Desperado Lawman

“Oh, please,” she snapped. “If I believed everyone who told me they never buy the Eye-Opener, I’d figure we have a circulation of about twelve readers in the whole country. The most you’ll admit is that you might have glanced at it in a checkout line at the grocery store, right?”

“The Eye-Opener?”

He didn’t seem to realize he was matching his actions to his flatly phrased comment. The rest of the man was hard angles of bone and solid slabs of muscle, Tess noted incongruously, but his eyes were—

His eyes were beautiful, she thought a heartbeat later. They were a crystalline gray in the tan of his face, fringed with dark, spiky lashes any female would kill for.

She watched as they closed briefly, the lashes dipping to fan against hard ridges of cheekbone. When they opened again she was sure she saw wry humor light them just for a moment.

“You’re a tabloid reporter.” She hadn’t been wrong about the humor. A corner of his mouth quirked upward before it firmed into a straight line once again. “So there wasn’t any alien autopsy in Hangar 93?”

She glanced at a fast-asleep Joey before replying. “Hangar 61. But no, of course it wasn’t real.” She looked at him in confusion. “For heaven’s sake, do you think I’m some kind of—”

Belated comprehension flooded through her. “Dear God, you did, didn’t you? You thought I was a wacko, crazy enough to be working with whoever’s targeting Joey.”

She stared coldly at him. “Nice theory, Agent. Too bad it’s even less grounded in facts than the stories the National Eye-Opener runs every week.”

“Connor.” His tone was as clipped as hers. “And I don’t want to make you think we could be buddies, I’m just tired of being called Agent. Is Tess your real name or is that something else you’ve let Joey believe?”

“Tess is my real name.” When she was annoyed, her voice was raspier than normal, she knew. “Tess Smith. Connor what?”

“Connor’s my last name.” He grimaced. “These cuffs are cutting off my circulation. How about loosening them?”

“Let me suggest an Eye-Opener headline for that one,” she retorted. “FBI Discovers Woman Dumber Than Dirt—She Believed Me When I Said I Wouldn’t Try To Escape, Agent Says. The cuffs stay. What’s your first name?”

He looked away. “Virgil,” he muttered. “But I go by Connor.”

His comment a moment ago had stung. She arched an eyebrow. “You think I deliberately lied to Joey, don’t you, Virgil? You think I encouraged his hero-worship for my own ends. Is that how you figure it, Virge?”

The eyes she’d thought so beautiful took on a hard glitter. Restlessly Connor—no, Virgil, she told herself defiantly—shifted position on the hard wooden chair.

“I still figure you that way, lady. What your day job is doesn’t really change anything.” He exhaled, his gaze on hers.

“Did Rick Leroy tell you why Joey Begand was being held in an Agency safe house?” He didn’t wait for her answer. “It was because he witnessed a murder in an Albuquerque alleyway—the murder of a retired FBI agent, Dean Quayle. Quayle’s killer, a homeless man by the name of John MacLeish, was wounded during the encounter, but not badly enough to prevent him from escaping later that night from the hospital where he’d been taken after the police had arrived on the scene. The police found Joey hiding in a Dumpster, his memory of exactly what happened temporarily erased. The doctors say Joey’s amnesia won’t last.”

His tone hardened. “I don’t care what your relationship with Leroy is, except for the fact that you have to be working with him, since he handed Joey over to you. What I do want to know is, what was Leroy’s deal with Quayle’s killer, MacLeish?”

He’d already judged her and found her guilty, Tess thought. She’d gone into this realizing that no explanation she could give would be believed by the authorities. That was why she hadn’t bothered to present her side of the story to him during the drive here, and why even now she suspected it was going to be futile to try to make Agent Virgil Connor, a man who obviously lived and breathed his job, understand.

But for a split second she’d thought she’d glimpsed a very different man from the single-minded enforcer of the law he appeared to be. Wasn’t it possible that those crystal-gray eyes might see she’d had no other choice but to keep faith with Joey Begand, even if keeping faith meant breaking the law?

It was worth a try. Even before Connor had found them she’d had serious doubts that she could pull this off all by herself.

