Desperado Dad

Manny softened his expression. Funny, but she could swear that this big macho man looked remorseful—guilty even. The gun had disappeared under his shirt at his waist almost as quickly as it had appeared. Randi’s gut told her that he would never have used it on her. Her fears subsided the instant she’d seen his expression. Meanwhile, he silently waited for her to continue.

How odd that all her fears had melted away. He was still a huge, dangerous man sitting in her front room and wearing a gun that he didn’t seem to mind using. But there was a glint of some emotion in his eyes that comforted her, drew her to him. Made her positive he was really the lawman he professed to be.

“My…” Her voice cracked and she started over. “My stepfather lives on another part of the ranch. On the Cottonwood section. But he won’t be helping us if that’s what you’re thinking. Probably wouldn’t help—even if he could reach us. He’s kind of put out with me these days.” She swallowed and tried to soothe her dry throat. It was no use. “Besides, he hasn’t been around in a couple of months. Not since…my mother’s funeral.”

“Your mother just died?”

She nodded. The emotion in his eyes changed to sympathy, and her head swam with confusion. What kind of man was this? And what did he really want from her?

Three

A multitude of emotions raced through Randi when Manny stood, turned and stretched out a hand to help her stand. She’d seen the guilt in his eyes when he’d fisted his hands in her hair, questioning her.

His look clearly told her he believed his actions had caused her pain. What she’d actually felt was simply fear—not physical discomfort. He hadn’t hurt her, just scared her. That Manny had such a sympathetic and honest streak in him was as clear as if it was painted on his forehead.

And now…

Now that he wanted to take her hand, wanted to touch her again, she hesitated. She’d been so concerned about the baby’s welfare that she’d given in to Manny’s demands too easily. For some reason she’d let him take total control.

All right, so he said he was a lawman and she’d believed him immediately. That might have been part of it. Believing what he said might be stupid of her, but she knew she would eventually get the answers. There was just something about him that made her know he could be trusted in the long run.

But for right now she marveled at how quickly her fear had disappeared. Past the fear, past the consuming questions in her heart about who he really was and what he wanted, Randi had felt alive and sensual. For the first time in her life, she actually wanted a man’s touch. Wanted it bad.

Not just any man, mind you. Randi wanted this man. He was all she’d ever dreamed about—dangerous but sexy. In Randi’s eyes he was a perfect combination of Zorro and some exotic and romantic pirate.

The problem was, she had no idea how to go about getting him. For ten years she’d buried her needs, smothered her desires. First there’d been her mother’s stroke, then her stepfather’s physical abandonment. Finally came the unrelenting pressure of seeing to her mother’s needs while trying to keep the ranch afloat. All of that left precious little time for Randi to have any kind of life.

If it hadn’t been for Lewis Lee and his wife, Hannah, Randi wouldn’t have graduated from high school. And if it hadn’t been for Marian Baker, the librarian, bringing her books every week after graduation, Randi would have withered and blown away. Reading had been her lifeline, her connection to the outside world.

Marian had even arranged for Randi to take care of a couple of toddlers while their mothers worked. The small job meant she could be in the house when her disabled mother needed her. It also meant that temporarily there had been enough cash to keep from having to sell off the land. Despite the puny allowance and doctor’s bills her stepfather had paid, there was never enough money to go around.

“I’m afraid you and I are stuck with each other for the duration of the storm, Randi. I’d appreciate it if we could stick close to each other for the baby’s safety as well as our own.” Manny eyed her with a piercing look when she still hesitated to move. “Come on into the kitchen with us. I think we need something in our stomachs.

“I won’t hurt you ever again. I promise.” He tucked his hand into the pocket of his jeans and bunched up his face with a look of pure helplessness when she still made no move.

“I know I didn’t act very civilized before,” he began again. “But I did apologize. Can’t we make a new start? Maybe we could talk…get to know each other better. Please?”

Oh, yeah. Randi wanted desperately to know him better. Her gaze traveled down the length of him, taking in her daddy’s chambray work shirt stretched tightly across Manny’s broad chest. He’d left the top three buttons open. She doubted they’d cover his muscles, anyway, but open like that they left nearly half of his torso in plain view. She stared at the dark, curly hair covering his bronzed skin and gulped.

Her fingers shook reflexively at the sight of his chest, and she fisted them to keep still. She’d never in her life seen anything quite so compelling. With a supreme effort at controlling her urges, she forced herself not to jump up and test the feel of his body. Her good sense told her to be careful—to go slow.

Talk about uncivilized. What she wanted right now definitely qualified as primal.

