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Mags worried that very fact might have put her parents in danger.
Well, fool me once, right? Because, it turned out she was a chump. No, hell, why be so modest?
She was the freakin’ queen of chumps.
She had dropped everything and wiped out her meager savings. Worse, she’d given up a prime makeup-artist position on a space epic that would have rocked and for which she had campaigned for over a year. All in order to run to the rescue.
God, wasn’t that rich? Considering she’d been informed by her parents’ landlord when she arrived at their place that the missionaries had gone back to the States on a sabbatical.
They’d just up and left. Without mentioning a word to her about it.
She knew it shouldn’t come as a shock, or feel like such a betrayal. Heck, she’d learned five months, two weeks and three days after her thirteenth birthday that not only wasn’t she a priority in her parents’ lives, but she was an obstruction to their accomplishing everything they’d come to El Tigre to get done. So if they didn’t feel the need to let her know that they’d be in the States for a while, well...fine, then. It was nothing new. And she frankly didn’t give a rat’s ass.
Or not much of one, anyhow.
Mags straightened in her seat. Why was she even thinking about this anyway? Families were what they were; whining about it was pointless. Looking around for something to distract her from her thoughts, she caught a guy checking her out.
Great. That was what she needed—some local lounge lizard looking to score. And yet...
Locking eyes when his lazy gaze reached her face, she found herself unable to look away. For one thing, she was wrong. His coloring might fit with the locals, but he was definitely American. It was clear in the clothing and excellent dentistry.
Brown hair flopped in deep-set bittersweet chocolate-colored eyes and it took some effort to tear her gaze away. But given the way the rest of her day had gone, gawking instead at the wide shoulders that topped what she could see of a lean, muscular frame probably wasn’t an improvement, so she went back to admiring that face.
Its flesh was close to the bone and, coupled with his long bony nose, gave him the austere look of a Trappist monk. Yet when she met his dark-eyed gaze again, she encountered a world of heat.
And for a single tempting instant she considered going over to his table and starting something up. She had a boatload of aggression she’d just love to work off.
But...no. She was going to collect the beater car she’d left down in the valley, where the economically depressed barrio that had been her folks’ most recent stomping grounds gave way to a neighborhood a bit more affluent. Or where she’d at least had less fear that she’d come back to find the car sitting on its axles, stripped of its few amenities. With a final regretful look at the hot monk guy, she picked up her huge purse and headed for the door, pulling the tote’s long strap over her head and settling the bag cross body as she walked.
The cantina had hardly been what anyone would call a bastion of silence, but the wall of sound that came off the streets the moment Mags pushed through the doors rocked her back on her heels. The engine of a high-end SUV roared as it started up and equally noisy motorcycles wove in and out of the ubiquitous old Volkswagens clogging the narrow avenue. Young men and women laughed and talked and called to each other as they made their way between bars and restaurants. A little girl on a big bicycle pedaled within an inch of Mags’s toes.
After dancing out of the kid’s way, she stopped at a donkey-drawn cart full of mangoes to escape the crush long enough to reset her mental compass. She bought two of the green-and-blush-colored fruits and dropped them into her purse, then made a beeline toward the street that would take her back to the route she’d used earlier to come up from the valley.
After learning her folks had bailed without so much as a forwarding address, she’d had a potent urge to burn off the overload of furious energy that made her nerves jump and her heart pound so furiously. But had she collected her rental car like a smart person would have and gotten her butt to the airport to catch the first plane out of here? Oh, no. She’d thought climbing the steep hills to this neighborhood was a good idea.
It didn’t make sense to her right now, but at the time it had struck her as a good way to work off her agitation.
And to some extent it had been.
Except now she was in no mood to navigate her way back down to the valley. Still, the sooner she got herself down the cliff-like hill, the sooner she could get her ass back to California. Clearly she wasn’t needed in El Tigre. And since it had only been late yesterday that she’d had to say thanks, but no thanks to the position on the film, maybe there was a slim chance she could still get in on the production.
