“You don’t know how to reach your own sister?”
“She’s on vacation from work. It’s the holidays.”
“You lie.”
Teresa dropped to her knees at Emilia’s startled yelp. Her blood ran cold when she peeked beneath the curtain to see the man point his gun at her sister’s belly. Emilia backed against the stainless-steel counter, shielding the baby with her arms.
What should she do? Cry out? Show herself? Tell that vile, gutless bully that she was the one who could lead him to Nash, not her sister?
The man was screwing a silencer onto the end of his gun. “Don’t think I won’t do this. According to my sources, she was in the hospital this morning with an injured man. The man I’ve been paid to find. You choose. Your sister or your baby. Where—?”
Teresa shot to her feet when he aimed the gun again.
But her shout was muffled by the rolling tray table that came flying through the side curtain and smashed into the would-be assassin, knocking him off his feet and crushing him against the storage counter. Nash!
Before the fake cop could get to his feet, Nash’s fist crunched against the man’s jaw, driving him back onto the table. But the man kicked out, forcing Nash back. He swung his gun around, but Nash charged his midsection and lifted him off his feet. Teresa ran in to pull Emilia aside as the two men tumbled over the edge of the table and hit the floor. Hard. The gun slid beneath the table. She heard Nash’s grunt of pain, cringed at the thud of fist against bone.
She had to help. Nash had had a bullet in him just three days ago. His strength wouldn’t last. It wasn’t a fair fight.
The men flipped, rolled, knocked over a stool. Emilia dodged their twisting legs while Teresa spotted the medicine dispensary and got an idea. She dashed around the table. “Emilia, what’s the combination?”
Her sister rattled off the computer code and Teresa unlocked the cabinet. She grabbed a vial. Peeled open a syringe.
“Teresa!” Emilia warned.
She spun and saw the knife the thug had pulled out.
But Nash was on top again, his fist clamped over the other man’s wrist. He banged the hand clutching the knife on the floor—once, twice—until the man released his grip and the weapon skittered away into the next bay.
And then he pressed his forearm against the other man’s throat, pinning him to the floor, choking him.
“Who’s Graciela’s inside man?” he demanded on a wheezing breath. He increased the pressure on the man’s throat. “Who told you where to find me?”
The black-haired man with the bloody lip laughed and spit at Nash.
“Son todos los muertos.”
You are all dead.
The moment Nash blinked and swiped the spittle from his face, the other man reared up with a roar. Teresa dropped to her knees and jabbed the loaded syringe into his thigh. The last-ditch rebellion was short-lived. Nash pushed him back to the floor, pinning him until the other man’s muscles relaxed and he passed out.
“You don’t threaten the pregnant lady, understand?”
Only then did Nash ease his grip and roll off onto the floor beside the unconscious man. With his chest heaving in deep, labored breaths, he pulled the gun from beneath the examination table and sat up.
He braced his elbows against his knees and grinned at her. “Good shootin’, Peewee. But I thought I told you to stay put.”
“He pointed a gun at my sister and future niece. I wasn’t going to lose any of you.” Teresa crawled over to him and started to tug at his jacket. “Are you all right? I need to check your stitches.”
“Let me do that.” Emilia picked up a stack of gauze pads to wipe the mess from Nash’s jaw and dab at the bump on his cheek that was oozing blood.
“Sorry, ladies, but there’s no time.” Nash shrugged off both their efforts and tucked the oversize handgun into his belt. He got up on one knee and rolled the black-haired assailant from one side to the other, checking his pockets. He removed the would-be killer’s wallet and opened it. “Angel Sanchez. All the way from Harlingen, Texas. I’ve heard of the Sanchez brothers. They do a lot of work for Graciela. First time I’ve met one in person.”
Teresa could see there was no badge in his billfold or anywhere else on the unconscious man, either. Her stomach soured as she feared the worst. “Where do you think he got the uniform?”
“Hopefully, he got it from someone’s locker. I don’t see any bullet holes to indicate he took it off an actual cop. With his DEA badge, our mole could walk right into any KCPD building and help himself.” Nash pocketed Sanchez’s wallet and cell phone before he unhooked the handcuffs from his belt. “These look real enough.”
He flipped Sanchez onto his stomach and pulled his hands behind his back to cuff him. “Peewee, I need you to go find his knife. Dr. Grant, is there anything in here I can gag and restrain this guy with?”
“Yes. And it’s Emilia.” She opened the storage cabinet and ripped open a packet of IV tubing to hand him. “Will this work?”
“Perfect.”
