Jill Nelson - Betrayal on the Border

TWO

Chris Mason stared past the gun barrel and into the tawny eyes of Madeleine Jerrard. His insides melted. She could put a bullet in him right now, and he’d die a happy man. What kind of a fool did that make him?

God, this has got to be Your best joke on me yet.

He knew better than to fall for the subject of an investigation. Years back, as an eager-eyed neophyte in the reporting business, he’d paid too high a price for that mistake and vowed never again. He gritted his teeth as if a tense jaw could steel him against the unwanted stirrings in his heart for this woman who could kill him in a heartbeat—and had good reason to do it. Or thought she did. A year of stretching every investigative skill and resource, and he’d found her. But at what cost? They were both on enemy radar now.

“What are you doing in my car?”

Her demand reached him through the driver’s-side window he’d opened in order to call her name.

He shrugged. “Trying not to run you over, but this thing’s got more power in the tap of a toe than my toasted rental had if I floored it.”

Maddie grinned and slid off the hood of the Oldsmobile. She stood a few feet from the open window, gun lowered, but not all the way. “Ginger looks like granny wheels but drives like a Ferrari.” The gun lifted. “How did you find this car?”

“It wasn’t easy, and it looked hopeless, but then I found something in my notes from those weeks I spent with the team during preparation for the mission.”

“What was that?” Interest sparked in Maddie’s gaze though her tone wielded a sharp edge.

“If you recall, I asked everyone a trivia question for a human-interest angle I was hoping to develop. You said the two people you admired most in history were Harriet Tubman, because she risked her life to free others, and Joan of Arc, because she took up the sword for what she believed was a divine cause. When that piece of information clicked in my brain, and I ran a DMV search, guess what I found in San Antonio?”

“A vehicle registered to Joan Tubman.”

“Bingo! A little more digging uncovered a long-term parking space rental for the same vehicle. But don’t worry. I handled the searches personally. Our mutual friends don’t know about this car.”

“So you admit they’re your friends.”

Chris snorted. “Don’t you recognize sarcasm when you hear it? Friends don’t blow up friends.”

Maddie frowned, and her gaze scanned his face. “Unless there’s a deeper game.”

“What might that be?”

“I’ll let you know when I figure it out. Answer me this—how did you get inside? I always lock my vehicles.”

Chris smirked. “Hanging out with your unit taught me skills for functioning in enemy territory, like reaching the locking mechanism of an older model car with a wedge and a coat hanger. All I needed to do was let you start the car. I never did get a lesson on hot-wiring.”

She sniffed and her eyes narrowed. “Why weren’t you French fried in that sedan at the hotel? I thought you were dead.”

“No such luck, sweetheart.”

She scowled.

“You saved my life,” he continued.

“Me!”

“Ever since Mexico, I use the remote start before I get behind the wheel. A tip you shared.”

“Hurray for me. Now, get out.” She motioned with the gun.

Chris shook his head. “You’ll have to pull that trigger and dump my dead body. You’re stuck with me. Apparently, my search for you picked up a tail, and they’re trying to kill me, too.”

“Thanks for leading them to my hidey-hole.” Her lips thinned. “How do I know you’re not still working for them?”

“Still?” Irritation spiked in Chris’s breast. “Did you forget that I was investigated and exonerated?”

“Not by me.”

“Obviously.” Chris scowled. “Maddie, they tried to kill me! Doesn’t that prove my innocence?”

“I know I’m not the one who betrayed the coalition. Everyone else is dead, except the investigative reporter the big shots saddled us with during the touchiest mission of our lives. Do the math.” She raised her chin. “Attempting to blow you to kingdom come proves you’ve made them nervous that you may be a liability—nothing more.”

Chris’s molars ground together. “Since I’ve clearly made their hit list, we might as well go on the lam together until we can figure out a way to put a stop to this evil.”

“Stop it? That’s what we were doing in Nuevo Laredo until someone tipped off the cartel to our location.”

“That someone was not me.” Chris glared at Maddie. “Believe it or not, I may be the only person who can and will help you expose the cartel’s state-side allies. Our survival depends on delivering them, gift-wrapped, to the Senate subcommittee.”

Maddie sniffed. “The same committee that publicly blamed my unit in order to save their pitiful reputations over the failed mission they authorized? In case you haven’t noticed, my career in the army is blown to the winds like dandelion fluff. And apparently someone thinks I might remember something from the night of the attack that is worth hunting me down.”

Chris leveled a long look at Maddie. Her high cheekbones stood out above tensed muscles, and her nostrils flared beneath a molten amber gaze. She looked wild and beautiful...and off-limits to this hard-nosed reporter. And don’t you forget it, he told his heart. This was about a story, maybe the biggest of his career, but one wrong move and he’d see nothing of Maddie but dust. Patience, Mason, patience.

“Whatever you think of me,” he said, “both our lives are in danger from the same people. I won’t last ten minutes without you.”

“You said a mouthful, buckaroo.”

“And you will never be able to lead a normal life until we gather enough solid evidence about what really happened at the Rio Grande for me to go public with it. If anyone knows how to go about getting that evidence, I do, but I need your help to stay alive that long.”

Maddie’s generous lower lip disappeared between her teeth and her gaze darted away, then returned. The chill in her eyes skewered his hopes. He’d taken his best shot and lost.

“Shove over.” She motioned with the gun, then trotted toward the spot where she’d tossed her pack.

Chris complied in haste, twisting his long body into crazy contortions to surmount the center console and settle into the bucket seat on the passenger side. He wasn’t about to step out of the vehicle and have her change her mind, then leave him sucking exhaust. Her reasons for letting him ride along, given what she thought of him, were likely as layered as her personality, but he wouldn’t find them out until she chose to share them.

Maddie climbed in, maneuvered the stick shift, and they drove, smooth as glass, out of the parking garage. “Where to, Mr. Investigative Reporter?”

“Grab I-35 south toward Laredo.”

Maddie frowned, but headed the vehicle in the proper direction to catch the Interstate. “Back to the scene of the crime?”

“It’s a good place to start.”

“And the last place our enemies would think to look for us.” She grinned wolfishly. “I may not trust you, but I like the way you think.”

“You used to like a lot more about me than that.”

Chris could have slapped himself. Why did he shoot off his mouth about the mutual attraction they’d danced around since the day they were first introduced? So what if they’d flirted with their eyes and sometimes their banter during the training days before the mission? Romance between them was strictly off-limits.

“Don’t remind me of my bad judgment.” She shot him a glare that could have sizzled bacon.

“Is there some reason you don’t think someone on the Mexican side of the equation could have betrayed our location?”