Renegade with a Badge (12 page)

Rafe took a deep breath, realized his hands had gone to tight fists and his legs into a fighting stance. He would have taken apart his blood brother, his own cousin, if he’d intimated Olivia had been a convenience for
him.
A sexual release or something.

In that regard, she had been anything but convenient.

In fact, Rafe was very much afraid he was never going to get over how inconvenient Olivia Galpas had become, in every way.

Chapter 7

L
a Paz was wide awake when they sneaked into town. They’d ditched the Land Cruiser near a dump site on the outskirts of the city, though Bobby had argued vehemently for heading to the coast and driving it into the gulf.

“Why don’t we go right to the airport?” Olivia asked.

Rafe didn’t answer her, just got out of the cruiser and started walking.

Bobby turned to Olivia. “If we park the cruiser at the airport and someone spots it and calls it in to the local police, we’re screwed. They’ll call Cervantes and he’ll know we’re here. We’ll all be in jail before he even leaves the
hacienda.
”

“Oh.” Olivia looked forlornly at her socks and sandals. Her feet were only just beginning to return to their normal size. “So, more walking?”

“More walking,” he confirmed happily, and motioned her in front of him.

The three of them, looking terribly conspicuous to Olivia’s thinking, walked into town, using the alleyways when they could, tracking across open yards and through parking lots when they couldn’t.

Rafael walked ahead of her without speaking. He was, Olivia decided, still upset about what had happened in the cave. She’d finally had enough time to think about how annoyed she was about that. He’d been judging
her?
Ha!

Bobby walked behind her. His casual stroll was belied by his darting eyes. Every time Olivia glanced back at him, he was smiling pleasantly, his hands in his pockets, looking for all the world like a man out for an evening constitutional. Harmless.

Until she looked at his eyes.

They seemed to take in everything. Olivia knew if she stepped out of line, he’d be on her in an instant.

In fact, Olivia was beginning to suspect that of the two of them, Bobby might actually be the more dangerous. After all, anyone with an ounce of sense and decent eyesight would see Rafael’s nasty disposition and physical menace coming a mile away. Bobby, on the other hand, could probably kill you while you were still laughing at one of his jokes.

Olivia shivered at that thought.

“Cold?” Bobby asked her.

“No, I was just—
oof!
”

She’d slammed into Rafe while looking back at Bobby. It was like hitting a cinder-block wall. Only warmer. She could feel the lump of his bandage under her cheek, wondered how his ribs were.

“Are you cold?” Rafael asked her.

“No. I’m fine.”

Rafe looked down at her, skepticism in his dark eyes.

“I am not cold,” she said slowly.

He scowled at her for a moment more, then turned without speaking and began walking again.

Olivia looked over her shoulder at Bobby, rolled her eyes. “Unpleasant man,” she whispered conspiratorially to the smuggler behind her, and speculated briefly on just how her life had so deteriorated that she was having small confidences with drug runners.

Bobby grinned back at her, pinched his nose between two fingers. “In more ways than one,” he said.

“I heard that,
vato,
” Rafe muttered.

They made their way toward the town square. Alleys slowly became as crowded as the sidewalks, and there were no more dusty back lawns to cut across. They began to blend in with people already on the street.

“What night is it?” Olivia asked, when for the third time she had to haul herself tight against a wall to allow a group of people to pass.

“Saturday,” Bobby said. “Date night.”

Olivia pivoted on her heel. “There it is again!” she accused. “
Date night?
What kind of thing is that for a Durango man to say?”

Bobby just grinned at her, pushing her shoulder gently to turn her back around. “Keep walking, Doctor.”

Olivia knit her brows. “You know, I seem to walk wherever and whenever you guys tell me, but I never know why.”

“We’re getting a room for the night,” Rafe said without turning his head.

Olivia stopped again, stared at the back of Rafael’s head. “What?”

“We’re getting a room.” He realized she wasn’t behind him any longer and turned. She continued to stare blankly at him. “A motel room? Do you have them in the United States?”

“Are you insane?”

“You ask me that so often,
señorita,
I am beginning to wonder,” he said, and started walking again.

“I have to get home,” she said, running to catch up with his long strides. She jogged beside him. “I have to get a plane out of here.”

“How do you plan to do that when the airport is closed?”

