Harlequin Intrigue, Box Set 1 of 2 (51 page)

Lea realized another voice came from the direction of the pickup. But the sound was barely human. It was hoarse, feral and full of agony. Lea clamped her hands over her ears as Kino approached. He glanced at the advancing snake and the retreating man and stepped over the snake as he continued toward her.

“You okay?” asked Kino.

“What is that? That howling?” she asked.

“Barrow. He's been bitten by a snake. Twice.”

Her hands slid away as she looked in the direction of the truck.

“Can we help him?” She didn't say the obvious, which was that he had brought them here to murder them.

“I've got nothing but my weapons. He smashed my radio and our phones.” Kino met her gaze and held it.

“He needs a hospital. Antivenin.”

“Within six hours. I know. It was part of my training. He can't walk, shouldn't. It will only make the venom effect faster. We have no transport. You understand? We have to walk out.”

Lea felt the cold fingers of fear breaking through the pain. The truck was wrecked and the ATV a tangle. It was clear to her from the angle of the front wheels that the axle was broken.

She tried to remember how far they'd come and recognized it was too far. Kino might make it, but she never would. Realization hit hard.

She had become her aunt, a burden, holding back the one who had a chance.

Lea's gaze slipped to Anthony DeClay, the man she'd once respected. Her disappointment mixed with the agony of breathing as emotional and physical pain merged.

“He's ruined Oasis. The funding will dry up with the water and more people will die.”

“Possibly. This will shed media attention on an important problem.”

“Important?” she asked, dark brows rising at his words as if searching for sarcasm in his voice.

“Yes. It's important.”

Her mouth twitched in a smile.

“Maybe the right person could turn the media blitz into an opportunity to get the word out. Get government support and more funding.”

“The right person?” she whispered.

“You, Lea.” He took her hand. “I'll help.”

Perhaps she could if she had a chance of walking out of here. “I thought you disapproved.”

“No. Not anymore. And even if I did, I'd support anything you felt this strongly about.” He glanced at DeClay, who continued his caterwaul. “Guess I better get him up and out of the sun.”

Kino left her to assist DeClay. He stooped and dragged the downed man to his feet and then put an arm around his middle, tipping him over his shoulder. DeClay was begging and threatening and shouting about his rights as Kino took him to the pickup. Lea couldn't hear what Kino said, but she did hear the door open and close.

He walked back to her amid the chorus of cries.

“You can't leave him tied up like that,” she said.

“Nope. I didn't.” She noticed Kino now held DeClay's boots. He carried them by the laces, swung them and released his grip. The boots sailed a good thirty feet before falling into a patch of cactus. “I cut loose his legs. He can get his hands free with a little effort and then go after his boots. I told him that I'd shoot him if he followed us.”

“You have to leave me,” she said.

“That's not going to happen.”

“You can make it out and send help.”

He gave her a stern look. “No. You're coming with me.”

“Kino, I can't walk.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Kino collected a tarp, some rope and one empty gallon jug. He left everything else to ensure they could move as quickly as possible. He wanted to carry Lea, but she insisted on walking. He let her try, but it was impossible. As her face turned chalky he put his foot down.

“You're going to faint again,” he said. “Then I'll have to carry you anyway.”

“You should go get help and bring them back.”

“We don't separate.”

“I know.” She lowered her head. “I know. My mother and my aunt knew, too.”

“They didn't have a choice. I do. I can get us both out of here, Lea. I can.”

She took his hand. “My aunt sent her sister away out of love and I'm sure my mom left for the same reason. Love for the child she carried.”

“But I'm not leaving.”

“We could both die out here,” she said.

“I can find water.”

“There isn't any.”

“Yes, there is. I've spent time with the O'odham. This is their land. They survive here without streams, lakes, rivers or water stations.”

Lea's expression showed hope. “Really?”

Kino nodded and lifted her into his arms. She flinched but then set her expression in grim determination. Kino had a decision to make. He could follow the road the truck had taken or he could retrace their route out. He did not know how long the road leading here might be, so he took the known route, through the uneven ground taken by the ATV. Following the path was simple enough, but his pace was slow and he knew they both were losing water as they went.

Within an hour he found a downed, dried-out saguaro. The hull was just what he needed. He set Lea on the sand and harvested four of the ribs from the once mighty cactus. He used them to make a travois and wrapped the carrying platform with the camouflage tarp Barrow had used to disguise the stash truck. When he finished, he thought the Plains Apache might even be proud of his efforts.

Lea seemed much more comfortable stretched out in the cradle of the tarp than curled in his arms. He propped one end up on a rock to ease her breathing as he set to work. He used two of the remaining ribs, cutting one short and tying it to the top second-longer pole to form a vee.

