Renegade With A Badge

“Of—of course I do,” Olivia whispered.

The catch in her voice, the little hesitation that revealed her fear, undid him. How dare she fear him, when he was the good guy? It didn’t occur to him how ludicrous it was to be so indignant that his cover was working well enough to fool even this brilliant, beautiful scientist.

He advanced on her, deliberately brushing his lean body against hers. She retreated, step for step, until she was backed against the door. He pressed mercilessly into her and reveled in the trembling of her body. He was undeniably aroused.

“Maybe I am a madman,” he muttered darkly, just as he caught her mouth with his.

Dear Reader,

This is officially “Get Caught Reading” month, so why not get caught reading one—or all!—of this month’s Intimate Moments books? We’ve got six you won’t be able to resist.

In Whitelaw’s Wedding, Beverly Barton continues her popular miniseries THE PROTECTORS. Where does the Dundee Security Agency come up with such great guys—and where can I find one in real life? A YEAR OF LOVING DANGEROUSLY is almost over, but not before you read about Cinderella’s Secret Agent, from Ingrid Weaver. Then come back next month, when Sharon Sala wraps things up in her signature compelling style.

Carla Cassidy offers a Man on a Mission, part of THE DELANEY HEIRS, her newest miniseries. Candace Irvin once again demonstrates her deft way with a military romance with In Close Quarters, while Claire King returns with a Renegade with a Badge who you won’t be able to pass up. Finally, join Nina Bruhns for Warrior’s Bride, a romance with a distinctly Native American feel.

And, of course, come back next month as the excitement continues in Intimate Moments, home of your favorite authors and the best in romantic reading.

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

CLAIRE KING

lives with her husband, her son, a dozen goats and too many cows on her family’s cattle ranch in Idaho. An award-winning agricultural columnist and seasoned cow-puncher, she lives for the spare minutes she can dedicate to reading and writing about people who fall helplessly in love, because, she says, “The romantic lives of my cattle just aren’t as interesting as people might think.”

To Terrell,

computing for me in my darkest hour.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Prologue

The little boy wore his hand-me-down shoes only on the days his mother made him go to school. Those, too, were the only days he spoke English, and then only to please his teachers. His family, his friends, everyone he’d ever known, in fact, spoke the quick, energetic Spanish of the barrio.

He was barefoot, then, when the police came, and had to run to the room he shared with his brothers for his shoes. When he saw the two officers—dressed as his older brother dressed when he came to the barrio on Friday nights to visit the family and see his compadres—he knew he needed his shoes. It was a special occasion.

His mother began to scream before he had time to tie the frayed laces, and the boy raced down the hall to her, his shoes flapping on his bare feet. She clutched at him, at the other brothers and sisters who’d also run to her at the sound of her wailing.

“He’s dead,” she shrieked in Spanish. “Our Jorge, my first-born son, my baby, is dead.”

Rafael wrenched himself from her snatching fingers and stood staring at the policia who were standing near the door, looking solemn and nervous and sad.

“My brother?” he asked in English, though both men were Hispanic. English was the language of the uniform, if not of the men. “My brother George is dead?”

The men glanced at each other, looked down at Rafael.

“Sí, little brother. He was killed in the line of duty.”

Rafael swallowed unmanly tears. “Was he brave?”

“He was very brave, little brother.”

“Do you know who killed him?”

“Sí. We know.”

“Then you must make him pay.”

“We will make him pay, little brother. We will bring him back to the United States and take him to a judge.”

Rafael nodded. George had told him many times how important it was to bring the bad men before the judge. It was the only honorable way to keep the peace in America. He peered up at the men, who stood very tall, very somber and straight, while his mother sobbed her grief behind him.

“If you do not,” he said, making the first of many vows, “I will bring him to America and make him face the judge myself.”

Chapter 1

Olivia Galpas hated parties.

She frowned into the dimly lit motel bathroom mirror and tucked a disobedient strand of dark hair back into the tidy, wide braid at her back. Her thick hair was objecting to the first freshwater washing it had had in three weeks. It was better accustomed to saltwater and dish soap.

