Authors: Angela Smith
Camden dodged cow manure on his trip across a pasture full of cacti and wondered why in the hell his team didn’t just bust Darrell today. Right now, so he could avoid the second drug run his boss had assigned to him and Mike.
Patience
, he told himself. The party would offer an opportunity to not only bust Darrell, but all of his allies involved in the drug trade. This mission put him one step closer to Dare trusting him. One step closer to not only getting him off the streets, but many of his dealers.
He slapped at a mosquito as he trailed behind Mike. His shirt stuck to his back as sweat poured off his forehead.
Where was the beach, the soft water, the silky sand, the sound of the ocean to caress his ears? Why did he have to walk through miles of this shit, this backwoods country making him feel like he was in West Texas in the 1800s?
The overgrowth thinned somewhat the longer they walked, but it turned into seagrass and marsh and was no more comfortable to walk through than scraggly, biting brush. The grass was high, a good cover if he needed it, but suddenly the texture of the ground changed. One foot sunk into a mud pit. The sun blazed in his eyes, dusk creating shadows around him, making it difficult to see.
For a split second, Camden feared they’d made a wrong turn. But soon, motors buzzed from afar and two jet skis approached. He guessed whoever was meeting them had a boat stashed away and didn’t want it located.
He stepped out of the quag to find a safe, albeit small, place to stand away from the water and plants that choked his feet. Mike stood behind him in the bushes, but when the jet skis pulled into the shallows and cut their engines, a man told him to come closer.
Earlier, Camden had convinced Darrell to let him carry a gun. If he was going to risk his life to deliver drugs to an unknown source, he at least wanted the protection of a firearm. Nobody in their right mind would be without one. The man agreed, and Camden felt somewhat safer with the gun stashed in his pocket, though if they searched him, it’d be the first place they would look.
They weren’t working with Nemmy tonight. The approaching sundown offered just enough light to reveal a woman and three men, two people to a jet ski. The woman carried a backpack, which she quickly threw to Camden’s feet.
“What do you have for me?”
She was petite, a hard glint in her eyes, her mouth a straight line. He’d worked with plenty of women in his career, and it always sickened him to see a female involved in the drug trade. By the way the men surrounded her, he guessed she was the leader. It was a dirty, dangerous business. Not that he thought of women as fragile, but he hated to see any woman involved in such a loathsome practice.
He handed her the briefcase and, like most dealers, she opened it to observe the contents. Money, and lots of it. Money that could buy homeless children a decent meal. Money that could help a single mother with her children’s food, diapers, clothing, and Christmas gifts. Money that could help someone in life or death situations.
Instead, it was going to fuel the drug trade and the violence that went with it. Camden was helping to add to the problem. To put one man and his cronies behind bars for a lifetime, he could be contributing to another child’s addiction.
He tried not to think of it. It wasn’t like someone else wouldn’t be making this trade if he wasn’t, and he was doing it for a good reason. He was getting closer and closer, and soon, Dare and his allies would be busted for good.
Others will replace them,
he thought, but quickly doused the image of the never-ending battle. No matter how pitiful he felt tonight, he would do his best to fight.
“Looks good,” the woman said. Just as she was about to turn away, one of the men took out a gun.
Several men advanced on them at once. Where the hell had they come from?
“Police.”
“Freeze.”
“Drop your weapons.”
Camden was faced with a dilemma. Run and get shot? Stay and get arrested and blow his cover?
Before he had a chance to think about any other options, a gunshot rang out. One of the men on the jet skis splashed into the water. Camden grabbed the backpack and dove through the marshy grass, rolling like a ball through the brush until he found his footing. Gunfire still sprayed. He ran until thorns struck him, and kept running.
Or had he been shot?
He briefly thought of Mike, but Mike would take care of himself. He’d have to.
Rage and fear kept him mobile and quick on his feet. Adrenaline kept him from feeling the scrapes and tears of the brush he was bashing through. The police? He knew it wasn’t his guys. Moore would never do this without running it by him. Another undercover op, possibly local, was his best guess, but Camden wondered how they’d executed it since most of them were in Dare’s pocket.
He tumbled and fell on something hard. It could have been a rock, it could have been a dead body for all he knew, but he jumped up and continued to run.
He grabbed his phone, dropped it, and had to dig along the ground to find it. He kept his breathing stable, crouching down to hide. His ears rang so loudly, he couldn’t hear anything from the area he’d fled. No sirens, no more gunfire. He swiped his finger across the phone and dialed Moore.
“This is Moore.”
“Shit, Moore, things are bad here,” he whispered, explaining the situation. “I can’t risk going back to my car. I have no idea where Mike is.” Mike could be close by, listening to his conversation. His cover could be blown. No matter, they had enough evidence on Darrell, even without the party. He might not get the hefty prison sentence he deserved, but anything was better than nothing at all.
***
Rayma
Rayma’s knees buckled when Camden walked through the door, covered in mud, brush, thorns, and no telling what else. She’d been mopping the floor—what else would she do as she waited? He reeked of cow manure, but she didn’t complain when he tracked it across her clean tile.
“Gonna take a shower in the master bath,” he muttered. He had his own shower, and although Rayma had never seen it, she knew he didn’t care for it. She’d heard him complain once about how it’d been built for dwarfs, but that could be because anything average would feel shrunken to him, with his massive size.
“Would you mind taking your shoes off first?” Rayma asked. She didn’t want to have to clean the entire house.
