by Rita Herron
He didn’t believe in coincidences.
He’d thought at one point that the bones of the missing might be found in the myriad tunnels that ran between the US and Mexican border, but Border Patrol had gotten a line on most of those tunnels and no bodies had turned up inside them.
Still, the Sonoran Desert provided a vast graveyard. He pulled his laptop toward him again and switched from the faces of the mostly young people to a map of the desert running between Paradiso and the border.
One area on the map jumped out at him, and he traced his fingertip around the red line that marked the location where the new casino was planned. That land, which belonged to the Yaqui tribe, had always been somewhat reachable due to the access road.
He stood up, stretching his arms over his head. He wandered to the window of his motel room and gazed at the drops of water glistening on the glass. The rain had stopped, nothing preventing him from his expedition now.
He grabbed his weapon and his wallet and marched out to his rental car. When did Border Patrol ever stop working? Especially when an agent didn’t have anything better to do.
He pulled out of the motel parking lot and headed toward the highway. His headlights glimmered on the wet asphalt, but on either side of him, the dark desert lurked, keeping its secrets—just like a woman.
Grunting, he hit the steering wheel with the heel of his hand and cranked up the radio. Two days back and the desert had already weaved its spell on him. He’d come to appreciate its mystical, magical aura when he lived here, but the memory had receded when he moved to San Diego. When he left Paradiso, he’d tried to put all those feelings aside—and failed.
When he saw the mile marker winking at him from the side of the road, he grabbed his cell phone and squinted at the directions. He should be seeing the entrance to an access road in about two miles. A few minutes later, he spotted the gap and turned into it, his tires kicking up sand and gravel.
His rental protested by shaking and jerking on the unpaved stretch of road. He gripped the wheel to steady it. “Hold on, baby.”
A pair of headlights appeared in the distance, and he blinked his eyes. Did mirages show up at night? Who the hell would be out here?
His heart thumped against his chest. Someone up to no good.
As his car approached the vehicle—a truck by the look of it—he slowed to a crawl. The road couldn’t accommodate the two of them passing each other. One of them would have to back into the sand, and a truck, probably with four-wheel drive, could do that a lot better than he could in this midsize with its four cylinders.
The truck jerked to a stop and started backing up at an angle. The driver recognized what Sam had already deduced. The truck would have to be the one to make way but if this dude thought he’d be heading out of here free, clear and anonymous, he didn’t realize he’d run headlong into a Border Patrol agent—uniformed or not.
Sam threw his car into Park and left the engine running as he scrambled from the front seat. The driver of the truck revved his engine. Did the guy think he was going to run him over? Take him out in the dead of night?
Sam flipped open his wallet to his ID and badge and rested his other hand on his weapon as he stalked up to the driver’s side of the truck.
Holding his badge in front of him and rapping on the hood of the vehicle, he approached the window. “Border Patrol. What’s your business out here?”
The window buzzed down, and a pair of luminous dark eyes caught him in their gaze. “Sam? Sam Cross?”
Sam gulped and his heart beat even faster than before as the beam of his flashlight played over the high cheekbones and full lips of the woman he’d loved beyond all reason.
Copyright © 2020 by Carol Ericson
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ISBN-13: 9781488067594
Protective Order
Copyright © 2020 by Rita B. Herron
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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