“Maybe it’s time we got a few things straight.” She paused, wondering how best to present her story. “First, I don’t know what the connection is between Leroy and MacLeish, for the simple reason that I’m not working with Leroy. I’ve never even met the man, so—”

“For God’s sake, woman, save yourself!” Abruptly the big man stood, the chair he’d been sitting on sliding backward across the linoleum floor. He started to take a step toward her, only to be jerked to a halt by the cuff on his left wrist. “I don’t want to fire the shot that takes you down or stand by and watch another agent have to kill you. But that’s the way it’s going to happen if you don’t call a stop to this.”

Unsteadily Tess got to her feet, the fear she’d been trying to suppress for the past two days spilling over. “I’m telling you the truth, dammit! I’m not working with a killer and I’m not working with a dirty agent. My only loyalty is to a little boy who came to me believing I could keep him safe. That’s why I can’t bring myself to tell Joey the stories I write are all lies—because he needs them to be true. I’m his only hope, and I don’t intend to let him down.”

“He came to you?” There was hostile disbelief in his tone. “There’s no way Joey could have escaped from Leroy after he’d snatched him from that safe house. Try again.”

“Leroy didn’t get the chance to snatch him,” she snapped. “Joey knew the Agency wouldn’t be able to protect him, and the day he arrived at the safe house he started planning how he was going to escape when the time came. He got out through an air duct.”

She took a deep breath. “Ask him yourself when he wakes up. It’s a more hair-raising story than any of my so-called exploits, believe me. Apparently he climbed onto a wardrobe and slid aside a duct panel he’d loosened days before. He hoisted himself up, replaced the panel, and when he found himself over a nearby vacant apartment he simply dropped down again, courtesy of a knotted length of bedsheet he had ready in his knapsack. Then he took the service stairs to a back exit and trekked across town on foot to my place.”

“Supposing I believe any of that, why did he come to you?” His gaze was unreadable. “Did he know you?”

“He knew of me.” She smiled crookedly. “He knew I kicked ugly monster butt, as he put it. Apparently before his mom died last year she was an Eye-Opener fan, and Joey told me I was her favorite writer on the paper. I’m sure she wasn’t gullible enough to swallow the Hangar 61 and Bigfoot stories, but her son did. He figured since he had a monster to slay, he needed a monster slayer. So he looked me up in the phone book and showed up on my doorstep.”

“A monster to slay?” He frowned. “Forget that for the moment. Maybe I can understand why a nine-year-old boy might think a tabloid reporter could protect him better than the FBI, but how the hell did you convince yourself that going on the run with him was a good idea? And where did you intend to take him, anyway?”

“To the Dinetah, of course. I didn’t want to go there directly, in case we were being followed.” At his blank look, she elaborated. “The Navajo Nation. Joey’s mother always made sure he knew his heritage through her was Dineh, as we Navajo call ourselves.” She saw his assessing glance at her. “That’s right. I’m Dineh, too, Agent.”

“Your background isn’t what concerns me.” With his free hand the big man rubbed his jaw. “But there was nothing in Joey’s file to indicate he had any tribe affiliation. If the state authorities had known, when his mother died he would have been put into a facility where his culture would have been emphasized while he was waiting for adoption or fostering.”

“I’m not surprised he didn’t tell them. He’s a pretty close-mouthed little guy until he gives his trust.”

“And you say he gave his trust to you,” Connor said shortly. “I’d like to believe you. Hell, I halfway do, at that. But even if Joey thinks he’s safe with you, you know that protecting him is our job, not yours. He isn’t being chased by a monster, he’s being hunted by a killer, probably two, if MacLeish and Leroy are working together.”

He still didn’t get it, Tess told herself wearily. He never would, and she’d been a fool to hope otherwise. Virgil Connor was defined by his badge and his gun. He played by the rules. He didn’t think outside the box, and he’d probably get to be area director with those qualities.

Worst of all, he didn’t believe in monsters. And that meant he was no protection at all for Joey Begand.

She pushed a stray strand of hair back from her forehead. She intended to be on the road again before sunup, and she desperately needed some sleep before the several hours of driving still ahead of her.

Agent Connor was going to get some shut-eye, too, she thought, which was why she’d had no qualms about informing him about her plans. By the time he awoke tomorrow and found himself alone here, Joey would be on Navajo Nation land where the FBI would need warrants and special permission from tribal leaders to retrieve him—permission she was almost certain wouldn’t be forthcoming.

