Renegade Protector
Nico Rosso
When intimidation turns to deadly force…If ruthless developers want Mariana Balducci’s land, they’ll have to kill her for it. And they nearly succeed – until Ty Morrison foils her attacker. The sexy San Francisco also soon realizes that battling bad guys is easier than fighting their sizzling attraction.
When intimidation turns to deadly force,
It’s time for Frontier Justice.
If ruthless developers want Mariana Balducci’s land, they’ll have to kill her for it. And they nearly succeed—until Ty Morrison foils her attacker. The sexy San Francisco cop is part of a secret organization called Frontier Justice. Mariana is tough, but she realizes she can’t win this fight alone. And when bullets fly, Ty realizes battling bad guys is easier than fighting their sizzling attraction.
Frontier Justice
NICO ROSSO was a writer in search of a genre until he was introduced to romance by his wife, Zoë Archer. He’s worked in many forms and was deeply honored to have one of his romantic suspense novels final in the RWA RITA® Award contest. When he’s not writing, Nico can be found in his shop, building furniture for the California home he shares with his wife and their cats.
Also by Nico Rosso (#u260d2ae5-b5c4-5ae8-a955-c0d6c009d043)
Countdown to Zero Hour
One Minute to Midnight
Seconds to Sunrise
Heavy Metal Heart
Slam Dance with the Devil
Ménage with the Muse
The Last Night
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Renegade Protector
Nico Rosso
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07958-7
RENEGADE PROTECTOR
© 2018 Zachary N. DiPego
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Ami.
Contents
Cover (#ubf93f4f9-19d2-5471-91c4-70f21f61fa87)
Back Cover Text (#ua76bbf4c-a995-5aef-ab17-81b8fe31b438)
About the Author (#u93c7cab2-9010-533f-baa8-b56062c89ac3)
Booklist (#uf2b0b63f-d473-5e4c-a7e6-7662dfffc3ea)
Title Page (#u6e961004-0385-53b0-9a1d-42f571c10ccd)
Copyright (#u2e53cb64-1b41-56fd-8add-c8f88169dd45)
Dedication (#uee4ca2f6-c58d-59e9-bb42-f10879a68404)
Chapter One (#ue9df958f-36f1-5eed-8afa-9dee49671a0b)
Chapter Two (#ucd9907a3-10a0-57af-b1cc-4c0bcfca4ecf)
Chapter Three (#ud8a43342-d979-5818-ad86-8a384cf00864)
Chapter Four (#u1804bb2e-fc08-5fe3-8084-76000493d822)
Chapter Five (#u2aaf66ff-002e-542f-b8b5-ac0e63bcff2b)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u260d2ae5-b5c4-5ae8-a955-c0d6c009d043)
Dark night hunched over Mariana Balducci as she stood outside the back door of her shop and double-checked the locks. The light in the parking lot behind the building was out, and she was the last to close along the row of stores. For months, every time she heard the metal snap into place on the glass door, it sounded final. Customers avoided her place, and sales were terrible. It was only a matter of weeks or days before she locked up one last time and handed the keys to a stranger.
A shape forty feet away sent a startled shock up her spine. Through the glass back door she peered down the length of her store to where a man stood at her front window. She’d already been on edge from the deep shadows surrounding her, and the figure on the other side of the building froze the breath in her lungs. A streetlight carved out his features enough for her to recognize him. He’d been in her shop that day.
When he’d first come in, she’d thought about walking him through all the organic apple products she had, produced directly from her fifth-generation orchard. But there was a quietness about him that demanded a little space as he discovered things for himself. He was a handsome black man, clean shaven over a square jaw and close-cropped hair. Broad shoulders. Somewhere in his early thirties, around her age or a little older. It was probably a good idea that she hadn’t tried to hand-sell him any cider, because when their eyes did meet, an unexpected heat bloomed across her chest. Her mouth had managed only a simple greeting. Anything wordier would’ve tied her tongue in knots.
The surprising blush on her skin had persisted as he’d walked her store. His thoughtful eyes had captured hers as if he’d already known her and her struggles. As if he understood. But the man didn’t say much, and instead of buying anything, he spent most of his time looking at the antique black-and-white photographs on the wall. They’d been passed down through her ancestors, Italians who settled in the Monterey Bay of California and the Mexican families they’d married into. For a moment, she’d considered telling him what little history she knew from the pictures, then maybe asking if he wanted to get a cup of coffee. But her tongue still felt too thick for nimble words, and it wouldn’t have been fair to flirt with the man while she was buried under two tons of trouble.
Now, standing at the back of her store, seeing him lurking out there on the other side, she wondered if he was part of that trouble. Usually the men who hovered near her shop or prowled just at the edge of her property outside town wore a more stony expression. Their eyes were hard, with zero sympathy. Predators, sent by the Hanley Development Group to intimidate her customers and scare the hell out of her. All so she’d close up shop and sell her land to them. The damned plan was working.
Mariana kept one eye on the man through the windows of her store and backed quickly toward her parked pickup truck. His body straightened, as if he’d spotted her movement. She lost sight of him when she whipped her keys out and tried to get them into the truck door.
Another wave of fear crashed coldly through her. Clothing rustled close by, way too close to her. The presence of a man loomed from the shadows at the bed of her truck. Was it the man from the front of the store? How did he get there so fast? She didn’t even hear any footsteps.
“Back off.” She forced her voice into a command and jammed her hand in her purse for a canister of pepper spray.
“You back off,” a deep voice growled. A hand swung out and slapped the purse from her grip. “Back off your store. Back off your land. Back off this whole county.” Shadows erased the details of this man, but she fully understood the threatening step he took toward her.
“I know who sent you.” It hadn’t been hard to figure out that the Hanley Group was behind this. A few months ago, they’d reached out to buy her orchard and land. She’d refused. Then the goons started showing up.
The man sneered. “I doubt it.”
Her muscles tensed. Words hadn’t been enough to end this. Balling her fists, she tried to control her breathing. Panic would only make her an easier target. Until this moment, none of these threats had been overtly physical. The rules suddenly changed, though, and she had no idea what it would take to make it through this night. The man moved forward again, shadowy arms upraised. She had to fight.
All her fury at being bullied, being afraid, feeling helpless, was released in a punch toward his throat. The man turned at the last instant and her knuckles glanced off the top of his hard chest, then found the side of his neck. He flinched to the side. The impact jarred up her arm and threw her off balance.
The man recovered quickly and lunged, barking, “You little—”
She ducked her head beneath her arms and braced for the impact. Two bodies slammed together with a loud grunt, but she was untouched. Her attacker and someone else thumped into the side of her truck, rocking its squeaky suspension. The new man was equally obscured in the darkness. Maybe he was local police. Her ex, Pete, was one of them, and still came around sometimes. But the police always identified themselves first.
The only things the new man spoke with were his fists. He drove them with brutal efficiency into the attacker. Rough, pained wheezes answered that the new man knew what he was doing. While she was in the clear, she dived to the ground in search of her purse. Her attacker might be armed, and she needed any advantage she could get. The idea of the new man getting injured while helping her boiled her blood. She found the purse strap and dragged the bag to her. The fight continued next to the truck. The new man was knocked to the side, then sprang back with a knee into the first attacker.
The brutality shook her. The fights she’d seen at the local saloon were drunken and sloppy. This was high stakes, between two people who knew what they were doing. And if it went on too long, one of them would die.
Her hand finally wrapped around the canister of pepper spray. She crouched low, released the safety and pointed it out ahead of her, toward the men. Their shadowed shapes continued to struggle, each trying to get the upper hand as they slammed each other into the side of her truck. If she released the spray now, she’d hit them both.
At least it would end the fight. She tightened her thumb on the trigger.
A car suddenly screeched into the parking lot. Headlights blinded her. Maybe now the police were showing up. But there were no sirens. The engine sped closer and did not slow. Her vision cleared enough to see the two fighting men. One of them was the black man who’d been in her store. The other man she didn’t recognize. He was white, with a shaved head and a mean scowl.
Their melee paused in the light of the oncoming car. With a quick shove, the black man separated himself from the other man, then dived toward her. He wore a thick denim jacket, yet she felt how muscular the arms were that surrounded her. She and the man tumbled to the side, his body taking the brunt of the impact on the asphalt. He remained wrapped around her as they rolled out of the way of the speeding car. It screeched to a stop between them and the first attacker. The bald man jumped into the back seat, and the car peeled off again with the smell of burning rubber and engine oil.
The car was quickly out of the parking lot, then turned up a side street, leaving Mariana in the dark again. With a stranger clutching her to his chest.
“Are you hurt?” His voice was deep and smoky.
She assessed her body quickly. Bruised, definitely, but nothing broken or bleeding. “I’m fine.”
