Avenging Angel
Alice Sharpe

This book is dedicated to my mother, Mary R. LeVelle,

and my editor, Allison Lyons, both women who know

exactly what to say and when to say it.

My special thanks to Alma D. Velazquez for her patient help with translations. Thanks also to my horse experts, my sister, Mary Shumate, and fellow writer, Danita Cahill.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Prologue

March, twenty years earlier

Daddy said never open the door to strangers.

Janey shrank back against the wall, holding Teddy tight against her chest, squeezing her eyes shut until the man outside stopped pounding.

She pulled a chair over to the door and climbed on top. Gently pulling one edge of thick drapery away from the inserted glass panel, she peered outside. Gray skies, trees with just a shimmer of green, wet pavement. The man was gone but she could see the edge of a big brown box peeking above the cement step.

Should she open the door and get the box?

What if it was a trick and the man was waiting behind a bush to grab her? She was too smart for that. She’d be six years old pretty soon and she wouldn’t fall for a baby trick. She climbed down and pushed the chair back to the corner, still holding on to her bear.

She didn’t know how long Daddy had been asleep and she’d been alone. She didn’t know where Mommy was or Baby Brother. All she knew was that Daddy was lying down in the basement and she was alone.

And her tummy hurt.

She wandered into the messy kitchen and opened the refrigerator. She’d been eating what she wanted when she wanted it. No one to tell her not to eat cupcakes for dinner. No one to scold her for spilling purple juice on the floor.

She found a bowl of black olives on the bottom shelf and carefully stuck one on the tip of each finger as juice dribbled down her arms. Eating them off one at a time, she chewed thoughtfully while Teddy stared at her from the floor, his lone black button eye shiny and bright.

Her tummy still felt funny.

Hugging Teddy so tight his fur squished between her sticky fingers, she crept to the basement door.

The light was on which was funny because Daddy was so asleep. She wondered if she should turn off the light but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Instead she tiptoed halfway down the stairs and stopped, staring at Daddy’s back.

He was lying on the floor, hands tucked under his body, face turned toward the wall. She was glad because she’d looked at his face once and it had scared her.

Why wouldn’t he wake up?

“Daddy?” she said, teeth chattering from cold and from something else she couldn’t name.

He was so still and quiet….

A big envelope lay on the ground a couple of feet away. It had a funny little smiley face on it.

“Daddy?” she said again.

There was more banging on the front door and this time a voice she recognized.

Janey backed up the stairs, one hand reaching out to touch the wall for balance, her gaze glued to her father’s back until he disappeared from view.

Chapter One

August, Present Day

The moment she flew out of the saddle, Elle Medina knew she’d blown it.

Unless Víctor Alazandro hadn’t seen the fall. Unfortunately, a running horse stopping short of a fence while the rider kept going had a tendency to draw attention.

She hit the water hazard—filled earlier in the day in preparation for this jumping class—with a splash, landing face down in the murk, wishing she could sink into the ooze and disappear below the Nevada soil, right into the center of the earth.

Instead, she raised her head in time to see the dappled gelding trot off toward the corral fence while her student ran toward her screaming, both hands fluttering at her sides like little propellers.

Tabitha fell to her expensively clad knees, avoiding the splattered muck. “Elle? Are you okay? I can’t believe you fell off Silver Bells. I’ve never even done that!” The girl shaded her eyes with one hand as she looked around the corral. “Is he okay?”

Elle, on hands and knees, twisted her torso and plopped back down on her read end. Shoving fine strands of dripping blonde hair away from her face before resting her forearms on bended knees, she said, “I’m fine, Tabitha, stop fussing. Silver Bells—”

“He just stopped,” the girl said. “He just ran up to the fence and stopped. And you…didn’t.”

“I’m fine,” Elle repeated. She didn’t add what she suspected was the truth. Silver Bells had probably stopped short of the jump because Tabitha had veered him away at the last minute a half dozen times before Elle took over to demonstrate how it was done. Apparently, the horse had had enough. She added, “Why don’t you go tend to Silver Bells.”

“Poor baby,” Tabitha gushed, springing to her feet.

The poor baby in question, reins trailing in the dirt, took one look at Tabitha’s frantic approach and trotted toward Mike, the stable hand, who had come to see what the commotion was about.

Elle took stock of her own situation. She might be covered in muddy water, but at least nothing felt broken.

Well, nothing except her pride. Falling off a horse like a blasted rookie. Oh well, get over it. She hadn’t been waiting around Tahoe Stables for her big chance just to give up because of a little mishap.

She knew Víctor Alazandro was on the property. She’d seen him and an assistant arrive, but she’d lost track of his exact whereabouts during the lesson. Sometimes Peg took people inside for a quick drink before giving them a tour of the stables. With any luck, Elle could sneak off and change clothes before the promised introduction to Alazandro.

That slim hope died away as she struggled to her feet. Peg, Alazandro and the man who had accompanied Alazandro stood with arms hooked over the corral railing, staring right at her.

Two options. Walk toward them, run away.

Only one option with any chance for salvaging this disaster. Waving a hand at Mike who appeared to have things under control, Elle started walking toward the three onlookers. She straightened her shoulders, held her head high. At five foot five, she wasn’t a particularly tall woman and her outdoor life kept her on the slim side, but she walked as though she owned the ground, ignoring her squelching boots, chafing jeans and the mud-splattered T-shirt plastered against her breasts.

Peg Stiles, owner of the stables and Elle’s boss, regarded Elle’s approach with a rare grin.

Alazandro’s hooded dark eyes, however, revealed nothing. A black Stetson crowned a larger than average head and a body still trim and fit. Alazandro was in his forties, newly divorced, reportedly urbane and calculating. He wore a white silk Western-style shirt piped in black. His black boots, buffed to a high polish, sported two-inch stacked heels.

The second man stood a head taller than Alazandro with a loose-jointed, lanky look. Mid-thirties, blond hair cut military short, angular face, shoulders out to there and back. His clothes weren’t as pristine as Alazandro’s or as rumpled as Peg’s. Jeans and a white cotton shirt rolled up at the sleeves, buckskin vest, dusty boots. A silver buckle caught and reflected the same sunlight that had bronzed his skin. He held a disreputable hat in one hand. And his gaze, steady and very direct, made Elle flinch.

She tore herself from this man’s scrutiny and turned all her attention to Alazandro just in time to hear him mutter a few words to Peg.

“This is the ‘expert’ horsewoman you told me about?” he said in a deep, rich voice that held no trace of an accent. No reason it should. His mother had been born in Guadalajara, his father in Rome with both of them emigrating to the U.S. before marrying and starting their large family.

Elle had done her homework.

It was obvious Alazandro didn’t care if Elle heard him or not. Directing his next comment to the tall man, he switched to Spanish, and added, “Ni siquiera puede ella mantenerse arriba de un caballo.” She can’t even stay on a horse.

Still on her side of the rail fence, Elle ground to a halt in front of Alazandro. Using the Spanish she’d learned from the ranch hands back home in Arizona, she tossed her muddy head and said, “Señor Alazandro, para enseñar a los cobardes, a veces uno tiene que ensuciarse la cara.” To teach cowards, sometimes one has to be willing to get one’s face muddy.

Peg, whose language skills began and ended with English, looked confused. The tall blond man’s upper lip curled. Alazandro’s reaction, the one response she cared about, came slowly. His gaze moseyed from her face southward, pausing on her breasts, moving lazily down to her hips.

This kind of sexually provocative perusal would have annoyed the hell out of her had it come from any other man she’d yet to really meet. Coming from Alazandro, however, it renewed a spark of hope. She didn’t care if he hired her to muck out stalls or sleep in his bed. As long as he hired her.

