Renegade With A Badge

Just as she reached the second floor, she heard a heavy tread on the stairs behind her. She froze for a moment, panicked, expectant. Then it occurred to her that the bandit she’d met had not moved with such plodding thumps of feet and weight. Olivia doubted he made any sound at all, unless he wanted to.

A guest, then. Eeh. She looked around for a hiding place. She did not want to be caught in this dim hallway with one of Ernesto’s rowdy revelers. There was far too much clear thinking to be done to waltz through the niceties with a stranger. She opened the closest door and slipped inside.

The room was dark. Even the moon was shut out by gloomy, thick draperies. Olivia leaned against the door for a moment to catch her breath, then peeked carefully out into the hallway again. Wonderful. There was not one man, but three, all waiting for the bathroom. She closed the door again quietly.

“That was a very touching proposal.”

Olivia spun around. She could see nothing, not even shadows, but she knew the voice. Would recognize it until the day she died, she realized.

“Ay, Dios,” she whispered.

Rafe did not turn on any lights. He knew he couldn’t be seen from outside—he’d closed the drapes himself—but he’d neglected to eye the distance between the bottom of the door and the threshold and didn’t want to take any chances. He was sure he couldn’t stand to look into her eyes, anyway.

“Have you come up to his bedroom, then, as a small treat before the wedding?”

“You said you were leaving!” she whispered furiously.

“I said, when I was finished.”

“My God, how long does it take?”

“How long does what take?” Rafe asked, almost as amused with her as he was infuriated. Engaged, was she? To that murdering scum?

“I don’t know! Whatever you were doing. Stealing. Smuggling.”

“Smuggling?” Now she’d surprised him. What the hell did this woman know?

Olivia could have kicked herself. “Or killing people, whatever you do. Where are you?” she whispered hoarsely. “I can’t see you.”

“It’s better, I think, if you meet him in the dark, princesa.”

He heard her small gasp, relished it. It made him mad, knowing she had come up here to meet Cervantes, after that nauseating public proposal. Unreasonable that Rafe should suffer over something that did not concern him in the least. But he did. And he wanted her to suffer a little, as well.

Olivia felt the whirling in her head subside to a manageable spin, felt her stomach settle from the shock of his voice. She’d been certain he’d be gone from the hacienda by now. It had been hours. “Why are you still here? If Ernesto catches you in his house—”

“Don’t worry, I’m leaving. You came up the stairs just as I was about to go down them.”

“Down them? Are you insane? Anyone could have seen you.”

“It’s past midnight, Doctor. By my estimation, most of the people downstairs were too drunk an hour ago to notice if an elephant walked through the room.”

“You promised me. You said no one would be hurt. Ernesto—”

His hand shot out from the darkness, startling her. She’d never even heard him move. His strong fingers clamped around her wrist.

“Stop calling him that,” he said. “Do not call him Ernesto, as though you know him. You know nothing about him.”

“No. You’re right. It doesn’t matter.” She was frantic. If anyone caught them together, all hell would break loose. She knew this man would do what he’d threatened, and innocent people would be hurt. Maybe even Ernesto. Most likely Ernesto.

Olivia squared her shoulders. “Okay, now you listen to me. You have to go before he finds you here.”

“And you will stay,” he said flatly, coldly.

“What? Yes.” Olivia shook her head to try to clear it. “What is the matter with you?”

“Why didn’t you leave today with your people?” She was so close. So close. He bowed his head a fraction of an inch, breathed in the smell of her hair. He loved the faint scent of the sea on her, as though she never really left the water, as though it ran through her veins. “Why did you come here tonight for this farce of a proposal?”

“My people? How do you know about my people? And what do you mean, this farce of a—? Are you nuts?” she whispered fiercely, coming up on her toes to hiss at him. “Mentally deficient in some manner? You’re a drug runner. He’s the sheriff of Aldea Viejo. And you have the nerve to call my perfectly good marriage proposal a farce?”

“I told you, princesa, that he’s not what he seems, and you’d be better off back in your little office at Scripps than down here, playing with men you know nothing about.”

Olivia’s eyes widened. “How do you know where I work?”

“I know everything about you. Including your obvious proclivity for madmen.”