With athletic grace, he separated from her and stood. She took his outstretched hand for balance, but hesitated before getting to her feet. The touch of their skin reminded her of the quiet connection she’d thought they’d shared in her store when their eyes met. It had brought on a blush before, and now it shot fire through her veins. But that might be the adrenaline from the fight and nearly getting run over.
She rose and released his hand so she could brush the gravel from her palms. The prickles of pain brought the fear and danger crashing back into her.
“I’m fine,” she said again and dragged her foot across the ground, searching for the pepper spray she hadn’t been aware of dropping. Anger tightened her throat. “I’m not fine.” She fired the words in the direction the car had disappeared. “I’m pissed.” She toed the pepper spray and picked it up, glad to be armed again. “I’m tired of being leaned on, threatened, attacked...” Both the languages she spoke ran through her head in an attempt to explain why she was shaking. “Solo estoy cansado. I’m just tired. I don’t know who you are, but saying thanks doesn’t even begin to cover it.” He took a step forward, as if to speak, but she continued, “You did an amazing thing.”
“My name is Tyler Morrison.” He maintained a distance and spoke calmly. “Call me Ty.”
“I can’t thank you enough, Ty.” She wished there was some light to examine his face. “I’m just going to disappear now and find a life where I’m not in someone’s crosshairs.” If she could find her purse, she could get her keys and drive home to dig up all the paperwork to transfer the deed of her orchard to the Hanley Group and they could stop ruining her life. “I’m fine, and you can go back to your vacation or road trip or whatever it is that brought you to Rodrigo, California.”
He spoke evenly. “I’m here for you, Mariana Balducci.”
Danger immediately clutched her again. She held her pepper spray and got ready to run. “What the hell does that mean?”
A pool of light flicked across the ground. Ty held a small flashlight on a key chain. She was able to make out the shape of his nose and serious mouth, but his dark eyes remained unreadable. The light landed on her purse and remained there. Neither she nor Ty moved.
Adrenaline continued to rack her body, amplified each second he didn’t answer her question. She raised the pepper spray higher in her fist. “Explain,” she demanded.
He nodded easily. “In exchange for me helping you out just now, you can do something for me.”
“So this whole attack was a setup for you to show up, play hero, then get something in return.” For months there’d been threatening phone calls, unexpected letters and unwelcome presences in her store. And here was another man thinking he could push her around.
“This was no game. Those guys were dead serious.” Ty shook his head, and the light glinted off his eyes, revealing their depth. “Here’s what you can do for me—stay.”
She squinted at him, trying to piece together his meaning.
“Make a stand,” he continued with a passionate fire growing in his voice. “Fight back.”
She barked an incredulous laugh. “I don’t know what you think is going on here, but I’m down to my last twelve dollars, my last hour of sleep and my last nerve. Looks to me like the best way to stay alive is to sell out.”
“You’re not alone in this fight.” His jaw was set.
She lowered the pepper spray but stayed on guard. “Yes, you were absolutely there for me just now, but this has been going on for months. Are you going to stick around that long?” She jabbed her finger toward him. “And what do you get in return?”
He bared his teeth. “I get the satisfaction that a good person won her fight.”
She swept her purse off the ground. Ty talked tough, but confidence alone wasn’t going to win this struggle. “You make it sound so easy.”
His flashlight pointed at the door of her truck now, bathing him in reflected red light. “I know it isn’t.”
“You seem to know a hell of a lot.” It was crazy to collect any hope from Ty’s conviction. “And all I know is the name you gave me.” Which could easily be fake. “How did you find me? I haven’t gone public with any of this.”
He explained slowly, “But you did go to the police when the extortion started. And that puts things on record.”
“So you’re a cop?” That might clarify parts of this, but not everything. Ty certainly had authority in his presence, but if he was here on any official capacity, he would’ve flashed some identification. Not that she had much trust in the police these days. Pete toed the line with the rest of the local cops, explaining that they couldn’t do anything without proof. The goons who’d been coming around had been too slick to get caught.
Ty dropped his voice, sounding like he had a secret only for her. “I’m part of an organization—”
Shattering glass interrupted him. He immediately ran in the direction it came from. Her store. She chased after him toward the back of the building. More glass broke. A car tore away down the street in front of the row of stores.
A yellow light flickered in her shop, making the shadows in the back door dance awkwardly. The light deepened to a dangerous red. It silhouetted Ty as he skidded to a stop at the door. He turned to her, face deadly serious. “Call 911.”
She pulled her phone and her keys from her purse as she pressed the emergency-dial button on her phone, Ty took her keys, unlocked the back door and rushed in without hesitation. A wave of heat hit her, and she could only stand and stare at the fire that spread across the floor of her shop. Beyond it were the broken windows, gaping, jagged and dripping with flames.
The emergency operator answered and Mariana implored the fire department to show up as soon as they could.
Ty’s shape hurried through her field of view. He moved purposefully, opening drawers in a desk behind the register. “Where’s the important paperwork?” he barked over the sound of the growing fire.
She burst into action and ran into the shop. Shouldering him aside, she unlocked the file drawer on the desk and pulled out the fire safe containing her business license, her inspection reports and the archival information she’d collected on the historic building all the shops shared.
Ty held his large hand out to her. “Cash?” She found the key for her register and handed it to him as the heat intensified. An automatic alarm system blared. “Get to safety.” He pointed to the back door. She sped in that direction, losing sight of him as he moved toward the register.
The fire grew and the ceiling sprinklers finally hissed to life. She swung out the back door, put the safe down and turned to see the steam from the blaze as it crept up her wooden display tables. Water would kill the fire, but nothing could quench the rage that shook her. The intimidation had been wearing her down for months, but tonight was a direct attack. Her body had been threatened. Her work was burning.
A hunched and wet Ty blasted from the back door, carrying her cash drawer. He handed it to her. The undiminished fire revealed his grim face. “Homemade napalm,” he explained. “It’s like jelly. The water won’t put it out.”
The fury felt like it would consume her. “This is how badly they want me gone.”
“But they don’t know who they’re fighting against. The answer’s still inside.” Instead of backing away from the growing blaze, he sped back through the rear door.
Sirens cut through the night in the distance. She hung up her phone, dropped the cash drawer and rushed to the door. Ty moved through the deadly blaze, one arm curled across his face for protection. He was collecting something, but she couldn’t tell what.
“Leave it,” she shouted to him through the door. “Leave it! It’s not important.” Her merchandise was a loss by now, and none of it was worth his hurting himself. He disappeared completely in the flames. She threw the door open. Despite the heat, cold panic raced through her muscles. “Ty!” She crouched low, beneath the choking smoke. “Ty!” Water from the sprinklers splashed on her as she pressed forward toward the flames. He’d helped her, stepped into her fight, and she couldn’t just leave him in the fire.
He burst through the flames in front of her. The two of them retreated for the back exit as relief washed over her. Once they were outside, she saw that he held a stack of the old framed photos from her shop walls. The same photos he’d been examining when he was there earlier.
“It is important,” he said. “This is why you’ve got to keep standing up.” He shuffled the antique pictures until he got to one of a group of nineteenth-century cowboys and frontierswomen of different ethnicities, posing along a ridge next to a sprawling oak tree.
She laughed without any joy. Her shop burned. Exhaustion dragged her down. “I can’t stand up anymore.”
The sirens grew louder. He glanced in that direction. “You’ve got to.” He held up the picture. “This is us. This is my organization.”
Maybe she’d hit her head during the attack. Maybe this was all a dream. “So you’re a cowboy from the past who’s come to help me?”
The continuing fire etched Ty’s serious face as he pointed to a man in the group. “This is my ancestor. These people formed a group to protect anyone without a voice. People like them. Poor. Immigrants. Women. Workers.” He looked again to where the sirens were coming from. He’d fought a man, saved her from the speeding car and dived into her burning shop, and still he stood strong before her. “That job isn’t finished.”
“Look what they did.” Tears burned her eyes as the flames mocked her. A fire truck finally pulled up in front of her store, firefighters rushing out before the wheels stopped.
“I know you’re under the gun.” He put a hand on her shoulder, and his energy radiated into her. “That’s why I’m here.”
She winced as more glass shattered. The firefighters raked it out of the frames so they could access the fire. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”
His gaze held hers. “We’re going to turn around and take the fight to who’s doing this.”
“Why?” There had to be a catch.
“This is what we do.” He handed her the picture of the group of people. “This is who I am.” Red and blue police lights flickered into the parking lot. Ty’s eyes narrowed as he watched the approaching car. “Don’t tell them my name.”
“You’re not leaving.” She tried to hold him with her voice. Ty had been the only good in this terrible night. Hell, he’d been the only good she’d seen since this ordeal began.
He looked back from the approaching police car and into her eyes. “I’m with you all the way. Until it’s over.” His broad shoulders straightened. He radiated power. “You are not alone.”
