Love Under Two Navy Seals (23 page)

“Shh, baby.” Dev uncurled her fists and kissed the crescent marks she’d given herself on the palms of her hands. She guessed they knew exactly how much that disinfectant had hurt.

“Let’s leave it open to the air, for now,” Drew said.

Julia blinked back her tears. The effort to bear down had cost her, because her head began to pound anew.

“Here.”

She turned to Dev, who proffered a couple of white pills and his canteen.

“Just ASA, but they’ll help.”

“Thanks.” Julia gulped down the pills with a sip of water. She handed the canteen back to Dev.

“Did you kill him? The man who was following us?” She’d thought she wouldn’t ask that, since neither of the men even mentioned the reason Dev had gone off on his own.

Dev gave her a small smile, and then stroked his finger down her cheek. “No, baby doll. He’s not dead, and you don’t need to worry about him anymore. Let’s get you to that shelter. The wind’s picked up, and if we don’t hurry, we’ll get drenched. You’ll feel better once you sleep.”

“You’re a big, tough Navy SEAL and you’re afraid of a little rain?” Julia knew that taunt would make him smile.

He chuckled, shook his head, and then got to his feet. In the next instant she sighed, because Drew had reached down and scooped her into his arms.

“I can walk, you know.”

“Of course you can. But maybe we just like carrying you,” Drew said.

Julia knew her lovers. If one of them had been forced to kill a man—and she had no doubt whatsoever that if necessary, both were capable of the act—their souls would bear the scar of it, whether that man deserved killing or not. More, they’d do everything in their power to keep that taint from touching her in any way. She’d be willing to bet that would be the only thing they might lie to her about.

How did she make them understand that if what they were building together was to last a lifetime, they had to let her carry her share of the load? Sharing meant sharing the bad times as well as the good.

She’d let them get away with their small prevarications for now. She was beyond tired, beyond where her mind could function at its full capacity.

But after she napped, after they’d let the adrenaline flowing through all their systems ebb away, she’d ask him again, and this time she would insist on a complete answer. She would shoulder their burdens just as they seemed determined to shoulder hers.

That was the very definition of a full partnership, and Julia would accept nothing less.

Chapter 16

Ramos carried the body of Juan Pecos out of the shack himself, hiking nearly a mile through the dark terrain. Juan’s certainly wasn’t the first body he’d had to dispose of in his long career. Ramos finally came upon a small ravine with a stream. There, he dumped the lifeless corpse, confident that the coyotes and other feral creatures in the area would find him to be a good meal.

It had always been his preference to provide sustenance for God’s creatures whenever he could.

Enjoying the calm of the Texas night, he took a moment to light a cigarillo, and then strolled back to the shack to await the return of Mr. Talbot. He sincerely hoped
that
minion didn’t disappoint him by killing Alvarez or his woman.

Ramos wanted to save that pleasure for himself.

He envisioned killing the woman while her man watched, helpless. Yes, that would be a good beginning of the punishment Alvarez had earned with his arrogant interference. He knew he had to make his vengeance huge, and make it known to all who worked for him, or who were his competitors. His organization was beginning to crumble beneath him.

Only swift, hard action could save it.

While he waited he used his BlackBerry to access his e-mail, firing off a couple of missives to newer employees, making sure they understood that he was a man who held the reins of control in his tightly closed fist.

First Ramirez, and now Pecos. He supposed it was true, what they said. One just couldn’t get good help these days.

Midnight passed and it was nearly 1:00 a.m. before he heard the sound of a man approaching. He felt one eyebrow go up when Mr. Talbot emerged out of the darkness, alone, his gun drawn.

It would be a mistake to make a wrong move with this man
. Talbot wasn’t in the same league as those who worked for him—those he owned.

This man’s soul would never be possessed by another. It could merely be hired for a time.

“Did you kill them?” He really hoped not. Killing Peter Alvarez was a job Ramos really wanted for himself.

“No.”

Ramos waited to see if Talbot would volunteer more than that. He very nearly reached for his own gun. Only the look in Talbot’s eyes kept him from doing so, kept him still and waiting.

“It occurred to me that you might want to accomplish that feat yourself,” the man said. “Besides, Alvarez wasn’t there. The woman was rescued by two pros. I recognized them, in fact. They’re a couple of Navy SEALs. They took turns carrying her, moving quickly, which means that—”

“She was hurt too badly to walk.” Ramos was very glad to hear it. He began to pace as he assimilated this information. With his woman hurt, Alvarez would be vulnerable. His guard would be lowered, and so there would never be a better time to lay a trap for him, and kill him.

“I was going to say they were racing toward a pickup. That meant untold numbers of reinforcements. I don’t have a problem taking on two men, even if they are Navy SEALs. I draw the line at walking into a trap. Bad for business.”

“Fate, I suppose,” Ramos said. “If we had gotten here just a bit sooner, we would have had her.”

It took all of Ramos’s considerable cunning to appear insouciant. No, he supposed he couldn’t expect a man he’d hired to put himself on the line for him. Fine. He would rebuild his organization, taking better care this time, and then he wouldn’t need men like Talbot.

That meant he had to carry through with his plan himself. But how could he lure his enemy away from his woman, away from that bastion of American wealth? His plan had been to use the woman as bait. Now she was out of his reach and….

