Chapter Nine

“You left your cell at home!” the Amazon warrior called Trish hissed the second Devereaux cleared the doorway with her hand still in Seth’s. Tall, angular, and hopping mad, Trish stabbed a finger in Seth’s direction. “Who’s this guy? One of Sly’s asshole buddies?”

“Shhhhh,” Devereaux whispered as she tugged him into a sparsely decorated living room before she secured the front door with one deadbolt, two chain locks, and a padlock she slipped into an aluminum hasp. This feisty woman meant to keep her home safe, but those deterrents were paltry at best. “He’s not with Sly. Trish, this is Seth McCray. He’s George’s nephew, and he walked me home. That’s all. Seth, Trish Crawford, my neighbor and my best friend.”

The compliment didn’t slow Trish’s wrath. Dressed in a gray T-shirt and jeans, the dishwater blonde had bushy brows and a nose like a honey badger, and all were bent out of shape. Seth offered his hand anyway, opting for courtesy instead of confrontation with this prickly friend of Devereaux’s.

“Bullshit,” Trish spat, her chin up, piss and vinegar in her eye, and her fingers clenched instead of accepting the friendly offer. “I’m not in the mood to meet your friend. Next time, take your damned phone with you, Dev. I’ve been trying to reach you for hours.”

Seth lowered his hand to his side.

“Why?” Devereaux asked.

Trish lowered her voice, eyeballing Seth like he was Charles Manson instead of George’s trustworthy nephew. “Cord called. He’s bringing a boatful of…” If looks could kill, that lightning bolt of disgust she’d just shot Seth’s way would’ve cooked him where he stood. “…of refugees,” she finished lamely.

Seth zeroed in on her tells, the way she licked her lips. Refugees, my ass. The woman was lying. “What refugees?” he asked. “Are you bringing people in from Cuba?”

“None of your business,” she shot back at him, her chin up. Turning on Devereaux, she spat, “If you’d keep your phone charged, he would’ve called you, and I wouldn’t have worried myself sick.”

“You know I can’t always do that.” Devereaux dropped Seth’s hand. “It’s an old phone, and barely holds a charge. When did he call?”

“Two hours ago. He needs you to be” —another evil glare slapped Seth upside his head— “you know where. Said he’d land at daybreak, might already be there. Damn it, you need to buy a new phone, one that works, before you take off again.”

Devereaux shook her head, “Sun’s not up yet. I’ve got time.”

“Not if the sea’s smooth and he made good time last night. God, Dev—”

“Trish,” Devereaux said calmly, her tone brooking no more antagonism. “Scottie’s asleep.”

The honey badger’s head bobbed at that gentle reminder that there was a child in the house. “Yeah, I let him stay up late. We had a good night. Popped popcorn and read stories. He wants me to read ‘Old Yeller’ next time. Would you please take that crap off your bookshelf? You know I hate telling him no, but he’s too young for that story.”

Devereaux’s shoulders scrunched even as she stepped to said bookshelf, a pressed wood creation comprised of three crowded shelves stacked to overflowing, a plethora of books upright and as many stacked horizontally on top of those. The woman had enough books on those shelves to fill another bookcase just as tall. A stack of dog-eared National Geographic magazines leaned against one side of the overburdened shelf. A long, narrow, floor-to-ceiling window concealed behind what appeared to be room-darkening drapes lined the other.

Retrieving her cell from the charger parked on the top shelf, she thumbed the keypad and lifted it to her ear, her bright eyes on Seth.

Whatever Cord was into, Seth had one of his feelings. His instincts kicked in and his sixth sense flared outward to detect the slightest ripple of danger in the cosmic web. That was the thing about being a trained sniper. Titled or not, ranked or not, Seth’s instincts had automatically linked into the higher power that made him the kind of man he was today. Alex Stewart might’ve honed his hidden talents into a fine fighting machine, but the raw material began with Seth.

He took control of this two-woman show like the Ranger he was meant to be. “Show me Scottie’s bedroom,” he said to Trish, keeping the snap of command out of his tone, while he let Devereaux make her call in private.

When Trish balked, Devereaux lifted her chin from the cell and told her, “It’s okay. He’s here to help us, Trish. You can trust him.”

Seth sent Devereaux a nod and a smile. Trust didn’t come easily to this woman. He wouldn’t let her down.

It still took a full minute of glares and stares before Trish nodded at the hallway to his right. The dim glow of a nightlight told Seth which one of the three bedrooms was Scottie’s. First door on the left. Sure enough. The little guy slept face down in his pillow, his butt in the air, and his thumb in his mouth. Tow-headed like his mom. Cute. Make that adorable. Scottie snored, but the way he held that powder blue teddy bear under his arm, melted Seth’s heart. The kid needed his mom to always be safe and sound. Seth intended to make certain that never changed.

