Within Reach Read online

  Constancia Aranas was surveying the repairs Rafael had finished only moments earlier. She turned and smiled at him. “It looks good.” She sat down near him and took a sip from his beer before handing it to him. “¿Quieres pasar la noche?”

  Rafael shook his head. He didn’t want to stay the night. He’d driven to San Ignacio to spend the evening with Constancia, but he’d been there only an hour—and that time had been spent fixing the loose porch railing—and now he was ready to return home. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. He finished his beer and pushed himself to his feet. “¿Necesitas alguna cosa?”

  No, she replied, she didn’t need anything. She didn’t question why he was leaving so soon. “Ten cuidado,” she called softly as he walked away.

  Be careful. He was always careful. That was how he survived.

  The customs agent at the border crossing recognized him and waved him through. A mile into Nueva Vida, then seventeen home. He was tired, anxious to get there.

  Alone in his bed he slept, and he dreamed of a blond-haired, blue-eyed woman. He awoke disoriented, breathing rapidly, his entire body aching. He expected to see the IVs, the smiling nurses, the somber doctors, but he was alone.

  He hadn’t dreamed about Rebecca in years, but the dream tonight had been just as vivid, just as real as the first dream twelve years ago. He lay in the center of his bed and listened to the sounds of the night until his breathing slowed. He knew what had brought about the dream, after years of being free from it: another blue-eyed blonde, one who’d said that he’d be seeing her again.

  Well, this dream, this nightmare, was one more very good reason why he should avoid Krista McLaren. He didn’t want to be reminded of a past best left forgotten.

  The talk at work on Monday morning was all about Art McLaren’s daughter’s return to Nueva Vida. Rafael sat at his desk, pretending to look at a file, and listened. It wasn’t because he was interested in Krista, of course. It was just that anything that affected McLaren interested him. Any bit of information he could gather on the man to add to the file would help.

  “So you went to school with her, Jim?” Mike Hughes asked.

  “Yeah. She and Royce Ann are good friends.”

  “She’s beautiful,” Nick Morris put in. “Ah, the things I could do with her!”

  “And what if Carla found out?” Jim asked, referring to Nick’s wife.

  “She wouldn’t, and what she doesn’t know can’t hurt her.” Nick propped his feet on the desk and leaned back. “Too bad she didn’t come back two years ago, before I got myself tied down. But I could still show her a very good time.”

  “Krista takes care of her own amusement, Morris, so back off,” Jim said, only half-teasing. “You married guys leave her alone.”

  “Say, that leaves just you and me, Darren,” Mike called.

  “And Rafe,” Darren Carter added.

  They all looked at Rafael, diligently working on his file, and Mike shook his head. “Just you and me, buddy.”

  Rafael’s jaw tightened. If he decided he wanted Krista McLaren, nothing would stop him from getting her—not Hughes, or Carter, or Krista herself. She could hate him, but before he was finished, she would welcome him into her bed.

  But he didn’t want her. Rafael recognized one important fact about Krista: she was a very dangerous woman for him. He didn’t need to know her, to talk to her or to touch her to know that she represented danger and risk to him. She was a woman who could take control of his life, his thoughts, even his heart. Instinct told him that.

  But he had decided long ago that he would never, as long as he lived, give his love freely to any woman. Especially to a blond-haired, blue-eyed woman.

  Whatever she wanted from him—proper respect for her position as Art McLaren’s daughter, adoration for her beauty, her superiority—he would give her nothing willingly. She would have to satisfy her need for worship with the other men in Nueva Vida, men like Hughes and Carter and Morris.

  The file in front of him wasn’t thick, and he’d been over it several times already, but Rafael read it again. He knew Art McLaren’s life history as well as his own, but as he read it now he included a mental image of Krista. Now she was part of it.

  McLaren had been born to a poor farmer and his wife in Oklahoma. He quit school at the age of sixteen and went to work. By the time he was twenty-two, he’d saved enough money to gamble in oil. Some extremely risky deals paid off, and he became an overnight millionaire. A year later he married Selena Whiteford, the daughter of a wealthy New York businessman, and settled on the property outside Nueva Vida, devoting a portion of the property to farming, which required extensive irrigation, and the rest to raising cattle.

