She dozed, waking abruptly to the swaying of the train, and reached automatically for her daughter, fear seizing her for those few seconds before her hand touched warm skin.
Elena slept, curled toward her in the adjacent seat, the morning light on her precious face.
It was impossible now not to see Jake in her daughter. For a long time, she just stared down at that face, trying to make sense of everything. Jake was Elena’s father. Any fool could see that. But even if she hadn’t seen it with her eyes, her heart now knew it was so. Then why didn’t her heart tell her that she and Jake had once been lovers?
Her head ached. She felt as if she were trying to put together a puzzle with most of the pieces missing and no idea of the finished picture. Was there any chance at all that Elena wasn’t her own child?
She thought back to the difficult birth, trying desperately to remember the exact moment she’d first seen her daughter through the flurry of doctors and nurses and the pain. Such pain. The doctor had given her something to help with the birth. He said there was “una problema.”
She opened her eyes with a start. She hadn’t seen Elena until after the birth. Long enough after it that she couldn’t be sure Elena was the child she’d given birth to.
She felt sick. And weak. And scared. Was it possible? But who would want to do such a thing to her? Calderone had the power, there was no doubt about that. But why would he? Why go to so much trouble? And for what? It made no sense.
She studied Elena, searching for signs of herself in the child, then sighed. It didn’t matter if the babies had been switched. Elena was hers. Would always be hers. Calderone be damned. He might have set the wheels in motion, but she was now at the controls.
The thought almost made her laugh. What did she know about control? For the last six years she’d had no control at all over her life.
Just the thought of Julio—had anything he’d told her been true? It didn’t appear so. Not based on what she’d seen of herself lately.
She shivered, thinking she should be shocked by her behavior. But she wasn’t. She definitely liked this woman better than the defenseless and frightened Isabella Montenegro. But that was the past, she told herself. She wasn’t Isabella Montenegro, the woman who took whatever she had to to survive. Not anymore. She was—
She wasn’t Abby Diaz, either. Even if she had been six years ago, she wasn’t that Abby anymore. She didn’t know who she was. A stranger. A stranger who was in a lot of trouble, but who was resourceful and strong. It was heady stuff. She liked this new feeling. A lot.
Now all she needed was a plan.
When the sunrise limited stopped in Sanderson, Texas, Jake Cantrell was waiting at the station. He’d driven fast and furiously to beat the train and now kept out of sight, watching to make sure that Isabella and Elena didn’t get off. If they were even on the train. His instincts told him that they were. And that wasn’t all his instincts told him.
He waited until the last moment before he boarded, getting on the end car. He knew Frank Jordan would be expecting a call. The FBI bureau chief would be furious that he hadn’t heard from him.
But Jake didn’t work for Frank Jordan anymore. He reported to Mitchell Forbes now and Mitchell gave him free rein. Probably because Mitchell knew him and knew that was the way he worked best. The only way he worked now.
Frank should know Jake, too. At least well enough not to be waiting by the phone. They’d once been friends, Frank a mentor, a father figure. They’d worked closely together. Right up until the last case. Right up until the night Abby was killed.
Right or wrong, he blamed the FBI, blamed Frank, for what happened that night. It was supposed to have been part of a routine investigation. They’d been undermanned, not realizing what they’d walked into. One long-time agent, Buster McNorton, had been killed, along with rookies Dell Harper and Abby Diaz. Reese Ramsey had been injured.
Only he and Frank had walked away without injury.
There’d been an investigation, but it hadn’t turned up anything at the time. Just bad luck that they’d stumbled onto one of Tomaso Calderone’s operations.
Jake had quit the Bureau, bitter as hell because he’d lost everything when he’d lost Abby.
Frank had gone on to work his way up the FBI ladder. So had Reese Ramsey.
He hadn’t seen Frank in six years. Hadn’t talked to him. And he wasn’t ready just yet to call him. Especially after seeing the so-called evidence against him collected by the FBI. Why now, after all these years?
He took a seat by the train window, unable to shake the feeling he’d had since he woke up handcuffed to a gas pump: that he had to get to the woman and kid, pronto. The feeling was so strong, it took everything in him to wait until the train got moving. What if his instincts were wrong? What if she and the kid weren’t on the train?
Then that would mean he was wrong about a lot of things.
The train finally pulled out of the station. He watched to make sure she hadn’t gotten off. And that Ramon Hernandez hadn’t gotten on. At least not while Jake had been sitting at the window. For all he knew, Ramon could have boarded the train at Del Rio.
The thought did nothing to dispel his fears.
He got up and started through the cars.
He hadn’t gone far when he spotted the back of the woman’s head a few seats ahead and to the right. He’d have recognized that hair and the shape of her head anywhere.
Relief coursed through him. At least he’d been right about her taking the train. Abby had always liked trains. They’d made love the first time on one a lot like this one.