She returned his frank appraisal with one of her own, brazenly studying his mouth before meeting his gaze.

Alazandro, again in Spanish, said, “Me sorprende usted, Señorita.”

He thought her a surprise? He didn’t know the half of it. Carefully forming her next words, she said, “Ikkyou, Misuta Alazandro? Matawa shinki?”

His eyes grew wide. “You speak Japanese?”

“Hai,” she said, yes. No need to mention how little. She wasn’t even sure the sentence made sense.

“Fascinating. And what exactly did you say?”

“I asked if you thought I was a surprise or a novelty,” she told him.

“Definitely a surprise,” Alazandro said. He’d broken his nose sometime in the past and it had mended slightly crooked. It was the only jarring note on his otherwise handsome face. “Perhaps there is more to you than meets the eye,” he said. “And what meets the eye is very…interesting. Peg is quite impressed with you.”

“Peg is an exceptionally astute woman.”

“Yes,” Alazandro said. “I know.” His plump lips settled into a smug smile as he added, “She had the good sense to let me bail her out of bankruptcy, didn’t she? I’ll build a resort on the lakefront half of this property that will be the talk of Lake Tahoe if not the western United States.”

“How exciting,” Elle gushed.

Maybe she was a better actress than she knew, for Alazandro seemed pleased by her phony enthusiasm. She knew how Alazandro operated. Peg Stiles would be lucky to have a horse left when this guy was through with her. There’d be a fancy resort, all right, it was what Alazandro was famous for. Posh amenities, beautiful waterfront settings, the best horses money could buy.

She couldn’t let that be her problem.

“Despite what you saw a few minutes ago, I really am quite adept with horses as well as with…people,” she said.

Peg’s harrumph reminded Elle that in the preceding few days, Peg had made it clear she resented Alazandro touring what she still considered her property. Peg also hadn’t wanted to introduce Elle to Alazandro. It had taken two weeks of pleading to convince her.

Alazandro’s voice lowered as he leaned a little closer. “Peg is enthusiastic about your…prospects.”

Elle came close to batting her eyelashes as she murmured, “I hope she’s not the only one.”

Pushing a beat-up hat away from her high forehead, Peg looked from Elle to Alazandro and back again. Years of a two-pack-a-day habit had etched sprays of fine lines into her lean face. She barked, “Hey now, what’s going on? I just said Elle here was damn good with horses and is hankering for a change of scenery. Been talking about that new place of yours down in Mexico. This conversation sounds more like cocktail-party crap than serious—”

“Calm down,” Alazandro said. Turning his attention back to Elle, he added, “Tell me, Ms.—”

“Medina,” Elle said, beginning to extend a hand then remembering her current grimy condition. Hooking both hands in her back pockets, she added, “Elle Medina.”

“Tell me, Ms. Medina,” he purred. “Do you have any more surprises up your sleeve?”

This elicited a smile from Elle who said breathlessly, “Of course I do. Don’t you?”

His laugh was polite. “Oh, yes. Definitely.”

Her mind raced as she tried to think of something else provocative to say. She couldn’t come up with a darn thing.

Alazandro took Peg’s arm. “Okay, compañera, show me your stables. Convince me I don’t need to tear them down and rebuild them.”

“They’re fine as they are,” Peg snarled, her gaze drifting toward the lake and the trails that crisscrossed her land. Trails her late husband had cleared with his own hands two decades before. The cost of saving at least part of her stable would be losing the much beloved trails. Peg’s face reflected the bitterness of this compromise.

For a moment, Elle’s sympathy for Peg’s plight all but chased her own agenda out of her mind. For a moment, she wished she could stay here and help Peg find a way to make her part of this bargain more palatable. But if this ploy to capture Alazandro’s attention failed, she’d have to devise another. And if that failed, another. One way or the other, she was going to get at the truth. She’d promised her grandfather. She’d promised herself.

“You have another appointment in two hours,” the blond man said, addressing Alazandro. It was the first time he’d spoken and Elle glanced at him.

He’d put his hat back on his head. She caught him staring at Peg, eyes narrowed.

Alazandro said, “Then let’s get to it.”

Elle, momentarily caught up in the undercurrents whizzing by, finally realized Alazandro had begun walking away.

“Mr. Alazandro,” she called. “Wait—”

Without looking back, Alazandro nodded very slightly toward the blond man who turned to Elle.

She put a foot on the bottom rung of the fence to heave herself over. “But—”

A very tanned hand clamped down on the rail next to hers. She lowered her foot as she looked up. Eyes the color and depth of Lake Tahoe regarded her from beneath the brim of the battered Stetson.

“I need to talk to Mr. Alazandro,” she mumbled.

“Isn’t that what you were just doing?”

His examination made her uncomfortable and she averted her eyes. “Damn. I blew it.”

“Blew what?”

“My chance to get a job at Alazandro’s new resort. Of all the days to fall off a horse.”

The stranger seemed to reach a conclusion of sorts, as though finding a missing piece of a troubling puzzle. “So you really are after a job,” he said. “Hence the language demonstration. But why Japanese?”

“I’ve heard he gets a lot of Japanese tourists at his resorts. I thought someone working in the stable who could communicate with the visitors as well as with the local staff might come in—handy.”

“Puerta Del Sol doesn’t open for several weeks,” the stranger said. “After hurricane season.”

Door of the Sun. Such a peaceful name for a resort beside the sea. So misleading. Never mind, all Elle knew for sure was what she’d overheard Peg telling her lawyer. Alazandro was headed down to Mexico after his visit to Peg’s stables. One way or another, Elle was going, too.

“I know when it opens,” she said. “But there must be a lot of work going on beforehand, right? Trails to map and clear? Horses to feed and exercise?”

His eyebrows furrowed. “And you want to do that kind of grunt work?”

“I’ll do whatever it takes,” she said.

Staring right into her eyes, he said, “Why? What’s so important to you about getting hired for the Puerta Del Sol resort?”

She hadn’t expected this question, especially coming from him. After a ten second delay, she said, “I like learning about…things.”

“So your interest lies in resort management?”

“Maybe.” Hoping to win back control of the conversation, she added, “I don’t know how to apply a mud pack, my tennis game sucks and I know zip about deep-sea fishing. My options are limited. But I do know horses.”

“I see,” he said, his upper lip lifting a hair as he looked at her. She knew what he saw. The mud, the dripping hair. The anxiety. She started to explain about Tabitha and the jump and the disgruntled horse and thought better of it. She’d already said enough.

Chancing another glance at his face, she said, “Who are you, anyway?”

“Who do you think I am?”

“I don’t know. A secretary, maybe?”

“Do I look like a secretary?”

“Do you ever just answer a question?” she snapped.

“Sometimes. Do you?”

She glared at him until she remembered that he had accompanied Alazandro and so might exert a certain amount of influence. It wouldn’t pay to push him too far.

As she tried to think of a graceful way to back down, he said, “I’m Alazandro’s bodyguard.”

“Why does Alazandro need a bodyguard?”

“He’s a wealthy man.”

“In other words, someone is trying to, what? Kidnap him? Rob him?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then what?”

The bodyguard studied her face. Damn, that way he had of looking past the surface was getting on her nerves. He finally said, “He recently received a death threat.”

The blood drained from her face. If Alazandro died before she had a chance to discover the truth—

“What’s the matter?” he said, reaching out a hand to steady her.

“This death threat. Did it come from someone here in the States?” Why did she suddenly feel there was a gun pointed at her back? She had to will herself not to swivel around and look.

“Does it matter?”

Biting her lip she said, “Maybe someone is after him right now. Maybe someone has a gun trained on you. I’m standing awfully close.”

“And you don’t want to get shot by mistake?”

