Shotgun Daddy
Harper Allen
A FATHER'S DUTYFormer hostage negotiator Gabe Riggs wanted nothing to do with spoiled socialite Caro Moore, the ice princess who'd left him high and dry after one night of fiery passion. But a year later, she came begging for the rugged Navajo specialist's help–to protect her and her baby girl from a madman bent on revenge.Telling Gabe the truth about his daughter would only put him in danger, and Caro couldn't handle anyone else suffering because of her. But living under Gabe's close guard at the Double B Ranch was threatening to expose the heart-stopping truth–that he was a daddy…and the only man she ever loved.
“Don’t start what you can’t finish, honey.”
He lifted his mouth from hers to mutter the warning against her lips. “If we go through with this, it’s on the understanding that tomorrow no one gets to pretend it didn’t happen. If you can’t handle that, tell me now.”
A shiver ran all the way from her heels to the top of her head, and back down again. Arching against him, Caro let her fingertips curl against the muscled wall of his chest, and pressed her nails lightly into his skin. “Don’t worry about me, Gabe, worry about yourself.”
She didn’t know where the reckless words had come from. She knew he’d walk out of her life again. But he was never going to forget her completely. She was going to make sure of that tonight.
“Worry about myself?” There was startled humor in his eyes. “Princess, I can handle anything you dish out, and then some. I’ll admit you rocked my world the last time we—”
“I didn’t just rock your world, Riggs, I sent a 9.5 on the Richter scale through it,” Caro retorted. “This time, I intend to bring you to your knees.”
Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,
Those April showers go hand in hand with a welcome downpour of gripping romantic suspense in the Harlequin Intrigue line this month!
Reader-favorite Rebecca York returns to the legendary 43 LIGHT STREET with Out of Nowhere—an entrancing tale about a beautiful blond amnesiac who proves downright lethal to a hard-edged detective’s heart. Then take a detour to New Mexico for Shotgun Daddy by Harper Allen—the conclusion in the MEN OF THE DOUBLE B RANCH trilogy. In this story a Navajo protector must safeguard the woman from his past who is nurturing a ticking time bomb of a secret.
The momentum keeps building as Sylvie Kurtz launches her brand-new miniseries—THE SEEKERS—about men dedicated to truth, justice…and protecting the women they love. But at what cost? Don’t miss the debut book, Heart of a Hunter, where the search for a killer just might culminate in rekindled love. Passion and peril go hand in hand in Agent Cowboy by Debra Webb, when COLBY AGENCY investigator Trent Tucker races against time to crack a case of triple murder!
Rounding off a month of addictive romantic thrillers, watch for the continuation of two new thematic promotions. A handsome sheriff saves the day in Restless Spirit by Cassie Miles, which is part of COWBOY COPS. Sudden Recall by Jean Barrett is the latest in our DEAD BOLT series about silent memories that unlock simmering passions.
Enjoy all of our great offerings.
Sincerely,
Denise O’Sullivan
Senior Editor
Harlequin Intrigue
Shotgun Daddy
Harper Allen
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Harper Allen lives in the country in the middle of a hundred acres of maple trees with her husband, Wayne, six cats, four dogs—and a very nervous cockatiel at the bottom of the food chain. For excitement she and Wayne drive to the nearest village and buy jumbo bags of pet food. She believes in love at first sight because it happened to her.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Caro Moore—She’s gone from spoiled socialite to desperate single mother on the run. To save her baby from a killer, she needs the protection of the man she turned away….
Gabe Riggs—The Navajo hostage negotiator can’t forget the one night he shared with Caro Moore. Now he’s the only one who can keep her—and the baby he doesn’t know is his—safe.
Del Hawkins—The tough ex-marine runs a boot camp ranch for bad boys—like Gabe once was. But his own past holds a dark secret that could put Gabe, Caro and their child in danger.
Jess Crawford—Once a Double B “bad boy,” the multimillionaire has been kidnapped. Can Gabe find him before it’s too late…?
Steve Dixon—Jess’s friend and business associate. He has reasons to want Caro and her baby out of the picture for good.
Larry Kanin—Caro’s ex-fiancé has a score to settle with Gabe. He doesn’t care whom he destroys in the attempt.
“Leo”—The shadowy lead kidnapper has a very personal motive.
Alice Tahe—The Navajo matriarch knows Gabe’s heritage can give him the strength to save the woman and the baby he loves. But will she convince him of that in time?
To the Simcoe Street Irregulars
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Epilogue
Chapter One
Gabriel Riggs got out of his rented four-wheel drive and stood beside it for a moment, going over his to-do list one final time in his mind. Fly back from Nicaragua. Check. Drive to Aspen. Check. Smash through the gate cordoning off the drive leading up the mountain to Larry Kanin’s ski chalet. Check. There was only one item left on the list.
Find that bastard Larry and make him sorry he was ever—
“Your keys, sir? I’ll park your car with the others.”
Gabe frowned at the muscular young man confronting him. In the light from the Olympic-style torches lining the drive, the security guard’s fresh face contrasted with the commando-like gear he was wearing. The guard’s eyes narrowed.
“Wait a minute. Are you on the guest list?”
“No.”
Gabe headed past him toward the redwood steps ascending to the veranda. Kanin’s man grabbed his arm. “If you’re not on the list, you’re going to have to be escorted off the—”
Get past Security. Check.
Gabe crossed the veranda, not bothering to look back at the sprawled figure in the snow behind him. That was Larry all over, he thought savagely. All style and no substance, even down to the beefcake he had guarding his own property. But hell, when all someone cared about was the bottom line, maybe style was all it took. Recoveries International’s corporate clientele roster grew every time Kanin attended a function flanked by his six-and-a-half-foot blond robots.
Probably even Tech-Oil Consolidated would stay with the firm. After all, the death of one of their employees at the hands of kidnappers had saved them a bundle.
The noise hit him as he entered the chalet—a raucous mix of laughter, too-loud music and brittle voices. He’d heard about the beautiful people, Gabe thought, scanning the room and taking in the cluster of après-skiers by the fireplace, the group near a buffet table. He guessed that was who these people were, but Kanin wasn’t among them. He switched his attention to a redhead who was favoring him with an appraising glance.
“Where’s Larry?”
“Who cares?” Her hair looked as if she’d just gotten out of bed, but maybe it was supposed to look that way. “I love the silver cuff you’re wearing, handsome. It’s Apache, isn’t it?”
