teeth in the shadows. “You won’t alert the guards,” he said.
Olivia blinked, unnerved by that fierce, confident smile. Weren’t smugglers supposed to be furtive? This one was cool as a cucumber. “I won’t?”
“No.”
“Why won’t I?”
“Because you’re a woman, Dr. Galpas, and women are more practical than men.”
He knew who she was. Olivia felt the impact of her name on his smirking lips shiver all the way down to the backs of her thighs, raising the fine hairs there.
“How do you know me?” she whispered.
Rafe shrugged. “It’s a small village. You’re a beautiful woman. And a smart one,” he reminded her pointedly.
Obviously not, Olivia thought wildly. Smart women did not converse with bandidos in dark upstairs hallways while their almost-fiancés waited downstairs with fifteen armed men. Smart women screamed in situations like these, or at least fainted so they wouldn’t be held responsible afterward. Olivia considered both options.
Rafe watched her carefully, saw her eyes dart toward the stairs, measuring for the first time the distance between herself and safety. About time, he thought. Stupid woman, to be standing here talking to him.
“Too late, señorita,” he whispered, stepping from the deep doorway and taking her arm.
He moved so quickly that Olivia had no time to choose between screaming or fainting. One instant he was a shadowy figure several safe feet away, the next his hand was wrapped hard over her biceps and she was deftly turned and pressed back against his body. Her breath left her again.
Rafe slid his free hand to her throat. Stomach for it or not, he had to keep this woman from exposing him, at least until he got out of the house. After that, let her scream until she turned purple. It would only serve to further pique Cervantes’s pride and temper, having had the bandit who had been stealing from him invade his very own hacienda.
The operation was what mattered, and damn his weak knees. And whatever else was reacting to Olivia Galpas.
“Stop struggling,” he hissed in her ear, “and listen.” He ran his thumb along the base of her throat and let it rest in the hollow there, for his own pleasure. He felt the woman shudder in his arms and wondered briefly what it would be like to make her shudder from something other than fear. He shifted again, hoping she didn’t feel his arousal at her backside. “You can scream, you can run, you can alert every man in the building, and I will not leave this house tonight alive. That’s true.”
Olivia felt him shift behind her once more, prayed he’d moved far enough away that she wouldn’t have to feel his lower body against her again. She’d been shocked by his obvious excitement, terrified that he intended more harm to her than she’d assumed.
But he was clearly trying to spare…one of them, anyway, from whatever that arousal implied.
“But I won’t die alone,” he continued softly at her ear. “Do you really want to take the chance with the lives of your lover and his friends?”
Olivia thought to correct him on that count; Ernesto was not her lover. But then, she thought as his hand reached up to clamp gently around her throat, she had more important things than semantics to worry about right now.
“Do you?” he repeated harshly.
“No,” Olivia whispered.
“I thought not. I will leave when I’m finished, and no one will be hurt. Unless you make a mistake, señorita. The fate of these people are now in your hands. I urge you to make the right decision. Do you understand?”
Olivia caught a whiff of something as he breathed on her. Peppermint? Had this desperado brushed his teeth before breaking into the local sheriff’s house and crashing her going-away party? What the hell kind of bandit was this?
“When you’re finished?” she blurted with uncharacteristic indiscretion. “Finished with what? Are you robbing Ernesto? Are you the smuggler?”
Nosy, reckless woman. Rafe shook her slightly. “Do you understand?” he repeated, sounding dangerously provoked.
“Well, can you tell me how long you’ll be?”
Rafe nearly burst out laughing. “Doctor.”
Olivia nodded briskly. “Yes, yes, I understand.”
“And Doctor?”
“Yes.”
“I will kill him first. I want you to remember that.”
Olivia nodded again, swallowed hard. “Yes, I will,” she said in a strangled voice.
Rafael let her go, almost reluctantly. His head was buzzing from the contact of her body against his, his blood was running hot through his lower body, his fingers itched to touch the smooth skin of her neck a second time.
“One thing more,” he said through gritted teeth, suddenly as furious with himself as he was with her. For lingering, for getting caught, for finding Cervantes’s lover more arousing, more attractive, than any woman he’d met in years. For caring what happened to her.
Olivia’s chest was heaving, her body beginning to shake in reaction. She’d been in grave danger there for the briefest moment, but she was unsure exactly what the threat had been.
“What?” she breathed, her eyes locked on his.
“Get out of here as soon as you can. Get back to the States on the next plane or bus or vegetable wagon.” He reached out, gave a gentle tug on the long braid that had come to rest on her shoulder, running his thumb along the broad length of it. “I don’t know how much you know,” he said, almost to himself, “and I don’t care. Just get out.”
And while Olivia stood, trembling, wondering, the man disappeared without a sound down the dark hallway.
Chapter 2
Olivia endured. That was the most she could say about the remainder of Ernesto’s lavish party, his expansive hospitality, his determined and public attentions.
It had been a terrible mistake coming back downstairs. She should have taken the advice of the smuggler and fled the house, Aldea Viejo, the country. Let Ernesto think his shrimp had actually killed her. Oh, God. She clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from bursting into hysterical laughter.
She’d still been shaking when she’d stumbled down the stairs, even after spending another five minutes back in the powder room, splashing water on her face and muttering recriminations to herself in the mirror. But she knew what she had to do if she wanted to keep Ernesto and his friends from being splattered across the beautiful old plaster walls of the hacienda, so she pasted a smile on her face like a prudent little scientist would when faced with empirical data.
The lanky man with the smirk on his mouth and the hunger in his eyes was very probably taking a bead on Ernesto right this minute, waiting for Olivia to come to her senses and fall into a crying, squalling heap on the floor. Something she very much felt like doing, as a matter