“No.”

“Can’t say as I blame you.”

“So, who made this death threat?”

His eyes narrowed fractionally as he rested both hands on the top rail. “There you go with the questions again.”

She blinked a couple of times. “I’m just curious. I’ve never met a real bodyguard before.”

He didn’t reply and she felt herself squirming under his watchful gaze. “I thought bodyguards wore dark suits and sunglasses and those little ear pieces,” she mumbled.

“You’re thinking of the guys on television.”

“So you’ve been hired to protect him.”

“That’s what a bodyguard does.”

“With your life?”

He half smiled. “He’s not the president of the United States.”

“So, not with your life.”

He stared at her without responding.

“So what does being Víctor Alazandro’s bodyguard entail? Are you with him night and day? Do you taste his food before he does?”

The corners of his mouth twitched. “Something like that.”

“Do you have a name or do you just go by the designation bodyguard?”

“And yet more questions.”

“Is your name a secret?”

The smiled toyed with his lips again. “You can call me Pete.”

As talking with him was about as gratifying as talking to a brick wall, she changed tactics. Lowering her voice, moving a step closer to the rail, fluttering her eyelashes, she added, “I need to talk to Alazandro about a job before he leaves here today, Pete. Will you help me?”

“You don’t need my help,” he said, backing away from her as though just remembering his duties lay elsewhere.

“Yes, I do,” she said, climbing up on the fence. “Please, wait—”

“You don’t need me to put in a good word for you,” he insisted. His gaze traveled down her chest and back again, a smile lingering on his lips. “You had him with the wet T-shirt,” he said. “You didn’t need the Japanese, though it was a nice touch.”

The fact that she’d apparently broken into Alazandro’s inner sanctum coupled with Pete’s quick but thorough perusal shattered what little there was left of Elle’s aplomb. She almost fell off the top of the fence. Finally finding a perch, she blurted out, “Then I have a job?”

“You still want a job?”

“Of course.”

“I thought you were afraid of getting shot.”

“No,” she said. “Yes. I mean, I don’t want to get shot, of course, but I do want to travel to Mexico, I do want to see Puerta Del Sol.”

“And there’s no other way for you to afford such an experience, right?”

Why was he toying with her? Was he flirting? Was he suspicious? Of what? She hadn’t done anything wrong except fall in a glorified puddle and act like a floozy. Yet. She mumbled, “As a guest? At a thousand dollars a day? I don’t think so.”

“You have to get by me first,” Pete said.

“By you? I don’t understand—”

“Me and the security boys. Background search,” he added and, tipping his hat, turned on his heels and strode off toward the stable his employer had disappeared into minutes before.

Background search? Her mind raced as she studied Pete’s retreat, the way he looked in jeans and his long-legged stride both as troubling as the slight bulge above his waistband that pooched out the back of his vest. She knew what a bodyguard would carry in such a spot.

Damn. He was armed.

Of course he’s armed, you dummy, he’s a blasted bodyguard! And before that he was probably in the military or a cop or something.

The trick would be to stay off his radar, that’s all. If she played her cards right, she’d never fall under his watchful gaze again.

Until it was too late.

No, don’t think too far ahead….

She shoved trembling hands in her pockets. Now that Pete was gone, the enormity of her success hit full force. She slid to the ground and leaned against the fence, fighting to get her heartbeat back to normal.

She told herself the background search would come up empty. She’d appear to be exactly what she was, a twenty-five-year old college graduate who had loved horses her whole life, a woman taking a break before finishing graduate school.

Just an ordinary woman. No one knew her motives.

Except her grandfather, and they’d made a pact.

More worrisome than the background search was news of a death threat. A frown tugged at the corners of her mouth as she pushed herself away from the fence.

Someone else was out to get Alazandro.

She’d have to work fast.

Chapter Two

Pete Walker, a.k.a. Pete Waters, turned at the stable entrance and looked back over his shoulder in time to catch Elle Medina push herself away from the fence and take off toward the barn on the far side of the corral.

Funny that she’d stood there a while.

He entered the stable, pausing for a moment to let his eyes adjust to the dim light. Alazandro and Peg Stiles had made it halfway down the walkway. All along the corridor, horses looked out of their stalls as though curious about the visitors. A palomino close to him whinnied as it tossed its head. The horse reminded him of Elle Medina. Same fair coloring, same liquid brown eyes.

This job was complicated enough without some sexy little bombshell getting in the way.

Did she have any idea what Alazandro really wanted with her? The mud hadn’t distracted a bit from her looks. Hard to tell about her hair, but she sported a curvy figure that looked great in skintight wet clothes and a face pretty enough to pay her bills. And she was young. Alazandro appreciated nubile young women with flawless skin and tight little bodies, women burning with the desire to please.

Judging from her behavior, Elle Medina knew what Alazandro had in mind and welcomed it. Some women were like that, turned on by power and money and he guessed she was one of them.

What did it matter to him? If she passed a routine background check, what she and Alazandro proceeded to do or not do was none of his business.

He had bigger fish to fry.

And yet, there was something about her. She was different from Alazandro’s other conquests, her sexuality provocative but clumsy as though there were two separate women inhabiting the same body. One, a flirt, a seductress. The other, nervous, fidgety, full of questions, anxiety behind her eyes.

His brow furrowed as a thought raced through his mind, retraced its steps, and sat down to stay. Maybe he could capitalize on this woman’s willingness to be used by a man to further his own goals.

He paused for a second, absently running a hand down the palomino’s nose.

He wouldn’t put Elle in danger, of course. Well, not overtly. And if danger arose, he’d be close by to protect her. He wouldn’t let her be hurt which was a lot more than Alazandro could or would say.

Okay, okay, it wasn’t very nice of him to think of using her this way. But the world Elle had just thrust herself into didn’t allow for such old-fashioned concepts as fair play and decency. She thought she was flirting with a wealthy entrepreneur, a playboy, a man who could shower her with all the best money could buy. She didn’t know about his drug connections or about the evil rumors that had followed this man for years.

No matter. The hungry way Alazandro’s dark eyes had devoured Elle Medina was too big a gift to ignore. And the wave of disgust that interest engendered in Pete just didn’t matter.

Pete took a cell phone from his pocket and turning his back to the others, punched in a few numbers. It rang only once before it was answered. Using the palomino’s golden head for cover, he lowered his voice. “It’s me. I have someone I need checked out right away. Name, Elle Medina. Age, early twenties. Currently working at Tahoe Stables on Lake Tahoe. I’ll call back in an hour.”

Pocketing the phone, he caught up with Alazandro and Stiles. The former, expounding his plans, talked about tearing down the old stable and replacing it with “something decent.” Something with a heated, bigger indoor arena in which to exercise the horses and amuse the patrons as winters were cold and snowy at this elevation. Perhaps an attached arcade with viewing rooms looking down over the arena. Better footing in the arena. Quality work. Something family friendly.

Peg Stiles looked mad enough to string up a rope and hang Alazandro from an overhead rafter.

Pete took his place, hanging back, appearing watchful while his mind raced along twisted paths.

If Elle Medina checked out okay, she might prove to be the key he’d been looking for. Alazandro was going to Puerta Del Sol for a reason that surpassed his stated goal of looking around to see how things were progressing. He had minions to do that for him, though it was true he’d just fired his latest in a string of resort managers. Rumors were flying that a meeting of some kind was in the offing. But Pete couldn’t get close enough to pin down any dates or names.

He needed a way to get closer to the man. To find out—

“Did you call my security people?” Alazandro demanded. “Did you start a background search on the girl?”

Pete blinked away his thoughts and answered, “Not yet. Sir.”

