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Her destination was across the hall, to the room that had been their prison. They were about to kill two people and Aaron couldn’t find it in his heart to be upset. He was more disturbed that it didn’t bother him.
Rifle in hand and the game-changing bag of booty slung over his shoulder, he stood on the box. From the looks of it, the rear wall of the house ran parallel to the western wall of the compound, with about three feet between the two. Plenty of room to jump and run.
Camille returned, sprinting through the door and kicking it shut as the grenade detonated. The explosion was earth-rattling. Aaron’s ears rang and the door nearly came off its hinges. He slammed the rifle butt into the glass. He couldn’t hear it break over the din of the explosion but felt the pane give way. After sweeping the rifle across the window to clear it of glass, he moved out of Camille’s way.
In a flash of golden mane and lithe limbs, she jumped out the window. Aaron landed behind her and they ran, staying low under the windows along the north side of the building. Aaron peered around the corner at the crowd in the courtyard surrounding the crater that used to be their hostage-holding room.
A five-foot gap loomed between the house and a shed. Though Camille’s ruse was working, it was still a leap of faith to zip between the buildings in plain sight. If only one man looked in their direction, they were dead. Aaron went first, holding his breath for the three steps it took to make the pass. They followed the path of the compound wall to the end of the shed, which still left them with a solid two car lengths of empty space to reach the entrance gate.
A burly man with a full beard and a rifle was standing inside the locked gate, yelling and gesturing to the men at the explosion site. Aaron knew what needed to be done and said a prayer for forgiveness. He’d never been a particularly religious man, but he was about to murder someone pointblank. At least with the grenade, Aaron didn’t have to watch anyone die. This time, though, he was going to look a man in the eyes and shoot him.
“I got this.” He picked up a rock and threw it against the wall, waiting for the guard to investigate. His heart pounded out of control and his hands were sweaty, but he wiped them on his jeans and manned up. Their lives depended on this and he wasn’t going to act like a sissy by getting all shaky and nervous.
The guard’s shadow gave him away first. His stomach came into view, then his arms and gun. Aaron fired two rounds, one into his head and the other into his chest. Though the sound of the shots was blunted by a silencer, the plunk plunk still echoed between the shed and the compound wall.
Aaron worked hard to ignore the significance of what he’d done as he frisked the dead man for keys, finding them in a pants pocket.
“Anyone onto us?” he asked Camille, who had chanced a look around the corner.
“We’re good. They’re putting out a fire on the roof.”
“Then we keep moving.” He sprinted to the gate with a key in his outstretched hand. Please let this be the right key….
It was not. He jerked the key out of the padlock. His fingers found the next key on the loop and jammed it into the lock. It gave way this time. The chain dropped to the ground and they were through.
Aaron’s and Camille’s feet slipped on the loose gravel, but they maintained their breakneck speed to the lean-to. While he ran, Aaron scanned the half dozen horses. The dark brown steed appeared to be the healthiest of the bunch, with muscular legs that looked ready to fly over the terrain. He skidded to a stop and dropped their cache to the ground.
Camille was right behind him. “Okay, you’re the horse expert. Go for it.”
He hunted through a crate for a saddle, blanket, bridle and harness, and made quick work of readying the horse to ride. The memory of Camille’s struggle to mount their last horse was still fresh in his mind, so he grabbed her around the waist and tossed her up.
She yelped in protest.
Aaron pushed the bag of guns and money onto her lap, then swung up behind her. “If I’m in charge, then we’re doing this my way.”
Camille must have thought better about arguing because she silently lifted herself from the saddle so he could get comfortable, then settled onto his groin as she had the day before. Aaron reached around her, grabbed the reins and spurred the horse into a gallop.
Their destination was east, to the ocean. Once the compound was no longer visible, he slowed the horse, setting a reasonable pace to conserve the animal’s energy in the stifling, midmorning heat.
Aaron loved to ride and had been doing so since he could walk. There weren’t many activities for desert kids like him in a one stoplight town, but he had the State Park at his door-step. His parents took full advantage of that fact and made sure he and his younger sisters could ride and hike like pros.
