Shotgun Daddy

“You’re right, I was way out of line.” Her lips tightened at his words, but he saw past the dismissive gesture to the tightly wound tension she’d hidden so well.

Or perhaps Caro Moore hadn’t had to hide it that well, he told himself slowly. Maybe he’d been so preoccupied with his failure to save a hostage that he hadn’t wanted to notice the woman behind the icy facade.

Sure, she had attitude. She had it in spades. But pampered princess or not, she hadn’t deserved to learn the way she had what a jerk Kanin was.

“If anyone’s bunking in the car tonight, I am,” he said. “I owe you that, at least, and I’m used to sleeping rough.”

He let his hands slide from her shoulders. Even as he did he saw the twin smears of black grease they left against the pristine white of her cashmere sweater. Caro’s eyes widened in appalled disbelief as she saw them, too.

Sweet move, Riggs, Gabe thought, his heart sinking. Suddenly he felt he was everything she believed him to be—coarse, crude, and better suited to being in a mechanic’s bay working on her car than standing here trying to talk to her—or hell, touch her. He began to apologize, knew there was nothing she wanted to hear from him, and shrugged in defeat.

“You realize that won’t come out,” she said in a tight voice. She didn’t take her gaze off the fingerprints running from her shoulders to just above the curve of her breasts. “You realize that’s probably gone right through the fabric.”

“The alarm box was humidity-proofed with packing grease.” Without meaning to, he followed her gaze. “I must have gotten it on my hands when I was disconnecting the wires.”

He stepped away from her rigid figure, wondering if it was his imagination or if he’d suddenly become bigger, bulkier, more awkward. He still couldn’t seem to avert his eyes from the agitated rise and fall of her breasts.

“I’d better get the hell out of here before I completely mess you up,” he muttered, taking another slow step away.

With an effort he began to drag his gaze from her. Caro slipped a gloved finger under the neckline of the sweater and pulled it slightly away from her body. She let the soft wool fall back into place and looked up at him.

“I’ll probably need some kind of abrasive soap to clean it off my skin.”

Her voice was still tight, but now there seemed to be a breathiness to it, he thought in confusion. Or maybe he was projecting, he told himself. Yeah. That had to be it.

“Pumice,” he said thickly. “When I’ve been working on an engine I have to scrub my nails with pumice. But that’s probably too rough.”

“If rough works, I’ll try it.” He hadn’t imagined the breathiness. Her eyes were wide and locked on his. “I can’t go around like this, can I? I have to scrub it away somehow.”

She wasn’t talking about cleaning abrasives anymore, he realized with sudden certainty. He shook his head and tried to take another step backward. The small heels of her boots clicked against the floor as she took three steps forward and stopped in front of him.

“After tomorrow I don’t imagine I’ll ever see you again.” Her lips barely moved as she spoke. Slowly she brought a fingertip to his chest and traced the rim of one of his shirt buttons, her attention seemingly focused on the small action. “You’ll drop me off in Aspen in the morning and it’ll be like tonight never happened.”

Gabe swallowed. “That’s not how it would be, princess,” he said, too hoarsely. “I don’t think you’re the type that can tell herself it didn’t happen. I think you’d remember everything, whether you wanted to or not.”

He turned away. “You’d better get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He’d never known his father, but he knew his mother had been Navajo. Stoicism. Big Dineh quality, he told himself, mentally using the Navajo term rather than the Anglo one. Hell, maybe I’ll be thankful later, but right now I can’t believe I’m walking away from her.

But he didn’t have a choice—not if he wanted to be able to look himself in the mirror tomorrow.

She wanted to prove something to herself, though she didn’t have to. Kanin had seen a vulnerability beneath that cool exterior and had aimed his jab right at the place where it would hurt the most. The bastard had made her feel it was her fault he’d gone to another woman for the sexual favor he’d wanted performed on him. Tomorrow Caro Moore would be able to see her ex-fiancé’s accusation for what it was—a cheap shot from a man who didn’t deserve her. But tonight, she was in pain and she wanted to scrub away the humiliation as harshly as possible.

And she was going to use you to do it, buddy, the small voice in Gabe’s head said firmly. You don’t wanna play stud for a spoiled little socialite, right?