A flash of irritation ignited the man’s eyes for just a moment. Alazandro was used to getting what he wanted when he wanted it. He said, “Make sure she has a passport. I want her to fly south with us tomorrow on my private jet. That Meacham fellow is proving to be a pain in the neck. I should never have hired him.”

“I’ll get right on it, sir.” Pete all but fawned. He hated this job.

Peg Stiles said, “Isn’t this all happening kind of fast? Your fancy resort doesn’t open for a while yet. What’s the rush? Elle will be hard for me to replace. The season is almost over—”

“Elle Medina is just what I need down there. Bright, pretty, trilingual. She’s perfect.”

Stiles, going on sixty, had the wiry look of a woman who rarely sat unless it was on the back of a horse. Pete knew she was recently widowed. From the look of her, he’d guess she’d put as much heart and soul and elbow grease into this place as her late husband had. He’d glanced around the inside of her house when they first arrived and found old furniture, worn-out carpets and antiquated appliances. The barn they stood in was swanky by her standards.

The woman was invested in this property. And she was losing it, and she knew it.

Measuring her words, Peg said, “I wouldn’t want to hear you took advantage of that girl. Her father is some big judge down in Arizona. If he found out she was being used—”

Alazandro laughed. “You’re the one who pointed her out to me. You’re the one who extolled her virtues.”

Peg bit the inside of her cheek before grudgingly admitting, “Yeah. Well, she kept bugging me.”

“Come, compañera,” Alazandro said in what Pete privately termed his schmoozing voice. “She’ll make three times the money. She strikes me as a woman who knows what she wants. Her father is no concern of mine.”

With that, Alazandro strode down the walkway toward the rectangle of daylight at the other end. Peg Stiles stared after him for several seconds before visibly forcing herself to follow.

Punching the number for Alazandro’s security firm into his cell phone, Pete sauntered along a moment later. He didn’t want to keep the boss waiting.

BEFORE TAKING A SHOWER and changing her clothes, Elle made her way to the smaller stable to check on Silver Bells. The gray gelding, coat brushed to a silver shine, had been restabled and was drinking out of his trough. She let herself into the stall and, perching on her heels, ran a hand down each beautiful leg, just to make sure he hadn’t hurt himself.

Of course, he wasn’t the one who had actually hit the ground. He regarded her with big brown eyes as water dripped from his chin whiskers.

“What are you looking at?” she said as he nibbled at her hair. She reached up and stroked his soft muzzle. He really was a big sweetie.

“Hey, what happened out there?”

Elle looked up to find Mike standing in the doorway, his thick red hair going every which way as usual. Two sets of dimples and a ready smile didn’t hurt his popularity with the female clients. In fact, Elle suspected Tabitha had a big crush on Mike who, at nineteen, seemed embarrassed by her adulation.

“Silver Bells took out his annoyance with Tabitha on me,” she said, wondering for a moment if her own distracted state hadn’t contributed to the horse’s refusal to jump. “Where is Tabitha, anyway?”

Mike rolled his eyes. “Her father finally showed up and took her home. She asked me to tell you she’d see you next week. Oh, and you got a phone call earlier.”

Elle’s imagination immediately provided a worst-case scenario. Rising, she whispered, “Was it Scott?”

“Who’s Scott?”

“My grandfather’s nurse.

“Oh. Well, no, it was your dad who called.”

“Did he mention Grandpa?”

“No. He wants you to meet him down at the Lakeside Inn at eight o’clock tonight.”

“He’s here? In town?”

“I guess.”

Elle felt like stamping a foot. “What lousy timing.”

“He sounded like a nice guy,” Mike said.

Elle shrugged. “The judge and I don’t see eye to eye about certain…things. That’s all.”

“Yeah. My dad wants me to be a lawyer. He can’t understand why I want to waste my time with horses.”

“I know. Mine was livid when I delayed grad school to take care of my grandfather.”

“Your grandfather is back in Arizona, right? If you’re taking care of him, what are you doing here?”

“We hired a live-in nurse, a big strapping guy.”

“Scott.”

“Right. They didn’t need me so I’m taking a break.” Elle didn’t add that this go-getter had happened into her grandfather’s life at a precarious point in more ways than one. As her grandfather’s health had declined, his past regrets had escalated. He’d started rethinking his acceptance of his daughter and her family’s unsolved murders, gotten Elle involved, and when Scott mentioned he had a brother working as a detective in the Seattle police department, Grandpa had roped him in.

She realized Mike was talking and tried to get her mind back on track. When he paused, she took the opportunity to get away. “I’m going to hit the shower. I have one more appointment at six o’clock. Let’s give Silver Bells the rest of the day off. Would you mind saddling Corky for the student and Majordomo for me?”

“Sure thing, they’ll be ready when you are.”

Elle emerged back into the sunshine. Her muddy clothes had begun to dry, which made walking a stiff-legged affair. As she started up the slope to her cabin, she thought about how great a shower would feel.

And then—well, she had to figure out a way to get rid of her adopted father, a man she’d nicknamed the judge when he took a seat on the Butter Gulch County bench a few years earlier. What did he want? Hadn’t they hurt each other enough the last time they quarreled?

She heard a door bang shut and turned to find Peg striding up the gentle rise toward her, cigarette smoke circling her head. She wore an expression Elle had never seen before.

“Need to talk to you,” Peg said, taking the cigarette from her mouth, flicking it to the ground and thoroughly grinding it out with her boot.

“What’s wrong?”

“You,” Peg said, expelling the last of the smoke. “You’re what’s wrong.”

“I don’t understand—”

“What in tarnation do you think you’re doing?”

Somewhat startled, Elle blinked a couple of times and said, “You mean asking Alazandro for a job?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I guess I’m moving on. I told you I wouldn’t stay for long when I took this job.”

“Moving on, is that what you call it?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll stay here long enough to help you hire someone else.”

“You might not be here long enough to find me a replacement,” Peg said. Looking at the ground, she shook her head in an almost defeated way.

“Mike is really good with people as well as horses,” Elle said gently. “Let him take over.”

Peg’s gaze flew back to her face. “You think it’s the damn job I’m worried about? The job is just part of it. The way you acted with that man—the way you came on to him. I never in my life thought you were that kind of girl.”

Elle murmured, “It’s not how it looks, Peg.”

“I’ll tell you how it looks,” Peg said. “It looks like you’re either a scheming gold digger or a stupid little tart. Either which way, that man will eat you for breakfast and spit you out. I bet he’s older than your own father!”

Elle’s hands bunched at her sides. She had to fight to control her temper as she said, “I know what I’m doing.”

“Do you? All that bastard wants is to get into your pants, you do know that, don’t you? And you all but gave him an engraved invitation.”

“You are not my mother,” Elle said, voice trembling.

“No, and right now, I’m glad I’m not.”

Elle turned on her heels and stalked up the hillside, leaving Peg in her wake.

She’d been so caught up in herself she hadn’t stopped to fully consider what her behavior would look like to those on the sidelines. She glanced over her shoulder in time to see the screen door slam behind Peg.

Drat. Was everyone she knew going to end up angry with her?

It’s not too late, her subconscious whispered. You can walk away right now.

But she couldn’t.

She couldn’t live anymore with her nightmares, couldn’t bear the thought that Alazandro remained free to roam the earth while her family lay long dead in their graves. Besides, she’d promised her grandfather she’d find the truth and, if need be, exact revenge.

The sun seemed to dart behind the high clouds as Alazandro’s image loomed in her mind. The dark, empty eyes. The crooked nose. The cruel lips. Arrogance dripping out of every pore as he toyed with Peg, toyed with her.

And then there was Alazandro’s bodyguard, Pete, a man who looked as dangerous as Alazandro, perhaps more so for it didn’t appear he had Alazandro’s ego to fog his vision. Pete might not admit he’d die for Alazandro but there wasn’t a doubt in Elle’s mind he would kill for him.

