by Julie Miller
“I was driving it.”
Tracy poured a little more water on the bandanna to tend to the boy’s scraped knuckles and burned fingers. “How did you escape the fire?”
“When I came to in the truck, the fire was already coming over the hill. I lay down in the creek water.” Other than the singe marks on the hem of his jeans and boots, the trick had worked. The kid must have crawled out of the water and either hid or passed out amongst the rocks afterward. That was soot and mud on the surface of his clothes, not burnt material.
“That was smart.” Bull cooed to the horses to keep them calm as he checked both saddles for the gear they had on hand. “There’s no place between here and the Rio Grande where you could have escaped until the fire burned itself out.”
“Was Brittany with you?” Tracy asked.
“No. The Los Jaguares have her. Señor Calderón—he made me...I am sorry, Miss Cobb. My family owes him a debt.” The boy’s voice was raw from smoke or emotion or lack of water, but the energy behind it was a little stronger. “He would hurt my grandmother if I did not help.”
“Julio. We’re not placing blame right now. We just need to find answers.” Tracy’s tone was soft and solicitous, but her words were to the point. “Did you take Brittany from school?”
“I did not know they would... Señor Calderón said to bring the girl when I drove the truck—that it would look more like we were going on a date to visit my uncle. No one would ask us questions.”
Tracy whispered a curse through tight lips. “He was taking advantage of how young you are.”
“They met us for lunch. And Brittany got so sleepy. They had a place where she could nap.”
Bull’s fists clenched around the leather ties binding the rolled-up blanket to his saddle. “They doped her up.”
“I was going back to find her,” Julio insisted. “But the men. They said it was not my business. They took Brittany to his hacienda.”
“Calderón’s?” Bull stroked Jericho’s withers, silently apologizing for the tension the animal could sense, and telling the horse there’d be no comfy stall or grain tonight.
“Sí. Yes.” Bull went back to Tracy and stood over both of them to hear the rest of Julio’s story. “I went to see my grandmother, to tell her she would be fine. And then I was coming back to Serpentine. Go south with a load of hay and the girl. Come back with—”
“Drugs hidden in the hay bales?”
“Yes. But Brittany was friendly at school when I started hitting on her, talking her into going. And then she said she’d help me see my grandmother for Christmas. She wanted to help me. And she is so pretty. And so funny.” Julio turned his cheek into the charred dirt where he lay. “We kissed. I did not want to leave her.”
Bull propped his hands at his hips. Spare him the teenage angst. He needed a few more facts. “Okay, Romeo. So you decided you liked my sister, after all, and went back to Calderón’s hacienda to bring her home?”
Julio swung his gaze back up to Bull. “Brittany is your sister? I am so sorry, señor.”
“Apologize later.” Bull knelt down, eliminating some of the distance—and intimidation—between him and the lead he’d been looking for. “Did you see Brittany when you went back to the hacienda?”
Shaking his head, Julio struggled to push himself up onto his elbows. “Señor Calderón was angry that I had returned. Angry that I did not deliver the hay and return the truck to his associate in Serpentine.” Tracy shifted to get behind Julio’s shoulders and help him sit up. “I did not know about the drugs. I swear it.”
Bull picked up a palmful of burnt grass and dirt and crushed it in his fist. “But you’re willing to kidnap an innocent girl?”
The daggers in Tracy’s eyes warned him to keep his emotions in check. “So Calderón was angry with you.” She gently dabbed at the wound on the side of Julio’s head, calmly taking over the interrogation. “And he had his men do this to you?”
“I tried to fight.” Bull was twice as big as this kid, and far better trained, and it had taken everything he had to get rid of Garcia and Ortiz. “Then, I hit my head.”
“More likely someone hit you.” Julio hissed when Bull pulled aside his shaggy mat of hair to inspect the wound. “Looks like the shape of a gun butt to me.”
The boy sucked in a steadying breath and continued. “When I woke up, I was in the truck. Everything was on fire.”
Bull squeezed the teen’s arm, thanking him for keeping it together and answering their questions. “Do you know where this hacienda is? Can you take me there?”