He shook that thought out of his head. He didn’t think of her anymore as Isabella Montenegro. But he also hadn’t accepted she was Abby. Not yet. He wished he could see the little girl. She had to be with her mother, no doubt sitting in the adjacent seat. As badly as he wanted to make sure, he took a seat a few rows back and off to the left, where he could watch them from behind the magazine he’d bought in the station. He wanted to be ready to move quickly if he had to.
The train rolled along the tracks, with a gentle rocking motion and a faint clickity-clack. With the woman in view, Jake began to relax a little. They appeared to be in no current danger. The car was about two-thirds full and there was no sign of Ramon or any of his men.
Jake leaned back in the seat, willing his heart to slow, his anxiety to recede. They were fine. His instincts had been right about the train, but wrong about the danger. So where did that leave his other instinct, the one that told him Abby Diaz was alive?
Abby looked out the train window, seeing nothing. She dug in her memory, sifting through the faint and painful nightmares she’d woken with six years before, searching for Abby Diaz, searching for the woman she’d been, frantic to find the skills the FBI agent must have possessed.
She willed herself to remember, needing that training desperately if she hoped to save herself and Elena. But she found nothing in the ashes of her previous life. Except for a few faint recalled feelings.
She had only one memory from before the fire. She cherished it like an old family quilt, wrapping herself in the comforting warmth. Let that one good memory be real, she prayed, as she recalled the feeling that was her grandmother. It filled her with a strange kind of peace. The same kind of peace she’d seen on Elena’s face when she looked at her father.
But even the memory of her kind, compassionate, loving grandmother was hard to hold on to. Had she invented the woman just to help her get through the last six years?
What about the only other feeling she could recall? Passion. Had that been with Jake? Was that why she’d blanked out her life prior to six years ago? Because she couldn’t face his betrayal?
She felt suddenly bereft. She had no way of knowing who to trust. There was no one to turn to. It was just her and Elena. Just as it had always been. Just as she had always had only one thought: keeping Elena safe. But how?
For a moment, she thought about turning herself over to the FBI. Didn’t that make more sense than taking the chance that Calderone’s men would capture her and Elena?
She had the sense that she couldn’t trust the FBI and absolutely nothing to back up that fear. But the feeling was all she had to go on until she could find out who’d tried to kill her six years ago. And why.
Jake saw the woman rise, then the little girl stepped out into the aisle. He felt his heart jump at the sight of the child. She started toward him, her mother right behind her.
He quickly hid behind the magazine, his heart pounding. Any moment they’d walk right by him. Where were they going? Probably just to the bathroom. They were headed in the wrong direction for the dining car. He held his breath as first the child passed by within inches of him, then the woman. She was carrying the bag with the envelope in it.
He wanted to turn and watch them, but waited until he was sure they’d stopped at the bathroom. When he did turn, he saw the waiting line, but no sign of the woman and child. He got to his feet and caught a glimpse of them going into the next car, no doubt hoping to find an empty rest room. He wanted to follow but knew it’d be too risky. Who knew what the woman would do if she spotted him? He couldn’t take the chance. Not until the train stopped, anyway.
He sat back down and picked up the magazine again, feeling antsy. Anxious. That feeling he’d had earlier about the woman and child being in imminent danger was back. Only stronger. He glanced around the car. Nothing out of the ordinary. He would bet his horse that Ramon and his men weren’t on the train. Then what? What had him so worried?
He turned in his seat to look back. He didn’t like letting them out of his sight. But what choice did he have if he hoped to keep his presence a secret? He told himself he could protect them much better at a distance.
When the train stopped in Alpine, he’d get them off. One way or another. At least this time, he knew the woman wouldn’t go quietly, as she had in Mexico. He let out a soft laugh. No, he thought, he wasn’t dealing with the same woman anymore and they both knew it.
He glanced down at his watch. How long did it take for the two of them to use the bathroom? Even if there had been a line in the next car—
Alarm hurtled through him. It had been too long. They should have been back by now. Something was wrong.
He stood and felt the train begin to slow. They must be nearing the Alpine, Texas station. He moved faster. Out the car and into the next. The car was only about half-full.
He passed the women’s bathroom. Vacant. Panic sent a jolt of adrenaline into his system like a strong drug.
There was only one more passenger car. If she wasn’t in there—The oppressively hot car was empty. The air-conditioning must have gone out. No wonder it was empty. This bathroom was vacant, as well. He caught a movement outside the railroad car—a flash of bright-colored, billowing fabric and the dark sleeve of a man’s suit in the space between the cars. That was when he heard the muffled cry. Then he was running, his weapon drawn.
The train whistle blasted in his ears as he reached the end of the railroad car. In that instant, just before he burst through the door into the enclosed area between the cars, he saw the woman backed against a corner, Elena tucked protectively behind her. A man in a dark suit stood holding a gun on the pair in one gloved hand, his broad back and one shoulder visible through the glass.
