son waved shyly and Rachel felt a real smile spread across her lips then. Yes, she could do this. She would do it for Josh. Confident in her decision, Rachel turned back to her objective.
The man sat alone, an empty tequila bottle on the table before him. El solitario reverberated through Rachel. A solitary soldier. A mercenary for hire. Just the kind of man she needed. He didn’t look up when she stopped an arm’s length away. He seemed fascinated with the gold liquid in the glass he was turning between his thumb and forefinger.
Rachel’s first up-close impression of the man was dangerous, just like the bartender said. Sloan looked like he would be tall, and he was definitely solidly built. His too-long tawny hair brushed his broad shoulders. The sleeves had been cut from the faded shirt he wore, displaying muscled arms. He looked very strong, and for one fleeting moment Rachel felt a little safer in the knowledge that this was the man who could help her.
But then he spoke…
“Unless you’re selling your wares, I’m not interested.”
Rachel shivered at the husky sound of his deep voice. Disregarding his crude remark, she summoned her waning courage and asked, “Are you Sloan?”
He lifted his gaze to hers then, and Rachel’s breath caught. Icy, translucent blue eyes cut a hole straight to her soul. His square, beard-shadowed jaw reaffirmed her first impression. Dangerous.
“Unfortunately—” He tossed back the last of the tequila in his glass without taking that piercing gaze from hers. Rachel jumped when the glass clunked down onto the table. “—I haven’t had enough to drink to be anyone else.” He licked the taste of liquor from his lips. “But it’s still early.”
Mustering her scattered courage, Rachel forced herself to speak. “I’ve come a long way and—”
“You do know,” he interrupted as if she hadn’t spoken at all, “that this is no place for children.” His gaze darted past her to where she had left her son.
Rachel glanced over her shoulder to make sure Josh was okay. She swallowed back the mushrooming uncertainty. “I know,” she replied slowly, her resolve crumbling beneath his stony, emotionless glare. “My name is Rachel Larson. I…I need your help.”
In one fluid motion he stood and towered over her. She battled the urge to flee. Absolute silence screamed around them for the space of two heartbeats before he responded.
“Then you’ve wasted your time, Miss Larson.”
Her heart lurched. “Please, you have to hear me out.”
One side of his mouth quirked upward. “The only thing I have to do is die. And between now and then, all I plan to do is drink tequila and get laid. Anything else is uncertain.” He cocked his head and made a sound, more growl than laugh. “So unless you plan to help me with one of those two things, I would suggest that you don’t waste any more of your time or mine.”
A new surge of fear shot through Rachel’s veins. She could not allow him to dismiss her so easily. He was her only chance. “Victoria Colby sent me,” Rachel announced in a stronger voice than she had thought herself capable. “She said you could help me.”
Something flickered in that cold, remote gaze, then vanished as quickly as it came. “Victoria made a mistake.”
Before Rachel could protest, he turned and started toward the bar, his smooth stride unhurried and making her think of a panther as it stalked its prey.
Watching her only hope slip through her fingers, desperation tightened Rachel’s chest. She had to do or say something to convince him to help her.
Now!
“Angel intends to kill me,” she blurted. “If you won’t help me, what am I supposed to do?”
Sloan stopped and turned to face her. He stared at Rachel for a long moment with those pale, empty eyes, his unrevealing expression unchanged. What felt like a lifetime later, he spoke, “Get your affairs in order.”
Stunned by his indifference, and frightened beyond reason by his refusal, Rachel watched him walk to the bar and order another drink. The bartender filled a clean glass with tequila, the sound echoing around her, drowning her last shred of hope with its golden appeal.
Desperation exploded inside Rachel. She glanced at Josh to see that he was still occupied with his coloring, then she strode straight up to the bar, anger and frustration building almost as fast as the fear. She glared at Sloan’s unyielding profile and summoned the courage to defy his dismissal.
“I know what he did to you,” Rachel told him, her voice quaking with emotion she could no more hide than she could stop breathing. “I know about your wife and son.”
He stilled, the drink almost to his lips. A muscle flexed in his rigid jaw and his knuckles whitened around the glass. Slowly, with exacting precision, Sloan placed the untouched liquor back on the counter. He turned and stared at her, the full impact of his size slamming into Rachel for the first time. He was tall, with massive shoulders. He was more man than she had ever been this close to before. A new kind of tension zipped through her, adding to her already unbearable apprehension.
“Since you seem to know so much about my experience with Angel,” Sloan suggested with equal measures sarcasm and contempt, “why don’t you tell me what fascination you hold for the son of a bitch.”
Rachel’s throat constricted. She swallowed, but it didn’t help. “He wants my son.”
Sloan glanced at Josh. Josh was busy selecting another crayon from the well-worn box. Rachel’s heart threatened to burst from her chest. Would this man help her when she told him the rest? Please God, she prayed, please don’t let him turn us away. Not now. They had come so far.
Distrust or maybe disbelief flickered in Sloan’s otherwise emotionless eyes. “Why would he want your son?”
Everything inside Rachel stilled as she stared into the eyes of the only man on earth who could help her. And what she was about to tell him would likely be the very reason he would not.
“Because Josh is Angel’s son, too.”
IT TOOK A FULL ten seconds for the words Rachel Larson uttered to fully assimilate in Sloan’s brain. His gaze shifted to the dark-haired boy seated a couple of tables away. As if feeling Sloan’s gaze on him, the boy looked up. Wide, curious eyes stared back at Sloan. The same black eyes that haunted Sloan whenever he tried to sleep without getting half wasted first. A tremor started someplace deep inside him, like an earthquake before it reaches the surface of the earth. Sloan’s right hand shook and he curled his fingers into a tight fist. Something dark and ugly filtered through Sloan’s mind, but he pushed it away.
This was Angel’s son. Sloan didn’t need to see a birth certificate; the proof was written all over the boy’s face. He was a mirror image of his father. Sloan averted his gaze and blinked to dispel the image that somehow evolved into a full-grown version of Angel. Sloan reminded himself that this was only a child, innocent of his father’s heinous crimes.
“What do you want?” Sloan heard himself say, his voice so cold and hard that he barely recognized it as his own.
“I need your help,” she repeated, her tone low and pleading.
Sloan
