Chapter 7
Shep watched her, wondering. It was possible, he supposed, that she was telling the truth. But how much more likely was it that she was here to betray him, to seduce him? Anyone who’d known him for more than eight seconds realized he was a sucker for exotic beauties. Even more so when the beauty in question had the eyes of Madonna, the body of Rhianna, and the sultry, come-if-you-dare voice of Miranda.
“Florida,” he said, and somehow managed to keep his tone level, his disbelief at a low ebb.
“Sí.” Her pop-star body was tense, her classic-art eyes smoldered. They were brown. Just brown. Or so he told himself. But it was a lie. They were jasper pebbles beneath chuckling currents, a high-spirited bay on a misty morning, an intoxicating ballad of whiskey and want, a…
And good God, when had he become such a sap? A sap who’d tried—and failed—to drive her from his brain since the day Durrand arrived at Shep’s bedside. The day he’d escaped Santiago’s confines. The day she had run back to his captor. But the funny part…the real kick in the ass, was that despite the fact that bullets had buzzed like mad hornets, Shep would have followed her if Durrand hadn’t coldcocked him with the unforgiving butt of an AK-47. Knocked him senseless before dragging him into purgatory. Or…what some folks would call safety. And yeah, those same folks might think Shep was an ungrateful son of a bitch for his lack of gratitude, but some people didn’t understand jack.
Like why he couldn’t forget her mouth. Those honeysuckle lips that crooned and soothed and tempted.
“Florida,” he said again, trying to keep what limited wits he had, trying to keep his eyes off those lips.
“Sí.”
“In the good old US of A.”
“Is there another such place?”
Damned if he knew…or cared… but he cleared his head of trivialities and remembered watching Santiago’s man die. Watched his fingers curl hopelessly against his constricted throat as his employer, the man Carlotta admired above all others, looked on with delighted interest.
Shep then resolutely recalled every agonizing injury he’d sustained because of the fairer sex. Remembered gunshots and stabs. Kicks, punches, and burns. Hell, there were even a few bite wounds.
No one had ever accused him of being overly bright. Not where women were concerned, at least. He settled his hips with feigned nonchalance on the edge of Kelsey’s desk.
“Truth be told, I thought ya was smarter than this, Lotta,” he said.
Her eyebrows, those animated ribbons of silk, lowered a quarter of an inch. “Of what do you speak?”
“Don’t ya know there ain’t no such thing as coincidence?”
Her brows dipped lower over her ruler-straight nose. She could express more with that flawless forehead than most people could say in a damn thesis.
“Ya shoulda picked somewhere less likely, honey. San Cabos is popular when the weather’s crappy like this. Or St. Louis. Hell, even Dallas woulda made more sense.”
She added a quizzical head tilt to the visual symphony.
He laughed. “Alright, I’ll play along. Pretend I wasn’t already plannin’ a trip to the sunshine state. What makes ya think your sister’s in Florida?”
“The card post.” She said the words as if he were rather simple…which, honestly, he couldn’t entirely disagree with. Considering their history, he should have taken one look at her and hightailed it for the hills. Instead, he shifted his weight and scowled.
“What’re ya talkin’ ‘bout?”
“This!” she said and, pulling a piece of cardstock from the side pocket of her bag, breathlessly handed it over.
He glanced at the image on the front, flipped it to read the handwritten text, then raised his gaze slowly to hers. “You’re kiddin’ me, right?”
“I do not kid. Why I kid?”
“Your sister sent ya a postcard tellin’ ya she was havin’ a hell of a time in New Orleans, and ya expect me to believe she’s been drug to—“
“Huh!” she spat, almost literally. “The naïve one is you!”
He canted his head, curious and more than a little surprised. He hadn’t been called naïve since… Come to think of it, he didn’t believe he’d ever been called naïve.
“She is not in this place of New Orleans!”
“She’s not?”
“No! The person who took her only wishes me to believe as much. She is in Florida. In Coral Gables para ser preciso.”
“Where?”
“En la ciudad de Coral Gables.” She was speaking gunfire fast now, peppering the barrage with Spanish. “The picture on the front tells me as much.”
“How’s that exactly?”
“It looks to be just like the jardines of Fairchild Botanic.”
He could manage nothing more than a blank stare.
“Do you not see? We have always wished to visit that grand conservatorio. And here, look…” She stabbed the end of the written note with a scarlet-painted nail.
“I wish you were here,” he read then began at the beginning again:
Dearest Carlotta,
My apologies for failing to inform you of my plans. A friend afforded me a chance to visit New Orleans. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. You know how I’ve always wished to see this place. I’m having a wonderful time…our favorite foods, quaint lodging. All the things we so enjoy.
Wish you were here.
Love, Sofia.
“¿No lo entiendes?”
“No,” he said. “I sure as hell don’t understand.”
“You are not only naïve! You are the blind one. Do you not see how these letters differ from her others?”
“So it is your sister’s handwritin’?”
“Por supuesto! You think her abductor a fool? No. He is clever. Diabólico. .” She straightened abruptly. “I must go to Coral Gables.”
“But it’s postmarked New Orleans.”
“That is all part of the táctica to unlead me!”
“Unlead…”
“To make me believe she is safe. Happy.”
“She says she’s safe and happy,” he reminded her and tapped the card with a practical fingertip.
“Huh!” She threw up her hands as if shocked by his stupidity. “How can I reach Señor Durrand?”
“Good God, will ya forget about Gabe? He’s not gonna help ya.”
“Then I will go myself!”
“To Coral Gables. Because the postcard was mailed from New Orleans?”