“What is that?” she asked.

“Harvesting pole. The saguaro fruit is ripe now ten to fifteen feet up. I just need to find one and we find water.”

But he needed to find one fast. He knew exactly how much fluid they needed.

He placed the harvesting pole beside Lea and lifted the end of the travois, setting them in motion. As he walked the winds began to pick up. He removed his T-shirt and used it to cover his face and then placed the tarp over Lea to keep the swirling, stinging sand from attacking her.

She used one arm to lift the end and stare up at him.

“How can you see?” she asked, raising her voice to be heard and then grimacing as she paid for her lapse in judgment.

“I know the direction. We'll be all right.”

She wrapped an arm around her ribs and lowered the tarp. She gripped the end to keep it in place.

He raised the travois, slowed again by the terrain and the stinging wind.

The storm blew and blew, making the sun a hazy orb and making his progress painfully slow. Finally he was forced to take shelter and wait with her under the tarp.

“I'm getting you out of here,” he whispered.

She huddled next to him, clutching his arm but saying nothing. Finally the shrieking wind died and the sand fell back to the desert floor. When he raised the tarp it was to see the haze remaining in the sky. They watched the storm sweep away like a thunderstorm of earth.

Kino reconstructed the travois and recovered his cactus pole. Then he set them off again, searching all the while for a saguaro topped with the ripening red fruit enclosed in green pods or bursting from the pods. When he found what he was after, he set Lea's travois down. Using the pole, he knocked several of the pods to the ground. The pink, ripening tip showed the fruit was ripe.

With his knife he slit open the pods, and he and Lea ate the sweet red pulp and black seeds. The moisture was a welcome relief. Once they were no longer thirsty, Kino knocked down a dozen more pods, taking some and leaving some where they had fallen. Then he handed off the pole and lifted the end of the travois.

“Are you just going to leave them?” she asked.

He resumed their journey, speaking as he moved slowly along, refreshed now by the moisture and sweet sticky fruit, but worried by the sun's descent.

“That's how it's done. You need to leave some for the birds and animals. It's rude to take it all. The O'odham believe that these giant cactus are relatives and for centuries this fruit was vital to survival.”

As he walked he told her the story as he recalled it, of the boy struggling across the desert who was helped by the animals and birds. In time he took root and lifted his arms and became the cactus to shelter and protect the creatures who had safeguarded him.

“Well, I've seen the woodpeckers nest in them,” Lea said.

He smiled, glad to take her mind from her pain and their peril. With the cactus in bloom they would not die from thirst. Still, her injured ribs and the trauma of their capture worried him greatly.

“Owls, too,” he said. “Have you had the syrup made from saguaro fruit? It's great.”

The sun was low on the horizon when he stopped a second time. He figured they had made half the distance to the SUV.

He sat beside Lea and split open more of the saguaro fruit.

Lea sat stiffly on the ground beside him, accepting what he offered.

“Will we make it out?” she asked.

Kino nodded and glanced at the sky. “Few more hours, maybe.” If not...well, they'd be in even more trouble.

He offered her another fruit.

“You eat it,” she said, pushing it back toward him.

He did, and when he had finished the sticky red pulp, he found Lea staring at him.

“It's finished, isn't it? He won't be after me anymore.”

He nodded.

Lea's ribs hurt her so much she could barely breathe past the pain, but she had to say something before they reached help and their lives returned to normal.

“I'm proud of you,” she said.

“Yes? Why?”

“Because you didn't kill him.”

“I think the snakes did that. He just hasn't accepted it yet.”

“But you could have finished him. What I want to know is...did you leave him out of mercy or vengeance?”

Kino glanced away, his stare as distant as the horizon. “I forgave him, Lea.” His gaze returned to her. “I think you are right. My hate for him was a kind of blackness inside me. I thought I had a duty to my father. But this hunt was bad, because it kept me from doing my duty to my family, my clan and to my tribe.”

At the word
clan
, her hope fell. She was only half Apache, a fact that few of her peers let her forget. And for Kino, his tribe and clan were everything. What would happen if they reached safety? His promise to her had been fulfilled. She'd no longer need his protection from the Viper. But still, she yearned for him in the very depth of her soul.

“Kino, I know how important your family and tribe are to you. I know you deserve a strong Apache woman and that I...well, that I don't even have a clan.”

He cocked his head and she felt insecure, embarrassed and unworthy all at once.

“Lea, what are you talking about?”

“My mother is Mexican. I have no clan and my children will have no clan.”

He frowned. “Children?”

She was going about this all wrong. Her timing; her words. She lowered her head, unable to meet his dark, searching gaze.