The hell he didn’t. But he wasn’t going to. And that was final.

He’d almost made it to the door when her voice stopped him.

“I don’t look like I’m all ice, but I must be. That has to be why you’re turning me down—because you can tell just by looking at me that it wouldn’t be any good for you. Is that what you see, Gabe? Am I so obviously frozen?”

He turned around, and knew as soon as he had that he’d made a mistake. She’d pulled off the white sweater. Under it she was wearing a lacy white bra—of course, Gabe thought dizzily—and she’d been right, some of the lace was smudged. More dark prints stood out against the creamy swell of her breasts.

He wasn’t aware that he’d moved, but somehow he was right in front of her. “Maybe a little frozen,” he rasped. “I kind of like that, though.”

“Then, how can you walk away?” The pain in her voice was almost his undoing. “It must be me. Larry was right.”

“He was wrong.” He forced himself to keep his hands at his sides. “If you really want to know what I see when I look at you, I’ll tell you. I see that lush mouth and I wonder what it would be like to have it on me; I see that pale hair and think of it falling across your face while you call out my name. I see heat that could sear a brand onto a man. But I won’t take advantage of how you feel tonight, Caro. I don’t think I could live with myself if I did.”

“And I don’t think I’ll be able to stand it if you don’t,” she whispered.

His hands were shaking, dammit. He raised his left one from his side, the heavy silver and turquoise cuff glinting coldly against the tan of his arm. He brought his palm to within a hairbreadth of that pale, smudged skin—and stopped.

Her teeth sunk into her bottom lip. Her mouth bloomed dark pink. It looked like a single rose petal floating on cream.

“I don’t care,” she said with low fierceness. “Don’t you understand? I want to see where you’ve been on me.”

Heat slammed through Gabe. He pressed his outspread hand over her breast, let his thumb slip under the chaste lace of her no-longer white bra, dragged the flimsy fabric downward.

“I shouldn’t be doing this, princess,” he said unsteadily.

As if of its own volition, his right hand slid past her hips to cup the curves of that tight, white-clad rump. He lifted her to him, one-handedly held her against him, felt the shock that ran through her as she was forced to wrap her legs around his waist to steady herself. With his other hand he pulled a clip from the coil at the nape of her neck, and as her hair fell free he spread his fingers against the back of her head. He kept them there and kissed her.

It was like falling into a world of snow, like being buried in snow, like burning in snow. The smell of white and the taste of white—white flowers and white heat—flamed across his soul.

She’d wanted his mark on her. He wanted hers on him, he thought, raw desire spilling through him.

And a few minutes later as he sank to his knees on the snowy fur, Caro Moore’s arms and legs entwined around him and her mouth under his, Gabriel Riggs surrendered himself to the cold flames and the burning ice and the woman who needed him for only one night….

Chapter Two

Even with the SUV’s air-conditioning as high as it could go and the sleeveless dress she was wearing no more than a breath of silk against her skin, Caro felt as if she was burning up. If what Jess Crawford had told her before he’d left for Mexico a few days ago was right and he’d finally run his old friend to earth here in an isolated corner of New Mexico’s Chihuahua Desert, in a short while she’d be seeing Gabriel Riggs again.

It had been eighteen months since the night she’d spent with him. She was almost certain he would take one look at her and tell her to go to hell.

He’d be well within his rights if he did, she told herself. Even if you can’t remember the exact words you threw at him when you and he parted ways in Aspen the next morning, you know they were—

Abruptly she cut off the comforting lie before she could take it further. The truth was, she remembered everything—the words, the cutting tone in which she’d delivered them, and the desperate pride that had prompted her unforgivable outburst.

She’d awoken in his arms that morning a year and a half ago, unable at first to identify the unfamiliar emotion filling her. Only after she’d looked at a still-sleeping Gabe beside her had she been able to put a name to what she was feeling.

Total contentment. Total happiness. And the ridiculous but undeniable conviction that no matter how it had come about, she’d somehow found the one man in the world she would ever want.