Desperate to get into the hot shower and stop her bone-rattling shakes, she unlocked the door and stripped on the way to the bathroom. She stood under the hot water for a long time, eyes closed, hands propped on the tile walls, head hung, caught in the aftershock of her audaciousness.

ELLE MEDINA didn’t lock her door.

Stupid.

Pete frowned for a second because if there was one thing Elle didn’t strike him as it was stupid. Reckless, absolutely, but not stupid.

He could hear the shower running—made a nice way to keep track of Elle while he had a quick look around. All he had to do was keep his mind on his job and off visions of her all wet and soapy.

The few pieces of furniture in the place looked like castoffs from Peg Stiles’ house down the slope. A line of clothes and boots strung across the floor from the doorway to the closed bathroom door sounded the only note of discord in the otherwise orderly space.

He tossed her place quickly and thoroughly, searching drawers, closets, behind mirrors, under the bed. As the cabin was little more than a studio apartment, it didn’t take long.

The first conclusion he reached was that the woman had fewer clothes and shoes than any other woman he’d ever known. Heavy on jeans and T-shirts, boots and knee-high socks. Even her nightgown was white cotton. Nothing sexy about it except if you stopped to think what it might look like flowing around Elle’s curves.

Enough of that. But still, he’d been married once in his dim youth to a strawberry blonde whose closet rod sagged in the middle.

The last woman he’d cared about was another type altogether. She’d maintained a working wardrobe toward the end. Big on thigh-high boots and halter tops and tiny shorts that showed more than she ever understood. Showed malnutrition. Showed neglect. Showed the absence of rounded flesh and ripe possibility.

Drugs will do that to a woman. Whisper in her ear, tell her she’s gorgeous while robbing her blind.

He hung Elle’s gown back on the hook beside the one holding up a blue terry cloth robe. He found her purse on a shelf in the closet. Identity matched, checkbook in her name, nice photo on her driver’s license, made her look sixteen years old. According to the data, she was actually twenty-five and wore contact lenses. He hadn’t noticed them when he peered into her big brown eyes.

Still holding her purse, he gazed through the window and got his first troubling sensation about Elle. Okay, that wasn’t true, she’d been troubling him ever since he laid eyes on her.

His contact had verified her father was a judge in some hole-in-the-wall town in Arizona. Raised on a small ranch. Mother dead. Only other living relatives a smattering of cousins, two aging aunts in New Jersey and a grandfather with terminal cancer. She’d graduated with a degree in public relations, applied for and been accepted to graduate school, dropped out to live with her ailing grandfather. Then she’d suddenly left his bedside to come to Nevada and take a low-paying job giving riding lessons to little girls.

Odd. But not criminal.

He suddenly realized the shower had stopped.

Elle’s voice came next, low and serious. “Drop my purse, put your hands in the air and turn around slowly.”

He did as she asked.

She stood there dripping wet.

And very, very naked.

As awe inspiring as that sight was, however, the revolver held steady in her hands, barrel pointed right at the middle of his chest, demanded his full attention.

“You owe me an explanation,” she said. “Better make it a good one.”

Everything he thought to say died on his lips.

She lowered the gun and in the next instant apparently became aware of her state of undress. “Don’t you dare leave,” she said scowling and, turning gracefully on bare heels, strode back into the bathroom, banging the door behind her.

Hell, he wouldn’t have left for a million dollars.

A belly laugh rolled up his throat and erupted. It died a second later when the bathroom door flew open and Elle reappeared, still frowning, this time wrapped in a towel with her fair hair combed back from her freshly scrubbed and stunning face. She looked impossibly healthy and so alive she burned up the room.

She’d also apparently left the gun in the bathroom.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she snapped.

“I thought I was searching your cabin,” he said, but it was hard to talk. Somehow, and go figure this one out, she looked more naked with a towel on than she had without it. But maybe that was because the image of her glistening nude body had burned itself into his brain. Her breasts, smaller than he’d thought they would be, but perfectly formed. The smooth skin of her belly. The curves between breasts and hips. Her legs—

His hands almost itched with the desire to stride on over to her and—

And what? Good grief, get a grip. You’ve seen naked women before.

“Are you always so careless?” she asked, moving toward the closet. She picked up her purse and threw it on the bed, then reached for her robe. Turning her back to him, she pulled it on as the towel puddled around her bare feet. By the time she turned, she was belted into blue terry cloth and much easier to talk to.

“Not usually,” he said, lowering his hands.

“Breaking and entering—”

“Your door wasn’t locked. Technically, no breaking.”

She frowned as though thinking, then perched on the edge of her bed, crossing her legs, studying him.

“Why?”

“Did I toss your place?”

She nodded.

“Because the boss wants you to fly you out with us tomorrow. I had to make sure you are who you said you were.”

“He is?”

“Yep. I told you the wet T-shirt was a no-brainer.”

“What about the boys in security?”

“They’re slow. Must be a backlog.”

“And are you satisfied now?”

“Yeah.”

“Just from looking through my purse?”

“Just from looking through your purse. Of course, I’m a professional.”

A smile broke unexpectedly, curving her lips, lighting her eyes. It transformed her face and he felt a grin tug at the corners of his own lips in response. It was like that sensation he’d had earlier, about there being two Elles behind the eyes.

As the smile fizzled, she said, “Are you worried that I’m the one sending death threats to Alazandro?”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” he said truthfully. “Of course, up until a few minutes ago, I didn’t know you packed a gun.”

“I grew up on a ranch.”

“Which explains the horse riding and artillery skills.”

“That’s right.”

He tilted his head and stared into her eyes. Now that he knew to look, he could see the tiny curved edges of her contact lenses. He said, “Alazandro was right, Ms. Medina. You are full of surprises.”

“Damn right.”

“Peg Stiles doesn’t want you to leave. She’s pretty sure Alazandro is out to corrupt you.”

“What do you think?” she asked, pulling the edges of her robe together. They’d fallen apart to reveal a creamy patch of thigh and he took a steadying breath. It wouldn’t do to start feeling all sexy towards Alazandro’s current conquest-to-be.

He said, “I think Peg is right.”

Elle’s smile was back, not quite as illuminating. “So do I.”

“So, we’re back to square one,” he said, “although it is odd how cool and calm you are after finding me searching your cabin. Most women wouldn’t confront a man stark naked, you know.”

“That’s true. But you already knew I was a brazen hussy.”

“Yeah. But you didn’t know it was me when you barged out of the bathroom.”

“I didn’t barge, I crept. Besides, it didn’t matter who it was. No one should have been here. Period.”

“Do you always take a gun with you when you shower?”

“Not always.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to lock your front door?”

“Would that have stopped you?”

“No,” he admitted.

“Anyway, why am I explaining myself to you? You’re the bad guy, here.”

“You need a passport,” he said.

“I have one.”

He looked around the cabin and said, “Where?”

“None of your business.”

“It’s in your car, right?”

“I repeat, it’s none of your business.”

“You know, most women wouldn’t sit around in a skimpy robe talking to a virtual stranger, either.”

“You look harmless to me,” she said.

“Ouch.”

“Except for the gun you carry in back under the vest.”

“I hardly ever shoot beautiful women,” he said, smiling.

“That’s reassuring.”

He stepped forward and extended a hand, which she took. He pulled her to her feet and then against his chest. She came without resistance. Wiping a wet strand of hair away from her soft cheek, he lowered his voice and said, “I don’t know what you’re up to, Elle Medina, but you’re up to something. I’m going to be watching you.”

She didn’t even blink. Part of him wanted to rattle her. Was she always this controlled?