Olivia blinked into the blackness. She could feel his breath hot on her face, and looked up. Her eyes had become just enough accustomed to the stygian darkness that she was able to see the sharp outline of his uncompromising jawline, the white around his shadowy pupils. “He is not the madman,” she said.

Rafe leaned forward again, ruthlessly ignoring the scent of her, the nearness. His physical reaction to both. “You think I am?”

No. She instinctively knew that whatever else dishonorable and desperate this man was, he was not mad. Not in any sense of the word. “Of course I do,” she whispered.

The catch in her voice undid him. How dare she fear him, when it was Cervantes, with his elegant manners and his elegant mansion, who lived so well off the suffering of drug-hungry Americans? Rafe was the good guy. It didn’t occur to him how ludicrous it was to be so indignant that his cover was working well enough to fool even this brilliant, beautiful scientist.

He advanced on her, deliberately brushing his lean body against hers. She retreated step for step, until she was backed against the door. He pressed mercilessly into her and reveled in the small trembling her body made against him. He was undeniably aroused. “Maybe I am a madman,” he muttered darkly.

He caught her mouth with his, was elated when it parted for him, even though he knew her lips had fallen open in shock and not arousal. He swept his tongue seductively inside. It didn’t matter. Didn’t matter.

Olivia thought her head had been spinning before. Good heavens. She was being kissed—and quite skillfully—by a criminal! She knew what a prudent woman would do in this kind of absurd situation. A prudent woman would ignore whatever excitement insane danger evidently stirred in her blood, knowing it for the temporary, stress-induced mania it was. A prudent woman would not give in to weak knees and shocking, reckless, sudden arousal. A prudent woman would fight.

Olivia opened her teeth as wide as she could and clamped down.

Rafe lifted his mouth the instant before her teeth snapped painfully together. He rubbed his thumb across her mouth once, twice, watching the movement with his eyes.

“Don’t bite me,” he admonished gently, and kissed her again.

Olivia was stunned, not just by the soft admonition, but by the tenderness of the kiss. Did criminals kiss like this, with such soft intent? With such sweet breath, and small sounds of pleasure? Surely not. Criminals had foul breath that tasted of tequila, and they groped at innocent women, violently. They didn’t seduce with soft, sucking little kisses and careful, stroking hands and eyes closed so tightly.

Olivia’s eyes closed, too. So she could think, she told herself. So she could use her excellent, well-educated and analytical brain to get herself out of this preposterous situation. Out of this preposterous town, where men proposed marriage in front of hundreds of other people and bandits kissed like angels.

Oh, pull yourself together, she told herself, keeping her lips vised together despite the fact that the smuggler was now licking at them. Licking!

She felt her body flood in arousal, and was mortified. Such a physical reaction from such a cerebral woman. It was a bizarre case of chemical response, she knew. People in peril often reacted against character. She’d read studies in which women in very dangerous situations had formed relationships they wouldn’t normally consider…wow, was he nibbling her lower lip? Oh. Oh, dear.

Okay, okay, she didn’t have to be governed by a simple chemical reaction. So he knew how to kiss. He knew how to kiss…her. And so no one had ever kissed…her quite like this before. She was a scientist, for God’s sake. She could overcome plain old ordinary knee-jerk response, couldn’t she?

The smallest moan escaped her when the smuggler gave up on her mouth and moved to her neck.

Couldn’t she?

The doorknob turned at her back, and only then did she realize she was jammed against it. Her hands went flat against the bandit’s chest, and she shoved as hard as she could.

Rafe staggered back, staring at her. Her mouth glistened from his kiss, and her eyes, in the darkness, glittered wildly. She was as turned on as he was, he realized, stunned. He’d meant to teach her a little lesson—and this was how she reacted? Crazy woman. He was reaching for her again, desperately, when he heard the small sound.

She swiped at her mouth, as Rafe stood, paralyzed, in front of her. For the first time in his life, he had no idea where to turn. His first instinct was to grab the woman and make a run for it. He knew the instant the thought came into his head, it was insane. He had to get out, and fast. But he could not leave her. Not with Cervantes.

“Olivia?”

It was Ernesto. Olivia put her hand over the doorknob at her back, and realized she had inadvertently pressed the button on the knob with her hip, locking him out of his own room.

