help, you need a nanny. All you did was tick them off. What were you going to do when they decided to come after you?”
“Outrun them,” she answered promptly, with an arrogant little toss of her head. “I came prepared this time—see?” And she lifted one foot to show him a tidy white running shoe.
“Lord help us,” he breathed, exhaling smoke. But in spite of his very best efforts to squelch it, he felt the beginnings of admiration—just a tiny burr of amazement in the center of his chest. Fearing that in another breath he might even laugh out loud, he said instead, “You’re way off the tourist path, lady. What the hell were you doing in a dive like that anyway? Much less alone.”
“That’s none of your business,” she said in a surprised and huffy tone.
“Sister, you got that right,” McCall shot back. He was thinking dark and sour thoughts about sticking to his motto from now on, no matter what. Live and let live. No doubt about it, that was the way to go.
So what were his feet doing, carrying him along with the foolish turista, walking him right beside her as she started off down the now-deserted street? She didn’t want his help, she’d told him so. And besides, she was none of his business—she’d told him that, too, and on that subject at least, they were in complete agreement.
“You sure you’re headed in the right direction?” he inquired sarcastically after a while, keeping his lips firmly clamped on the filter of his cigarette.
She ignored him and strode confidently on, finding her way as he did, by the light of a rising three-quarter moon and the occasional splashes of pale yellow from an open window or doorway. Voices—snatches of conversations, bits of laughter, a crying baby—made little sparks, tiny explosions of sound in the quiet. Far away McCall could hear the shushing of waves on the playa, keeping up a quirky rhythm to their own crunching footsteps.
He said in a pleasant tone, “What’d you do, leave a trail of bread crumbs?”
She threw him a look but didn’t reply, and a moment later jerked impatiently, like a balky child, when he took her arm. “The playa’s this way, ma’am,” he said with exaggerated politeness as he steered her oh, so gently in the right direction. “So’s the launch that will take you back to your ship. I assume that’s where you wanted to go?” He figured with this woman, you never knew.
“Yes. Of course. Thank you.” He could hear the prissiness of chagrin in her voice, and feel the stiffness of wounded pride in her arm just before he let go of it.
She didn’t say another word, though, not even when they were back on the main tourist drag, safe among oblivious honeymooners strolling beneath strings of lights looped between palm trees, where music swirled and wove through soft voices and bright laughter and white-coated waiters bearing trays of margaritas glided among rattan tables. Instead she kept throwing him questioning, half-puzzled looks.
They were within sight of the pier when she finally said dryly, “I think I can find my way from here, don’t you?”
He had no answer for her and his thoughts were too dark and bitter to share, so he just kept on walking beside her in glowering silence, all the way to the pier gate. There they both halted.
McCall jerked his head toward the far end of the long narrow pier where the cruise ship’s pristine white launch bobbed on Tropical Storm Paulette’s gentle swells, and said, again rather sarcastically, “There you go.”
The pier was brightly lit. He could see the brief flash of a gold stud in her earlobe, then the sprinkle of freckles on her cheeks and across the bridge of her nose when she turned her face to him. From somewhere out in the harbor came the sudden thump-thump-thump of a helicopter’s rotors. He listened to it fade rapidly into the distance while he watched the reflections of the pier lamps in her golden eyes.
They searched his for a long moment, those eyes, and then he heard the soft intake of her breath, as if she was on the brink of saying something.
Still she hesitated, and he wondered if, in different light, he might have seen her blush. Then, as if she’d come to some sort of decision, she held out her hand. “I’m Ellie. Thank you.” She said it on the breath’s delayed exhalation, in that scratchy voice he was beginning to get used to…even find sort of sexy. And impatiently, as if she thought he might not believe her, “I mean that sincerely, Mr.—”
“Just McCall. And you’re welcome—sincerely.” But he made a lie of that as he sardonically tipped the brim of an imaginary hat.
She gave him one long level look that made him feel vaguely ashamed he’d mocked her before she nodded, then turned and walked away down the long pier.
“And I sincerely hope I never set eyes on you again… Mrs. Whatever,” McCall muttered grumpily to himself as he jammed his hands into the pockets of his paint-stained dungarees and headed for the friendlier bustle of the plaza. Damned shame the best-looking and most interesting woman he’d run into in a long time turned out to be married, but…what the hell. Just as well. Live and let live.
He was wading into the swirl of tourists’ laughter and party music before it came to him—the reason for that nagging little sense of disappointment: he’d been waiting…hoping, one last time, to see her smile.
By the time the launch had delivered Ellie back to the cruise ship, both the adrenaline rush that had sustained her through the incident outside José’s Cantina and its embarrassingly trembly aftermath had faded to a hazy memory. What was left was the Alice-in-Wonderland feeling, that sense of sheer disbelief that such events could be happening to her.
Had she, Rose Ellen Lanagan, really struck a man in the…um…in such an effective place? Had she really managed to disable two large—admittedly clumsy—male attackers? It didn’t seem possible. She’d always been such a nonviolent person, gentle and sunny-natured to a fault. Even in her animal-rights activist days her protests had been limited to peaceful demonstrations, sit-ins, parades and picket lines. Even though, true to Ken Burnside’s promise, the government had seen to it that she was well trained in the necessary law-enforcement skills, including the use of firearms and basic martial arts techniques, it had never really occurred to her that she might one day be called upon to use that training. At heart she was still a nice Iowa farm girl who happened to have a doctorate in biology—and a badge.
A badge! Lord above—as Great-aunt Gwen might have said—if anyone had even suggested, back in her teenaged years and college days, that she, Ellie Lanagan, would one day be a special agent working undercover for the United States government, she would have fallen down and rolled on the floor with laughter. How had such a thing happened?
The only answer Ellie could come up with was that it had seemed like a good idea at the time. She’d been so sickened by the carnage the traffickers in endangered species were inflicting on some of the earth’s rarest and most beautiful creatures…so enraged by their callous disregard for living things…. Okay, Ken had gotten to her in a weak moment, maybe, but she’d certainly had plenty of opportunities to change her mind since. The fact was, she’d truly believed in what she was doing. She still did.
But what was all this physical stuff? She was supposed to be the brains of this operation—the technical advisor, the wildlife expert. Ken Burnside, former cop and FBI agent, was supposed to provide the muscle—not that they’d expected to need much. Their purpose, after all, was simply to make contact with the smugglers, a band so elusive and cunning they’d managed for years to elude every attempt on the parts of both American and Mexican authorities to put an end to their operation. One reason for that, it was believed, was that the smugglers seemed to have no permanent camp, and always managed, like guerilla fighters, to slip away into the jungle one step ahead of a raid. It was hoped that Ellie and Ken, posing as eager American buyers with more money than sense, might manage to gain the confidence of the smugglers enough to work their way into their camp. If they were successful, their job was to record evidence and plant a tracking device that would enable government forces to locate them and put them out of commission once and for all. Their mission was nonviolent; the weapon of choice would