“You may, ah, kiss the bride now.”

Elisa’s bubble burst. Even the Ranger looked startled when he turned to her, his gray eyes roaming desperately from his grandmother to Elisa. She could have sworn his grandmother was holding her breath, love shining in her eyes as she waited for her grandson’s big moment.

Elisa might have let the moment pass as Del gave her a perfunctory kiss that served as a reminder that theirs was only a partnership, but she couldn’t stand seeing the woman’s confusion.

Without daring to contemplate the consequences, she reached up and pulled him down for a real kiss.

It was as if a door unlocked inside Elisa, the entrance to a place she’d closed off long ago. The place that was feminine and sensual.

Suddenly she wasn’t kissing the Ranger to please his grandmother. This was all for herself. And the sense that finally, finally, she didn’t have to be the strong one any longer.

Dear Reader,

Our exciting month of May begins with another of bestselling author and reader favorite Fiona Brand’s Australian Alpha heroes. In Gabriel West: Still the One, we learn that former agent Gabriel West and his ex-wife have spent their years apart wishing they were back together again. And their wish is about to come true, but only because Tyler needs protection from whoever is trying to kill her—and Gabriel is just the man for the job.

Marie Ferrarella’s crossline continuity, THE MOM SQUAD, continues, and this month it’s Intimate Moments’ turn. In The Baby Mission, a pregnant special agent and her partner develop an interest in each other that extends beyond police matters. Kylie Brant goes on with THE TREMAINE TRADITION with Entrapment, in which wickedly handsome Sam Tremaine needs the heroine to use the less-than-savory parts of her past to help him capture an international criminal. Marilyn Tracy offers another story set on her Rancho Milagro, or Ranch of Miracles, with At Close Range, featuring a man scarred—inside and out—and the lovely rancher who can help heal him. And in Vickie Taylor’s The Last Honorable Man, a mother-to-be seeks protection from the man she’d been taught to view as the enemy—and finds a brand-new life for herself and her child in the process. In addition, Brenda Harlan makes her debut with McIver’s Mission, in which a beautiful attorney who’s spent her life protecting families now finds that she is in danger—and the handsome man who’s designated himself as her guardian poses the greatest threat of all.

Enjoy! And be sure to come back next month for more of the best romantic reading around, right here in Intimate Moments.

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

The Last Honorable Man
Vickie Taylor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

VICKIE TAYLOR

has always loved books—the way they look, the way they feel and most especially the way the stories inside them bring whole new worlds to life. She views her recent transition from reading to writing books as a natural extension of this longtime love. Vickie lives in Aubrey, Texas, a small town dubbed “The Heart of Horse Country,” where, in addition to writing romance novels, she raises American quarter horses and volunteers her time to help homeless and abandoned animals. Vickie loves to hear from readers. Write to her at: P.O. Box 633, Aubrey, TX 76227.

To Ann Leslie Tuttle, editor extraordinaire, for her

unswerving faith and consummate professionalism.

Thanks for everything!

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 1

Mine honour is my life; both grow in one;

Take honour from me, and my life is done.

—Shakespeare, King Richard II Act 1, sc. 1

Silence gathered in the wake of gunfire.

Sergeant Del Cooper straightened from his shooting crouch, tugged his Stetson low on his forehead to block the glare of the August sun and hitched the stock of his shotgun up tight under his damp armpit.

So much for Sunday being the day of peace.

Squaring his shoulders, he rose from behind the old Buick he’d used as cover. One by one the others appeared from the shadows of shallow doorways and behind the stoops of dull gray industrial buildings, stepping into sunlight so bright their silhouettes blurred in a hazy glow. The four of them met in the middle of the road and strode forward together, their booted heels scuffing the long shadows cast on the blacktop in front of them. A crimson stain slashed across Hayes’s sleeve, but at least they were all on their feet. Del doubted the men in the warehouse at the other end of the road could say the same.

Overhead, an outraged shriek broke the quiet. Del tipped his head back. Squinting against the sun’s brilliance, he watched a blackbird circle between the crisp, blue sky and the pewter clouds of gun smoke hanging low over the street, their sulfurous fumes burning his nose and throat. The bird offered another raucous challenge, swooping to defend his territory.

“Sorry, fella,” Del said. “The fightin’s all over.”

A bead of sweat squeezed past his hatband and rolled toward the corner of his eye. He wiped it away with the sleeve of his duster. The cowboy coat’s long hem swished and swirled around his calves. It was too hot for any kind of jacket this time of year in Dallas, but the long coat covered the shotgun when Del snugged the barrel up against his thigh, and Del hadn’t wanted the weapon to draw attention to himself or his teammates.

Huh. As if anyone with half a mind wouldn’t take one look at them and see trouble coming.

From his position on the end, he glanced down the line at the others. At an imposing six foot four and nearly two hundred lean pounds, Captain “Bull” Matheson set the pace from the right-center spot in the row, his left hand resting on the butt of the Colt holstered at his hip. To the captain’s right, with handgun still drawn, dangling loose but ready at his side, wiry-bodied Clint Hayes kept pace, somber faced and silent. Only Solomon, the diminutive new kid next to Del, with her six-shooter stretched in front of her in a white-knuckled grip, had the wild-eyed look of the untried.

“Some of ’em got away,” she said, breathless.

He spared her a glance. Katherine “Kat” Solomon’s eyes were bright, jumpy. “Some of ’em didn’t.”

“You got one.”

“Yeah.” He shifted the Remington twelve-gauge so that the barrel rested in the crook of his arm and concentrated on keeping his legs steady beneath him. All of a sudden his knees felt as if they had more joints than they ought. “I got one.”

It was days like this—days when the adrenaline rushed through his veins like a swollen river one moment, then dried up like bones in a desert the next, leaving him shaky and perspiring—that he felt the full weight of the badge on his chest. The silver circle and star carried a responsibility. A tradition. A code of honor that demanded he right wrongs, defend the defenseless. And sometimes that he take a life.

But never that he take satisfaction in it.

He knew the kid hadn’t meant anything. She just hadn’t learned yet that they didn’t talk about it afterward. Those demons were to be faced later, in private. It was part of the code. Besides, this wasn’t over yet; they still had to clear that warehouse.

They’d nearly reached the front of the building, and still no sign of life. Del doubted there would be. A loose piece of tin on the roof creaked in the hot breeze. A scrap of litter kicked up from the street, swirled and danced in front of them, then skittered out of their path.

Captain Matheson motioned to Hayes. “Side entrance.” Then he looked at Del. “Back door.”

“I’ll take the back door,” Solomon chirped, her voice tight as a high wire.

She was already moving when Matheson scowled and called her back. “Hold on there, Johnette Wayne. You’re on the front, with me.”

Solomon’s expression soured to downright mutinous, but she didn’t argue. At least not out loud.

Del watched curiously as the two of them measured each other. “Bull” Matheson was always hard on the new kids at first, but Solomon had been with them nearly a month now, and the sparks between her and the Bull showed no signs of letting up. If Del didn’t know better, he’d think it was something personal between them.

Matheson turned to Del. “Take the big gun to the back door,” he said. “We’ll flush, you catch.”

Unlike Solomon, Del didn’t even think about arguing. Hefting the shotgun to his shoulder, he trotted around the building, careful to stay low and out of the line of fire from the windows. He didn’t think anything—anyone—was still alive in there, but it never hurt to be cautious, especially since the angle of the sun on this side of the building cast a glare on the grimy glass, making it more difficult to spot movement inside.

He’d taken position behind a stack of wooden pallets at the rear of the warehouse when he caught a flash of color behind him and to his right. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it shouldn’t be there.

His throat dried up as another shot of adrenaline hit his system. He needed to focus on what might be coming out that back door, but he didn’t like the thought of one of them behind him. He caught another flash of movement among the stacks of pallets. Just a shadow this time, but something nonetheless—and coming his way.

With a glance at the warehouse, seeing nothing moving inside, he made his decision. Matheson might have his hide for leaving his position, but if one of the shooters was out here, Del couldn’t let him get away.

He crept along the concrete walls of the docks, searching. Listening. He was crouching beneath a rusted iron staircase, about to poke his head up and look around when a whirlwind descended on him from above. Caught in a vortex of colors—vibrant red and orange, warm brown and stormy blue—he thrashed. Gauzy fabric snarled around him, hemmed him in, and he rolled, trying to get free and hold onto the shotgun at the same time.

He twisted for better leverage, his body molded around a warm and solid human form, struggling mightily. He turned again until he was on top of the bucking body, and his hands let go of the gauze and twisted in something long and soft before he opened his eyes—

—and found himself staring down at one of the most naturally beautiful women he’d ever seen. Earthy, yet exotic, her complexion was the color of toasted almond, smooth and perfect, except for charcoal smudges under her lashes that said it had been too long since she’d slept. Perfectly pitched eyebrows arched over eyes the color of sweet, dark chocolate and her hair… It was long and smooth and black as coffee—a rich, Colombian roast—and felt like pure silk wrapped in his fists.