Miles of desert disappeared behind them. Their steed easily avoided the thick blanket of shrubs and giant cardón cacti, which stood with long, green arms reaching for the sky like an army a thousand strong. Aaron found no signs of human existence, just acres and acres of pristine wilderness.
Camille’s hair was as untamable as the land. It whipped and tickled Aaron like a cruel taunt. Unable to resist, he covetously gathered it in his free hand. He was such a fool to do that. A certifiable idiot. But he did it anyway, burying his nose in the locks before letting them slip through his fingers to blow in the wind.
Camille hadn’t noticed, and while he was relieved, her obliviousness made him greedier. He felt himself harden and hoped she was oblivious to that, too. He gathered her hair again and glimpsed the creamy skin of her neck. His mouth watered at the thought of kissing it, which was even more certifiably idiotic, given that Camille was heavily armed.
At that inopportune moment, their horse lurched and he accidentally tugged her hair.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to get your hair out of my face,” he replied gruffly.
“Oh, sorry.” She twisted it and stuck it down her shirt. “That’s the best I can do for now.”
That solved the hair problem. Now how was she going to stop the friction of her hips rocking against him or the agonizing heat passing from her body to his?
She relaxed against him, wiggling her backside as she settled. Choking back a groan, he looked heavenward, hoping they’d reach the ocean soon. He needed to get off this horse before he did something he’d spend the rest of his life regretting.
Aaron would never forget his first time meeting Camille at Juliana and Jacob’s engagement party, though not for its pleasantness. Aaron had taken one look at her standing on his parents’ patio and targeted her as his next bedmate.
Like the fool he was around pretty girls, he cranked up his charm wattage, swaggering and openly praising her voluptuous attributes. And there was a lot to praise about Camille’s body. She was, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful women he’d ever laid eyes on, with legs that went on for miles, curves custom-made for a man to wrap his hands around and full, pouty lips. Then she opened them and it was all downhill from there.
Apparently, his charm was too much for Camille to handle because the more charismatic he was, the more pungent she became. After that party, they’d seen enough of each other to last a lifetime. Aaron decided that no woman, no matter how stunning, was worth battling with such a sour disposition.
He smiled at the memory and might have laughed except Camille would want to know what was so funny. He’d thought about it in the plane and it struck him again how ironic life could be. He was racing across the Mexican desert with the only woman he’d wished to never see again.
And he was more attracted to her than ever.
Finally, the horse crested a ridge overlooking the beach. A temperate ocean breeze puffed at them, cooling Aaron’s sunburned skin.
“We should ride in the surf to erase our tracks, in case they’re on our trail,” Aaron said as their mount picked its way down a canyon.
“Which direction do you think we should go?”
“If my bearings are correct, then the city we saw when we jumped is to the south. Let’s see what we find.” He tugged the reins.
Ahead of them stretched a pristine yellow-sand beach edged by cliffs and the endless ocean, which sparkled in the bright afternoon sun. It was lovely, really. Only a few hours earlier, he’d faced his own death, yet now he was riding horseback with a gorgeous woman along an empty beach. He closed his eyes and basked in the moment. Then the butt of Camille’s rifle poked him in the ribs.
“You know, when I fantasize about riding with a woman through the surf in Mexico, she’s not usually carrying a rifle.”
She twisted to look at him, wearing a wicked grin on her lips. “Sounds like you have boring fantasies.”
Aaron threw his head back and laughed. Leave it to Camille to surprise him again. He thought of a good comeback, something snarky and full of innuendo, but decided against voicing it. This is good enough for now.
He settled his arms more comfortably around Camille’s sides, took another furtive inhale of her hair’s magnificent scent and looked to the horizon, waiting for any vestiges of civilization to come into view.
Not five minutes later, he heard, then saw, an approaching vehicle in the distance. With a quiet curse, he turned their horse toward the cliffs lining the beach and found a concave section of cliff face. They dismounted, firearms ready. Besides the roar of the vehicle’s engine, Aaron heard voices whooping and hooting. Odd …
He tipped his face around the corner. “It’s a Jeep with at least four people.”
