will be gone from here long before that could happen. And when you’re gone, we’ll be as we were. My Marta, Alejandro, and I,” he promised. “And you, Rissa? You will be safe.”
Marissa brushed a forearm across her brow as if she would shield eyes that had known too many tears. “Will Jefferson come? After so long will he remember a promise? Will he care?”
“If he is even half the man you spoke of, he will remember, he will care, and he will come.”
“We can’t be sure he got a message passed through so many hands. If he did, was it too cryptic? The article on the back of the newspaper may mean nothing to him. He might not read it.”
“He will read it, querida. He will read each word over and over again. Because he knows he must understand, he won’t stop until he does. He will see the marks and make words of them. Then, he will come to the estancia, and Marta will do the rest.”
“After that can you be safe, Juan? You or your family?”
“Yes,” he assured her as he smiled at a secret thought.
We will be safe and you, Marissa, will be in the arms of the man you love, at last.
Two
“What the hell is this about?”
If Jefferson expected an answer, the buffeting thunder of the helicopter would have made it incomprehensible. With it, the pilot who had introduced himself as Rick Cahill and a friend of Jericho Rivers’s, though courteous and efficient, was closemouthed. His eyes, cold steel, never wavered from the sky.
As he’d watched the helicopter fly fast and low through the canyon at dawn, Jefferson had known it was in the hands of an expert. When the monstrous machine touched down as gently as a dragonfly, he suspected the pilot could fly anything, anywhere.
“With his eyes closed.” The growled assessment drew the pilot’s attention. A riveting gaze turned. A lifted brow as black as shorn, curling hair, was the only variant in a calm expression.
Leaving his silence unbroken, Jefferson answered the question in those keen eyes with a shrug and looked away. But not before he wondered again at the strange turn of events.
Within hours of opening Marissa’s cryptic message, his ordered life had spiraled into quiet chaos. Plans made, airline reservations secured, the ranch bedded down for the night, he’d been packing a duffel when the telephone rang. Alarmed, he’d answered abruptly. The caller’s voice was familiar, stunned recognition came with Billy Blackhawk’s official preamble and statement of the purpose of his call. Though the sheriff of Silverton was far from a stranger, Jefferson would have questioned the message he’d relayed, were it not for his mention of Jericho.
Even then, he’d found it difficult to forego questions. But on the strength of Jericho’s name and Billy Blackhawk’s reputation, he had. Billy’s promise that everything would be explained when he arrived at an undisclosed destination didn’t ease his wariness. An astute judgment warned that questioning Rick Cahill would be useless. Preserving the silence between them, Jefferson stared out the window. That the helicopter was capable of astonishing speeds was evident. As they flew toward the sun and deeper into the day, one color of the earth segued into another in the blink of an eye.
When the chopper landed on an isolated airfield, Jefferson assumed it was to refuel. Instead, Cahill tossed the duffel to the tarmac, signaled his passenger should follow, and climbed from the cockpit.
In a ground-eating jog, Cahill approached the hangar. With a scarred hand, he signaled Jefferson to wait while he entered a small door and disappeared inside. Sooner than anticipated, the hangar doors rumbled open, and Cahill stepped out, a grin turning the steel of his eyes to smoke. “We made it.”
“Made what?” Jefferson asked as he joined Cahill.
“This destination, undisturbed. Which we hope means no one traced the letter to you or the Broken Spur.”
“Undisturbed.” Blue eyes narrowed. “By whom? Why?”
Cahill’s grin faded. “The same people who shot Paulo Rei’s plane out of the sky. Why can be better answered when we reach our final destination.”
Shuddering in renewed horror, Jefferson kept silent.
“The crew will be back shortly. To return the chopper to its owner, now that its maintenance is finished.” Another grin ghosted over the pilot’s lips. “We should be gone before then.”
“In that.” Jefferson spoke of a small jet. “Which, I suppose, has been sent for maintenance that will never take place.”
“Actually, the jet is for sale. The prospective buyer has taken it for a test flight and evaluation.”
Jefferson nodded. “Too bad he isn’t going to buy.”
“Yeah.” Respect gleamed in Cahill’s eyes.
In the air, Rick Cahill was less guarded, but just as intent. While the jet streaked toward the east and a clandestine meeting, Jefferson thought of a plane the world assumed Marissa was aboard. And that Rick claimed had been blasted from the sky.
Questions teemed in Jefferson’s mind. They went unvoiced. When the jet was traded for another helicopter, time zones had been crossed and daylight had burned away like a candle. But the terrain was green and mountainous now. He needed no answers to know this was the last of a convoluted journey.
Rick flew with the same skill and concentration, skimming through mountain passes as he followed the snaking path of a river. At a waterfall he banked and climbed, then dropped into a valley crisscrossed by creeks and a river filled by another waterfall. The tin roofs of two buildings gleamed in the sun. The helicopter hovered, then set down with an ease that recalled the canyon landing.
Jericho was there, flanked by Simon McKinzie whom Jefferson had met only once. Tall and massive, a lean Goliath whose mix of French and Native American heritage was evident in his chiseled features and gleaming black hair, the sheriff should have dwarfed the older man. But on the strength of that single meeting at Jericho’s wedding, Jefferson had discovered no one could overshadow the silver-haired, bull-shouldered McKinzie. A man who wore the mantle of honor and authority as naturally as most men wore their own skins.
Yancey Hamilton, once Belle Terre’s bad boy and now a man with mysterious and powerful associations—associations that prompted Jefferson’s call for his help—waited a little distance away. Ethan Garrett, except for Simon the most unexpected element in this mix of different and unique men, stood by Yancey. Yet, on second thought, Ethan—who was the brother of Jefferson’s own brother’s wife and a man given to protracted, unexplained absences—fit perfectly in this mix of competent, enigmatic men. Men, Jefferson knew in a glance, for whom danger was a way of life. And honor their reason for being.
“Quite a welcoming committee,” he observed. “Because of the Argentine connection?”
“Is that a question?” Rick asked.
“An observation, Rick.”
“That’s what I thought. You know everybody?”
Jefferson’s gaze returned to the impressive gathering. “Except for Mr. McKinzie, I thought I did. Now