At the far side of the room an open set of polished wood stairs swept in a large curve to a second floor. Kanin had to be upstairs.
Gabe shook his head. “Navajo.”
It was an effort to make even that much conversation. He tried to tell himself that what he was feeling was jet lag, or exhaustion from going the past three days without sleep, but he knew it wasn’t either of those. These people and their world meant nothing to him. He was here only to settle an account.
He put his foot on the bottommost stair. He looked up and saw the woman, and for half a heartbeat all else fell away.
She was like ice and snow and crystals, he thought, his chest feeling suddenly too tight. Her eyes were the color of an alpine lake, her hair a silvery blond pulled back from the creamy oval of her face and coiled at the nape of her neck. She was wearing a white sweater, white slim-fitting ski pants, small white boots with heels. A full-length coat of some kind of white fur hung from her shoulders.
Even as she swept down the staircase toward him, Larry Kanin appeared at the top of the stairs behind her.
Oxygen slammed back into Gabe’s lungs.
“For God’s sake, Caro, you’re overreacting.” Kanin’s well-cut lips tightened. “So Jinx and I were having a little fun. It didn’t mean anything.”
The woman stopped halfway down the stairs. “This is what doesn’t mean anything anymore, Larry.”
Swiftly she removed a blazing diamond from one finger and flung it over the heads of the guests below. The ring sparkled over the buffet table and landed in a bowl of salmon mousse.
But the woman Kanin had called Caro didn’t wait to see it fall. Gabe just had time to step aside before she moved by him, her head held high and those starry eyes not registering his existence. The fur of her coat brushed coldly against his arm, the faint scent that enveloped her—it smelled like small white flowers, he thought disjointedly—touched him briefly, and then she was past. He heard the front door open and close.
Kanin had followed Caro part of the way down the stairs, and for a moment Gabe thought he meant to go after her. Then Larry shrugged, the anger in his eyes quickly concealed.
“I promised entertainment, didn’t I?” he drawled to his assembled guests. “Whichever one of you ladies finds that ring first gets to keep it.”
There was a chorus of surprised laughter from the females in his party and a general rumble of amusement from the men. The buffet table was instantly surrounded.
“Hi, Larry.”
Kanin had been watching the stampede that his announcement had started. At Gabe’s greeting, his gaze swung away from his guests.
“God—Riggs! What the hell are you doing here?”
“The same thing your woman just did.” Gabe mounted the steps that divided them. “I’m breaking up with you, Larry.”
Kanin frowned. “This isn’t the time or the place, Riggs. We’ll talk at the office on—”
“They weren’t asking much in the first place. When I reported in by phone I told you I was pretty sure we’d be able to get it down to a quarter-mill, tops.” Gabe looked over at the buffet table. “I don’t get it. You just turned close to that amount into a party favor.”
“For Christ—” Kanin’s jaw tightened. “I recommended Tech-Oil draw a line in the sand, all right? They do a lot of business in volatile regions, and if they got the reputation of being patsies for every guerrilla leader looking to fund his war chest, they’d be out of business in a month.”
“So instead of advising Tech-Oil to increase security for its people, you told them to stall on delivering the good-faith payment to the kidnappers.” Gabe nodded. “I just needed to hear you confirm it. Like I said, we’re through. And since I don’t have a diamond to throw over this banister—”
The buffet table broke Kanin’s fall before tipping completely over, and the last sight Gabe had of him was of a chafing dish of tiny meatballs upending itself over Kanin as he lay among the debris.
Outside, the baby Nazi he’d decked was nowhere to be seen. He opened the door of his rental vehicle and smelled small white flowers.
“I need a ride into Aspen.” She was sitting in the passenger seat, her hands clasped tightly in her lap and her gaze fixed straight ahead. “I want to leave now.”
The baby Nazi might be out of the picture, Gabe thought, but any minute now, reinforcements would arrive. He didn’t have time to argue with her. He slid into the driver’s seat.
“No problem, lady,” he said tersely. “I don’t want to hang around here any longer, either.”
The spell he’d fallen under when he’d first laid eyes on her had been broken, he noted in relief. She was still beautiful, still a snow princess, and he didn’t mind helping her out by giving her a ride. But breaking off her engagement to Larry couldn’t change the fact that she belonged in his world of wealth and arrogance. The coolness behind her demand just now was proof of that.
Being able to breathe around her made things easier, he told himself as he negotiated the litter of broken wood that had once been the gate at the bottom of the slope. He turned to her when he was safely past it.
“I’ve got to turn on the heat. You might want to take off that fur.”
All he could see of her was the back of her head as she stared out of the side window at the gathering darkness. “I’m not cold.”
“I am.” He reached forward and switched on the heater, jacking the fan to full speed. “I haven’t acclimatized yet.”
She turned to frown at him before opening the coat and slipping her arms from its sleeves. “When I saw your vehicle parked and running in the drive, I assumed one of Larry’s guests was leaving early—but you weren’t at the party, were you.”
Her question sounded faintly accusatory. He kept his face expressionless.
“The name’s Gabriel Riggs. You’re right, I wasn’t invited, but I showed up anyway. You walked past me after you tossed your engagement ring into the salmon mousse. Larry landed in the same general vicinity a couple of minutes later.”
The four-wheel drive corrected itself on a curve. Gabe exchanged the high-beams for the regular headlights to cut down on the hypnotizing dazzle of the now-swirling snow.
“You threw him off the stairs? Why?”
“Because of a man named Leo Roswell. Your ex-lover let him get his throat cut, honey.” He glanced at her. “It was a Recoveries International situation that went real bad, real fast, but I was the negotiator on the spot. I should have guessed Larry might think it was a good idea to pull the plug.”
“A man got his throat—” She didn’t finish the sentence. He heard her indrawn breath. “That’s horrible.”
Gabe didn’t know why he’d put it so bluntly. He didn’t even know why he was talking to her about it. “Yeah, it was horrible. So did you walk in on Larry with Jink, or whatever her name was?”
“Jinx. I don’t want to discuss it.” The frosty tone was back in full force. Gabe took the hint, and for the better part of the next hour there was nothing but silence between them—a silence that was finally broken by Caro herself when his arm accidentally brushed against hers as he reached for the stick shift. She stiffened. “How long before we get to Aspen?”
