“I bet your uncle installs security systems along with rescuing debutantes,” Lina said, setting her purse next to his computer.
“It was the original business. Then things started going to hell south of the border and he expanded the menu options for customers. Personal security training, threat evaluation, kidnap negotiations, bodyguards, whatever the customer wants—as long as it’s legal.”
“So you’re a bodyguard, too?” she asked.
His mouth flattened. “Only when I don’t say no fast enough, and only for very short periods—corporate meetings across the border and such. I don’t have the social skills to be a high-level bodyguard. And I don’t want them.”
She had just enough self-control left not to say it aloud. For the first time in her life, she wanted to have the kind of affair that women wrote memoirs about. With Hunter.
“So your uncle comes to a crowded place and complains a lot,” she said, struggling for a neutral topic. “Does he complain about other things?”
“Only on the days that end in
She laughed softly. “Sounds like Abuelita. ‘Why don’t you dress better, Lina?’ ‘Why don’t you have a man, Lina?’ ‘I can’t wait forever for my great-great-grandchildren.’”
“Children are a gift,” he said without thinking as he locked the door behind them and reset the security system.
“You sound like you have personal knowledge,” Lina said.
And then she held her breath, waiting for his answer.
“I do. Did. She and her mother died.”
Lina’s hand went to Hunter’s arm. She wanted to say she was sorry, but the words were so useless. She put her arms around him and held him, just held him, wishing she could take away the kind of pain that no one should have to know.
“It was years ago,” he said, holding her in turn.
“Not for you,” she said huskily. “It’s there every day you wake up, fresh as dawn.”
His arms tightened. For long minutes they just stood, sharing warmth and life. Slowly Hunter released her. It was that or take her to the nearest flat surface and eat her alive. But she was too vulnerable right now and he had just enough self-control left not to take advantage of her.
“Maybe I should sic my uncle on your
Lina took a shaky breath. “Abuelita would shred him. In Mexico, any woman who has even the smallest measure of power has to be tough and smart enough to know where and when to use it. Manipulate, manage, and never get caught with your hand on the power switch.”
Hunter laughed softly. “Every culture has its version of a dragon lady.”
“There’s a reason. Patriarchy creates them every time.” Lina took another long breath. “What’s that smell?”
“Dust.”
“No, not that. The flowery one.”
“Plumeria. My uncle won’t pay to have the house dusted, but there’s a gardener to pamper the greenery.”
Lina thought about the army of workers who attended the Reyes Balam estate. It was something she had taken for granted as a child. As an adult on her own, she appreciated the luxury of the estate and understood that it went two ways. The men and women of the nearby villages had steady, lifelong work on the estate, money to feed their children and to celebrate their religion. Celia sponsored the brightest kids through high school. The ones who had ambition she sent to college or technical school, whichever the child chose. Reyes Balam depended on the villagers and they depended on Reyes Balam.
“Uncle Danny claims he hates all the flowers that my aunt planted and loved,” Hunter said. “But after she died a few years back, he hired someone to keep the flowers alive.”
“He loved her,” Lina murmured, wondering what it would be like.
“Still does.” Hunter pulled the sheet off the low, Danish Modern couch. The smell of dust rose, then settled beneath the perfume from outside. “But you’d have to shove glass splinters under his fingernails to get him to admit it. I used to think that was funny. Now I understand.”
“You loved your wife,” she said.
There was a taut silence, a near-silent rush of breath, and then Hunter spoke in a neutral voice. “I got Pauline pregnant when I was eighteen and she was seventeen.” He smiled thinly. “Sometimes the party lasts longer than the party hat.”
Lina waited. Hunter didn’t show anything on his exterior, but she sensed the cost of every word he said.
“Little Suzanne was the light in my life,” he said after a moment. “Four years later Pauline told me I wasn’t Suzanne’s sperm donor. Her boyfriend was out of jail and she wanted a divorce so she could live with the man she loved. I didn’t want to let go of Suzanne, but I believed a child had a right to live with her father and mother. The three of them lived on alimony and child support until the drugged-out son of a bitch met a long-haul rig head-on at over one hundred miles an hour. The trucker got a few broken bones. Pauline and Suzanne died instantly. Her lover took a week to die. I hope he hurt like hell on fire every second of it.”
Lina didn’t know what to say, so she simply watched Hunter methodically tear off more slipcovers from the furniture.
“I didn’t particularly love my wife, but I loved my little girl,” he said finally. “How about you? Any great loves in your life?”
She had to swallow several times before she answered. His neutral voice and seething emotions made her want to weep.
“No,” she said. “No loves great or small. Living north of the border for seven months a year and south of the border the rest of time…” She shrugged. “When I was old enough to live on my own, I was too hooked on the thrill of the digs to worry about spending quality time on anything else.”
Silently Hunter folded slipcovers and put them in a tiny hall closet. He wasn’t about to say the truth out loud: he was glad she hadn’t found a man, married, and settled down before he had ever known her.
Lina studied the furniture. Unlike life, it was all clean lines and smooth surfaces. The colors were solid earth tones and blacks, as if the clock had stopped at a very fashionable 1954 and never started again.
“The bedrooms are back here,” Hunter said. “We’ll need to get into town early and buy clothes and supplies.”
“And then what?”
“See what my ICE contacts and my uncles come up with.”
“I should be at the family estate soon,” Lina said. “I promised Mother and Abuelita.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing your family home.”
Silently she absorbed the fact that Hunter assumed he was going with her. She started to object, but didn’t. Everyone was always harping on how she should bring a man home to meet the family.
Hunter was all man.
“No argument?” he asked.
“We have to assume the objects came from the Yucatan,” she said.
“Looks like it. More important, the tools who tried to grab you came from there. Right now I’m as worried about you as I am about Jase.”
Lina gave Hunter a startled look. “Jase is in more danger.”
“He’s under guard in the hospital. His family is under guard. He’s safer than you are.”
“Under guard?”
“I talked to Stu Brubaker, Jase’s boss. I told him straight up that he had sent Jase blindfolded into a firefight, and if anything else happened to him, Brubaker’s political ass was on my firing line.”
She looked at Hunter’s eyes and saw the predator she had always sensed beneath his easy movements. It didn’t worry her. Life had taught her that it was better to have a predator with her than against her.
Predators were strong enough to be gentle.
“I bet the boss didn’t like that,” Lina said.
