First Temptation (7 page)

Brooks lifted one shoulder. “He’s tolerating me.”

Taft met Rio’s gaze. “Do Brooks and I—officially—work together?”

Her gaze snapped up from the menu. “Shut. Up. Yesterday he said, and I quote,
‘Because of the nature of the store, you’ll have to work together.’
”

“That was a different context.”

“Taft…” she warned.

“
Taft
.” Rio’s voice rose with interest. They both looked back at him. Found him smiling. “We’ve moved from Walker to Taft.” He nodded in approval. “So what’s the concern you need to talk to me about?”

“A threat against Brooks,” Taft said.

“No.” She glared at him. He could feel it on the side of his face.

“Yes,” he countered. “Ask her about her last night on the job.”

She kicked Taft’s shin. He gritted his teeth.

The waitress interrupted, poured coffee, and took their food orders.

“I heard about it,” Rio said, his tone as even as always, but there was something in his eyes that told Taft a burr was wedged under his saddle. “Seven Diablos, shitload of cocaine, Brooks starring as James West of
The Wild, Wild West
.”

“You know how those guys puff everything up—” she started.

“Cameras and audio don’t lie.”

Taft’s gaze darted from Brooks to Rio. “You watched them?”

“Sure did. If one of my investigators is creating buzz, I’m going to know what it’s about.”

“I did nothing wrong.” She forced her voice level. “And there was nothing haphazard or reckless about my actions. It was a good bust.”

“You took down three men, Zoe, when each of your men took down one.”

“One of them
ran into
my ATV. Another one dropped to the ground. They fucking caught themselves.” She lifted her hands. “And since when is stellar performance a problem?”

“When it puts you in harm’s way.” Rio said the words slowly and clearly, his green gaze warring with Brooks’s.

She held his stare. Silence stretched. But Zoe finally swallowed and cleared her throat. “I should have…let the last guy go.”

Rio slumped back against the booth, his expression as defeated as Brooks’s. “You would have gotten another go at him in a couple of days.”

Zoe let out a dry, self-recriminating laugh, nodding.

Taft ached for her. Lessons were never fun. But this one, when she’d been trying to do good, had gone above and beyond and achieved that good, and being told she’d overstepped in front of Taft… That was hard to swallow. He was humbled by her strength of character.

‘’Now what’s this threat?” Rio asked.

Taft glanced at Brooks, and when she didn’t show any interest in relaying the information, he did. When he was done, Rio sat back in the booth. Draped his arm over the back. Let his gaze go distant into the restaurant as he chewed on the inside of his cheek.

“I called my shift supervisor last night,” Brooks said, back to her steady, straight-forward self, “and explained everything. He’s looking into it but hasn’t heard anything to suggest there is any threat against any Border Patrol agents, let alone a female agent.”

“That doesn’t mean there isn’t one floating deeper, at the root of the cartel,” Rio said.

“The smugglers know how hard we come down on anyone who takes one of our own. They know—”

“Which could be why they’d want to take you out, because of Cody.” Rio sat forward in an abrupt but smooth move. “They’d know you’d be out for blood. They’d know you wouldn’t let one damn smuggler pass if you could help it—for justice or revenge, it wouldn’t matter.”

Taft’s brain zeroed in on this Cody. Someone who’d meant something to Brooks. Something big that Taft didn’t know about. He cast a look at her and found her mouth hanging open, struggling for words.

Taft’s chest tightened in her defense. She’d taken a lot over the last couple days. “Hey, Rio—”

He put up a hand to Taft. Didn’t even look at him. “I only watched part of the aerial video, but I read the entire report. That information wasn’t there. Why not?”

“Taft told you, I didn’t…remember.” Her voice lost some force. Taft willed her to stay strong. “I didn’t remember until Cantos was in the shop and introduced himself with his full name.”

Rio sat back, his gaze fierce. Not angry, but concerned.

Brooks took a deep breath. Then another. Taft feared she was about to break, and didn’t know how to handle it. He absolutely didn’t do freak-outs or tears. It wasn’t a guy thing. He’d decided long ago it was an actual phobia. One created by a lifetime of living with his mother’s bipolar disease and his hopeless attempts to help her. In fact, that experience with dependence, neediness, clinginess, and self-absorption had created a dysfunctional distaste for any hint of that within a woman and was why Taft didn’t do serious.