Letting his witness and the woman who’d abducted him slip through his fingers wasn’t going to look good on his file, but a blot on Agent Connor’s copybook wasn’t her biggest worry. Setting the gun down on the dresser beside her, she retrieved her purse from the foot of the bed.

“If your main concerns are MacLeish and Leroy, I’m surprised you aren’t out hunting them,” she said evenly. “But there’s no point in discussing our differing viewpoints, Agent Connor. Whether either one of us likes it or not, we’re sharing a motel room for the next few hours, so let’s—”

“Connor.” His interjection was brusque. “Just Connor. Drop the agent part, lady, since the fact that I’m FBI doesn’t seem to mean too much to you. I’m the man you’re holding at gunpoint. You’re the woman I let pull a fast one on me. Yeah, we’re in a motel room, but not for any of the usual reasons a man and woman usually come to a place like this.”

Tess felt faint heat touch her cheeks. He was trying to get her off balance, she thought in chagrin. He was succeeding, and although she didn’t really understand why his dismissive reference to a sexual tryst should make her color up like an embarrassed schoolgirl, if he got the impression his captor wasn’t as tough as she was pretending to be, he might begin to wonder if she’d really use the gun she’d been holding on him.

She’d been wondering that, too.

“You sound disappointed.” She allowed a thin smile to curve her lips. “That we’re not here for the usual reasons, I mean. I should have guessed a man who dresses the way you do would have a social agenda that revolved around cheap motel rooms.”

His answering smile was just as controlled as hers. “And I should have guessed that a woman who dreams up stories about Bigfoot wouldn’t have any trouble fantasizing about my sex life. Good thing we’ll never actually do the dirty together for real, honey. I doubt I’d be able to measure up to what you’ve probably been imagining about me.”

Outrage flickered swiftly through her. “Believe me, my imagination wasn’t coming up with anything very exciting,” she retorted. “In fact, I was probably giving you too much credit. I seriously doubt you have a social life at all.”

She tipped her head to one side. “Let’s see how close I get, okay? The job’s your life. You live in a one-bedroom apartment, and you’ve never bothered buying more than a bed and maybe a couch. You don’t have any pictures up on the wall, and those walls are whatever color the previous tenant left them. Am I warm?”

He didn’t answer her. Turning her back to him, she rummaged around in her purse for the sleeping pills she was going to have to force him to take. She went on, trying to mask her sudden apprehension with abrasiveness.

“You’ve got six other white shirts just like the one you’re wearing now—short-sleeved and polyester, because they’re practical and you don’t care how you look as long as you’re presentable. You don’t know the names of your co-workers’ spouses. You volunteer to work Christmas. You get to the gym at least three times a week. Did I miss anything?”

“Just that I always carry a spare key for my handcuffs.”

His voice came from directly behind her. Spinning around in shock, she saw crystal-gray eyes looking coldly down on her, saw the automatic she’d taken from him at the diner firmly gripped in one big hand.

“Aside from that, I’d say you were dead-on, lady,” he said harshly. “So seeing as you know me so well, this part shouldn’t be a surprise, either.”

Even as Tess’s lips parted in a gasp, Virgil Connor’s mouth came down hard on hers.

Chapter Three

It wasn’t a kiss. It was a storm, a hurricane, a lightning strike that immediately shorted out every last electrical impulse in all her nerve endings at once, but it wasn’t a kiss. Virgil Connor didn’t know how to kiss, Tess thought disjointedly. He probably didn’t know how to make love. All the man knew was raw sex.

But he knew everything there was to know about that.

One big hand was spread wide against the back of her head. His other arm was hanging loosely at his side. He was making it clear that if she wanted to she could pull away from him easily enough.

She swayed toward him. Connor shifted his stance automatically, his hand spreading wider and his fingers beginning to slide through her hair as he moved in closer. Through her own half-closed lashes she saw his—dark and thick, drifting down to shut off that brilliant gray gaze.

Suddenly she felt him stiffen. He lifted his head and took a step back, his hand falling from her.

Tess blinked. The next moment appalled horror raced through her, and she took a stumbling step backward herself. Something flashed behind the mirrored gray of his eyes. A muscle moved tightly at the side of his jaw as he spoke.