She didn’t know how long she lay there watching him sleep. She only knew that as she did she found herself wanting to slide her fingers through the tangle of blue-black hair obscuring his closed eyes, wanting to trace the assorted scars on his tough hide and ask him how he’d gotten each one. When she realized what she was thinking, doubt flickered skittishly through her. She tried to tell herself that her world and his were too different, that he was nothing more than hired muscle, that what had passed between them had been merely physical—a rash one-night fling she already regretted.

It didn’t work. And with a flash of devastating self-knowledge she understood that the woman she’d been twenty-four hours ago—a woman to whom shallow reasons like those would have mattered—was gone for good.

“You look appalled, princess.”

Still trying to assimilate the shattering revelation she’d had, she didn’t realize he’d opened his eyes and was looking at her until he spoke. Before she could reply, he slid his arm out from under her and got to his feet.

“Don’t be. This never happened, remember?” Raking his hair back, he gave her a tight smile. “This never happened, I won’t call you, and you don’t have to worry about running into me again. That’s the upside of sleeping with a loner, honey. Men like me don’t stick around long enough to become a problem.”

For a moment she refused to believe that the words were coming from the same man who’d whispered her name all night, who’d held her gaze with his as the two of them had urged each other to ecstasy only hours earlier. He shrugged, and the gesture pierced Caro more than his comments had.

“Men like you?” Her voice came out in a croak, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“Yeah, princess, men like me. You know—rough-and-ready types who don’t know what fork to use at those white-tie dinners you have, who would be told to use the back entrance if they showed up at your rich daddy’s Albuquerque mansion, who take on the dirty jobs your social circle doesn’t want to admit exist…like dealing with kidnappers. You had me pegged from the minute I told you we were going to spend the night here together, and that look I saw in your eyes a few minutes ago made it pretty obvious you woke up with second thoughts about what we did last night.” His tone took on an edge. “You were having second thoughts, am I right?”

“Second thoughts? Heavens, no.”

She was amazed to hear the amused astonishment in her tone—amazed and grateful. Because everything depended on pulling off the act she wanted him to buy, Caro told herself—her self-esteem, her ability to get past this moment without falling apart, her pride.

“Last night satisfied my curiosity, Gabe. You said it yourself—I see men like you doing work around my father’s estate, or as hired security at a function. My girlfriends and I’ve always thought it might be thrilling in a naughty way to spend a night with that type of man.” She forced a laugh. “You were a fantasy come true, and it was even kind of fun having to persuade you, but you’re right—the ground rules still stand. It would be embarrassing for both of us if you showed up on my doorstep in the mistaken belief that this had been anything more than it was.”

She tipped her head to one side. “This never happened, you won’t call me, and I don’t have to worry about running into you again. Promise?”

“Sure,” he said tonelessly. “But the next time you get curious, honey, consider calling an agency who sends the kind of man you’re looking for out on house calls. That way you won’t have to worry about any misunderstandings at all.”

The drive to Aspen had been conducted in near-total silence, Caro remembered now. Gabe had dropped her off in front of a five-star hotel, she’d checked into a suite, and after drawing herself a bath so hot that billows of perfumed steam rose from the tub, she’d immersed herself in a vain attempt to melt the core of ice that seemed to have formed inside her.

The ice hadn’t melted—not then, and not upon her return to Albuquerque, where she’d informed her father that she’d broken off her engagement to a man he’d seen as an eminently suitable prospective husband for her. It hadn’t melted over the following weeks during the rounds of parties she’d forced herself to attend. And then one day she’d frowned at the calendar, made a quick calculation, and had felt the first hairline fissure appear in the numbness she’d begun to think had become a permanent part of her.

A few days later she’d shakily dialed the number she’d obtained for Gabe. He was going to be a father. She was carrying his child. Surely opening the conversation with a bombshell like that would catch him off guard enough that he would listen to the rest of what she had to tell him—that he’d misinterpreted the dismay he’d seen on her face when he’d awoken that morning, that a lifetime of being Caroline Moore, daughter of a man who’d taught her from childhood that emotions were to be concealed, had caused her to clutch at her pride instead of revealing her true feelings.