“Why are they shouting?” Camille asked.
“I have no idea.”
“I hear something else, too. What is that?”
Aaron shook his head. “I can’t quite make it out.”
They stood and listened. Aaron glanced at Camille’s hands, which had started to shake, but decided against asking her about it.
The sound that had been so faint over the thunder of the waves and the hollering and the Jeep’s engine became clearer to Aaron. “It sounds like … huh?”
He and Camille looked at each other, their faces screwed up in confusion.
“Bruce Springsteen?” they exclaimed in unison.
Chapter 5
“Hide the guns. No way are these people cartel hit men.” Aaron held the bag open and Camille wedged her rifle inside. She flexed her fingers, the weight on her chest lighter with the gun out of her hands.
The Jeep hurtled toward them, spitting sand in its wake and blasting Bruce Springsteen. Aaron grabbed the bag and the horse’s reins. Walking the horse behind them, they planted themselves in the path of the joyriders. The music went dead and the Jeep crawled to a stop a few yards in front of them.
The man behind the wheel looked about fifty, with gray streaks in his brown hair, a softened body and the laid-back disposition of a man embracing his inner-Jimmy Buffett. The two women in the backseat looked young and were exactly the type of cupcakes Camille had railed against that morning. Clad in bikinis topped with cover-ups that didn’t actually cover anything up, they were overdone in every way—too much makeup, too many artificial highlights in their hair and massive designer sunglasses.
“Hello there,” the driver said. “You two look like you might need some help. Am I right?”
Aaron answered. “You guessed it. We came down to Baja with friends to go camping and when we left on our horse for a ride along the beach, they ditched us.”
“They don’t sound like very good friends.”
“No kidding,” Aaron said.
The driver rubbed his goatee. “Tell you what. We’re pretty close to our camp. Would you and your girlfriend care to follow us back? I bet we could rustle up a cell phone for you to call your friends, and you can have a bite to eat and let your horse rest.”
“I think we’re done with those particular friends. Maybe we could borrow that phone to make other arrangements?”
“We can do that, too.”
“Thank you.” Aaron smiled wolfishly at the cupcakes. “Oh, and for the record, Camille and I are only friends. We’re not …”
“Friends riding together on a horse?” one of the cupcakes asked.
“Yeah, her horse took off. We didn’t have a choice.”
Camille shifted her gaze to the rusty brown cliff face, regrouping. It wasn’t that she cared about Aaron’s enthusiastic clarification that they weren’t involved—it was the truth, after all. And she didn’t mind that the girls were angling for a better view of him. He was the most magnificent-looking man she’d ever seen, too. It was just that she was disappointed to have been wrong about him.
Since being taken hostage, she’d started to believe he’d changed, that underneath his party-boy persona was a respectable man capable of so much more than preening and seducing women. She’d begun to think of the two of them as a team. But she’d been wrong and the misjudgment stung. But she had more important issues to worry about than a man so easily distracted by pretty girls.
Her thoughts returned to Rosalia, alone and frightened in the compound. Camille hadn’t considered it before, but maybe she’d been dropped in the middle of the Mexican desert for a reason. Maybe this journey wasn’t another case of her rotten luck, but a chance to redeem thirty wasted years. Maybe she needed Rosalia as much as the little girl needed her. A new plan began to take shape in her mind.
The driver offered his hand to shake. “The name’s Charlie. In the back we’ve got Ana and Sarah.”
“I’m Aaron and this is Camille.” He waved to the cupcakes, and added a wink for good measure.
Unbelievable.
Charlie must have noticed Camille’s discomfort because he patted her hand. “Would you like to ride with us? We have room.”
His palm was sweaty and his fingers bloated, but he might prove to be a valuable component to her plan.
“Thank you, Charlie.” And though she wanted to yank her hand away and wipe it on her pants, she gave his fingers a little squeeze. She even pulled off a convincing smile.
He wasn’t being manipulative—that was such an ugly word—but Aaron knew how to be persuasive to women. He knew what they wanted to hear, what little looks and touches would turn them to putty in his hands. Except for Camille. Nothing softened her, but that was beside the point.