The lady might as well have posted No Trespassing signs, Gabe thought. It was obvious not only that she wasn’t interested in having a conversation, but that she was having second thoughts about being in his company at all. To be fair, he couldn’t really blame her for her show of nerves just now. He had a pretty good idea of what she saw when she looked at him—a big man with straight black hair that should have been cut two weeks ago and an outdoor-worker’s tan deepening his natural copper, wearing faded jeans and a thin cotton shirt. Not at all what she’d been expecting when she’d made the snap decision to hop into his waiting vehicle outside the chalet.
And if she wasn’t enthralled with having him as a travelling companion, he thought wryly, she was going to be real thrilled about bunking in with him tonight.
“Change of plans,” he said, narrowing his gaze against the heavy snow and wondering if he’d already passed the place he was looking for. “We’re not making Aspen—not till morning, at least. This blizzard’s getting worse. We’re going to have to find somewhere to hole up for the night.”
Her gaze was arctic. “Stay the night with a man I met an hour ago? If that’s supposed to be a joke, I don’t see the humor—and if it isn’t, you’ve made a big mistake, Mr. Riggs. The driving can’t be that bad. We’ll keep going.”
Ignoring her peremptory order, Gabe saw the lane-way he’d noticed earlier in the day when he’d been heading the other way. He eased his foot onto the brake, thought for a tense moment that the vehicle was going to lose it on the patch of glare ice that appeared suddenly in his headlights, and then made the turn. Gravel crunched under the tires as they took a slight incline to the darkened building ahead.
“A weekend lodge like this, they’ve probably got an alarm system.” He brought the four-wheel drive to a stop, looked at her stiff figure and took the keys from the ignition. “Trust me, we wouldn’t have made it, and if it’s your reputation you’re worrying about, don’t. I’m going to disable the security, so even if the cops could get here in these conditions, they won’t have a need to.”
Her eyes lasered through him. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to spend the night with you. My father’s William Moore, and if that name doesn’t mean anything to you, it should. Turn this car around right now.”
It had been a long day—hell, a long week, Gabe reflected tightly. Even when he’d been busy throwing Larry over the banister he hadn’t allowed himself to lose the numbness that had surrounded him since he’d seen Leo Roswell’s dead body. He’d known that a single spark of emotion would be enough to blaze down the flimsy barriers holding back his emotions.
Caro Moore had just lit that spark. He tried to count to ten, gave up at seven, and got out of the car. He went around to her door and opened it.
“Drop the lady-of-the-manor act, honey, and pronto. I’m not your chauffeur. I’m getting real tired of you treating me like one. Get out of the car.”
“Didn’t you hear what I just—”
The rest of her sentence was lost in a gasp as he lifted her from the car seat and deposited her unceremoniously into one of the snowdrifts beside the vehicle. He looked down at her.
“Let’s get things straight, princess. You’re a rich bitch. I’m some version of hired muscle. You obviously think that means I can’t wait to have my crude way with you, but at the risk of shattering your illusions, I’m not interested.” He forced an evenness into his tone. “I’ll help you up.”
“I don’t need your help,” she retorted, her heeled boots choosing that moment to slip on a patch of ice.
He reached down and hauled her to her feet—too roughly, he realized as he became momentarily unbalanced.
Only the fact that his vehicle was behind him saved them both from losing their footing. Furious blue eyes met his from a distance of only a few inches as Caro slammed against him.
“You’re the one with the illusions, Mr. Riggs—” Her lips, pale pink and way too close, bit off the words. “Am I supposed to believe this wasn’t planned, either? Let go of me.”
“My pleasure.” He released his grip on her, hoping that nothing of what was going through his mind showed in his face.
The breathlessness he’d felt when he’d first seen her was back worse than ever, he thought hollowly, and it didn’t matter that she was too rich, too arrogant and too damn spoiled. Just for an instant he imagined how she’d look beneath him, that pale hair spread out on the snow, those pale lips parted—
He turned away quickly, his fists clenched at his sides. “Wait here. This shouldn’t take long.”
Whoever the lodge’s owners were, they were like Kanin; their security system had all the bells and whistles. But one snip through a wire made it useless. It was the same with the dead bolt on their front door. Gabe jimmied it open and walked back to the car, but by the time he’d locked the vehicle, he saw her slim figure, her back ramrod straight under the fur coat she’d slipped into again, entering the house.
He leaned against the four-by-four and dragged his hand across his mouth.
What the hell was the matter with him? Caro Moore was no different from any of the wealthy socialites with whom he’d come into contact in his job. She expected to snap her fingers and have someone jump. She’d never worked for a living, had never had to worry about the rent, had never ventured out of her shallow little circle of similarly wealthy friends and acquaintances.
She didn’t live in his world. He had no desire to live in hers. How hard could it be not to let the woman get to him?
Hard enough, he admitted grimly as he entered the house and saw her standing in front of an empty fireplace. She gave no indication that she was aware of his presence, and he squelched the flicker of irritation that rose in him.
“There’s a woodpile at the side of the house,” he said in as neutral a tone as he could muster. “I’d better bring some in to keep us going if we lose the electricity.”
She didn’t turn around. “The phone doesn’t work. You did something to it when you sabotaged the security, didn’t you.”
He’d tried, dammit, Gabe thought, not even bothering to count to ten this time. He’d cut her all the slack he had available, but now he’d come to the end of the line.
With two strides he closed the space between them. He spun her around to face him, and saw surprise replace some of the icy hauteur in her gaze.
“How’d you guess, honey?” he said through clenched teeth. “Yeah, it’s all part of my big bad plan—the weather, the phones, finding this place and breaking in. So how about it? You and me, the snow princess and the hired hand—wanna get it on? Hey, I’m not your fiancé, but that’s probably a plus right now, as far as you’re concerned.”
He saw a small white-gloved hand blurring toward his face. He caught her wrist just as her palm kissed his cheek.
“No, sweetheart,” he said, his smile crooked. “I don’t play rough with women, and I don’t let them play rough with me. Let’s both stop with the games, okay?”
He lowered her hand without releasing her wrist, regret already setting in. “I shouldn’t have yanked your chain like I did just now. We’re stuck with each other for the night, so why don’t we call a truce? I’m willing if you are.”
