Sandpaper eyes, stubble, and a vague but constant feeling of dread accompanied Chance through the empty house. He paused in the kitchen to make a quick cup of instant coffee and gulped it down, ignoring the burn. “With any luck, I’ll get out of here before I have to see that woman’s face,” he muttered.
“Señor Chance,” María purred behind him, and he tried to cover his words by fanning his hand in front of his mouth.
“Damn coffee burned me,” he said, hoping she hadn’t heard him clearly.
The housekeeper’s eyes glittered with her dislike.
“Hay que tener más cuidado,” she said sweetly. “You—”
“Should be more careful,” he finished for her. “You’re right.” He shot a quick smile at her over his shoulder. “How are you today, María?”
“Humph. I am as I always am.” She moved around him and took the coffee pot. “There was real coffee,” she pointed out. “Señor Mike likes my coffee.”
She took the pot over to the table and set it on a mat, poured herself a cup of coffee, and sat down.
“Would you like breakfast?” she asked without looking back at him.
“No, thanks. I want to make my rounds and check in with Mike to see if he needs anything.”
“He will be away for all of this week?”
Chance leaned against the counter as he sipped the remainder of the coffee more carefully. “Those were his plans when he left,” he said. “I haven’t heard anything different, and I know he’d like to be there to see the governor on Friday.”
“Trusting man, Don Mike.” Venom laced the woman’s word, and the look she cast his way was just as poisonous. “He’s been away a couple of days and already the gringa puta is taking all she can get.”
Anger jolted through him like an electrical shock. His fingers tightened on the handle of his cup, but he waited until he trusted himself to answer.
Then he exhaled slowly. “You know that AJ was born in Laredo, right? She’s really not a gringa, María. And she is Mike’s guest. What has she done now?” he asked.
She shrugged and refilled her coffee cup without looking his way. “Bah. She is not Mexican. Not even Mexican-American. She is trash. You don’t think Monterrey cost the boss a fortune? And she’s all over this house like she owns it—you’d think she had a ring on her finger. And Mike’s senora not dead a year.” She half turned in her chair. “I heard her singing in the guerco’s room. Does she think he’ll give her a kid, too?” Again she snorted her disdain. “And all the time, you sniffing around like—”
“Enough! ¡Basta ya!” The fury he’d been trying to tamp down burst through and he slammed the coffee cup down so hard that the little he hadn’t drunk splashed out on the table. He made no move to clean it, just reached across and snatched María’s fork out of her hand as she raised a bite of egg.
“Listen up. I don’t give a damn what you think about Ms. Owens, but she’s Mike’s guest, and you don’t talk about his guests like that. Since you seem to think she’s taken over, what if she finds out what you’re saying about her? She’ll get you thrown out without a penny, you understand that? You think he’ll choose you over her if she wants you gone?”
He saw her think about his words and pale slightly. Deciding he had an advantage, he pressed it. “And just for the record—I may be a stupid americano to you, but I’m not stupid enough to go after the boss’s woman. Got that? Because you sure as hell didn’t get it when Gina was alive and you dropped all your little lies about our affair, did you? Mike knew better, but I blame you for her trying to run away with that accountant.”
He paused, before calming his tone and continuing in a lower tone, “Any time I spend with Ms. Owens is because Mike told me to take care of her for him and be sure no one made her feel unwelcome.”
María muttered something inaudible and glowered at him before retrieving her fork and eating another mouthful of egg.
“I have never insulted her,” she said. “But you had better be very careful. I am useful to Mike Towers and he would not fire me.”
“I’m useful to him. Hell, if you think AJ Owens isn’t useful to him—” The words burned his throat. But he had to buy time, and a phone call to Mike Towers from this snake could ruin everything. Keep him from saving his uncle. From protecting the baby. Or AJ.
“She holds all the cards, María. Has a man ever favored you over his lover?” He remembered his first encounters with AJ and the revulsion she’d fought so valiantly to hide from Mike. She’d understand if he trashed her. Still, it almost gagged him.
