Thanksgiving Protector

“I need you to go back to your room,” Kylie whispered.

“I want my mommy.” The girl tried to twist away.

Agitation and the need to stay calm warred within Kylie. She held the child tight but spoke gently even as precious seconds ticked away. “What’s your name?” She had to protect this child and that meant taking the time to win the girl’s trust.

The girl stopped struggling. “Misty.” She took in a jagged sob. “I want my mommy. I can hear her.”

“Misty. Everything is going to be all right. I will make sure your mommy is okay.”

“Are you the police?” Misty relaxed a little and brushed a strand hair off her face.

“Yes,” Kylie said. “I need you to go back to your room and shut the door. Lock it if you can. Can you do that for me, Misty?”

Misty nodded. Kylie released her. The little girl hurried down the carpeted hallway and disappeared back into the room.

Kylie let out a breath, praying that she would be able to keep her word to Misty.

The conversation in the living room had escalated. The henchman swore in Spanish. Austin tried to placate him. “Put the gun down. We don’t want to do anything that will send you to jail.” Austin spoke in Spanish as he raised his voice.

The words were to let Kylie know that the man was armed.

The woman’s crying and pleading grew louder. Kylie knew once she turned the corner she’d have less than a second to take in the scene and make a decision that could save or end a life.

“Don’t do this,” Austin repeated over and over. Despite the fear he must feel, his voice remained even.

She stepped into the living room as Austin moved toward the goon who held a gun to a woman’s head. She had a clean shot at the man’s leg. She took it.

The goon cried out, pushed the woman toward Austin as he spun and fired a shot at Kylie. Then he dove for the door, gripping his leg and hopping. Austin froze as the door opened and the goon stepped outside. Intense light flooded the front yard. And Kylie heard gunfire. Backup was here.

Kylie ran toward the woman who was trying to get to her feet. “Get down.”

More gunfire outside.

The woman clung to Kylie. “Misty?”

Kylie held the woman in her arms. “She’s all right. Your little girl is okay.”

Seconds later, lawmen swarmed inside the house. Kylie ignored them as she led the woman down the hall. The door burst open, and Misty ran toward her mom.

The woman wept as she held her daughter. “Oh, baby. My little girl.”

Kylie’s heart squeezed tight. There was another little girl whose mom wouldn’t be coming home tonight...or ever again. Mercedes was only six months old. All night Kylie had played her promise to Valentina over in her mind. Valentina had known the risk she was taking by becoming an informant, and had worried about what that might mean for her daughter. Kylie had given her word that she would take care of Mercedes if anything happened to Valentina. Valentina had put together a plan and made sure the paperwork was in order.

Guilt washed through her. Was the lone figure she’d seen crossing the river right before the gunfire Valentina trying to get to safety? Maybe Valentina had slipped over to Mexico gathering the intel that Garcia had changed locations, and she was trying to find the one person she trusted—Kylie—when she died. Kylie would never know for sure.

Austin came around the corner into the hallway. “Our suspect didn’t survive.”

With the amount of gunfire, she wasn’t surprised. Kylie nodded, but already her mind was on Mercedes.

“Thanks for having my back.” Austin’s voice was drenched with appreciative warmth.

She met his gaze. For only a moment, he had seemed almost vulnerable, willing to show who he was behind the badge. “It’s what we do, right?” No one who worked with Austin on the sixteen-member ranger reconnaissance team had a bad thing to say about him. He did his job and did it well. Yet, to Kylie there seemed to be something almost guarded about him, a part of him that was walled off to the world. The other rangers in company “E” had a nickname for him, Lone Wolf.

Austin squared his broad shoulders and the curtain seemed to fall down around his eyes again. “Right.”

The moment of vulnerability had passed quickly.

She’d been drawn to Austin from the first time they’d worked together on another joint task mission. But it was hard to care about a man who buried himself in his work and rarely showed much emotion.

“I guess we get to call it a night.” He leaned toward her. “Want to go get a bite to eat? There’s an all-night diner just up the road. They have great biscuits and gravy.”

On any other night, she would take him up on the invitation. But tonight... “I can’t.”

His brow furled into a look of confusion and maybe disappointment.

“I have to go into Segundo Barrio tonight.”

“Alone, at night? That is a dangerous part of El Paso.”

“Valentina—” her heart ached to even say the name “—the woman who died out there tonight has a little girl, six months old. I promised to take care of her if anything happened to her mother.”

“Can’t it wait?”

