Her Only Protector (3 page)

“My wife and I were just having a little fight. That's all. A disagreement.” The stranger didn't appear rattled, but Sonny guessed it was probably an act. How could he not be terrified by staring into the barrel of a gun only a few feet away?

“It's done,” she said quietly. “He's letting us go. Thank you,” she said to the guard. The less said, the better.

She stared straight ahead and started to walk toward the boarding gate, leaving them all behind. It took considerable strength to keep her breathing easy, as if she had every right to be holding this baby in her arms and taking her through the security gate and out of Colombia for good.

Of course, she did. But if Eduardo Sanchez had anything to say about it, the law in Colombia might not agree with her.

“Sorry to disturb you,” she heard the stranger say to the guard. But he came up behind her, taking her arm again and pulling her back. This time the other guard blocked their progress with his gun.

Sonny's heart stopped cold in her chest.

The last call was made for boarding. It was now or never. She needed to be on that plane, not embroiled in a disturbance with the local police. The baby started crying and the loudspeaker drowned out whatever the guard was barking at her. The other guards were watching them with renewed interest.

Digging deep in her soul, she gathered up all her strength. Pasting on a smile, she reached out and kissed the strange man square on the mouth.

Turning back to the guards, she said, “See? It's over. Just a simple lovers' quarrel. You know,
riña?
Sweetheart, our plane is leaving. We need to go.”

The stranger's eyes bore into her. With surprise and determination in his voice, he said, “We'll take another flight. I forgot my ticket.”

Sonny's stomach churned as she caught the impatient looks from the security crew. She couldn't see the boarding gate beyond security, but she knew the ground crew would only wait so long before they'd close the door without her and she'd miss her chance to get back to the United States—maybe forever.

“I…I'll meet you back home then. I'm sure you can get another ticket. I don't want to miss this flight.”

“Look,” the man said, bending toward her so only she could hear. “These guards are about as curious as kids on Christmas morning. You give them even the slightest reason to arrest you, they will. If you're lucky. Otherwise, we'll both be going home. In body bags. Again,
if
we're lucky.” He smiled tightly as he pulled his head away and looked down at her.

The guard motioned with his gun for them to move on. She wanted nothing better. But the stranger was pulling her in the opposite direction.

She could make a fuss, but that would only give the guards a reason to detain her, check her papers and maybe confiscate her passport. She and Ellie were going to need them to board the plane in Colombia and get past customs in the U.S.

She couldn't risk it. Word was probably already circulating that the baby was missing. It was only a matter of time before Eduardo Sanchez rallied his men to find her. She couldn't risk the guards looking any closer at Ellie.

“Come on,” the stranger said, pulling her away from the boarding gate.

The door leading to the tarmac closed and Sonny's heart sank. She thought of Lucia and all that she gave up to help rescue Ellie. How could she have failed her so miserably? And Ellie's mother, Serena. If Sonny didn't get this baby back to the U.S. safely, how could she ever face her sister-in-law again?

As tears filled her eyes, she glanced in desperation at the people in the terminal and wondered if it would hurt or help to try to get through the door to the tarmac and charge to the plane. She noticed that her little pretense had been enough to satisfy the guard, who had moved on to another group of people trying to get through security with a large bag.

After everything she'd overcome in the past few weeks, the last obstacle was a two-hour flight to Miami and the nightmare would be over.

Through the window, she saw the door to the plane close as a member of the ground crew pulled the mobile stairs away from the plane. Her father would be waiting for them in Miami when that plane landed. So would Tammie, who was Dylan's fiancée and Serena's sister. And so, of course, would Serena. She could only imagine how devastated they would be when she and Ellie didn't get off that plane to greet them.

She only had one choice now. With her resolve set, she turned and faced the stranger.

“Y
ou mind telling me just who you are?” Sonny said. Ellie cried out at her harsh tone and she quickly wrapped her arms around the baby to comfort her so she'd quiet down.

The man looked straight at her, his jaw tight and his dark eyes hard. She had the feeling he wasn't in the mood for grilling. Well, that was just fine by her. She wasn't in the mood for him ruining everything she'd worked so hard to accomplish these past weeks.

His eyes scanned the area around them, but he kept still. He was probably checking to make sure the guards had moved on. They had. In a low voice, he said, “I need to talk to you.”

“You make me miss my flight and then expect me to talk to you? Forget it! I need to go book another flight.” Hopefully she'd be able to get a flight today although the next flight to Miami wasn't until the morning. It didn't even matter where the plane was going as long as it landed somewhere in the United States. Maybe she could cash in her direct flight to Miami for the flight to Houston that she'd seen posted for later in the day. She needed to call her father, but she could do that as soon as she had a ticket in hand.

He chuckled and shook his head, his dark eyes filling with amusement. “Gotta tell you, I didn't expect that kiss but it seemed to do the trick with our trigger boys back there. I thought for sure we were done for and I wasn't relishing the idea of spending the next six months in detainment. What made you think of that?”