He took her hand and gave it a light squeeze. “Lea?”

She met his eyes and let the words pour from her. “Oh, Kino, I'm in love with you.”

He could not have looked more shocked if she had struck him in the face.

“Well, say something.”

“Your timing is bad,” he said at last.

Lea's face went hot and her skin prickled as embarrassment momentarily overcame her pain.

“I'm sorry. I just wanted you to know in case...”

He scowled. “I'll get you back safe.”

She nodded as if she believed him. But already her thirst was becoming more intolerable than her painful ribs.

Even if they made it, he would leave her and return to Black Mountain. She wanted him to know what he meant to her before that. What for her had been an experience that filled her with the hope and promise of a future with this wonderful man, for him was an obligation to be fulfilled and then put behind him. She accepted her loss with as much grace as she could manage.

“And then you'll join your brothers and find Jovanna.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

Lea swallowed her pain and disappointment. “I understand.”

“No. You don't. Lea, I—” Kino stopped in midsentence as he cocked his head.

Lea listened, fearing another rattlesnake. Kino's attention shifted to the sky and then she heard it, the faint
womp, womp, womp
of a helicopter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Kino forgot what he was saying as he jumped to his feet, staring up at the cloudless sky. He could hear that a helicopter was near. It was likely one of the border patrol units searching for traffickers. But it might be someone looking for them. He didn't know. What he did know was that Lea was failing. Her color was bad and her breathing was worsening. He had to get her out of here and that meant the chopper had to see them.

Kino grabbed the pole he had used to collect saguaro fruit and dragged it across the soft sand, making a giant X. Then he traced it again as the chopper appeared in the distance. If they saw them, they were saved. Unless it was Barrow's men.

Kino drew his pistol.

He didn't want to scare Lea, but her admission that she loved him had scared him right down to his gut. It was exactly what he'd wanted to hear, but he wondered if it was the pain and the fear talking and not her heart. Did she think she was dying? He knew he loved Lea and that to him her origins mattered not at all. She was more Apache woman than anyone he knew, except for possibly his grandmother.

If he could get Lea to safety and see her well and
if
she still had feelings for him when she was not staring down her own mortality, then he would be only too glad to take her at her word. The number of ifs in that line of reasoning frightened him almost as much as having the chopper miss them altogether. But the helicopter headed right for them almost as if they were the object of search and the pilot knew exactly where to look.

Clay, he realized. Only Clay could have tracked them through this sand. The high winds would have all but obliterated their tracks. But not to his older brother. Kino knew how good Clay was. But how would he have known where to begin? How could he possibly have found the SUV, their origin?

He didn't know, but the certainty took route and bloomed as the chopper hovered and then made for a landing some fifty yards off on a flat stretch amid the saguaros. Kino holstered his pistol and returned to Lea. Then he shielded their eyes as the chopper touched down and the dust spiraled outward in all directions.

He had expected Clay but found Nesto Gomez and Rick Rubio hopping down from the interior compartment and running in their direction. Kino's grip on his gun tightened. Was it possible that Nesto and Captain Rubio were working with Barrow, too?

“Where's Clay?” asked Kino.

Gomez noted the position of Kino's hand and kept his hands in plain sight.

“Tracking on foot,” said Rubio. “Should be here in about thirty minutes. Anyone hurt?”

“Yeah. Lea's ribs are broken. Barrow was snake bit and Anthony DeClay was stunned.” Kino gestured over his shoulder.

“Barrow?” said Rubio, his voice echoing surprise.

“Captain Barrow?” asked Gomez.

Kino nodded.

“He did this?” asked Rubio.

Kino understood the astonishment he saw reflected in their faces. He'd never seen it coming, either. “Yeah. He's been trafficking through here for years. Used to work up in Tucson and they moved him here. Thought having a man in border patrol would help their success rate.”

“No wonder we were always in the wrong place,” said Nesto. “He was sending us on wild-goose chases.”

“Explains why he was always trying to get me to check in,” said Rubio. “I thought he was just a control freak.”

“He put homing devices on all our vehicles,” said Kino.

The two Shadow Wolves exchanged a glance.

Rubio lifted an arm and gestured. “Come on, son. Let's get you two out of here. We'll bring Miss Altaha to the hospital and then swing back for DeClay and Barrow.”

Kino took a look at the helicopter and realized it wasn't one of theirs. It was larger and it was armed. One of the pilots glanced at him and nodded. The sleeve of his navy blue jacket was emblazoned with yellow letters. FBI.

“Whose chopper?” he asked Rubio.

“A Fed. Luke Forrest. He your boss?”