Her gaze locked on his, as if she were determining whether she could trust him. Those silky dark lashes didn’t have mascara on them, he noted. In fact, she wasn’t wearing any kind of makeup that he could see. Her skin was naturally creamy. Her lips were naturally a pale pink shade. Her eyes were naturally a deep, heartbreaking blue that could make a man’s mouth go dry and his knees buckle beneath—
“You really stopped because the road was getting too dangerous?” Her uncertain question broke through his musings.
“Yeah, princess, I did. On a job a few years ago I was forced to ride shotgun on a Jeep carrying a load of dynamite through the jungle, and believe me, I felt safer then than I did tonight trying to avoid those patches of black ice.” He felt tension seep out of her. “So are we good here?”
Her eyes still on his, she gave the tiniest of nods. He relaxed his hold on her wrist.
The next moment he rocked back on his heels as her palm connected solidly with his cheek.
“Are we good here? After you made that crack about how I must feel toward the man I was going to marry?” Her glare was blue fire. “This evening I walked in on Larry while he and another woman were indulging in a variation of ‘getting it on,’ as you’d probably put it. When he realized he’d been caught, he told me that if I’d ever shown any interest in performing that particular act on him, he wouldn’t have had to cheat on me. Do you have any idea how humiliating tonight was for me? Do you think I like knowing that when I get back to Albuquerque, everyone’s going to be whispering about what Larry’s prude of a fiancée does and doesn’t do in the bedroom?”
Pain flashed behind her eyes. She blinked it away. “So, no, we’re not good here. I’d sooner spend the night in the car than another minute with you.”
She began to push past him. Instinctively Gabe put out a hand to stop her, nudging the fur coat from her shoulders as he did. He grasped her lightly, his fingers spread wide on the soft whiteness of her sweater.
“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.”
She shook her head. “I told you my circumstances had changed. I’ve changed, too. I’ll do whatever I have to, to give my daughter a happy and secure life. Larry wasn’t fiancé material, and he’s not father material, either. Even if Jess hadn’t offered me a job and a place to live after my father disowned me, I still wouldn’t have approached Kanin for any kind of support in return for letting him play a part in Emmie’s life.”
“Your father disowned you?” He frowned. “Because you were pregnant, for God’s sake?”
“Because I was pregnant and I wouldn’t say who the father was. All I told him was that it wasn’t Larry. Father had been upset enough over the breakup of my engagement. If he’d known it was Larry’s child I was carrying, he would have bulldozed a marriage through, no matter what.”
She tried to smile. “William Moore always gets what he wants. As soon as he realized that this time he wasn’t going to, he told me he no longer considered me his daughter. When I ran into Jess a few weeks later, I’d just been fired from my third job in a row and I was at my wit’s end as to how I was going to survive. I’m not a princess anymore, Gabe, I’m a working single mom.”
“With a marriage proposal from a software billionaire.” There was nothing in Gabe’s voice but detachment. “When’s the handover scheduled for?”
“Sometime tonight. The Crawford Solutions jet will get us to Jess’s Mexican villa in under an hour, and we’re to be contacted there with the exact time and place. Steve Dixon’s flying down with me, although Larry and a contingent of his men are already at the villa.”
“Larry took a contingent of his men? How many is a contingent, exactly?”
Caro blinked. “I don’t know, ten or twelve. Why?”
“Because you don’t need an army to hand over a ransom, for God’s sake,” Gabe replied tersely. “You only need an army if you intend to stage a battle. Kanin’s going to pull some kind of cowboy stunt, dammit.”
“But—” She felt the blood drain from her face. “But that could get Jess killed,” she whispered, appalled. “And then his kidnappers will come after Emily, just as they threatened to.”
The desert heat and the blazing sun seemed suddenly replaced by a bone-numbing cold and a darkness so total it might have been deadest night. She couldn’t let anything happen to her daughter, Caro told herself in desperation—she wouldn’t let anything happen.
No matter what she had to offer him, she needed to convince Gabe to take control of the hostage negotiation. But what could she offer a man who’d turned his back on everything?
The same thing she’d offered Gabriel Riggs once before to persuade him to go against his better judgment, she thought shakily. Herself. Because even if he didn’t like her, even if his opinion of her character was that she was still a shallow, spoiled princess, he’d once wanted her so badly that for one night he hadn’t been able to get enough of her, just as she hadn’t been able to get enough of him.
For a moment she almost lost her nerve. Only the thought of what was at stake gave her the courage to go on.
“You once told me that when you looked at my mouth, you wondered what it would be like to have it on you. You told me you wanted to see my hair falling across my face as I called out your name. If you still want those things, Gabe, you can have them. You can have me. All you have to do is say you’ll take on this negotiation.”
“You’re offering yourself to me, princess?” The carved planes of his face hardened. “Any way I like, any time or place?”
She felt herself flush. “That’s the offer. Do you—”
She’d forgotten how fast Gabe Riggs could move when he wanted to. He was still holding the shotgun in his right hand, but the heavy cuff bracelet gleamed silver as he caught her two wrists together with his left, his grip tight.
“Still the lady of the manor, aren’t you. And I’m still the hired hand, as far as you’re concerned—the man you snap your fingers for when you’ve got a job, like standing at stud for you when you’re bored with your usual escorts, or like bringing back your husband-to-be.”
His face was so close to hers that she could see tiny flecks of gold light up the dark amber of his eyes. She shook her head swiftly, and saw the amber turn to obsidian.
“It’s not like that—”
“Damn straight it’s not like that, honey,” he said. “Yeah, there’s been a time or two in the past eighteen months when I’ve thought of how you looked and tasted and sounded while I was going out of my mind and loving it that night. Hell, why wouldn’t I remember? It’s not like there’s been another woman to replace those memories—not here in the middle of nowhere. But just because I’ve been living like a saint in the desert for a year and a half doesn’t mean all you have to do is lean back against your car, give me a little glimpse of those satin thighs of yours, and I’ll be so grateful for the chance to take you again that I’ll promise you anything.”
He released his grip on her wrists. Against the paleness of her skin the impression of his fingers remained.
“Let me tell you how it’s going to be, princess,” he said steadily. “I’m going to take on the job of getting Jess back safely, but for no other reason than that I’ve got a conscience. Not only could Kanin’s grandstanding jeopardize the life of one of my oldest friends—” his tone took on a sudden harshness “—but it could put a child in danger. That’s unacceptable.”