The frown lines between her flashing eyes deepened further. Stupid parties. Stupid hair. She considered hacking off the offending piece with the scissors in her Swiss Army knife, but decided that would be shortsighted, and worked it more carefully into the braid. Where it stayed. For ten seconds. She finally routed a hairpin from her backpack and shoved it in, capturing the wayward strand.

It wasn’t that she was unsociable, she thought, turning her attention to inspecting her teeth for remains of the tacos she’d just finished. She sucked a bit of cilantro from between her perfect front incisors and reached for her toothbrush.

No, she wasn’t unsociable at all. She loved people, considered herself adept with them, despite a certain natural reserve she’d inherited from her proud Latino father. She’d just finished a three-week assignment in this little village in Baja California—or, more accurately, on the village’s nearby beach—cheek by jowl most days with her team of three fellow oceanographers and one marine biologist on loan from Sea World who were studying the effects of current on winter whale migration. And she hadn’t suffered at all from it. And marine biologists were notoriously difficult to get along with. Obsessive, whale-loving creatures.

But parties.

She spit toothpaste into the sink and rinsed her mouth. “Eeh,” she said to the mirror.

Olivia studied the paltry array of cosmetics on the bathroom counter, delaying the inevitable. She’d happily come to Baja three weeks ago without so much as a lipstick. Who knew she’d become the object of the town bigwig’s affection and be required to tart herself up for a going-away party?

But she had, inexplicably—and so had had to go shopping this afternoon, another chore of which she was insufficiently fond. And not just shopping for the makeup, but for the pretty Mexican peasant skirt and blouse she wore, and the impractical, adorable sandals that even now were beginning to make her feet ache.

Olivia sighed. Three weeks in a bathing suit, a pair of quick-dry shorts and rubber sandals spoiled a girl.

“Eeh,” she said again, this time sticking out her tongue.

She’d been trotted out to a hundred parties since she’d joined the senior staff at Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego two years earlier. As one of the few female oceanographers at the university—and the youngest—she’d endured more Cajun shrimp and mini-quiches and cocktail chatter than one person should have to in a lifetime. But this party was different.

The host was Ernesto Cervantes.

Very interesting person, this handsome Mexican man. Rich beyond what seemed reasonable in the small Baja village, smartly dressed in a sharply pressed khaki uniform that marked him as the chief of the local law enforcement agency; courtly, attentive, well-spoken.

And decidedly captivated by Olivia Galpas.

The chief, everyone in Aldea Viejo called him. Hefe. The sheriff and the wealthiest man between the border and La Paz. Ernesto wore the title with all the importance it implied, used his family’s money to do good in his poor community, and had enough free time left over to spend almost every day for three weeks at the beach camp set up by the institute, courting the lovely Dr. Galpas.

She was flattered—but Olivia, practical to a fault, suspected Ernesto would have fallen madly in love with any woman who’d met his criteria. He seemed rather more enamored with the courtship than he actually was with her.

He’d been at camp the first day she’d arrived, along with a phalanx of similarly uniformed men, to welcome them. As team leader, Olivia had accepted the formal welcome with all the equanimity of a woman well-accustomed to the stately and ceremonious rituals of the Mexican aristocracy.

He’d come to camp the next day, too. And the next. Each time on some pretext of duty. But the pretext fell away soon enough, and he began taking Olivia, alone, on walks along the beach. Well, not quite alone, Olivia recalled. Every step had been monitored, oddly enough, by at least one or two of his deputies. Nevertheless, Olivia got the gist.

Ernesto Cervantes was fast approaching fifty and had not yet found a wife. Olivia, with her education and genteel manners and impeccable Mexican heritage—Ernesto would kindly overlook that her family had been in San Diego for a hundred years—fit the bill exactly, it seemed.

