Warrior Mine: A Base Branch novel Read online

  “Jerk,” she laughed.

  “That was bad. I just couldn’t help myself. Come here,” he managed between breaths. He offered her the wet wiggling fish.

  “What do you want me to do, beat you with it?”

  “No, we’re going to release him.”

  “After all that time and casting, you’re just going to let it go?”

  “It’s not good eating. We’ll move up the shore a little. See if we can find some brim.”

  “How do you hold a fish without sticking your fingers in its mouth? Because that’s not going to happen.”

  “Cup your hands around its belly and hang on tight.” She did as he instructed. Good thing too. The fish’s body was pure muscle, jostling her upper body with the force of its thrashing. “Good. Now, when you get to the water, lower it gently, and wait for it to swim from your fingers.”

  Afraid the thing would flop out of her hands, she walked carefully to the water’s edge and crouched. “Ready to go home, big guy,” she whispered. Vail stood silent behind her, monitoring the progress. She eased the slimy green fish into the water and he took off like a champion swimmer. “That was neat.” Hands already in the water she scrubbed them together, riding herself of the goop. “And this water is freezing.”

  “Your turn.”

  She shot from the ground. “I still have one cast to nail.”

  “It wasn’t about the number. It was about practice. You’re ready.”

  He baited both their lines and handed her a rod. “We’ll split the bank. You go about twenty feet that way and I’ll go this way.” Seeing the widening of her eyes, he added, “I’ll be able to see you and get to you in seconds. If you need something, signal. If you really need something, holler.”

  “’Kay.”

  She turned to go her way, thankful for the trusted space and a little sad to be away from Vail and his stalwart comfort.

  “Hey, first things first.” He pulled two knit caps from his back pocket. The first he hid his two-toned hair with. The second he fluffed up and opened wide. Stepping forward, he pulled the soft knots low around her ears.

  “Thanks.” She smiled.

  His smile brightened, and then his mouth narrowed. “Sophie, I know tough ladies. I work with a few of them, and your mom is the toughest I’ve seen. If anyone can make it back to you, it’s her. No one is more determined.”

  15

  No one is more determined.

  Vail played the words over in his head again. Maybe he had lied to her. Unintentionally though. The realization came gradually over the long day spent freezing and fishing, the dinner they shared, the quiet night, and the morning expended teaching Sophie how to chop down a tree and split it into firewood. The more time he spent in her presence the more his sanity went too.

  Because there wasn’t a single thing he wouldn’t do to protect Sophia. His condition rivaled that of Carmen Ruez.

  For so long he’d been living on Novocain. And now he felt everything. Finally the sadness was bearable. Joy lifted its smashing weight from his chest and he breathed deeply, mountain air filled his lungs, laughter sang in his ears.

  “Come on,” Sophie yelled. She ran from the shed, tackle box and rods in hand. “I bet I’ll catch more than you today.”

  He tossed the hunk of wood onto the stack on the narrow porch by the front door and hollered over his shoulder. “You’re baiting, remember.”

  “I know,” she said, quirking her nose. “You made me dig these boogers up. How could I forget. I’m still going to win.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard the saying, ‘It’s the journey. Not the destination.’”

  “Nope.” She smiled. “They’re tickling my hand. Let’s go. The wood will be here when we get back.”

  “Yeah, and you can help me stack it too.”

  “I promise,” she shrilled in excitement. Not about wood stacking, but fishing. She’d taken to it quickly, making him work to keep up.

  He tossed one last log on top, bound off the deck, and zipped past her. “Who’s slowing progress now?”

  “I can’t run with all this stuff in my hands.”

  She did resemble a pack mule. Rods stuffed beneath her armpit, tackle box in one hand and worms in the other. Softie he’d become, he stopped and turned. They met in the middle, each giving a few strides. “Hand it over. But you keep the worms.”

  Sophie did and her smile bloomed, her round cheeks reddened by the cool air. “Sucker!” She leaped past him and gathered speed, aiming at the lake.

  “Little sneak.”

