The Traitor
Page 25
"Jesus Christ! Are you sure it's her?"
"Yes, I'm positive."
Rafe gathered her close, tucked her head against his chest. "Babe, I'm so sorry."
"I'm glad he told me. He said she didn't suffer much, that she stayed with Vargas about a year and died in a car accident."
Rafe frowned over the top of her head. A year? Car accident? That didn't sound like the Diego Vargas he'd been hunting these last three years, but why would Santos lie to Isabella? "That's good, that she didn't suffer."
"And it's good that we know what happened to her. Now our family can really bury her."
He massaged her back gently and listened to her soft moan. The sound conjured up erotic images of other groans and the tiny breathless sounds she made when he was deep inside her, pounding into her willing body. Suddenly the urge for a repeat performance caused a tightening in his groin.
"Why do you think he did it?" Isabella asked. "I mean, why would he care? Why didn't he just walk away?"
Rafe tried to push back his body's response and concentrate on what she was saying. He knew she wasn't speaking of Diego Vargas or Max Jensen.
"I think Santos has a kind of thing for you."
She wrinkled her forehead in that funny way he found adorable. "You mean you think he likes me?"
Rafe shrugged and moved his hands farther down her back, cupped her bottom. "Maybe more than 'like.'"
"He's a cold-blooded killer, a man absolutely without principles or moral parameters."
He enjoyed watching her go into her warrior stance like a female ninja.
"Don't smile like that," she warned. "You know that Santos is going to take over the organization, build it back up again."
Rafe nodded. "But it'll take him years to do that, and when he does, I'll be right on his ass."
"Yeah, but he'll be tougher to catch than Vargas. It's strange but he has some kind of off-kilter internal guide. He'll kill at the drop of a hat, but he wouldn't let Vargas abuse his own daughter."
"He's a practical man and a survivor." Rafe slipped his hand between her legs. "Like you."
Isabella – Rafe could never think of her as Bella and even in his thoughts he used the name that conjured up the Isabella of the night they'd met in the bar – pushed him aside and sat up.
Confused, he stared at her. "There's nothing wrong with being a survivor."
"I'm not like Santos," she insisted.
"Of course not." He reached for her again. "Look, Santos gave you the information about Maria for no practical reason. You'd have given him full immunity regardless of getting the real story about your sister."
"That's true." She sank back and let him wrap his arms around her. "Learning about Maria was ... extra."
"The important thing is that Vargas is locked up, he's not getting out of prison until he's a very old man, if even then, and you have some peace of mind about your sister."
Her face softened as she reached for his, holding it between her two hands. "And I have you." She smiled and brushed her lips against his.
He laughed as he dipped his mouth to hers. "What more could you ask for?"
"Uh, why don't you show me?" she whispered in his ear, darting her tongue out to tickle and tantalize his lobe. "I might get out of practice."
"No chance of that." He rolled over to cradle himself between her thighs. "I intend to allow you plenty of time to ... refine your skills."
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Coming in early 2012. Frail Blood, Jo's new romantic historical thriller, "Frail Blood."
“I hate ... any taint of vice whose strong corruption inhabits our frail blood.” – Twelfth Night
Prologue
Northern California, June 1909
Alma Bentley lifted the frayed hem of her cotton skirt and strapped the pistol to her left ankle.
She’d known from the first time a fellow looked at her in that certain way – raking his eyes over her like she was nothing more than a cheap piece of meat on the butcher’s block – that she was a wretched, plain-faced girl.
But Joseph Machado was different. He treated her like the blue-ribbon winner at the state fair. He said she was a rose among the thorns. How she’d loved the sound of that.
A rose among the thorns.
Alma repeated the words with a sigh of regret, adjusted the gun against her leg, and let the skirt drop into place. Her chapped knuckles caught on the coarse fabric. In the dull finish of the mirror fashioned from a large scrap of aluminum, her reflection stared back at her, a nondescript, dark, solemn-faced girl with a brown mop of tangles falling over a low forehead.