He jerked his hands away.

For a moment she lay there, wide-eyed and frozen. The V-neck blouse she wore had come untied at the throat. With each heaving breath she drew, the thrust of her chest pried the slit farther apart and exposed another centimeter of lustrous flesh.

Reining in his galloping pulse—and his imagination—Del reassured her. “It’s all right, ma’am. I’m a—”

She moved fast. Hard. She fought like a hellcat, flailing her fists and kicking. Del had to roll to the side to protect the parts of him that Kevlar couldn’t cover. They both lunged to their feet and she nearly got away, but her full skirt tangled around her legs, slowing her. She dropped a military-style olive green backpack, the drawstring kind women used as a purse sometimes, and Del kicked it away in case there was a weapon inside, then managed to snag her with an arm around her waist.

She squirmed in his grasp and tried to stomp his instep with her heel. Amazon woman just didn’t know when to give up. He dodged blows and held on for all he was worth. Her arms and legs were long and lean—she was fit, no doubt about that. But her middle was solid. Thick, almost bulging in a way it shouldn’t be unless—

Holy Mother.

He let go of her as if he’d reached into a pile of wood for a walking stick and pulled back a rattlesnake instead.

Big mistake.

He knew what was coming when she wrapped the palm of one hand around the fist of the other and raised her elbows, but it happened so fast there was nothing he could do to prevent it.

He had to admire her spirit. The fact that he stood a half foot taller, weighed a good fifty pounds more and was armed—with a shotgun, no less—didn’t seem to faze her. The elbow she buried in his gut doubled him over like a Gumby doll. The heel she stomped on the arch of his foot nearly buckled his knees. If she’d weighed more, she’d have done him some serious damage with the combat boots she wore under her skirt. He supposed he was lucky on that account, at least.

While he stood there gagging and hopping, she took off.

Toward the warehouse.

That was all he needed, Amazon woman running around in there. Even if the shooters who’d survived had cleared out—which wasn’t a certainty—she could run into Solomon. The hair-triggered new kid was wound tight enough to pop anything that moved. And Amazon woman was definitely moving. She’d already cleared half the distance to the warehouse, the leather soles of her boots slapping the ground as she ran.

“Wait,” he called, still gasping for air. “You can’t go in there. It’s danger—” Ah, great. She wasn’t listening. Ignoring the pain in his ribs and his foot, he took off after her.

Del cursed when she disappeared into the back door of the building. This was a disaster in the making. If she jumped one of his teammates the way she’d jumped him, she just might find herself closely acquainted with a few .38 caliber slugs.

He reached the door and pried it open. Going inside would be just about as dangerous for him. The others wouldn’t be expecting him in there. If they mistook him for one of the black-clad bad guys…

Pushing that thought out of his mind, he slipped through the door. The cool interior made his skin, flushed with sweat from the hand-to-hand skirmish, turn clammy. His heart tattooed a rapid pace. He couldn’t see the woman, but he picked up the faint pad of her steps on the floor behind a row of crates ahead.

He crept toward the sound, his gaze flicking side to side, watching for his teammates, and for the shooters. He didn’t dare call out, in case any of them were still around.

The woman’s light footsteps halted, somewhere around the end of the row of crates, Del guessed. Holding his breath, he moved toward her. He’d almost caught up to her when a shadow crawled along the floor to his left—a pair of outstretched arms and a gun. Solomon’s body followed the shadow, swinging around to where the woman stood.

Swallowing his curse, Del stepped between the two women. His forearm shot up, knocking Solomon’s aim toward the ceiling. An explosion roared from the muzzle of the gun. He felt the blast of heat on his cheek, saw the flash of light. The pistol’s report deafened him for a second, then set bells ringing in his head. That had been too close.

Amazon woman recovered before he did, but then, she hadn’t just nearly had her head blown off. She whirled, her eyes huge, then ran.

Del chased her again, this time with Solomon two steps behind. To hell with giving away their position. He shouted, “Hold your fire, we have a civilian in the building!”

As he neared the end of a row of crates and pulled up to round the corner, an anguished wail stopped him in his tracks. Solomon, who’d been running on his heels, crashed into his back, then they both started to run again, pulled forward by the keening.

Del and his teammates converged on the scene at once, weapons ready. Hayes, his revolver trained on the downed form of one of the gunmen in black, yelled, “Clear.”

But Del wasn’t looking at the dead gunman. Or at the open boxes of weapons—a cache like he’d never seen before: automatic rifles, handguns, shotguns, even hand-held air-to-ground missile launchers that could bring down a small plane—surrounding them. He couldn’t take his eyes off the sight a few feet beyond, in the center of a cleared section of the warehouse floor. The mystery woman sat on the cement, her long legs curled beneath her skirt, holding a second lifeless body in her arms, moaning softly and rocking the dead man as if he were a child just nodding off to sleep.

Pressure built in Del’s chest like water behind a dam as he took in the details. This second man wasn’t dressed in dark coveralls like the other gunmen who’d escaped. He wore pressed navy-blue slacks and a white dress shirt, now stained red with blood from a wide wound—the kind of wound only a shotgun blast could cause. A patch on his sleeve identified him as a security guard, working for one of the agencies that protected the warehouse district. This wouldn’t be the first time one of the minimum-wage guards had been dealing dirty from his place of employment.

But Del didn’t see a gun. Where was the man’s gun? There had to be a gun. God, there’d better be one. Had the woman picked it up?

She shifted, rocking herself and the dead man forward again, and the dam in Del’s chest burst, sweeping away everything he believed about who he was, what he was. He was nothing. Nobody. Because the man on the floor couldn’t have had a gun.

His hands were tied behind his back.

My God, he hadn’t been part of the deal going down, but simply a security guard doing his job, taken hostage, maybe, when he walked in on the transaction.

Blood roared in Del’s ears, drowning out everything but the woman’s cries and his pounding heart. He fell to his knees, his legs no longer capable of supporting him. Pure instinct forced him to press two fingers alongside the column of the man’s throat. He tried to recall the prayers he’d learned in childhood, but his brain would only form one word, over and over.

Please, please, please…

He held his fingers over the man’s carotid a moment, with the others looking down on him in silence, then shook his head.

The woman raised her dark chocolate eyes, now glistening, to his, then to each of his companions in turn. To Del’s surprise, they showed no trace of the shock that usually accompanied a person’s first up close exposure to the vulgar reality of violence, but held instead the knowledge of one all too familiar with death. With loss.

“Federales?” she whispered, her voice thick with tears close to the surface, but not shed.

“No, ma’am.” Del let his hand fall away from the body she held. He met the woman’s gaze squarely, somehow holding his head high when everything inside him wanted to collapse. “Texas Rangers.”

They buried Eduardo Garcia in a pleasant enough spot. There weren’t any trees close enough to shade him from the sun in summer, but a flagstone wall screened him from the strip mall next to the cemetery, and it was quiet. At least it was today, with the jets taking off to the south, the opposite direction from the graveyard, out of nearby Dallas/Fort Worth airport. Still, Del couldn’t help but wonder if the man didn’t deserve better.

The answer came to him harshly. Of course he did; he deserved to still be alive.

Del dug his fists into eyes gritty from lack of sleep and the dust blowing in from West Texas on an arid wind. His chest ached as if something was missing inside him.

As if his soul was gone.

Waiting in the negligible shade of a scrub mesquite on a knoll some hundred yards from the gravesite, he scanned the assemblage of mourners again, still not finding what—who—he was looking for.

Vultures, mostly, had turned out for the service. Reporters. The investigation into exactly what happened at the warehouse was still ongoing. But no connection between Garcia and the gunmen or the confiscated weapons had been found. Word that an innocent man had been shot by one of the legendary Texas Rangers—especially word that an innocent Hispanic man had been shot by a Caucasian Texas Ranger—had the press on a witch-hunt.

Unfortunately, Del was the witch.

They were the reason he watched from up here, instead of bowing his head before the preacher. Lay low, Bull had told him. Let this blow over.

At the time he’d thought Captain Matheson meant a day or two, until the inspectors from the Department of Public Safety—the state agency that oversaw the Rangers—finished grilling him about the incident and declared Garcia’s death a tragic but unavoidable accident. But five days had passed since the shooting. The medical examiner had released the body after performing a full autopsy, and still the DPS inspectors hadn’t made any ruling. The furor showed no signs of dying down any time soon.

It didn’t matter. Let the system work its course, he told himself. He could pay his respects to Garcia later, after the press left. It wasn’t as if the man was going anywhere.

What mattered today was that she wasn’t down there, either. Amazon woman. The lady whose cries echoed in his mind a thousand times a night, robbed him of his sleep. The one he’d come to see.