Relief rushed through her, so sharp and intense that it felt like pain. Tears prickled at the back of her eyes and spilled over onto her lashes. “You’ll take on the job? Oh, Gabe—”
“There’s one more thing that’s going to happen, honey,” he went on. “One of these days you’re going to come to me for the third time, except it won’t be to bolster your ego or take on a hostage negotiation. It’ll be because you remember, too.”
He brought a tanned hand to her chin and tilted it upward so that she couldn’t avoid his eyes. “I know you do, princess,” he said in an edged whisper. “No matter what you said the morning after, you loved it just as much as I did, didn’t you? So one day you’re going to show up on my doorstep, and whatever reason you give for being there, I’m going to know what you want…and even if it takes every last ounce of self-control I have, I’m going to turn you down.”
She’d been on a roller coaster of emotions for the past twenty-four hours, Caro thought, her gaze trapped by the coldness in his. Since receiving the call from Jess’s kidnappers, she’d swung from fear to hope to despair, but what she was feeling right now wasn’t any of those.
It was anger. And what made it worse was that it was mixed with a flicker of desire. She pushed his hand away.
“No, you’re not,” she said, her voice as icy as she could make it. “Because you also said that when you looked at me you saw heat that could sear a brand onto a man. You might try to deny it, but I think you let yourself be branded by me that night…and I think deep down you’d give anything to feel that brand burning into you again.”
Just for an instant she saw bleak self-knowledge shadow the antagonism in his gaze, and knew that her barb had struck home. Pride prompted her to sink it in a little deeper.
“I won’t even have to say please, will I, Gabe,” she said coolly. “If the day ever comes that I want what you have to offer, I’ll just show up and all that self-control of yours will disappear like it did once before.”
Even as the unforgivable words left her mouth she wanted to call it back, but it was too late. The shotgun still at his side, one-handedly Gabe pulled her to him, his face so close to hers that his words were spoken against her lips.
“You just set the ground rules again. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say ‘please’ and mean it. One of these days you will.”
Resisting the impulse to struggle free from his grasp, Caro met his eyes. “Is that a threat?”
“A threat?” He brought his mouth down one last fraction of an inch to hers. “Hell, no.”
His kiss was immediately deep. Shock and anger lent an immediate edge to her response. Her hands flew to his chest to push him away.
Then slowly, her fingers curled into her palms, twin handfuls of Gabe’s shirt clutched tightly in them.
For eighteen months she’d told herself she’d remembered it wrong, Caro thought light-headedly—that Gabriel Riggs’s kiss couldn’t have been like summer lightning racing through her, a shower of sparks sizzling along all her nerve endings at once. But she’d remembered it right. Except memory wasn’t a substitute for the real thing.
And the real thing was impossible to resist.
Abruptly Gabe lifted his mouth from hers. As if they’d been doused with a bucket of ice water, the sparks and the summer lightning were instantly extinguished.
His eyes, so pale that for a moment they seemed lupine, blazed down at her expressionlessly. At the side of his neck a trip-hammer pulse gave the lie to his air of control.
“Not a threat, a promise.” His smile held no humor at all. “And I’m going to be right there when you keep it, princess.”
Chapter Three
“Dammit, Caro, this Riggs character you’ve foisted on us has been hiding out in the desert for a year and a half. The man’s obviously unstable, to say the least.” Crawford Solutions’ vice president Steve Dixon’s balding head gleamed with sweat, despite the air-conditioning keeping the sticky heat of the Mexican evening outside at bay. “Right now, he’s upstairs going through Jess’s private papers and belongings instead of conferring with us. If that doesn’t point to his incompetence, I don’t know what does.”
Dixon’s objection was a variation of the same ones he’d made upon her and Gabe’s arrival at Jess’s Lazy J Ranch a few hours ago, Caro thought in frustration, when she’d informed him that Gabe was now the negotiator in charge of the case. He’d kept them up during the brief flight across the border to the Crawford Solutions’ villa here in Mexico’s Chihuahua Province, and he was still trying to persuade her to change her mind. The only difference was that now he had an ally.
With his cadre of paramilitary types milling around and a Recoveries International command post already established at the villa—in one corner of the room a technician was checking a bewildering array of wires and computer monitors hooked up to the telephone in preparation for the kidnappers’ expected phone call—it was obvious Larry Kanin didn’t intend to be replaced without a fight, as he now made clear.
“Living like a hermit didn’t drive our boy Gabriel round the bend. Fouling up the last job he did for me before I fired him was what made him snap,” Kanin drawled. “Like I told you, Steve, the man crashed a party at my Aspen chalet. I had to get physical with him before he would leave.”
The Caroline Moore who’d been Larry’s fiancée was a woman she didn’t even know anymore, Caro thought. How had she ever contemplated marrying him? Nothing about him seemed quite real, from the crisp wave in his dark brown hair to his air of concern over Jess’s abduction.
At least I never slept with the man, she told herself thankfully. If I had, I don’t think I could stand being in the same room as him. I just wish I hadn’t had to make Gabe believe the relationship had gone that far.
But then, she wished a lot of things when it came to Gabriel Riggs. Right at the top of that wish list was the futile desire that she’d come off a little better than she had in their confrontation earlier.
There were two people in the world against whom the shields she’d kept up all her life were useless. One of them was Emily, right now safely in the care of Mrs. Percy, a local woman who’d baby-sat her since her birth and who had agreed to spend tonight at the Lazy J. At the thought of her small daughter, Caro instinctively wrapped her arms around herself, as if in them she could feel the weight and warmth of a tiny body.
From the moment she’d first learned she had a new life growing inside her she’d willingly laid her heart bare to every piercing joy, every numbing fear, every emotion possible that came with the all-enveloping love she felt toward the baby she’d been blessed with. Emily was one of the two people who left her vulnerable, and that was as it should be between a mother and her child.
But Gabe Riggs was the other person she couldn’t seem to shield herself against, and that wouldn’t do at all.
She’d gone to him today determined not to let anything of what she’d felt for him in the past show in her face, her voice, her actions. But his coldness toward her had shattered all her protective barriers, and she’d struck out at him in the only way she knew how.
She’d been the ice princess he remembered her to be. And then she’d melted at his kiss the way he’d known she would. Without even trying, he’d smashed through her every defence.
Every defence except one, she thought shakily. She’d kept the facts of Emily’s parentage to herself. To make sure she continued keeping that secret safe, she would have to build her defences higher and stronger where Gabriel Riggs was concerned…even if that meant she had to be the rich bitch he’d known her as eighteen months ago.