The police car stopped and its searchlight swept over the back of the shop, then onto her. She blinked. Ty was gone. As if he’d never been there. But his impact was clear. He’d protected her and saved what he could from the shop, including the old photo she held. The stern-faced people stared at her with the same strength and determination Ty had. But he’d disappeared somewhere into the deep shadows.
She needed him back, to feed on his strength if this fight was to continue. And to chase that spark of a connection she’d felt when they’d first glanced at each other in her store. Somehow, they were tied together in all this. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t feel alone.
Chapter Two (#u260d2ae5-b5c4-5ae8-a955-c0d6c009d043)
His lungs burned, his knuckles were scraped and bleeding, his damp jacket soaked a chill toward his aching muscles, and Ty still wanted to chase down those two bastards and make them pay for what they just did to Mariana Balducci.
It had been harder to leave her alone in the parking lot just then than it was to run into her burning shop. But he wasn’t ready to try to explain himself to any local cops, and it was best if he stayed off everyone’s radar until he had a better handle on who exactly was threatening Mariana and her property.
One detail he picked up tonight: the bald man could fight. His moves were from the street, not a cardio class, and intended to do maximum harm. Ty knew that Mariana had to be tough to run an orchard and her shop alone, but if the bald man had got ahold of her... Ty couldn’t consider that outcome.
He watched her interact with the two officers, both white men, from the patrol car, reassured by how she stood strong, gesturing more with anger than defeat. He stood in the deep shadows between an old tree and a cinder block wall on the far side of the parking lot, hidden from the cops’ view, even when they looked around to follow the story she described.
But the officers’ search of the asphalt with their flashlights wasn’t as thorough as Ty wanted. If he’d been in his jurisdiction, every resource would’ve been in that parking lot working inch by inch, then in the shop once the fire was out. As it was, his San Francisco badge probably wouldn’t get him more than a polite cup of coffee with the chief and little more info than a press release.
According to any county and city authority, his business in Rodrigo was unofficial. But when it came to the underground organization he was working to establish, he was on a focused assignment. The mission was Mariana, and he wished he’d had a chance to really explain who he was and why he’d shown up to help.
Hell, when he’d first walked into her shop, he’d wished that he was in her town for completely different reasons. The scents of apples and spices had surrounded him, warming the moment he locked eyes with her. All the data he’d collected from the police report and internet searches didn’t prepare him for the strength of her presence. He knew the woman had been under the pressure of intimidation for months, and still she wasn’t crushed. Her quick assessment of him revealed a sharp mind. Cautious, yes, but also ready to absorb the world around her. And there was the spark in her eyes. Heat, deeper in her glance. He wanted to know what it was that lit her brown eyes up like that. But he was in her shop for the mission, not to chase down a possibility of a connection with a woman he’d just met. Instead of finding out just how deep the light in her eyes went, he spent the evening scraping his knuckles on another man’s face and running headlong into a fire.
The police officers in the parking lot with Mariana finished their insufficient search and motioned for her to follow them around the front of the building. The angriest flickering of the fire had diminished and it seemed like the firefighters were close to putting it out. Ty tensed, watching Mariana walk away and out of sight. He unclenched his fist. That magnetic pull he felt toward her must’ve just been his professional protective instinct. The bad guys had already made two tries for her tonight. They’d definitely be back.
Now that the parking lot was empty, Ty took out his phone and thanked his diligence in getting a waterproof case. It wasn’t until he tried to key in the code for his phone that he noticed how much his fingers shook. Still cold. And the adrenaline continued to urge him into action. He calmed his fingers as much as he could to unlock his phone and dim the screen. But his thirst to fight only increased as he typed a brief text outlining what had happened this night. Those bastards had come after Mariana and if he hadn’t been there...
The text went to two people in his nascent organization. Vincent and Stephanie would distribute the information further if necessary. Helping Mariana was the number one priority. His secondary goal would have to wait until he knew just how bad things were. But there would be no quitting. He’d told himself that before showing up in Rodrigo. Seeing his ancestor in that photo on her shop wall had steeled his resolve. Standing along the ridge in the old picture were the men and women who had founded Frontier Justice over 120 years ago. They’d banded together to help the abandoned, forgotten and hated people the system ignored. Frontier Justice had to be revived. Mariana’s life depended on it.
* * *
THE FIRE WAS OUT, but the trouble was far from over. Mariana stood outside the broken windows of her shop, nose stinging with the smell of damp burnt wood and plastic. Two police officers stood close by, one of them her ex, Pete. He’d been professional and attentive during his questions, but she still felt his reserve, a by-product of her breaking up with him last year. He hadn’t even been the one to offer her the blanket she had draped over her wet shoulders. His partner, Jones, had done that with an apologetic look in his eyes. In the store, firefighters wrapped up their gear, boots sloshing in the water pooled on the floor where her customers were supposed to be walking. Hot, angry tears welled in her eyes. Her work, her life and her history were being destroyed. Ty had asked her to stand and fight, but now that he’d disappeared, taking his confidence with him, she wasn’t sure how.
“Over here.” Miguel, the lieutenant firefighter, waved her and the two police officers into the shop. Small-town living. She’d graduated high school with both Miguel and Jones, Pete being one year older than all of them.
It was ridiculous to open the front door of her shop while the windows were completely broken out, but she had to maintain some normalcy. Flanked by Pete and Jones, she stepped to where Miguel pointed at the floor. The firefighter indicated a long dark object. “They probably threw this first to break the window.” It was a crowbar. “Then this came through with the fuel.” Melted glass gaped like a screaming mouth. “Most likely a mason jar with some kind of wick. There’s another over here.” He waved his hand over the floor a few feet away, next to one of her half-burnt display tables.
Jones pulled out his phone and took pictures of what Miguel had indicated. The firefighter nodded to Mariana. “You should get pictures, too, for insurance.”
Her damp phone still worked so she framed up the crowbar and melted glass on the floor. A tear rolled down her cheek and she didn’t wipe it away. Her shop had been reduced to a crime scene. If Ty hadn’t shown up tonight, someone might’ve been taking a picture of her lying on the concrete in the parking lot. Cold shudders ran up her spine. She forced herself to stay on task, taking more pictures of everything Miguel had pointed out, jumping in once Jones got what he needed. Pete maintained his distance.
The blanket did little to keep her warm. Ty’s steady presence would’ve been welcome, but he’d lit out like he was a criminal. And what was that organization he’d said he was with? It was somehow tied to the old photos he’d rescued from the walls.
“Mariana! Mariana!” A woman’s voice called from the front sidewalk. Mariana turned to see her friend Sydney craning her neck to see into the dark, burned-out shop.
“I’m here.” Mariana had recorded all the photos she could and walked toward Sydney.
“Are you all right?” Concern etched the black woman’s face. She clutched a hastily thrown-on sweater across her chest and didn’t hesitate to step into the puddles on the sidewalk in her untied sneakers.
“I’m fine.” Mariana hadn’t meant it when she’d told Ty after the attack. She tried to put as much truth in it now to reassure her friend.
“I heard the sirens and jumped on the community loop. They had the address from the scanners.” Sydney slowed her progress once she reached the broken glass on the ground.
Mariana separated further from the police and firefighter activity, opened the door of her shop and stepped into the embrace of her friend. A long breath racked her, releasing some tension. “It was them.”
Sydney squeezed harder around her. “The developers?”
“It had to be.” Mariana stepped from the hug and looked Sydney in the face. “They attacked me...in the parking lot.”
Worry mixed with fury in Sydney’s eyes. “I’m going to take a wrench to every one of their heads.”
Mariana whispered, “Someone helped me.”
“Who?” Sydney shot a suspicious glance at Pete. She’d had less choice things to say about him and the police department when Mariana’s concerns had been dismissed because of lack of actionable evidence.
“I don’t know.” And what details she did have weren’t quite adding up yet. “I mean, I have a name, but not much else.”
“Not local?” Sydney looked about, as if they were being watched.
“Definitely not.” Mariana would’ve remembered if she’d ever seen him before he walked into her shop that day.
“He didn’t stick around, though.” Sydney couldn’t hide her skepticism.
“He’s kind of...shady.” When Sydney shook her head and took a breath to voice her concerns, Mariana took her friend’s hand and continued, “But he was there all the way. And he rushed into the fire to save things from my shop.”
Sydney squeezed her hand tighter, looking at the broken-out facade of Mariana’s store. “I’m so sorry about what they did.” Her friend swung her gaze across the street, to her own shop that sold candles and honey and other by-products of Sydney’s beekeeping. Mariana understood. Anyone could’ve been targeted by these attacks. But it was only her. And it was for her land.
Jones approached respectfully. “We’re wrapped up here for now. Can you come down to the station to put all the details down?”
Mariana nodded and let go of Sydney’s hand. “I can do that.”
Sydney stepped to her side. “I’ll go with you.”
“You showed up here,” Mariana reassured. “And that’s exactly what I needed. You can go home now. I’m good.”