  Two years after their marriage Selena gave birth to their only child, Krista Larie Alise. Rafael gave a shake of his head. Selena had saddled her baby girl with one hell of a name, apparently not considering the child who would have to answer to it.

  During the next few years Art worked at making more money, and Selena worked at spending it. The marriage was stormy, and the divorce six years after Krista’s birth surprised no one. It was a particularly nasty case, involving fights over money, property and custody of their daughter. Selena took a large sum of money, Art took the girl and they split the property.

  The girl. The “girl” was now twenty-eight and absolutely gorgeous. She had inherited her mother’s beauty and, he suspected, her father’s persistence—a lethal combination.

  Rafael wondered how her presence in Nueva Vida would affect McLaren’s activities. There was no reason to suspect that she was involved with—or even aware—of her father’s major source of income. Rafael thought that maybe McLaren would call a temporary halt to his side business until Krista was safely back in New York. No father would want to risk exposing his daughter to that kind of danger.

  Richard Houseman, the DEA agent who had put the file together for Rafael, disagreed. The daughter’s visit would be for an indefinite period of time; each shipment her father canceled or postponed would cost a fortune and lose him customers. He wasn’t likely to stop in deference to her visit.

  DEA. Drug Enforcement Agency. Rafael had occasionally worked with the DEA before. Sometimes people who smuggled illegals found it was an easy step to smuggle other things, too, from animals sold without quarantine to babies sold to the highest bidder—to drugs. He wished McLaren were involved with the animals. Even the babies—they were well taken care of and sold to people who desperately wanted them. But no, McLaren had chosen the most profitable—the drugs. The most profitable—and the most dangerous.

  He didn’t feel good about this investigation, and Rafael was a man who trusted his feelings. He wanted out of it, but he knew what Martin Thompson would say; his boss’s answer would be a flat no, without even asking his reasons. And what reasons could he give? My instincts say back off; it doesn’t feel right. And I’m worried about what his daughter might do to me. Thompson would laugh and tell him to ignore his instincts and do his job.

  Forget the drugs, forget Krista, he counseled himself. His part of the case didn’t involve either; he was working on it because McLaren’s people smuggled in a hundred to two hundred illegals a week. His job was to work with Houseman so that when McLaren was arrested there would be enough evidence to convict him for both types of smuggling—the people and the drugs. The joint investigation was to ensure that neither agency blew the other’s case.

  In the back of the file was the photograph of Krista McLaren. It was six years old and revealed a very pretty, laughing, happy girl. It didn’t do her justice, though Rafael doubted any photograph could.

  She would leave soon. She belonged to the city, where her friends and admirers were. She wouldn’t stay long in a town like Nueva Vida. It couldn’t satisfy her. Whenever she left, he thought grimly, it couldn’t be too soon for him.

  Krista was working Monday, too. With the help of Juana and one of the men, she set about turning an unoccupied room next to her bedroom into a work
room. The furniture was removed, replaced with several long tables, a sewing machine, a drafting table, shelves to hold supplies, and chairs.

  “Your father won’t approve.”

  Krista’s retort was flippant. “He won’t event notice. If I don’t work, Juana, I don’t get paid, and I’ve grown rather fond of eating.”

  Black eyes moved critically over Krista’s slender frame. “It doesn’t show,” Juana grumbled. “You’re too thin.”

  “Thank you. Here, let’s move this table over here.” Krista lifted one end of the table, but the housekeeper shooed her away and she and Ruben moved it.

  Deciding she liked the arrangement, Krista thanked Ruben and wandered to the doors that opened onto the balcony. For miles around she saw nothing but desert, though she knew Rafael Contreras’s house was only about five miles southeast, and Nueva Vida was about eight miles southwest, though it was twelve miles by the road.

  “How long will you be staying?”