Here’s hoping. Because she knew exactly what an enormous boost the gig would give her career. At the very least it would allow her to give up her other job.
And creating aliens with paints and putties would be a fabulous stress-buster. She could use that about now.
She walked several blocks before it occurred to her that she’d seen a cable station earlier when she’d been searching for a place to park the car. She couldn’t remember precisely where, and she had zero familiarity with Santa Rosa. In her golden pre-boarding-school days, she and her folks had lived first in rough-and-tumble Tacna, further south, then in a small township in the northern Amazon region.
But the Metrocable ran north and south, so even if it was a long walk between the station and her car, it would be on level ground. And that beat picking her way down the near-vertical hills.
Content to have a plan, she about-faced and started back the way she’d come.
She’d reached the main street and had just come to the opposite end of the block from the cantina where she’d had her drink when a man suddenly materialized out of nowhere and shoved her up against the brick building. Heart slamming up against the wall of her chest, she sucked in a deep breath, prepared to scream her head off.
Before she could, however, a rough, dry-skinned hand covered her mouth. The man, who wasn’t much taller than she—and was a good ten years younger—shoved his face close to hers. “I’ll take my hand away if you agree not to scream,” he said in colloquial Spanish. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if you make a fuss. Comprende?”
Not really, but she nodded her head.
“Good,” he said, dropping his hand and taking a short step back. “You’re coming with me. Victor Munoz wants to talk to you.”
* * *
YAWNING, FINN PAUSED on the street outside the cantina and looked around to get his bearings. The long day’s travel was catching up with him and he was ready to go find that hostel.
Even knowing the Metrocable station was to the left, his gaze automatically went right. And he shook his head. “Huh. You again.”
The same punk-rocker blonde who’d grabbed his attention by the short hairs in the cantina reached out long metaphoric fingers to latch onto them again. He still didn’t get why she had such a pull on him, but he couldn’t look away from her and a guy who looked barely out of his teens as they stood nose-to-nose a short distance away.
He frowned. The kid might be young, but something about him looked menacing. Maybe it was the way he had Blondie crowded against a wall, or maybe it was the gangbanger vibe of his clothing. The reason didn’t matter. Blondie didn’t look happy, and although Finn couldn’t hear their conversation he got the distinct impression they were arguing.
And that was before he saw the thug grip her arm when she slapped her hands to his chest and shoved him back. Finn started walking in their direction.
He heard the quick patois of their exchange as he drew near and was mere feet away when he saw the blonde suddenly freeze. Then she jerked her arm free. Instead of shoving the youth back again, however, she thrust her nose right up under his.
“What?” Her voice rose in incredulity, but if something the guy had said blindsided her, it didn’t prevent her from drilling his chest with a fierce finger. “Let’s hear it, Speedy Gonzales,” she said with a you-will-tell-me authority that Finn would’ve had a hard time ignoring—and he was accustomed to dealing with customers a lot tougher than this chick.
The thug just pokered up. “My name is not Speedy,” he spat, clearly insulted—and the fact he got bent out of shape not because she’d challenged his authority, but had assigned him a less-than-macho moniker, reinforced Finn’s impression of the young man’s youth. The kid thumped a fist off his chest. “I am Joaquin.”
“You could be Jesus Himself,” she snapped, “and I’d ask the same thing—my folks are where?”
That’s when it kicked in that she was speaking American English. Yet even as the reason for his sudden ability to comprehend the conversation registered, she snapped what he could only assume were the same questions in Spanish.
Finn didn’t have a clue what this Joaquin character had said to precipitate the full-metal-jacket questions she shot at him like an unceasing barrage of bullets from a semiautomatic. But from the look on his face, the kid realized he’d made a major mistake.
And that could be bad, because guys that age already harbored a serious need to prove their machismo at every turn. Throw in the possible gangbanger element and things could turn ugly fast.