“Backdoor?” he whispered to Trish since she stood behind him with her hands on her hips, her hackles still lifted.

Devereaux faced her bookshelf, her voice low and nearly imperceptible as she talked, he assumed, with her brother. Seth caught the tightness to her whispered question: “How many? How’d you manage that?” She groaned. “I thought something happened to you, Cord, it’s been weeks.” Then silence. Her chin dipped to her chest. She nodded at the floor and ended with, “Don’t worry. I’ll be there. You know I will. Keep everyone alive.”

Turning, she caught Seth watching. “I, umm, have to leave for a while,” Devereaux told him, her lips pressed tight and thin.

He took a step in her direction, then stopped when her bright blue eyes darkened, and that was the last straw. If these gals were running refugees out of Cuba, they were in over their heads. What the hell was Cord thinking? Using two women on a dangerous operation? Not smart, man.

“What’s going on?” Seth asked. “Tell me now. I can help.” Legal or not, he wouldn’t let her fend for herself, not with Valentine prowling the streets and apparently keeping close enough tabs on her that he’d known she’d be on the pier tonight. Had he followed her to George’s island? Tiny hairs bristled up the back of Seth’s neck at that very real possibility. “Is Valentine in on this? Is that what he’s holding over your head? You’re running refugees up from Cuba, aren’t you? Political prisoners? How’s Valentine involved?”

Devereaux’s gaze collided with Trish’s, then volleyed back to Seth like a ball in a tennis match. He cocked his head waiting for one of them to speak. Crossing his arms over his chest, he spread his feet and settled in for the duration. “Well, ladies?”

“Not refugees,” Devereaux said quietly, her eyes darting around her small room as if the walls had ears. “I don’t know what Sly’s doing besides running those tacky bars, but Cord makes a run to Cuba every time he gets a call from one of his contacts in Havana. Probably Miguel Rohos, he’s the most honest of the four.”

Trish snorted. “Only because Cord pays him by the head.”

“True, but he has to take who he can, when the time’s right,” Devereaux murmured, an ocean of deep blue pleading in her eyes. “Seth, you have to understand. My brother rescues girls and women from the human traffickers. Havana’s ripe for the taking and the streets are rampant with them. You know that. I have to go meet him. Something’s not right. I could hear it in his voice. You can come with me or—”

“I’m going,” he told her with certainty. “My boat or yours?”

Her eyes widened. “You’ve got a boat? Where?”

“Uncle George kept one somewhere near Molly’s Boathouse. I guess it’s still there, and knowing George, the keys are in the ignition or under the floor mat.” Seth held out his hand to her, his palm open in invitation. “Coming with me?”

She scowled. “Why didn’t you tell me that when we were in there?”

“What were you doing in the boathouse?” Trish barked.

“Nothing,” Devereaux murmured, color blossoming up her neck and spilling over her cheeks. She ran a quick hand over her short locks, biting her lip and staring at his hand. “Trish, you’ll stay here until I’m back, won’t you?”

The Amazonian grunted like a man. “Don’t I always? Go. Take this guy with you. Scottie and I will be okay, but be careful, Dev. I don’t like stitching up little girls.”

Little girls? This nightmare kept getting worse. Seth waggled his fingers, needing Devereaux to latch onto him. To trust him like he trusted her.

With one last sideways glance at Trish, Devereaux stepped into his arms and said, “Let’s go then. Trish, we’ll be back as soon as we can.”

At her front door, she turned into him as she unlocked the deadbolt, and said, “Nothing you see tonight can be repeated, understood? You have no stake in this, so if you don’t want to—”

With her still tucked under his arm, Seth commandeered the door, his hand on the padlock. Just because he could, he landed a soft spank on her backside. “I said I’m coming. Let’s move.”

At the last second, he froze. Every hair on his body had just lifted. His nostrils flared. He pressed one hand to the door over Devereaux’s shoulder and snapped the deadbolt to the right, locking her in. His body had instinctively coiled for war, his hackles lifted up his spine, and his Pistol automatically in his grip. Someone was leaning against Devereaux’s door. Not hard enough to break it down, but heavily enough the door shuddered.

Seth cocked his head, the moan from the other side of the wood unmistakably male. Valentine? Cord? “You own a gun?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“You and your girlfriend need to go into Scottie’s room. Keep him safe.”