But her own deception didn’t mean she had to stand here and listen to Kanin’s untruths. She flicked a dismissive glance Larry’s way.
“The way I heard it, the only thing you got physical with was a bowl of salmon mousse. Plus Jinx, of course,” she added. “But none of that matters. Jess gave me the power to make this kind of decision in his absence, and I’ve hired Gabe. It’s up to him to decide whether he uses whatever resources you might put at his disposal.”
“Me, working under Riggs?” Kanin’s lips curled. “I don’t see why I should loan my equipment and people to the man who’s replacing me. Sorry, Steve, I have to draw the line somewhere.”
“But see, Larry, this time everyone’s going to know about the line you drew. And if that line means the difference between Jess Crawford coming home alive or not, you won’t be able to sweep his death under the carpet the way you did Leo Roswell’s.”
Despite herself, Caro felt quick heat race through her as Gabe entered the room, his hands in the pockets of his khaki pants, blue-black hair brushing the collar of his faded shirt. His careless attire and attitude were in marked contrast to Dixon’s business suit and sweating agitation and Kanin’s silk roll-neck sweater, tailored pants and indignant frown.
With only the barest of nods to acknowledge her presence, he went on, his gaze on Kanin.
“My old pal Jess has a heftier bank account than Leo did, for one thing. For another, if anything happens to a billionaire software genius who’s got friends in high places, heads are going to roll—yours included, Larry, if it gets out that you withheld help you could have given.”
In the face of a veiled threat like that, her ex-fiancé really hadn’t had much of a choice, Caro admitted a few minutes later. In fact, with his well-honed ability to grab credit, within moments Larry had seemingly persuaded himself that cooperation had been his idea.
“The perp’s phone call is due to come in at around nineteen-hundred hours,” he said, jerking his head at the nearby Recoveries International technician.
Gabe nodded at the man. “It’s been a while since we worked together, Jackson. How’ve you been, buddy?”
“Not bad, Gabe.” The technician’s smile held genuine warmth. “I’m ready to roll here.”
Gabe’s grin was swift. “Good man. Then, I’ll just use the next half hour to familiarize myself with the players involved. I might as well start with you, Dixon.”
Steve looked affronted. “Unless you think I had something to do with this, why waste time grilling me?”
“For the same reason I wanted to look around Jess’s study when I arrived,” Gabe told him. “It helps to get the whole picture of an abductee—”
“I understand you knew Jess when the two of you were in some kind of reform school together,” Kanin interjected smoothly. “Not that I’ve ever done juvenile time myself, but wouldn’t that mean you already know him pretty well?”
It was meant to be a pinprick, Caro realized. It was clear how Larry intended to work this—on the surface he would extend his company’s resources and cooperation, just in case he was ever called to account for his part in the matter, but whenever he could, he intended to erode what little confidence Dixon and anyone else had in Gabe’s capabilities.
And from the tightening of Gabe’s jaw, he knew exactly what Kanin was trying to do.
“I was a sixteen-year-old car-thief and Jess was a smart-ass seventeen-year-old, expelled from school for hacking into the computer system and boosting his friends’ grades. In the fifteen years since, we’ve both taken different paths. I need to know more about the man he is now.”
As if he’d wasted all the time he intended to with Larry, he turned back to Dixon. “I understand you’ve been with Crawford Solutions since the start?”
“Jess was working out of his garage when we met at a trade show in my hometown of Detroit,” the executive said impatiently. “When he asked me to join his team, I told him he had some moxy, expecting me to throw my lot in with his fly-by-night operation. He didn’t take offense—well, if you know Jess you know he never does,” he added with a reluctant grin.
Gabe had called Jess one of the good guys, Caro thought as Dixon continued telling Gabe how Jess’s persuasiveness had convinced him to join Crawford Solutions. Beneath his corporate slickness, Steve Dixon’s liking for his partner was equally sincere. And she herself owed Jess more than she could ever repay, with all he had done for her after her father disowned her.
She could barely remember the mother who’d died so long ago in a car accident. But she’d grown up taking her father’s indulgence for granted, had thought she could wrap him around her little finger. She hadn’t realized he’d seen her solely as an appendage of himself.
It was funny, Caro reflected, giving only half her attention to Dixon’s explanation to Gabe about how the company worked, including the fact that besides she and Steve, a handful of other key employees had their living quarters on the Lazy J Ranch. Eighteen months ago, the shallow, insecure woman she’d been had scuttled back as fast as she could to the familiar security of her father’s status-conscious world because she hadn’t wanted to admit that her night with Gabe had changed her in any way. Within weeks she’d been cast out of William Moore’s world—and his life—herself.
Jess had offered her much more than just a paycheck and a home. Being Jess, he’d become her friend, with no strings attached. He’d never asked who the father of her baby was, although she assumed he privately thought it was Larry, and when Emily was born he treated her like a cherished niece. Even when he’d asked Caro to marry him he made it plain that if her answer was no, she wasn’t to worry that it would cost her her job or his friendship.
Except, her answer wasn’t going to be no, Caro thought. She’d come to that decision only hours ago, when she’d seen Gabriel Riggs again for the first time in a year and a half and had realized with numb certainty that she hadn’t gotten over him at all.
I can’t ever let you know you have a daughter, she told him silently, her gaze taking in the slight frown on his hard features, the air of lazy alertness in his attitude as he put a question to Dixon and received an answer. So I’m never going to be able to let you know that your daughter’s mother has always wondered how things might have been if you hadn’t already disappeared from the face of the earth when she tried to phone you to tell you she was pregnant.
Because wondering was foolish. Gabe had no desire to settle down, while Jess was more than willing to. Providing Emily with a father who would be there for her took precedence over all else, Caro reminded herself.
“…aside from Andrew Scott, a kid I brought to Jess’s attention who for a while was his latest protegé, that’s everyone I can think of. But Scott left Crawford Solutions a week ago, so he’s not in the picture anymore. Any other questions, Riggs?”
The edge in Steve Dixon’s voice wrenched Caro from her thoughts, and almost thankfully she thrust her own problems to the back of her mind.
“Just one,” Gabe replied. “You said Jess paid his employees more than they could make anywhere else. What reason did his protegé give for leaving?”
“Scott didn’t leave of his own volition, Jess fired him. He was a genius, but he was also a typical computer nerd—couldn’t get along with anyone, always had his back up over something.” Steve grimaced. “I think he and Jess—”
Whatever else he’d been about to say was abruptly cut off by the ringing of the phone. Immediately Larry reacted, his voice sharp with tension.
