Perilous Curves Collection (BBW Romance) (23 page)

The kiss and our climax ended.

Behind us, a mocking clap sounded. "You should make a video -- how to train your bitch in just one day."

Chairs scooted across the floor, followed by the heavy thud of a black duffel landing at our feet. A hand gnarled with age thrust a manila envelope at Dino.

"You’ve got two days to get this to the D.F. or you and your little mule…" The old man brought his cane around front. I caught a glimpse of the carved silver rooster head at its tip before he lightly dragged the beak along my throat.

********************

Two hours later, we were on the road. Each attempt at speaking earned a stony side glance from Dino or a terse "not yet."

We stopped once, pulling into an alley behind a burnt out liquor store. He left the van for less than two minutes, forbidding me to do anything but look out the front window. When he returned, we drove south. Eighty minutes later, somewhere between Eloy and Picacho on a dirt road off I-10, Dino pulled up at a rundown industrial-looking building. Putting the van in park, he left the headlights on but turned the engine off. Reaching across the center console, he briefly took my hand. "Moment of truth, little dove. Wait here."

That was it -- leaving the keys in the ignition, he got out, walked behind the building and didn’t reappear. Twenty minutes later, a woman approached the van from the opposite half of the building, her lithe frame illuminated by the van’s headlights. She looked about forty, with short-cropped dark hair. What really stood out was the dark blue nylon jacket she wore over her jeans -- it had a gold star in a circle on the left front, the words "U.S. Marshal" in big print below the star.

Reaching into her jacket pocket, she pulled out a badge. "Miss Williams, I’m Marshal Hollman. Leave the keys and come with me -- please."

She opened the door and I stepped out, letting her lead me into the building. The interior was hollowed out, filled with rusting machinery surrounded by a few ceiling high partitions. Ten feet in from the door we entered, a folding table and a few chairs had been set up. A graying male sat in one of them. His jacket was a darker blue, the lettering on it boldly proclaiming DEA. Above him, a lamp was suspended from the ceiling, its small but intense circle of light like some parody of a cop show interrogation room.

Hollman pointed at the chair across the table from the man. "If you’ll have a seat, Miss Williams."

Listening for movement in the building, I nodded at the man and sat down. Everything was quiet, no sign of Dino -- if that was even his real name. I was starting to think it wasn’t.

"We understand you’ve had a pretty rough day." Hollman sat down and pushed a crop of bangs aside to reveal dark brown eyes. She smiled and pushed an unopened bottle of water toward me. "Do you know what WITSEC is?"

Rough was an understatement and, right at that moment, I didn’t give a fuck what WITSEC was.

"Where is--" Feeling a blush heat my cheeks, I dropped my question, opened the water and took a long drink.

"Agent Ramirez has returned to the field, where I hope you’ll let him stay." It was the man who spoke, his eyes as gray as his hair and openly hostile.

Hollman raised a hand, her previously relaxed gaze cutting in the man’s direction and narrowing. "We’ll get to that, Joe. WITSEC--"

"I know what it is." Realizing Dino had left without so much as a good-bye, I felt myself closing down. I was safe, but I had been abandoned to strangers with just a hand squeeze. I looked at Hollman and tried my best to keep the hurt out of my tone. "What are you offering?"

The short answer was "not much." A fresh start, a new name, a butt load of rules to follow to stay in the program and a good-bye to my teaching degree. Half an hour later, Joe, who still didn’t have a last name, pushed a piece of paper toward me.

"Release from liability..." I quirked a brow at Hollman. "What’s this?"

She shifted in her seat, her eyes darting in Joe’s direction.

Scowling, he pushed a cheap pen at me. "It means you’re not going to sue the government or Agent Ramirez for anything that happened today." Folding his arms across his chest, his scowl deepened. "Or press charges."

Staring at Joe, I forgot to breathe for a few seconds. Did he know? My gaze darted to Hollman. Did she? How goddamn much? My eyes growing moist, I blinked.