Now armed with a nine-inch blade, Devereaux hip checked him. “Someone’s at the kitchen door, too,” she whispered.

“Get into Scottie’s bedroom. Now! Cover him with a blanket and hide in the closet with him. Don’t make a sound. Keep him safe.”

Her head bobbed as she hurried down the hall, and once again, Seth cursed. America was no safer than the rest of the world, damn it.

Whoever stood on the other side of the door whined. Something scraped down the length of the door to the step. Seth stared at the wood, his senses acute, and every nerve in his system on high alert. One person he could handle. Taking a chance, he stepped away from the door to peer straight through the house, through the tiny kitchen to the rear exit. Like the front door, it had no window, not that he expected to see an intruder watching him. Still, it’d be good to see what or who or how many were out there.

He parted the drapes alongside the bookshelf, but darkness and vines obscured the view. Seth clenched his fist, biding his time, but ready to break loose if push came to shove.

Devereaux’s cell vibrated from where she’d left it near the charger. Seth palmed it, read the caller ID, and blew out a breath. He thumbed the incoming call and hit accept without saying a word.

“Dev?” a man asked, his voice edged with pain. “Dev, what’s wrong? Open up, damn it. I’ve got trouble.”

“Cord Shepherd?”

That elicited an angry snarl. “Who the fuck’s asking?”

“Name and USMC rank you held five years ago,” Seth bit out. “Devereaux’s safe, but you’re not coming in until I’m sure who you are.”

Fury laced Cord’s terse reply. “Lance Corporal, you asshat. Who the fuck are you? I don’t have time for this!”

“And I can’t afford to be wrong,” Seth replied. “Where were you stationed back then? Make it quick!”

“Twenty-Nine Palms in the middle of no-fuckin’-where,” came through the door at Seth with a definite Devil Dog bite. “So help me, God, if you’ve hurt my sister or her son, I’ll kill you with your own—”

Seth unlocked the door and jerked it inward and found himself face-to-face with one pissed-off former Marine. Cord’s waterlogged pack fell to his feet. Seth just hadn’t expected he’d have to look up at the guy. Son-of-a-bitch. Cord Shepherd was nothing like his sister. He was more Dwayne Johnson, the Rock, just without the cheesy flash of pearly whites. Big. Wide. Dark-haired and soaking wet, he was dressed all in black from his boots and cargo pants to his t-shirt. Heavily-muscled from the top of his jarhead to his boots, the guy ducked to clear the doorjamb.

“Welcome home,” Seth snapped, pissed that this moron brought danger into Devereaux’s home. “Who the hell’s at the kitchen door? Your buddies? How many?”

Cord shoved Seth back a step on his way through the house. “Just one. Miguel. He’s been shot, not like that’s your business, asshole. Where’s my sister?”

“Safe,” Seth growled. “What’ve you gotten her into?” You jackass.

“Me? What have I gotten her into? That’s rich,” Cord tossed over his shoulder as he opened the rear door off the kitchen and stepped out of view. In seconds, he shouldered a sagging Hispanic male onto one of the molded plastic chairs around Devereaux’s kitchen table. Bloody, watery footprints trailed with him.

“Trish! I know you’re here. Get your first-aid kit and stop hiding! I need your ass out here. Now!” Contempt glared up from where Cord crouched on one knee by his buddy’s side. “Neither of us would be in this mess if not for that crazy coot on Drunken Sailor Island. This is that bastard’s fault, not that I blame him. What he’s doing is a good thing, it’s just damned dangerous.”

Seth braced his forearms to both sides of the doorjamb, watching intently. “He’s in charge of this rescue operation?”

Cord grunted. “If that’s what you want to call it. Old guy’s got friends from here to Timbuktu. If he’s not jerking my chain, he sends others to get these women and children away from Montego. Wish I’d known I was rescuing so many this time.”

“What kind of boat?”

Another grunt. “Who said I had a fuckin’ boat, dickhead? What were you, Army? All we had was our CRRC. It only holds eight, least it did ’til it took a hit and nearly sank. Some of us had to swim.”

“All the way from Havana?” That was what, a hundred miles?

Cord hissed, shaking his head as he stretched a muscular arm over one thick shoulder to scratch his back. “Varadero this time, not like it matters to you. We spent most of the time baling like hell or plugging holes we took before we lost everyone in the crossing.”

Seth appreciated what Cord was doing. Rescuing women and children from sex slavers had become a full-time business for countries across the globe. Other former military members were heavily involved in operations just like this one. Even Alex Stewart funded a similar operation in Thailand. But who was the old coot behind Cord’s operation? And what the hell did Cord have against Army? Departmental competition aside, everything out of Cord’s mouth made Seth want to belt him. “Drunken Sailor Island? Where the hell’s that?”