There had been no question who had fired the shot that killed Garcia. Del was the only one carrying a shotgun. Within minutes of finding Garcia, Bull had ordered Del away from the crime scene, and rightly so. The death of a civilian—an innocent man—demanded an unbiased investigation. Del hadn’t had the chance to talk to the mystery woman with the dark chocolate eyes. He needed to know more about her. What Garcia had been to her. What Del had taken from her. He needed to know.

He scanned the crowd huddled around the grave once again, skipping over the media with their tripods and film-at-ten television cameras, looking for her.

Why hadn’t she come?

Disappointed, he supposed the reporters had kept her away, too. So far, the press hadn’t caught on to the fact that Garcia had been involved with a woman. Del hoped it stayed that way. She would be going through enough right now without the press hounding her.

On the plain below, those surrounding the grave, even most of the reporters, lowered their heads in prayer. This far away, Del couldn’t hear the words. He didn’t need to; he knew them all to well.

Yea, tho I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…

He’d been walking through a valley of his own since the shooting. Five days of reliving the same two-second slice of life over and over.

He crouches behind the car. Windows break in the warehouse across from him. Hayes is on the move, sprinting across the road. Inside the warehouse he sees the figure of a man through a window. The man raises a rifle, tracking Hayes.

Del stands. Fires two rounds from the shotgun.

And then hears the woman’s anguished cry, again and again.

Del can’t remember ever seeing the hostage. But the windows were dirty. The sun glared off streaked panes then disappeared into the darkness beyond the jagged edges of glass.

He’d had to fire. Done the only thing he could. If he hadn’t, Hayes would have been killed.

That didn’t make being responsible for an innocent man’s death any easier to bear.

Damn it, why hadn’t he seen Garcia?

That wasn’t the only question that plagued Del. He had others. Like what was Garcia doing there in the first place? Had he been on duty? Who had called in the anonymous tip that had led the rangers to be there at the same time. And who was the woman? Why was she there?

Del had been kept out of the loop in the investigation. The investigators wouldn’t tell him anything, except that the woman’s story seemed to check out. Elisa Reyes was from a small South American nation called San Ynez. She had only arrived in the U.S. a few hours before the shooting, had gone to Garcia’s apartment and then to his work address when she found he wasn’t home. She’d gotten to the warehouse just in time to see the gun battle. She didn’t seem to know anything about the deal that was supposed to have gone down there.

Del had tried to get more out of the DPS inspectors, but they’d stonewalled him. Matheson hadn’t been much more forthcoming. Damn it, it had been nearly a week, and they hadn’t cleared him in the shooting yet. The press had declared him a vigilante racist, and no one official was saying anything different.

He’d like to take those reporters to his farm up near Sherman and introduce them to his abuela, the grandmother who had raised him. She’d have a thing or two to say about Del’s supposed prejudice against Hispanics. Then again, what she would say about it wouldn’t likely be printable.

He almost smiled, picturing her face in mother-hen mode, protecting her chick. Almost. Because as soon as she chased the reporters away, she’d have a thing or two to say to him.

“You’re a good boy, Del Cooper, with a good name, an honorable name,” she’d always told him. “You do what’s right, pay your debts and you’ll keep it that way.”

He’d tried. For the most part he thought he’d succeeded, until five days ago. He’d done the right thing by shooting. He was sure of it. But now he had a responsibility to the woman at the warehouse. A debt he wasn’t sure he could ever pay. He only knew he had to try. He had to pass on his respects for her loss, if nothing else. But first he had to find her.

Down below, the crowd around the gravesite began to break up. Muttering to himself, Del walked back to his Land Rover. Inside, he shoved the car into gear and drove, his mind still on the woman.

What would he have said to her if he had found her? I’m sorry I killed…who? An innocent man? Someone you cared about? But I had no choice. It was a righteous shoot. Righteous…

His throat closing around that final word, Del headed to the back road through the cemetery, winding down a gravel drive to avoid passing the media vultures. This part of the cemetery was older. Century oaks towered over moss-covered headstones and larger monuments. Gnarled branches seemed to shake their fingers at him. The rustle of leaves in the breeze accused him.

Geez, he was really losing it.

He pressed down on the accelerator, spotting a rear exit to the cemetery, then stomped even harder on the brake. Beneath an aperture in the canopy of boughs sat a weathered chapel, a flagstone path leading from the road to its entrance, where the half-open door had caught his attention. Shutting off the car’s engine, he craned his head for a closer look.

Mortar crumbled between the rough-cut stones of the building’s facade. A peeling white steeple scraped against the lower branches of the trees, which shifted in the breeze, their rattle sounding less threatening and more inviting here, mixed with chipper birdsong and the scuttle of a lone squirrel pawing through old pine needles.

The place reminded him of the little church near his abuela’s farm, only smaller yet. He’d spent many hours there as a child, on his knees at her side, and the sudden longing for that simpler time drew him closer. It wasn’t until he got to the door that he saw the drawstring backpack on the floor—the same olive green backpack the woman had been carrying at the warehouse.

It appeared he wasn’t the only one drawn by the peacefulness of the place.

Elisa Reyes fingered her rosary beads, her lips moving in silent prayer, and inhaled the scent of old, polished wood, wet stone and candle wax. A single flame flickered from a votive on the stone wall beside her. The muted light set the stained-glass image of Christ on a the cross above the altar aglow.

Elisa had come into the chapel seeking a much-needed respite from the heat. Since she had arrived in Texas five days ago, Elisa felt as if she had been consigned to hell. The sun seemed to burn right through her. She was hot. So hot…and dry.

She paused in her prayers a moment to lick her parched lips. A wave of dizziness shook her, and she had to steady herself with a hand on the back of the pew in front of her until the lightheadedness passed. Grateful for the return of her strength, she took comfort in the silence and reverence of the tiny chapel for another second, then bowed her head again to finish her rosary. This place was the first she had found in this country that reminded her of home.

The first place she had found peace.

Until the squeak of hinges announced that she wasn’t alone.

Ever so slightly she cocked her head and looked over her shoulder. Through the black lace veil that covered her eyes, she saw the silhouette of a man in the doorway. He was large and dark, seemingly made more of shadow than flesh and bone. If it were not for the bright halo of daylight behind him giving shape to his form, she might not have believed there was a man there at all, no substance. Just a trick of the light. Dark energy.

Then he stepped down the aisle. His boot heels scuffed the worn wood floor. “Ma’am, I’m Del Coo—”

Elisa’s back stiffened. Suddenly she was not hot, but cold to the marrow. “I know who you are. Have you come here seeking absolution, Ranger Cooper?”

His throat convulsed. His hands crushed the brim of the Western hat he carried in front of him like a shield. “No, ma’am. I came here seeking you.”

Quickly she crossed herself and rose without meeting his eyes. Icy rage lent strength to her weakened body. “Then you have wasted your time. I am not your confessor.”

“I have no intention of burdening you with my sins.”

She tried to pass him in the aisle, but his muscular mass blocked the narrow passage.

“You weren’t at the service,” he said. She did not mean to look at him. Had not intended to acknowledge his presence any further. But something in what he said, some pain beneath the words, beneath the throaty baritone voice, called to her, and she looked at him.

His hair was cropped military short. So short that she could not call it brown or black—just dark. He had a broad forehead, but his brows were not overly heavy, and his strong, square jaw compensated. His nose looked as though it had been broken a time or two, and his gaze was not as cold as one might expect from gray eyes, but instead threw her pale reflection back at her like warm, polished pewter.

He had a dependable face, she decided. Sturdy. The kind of face people would trust.

It was too bad she knew it to be a mask. He was no stalwart defender of humanity. He was a cold-blooded killer.

And yet he had been at Eduardo’s funeral when she had not. She had lacked the courage to face the newsmen, as well as the strength to walk the last half mile.

The injustice of it enraged her. She raised her chin, digging her nails into her palms to keep her hands from shaking. “I do not have to be at God’s side for Him to hear my words. Nor, thanks to you, do I have to be so near to Eduardo now.”

The ranger jerked as if he had been slapped. She tried to shoulder past, but he let go of his hat with one hand and captured her arm. “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

The breath whooshed out of her. Up this close, she could see the deep lines of strain that channeled out from the corners of his eyes and mouth. What worries weighed on him? The death of an innocent man? Surely not. He was policía. Heartless.

So what did he want with her?

“How do you know about my baby?” she asked.

“I felt it,” he ground out as if his jaw were frozen. “When we were wrestling at the warehouse.”

She yanked her arm free of his grip and smoothed her hand over her swelling abdomen. “Yes. I carry Eduardo’s child. So you see with your carelessness you took not one life, but three—the man, the husband and the father.”

This time the ranger didn’t flinch. He frowned. “Husband? You were married?”

“We were to be.”

His shoulders sagged. He blinked slowly. “I’m sorry. If there was anything I could do…”

She passed by him. This time she would not be stopped. Behind her, he cleared his throat. “I just want you to know you have my sympathy.”

She turned in the chapel doorway. “Sympathy from the devil is little comfort, Ranger.” Then she stepped over the threshold, into a Texas heat surely hotter than hell.

