by Dana Marton
Shep took a cell phone off the guy he’d taken down, flipped it open and grimaced. “No reception whatsoever.” He shoved the phone into his pocket anyway.
She bent to search her guy, found his phone, but the bullet had damaged it. It was as dead as its owner, although Lilly regretted the owner’s death a lot less.
“Doesn’t look like we’ll be making any calls.” Shep scanned the horizon. “We’re going to have to walk. Let’s see what we can find in the cab.”
She moved up front with him, but nothing waited for them there beyond a bag of nacho chips and a few cans of beer. Not terribly helpful, since alcohol only hastened dehydration. They grabbed them anyway.
She stepped back down to the ground and walked toward the road. Standing around in this heat wasn’t going to do them any favors. The sooner they got somewhere, the sooner they could get out of the sun and call the office.
She nodded toward the flat, endless dirt road, little more than tire tracks in the desert, the way home. “Back the way we’ve come?”
But Shep gestured in the opposite direction. “I want to check that hill first. The phone might work on top of that. Or we might see a village or this factory they talked about. Although, from the way they were talking, that might be a couple of miles from here.”
“If we can make a call, we can come back here and wait in the shade of the truck until Ryder sends a chopper.”
They walked side by side at a brisk pace, keeping an eye out for traffic, but the road was dead. Seemed like a seasonal dirt road, out of the way. Not impossible that it was only used by smugglers.
“This is bad,” she said.
“Not too bad. We’ll manage.”
She shook her head. “That wasn’t what I meant. Today is September thirtieth. Looks like the National Guard will be coming in tonight. And we’re stuck in the middle of nowhere.”
“We make a good team. We’ll figure something out together,” he said with grim determination and picked up speed.
* * *
SHEP SLIPPED THE PHONE back into his pocket. Standing at the top of the hill did not, in fact, help with reception whatsoever. But they did see a lonely ranch in the distance with some goats and a horse grazing on some sparse grasses behind the fence.
“There we go,” he said and started out that way. Then he paused and looked back at Lilly. “How are you doing?”
“Fine. Better to move toward water and shade than sit here and fry to death.” Her kissable mouth was set into a determined line. She wasn’t the type to give up and roll over.
He admired that about her. She looked worse for wear, her hair and clothes a mess, yet to him, she was still the most beautiful woman in the world.
They walked side by side in the heat. His head was finally clear of the tranquilizer drug, but it left behind a pounding headache that the relentless sun wasn’t helping.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were going to the bar?” he asked. Before he’d tried the phone, they’d been talking about how she’d ended up with Brian and Tank. Anger stiffened his muscles every time he thought of those bastards. She could have been killed.
“I don’t need a babysitter.”
“It’s called working with a partner. Ever heard of this new thing called a team?”
She shrugged. “Heard of it. Don’t like it.”
“Don’t FBI agents work with partners? You had to have one over the years.”
“I’ve worked alone for the last couple of months. The last partner I had... Anyway, I was dragging my feet accepting another. I volunteered for this job partially because it was a solo mission. It’s easier when you only have yourself to consider.”
He didn’t entirely disagree with that. He’d spent most of his time with the SDDU on lone-wolf ops overseas. Yet he would have been lying if he said he hadn’t come to like his current team and the way they worked together here. “What happened to your last partner?”
“She was shot to death by her boyfriend. He was drunk and jealous.” She shook her head. “You go to work every day, deal with the worst kind of criminals, put your life on the line, then you go home where you should be able to relax and some scumbag puts a bullet through your head in your sleep.” Her lips flattened.
That sounded rough. “Not all partnerships work.”
“Yeah.” She walked on. “They were poison for each other. She couldn’t live with him, couldn’t live without him. They tore each other down pretty badly. Maybe I should have seen it coming. I knew how it was between them.”
He wasn’t exactly an expert on relationships. He lived for his job for the most part, his brief hookups few and far between.
They walked in silence for a while before she added, “People who are supposed to love you and have your back will let you down. They abandon you or worse. You don’t trust anyone but yourself and you don’t get hurt.”
Her own life experiences bore that out, so the sentiment was difficult to argue with, but he did anyway. “Sometimes. And sometimes people who are supposed to love you do love you and have your back. There are good people. We just mostly deal with the bad in our jobs.”
She blew the hair out of her face. “I think deep down I know that. But I still can’t trust people. Tell me that’s not stupid.”
“I don’t think anyone could go through what you went through and not have abandonment issues.”
“I was starting to trust you. Back when. That’s why I ran away. I figured I better get out of there before you punched me in the face or something and proved yourself to be a fake.”
Hell. What was he supposed to say to that?
She didn’t wait for him to speak. “You’re not a fake.”
“Thanks.” The quiet declaration touched him.
They walked on, side by side, cutting through the desert together. He didn’t see any vehicles around the house, or any people. Didn’t look as if anybody was home.
