“You don’t have to eat it. It won’t hurt my feelings,” he said…to her.
She had to rip her gaze from his mouth to meet his eyes. Heat pooled in her cheeks. He’d caught her. His eyes said so. Yet, he didn’t hold it over her head. It appeared as though he didn’t hold anything overhead. But appearances were rarely what they seemed. How could he not hate her for shooting him?
He looked no worse for wear with his snug sweater and cargo pants that hugged his high, tight ass. To her horror, his loose-hipped swagger was sure intact. She couldn’t speak to respond, so she gave a weak smile.
“I’ve been spoiled over the last couple of days,” Sophia beamed. “Vail is as good of a cook as you, Mom.”
Flattery upon flattery for Vail had gushed from her daughter’s mouth since she set foot inside the cozy home. The notion she’d clued into earlier all but solidified in her mind. Sophia was matchmaking. At first, Carmen had thought the idea ludicrous as her daughter regaled her with the story of her rescue. But the more Sophia talked, the longer they sat at the intimate round table together, the more tension mounted like a fog rolling in, the more convinced she became of her daughter’s temerity.
To corner that thought dead in its tracks she looked to Vail. “I’m surprised you haven’t killed me yet or slapped handcuffs on me, considering I shot you in the stomach.”
“It was the large intestine actually.” Plate empty, he lounged back in his chair, one arm draped over the back with his wrist resting in the curve of the wooden chair back. A smirk toyed with his mouth.
“He understands you were just trying to protect me,” Sophia offered.
“I broke the law, Sophia. My reasoning doesn’t matter. Wait. You know I shot him?” Carmen asked, incredulity thick in her tone.
“Yeah,” she shrugged.
Carmen looked from one canary to another, wondering what exactly the two of them had planned and why it irritated her so much that they shared a bond that excluded her.
17
Try as he might, Vail couldn’t figure Carmen, or himself for that matter. He’d been strategically hiding his wayward hard-ons from both females, while mentally berating himself for their very existence. She shot him. Carmen shot him. And, gave him wood apparently. It wasn’t a wonder. She would swivel heads everywhere she went. He knew it as sure as he knew if he continued down this path he’d be stuck at the dinner table until after the girls retired for the night.
Time to change tactics, since brooding silence had gotten him nowhere.
“How old were you when you found out about your family’s dealings?” He didn’t have to say her name. She’d been staring at him like he might sprout another head. He certainly hoped not. His pants couldn’t handle it.
“Twenty-two,” she said softly.
Her jacket hung over the back of the chair, which was one of the reasons he had so much difficulty. Her breasts sat full and high on her chest, held up by the straps of a soft pink bra. He’d caught glimpse of it beneath the edges of her tank. She folded her arms and he wondered if it was a tactical or defensive move. He had to strain his normally agile brain cells to follow the conversation he’d started.
“Were you that naive?” His voice held no accusation.
“Maybe,” she bristled. “My father sheltered us. Except for my mother’s death, we had a good upbringing, fairytale to most.”
When he didn’t speak she continued.
“Our father was attentive, playing with us, teaching us to defend ourselves and use weapons. His reasons were altruistic—or so they seemed. He wanted us to be able to protect each other, me and Carlos, from the bad people in the world.” She heaved a sigh and fell silent. They all honored it with their own silence.
“I often wonder what things would have been like,” she breathed, “if my mother had survived.”
Worse.
Vail’s immediate thought flashed like a neon sign in Vegas, threatening to slip between his lips. He clamped them shut. No one wanted their mother disparaged. Even if that mother had commanded brutal executions, the corruption of a police force, and the ruination of thousands of lives.
The hard lines of Carmen’s face softened at the mention of her mother. She turned to Sophia, smiled and reached over, tracking a thumb over the girl’s cheek.
His nape prickled.
Carmen turned to him. “She’d never have stood for his murderous ways. She’d have left him. Taken us. Run away and never gone back.”