“Bull,” Tracy warned him. “Julio needs to rest. He needs a hospital.”
But the boy had some grit in him that Bull admired. He pushed himself away from Tracy and sat up under his own power. “I know this hacienda. I will take you.” He poked his thumb over his shoulder. “But my truck? It is too far to walk.”
“You can ride double behind me or Tracy...Miss Cobb.” Bull looked beyond the wreckage of the truck to the graying twilight sky. “But the horses need rest.” And despite his dogged determination to rescue Brittany, so did the boy. Getting lost out in the south Texas badlands at night wasn’t a real brilliant idea, anyway. Not with drug runners and coyotes and rocky drop-offs and arroyos hiding in the shadows. First light would be soon enough. Bull nodded, talking to Julio as one man to another. “Let’s make camp on the other side of the creek. There’s grass there for the horses to graze on. We’ll get some food in our bellies and a little sleep, and we’ll head out in the morning.” Bull patted Julio’s shoulder before pushing to his feet. “You rest here for a few minutes while I set up camp and hobble the horses. Then I’ll come back and help you across the creek.”
With a grateful nod, Julio stayed where he was. His shoulders hunched with fatigue and he stretched back out on the ground as soon as Bull moved away. But Tracy shot to her feet, taking the mare’s reins from his hand and falling into step beside him as he led Jericho down into the creek’s shallow current.
“Thank you,” she whispered, glancing back at Julio. “You could have really come down hard on him. He and Brittany both made some stupid choices. And if she’s being treated anything like he was...”
The water swirled around Bull’s ankles as he stopped midstride. “My plan isn’t just about taking care of Julio. We could lose a lot of time returning to the ranch house and coming back this way tomorrow. Besides, once we take this kid into Serpentine, Wyatt’s probably going to want to book him for drug smuggling, aiding and abetting and who knows what else?”
“But his grandmother...”
“Even if charges are dismissed due to extenuating circumstances, that’ll all take time Brittany may not have.”
Tracy’s clear blue eyes darkened with suspicion. “What are you planning, Bull?”
“With Garcia and Ortiz around, and who knows who else, Calderón’s got ears in Serpentine.” He tipped his gaze up over the rocks at the top of the creek bank. “This may be the only chance anyone has to get to Calderón and rescue Brittany without them knowing we’re coming.”
She locked her fingers around his wrist, her gaze purposely dropping to the wound she’d bandaged there. “Don’t you need to call for backup on something like that? Look at what the Los Jaguares have already done to you and Julio. You don’t even know how many men you’d be going up against.”
“Easy, blue eyes.” Bull touched his gloved finger to her sun-kissed cheek and curled that independent lock of sorrel-colored hair around his fingertip. “I’m not going on any suicide mission.” He tucked the curl behind her ear and cupped her jaw, angling her face fully up to his. “I am going in. I’ll scout the place out—get Brittany’s location, where Calderón’s men are stationed. Find out what kind of firepower they have. He has to have cell reception there because he called my father with the ransom demand—and Brittany was with him to deliver the message. I’ll call for backup then.”
“What if something happens? What if you get hurt?” Her hand move
d to the middle of his chest, her fingers curling beneath the buttons of his shirt. He liked how she didn’t just touch him. She held on. He liked her holding on to him a whole lot. “Julio is already injured and I’m willing to help, but I’m not a detective. I don’t even have Dad’s hunting rifle with me to help you.”
“I won’t get hurt. And I won’t let anybody else get hurt.” He stroked his thumb across the curve of her bottom lip, soothing her worry. Going after the bad guys was his job. It was his duty as a cop, even if he was more than a thousand miles away from the city stamped on his badge. It was his duty as a McCabe to help bring his sister home. “I promise.”
“Bull...” Her grip tightened in the front of his shirt.
He shushed her concern by lowering his head and pressing his lips against hers. Those urgent fingers clung to the skin and muscle beneath the cotton he wore, and she pulled herself up to deepen the kiss. Her lips softened beneath his. Their tongues touched and danced. The contact was quick. It was deep. It was right. And this time he didn’t question why he’d kissed her. Tomboy Tracy Cobb was his best friend. She always had been. He hoped she always would be.