Del stood still as marble, a testament to the discipline ingrained in him by four years in the Army Special Forces and fourteen as a cop of one sort or another. It took every bit of will he had, and then some, not to place his fist through the pretty little stained-glass panel beside the door.

This was why he’d wanted to see her, he realized. So she could lay him open. Maybe in that way he could honor his debt in one bloody stream instead of paying slowly, drop by drop.

Only, it hadn’t worked. Instead of the anger he’d expected from her, he’d gotten only cold contempt, and instead of making payment, he’d found his debt tripled. She’d said he killed three men, and she’d been right. The sheer magnitude of what one pull of the trigger—his pull of the trigger—had cost her was incomprehensible.

One thing he did comprehend, though. A debt like that could never be repaid. Never. He closed his eyes. God help him. Maybe he should find a confessional after all.

He stood there for what seemed like a long time, fighting the invisible steel bands squeezing his chest with each breath he drew. He’d done what he had to do, he told himself. Saved Hayes’s life.

So why did he feel like he’d committed a mortal sin?

Feeling much older than his thirty-eight years, he finally sighed and managed to uncrimp his fingers from the ruined brim of his hat. He moved toward the door, but before he’d finished a step, a missile of a sharp-tongued woman crashed into his chest, her chocolate eyes wide with alarm.

“What?” he asked, setting her back on her feet. Her shoulders jutted through the thin blouse beneath his hands. She felt frail. Broken inside. But her disdain was intact.

She brushed off his touch as if he was an insect and pushed them both deeper into the stone chapel. “Reporters,” she said, checking over her shoulder.

Del leaned around her, looked out the door and cursed. A van with a KDAL logo cruised down the gravel lane. “Where’s your car?”

She clutched her pack to her chest. “I don’t have one.”

Without looking down, he saw in his mind the dust rimming the hem of her black skirt. How far was it from wherever she was staying to the cemetery? The nearest hotel had to be four or five miles. “You walked?”

She answered by narrowing her eyes, as if pregnant women always walked miles on the highway in 103-degree heat. Saving his disbelief for later, he pulled her back toward the door. “Come on.”

Her hand was in his just long enough for him to register the clammy feel of her palm. Then she recoiled. He gritted his teeth, motioning for her to go first. “After you.”

She didn’t budge.

“That’s my Land Rover out front. We can get away before they make us.”

“I will go nowhere with you.”

The rebuke blew away another chunk of what was left of his self-respect. She needed his help, whether she realized it or not. So far, Garcia’s involvement with a woman had been held to speculation. He could only guess she wasn’t interested in publicity, otherwise all four local channels would have plastered the face of the grieving fiancée on the TV news every night this week.

“Look,” he urged. “The press is still in a feeding frenzy over the shooting. Finding either one of us in here alone would provide a passable story for the bloodsuckers, but finding us here together will make for a regular tabloid extravaganza. Our pictures will be on sale at every grocery store checkout from here to Minnesota. They will hound us—you—night and day. Is that what you want?”

Her face paled to the same light ivory as her blouse. “No.”

He resisted the urge to steady her on her feet, doubting she’d appreciate the sentiment. Instead he pulled his own shoulders back, hardened his gaze to match hers. “Then what’s it going to be, lady? Ready to make a deal with the devil?”

Chapter 2

“Where do you want me to take you?” the ranger asked.

“Just stop the car.”

Elisa pressed her forehead against the cool window. Across the six lanes of cement on the other side of the glass, a pasture dotted by mesquite trees and cows with extraordinarily long horns bordered the parking lot of a modern sports stadium with a gigantic hole in the roof. Rural Texas gave way to urban in a dizzying blur.

A big truck sped past, rocking the vehicle. Elisa rested her palm on her churning stomach and looked away. Everything was so different here than in her country. So big. So fast. In her village, two cars couldn’t have passed on the main road without scraping door handles, and the normal flow of traffic was foot speed.

Except when the soldiers came.

The hand on her stomach fisted. “Please stop the car.”

The ranger’s jaw ticked, but his eyes stayed on the road. The ruddy spots on his cheeks darkened. “I told you, I am not dumping a pregnant woman on the side of the highway in this heat. In any weather, damn it.”

“There is no need to curse.”

“Curse? What…? ‘Damn it’?”

She frowned at him.

“Aw, hell,” he muttered, then shot her a look. “I mean heck. Look, just tell me where you want to go and I’ll drop you off.”

“You don’t understand.” She clutched her pack to her side. It was all she’d brought to America. All she’d had. “I—”

Too late.

Elisa’s eyes went wide as the wave began low in her body and rolled upward. One hand flying to cover her mouth, she fumbled at the window control with the other.

“What the—” The ranger stepped on the brakes and swerved to the shoulder.

Elisa was out before the car came to full stop. At the guardrail, she fell to her knees and lost what little she’d eaten that day. When it was over, she hung across the steel barrier, limp as yesterday’s laundry, clammy and shaking. She dragged in a breath of air, tasted exhaust and nearly choked again. Thankfully, the ranger had left her to her peace. The only thing more humiliating than being sick would have been to have him standing over her, watching.

A moment later she realized she’d offered her thanks too soon. Her stomach turned once more at the sound of his boots crunching across gravel. He stopped beside her and a column of shade fell over her where he blocked the sun. Grudgingly she huddled in the cool swath. She should get up, walk away. But she was so hot… “Leave me alone.” Her voice sounded miserable. Pitiful.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, ma’am.” Refusing to look into the eyes again of the man who had killed Eduardo, she focused on the ground until blunt fingers appeared in front of her face, waving a rumpled napkin sporting a fast-food chain logo.

Loath as she was to accept his help, even in the form of a napkin, her suffering would prove nothing. He was the one who should be shamed by what he had done, not her.

She snatched the thin paper and wiped her face. A plastic bottle of spring water appeared next and she took it, too.

What was the difference? Her pride was already in tatters. Had been since she left her own people to come to America.

The water was warm, but blessedly wet. She swished it around in her mouth and spit over the guardrail.

The ranger cleared his throat. “I guess I should consider myself lucky.”

Without meaning to, she raised her head. He had a way of making her forget her intentions, like her vow not to let him see her pain—or her temper—in the chapel.

“Lucky?” she said.

“You have good reason to hate me.” He raised one solemn eyebrows. “And I am within spitting distance.”

The weakness in her body must have weakened her mind, too, because it took her seconds to put together his meaning. By the time she had, her stomach had rolled from her throat to the floor of her abdomen. “Perhaps you will not feel so lucky when you look more closely at your car.”

“Good thing I paid the extra hundred bucks for Scotchgard, then.”

Thanks to more than eight years of foreign language classes, Elisa’s English was good—better than most native speakers, since she’d learned classroom grammar, not street slang. She prided herself on her extensive vocabulary—but she did not know this thing, Scotchgard. An inborn sense of curiosity almost made her ask, but the question was lost in a gasp. She pressed the heel of her hand against her navel, hoping to stem the rising tide of nausea.

This time, she was almost grateful for the distraction the sickness provided. She knew better than to ask questions of him. He was a Texas Ranger.

“Are you all right?” Squatting beside her, the ranger steadied her with a hand under her elbow.

She nodded toward the ground at his feet. “Do you also pay extra to Scotchgard those?”

He followed her gaze down. “My boots? No.”

Ostrich, she guessed. Expensive. “Then perhaps you should get them out of ‘spitting distance.’”

He quickly shuffled behind her—without letting go of her arm. Within seconds another swell of sickness rolled through her. Her back bowed, crested and then went limp. Her head hung over the gritty metal rail. She tried focusing on the ditch below for stability, but the very earth pitched like the sea. A cry escaped her, and a surge of shame followed as the ranger watched the final purging of her stomach.

A moment later the ground went still again. She opened her eyes as the ranger dug a pack of gum from his shirt pocket, pulled a piece from its paper wrapper, folded the silver foil halfway back and extended it out to her, holding it by the still-wrapped end.

How was he continually able to offer her the one thing she couldn’t refuse at the time? Practically snarling, she snapped the gum from his hand. A moment later, with sugar and spearmint sweetening her tongue, she propped her back against the guardrail and drew her knees to her chest. The roiling cauldron in her stomach settled to a slow simmer, but her strength had yet to reappear.

The ranger watched her, muscled thighs straining the seams of his dress slacks as he squatted. “Have you been sick like this much?”

She tipped her head back and squeezed her eyes shut. “Every day. They call it morning sickness, no? But for me it comes in the afternoon.”

“How far along are you?”

“Over four months. It should have passed by now.” Her voice wobbled. This weakness left her defenseless against the worry she’d been pushing back since she’d learned of her pregnancy. Worry that she didn’t know how to have a baby.

“You’re not showing much for almost five months. But it’s different for everyone,” he told her, his words gentle, reassuring.

“You have children?” she couldn’t resist asking.

“No. But I lived out in the country as a kid. My grandmother was a midwife for half the babies born in Van Zandt county. I grew up listening to her stories.”