  She didn’t turn at the sound of Juana’s voice. “I don’t know,” she replied. “Until I get his attention.” Her eyes drifted back to the southeast, and Juana, coming to stand beside her, noticed.

  “Until you get whose attention, Krista? Your father’s? Or Rafael’s?”

  Krista’s cheeks turned pink. All weekend the dark, silent man had been in her thoughts. She wasn’t quite sure why he attracted her so. There was the obvious—that he was simply one of the most handsome men she’d ever seen—but there was more to it than that. She just didn’t have the answers yet.

  The ringing phone prevented further questions from Juana, who answered, spoke for a few minutes, then hung up. “A package has arrived in town for you. They can’t deliver it until tomorrow, so I told them one of the men will pick it up.”

  “Oh, that’s all right. I’ll get it. I wanted to go into town anyway. Thanks for the help, Juana.” She went to her room next door to change clothes, then pulled her hair into a ponytail before leaving the house.

  The town of Nueva Vida didn’t require a large shipping office. The facilities consisted of one large room and one harried clerk, who was trying to deal with an irate customer when Krista entered. While she waited several other customers came in, running errands on their lunch hours, and finally a second employee, the deliveryman, appeared.

  “We could’ve brought this out tomorrow,” he said, searching through the invoices for Krista’s.

  “That’s okay. I wanted it today.”

  “Truck’s broken down. In the garage down the street. They promised to have it ready in the morning.” He pulled out a crumpled invoice and squinted at it while reaching for a smoldering cigar in a nearby ashtray. “So you’re Art McLaren’s daughter.”

  She made no reply. By now she assumed that everyone in town knew she was a McLaren—including one border-patrol agent who probably couldn’t care less.

  “I’ll get this for you. Just a minute.”

  As he disappeared into the maze of shelves that served as storage, Krista left the counter. It was growing too crowded, so she chose an out-of-the-way spot to stand, near a high stack of cartons, and waited restlessly.

  Behind her the bell over the door jangled as it opened to admit another customer. Idly curious, Krista started to turn her head to look, but just then the delivery man rounded the boxes at the end of the aisle and started toward her with a rapid gait.

  “Here it is, ma’am. You need help with this?”

  Krista watched as the box slipped in his grip, bumped against his knee, then began to fall. The man grabbed for it with too much force, lost his footing and pitched toward her, shouting both a warning and a curse. She quickly backed away, past the stack of boxes and into the main aisle—and into a body that was hard and unyielding.

  The deliveryman hit the floor and rolled against Krista’s legs, sending her off balance against the man she’d bumped. She tried to grab something for support, but the man lost his balance, and they crashed to the floor together.

  She heard a sound from the man she was lying on top of, a very distinct grunt as the impact of her body knocked the breath from him. She opened her eyes and found her face pressed against a dark green uniform shirt, and on that shirt was a name tag. She could only see the last six letters of the name, but that was enough.

  She had just gotten Rafael Contreras’s attention.

  Chapter 2

  Rafael looked at the head of blond hair that had struck him in the chest and silently groaned. He didn’t need any more encounters with Krista McLaren, accidental or otherwise, and he knew this had to be her. No other woman in Nueva Vida had hair so soft, so sweet-smelling or so blond—at least, not naturally.

  They had landed in a tangle, Krista’s leg thrust between Rafael’s. As each realized who the other was, the position became far too intimate. She pushed against his chest, raising herself a few inches before she slipped and fell on him again. Embarrassment burning her cheeks, she mumbled, “Sorry.”

  There were effusive apologies and anxious questions about injuries. Rafael ignored them. Lifting Krista over him, he rolled to his feet, took her hands and pulled her up. “Are you all right?”

  She was wearing that ever-ready smile despite her embarrassment. “I think so. What about you?”

  He nodded. He released her hands and immediately wished he could take them back. He liked the physical contact.

  “Nice seeing you again,” she said in a husky voice. Blue eyes held black eyes for a long moment before she slowly moved away. She accepted more apologies on her way out, her box safe in her grip. After stowing it in the trunk of the Mustang she went to the nearest service station to get gas.