Vail nearly choked as the realization dawned. Carmen had no clue about her mother’s involvement in the Arellano-Félix Organization. She only knew Ángela Arellano-Félix-Ruez as Mom.
“You taught me the same things Grandpa taught you,” Sophia chimed.
Carmen’s gaze shifted from his face and for the first time he was grateful. Her almost-black curls shook. “Yes, but in our case I wasn’t the bad person from which you needed protecting.”
“What happened at twenty-two to shatter your ideals?” Vail asked in search of solid ground.
As though she were as restless as he, Carmen straightened. She looked at him, then to Sophie, and back again. “My father rented out a club in Ensenada for my twenty-second birthday. I don’t know why. The noise and alcohol entertained his business associates, not me. I walked into the back room to find some peace for just a minute. Instead I walked in on him executing my fiancé.”
“I’m sorry. We don’t need to talk about this now.” He glanced at Sophie.
“I already know about it.” Her chest puffed. “I’m not a child. She didn’t even love the guy. Grandpa arranged the marriage.”
“Sophia!” Carmen chided.
“You didn’t,” Sophia shrugged.
“You make it sound as though I was pleased,” her mother continued.
“You didn’t want to marry the creep,” Sophie rebutted.
“No, but I didn’t want to see him murdered either.” Carmen’s eyes flared wide.
Vail marveled at the girls’ rapid-fire exchange. They spoke loudly, but neither seemed particularly angry with the other. In his house growing up, if a back and forth lasted this long or heated in the slightest it meant no life for a week at minimum. Sophie inhaled to speak again. He decided to intervene.
“Why would your father murder the man he chose for you to marry?” Both of them snapped their heads in his direction.
“Grandpa caught him stealing,” Sophie spouted. Carmen shot her a withering look and the girl’s hands went up. “Okay. Okay.” She wiped her mouth and stood. “I’m going to enjoy my newfound freedom and quit saying the wrong things.”
“I think that’s a good idea,” Carmen nodded, “but no calling friends or Oscar. We’re laying low, remember?”
“I remember,” Sophia agreed.
“Who’s Oscar?” Vail pinned Sophia with his gaze as he spoke overtop her.
“Not your business,” Carmen barked, while Sophia went palms-up again and said, “Just a friend from school.”
Not your business.
She was right. Sophie wasn’t his problem. So why did the sudden comprehension feel like someone syphoned the life right out of him? Luckily anger shored the dam. Vail took his rage, once again the only thing inside his scarred body, and headed for the door.
18
The door slammed behind Vail’s immense frame and her body jerked. Out of the corner of her eye, Carmen saw her daughter flinch too. But she couldn’t tear her gaze from the door. Shock froze her in place.
“He cares about me,” Sophia’s tiny voice warbled. “You may not care about that, but I do.”
By the time she turned, caught in the quicksand of yet another surprise, only the heels of her daughter’s receding tennis shoes were visible at the top of the staircase. When the bash of the bedroom door echoed down the wall Carmen succumbed to the morass of a situation too confounding and monumental to tackle. She shoved the plate to the side, laid her forehead on the table, and closed her eyes.
It had been more than twe
nty-four hours since she’d slept. And nearly a month since she’d slept well. Exhaustion, only partially due to lack of sleep, clawed at her. Though her eyes were closed, she could never sleep, not with his expression and her daughter’s words on loop in her head.
If she kicked a kitten she couldn't sink any lower. Who could have guessed a fierce warrior was capable of such a wounded affect? He’d grimaced more when she’d informed him Sophie was not his concern than he had when she’d physically injured him.
Deny it all she wanted before, there was no denying Sophia’s desperate and growing need for a father figure. Carmen had been overjoyed that she hadn’t clung to her grandfather or uncle throughout the years. Now she cared about Vail Tucker. She couldn’t have picked a more honorable man, but she sure as hell could have clung to a less perplexing one.