But instead of breaking down, Brooks said, “I absolutely don’t want anything to do with this assignment if my identity could put Walker at risk. Since that is obviously an issue, I’m going to pull out. I’m sorry, Rio. Thank you for the opportunity. I really appreciate it. I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

She pressed a hand to Taft’s thigh. “Let me out, please.”

“Boss?” Taft covered her hand with his but didn’t move. He looked at Rio with a sense of panic he neither liked nor understood. “Pulling her now could be a real problem. Cantos was obviously into her. Couldn’t take his eyes off her. If he comes back, it sure as hell won’t be to see me.”

Rio pulled his phone from his pocket and made a call. “Yeah, hey.” He described the situation in brief and asked for deep intel from inside the Diablos. When he hung up, he said, “It could take a few days to get word back. Lay
low
.”

Seven

ZOE FELT AS IF SHE’D BEEN TURNED INSIDE OUT and left in the desert for three days.

Her emotions were way too involved in this. Of all the assignments when she needed her emotions in check, this was that assignment.

“You know he wasn’t saying what happened to Cody was your fault.”

Walker’s voice seemed loud in the truck’s cab and made Zoe startle. She’d never believed Cody’s death had been her fault, but she had always wished she could have done more to prevent it.

“I know.” She pulled her gaze from staring at nothing, redirected it out the windshield, and answered the questions Taft had asked her the night before. “I was wearing a tactical vest that night, which covered the name embroidered on my uniform. In the field, we use nicknames, never our real names. And my name would also be on the incident report and the arrest record, but the aliens going back to Mexico aren’t entitled to any documentation. Ortiz, the guy from the other night, didn’t turn out to be a return offender, so he was transported back to Mexico City this morning. It’ll be at least a week until he tries to get over the border again. And I introduced myself to Cantos with my alias, Brooks Kelly.”

Walker remained silent. Her mind drifted over the night of the incident and caught on the confrontation with Ortiz again during processing. “Oh, shit…”

Walker’s head turn sharply toward her. “Zoe?”

When he used her first name like that, his voice concerned, she went all soft inside. She couldn’t afford to go soft right now. For him or herself.

“Take me home, Walker. I need to pick up my car.”

He didn’t argue. Just changed course.

The truck stopped, and Zoe focused out the window. They were already at her townhouse. Her brain was so scattered she hadn’t recognized the passage of time. Regardless of whether or not Ortiz had gotten her last name, whether or not he’d passed it on, whether or not anyone had connected it to her posing undercover at Incognito, she wasn’t together enough to work with Walker right now.

“Thanks,” she murmured as she opened the door and slid to the ground. “I’ll see you at the store later.”

Zoe heard him calling her name. Her first name. She really needed to talk to him about that. Later. Right now she just needed to find some quiet. Some space.

She lifted her keys to the lock on her door but couldn’t fit the damn thing. Her hand was shaking.

“Shit.” She brought her other hand up to steady the first.

Another hand closed over hers. Big, bronze, gentle but firm. One of his arms slid around her waist. Zoe closed her eyes. Steeled herself.

“Are you hard of hearing, Brooks?” he muttered, jamming the key in the lock and snapping it sideways.

He pushed her inside and closed the door.

Hold it together.

She walked five feet away and turned to face him. “Thank you, for…for…” She couldn’t label everything right now. “I just need a few minutes to get my head on straight, okay? I’ll be fine. I just… I’m just…rattled. I’ll be fine. I—”

“I know you’ll be fine, Brooks. I know you’ll pull yourself together. I know you’ll get your ass back out there on the front lines and do your job.”

His hands were dug into his hips, elbows wide, hip cocked, gaze intense. He looked so damned sexy. Zoe recognized that thought for the distraction it was—to avoid the heavier, harder thoughts lurking.

“But you’re not going to do that until we talk,” he said. “That’s part of this undercover gig. When you work with a partner undercover, you have to be able to nearly read each other’s mind, whether you want to or not. Whether you like each other or not. Because too often, being able to know what’s going on with the other person is what can save your life, or the other person’s life.”