  The pale green-and-white border-patrol truck caught her eye when it passed. There were plenty of similar vehicles around the country, but this one was being driven by Rafael. When he pulled into a restaurant parking lot a block and half away, Krista impulsively decided to follow.

  He had already been served by the time Krista paid for the gas, drove to the restaurant, found a parking space and found him. “We seem to be destined to run into each other today.”

  Rafael felt a sinking feeling as he recognized her voice. His gaze traveled up long, golden legs, over skimpy white shorts and a tight white tank top to a golden face and golden hair. He wasn’t ready to see her again, not so soon. That brief contact in the shipping office had affected him more than he liked, and he needed time to forget it.

  “Mind if I sit down?”

  He shrugged, and she slid into the seat across from him. She leaned forward slightly, her elbows on the table. “Sorry about that accident. I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.” He looked back down at his food, dragging his eyes from her.

  The silence lengthened as Krista waited for him to speak again. He continued eating his lunch as if she weren’t there, but at first she didn’t mind. She was stubborn, and she was also patient, but after almost ten minutes of being ignored she ran out of patience.

  “Listen, Rafe.” She knew instinctively that the nickname Jim Stone had used would irritate him, and she was rewarded with the slight tightening of his jaw. “I can be as stubborn as you can, so why don’t you relax and tell me a little about yourself, and then I’ll tell you about myself.”

  He looked up, fixing a steady, cool stare on her, and said in a dry, gravelly voice, “I don’t want to know about you, Krista.” He already knew more than he wanted—that she was beautiful, that she affected him like no other woman and that she was one woman he absolutely could not get involved with. He rose from his chair, picked up the check and walked away.

  Krista sat back, undisturbed by his utter lack of interest in her. She was confident that somehow she would change that—she just didn’t know how.

  She wasn’t used to pursuing a man, but she could always learn. She wanted to get to know Rafael Contreras, and it looked as though the only way to accomplish that was to convince him that she was worth his time. There had to be some way to
melt through that ice-hard exterior of his, and she was determined to find it.

  She remembered the sound of his voice, and it intrigued her. It was low pitched, a little gravelly and completely sexy. The last words he’d said had been rude, but she forgot the insult and concentrated on the voice. It was a voice made for whispering sweet love words to a woman while his body showed her what they meant, a voice to make her feel secure in the aftermath of their passionate lovemaking.

  A honeyed drawl interrupted her thoughts. “That smile is almost obscene. I’d like to take a peek inside your head and see what it’s about.”

  Krista’s smile became dreamy. “I was thinking about a man who must be the world’s best lover.”

  Royce Ann Stone sat down in the seat vacated by Rafael only moments earlier. “Oh, tell me more.”

  “Nope, that’s all. I didn’t see you come in.”

  “That’s because you were lost in your own little world with your fantasy lover.” Royce Ann indicated the dirty dishes in front of her. “You already eaten?”

  “No, those are Rafael’s.”

  “You were having lunch with Rafe Contreras?” Even the idea upset Royce Ann. She couldn’t possibly imagine sitting down to a meal with that man.

  “I just told you I haven’t eaten. I sat down with him while he ate. When I tried to get him to talk he insulted me and left.” She toyed with the menu, turning it in her hands. “Unfortunately, he doesn’t say much—just stares with those gorgeous black eyes.”

  “Stay away from him, Krista. Rafe Contreras is trouble—more trouble than you can handle.”

  “When have I ever listened to warnings? Besides, if you ask Rafael, I think he’d probably say I’m trouble, not the other way around.”

  Royce Ann was worried. She had known Krista for twelve years. She had moved to Nueva Vida at the same time that Krista returned to the small town from her Swiss boarding school. They had been naturally drawn to each other and had been close friends ever since, despite Krista’s ten-year absence. Royce Ann knew how stubborn her friend could be, how single-minded she could become once she’d made up her mind about something. She was worried about Krista’s interest in Rafael.