Reaching around his barrel chest, Cord dragged his fingernails across his side, still scratching like a dog with fleas. “One click off Molly’s pier. Due south by southeast. You can’t miss it. Fuckin’ troublemaker.”

That sounded a little too close to home. “You mean George McCray’s place? He’s behind this?” Aw, shit.

Cord’s eyes came up sharp and deadly as his palm slapped the pistol on his hip. “Who the hell are you?”

“Cord, meet Seth McCray,” Devereaux answered from the hallway. Entering the room, she ducked under Seth’s arm and put her palm in the middle of his chest. He couldn’t resist looking down on that pretty hand, claiming him in front of God and her brother, who might just be Satan. “Cord Shepherd, be nice to this guy. He’s George’s nephew, and he’s here to help. George had a stroke. We may never see him again.”

Cord tipped backward on his heels, his hand off his weapon, but his eyes as hard as obsidian and twice as sharp. His cheeks filled with air before he blew out a, “Thank fuck. Your damned uncle is out of his head. You do know that, don’t you?”

Seth bit back his sarcasm. Uncle George wasn’t the one running women and girls out of Cuba in the dead of night, was he? But what had George been doing? Organizing search networks? Saving girls and women caught up in the sex-slave trade while the rest of the family thought he was just an eccentric old fart, living on the edge of the United States?

Rushing in, Trish slammed an extra-large first-aid kit to the kitchen table. “Knifed or shot?” she asked, her fingers already peeling the injured guy’s shirt off his shoulder to peer down at his chest. “Just his shoulder? Huh. Looks clean enough.”

“Shot,” Cord answered, still scratching. “One in the shoulder. Should be clean. He’s been in the water most of the night.”

“Get in the shower before you scratch yourself raw, Cord,” Trish bit out. “You know the drill. Use plenty of hot water and slather that coconut cream you hate so much all over that handsome bod. Salt water’s hell on skin, and if you’ve been swimming in it for hours....”

Miguel peered up at her, sweat streaming in his eyes and his thick, black hair drenched, though with blood or sweat, Seth couldn’t be sure. For a Cuban, he was a ghostly shade of pale. “Thank you, Señorita,” he whispered, grimacing through her rough handling as she stripped his shirt off with practiced ease. “May the Holy Mother bless you and your familia.”

“That would be no one, tough guy,” she grunted, tossing his dirty shirt to the floor. “So, save your prayers for someone who believes in all that crap and hold your ass still.”

“Si,” he said, grimacing again as she palmed the cuff of his shoulder, the pad of her thumb probing the bullet hole in the hollow beneath his collarbone. “Ow, ow, ow. I know you love me, Chica, but please, not so hard. And no kisses. People are watching.”

Trish growled but kept on with her triage “You want me to remove this slug or not, tough guy?”

He nodded, no longer making eye contact. Miguel shook so hard that his teeth chattered. “Por favor. But maybe promise me a long, wet kiss once you are done, if it is not too much to hope for. Or a rubdown with some of that coconut cream, eh?”

Licking her lips, Trish leaned into his face. “Did I hear you right? You don’t want anesthetic this time? Way to go, hero.”

He moaned and slouched farther off the chair, his legs stiff and his eyes closed. “If that’s what you choose. Love must hurt or it’s not real, true?”

Trish huffed through her nostrils, but Seth caught the way she gentled her hand over Miguel’s forehead as if checking for a fever.

“McCray’s your uncle?” Cord’s penetrating gaze flitted from Devereaux to Seth as if he knew something had gone on between them.

“One of several,” Seth admitted.

“Figures. Get your gear, GI Joe. You’re with me.”

Not sure what Cord meant by that ‘Figures’ comment, Seth nodded, his arm still around Devereaux. “Where to?”

“To get the women, dipshit!” Cord dumped a helluva lot of sarcasm into those five words. As he jerked the kitchen door open, he turned to Devereaux, his brows knit like two thunderclouds over the flashing lightning in his eyes. “Don’t think this is over, Baby Sister. You and me are going to have words when I get back.” To Seth he snapped, “What the fuck’s keeping you! Are you coming or not?”

“Not until you shower, Cord,” Trish nagged. “Now do as you’re told and get your ass in the bathroom. You’ll peel like a steamed tomato if you don’t wash that salt off.”

“Later,” he snarled over his shoulder, the door slamming on his heels.

Seth gave Devereaux a quick hug goodbye and followed Cord out the door. Uncle George, what were you thinking?