“That’s one for the books.” His tone was flat and dead. “You’d better report me for this when they take you in. I won’t contest your statement.”

Her mouth felt so swollen and hot she had the impulse to bring her fingertips to her lips. “Why?” Her voice came out in a croak. She tried again, putting more force behind her words. “Why did you do that?”

“I don’t know. But it won’t happen again.” He began to turn away. “I’m going to call my area director and have him send someone to escort—”

“No!” Incautious fury spilled through her at his dismissal of the situation he’d created. She grabbed his arm, noticing as she spun him back to face her that the muscle beneath her grip was rigidly hard. “You’re going to tell me what just happened here, for God’s sake!”

Suddenly remembering Joey, she cast a swiftly contrite glance in the direction of the bed. He was obviously too deeply asleep for anything short of an earthquake to rouse him, but she lowered her tone nonetheless.

“Is it how you get off, Agent Connor?” With a shaky hand she pushed a stray curve of hair off her cheek. “Do you try something like this with all of the women you flash your badge at, or did you just figure you’d give it a shot with me?”

She tightened her grip on his wrist. “You’d better believe I’d report you if I had any intention of letting you take me in, but I don’t. I’m leaving here with Joey, and the only way you can stop me is by using that gun you’re holding. My opinion of you right now isn’t the greatest, but I don’t think you can bring yourself to shoot an unarmed woman.”

Releasing him abruptly, she picked up her purse from the dresser beside them and stalked over to Joey’s backpack, on the floor beside the bed. She bent stiffly and grabbed one of its straps, but as she lifted it the flap opened and the contents of the bag tumbled out onto the floor.

Tess squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden prickling of tears she could feel behind her lashes. They were tears of anger and frustration, she told herself. They weren’t tears of fear or worry. This wasn’t working out the way she’d planned, but in a few minutes she could still be on her way with Joey. In a couple of hours they would be on Navajo Nation land, where Virgil Connor’s bullying tactics would slam up against a solid wall of red tape when he attempted to—

“I’m not going to shoot you, Tess.” He didn’t sound bullying, he just sounded tired. “For what it’s worth, it won’t come to that and you know it. Look at me.”

She ignored him. Squatting down on her heels, she began to gather up the collection of small-boy treasures that had fallen from Joey’s backpack, replacing them as carefully as she could manage with her trembling fingers.

There was a dog-eared collection of baseball cards, held together by a doubled-over elastic band. Joey was obviously a baseball nut like she was, Tess thought, trying to distract herself from the man standing silently beside her. It would be something they could talk about on the drive ahead of—

“Look at me, Tess.”

There was a reluctantly hard note in his tone. Her fingers closed around a carefully folded piece of paper before she unwillingly raised her eyes to his.

“Don’t bother.” Despair washed over her. “I know what you’re going to say.”

A muscle moved in his jaw. “I’d better say it anyway, just so we’re clear here. I’m a big man. You’re what…five-three? Five-four?”

“Three,” she answered him tonelessly. “I get it, all right?”

He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “I wouldn’t even have to try, Tess. But I don’t want it to go down that way and I don’t think you do, either. Hand me the car keys.”

He needed the keys because she’d left her own gun locked in the glove box. Tess understood he wasn’t going to let this situation get out of control again.

That was what Virgil Connor was all about, she realized. He liked well-defined boundaries, smooth-running operations, everything falling into place the way it should. He could react to the unexpected, the illogical, but his immediate response was to bring it back under control, which made his actions with her a moment ago all the more inexplicable. Despite her accusations, she knew instinctively he’d crossed a line with her that he’d never crossed before in his life.

And that knowledge was supremely unimportant. All that mattered was that she’d failed a small boy who’d thought she could protect him. She looked at the paper in her hand, recognizing it for what it was before she began unfolding it.

“They’re in my purse,” she said flatly. “Get them yourself.”

In the creased newspaper photo she was dressed in some kind of pseudo-camouflage outfit and standing in a desert. The wonders of computer graphics, she thought briefly. The picture had been taken in the Eye-Opener’s parking lot, her figure superimposed against a generic desert scene later on. The tabloid’s photo-tech had also punched up the Rambo-like smeared grease under her eyes and the fake blood soaking one arm of her fatigues to a brilliant red, probably because it had looked too much like the ketchup it was.