Miguel was the last out of the shop and closed the door behind him. “Moretti Construction has a twenty-four-hour number for boarding windows. I’ll give them a call.”
“Gracias, Miguel.” Mariana shook his hand. “Thanks for everything.”
He held her hand an extra beat. “I’m really sorry about what happened.”
“We’ll find them.” Jones stood straight, but Mariana couldn’t draw from his confidence. The crooks had been too slick to leave a solid trail before. What could the police do now?
Miguel dropped her hand and headed to his fire truck. Mariana patted Sydney’s shoulder. “Seriously. I’m good.”
Sydney’s concern didn’t diminish. She waved her cell phone. “Call me for anything.”
“You know I will.” Mariana smiled a goodbye, but wasn’t sure how convincing it was. Sydney kept watch as Mariana moved up the sidewalk with Jones and Pete. Rounding the corner at the end of the building brought relief from the flashing lights of the fire trucks. But a new anxiety arose when Mariana stepped into the dark parking lot.
The attack still shook her, cold fear knotting between her shoulder blades. “Maybe now we can convince the city to fix the light back here.” Her voice rang tight. If she could just see Ty and know if he was still around, it might unwind the tension. She thought she felt him watching her, standing by to spring into action again, but it might’ve just been a fantasy. Maybe she’d just imagined him in the first place and this whole thing was a delusion created by her assault.
Pete offered up only “Yeah.”
Jones opened the door to the police cruiser. “We’ll follow you there.” He turned on the headlights, illuminating her truck and half the parking lot. If Ty had been lurking in the shadows, there would’ve been nowhere to hide now. She tried to search as casually as possible for him. No sign.
She’d already seen his skills in a fight. There was no question he could stay hidden if he wanted. But she didn’t know how to sort her disappointment at not seeing him. It could’ve been just a matter of safety. He’d been the one to save her this night. There was something more, though. A curious yearning to find out more of who this mysterious man was.
The automatic motion of taking her keys from her purse brought her back to the moment. This was where her night had changed. She unlocked the truck, then walked to where the rescued items from her store were still scattered on the ground. Everything stacked easily, with the photos on top. Serious and determined, the people in the old picture watched her walk back to the truck and load them in the passenger seat.
She was back behind the wheel of her truck but couldn’t erase what had happened. The engine turned over, and pop music sprang out of the radio, way too cheerful. She killed the radio and pulled away, leaving her burned-out and soaked store. The police car followed her out of the parking lot, but she didn’t see any other cars join the caravan, even from a distance. Ty talked a good game about being with her every step of the way, but his absence left her starkly cold.
Seven blocks later, she parked in front of the police station and went inside with Pete and Jones. Her skin had been so chilled from the wet clothes she didn’t even feel it anymore under the heavy blanket. Hot coffee didn’t help, nor did the hard plastic seat next to Jones’s desk in the large room past the front desk of the station. The lights were so bright she couldn’t tell if it was night or day. Jones typed on a computer and Pete sat close. Together they sent questions to her as she recounted the night. Now that she was off her feet, exhaustion dragged her bones heavy.
“I don’t know who he was. He didn’t say.” Most of the questions swirled when she mentioned the man who’d helped her. “It was too dark to really see him in the parking lot.” She left out the detail that Ty had been in her shop, and that his deep gaze had inspired an unexpected blush on her chest and cheeks.
“And in the fire?” Pete asked pointedly.
She shot back, “I was a little preoccupied.”
Jones looked over his screen. “So we have a black man, over six feet tall, and that’s it.”
“But I know that the guy who attacked me in the parking lot was white, shaved head, in his twenties, no facial hair.” Pete tilted his head and smoothed the back of his blond hair, a move she recognized as frustration. Before he asked, she answered, “The headlights of the car that tried to run me over lit that guy up pretty good, but not the man who helped me.”
Pete seemed unconvinced. Jones stepped in. “I think we’ve got everything you remember.” He took a business card from the desk and handed it to her. “Anything else comes back to you, call anyone here. We’re all working on this, Mariana.”
“Thanks, Jones.” Her legs felt like rusted steel as she stood. She shook his hand and nodded to Pete. He tipped his head in return.
Jones stepped with her toward the front door. “You want us to escort you home, check out the place?”
She shook her head. “I’ve got Toro there.”
“Dog?” Jones asked.
“Mean dog,” Pete answered. Mariana suppressed a laugh. Toro was a better judge of people than her, and had always growled when Pete’s car had pulled up the long drive to her farmhouse.
Mariana walked out of the building, Jones still behind her. “Sure you’re okay out there?”
A car eased down the street in front of the station. Ty was driving, heading in the direction of her home. Relief bloomed in her chest, edged with a hot thrill of seeing him again. He passed, not looking up at her. Whoever Ty was, whatever he was really doing in her town, she would find out tonight.
She turned to Jones, with Pete within earshot in the lobby. “I’m fine.”
Chapter Three (#u260d2ae5-b5c4-5ae8-a955-c0d6c009d043)
A mile away from the center of town, country dark took over the landscape around Ty’s car. Leaving his headlights on was necessary, but it also made it impossible for him to move stealthily toward the low rolling hills that surrounded Rodrigo. He shifted his weight, reassuring himself that the automatic was still in its holster on his belt. There’d been no time to change into dry clothes while tracking Mariana to the police station, but he’d added the pistol as extra insurance after the assault and firebombing. If anyone was following him, they’d have a clear target on his vehicle.
Not that it would be a secret where he was headed. The Balducci orchard was at the end of Oak Valley Road, a two-lane deal that ran straight to the hills past neighboring vineyards, farms and horse ranches. Some lit windows stared at him in the distance with yellow predator eyes. Mostly, though, he was surrounded by black and gray. Low clouds blocked the stars. A looming oak sped past, made into a monster by his stark headlights and taking him back to the summer visits to his grandparents’ spread, east and inland from the Bay Area. As a child, he’d been afraid of that dark and the countless animals that could be lurking just out of reach of the kitchen window light.
Those creatures didn’t scare him anymore. As a cop in San Francisco, he’d seen the worst of people. He’d seen it tonight and still held a tight fist and clenched jaw.
According to the GPS on his phone, he’d passed the last of the side roads. Ty killed the headlights and brought his car to a crawl. Details in the terrain slowly emerged as his eyes adjusted. The road curved up a small rise ahead. More oaks flanked the asphalt, behind them aging wooden fences. Cresting the rise revealed the first edge of Mariana’s orchards. They spread up another hill and curled around a broad clearing that held her farmhouse and outbuildings.
He rolled the window down, trying to pick up any sounds of trouble over his engine. Approaching the dark house like this, expecting danger, with only the light from nature to find it, brought him closer to his ancestor than he ever imagined. Jack Hawkins had ridden this land in the dead of night and through stark days, a .45 on his hip and justice on his conscience.
The road turned into a single-lane driveway. Easing closer to the house brought the barking of a dog. Ty had read all the police reports, studied internet maps and social media about Mariana and her orchard, but there was nothing about a dog. He pulled off into a wide swath of dirt and turned off the car. The dog kept barking, but didn’t approach farther than twenty yards in front of the main house. Ty got out of the car and immediately regretted it. Summer was on its way out, and the Pacific Ocean a few miles away sent a cool, damp breeze across the hills and directly through his wet jacket.
“Good dog,” he called up to the guard, but the barking didn’t stop. The dog was as black as the shadows, making its size impossible to determine. It could’ve been anything from a mastiff to a Pomeranian. This being the country, and from the depth of the warning bark, Ty figured it to be a reliable threat and wouldn’t risk getting any closer. “At least you’re on the job.” If there was anyone other than Ty skulking around, the dog would’ve gone at them, too.
A hitch in the barking alerted Ty to a change in the action. He could see from his high vantage point that a pickup truck moved along the road toward the orchard. Mariana’s truck. Easy to remember because he’d been slammed into the side of it. Relief washed over him when he saw she wasn’t being followed. Either by the bad guys or the police. There was too much that he and Mariana needed to sort out, one-on-one.
It was clear from her confidence on the curves that she’d driven this road her whole life. In just a few moments, she pulled up beside Ty and his car. Dashboard lights revealed the exhaustion in her face. Her black hair was still back in a ponytail, her clothes unchanged. He wanted to replace the blanket she had around her shoulders with a clean, dry one. Her wary eyes kept him at a distance.
The dog continued to bark, voicing the caution Ty saw in her. She tipped her head toward her guard. “You met Toro.”
Ty nodded. “I like him. He’s looking out for you.” A small smile brightened her face, then disappeared. Ty took a half step toward her truck. “You should get into something warm before that chill gets too deep.”
She stared at him for a second, expression opaque. “Leave your car there. I’ll meet you at the house.” She drove off to the house, Toro bounding to follow. He saw in her headlights that the dog was some kind of shepherd mix, medium sized and athletic.
