Midnight Heat Page 16

  She bent forward to carefully pick open the laces of her boot. Her hiking boots were the only item of clothing she’d forced her parents to bring to her. Not because she’d planned to go AWOL, but as a personal testament to her own will and drive. They had been a symbol to her, a goal.

  She loosened the brown leather flap, giving in to a long, relieved groan as she slid the boot off. With increased blood flow, the pain intensified. She’d never get the thing back on. God, she thought, remembering her very vocal defiance six months before. In the face of insurmountable odds, she’d declared nothing would stop her from returning to her career as a forest firefighter and member of one of the elite smoke-jumping teams. How painfully pathetic she must have appeared to everyone, especially her parents.

  Difficulties aside, and they had years of them under their belts, they loved her. That was one thing she didn’t doubt. It was why she’d agreed to come to Paradise Canyon Rehab Ranch instead of heading back to Missoula to lick her considerable wounds in private.

  She stared at her discarded boot. A symbol still, but now of defeat. What in the hell was she going to do?

  “Hey, you okay down there?”

  Jenna jumped, instinctively reaching for her pulaski or chain saw, feeling foolish and unreasonably angry when her fingers encountered nothing more than a laundry bag stuffed full of clothes.

  She swore again, both at herself and at the fresh wave of hot pain lancing up her leg where she’d banged her ankle when she’d jumped. Wonderful. Out in the middle of nowhere, and she still managed to have an audience for her latest humiliation. Couldn’t she catch one break?

  “Hey! Can you hear me?”

  “Yeah,” she yelled halfheartedly. “I can hear you fine.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Just my ego,” she muttered. But she supposed that’s what she got for thinking it was okay to have one. “I’m fine,” she yelled. “Just peachy,” she added under her breath.

  “I don’t have any gear. I’ll have to go for help. It’s gonna take an hour or so. Will you be okay until then? Or do you need immediate assistance?”

  It was probably the acoustics of the canyon she’d half dropped into, but his voice was amazingly deep. It sort of rumbled down the slope and washed over her in a soft, soothing wave of sound that made her want to sigh and lie down to await rescue.

  Jenna snorted and straightened. She must have hit her head on the way down. She’d always done the rescuing, not the other way around. She’d been on the other side the last time. Never again.

  Of course, sticking by her decision was going to make getting off the side of the mountain a bit complicated.

  She sighed, hating that she was once again forced to rely on someone else. She knew she should feel grateful. It was amazingly fortunate that another hiker had been close enough to hear her scream. But she really wanted to be alone. She’d started out that morning determined to make it on her own no matter what. One little detour down the mountainside wasn’t going to change that.

  No matter what her ankle was telling her.

  “I’ll be fine, really,” she called up. She turned to look up at her volunteer savior, but the rising sun had found a temporary hole in the growing cloud cover and sliced through it in a blinding dagger of light. Shielding her eyes didn’t do much more than show her a giant shadowy outline at the top of the embankment. She couldn’t discern how much was man and how much was boulder. “Thanks anyway,” she shouted.

  There was a pause, then: “You sound a little rough. If you don’t mind, I’ll wait for you to catch your breath and make sure you can get back up here.”

  He really did have the most amazing voice. There was such steady strength and command in his tone.

  “Can you climb?”

  She scanned the rocky slope. Six months earlier she’d have attempted it. Even then it would have taken considerable skill and control. She scowled and sat up straighter. So she’d find another way off the mountain, preferably a less direct route. She’d been heading for the highway on the other side of the ridge, not wanting to catch a ride from anyone who might be coming to or going from Paradise. She’d left a note and an address in case there was any further paperwork for her to sign.

  Despite it being against her doctor’s recommendation, she was fully within her right to check herself out. The hike had become a personal challenge.

  She’d taken short trails for the last month and during the last week she’d been making her own trails, progressively testing her ankle and the newly healed skin on her leg. The previous Friday, she’d hiked to the peak and back.

