Beautiful Sacrifice

CHAPTER ELEVEN

LINA WOKE UP WITH A START WHEN THE JEEP SLOWED AND took an off-ramp leading to a street. Houston’s flash and glitter was nowhere in sight. Nothing but an overcast night and car lights whizzing by on I-10. Her neck hurt from sleeping against the window and her skin was chapped from scrubbing blood off in a gas-station restroom on the outskirts of Houston.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“South Padre Island.”

She rubbed her eyes. “The beach. That explains the salt smell.” She must have slept for hours. “Any word on Jase?”

“He’s out of surgery.”

The tightness around Hunter’s mouth made her stomach sink.

“And?” she asked unhappily.

“Still critical. Ali’s parents are with her, taking care of the kids.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Not your fault, any of it.” He stopped for a light. “You warm enough?”

She shifted the jacket he had put over her. “Yes. What about you?”

His eyes checked the mirrors as regularly as breathing. “I run hot.”

The sound of air rushing and rippling over the canvas top was white noise, something she had stopped hearing after the first half hour on the road.

“Are we being followed?” she asked.

“I lost them after the gas station.”

Scattered lights told of houses and strip malls hacked out of scrubland and stilted above storm tides.

“If no one is following, why are we here?” she asked.

“Because we have to assume that whoever wants you has my Houston address by now. Ditto for Brownsville and my uncles’ homes. My cousins have kids. I don’t want them in the line of fire.”

She opened her mouth, closed it. There was really nothing to say. He was right. She should have thought of it herself.

“My uncles are working their contacts,” Hunter continued. “They hear something good, we’ll hear it.”

“You’re obviously more used to this kind of thing than I am,” she said. “What do you do when you disappear for days or weeks at a time?”

“I work for the family security company.”

“Doing what?”

“Securing whatever needs it,” he said.

She didn’t give up. “What does that mean?”

“Exactly what I said. My uncles’ company specializes in cross-border security issues for corporations and individuals.” Hunter’s glance flicked to the mirrors again. Still nothing that ruffled his instincts. It was late enough that traffic was light, which made checking for tails much easier.

“Where were you the past two weeks?” she asked bluntly.

“I missed you, too,” he said, smiling.

“Hunter—” she began impatiently.

“My most recent job was outside of Cozumel,” he said before she could rip a strip off him with her sharp tongue, “ransoming a rich debutante who thought that bad things only happened on TV, and that getting knee-walking drunk was safe in a Mexican dive.”

“Was it dangerous for you?”

“It had its moments. They decided to up the ransom and threw a bullet tantrum when I refused. I grabbed the young mistress of the universe and beat the bad guys to the airport.”

“No wonder you weren’t shocked by what happened in the garage,” she said.

“Don’t bet on it. A friend’s blood is always shocking. I’ve just had more experience on the adrenaline ride than most. It doesn’t hit me as hard on the up or the down.”

She let out a long rush of air. “Remembering to breathe is the hardest part for me.”

“Harder than holding a bloody rag against a wound?”

“Philip wouldn’t let me go on a dig with him until I could handle weapons and had a basic understanding of field medicine,” she said neutrally.

“How old were you?”

“Nine. I had to prove myself every summer I spent with him. The tests got harder every year.”

“Sounds harsh,” Hunter said.

She shrugged. “It was useful. I stitched and bandaged more than one deep machete cut. It was years before I understood that Philip upped the difficulty every summer because he wanted me to fail. When I figured it out, I confronted him.”

“What did he say?”

“He didn’t answer. He usually doesn’t.”

Hunter’s mouth tightened but he kept it shut. She wasn’t the first child to have a dickhead for a father and she wouldn’t be the last.

Even at this time of night, Gulf Boulevard’s party houses were flashing like beacons. With the ocean just across the boulevard, it was always vacation time for high-school and college kids, and the older men who preyed on them. The fact that it was the holiday season just put a more colorful gloss on the hunting grounds.

Hunter took it all in without really seeing it. He was looking for the unusual, not the routine.

He turned the Jeep off the boulevard and entered a long, sandy, cracked asphalt driveway leading away from the ocean. The beach house he headed toward was small, one-story, on stilts, and old enough to have lived through too many of the Dirty Coast’s hair-raising hurricanes. A latticework fence shielded the space between the floor of the house and the ground.