“I would have poured it all out to him if he’d still been there to answer that phone call,” Caro said out loud, her hands gripping the SUV’s wheel and her gaze fixed on the empty desert landscape rushing by. But he hadn’t been. It had all been true on his part— Gabe Riggs was a loner who didn’t stick around long enough to have relationships. She was glad she had found out before the baby was born. No child needed a father who’d rather be somewhere else, instead of tied down to a woman he had no fond memories of and a baby he hadn’t planned on.

Which made her current quest all the more ironic, she thought tensely. Because right now the only man who could help her was the one man she’d assumed she would never see—

She hit the SUV’s brakes to avoid whizzing past the gas station she’d been told to watch for. It was no wonder she’d nearly missed the building, she thought as she maneuvered around a truck that had been abandoned beside what remained of a pair of gasoline pumps. The structure was close to being a ruin. No one had lived here for decades.

Jess’s information had to be wrong.

Caro brought the sports utility to a stop, tears of disappointment and fear pricking at the back of her eyes. Even as her vision blurred she blinked the tears back.

At one end of the ramshackle building a rusty nail protruded from a broken board. Slung from the nail was what she’d first taken as a rag but on second glance proved to be a shirt. It wasn’t faded enough to have been hanging there for years.

She opened the door, stepped out of the vehicle and walked to the side of the building.

He was standing beneath an oil drum that had obviously been rigged up as a primitive shower. Water was sprinkling down through holes punched into the bottom of the drum. He was lean muscle and whip-cord sinews and bronzed hide. He was completely naked.

Caro’s breath caught in her throat. She put her hand on the side of the building to steady herself.

Gabe looked over his shoulder and his gaze met hers. “Don’t come another step closer,” he said flatly.

She’d expected hostility from him, she acknowledged numbly. She hadn’t expected the piercing pain that demolished her already-shaky defences at this curt evidence that whatever Gabe Riggs might once have felt for her was dead and gone.

He reached up to the side of the oil drum and, before she understood what he was doing, he brought down a sawed-off shotgun, braced it one-handedly against his body and pulled the trigger. Out of the corner of her eye she saw splinters fly explosively from the side of the building as the heavy body of a greenish-colored snake gave one last, headless spasm a few feet away from where she stood frozen in her tracks. It was a moment before she could trust herself to speak.

“I—I think you just saved my life.” Her voice wasn’t entirely steady, but she hoped he would put the quaver in her tone down to what had just happened.

“Since that was a Mojave rattler, I think I did, too.”

As Gabe replaced the shotgun in a sling at the side of the oil drum, she saw a gleam of silver on his left wrist and recognized the bracelet he’d worn the night they’d met. With no self-consciousness at all, he ducked his head under the final trickle of water before stepping away from the patch of already-drying earth under his makeshift shower and picking up a pair of patched khakis. He put them on, raked wet hair out of his eyes and retrieved the shotgun, then walked past her.

“How did you find me?” As he spoke he kept walking, while shrugging his shoulders into his shirt.

“Through an old friend of yours, Jess Crawford. I met him once or twice at parties when I was dating Larry. I work for him now, as his social secretary.” She resisted the impulse to look away. “My situation’s changed since we last met, Gabe, but that’s not relevant. Jess needs your help. From what I gather, he and you go back a long way.”

“Fifteen years.” Gabe’s jaw tightened. “Did ol’ Jess feed you a line about the crazy times we had together with Tyler Adams and Virge Connor at the Double B Ranch, when we were sent there as juvenile delinquents to turn our lives around? Did he credit the fact that he’s now a software billionaire and a solid citizen to Del Hawkins, the ex-marine who runs the ranch and whipped us into shape?”

She stared at him, disconcerted. “Not in so many words, but yes. He told me that being sent to the Double B was the best thing that ever happened to him. He said all four of you felt that way.”

“Jess is a nice guy. His problem’s always been in believing that wanting something bad enough makes it come true.” Gabe shrugged. “If it’s a Double B band-of-brothers reunion Jess wants me to attend, tell him thanks but no thanks. And tell him to come himself the next time he needs a favor.”