Ty collected a duffel from the trunk of his car and walked up the forty yards to the farmhouse. By the time he got there, several lights were on inside and the front door was open. Toro paced on the other side of the doorway, head low and eyeing Ty. It was best to pause on the broad porch that stretched the entire front of the house.
Mariana’s voice came from inside. “Toro, let him in.”
The dog edged away, not breaking eye contact. Ty stepped over the threshold and into a comfortable living room with mismatched furniture ranging from dark wood antiques to minimalist new pieces. Mariana stood on the far side of the room, next to an open cedar chest. In her eyes was the same caution Toro had. In her hands was a lever-action rifle.
Ty carefully placed the duffel on the ground and showed her the palms of his hands. The barrel wasn’t pointed at him, but it wouldn’t take much for her to swivel it in line with his chest. “I’m glad you’ve got that,” he said, noticing that it wasn’t cocked. Yet.
Her gaze narrowed on his duffel. “Are you planning on staying?”
“I’d like to change.” He brought his hands down. “The sprinklers hit me when I was running through the fire to pull the valuables from your shop.”
She lowered the barrel of the rifle toward the ground and let out a shaky breath, some of the tension releasing from her shoulders. Toro sat near her. “Sorry.” Her grip on the rifle loosened. “I’m just...”
“I get it. I’ve seen it.” He turned and closed the front door. “And I’ve been there.”
She tipped her head at the door. “The dead bolt.”
He threw it, but wouldn’t feel the house was completely secure until he’d gone room to room. “Did you tell them my name? Anything about me?”
“No name, just a vague description.” She walked to a small desk in one corner of the room with a laptop on it. Toro followed. “I’ve never seen you before today.”
“Good. Thanks.” He slowly pulled his badge wallet from his back pocket and held it open. “I’m a San Francisco City detective, out of my jurisdiction and technically on vacation.”
She stepped forward, still gripping the rifle in one hand, and took the badge and ID from him. “I don’t know how things are done up in the city, but you suck at vacationing.”
“I don’t want a vacation.” His wet jacket tightened around him. “I want to help you.”
“And I still don’t know why.” She put his ID down on the desk and opened the laptop.
“Let me get dry first.” He nudged his duffel with his foot.
She hooked her thumb to a wide hallway leading away from the living room. Half of it was taken up by a stairway to the second floor. “First door is the guest bathroom.”
He picked up his bag and walked deeper into her house. Floorboards creaked under his feet. The scent of a woman’s soap drifted down from the top floor, where he supposed the master bedroom was. At the end of the hall was the kitchen, but he turned to the bathroom before he could investigate it or the photos that lined the wood-paneled walls of the hallway.
Once inside, with the door closed, he paused and listened. A chair shifted in the living room. Light typing. Toro’s tail thumped on a rug on the floor. At least Mariana wasn’t waiting with the Winchester outside the bathroom. He pulled off his jacket, peeled off his shirt and piled the heavy material in the narrow shower that stood in one corner. A quick inspection in the mirror revealed no open wounds from the fight.
A hot shower would’ve been heavenly, but it would’ve definitely pushed Mariana’s hospitality. He quickly unlaced his boots, kicked out of his remaining wet clothes and replaced them with dry ones from the duffel. Once his keys, wallet, knife and pistol were secured and covered with an unbuttoned denim shirt over his T-shirt, he stepped back into the hallway.
Mariana met him at the edge of the living room, the wary look in her eyes softened. Behind her, on the laptop, he recognized a San Francisco news story about an abducted girl he’d helped find. Mariana held out his ID. “The article doesn’t say what happened to her dad and uncle.”
“They were put away.” He reached forward and took hold of the ID wallet. For a moment, she didn’t release it. The two of them balanced, he felt her strength. The power of her body had been clear when they’d tumbled on the hard parking lot, but that hadn’t been as quiet as this intimate moment in her living room. Their gazes locked. He was close enough to see flecks of gold in her brown eyes and wanted to step closer and search the depth of her darkness. She released her hold on the ID, and the two of them moved apart.
“Do you drink, Detective Morrison?” She drifted to a side table next to the hallway. A few bottles of liquor stood at various levels. Two glasses had been poured with a light amber liquid.
“Ty.” The drink was so inviting. Heat in a glass. “Please call me Ty.”
She picked up one of the drinks and presented it to him. “Do you drink tequila, Ty?”
“I won’t refuse you.” He took the glass.
She took the other. “Ms. Balducci.”
An embarrassed flush heated his cheeks. “Sorry if I used your name, I...” Telling her about all the files and information he’d read on her wouldn’t help to undo the awkwardness.
A smile, tilted wicked, crossed her face. “A joke.” She laughed incredulously. “You did so much. Of course you can call me Mariana.” She raised the glass and he clinked his against it.
“To surviving another night.” Their eyes held again. The tequila was forgotten as he was drawing a new heat from a growing connection with Mariana. The first spark had started when he’d seen her in her shop. But his purpose couldn’t be chasing down this possibility with a woman he’d just met. It wasn’t fair to her and it wasn’t fair to his mission. He blinked, then threw back the tequila. The burn wasn’t strong enough to shake the fire he felt in his veins standing this close to her.
She drank hers quickly and put the empty glass down, not making any more eye contact. “I have to change.” Rifle in hand, she moved into the hallway and up the stairs, followed by Toro. The door at the top closed and a lock was thrown.
Ty set his glass down and stood at the bottom of the stairs, listening to the ceiling creak with her movement. His investigator’s mind always drew pictures, scenarios and possibilities based on details he collected. But that mind usually kept a cool distance so it could observe cleanly. The imagination that saw Mariana in her room, pulling the wet clothes from her body, was not at all professional. He shook the images from his head and brought himself back to task.
“One of the police officers was acting sketchy.” He pushed his voice up the stairs and hoped she could hear through the door.
“Really?” She wasn’t very muffled. The old house had gaps.
“He was unfocused, like he was carrying a distraction.” It still made Ty mad to think of how unthorough the initial investigation was. “Could he be in on this harassment?”
“Which cop?” Her footsteps creaked closer to her door.
“The taller one. White. Blond. Built like a baseball player. A pitcher.”
The door at the top of the stairs opened, revealing Mariana’s silhouette. Her hair was down, making her look mythical as she descended the stairs. The ground-floor light slowly showed that she wore jeans and a button-down flannel shirt. Toro remained at her side and she still held the rifle. “That’s Pete,” she said with a smirk. “My ex.”
That made sense. “There’s the distraction.”
“He played third base.” Dark hair framed the dusky skin of her face. All the lights in the house seemed to have dimmed to a sultry glow. “What position did you play?”
Toro finally ventured close, and Ty put the back of his hand out to sniff. “Wide receiver on the football field, forward on the basketball court.”
“Double threat.” She observed his interaction with Toro, then poured another two drinks of tequila.
“I didn’t mess with baseball.” He ventured to pet Toro’s head and the dog leaned into it. “You were a point guard, right?” It hadn’t been in any file he’d read. She raised her eyebrows as if asking him to explain. “I can see that you like to call the shots. Your orchard, your house, your rifle.”
She quirked a smile. “You should ask Pete about that.”
“I’d like to ask him why he didn’t spend another two hours scouring that parking lot for clues.” Even if they were exes, it was no excuse for shoddy police work.
“Small town.” She shrugged. “They don’t know how to handle this kind of stuff.” Her face darkened. “Or they don’t want to.” She handed his drink over and swirled hers in the glass. “I sell my spread to the developer, they put in a resort hotel, property values go up, property taxes go up, the town does better, the police department does better.”
“That price is too high.” He waited until she sipped at her tequila to taste his. The liquid fire couldn’t override the anger he felt at her situation.
She stared into the distance, eyes unreadable. “Hungry?” Without waiting for his answer, she walked into the hallway and down to the kitchen. Toro remained at her heels. Ty followed. The kitchen was larger than he expected, with a broad center island covered in a warm wood butcher block. One wall was dominated by a stove and vent hood that stretched to the high ceiling. Mariana slid a wire bowl of apples to the center of the island and picked two out. “We have plenty of apples. Can’t sell any of them without harvesters to get them off the trees or customers to show up at the shop.”
She pulled a gleaming knife from a block and quickly segmented the apples. Her hands paused as she pushed some of the slices toward him. He saw her eyes fixed on his hip. His gun. She asked, “Why didn’t you pull that on the guy in the parking lot?”
“I didn’t have it on me.” He reached forward and dragged the pieces of apple to him. “I didn’t know it would be this bad.”
She set the rifle on the corner of the island. “Neither did I.” They silently ate pieces of the apple, drank tequila, then chewed on more apple. Toro glanced between the two of them, like he was looking to see who would give him a handout. Mariana used a piece of apple to point at a slice Ty held. “Do you taste it?”
