsh tone, and the beer sloshed over the side of the glass and ran down her hand. She plucked a cocktail napkin from the artfully arranged stack and dabbed her knuckles.
“A couple of texts using a...nickname that nobody else would know.”
Josh leaned back and took a gulp of beer. “Why would your husband text you? Why not call you or better yet, walk up to your mother’s place and knock on the door?”
She flicked the beer mug with her fingernail. How much should she reveal to this man she’d just met yesterday? Telling him the whole truth, that her husband and father had been involved in the drug trade and both had been killed at the same time in a planned assassination—would make anyone run for the exit.
That’s not something you just blurted out on a first date.
“It’s complicated, Josh. He wouldn’t be in a position to just come to me freely.”
“Sounds...dangerous.”
“It is.” She twisted her hair around one hand and then dropped it as the strands abraded the scrapes on her palm. “That’s why I don’t want to drag you into it from your safe and sane world of software development.”
“Yeah, safe and sane.” His lips quirked. “Sounds pretty far-fetched to me. Would you really go off with a stranger in search of your husband? Or did you know that man in the alley?”
“Never saw him before in my life.”
Josh shook his head. “I can’t believe a savvy woman like you, a cautious woman like you, one who carries a .22 in her handbag on a date...”
She touched the purse hanging over her knee.
“Yeah, I know you have it in there. Anyway, can’t believe someone like you would traipse off with a stranger promising to take you to your dead husband.”
“I...” She pressed two fingers against her lips. She knew she’d been taking a risk meeting that man in the alley, but she had to know if Ricky was alive. “You’re right, but he offered a compelling lure.”
“That’s exactly what it sounds like to me—a lure. That man in the alley wants something from you and figured the best way to get you to go with him was the story about your dead husband.”
Hunching forward, she grabbed his wrist. “But what if it isn’t a story? What if RJ’s father is alive? I have to know.”
“Forget about it, Gina. He’s dead.”
She flung his arm away from her. “You don’t know that. You don’t know anything. I’m sorry I told you.”
“Why, because you don’t want to hear the truth?”
“It’s a possibility. Don’t you understand that? I have to know for sure, for RJ’s sake.”
“He’s dead, Gina.”
“Stop saying that. How can you be so sure after hearing just a portion of the whole story?”
“I am sure.”
“Why?”
“Because I was there when your father and husband were shot and killed.”
Chapter Four
Ice water raced through her veins. She gulped against the sensation of drowning, but the air never seemed to make it to her lungs. She sputtered and gasped.
The stranger across from her squeezed her knee. “Do you need some water?”
“Water?” She gurgled. Why would she need water when the stuff threatened to overwhelm her?
“Gina, are you okay? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to spring it on you like this.”
“Spring what?” She pressed her hands to her face, her skin cool and clammy beneath her touch. “Who are you? What do you want from me? Have you been the one sending those texts?”
His lying eyes widened. “Texts? Someone’s been sending you texts?”
She tried to hop off the stool but forgot her feet were hooked around its legs, and she fell forward instead. His arms curled around her, breaking her fall as she landed against his chest.
“I’ve given you a shock.” He gently lifted her from the stool and set her on wobbly legs. “A table opened up in the corner. Let’s grab it.”
She didn’t want to grab an
ything with this man, but she couldn’t seem to form a coherent thought, never mind launch some kind of offensive against him.
She allowed him to lead her to the table and she plopped down in the chair.
He placed her mug of beer in front of her. “Have a drink.”
Wrapping her hands around the heavy glass, she raised it to her lips and gulped down half the mug. Then she wiped the foam from her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Are you going to tell me who you are or am I going to whip that weapon out of my purse for encouragement?”
He had the nerve to smile, if that’s what that twist of his lips meant.
“I’m glad to see you’re coming around. You had me worried there for a minute.”
“Stop stalling, Josh Edwards, or whoever you are.”
“Josh Elliott—only a partial lie.”
She ignored the hand he held out to her. “That doesn’t tell me a thing. What are you and why are you stalking me and how do you know about my father and my husband and how they died?”
“I’m a United States navy SEAL.” He pulled out a wallet and snapped an ID card on the table between them.
Pressing her lips into a line, she poked it with her finger as if it could bite her. It looked official, but she knew all too well anything could be faked or forged. “And?”
“We assisted the CIA in Colombia when they took down the controlling members of the Los Santos drug cartel and the two terrorists they were meeting.”
She flinched, nearly biting her tongue. “Terrorists?”
“The two men your father was meeting with that day—known terrorists.”
The ice in her veins turned to molten lava as rage coursed through her system. “My father was meeting with terrorists in his home, while I was there? While RJ was there?”
“Afraid so.” He cocked his head at her.
He didn’t believe she didn’t know.
“How did you assist the CIA? I didn’t see any military there that day.”
He blinked once, his spiky black lashes falling over dark eyes filled with secrets. “That’s classified information. Let’s just say we were there for protection.”
“Not mine.”
“Did the CIA...rough you up?” His jaw tightened.
“Did they pull out my fingernails under a bright bulb? Not quite, but it was no picnic, and the DEA was even worse.”
“I’m sure it was...traumatic to lose your father and husband in that manner.”
She flicked her fingers. “That was then. This is now. What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to protect you.”
She snorted. “From what?”
“From that man in the alley who pretended he was going to take you to your dead husband.” He steepled his blunt fingers. “From whomever is sending you text messages.”
The worry she’d been experiencing ever since she’d received that first text washed over her once again, and she clutched her stomach. The sudden pain in her gut could be from mixing mojitos and beer, but she didn’t think so.