“I couldn't help myself. Must be your dazzling charm. You owe me some answers. Who are you and how do you know my brother?”

“Does it really matter?”

Anger surged through her. She tried to rein it in but her voice got louder as she spoke. “You bet it does, bucko. You are responsible for preventing me from bringing my niece back to safety.”

“Whoa, whoa. Keep your voice down. I hear you, and whatever you have going on here with the baby doesn't concern me. You just need to tell me where your brother is hiding, and then you can go on your merry way.”

She blinked back her surprise. “I don't need to tell you anything. I don't know you.” She eyed him suspiciously. “What makes you think I know where Cash is?”

“Why else would a good girl like you be hiding out in Colombia?” He glanced at the baby. “With your
niece.
”

He took her arm again, lightly but firmly, as if he didn't want to leave a bruise but still wanted a good grip. Then he started walking her toward the exit. It was then that she noticed two new guards watching them from the front door.

Terrific. That's all she needed. She started walking with him, keeping her eyes straight ahead. When she reached the point where the guards were standing, she gave them a quick smile and continued walking.

Her brain was racing. If she could get away from this man she and Ellie could hide out in the restroom again, or maybe sit in the corner of a restaurant in the terminal. She could find a phone in a quiet place and call the hotel in Miami to warn her father that she hadn't made the flight. Once she was out of sight, she could quickly modify the plans that Lucia made. But reports might be all over the news by then about Eduardo Sanchez's missing “adopted” baby. Maybe there was an earlier flight to the U.S. than the Houston flight. It was risky, but it could be done.

She glanced back through the glass doors. The guards were observing them. Closing her eyes, she muttered a short prayer as she continued to walk.
Lord, you've brought me this far. I know You'll bring us the whole way home.

Sonny realized that, whether she liked it or not, she was probably going to have to stay the night in Colombia. Her first priority was to get away from this man and the attention he had brought to her. In order to do that, she'd have to leave the airport. The problem was she didn't know her way around Cartagena.

Sonny shook the thought from her head. She couldn't fail. Not just for Cash and baby Ellie. But now for Lucia. She had no choice but to get away from the airport. At least for now.

“Now that you're done hiding, you can give me the information I need,” the stranger said, breaking into her thoughts.

“I wasn't hiding. I was on vacation,” Sonny said. “You know, people
do
have vacations.”

“Sure they do. You were on vacation,” he said sarcastically. “And my name is Alice and I live in a place called Wonderland.”

“I guess I can call you Al, then?”

He threw her a wry grin and pushed the door open. Sonny scanned the parking lot to see if anyone was paying attention to them.

“Come with me. I have a ride waiting for us.”

Sonny knew that the last thing she needed was to have to flag down a taxi. She'd heard that taxi drivers in Cartagena happily snowed you if you didn't know the city. However, it was still safer to take a taxi than walk anywhere. American tourists with American dollars were targets for criminals.

The fact that she was still on airport grounds put both Ellie and her at risk. But could she really take a chance on this guy and his ride, whoever that was?

Another problem dawned on her as the sun beat down on her head. She was almost out of money. She'd paid for the hotel room and her meals with cash. Colombians liked U.S. dollars and there were enough tourists down here that American cash couldn't be traced back to her. But she'd stayed longer than she'd expected and had gone through her reserve. She had a credit card, but credit cards were way too traceable, and she knew she needed to be careful.

Careful? Yeah, right. They'd done everything as planned and Lucia was still dead. Except for the fact that this little baby who was now crying loud enough to drown out the street noise was finally in her arms, it had all gone wrong.

Sonny wanted to cry, too, but she bit back the tears. There'd be time for that later. It wouldn't do either of them any good if she broke down now. It certainly wouldn't get her on that plane that was taxiing down the runway on its way to Miami.

“Oh, Lucia,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “I promise I won't let you down.”

“What was that?”

They were still standing on the curb and for a moment, Sonny had forgotten someone was with her.

She pushed away thoughts of Lucia and fought for composure. “Who are you and how do you know my brother?” she asked again.

He put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. Sonny tried to cover Ellie's ears, but the baby was flailing as she cried.

“I don't think anyone is going to appreciate your breaking their eardrums.”

“It's hot and we're sitting ducks here. It's time to go.”

A car rolled to a stop in front of them. The man stepped off the curb and opened the back door, gesturing for her to get inside.

“This is our ride. Get in.”

She shot him a disbelieving look. “Are you out of your mind? What makes you think I'm going to get into a car with you before I even know who you are?” Sonny asked, knowing full well that she had no other option.

“Gillespie Waite. You can call me Gil.”

“That's it?”

“I introduced myself.”

“I'm not getting in that car until you tell me what I want to know. People have a bad habit of disappearing in this country and this baby and I are not going to end up on that list.”