Memories of Oleda, the eccentric old midwife from Elisa’s village, flashed through her mind like a favorite movie. She had not asked Oleda about the sickness before leaving San Ynez; she had not been able to risk it.

She would not risk it when she returned, either. She would bear this baby alone, if she lived to bear it at all. Despite his gentle voice, this ranger was responsible for that.

She looked up at him. His wide shoulders bunched and released under his sports jacket. The light scent of soap and sandalwood wafted to her on a puff of a breeze. The corners of his mouth angled up hopefully, as if he wanted to smile at the newfound peace between them. She had never seen his smile, but could imagine it—warm and beguiling, pulling a matching grin from whomever it fell on. His would be the kind of smile women trusted. The kind they depended on. Wanted to wake up next to.

Suddenly he was too close, too male, too alive. All the things Eduardo had been and was no more.

Once again the ranger had made her forget her intentions. Made her forget who she was, and who he was—policía. Untouchable.

Dredging up the energy from deep inside, she rose on rubbery legs. He rose with her, still steadying her. She held the half-full water bottle out to him. He shook his head. “Keep it. You’re probably dehydrated.”

She dropped the bottle next to his expensive boots, and the smile that had been so close to breaking, died, unborn. His eyes hardened, as did his voice. “Tell me where you’re staying and I’ll drop you off and not bother you anymore.”

“I will go no further with you.”

“I just want to help you.”

“I do not need your help.” She shook free of his grip, took two steps down the road.

In one agile move, he stepped in front of her, blocking her way again. Containing a heavy sigh, she stopped short of plowing into him. Just short. They stood nearly nose to nose, close enough for her to see the beginnings of the stubble that would shadow his jaw in a few hours. Close enough for her to see the shadows in his eyes, too, though their source was less clear to her.

“Bull,” he said.

She tilted her chin up. “You are certainly acting like one.”

“Only because you’re being unreasonable.”

“Because I don’t wish to be helped by a man with my fiancé’s blood on his hands?”

The ranger’s face blanched, and at that moment she knew the source of the shadows in his eyes. Pain. Guilt. Shame. She would not have thought a policía capable of these emotions.

“You don’t want my help?” he said. “Give me the number of someone to call for you. A name. Anything.”

“No.”

“No, you won’t? Or no, you can’t? There isn’t anyone to call, is there? You have no one.”

Her face heated. “That is none of your concern.”

“Lady, right now that is my only concern. Because until I know you have someone to go to, I’m stuck with you. And you’re stuck with me.”

Sensing the turmoil in him, she could almost feel sorry for him. Almost, if the seedling sympathy sprouting inside her had not been quickly trampled by the stronger emotions she felt. Rage. Fear.

Hate.

She held on to the hate. It was the only emotion capable of keeping her on her feet. It gave her the strength to shoulder past him and start again down the blistering blacktop.

Behind her, his footfalls kept pace with her own. “Eduardo’s place has been sealed since the shooting. Where have you been staying?”

She ignored him.

“When was the last time you had a decent meal?” he called to her.

At the mention of food, her knees nearly buckled. The ranger’s hands were on her shoulders, holding her, as she swayed. For a moment the broad male chest behind her was the only solid in a fluid world. The kick of his heart against her spine was a beacon, guiding her from the stormy sea to firm ground.

When the ground stopped rolling beneath her, he turned her gently toward him, the way a parent would nudge a tired child. Instinct screamed at her to resist, flee or fight, but she had the strength for neither. Unable to meet his gaze this time, she stared at his chest. Weakness was so uncharacteristic for her. Pregnancy was doing wild things to her body, her stamina. She hated the feeling of helplessness that consumed her.

“Please let me go,” she said, humiliated by the pleading tone in her voice.

“Go where?” His words, like his hands, held her softly in place. “Back to San Ynez?”

Her gaze jumped to his, but before she could speak, he continued. “How do you plan on doing that with no plane ticket, no money, no credit cards? Nothing but your passport, some clothes, two bananas and a rosary to your name?”

She sucked in a sharp breath. “You searched my bag?”

“You left it in my car.”

“And this gives you the right to invade my privacy?”

He scowled. She’d caught him, and she knew it. She had studied American culture enough to know they had laws about these things. Search and seizure. But since when had the policía in any country cared about the law?

“I thought you might have some medicine to settle your stomach,” he said. “Or some crackers to nibble on.”

“Inside my passport?”

He looked chagrined but defiant. “I was curious. It’s not a crime.”

“Is it a crime to force me to go with you when I have said I do not want your help?”

“I’m not going to let you just walk away. Not when you have nowhere to go.”

Exasperation filled her voice. Had there ever before been such a stubborn man? “Where would you take me, Ranger?”

The question seemed to stump him for a moment, then he stammered, “I can help you get home.”

The laugh that welled up inside her felt hysterical. “Do you know much about San Ynez?”

“Just that it’s a small military dictatorship in South America.”

“You are a Texas Ranger. An elite police officer. You must know more than that.”

He drew his brows together. “It’s rumored to be a major drug-producing nation, but it’s still a poor country. All the money goes to the cartels, I suppose.”

“It is a place where men are killed for resisting the military police who force them to manufacture narcotics. Women are given as rewards to the soldiers for their brutality and schools are closed so that the children may work in the coca fields. Yet this is the place you want to help me go back to?” Her hand curved protectively over her abdomen. “The place you would have me raise my child?”

“I just assumed—”

“You assumed wrong! I escaped San Ynez at the risk of my own death to give my child—Eduardo’s child—the life it deserves. I will not go back.” Her vehemence surprised her. Until now, she had assumed she would have to return to San Ynez, with Eduardo gone.

Poor Eduardo, who would never see his child.

Now, even considering going back to her homeland, to the violence, the madness of drugs, the death, made her stomach roll. She’d come to America for her child; she would stay for her child. Somehow.

The ranger’s expression twisted as understanding set in. “You don’t have residency in the U.S.” Statement, not question.

“I am carrying the child of an American. That is all the residency I need.”

He shook his head slowly. “I’m no immigration lawyer, but I don’t think so. You’ll be deported.”

“Not if they can’t find me.” She angled her head, feeling superior now that she’d finally found an argument he couldn’t counter. He was the police, bound by his law. He would not help her. She just hoped he wouldn’t arrest her, either. “So, Ranger, do you still want to help me?”

He cocked his head to the side as he studied her for a long moment with intense eyes, then to her surprise, said seriously, “Yes. Yes, I do.”

Del flexed his fingers on the steering wheel as he drove west, squinting into a sun so strong that tinted windows and aviator sunglasses both couldn’t stop the glare. Elisa didn’t seem to be bothered, though. She sat upright in the passenger seat, eyes forward and hands folded demurely in her lap. On the surface she looked harmless enough, even a little bit vulnerable, with the slight bulge in her midsection and the crinkles of worry at the corners of her eyes. Underneath, he suspected she was an entirely different woman. He sensed strength in her, more metaphysical than physical, and pride that could make her stubborn as a jackass.

Unfortunately, he also sensed she had good reason to be stubborn. He mentally sorted through the few facts he could recall about San Ynez, and the picture he put together wasn’t pretty. The current government had taken power in a bloody coup and had quickly thrown an immature, but growing, nation into a state of economic infancy. Industry had been abandoned for the cultivation of narcotics; education ground to a halt; tourist attractions were converted into terrorist training facilities. All in the name of profit.

No wonder Elisa didn’t want to go back.

She’d had a chance here, in the U.S.—a chance he’d taken away.

He glanced at her surreptitiously, found her almond complexion paled to alabaster and her expression frozen into a picture of complacency through what he figured had to be sheer willpower, as exhausted as she seemed to be.

Her gaze flicked toward him and he quickly looked away. Every time he caught a glimpse of her he found more to admire—her high, arching cheekbones, the dense brush of lashes over dark, feline eyes, the deep, wine color of her lips.

A horn blared close by. Too close. Looking toward the sound, Del realized his rearview mirror was just about scraping the side window of the pickup truck in the next lane. Adrenaline flooded his system in a hot surge. He jerked the steering wheel to the right, and the Land Rover lurched back to his half of the highway.

He’d been staring, he realized. And not at the road. The fight-or-flight instinct that had heated his blood cooled to lukewarm embarrassment. The driver of the pickup flipped a rude gesture at him, and Del waved pathetically in return.

At least Elisa hadn’t noticed his lapse. She turned to him and blinked slowly, almost dazedly.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

Her rs rolled together in a sensual purr that pulled his own vocal chords tight as high wires. When was the last time he noticed anything about a woman other than whether or not her face matched one of the dozens of wanted flyers that crossed his desk each day?

He couldn’t remember.

That bothered him. Maybe he’d gotten a little obsessive about his job. Lost perspective. But it bothered him even more that this woman was the one he chose to finally notice. A woman as out of reach to him as the moon to a howling coyote.