Nash had hog-tied the hit man and righted the stool for Emilia to sit on by the time Teresa had picked up the knife. “Are you all right, Doctor?” he asked, winding a few strips of gauze through the man’s mouth to keep him quiet when he regained consciousness.
“Emilia?” Teresa hurried to her sister’s side. “You look pale.”
“I’m fine.” Emilia rubbed the side of her belly. “The baby is still reliving the excitement, however. Oh, this girl can kick.” She nodded toward the man on the floor. “Is he the man who’s after you?”
“One of them.”
She reached for Teresa’s hand and squeezed it tight. “So you’re not safe yet?”
Nash eyed the sisterly clasp of hands and turned to the door with a blend of regret and alertness stamped on his bruised face. “There’s another brother out there somewhere. We need to go. If he’s here, there are more on the way. They travel in packs, remember?”
Teresa peered out the door, too, wondering if anyone in the lobby had heard the commotion. “We can’t leave her here with him.”
Emilia picked up the phone on the counter beside her. “You gave him a full dose of that sedative. He’ll be out for a couple of hours. I’m calling security now. I’ll be fine. Go.”
“It’s his friends I’m worried about,” Teresa insisted.
Nash agreed. “Don’t let security touch that guy.” He put Angel Sanchez’s wallet on the counter beside the phone. “Call your brother or husband to pick him up. I’m sure he’s got a rap sheet a mile long. And there’s plenty more they can charge him with today. Ask if they’ll keep him in isolation for as long as possible so he can’t get word out that he’s found me.”
Emilia nodded. “I can do that.”
“And ask your husband or AJ to stay with you, in case one of Sanchez’s buddies shows up to ask you some questions.”
“I will.”
“Thank you.” To Teresa’s surprise, Nash leaned down and kissed her sister’s cheek. “I owe you and your family more than I can repay.”
To her greater surprise, Emilia smiled up at him. “Thank you for protecting my child.” Her smile included Teresa. “And my sister.”
Nash nodded, dismissing her acceptance and returning to the door to keep watch. Teresa could tell he was antsy to be on their way. But she hated to leave her sister unprotected, despite knowing the man on the floor could no longer harm her. “I’m sorry I brought this danger into your world.”
“I told you it wasn’t an easy life.” Emilia stood to offer one more piece of advice. “I know my sister is trying to prove she’s invincible. But she’s not. Neither are you, I suspect. Keep each other safe.” She wrapped Teresa up in a tight hug. Then she released her and scooted her toward the door. “We have plans for Christmas, remember? You come home to us.”
Nash reached for Teresa’s hand and linked his fingers with hers. “She will.”
Ten minutes later, Teresa drove the silver pickup out of the employee parking garage into the glare of the sun reflecting off the snow outside. With his shaggy beard growth, hat pulled low over his forehead and a pair of sunglasses they’d found in Jake’s truck, Nash was practically unrecognizable as the man she’d first pulled out of that ditch. She, too, put on her sunglasses to help mask her face from all the searching eyes who seemed to be at Truman Medical Center today.
It felt weird, wrong, perhaps, to be donning disguises and leaving her family behind to go into hiding with Nash and continue to help in his quest. The fear she’d known when he’d first forced her to do his bidding at gunpoint was gone. But so was any sense of excitement or adventure. That urge to show herself as competent and capable had matured into a sense of duty, a commitment to a cause...or person she believed in.
As she pulled into a line of cars to wait for the traffic light at the parking lot exit to change, her gaze slid across the front seat to Nash. He was busy scrolling through the information on the perp’s phone, seeking answers. Her blood warmed in her veins at the sight of his broad shoulders and bowed head. But she chilled again just as quickly.
Emilia was wrong. She wasn’t trying to prove her invincibility. Teresa knew she was anything but. She’d fallen in love with Charles Nash. And if anything happened to him, if men like Angel Sanchez got to him before he uncovered the truth, then she could lose him.
And that would be a wound that even her talented sister wouldn’t be able to fix.
“You’re staring at me, Peewee.” His golden-brown eyes tilted up to hers. “I’m not bleeding again, am I?”
“Are you sure Emilia will be safe in the E.R. with that man?” Teresa still felt uneasy about leaving her sister behind to deal with Sanchez’s brother and friends.
“She had her husband on the phone before we left,” he reminded her. He reached across the center console to squeeze her thigh. “You can call her when we get back to the Seaside Motel to make sure she’s okay.”
Teresa flashed him a weak smile. “Thanks.” She glanced down at the phone in his hand. “Did you find anything?”