María’s mouth turned down in a bitter grimace. “All men are hijos de puta,” she swore, then gave him a knowing look. “If Towers trusts you with her, he is a fool. As you say—I don’t need to tell him. But you are the fool if you think he will ever fire me.” Smugness flitted across her face. He could see it in her eyes. In the slight upward twist of her lips, something akin to a smile. “No. When one knows much—cuando se sabe mucho—one is safe.”
Sudden inspiration hit him. He needed to get AJ away from the ranch. Without María calling Towers home. In spite of the woman’s position, she did have the boss’s ear. And malice enough to call him the minute he stepped out of the kitchen.
He dug his phone out of his pocket and walked over to look out the window as if he’d forgotten María altogether. He hit Towers’s button, and after a few minutes, his boss came on, groggy and annoyed.
“What the hell you want, Landin?” Mike demanded. “Don’t have to be up for an hour or two yet. Something wrong down there?”
“No, Mike. Sorry I woke you up. Just wanted to touch base on a couple of things. You told me to keep AJ here on the ranch?”
“AJ? Oh … uh yeah.”
He heard the muffled complaint of a woman and Mike’s rude order to “just shut up,” and felt sick. How could AJ risk herself for a horse? Or even for her sister? Gina was dead, for heaven’s sake.
“What’s the deal with the filly? She bolt or something? Maybe shack up with that supposed fiancé of hers?”
“No, she’s here. I don’t talk to her much, but she asked if I knew when you’d be back. Said she really didn’t have any reason to stay if you weren’t here, but that you’d told her not to be coming and going, so she’d stayed.”
“Well, now, sounds like she’s come around!” Towers fell silent for a minute. “But I can’t come back till Saturday. You have any idea how important the governor’s deal is on Friday? He might announce his run for president. And Thursday—tomorrow—there’s a huge luncheon to plan strategies for some of the candidates. I heard I’m gonna get a position on one of the finance committees.” Again the silence, followed by a heavy sigh. “Try to cheer her up, Landin. But not too much, if you get my meaning.”
“She was talking about wanting to eat out and do a little shopping. I wondered if you’d like me to drop her off in Laredo, then pick her up and take her back when she’s ready.”
“Take her, but try to keep an eye on her. Don’t know why she wants to leave the ranch anyway.”
“Might be better,” Chance suggested. How much can I push this thing? Gordito—but María’s such a worthless snake. “Thing is, she discovered the baby. Plays with him a lot. Harmless, but she might get really attached to Gordito—”
“She’d better not. Might have to pay Rosita off just to leave with the baby unless I need him for something. I don’t want women who want babies. Gina wasn’t smart enough to listen. Too much a whore to have my brat anyway.”
Towers’s callous words sent a chill through him. Had he missed the man’s dislike for AJ’s sister so badly? Mike told him the day he started working that Gina had cheated on him. More than once. Sudden doubt niggled. But he ignored it and plowed on. “I’ll take her back across for the day, then, Mike. Solve a lot of problems with one stone, so to speak. But I wanted to clear it with you, because I need my job.” He turned around as he said that, fixing María with a hard stare that made her look away briefly.
“And your life,” Mike retorted, chuckling. “Just kiddin’, Landin. But keep your hands clean.”
He disconnected and Chance put his phone down on the counter and folded his arms. “María, I’m going into Laredo. AJ wants to go shopping, and Mike wants her happy. But I was thinking—you never have a day off. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to go with her?”
María sniffed. “I need nothing from your country or your stores. I go there with Don Mike because he pays me well to take care of his home affairs. But I will not go there with that—”
He shrugged. “Your call,” he told her, and exited the kitchen, whistling.