  She wasn’t ready to admit defeat yet. She looked downslope. She was sitting in a narrow depression on an otherwise smooth drop almost straight down. The hill bottomed out in a shallow but rocky ravine. If she tried to so much as stand, she’d likely take a shortcut straight into it. Even if her ankle would have allowed it, the steepness combined with the unstable footing made a controlled slide impossible. That left a parallel route. But a quick scan to her left and right wasn’t too heartening. It was at least a hundred-yard crawl either way, and the indentation she sat on only spread out about twenty yards to each side of her.

  Her options were quickly dwindling to one. A low, ominous rumbling cut into her thoughts. Cloud cover that was supposed to burn off as the sun rose had suddenly collected into a menacing-looking mass. She shivered, telling herself it was a reaction to the first gust of wind. It whipped up the fine rock dust, making her squeeze her eyes shut. Thunder rolled ominously overhead. She worked to tamp down the whispers of panic trying to edge into her mind.

  Shielding her eyes against the wind and dust, she looked uphill. “You’d better go!” she yelled. “I’ll be okay!” Wet, but okay. She could—would—handle this.

  “I can’t leave you out here,” he called back, his rumbling voice underscored by another roll of thunder. The combination sent new shivers over her skin. Stop it, Jenna. She’d spent too many hours—thousands of them—out in the woods to be afraid of a little thunderstorm.

  A jagged bolt of light shot across the sky.

  No, she wasn’t afraid of thunderstorms. It was the fire-igniting lightning that terrified her.

  “This shouldn’t last too long,” she called out, her voice getting rougher from yelling but thankfully steady.

  Big fat raindrops began to splatter the ground. She had no idea how experienced a hiker he might be, but if he wasn’t carrying rope, then chances were he was an amateur. She ignored the point that she, a highly trained professional, had nothing more than a laundry-bag string on her supply list.

  She tried not to look at the rocky ravine below. If the storm was strong enough and hit hard enough, with nothing but a laundry bag as an anchor, she could easily end up at the bottom anyway.

  “Find shelter,” she instructed, yelling louder over the growing noise as the storm gathered strength. “When it’s over, bring some help back with you.”

  That should appease his sense of duty, get him off the mountain as safely as possible—and provide someone to help him scrape her stupid carcass off the side of this hill.

  What was one more battering punch to her pride at this point anyway?

  Wind whipped up again, enough so she could begin to feel the dampness right on through to her long underwear. Her Samaritan hadn’t responded to her last shout. A quick, bleary peek uphill between wind gusts showed the dark outline had grown smaller. Considerably smaller.

  He was gone.

  Good. She rubbed her arms. He’d be okay. And so would she. He’d get help. If she was really lucky, it would be from somewhere other than Paradise Canyon, but she knew it was the only place of any size around for miles. Was he a patient there as well? she wondered.

  Thunder shook the ground, loosening small surface rock, sending it skittering down and around her. She scraped the curly hairs escaping her braid from her forehead and eyes and pulled the long, thick plait over her shoulder so it hung between her breasts. She grab
bed for the laundry bag, stuffing it between her thighs and as much of it under her shirt as she could, hoping to keep something dry enough to change into after the storm. She grabbed for her boot, and was debating whether her swollen ankle would tolerate her putting it back on or if she should tuck it into the laundry bag, too, when a sudden shout rang out.

  She shifted around in time to see a black shadow tip off the edge of the embankment from the other side of the boulder, sending a fresh shower of rocks hailing down on her. She batted them away, a scream locked in her throat as the shadow materialized, through the sheets of rain, into a man. A very large man. A very large tumbling man.

  And he was heading right toward her.

  Read on for an excerpt from Donna Kauffman’s

  Santerra’s Sin

  ONE

  Diego Santerra made a killer salsa.

  He also made a pretty damn good killer.

  This was the first time he could recall getting paid to do both.

