probably right,” he said, making an obvious choice to relinquish control of the conversation. “Coincidence.” He bent to pick up her groceries, scattered as they were from the encounter, and appropriated the bag so he could reload them. “You’re all scraped up. Come on inside, we’ll get you fixed up.”
She hesitated a moment too long. He added, “Fernie is inside, too. She’ll slap my hands if I do anything you don’t want me to.”
For that moment, she froze. She heard the unspoken message there—the potential that there were things she might want him to do. His eyes told her as much, seeing her absorb the meaning, confirming it—smiling just there at the corner of his mouth.
Run away. Run fast.
Run to safety, where the flush of her awareness wouldn’t expand into a flush of wanting—of wondering what it would be like to be touched by such strength and consideration. As if this man might just give back as much as he received.
She took a sharp breath, using it to slap herself back to reality. There would be no running, no matter how smart it would be. Because getting inside the house had been part of her assignment all along.
Get inside the house. Plant the silent amulet.
And maybe, finally, she would gain not only the respect and belonging she longed for, but also the safety that came with it.
Hollender Lerche hated adobe.
He hated flat roofs and stucco and chunky viga pine columns and pretentious entry arches, and he hated a high altitude climate that thought it could be desert and yet still had far too much snow in the winter.
Still, he should be grateful. Many from Tucson had died during the illicit attack on the Sentinels; others had acted too publicly and paid the price at the hands of the worldwide septs prince.
In the wake of that attack, Lerche had merely been assigned to this small city—an annoyingly artsy place that had persistently remained the region’s capital city. He didn’t have to be told that his future rested on his quiet success. The septs prince would turn a blind eye to certain events as long as they brought results—but not for an instant if they brought more embarrassment.
For now, results meant taking out Ian Scott.
A man who had so conveniently ambled into Lerche’s new territory, leading him straight to the quaint little retreat property—and to opportunity.
Lerche looked out onto the rolling piñon and juniper foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountains and narrowed his eyes as if that spearing glare could blast the high grasslands into something more palatable. When someone rapped politely on the sliding glass door behind him, he ignored them. This second-story patio was his Do Not Disturb zone.
But eventually he left the squintingly bright sunshine of the morning and returned to the oppressive gloom of thick textured walls. The man inside greeted him with an unusual combination of resentment and defiance.
“Mr. Budian,” Lerche said, which meant many things at once—a greeting, a demand for a report...a demand for explanation.
David Budian stood before him not in the neat suit of an active posse member or the dark slacks and shirt also allowed those working strenuous field positions. Nor was he the usual stature of such field agents—the classic deep olive skin and black hair, set off by silver studs and rings. Budian was a man of middling complexion, middling height, middling features.
None of that came as a surprise—the man’s appearance was why Lerche assigned him to particular activities with particular anonymity. Even Ana, as naive as she was, would spot a man of brawn and classic full-blooded complexion.
But it surprised him to see Budian in torn clothes and bruises.
Lerche said, “Have you compromised us, Mr. Budian?”
Budian looked as alarmed as he should. “Drozhar—”
“Don’t suck up.” Drozhar was a term held by regional princes, as well as the world septs Prince. Not a posse leader. Not even when the posse was as large as the one Lerche now commanded here in Santa Fe. “I want to know what’s happened!”
“I observed Ana as ordered. She was dawdling, so I provided an opportunity for her.” Budian’s self-satisfaction made it to his face in a way he likely didn’t realize. “You know how those Sentinels are, sir. If they see a chance to meddle, they’ll take it.”
Lerche sat at his massive desk, relaxing into the padded chair. He brushed his hand across the black gleam of the surface, displacing invisible dust motes. “True enough. Did you achieve results?”
“I gave him a chance to play the hero and he took it. If that little dirt-bred bitch can’t make something of it, then she’s as hopeless as I think she is.”
“Mind your tongue, Mr. Budian.” Lerche’s words held no heat; it went against everyone’s instincts to use a woman in an important field operation. But Ana was everything they needed—petite, beautiful with an elegant delicacy and utterly determined to prove her worth to them...without the faintest idea that she never could. “She knows nothing of that thin Sentinel heritage, and I want it to stay that way.”
“Until it’s too late, you mean,” Budian suggested.
Lerche smiled. “Exactly so, Mr. Budian.” And then he would be free of her. “Just exactly so.”
* * *
Ana found herself sitting in cool Santa Fe comfort—saltillo floors and kitchen counters, hand-painted Talavera tiles set in the walls around the light switches and along the counter backsplash, gauzy curtains under shaded windows. The air was redolent of spices and oils and the scent of something baking. Something good.
Ian had introduced himself, and Fernie—Fernanda—and had handed her a damp washcloth, disappearing with “Be right back.”
Ana waited on a spindle-backed stool at the breakfast bar and patted the cool cloth against the road rash beneath her elbow, near to dizzy with the conflicting experiences of being in such a homey welcoming atmosphere while within the grasp of the enemy.
Especially an enemy who kept her on edge in every way.
Ian—the enemy—returned to the kitchen in a billow of what seemed to be his usual energy, dropping a tub of salve on the counter. “This stuff will speed the healing.”
Fernie put a hot tray of muffins on the sideboard and sent Ian a disapproving frown. “A gentleman would help her take care of such awkward injuries.”
“Oh,” Ana protested. “You can hardly call them injuries. A few scrapes and bruises—fewer than that cyclist had, I’m sure.”
Ian stepped back. “A gentleman respects the boundaries a lady sets.” But his gaze met hers with amusement, as if they were somehow in this together.
She understood why. Fernie obviously ruled this house—a so-called corporate retreat—with an