  He ran after her, a bit awkwardly, but he’d carried worse things at a dead run. They made it in a quarter of the time it had taken yesterday, her trailing by thirty yards. Vail set the fishing gear on the ground and turned, noticing the first tug of the wound he hadn’t thought about since he arrived. Having officially lost, some would have slowed down, coasted in the last several yards. Not Sophie. She pushed harder, stretching her legs to the limit as though if she ran fast enough she could turn back time and claim victory. And hadn’t she? Like casting was all in the wrist and timing, success was in the attitude and preparation. He couldn’t be more proud of her effort, if it was his own.

  They smiled two big, dumb grins as they caught their breath. She hadn’t said any more about her mother. Last night as he’d fried up the fish they’d caught and this morning her mood had been upbeat. Her smile fueled a life high he hadn’t experienced in ages. The thought of losing it hovered overhead, but he didn’t look up. He pulled the hooks from the rod eyes and handed one over.

  “Where’d the dead bodies go?” Sophie asked, while he spoke at the same time, “Why don’t you have an accent?”

  “I don’t work alone. My team collected them and will properly dispose of the waste.”

  “Like body fairies,” she said, widening her eyes and flashing an exaggerated frowny face.

  “Heck of a way to look at it.”

  She deposited the worms onto a dish they’d found yesterday inside the tackle box. “Take your pick. I’ve got big ones, skinny ones, short ones. And every one of them is gross.” Her hands chaffed the legs of her jeans. “Hat please.”

  He handed it over. She stuffed it onto her head. Her big curls poofed around the rim. “No more stalling. Grab a worm and get to baiting.” The gag and eye-roll appeared and it flipped his gut. Of all the horrible sounds in his life and that one grated his teeth to the root. “You’re killing me with that.”

  “I know,” she giggled. “I don’t have an accent because my mom always spoke English to me and made me speak it in return. Of course, I picked Spanish up from the people around the estate, but if she caught me speaking it, ooh-we.”

  “Wonder why?” He mused to himself, mostly, not expecting an answer.

  “It separates her from them.”

  “Them?”

  “Her family.”

  “Aren’t they your family too?”

  “She doesn’t even claim them. They do terrible things,” she shrugged. “But you know that.”

  He mussed her hair, shaking the top of her hat with one hand. “If you can pick up Spanish. I suppose you can pick up a worm and put it on your hook.”

  Of the entire fishing process, she’d done it all yesterday, except put worms on her hook. She’d weaseled him this way and that, but he’d assured her today he wouldn't be bamboozled. Honest on her word, she scooped the fattest sucker from the pile with only a few groans, and set about finagling it onto her hook.

  “So, John seems nice.”

  The comment stunned him like a heavy fist to the jaw. Sophie wasn’t his daughter, but the protective instincts of a father steamed to life. “John?” he practically shouted.

  Her responding cry, sharp and strident, pierced his soul. He hadn’t intended to hurt her. Her interest in a boy and his inclination to defend her honor had just surprised him. He dropped the rod with its bait sitting on the bottom of the lake and turned, apology on his lips. The sight of crimson on her sk
in chilled his blood. For a moment he was on the street, helpless and terrified, watching someone he loved being stripped from his life.

  But he wasn’t helpless. He surged forward, looking for an injury when tactically he should have been looking for the person who inflicted it. No leaves had rustled. No shoes scuffed the ground in approach. No gunshot had exploded before she screamed.

  “What is it? Where are you hurt?” His tone was higher than ever. Panicked. He didn’t panic. He was cool. In control. Always.

  “Oh shit,” she said, thrusting her thumb toward him and dancing side to side. “I’m not supposed to cuss, but shit.”

  The barbed end of the shiny metal fishing hook protruded through the nail, while the curve of the J lodged inside her flesh. “Jesus Christ,” Vail all but sighed. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”

  “I have a hook jammed in my finger and you sound relieved?” Her uninjured hand flagged the air.

  “I thought you were shot.”

  “Not shot. Just thumbless. Oh God! Are they going to cut it off? That thing can only go one way. Look at that pokey thing. I can’t believe we do this to fish.”

  “Are they who going to cut what off?”