Olivia had to admit she was more than a little interested in his oblique suggestions of a future together. She may have been preoccupied with her job, but she wasn’t immune to perfect breeding and a handsome face. And given time and Ernesto’s proper introduction to her family and an assurance that she could continue her work, she’d probably agree to marry. That little biological clock she’d been ignoring wouldn’t tick forever.

But Olivia was a woman of science by education and of prudence by nature, and three weeks’ worth of walks on the beach were not enough to convince her of anything.

So tonight, wearing makeup and a decent outfit and with her hair forced into place, dammit, she’d attend the going-away party Ernesto had planned and eat shrimp and make cocktail-party conversation. Tomorrow, she’d follow her colleagues back home.

And after that? Well, prudently, she’d just wait and see what happened.

She left the motel and walked through the quaint, quiet streets of Aldea Viejo. She knew where the hacienda was, of course. One could catch a glimpse of it from almost any vantage point in town.

The house was all that Ernesto had said it was, Olivia thought as she walked through the open iron front gates several minutes later and strolled across the manicured front lawn, which looked bizarrely green in its desert surroundings. It was grand, ancient and graceful, as every old Mexican mansion should be. Olivia was terribly impressed.

She smoothed her hair, grateful the wind hadn’t whipped it from its pins on the short walk up the hill from the village, and pressed her lips together to make certain she’d remembered to put on that hastily purchased lipstick.

She was glad she’d bought the long skirt and matching blouse. It was made of inexpensive cotton, but it was of a traditional style that suited the house, and it was certainly better than her other “best” outfit—chinos and a camp shirt.

Olivia took a last, deep breath before she entered the wide-open doors of the front entrance to the hacienda. The double doors were made of solid oak, she noticed, and reinforced with beautiful flat iron scrollwork.

If she was going to have to attend a stupid party, this was certainly a nice place to do it. She doubted she’d find a single mini-quiche in this gorgeous house.

“Olivia,” Ernesto said, as she entered the foyer. He disengaged himself from a small, attentive group of people to come to her. Candles glowed everywhere, giving off the scent of Mexican jasmine and the aura of old-world elegance. Ernesto was dressed impeccably and he, too, smelled slightly of jasmine. Olivia had to struggle not to fuss with her dress.

“Ernesto,” Olivia said, and let him kiss her on the mouth. He had to bend slightly to do so; his elegant, lean frame towered by several inches over her smaller one. “Your home is more beautiful than you described it.”

He smiled graciously. “It seems, Olivia, that my father built it just so that beautiful women would be impressed by it.” His deep brown eyes glowed with sincerity and the reflection of a hundred candles. Olivia flushed at the compliment.

“I’m sure they are, then,” she said.

“Your team?” He made a show of looking around. “They have not come with you?”

The invitation had been for all of Olivia’s team, but their work had been finished the day before, and as none of them were being courted by the local hefe they’d decided to pack up camp and leave this morning.

“No, and you should be grateful. They’d have eaten you out of house and home,” Olivia said.

Ernesto smiled indulgently. “That, as you can see, would be difficult to do.” He led her into the main salon, where people appeared to be waiting for her arrival. “I have some people here I would like to introduce you to.”

Every eye turned to her as Ernesto introduced her to the room at large. He made careful mention of her position at Scripps in the introduction, Olivia observed.

“I’m only an assistant department head, Ernesto,” she whispered to him after the introduction was complete and she had been greeted like a queen. “There are four of those in my department alone. You made it sound as though I was running the whole place.”

He handed her a flute of champagne. “I am proud of you,” he said gently. “That is not such a bad thing, is it?”

“No,” Olivia admitted, taking a sip of champagne. “Oh! Dom Pérignon.”

Ernesto laughed. “I knew you were a woman of breeding, Olivia. But a wine connoisseur, as well? You will be a blessing at my table.” He kissed the hand he’d been holding. “Most of my friends, though I love them like family, don’t know a Dom Pérignon from a cheap Chablis.”

“Oh,” she said into her glass. “Well, thank you for inviting me.”

“No, Olivia,” Ernesto said, gazing meaningfully into her eyes. “Thank you for being here. It means so much to me.”