What Joseph done to her was wrong. He ought not to have treated her so poorly. With no respect. Made promises and then renigged on them.
A promise was like a holy vow. Sacred.
She slapped her palms together several times. Well, wasn’t no use worrying about it now. As Mama always said, you hafta lay in the bed you make. And Alma sure had made this rocky mess of pebbles and boulders.
But still, it wasn’t right what Joe done. Now there was nothing left but to try and get back some dignity.
And make him think twice about hurting a girl like that.
#
The Machado house squatted on several acres of land off the main road to Placer Hills. Alma was used to walking the distance, for she’d done it several mornings a week during the four months she’d been employed by the Machado family.
This early evening, however, the trek seemed longer. She felt the heavy reminder of Joseph’s betrayal in the weight of the pistol grinding into her leg.
The hem of her dress dragged in the dusty ruts. She’d begun to sweat and dark circles dampened her long-sleeved frock even though the delta breeze had cooled off the hot June day. Although she was a sturdy girl used to lots of hard work, her face was red with the exertion and the seriousness of her errand.
The sun had nearly dipped below the mountains before Alma came round the bend to the outbuilding where the Machados stabled their horses. She spied Mr. Machado’s fancy automobile beside the barn, but that didn’t mean nothing. He hardly ever rode the contraption, was always out on one or another of his horses. The animals were all he seemed to think about – that and the farm land.
She peeked into the stable and sure enough the horse and carriage were gone. Tonight was Miss Phoebe’s and Mrs. Machado’s night out with their lady friends. That meant Joe was alone.
Good. It was high time they had a talk.
She rapped softly on the door at the back of the house where she entered when she came to work. Mrs. Gulley was usually here then, but not this late at night, of course. Alma hesitated before continuing through the mudroom and into the kitchen. The house was eerily silent.
She tiptoed to the area that Mrs. Machado called the “sitting room,” although not much sitting happened there ‘cause no one ever visited the Machados that Alma could see. This room was empty too.
“Joseph,” she called softly.
No answer.
She reached down to unstrap the pistol and dangled it nervously in her left hand hidden behind her skirts. She couldn’t have said what she intended to do with the gun if someone had asked her at that moment. Alma hardly knew her own dark thoughts most of the time.
Scare Joe, she might’ve said. Make him say he was sorry. Or give her a few soft words to fill the sad, empty hole left inside her by his deceit and betrayal.
Despair washed over her for a moment, crumbling her resolve. What had she gotten in her head? Wasn’t nothin’ Joe was scared of. For more than twenty-five years he’d lived with his pa and that awful excuse for a ma and his strange older sister. Wasn’t any gun gonna frighten Joe Machado.
Suddenly shaking, like a fit coming on, started in her knees and spread up through her gut to her wrist where the gun dug into her hip, her fingers numb as they gripped the handle. She turned to go, feeling like a stupid little girl gone on a useless errand.
She was an idiot, a great big dumb fool who didn’t
know when a man was lying through his teeth and gussying up to her with sweet words – words like a rose among the thorns. She couldn’t even tell a falsehood from the truth.
A crash sounded from upstairs, and she jumped around like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockers, her eyes wide and fixed on the stairs. They led up to the second floor landing and the bedrooms of the Machado family. She knew exactly which one was Joe’s because she’d been there once – only once – when his folks and sister Phoebe were gone to San Francisco.
Loud footsteps clumped down the stairs. Her eyes grew wide and she raised the pistol. Out of fear? Surprise? She couldn’t hardly remember why she was here.
“What the hell ... ?” Joe said from the doorway.
And then Alma fired the pistol without a single thought passing through her mind except a vague sense of alarm. Even as she dropped the pistol and backed out of the door, a niggling thought lodged in the back of her brain.
Joe, clutching his shoulder and starting to fall. And a faint thud from somewhere in the house.
But then panic took over and she raced into the woods as fast as she could go and didn’t stop running, terror and fear nipping at her heels, until she reached the turn in the road that led to Placer Hills. There she sank down to her knees in the damp leaves and nettles by a giant pine and clutched her head in her fists.
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