“So you’re not going to tell Alazandro I’m unsuitable for the job?” she said.

The woman was a one-note song. He had a feeling he could light the curtains on fire and she’d ask about Alazandro and a job while the place burned to the ground around her.

Why?

Narrowing his eyes, he said, “Hell, no, I’m not going to tell him that. From what I’ve seen, you and he are perfect for one another. If the security boys say you’re okay, you’re in.” And with that, he dipped his head and claimed her mouth.

What had he expected? A slap, a shove, an oath?

She kissed him back, in force, her lips as soft and luscious as he’d known they’d be, her terry-wrapped body a perfect fit against his, her hands gripping his arms, the cleanly washed scent of her enveloping him like perfume.

He told himself he was winning her over to his camp in order to use her. As the kiss grew longer and he felt his soul slipping away, he reminded himself that wars create causalities.

She pushed him away at last, looking a little less composed than she had a few moments earlier.

“I should smack you for that,” she said, brown eyes stormy.

“But you won’t,” he said and, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, swaggered out of her cabin like an actor in a B-grade movie.

Chapter Three

After her last lesson, Elle helped Mike groom and bed down the horses. She’d miss Mike, she realized, and she’d miss the horses. As careful as she’d been to avoid putting down any roots while biding time at Tahoe Stables, roots had grown all on their own. She’d even miss Peg.

Elle finished wiping down Majordomo’s back, the bay gelding dancing around even more than usual. Maybe he sensed her mood. More spirited than Corky, he made a more interesting mount for an able rider. He looked at her over his shoulder and she patted his white blaze, crooning to him a little. Then she unhooked his lead from the post and led him to his stall.

“I want you to have my car,” she told Mike as she unhooked the lead from Majordomo’s halter and closed the stall door. “I have to use it tonight but, after that, it’s all yours.”

Mike looked up from pouring oats into Corky’s feed bag. “Your car? I can’t—”

“Sure you can,” she said. “It leaks oil like a sieve and needs new tires. Half the time it won’t start. It’s not that big a deal.”

“But you’ll need it when you come back from Puerta Del Sol,” Mike said, replacing the lid on the barrel they used to store grain.

“How do you know about that?”

“The big blond guy told me. He was asking questions about you.” Mike cast her a grin and added, “Don’t worry, I told him I’d never seen you fall off a horse before today.”

She hung the lead from a nail as she said, “Thanks. Well, anyway, I’m not coming back.” Her voice sounded serene. She was a good actress.

For a second, it seemed she might never be herself again.

But that was stupid. The trouble was she was too much herself. She couldn’t seem to stop responding to things. To Peg’s disappointment in her, to news of the judge’s arrival, and lordy, lordy, to Pete.

He made her feel she was on fire inside.

First the verbal teasing, which she’d enjoyed, then that kiss. A man like that didn’t kiss a woman for the hell of it, he’d been prying into her life with that kiss and she’d let him.

And she’d enjoyed it.

She smiled to herself. The naked part hadn’t been planned, but it sure had caught his attention. She’d gotten out of the shower, heard a noise, grabbed the gun from the cabinet behind the sink and entered the room without hesitation. Along with her passport, she hid papers under a loose floorboard. Papers about her family’s murders, about the suspects, about Alazandro.

The expression on his handsome face when he turned around had been priceless. And admit it, she’d enjoyed the sensations his strong body pressed against hers had aroused. His lips, the flicker of his tongue.

The flames leaped.

She reminded herself of her goal: get close to Alazandro. And then she added a new goal: keep away from Pete.

“That’s a cool job,” Mike mused. “You must be real excited about it.”

She nodded and smiled. She was kind of excited, which was dumb. She wasn’t going there to play with the horses and make a great stable. She was going to discover the truth about Víctor Alazandro and bring him to justice—dead or alive.

That sobering thought wiped the memory of Pete’s playful banter and kiss right out of her thoughts.

Mike grabbed the broom from against a wall and started sweeping the walkway. As he rambled on about his plans for the future, uncomplicated plans Elle envied, she decided she had to get Peg to understand that Mike deserved a chance. He and Peg would make a good team. Peg’s savvy, Mike’s personality. They could make a go of whatever remained after Alazandro got finished with them.

Wait, an additional goal: ruin Alazandro before he could ruin Peg.

“Who’s going to take over the riding lessons here?” Mike asked.

Elle blinked a couple of times. She’d been lost in her thoughts. How to answer? She didn’t want to raise any false hopes—

The answer came from behind Elle. “You are, Mike,” Peg said as she entered the stable.

“But I have to tend the horses,” Mike said, leaning on the broom. “I have to exercise and—”

“Starting tomorrow, you do everything Elle did. We’ve already got Pam and Tracy coming in to help with mucking out stables and exercising. I’ll get the Hoskins boy to do your chores until we can find someone more permanent. Get some sleep tonight, you’re going to have a big day tomorrow.”

With that, she nodded at Mike and left the stable.

“What’s with her?” Mike whispered to Elle. “She didn’t even look at you.”

“She’s got a lot on her mind,” Elle said.

Mike nodded and then grinned. “I wonder if she’ll let me move into your cabin. It’s bigger than mine.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. I have to use the outhouse.”

Elle laughed. “You’re moving up in the world, my friend.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Thanks to you and Mr. Alazandro.”

A HALF HOUR LATER, Elle was in her car, trying in vain to get the motor to turn over. The oil light shone red, which meant she’d neglected to add oil the last time she used the car. Great, she was probably willing Mike a car with a cracked head. On the other hand, he was getting a practically new Learn Japanese in Thirty Days tape, which was still stuck in the car’s tape player.

Someone rapped on her window.

She cranked it down to find Pete leaning down, peering in at her.

“Trouble?” he said.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

Shrugging, she made a decision. Fate had taken a hand, she wouldn’t drive into town.

Meeting with the judge would be a waste of time, anyway. She could hear his arguments in her head. The dean owes me one, I know I can get you back intograduate school. Your grandfather is caught up in senseless vengeance and neither you nor that nurse of his is helping. Don’t buy into it. Leave the past alone, don’t risk your future, what’s done is done, nothing will bring your dead family back to life. Justice will be done in the end.

If he had any inkling she was flying out with Alazandro tomorrow morning, he’d kill her. Or Alazandro.

“Elle?”

She got out of the car and leaned against the door. After a moment or two, Pete joined her, his body too close for comfort. She contemplated moving and decided it would send the wrong message. Or the right one.

Face it, she found his presence disconcerting. The man exuded confidence from the ends of his short sandy hair to the tips of his worn boots. Add the physique, the eyes, the rugged features, the voice—

When he looked at her, a private spot inside melted.

Life was confusing enough without him. Why did he have to come along now, why did he have to be connected to Alazandro? And why couldn’t she walk away from him without looking back?

“Going to be a beautiful evening,” he said.

Lake Tahoe lay down the sloping property, a glittering jewel this late in the day, a beautiful blue gem caught in the palm of towering trees.

“You seem upset,” Pete added.

“A little.”

“I came out here this evening to deliver some papers to Peg Stiles. She seems upset, too.”

Elle cast him a quick glance. Her gaze landed on his lips and she quickly raised her eyes. He smiled down at her.

Damn him.

She said, “As a matter of fact, I’m annoyed with my adopted father, not Peg. How about you, Pete? Do you have a father? Or a last name? Or a dog? Anything?”

It took him a moment to answer. She could almost feel his thoughts spinning. “Yes to the first two, no to the third. Father alive and kicking in Maui with his fourth wife. My last name is Waters.”

“Peter Waters.” She wasn’t sure she believed him, though why he should lie was a mystery. Maybe he had a record or something. Maybe instead of being a cop in his former life he’d been a felon.