Olivia smiled and took another quick sip of champagne.

She had no idea what the intent, mysterious gleam in his eye was all about, but she would have bet that it didn’t have anything to do with identifying wine.

“I’d like you to meet some of my friends,” Ernesto said, taking her arm.

“Some of your friends?” Olivia said, looking around the crowded room.

Ernesto laughed again, and Olivia couldn’t help but smile. Oh, the man was in his element.

Olivia allowed him to guide her through the crowd. They made it just one or two steps forward at a time, as everyone wanted some attention from the hefe. Ernesto skillfully worked the crowd, while Olivia smiled and spoke easily with his guests, slipping automatically into Spanish, the language of her childhood home. But she had the oddest itch at the back of her neck, and it wasn’t until nearly an hour after she arrived that she figured out why. Everywhere she looked, there were uniformed men standing guard. Armed with unsmiling, intimidating faces and big, scary guns.

“Uh, Ernesto?”

Ernesto turned at once at the small tug on his sleeve. He covered Olivia’s rough, sea-weathered hand with his own smooth, manicured one and smiled deferentially down at her. Oh, yes, Olivia thought, distracted for a moment. This man could run Mexico from this hacienda. He had all the charm and old-world refinement of a Don.

“Yes, Olivia?”

She blinked up at him. “Pardon?”

Ernesto brought her hand to his lips. Olivia wanted to snatch it back; it looked like a sea hag’s gnarled fist against his full, beautiful mouth.

“You are tired of all this inane conversation, my dear?”

“What? No, of course not,” she protested, though, in truth, she would have given her right arm for a cold Mexican beer, her laptop and her narrow cot in her beach camp tent right about now. “I was just wondering about all the men here.”

Ernesto lifted one graceful brow. “The men here?” he said.

Olivia felt a little chill slide right past the itch at the back of her neck, but decided she must have imagined the slight menace in Ernesto’s perfectly modulated tone.

“I mean the men you have in uniform. Your deputies. Why are they here, at a party?”

“Ah, that. To protect my guests, of course,” he said, relaxing visibly. He swept his arm in an unmistakably urbane gesture. He smiled again, that charming flash of teeth. “They are unobtrusive, though, are they not? I believe it’s your American sensibilities that made you notice them at all.”

“Why do your guests need protection?”

Ernesto sighed, then turned away for a moment to greet yet another supplicant. Olivia did a quick count of Ernesto’s not-so-unobtrusive pack of gun-toters. Fifteen!

“I’m sorry, Olivia,” Ernesto said when he returned his attention to her. “You were saying?”

“Why do you have so many men posted here at the hacienda? Have you had trouble? Are you expecting trouble?”

Ernesto’s lips compressed ever so briefly, then he took Olivia’s arm again and led her to a relatively quiet corner. “Olivia,” he began patiently. “I am the sheriff of Aldea Viejo, as well as a very wealthy man.”

“Yes, I know, Ernesto.”

“And as such, I face many dangers, every day. We have criminals here in this small village, just as you have in your large American cities.”

“But at a party?”

Ernesto shrugged, his broad shoulders enhanced by the fine cut of his suit.

“Have you been robbed here at the hacienda?”

Ernesto’s eyes darkened. “Certainly not.”

“Are your guests in the habit of walking off with the family silver?”

“Olivia,” Ernesto admonished, offended.

Olivia smiled, but rubbed at the back of her neck all the same. “I’m teasing, Ernesto.”

He watched her carefully for a moment, then leaned to kiss her lightly on her mouth. “I should hope so. Do not concern yourself with these questions, Olivia. I have my men here to protect my guests.” He smiled gently. “Most especially my guest of honor. It is my duty to protect you, Olivia. And it is my pleasure.”

“I don’t need protection, Ernesto,” Olivia said meaningfully. Best to begin as you mean to go on, she thought. “I have been taking excellent care of myself for several years now.”