• • •
She shouldn’t be here. Chance and Rosa had both insisted she shouldn’t change her routine. She couldn’t, not if Robbie would suffer. Robbie. A real nickname. She raised the baby’s chubby hand high enough to press a kiss on the back. He stirred slightly, but didn’t wake. She smiled. She’d held him for hours, watching him sleep and wake, feeling more like his mother than the aunt he didn’t know he had.
Her smile faded and her mouth tightened as questions stormed in. She must have been shocked into a numb mindlessness when Chance showed her the birth certificate. He’d known? He’d known and hadn’t told her! Why? She paced a short path near the crib, rubbing her arms as she felt chilled air raise goose bumps again. What the hell was wrong with her, imagining evil lurking in this beautifully appointed room? With goodness itself sleeping paces away in that crib.
Robbie hiccupped and she took a step toward him, but he rolled over, pulled his blanket off, and nestled his face into its softness, clearly not ready to face the morning.
“Neither am I, little man,” she murmured, feeling the sting of tears and blinking hard. Why hadn’t Gina told her about Robbie? Or at least told their mom. A tear escaped as she thought of her hard-working, often solitary mother. A grandmother! She could have Gina’s son if—if Mike Towers could be convinced. She wouldn’t demand money. She could support him well enough. But why wasn’t Mike Towers listed as Robbie’s father? Screw Chance Landin with his secrets and his claims that Gina had been unfaithful. Nothing—no one—could have driven her sister to cheat. They’d had many a fight as teenagers over whether or not you could cheat if you were cheated on. Gina never bought into that mentality, as she herself once had.
“AJ,” Rosa whispered behind her and she jerked toward the door. “You must leave. Chance has found a way to talk to you. Go.”
“But Robbie—”
“Will be here all day. Please. Go!”
AJ hesitated, reluctant to listen to Rosa. But she’d clearly been putting the baby first since Gina’s death. Causing the nanny problems wouldn’t help anyone, least of all the baby.
“Can I talk to you later, Rosa?” she asked quietly.
Rosa nodded. “We’ll find a time and place. I don’t trust María when the boss isn’t here. Now please, go!”
AJ hurried down the hall and into her room, pushing the door shut with her foot as she stripped off her T-shirt and hurled it toward the bed.
Then she heard someone suck in air and swear softly. Chance Landin stood by her bed, staring at her, his mouth slightly open.
Shock stunned her momentarily, followed quickly by embarrassment and then rage.
“You—you pervert!” She advanced on him in a fury, her hands balled into fists, and slugged him in the chest. “You sneak into my room, hide—”
“I didn’t sneak in.” He caught her hands as she moved to hit him again, holding them away and half turning. “You’re kind of naked, AJ. Please stop … jiggling all over the place.”
Jiggling? Jiggling? A different kind of outrage froze her instantly. She was fit, toned from working out and from her days of throwing hay bales around. She did not jiggle.
She jerked her hands free and reclaimed the T-shirt, shoving it on.
“So exactly what are you doing here?” she demanded. “I hardly expected to find you hiding in a closet or—”
“I didn’t sneak in and I wasn’t hiding.” He spoke slowly and calmly, as if he doubted her intelligence. “Rosa said she’d tell you I needed to see you.”
Rosa. Right. She had said that, hadn’t she?
AJ’s anger faded, but the slight embarrassment remained. She could only imagine what she’d looked like, exposed from the waist up, launching herself at him, flailing around—and jiggling? Color rose in her cheeks even though she told herself to get over it. Maybe she had jiggled.
“She did tell me,” AJ admitted. “But can we talk here? María—”
“Get dressed.” He shook his head once, hard, when she started to say something. “After I leave. We’re going to Laredo for the day. I’ll pick you up in the kitchen in fifteen minutes.”
He didn’t look back at her as he hurried out, not even checking the hall for passersby before exiting the room.
AJ walked over and locked the door before casting the T-shirt off again and flinging it on the bed. Fifteen minutes? Not much time to get ready. She threw make-up into a small case and headed for what she hoped would be a five-minute shower.