“Yes?” she said, her voice ringing hollow and terrified in her own ears. Why was the bandit just standing there, watching her? She wanted to scream at him to go, but she knew Ernesto would hear.

“Olivia, open the door,” Ernesto said sharply.

“Yes, all right, Ernesto,” she said, but did not move. Her eyes were locked on those of the man who had just kissed her, whom she’d very nearly kissed right back. A drug smuggler, the worst kind of man. Mortification tightened her chest, and she struggled to breathe.

“It’s dark in here,” she called through the door, stalling for time. “I’m sorry, I can’t find the light.”

“It’s next to the door,” Ernesto said impatiently. He banged on the heavy door with his fist, making Olivia jump. “Why have you locked the door?”

“Go,” she breathed. And in an instant, the dim outline of the man faded from her sight.

Olivia squeezed her eyes shut, popped them open again. She’d not even heard him move, had no idea where he was.

She fumbled with the door as long as she plausibly could, and finally got it open, allowing the light from the hallway to spill into the room. She resisted looking over her shoulder to make sure the smuggler was not standing behind her.

Ernesto frowned at her. “Why are you in my room?” he asked. “And in the dark, with the door locked?” He surveyed the large room carefully from the doorway, then moved past Olivia and stalked across the tile to the thick Aubusson carpet that lay beneath the huge, dark canopy bed. “Olivia?”

Olivia snapped her attention back to him. She, too, had been scanning the room. The bandit couldn’t have simply disappeared; he had to be in the room somewhere.

“I’m sorry, Ernesto,” Olivia said. “I came up to use the powder room and I stepped in here by mistake. I didn’t even know where I was until I turned on the light. What a beautiful room.”

Her breathing was steadier now, and she folded her hands in front of her demurely, hoping Ernesto would not notice that her breasts were full, her nipples peaked against the peasant blouse, her cheeks flushed. It shamed her, her irrational reaction to the smuggler, who represented everything in the world she condemned—but she would deal with that later. In the convent she fully intended to join the instant she got home.

“It is a beautiful room,” Ernesto conceded, his eyes narrowing. He walked over to her. “Your hair is mussed. And your cheeks are pink.”

“I…I was dancing earlier,” Olivia replied with a laugh. “And I have had too much of your excellent champagne, I’m afraid.”

He scrutinized her for a minute, then, seemingly satisfied with her excuse, smiled. “Have you been enjoying yourself?” he asked softly, taking a strand of her loosened hair between his smooth fingers.

“Very much,” Olivia said brightly.

“And you like my house?”

“It’s everything a house should be, Ernesto,” she said sincerely. “You have exquisite taste.”

His face relaxed even further at the compliment. “I’m flattered, though I must admit I have decorators. I have never had a wife to advise me in matters of the home,” he said easily.

Olivia felt that prickly sensation at the back of her neck again. For heaven’s sake, now what?

Oh, Lord. How could she have forgotten? Not an hour ago, this handsome, intelligent, well-mannered and propertied man had stood in front of two hundred of his closest friends and announced he wanted to marry her.

Funny how the kiss of a bandit could make you forget the important things in life.

“Ernesto, let’s go back downstairs,” Olivia said, tugging on the sleeve of his beautiful suit. This one might just be Armani, she thought as her fingers slid over the fine fabric.

Ernesto stood his ground. “No, Olivia, not just yet,” he said, his voice husky. “I like your hair after dancing. After we are married, we will dance every night before bed. It makes you look like a wanton,” he finished with a small smile.

Which is just what I am, Olivia thought grimly. Only not with Mr. Right, here. With Mr. Utterly Wrong.

“Ernesto, we must talk about your proposal,” Olivia began.

“We will, querida.” Ernesto took her hand from his arm and drew her gently toward him. He took her chin in his hand. “I know there are many questions in your head, about your work and your duties here. But these questions will have to wait. Now, we have time only for this.” He dipped his head, grazed her jawline with his lips.

He smelled of expensive cologne and expensive champagne. Olivia fought back a repulsed shudder, and wondered why the perfect man made her want to run in the opposite direction, while the last man on earth she should want could seduce her with nothing more than his voice in the darkness.

“You look so beautiful tonight, in your Mexican peasant clothes,” Ernesto murmured. “Have I told you that?”