Hollman put one hand on the pen, the other reaching across the table to rest lightly on my wrist. "You don’t have to sign this. It won’t affect your acceptance into the program the slightest bit if you don’t. You certainly don’t have to sign it today. You should at least think it over."

"Bullshit!" Joe pointed a finger at me. "You sign it. I can still--"

"Leave us, now!" Hollman rose up, anger staining her cheeks as she pointed at the opposite end of the building. "You don’t have any authority to do jack shit. She’s mine."

I sat there, fuming, while they continued to argue over what could or could not be done to or with me. Hollman called another marshal in, confirming my suspicion that there were more people in the building. Dino -- Ramirez -- had to be there unless he’d left on foot, which I couldn’t imagine. As quiet as the building had been, I would have heard the sound of any engine.

In the end, Hollman and her reinforcement cleared Joe from the area, leaving me alone with the woman.

"I don’t belong to anyone." Doing my best to look her in the eye, I picked up the pen. "And I want to sign -- Ramirez saved my life."

I wasn’t sure it was just gratitude making me sign. If I didn’t sign, it was an admission that something had happened, some injury that I’d had no control over. It made me a victim, took away my consent. And I had consented -- hadn’t I?

I looked at Hollman, uncertain what name I should use. "Do I still sign as Garnet?"

She nodded. "I’m sorry about what I said. Cohen just pissed me off too damn much."

"Yeah." I smiled for the first time since leaving Jaime’s apartment. "I’m betting he has that effect on a lot of people."

Finished signing the paper, I hesitated in pushing it towards her. "Is he still in the building?"

As the last word left my mouth, I heard the dull rumble of an engine starting and recognized the sound as belonging to the van. Confirming my suspicion that it was Dino pulling away, Hollman shook her head.

I bit at my bottom lip for a few seconds until I was sure I could ask the next question without my voice trembling. "Can you tell me his first name?"

"Dean." Reaching across the table once more, she gave my hand a sympathetic squeeze. "Dean Ramirez."

********************

On your feet, Ramirez!

Dean Ramirez peeled one reluctant eye open, the raspy voice of Drill Instructor Theodore Bayhune echoing in his memory.

You have three seconds to stand up or I’ll send your ass back to the barrio, chico.

High noon in the Sonoran desert, the sunlight pierced Dean’s skull. With his left arm and shoulder coated with congealed blood and debris from the desert floor, he tucked his right arm under his torso and pushed up.

One, chico! You missing your mama’s beans and rice? You want to go home, is that it, boy?

A body’s length in front of Dean, a turkey vulture pulled its head from the chest of Oscar Torres, tearing at the old man’s heart with its hooked ivory-colored beak. Dean crawled toward the old man, his knees and one good hand scraping and dragging over rocks and sand.

Two! This aint no fucking siesta, recruit. Get your ass up, now!

Torres had been cowering, cane in hand, behind his remaining gunman as the last bullets had been fired. Locked in a death grip, his fingers clutched at the silver rooster head. Dean jerked the end of the cane, causing the buzzard to dance in agitation.

He lifted the cane, smashed it down, the sound of dead and drying fingers breaking no more than a whisper on the wind. His hand curled around the center of the cane, Dean jabbed its silver-tipped end into the sand.

A pint or more of his blood stained the ground behind him. His arm shook like an old man trying to rise from a rocking chair as he pushed on the cane. Knees wobbling, his feet slid away from one another on the loose ground. His left knee gave out, hitting a fist-sized rock and threatening to send him sprawling face first into the bloody, gaping hole that had once housed Oscar’s heart.

Three! I’m kicking your ass all the way back to East Los Angeles if you don’t get on your feet right fucking--

"Now!" Dean lurched forward, cane and arm flailing for a few seconds before the tip struck solid ground. Leaning on the stick, he dragged a ragged breath in, feeling every last grain of sand that clogged his nostrils and throat.