  “Doctors,” she said impatiently. “My thumb,” she shouted.

  Vail scooped her up in the crook of his arms and ran up the slope toward the cabin. “I’m sure it hurts, but as injuries go it’s minor. I’ll take care of you. I’ll have to cut the barbed end off and pull it out. There are some tin snips in the shed.”

  “Minor? This?” She shook her hand in front of his face. Actually, she just held it up and his rapid strides did the rest.

  “Yes, that.”

  “You know what to do? I thought you were more into the,” she pulled her other hand from around his neck and made a slicing motion across her own, “business.”

  “I’m in the business of keeping the peace, no matter what it takes. I’ve definitely taken more lives, but I’ve save a handful.” Not the ones that really counted, for him. The other lives counted for the people still walking around, to their families, and friends. It was something. Not enough on most days.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” she whispered.

  “What isn’t?” The lump in his throat barely let the words pass.

  “Your family.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “Sure I can. Yeah, I’ve just met you, but already I know this.” Her tiny cold hand rested over his heart. Through her sparse tears and pain, she smiled. “You’re carrying me up to the cabin, running as though I’d been shot over this.” Again with the thumb. “I know terrible things happen. I know you’ve had to make terrible enemies, doing the type of work you do. I know you would have done anything to save your family.” She grimaced. “Now run faster, it’s starting to hurt.”

  He shook his head and furled a brow at her, and he ran faster. His boots thundered through the dirt and splotchy grass in front of the old house. At the shed he stopped and set Sophie on her feet. “Don’t you pass out on me, hear?”

  “Yes, sir. Wouldn’t think of it, sir.”

  “Smart ass.”

  Vail burst into the dim shack of an outbuilding, the door slamming wide onto the exterior. The interior shuddered, but he didn’t much care. He’d already snagged the tool he need and leaped from the shed. Before he skidded to a halt in front of her, he reeled himself in. Calm. Slow. Steady.

  She stood exactly where he’d left her, back to the shed, facing the lake path, caddy-corner to the house. He walked up to her as if his heart weren’t in his throat at the prospect of causing her more discomfort. “The less you think about it, the less it will hurt. So, give me your hand and tell me exactly how you feel about John Batten.”

  A smile curved her mouth and she tried to squash it. It didn’t work. He pillowed her hand in his and positioned the snips about ten thousandth of a millimeter below the barb. “Your smile says it all and I don’t like it one bit. You’re twelve. Boys have cooties, remember?”

  “Maybe when I was seven, but some girls have boyfriends already.”

  “And some have babies. Babies are a huge responsibility.”

  “Gross. I’m not talking about—”

  He snipped, pulled the hook from her finger. A good half second later, when the blood really started to pour, she howled.

  “Get your hands off her.” The voice was feminine, but night to the day from Sophie’s. Where the girl’s was soft, and sarcastic at times, this one held all the rasping displeasure of an injured grizzly. One separated from her cub.

  Seeing exactly how this looked to Carmen’s perspective and seeing a flash forward preview of how badly this all could go down, Vail tried to diffuse the situation. His right hand, tool and all, slipped from her elbow, while his left released her wrist. Both hands went up slow and steady. Sophie face contorted in a cartoon strip of emotions. Agony. Surprise. Confusion. Elation.

  “Stay behind me until she puts the gun away,” he said to Sophia in an almost silent whisper.

  “Gun?” she breathed. The valley above her cute nose wrinkled.

  “Lace your fingers behind your head and turn around,” Carmen snarled.

  How had he allowed her to get the drop on him twice? He hadn’t expected her at all the first time. This time he expected her in about five hours, at the earliest. She must have left the Mexican peninsula immediately, put the pedal on the floor, and hardly stopped for gas.

  He turned one inch at a time. Vail looked past the gun barrel—most likely, the one that had already shot him once—to the woman who’d laid him up for days on end. More than her bullet had, her beauty assaulted him.