He stopped, turning to look at her, his eyes roving over her body. He looked tired, weary, and edgy. Her mouth flooded with moisture, and she repressed the urge to lick her lips and reveal any kind of sexual attraction. She’d like to wash his body, scrub his back, and make him forget the horrors he’d experienced today.
He nodded, kicked off his shoes, and disappeared. She let out a sigh, threw his shoes in the mudroom, and mopped the kitchen again.
As Camden showered and she mopped, Moore gave her the rundown of what happened. A cold vise gripped her. He’d gone into a dangerous operation, exchanging drugs for money and trying to be the good agent, and he’d nearly been killed. Every day he risked his life going to work for that criminal.
She was putting up the mop when Camden stormed in.
“I feel like a million knives are poking me.” He plopped down on the kitchen chair and started plucking thorns from his legs. He wore black shorts and a dark red T-shirt. He was barefoot, and his thighs and calves were covered in scratches. His wet hair darkened his eyes and the scowl line between his brows. His clean, fresh scent rumbled low in her core.
Rayma took a cup from the cabinet and set it on the table for him to toss in the thorns. She kneeled and studied his legs. “Some of these thorns are embedded in your skin,” she said as she grabbed his tweezers.
“I fell a few times.”
“A few?” She plucked, losing count after a dozen. “You were wearing jeans.”
“You ever try crawling through a pasture full of cacti and cow manure?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“Well in this case, it was mostly cacti and mesquite thorns. I think I only crawled through cow manure once.”
Rayma crinkled her nose and continued plucking. “Your arm is bleeding. You look like you’ve been shot.”
“I feel like I’ve been shot.”
“Take off your shirt.”
“Whoa. I’ve been waiting a long time to hear that but—”
“Camden,” Moore cautioned from across the room as he searched through the cabinets for something.
“Don’t be foolish,” Rayma told Camden, ignoring Moore’s warning. If he only knew how close they’d been to falling into bed, he wouldn’t ever let them alone again. “If you were shot—”
“I wasn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s not like I haven’t ever been shot before. I checked in the shower.”
Rayma blinked. He acted like being shot wasn’t a big deal, and in his case, maybe it wasn’t. Her nerves strummed along her skin, insecurity heating her body. Probably best he kept his shirt on. Her senses were aggravated enough, and she didn’t want to do anything foolish, like slide her fingers around his neck and bring his head down for a kiss. That kiss would erupt into a fire she wouldn’t be able to contain.
Moore handed him a glass of whiskey, straight up, no ice. “You look like you could use this.”
Camden took it and nodded his thanks, growling when Rayma yanked out a particularly deep thorn.
“Sorry,” she muttered, unable to hide her grin. She had a feeling most of his squirming had little to do with her ministrations and more to do with his inability to relax. It gave her something to take her frustrations out on.
“Any news on who those bastards were?” he asked Moore as he sipped his whiskey. Rayma perked up, dying to know the answer to that question.
“Not yet. We’re still investigating,” Moore replied.
“Dare will likely be looking for me. Probably thinks I stole his drugs.”
“You need to call him.”
“Not tonight. I’m going to lay low.” His gaze skated over Rayma. “We’ll talk strategy later.”
“You can’t just waltz into work tomorrow morning like nothing happened,” Rayma said, offended by the fact he didn’t want to discuss their plans in front of her.
“Sure I can.”
She grabbed his hands to search for thorns, her body reacting to his touch. His thick, bulky fingers curled, gripping hers. Her spine tingled.
“I’ve already dug all the thorns out of my palms,” he said.
She jerked away. “Okay, well, if you missed any it won’t be my problem.”
His grin widened.
“While you two are fighting over cacti thorns, I’ve got to go check on our investigation and make a few phone calls,” Moore said, leaving Rayma and Camden in the kitchen by themselves.
Camden’s eyes glittered as he pulled off his shirt and tossed it aside.
Her breath caught in her throat. She’d seen his naked chest before, but her belly fluttered every time. She was glad to see the intensity back in his eyes, but did it have to be at the expense of her hormones?
She stood to grab the first aid kit on the table.
“I kinda liked you down on the floor like that,” Camden said, winking at her, “tending to my wounds.”
“It’ll be the only time.”
“Ah, come on.”
As she turned with the first aid kit in hand, she saw superficial wounds on his shoulder and dropped the kit. It crashed to the floor. “Holy hell, what happened here?”
“Just a few cuts.”
She bent over and grabbed the container, then opened an alcohol swab. He yelped when she applied it to his skin, but his shoulders shook from holding back his laughter and she was sure he was being overdramatic.
“I think you’ll live,” she muttered, but concern for him softened her ministrations.
“Aren’t you going to check my upper body for cuts and thorns?”
Her hands tightened around the tweezers, but she rubbed her palms over the warmth of his chest to check for prickles. His breath hitched, a solid syllable of sound that coursed through her.
She dropped the tweezers on the table. “I think you can handle checking yourself.”
He grasped her hand. The angle of his body to hers, the way she had to stare down at him, tempted her to crawl into his lap and give in to her fascinations.
“Oh, come on. You know how hard it is to pick thorns out of your own chest?” he asked.
Do you know how hard it is to keep from touching you?
“I’m no nurse,” she said, swallowing her thoughts.
“You were doing fine.”
She pulled away and grabbed his empty tumbler. “Looks like you need more whiskey.”
He chuckled as she walked to the cabinet and grabbed herself a glass. She added ice to hers and gave them both a hefty pour. His eyes smoldered when she handed him the drink.