Son of a Gun (17 page)

And then a night in a Miami hotel with Damien. As screwed up as she was emotionally, how would she ever handle that?

So much for promises of a smooth ride.

* * *

HELL OF A DAY. EVEN ON Sunday, a man couldn’t get any peace anymore, Sheriff Garcia lamented. No matter how many deputies the county hired, the worst of the mess always ended up on his desk. Taxpayers complained about his salary. He’d like to see them walk in his shoes for a day and sing that song.

He picked up the file Deputy Hagen had compiled for him on the stabbing victim out near Bent Pine Ranch and went straight to the fingerprint report.

Julio Gonzalez. Definitely in the system. Garcia scanned his mile-long rap sheet. Burglary, bad checks, using stolen credit cards, drunk and disorderly, sexual assault. He ran the gamut.

Fourteen arrests and… He counted in his head as he went through the lists. A total of six months and fourteen days in jail. Deported twice.

All the honorable, honest, hardworking, law-abiding Hispanics in the state of Texas, and Julio Gonzalez had to show up dead in his county and create a king-size headache and a ton of paperwork for Garcia.

But this gave all the credence he needed to Emma Smith’s claim of self-defense. No cause to arrest her on murder charges, but he would need a bit more info from her to complete the bureaucratic reports. Mainly he needed her Social Security number.

If the baby weren’t involved, he could have left it at that.

Garcia ran a quick check on the name Juan Perez in Dallas. There were no outstanding arrest warrants for anyone by that name. Always a good sign.

He shoved the paperwork to the back of his desk. Tomorrow would be soon enough to handle that.

He’d make the trip out to Bent Pine Ranch himself. It might give him a chance to see and talk to Carolina. Best catch in the state of Texas. Great looking for her age. Hell, she looked good for any age. More money than God. And she didn’t have a mean bone in her body.

Not that she was anywhere near through grieving over Hugh. Not that he could fill Hugh Lambert’s shoes. But then neither could anyone else in Texas.

It didn’t hurt to remind Carolina that he was around and still aboveground for the day she did decide she needed a man.

* * *

DAMIEN ADJUSTED THE STRAP of Emma’s travel bag, which he’d had to insist to the bellhop he was capable of carrying, and pushed the elevator button for the third floor. The hotel wasn’t exactly what Damien had envisioned when he told the company travel agent intimate, comfortable and on the beach, but it would work. And it went a long way to helping him understand what she meant when she said “chic.”

Emma had been exceptionally quiet on the taxi ride to South Beach and that worried him. He’d known a trip back to the Caribbean would upset her, but she hadn’t given him a lot of choice in that.

If it was the two of them spending the night together that concerned her, then welcome to the club. His feelings for her were all mixed-up with his need to protect her and a nagging suspicion that she still hadn’t totally leveled with him.

That didn’t make the physical attraction any less real, and it was growing stronger every second he was with her. They had some kind of inexplicable chemistry going on between them that the professors at Texas A&M had never covered in class.

But after what she’d been through with Caudillo, she needed a friend and protector a lot more than she needed some horny cowboy making a play for her just because his heart and head couldn’t seem to keep things straight.

When they reached the room, he slid the key card and shoved open the door.

Emma let out an undecipherable cry and charged past him and into the room.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, following her to the double glass doors. “We can always change rooms or even hotels.”

“Are you crazy? Look at that view. It’s glorious.”

He had to agree and he loved the joyous lilt in her voice. Maybe this was the perfect hotel after all.

She pushed the doors open and stepped outside. The wind caught her silky hair, tossing it around like summer hay. His chest tightened as the kind of lustful thoughts he shouldn’t be having danced through his mind.

She turned to him. “May I use your phone? I want to call and check on Belle before I get too enthralled by the scenery.”

“Sure thing.” He handed it to her. “I’ll use the hotel phone to have room service send up a bottle of wine. We can have it on the balcony. Red or white?”

“No. No wine.” Desperation stole the lilt from her voice. “I know this sounds weird, but it’s just that Caudillo always…”

“’Nuff said,” he interrupted.

“How about a beer instead,” she offered. “I haven’t had a cold beer in months.”

“Now you’re talking my language.”

By the time he’d ordered the beers and a crabmeat appetizer, Emma was off the phone.

“All is well. Carolina said Belle is being a perfect baby,” she announced as he joined her on the balcony.

“And I’m sure Mother is spoiling her rotten.”

She handed him his phone. “Belle needs spoiling. She lost her mother.”

The way Damien Briggs, the son of Melissa Briggs, had needed spoiling when he’d lost his mother. The nagging doubts that had plagued Damien when he first found the birth certificate set in again.

“Do you think a woman could ever love an adopted child the way she loves her biological one?” he asked.

“I think it depends on the mother. Some mothers don’t even love their biological children. But if you’re asking if I think it’s possible, the answer is absolutely. Love doesn’t shrink the heart. It grows it and makes room for more love.”