When Hunter turned off the Jeep, Lina heard the muted breathing of the surf beyond the boulevard, flat waves lapping against the sand. The salt air was sticky on her skin, cooler than Houston had been, but still warm enough to make the thought of walking on the beach alluring.

“You need help getting out?” Hunter asked as he came around the Jeep.

“I’m not a baby.”

“No argument there,” he said, standing next to her, close, breathing in her presence. “But I’m betting you’re stiff from playing on concrete and then taking a long drive.”

Lina took off her seat belt, grabbed the purse she had hung on to through all the chaos, and started to slide out. It was a good thing she used the roll bar to steady herself, because Hunter was right. Her knees were crying. He braced her until she worked some of the stiffness out.

“Bad?” he asked.

“Not enough to matter.”

But she didn’t pull away from the arm encircling her waist. She liked it there. She liked having Hunter close. He smelled of cheap restroom soap with an underlay of darkness, salt, and man.

Breathe, she reminded herself.

She did, and felt his scent race into her lungs, her blood. The sudden uptick in her heartbeat owed nothing to fear and everything to being a woman close to a man she wanted.

This is crazy, she told herself.

No. Crazy is what I’ll be if he doesn’t step away.

Nothing that had happened during the day had made Hunter less appealing to her. Everything he’d done had simply increased what had already been a compelling sensual lure. She tried not to lean on his strength, but he was there and her legs were stiff, he was warm and she was cold.

She hoped he didn’t know how much she needed him close, then closer. This afternoon she had learned the difference between almost-blackmailers and murderers. In her new world, Hunter was an angel. A dark one, yes, but they were the most intriguing kind.

“Doesn’t look like much, but it has what we need,” Hunter said.

Still holding her, he leaned back into the Jeep. One-handed, he snagged his computer from under the passenger seat. When he straightened, his breath was against her ear, his arm around her waist comforting…and more, much more.

She forced herself to look away from him, to tear through the sensual web weaving around them, binding them closer.

The coastal scrub was kept away from the house by the concrete walkway that was covered with a fine coat of sand and a fringe of dirt that was blue in the moonlight. Toad calls and insect noises ebbed and flowed with the sound of the waves. The front steps were weathered gray wood.

“Looks real good to me,” she said.

“I haven’t been out here to clean up for a while,” Hunter admitted. “I’ve been too busy with work to come to Uncle Danny’s summer place.”

“You’re sure he won’t mind us using it?”

“I talked to him on the phone while you were asleep. He told me the usual.”

“Which is?”

“To leave it better than I found it. He probably wants me to fix the gutters or something.” Hunter sounded more amused than irritated.

Motion sensors kicked on. Spotlights pointed the way to the weather-beaten porch. There was a scurry of critters racing for the shadows.

“Just like being on a dig,” Lina said, laughing.

“So long as they stay outside and don’t bite, my uncle don’t pay them no never mind,” Hunter said.

His drawl sounded just right, like he’d grown up with it. One accent for the city, one for the country.

Another light went on inside the house. At the end of the driveway Lina saw a tiny garage. Its door was closed.

“Is your uncle here now?” she asked.

“No. He only likes Padre in the summer. Then he complains about all the damn people. Think that’s why he likes it,” Hunter said. “Under all the gruff, he’s a people person.”

“What about you?”

“What do you think?” Hunter asked with a sideways look.

She smiled slightly. “I don’t think you’re a people person.”

“Gold star on your forehead, sweetheart. I’m real choosy about who shares my time. An hour wasted on social chitchat is an hour of my life I’ll never get back.”

“And here I am, invading more than an hour,” she said unhappily.

His arm tightened, pulling her even closer, until she could feel the flex and play of his thigh along her hip. The easy power of him pleased her in ways that kept surprising her. She’d never been much for the macho type, having seen way too many of them in Mexico. But Hunter…Hunter simply was what he was, no fuss, no bother, no strutting.

“You can invade my life anytime you like,” he said, “for however long you want. Besides, I’m a blackmailer, remember?”

“Better than kidnappers and murderers.”

“I’m relieved.” And he was. He didn’t want Lina angry to be in his company. He simply wanted her.

Hunter stepped up onto the narrow porch that ran along the front of the house. Computer in one hand, he pulled a key from his jeans pocket with the other. Despite the weathered appearance of the door, the lock was bright and well oiled. The door opened without a creak or grind.

