Kade: Armed and Dangerous (10 page)

He reached across the seat to squeeze her hand, his touch electrifying her.

Releasing Kelsey’s hand to take the wheel, he brought his attention back to the road
and the short drive to the JL Star. When they drove up to the house, Roxie bounded
out to the driveway. Kade parked the truck and Kelsey climbed out, only to be waylaid
by the rottweiler snuffling her greeting over the seat of her pants.

“Gee, thanks.” Kelsey couldn’t help a grin. “Just what these jeans needed. Dog slobbers.”

With a soft laugh, Kade came up beside her and leaned down to scratch the dog behind
her ears. “Roxie’s a regular slobber monster.” Kade took Kelsey’s hand and he felt
an electrical spark build between them. She looked up at him with her lips parted,
her expression telling him she felt the same sensation he did as they walked to the
house. He stopped beside the screen door, leaned against a pillar, and brought her
into his embrace. “You drive me crazy, woman.” She relaxed for a moment and then looked
up at him. “I’m only going to be here a few weeks.”

He didn’t bother to answer. Instead he lowered his face, slow enough that she could
turn away if she didn’t want what he was offering.

“Kade,” she whispered before he kissed the corner of her mouth and she sighed. He
lightly nipped at her lower lip and she gave a little moan. She smelled of honeysuckle
and her own unique woman’s scent and he wanted her bad.

He slipped his tongue into her mouth and she allowed him inside. It was almost intoxicating.
Her sweet taste mixed with the pineapple flavor of the sherbet punch she’d had before
they left the dance. She leaned into him, her arms gripping his biceps hard enough
he could feel her nails pressing through his shirtsleeves.

Damn but he wanted Kelsey. It felt almost impossible to keep his hands off her, as
badly as he wanted to touch her in every way possible.

Kelsey pulled away, her lips parted and moist from his kiss, her eyes glittering in
the dim light. “I can’t do this, Kade.” She released him and backed away.

He hooked his thumbs in the belt loops of his Wrangler jeans. “Do what, Kelsey? Kiss?”

Kade imagined a flush staining her cheeks in the darkness. “A casual relationship.”
She cleared her throat. “I’m just not a casual kind of woman.”

“And I’m not a casual kinda man.” Kade tried to step toward Kelsey, but she moved
back again. “All right, darlin’. First things first. Let’s get to be friends and see
if it takes us anywhere. Is that fair?”

“Friends.” Kelsey raked her hair away from her face. “Okay.”

Kade held the screen door open. “Have you thought about dinner with me?”

“No.” Avoiding his eyes, she ducked past him and entered the house.

He shut the door slowly, keeping it from slamming and making any noise. “Why not?”

Kelsey’s heart pounded as she watched Kade kick off his boots and toss his hat onto
the rack. “It’s not a good idea. I don’t want to go there.” Now that is a bald-faced
lie, she told herself, trying not to show it in her expression.

“You keep saying that.” He caught her hand and pulled her to him. “But I haven’t heard
a single good reason. We can go as friends.” Kelsey studied her pink-painted toenails,
struggling to calm her raging desires. She had to remember why she couldn’t develop
a relationship with him.

He lifted her chin with his finger, forcing her to look into his azure eyes. “What
does it take to cross your border, Kelsey?”

With a slight shiver, she stepped back and pulled her hand away from him. “This border
is closed. Indefinitely.”

Kade smiled and gazed at her with a look that turned her heart inside out. “I can
wait.”

Douglas had seen its better days at least three decades ago. Memories from Kade’s
childhood flickered through his mind like a series of postcards as he sauntered toward
the place that had once been the town’s only drugstore.

The building had changed. Hell, the whole town had changed since those times he’d
perched next to his father at the drugstore counter, drinking a malted milkshake.
Every Saturday when he was a kid it’d been their routine, when the man who fathered
him was still around.

Smoke and sour beer filled his nostrils as he stepped into the dim recesses of Mario’s
Cantina, the drugstore-turned-bar. He waited for his eyes to adjust and forced himself
to focus on the upcoming meeting with Jorge Juarez, a flighty contact he’d been developing.