When she could pull away from the sight of all that skin, she dropped her gaze down the rest of him—across the leather belt he’d used to draw her father’s jeans tight and on down past the bulging mound of him encased in soft, well-washed blue denim.

Oh, my.

That view finally put her in motion. She turned, while carefully managing to avoid touching Manny.

“Do you like coffee? I can make some. It’s time I added wood to the stove, anyway.” She figured she was babbling, but couldn’t seem to stop.

“Yeah. I could go for coffee,” he murmured, picking up the baby’s basket and following her into the kitchen.

Manny wondered how he could ever make up for behaving like such an idiot. What had gotten into him? The young woman who’d just put coffee on the stove to boil was obviously innocent.

In eight years of undercover work he’d developed a life-saving instinct for detecting lies. He was usually right on target. His gut screamed at him for ever doubting her. Perhaps someone else on the ranch was involved with baby smugglers, but she wasn’t. Of that he was now positive. He doubted she’d ever even heard about such things.

While Randi scrambled some eggs using the same stove that heated the room and warmed their coffee, Manny fought to bring peace into the tension that surrounded the two stranded strangers and baby. “Can I do anything to help?”

She looked at him with amazement shining in her eyes.

“What? You don’t think I can cook?” he asked with a chuckle. “I’ll have you know my abuela insisted that all members of her family, male and female alike, should know how to take care of themselves.”

He found the bread bin and removed two slices of whole wheat. “It’s a real handy talent, and sometimes even fun.”

Manny glanced around the room looking for cooking utensils and supplies. Finally he gave Randi a questioning look. Where did she keep things, anyway?

Obviously mistaking his intentions, Randi shook her head at him. “Do you think you can toast that bread without the electric toaster?” Her lips curled at the corners in an adorable smirk.

“Can I have one egg and a little of Ricky’s milk?”

“Yes, but…”

“Then stand aside, woman, and watch a master at work.”

Manny busied himself, frying the bread over her open-flamed stovetop while Randi set the table. As he worked, he went over in his head the events that had brought him to this point.

What the hell had happened to this mission, anyway? His Operation Rock-a-Bye assignment had been to go undercover in Mexico until he ingratiated himself with a group of undocumented immigrants making their way to the border. He’d picked a group with several small children, and although they’d never fully trusted him, he’d been able to keep track of them through their travels. Even when they’d hooked up with a particularly nasty band of coyotes, dangerous men hired to bring them across the river, the little group of Mexican nationals continued to allow his shadow to fall on their campsites.

Manny had hoped that once they’d crossed the border he could manage to get them to confide in him, give him the critical information he needed to infiltrate the smugglers gang. He’d heard that this particular group of immigrants knew of children taken from their homeland and spirited to the U.S. Around a campfire one night, he’d even overheard a disagreement about one family receiving money in exchange for a baby.

When the illegals he’d befriended crossed the Rio Grande and broke into smaller bands, he followed one family who moved alone into the interior of Texas with their coyote. What Manny hadn’t known, or even guessed, was that the coyotes they’d hired were also members of the baby smuggling ring.

He’d discovered the truth too late.

And that was when this whole assignment had fallen apart. He didn’t know what to do to put it right again. He only knew that some things would forever be wrong, and that the last thing he needed was an innocent civilian like Randi in the middle of the investigation.

He flipped the bread out of the pan and onto the plates she’d already loaded with scrambled eggs. “There you go.”

She sat down at the worn-out looking wooden table next to the stove and took a bite. “Mmm. It’s good.”

Manny thought she looked good enough to eat herself. In the past hour, he’d quit thinking of her as a frail little waif and started appreciating her firm, lithe body and the sexual energy coming from every pore.

“Don’t sound so surprised. If you’d had some cornmeal, I would’ve really made you a treat.”

Randi smiled at him before she took another bite of food. Manny watched as her full, pouty lips covered the fork. She slowly pulled the empty tines back again, moaning in satisfaction as she swallowed.

With her sensual sound of pleasure, his libido went on full alert. Suddenly he could think of nothing but tracing those silken lips with his own, dipping his tongue into that ripe mouth and tasting her, and having her taste him in return.

He could feel the sinew in his muscles tense up. When he saw her flick that rose-tipped tongue over slightly parted lips to clean off any crumbs, it was all he could do not to use his own tongue to follow hers. He had to swallow hard to keep the groan, rumbling deep in his chest, from escaping his throat.

Watching her, being this close to all that femininity was pure torment. Desire had never hit him in the middle of an assignment. Why now?