He’d been eating automatically and slowed down to search. Savoring it this way strengthened the connection he’d been feeling with her all night. Her work, part of herself, was in his mouth, intimate and close. An apple had never made his blood rush like this. “It’s...salty.” A surprising flavor within the balance of sweet and tart.
Her face lit up with a smile, then changed to something more serious as she examined his face. “We’re only a couple miles from the Pacific. The mist comes in from Monterey Bay, bringing the sea salt with it. There are no other apples like this.”
“That’s why I’m here.” She needed to know only part of the reason for now. “There’s too much history here to lose. Your history is here. Your family’s. And if you want to stay, I will help you.”
“With those ghosts from the past?” She nodded out to the living room, where the old photos lay on a table.
“After the Civil War, the West expanded. People tried to carve out lives for themselves. But the law wasn’t always on their side.” Shame and anger shook him, knowing that even as a police officer now, the same injustice occurred. “Money was power. My ancestor joined with others to form a group to protect people who couldn’t protect themselves. Vigilantes. They rode mostly in California. Black, Chinese, Native American, Mexican. Other immigrants. Men and women. They called themselves Frontier Justice.”
Mariana held his look. “You can’t be a cop and a vigilante.”
He stared deeper into her, hoping she saw his vow. “I can if they don’t know. I have to be if no one else will help you.”
Her eyes narrowed, cutting him open for dissection. “Do you ever lie?”
“Yes.” He was no superhero in a cape.
She loosened her posture, resting her hip against the island. “If you’d said no, I wouldn’t have believed you.”
He propped his elbows on the thick butcher block. “We live in a difficult world.”
Despite her casual attitude, her gaze still held steel. “Are you lying now?”
“No.” The night was black and silent outside the kitchen windows. For now, it was just the two of them. In her home. With an unexpected, electric connection stretching between them.
“And you’re going to help me.” She leaned forward. Heat prickled across his chest. Did she feel it, too? “No strings. No motive other than justice.”
“I will.” It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t all of the truth.
Her gaze fell to her hands and she seemed to wrestle with a thought. She glanced at her rifle, then Toro. A long breath shook through her. She made a fist, released it and looked him in the eye again. “Stay the night.”
Even though he knew the invitation was just for the sake of her safety, the words in her low voice, in that quiet kitchen, fired quick heat through him. The circumstances of his visit to her house tried to ice the flames, but only brought them down to a deep red smolder close to his bones. This job of protecting her had started out feeling important because of the ties to his ancestor. Standing here with Mariana, feeling how hard it was to ask for help and knowing how much she needed it, the job was now very personal.
Chapter Four (#u260d2ae5-b5c4-5ae8-a955-c0d6c009d043)
Mariana had never shared her bedroom with the rifle before. The door was locked and Toro was curled up next to the bed. She sat on the edge of a reading chair, very aware that Ty was in the guest room below her feet. The rifle wasn’t for protection against him. As crazy as his story was, he’d proved she could trust him to help her. Whether or not he could fight off the Hanley Development Group was a different question.
She spoke low into her phone, knowing he could still hear her through the old house. “Hi, Brenda, I couldn’t find an after-hours number for you, so I’m leaving this message.” Her voice was tired and shook as she recounted the minimum details to her insurance agent. “My shop on Pacific was firebombed tonight. Fire department did a good job, but I don’t know how much I can salvage. Call me back and let me know what to do next. Thanks.” She hung up and let the phone slip to the rug.
Brenda was a professional, and had to know the steps for dealing with the nuts and bolts of a claim. Paperwork, phone calls, emails. Impersonal. But that didn’t stop the cold grip that squeezed the back of Mariana’s neck.
Ty had eased that. He knew the violence of the world. And he seemed to understand her. That uncanny perception of his had a way of slipping past her guard. He was probably doing it just then, staring at his ceiling and seeing her rubbing her hands together in an attempt to wring out the tension.
It had been months since the guest room had been used, when Sydney had brought a special bottle of wine and the two had cooked dinner and stayed up way too late. Inviting Ty to stay had taken all her resolve. After all that had happened that night, an empty house would’ve only amplified her anxiety. But when she’d shown him to the guest room, with the made bed against one wall, she was hit with just how intimate the silences between them had become.
Talking about what Frontier Justice had been and what Ty wanted it to be again had occupied her mind like an unfinished puzzle. She’d put the pieces together as he’d spread them out. There were still gaps, like why the old photos had come into her family’s possession, even though none of the people in them had ever been identified as her ancestors. It hadn’t been the time for too many questions, though. Any more information would’ve been overload.
She picked up her phone and walked to the bed, turning what Ty told her over again to see if she could draw any conclusions from what she knew about her own family. The Italian side had come from southern Italy and had started out as farmhands until they could buy their own spreads and plant the kinds of foods they understood. It didn’t take long for them to make ties with the Mexicans in California, marrying into old, established families. Their voices surrounded her, rising up from the earth of the orchard. Her parents had drawn strength and pride from that past, but had passed on only a handful of stories before they were taken from her in a car accident during her first year of college. She’d been so busy growing up, she hadn’t learned what this land had really meant until she’d returned to work it.
Ty seemed to understand these connections. She saw how he felt his own ancestors and their struggle for justice in himself. He acted on it, leaping into the fight for her and into the fire for his own legacy. Thoughts of the assault and the fire kept jabbing into her, making her weary muscles ache. Her mind wouldn’t allow her to go over it again and again. A new thought took over.
Ty’s mouth. Eating the apple she’d grown and picked and cut. He’d taken his time, giving her plenty of opportunities to watch him consider and then savor the fruit. It had almost been like kissing him. Almost. Mariana knew that if she had, she’d still be feeling the power of that man on her mouth. Hell, she might still be kissing him hours later.
She plugged her phone into a charger cord. Sitting on the bed made the mattress groan. She knew he could hear it, too. Her breath caught in her throat with the thought of what Ty’s remarkable perception would find if he turned his attention to her body. Usually people couldn’t identify what made the apples of her orchard so unique. But he’d tasted the salt. He could probably search out pleasures in her body she’d never discovered.
Mariana blew out the hot breath and shook the thoughts out of her head. He might be involved, or married, though she’d noticed no ring. She’d seen his integrity, so it didn’t make sense if he had someone that he’d still be staring so deeply at her. Or maybe it was just her wishful thinking. Throwing too many feelings toward the one man who’d helped her.
She got under the covers, wearing sweats and a T-shirt, knowing her shoes and rifle were close by. Ty’s perception was dangerous. She tried to take comfort in how it was an asset in her fight to keep her orchard, but couldn’t dim the bright flush across her chest and down her legs that he inspired. The man was probably asleep already, thinking only of justice. She turned out the last light in the bedroom. He remained very much awake in her mind. All he’d told her still hadn’t settled into order. But it was the silences between her and Ty she had no defense for.
Stars glittered outside her window. Ty was in her house. Sleep seemed impossible. She closed her eyes and felt him wrapped around her, rolling from danger on the hard ground of the parking lot. Remembering him eating in her kitchen slowed her pulse to a more sensual pace. It was only when she imagined the slow process of handpicking apples from her trees that sleep finally took her.
She woke with a clutch of fear in her throat. The sky was still deep charcoal. It could’ve been hours or minutes since she’d fallen asleep. Toro stood on alert in the middle of the room, staring at a dark window. The unknown danger burned the cobwebs out of her head with icy fire. She slipped from her bed and grabbed her rifle.
One footstep creaked on her floor and Ty’s voice came cautiously low from downstairs. “One car, parked on the road to your place.”
She crouched low and approached the window. Among the natural landscape that spread out beneath her house and orchard, a car gleamed in the starlight. It was on the side of the road, small puffs of exhaust showing it was idling. Then she heard the distant sound of the engine, like an angry insect stuck deep between the house’s walls.
Ty asked in a clipped voice, “Is there a back way to your house?”
She kept her gaze on the landscape while she hurried to her bedroom door and unlocked it. “Fire roads.” She returned to the view of the car. Ty bounded up the stairs. Toro was so intent on the window, the dog didn’t even glance at him.
Ty moved to a window opposite the one she was looking out, with a view of the back hill of the property. “Are they passable?”
“They’re blocked by gates and chains and dry creeks.” The car remained motionless, too far away to see how many people were inside or what they were doing. “Only four-wheelers and horses can get through.”
He came over to the front window and crouched next to her. It was amazing someone with his size and strength could move so quietly. His intense presence brought her even more awake. He kept his voice a whisper. “The car killed its lights a mile before coming to a stop.”
Anger choked her words. “They’re parked on my property. That’s after my fence line.” As if tonight’s attack wasn’t enough, they had to come back.
Ty focused out the window. “Have they ever come this close before?”
She gritted through a clenched jaw, “Yes.” It was then she saw that his pistol was in his hand. “Are you that good a shot?” It was at least half a mile.
He glanced at her, grim. “They might not be the only ones out there.”