The seedy tavern/discotheque bore no resemblance to that sunny milkshake bar of Kade’s
childhood. Bright-red-and-chrome chairs had been replaced by black vinyl bar stools,
cracked with neglect and pitted by cigarette burns. It was mid-afternoon, and the
only occupants were a couple of habitual barflies he recognized from previous visits.
The men were hunched over as they sat on stools and nursed beers.

Kade slid into a corner booth where he could keep an eye on the front door yet remain
close enough to the bar’s back room, so that he could slip out the rear door if necessary.
He’d already scoped it out and the alleyway was clear. He laid one hand on the scarred
table-top, the waxy buildup under his palm a good indication the surface hadn’t received
a decent scrubbing in a long time.

The waitress was new, younger than the woman who usually worked the day shift. With
a practiced eye for detail, he sized her up in one glance—young and accustomed to
using her body to get what she wanted.

Not much over five feet, she wore a tight blouse, unbuttoned just far enough to expose
the tops of her full breasts. Her skirt stopped at her upper thighs and hugged her
hips so high that she’d be giving peep shows if she didn’t pull the material down.
Black hair flowed to the middle of her back, and she’d applied her makeup with a heavy
hand.

If Kade hadn’t noticed the fine lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth, the years
of experience in her eyes, he would’ve wondered if the woman was old enough to be
employed in the bar.

She tossed her hair back and stood with one hand on her hip and her breasts pushed
forward. “A drink, señor?”

He nodded. “Michelob on tap.”

Within a couple of minutes, the waitress returned with a hefty mug and slid it in
front of him, her rows of gold bracelets clattering as she moved. She stood so close
he could smell the cheap perfume she wore. “You are alone, señor?”

“Yeah.” With his drink in his left hand, Kade leaned back in the seat and felt his
gun dig into his lower back. Out of habit, he kept his right hand close to his side,
within reach of the closer weapon concealed beneath the unbuttoned blue shirt that
he wore over his T-shirt.

“Mari,” a man shouted from the back room.

The woman called Mari scowled but managed to brush one hip against Kade as she turned
away. Amusement flickered within him at the not-so-subtle message.

His thoughts turned to Kelsey and he smiled. Damn but she’d felt good in his arms
when they’d danced. Too bad he’d had to work so late last night before dropping by
the clubhouse. He would’ve liked nothing better than to have been with her the whole
evening. She was fighting it, but he knew she was attracted to him. He could see it
in her eyes, and the way she watched him when she didn’t think he was looking.

He glanced at his watch, and just as he wondered if his contact would show, Juarez
slunk in through the open door.

With a nervous glance around the bar, the slight man hurried to Kade’s booth.

“Juarez.” Kade took a sip of his beer.

The man answered in Spanish, his black gaze darting around the room. “This is too
dangerous. I could be killed.”

“Tell me what you know,” Kade replied in the same language, keeping his voice level
and never taking his eyes off his informant. The man owed him too much to back out
now.

Juarez shifted in his seat. “The smuggler is someone who has long been known in this
town. I do not yet know his name, but I am afraid. I’ve heard too many stories of
how he deals with those who cross him.”

“What do you know?” Kade repeated as he saw Sal Valenzuela and Don Mitchell walk into
the cantina. Neither man glanced in Kade’s direction before taking seats at a table
in the far corner of the bar. Both knew better than to acknowledge Kade and take the
chance of disrupting his work.

Juarez licked his lips. “This man. He owns a business and has many friends. Few enemies
because no one knows what he truly is.” He clenched his fist, and his dark features
contorted, but he kept his voice low. “A monster who cares little if the people he
smuggles die. Like they are nothing more than animal skins to lie upon the floor and
trample.”

Kade gripped the handle of his still-full beer mug. “I can’t bring back Maria, but
I can bring this scum to justice. What else have you got?”

“One of the coyotes called him El Torero,” Jorge whispered. “The
matador,
a killer. I am very afraid,
amigo.”

“What else?”

“Nada.”

The tap of heels on the scored linoleum alerted Kade to Mari’s return. Before Kade
could thank him, Juarez slipped out the front door to vanish into the hot summer afternoon.

Mari stopped at Kade’s booth and pressed her pelvis to the edge of the table. “Do
you need anything else?” The lustful glint in her eyes told him exactly what she meant.