So where was he taking her?

Not to his place. Not when he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. And not when he was under investigation for the death of her fiancé, for chrisakes. That kind of complication neither of them needed.

On the other hand, he couldn’t just dump her at some cheap hotel alone. She needed clean clothes, a decent meal and maybe a little help from someone with some influence who would talk to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

He blew out a sigh. She needed Gene Randolph.

Fifteen minutes later Del braked to a stop at the wrought-iron gate in front of the Randolph estate. When he lowered the window to punch the security code into the console, a small sound escaped the woman next to him. He hesitated, frowning at the deepening creases in her forehead. “You okay? You going to be sick again?”

“No,” she said, breathlessly, and he wasn’t sure if she meant no, she was not okay, or no, she was not going to be sick again.

“This is your home?” she asked.

He glanced at the sprawling grounds beyond the gate. An automatic irrigation system kept the lawn emerald green even in the most arid conditions. Grand oaks shaded the path to the house, surrounded by flowering crepe myrtle in red, pink and white, beds of Mexican heather and trellises covered with climbing yellow roses in full bloom. “No.” Not on a ranger’s salary. “It belongs to a friend.”

Her hand trembled on the door handle. He frowned.

“This is the Randolph estate,” he explained. “Gene Randolph, maybe you heard of him? Two-term governor of Texas a while back.”

“Diós,” she muttered. “Un político.”

She clutched her tattered olive bag with her left hand and made the sign of the cross with the right. When she turned to him, all hints of dazedness had vanished from her eyes, replaced by sharp, clear fear. “Please let me go. I cannot stay here.”

Chapter 3

“You got something against politicians?” Del asked. The words sounded casual, but the look that accompanied them made Elisa’s stomach churn. This time the illness had little to do with her pregnancy.

She was defenseless against that sharp, gray gaze of his. It pierced the armor of aloofness in which she’d cloaked herself, like a knife through an overripe mango. The ranger’s eyes cut to the core of her. Bared her very essence. Given enough time, all her secrets would be exposed to him. All her doubts.

She couldn’t let that happen. She’d lived in the jungle long enough to know better than to show weakness to a predator.

“Politicians are all corrupt.” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded venomous. Lifting her chin, she turned away. The wrought-iron gate before them clanked and swung open with a mechanical buzz. Past it, park-like grounds rolled over a series of low hills. A red-brick mansion lorded over the estate from the highest knoll. Three stories high and Georgian in style, with thick white pillars supporting wide, shady porches hung with green ferns on all three levels, the house looked big enough to sleep an army. A wing swept back from each side of the stacked porches. Elisa counted seven windows she assumed to be bedrooms on each floor of each wing.

Make that two armies.

Her chest burned with the fire of the oppressed. How many slept in gutters so that one man could sleep in opulence?

“All those who live like this are criminals, or they take kickbacks to let the criminals operate. Like cannibals, they feed off of their own people,” she added.

Despite the danger to her privacy, Elisa turned back to him, ready to meet the sharp point of his gaze. To her surprise, she found him staring out the windshield as if trying to see the landscape through her eyes.

“Not Gene Randolph,” he finally said, shaking his head. Whatever he’d been looking for, he hadn’t found it.

Elisa hadn’t expected him to. He couldn’t possibly see what she saw. He hadn’t lived her hell. Had never been dragged through a place like the house on the hill, as she had. Marched through the dining hall where guests ate off bone china, to the cellar where she ate with the rats.

The memory brought a cold sweat to the back of her neck. She smelled fear and the stink of human excrement, heard the cries of the dying, as if she were back in that hole. Instinctively her hand covered her abdomen protectively.

“He’s a good man,” the ranger said. Behind them the gate clanked shut, sounding to Elisa’s ears like a cell door. “You can trust him.”

A disbelieving laugh bubbled up within her. “You want me to trust a politician?” She rolled her gaze toward him. “Ranger, I do not even trust you.”

He didn’t say anything, but his lips seemed thinner as he put the car in gear and eased it forward. The silver glow in his eyes dimmed. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was…hurt?

Because she didn’t trust him?

He had made a good show so far of playing the repentant warrior, bound by honor to help the woman left behind by the man he had killed in error. But surely he did not expect her to put her faith, her fate and that of her baby, in his hands so easily. He couldn’t possibly. And still her lack of trust bothered him.

His reaction confused her. Where she came from, men like him—policía—didn’t care what people like her thought. She was no one to him. Yet he had not treated her like no one. Another day, another time, she would have liked to ask why. Today, here, she just wanted to get away, to grieve for Eduardo and raise her child alone.

She had found a way to escape a place like this once before. She would find a way again. Soon.

“This Randolph, he is in charge of the Texas Rangers?” she asked, fingering the door handle nervously.

“No, we have a new governor now.” He didn’t look at her.

“Then why have we come here?”

“Because Gene knows how the system works. And he still has a lot of influence.”

Influence. A fancy word for power. Control. The ability to crush lives. People. Elisa’s pulse fluttered in the base of her throat like a fledgling’s wings.

“He doesn’t even know me. Why would he use his…influence to help me?”

“Because he does know me. And Gene stands by his friends.”

The ranger still did not look at her. She thought he was still insulted that she doubted his motivations, and now she had questioned his friend’s honor, too. It occurred to her that provoking him further might not be wise. Antagonizing him would only make escape more difficult.

Carefully she blunted the edge of her uneasiness until she could speak in what she hoped would sound like a conversational tone. “You and this politician are close?”

He nodded, a measure of the tension slipping from his expression. “I guess you could say that. I’ve known Gene since my highway patrol days. I, ah, helped him out of a jam once.”

He rubbed his thigh absently as if it ached. Elisa recognized the gesture. She saw it too often in her country, the soothing of phantom pain from an old wound.

“Gene kind of took me under his wing after that. Helped me get into the Rangers. Even put me up here in town. My family has a farm about ninety miles north of here. It was getting to be a hell of a commute.” He nodded down a lane that cut off the main driveway toward a two-story structure that replicated the architecture, if not the size, of the main house. “Guess I just never got around to moving out. I stay in the apartment above the carriage house there.”

“So he owes you.”

“No,” the ranger said quickly. Too quickly. Then he shrugged. “Maybe he feels like he does. But he shouldn’t. I was just doing my job.”

“Your job required you to take a bullet for him?”

His jaw slanted sideways. “How did you know?”

“Now he provides you a place to live.”

His forehead creased. “It’s not some kind of kickback, if that’s what you mean. I pay rent.”

“Even better.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

She’d vowed not to antagonize him, but she couldn’t help herself. Politicians were the same worldwide, it seemed. “He is a rich man. Rich men have enemies, no? People who would hurt them for their money.”

“I suppose.”

“So for nothing more than the use of his garage, your friend takes your money every month, and gets a Texas Ranger guarding his front door.” A smug smile slipped over her lips as she shook her head. “Políticos.”

“Gene isn’t using me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

She studied the flowering crepe myrtle lining the driveway. The ranger sighed noisily.

“Maybe having a cop close by makes him more comfortable,” he said. “If so, I’m glad to give him the peace of mind.”

She turned toward him. “Because he was your governor?”

“Because he is my friend.” He enunciated each word quietly, but with vehemence. She looked away. Did he really think she would so easily accept that he was exactly what he seemed, an honorable man, helping her in an effort to right the wrong he had done, and his friend, a politician, would help without a hidden agenda or profit motive?

No, he could not. She could not. Yet as the car came to a stop in the paved circle outside the mansion and the ranger lead her to the front door, she wanted to believe it.

But she had survived eight years of civil war in her country by being cautious, by relying on herself and trusting precious few. The cloak of vigilance she had sheathed herself in was hard to shed. Especially after what had happened to Eduardo.

Coming to America was to have been her chance to escape violence. She had not planned the baby she and Eduardo had created, but once she’d learned of it and accepted his offer of marriage in the United States, she had dreamed of a better life. She had dreamed of a quiet little apartment and nights filled with the sounds of city life—traffic and music and laughing voices on the street—instead of mortar fire and the cries of the dying.

She had dreamed of peace.

When she arrived in America and saw the father of her child gunned down, she had realized the idyllic life she sought did not exist.

Like all dreams, peace was only an illusion.

A trick of the mind.

Del cruised up the winding drive toward the Randolph mansion slower than was necessary to buy time to think. Gene would expect an explanation when Del showed up at his door with Elisa in tow. The problem was, there weren’t any explanations. None that made sense. Del was under investigation for the death of this woman’s fiancé. Every moment he spent in her company further compromised his position. Helping her could cast doubt on his motivations. Raise questions about his character. The cautious thing to do would be to keep as far away from her as possible.

But then, caution had never been high on his list of priorities. He wouldn’t have become a Texas Ranger if it had been. In his world, a person had two choices in every situation: he could do the right thing or the wrong thing. An honorable man always did the right thing, even if it wasn’t the safe choice or the obvious one. Helping Elisa Reyes definitely wasn’t safe. The press would come down on him like a bobcat on a wounded bird if they found out, but leaving her, pregnant and alone, to make her own way wasn’t a decision he could live with. Not when he was responsible for putting her in this situation.