Water. He needed water, needed out of the heat and into some shade. Without either, he’d die before the sun dropped below the horizon. He squinted, head slowly swiveling as he surveyed the area.

The black Mercedes Torres arrived in had burned through the night, the tank exploding from Feo’s last round. That left the blue rusted Ford truck half a football field away as the only way out. Feo was sprawled face first on the ground in front of it, courtesy of Dean’s final shot.

Half a fucking football field.

Thought you were done, chico? Thought it was time to collect that Eagle, did you? No sirree. First you have to cross the Desert of Death.

"Bayhune." Dean spat a mix of blood and sand at the ground, the spasms in his lungs threatening to turn his legs to rubber once more. Closing his eyes, he could see his former DI -- or at least the ghost of that merciless, tough-as-nails son of a bitch. He was gone now. Dean had helped scrape what was left of him off the
Dasht-i-Margo
in Afghanistan.

That was the true Desert of Death -- not Pendleton, not this place. Half a world away,
Dasht-i-Margo
had claimed the life of more than one Marine. This one would not.

Not today.

Opening his eyes, Dean’s gaze fixed on the truck. Fifty yards, one-hundred-fifty feet, one foot after the other.

Cakewalk.

You want that Eagle, chico?

Eagle, globe, anchor -- he wanted it all. He pushed the cane forward in the sand and then drew his body after it. Slow, single-minded, the pattern of cane-foot-foot repeated as the hours, and the daylight, passed.

He wasn’t going to die here, not today -- not until he’d seen her one last time.

Touched her.

Tasted her.

You want your Eagle, chico? It’s right fucking here. You just have to take it from me -- if you're Marine enough.

Reaching Feo’s body, Dean rolled the dead man over. A delicate strand of silver at Feo’s throat led to a sparkling blue stone splattered with blood. Dean clutched it, jerked once and stumbled through the open truck door and into the cab’s interior.

********************

My first few months in exile, I kept thinking I would return to my new apartment from one of my two part-time jobs to find Dean sitting on my front step. Around month four, I realized that wasn’t going to happen -- ever. Maybe one day in the far future for a few minutes at a court house right before or just after I testified in the murder of Felix Esposito, I would see him. That was all the hope or comfort I could look forward to.

It took me a week of crying myself to sleep after that epiphany to come to terms with the fact that, whatever feelings had been given birth to in that Phoenix house, they were mine alone. Those green eyes had never actually warmed. Dean had just been playing a part for two very different audiences -- fucking us both at the same time, just in different ways. For Feo and the others, getting fucked by Dean meant they would spend a very long portion of their lives in prison.

In some ways, I lived in a prison, too -- one constructed of circumstance. I would never again be Garnet Williams, but at least my cell looked out onto Monterey Bay and I could fill it with books. Lots and lots of books. Weekends and Fridays I worked at the public library. Tuesday through Thursday, I worked at a small bookstore on Lighthouse Avenue. Altogether I managed about thirty-six hours a week, just a little more than I needed to cover my rent, groceries and utilities but nowhere near enough to consider getting a car.

It wasn’t bad, just lonely. And I’m not ashamed to confess I compensated by checking out a few romances each week from the library. I just wish I could say that the hero in each, no matter how the author described him, didn’t inevitably warp into Dean in my fantasies.

I was in the library's romance section re-shelving with a few titles tucked along one side of my cart for home when I heard a small clearing of someone’s throat and realized I was not alone in the aisle.

I turned to find Dean standing there with the same wild curls, just shorter, and the same green eyes, neither cold nor warm, only fiercely guarded. I didn’t gasp or shout -- I merely started to faint.

Dean’s arms wrapped around me in an instant, supporting me as he steered me to rest against one of the bookshelves. He stepped back just as quickly once it was clear I wouldn't actually faint. Mute and staring, he shoved his hands in his jacket pockets.