He apparently wasn’t finished prying. “So, what did this adopted father do to upset you?”

“For most my life, showed me nothing but kindness,” Elle said in a burst of truth.

“The cad.”

She laughed softly.

“But lately?”

“Lately he’s been—unreasonable.”

“With you? That’s hard to understand.”

She heard the smile in his voice. “I haven’t always been this easygoing,” she said.

“Now that’s hard to believe.”

“Yeah, right.” In another burst of candor, she added, “I wasn’t an easy child to bring up. I had nightmares. My family had all died in an…accident…and I was left alone. The judge was my father’s best friend. They worked together on the police force. They had set it up to take care of each other’s children if something happened to one of them. But the judge didn’t have any children of his own and a year after he and his wife adopted me, she died, so he got the full burden of trying to take care of a bereft little girl.”

Pete started to speak but didn’t. She was relieved, afraid that if he offered a sympathetic shoulder to cry on, she’d take him up on it. “Anyway, now he just wants me to go back to school and become a professor and make him proud.”

“While your life’s ambition is to work at a resort for Víctor Alazandro.”

“Does that mean I got a go-ahead from Mr. Alazandro’s security people?”

“That’s what it means. You fly out with us tomorrow.”

She bit back a smile and a shudder, both of which were spontaneous responses to the same stimuli. “Where is Mr. Alazandro, anyway?”

“He’s having dinner at one of the casinos with an investor.”

“Who’s watching his back?”

“Night shift.”

She pushed herself away from the car. “I have to find a phone and call the judge to tell him I’m not coming. See you tomorrow.”

“We’ll pick you up at six. But wait a minute.” He caught her hand and pulled her gently back to stand in front of him, a battle waging behind his eyes. Ignoring the warmth radiating up her arm from contact with his hand, she waited.

Taking a deep breath, he said, “If you tell Alazandro I told you this, I swear I’ll shoot you.”

She stopped breathing. “Tell him what?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t come with us tomorrow. Stay here. Go back where you came from. Just don’t come to Puerta Del Sol.”

“Don’t you start this, too,” she said with a sigh.

“I know you want to get close to Alazandro.”

“What?”

“He’s a rich, important guy. You’ve had a hard life and your adopted father is bugging you. Flying off to Mexico must sound exciting—”

She started to laugh again, but stopped. “You’re not joking, are you?”

He lowered his head until his breath felt warm against her face, intoxicating and frightening at the same time. Whispering, he said, “No, I’m not joking. He’s a dangerous man.”

“Like you?”

He swore under his breath as he released her hand. “You are the singular most irritating woman I’ve ever known and that’s saying something.”

“But I thought the danger came from outside.”

“What do you mean?”

“From whoever issued the death threat against him.”

Pete nodded solemnly. “Yeah, that’s right.”

“But now you’re telling me it’s Alazandro himself I need protecting from?”

He glared at her.

“You need to get your story straight,” she said brightly.

“The last time we were down there, a young woman died of a drug overdose.”

“That’s terrible, but how does that—”

“She was alone with Alazandro at the time. Alazandro was questioned. He claimed no knowledge of what happened.”

“Are you implying Mr. Alazandro killed her?”

Pete looked away, then back. “No.”

“That he gave her illegal drugs?”

“No.”

“Okay, then listen to me. I have to go to Puerta Del Sol. I want to go.” And with that she took off, anxious to get away from him before he could lure her back. She knew what kind of man Alazandro was, so why did Pete’s warning, if it was a warning and not some bizarre test, send the granddaddy of shivers racing down her spine?

AFTER A RESTLESS NIGHT spent wrestling the blankets, Elle was up and dressed early.

She’d had the nightmare again last night. Her father, facedown on the floor. Her standing at the top of the stairs. Her crying out, him turning, his face dissolving into a pulpy, bloody mess as he got to his feet, his flesh slipping from his rotting corpse as he started up the stairs toward her.

Always the same dream, not as often now as before, but always the same. She’d finally told her grandfather about it and he’d shaken his white head. “Janey, it’s clear to me your father wants justice for himself, for your mother and for your baby brother,” he’d said. He’d continued calling her Janey despite the judge’s protests. “I’ve been thinking about this ever since I was diagnosed with this blasted cancer. I shouldn’t have allowed their deaths to go unavenged and now it’s too late. Unless—”

That conversation had set everything else in motion and had strangely almost ended the dream, as though her father knew she was committed to avenge them all.

And now she was finally on the brink of making good on that promise.

The conversation with the judge the night before had been horrific. He’d demanded she return with him, she’d refused. He’d called her spoiled, she’d called him controlling. They’d finally agreed to meet for lunch, a promise she’d known she couldn’t keep. She’d be long gone by then. She felt wretched lying to him. Justified, but wretched.

She didn’t know what game Pete was playing or even if he was playing a game, but she knew she couldn’t afford to take the papers about her family’s deaths with her to Mexico. Pete seemed to have a penchant for spontaneous searches and every document she carried was way too incriminating.

Leaving the pink slip and the car keys on the table for Mike, she left her cabin at the first sign of daylight. She carried her purse strapped across her chest along with her duffel bag, packed with her clothes and the gun as well as a box of ammunition. It wasn’t chilly enough to wear both jackets, but she did so anyway as they wouldn’t fit in the duffel and she needed to have her hands empty.

The burn pile was located beside the hay barn and she made her way to it over uneven, dew-soaked grass. The papers went up in a cheery little blaze that did nothing to cheer her. The enormity of what she’d set in motion the day before had begun to sink in, creating a dandy case of performance anxiety.

She would have to flirt her way south today. She’d have to keep up the sexy, provocative persona whenever Alazandro was around. Playful, but not too easy because the goal was to avoid sleeping with him.

She heard approaching footsteps and turned to find Peg wearing a loose Windbreaker over jeans, a jacket Elle had never seen before. Peg’s face looked drawn as though she, too, hadn’t slept much.

“I saw the open flame,” she said, pulling the collar up around her throat with one hand as she raised a cigarette to her lips with the other.

“I had some old love letters to get rid of,” Elle lied.

Peg nodded as she flipped the cigarette into the last of the blaze. She exhaled a breath of smoke that mingled with the campfire’s. The two women stood there for a few seconds as the blaze flickered and died. Then they both started to speak at once. Elle said, “Go ahead, please.”

Peg glanced at Elle’s face, then away. “I was out of line yesterday,” she finally said as though each word took effort.

“Peg—”

“No, listen. I made a mistake getting involved with Alazandro. It was before I hired you, right after my husband died. I was broke. The mortgage we’d taken to see Bill through his illness—well, anyway, Alazandro somehow heard about my problems and swept in here like a conquering hero. He promised me I could keep everything as it was. He promised me the moon. My lawyer warned me but I couldn’t see any other way out. I signed papers and now—well, now it’s too late.”

Peg’s voice had softened to a whisper as she tucked both hands in her pockets and stared at the smoldering ashes. One side of her jacket hung lower than the other and obviously held a heavy cylindrical object like a flashlight. The thought of Peg wandering around her beloved property in the dark dressed in what looked like her late husband’s old coat made Elle’s throat swell.

Peg added, “But that has nothing to do with you. I shouldn’t have done what I did.”

“You didn’t do anything, Peg. You just expressed your opinions and—”

“I called your father.”

Elle closed her eyes and rocked back on her heels.

“I was just so blasted mad! Víctor Alazandro is one of those people who destroy everything and everybody they touch.”

Elle took a steadying breath. The judge wasn’t home, he was here, in Nevada, Peg couldn’t have talked to him. It was okay.