“When I say I have your back,” he said after a while, “I don’t mean because I don’t think you can handle things. I just mean, I want to be there for you because you’re important to me.”
She turned to him and stared for a long second. “I am?”
“You’re the first woman I ever proposed to.”
She turned away. “You didn’t mean it.”
Didn’t he? “I had no idea what to say.” He paused. “What happened between us, what we shared...I don’t think it happens to people every day. I don’t want it to never happen between us again. I do care about you, and I do want to protect you. Hell, I want things I haven’t even dared to dream about before now. I want you to let me in.”
She stared at him. “It’ll take getting used to.”
“We have time.” Warmth spread through his chest. This was what he wanted. She was what he wanted. He’d been a fool to try to keep her at arm’s length. He couldn’t do that. Not when he was falling for her.
The realization made his mouth go dry.
“We have time,” he said again, because he didn’t think he could say what he was thinking.
“If we don’t get shot in the head or die of dehydration here first,” she observed wryly.
“There’s always the beer.” He lifted the cans.
She grinned. “Yeah, die drunk, die happy.”
“Beats dying sad.” He grinned back at her, relieved that the conversation was lightening up a little.
They nearly reached the corral with the lone horse when she said, “I do trust you. And I want to trust Jamie. I want to trust the rest of the team.”
“They all like you.” He made a face. “A little too much for my taste, actually. And they trust you, which is a miracle, considering you’re an FBI outsider.”
And I more than like you, he wanted to say. He wanted to tell her that their connection went bey
ond attraction and great sex. He wasn’t sure if a relationship could ever work, but he wanted to try anyway, even if it would be long-distance and they could spend frustratingly little time together. Because he could no longer picture going back to a life devoid of Lilly.
But before he could find the words, the smile slid off her face. She grew somber and searched his gaze as she stopped walking.
He didn’t like that look. “What is it?”
She brushed her hair out of her face. “I’m not here just to observe the team.”
“You’re here to provide help if possible.”
“That and more.” She looked away.
A cold feeling sneaked up his spine. “What more?”
“I’m to make a recommendation when I get back. About whether the SDDU should be able to operate on U.S. soil.”
The sense of betrayal that washed over him was staggering. He stepped back from her. “You’re here to spy on us and give bureaucrats ammunition against us to shut us down?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Sure sounds like that from where I’m standing.” He turned from her and walked away. A hard knot replaced all the warm, fuzzy feelings in his chest.
He should have known better. He’d known that his job and relationships didn’t mix. What the hell had he been thinking? She’d been sent to spy on them!
Did the Colonel know about this? He couldn’t have. He would have told the team.
“What we do here is important, dammit,” he called back. “Maybe we’re a little less politically correct than the domestic agencies. Maybe we’ve brought in some rougher battlefield tactics. But the enemy we fight doesn’t exactly play by the rules of polite society, in case you haven’t noticed.”
That Lilly wouldn’t understand that cut him to the quick. He turned away from her again and kept going. Maybe she wasn’t who he thought she was. Maybe he’d been an utter fool about her. Sure looked like it.
He walked up to the ramshackle house. He didn’t want to fight with her right now. Not here. So he called out a couple of loud hellos, but the house seemed empty. Only some mutts came running, barking their heads off. They calmed right down when he offered a handful of tortilla chips.
He tossed more onto the ground then walked up to the front door. A crumpled piece of paper was tacked to the wood, with a few lines written on it in Spanish. It was a notice to drop the feed in the barn, as whoever lived here had gotten called into work and wouldn’t be home until later.
Shep knocked anyway. No response came.
“Hello?” He tried the door, found it locked, so he kicked it in.
They needed water. He already knew they wouldn’t find a phone. No phone lines led to the place. Out here in the middle of nowhere, there wouldn’t be any utilities.
He found some food, goat jerky and goat cheese. He took some of that, while Lilly filled up four empty soda bottles with water. He left the beer on the table for partial payment, and the pesos and dollars they’d found on the men who’d kidnapped them, then went outside to look for a saddle.
The horse was their only hope at this stage.
He found the saddle in the barn, next to the feed that had apparently been delivered already.
“We should keep going forward rather than back,” he told Lilly, who came into the barn after him. “Riding through abandoned borderlands in this heat will be slow going and it’ll take forever. Let’s see if we can find this factory.”
She held his gaze. “I’m sorry. I’m just doing my job, like everyone else.”
“I don’t want to fight about that right now. We can discuss it when we’re home and the terrorists are in custody.”
She nodded.
He headed out of the barn. “We’ll keep going south. We can make a call from the factory.”
“Do you think the Coyote is there?”
He shrugged. The men had talked about getting gas for the truck at the factory, and also about taking Lilly and Shep to the Coyote, but it didn’t mean that the Coyote was at the factory. They might have been talking about stopping at the factory for gas on their way to the Coyote somewhere farther south.