Jake hit the door, banging it open, driven by his forward motion and fear. The man in the suit never saw him coming. Never heard him over the blast of the train whistle.
Jake hit the man hard, slamming him into the wall. The gun clattered to the floor. Before the man could reach for it, Abby kicked it away. But the man hadn’t been going for the gun, Jake realized belatedly. Instead, he dove for the emergency exit.
Jake grabbed for him, but missed and he was gone, leaping from the slow-moving train into nothing but hot, dry Texas air.
Through the opening, Jake saw him hit the ground and roll, then get to his feet and, limping, disappear behind a parked freight train. Jake gripped the edge of the opening, staring after him, a bad feeling pressing on his chest.
He turned. The woman he no longer thought of as Isabella Montenegro had dropped to her knees and now cradled her daughter in her arms, her eyes tightly closed as she rocked back and forth, murmuring softly. A tear squeezed from beneath her dark lashes to glisten on her cheek.
Just watching her try so hard not to cry—he didn’t want to feel this much. He stood for a long moment, letting his heart slow, his fear subside, then he holstered his weapon and reached down with his shirtsleeve over his fingers to pick up the man’s gun from the floor. It was a service revolver like the ones used by FBI agents.
The train rolled to a stop, signaling their arrival in Alpine, Texas. The Hub of Big Bend, the sign over the station read, Home of the Last Frontier.
Jake slipped the man’s gun into his jacket and picked up the bag she’d dropped, knowing there was little chance of fingerprints since the man had been wearing gloves.
He watched her rise to her feet again, her hands on her daughter’s small shoulders as the two turned their gazes to him. Elena smiled at him through her tear-stained face, the look of admiration in her eyes almost his undoing.
“I knew you’d come,” she said confidently. “How is your head?”
“OK. Are you all right?”
She nodded and hugged her doll to her, still beaming up at him, her smile contagious. “But Sweet Ana and I still have to go to the bathroom.”
He chuckled and shifted his gaze to her mother.
“Thanks,” she said.
He wanted to tell her not to thank him. He’d only saved her temporarily and he wasn’t sure how long he could keep doing that, because he was no longer sure just who was after her.
But he only nodded and opened the door to the train car, stepping back to let her and Elena enter ahead of him.
Through the window, he could see that the car was still empty. He wondered where Ramon and his men were. But mostly he wondered about the man in the dark suit.
He moved to the door marked ladies’ rest room, pulled it open to make sure it really was as vacant as the sign said, then motioned that it was all right for Elena to go on in. “If you don’t need your mother’s help, she and I will wait here for you.”
Her mother’s gaze jerked up to his, but she said nothing as Elena closed the door behind her, leaving the two of them alone in the small space between the seats.
“What did that man want with you?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head. “He planned to take us off the train when it stopped. That’s all I know.”
“You didn’t recognize him? He wasn’t one of Ramon’s men?”
Again she shook her head. “I’d never seen him before.” She seemed to hesitate. “But he knew me. He was startled when he saw me. It was obvious the way he stared at my face. He called me Abby.”
Jake nodded, his heart pounding, as he put down the woman’s bag on the floor beside him.
“I’m sorry about earlier.” She lowered her gaze. “Back at the gas station.”
“Sure you are.”
She looked up as if surprised by his reply.
He smiled in answer, searching her face. “We both know that if you had it to do over again, you would.”
She said nothing but this time she held his gaze, no longer pretending to be someone she wasn’t.
He needed to ask her more about the man who’d been holding them at gunpoint. He needed to ask her a lot of things. But there was one question that couldn’t wait. He needed it answered. And he needed it answered now.
Before she knew what was happening, he caught her shoulders and pulled her into him, dropping his lips to hers.
It happened too fast. One moment he was simply looking at her. The next he was kissing her. She’d been too stunned. Too shaken from her close call. Too relieved at the sight of him coming to her rescue. Again.
She just hadn’t been prepared. But the moment his lips touched hers, she realized nothing could have prepared her for his kiss.
His mouth closed over hers, stealing her breath away. His kiss was at first tentative. Then ravenous. He kissed her deeply, completely, his lips unlocking a memory so pure, so strong, that she felt dizzy and weak under the freedom of it.
His arms enveloped her, pulling her against him, crushing her breasts to his hard muscular chest, kissing her, tasting her, igniting a fuse of desire that quickly spread through her until she thought she’d explode.
It was over far too quickly. He pulled away abruptly, staggering back in the narrow space, his gaze locked on her, his eyes wide.
She leaned against the wall, not trusting her legs as she fought for breath. This. This was the feeling she’d told herself she couldn’t possibly have remembered.
“Abby,” he said.
It was no longer a question. Nor a curse. It was simply a statement of fact.
She was Abby Diaz. And now they both knew it.