Sure enough, even as Finn watched, Joaquin’s hand reached for the small of his back. The other male stood in profile to him, so he saw the butt of a gun as Joaquin fumbled beneath the hem of his shirt.
Finn was on the move before the weapon cleared the little shit’s waistband. With no time to consciously think the matter through, he simply yanked off his backpack and took the final Mother-may-I-worthy giant step that brought him within range. Then, gripping his pack by its straps, he swung it at the young man’s head.
It connected with a solid thwack and knocked the punk to his knees. The gun dropped from Joaquin’s hand and skittered a few feet away. Finn lunged for it, his only thought to keep it out of the other guy’s hands. But before he could get his own hand around the pistol grip, the blade of a monstrous knife slashed down, aiming for his fingers.
Swearing a blue streak, Finn jerked them out of range. Jesus. The kid must have a head made of ironwood if he’d recovered that fast. And Joaquin clearly had no intention of letting Finn get his hands on the weapon. Not without drawing blood, anyhow.
With no other real option in sight, Finn kicked the gun as far away from both of them as he could.
“Go, go, go!” The blonde’s voice was insistent as she grabbed him by his free hand and they took off at a dead run in the direction of the Metrocable.
The woman could move and they covered the distance to the station in no time. She danced in place like a toddler in need of a bathroom as she dug a fistful of El-TIPs—the country’s official pesos—out of her pocket, taking quick glances over her shoulder the whole while.
Then she abruptly stilled. “Shit! He’s coming after us.” She looked around wildly. “Where the hell is help when you really need it?” she demanded, turning back and shoveling pesos into the ticket machine. “I was told these stations are lousy with security.” She punched buttons at a dizzying rate.
The machine spit out two tickets and she grabbed his hand again. “C’mon, let’s go!”
They went through the turnstiles and onto the platform as a gondola swung around the turnabout and slowed to a crawl a few feet away. It disgorged its passengers in front of them, and since they were the only ones currently waiting they climbed aboard. As one, they turned to watch Joaquin as the young man raced up to a ticket machine, shoving a woman about to use it out of his way.
“Nice guy,” Finn muttered. “I’m surprised he didn’t just jump the turnstile.” It wasn’t like the asshole was your basic law-and-order type.
“Security might not’ve been around for us to report Joaquin’s gun, but according to my mother they’re on jumpers like white on rice.”
The door to the gondola doors hissed closed and, with the slightest of jerks, the car picked up its pace once again. Finn took his first deep breath since this business began and slowly expelled it. Finally having a second that didn’t feel fraught with danger, he shrugged on his pack and adjusted its straps.
Then he turned his attention on the blonde. The girl had soft, seriously pretty lips, great skin and a slight dent in her chin, but right at this moment he couldn’t summon up a good goddamn about any of that. Instead he looked her dead in her pretty blue eyes.
And snapped, “Who are you, lady? And what the fuck is going on here?”
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_f7063753-c78e-57c6-a743-608fa3865a1d)
MAGS’S ADRENALINE SPIKE hit the skids and she sagged against the wall of the gondola, small tremors quaking every muscle in her body. She stared at the man who had come to her rescue.
“I’m Mags Deluca,” she said in response to his question. “Thanks for the intervention.” She didn’t know anyone else who would have stepped in to help her the way he had and that fact had her chin lifting in pure reflex. “Not that I couldn’t have taken care of the matter myself.” Maybe.
“Yeah, I could see how well that was working for you.”
Tempted as she was to dig in and keep defending her not particularly defensible position, honesty compelled her to admit, “Not many people would’ve involved themselves in a stranger’s problems, especially when it meant going up against a guy bristling with guns and knives.”
He hitched a broad shoulder. “I have three sisters, a mom, two grandmothers and a boatload of aunts and girl cousins,” he said. “It’s been drilled into me from birth to involve myself if I see a chick in trouble.” His voice hardened. “But I’d like to know what the hell I just got myself into.”
“Ohmigawd,” she breathed in awe, totally diverted. “You have three sisters?”