None of that would make explaining her presence to Gene Randolph any easier. With his silvering hair and perpetually paternal expression, Gene might look like everybody’s grandfather, but he was sharp as a straight razor. One look at the edge in his pale-blue eyes when the door opened told Del that introductions wouldn’t be necessary. Gene knew exactly who Elisa was. What he didn’t know was what the hell she was doing on his doorstep with Del.

They made small talk as they crossed the black-and-white marble-tiled foyer, and two minutes later were settled into Gene’s library/office. Bookcases rose from the floor to the ceiling behind Gene’s massive mahogany desk. Law books, mostly, lined the shelves, but the spines of those on the lower racks sported popular fiction titles, mysteries and novelized true war stories. The fact that these were within easiest reach of Gene’s oversize leather chair reflected his friend’s retired status, Del figured.

For a moment he regretted dragging his friend back into the bureaucratic world he’d escaped. If anyone deserved his peace, it was Gene. But twenty years in politics had given the former governor a way with sticky situations, and Del’s predicament was about as sticky as a fresh roll of flypaper.

“What do you know about alien residency requirements?” Del asked, ending the small talk. Propping his elbows on his knees, he leaned forward in his wing chair. In the matching seat next to him, Elisa sat back, her ankles and knees pressed together and her hands in her lap.

“You don’t sit in the governor’s chair in Texas without going around the block a few times with the INS.” Raising his sterling eyebrows gently, Gene studied them both across the desk. “I take it Ms. Reyes is the alien in question?”

Del didn’t consider it was his place to talk about Elisa’s situation, so he waited for her to explain. A heartbeat passed, then another, before she inclined her head stiffly. Silently.

Damn the woman’s pride. It would be her undoing.

“I understand you were engaged to Eduardo Garcia,” Gene said softly.

Again she simply nodded, ending with her chin high. She looked noble, genteel, bearing her fate with the serenity of a Madonna. And beneath it all, despite her best attempts to cover it up, she looked sad.

“I’m sorry,” Gene said, meeting her gaze head-on and holding it. If Del wasn’t mistaken, his simple sincerity earned him a notch of respect from Elisa.

“You are not at fault,” she said.

Del felt the disclaimer like a kick in the gut. They all knew who shouldered the blame for this situation.

“We need to know how to get her green card even now that Eduardo is… Even without Eduardo,” he said, forcing his jaw to release its clench.

Gene’s eyelids drooped sadly as he broke eye contact with Elisa and looked at Del. “If the marriage never took place—”

“There’s got to be some way,” Del said.

Gene thought. “Do you have a marriage license? Any documentation?”

Elisa hesitated only a second before shaking her head.

“Then I’m afraid there’s nothing—”

“She’s pregnant,” Del cut in harshly. “It’s Garcia’s baby. An American baby.”

“Not until it’s born, it’s not,” Gene said gently. “And not without Garcia around to acknowledge it as his. There’s no way to prove—”

Del shoved to his feet, rocking his chair. “Are you saying she’s lying?”

He surprised himself with his fervor. Who was he to leap to her defense? He was not exactly her knight in shining armor.

Gene warned him off with narrowed eyes. “I’m saying that the INS will not document this baby as an American citizen without proof. Proof we don’t appear to have.”

“We’ll do a DNA test.”

“Four or five months from now, when the baby is born, maybe. But Ms. Reyes will have been deported by then, most likely. Even if you find facilities in San Ynez to run their end of the procedure, you’re going to need Garcia’s DNA to match to. The exhumation order alone could take months. Then after the matching, there’s INS applications, interviews—”

“Are you telling me it’s hopeless?” Stalking across the room he rubbed the knotted muscles in the back of his neck. “There’s got to be a way to keep her here.”

“I didn’t say it was hopeless,” Gene said. “Just that it wouldn’t be easy.”

He raised his head. “So where do we start?”

Gene focused on Elisa. “With a soft bed and a hot meal.”

Elisa’s eyes widened.

Gene turned to Del and said, “Ms. Reyes looks like she could use some rest. Why don’t you show her upstairs to one of the guest rooms while I go see what I can wrangle up in the kitchen? Tomorrow I’ll make some calls, see what I can find out.”

One look at Elisa and Del realized Gene was right. She sat with her back straight and her shoulders square, but her almond complexion had paled to chalk and her neck was corded with strain. Blue circles dragged her eyelids down. She looked like a woman holding on to her dignity by her last fingernail.

She didn’t want her fate in the hands of politician; she’d made that clear before they’d arrived. But there was nothing more to do tonight. Del doubted she’d be happy about staying with Gene, but she couldn’t stay with him. There was a line between honor and insanity, and taking a beautiful, vulnerable, untouchable woman to his tiny apartment definitely fell on the crazy side.

Gene’s offer was generous. This was the best place for her. The only place for her, he told himself as he led her into a room decorated in peonies and lace and smelling like water lilies. At least every time she looked at Gene through those fathomless dark-chocolate eyes of hers, she wouldn’t be looking at the man who ruined her life.

So why, as he said his goodbyes and closed the door on the fear she tried—unsuccessfully—to hide from him, did he feel as if he was abandoning her?

The room belonged on the pages of a storybook. Elisa stood in the center and turned a slow circle, taking it all in. Ruffles exploded from every seam of the comforter covering the huge four-poster bed. The gauzy canopy over it matched the drapes filtering the sunset through the window. The water pitcher on the cherry wood dresser looked antique, and the carpet underfoot was as thick and soft as the moss floor of a rainforest.

She sat on the edge of the bed and ran her hand over the cover. As a child she’d dreamed of having a room like this. She’d played make-believe and pretended her cot was a mattress as soft as a lamb, like this one, and that sheets full of fresh-smelling flowers like these surrounded her while she slept. But she wasn’t a child anymore. In a few months she would have a baby of her own to care for.

Randolph had said she would be deported. She couldn’t let that happen. Her baby didn’t have a chance in San Ynez.

She had to leave tonight. La Migra couldn’t deport her if they couldn’t find her. She didn’t know what kind of life she and her child would have here, but it had to be better than the certain death that awaited in her country.

She lay down on her side, her knees drawn up and her palm spread on her belly. Downstairs she heard voices still. The ranger and the politician. She would have to wait until the house was quiet to make her escape. Until then she would rest. She was tired. So tired…

She closed her eyes. With the sound of his voice drifting up to her, his image formed in her mind. They both stood on clouds of lace and ruffles in a soft, beautiful place. But a great wind kicked up, buffeted them, and then she was falling, falling and beneath her the ranger waited, his strong arms open, ready to catch her.

“Everyone’s looking for a fall guy, Coop. And you’re the most likely candidate. Getting mixed up with her isn’t going to help your case.”

Leaning his hips against Gene’s kitchen counter, Del folded his arms over his chest and scowled. “What am I supposed to do, let her be sent back to that hell hole she came from?”

“I’m not sure you’re going to have much choice.” Del’s scowl deepened. “Hold on, now,” Gene said, raising his hand. “I didn’t say we couldn’t work on it. But face it, in the end, you may have to let her go.”

The possibility left a hole the size of the Grand Canyon in Del’s chest. He wasn’t ready to face it yet. Wasn’t sure what he would do if it came down to it. He wasn’t just trying to save Elisa Reyes, he realized. He was trying to save himself. From a long, slow death by guilt. “What do you know about the investigation?” he asked to change the subject.

“Not much.”

Del snorted. “When you ask questions, people answer. And I know you’ve been asking questions. You’ve got to know something.”

“Nothing I should be telling you.”

“Come on, Gene. You’re not going to stonewall me, too, are you? I just want to know what’s going on.”

The creases in Gene’s face deepened. He aged a decade in the span of seconds. “They’ve got one dead gun dealer and one dead security guard. Nothing to suggest it’s not exactly what it looks like. An innocent man caught in the crossfire.”

“They verified his employment, that he was supposed to be working that day?”

“Ten minutes after the shooting.”

“And he’s not in any our of the databases, NCIC, Interpol? No ties to smuggling, gangs, drugs, any of the usual suspects?” If it could be proven that Eduardo Garcia had somehow been part of the gun deal gone bad, it would mean that he’d willingly put himself in harm’s way for the purpose of criminal activity. In the eyes of the law, he, then, not Del, was liable for his death. The investigators would declare it a good shoot.

Del would be vindicated. Not that it would make him feel any better.

Gene shook his head, deflating Del’s hope. “He’s so clean he squeaks.”

Desperation left Del’s throat raw. “What about the two that got away? Maybe they know something.”

“No sign of them. What about the woman? What did you get out of her? She know anything?”

Del’s head snapped up, eyes narrowed. “Is that why you think I brought her here? To find out what she knows?”