“Put it on speaker.” His command was directed to the technician.
Gabe countered the order instantly. “Not yet, Jackson. Give it two more rings.” His manner was businesslike, but his voice betrayed a hint of warning as he went on. “My show, Larry, remember? Pick it up on the first ring and you’ve already handed the caller the advantage before a single word’s spoken. Second ring, he still knows you were sitting there waiting for him. By the end of the third ring he’s starting to get a little antsy.”
The phone rang again.
“You can bet this isn’t a cold call. He’ll be working from a script, whether it’s written down or not. Emotion’s going to make him want to deviate from his script, and if he does he’s more likely to make a slip.”
“So what if he slips up?” Caro heard her own voice rise. “They’ve still got Jess. We’re still going to do what they say, aren’t we?”
The phone rang a third time. Gabe nodded, his eyes meeting hers for the first time since he’d walked into the room.
“Yeah, we’re going to do what they say. But the more we know about them and how they react, the better, especially if anything goes wrong during the handover.” He moved toward the phone. “And handovers never go exactly to plan, do they, Jackson.”
“You got that right, Gabe,” Kanin’s man said tensely. “On your signal.”
“Now.”
Even as Gabe pressed the speaker button on the phone, Caro heard a tiny ping as the fourth ring began and was cut off. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jackson flick a switch on his equipment.
“Dixon? You there?”
At the kidnapper’s abrupt question, Jackson glanced at his monitors. Her heart pounding, Caro gave her full attention to Gabe.
“Dixon’s not handling this. My name’s Riggs and I’m the hostage negotiator in charge. What do I call you?”
There was a pause. Then the caller spoke again, his tone oddly metallic.
“How about Leo, Riggs? Or does that name bring back bad memories?”
Caro was close enough to see the muscle that jumped at the side of Gabe’s jaw as he answered. “You’ve made your point—you’ve heard of me but I don’t know anything about you. Fair enough. I’m ready and willing to deal under whatever name you choose, but first I want to know for sure that Crawford’s still alive. Put him on or I’m hanging up.”
“No, dammit!” The shocked exclamation came from Dixon. Gabe nailed him with a glance and turned back to the phone.
“Put Jess on, Leo. The lady who’s calling the shots has given me a free hand to deal the cards as I see fit, no matter what anyone else here might say. If I can’t satisfy myself that the man I’m negotiating for is alive, all bets are off.”
“Gabe? Hell, old buddy, so Caro found you, did she?”
The voice was weak and uneven, but unmistakably Jess’s, although the forced jauntiness in his tone was a pale facsimile of his normal good humor. Without warning Caro felt a sob catch in her throat.
“She found me.” Gabe’s smile was strained. “Jess, this is procedure, okay? I need proof that it’s you. What was the name of that hammerheaded Appaloosa Del Hawkins had on the Double B when we were kids? The one with such a wicked temper none of us could ever ride it?”
Jess’s laugh was shaky. “Chorizo,” he said promptly. “He’s still on the Double B. And dammit, you Navajo son of a gun, I happen to know that you rode the brute after Tye and Con and I gave up on him.”
“Bravo, Riggs.” The metallic voice was back on the line, and this time Caro thought she heard a touch of mockery beneath his words. “Bravo. You’ve proven you’re a professional and not about to take my word for anything. Satisfied?”
“That it’s Jess, and he’s still alive? Yeah, I’m satisfied,” Gabe said evenly. “What are your terms, Leo?”
“Five million in bearer bonds if we can finalize this within forty-eight hours. The price goes up considerably if you need more time.”
“Two million and you get it tonight at a handover point of your choice.” Gabe’s reply was flat. “Take it, Leo. You know I won’t be able to get the authorities involved in an ambush at such short notice, so it’s a deal you shouldn’t pass up.”
“Three million.”
The technician stiffened. Touching Gabe on the arm, he nodded toward the screen in front of him and gave a thumbs-up. Following Gabe’s gaze, Caro saw that the scrolling lines of numbers on Jackson’s monitor had been replaced by a single ten-digit one, accompanied by a street address and the city location of Tijuana. Gabe nodded, started to switch his attention back to the phone, and stopped.
The scrolling numbers had reappeared. They were replaced again, this time by another number and a highlighted address in—
Caro stared at the monitor, confused. Oshawa, Canada? Surely that couldn’t be right. She blinked as a third number and city came up on the screen.
Jackson slumped back in his chair, shaking his head in defeat.
Gabe kept his voice even. “Three million in bearer bonds. When and where?”
“In an hour, where the road takes a curve at the fifteen-mile mark from the villa,” came the succinct answer. “And Riggs—just you, Dixon and the woman Crawford mentioned. She’s his fiancée, I understand. Not that I think you’re amateur enough to be considering a double cross of me and my people, but with a woman present, I know you won’t take risks.”
“You’re damn right I won’t risk the woman. She’s not—” Gabe began, but the kidnapper cut him off.
“That part’s nonnegotiable, negotiator. If she doesn’t show, your friend Jess ends up the way Leo Roswell did.”
Abruptly the line went dead.
Kanin’s excited voice was the first to break the silence. “Did we find out where the bastard was calling from?”
Jackson shook his head in frustration. “He had some kind of scrambling device that was way beyond anything I’ve ever come up against before. And his voiceprint was fed through a filter.”
“He’s arrogant.” Gabe flexed his shoulders, and Caro heard a tendon pop. “That’s useful to know.”
“He was taunting you, wasn’t he?” she said, watching him closely. “That’s why he chose the name Leo—to show you he knew what happened on your last case.”
“Which doesn’t mean squat,” Kanin said loudly. “For God’s sake, Rosten’s death was front-page news at the time.”
“Roswell, Larry. Leo Roswell.” Gabe looked at Caro, his gaze holding nothing more than professional assessment. “Yeah, he was taunting me. But his attitude just might trip him up and lead to his capture.”
“You really think that’s possible?” Dixon’s tone was eager. “Dammit, man, if you can somehow foil these bastards, Crawford Solutions’ll owe you big time. The ransom’s coming out of the company’s own pockets, you know. Since Jess never used bodyguards, the insurance companies refused to cover him for this kind of contingency. What are you planning?”
