Hidden Prey (Lawmen) (25 page)

But enough of that
, he told himself. He focused on the here and now.
Soon Alejandro will be home
.

Life was good.

Little traffic was on the two-lane highway as Tori drove the rented white Camry with Landon in the passenger seat. She had finally stopped shaking from all that had happened this morning.

The late afternoon sky was the color of famous Bisbee blue turquoise—a beautiful blue without the greenish hue of traditional turquoise. The sky was clear of any clouds and the day was warm.

George Fallon had rented a car in his name at a car rental agency after they’d wiped down the truck and had parked it at a campground in the Huachuca Mountains. The truck would be found soon enough, but it had been a place where no one should have noticed them leaving it.

Tori glanced at Landon, whose left arm was in a sling, as they left Bisbee’s town limits. “How far is it to your ranch?”

“Twenty miles from Bisbee and twenty-five from Douglas.”

She looked back to the road. “You think we’ll be safe there?”

“Right now it’s the safest place I can think of.” He watched her as he spoke. “Now that the phone with the tracker has been destroyed, I think we’ll be fine. How are you holding up?”

“I should be asking you that.” Her stomach twisted. “You’re the one who’s injured.”

“I’m asking you.” He focused his intense gaze on her as he repeated his question. “How are you holding up?”

Tori’s dark hair swung around her face as she shook her head. “There are too many dead, and now you’re injured, just because I saw a man being murdered by the cartel.” A bleak feeling settled over her. “How much more is going to happen before I testify against Alejandro Jimenez and those two men?” She stared directly in front of her at the yellow centerline flashing past on the two-lane highway. “If I live long enough to testify.”

“You’re going to be fine.” Landon gave her a reassuring look. “You’ll be safe at my ranch. No one knows you’ll be there.
No one.
Not even my superiors.” He looked grim when she glanced at him. “It should be impossible for the cartel to find you at my place.”

Should be
echoed in her mind.

Landon added, “And as far as the cartel is concerned, we’re dead from the explosion.” He blew out his breath. “At least until they identify bodies and body parts, but that should take at least a day if not longer.”

Tori shuddered.
Dead.
She and Landon could have died in that explosion like O’Donnell and Danson likely had.

When they reached the turnoff to his ranch, she pulled the car off of the paved road and onto a dirt road. In the distance she saw sunlight glittering off metal. As they grew nearer, she realized it was the tin roof of an outbuilding near a good-sized ranch style home. Other buildings were nearby as well.

When they reached the house, Tori parked next to a large black truck then killed the engine. Even though he was injured, Landon still managed to climb out of the car with a smooth masculine ease. She liked to watch him in action, his movements so decisive and purposeful.

A windmill behind Landon’s ranch house creaked as the wheel turned from the strength of the wind, and the pump moved up and down. Tori looked up at the tall structure and watched it for a moment. She hadn’t grown up on a ranch like Landon had, but she’d seen windmills such as this one before. They made her think of times long since past, days in the Old West when they’d been widely used to pump water for personal use and for livestock.

She walked by his side as they headed up a pathway that led to a porch. Desert landscaping was to either side of the pathway. When they had walked up the steps to the porch and reached the big front door, he unlocked it before turning the knob and stepping aside so she could walk past him.

His home had an open floor plan with only a breakfast bar separating the kitchen from the living and dining rooms. The vaulted open-beam ceiling gave the house a large and airy feel to it.

The place looked like a bachelor’s pad with mostly bare walls and not much in the way of décor, but she liked the simplicity of it all. The coffee-colored leather couches were overstuffed and bound to be comfortable, and there was also a recliner and a big wooden rocker. A hat rack was beside the door with two cowboy hats and an assortment of ball caps. A long black duster and a leather bomber jacket both hung from coat hooks on the wall near the hat rack.

A messy pile of magazines lay on one end table, two stacks of books on the other. Most of the paperbacks were westerns, but she also saw a hardcover biography of President John F. Kennedy as well as a hardcover on World War II.

On the coffee table was a tablet next to a travel mug. It must be his personal device since he’d used another one for work. She wondered if Landon read news and books on the tablet, too, or stuck with print. A lot of people still hadn’t embraced the digital age, but she had already seen Landon at work and that he was just fine with both electronic and print media.

He tossed his keys into a hand-woven basket on a table near the front door and she added the car keys to the basket as well.

When he abruptly turned to face her, she almost ran into him. With his good hand, he took her by her upper arm, catching her off guard. Her heart thrummed as she looked up into his eyes. They were so green, so beautiful, that she couldn’t look away.

He slid his hand over her shoulder and up, and then cupped her face in his palm. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you all day.” His words were a sexy rumble that sent a shiver of excitement through her. He lowered his head and brushed his lips over hers, back and forth in a slow, easy motion.

She breathed out her sigh of pleasure against his lips. He brought her closer to him, his arm around her waist. His kiss was slow and sensual and she never wanted it to end.

When he drew away, he rubbed his thumb over her cheek and looked into her eyes. “I’ve been looking forward to that.”

She gave a wry smile. “Running for your life can sure put a damper on things.”

He pressed his lips to her forehead. “I could use a beer.” He nodded toward the kitchen. “How about you? I have red or white wine, too.”

Mind still reeling from the kiss, she followed him to the kitchen. “It’s a little early for me, but after last night I do believe a glass of red would be wonderful.”

The kitchen was filled with sunshine from a skylight that shone off the stainless steel appliances and the dishes in the dish drainer. The place wasn’t spotless—it was what she called man-clean—but it wasn’t bad.

“I have frozen dinners in the freezer.” Landon looked apologetic. “I’ve never been one for cooking.”