“Come on in,” he said.

He put his computer on a dusty table and headed straight to a surprisingly complex security system across the room. Quickly he punched in a long code. Lights on the panel flickered from red or orange to green.

“I bet your uncle installs security systems along with rescuing debutantes,” Lina said, setting her purse next to his computer.

“It was the original business. Then things started going to hell south of the border and he expanded the menu options for customers. Personal security training, threat evaluation, kidnap negotiations, bodyguards, whatever the customer wants—as long as it’s legal.”

“So you’re a bodyguard, too?” she asked.

His mouth flattened. “Only when I don’t say no fast enough, and only for very short periods—corporate meetings across the border and such. I don’t have the social skills to be a high-level bodyguard. And I don’t want them.”

You could guard my body anytime, Lina thought immediately.

She had just enough self-control left not to say it aloud. For the first time in her life, she wanted to have the kind of affair that women wrote memoirs about. With Hunter.

“So your uncle comes to a crowded place and complains a lot,” she said, struggling for a neutral topic. “Does he complain about other things?”

“Only on the days that end in y.”

She laughed softly. “Sounds like Abuelita. ‘Why don’t you dress better, Lina?’ ‘Why don’t you have a man, Lina?’ ‘I can’t wait forever for my great-great-grandchildren.’”

“Children are a gift,” he said without thinking as he locked the door behind them and reset the security system.

“You sound like you have personal knowledge,” Lina said.

And then she held her breath, waiting for his answer.

“I do. Did. She and her mother died.”

Lina’s hand went to Hunter’s arm. She wanted to say she was sorry, but the words were so useless. She put her arms around him and held him, just held him, wishing she could take away the kind of pain that no one should have to know.

“It was years ago,” he said, holding her in turn.

“Not for you,” she said huskily. “It’s there every day you wake up, fresh as dawn.”

His arms tightened. For long minutes they just stood, sharing warmth and life. Slowly Hunter released her. It was that or take her to the nearest flat surface and eat her alive. But she was too vulnerable right now and he had just enough self-control left not to take advantage of her.

“Maybe I should sic my uncle on your abuelita,” he said.

Lina took a shaky breath. “Abuelita would shred him. In Mexico, any woman who has even the smallest measure of power has to be tough and smart enough to know where and when to use it. Manipulate, manage, and never get caught with your hand on the power switch.”

Hunter laughed softly. “Every culture has its version of a dragon lady.”

“There’s a reason. Patriarchy creates them every time.” Lina took another long breath. “What’s that smell?”

“Dust.”

“No, not that. The flowery one.”

“Plumeria. My uncle won’t pay to have the house dusted, but there’s a gardener to pamper the greenery.”

Lina thought about the army of workers who attended the Reyes Balam estate. It was something she had taken for granted as a child. As an adult on her own, she appreciated the luxury of the estate and understood that it went two ways. The men and women of the nearby villages had steady, lifelong work on the estate, money to feed their children and to celebrate their religion. Celia sponsored the brightest kids through high school. The ones who had ambition she sent to college or technical school, whichever the child chose. Reyes Balam depended on the villagers and they depended on Reyes Balam.

“Uncle Danny claims he hates all the flowers that my aunt planted and loved,” Hunter said. “But after she died a few years back, he hired someone to keep the flowers alive.”

“He loved her,” Lina murmured, wondering what it would be like.

“Still does.” Hunter pulled the sheet off the low, Danish Modern couch. The smell of dust rose, then settled beneath the perfume from outside. “But you’d have to shove glass splinters under his fingernails to get him to admit it. I used to think that was funny. Now I understand.”

“You loved your wife,” she said.

There was a taut silence, a near-silent rush of breath, and then Hunter spoke in a neutral voice. “I got Pauline pregnant when I was eighteen and she was seventeen.” He smiled thinly. “Sometimes the party lasts longer than the party hat.”

Lina waited. Hunter didn’t show anything on his exterior, but she sensed the cost of every word he said.

“Little Suzanne was the light in my life,” he said after a moment. “Four years later Pauline told me I wasn’t Suzanne’s sperm donor. Her boyfriend was out of jail and she wanted a divorce so she could live with the man she loved. I didn’t want to let go of Suzanne, but I believed a child had a right to live with her father and mother. The three of them lived on alimony and child support until the drugged-out son of a bitch met a long-haul rig head-on at over one hundred miles an hour. The trucker got a few broken bones. Pauline and Suzanne died instantly. Her lover took a week to die. I hope he hurt like hell on fire every second of it.”