Kino had always thought of Gabe, Clay and his uncle as his bosses. But not anymore. Now he saw them for what they were and had always been. The most important thing a man could have—his family—and they had his back in good times and bad.

“He's my uncle.”

Clay again, realized Kino, or Gabe, getting him what he needed, as always. And his uncle, who had helped him so many times, had now sent him the resources to get Lea out fast. The gratitude choked him and his vision blurred.

Kino wiped his eyes on his shirt and then helped Lea into the chopper. They lifted off a moment later. The journey that would have taken hours would now be only minutes.

“Destination?” asked the pilot.

“Regional hospital in Pima,” answered Kino.

“Yes, sir.”

Below them, Kino spotted Clay on the ground and waved. Clay signaled back and turned around. Clearly, he was interested in finding his brother and not the man who had abducted him. It was Kino who had come here for the Viper. Clay had come here only to watch over his little brother. Family first, his father had always said. Why hadn't Kino realized that meant the living? Clyne, Gabe, Clay, Jovanna, his uncle Luke and now Lea. That was who mattered because that was who he loved.

They reached the road and Kino looked down to find a legion of vehicles including DEA, FBI and border patrol. Even if Barrow had succeeded in his plan, he was not getting away this time.

Nesto handed Kino his radio and Kino spoke to Clay.

“Heading to the hospital,” Kino said.

“Meet you there, little brother. How is Lea?”

“Banged up. Clay?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks, brother. You saved me. Out.”

Lea's color continued to drain from her skin and now she had a cough. Each spasm made her sweat and grimace. He tried to get her to drink, but she said she felt too nauseous. They touched down in the parking lot and a crew rushed out to meet them, transferring Lea to the gurney.

At the ER, Lea was stripped of clothing, hustled into a hospital gown and wrapped in white sheets that emphasized that her usually cinnamon skin was an unnatural gray. He knew she was dehydrated and was relieved when they started the IV. They tried to usher him to the waiting room, but he said she was his witness. But now she was not just a witness. She was the love of his life and he would stay with her through this and anything else that threatened her.

Her condition scared him more than snakes or guns or the dangers of the desert. Because Lea was the one thing he could not afford to lose.

Kino did leave her briefly to give the FBI agents a quick rundown of events before he left them so they could board the helicopter back to the scene. In his absence Lea had been taken to Radiation. He found her in a familiar curtained cubicle. He searched her face and noted her color returning.

“What did they say?” he asked.

“More of the same. The fractures are a little worse.”

That news caused him physical pain.

“But the lungs are fine. It's just hard to breathe and talk.” She smiled and her eyes seemed less bright. “They gave me something for the pain.”

He took hold of the hand that was clear of medical equipment and leaned in to kiss her forehead. “I'm so sorry.”

He pressed his forehead to the place he had just kissed. She squeezed his hand.

“I'm not.”

Kino pulled back, surprised.

“We got him. You did it. You avenged your father and your family, caught the bad guy and a second one, to boot. You should be so happy.”

Kino frowned.

Lea narrowed her eyes. “So why don't you look happy?”

“Because I was all wrong. Chasing after that guy. You almost died, and convincing my brother to come down here with me and join the Shadow Wolves put him in danger, too. What was I doing it for? You heard him—my father was exactly the kind of man that I arrest. Why couldn't I see what was right in front of me?”

“He was your dad. It's natural to put him on a pedestal.”

Kino now recognized what he hadn't been willing to admit, even to himself. His dad had loved him, but he had been one of the bad guys. Kino thought of all the people who had tried to tell him that and the fights he'd got into because of their words. Yeah, he had a blind spot where his dad was concerned and it had almost got Lea killed. How would he have lived with that?

Kino sat on the stool beside her bed and pressed her hand to his face. “If anything had happened to you, I'd never forgive myself.”

“You got him. He won't be hiring any more men and women to risk their lives as mules, and they won't have those filthy drugs to sell, either. You did that.”

“There will be another one to replace him.”

She nodded. “That's true.”

“So what have I accomplished?”

“You saved my life.”

He smiled. If he never did a thing again, it made everything worth doing.

“And it's a life to be proud of,” he said.

Her smile faded and she looked tired and drawn once more.

“I don't know what to do now. The migrants will keep coming. They need water. But I don't think I belong here anymore. What does the military call it? Shell shock?”

“PTSD—post-traumatic stress disorder.”

“Yeah. Well, just thinking about going out there now makes me feel sick.”

Kino knew what he wanted and he prayed that what she'd said to him out there in the desert hadn't just been the pain and the fear and the exhaustion. Lea had said she loved him. He sucked in a breath, determined to find out if she meant it.