“And three brothers.” He gave her a level look. “Which doesn’t answer my question.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” she said and, with the wave of her hand, knocked away the envy that surged at the thought of having not just one sibling you could call your own, which would be awesome enough, but six of them. Just the idea had made her forget for a moment how shaky her grasp on her courage was, but meeting his hard-eyed will-you-get-to-the-point stare, she shoved the distraction aside and wrestled herself back on track.
“My parents are missionaries,” she said and brought him up-to-date on the noise her mother had been making about the Munoz cartel’s recruitment of teens and the abrupt silence following Nancy’s letters.
When she fell silent, Finn said, “People still write letters? It’s the twenty-first century—I thought everyone and their brother emailed.”
“That’s your big takeaway from what I just told you? That my mother doesn’t email?” You would’ve thought she’d said Nancy sent telegraphs, and she gave her shoulder an infinitesimal hitch. “My folks have spent their entire adult lives ministering to the poor. And while there likely are computers and internet available even in the most poverty-stricken barrios, my mother would consider the time it took to learn to use them a frivolous waste when she can just as easily grab a sheet of paper and slap a stamp on an envelope.” Then she waved the interruption away and explained how, when she’d arrived at her parents’ apartment this afternoon, she’d been told they’d returned to the States.
“But when Joaquin had me against the wall, he said Victor Munoz wanted to talk to me. He’s the cartel leader.” Was that right? Suddenly it seemed supremely important that she have the correct terminology. “Or don or whatever you call the head guy who runs a cartel.”
Unlike her, he stuck to the point. “Try to stay on track here. Why did he want to talk to you?”
Another stray thought popped into her head and she blurted, “I don’t know your name.”
“What?” But he blinked dense, inky lashes over those dark eyes and shook his head as if to negate the question. “It’s Finn. Finn Kavanagh.”
Good name. But this time she knew better than to get sidetracked. “Unfortunately, Finn Kavanagh, he refused to answer that very question. He just kept saying I’d find out from Senor Munoz himself. But Joaquin’s clearly not the brightest bulb in the tanning bed because even as he was detailing all the dire things that could happen to me if I didn’t come quietly, he let slip that my parents are being held on the Munoz grow farm.”
“And your first reaction was to let him know you’d caught that?” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe anyone could have such a blonde moment.
“Hey!” Indignant, she shoved away from the gondola wall. “Excuse the heck out of me if I was rattled. I was already reeling from learning my parents had gone back to the States without saying word one to me about it. And then he tells me they’re being held prisoner by a drug lord? Hah!” She pointed at him. “That’s the job description I was looking for.” She promptly shook her head, however, because that was hardly the point and, in truth letting on that she’d caught Joaquin’s slipup hadn’t been her smartest move. “An-n-nd that’s so not important.” Looking Finn up and down, she had to admit that, unlike her, he practically oozed competency. “I’m sure you could have handled it much better.”
To her surprise, he flashed her a wry smile and said, “Probably not. I would’ve been rattled, too, if it involved my family. So what’s the plan? You want me to go with you when you take it to the cops?”
“I can’t go to the police.”
He jerked upright. “Are you shitting me? You have to report this!”
“It’s not that I don’t want to, Finn—I literally can’t. My mother devoted an entire letter to the way Munoz bragged about his favorite cousin, who’s in the Policía Nacional de El Tigre.” She could have added that 99 percent of her mother’s correspondence had to do with her and Brian’s ministry and their impatience and frustration with anything that interfered with it. But she didn’t, of course, because, truly, why should Finn Kavanagh care about her dysfunctional family relationships?
Still, it cheered her up to a surprising degree when he strung an impressive number of truly obscene words together, even though she knew it was in response to her comment, not her situation.
“My thoughts precisely,” she agreed. Looking past him, she tried to see into the gondolas behind them to determine which one Joaquin had caught. It was a fruitless endeavor, however; she could see nothing more than shadows. So she pulled a big, brilliantly colored scarf out of her voluminous tote and turned her attention back to Finn.