Lina didn’t know what to say, so she simply watched Hunter methodically tear off more slipcovers from the furniture.

“I didn’t particularly love my wife, but I loved my little girl,” he said finally. “How about you? Any great loves in your life?”

She had to swallow several times before she answered. His neutral voice and seething emotions made her want to weep.

“No,” she said. “No loves great or small. Living north of the border for seven months a year and south of the border the rest of time…” She shrugged. “When I was old enough to live on my own, I was too hooked on the thrill of the digs to worry about spending quality time on anything else.”

Silently Hunter folded slipcovers and put them in a tiny hall closet. He wasn’t about to say the truth out loud: he was glad she hadn’t found a man, married, and settled down before he had ever known her.

Lina studied the furniture. Unlike life, it was all clean lines and smooth surfaces. The colors were solid earth tones and blacks, as if the clock had stopped at a very fashionable 1954 and never started again.

“The bedrooms are back here,” Hunter said. “We’ll need to get into town early and buy clothes and supplies.”

“And then what?”

“See what my ICE contacts and my uncles come up with.”

“I should be at the family estate soon,” Lina said. “I promised Mother and Abuelita.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing your family home.”

Silently she absorbed the fact that Hunter assumed he was going with her. She started to object, but didn’t. Everyone was always harping on how she should bring a man home to meet the family.

Hunter was all man.

“No argument?” he asked.

“We have to assume the objects came from the Yucatan,” she said.

“Looks like it. More important, the tools who tried to grab you came from there. Right now I’m as worried about you as I am about Jase.”

Lina gave Hunter a startled look. “Jase is in more danger.”

“He’s under guard in the hospital. His family is under guard. He’s safer than you are.”

“Under guard?”

“I talked to Stu Brubaker, Jase’s boss. I told him straight up that he had sent Jase blindfolded into a firefight, and if anything else happened to him, Brubaker’s political ass was on my firing line.”

She looked at Hunter’s eyes and saw the predator she had always sensed beneath his easy movements. It didn’t worry her. Life had taught her that it was better to have a predator with her than against her.

Predators were strong enough to be gentle.

“I bet the boss didn’t like that,” Lina said.

“From me, no, but he got to the bottom line even before I called. He put the guards on Jase and his family. Right now Brubaker is backdating files to make it clear that Jase was officially working undercover for him on a very politically sensitive project.”

“Wasn’t he?”

“In a back-door kind of way. The files make it up front, which means that Jase was shot in the line of duty. Uncle Sam will take care of the bills. Every last penny of them. If Jase comes out of this injury less than one hundred percent, he’ll get full disability whether he stays in the field or not. Jase’s choice.”

She cleared her throat. “Sounds like you and Brubaker had quite a chat.”

“In our family, we call it a come-to-Jesus talk. Brubaker’s a good man underneath the bureaucracy. It shook him hard to see Ali and the kids. Reminded him that more than an attaboy from the vice president was at stake in this sorry game. And Brubaker’s plenty savvy enough to know that his career is gone if he doesn’t take real good care of Jase.”

“So he won’t fire Jase over the artifacts even if they aren’t found?”

“Not while I’m on watch. Brubaker and I have a Mexican standoff on that subject. If my guess is right, he’s quietly twisting arms to get his hands on some objects that are close enough to pass at the repatriation ceremony. Since we’re talking truckloads of goods already slated to be handed over, and there was no hoo-ha over Jase’s artifacts in the first place, it should work.”

“Then you don’t need me anymore. Jase’s job is safe.” Lina’s voice dried up as she looked into Hunter’s eyes. They were intense, focused solely on her.

Hunter shook his head. “Sweetheart, you couldn’t be more wrong. You’re not going anywhere alone until I know who and what this El Maya dude is. He pulled the trigger on your kidnapping. And Jase.”

“My family has bodyguards,” she pointed out. “Everyone with money in Mexico does.”

He nodded. “Ever think that some of the money your family has might not be clean, and that’s a reason for you to worry and for men to be after you?”

She bit back her first response, which was a snarling denial. Finally she said, “I’ve never believed that my family was involved in anything truly illegal.”

Breathing in Lina’s scent, Hunter waited.