Ernesto wrapped her hand around his forearm, scanning the crowd of guests absently. “Another thing I admire about you, Olivia.” He brought her hand to his mouth again and kissed it. “But in all your travels, I cannot imagine you have come across the kind of men I am dealing with now.”

“The smugglers?” He’d mentioned it before, on one of their walks. Drug shipments had been coming through Aldea Viejo, out of range of the Mexican Federal Police, the federales, in La Paz. Ernesto was determined to bring the smugglers to justice, but they’d been as slippery as reef eels so far.

“They are very dangerous, these men,” Ernesto said.

“But not stupid. I doubt very much they’d crash this party.”

Ernesto’s eyes narrowed fractionally. “One never knows what the criminal mind will think of doing.” Ernesto smiled, nabbed another glass of champagne from a passing tray and toasted Olivia cordially before taking a sip. “Does one?”

Rafael Camayo crept through the house, using the clamor of the party on the floor below to cover what little noise he made. Though his mother would be shocked to know it, this was hardly the first time he’d broken into someone’s home and searched through every room like a bandit.

It was, however, the first time it had ever been so important to him.

Rafe skirted a lighted doorway. A fussy little powder room, he noted with disdain, wondering how many of the ladies and gentlemen using the elaborate, gold-plated facilities knew how Cervantes had paid for them.

He smiled grimly. Probably more than a few. Rafe knew from years of tracking Cervantes that many of the man’s friends were actually more like associates; partners in crime, so to speak. Not that Rafe’s employers—the United States Drug Enforcement Agency—or their associates in the Mexican government had ever been able to get the goods on any of them. Lesser men fell, swept up in routine drug raids, while Cervantes and his swanky pals held lavish dinner parties and toasted each other’s cleverness.

He and his partner, Bobby, had been in Baja California for months now, trying to change all that. They’d been methodically stealing drug shipments from Cervantes’s men and slipping them surreptitiously into the hands of DEA agents across the border in Mexico. They made no arrests, busted neither the men at the drop site nor the runners who brought the stuff over from mainland Mexico. They simply swept in—or snuck in, depending upon the situation and the likelihood one of them would be shot through the head—and stole what Ernesto Cervantes firmly believed was his.

It was a last-ditch effort, a plan devised by Rafe and Bobby alone, and one that neither the federales nor Rafe’s superior officers at the DEA thought likely to succeed. But Rafe and Bobby were determined.

They knew Cervantes—knew him inside and out—though neither of them had ever been within fifty feet of the man. They knew he could outwait the authorities and their traditional methods forever, keeping his minions on the front line while he led his respectable, lawful life.

But he would never tolerate being ripped off by a couple of filthy, low-class bandidos.

It was driving the big man crazy, Rafe thought with an unprofessional smirk, just as they’d hoped it would. Cervantes was a canny kingpin, but a kingpin nonetheless, and with the ego to go along with the title. It wouldn’t be long—couldn’t be long, according to Rafe’s superiors back in San Diego—before he showed up at one of the shipment sites himself. Rafe could almost smell Cervantes’s frustration, could almost touch it.

It was certainly evident by all the thugs he had posted at this little soiree.

Rafe had easily slipped past them all, of course. Another thing that would have shocked his mother. Ten years as an undercover DEA agent was excellent training, but it was nothing to the years in the San Diego barrio of his youth. A boy who spoke no English learned how to fade into any background in the border towns of San Diego, or he risked being picked up by cruising immigration officers looking for his illegally “immigrated” parents.

Rafe searched the next room he came to, wincing slightly as the heavy carved door creaked atmospherically on its iron hinges. The four men the Mexican federales had inside Cervantes’s organization had already been through every scrap of paper in Cervantes’s office, but had yet to find anything incriminating. The party tonight had given Rafe the first opportunity since he’d come to Baja to get inside the rest of the house and do a little snooping of his own.

Nothing in this room; not that he’d expected much. Cervantes was unlikely to keep records of his illegal activities in an upstairs guest room. Still, procedure dictated a thorough search. He closed the door behind him and stood absolutely still in the gloomy hallway, listening, waiting.