He made sure the horse had enough to drink before he saddled the animal, not that it looked thrilled with the idea of going for a ride in this heat.
Lilly held the bridle and she patted the horse’s neck to calm him. “You ride?”
“Reluctantly.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Your cover was being a rodeo cowboy.”
“It was the first thing we could come up with under short notice.” He looked her over. “How about you?”
She gave a flat smile. “I was fostered on a horse farm for a while. I ride like the wind.”
“Fine. You’ll sit in front, then, and steer the beast.”
She went up first, in a fluid move.
He wasn’t as graceful, but he made it up behind her.
Okay, they were close. Way too close. He’d never ridden double before. The way her behind rubbed against him was pretty indecent. Even if it felt damned good. Too good. He hoped their ride would be short.
He didn’t dare put his arms around her slim waist as she spurred the horse to move. He didn’t want to make things worse. He was still mad at her, dammit. He didn’t want to want a woman who would spy on him and his team.
But other than her being fitted tightly against him, he didn’t mind the backseat. It left his hands free for his gun, in case they ran into trouble.
Which, of course, they did.
Chapter Eleven
They’d only ridden maybe a mile from the ranch when they ran into a heavily armed posse.
Lilly’s best guess was that the two pickups full of men had been sent to find out what had happened to the truck that hadn’t arrived on time. She and Shep were armed with handguns, while the others carried semiautomatics.
She stopped the horse as they were surrounded within seconds, all guns aimed at them. Then she raised her hands. Defeat was a foregone conclusion.
Shep swore behind her.
“Live to fight another day,” she whispered as she let her weapon drop to the ground. The two of them dying in the middle of the desert would serve no purpose.
She would have dearly liked to kick Shep, maybe, but she didn’t want him dead. All this time, he’d been telling her that she could trust him. So she’d trusted him enough to tell him about her job. Did he appreciate it? Hell, no. There was absolutely no rhyme or reason to him.
Even now, was he doing the sensible thing and surrendering? Of course not.
He held on to his gun as one of the men, probably the leader, yelled at him. If he squeezed off a single shot, the next second they’d both be riddled with bullets.
“Think of the upside,” she said under her breath. “I think we’re about to meet the illustrious Coyote.”
If these men wanted them dead, they would have shot as soon as they’d gotten within range. That they hadn’t could only mean that they’d been ordered to bring Shep and Lilly in.
Shep swore again, but tossed his weapon onto the parched ground at last. “I really hope we’re not going to regret this.”
She had to wonder when the next second the men ran forward and pulled them from the horse, tied them up and shoved them into one of the pickups. They drove back in the direction they’d come from, their captives lying on the truck bed while the men sat on the wooden planks that rimmed the back.
Her bruised back didn’t enjoy the ride. At least she wasn’t gagged this time, a small mercy she was grateful for. And the men shaded them somewhat so they weren’t lying in full sun, either.
Shep asked in Spanish where they were going, but they ignored him, until he insisted on an answer too loudly and one of the men kicked him in the mouth, splitting his lip.
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br /> “Quit it,” she whispered. If they were to survive, they had to stick together. “This isn’t going to get us anywhere.”
He glared at her, probably still upset with her because she was doing her job. So unfair.
She turned her head from him and tried to see out but couldn’t as she was ringed by scruffy, sweaty men. Some looked bored, staring ahead at the road. Two leered at her openly.
They didn’t go far. Less than half an hour passed before they entered some kind of a factory complex and the pickup pulled into a loading bay. The first thing she saw when they dragged her out of the back of the pickup were giant reams of paper.
An impeccably dressed man stood by the sliding metal doors that led inside. He was Asian, middle-aged.
She exchanged a look with Shep.
The man’s identity wasn’t difficult to guess, although she hadn’t met him before. But there was only one Chinese bigwig who had a paper factory on this side of the border this close to Pebble Creek: Yo Tee.
The men dragged their prisoners over to him for inspection.
“Who do you work for?” he asked with a slight accent as he looked them over.
Neither of them said a word.
“You work for border patrol, no? How much you know?”
Of course, he’d want to know that to see if his plans had been compromised.
Again, they remained silent. Lilly was scanning the place from the corner of her eye, noting avenues of escape and making an inventory of how many people they would have to deal with. She was pretty sure Shep was doing the same.
An annoyed frown flashed across Yo Tee’s face. “Not answering questions very impolite.” He tsked. “Take them in the back, Carlos.” He turned away. “Bring them to me when they ready to talk. Sooner better than later.”
By the time the men shoved them up the steps, Yo Tee had disappeared. A wide hallway lined with forklifts greeted them inside. A storage area sprawled straight ahead, but they didn’t go there. They headed down a narrow hallway on their right, boots slapping on the cement floor.