The silence drove her to speak. “Celia sometimes lives on the thinnest edge of legal, but she knows how not to fall off. My father could make a fortune skimming artifacts, but he’s too obsessive about them to let them out of his hands. As long as the family supports his digs, he has no reason to risk the black market for money. Being in charge of a dig is all Philip really cares about.”

“Okay. Abuelita sounds a little old to be actively involved in the illegal artifact or drug trade.”

Lina smiled. “Especially when I call her chichi, which is Mayan for ‘grandmother.’ She’s my mother’s grandmother.”

“Anyone else?”

“If you researched the family, I’m sure you know Carlos was a small-time drug dealer/user back when he was called Carlitos. Abuelita put a stop to that little rebellion. Carlos cleaned up and began doing manual labor for Philip on the digs. When Carlos was old enough to be respected and respectable, he took over running the family cement business. Ultimately, he became a successful cross-border businessman and a respected amateur Mayanist.” Lina faced Hunter directly. “Am I missing anyone on your mental suspect list? Just give me their names and I’ll tell you what I know.”

“Simon Crutchfeldt,” Hunter said.

She blinked with surprise but didn’t miss a beat. “One of Celia’s best clients. He both collects and resells.”

“Reputation?”

“Depends on who you talk to,” Lina said.

“I’m talking to you.”

“I don’t like him professionally or personally.”

“Has Crutchfeldt ever been arrested?” Hunter asked.

“Not that I know of.”

“Would he be a likely receiver of Jase’s missing artifacts?”

“He’s too smart to keep them,” Lina said. “He’s not obsessive like Philip or true collectors.”

“How about being a go-between?”

She let out a long breath. She really didn’t like some of Celia’s clientele. People like Crutchfeldt were why. “It’s possible that Crutchfeldt is a middleman for illegal transactions.”

“Anything is possible,” Hunter said. “How about probable?”

Lina felt like she was being harried into a corner. “All right. Yes. My mother deals with some despicable people. Crutchfeldt is one of them.”

Callused male fingertips brushed over Lina’s lips. “Easy, sweetheart. I’m not attacking you or your family.”

“It sure feels like it.”

“Nobody’s one hundred percent pure,” he said. “Nobody. Once you accept that, life gets a lot easier.”

“Tell that to Caesar’s wife,” she shot back.

Hunter’s smile was a flash of warmth stroking her.

“Such beautiful eyes,” he said, “hot as sin and sweeter than an angel. I’m sure glad you aren’t married. Real glad.”

Lina felt the ground shift under her feet. His words, the touch of his fingers on her lips, his smile, everything about him kept her unsettled.

“Hunter, what are you doing to me?”

“Not near as much as either of us would like.” Reluctantly he withdrew his touch from her soft, warm lips. “Damn. We’re both too tired for what I hope you want.”

Deliberately she looked at the fit of his jeans. “You don’t look too tired.”

“I should be. The last two weeks have been hell. Except for you.”

“Go to bed. I’d hate to have you fall asleep before the, er, main event.”

Hunter’s laughter was even warmer than his smile. She couldn’t help laughing, too.

Then his mouth was over hers, his arms pulling her against every hard inch of his body. She hadn’t known she was still cold until she felt his heat. She gave herself to his kiss, the hot strokes of his tongue, to him. He tasted of night and coffee, salt and man, a storm in the tropics. Her fingers clenched in his hair, holding him closer, afraid he was a dream that would vanish between one breath and the next.

“This is stupid,” he said finally against her lips.

“I know.” She burrowed closer, nipping his chin.

With a groan, he stepped away from her. “Help me, here. I’m trying to do the right thing.”

She licked her lips. “You felt right to me.” Then she shook her head like a dog coming out of water.

“Feeling bushwhacked?” he asked wryly.

“Yes. What is it about you? I’m not like this. I don’t just jump into a man’s arms because I like the way he looks.”

“I’d love to take credit for it, sweetheart, but it wouldn’t be true. Adrenaline is the most underrated drug on the market. Worse than booze for tempting people to break their own rules. So I’ll make you a deal. You look at me like that in the morning and I’ll jump you right back.”

She closed her eyes, carefully not looking at him. Then she sighed, knowing he was right. “Tomorrow.” It felt like forever to her.

His glance went over her like ghostly hands.

“To hell with it,” he said, pulling her back to him. “It’s already tomorrow.”