“No names. But our Señor Sanchez has a lot of incoming calls from the same number. Three within the past hour.”
“Is the number in your black book?” She turned her attention back to traffic as the light changed.
“It’s a Houston prefix. I’ll check it when we get back to the motel. Maybe Jake’s friend Detective Montgomery can run the number for me.”
Teresa followed the car in front of her up to the road and turned right just as another car was pulling into the parking lot. What the...? She glanced in her sideview mirror, checked the rearview, too. There was something familiar about the dark-haired man behind the wheel. But he sped away before she could get a second look.
“What is it?”
Probably just her frazzled nerves working overtime, making her see ghosts. “Nothing. Just thinking of what a small world it is.”
“Teresa, there are armed men in your hospital looking for us. They threatened your sister and tried to kill me. What did you see?”
Maybe she was smart to be more suspicious of the people around her. “That car that just passed us. I swear the driver was that drunk who was hitting on me in the Shamrock Bar.”
Chapter Twelve
Teresa had forgotten how good a shower could feel, even with bargain-brand soap and shampoo for her hair. She felt revived, refreshed, warm, clean, relatively normal.
Since the Seaside Motel’s amenities didn’t include a hair dryer, bathrobe or complimentary pajamas, she blotted her wet hair, then twisted it up on top of her head with a towel before dressing in her underwear and jeans. She opened the bathroom door to let the steam out before pulling on a camisole and stepping out to use the mirror to dab some lotion onto her cheeks. She squirted more lotion into her palms, and while she rubbed it into her arms and hands, she let her gaze slide to the mirror to study the man working in the room behind her.
Nash sat in the chair beside the rickety table, jotting notes in his little black book of clues and suspicions. He, too, had showered and was letting the stitching around his wounds air out and dry before he put on a warm shirt to sleep in. This was the first time she’d seen him clean shaven, too. It was a different look from the scruffy bear she was used to seeing. She wouldn’t call him handsome, exactly—there were too many hard angles and bruises and bumps. Then there was that slightly crooked mouth that charmed like a little boy when he grinned and molded so perfectly to hers when they kissed.
Maybe not handsome, but masculine, compelling. Sexy.
The shave wasn’t the only thing different about him tonight. There was more tan than pale to his skin now that he was feeling better. He seemed to have more energy, more focus.
He’d checked the security of the room and peeked outside several times, ensuring they’d drawn no undue attention from anyone. He’d made a couple of calls to Jake. Nash had given his friend the suspicious number to trace off Angel Sanchez’s phone, hoping that would lead back to his contact within the DEA or even get a ping on his brother’s location if he was here in Kansas City. He’d given Jake Teresa’s description of the driver she’d seen. But a man in a suit with dark brown hair and dark eyes wasn’t much to go on. Jake promised to run everything past his friend at KCPD and ask some questions around the bar, as well.
Nash had even trusted her, encouraged her, to make an important phone call of her own to her family. Emilia was home with Justin and their son, Joey, and AJ had Sanchez tied up at Fourth Precinct headquarters for all kinds of questioning related to both the assault at the hospital and the break-in at Teresa’s apartment.
Not that AJ was pleased to learn the extent of her involvement with the Graciela cartel or just how much she’d been helping one agent in particular. But he understood undercover work and protecting his family. So he’d sit on Sanchez for now and save lecturing Teresa and strangling Nash for later.
This healthier, warier version of Nash felt different from the man she’d stitched up at her apartment. He was different from the man who’d held on to her last night and wept for the friends he’d lost.
This Nash was prowling, driven, self-sufficient—an intensified version of the man she’d fallen in love with.
And maybe he no longer needed her as much as she needed him.
Suddenly, she was aware of golden-brown eyes meeting hers in the mirror. “I can hear you thinking all the way across the room, Peewee.”
Caught staring, caught musing, caught revealing far more of her feelings than a smart woman should, perhaps, Teresa quickly straightened the counter around the sink and headed into the main room. The hour had grown late. They’d eaten the last of the soup and split the last sandwich, and she’d given Nash his pill. “Thanks for cleaning up in here.”
He grinned. “You’ve been cleaning up after me long enough. You okay?”
“I’m just worried about people. Worried about everything. Wishing I could do more.” She walked past him to pick up the new Kansas City Chiefs sweatshirt she’d bought for herself at the hospital gift shop.
“I think risking your life to help me and your sister qualifies as more.” He closed the black book and tucked it into the go bag on the floor beside him. “There’s nothing else we can do until I hear from Jake about tracking down those phone numbers.”