He stared at her, considering what she'd said. “You don't have to be afraid. I'm not here to hurt you.”

He smiled and for a fraction of a second, he didn't look as suspicious as he had in the airport.

“And?” she pressed.

“I was hired to find your brother. Cash Montgomery is your brother, isn't he? He was arrested in Chicago on drug trafficking charges and then fled before his hearing.”

“Says you. My family and I know he was framed. Who hired you?”

“His bail bondsman. You can take up the ‘framed' theory with him and the federal prosecutor.”

“What's the bail bondsman's name?” Sonny couldn't remember the name offhand but she was sure she'd recognize it if he told her. She wanted to know if Gil really knew it or if he was just giving her a line to shut her up.

“Does it matter?”

“To me it does. You've just ruined my chance of getting this baby out of Colombia safely.”

“You said that before.” He leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “I wouldn't go yelling that too loudly. Especially since something tells me you're not exactly running with the law yourself right now.”

She stifled her defeated sigh. “The name?”

“Telling you the name of the bondsman isn't going to change the fact that you and the kid need to get into the car before we draw any more attention to ourselves than we already have. As I've told you, these guards are trigger-happy. We may have fooled them inside the airport, but we won't get lucky like that twice.”

“You call me missing my plane lucky?”

He continued, his voice booming over hers. “All they need is just a hint of a reason to put some pressure on that trigger and let those bullets spray. It doesn't even need to be a good reason. And they don't care how much of a mess they make. Get my drift? 'Cause they're not going to do the cleaning up.”

She did know. She knew what kind of people her family was dealing with. It pained her to think that Cash had fallen into the hands of men who were so willing to do him harm, the likes of which had already been done to Lucia.

Gil held the door to the backseat open. Sonny fixed her eyes on him, taking in the hard look of challenge on his face. She was up to that challenge, but how could she drag Ellie into it? If she screamed, the authorities would come running and she had no doubt it would end in bloodshed, just like Gil said. Every instinct she had told her it was a bad idea to go with this man. Isn't that what self-defense classes taught women? You're as good as dead if you get into the car?

But he knew about Cash. And in her arms was Cash's little daughter, a baby that Lucia had just given her life to free—despite what Torres had said, she knew Lucia's death was because of Ellie. She had no idea where Dylan was or if he was any closer to locating Cash. In a way, Gil was all she had.

And dead was dead, whether by his hand or the guards who had their own brand of justice. She could only hope he'd have mercy on the baby. “What's in this for you?” she said, trying one last time for information.

“I take your brother back to the U.S. for prosecution before the bail needs to be paid and I get a nice bonus for my troubles. That's the way it works.”

“Do you take us, too?”

The words were out of her mouth before she had time to think about what she'd said. The surprise in his eyes mirrored what she felt. But it was the only way. She'd come far, but she couldn't do this alone. She needed help and if she worked this right, she and Ellie might be able to get back to the States alive.

“Look, you're the one who is responsible for me missing my plane. I don't have any more money to pay for food or hotel rooms. If you're going to detain me until you get whatever information you think I have—”

“Go on. Get in,” he said quietly.

She closed her eyes and sighed softly. Ellie was still fussing, though much more quietly than before. She needed a diaper change and a bottle, neither of which she'd get while Sonny stood there and debated.

Gil was after money. She was out of it. He wanted her brother. She wanted safety for all of them. If Gil could find Cash, that was just an added bonus, wasn't it? With her plane long gone and the airport guards suspicious of her, she had only one choice. She had to go with him.

She stepped off the curb and into the backseat, hoping she hadn't just made the worst mistake of her life.

 

They'd ditched the other car twenty minutes ago for a nondescript tourist vehicle that blended in with all the other rentals on the road. It didn't have that new-car smell that cars in the U.S. had. This one had been used. A lot. It was an older model that would have been traded in years ago and sold on a used car lot back in the States.

Sonny wasn't complaining—it had provided a place for her to change Ellie's diaper and put a bottle together to feed her.

Gil didn't say anything about where they were going and Sonny didn't ask. She was emotionally spent, relishing the quiet and grateful for the opportunity it gave her to say a silent prayer to the Lord. He'd brought her this far. Much farther than she'd thought was possible. The fact that she was now holding her brother's daughter in her arms was proof of His grace. That alone held her disappointment and frustration at bay.

If Dylan knew what was going on, he'd have a cow—Sonny was sure of it. Both Tammie and Serena had wanted to make the trip, but it was too dangerous for them. The very people who'd kidnapped Ellie were still out for vengeance on their family and would recognize Serena and Tammie immediately, especially since they looked almost identical.

The car turned down a side street. Sonny braced one arm on the seat in front of her to stay upright with the baby in her other arm. No car seat. She lost good-aunt points on that note. But she hadn't expected to be in a car with Ellie again.