“Ricky really isn’t alive?”
“No way.”
She took a slow sip of beer this time and licked the nutty taste from her lips as she considered this latest piece of news. Would this navy SEAL have any reason to lie to her...about this?
“I still don’t understand. Why am I in danger all of a sudden?”
Folding his arms on the table, he lifted his chin. “Why don’t you tell me what was in those texts?”
She dug her cell phone from her purse and skimmed through her messages. She stopped at the first one she’d received and read it aloud. “‘Where are the drugs? Where are the weapons, paloma?’”
“Paloma? Dove.”
“I-it was Ricky’s nickname for me. Nobody knew about that name. That’s why I believed that man tonight when he said Ricky was alive.”
“I wouldn’t put much stock in that. Ricky could’ve told anyone about it. Drugs and weapons? What do you know about drugs and weapons?”
She jerked back, putting more space between her and Josh’s intense gaze. He might be here to protect her, but he didn’t trust her.
She didn’t trust him either.
“I don’t know anything about drugs or weapons. I had nothing to do with my father’s business and didn’t even know his business until shortly before I was married.”
“Once you knew his business and your husband’s was drugs, why would you choose to put your son in danger by bringing him to that house?”
Gina crossed her arms, digging her fingernails into her biceps through the material of her silk blouse. She locked eyes with Josh, but this time the passion that kindled between them was anger, not sexual attraction.
She let a long breath out between her teeth that turned into a hiss. “It’s complicated.”
“And the other texts?” He sank back in his chair and sipped his beer.
“Same exact words, except the last message I received in the bar when you were in the restroom.” She pulled a crumpled napkin from her purse and flattened in out on the table in front of him.
“Clever. He must’ve been the one who bought us the drinks.”
She dropped the phone on top of the cocktail napkin. “My father was a drug dealer. I don’t know anything about weapons.”
“Do you want me to tell you?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“I’m not sure you want to know the truth.”
“Bring it.”
“Your father, and the Los Santos cartel, had started dealing with terrorists out of Afghanistan. In exchange for the product from their poppy fields, he was going to supply them with weapons...and passage into the US.”
Now she did feel sick.
She bent forward, leaning her forehead against the sticky table, her hair falling around her face. “I can’t believe he’d do something like that.”
And then she remembered what he’d done to her and she could believe it.
“Gina? Are you all right?”
Balancing her chin on the table, she peered at him through the curtain of her hair. “Not really. I thought this was all behind me.”
“Can you think of any reason why your father’s associates would be contacting you?”
“Is that who you think it is?” She blew the hair out of her face, as she raised her head.
“That’s a good possibility.”
“Could it be the Feds?” She splayed her hands on the table, wiggling her fingers. “Maybe they’re trying to trap me?”
“I think I would’ve been told, since essentially I’m reporting to the Feds.”
“The FBI? DEA? You’re working with them?”
“What did you say before?” He rubbed his knuckles across the stubble on his jaw. “It’s complicated.”
“But what you’re telling me is that if it was some federal agency trying to trap me, they wouldn’t have sent you out here to protect me from that agency.”
“Exactly.” He placed his hands over her restless fingers. “I’m going to ask you a couple of questions. Can you try not to go off on me? I’m just asking.”
Her gaze shifted to his broad hands covering hers. God, his touch felt good—warm, secure. She nodded. “I won’t go off on you.”
“Is there any reason why these people would think you know something about your father’s business? Did he give you any information? Leave anything to you?”
“There wasn’t much left.” She slipped her hands from beneath his. Unless you counted the bank account on Isla Perdida. The same type of account her father had set up for her mother when they split, the one Mom had been using ever since to fund her lifestyle. Blood money.
“They seized all his assets...and mine.”
/> “I’m sorry about that.” He drummed his fingers against his glass. “They must think you know something. They wouldn’t contact you, otherwise.”
“They’re sadly mistaken. Do you think I’m in danger from them?”
“You could be.” Sounding casual, Josh lifted his shoulders, but they were stiff, indicating anything but casual.
“Great.” She pushed away the mug of beer. “What was your original assignment? Get close to the grieving widow? Why the pretended interest in the property? Why not just approach me?”
His gaze floated over her left shoulder and she wondered if he’d heard her. Then his attention snapped back to her face. “I thought it might be better to get to know you in a nonthreatening way first. I did shock you with all these revelations, didn’t I?”
“Partly because I thought you were a mild-mannered programmer.” Although there’d been nothing to suggest Josh Edwards/Elliott was mild mannered in any way, shape or form—her gaze skimmed over the powerful muscles on display beneath his shirt—especially form.
“My instructions were to get close to you.” He cleared his throat. “This is a new type of assignment for me, so I wasn’t sure about the best approach.”
His lips twisted into a half smile, and her gaze lingered on his strong jaw imagining for a second what it would feel like to get close to Josh Elliott. Then she flipped her hair over her shoulder and said, “Honesty?”
“What?” The hand holding his beer mug jerked, and the amber liquid sloshed into small waves.
“I said you could’ve tried honesty in approaching me.”
He curled his hands around the heavy, beveled glass and stared into its depths. “You really would’ve been open to a navy SEAL on a secret assignment appearing on your doorstep?”
“It’s not like you were personally responsible for the deaths of my father and husband.” She rolled her shoulders. “Besides, I accepted you when you did tell me the truth, didn’t I? I mean, we’re sitting here sharing a beer.”
He held up one finger. “Ah, that’s because I saved you in the alley, and you were still shaken up. I’m not sure you would’ve been so...accepting otherwise.”
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