Olivia shook her head frantically. “The airport is closed? Why didn’t you tell me that?”

He stopped, and she took two more steps before she realized he’d planted himself on the earthen sidewalk. “You’re a PhD, are you not?” he asked mildly. “I assumed you would be able to figure out for yourself that the airport in La Paz, Baja California, would be closed at midnight. This is not LAX.”

“I thought we were coming into town to get a taxi.”

He started off again. “We’re not. I need some sleep and a shower.” He glanced down as she trotted up beside him. “And I assume you want to find something else to wear home in the morning, presuming we can get you a flight out.”

“Oh, yes. I guess that would be easier to explain to my family than having to—” She stopped again. Rafe and Bobby stopped, as well, at the horrified look on her face. “I don’t have my documents.”

“You’re okay,” Bobby said. “You can fly into Tijuana and have someone collect you there and drive you across the border.”

Since he was the only one who answered, Olivia looked at him, her eyes wide. “I don’t have anything, though. Not my driver’s license or my credit cards or any money. They won’t even let me on the plane without identification. And how will I pay for my ticket?”

Bobby put his hand on her shoulder. “Rafe has lots of money. He carries it with him in big wads.”

Rafe watched Olivia study him for a moment, her horrified look turning to one of aversion. He wanted to shake her. Right after he punched Bobby in the mouth.
Big wads.
What a yutz.

It’s not drug money, princess,
he wanted to tell her.
I get a paycheck the same as any working stiff. From the same government that funds your ocean experiments, in fact.

Of course, he said none of that, but the muscles in his jaw worked with the effort not to.

She would let him buy her a ticket home, Olivia decided finally. Then, when she got home, she’d donate an amount equal to the price to a drug rehab shelter in San Diego. That would make it even, she thought miserably.

“Okay,” she agreed, stretching out the word as a measure of her reluctance, “but what about actually getting onto the plane? A one-way ticket paid in cash for a woman with no identification is going to get me strip-searched.”

Bobby closed his eyes dreamily. “We can only hope,” he said. Rafe’s head snapped around, but Bobby ignored him. When Olivia didn’t laugh, though, he touched her lightly on the arm again. “We’ll think of something in the morning. Once you’re cleaned up and have some new clothes and use that American accent and that pretty smile of yours, no one will even think to question who you are.” He let his eyelids droop suggestively again. “They may strip-search you, anyway, for the fun of it, but they won’t ask for ID.”

“Very comforting.”

“Can we go, now?” Rafe asked roughly. “Or do you two want to hold hands here on the street until Cervantes actually drives past on his way to the fiesta?”

Olivia sighed and began walking. Bobby held back a moment, long enough to punch his cousin, hard, in the biceps. “She’s had enough.”

Rafe lifted a single brow. “Has she?”

Bobby’s mobile mouth pursed in disgust. “Look, I don’t know what happened in that cave back there, but whatever it was, she’s holding up better than you,” he said. “Ease up.”

Rafe grabbed Bobby’s shirtfront. “I don’t need you to tell me how to talk to her.”

Bobby stared him down. “I think you do.”

Rafe eyed his partner a moment more, then let go of his shirt and backed up a step.

Bobby made a show of brushing out the wrinkle Rafe had put in his already hideously wrinkled shirt. “You should never have gone to that party.”

“I know,” Rafe replied shortly.

“I told you that.”

Rafe once again struggled against punching his cousin in the face. “You were right,” he admitted through clenched teeth.

“She would have married Cervantes and had an heir to the empire on the way before we busted him, and you never would have been the wiser. She could have come to the trial eight months pregnant and cried into a little hanky, and you wouldn’t even have noticed her.”

“Shut up, Bobby.”

“If it’s any consolation, she’ll be gone in the morning,
carnal.
” He started off after Olivia. “Then we can get back to work,” he tossed over his shoulder.

Rafe stared after them for a minute.

She’d be gone in the morning and they could get back to work.

Gone in the morning. Gone forever.

“Forget it,” Olivia said.

Bobby squinted at her—trying to look mean, Olivia thought. And failing.

“You don’t have a choice.”

“I
do
have a choice. I’m not sharing a room with you.”

“Come on,” he wheedled. “We’ll just sleep together. Just sleep. Nothing else. I promise.”