  Unbound by a mask, her hair hung loose around her shoulders. The wind flirted with the ends, kicking them up and tickling her face before laying them down. Fury crinkled the corner of her red lips as impatience flexed her jaw. Her boundless eyes poured forth every emotion that had played across Sophie’s face and more. His gaze slipped south, roaming the contours of her snug jeans and white tank partially hidden by a smokin’ leather jacket.

  “Mom!” Sophie used the word as a reprimand. She dipped around him on those agile little feet and stood as though she were twenty feet tall in front of him. Her arms spread wide. “You can’t hurt him!”

  Simultaneously, Vail’s heart swelled and crumbled. His fingers bore down on the backs of his hands to keep from hustling her behind him. Any sudden move would more likely get her injured.

  “If he’s laid a finger on you I’ll finish the job I started last month,” Carmen said. Her keen gaze never leaving him, she immediately dropped the gun to her side, far away from Sophie.

  “He was getting a hook out of my finger. He’s the one who saved me. He’s the one who helped me contact you.” Sophie didn’t yell, but it was close.

  Carmen’s head tilted as though trying to figure out a puzzle, but she slipped the gun into the waist of her pants at the small of her back.

  “Never put yourself in the line of fire, ever,” Vail said in the calmest voice he could muster.

  “You save me. I save you,” Sophie answered over her shoulder. Her stricken expression melted into a tiny smile.

  Then Vail watched happiness slip from his grasp. Sophie sprinted to her mother. They enveloped each other in a crushing hug and smattering of kisses. All the while Carmen’s eyes remained locked on him. He had his questions to ask, but then they’d go. And then what? Back to the empty condo and all-consuming job. He held the grip on the back of his head tighter still. At least he loved his job. There was always that.

  Only now he knew it wouldn’t be enough.

  “Come, chula. Let’s go.” Carmen grabbed Sophie’s hand and tugged as she stepped farther into the tree line.

  But Sophie widened her stance and planted her feet. “I’m not leaving.”

  He and Carmen both went fisheyed at that, only hers also held contempt, which she flung in his direction. Stunned, he couldn’t move to shrug or say, “Hey, news to
me too.”

  “He needs our help and we need his,” Sophie explained.

  “No we don’t,” Carmen said, a palm cupping her daughter’s cheek. “We’re free. Let’s go, Sophia.”

  “And run forever?” Sophie asked.

  16

  He taught her daughter how to fish. The evidence of it sat grilled on the plate in front of her beside steamed broccoli and a mixture of brown rice, mushrooms, and English peas. A million thoughts collided into one another. Of course the most ridiculous rose to the top, but the mother in her never rested. No way in hell would Sophia eat the mushroom rice she shoveled with her fork, and—oh my lord—slipped into her mouth.

  Had the man completely brainwashed her? And, if so, was there any way he’d show her the technique? For ten long years Carmen had picked out and scooped up mushrooms from her daughter’s plate because she couldn’t stand the texture of the things, cooked or otherwise.

  “Mom,” Sophia said, leaning over and grabbing her hand, “try it. It’s delicious.”

  The little witch. If she weren’t so over the moon to see her daughter alive and well, happy even, she’d pinch a rib. Sophia disliked mushrooms about as much as Carmen hated the slimy things.

  In the vein of peace, Carmen smiled at her daughter and scooped some rice onto her fork that held a small piece of mushroom. She chewed, swallowed, and grabbed her glass of water.

  “Great, right?” Sophia asked.

  “It’s very good,” she lied. The flavor was exceptional, but the mushroom’s gooey slide down her throat knocked the dish to unacceptable in her book.

  Her daughter’s smile brightened and Carmen felt as though the roof had been removed front the structure and the sun warmed her face. Sophia leaned toward Vail—who Carmen had managed to avoid eye contact with for the last few hours—and giggled. “She hates mushrooms.”

  Carmen zeroed in on them both. Vail clamped his lips between his teeth, holding back a smile. Though she’d tried to avoid looking at him altogether, she’d caught the shocking glimpse of his ripe and ready smile. It seemed Sophia could pull it out of him at every turn. Carmen had thought his mouth small and narrow. When he smiled as he did now his entire face transformed. Big white teeth peeked from behind a truly wide pair of silky lips.