“Well, I am.” She glanced around the kitchen, taking in what he had. “Cooking is one of my favorite things to do. I often do it just to relax.” Her gaze returned to him. “Why don’t I fix an early dinner?”

He leaned one hip against a counter. “I have to say it would be nice to have a decent home-cooked meal. Other than Sunday dinner at my mom’s, I live on frozen dinners.”

“Let’s do it.”

“But first a drink.” He reached into a cabinet with his good arm and brought out a wine bottle and glanced at her. “For a red, I have Merlot.”

“Perfect.” She smiled. “I can help.”

He reached into a cabinet and brought out a wine glass. “How are you at using a corkscrew?”

“If I don’t ruin the cork I’ll be doing well.” She took the bottle from him along with the corkscrew and went to work.

She successfully removed the cork, a minor triumph since she was usually about fifty-fifty at getting a cork out with a simple corkscrew and not getting small pieces of cork in the wine. He took the bottle from her and poured wine into the glass. He grabbed a bottle of beer out of the fridge and managed to open it on his own and set the beer on the breakfast bar. He carried the glass of red wine to her before picking up his own bottle.

Tori raised her glass. “To survival.”

Landon clinked his bottle against her glass. “Survival.”

After a sip of wine, Tori set the glass down. “Let’s see what you have as far as food goes.” She pointed to a door. “The pantry?”

He gave a nod. “All yours.”

Tori went to the pantry and searched it. She looked over her shoulder. “This is about as well-stocked as a safe house.”

He leaned against a counter again. “In other words I need to go shopping.”

“We just had spaghetti the other day, and it looks like another pasta dinner from what I see in here.” Tori gathered a package of ziti from the pantry, along with cheese from the fridge, pork sausage from the freezer, and a few other odds and ends. She set it all out on the counter and got to work.

Every time Landon was around Tori, he wanted to run his hands over her soft curves, slide his fingers into her hair, and get lost forever in the depths of her dark eyes. He wanted to kiss her senseless and he wanted to be inside of her again.

He hadn’t felt this way about any woman since Stacy. He’d expected to feel guilty for being attracted to another woman, but with Tori he didn’t feel as if he was betraying Stacy’s memory. It was almost as if Stacy was telling him it was time to move on.

Was Tori the right woman to move on with? She was a witness and it was his job to protect her, to get her safely to and through her testimony, and that was it.

Well, he’d gone way past that when he’d spent the night with her. Way past.

Landon insisted on helping by making garlic toast with inch-thick slices from a loaf of Texas toast that he’d had on the countertop, plus butter and garlic salt. He managed pretty well for a guy with one useful arm.

When he finished getting the garlic bread ready, he took a stack of newspapers off of a stool at the breakfast bar and set the papers aside. He sat on the stool and studied Tori as she fixed dinner. She always moved gracefully and he remembered what she looked like when she played her clarinet. He frowned. Damn, her clarinet had been lost in the explosion.

A thought occurred to him. “Do you play guitar?”

She looked at him. “A little. It’s an instrument that I’ve wanted to improve on for a long time. I just haven’t fit it into my schedule.”

“I can show you a few things on mine even though I can’t play with this bum shoulder.” He leaned back in his seat. “I’m not exceptional by any means, but I know my way around a guitar well enough to play a tune or two.”

“I’d love that.” She gave a small smile that was sad, too. “Now that the clarinet my parents gave me is gone, I’d love another distraction.”

“Good.” He wanted her to really smile, but he wasn’t sure if it was possible after all she’d been through. “I’ll get it out after dinner.”

It wasn’t long before dinner was ready. For a macaroni dish, the ziti was terrific and he ate three helpings. She’d also steamed a package of broccoli that she’d taken out of the freezer and served it as well as the toasted garlic bread.

Tori was quiet during most of dinner and he had no doubt her mind was churning through everything that had happened.

“I want to know how my parents are.” She looked up from her plate and met his gaze. “I want to make sure they’re all right. Can’t we call?”

“We can’t take the chance.” He leaned forward, his forearms on the breakfast bar as he looked at her. “I turned off my phone so I can’t be tracked and we took care of yours at Beth’s house. I don’t want anyone to figure out too soon that we made it out of there alive.” His mind weighed every option he could think of. “And right now, I don’t know who the hell to trust.”

“I’m scared, Landon.” She looked down and away. “How long can I keep running before they find me?”

He touched the side of her face and gently made her look at him again. “I’m not going to let them hurt you. Trust me.”

“I do trust you,” she whispered. “You’re the only person I trust.”

Would she still feel the same way when he told her that he was the one who had killed her brother during the drug raid? Was now the right time?

No time would be a good time to talk about it. But it had to be done.

He opened his mouth to tell her about her brother, but she spoke before he could. “Where’s your guitar?”

“In my bedroom.” Maybe it was better to wait when she wasn’t already upset about what had become a terrifying ordeal for her. “I’ll throw the dishes in the dishwasher, and then grab my acoustic.”

“I’ll help.”

When they finished, he retrieved his guitar and they both sat on the couch. When he handed it to her, she immediately held it correctly and strummed a few chords.

“Needs a little tuning.” She looked thoughtful as she tuned the guitar. She had an excellent ear, which was no surprise.

They spent the next hour or so with Tori playing the guitar. She played tunes that she had already learned on the guitar and he taught her a country song. She looked surprised but pleased as he sang along.

“You have a wonderful voice.” She smiled when the song ended. “Do you sing often?”

He shook his head. “Not even in the shower.”

She laughed. It was a light, carefree sound and for a moment it was as if she’d forgotten what was tearing up her life, and the danger she was in.