As soon as Aaron saw the women in the Jeep, he knew they were his and Camille’s ticket out of Mexico. All he needed was a little time with them to parse out the details. He regretted Camille’s embarrassment when he distanced himself from her, but he needed the women to think he was available, not some letch trying to cheat on his girlfriend.
Charlie’s eyes had turned hungry at the revelation he and Camille weren’t an item. Aaron hadn’t counted on that. She’d already proved she could kick ass and take names, but it went against his basic instincts to throw any woman to the wolves, even a cop.
Not that she seemed to mind. She was laughing and making flirty eyes at Charlie while Aaron was forced to watch through the rearview mirror as he followed the Jeep on horseback. Charlie wasn’t remotely attractive and he was at least twenty years her senior. He seemed like a nice guy, sure, but as spineless as they came. A man like that could no more handle a woman like Camille than a child could handle a pet tiger.
The camp, though visible from the beach, was nestled into a valley between two foothills and demarcated by two palm-thatched palapas on the beach. One shaded a hammock. Aaron followed the Jeep onto a dirt road that wound among the homes, if he dared use such a polite word to describe the dwellings. Reeking of seaweed, the after-odor of bonfires and marijuana, the settlement was the housing equivalent of a pack of stray dogs. Of the twenty or so places, some were less flea-bitten than others, a few even looked rather domesticated, but the whole lot of them was a mangy bunch of misfits.
Charlie directed Aaron to the sea-green shack of some absentee neighbors who often brought their horse with them. Sure enough, a wood-and-wire fenced corral was sandwiched on the side of the property. No doubt the animal would be well cared for here. It didn’t seem to have any identifying marks that might prove dangerous if the cartel went on the prowl for their stolen horse, which was a small blessing. To repay this community with the wrath of a vengeful cartel would be unforgivable.
The hardworking horse had one task left before it could rest, though. Aaron tugged the reins and set off for the perimeter of the settlement to take note of all the paths leading to and from the camp, should they need to make a quick getaway. Jacob would’ve said it was Aaron’s Golden Ticket at work again, but nevertheless, Aaron was relieved to discover only one access point from the west, a steep dirt road leading out of the valley. Perfect.
He returned to the corral, found feed and grooming supplies and set to work tending the horse.
“You’re a sneaky man,” a heavily accented female voice behind him said. Ana, if he remembered correctly. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
Seducing these women would be a piece of cake if they were going to throw themselves at him. He kept scrubbing, to see how hard they’d work to get his attention. “Responsibility before pleasure, as they say.”
“How sensible of you,” she purred. A darkly tanned Latina, she was taller than Sarah and looked to be in her late twenties, with long black hair and a temptress’s body. Not too long ago, Aaron might have quit his job and moved to Mexico for the promise of this woman’s company. But his responsibility to Camille and his desire to make it out of Mexico alive superseded everything else.
“This horse worked hard today. It deserves a little pampering.”
“I think I’m jealous of the horse,” Sarah, obviously American judging by her voice, said. A pair of trim, tan legs came into view, complete with a Tinker Bell ankle tattoo. Aaron let his gaze roam over her body, hoping she couldn’t tell how artificial his perusal was.
“When you’re done here, would you like to freshen up at our place? We have a cell phone you can use to make those other arrangements you mentioned,” Ana said.
“That would be wonderful. Speaking of other arrangements, how far from the city are we?”
“We’re fifty miles north of La Paz, where we’re from.”
The women watched him clean the horse’s hooves. “Fifty miles isn’t so bad. I’m thinking my friend and I could hitch a ride with someone and come back for the horse with a trailer.”
“We’d be happy to give you and your friend a ride. We’re going home tomorrow afternoon.”
So far, so good. He put away the grooming supplies and gave the horse a second generous scoop of food.
“I’m ready to get cleaned up. Lead the way.”
Sarah and Ana took him by the arms. As they strolled, Aaron asked, “Which one of you owns the house?”
Sarah answered. “Ana’s brother owns it. He lets us use his place anytime we want.”
“What kind of work do you do?”