  He pulled the dusty green Jeep around the side of the small stucco building and parked next to the shiny black Harley Fat Boy he knew belonged to the cantina’s owner. Blue Delgado.

  He knew everything about Blue a person could learn from constant observation. The briefing he’d received in Miami three weeks before heading here to New Mexico had filled in the rest. Yes, he knew more about Blue Delgado than the Villa Roja residents who’d known her all her life.

  Except for one thing. When would Jacounda strike? That was why he had agreed to abandon his anonymous surveillance and step inside the dimly lit little bar in search of a job. As a cook, of all things.

  Diego hadn’t counted on the job being the one, and probably only, thing he did for himself, for whatever little pleasure there was in it. But he’d kept silent, agreed to the cover. He made it a rule to give away only what was absolutely necessary. And he had damn little to start with. So cook he would. Along with anything else that became necessary to get the job done.

  It was that unshakable personal code that had made him first choice for Seve “Del” Delgado’s elite tactical squad, known since shortly after its formation as Delgado’s Dirty Dozen.

  No one had to remind Diego that, almost ten years later, less than half the original team remained alive. And if Diego didn’t complete this mission successfully, the next to fall would be Del himself.

  He pulled his black Resistol down over his forehead a bit farther and pushed open the door to the bar. Even though it was barely ten o’clock in the morning, there were two men occupying barstools, sipping beer. Three more were playing pool on one of the two worn tables wedged into the space between the door and the bar. Several small vinyl-covered tables lined the wall by the front window, but they were empty.

  Diego glanced once at the men, then dismissed them. He strode over to the end of the bar, propped his foot on the rail, and pressed his hands on the teak surface.

  The bartender was an older Latino gentleman. Diego knew him to be Blue’s uncle, Tejo Delgado. The older man continued to wipe down a glass with the corner of his apron as he moved toward Diego.

  “Cervesa, señor?” he asked, his accent noticeable, but not overwhelming. “Coffee?”

  Diego shook his head. “I’m here about the job.” He nodded to the hand-lettered sign taped to the front window. It had been put up only two hours earlier. “You need a cook.”

  Of course, the old man didn’t have to know that Diego had known about the job opening yesterday. Del, or more likely another member of the Dirty Dozen, had seen to that little detail.

  “Sí, that is true,” Tejo said, “Señor …?”

  “Santerra.” Diego straightened and offered his hand. “Diego.”

  Tejo smiled, revealing one gold-plated incisor amid a host of gleaming white teeth. “Ah, Don Diego. Just like in Zorro.”

  It wasn’t the first time he’d been reminded of his fictional namesake, and would likely not be the last. He hated being back in the Southwest. “Something like that, yes,” he muttered.

  If the old man was aware he hadn’t exactly flattered Diego with the comparison, he didn’t show it. “Tejo Delgado.” He extended his hand. “My niece Blue, she’s the one you need to see, amigo.”

  Diego gave his hand a brief shake. He knew the man to be in his late sixties, a good ten years Del’s senior, but there was plenty of steel in his grip. Diego wasn’t surprised. Just as he wasn’t surprised by the intensity of the quick yet thorough once-over Tejo gave him before releasing his hand. Diego expected nothing less from Del’s brother.

  “She have an office?” Diego knew the layout of the cantina as well, if not better, than the owners did, but he waited patiently for Tejo to answer.

  He nodded to the side. “Past the end of the bar, third door to the left.”

  Diego nodded and pushed away from the bar.

  “Knock first,” the old man added.

  Diego paused at the sudden edge in the otherwise friendly tone. He respected that. He also knew that there were few women on earth who needed that protective instinct less than Blue Delgado.

  Until now, anyway.

  He looked over his shoulder, dipped his chin once, then headed to the back of the building.

  The door to the small office was old, scarred, warped from the heat … and standing open at least a foot. The room beyond was one large mass of clutter, in which the desk in the center seemed to serve as nothing more than an oversized paperweight. Keeping his word, he rapped the door once with his knuckles.