She shook off a quick shiver. “Toro would be going crazy.” The dog remained rigid, staring out the window.
Without taking his eyes from the idling car, Ty lowered his pistol. “Good thing it’s so quiet in the country. Never would’ve heard them until they were closer in the city.”
“You heard them coming?” She couldn’t identify exactly what had woken her, but knew it wasn’t the noise of the engine.
Ty shrugged. “I was barely sleeping.”
“Too quiet for a city guy?” Their whispers didn’t reach the glass panes in front of them.
“My grandparents had a spread east of the bay and we used to do summers out there.” A smile emerged in his voice. “Chopping wood. Swinging off a rope into the swimming hole. Chasing chickens.”
“That’s what I was trying to get away from when I went to college.” She put her fingers on the windowsill, wishing she knew more of the history of the hands that had built this house. “I didn’t know how valuable it was until I came back to make a life out of it.”
The steel returned to Ty. “That’s why I’m not going to let them take it away from you.”
“What happened to your grandparents’ place?” Was that why he was so determined to help her?
“The younger generations moved to the cities and the land got to be too much for them to maintain. They sold it off and lived out their lives in a nice little house.” He warmed again. “I still see people wearing belts my grandpa tooled. Didn’t sell them, just gave them away with plenty of free advice. And my grandma tutored any local kid who needed help.”
The lineage started to make sense. “They were Frontier Justice.”
Ty’s gaze dropped to the floor and his brow drew down. After a moment, he shook his head. “As far as I could find, that organization dissolved around World War One. My grandparents were just...”
“Good people.” She moved her hand from the windowsill to brush it against his. “Like you.”
He brought his attention to the idling car again, eyes taking on an edge. “I’m trying.”
His deflection helped her find some perspective. Yes, he was diligent in helping her, but was she reading too much into the silent moments between them? “What does your girlfriend think about you spending the night at my place?”
“No girlfriend.” He kept staring straight ahead. “No wife.”
“Married to the badge?” She could see how his intensity might not leave space for another person.
“I’ll give you my mom’s number.” A wry smile curved his mouth. “She can fill you in on all the things I’m doing wrong in my love life.”
“I don’t know, Ty. I think you’ve got primo moves.” She focused ahead as well, but felt as if she was leaning against his shoulder, even though they were over a foot apart. “You jump into a fight, run into a fire, all just to get into my bedroom.”
He leaned back on his heels, as if startled, and looked about the room. “I was just tracking that car. If you don’t want me in here...” His voice trailed off as he glanced from the bed to her in her T-shirt and sweats.
What had started as a joke turned serious in the new silence. She hadn’t even taken in that he was wearing only a tank top and athletic shorts. The dim light from outside revealed the muscles in his arms that made him move with such sure grace. He was lean, defined, built for purpose, not just for show. “I let you in,” she answered.
Outside, the sound of the car’s engine changed. Condensation from the exhaust billowed and the car moved forward. Ty crouched lower, pistol in hand. Ready. She clutched her rifle and tried to keep her heart from pounding too hard. Her voice shook. “I’ve never shot at another person.”
“You’re lucky,” he whispered, face so dark she couldn’t see into him. “Remember, you didn’t ask for this. These bastards are bringing it to you, and you’re just defending your home and your life.”
Her palms sweated with the thought of it coming down to a life-and-death fight. But that was what they’d done this night, attacking her the way they did.
The car continued up the road. Her breath caught in her throat. Ty remained poised, eerily calm. After a few yards, the car swung across the blacktop in a hard U-turn. Tires screeched into the night. The headlights turned back on and the car sped away, having sent its message.
Relief blanketed her as the tension shuddered its way out of her limbs. She leaned the rifle against the wall and sat on the floor. Ty remained at the window another few moments, then joined her, letting out a long breath. Toro curled up at her feet.
Even though the threat had passed, there was still hard intent in Ty’s voice. “The Hanley Development Group, right?”
“They’re the ones who first approached to get me to sell.” It had all seemed so impersonal and businesslike. Two representatives had come to her shop, laid out the idea of their resort on her land, then left with polite handshakes when she’d declined.
Ty knocked the knuckles of his fist on the wood floor. “We’re going to give them a visit.”
“I’ve got to take care of things locally first. Insurance. Phone calls.” She still didn’t know just how badly her shop was damaged. And she had to update her website and social media to let people know the store was closed. Maybe permanently.
“Soon, then.” He rose. “If they’re hitting you, then we have to hit back.” His outstretched hand waited for her.
Her pulse warmed seeing his skin so close. She could stand on her own. She reached up and took his hand. The touch fired her blood hotter. Like a bolt of electricity passed between them. The way his chest swelled with a breath, she knew he felt it, too. His fingers curled strong around her. She flexed her muscles and got to her feet. Closer, her body demanded. Still clutching his hand, she could press against him, pull him to her. Bring his mouth to hers.
He stared at her from behind heavy lids. This man had burst into her life. In just a few hours he’d reminded her that she’d forgotten how to want something just for herself. But wanting that kiss, that physical contact, and taking it were two completely different things.
She dropped his hand.
He took a respectful step back and the sultry atmosphere lifted from around him. “Good night, Mariana.”
“Thanks for—” how many times could she thank him in one day? “—sleeping light.”
An unexpected quirked smile lit him up. “My pleasure?”
The temptation to ask him to stay in her room hit her. Like the way she’d asked him to spend the night at her place. But this wasn’t motivated by the need for safety. It definitely wasn’t safe to have him in her bedroom. “Good night, Ty.”
He nodded and turned for the doorway. Toro got up, followed him for a step, then stopped as Ty descended the stairs. Mariana closed the door and didn’t lock it. She placed the rifle next to the bed and sat on the mattress. Toro curled near her feet and let out a satisfied sigh, his job done for the night.
Transitioning to sleep wouldn’t be that easy for her. Each tick of the floorboards downstairs was amplified in her ears. Ty returned to the guest room. His presence washed across her skin. But as potent as it was, she knew better than to pursue the attraction. It was only a side effect of all the tension of the night.
She slipped under the covers and stared at the ceiling. Yeah, she tried to convince herself, adrenaline keyed her body up and it was easy to focus that energy on Ty. He’d stepped in when no one else had. Now that her body sank into the mattress, exhaustion dragged her into a warm darkness. But, her mind objected, you were taken by him when he first walked into the shop. Before the trouble. Ty was trouble. She knew that. And as she fell asleep, a long-dormant need inside her was waking up.
* * *
AFTER STARTLING AWAKE what felt like every ten minutes, Mariana finally gave up trying to sleep near dawn and left her bed. There had been no more threats that night. Toro rose, much sprier than she was feeling. Mariana went through her morning movements, pausing every few moments to listen for Ty on the ground floor. All seemed silent there.
She dressed and walked downstairs. The sun crested the far hills. Yellow light sliced in through the side windows. At least it would be a clear day, even if she couldn’t predict what the next few hours would bring.
As soon as she reached the ground floor, Ty stepped from the guest room. He wore jeans and a hoodie, and looked as fresh as if he’d slept twelve hours after a spa day. Her tired body immediately responded with a surge of energy. Their connection had gone untested last night, and parts of her wanted to find out just where it led. Instead she maintained her distance and her equilibrium.
Ty eyed the rifle in her hand. “You going to hunt up some breakfast?”
“Yeah.” She nodded and moved toward the kitchen. “California moose chorizo.”
“Just like Momma used to make.” He followed her, and both of them came to a stop at the large island.
She rested the rifle against the side. “I just feel safer having it in the room.” The same feeling she discovered with Ty.
“I get it.” He turned to reveal his pistol in its holster on his belt. “Get any sleep?”
“Who needs sleep when there’s coffee?” She collected the necessary elements to brew a pot. “How long have you been up? I didn’t hear you.”
He checked his watch. “An hour?” She felt him collecting her details as his gaze tracked her movement. “I figured out most of the creaky floorboards and walked around them.”
“Stealthy.” She cut up a crusty loaf of bread from a local baker into slabs for toast. “You would’ve made a good burglar.”
“What do you think I did before I was a cop?”
“Really?” She started to assess him completely differently.
He smiled easily and shook his head, more relaxed than she’d seen him before. “Nah. I worked in a couple restaurants through college.” He took a couple of slices of bread and put them in the toaster.
For months, her morning routine had been the same. Toast. Coffee. Work on the orchard and work in the shop. Nothing was normal this day. Ty’s presence shifted everything. The sunlight came through the windows differently, making her see aspects of her house that had gone unnoticed in...forever. “Was the guest room okay?”
Ty found the plates for the toast in a cabinet and stacked them at the ready. “Upper sash on one of the windows is loose and wouldn’t close. A little drafty, but no problem.”
“Really?” It felt like everything was falling apart around her as she broke her back trying to keep all the pieces together. “I’m sorry. There just hasn’t been time to work on the house. Or enough money.”