She sucked in a breath as a fist of hurt slugged her gut. Her gaze jerked to his.

“And no,” he said, “that was not a reference to Cody, but you obviously took it as one. So we should start there. Tell me about him.”

Shit.
No.
“Why?”

“I just told you why. And if that wasn’t enough, Rio thinks that whatever happened with him could play into what might be a problem now.”

She wrapped her arms around her waist and wandered to her small dining room table. With her back to Walker, she traced the edge of the inset tiles with one finger. “He was one of my guys. One of my team. He was killed when we took down a group of immigrants last year. Another group sent over by the Diablos. Another load of cocaine.”

She closed her eyes on a shot of bone-deep pain as the senselessness of his death cut through her. She’d never been able to think of Cody without remembering the way his blue eyes had clawed to hold on to hers in those last seconds. Or the heaviness of his body in her arms after his soul had gone. Or the way his blood continued to run over Zoe’s arms for what seemed like forever after his heart had stopped beating.

She opened her eyes to banish the images. Pressed her palms hard against the table and leaned her weight into it.

“But Rio’s right,” she said. “I hadn’t thought about the Diablos wanting to get rid of me from that angle. Only from the angle of my team having been so successful against their cartel. We’ve been unstoppable since Cody’s death. We’ve been…obsessed, yes…” She shook her head. “But not reckless. Rio was wrong about that. I never risk my men’s safety. Never.”

“But you risk your own.”

Walker’s voice was deep and understanding and right behind her.

“I never intend to. Things happen fast out there. I just…do my job the best way I know how.” But Rio and Taft had made her realize just how razor thin that line between duty and obsession had become. How easily her disregard for her own safety could become disregard for her men’s.

His arms slid around her waist, his crisp hair tickling the patch of exposed skin across her belly. He leaned over her, pressed his chest to her back, his cheek to hers from behind.

He felt so good. Like the swallow of hard liquor at the end of a hellish day, the way it burned through the chest and gut, promising blessed, mindless relief to all the haunting pain and trouble.

“Now tell me,” he murmured in her ear, “what you remembered in the truck.”

“Walker, I really need a little time—”

“Stop calling me Walker when we’re alone. I like hearing you say my name.” He took the top of her ear between his teeth, then licked the edge all the way around, sending a shiver over her shoulder. “And tell me what you remembered in the truck, Zoe.”

If his touch was the first swallow of hard liquor, his voice was the second and third. Sizzling and smooth and sliding into her veins.

“I…was covered in mud after,” she said, curving her fingers over the edge of the table’s wooden sides and holding tight. “I had that meeting with Rio, so my guys processed Ortiz for me while I jumped in the shower and changed my uniform. But when I came out, he saw me, got all pissed off again…”

Her mind stepped through the moves she’d made, but Walker was making her dizzy, like she’d downed one Tequila shooter too many.

“He twisted away from the agent and lunged toward me. He was cuffed; there was no real threat. All I did was keep him from falling on his own face and slammed his chest into the cell bars. It all happened in split seconds. I can’t imagine he saw my nametag, but…” She knew she couldn’t take the chance. “I’m not waiting for Rio’s intel. I’m pulling myself off this.”

She tried to straighten, but Taft tightened his arms.

“You’d let go of the career opportunity you’ve been waiting for?” he asked, his voice edged with disbelief. “A major break against the cartel that killed one of your guys?”

Whether Taft’s disbelief stemmed from his opinion of her as stupid or foolish, she couldn’t tell. And she didn’t care. She only had to live with her own decisions, and she couldn’t go back and make changes to that night Cody had been killed. But she could make changes now.

“Nothing is as important to me as your safety.” She felt the truth of that deep in her heart. “There will always be another load of drugs. Another weapons deal. Another smuggler to run the border. Another dealer to take Cantos’s place. But there’s only one Taft Walker. I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize that.”

He let out a breath and lowered his head, pressing his open mouth to the skin of her neck. Tingles spread across her shoulder, and Zoe’s body arched into the pleasure. Her butt rubbed a solid rod of heat. Taft growled low in his throat and bit down on her neck.