  The woman seated behind the desk, nose buried in a stack of what looked like old-fashioned record books, didn’t so much as flinch. He wasn’t surprised. As far as he could tell, nothing fazed Blue Delgado.

  “Enter at your own risk,” she said, not looking up.

  He’d heard her voice before, but only from a distance. Up close, there was a texture he hadn’t heard before. One that slid across his nerve endings like a taut bowstring. Not only was it warm and deep, but there was a rough quality, as if she’d used it once too many times the night before.

  He stepped inside and found a relatively empty space of floor near the front of her desk. Not in the least unnerved by her continued silence, he took the opportunity to run a once-over of the room in the daylight. The room was a bonfire of paper begging for a match.

  And the potential for that to “accidentally” happen—preferably with an unaware Blue inside at the time—didn’t escape him.

  “In a moment.” She flipped one book closed and shoved it aside to get to another one.

  The hairs on his arms lifted in pleasure. He allowed himself the luxury of the sensation. It was all he’d likely get out of this job, and he wasn’t a man to ignore life’s small pleasures. His life didn’t offer up any other kind.

  Watching Blue Delgado for the past three weeks had not been a hardship. She was an incredibly striking woman. And she knew it. Diego respected that too. He never understood why anyone wasted time pretending to ignore the obvious.

  Not that she flaunted the sleek waterfall of black hair that flowed down her back, or did anything to emphasize the prominent cheekbones and dark eyes handed down to her from her Spanish ancestors. She was of average height, but the rest of her body was a masterpiece of design. The clothes she chose were functional, not flattering, though he had to admit she could wear burlap and twine and still turn heads. Certainly his.

  No, Blue Delgado’s awareness of her fortunate genetics wasn’t obvious. He knew by the way she moved. The way she spoke. Laughed. The way she rode that Harley of hers as if it had been built to be put between her legs for her exclusive use and pleasure.

  She slapped the book shut and looked up. “What do you want?” The question was straight and to the point. Blue Delgado in a thumbnail description.

  “The job as your cook.”

  She looked him over. The examination was swift and thorough in a way that would be the envy of some officers he’d had the displeasure of being interrogated by in past years. He didn�
�t mind it in the least this time.

  He was tempted to ask what his appearance had to do with his cooking ability, just to hear her answer. But he knew her sharp observation had little to do with the label on his jeans and everything to do with assessing the man that filled them. Something else he respected.

  “You cook?” she asked.

  “Daily.”

  She didn’t smile, but the gleam that entered her black eyes was reward enough. “For more than one person at a time?”

  “When I’m lucky.” She was as sharp as she was beautiful.

  Oh, this woman would be fun to play with. He’d known that after less than twenty-four hours on the job. He just hadn’t expected to find that tantalizing bit of knowledge so difficult to ignore.

  But then he hadn’t expected he’d have to deal with her personally. Much less work for her.

  None of which changed the bottom line. He’d broken more rules than he’d ever followed, but one he kept sacred was the division between work and play. Playing on the job got people dead.

  She stood. He sighed inwardly. A damn shame, though. A real damn shame.

  “The kitchen is through that door.” She motioned across the hall behind him. “Lunch is in an hour. If you’re still here by six and no one has threatened to shoot me.” She paused to run her gaze over him again. It was totally impersonal and all the more erotic for the easy nonchalance. “Or you,” she added, “then you have the job.”

  Diego held her gaze for just a split second beyond what was acceptable. At the door he looked back over his shoulder. “No ID or tax information?”

  Her attention was already back on the open ledger in front of her. “If you’re still here at six, I’ll worry about it then.”

  “You don’t even know my name.”

  She glanced up and nailed him with a steady look that made him glad he was on her side.

  “You made it past Tejo,” was all she said, then looked down again. She flipped open another accounting book, shutting him out more completely, more effectively than anyone he’d ever encountered.