“Nothing?”
“Try to get a good night’s sleep?” he suggested.
“You need one.” Instead of putting on the heavy shirt and removing the damp towel, Teresa gathered up the first-aid supplies and brought them back to set on the table beside Nash. She gently poked at the stitches in his shoulder. They were dry. “I’ll get this rebandaged so you can get dressed and go to bed. It’d be ridiculous if you caught a cold now, after everything you’ve been through.”
But when she picked up the first gauze pad, Nash captured her wrist and stopped her. “That’s not what I need, Peewee.” He pulled her onto his lap. “I’m not cold.”
He wasn’t. The heat on his skin sizzled beneath the hand she’d braced against his uninjured shoulder. And it wasn’t from any trace of fever. Teresa tried to make light of the hyperawareness she suddenly felt expanding every pore of her body. The goose bumps on her arms gave her the perfect excuse. “Well, one of us is cold.”
He wound his arms around her, pulling her closer to all that bare skin on his chest. “Is that better?”
Yes, she was warmer. But that dusting of tawny hair across his chest was a prickly caress beneath her sensitive palms, and the sleek ripple of muscle that shifted beneath her hands each time he moved was even more distracting. She tried to remember that she was the nurse and he was the patient, that they’d known each other for only a matter of days, that extraordinarily difficult circumstances in close quarters had probably led to this shared feeling of intimacy. He was the injured man. She was the strong one, right? “What are you doing, Nash?”
He rubbed his hand up and down her arm, chasing away the goose bumps there. “There’s something about being locked inside this little room with you that makes me crazy.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Your scent is in every corner.”
“The smell of soap and antiseptic?”
But as much as she tried to make a joke about the tension that drew them to each other, he wasn’t laughing. There wasn’t so much as a teasing chuckle in those warm golden eyes as he dipped his head to nuzzle her neck. He inhaled and exhaled softly against the indentation behind her ear, tickling the microscopic hairs there. “You smell like goodness and home and—” he reached up to release the towel from her hair, sending the long, damp strands tumbling down her back “—all the things I may never get to have in my life.”
Teresa turned in his lap. “Don’t talk like that. You’ve gotten another lead with Sanchez’s phone. Jake is helping. Justin and AJ are working on the case, too.” The glimpse of despair she saw in his eyes touched something much deeper than the physical desire his encompassing warmth and gentle touches were stirring inside her. She brushed her fingertips across the line of his bruised cheekbone and cupped the side of his smooth jaw. “We’ll get through this.”
He sifted his fingers through her hair, smoothing the long layers over her right shoulder and breast, rolling the curling tips between his thumb and fingertips. “For days, all I’ve been able to think about is avenging Tommy’s and Axel’s and Jim’s deaths. Exposing a traitor. Protecting all the agents who go up against the cartel. From the moment I drove into that Kansas City warehouse, I’ve fully expected that I’m going to die trying to get this job done.”
“Nash—”
He shushed her with a finger over her lips. His gaze, which had been so fascinated with her hair a moment earlier, landed there. “You have the most beautiful mouth I’ve ever seen on a woman. When I’m alone in this room with you, and the rest of the world is some distant nightmare outside that door, all I can think about is that kiss we shared yesterday.”
Her gaze instinctively zeroed in on his mouth. “You were delirious with fever. You probably aren’t remembering it accurately.”
At last those firm lips crooked up with a dangerous grin. “How’s my temperature now, Nurse Rodriguez?”
“Normal. Your fever broke and hasn’t come back since this morning.” Was that hushed quiver of anticipation really coming from her throat?
Nash brushed the callused pad of his thumb across her bottom lip, sparking a dozen different nerve endings. His smile grew at her soft gasp. “My eyes are focused? My thoughts are sane? No delusions?”
Her mouth was parched with anticipation. “As far as I can tell, you’re...healthy.”
“Good. I just wanted to make sure we’re clear on this.” Then he leaned in, replacing his thumb with his mouth. He stroked his tongue across the curve of her lip. He kissed her gently, then drew the sensitive bow between his lips to suckle and tease. Teresa’s breath stuttered in her throat, then rushed out to blend with his. He touched his tongue to hers, retreated, touched her again. With one hand palming her hip and the other buried in the weight of her hair at her nape, he held her in place against his mouth and thighs.