He stood, towering over the petite woman. “No thanks.” He dropped a ten on the table
and headed out the door.

Later that evening, when Kade arrived home, he was disappointed to find Kelsey wasn’t
back from her interview. He hadn’t realized how much he’d been looking forward to
seeing her.

When he climbed into the shower, he ran it as hot as possible, cleaning the day’s
grime from his body. All he could think of was Kelsey. That kiss the night they met
and then the one after the dance. The flames that raged beneath her skin and set him
on fire.

He had to switch the water from hot to cold. That or take care of business in the
shower.

After he’d gotten it about as cold as he could take, he finished up, then toweled
off. His thoughts never strayed from Kelsey, and his erection throbbed as he squared
off in front of the mirror to comb his hair. He was buck naked when the door opened
and Kelsey walked into the bathroom.

She froze, her gaze riveted below his waist and the erection he still had from thinking
about her. Her eyes shot up to his face and she turned a deep shade of crimson.

Kade raised an eyebrow and tried to hide a grin.

“Oh, my God,” Kelsey said with a horrified expression. “I—I’m so sorry.” She backed
out the door and shut it behind her, and then he heard her own door close across the
hall.

Kade dressed in clean jeans and a T-shirt, and felt a whole lot better—not to mention
a whole lot more turned on after Kelsey had walked in on him. He was still smiling
when he wandered into the kitchen and saw her at the table. She had on her gold-rimmed
glasses that managed to make her look even sexier.

He hitched one shoulder up against the door frame and just watched her as she scribbled
notes into a notebook. A strand of golden hair fell across her forehead and her lips
were pursed as she concentrated. Her nipples were hard beneath her pink blouse and
he wondered if she was thinking about seeing him naked.

“Kade.” She glanced up from her notebook and turned red again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t
hear the shower and I expected it to be locked if someone was in there.”

He gave her a lazy smile, taking in her curves and sensual lips. “No problem.”

“Another tough day?” She seemed desperate to change the subject.

“Yeah, but it’s been getting better by the minute.” He winked.

She bit her lower lip before she grabbed her things from the table and pushed back
her chair to stand. “Do you have time for our interview?”

“I always have time for you, darlin’.” Kade moved away from the wall and stepped so
close to Kelsey that she had to look up to see his face.

She placed her hands on her hips and narrowed her velvety brown eyes as if she were
angry. “Listen, cowboy. You’d better behave.” But he saw the warmth and humor that
warred with her desire to keep him at a distance.

“Come on outside, and I’ll show you Mom’s goldfish pond.” He jerked his head toward
the front door. “We can sit in the swing, and you can ask whatever you’d like.”

She hesitated, then nodded. In comfortable silence, they walked through the house
and out the front doors, and then the short distance to the pond.

The sky was overcast and the air was muggy and warm, the sun just settling above the
Mule Mountains. Cattails and flowers sprouted from Sadie’s pond, and lily pads floated
on the surface. Kade and Kelsey stopped before the small waterfall that tumbled into
the pond, and water splashed over their shoes.

Kelsey knelt beside the pond. “I didn’t know goldfish grew to be that large.”

Kade squatted next to her and pointed to an almost translucent fish speckled with
bluish black. “That one and the black ones with gold stripes are Japanese koi.”

“This is all gorgeous.” She took a deep breath and sighed. “I love it here on the
ranch. So relaxing and peaceful. What a difference from living in the city.”

With his head cocked to one side, Kade studied her. All he could think of was how
much he’d wanted her from the time he caught her watching him in the airport. This
wasn’t a woman to simply enjoy sex with. This was a woman to spend a lifetime with.

“Think a city girl like you could get used to living in the country?” he asked.

“Who knows.” Kelsey seemed oblivious to the desire that burned beneath his words,
beneath his skin. She shrugged and stood. “I’ve only been here a few days, but I think
I could easily fall in love with this part of the world. Although I’d probably miss
shopping in the Embarcadero and going to my favorite little place near the wharf for
clam chowder and sourdough bread.” She ran her tongue along her lower lip, and he
had to restrain himself to keep from leaning over and kissing her.