When she set a course for herself she never deviated. It may take almost ten years to see it through, but faltering wasn’t an option for her or Sophia’s sake. Vail’s unsettling stare and delectable body terrified her because he could make her stray from the solitary path she’d set.
Carmen ignored the thoughts of temptation and peeled herself from the table. The stairs creaked only once as she snuck up. She placed her ear against the door to the tiny room Sophia showed her around earlier. Silence greeted her. It was better than tears, worse than an open door and arms. Her daughter couldn’t possibly have guessed that though Sophia needed the hugs before dinner, Carmen needed the reassurance Sophia was okay even more. The thought of never seeing her daughter again had plagued her so. By God, she wouldn’t lose her now that she’d just gotten her back. She’d go after Vail, for Sophia, for absolution she didn’t deserve, and for irrational curiosity.
The roar of the engine hadn’t started after he’d left. So, he couldn’t have gone far. Carmen grabbed her jacket off the chair, slipped it on, and headed into the cold. It took less than a step from the door to find him half-naked in light cast from the porch.
Her lips parted to speak, but her jaw hung there uselessly. Back to her, his grip spread wide on a low branch. He lifted his own weight, raising his chin above the bark in a quick pull-up. His muscles bulged to the point of exploding. Shadows etched in the grooves of his lats, the hollow of his swollen shoulders, the dips of his ass above the waist of his pants. Vail lowered himself and then dropped to the ground in a plank. He eased his bulk to the dirt, pushed-up, bound from the ground, grabbed the tree, and repeated the process.
Despite the ice clinging to the puddle’s edge where she’d rinsed Sophia’s finger with the hose earlier, sweat slid over his taut skin. Steam rose from his body and his exerted pants. She shivered. Vail seemed immune to the chill. Then again, her quake wasn’t exactly due to the weather.
She thought to turn around and go back inside. Damn her boots, but they froze to the wooden deck. She’d never seen a man shirtless. Her brother didn’t count. They were related and he looked nothing like the specimen before her. She wasn’t a prude, but his bare flesh seemed too intimate, too much for her to bear without leering.
The water turned on in the bathroom upstairs. The whoosh of its flow through the pipes stopped him cold and he turned, coming up short at the sight of her.
She showed him her empty hands. His sweaty head shook. Droplets of his effort slung gently from his hair. “How is it you sneak up on me? Three times now. No one sneaks up on me. They try.” He heaved a breath and every slab of muscle flexed and never seemed to relax. It took a full minute of silence for her to realize he wasn’t holding his breath or holding himself at full tilt for battle. Those blessed grooves that lined a perfect—Santa María, was that eight—eight pack jammed between obliques worth drooling over.
“What is it, Carmen?”
Her name on his lips nearly toppled her down the three small steps in spite of the agitation suppressed in his tone. She grabbed the railing and made her way to the dirt, struggling to remember why exactly she’d come out in the first place.
Sophia.
At least some part of her fuzz-filled brain operated properly.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted.
“For what exactly?”
Her mouth moved to answer, but he walked forward, short-circuiting her synapses. Closer and closer he came until his chest nearly collided with her shoulder. She caught a gasp between her lips, just barely, as he reached around her to the shirt she hadn’t seen on the opposite railing. He dragged the cotton over his face and chest and then arched a brow, which she missed for a while, staring at the spray of nearly white scars and one vibrant pink ruck of angry skin.
She swallowed. “I’m so sorry for shooting you.”
“I don't blame you.” He stared at her and blotted at the sweat on his arms.
“How is that possible?” The slenderness of her voice translated her disbelief.
“I’d have shot you to save my family.”
“You have a family?” She didn’t know why the thought surprised her. He was a very desirable man. Handsome as red-hot sin. Kind as the Pope. Able as anyone she’d ever seen.
“Had,” he corrected.
Carmen’s heart stuttered and she rubbed at the ache. “I’m sor—”
He stopped her with the smallest shake of his head. He didn’t want her sympathy. Tough. He had it all the same. Though she’d had nightmares about it daily for the last few weeks, she couldn’t fathom loosing Sophia, much less a family. She wondered what happened to them, but wouldn’t ask. It explained the hint of sadness she’d seen in his eye the moment he’d turned on her in the office.