Peg said, “Mike told me your father was staying at the Lakefront Inn. So I called his room early this morning. Woke him up, but I had to do something. I told him you were leaving this morning with Alazandro. He said something about over his dead body and hung up the phone and then I saw you down here and I know I should have minded my own business, but it’s too late now. I wanted to tell you about this myself. Before he got here and—”

Elle grabbed Peg’s arm. “The judge is coming here?”

Peg nodded miserably. “There’s only one way out of this mess,” she said. “It’s up to me.”

Elle didn’t know or care much what Peg meant by that. She grabbed her duffel bag and took off toward the dirt parking area located by the largest stable. That’s where Pete and Alazandro would arrive. She glanced at her watch. It was almost six.

What would the judge do?

Threaten her? Threaten Alazandro? Would he say something that would alarm Alazandro enough to make him back out of taking her to Puerta Del Sol with him?

Of course he would.

She glanced back to ask how long ago Peg had talked to the judge. It took twenty minutes to drive here from town and if he’d been asleep, he would have had to dress—

Peg was nowhere in sight.

Elle scanned the area around the hay barn until a movement twenty feet above the ground at the opening used for loading feed drew her attention. Peg stood in the shadows, the flashlight in her hand.

Elle turned away and took a few more steps before realizing what she’d seen wasn’t a flashlight.

Peg was holding a gun. Most likely the .357 Magnum her husband had kept in the gun case located behind his big oak desk. Peg had bragged about him teaching her to shoot it….

At that moment, Elle heard a car on the gravel road and spun around to find a sleek sedan pulling into the parking area, Pete behind the wheel, Alazandro beside him in the passenger seat.

She ran as fast as she could, determined to get to the car before either man got out. She was closest to Alazandro’s side.

As the thinning verge turned to dirt, Elle skidded on the last of the dewy grass, landing on her knees, the duffel bag jarred from her hand. Pete and Alazandro opened their respective doors.

She looked up to see both men staring at her. Before she could utter a word, sunlight glinted off something on the hillside opposite the barn, behind the car. Narrowing her eyes, Elle saw the long barrel of a rifle. Behind it loomed a red truck.

The judge drove a big four-wheel-drive Dodge Ram, candy apple red. Gun rack in back. Vintage Winchester .401 caliber autoloading deer rifle always at hand….

She screamed a warning and ducked her head as a shot rang out and a bit of earth at Elle’s knee exploded. Covering her head with her arms, she saw Alazandro dive back into the car as more shots seemed to come from every direction. Pete was suddenly at her side, grabbing her arm, yanking her to her feet. She lunged toward her duffel bag until another shot took a bite out of the ground an inch from her boot.

To hell with the duffel bag.

She ran ahead of Pete who seemed to be one step ahead of gunfire. The driver’s door stood ajar. Pete all but threw her inside where she quickly climbed between the seats into the back, aware of Alazandro sitting crumpled with his head against the dashboard. Pete climbed in after her. The gun still clutched in his hand, he started the car, revved the engine and turned the wheel sharply to take off back down the gravel road.

Gasping for breath, Elle looked out the rear window.

Which one of them, Peg or the judge, had just attempted to murder Víctor Alazandro?

And as she looked at Alazandro’s slumped figure, a new thought surfaced.

Had they succeeded?

Chapter Four

What the hell was going on?

Pete glanced in the rearview mirror. His gaze collided with Elle’s. Wide brown eyes met his gaze and shied away.

“Are you okay?” he demanded.

She nodded.

She’d been worried that standing too close to Alazandro might be dangerous and she’d been right.

As far as Pete knew, there had never been a death threat made against Víctor Alazandro. That piece of fiction had been created by the DEA right before the staged shoot-out during which Pete had rescued Alazandro from a crazed gunman. Agent Ben Kipper had made a very believable, wigged-out drug addict firing blanks at Alazandro until Pete had single-handedly subdued him.

Alazandro hired him on the spot.

Still, Pete could understand someone taking shots at Alazandro. Peg Stiles came readily to mind. But would Peg shoot at Elle? No way.

That left Elle’s adopted father who Elle had told him was in the area last night. That meant the man had to love her enough to come to Tahoe to try and talk to her about something she obviously didn’t want to talk to him about, but hate her enough to take potshots at her when she blew him off.

Again, no way, it didn’t add up.

Someone had tried to kill Alazandro and hadn’t cared a whole lot who else they hit.

What was needed, of course, was a crime scene investigation. Collection of spent shells. Bullet trajectories. Witness interviews. All of that was as good as lost because Pete couldn’t break cover to call in the cops.

As he steered the car onto the main highway, he darted a quick look at Alazandro. Blood trickled down his forehead, ran along his cheek. “Sir?” Pete said, almost choking on the word.

Without looking up, Alazandro responded in a shaky voice. “Is it safe now?”

“Yeah,” Pete said. “You’ve been hit,” he added.

Alazandro’s voice was shaky as he mumbled, “I bashed my head when you shoved me into the car. It’s my arm that hurts like hell.” He turned in his seat. His left hand clutched the sleeve of his right arm. Blood soaked the tattered cloth between his fingers. The suit was history.

Following a gasp, Elle said, “The hospital is about fifteen minutes away. Take a right when you get to the second intersection—”

In unison, Pete and Alazandro said, “No!”

She was quiet for a second before trying again. “You need a doctor, Mr. Alazandro.”

“Doctors have to report gunshot wounds to the cops,” Pete said.

A longer silence was followed by a tentative, “But aren’t we going to tell the police what happened?”

Alazandro said, “No hospital and no police, Ms. Medina. I’m a busy man and don’t intend on getting stuck stateside in some worthless investigation when I have a jet waiting. Pete, get us to the airport. You know first aid, you can patch me up after we’re in the air.”

Pete drove. Another glimpse in the rearview mirror revealed Elle shrugging off her bulky jacket and the denim one she wore beneath. “You’d better use this to stop the blood from getting all over the upholstery,” she said, handing the denim jacket over the car seat to Alazandro.

He pressed it against his arm and smiled back at her.

“You’re very brave,” she cooed, sitting forward and touching his good shoulder.

Alazandro kind of puffed out his chest and sighed.

Wait a second. Shouldn’t Elle Medina be shaking like a leaf, shouldn’t she be demanding to be let off at the nearest police department? The woman had nerves of steel.

As enticing a potential spy as she might make, however, Pete couldn’t put her in harm’s way. He needed to find a way to make a surreptitious call and arrange an incident at the airport that would prevent Elle from boarding Alazandro’s private jet. A fake customs ploy, maybe. A phony arrest warrant—

Alazandro said, “Whoever is trying to get me came damn close this time.”

Pete said, “He came close to getting all three of us.”

Elle whistled. “You can say that again.”

Pete, sensing his chance, said, “We don’t need someone else to worry about, boss. Leave the woman here. She can fly down later.”

As Alazandro glanced into the back seat, Pete used the mirror. Elle’s blinding white T-shirt revealed an amazing amount of creamy cleavage. The top curves of her breasts looked smooth and inviting. The stirring in Pete’s groin had as much to do with the memory of her naked as it did with her wavering image in the mirror. She flicked a few blond hairs away from her heart-shaped face and smiled, eyes crinkling at the edges as she licked her lips for Alazandro.

The temptress was back.

Pete said, “We had to leave your duffel bag back at the stable. It probably held your passport—”

“Nope, that’s right here in my purse.”

“Stop fussing, you’re not her father,” Alazandro said, casting Pete an annoyed frown. He added, “I hear your father is a judge, Elle. Whereabouts?”

“Down in Butter Gulch, Arizona,” she said.

“I built a resort down that way a few years ago,” he said, wincing as he tried to get comfortable. “Near the border. So you grew up in Arizona?”

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