Ramos stopped pacing as a bold idea came to him. He turned and gave Talbot a level look.

“You said your partner had Pecos under surveillance in this Lusty, Texas.”

“He
did
. That’s how we knew he’d left town.”

“Where is your partner now?”

“Why do you want to know?”

Ramos felt his temper spike, and had to work at keeping it from boiling over. He wasn’t used to being questioned. He didn’t like it at all.

Then again, he’d been a fool to believe those who gave the appearance of being cowed actually were. Had he not been betrayed twice now by those who’d given him nothing but deference?

Ramos swallowed his pride. He’d learned a hard lesson these past few months, and it was a lesson he would not soon forget. “You said Alvarez wasn’t with those men you followed, the ones who rescued his woman. I was just wondering if you had…what is that American expression…‘eyes on him’ back in Lusty, right now?”

“It was never our assignment to follow Peter Alvarez. You hired us to track Juan Pecos, and that is exactly what we did.”

“But your man would surely be able to know where one Federal agent was in a town that I am told is very small, even by American standards.”

He watched Talbot’s face, looking for some clue as to that man’s thoughts, or his emotions. Mr. Connor Talbot proved impossible to read.

“My partner could do any damn thing he decided to do, if he decided to do it. You hired us to track Pecos.” Talbot looked over at the shack, and Ramos got his point.

The man had headed out after the woman while Ramos had gone inside. But certainly he would have heard the gunshot and understood the result.

Talbot swung his gaze back to Ramos. “I’m assuming that tracking your employee is no longer an issue.”

Ramos tilted his head to one side. “And you were successful in the job I hired you to do. You do not need to worry, the rest of your payment has already been wired to your account.” Ramos held up his BlackBerry to underline his point. “Now, I’d like to hire you to do one more job. I want you to locate Peter Alvarez, monitor his movements. What information I have on the town of Lusty, Texas, tells me they have a clinic there. It’s probably where they will take his woman, as she is one of theirs. They would want their own people caring for her. Yes. That’s what
I
would do.” He paused to rethink his reasoning. It was sound. “You will get me into the town, and give me the information I need so that I may finish this myself. I just need a working knowledge of the town, the clinic, and to have a good idea where Peter Alvarez is when I get there.”

Ramos watched as Talbot checked his gun, and then holstered it. The look he gave him told him nothing. The man looked from the pitiful shack Juan Pecos had used as his hideout, to the aging Ford sedan the man had driven.

He walked over to the latter, hunkered down, and reached under the front bumper. When he stood, he held an object Ramos understood to be the GPS tracking device he’d used.

Then he met Ramos’s gaze. “All right,” he said at last. “We’ll negotiate.”

* * * *

“It’s a good thing I don’t scream when I see rats.”

Drew looked up from splaying his flashlight along the edge of the stall to give her a big grin.

“You’re not the screaming type,” he said. “You’re more likely to kill the little critter with any and all necessary force.”

Julia smiled back. Her smile turned into a yawn. “You have a point.”

Outside, thunder chased the lightning flashes across the sky, and the rain began to fall in earnest. This barn lived up to the adjectives old and abandoned. The roof leaked in some spots, and the structure had provided a home of sorts for several different feral creatures.

Her SEALs had chosen the one area they believed they could make secure. The stall was the largest of the four left standing, and was in the back, west corner of the building.

It hadn’t taken the men long to clean it out—clean but old straw had littered the ground, and there’d been no sign of any nests.

“No holes along the base. That explains the lack of rodent habitation in here,” Drew said. “They’re basically lazy creatures and will take the path of least resistance.”

Dev returned with a piece of board he’d pried from the side of another stall. He laid it across the opening of their adopted refuge.

“Just a precaution. Likely, any critters sharing this shelter with us will do their best to avoid us,” Dev said. Then he looked around. “I’ve slept in worse.”

Julia figured that “precaution” was for her benefit. She appreciated the gesture. Drew had been right—she was more likely to attack a rodent than run screaming away from it. But that didn’t mean she necessarily wanted to demonstrate that ability anytime soon.

“Our bed isn’t going to be very comfortable tonight, I’m afraid,” Dev said. He reached into the pack he’d carried and hauled out the same survival blanket he’d wrapped around her earlier.

“I don’t care. I’m with the two of you. That’s the only thing that matters.” Julia meant every word. She didn’t care where she was as long as the men she loved were with her.

She caught the look that passed between them, but didn’t understand it. “What?”

Dev and Drew locked gazes for another moment, and then Drew turned to her. “What you just said? It honors us and humbles us, and shames us, too. It was our job to keep you safe. We didn’t do that.”

“What…you’re going to tell me now that you’re really from the planet Krypton? That you have super powers, and are all-knowing, all-seeing gods?”

“Baby doll…”

Oh, she knew what was going on in the minds of her men, all right. But how best to put a stop to it? That was a question she didn’t really have an answer for. “Don’t you ‘baby doll’ me.” Julia paced away from them, trying to get her brain to function better. Trouble was, she felt tired and grimy and her brain refused to function any better than it was. The sound of rain hitting the barn soothed her, even as the fresh scent of the falling water lured her.

“After I am clean, and after I have slept, we’re going to return to this argument.”