The surrounding article had been torn off. Joey likely knew it by heart anyway, she thought.

“Is that you?”

Tess hadn’t even noticed that he’d hunkered down beside her to retrieve her purse. She let him take the picture from her.

“No, that’s not me.” She began to gather up the rest of the scattered odds and ends that had fallen from the backpack. “That’s who Joey thinks I am, but that’s not me.”

“What are you supposed to be doing here?”

Under the bed was another photograph facedown, this one not a clipping from the tabloid but a tiny photo-booth snapshot that must have originally been attached to a strip of pictures. She reached past him for it.

“I’m covered in blood so I guess I’m supposed to be taking a breather after going up against Bigfoot or a mutant lizard or something,” she replied curtly. “You said you were going to tell your area director to send someone out. Will Joey and I be riding back to Albuquerque in different vehicles?”

“That’s correct procedure.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw him shrug. “You’re my arrest. He’s my witness. I’ve pulled enough stupid plays tonight without adding to them by transporting the two of you in the same car.”

He looked away. “And if I could take back just one of the mistakes I’ve made since spotting you in that diner it would be the way I moved in on you a few minutes ago. I behaved like a jerk. If you’re wondering whether I’m going to be the one taking you in, don’t worry, I’ll hand you over to the agents Jansen dispatches when they come.”

He got to his feet. “I’ll make that call now.”

“That’s not why I asked.” Still clutching the second photo, she stood, too. “Can you give me some time alone with Joey? Just a few minutes, that’s all I need.”

Dark brows drew together. “What for?”

“To tell him he was wrong about me,” she said unsteadily. “I owe him that much, Connor. Joey Begand came to me thinking I was someone I’m not, and I should have set him straight right away. Instead, I let him go on believing in a bunch of faked photos and stories, and told myself I was doing it for him.”

She lowered her gaze. Aimlessly she turned over the small picture in her hand. “It’s too long and dreary a story to get into, but it’s more likely I was doing it for myself. I think I needed to believe that for once in my life I could—”

The breath in her lungs suddenly vanished, taking with it the rest of her unfinished sentence. A giant fist wrapped around her heart and squeezed, tighter and still more tighter. Her hand shaking, Tess brought the tiny photo up until it was only inches from her face.

It couldn’t be, she thought in shock. It just couldn’t be—life didn’t operate that way. Connor was right, she’d been living in the Eye-Opener’s fantasy world for so long that she’d lost touch with reality. Coincidences this colossal were reserved for the outlandish stories she dreamed up, not for—

It wasn’t a coincidence at all. It was why Joey’s mother had read everything she’d written, she realized, her throat closing in pain, why Darla Begand—so that was the name she’d taken, Tess thought achingly—had made Tess Smith out to be a hero to her small son. It had been the only connection Darla been capable of making with a past she’d tried to blot out.

“I can’t leave you alone with Joey, but I’ll let you explain things to him.” Connor was watching her. “He’s a kid, Tess. He’ll get over it the way kids do when they find out there’s no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny, for crying out loud. Right now you should be worrying about yourself. You’ve convinced me that you didn’t have anything to do with Leroy and what happened at the safe house, but you’re still facing serious charges. Kidnapping a child’s the worst of them.”

“Not if I had the right to take Joey. Not if I was his guardian, for all intents and purposes.”

Tess met his eyes and saw the impatience, quickly suppressed, that flickered through them. Connor’s lips tightened, and when he spoke, some of the harshness he’d previously displayed had crept back into his tone.

“But you’re not. Like I was saying, you should be thinking about calling a lawyer. Do you have—”

He bit off his words with a muttered oath and his hand shot out to grab hers as she reached down for her purse. She drew swiftly back.

“I’m not going for a weapon, Agent Connor. I need to show you something.”

“I don’t think so.” The brief humanity he’d shown a few minutes ago had gone. In its place was distrust. “I let those amber eyes of yours lull me into letting my guard down once already. I won’t make that mistake again.”

“My eyes are plain brown, for heaven’s sake.” She pressed her lips together. “If you’re worried I’ve got a weapon stashed in here, then you get my wallet out for me. It…it’s important,” she added. “I think you’re going to want to see this before you make that call to your director.”