“That sounds like something my mother would say.”

“I didn’t hear it from her, but I did hear it from a very wise lady. I hope to have lots of kids one day, both foster children and my own, and prove her right over and over again.”

“They will be very lucky kids.” Almost as lucky as the man who shared that family with her.

His mother would be the type who could love another woman’s baby as deeply as she loved her own, especially if it were her sister’s.

But not Hugh. Bloodline had been everything to him.

A knock at the door announced the arrival of room service.

“I’ll get that,” Damien said. His cell phone rang while he was signing the check. He took the call as he closed the door behind the waiter.

“Hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”

“No problem, Carson. What’s up?”

“I just came upon a new tidbit of information concerning your man Caudillo that I thought might interest you.”

“Keep talking.”

“He’s married to an American citizen who used to work for the ATF. They tied the knot on his yacht last year.”

“Do you have the woman’s name?”

“Emma Muran.”

Chapter Nine

Damien’s hand tightened on the phone. He’d been expecting some new twist to complicate things. He hadn’t expected a complete shift in the dynamics. “How credible is the information?”

“A marriage license was filed in Aruba. The wedding itself took place on Caudillo’s yacht while sailing on the Caribbean Sea. No exact location was given.”

“Were you able to bring up a copy of the license?”

“Yes, but don’t ask me specifics on how I did that.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Was the license officially signed and documented?”

“Signed by Anton Klein, Emma Louise Muran, the ship captain who conducted the ceremony and two witnesses.”

“What’s the date of the marriage?”

“March 13 of last year.”

In the same month that Emma said she’d been kidnapped. Even the entanglements were becoming entangled.

“Don’t know if that information is important in any way,” Carson said, “but I thought I’d pass it on.”

“You done good, pardner.”

“I can’t wait to hear what this quest to find out about Caudillo is about.”

“One day soon.” The sooner, the better.

“Take care and watch out for the bulls.”

“The bulls are the least of my worries right now.”

Damien thanked him again and dropped the phone into his pocket. Then he grabbed the beers and food and headed to the balcony. Unfortunately, the sunset daylight had faded to twilight.

So had his mood.

Durk just might be right. His faith in Emma might be triggered by a body part other than his brain. But he wasn’t nearly ready to give up on her yet.

* * *

EMMA TOOK THE BEER FROM Damien’s outstretched hand. “Weirdly, I still love the sound of the surf,” she said as she settled back in the lounger. “At least Monster Man didn’t steal that from me.”

“Good.”

She sipped her beer and tried one of the canapés. “These are good. What are they?”

“Crabmeat bites.”

A tension that hadn’t been there before settled between them. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

“It could be. Does the date March 13 mean anything to you?”

The crabmeat bite rolled in her stomach. She turned away from the beach and stared at Damien. “That was the day I was kidnapped.”

“According to a document filed in Aruba, it was also the day you and Anton Klein—better known as Caudillo— were married.”

She jerked up so that she was sitting ramrod straight on the edge of the lounger. The abrupt move tipped the beer bottle and sent cold liquid trickling down her arm. “You have got to be kidding.”

“So you didn’t marry him?”

“Not unless marriage in the Caribbean means drugging a woman and taking her prisoner.”

“The wedding supposedly took place on his yacht.”

“I was on his yacht that night, but he drugged me within minutes after I came on board, and when I woke up, we were speeding toward Enmascarado. And, believe me, I wasn’t saying ‘I do.’”

She stood and walked to the edge of the balcony and then it hit her. She spun around and glared at Damien, anger boiling inside her. “You actually considered the possibility that I might be married to Caudillo, didn’t you?”

“It crossed my mind.”

“So why are you really here tonight, Damien? If you still don’t trust me, why are you sticking your neck on the chopping block? Is this some adrenaline rush for you, like skydiving or driving race cars?”

“No, I kinda like staying alive, and your getting indignant and all bent out of shape isn’t going to help things.”

“You think? I’ve told you things I thought I’d never speak of to anyone. I shared fears so real they haunt me day and night. And you think I forgot something like, ‘Oh, yeah, it wasn’t really a kidnapping. We got married’?” He walked over to the railing and reached for her hand. She pulled away.

“I believe you were held captive by Caudillo, Emma. I believe the stories of mental torture and that you’re still running scared, afraid that he’ll track you down and kill you. But look at this from my perspective.”

“Which is?”

“You started presenting an elaborate array of lies from the second I met you. Fiction ebbed to truth in bits and pieces. How am I supposed to know when I have all the pieces?”

Her anger began to wane. There was really no reason for him to trust her and every reason for him to have kicked her out of his house and out of his life the minute the sheriff showed up at his door.

“Point made,” she said. “But just to be clear, there are no more crystals of truth to drop on you.”