She’d been so concerned about the baby’s welfare that she’d given in to Manny’s demands too easily. For some reason she’d let him take total control.
All right, so he said he was a lawman and she’d believed him immediately. That might have been part of it. Believing what he said might be stupid of her, but she knew she would eventually get the answers. There was just something about him that made her know he could be trusted in the long run.
But for right now she marveled at how quickly her fear had disappeared. Past the fear, past the consuming questions in her heart about who he really was and what he wanted, Randi had felt alive and sensual. For the first time in her life, she actually wanted a man’s touch. Wanted it bad.
Not just any man, mind you. Randi wanted this man. He was all she’d ever dreamed about—dangerous but sexy. In Randi’s eyes he was a perfect combination of Zorro and some exotic and romantic pirate.
The problem was, she had no idea how to go about getting him. For ten years she’d buried her needs, smothered her desires. First there’d been her mother’s stroke, then her stepfather’s physical abandonment. Finally came the unrelenting pressure of seeing to her mother’s needs while trying to keep the ranch afloat. All of that left precious little time for Randi to have any kind of life.
If it hadn’t been for Lewis Lee and his wife, Hannah, Randi wouldn’t have graduated from high school. And if it hadn’t been for Marian Baker, the librarian, bringing her books every week after graduation, Randi would have withered and blown away. Reading had been her lifeline, her connection to the outside world.
Marian had even arranged for Randi to take care of a couple of toddlers while their mothers worked. The small job meant she could be in the house when her disabled mother needed her. It also meant that temporarily there had been enough cash to keep from having to sell off the land. Despite the puny allowance and doctor’s bills her stepfather had paid, there was never enough money to go around.
“I’m afraid you and I are stuck with each other for the duration of the storm, Randi. I’d appreciate it if we could stick close to each other for the baby’s safety as well as our own.” Manny eyed her with a piercing look when she still hesitated to move. “Come on into the kitchen with us. I think we need something in our stomachs.
“I won’t hurt you ever again. I promise.” He tucked his hand into the pocket of his jeans and bunched up his face with a look of pure helplessness when she still made no move.
“I know I didn’t act very civilized before,” he began again. “But I did apologize. Can’t we make a new start? Maybe we could talk…get to know each other better. Please?”
Oh, yeah. Randi wanted desperately to know him better. Her gaze traveled down the length of him, taking in her daddy’s chambray work shirt stretched tightly across Manny’s broad chest. He’d left the top three buttons open. She doubted they’d cover his muscles, anyway, but open like that they left nearly half of his torso in plain view. She stared at the dark, curly hair covering his bronzed skin and gulped.
Her fingers shook reflexively at the sight of his chest, and she fisted them to keep still. She’d never in her life seen anything quite so compelling. With a supreme effort at controlling her urges, she forced herself not to jump up and test the feel of his body. Her good sense told her to be careful—to go slow.
Talk about uncivilized. What she wanted right now definitely qualified as primal.
When she could pull away from the sight of all that skin, she dropped her gaze down the rest of him—across the leather belt he’d used to draw her father’s jeans tight and on down past the bulging mound of him encased in soft, well-washed blue denim.
Oh, my.
That view finally put her in motion. She turned, while carefully managing to avoid touching Manny.
“Do you like coffee? I can make some. It’s time I added wood to the stove, anyway.” She figured she was babbling, but couldn’t seem to stop.
“Yeah. I could go for coffee,” he murmured, picking up the baby’s basket and following her into the kitchen.
Manny wondered how he could ever make up for behaving like such an idiot. What had gotten into him? The young woman who’d just put coffee on the stove to boil was obviously innocent.
In eight years of undercover work he’d developed a life-saving instinct for detecting lies. He was usually right on target. His gut screamed at him for ever doubting her. Perhaps someone else on the ranch was involved with baby smugglers, but she wasn’t. Of that he was now positive. He doubted she’d ever even heard about such things.
While Randi scrambled some eggs using the same stove that heated the room and warmed their coffee, Manny fought to bring peace into the tension that surrounded the two stranded strangers and baby. “Can I do anything to help?”
She looked at him with amazement shining in her eyes.
“What? You don’t think I can cook?” he asked with a chuckle. “I’ll have you know my abuela insisted that all members of her family, male and female alike, should know how to take care of themselves.”
He found the bread bin and removed two slices of whole wheat. “It’s a real handy talent, and sometimes even fun.”
Manny glanced around the room looking for cooking utensils and supplies. Finally he gave Randi a questioning look. Where did she keep things, anyway?
Obviously mistaking his intentions, Randi shook her head at him. “Do you think you can toast that bread without the electric toaster?” Her lips curled at the corners in an adorable smirk.
“Can I have one egg and a little of Ricky’s milk?”
“Yes, but…”
“Then stand aside, woman, and watch a master at work.”
Manny busied himself, frying the bread over her open-flamed stovetop while Randi set the table. As he worked, he went over in his head the events that had brought him to this point.
What the hell had happened to this mission, anyway? His Operation Rock-a-Bye assignment had been to go undercover in Mexico until he ingratiated himself with a group of undocumented immigrants making their way to the border. He’d picked a group with several small children, and although they’d never fully trusted him, he’d been able to keep track of them through their travels. Even when they’d hooked up with a particularly nasty band of coyotes, dangerous men hired to bring them across the river, the little group of Mexican nationals continued to allow his shadow to fall on their campsites.
Manny had hoped that once they’d crossed the border he could manage to get them to confide in him, give him the critical information he needed to infiltrate the smugglers gang. He’d heard that this particular group of immigrants knew of children taken from their homeland and spirited to the U.S. Around a campfire one night, he’d even overheard a disagreement about one family receiving money in exchange for a baby.
When the illegals he’d befriended crossed the Rio Grande and broke into smaller bands, he followed one family who moved alone into the interior of Texas with their coyote. What Manny hadn’t known, or even guessed, was that the coyotes they’d hired were also members of the baby smuggling ring.
He’d discovered the truth too late.
And