“It’s not your fault those bastards have been after you.” He pulled out his phone and set it on the island. “I was reading comments and reviews for your shop this morning.”
“Oh, God.” She rolled her eyes and shuddered. “So many fake accounts trashing me.” The coffee was ready and she brought two mugs to the pot. “And they’ve been leaning on the harvesters. No one’s willing to come out here to work the trees.”
“And still your local PD didn’t do anything.” Anger heated his voice.
She poured coffee into the mugs, the aroma helping to bring her more into the present. “They just kept saying there was nothing concrete to move on.”
Ty finished with the toast and brought the plates to the island. “Last night will put everything on the books, but I don’t think they collected a lot of actionable evidence.”
Her frustration with the police department didn’t have the same bite it used to. Ty was there, bringing Frontier Justice from outside the system. “Cream and—” Her phone rang. The screen indicated it was her insurance agent and she answered immediately. “Thanks for calling back so early, Brenda.” The woman’s concerned voice was just waking up, but she was diligent in explaining the next couple of steps and agreed to meet Mariana at the store within an hour. Mariana related all this to Ty after she hung up.
He nodded with understanding, drinking his coffee black and making mental calculations. “I won’t be there for that. The fewer official reports I’m on, the better.”
She threw back some of her coffee, hoping it would ready her for whatever was coming this day. “You’re only here for the action.”
“Until you tell me to leave...” He found a pad and pencil on a counter and scrawled a number. “I’m never farther away than a phone call.” Bringing her the piece of paper closed the distance between them. Her body drank in the heat of his intensity. “Usually, I’m much closer than that.”
She took the paper and stepped away to enter the number in her phone. Now that she knew she had to meet Brenda, the clock ticked on the day. She and Ty gathered their things and headed out. Hearing and believing what he’d said had taken the cold edge away from being alone in this fight. But as she drove to town followed by Ty, an unsettled question burned into her. How much closer did she want him?
Chapter Five (#u260d2ae5-b5c4-5ae8-a955-c0d6c009d043)
He still felt her near his skin. It had been an hour since they’d left the kitchen. The drive to town hadn’t helped cool him down. Pretending to be interested in a revolving rack of comic books at the front of the small local bookstore still couldn’t shake the resonance of her in him. She was standing down the block on the far side of the street, outside her boarded-up shop. She and the insurance broker had gone inside, come back out and now discussed several pages of paperwork on the Asian woman’s clipboard.
Even from this distance, the warmth on his chest that had started in her bedroom persisted. It had come as a quick shock. He’d been so focused on the danger outside there’d been no time to assess where in her house he was or what that might mean. Once the car had left, though, the intimacy of standing so close to Mariana in her bedroom bolted, hot, through him. He was in her house to protect her. He was there for Frontier Justice, and following through with the attraction he felt was beyond a bad idea. There was no certainty she was feeling it, too. The way her hand had lingered in his when he’d helped her up had definitely encouraged the idea, though.
Sleeping lightly in the drafty guest room had calmed his body down, but not his mind. The boldness of the Hanley Group’s attacks and follow-up intimidation only showed just how hard it would be to dislodge them from getting what they wanted. Mariana had to be safe. Ty had to stay sharp. Could he maintain that edge while giving in to a sudden desire for the woman he was there to protect?
The questions continued to stab at him while he watched her from the window of the bookstore. The insurance broker was wrapping up her business with a handshake and a hug with Mariana. Ty pulled a comic from the rack and took it to the front counter, cash already in hand.
The white woman behind the counter smiled genuinely. “I like that one. It’s dark.” She rang him up and handed over the change.
“Sweet.” He pocketed the change and gave her a wave with the comic as he headed out of the shop. So far, from what he’d seen of the small town of Rodrigo, there was nothing to support the sinister business that had come down on Mariana. People were generally open and nice. A couple of locals had given him hard looks, but that was expected everywhere.
He hurried across the street and down the block. Mariana turned from the direction the insurance agent walked away to face him. She was tired—he could see the exhaustion—but still strong as hell. He wanted to put his arm around her shoulders, give her something to lean on, but couldn’t risk invading her space. Instead he would support her how he could. He moved close enough to tell her, “You’re doing amazing.”
Her thin smile barely registered. “It doesn’t look good in there.”
“Can I check it out?”
She nodded and swung the door open with a bracing breath. “No power, so we have to use flashlights.”
The floor was still wet and the room was close with the smell of damp wood and paper. He ditched the comic book to the side and used the flashlight on his key chain to sweep across the space. Everything he could see was either burnt or soaked.
Mariana’s voice shook. “The refrigerator went off with the power. All the apple butter and pies have to be scrapped.” She coughed, but he heard it as a cover for a sob.
Immediately he was at her side, shoulder to shoulder, giving her as much of himself as she would take. “I saw how many apples are on your trees. This can all be built back.”
Her eyes squeezed shut and she leaned into him. “There’s no one to harvest.”
“There will be.” Determination rose in him. “We’ll push the Hanley Group back.” He hated seeing her bullied, and feeling her pushed this close to defeat drove him to rage. “They’ll be so scared of you they’ll never set foot in this county again.”
She opened her eyes and searched his face. “You’d better be telling the truth.”
He promised through a clenched jaw, “This is no lie.”
Her hand coiled around his. He held her tight, hoping to tell her everything with the touch. She whispered, “Tell me again.”
“I’m with you to the end.” No matter if the electricity that passed between them was real or just his imagination, if she bridged the gap to come closer to him or never approached, his resolve was set. And he couldn’t wait to punch a hole through the Hanley Group and send them running.
“You’d better mean it.” A deep fury heated her voice. “Because if we’re going to fight, I’m going to burn them down.”
Her energy fueled his. “All the way down.” The two of them balanced on an edge. They’d said all they could with words. He needed to taste her strength. Was he drawing her closer, or was she stepping to him? Her gaze flicked to his mouth. Her lips parted. He knew this wasn’t a good idea and refused to stop. Their faces grew nearer.
The front door of the shop opened with a blast of sunlight. He and Mariana immediately parted and his hand instinctively hovered near his sidearm. A silhouette took a cautious step into the shop. Once his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw the curious expression on the black woman’s face as she glanced from him to Mariana and back.
“Sydney.” Mariana immediately walked to the woman in her midthirties. Ty remembered getting a glimpse of her last night, when he was watching the front of the store as the firefighters were wrapping up.
“I hope it’s okay I came by. I saw you around...” Sydney scanned the burnt and soaked shop with concern and hurt in her eyes. She stroked a hand down Mariana’s arm.
“Of course.” Mariana squeezed her friend’s shoulder. The front door remained open, illuminating the genuine caring between these two women. “This is Ty.” Mariana turned toward him. He approached and shook Sydney’s hand.
The woman inspected him carefully. “You helped her last night?”
“I did.” It was easy to tell that Sydney’s sharp perception would crack through any attempts at evasion.
“Did you know trouble was coming?” Sydney tilted her head, still wary. Mariana stood by, watching.
“I knew there’d been trouble for a while, but I didn’t know it would be that bad.”
The woman assessed him up and down. He’d thrown a light jacket on over his hoodie and knew his pistol didn’t print through. Still she pierced him with “Cop?”
“San Francisco. But,” he added quickly, “I’m here on vacation.”
Sydney chuckled. “You really know how to relax.” She clicked her tongue and walked deeper into Mariana’s ruined shop. “What station in San Francisco?”
She clearly knew the deeper workings of the city. “Tenderloin.”
That got her to raise her eyebrows. “Tough spot.”
“Where I grew up.” It had gone through a lot of changes since then, and continued to transform as the city evolved.
“I did junior high in Oakland.” Her shoulders loosened up and she appeared like she wasn’t squaring him up for attack or defense.
“I’ve got a cousin out there.”
Sydney looked over a half-burnt table covered with goods Mariana had hoped to sell on it. “Your whole family’s out here?”
“California.” He nodded.
“And before?” She looked back at him, sharing a history.
“Georgia.”
“Alabama,” she answered. Now that they’d covered all the basics, she looked over the table and talked to Mariana. “Is any of this salvageable?”
Mariana joined her and picked over the wares. “Jars of jelly, no. Dried rings, no. The apple peelers can be sold at a discount once they’re dried.”
Sydney separated two of the devices. “I cleared a table at my place. We’ll fill it with anything you can sell, and I’m not taking any commission.”
Mariana objected. “A table of my stuff means lost sales for you. I can’t—”
Sydney raised her hand to cut off her friend’s concern. “They burned your place. This is the least I can do.” She strode toward the back. “Did the jugs of cider get damaged?”
Mariana followed and Ty trailed after them. Soon they were all sorting through what could be sold and what had to be trashed. Mariana’s eyes welled with tears as she separated out all the losses, but she pushed through and filled three plastic tubs with good merchandise.
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