“Because the h, e, l, and p, they are too wide.”
He paused. “What?”
“Sofia’s handwriting! It is muy precise. Ever since she was the child, it has been such. Each letter is perfectly formed, taking up no more and no less space than the last.”
Sofia, he decided, must be as uptight as a champagne cork and had probably gone off the deep end months ago. “So let me get this straight. You’re tryin’ to make me believe she’s bein’ held against her will.”
“Obviamente!”
“And ya know this because those four letters are too sloppy.”
“Too wide!”
“Too wide,” he corrected.
“And because she would not leave without telling me. You think I do not know my own sister?”
“Not well enough to guess what city she’s in by the size of her…” He threw up his hands in hopeless frustration. “Besides…shit…maybe she was drunk when she wrote this.”
Carlotta jerked back as if slapped, tottering before steadying herself on killer, three-inch heels “My sister does not use the strong drink.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. He himself had downed his first Budweiser at the ripe old age of twelve. “Tell me the truth, honey, do ya even have a sister?”
She stiffened. “You think me the liar.”
“No, sweetheart. I know you the liar.”
She nodded, pride dripping from her like honey on the comb. “Very well. If you could but allow me to speak to Señor Durrand, I would not bother you any longer with my dishonesties.”
He chuckled. “If ya think you’re gettin’ anywhere near Gabe, you’re sadly mistaken, darlin’.”
A quirk of her brows asked the question.
“He’s a dumbass and a busybody and a know-it-all, but I ain’t gonna be the one to split up his marriage.”
“Ahhh…” She nodded. “You think I would seduce your friend.”
“I think you’d do just about anythin’ to get your way, Lotta.”
She stepped closer. “And what of you, Linus Shepherd, what would you do to get…” She smoothed a hand down her waist, undulated it over one come-hither hip. “…your way?”
It was a brazen offer. A barefaced challenge.
His gut, where her countryman’s bullet had torn into his flesh six months before, bitched like an ulcer, but she was drawing him in, pulling him under.
“Well, luckily, no one’s ever accused me’a bein’ over smart.” He leaned in, against his will, against his dubious better judgment.
And that’s when she struck.
Her knee slammed up. If he hadn’t sensed her intentions in time, his testicles would have taken a quick trip into his thorax. As it was, he partially blocked the blow with his thigh. Still, pain struck him like a lightning bolt, starting at his core and screaming toward his extremities. He doubled over at the waist, staggered backward, and struck his still-healing arm on the corner of Kelsey’s desk. His fingers went numb, and his biceps throbbed in concert with his balls. His toes curled in his ostrich-hide boots. Something crashed to the floor behind him, but he barely heard the noise over the wail of his assaulted private parts and the bang of the office door.
In some dim, still-functioning corner of his mind, he understood she was gone.
It took him longer to realize Kelsey Durrand had entered the room. “Holy shit, Shepherd, what happened to you?”
He tried to straighten. Failed, and winced up at her from a cock-eyed angle. “What makes ya think somethin’ happened?”
“Did she kick you in the balls?”
“Could be,” he croaked.
“Really? I mean, I liked her right off, but now I think I’m in love.”
“Stop her,” he ordered.
She made a funny sound in her throat, something between a snort and a laugh. “No,” she said finally and disappeared from sight.
He rasped a curse, marshaled his flagging self-control, and hobbled from the room.
“Carlotta!” His right leg wasn’t fully functional, wanting to let the corresponding foot drag pathetically behind, but he finally reached the sidewalk. Squinting through the slushy rain DC liked to serve up this time of year, he realized she was halfway down the block…and ignoring him completely.
He followed at a paddling jog. “Lotta!”
She neither sped up nor slowed down, but damn she could do a good clip in those fuck-me heels.
“Hey!” he shouted and managed to increase the speed of his hobbled shamble until he could reach out and snag her arm.
Already swearing, she swung toward him, yanking from his grip and sending fresh pain shrieking through his biceps. Her hands were fisted, her eyes flaming, and even though he was a Ranger, an Okie, and one hell of a man, he retreated.
“Listen,” he ordered and, cradling his left arm, tried to ignore the smoldering agony in his lower regions.
She didn’t do as commanded. In fact, there wasn’t the slightest break in the fluid curses.
“I’m sorry.”
She paused for an instant to toss her head at the hand that cradled his throbbing biceps. “Your arm, it is injured?”
“It’s nothin’,” he lied and dropped his hand from the bitching wound.
She snorted, examining him. “I did not kick you in the arm.”
“Nah. Your aim’s pretty damn good.”
“Nor was it hurt while you were in my country.”
“Ya think you’re the only gal needs rescue’n?”
Her lush, raspberry lips bunched while her eyes narrowed. “So it was cause by a woman.”
He raised his brows, wondering. Could there be…was it even within the realm of possibility, that a hint of jealousy colored her voice?
“What was her name?”
“Angel,” he admitted and couldn’t quite stop the grin. “Eyes so big they’d steal your soul.”
“So this Angel, she was pretty?”
He snorted. “I don’t like to waste my time.”
She watched him, sorting rapidly through the implications then said, “Go to the hell, Linus Shepherd.” and swiveled away.
He tried to let her go. Honest to God he did, but the words came out nevertheless.
“I’ll help you.”
She stopped, slowly turned back. Her lips were closed and pursed, but her eyes were snapping Spanish curses. “You will find my sister?”
“Yeah.” God help me, he thought. He deserved to be shot. Hell, he probably also deserved to be stabbed and bitten…again.
“Very well,” she said, then turned and sashayed away.
There was nothing he could do but limp after her like a gimpy gargoyle.