But he was finally beginning to get it through his hard head that she was also something more.
When he pulled away, Tracy nodded, agreeing to his plan. “Let’s make camp.”
Chapter Five
Tracy’s eyes drifted open to the first glimmer of sunrise peeking over the lip of the rocky bank on the far side of the creek. She should be cold and achy from a night on the hard ground with nothing but a saddle blanket to sleep on, and one to curl up under.
Instead, she was deliciously warm. The backside of her was, anyway, as were her legs and stomach. She tugged the blanket more snugly around the front of her body, nestled her head against its hard pillow, and let her eyes blink shut again.
There hadn’t been enough usable wood to build a fire last night, so they’d dined on energy bars, dried fruit and water, taken care of the horses and let exhaustion carry them off to sleep. Well, Julio’s eyes had closed as soon as he’d wrapped up in his blanket. And though she’d valiantly attempted to wait up until Bull had finished circling the camp, checking the horses, checking the weather, checking for any signs of unwanted company, sleep had claimed her before she could convince Bull that he needed to be rested and alert even more than she did.
Had Bull slept at all? Had he taken her up on her offer to share the second blanket? Tracy stretched her legs, frowning as conscious thought pushed aside memories from the night before. Had he done something dumb and selfish and heroic and wonderful like stay up all night keeping watch over them?
“Shh, blue eyes.” The blanket around her waist tightened as Bull’s deep, drowsy voice whispered against her ear. “I need five more minutes of quiet before I’m ready to do this today.”
Tracy’s eyes popped wide open. With every suddenly rapid heartbeat, a new level of awareness assailed her. The delicious warmth was Bull spooning against her back. The blanket at her waist was his arm cinched around her, her pillow was his strong biceps. Their legs were tangled where they lay on Jericho’s blanket, facing the sunrise. The cover she’d tugged up higher was Bull’s hand, splayed possessively across her torso, his thumb and fingers nestled beneath the weight of her breasts. His lips, when he spoke, danced against the tender skin of her neck while his warm breath teased the shell of her ear.
He lay behind her, encircling her with his strength and heat. His breathing moved in sync with hers. And his lips weren’t just moving against her skin—they were kissing her, seducing her. “I could wake up like this every morning. Quiet breeze. Fresh air. You.”
“Bull.” She didn’t know whether to protest or make a joke or let the melody singing in her heart drive away the cautionary logic of that seventeen-year-old girl who still lingered inside her. “I see you took me up on my offer to share the blanket.”
“Funny.” His teeth excited a sensitive bundle of nerves beneath the neckline of her shirt and she didn’t feel like laughing at all. He shifted behind her, perhaps easing some space between them, perhaps simply giving his hand easier access to the snap of her jeans. “Do you know you have the prettiest, most perfectly shaped bottom I’ve ever seen fill a pair of jeans?”
Bull splayed his hand over her abdomen and pulled her back, snug against the cup of his pelvis. Tracy gasped at the evidence of what he was feeling pressed against that perfectly shaped bottom. Tracy felt her face heating at the compliment. Other things were warming up, too, and she didn’t seem to be making any effort to stop what was happening to her. “Is this what you meant when you said you needed five more minutes of quiet?”
“Don’t argue semantics with me, Miss Cobb,” he teased. “I’m just going where the morning takes me. Unless you want me to stop?”
Shaking her head, Tracy lay her hand over his and guided it back down her belly.
Without another word, he rolled her over and moved partially on top of her, his heavier weight sinking down around her yielding body, reminding her that he was every inch a rugged, powerful man. And yet he was being so careful with her, careful not to crush the breath out of her, careful not to let the calloused hand that slid beneath her blouse be too rough against her skin or too needy when he squeezed her breast in his palm and rolled the hard, achy tip between his fingers.
Despite the moan of secret pleasure she trapped in her throat, Tracy locked her eyes onto the beautiful gray eyes above her and whispered, “Did you know you were my first kiss back in high school?”