Olivia had to laugh. “I’ve heard that line before.”

“Come on, Doc.”

Olivia worried her lip, looked over at Rafael. He was sliding bills across the worn counter of a registration desk. She didn’t want to know where the money came from. Then again, maybe it was left over from when he was a picker. That wouldn’t be so bad.

Olivia, amazed at herself, tore her gaze from him, looked around blearily. The motel was tiny but clean, and in the thick of town, where their coming in tonight and their going out tomorrow was not likely to be noticed. She ran her tongue around her teeth, resisted scratching under her hair. She needed a shower in the worst way, but she didn’t exactly relish the idea of sharing a bathroom with Bobby the smuggler, here.

“Why can’t you guys take one room and I have one to myself?”

“You know why.”

“I’m not going anywhere without you. I don’t have any money.” She pinched a fold of her skirt and lifted it an inch. “And I’m not really dressed for dancing, anyway.”

“We can’t leave you alone.”

“You think I’ll go to the police. Even after I’ve said I wouldn’t.”

Bobby shrugged.

“I’m not going to,” she insisted. “Look, you don’t know me very well, but allow me to let you in on a little secret about myself. I’m a practical woman. Eminently. I want to go home. I want to go home more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. I’m perfectly willing to let you guys and Ernesto do your own thing down here until at least one of you ends up in jail. I’m not going to go to the
federales
and risk spending another minute with you and
Señor
Congeniality over there.”

“I thought you loved Baja,” Bobby said, sounding wounded.

She bared her teeth. “I can’t believe this.”

“It’s for your protection, too.”

“Ha!”

“It is,” he insisted. “Cervantes could track us here any time.”

Olivia frowned. “You’re just saying that to scare me.”

“So, it scares you, does it?” Bobby grinned. “Had a little time to think during the leisurely drive down in the local police vehicle?”

“Oh, leave me alone, will you? I just want a shower. If I had a thousand dollars on me, I’d give it to you if you would just let me have a shower.”

“Have you checked your pockets? You might have a thousand dollars on you and not know it—”

“Shut up, Bobby,” Olivia said looking back over at Rafael. He was leaning against the registration counter, patiently awaiting the outcome of her argument with Bobby. A plastic shopping bag dangled negligently from one finger. He hadn’t had that a minute before. She hoped he hadn’t robbed the desk clerk.

She glared at him. She knew he fully expected Bobby to convince her to docilely take this order, just as she’d taken all the other orders he had given her.

Sort of.

Well, tough. If she was going to suffer, so should he. He could sleep outside her room all night, if he was so worried she’d turn him in to the police.

“Tell him, no dice.”

Bobby dropped his head to his chest, groaned. “Just do it.”

“No. I want my own room. If he doesn’t trust me, he will just have to sleep outside my door.”

Bobby shook his head, his chin brushing his chest in defeat. “Please?”

“No. And stop looking like that.”

“You don’t know how mad he gets.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Fine.” He glared at her. “But I thought we’d established a certain rapport, here, Doc.”

“Okay, now you’re just saying stuff to make me crazy. ‘A certain rapport’?”

“We use that phrase all the time in Tepehuanes,” Bobby insisted. “It’s an old Indian saying.”

“It’s French,” she called after him, as he walked over to Rafe.

“She’s not going for it,” Bobby said.

Rafe chewed on the inside of his cheek. “She wants her own room,” he repeated. He met her furious eyes for the first time since he’d crawled out of the cave. Better furious than disdainful, he thought. He could fight with furious.

“You can’t blame her,” Bobby was saying. “She hardly knows me.”

“Better you than me, you would think,” Rafe said thoughtfully.

“What am I, a eunuch?”

Rafe bit back a reluctant smile. “I don’t worry about you. You know I’d kill you. After I made you suffer for a while.”

Bobby gave Olivia a quick once-over, just to make Rafe suffer. “Yeah, well, I still have needs, man,” he said.

This time Rafe had to smile. “You never will again if you touch her, my friend. I’ll cut off your needs and feed ’em to the sharks.”

Bobby chuckled. “Man, you have got it so bad.”

“I’m just looking out for a countrywoman,” Rafe stated blandly. “What else does she want?”

“Just her own room. She said you could sleep outside her door, if you like.”