The Agent's Secret Child

She climbed down and, taking the assortment of threadbare towels from the bathroom, she soaked all but the two largest and thickest with the cheap cleaning fluid. From beside the two-burner gas stove, she’d taken the box of matches and a candle she’d found next to the stove.

“I’m going to need your help,” she’d said to her daughter.

Elena had nodded solemnly and looked up at the open metal grate as if she already knew what her mother needed her to do.

JAKE FOUND the discarded wet towels still reeking of smoke a few blocks from the motel.

But just when he was starting to think Isabella might not be as dumb as he’d first thought, she disappointed him. She made a serious mistake. She tried to flag down a bus.

Didn’t she realize Ramon’s men would stop and search the bus as soon as they realized she wasn’t in the motel room? Apparently not. Either that, or the bus was the best plan she could come up with on short notice.

He wondered how she’d gotten this far as he watched her from a distance, debating what to do. He didn’t have to debate long.

The roar of an engine preceded the dust-colored van he’d seen parked behind the church earlier. One of Ramon’s men was driving, another riding shotgun. Jake guessed the others were in the back. He wondered where Ramon was.

He looked back at the bus and the two figures running to catch up with the slowing vehicle. Dust churned up under the wheels, the tiny sun-soaked particles sparkling against the desolate background.

Jake swore as the van careened around the corner, headed straight for him and the bus. Isabella Montenegro and the kid had just run out of luck.

He lifted the rifle from under the serape he wore and, taking careful aim, squeezed off a shot. Boom. The right front tire blew. The van began to rock and reel out of control. One of the men hurled himself out the passenger side of the van just before it hit a low rock wall with a resounding crash. Steam billowed up from the badly crumpled front end and the engine died with a final groan.

Jake turned. The bus had stopped, the door open. But Isabella and the child were no longer next to it. Had she foolishly gotten in, thinking there was safety in numbers? Surely not.

Off to his right, he caught a glimpse of movement and saw a woman running with a child in her arms. He had to give the woman her due. She could move flat-out when she had to.

He ducked into an alley. He’d cut her off and get her to hell out of this town before she got herself and the kid killed. Or worse, got him killed as well.

ISABELLA ROUNDED a corner at a run, the sound of the gunshots and the crash still ringing in her ears, and skidded to a stop at the sight of the man blocking the alley.

He stood in the middle of the narrow alleyway, boots apart, arms at his side, just yards from her. He wore a serape. She could make out enough of the short-barreled rifle’s shape under the thick woven cloth to know he was armed. She knew he was dangerous because she recognized him.

He wore a hat pulled down low. It shaded his face, as did the sunless alley. But she didn’t need to see his face clearly to know who he was.

Right now, he looked like one of those gunfighter heroes from an old spaghetti western. But she didn’t fool herself that this man was any kind of hero.

From the instant she saw him, it happened within seconds. She stopped running and shot a look over her shoulder. She could hear curses and running footfalls and knew Calderone’s men were close behind her.

She hugged Elena to her and swung her gaze back to the man blocking the alley. FBI agent Jake Cantrell.

He hadn’t moved, but he looked like he could in an instant. And would. She heard Calderone’s men, close now. Any moment they’d come around the corner of the building but suddenly they seemed less dangerous than the man facing her.

She started to turn and run back toward Calderone’s men, but didn’t get two strides before strong fingers closed over her arm and jerked her and Elena into a recessed doorway.

“Don’t make a sound,” Jake Cantrell warned as he flattened them against the wall with his body.

She could feel the solid steel of the rifle barrel pressed against one breast, the business end tucked up under her chin, cold and deadly. “Silencio,” she whispered to Elena.

She couldn’t see Jake’s face because of the way he had her pinned to the wall with his body and his weapon. But she could feel the coarse fabric of the serape against her cheek and the stark incongruity of the cold rifle barrel and the warmth where his body pressed against hers. She could also smell him. Dust. Sweat. Cedar. Soap. And an undentifiable dangerous male scent that filled her senses like an admonition.

The running footfalls stopped at the mouth of the alley. She could hear just enough of the hurried discussion among Calderone’s men to know that they were desperate to find her and Elena. Ramon was furious, and if they came back without the woman and child—

Jake lifted her chin a little with the end of the rifle barrel.

Her fear made enough room for a pulse of anger. Why did he feel he had to threaten her further? Wasn’t holding her at gunpoint sufficient? Holding her against a rough rock wall with his body and his weapon?

But she concealed the anger quickly, just as she’d learned to do with Julio.

Calderone’s men moved on, running again, the sound of their retreat finally drowned out by the pounding of her heart and the terror and repressed rage thrumming through her bloodstream.

Jake Cantrell had them now. From the frying pan into the fire. Calderone’s men had frightened her, but nothing like this cold, calculating man. A man who’d betrayed his partner. His country. A man who had no mercy. No honor.

The anger tried to surface again, but she held it at bay. How wonderful it would have been to let it out. Like releasing a wild beast that had been caged too long. To finally not feel defenseless.

He leaned back a little as if to listen, his body easing off hers and Elena’s, but the rifle barrel still against her throat, his body still hard and unyielding.

She let her gaze rise to his face, getting her first good look at him.

She let out a gasp, feeling as if she’d been struck. It was the same visage as the one in the locket. But it wasn’t his face that turned her blood to ice water, leaving her shocked and scared to her very bones.

It was his eyes.

He shifted his gaze to hers. Her heart thundered in her ears and her mouth went dry as she looked into the deep green depths of Jake Cantrell’s eyes. The most unusual green she’d ever seen. But not unfamiliar. Dear God, no.

Chapter Four

Jake felt her gaze and looked down into the woman’s face. Shock ricocheted through him. Stunned, he stared at her, his heart flopping like a fish inside his chest.

In the faxed photo, she’d resembled Abby Diaz enough to make him hurt. But now, he could clearly see the dissimilarities. The not-so-subtle differences. Differences that should have quickly convinced him the woman wasn’t Abby Diaz.

Yet when he looked into her dark eyes he felt a jolt that shocked him to his soul. Something intimately familiar. Abby. My God, she was alive.

Her name came to his lips, his arms ached to hold her to him while his heart surged with joy. For just an instant, Abby Diaz was alive again and standing before him. And for that instant, he was fooled.

Then he saw something he should have seen immediately. She stared back at him with a cold blankness. She didn’t know him!

He searched her gaze. Nothing. No reaction. No lover’s affirmation. Nothing but fear.

He groaned inwardly. He hadn’t realized how badly he’d wanted her to be Abby. Or how much it hurt that she wasn’t. He’d even thought he saw something in this woman, felt something.

Slowly, he touched his fingers to her face, the lump in his throat making it impossible to speak. He jerked back, the tiny shock of electricity startling him. What a fool he was. It was nothing more than dry-wind static, something common in his part of Texas. But for just an instant, he’d thought it was something more.

He quickly brushed her long, dark, luxurious hair back from her cheek—and saw the tiny tell-tale scars. How much more proof did he need that she wasn’t Abby?

And yet he gazed deep into her dark eyes again. Still hoping. But he saw nothing, no intimate connection. No hint of the woman he’d known. He could see now that she lacked Abby’s fire. That irresistible aura of excitement that made the air around her crackle. That made his body ache and his skin feverish for her touch.

He’d been wrong. This woman wasn’t Abby Diaz.

Still she held just enough resemblance to Abby to make him ache. Whoever was behind this had picked the perfect woman for the deception. She was about Abby’s height. Five-four. And she had that same slight build. The same womanly curves.