Her fingers dug into the warm skin of his chest. The tips of her breasts pearled into needy nubs at this leisurely seduction of her mouth. The liquid heaviness of growing need settled between her legs. She whimpered in her throat at the thoroughness with which he tasted, aroused, soothed. She squirmed in his lap to find a better angle to meet each kiss, threaded her fingers into his short hair to pull him closer, to increase the pressure, to deepen the kiss.
“Nash?”
“Me, too.”
Suddenly, the atmosphere in the room changed. The kiss grew more impatient. Like a match lighting a fuse, Nash’s right arm snaked around her waist and he stood. Her bare toes never touched the carpet. He hauled her up to his chest with his good arm and kissed her harder. “Hold on to me, darlin’. Unless you want me to stop.”
Teresa willing obeyed, winding her arms around his neck and reconnecting the kiss. His left hand threaded into her hair and his right hand palmed her bottom, holding her body flush against his as he turned, sat on the edge of the bed and fell back with her on top of him.
“Watch your should—” He kissed her into silence. Other than a single grunt when they landed, the man didn’t appear to be feeling any pain at all. Her thighs parted around his and he bent his knee slightly, rubbing its solid strength at the juncture there, stoking the pressure and leaving her gasping for release against the salty warmth of his neck.
With his knee trapping her against the flexing heat of his body, he rolled her to the bed beside him. While he kissed her cheeks, her chin, that sensitive bundle of nerves behind her ear, his hands went to work, too. He pushed the knit camisole up to her breasts, stroking his hand along her stomach, exposing her heated skin to the room’s cool air. He skimmed the camisole off over her head. And then his hand was on one breast, squeezing, playing. His mouth was on the other, tonguing her to a feverish pitch through the wet satin of her bra.
Teresa bucked beneath the weight of his lower body pinning hers, wanting to be closer, needing to feel more. She laced her fingers through his hair and clutched at his scalp, holding his raspy tongue against the thrusting tip of her breast. There wasn’t a cell in her body that wasn’t on fire, and all that extra heat seemed to be building in the sensitized weight of her breasts and priming something bigger, hotter, deep inside the heart of her.
As he explored her body with his hands, she tried to take the same liberties with him. She found the stiff bead of a male nipple in the crisp curls on his chest. She discovered the quivering response of her fingertips brushing across the flat of his stomach, dipping beneath the snap of his jeans. She squeezed her legs around the wedge of his thigh and skimmed her palms up his strong arms and back.
When she accidentally brushed her fingers over the wound by his shoulder blade, there was just one little flinch of discomfort. Just one big reminder of what was happening here.
“Nash,” she gasped. “We probably shouldn’t. You’re still on the mend.” And though she couldn’t quite seem to catch her breath, she braced her hands on the relatively neutral space of his chest and started to shift away. “Just because we—”
“Don’t you dare.” Nash pulled her right back. He brushed the hair away from her face, looked down into her eyes. “I’ve never felt as strong as I do when I’m with you. I need you more than I need the truth, more than I need my next breath.” He threw one long leg over both of hers, letting her feel the bulge of his arousal at her hip. Very healthy indeed. “Please, Peewee.” Although his chest heaved in and out with every deep, ragged breath, brushing against hers, he held himself back. “Will you?”
“Nash, I...” She tiptoed her fingers around his neck, looked up into his handsome, expectant eyes and knew her answer. “I want to call you Charlie. It feels more personal. Is that okay?”
His mouth slowly crooked into a grin. “That’s very okay with me.”
“And, Charlie?”
“Hmm?”
“No more Peewee, please. Not when we’re close like this.”
He slipped his hand between them, slowly unzipped her jeans and slid his fingers inside to torment her. “Close like this?”
She clenched her thighs against the pressure of his hand, barely able to speak as the pleasure built inside her. “Yes.”
“I’ve never met anyone like you, Teresa Rodriguez. Strong and gentle, brave and full of fire.” He pulled her panties aside, thrust a finger inside her, and she moaned against the fragrant warmth of his chest. “I’ve never wanted to be with anyone the way I want to be with you.”
“Me, either.”
“We make a great team, don’t we?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been on assignment or focused on my work for so long that I can’t remember the last time I wanted—”
“Charlie?” She pressed a kiss to his chest. Kissed his chin. Pulled his mouth close to hers.
“Yeah?”
“We only have until Christmas, remember? Less talking. More action.”
He grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”
For several needy, frustrating seconds, they pulled apart to remove the rest of their clothes, to dig a condom from his wallet, to fall back onto the bed together.
And then his mouth closed over hers. Her body melted beneath the beauty of his kiss and the weight of his body moving on top of her and sliding inside. “That’s it, darlin’. Let it happen.”