“Ernesto, your guests—” she protested weakly.

“We will attend to them in a moment, Olivia.” He banded one strong arm across her back and drew her against him.

He was partially aroused, and Olivia again had to bite back the urge to flee.

“Do you realize, this is the first time we have ever been truly alone together?” he breathed, nipping at her earlobe.

Olivia squirmed slightly, but when Ernesto seemed to take the small movement as encouragement, she went stiff in his arms.

“We are not alone,” she said as reasonably as she could. “There are two hundred people here.”

He laughed softly. “Outside then, where our guests will not interrupt us.”

“Not our guests, Ernesto,” Olivia said firmly. “Your guests.”

His hand drifted to her breast, squeezed. “Our guests soon enough, my love,” he whispered, then took her mouth with some fervor, pushing his tongue past her lips.

Olivia was too shocked for a moment to respond one way or the other. But soon enough her instincts kicked in. She protested the kiss against Ernesto’s mouth, but the sound was muffled, and even to her it sounded like a whimper of passion. Ernesto gripped her breast, pinching at the nipple, and ground himself against her.

And then, so suddenly she couldn’t comprehend it, he was gone. She rocked on her feet, holding out a hand for balance.

The other man stood before her now, breathing fire. His chest was heaving and his dark eyes were slitted until she could see nothing but black pupils. For a moment, he simply glowered at her, wordlessly accusing her. She felt an absurd contrition, as though he’d caught her cheating on him.

He turned to look at the man sprawled on the floor.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Rafe sneered at his mortal enemy.

At the man who had killed his brother.

Chapter 3

Ernesto stared up at him, his flushed face a mask of angry confusion. “Who the hell are you?” He raked Rafe’s simple clothes with an experienced eye. “You were not invited to this party.”

“No.” Ernesto began to rise, but Rafe put a foot on his chest.

Olivia noted he was wearing black running shoes—of distinctly American origin.

He slid his foot toward Ernesto’s throat. “An oversight, I’m sure,” he added casually. “My partner and I attend most of your parties, after all.”

Ernesto’s eyes went blank in bafflement, then slowly narrowed as he caught Rafe’s meaning. “So you are the infamous Rafael,” he said between his teeth.

“You know my name,” Rafe said mockingly. “Very good for three months’ work, hefe.”

Ernesto spared Olivia a quick glance. “You will pay for what you have done, cabrón.”

“What I have done tonight? Or what I have been doing for months, without you having the slightest idea how to stop me?” Rafael laughed acidly. “I best you at every turn, señor.” Rafe removed his foot, stepped back and readied himself for the attack he was eager to meet. “It seems to me that you pay, Cervantes. Not I.”

Predictably, Ernesto launched himself at him, and Rafe caught Ernesto’s head full in his gut.

Olivia heard the air rush from Rafael, heard Ernesto grunt at the impact, but other than that, they made little noise.

It was instantly, horribly ferocious.

Olivia could scarcely comprehend the violence that erupted, as if by some mad sorcery, from both of them. It seemed unfathomable that Ernesto would so hate the man before him. Wasn’t he just another criminal, just another smuggler?

And the man Ernesto had called Rafael? What possible motivation could he have for the enmity flashing like deadly daggers in his dark eyes?

Whatever the explanation, Olivia knew instinctively that this was no ordinary fistfight between a lawman and a lawbreaker. This was something much uglier—and one of them would die at the end of it if she didn’t do something to stop them.

Rafael was younger, faster, tougher, but Ernesto outweighed him by fifty pounds and used his weight mercilessly, keeping his head lowered and battering at Rafael like a bull. Rafael efficiently countered by raining swift, brutal blows to Ernesto’s handsome face whenever the opportunity arose. It was a nearly silent, intentionally deadly bloodbath, and Olivia had never before seen anything like it. Had never imagined there could be anything like it.

Ernesto thumped heavily to the ground, catching Rafael around the knees as he fell. Rafael’s black shirt came untucked from his black jeans, and Olivia gasped when she saw the small, shiny gun Rafael had shoved into his waistband. She prayed, for Ernesto’s sake, for the sake of everyone in the hacienda, that the man would not remember it was there.

She watched in horror as Rafael brought his arm back and slugged Ernesto square in the face. Blood spurted gruesomely over his fist as he drew back for another blow.