“Look, I’m sorry I dragged you into my mess,” she said, taking her hair out of the tight French twist she’d worn, with its fanned tail ratted and brushed forward to give her a short-haired punk/goth look. Finger-combing it until she could gather it all in one hand, she then tied it into a loose knot atop her head. “I’ve got a car down in the valley, so when we get to the station after next I’m going to do my best to bail without Joaquin seeing me. I honestly don’t believe he’ll be expecting me to get off this soon, since a smart person would choose the main station, where help is more readily available and where you can disappear into any one of a half-dozen regular Metro lines.” She wrapped, twisted and tied the scarf around her hair to disguise its color.
Finn cocked an eyebrow at her. “The crapshoot here being that Joaquin’s not all that smart.”
“Yeah. There is that. Still, I’m hoping someone drummed the idea into his head, because I think it’s my best chance to shake him.” She blew out an impatient breath. “But this is just a long-winded way around saying thank you for saving my butt. And that I hope you enjoy the rest of your time in El Tigre. It’s a great country.” Studying him, she tried to imagine him as a big nightclub kind of guy or wine enthusiast, both of which Santa Rosa offered. Somehow, though, he struck her as a bit too earthy to be either. “What brought you down here, anyhow?”
“The prospect of hiking this part of the Andes and maybe seeing a little of the Amazon.”
“Hiking, huh? That’s your idea of a vacation? Busting your butt, breathing thin air and sweating like a pony?”
His teeth flashed white. “Darlin’, that’s my idea of pure heaven. And one of the biggest perks? Not once in the wild have I gotten tangled up in a female’s problems.”
“Wow. You’re just an all-around silver-tongued devil, aren’tcha?” She sank to sit cross-legged on the floor and fished the pared-down version of her professional makeup kit out of her tote, then looked up to raise an eyebrow at him. “I bet people tell you that all the time.” Still, as they slowed to enter the first station she had to admit that if she was any example, he might have a point. Considering the only thing she’d contributed to his day so far was the prospect of getting shot or stabbed. Not to mention, until they were free and clear, the target she’d painted on his back.
“You should change your shirt,” she said. “And if you have a hat, it wouldn’t hurt to put that on, either.”
She half expected him to thump his chest in a me-big-man macho display, but he merely reached over his shoulders and grabbed two fistfuls of his Rat City Rollergirls T-shirt and hauled it off over his head.
Whoa! All the moisture in Mags’s mouth dried up as she stared up at his very nice, very buff upper torso. Honestly, a woman could light candles to that body.
The door swished open to display a couple of locals standing ready to board. When they saw her and Finn, however, they moved to the next car and a moment later, the door closed again. The gondola glided out of the station.
She was peering into a mirror, sponging foundation that was several shades deeper than her natural coloring onto her face, neck and hands, when the gondola jerked slightly as it approached her station. Nerves jittered through Mags’s stomach but she feigned calm while applying a coral lipstick that went with the scarf.
Fake it till you make it, that was her motto.
She threaded big silver hoops through her ears and returned the kit to her bag. After pulling out and donning her long-sleeved SPF shirt, she climbed to her feet.
As their car swung around the turnabout toward the debarkation point, she followed an impulse she knew she’d be smarter to suppress. She turned and crossed the short distance between her and Finn. Reaching up, she wrapped her palms around the back of his warm-skinned neck, curling her fingers to hold him in place. For one suspended moment, she looked into his eyes, which were now shaded by the bill of a faded Mariners cap. Then, rising onto her toes, she kissed him.
She’d intended something swift and sweet—a thank-you of sorts. But the instant their mouths touched, electric shock–like impulses hurtled through her veins and all she could think was gimme. And before she knew what was what, her lips had parted and she was kissing the bejeebers out of a man whose name she hadn’t even known a half hour ago.
Not that Finn was exactly a slouch when it came to getting with the program. Big-palmed hands slid down her back to grip her rear as he slanted his mouth over hers.