“About earlier. I didn’t mean to rip your head off and eat it for dinner.”
“No?” he asked, with a shifty brow and the barest hint of a smile.
“It’s just… No one has ever shown protectiveness nor possessiveness over Sophia. I’m not used to people helping me or looking out for her.” He reached around her again, grabbed the sweater he had on earlier, and pulled it over his head. Carmen stuck her hands in the pockets of her jacket and looked for stars to keep from staring. “It’s always been the two of us. I love her, care for her, protect her. No one else. I’m greedy. I’ve never had to share her affection.”
“So, you’re not married?”
Her jaw slacked again. “How is that relevant?”
“If you’re married it’s quite relevant.”
“How?”
He stepped closer and his breaths, now slow and easy, tickled her neck. “You’re a smart, capable, devastatingly beautiful woman, Carmen. Figure it out.”
19
Carmen’s mouth opened and closed so many times she resembled a fish. The most beautiful one he’d ever seen. She mumbled something about having a jaw wired shut and he wondered if his gentle overture had been too much. He’d never gotten a busted jaw from coming onto a woman, but Carmen was so dynamic he could see it happening. Damn, he shouldn’t proposition her at all. But he couldn’t stop the kinetic bursts her presence, or even the thought of her, provoked. Not one little bit. The one always in control watched it evaporate as though it never existed for only the second time in his life.
“How can you think of me without unadulterated hatred? I shot you. My name is Carmen Félix-Ruez.” She ticked off the offenses on her fingers and then held them up. “That’s only two, but they should count as ten a piece. No foul balls. No pass balls. No interference or walks. Just swinging-at-the-air strikes. This is America. Three strikes and you’re out.”
“You know baseball.”
“Of course,” she said, cocking her head and cutting her gaze. “Doesn’t everybody?”
He smiled.
“Stop that,” Carmen ordered.
“Stop what?” he asked with an even bigger grin.
“Smiling at me. I don’t deserve them.” Her head shook so vehemently that a thick, gentle curl fell forward over her shoulder.
“You’re an interesting woman, Carmen.”
“And you’re confounding, Mr. Tucker.”
“
Call me Vail.”
“We’ll see.”
She had this way of looking at him with a mixture of surprise, disbelief, and hope that cut him deep and flayed him wide.
“I don’t hold your family against you,” he whispered.
“I do.”
“Maybe you should stop.”
Her chin tilted to the stars, glistening high against the black of night. A long swirl of steam curled from her lips. Vail banked the urge to take her chin in his grip, turn it to him, and kiss her crazy, crazy as he felt.
“Maybe one day I’ll try. After I get Sophia away from them for good. After we start over. Maybe soon. Finally.” Her chin dropped and her gaze met his. “I am married, have been since before Sophia was born. But…the union has never been consummated.”
Now Vail was the one left looking like a fish. Three failed attempts later, his voice cooperated with his mouth. “So, you’re telling me you’re the next Virgin Mary?”
“Hardly.” Her eyes rolled toward the heavens and her mouth spread wide. Peals of laughter slipped between her red lips. He watched the heat turn the cold damp air to smoke, yet still didn’t believe his ears.
Except for beaming at her daughter, Vail had only seen fear, sadness, and mistrust in her features. Her laugh was infectious, but he held his own awed chuckle back, afraid it would interrupt hers.
“The look on your face is priceless,” she continued giggling. Too quickly though she sobered. “I get the feeling you laugh about as often as I do.”
“It’s infrequent.” He dragged his hand over his mouth, scraping it across the stubble collected on his face.
“Sophia brings it out in you.” A prideful smile lit her eyes.
“And you too,” he offered.
“Ah, most of the time we fight like cocks in a cage.”
Warrior Mine: A Base Branch novel Page 12