No, he wouldn’t remember the gun, Olivia thought. He seemed determined to kill Ernesto with his bare hands. She bit back a scream. Rousing assistance at this point would be fatal to at least one person in the room. Olivia calculated the odds that it would be her or Ernesto, and decided not to take the chance.

Cervantes ducked the fist coming at his face, used the momentum of Rafael’s body to slide himself out from under the younger man’s straddle. In a blur, they both whipped to their feet—Ernesto’s nose gushing blood; Rafael’s jaw clenched, his breath coming in short puffs from the body blows he’d received.

Each holding a gun in his hand.

Olivia did scream then, in shock and dread, the short sound rising unexpectedly from her throat. Neither man looked in her direction.

Rafael grinned at Cervantes, though the pain in his chest was excruciating. “I’ve wanted your blood on my hands for a while now, Cervantes,” he said hoarsely.

“I will soon have yours on mine,” Ernesto retorted thickly, his voice sounding as though he had the worst kind of cold. “No man steals from me.”

Rafael smiled. “I’m surprised. It’s very easy to do.”

Ernesto swiped at the blood on his chin, smearing it grotesquely across his swelling jawline.

Olivia heard footsteps pounding down the hall. Two hundred people, law-abiding friends of the local sheriff, would be upon them at any moment. They would kill Rafael where he stood—and all three of them knew it. Ernesto began to smile, blood showing in the spaces between his perfect, white teeth.

Olivia would excuse her rash behavior later by telling herself she acted without thinking. But she did think. As clearly as she ever had in her long and thoughtful life. In the split second she knew she had before Ernesto’s men came through the door and put at least fifteen bullet holes in the man who’d kissed her, she decided to save his life.

Not because she understood what he did to make his way in the world, not because she liked him, excused him, had hope for him. But simply because she could not allow another human being to die in front of her eyes if she had any way of stopping it. She hadn’t known that about herself, exactly, but in that instant she saw it with perfect clarity.

Olivia knew Ernesto no longer remembered she was in the room, and suspected the smuggler had forgotten her presence, as well. She threw herself in front of Rafael just as the door burst open, grabbing his free hand and bringing it to rest at her throat. She heard his loud grunt of pain as she gripped his hand there and began, imprudently, shrieking like a lunatic.

The men barreling through the doorway stopped dead, staring first at Ernesto, then at her and Rafael, then back again. But the momentum of two hundred curious dinner guests propelled them into the room, along with the dozen people behind them. A minute later, there were more than twenty citizens of Aldea Viejo in Ernesto’s lavish bedroom, gaping at the bloody, dramatic, noisy tableau the three of them made. Olivia closed her eyes, still wailing theatrically, and thanked God.

Rafe saw stars. When the woman had wrenched his arm up, he was sure a rib had gone straight through his lung. But he was still breathing, still standing, and though he could barely do either, it was enough to convince him he was still alive.

It took him just a moment to divine the doctor’s foolhardy plan, and he tightened his hold on her fractionally. “Stop screaming,” he hissed in her ear. “They get it.”

She quieted instantly, nearly sighed with relief. So, he understood the plan. Excellent. Maybe everyone, then, would get out of this charming hacienda alive. Including her.

“Stop where you are,” Rafe said to the crowd, so menacingly that even Olivia shivered slightly. He carefully shifted his free hand until the gun was pressed against Olivia’s temple. He glanced down briefly, saw her pulse beat under the barrel of his gun. He cocked his weapon, for effect, in the sudden silence of the room. “I will kill her,” he said, his voice flat.

Several of Ernesto’s well-dressed female dinner guests gasped at that threatening statement, but the men in front, now just a few feet away thanks to the press of the inquisitive crowd behind them, were silent. Olivia, for her part, was beginning to wonder if she’d had some sort of brain-debilitating stroke. When the man named Rafe had cocked the gun, she’d realized just how disastrous one moment’s impetuousness could be.

No choice now but to go on, though. If she turned back now, he’d shoot her through her malfunctioning brain.

She whimpered noisily and snapped her head up, as though Rafael had tightened his grip at the sound. “Ay, Dios,” she breathed dramatically. She watched one man swallow hard and look to Ernesto for instruction.