“She didn’t tell the DPS guys much. It occurred to me you could help your case if you got her to talk.”

Del cursed, loudly and violently, before yanking the back door open and stepping out. Gene caught it just before it slammed shut behind him. He chuckled. “Calm down, boy. I didn’t mean anything.”

When Del turned, Gene stood on the stoop with his hands in his pockets like a recalcitrant teen. “The hell you didn’t,” Del accused.

“All right, so maybe I just wanted to hear you deny it myself.” He took a step into the grass. “And if I question your motivations, you know others are going to. You’re taking a big risk hooking up with her.”

“What was I supposed to do, leave her lying on the side of the highway?”

“No, don’t suppose you could have done that.” Hands still in his pockets, Gene rocked heel to toe, waiting.

Del turned his head up to the sky. The stars were coming out on another perfectly clear Texas night. “It’s my fault, Gene.”

“And now you gotta fix it.”

“Yeah, if I can.”

“You can’t save them all, Del.”

Del didn’t want to think about that, not here, not now. No, but I can damn sure try to save this one.

But that thought pealed through his mind like church bells all the way back to the carriage house. In his apartment he couldn’t concentrate on the book he’d been reading for the maelstrom in his head. He couldn’t unwind, so he made himself a cup of decaf coffee and went out to sit on the back stairs to the apartment. Usually he found the view calming. He could see all the way to downtown Dallas. Watch the big lighted ball on top of Reunion Tower turn.

He could see that all was right with his corner of the world.

Only, tonight nothing felt right.

What if he couldn’t save her?

No. He refused to think that way. He couldn’t bring Garcia back to life. Maybe he couldn’t even repair the damage to his career or fill this great, yawning emptiness inside him. But he could damn well keep Elisa Reyes in the United States where she and her child would be safe.

He stopped, the surety of that one thought gusting through him like a gale-force wind. Whatever it took, he could not let Elisa Reyes be sent back to San Ynez. Whether she wanted his help or not, she would have it. He owed her that much.

And Del Cooper damn well paid his debts.

Elisa hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but she’d been so tired. The men’s voices—the politician and the policeman—had droned on. She’d listened, but her eyelids had grown heavy.

Now the night, and her chance to escape, was almost over. According to the clock by the bed, dawn would break in another hour, and she panicked as she remembered last night’s conversations.

She couldn’t go back to San Ynez. She wouldn’t let them send her.

Anger and fear razed her nerves, making her hands shake. She’d come to America to start a new life for her child. Eduardo was gone, but he would want her to stay, to give their child that life even without him. How could a parent not want that?

Silently Elisa rose and found her boots, her bag. She’d seen two cars in the garage the ranger called the carriage house last night. It didn’t take long for her to find the keys hung neatly in a cabinet by the door. Apparently the politician counted on the iron gate around his property and the ranger who lived above his precious cars to protect them. The lock on that cabinet wouldn’t stop anyone.

Inside the convertible with the leaping jaguar on the hood, she fumbled with the keyring. Quietly. She had to be quiet, or the ranger would hear.

Pushing the only key she hadn’t yet tried into the ignition, she dropped the whole ring. Ay, Diós. Then she crossed herself for her transgression. When she bent her head to retrieve the keys, the seat creaked beneath her. The rich smell of leather filled her senses as she groped around the floorboard.

When she finally got a grip on the keys and raised her head, she found the ranger standing just beyond the front bumper. His thick forearms were folded over his broad chest, and the starlight behind him gave his gray eyes a silvery glow, pinning her in place.

“Going somewhere?” he asked.

Breaking the eye contact, she shoved the key home and twisted. The engine purred to life. Before she could put it in gear, though, the car dipped and jounced. She jerked her head up. Her eyes widened at the sight of the ranger’s boots clomping across the polished hood. He easily hopped over the windshield and landed in the seat next to her. “Don’t mind if I tag along, do you?” he asked. “Just to make sure Gene gets his car back.”

She flinched at the implication that she was stealing the car. Of course, she was stealing the car. But it was necessary. Her child’s life was at stake. “Let me go,” she said, angling her chin.

Casually he reached over and switched off the ignition. “I can’t do that.”

“Why? What do you want from me?”

“Nothing. Except to help you.”

“So that you can clear your conscience?”

His eyes turned cold. “Lady, it’s going to take a lot more than you to clear my conscience.”

“Then let me go.”

“Go where? San Ynez?”

Her anger flared to match his. Her hands clenched around the steering wheel. “No. I can’t go back there.” Going home meant certain death. She couldn’t escape the soldiers with a baby.

“Where, then?”

“I will find a place.” She could take care of herself. She’d been taking care of herself—and a lot of other people—for eight years now.

“On the street? What kind of life is that?”

“Is it worse than starving in San Ynez? Being hunted by military police who protect the coca fields and massacre their own people?” She forced herself to take a deep breath. “I will survive.”

“And your baby?”

Elisa’s cramped stomach muscles fluttered, reminding her of the child within. She could take care of herself, she was sure of that. But a baby? She could stitch an open wound with a sewing needle, defuse an antipersonnel land mine with a screwdriver and a stick. But she knew nothing about babies. Delivering them or caring for them.

He had a way of striking at the core of her fears, this ranger.

“At least he will have a chance,” she said, laying her hand protectively over her middle. Del followed the movement with his eyes, his lips tightening.

“There is another way. For both of you.”

She didn’t want to ask how. Wouldn’t trust him even when he answered, despite that dependable-looking face and the sincerity in his expression. But how could she keep silent with all she had at stake? “What way?”

“There are immigration lawyers. They can appeal your case to the INS.”

“So that La Migra knows right where to find me when they’re ready to throw me out? No.”

“Gene Randolph has contacts in the State Department. He might be able to push something through. A hardship application or political asylum.”

Elisa laughed in disbelief. “Put my fate in the hands of Immigration and a politician?”

“Give the system a chance. No one wants you to suffer because of what happened to Eduardo.”

To her horror, her eyes suddenly warmed, watered. Despising the weakness, and blaming it on hormones, she blinked back the tears. “I trusted the system once, in my country,” she said, when she was sure her voice wouldn’t shake. “I went to the university and studied economics and English. I worked within our government to build industry and commerce. I spoke to student groups about making our country stronger, improving trade relations with America and Europe. I was giving this speech when a colonel in the army of San Ynez, Colonel Sanchez, decided he should run the country, not the elected president. With the troops behind him, he overran the presidential palace. Presidente Herrerra was taken to sea and killed, and Sanchez became our new leader. I was thrown in jail, chained and interrogated as a dissident for three days before I escaped with my brothers. So forgive me if I do not easily trust the system.”

She expected the ranger to be shocked, then to argue that that was San Ynez. This was America. The great, infallible America.

He surprised her. His expression warmed, not with anger, but with understanding. His mouth almost smiled, as if a weight had been lifted from the corners with the making of some great decision. He covered her hand on the steering wheel with his, lifted it, held her fingers lightly. His hands weren’t smooth; she knew that from other times he’d touched her. But for the first time, she realized she liked their coarseness. Roughened hands were a sign of strength. A symbol of a man’s dedication to a cause, be it chopping wood or plowing fields. She wondered how Ranger Cooper had earned his calluses.

“Okay then, don’t trust the system,” he said, his voice a smooth contrast to his rough hands. “Just trust me.”

She stared at him, unsure what to say next. She couldn’t trust him. He was policía—the worst of the worst in her country. But something about him tugged at her, made her want to believe. Perhaps just her emotions, run away again.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking the last few hours, and there is one sure way to guarantee you can stay in America.”

“Eduardo was the only way.” Her voice sounded faraway, small.

“No,” he said. He paused. When she brought her eyes back to his, his chest rose and fell with a single deep breath before he spoke. “You can marry me instead.”

Chapter 4

“¿Estas loco? I cannot marry you!”

Elisa jerked her hand from the ranger’s. The soft scrape of his callused palm on her fingertips shot a tingle of awareness up her arm. Or maybe that was just shock. A physical reaction to an emotional jolt.

Marry him? He could not be serious.

But one look at his pewter eyes, glowing in the dim light, convinced her that he was serious. Deadly so. He did not just stare at her. He focused his entire being on her. He looked at her as though the rest of the world had faded away, as if nothing else existed except him and her and the moonlight and the ridiculously expensive car in which they sat.

The supple leather seat groaned as she scrambled away. Pulling her feet onto the seat, she jammed her back into the corner between the passenger seat and door and drew her knees to her chest. Even at this distance, the ranger was too close, too sincere and much too intense.

“It wouldn’t be a real marriage,” he explained as calmly as if he were showing her how to use a blender. “I mean…it would have to be legal. But it would just be a piece of paper between us. It wouldn’t mean anything. Not really.”

She knew he was talking about…intimate relations, and decided not to respond to that implication. Sex with the ranger was the last of her worries. Too outrageous to ponder. “It would mean a great deal. It would mean I would be bound to you. Dependent on you.”