He spun around to see about Ricky, who still slept in the basket on the kitchen counter. He tried hard to remember that all of this was just another mission.

“Aren’t you going to eat? It’s delicious,” she asked.

“Uh, yeah,” he managed through a clenched jaw. “I just wanted to check the baby. He’s awfully quiet.”

“I plan on changing him and seeing if he’ll take a little more milk as soon as we’re done. I want to let him sleep as long as possible. Please come sit down and eat. I thought you said you wanted to talk.”

Talk? All of a sudden the whole concept seemed beyond his comprehension.

Manny squeezed his eyes shut and drew a steadying breath before he turned around to face her. “Right. While I eat, why don’t you tell me why a pretty young girl is living out here all by herself? Why hasn’t some nice cowpoke swept you off your feet by now?”

Randi must have recognized a sidestepping dodge when she heard one. “Wait a minute. I’ve already been through one interrogation. I’m not saying any more until you tell me about yourself. Who is Ricky to you? And what were you two doing on the low-water bridge road in the middle of a storm?”

Manny’s mind tried to come up with a plausible lie, but he was too wiped out to concentrate. Besides, from some deeply buried spot inside him, a strong voice demanded that he not lie to this woman. But why she caused such a powerful internal command stumped him.

As long as he’d been in this job, his conscience had never once stopped him from fabricating a story. Why did he hesitate now? When he’d been a much younger man, he’d even spun a few stories not in the line of work—for the pretty ladies.

Of course, he hadn’t told white lies like that for quite a number of years. Hadn’t needed to really. Lately, the women with whom he’d had relationships didn’t need to be persuaded. They’d been just as happy as he had to spend a few hours together away from the storms of life and then move on, with no regrets and no looking back.

So what was so different about Randi? Even in his exhausted state, Manny knew what the problem was. The look in her eyes said she wanted forever. Oh, she probably would deny it, and might not even know it about herself, but Randi was not the kind to have a fling or a casual relationship. The truth of that was written all over her.

In his business “forever” could be no more than a heartbeat away.

Manny beat back his budding desires, and decided to fudge with half the truth. “I can’t tell you everything you want to know, Randi.”

When she rolled her eyes and set her chin, he knew he’d have to give up a morsel of the story—something to settle her fears at least. “Really. Just believe that I am a lawman, and I’ve been undercover on assignment. Even telling you that much might jeopardize years’ worth of work, but for your own safety, you must trust me.”

In the flickering glow of the lamplight he saw her eyes had turned pale green. They widened with shock before they quickly narrowed in disbelief. “Trust you? I don’t even know you. First you interrogate me like I’m some kind of criminal, then you put a gun in my face, and now you tell me to believe you’re undercover? You expect me to just quietly let everything slide and accept it?” Randi stood, swept up both their plates and strode to the sink, effectively rejecting him as she turned her back.

Without facing him, she demanded at least one straight answer. “What about Ricky? Why was he in the van with you, and where are his parents?”

Manny sighed and absently rubbed at the ache in his shoulder. She must accept knowing only part of the story. All of it would be too much for her right now. The whole truth might also be very dangerous.

“I wasn’t in the van, Randi. I was chasing it. Ricky had been…taken…by the man driving.”

“Taken? Like in kidnapped, you mean?” She spun to face him, clasping her hands in front of her chest.

He nodded and watched her expression, fascinated by such open emotion. Manny could see her making connections and piecing together the frayed ends of what he’d told her. She was too damn bright, he finally decided.

Being too smart could get her killed. He’d rather keep the nastiness of this whole situation from touching her.

“If you were chasing the van, where was your car? I didn’t see another vehicle on the road.” She only hesitated a fraction of a second. “And what happened to the van’s driver?”

“My bike slid off the side of the road when I stopped to help. I’m not positive about what happened to the driver…except I think he must have been thrown out when the van went over. I doubt he escaped alive, but as soon as the storm subsides we’ll find out.”

Randi made a strangled, hiccupy sound and moved to Ricky’s basket. “Oh, my God.” She bent to pick up the baby and held him closely to her chest.

“Don’t ask me any more,” he mumbled. “Tomorrow, when the storm clears, we’ll notify the sheriff about the accident and the driver. I’ll find my Hog, and Ricky and I will be on our way out of your life.”

Randi closed her eyes and leaned her cheek against Ricky’s hair.

Manny watched closely while Randi changed Ricky. She coaxed the boy into taking a little more milk while Manny rinsed the dishes in cold water and stacked them in the sink. Her ancient, hot-water heater wouldn’t start without electricity. He wondered why she didn’t have an emergency generator like most ranches did these days.

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