“I’m planning to hand over the three million in bearer bonds Caro informed me earlier today was on hand,” Gabe said. “I’m planning to get Jess back home safely. I’m not planning to do anything—anything, understand?—that could get him or anyone else killed.”
He rubbed his jaw, and again Caro glimpsed tension behind his gesture. “Jess’s abductors are going to be pissed off enough as it is when you and I show up alone, Dixon—but that can’t be helped.”
“Leo said my presence at the handover was nonnegotiable,” she interjected. “If Jess’s safe return hinges on my being there, I intend—”
“I don’t give a damn about your intentions, you’re not going,” Gabe said. “And that’s nonnegotiable.”
“Then you’re off this case.” She held his gaze, hoping she was half as good as he was at concealing tenseness. “I hired you, and if you force me to, I can fire you.”
His expression hardened. “Like I said earlier, handovers never go according to plan. If one of those thugs gets spooked, all hell could break loose within a matter of seconds.”
“And me not showing up could be the very thing that spooks them,” Caro countered. “I mean it, Gabe. I go along on the handover or you’re off the negotiation. I owe Jess that much.”
“No offense, Riggs, but I can’t say I’m sorry Caro’s finally seen the light.” Dixon turned to Kanin. “You’ve got, what, Larry—ten men available? Couldn’t we wait until they spring Jess and then surround the scumbags?”
Kanin nodded judiciously. “I think it’s—”
“You win.”
Ignoring everyone else, Gabe covered the few feet between him and Caro with a stride. She looked up into his face as his grip bit into her shoulders, and felt a moment’s apprehension at the spark of anger in his gaze.
“But you knew you would, didn’t you, princess,” he said, his tone pitched for her ears only. “From the moment we first met you’ve counted on always getting what you want from me—whether it’s a ride to Aspen, one last hostage negotiating job, or going against my instincts and taking you along on a handover.”
His smile was tight. “You should know that I’ve got a limit where you’re concerned, Caro. Do you get me, princess?”
He was so close to her that as he spoke the warmth of his breath touched the corners of Caro’s lips. The apprehension she’d been feeling was cancelled out by another emotion.
Gabe Riggs didn’t answer to any man anymore, she realized shakily. Where once his power had seemed kept on a firm leash, sometime during his self-imposed isolation that leash had been gnawed through and discarded forever.
He was more dangerous than she’d thought. And she was less able to resist his dangerous appeal than she’d so rashly promised herself she would be.
She felt herself sway an infinitesimal distance toward him. The air around them seemed suddenly heavy. Slow heat suffused her and she felt the warmth of faint color touch her cheeks.
“I get you, Gabriel,” she said, her tone as barely audible as his had been. “But how am I going to know when you’ve reached that limit?”
The amber eyes watching her blinked. The hard grip on her shoulders slid fractionally down her arms and then stopped. Today when she’d confronted him under the merciless desert sun, the man hadn’t seemed to notice the temperature or to be bothered by her unexpected appearance, she thought—but Gabe Riggs was bothered now.
And she could tell by just looking at him that he was feeling the same sudden heat that she was.
He released her.
“You won’t. You’ll just know when you’ve pushed me past it,” he said tonelessly. He turned away, his jaw rigid.
“The clock’s ticking, princess. Let’s go save the man you’re going to marry.”
Chapter Four
“What time is it?”
Steve had asked that same question twice already in the past half hour, Caro thought edgily, but Gabe, beside her in the driver’s seat of the stationary sports utility, betrayed no impatience at having to answer him yet again. He glanced at his watch, pressing a button on the side of its dial as he did.
“Ten-thirty.” The faint phosphorescence that had momentarily lit up the watch face faded. He switched his attention back to the blackness of the night. “Yeah, they were supposed to show up half an hour ago, Dixon, but don’t start imagining the worst. From my reading of Leo’s character, I’d guess he’s making us wait on purpose.”
“To prove he’s the one calling the shots in this situation?” From the back seat Steve gave an angry snort. “I’ve got news for you, Riggs. He is, dammit. The bastard’s got us all dancing to his tune, and I for one don’t like it. Larry thinks Leo and his gang are probably no more than street punks who saw a chance to snatch a careless Americano businessman, and I don’t mind telling you, it galls me that someone in my position should have to knuckle under to nobodies like that.”
Caro had heard enough. She twisted around to face the Crawford Solutions vice president. “So what do you propose, Steve? That we drive off just to prove your point? Nobodies or not, these thugs have Jess, and until he’s out of danger I’d say that gives them every right to call whatever shots they want.” Her voice shook on the final few words and swiftly she faced forward in her seat again, fighting to keep her ragged emotions under control.
She felt rather than saw Gabe direct a glance her way before he spoke, his tone brooking no argument. “The lady’s right, Dixon. If Jess’s kidnappers want to play a few head games with us before they release him, we let them. Abductions are never just about the money, they’re about control—who’s got it, who wants it, and who’s willing to relinquish it.”
“Then, why did you baulk at paying the price Leo asked?” Steve asked. “Not that I don’t appreciate you getting the final sum down a couple million, but with Jess such a pal of yours it seems more than a little callous of you to have haggled so closely over his ransom, Riggs.”
Steve could be pompous at times, Caro told herself, and he had a keen eye for the bottom line that had sometimes placed him at odds with his easier-going boss, but a cut like the one he’d just delivered was more Larry’s style than his own. She had the sudden conviction that while she and Gabe had been collecting the suitcase of bearer bonds from the villa’s safe before leaving for this rendezvous with Jess’s abductors, Larry had seized the opportunity to further erode Dixon’s confidence in Gabe. From Gabe’s closed expression it appeared he’d come to the same conclusion.
“Two points, Dixon,” he said tersely, his gaze fixed on the empty road ahead. “One, my job description reads ‘hostage negotiator.’ I negotiated with Leo over the price because if I hadn’t he would have figured he’d asked for too little in the first place, and that might have convinced him that handing a valuable hostage over so easily would be a mistake. I said it was about control. I didn’t say it was about rolling over to a kidnapper’s every demand.”
“Like I said, I’m not complaining—” Dixon muttered, but Gabe went on before he could finish.
“My second point is this—Kanin’s dead wrong about these people being no more than street thugs. Street thugs wouldn’t have the kind of sophisticated scrambling devices that bypassed Jackson’s tracing equipment, or the filter that made it impossible to get an identifiable print from Leo’s voice.”
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