He opened the SUV’s door. “Expensive vehicle, expensive-looking dress, and those strappy little sandals you’re wearing probably cost more than I used to make in a week before I quit Recoveries International. It doesn’t look to me as if your situation’s changed that much, even if you are filling in time by playing secretary for Jess. You’re still a snow princess. Better be on your way before that creamy skin starts to burn.”

She couldn’t afford to take offence at his tone, but a spark of desperate anger flared in her nonetheless.

“Maybe the changes in my life just don’t seem so significant in comparison to your situation.” She gazed steadily at him. “Why did you disappear, Gabe? Was it because you blamed yourself for Leo Roswell’s death?”

“Leo’s death was why I stopped being a hostage negotiator. I knew that if I hadn’t seen what Kanin was planning, the instincts I’d always relied on were gone.” His smile was brief. “As for why I dropped off the face of the earth, I don’t see how that’s any of your damn business, sweetheart.”

“Then I’d better stick to what is my business. I’m here because Jess once told me that if he was ever kidnapped, the only man he’d trust to negotiate his release would be you.”

The sunlight was so strong that Gabe’s eyes seemed a translucent amber, but just for a moment they deepened to black. She saw his jaw tighten as he took in what she hadn’t said.

“When and where?”

For the first time since she’d found him here in this nowhere spot Caro allowed her emotions to show. “Two days ago, just across the border in Mexico. His abductors snatched him while he was down there supervising construction of a new Crawford Solutions plant he’s having built.” She shook her head. “Oh, Gabe—Jess’s business partner Steve Dixon called in Kanin’s firm to handle negotiations for his release. I’m afraid something’s going to go wrong.”

“If Recoveries International’s been hired, even if I wanted to I wouldn’t be able to involve myself.” His tone was flat. “I wouldn’t have the authority to replace—”

“But that’s just it—I do,” she interrupted. “I told you I was Jess’s social secretary. That’s true, as far as it goes, but our relationship’s grown over the year and a half I’ve been working for him. A few weeks ago he asked me to marry him.”

He looked away. “Congratulations, but I don’t—”

“I said I needed time to think it over, but he still insisted on signing some document that gave me power of attorney over his affairs, which is why my choice of hostage negotiator will take precedence over Steve Dixon’s. I won’t lie to you, Gabe—I’ve decided I’m going to tell him I accept his proposal. But first I need your help to bring him home.”

His expression closed. “Jess deserves a negotiator who’ll give him a fighting chance to come out of this alive, not a burned-out case who could get him killed.”

“He deserves the man he asked for when he first suspected this day might come—” she retorted, “the man he has faith in. You’re that man, Gabe, whether you like it or not. Maybe you’ve been able to walk away from the rest of the world, but you can’t walk away from one of your oldest friends.”

“No?” His smile was humorless. “Just watch me, princess.”

She’d gambled and lost, Caro thought dully. But what had she expected? Gabriel Riggs had once called her a rich bitch, and the morning after they’d slept together she’d done everything she could to convince him that his assessment of her had been correct. She’d been insane to think that a plea for help from her would mean anything to him.

“You said Jess suspected this day might come.” About to turn away, he paused. “What made him think he was in danger of being kidnapped?”

“Nothing specific,” she said tonelessly. “Just the feeling once or twice that he was being followed. But when I suggested he hire a bodyguard, he told me he’d never wanted his wealth to curtail his life and he wasn’t going to start now. I guess that attitude made it easy for his kidnappers. The one who phoned to tell us they had Jess certainly seemed to think so.”

“You’re leaving something out.” His gaze sharpened. “What aren’t you telling me?”

He wanted the truth from her—the whole truth, Caro thought. He wanted more than she was prepared to give.

“The kidnapper who called said we’d better make sure nothing went wrong,” she said unevenly. “He said that not only was Jess’s life at stake, but that if they had to kill him they’d come after me and my baby daughter, Emily.”

She saw his eyes darken in shock and answered his question before he could ask it, knowing that her child’s whole world depended on convincing him.

“Emily is Larry’s baby, Gabe,” she lied, her gaze clear and unwavering on his. “I was already pregnant with her when I met you eighteen months ago, but before you try to tell me that as her father he’ll want to take sole responsibility for her safety, you should know that I’ve never told him what his relationship is to her—and I don’t intend to.”