“Hadn’t thought about it. But I’m glad. I like the practice we’ve been getting lately, too.”
Tracy gasped at the shards of pleasure tingling in her and shooting down through her womb, making her feel heavy and tight. Taking his own sweet time, Bull slid his hand down inside her jeans, and she squeezed her thighs around him, eager to relieve the pressure building there. “Easy.” But his chest was expanding and pushing against hers with the same excited rhythm consuming her. “Five minutes of quiet, remember?”
He slipped a finger inside her, pushing against that most sensitive nub. “Not fair,” she gasped, urging the buttons of his shirt open, eager to take some of the same liberties he was.
“Shh. Just let me.” It was getting harder to keep her eyes open, harder to remember that they weren’t alone, hard to remember those five minutes of quiet he wanted when he was priming her to cry out his name.
“And did you know...” She didn’t think she could take much more of the slow, wicked massage of his fingers. She wanted...she needed... “I’ve never been...” The pent-up release of her body spasming against his hand came out in a long, voiceless gasp from her throat. “...with anyone else.”
“What?” Bull was breathing just as hard as she was. But the handsome grin faded before her eyes. “You saved yourself for me?”
Aftershocks still made her body weak when he pulled his hand from her jeans and looked down into her eyes. Propping himself up on an elbow, he shifted his weight off her. He glanced over to ensure Julio was still snoring away. But suddenly Tracy felt as though a clock had started ticking down some sort of countdown again. “Well, technically, we still haven’t done it.”
“Tracy...” Bull opened his mouth to speak, then dropped his head to brand her lips with his. It was a quick, hard kiss, hinting at something more before he pulled away. “You should have told me.”
She reached up to stroke the worry lines from beside his eyes. “Like we ever had a conversation where the topic came up? In fact, I thought with what was happening, it was exactly the right time to mention it.”
He shook his head. Glanced over at Julio’s sleeping form. Shook his head again. “I don’t have time to do this right this morning. And it needs to be right. But I want to do it. I want to be with you.”
“Bull, I—”
“Uh-uh.” He swept aside the hair that had fallen across her face. “When we’re this close and you’re looking at me like that—a conversation
like this?—you call me Virgil.”
“Virgil.” It felt like saying yes to him. Using his given name felt like she was special to him. She wanted to be special to Virgil McCabe. “Please don’t tell me you think this is weird. I can’t tell you how much I hate when you use that word. I’ve waited a long time for you to want me the way I want you.”
“I can’t tell you how much I do.” He wound his finger into that stubborn tendril of hair that refused to be contained. He pulled it to his lips and kissed it before tucking it gently, albeit futilely, behind her ear. “I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that Tomboy Tracy and you are the same woman. The only thing weird is how thickheaded I’ve been about us. I never even considered staying in Texas. I just knew I had to get away. Now I’ve been gone so long. And my timing is as bad as ever. I still don’t know if I can stay with Justice around. And you deserve someone who’ll stay. Plus, there’s my job in Chicago. And Brittany. If I’d had a lick of sense any sooner... And now the clock’s ticking—”
She pressed her finger against his mouth, silencing his apology. “Our time will come. If it’s meant to be, and you’re willing to give us a chance to be more than friends, it’ll happen. I’ll wait for you to come home for however long it takes you to be ready, Virgil. Trust me, I’m a patient woman.”
“I don’t deserve you.”
“I know. But I love you, anyway.”
They both smiled. He kissed her one more time, giving her comfort, giving her hope. Then he rolled off her and stood, grabbing Tracy’s hand and pulling her to her feet in front of him. “Then let’s go get my sister. We’ve got a lot of talking to do.”
* * *
“THERE’S NOBODY HERE.” Bull paced off the dusty length of the short adobe wall that surrounded the hacienda’s front yard. The cell reception was better out here than it had been inside the house. Squinting, he tipped his face up toward the sun burning high in the sky. Judging by the food still sitting on the plates inside on the long kitchen table, and the multiple tire tracks that hadn’t yet blown off the dusty gravel road, the people who’d been at Calderón’s hacienda had left fast, and not all that long ago.