“That T on Valentina’s forehead means they know she was an informant. Mercedes might be in danger too. No, it can’t wait.” Kylie knew it would be a fool’s mission to go by herself. That part of El Paso could be deadly even in broad daylight. Even with all her training, Kylie would be risking her life. But that wouldn’t stop her. Already, she felt a strong pull toward Mercedes. The need to protect the little girl seemed to override everything else.

Kylie turned to go.

Austin grabbed her arm. “I smell a trap, Kylie. Did it ever occur to you why Valentina’s information was always so golden? She had to have a pretty sweet connection high up.”

Feeling a surge of anger, Kylie pulled away. Of course she’d thought of that. But she trusted her instincts. However Valentina got her information, she knew the woman’s character. “Valentina was a good person.” Whatever she’d been in the past when she lived in Mexico, Valentina had only wanted a better life for herself and her baby.

Austin stepped closer to her. “You go to that part of town tonight alone and there’s no guarantee you’ll come back.”

The familiar twisting and tightening in her gut ate at her resolve. Austin wasn’t wrong. That close to Rio Grande even on the American side was ground zero for smuggling humans, guns and drugs from across the border, and all the violence and murder that came along with that.

“Valentina told me she had all the paperwork in place for me to be Mercedes’s legal guardian and eventually adopt her,” Kylie said. “I have to keep my word.”

Austin took a step back and lifted his chin. “Legal guardian? I thought you were just getting the kid to take care of her for a few days until permanent arrangements could be made. Doesn’t Valentina have relatives?”

Kylie clenched her jaw. Austin’s resistance to her plan was getting under her skin. What business was it of his anyway? “She had no one she could trust. She cut all emotional ties to her past. She played a part and took risks to gather information for me. She wanted the violence to end as badly as I do.” She was still reeling from Valentina’s death. Her eyes warmed with tears and she turned away. The last thing she needed to do on the job was cry. As one of the few female border patrol agents, she couldn’t afford to get a reputation for being soft.

“I was just thinking that maybe it would be easier on the baby for her to go back to Mexico, be with relatives.”

“Mercedes was born here in El Paso. Valentina was working on her citizenship. She wanted nothing to do with her lawless family or the baby’s father.”

Kylie cleared her throat to choke back the tears. “She was a good person who came from a bad place. She was my friend.”

Austin’s hand cupped her shoulder, warming her through the thin layer of her uniform. His features softened. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”

She turned to face him, seeing a softness in his expression. “I have to get Mercedes, and it has to be tonight.” She hurried toward the door. To her annoyance, Austin was on her heels. This was scary enough, she didn’t need him dogging her about her choices. “I’m worried about her safety.”

She stepped outside where several agents were still conversing with each other or talking on radios. The ambulance had arrived to haul away the body of the goon who’d been shot.

Misty huddled with her mother on the porch with a blanket over them while an EMT checked them out.

Colt Blackthorn lifted his head from a conversation with another border patrol agent, Greg Gunn. Kylie had worked several missions with Greg. Colt ran toward them.

“Hey, you two. Good teamwork in there.” Colt slapped Austin on the back and nodded in Kylie’s direction.

Still fuming from her exchange with Austin, Kylie was grateful for the positive interaction. “So was he one of Garcia’s men?” She crossed her arms and shot Austin a look. How could they work so well together and then not get along when the danger was over?

Colt turned slightly toward where the ambulance was loading the body covered in a sheet. He ran a hand over his smooth, dark hair. “More than likely. But we’ll have to wait for the ID.”

And still no sign of Garcia. Although Kylie was pretty sure he had come across. In all their work together, the information from Valentina had never been bad. Valentina had probably been killed for disclosing where Garcia had planned on coming across.

If Garcia had gotten wind that law enforcement was on to him, he must have changed the location of his crossing at the last minute. Using Valentina’s murder as a distraction also served as a message to the brass that Garcia was on to them. Garcia had vowed to kill any lawman that got in his way.

No doubt the rangers with border patrol’s help would be focused on figuring out where the drug lord was hiding.

Kylie waited until Colt was out of earshot before turning to face Austin. “I’m going to get that baby. It can’t wait.”

She whirled away toward one of the border patrol vehicles. Since this wasn’t an official mission, she’d have to phone her supervisor at her duty station and get permission to use it. There was no time to go back and retrieve her own car, which would be less conspicuous. She made the call and explained the situation.

When she clicked off her phone, fear and the desire to do the right thing waged war inside of her as she twisted the key in the ignition and shifted into Reverse.

The passenger side door swung open and Austin jumped in. “It’s suicide to go there alone.”

Inwardly, she breathed a sigh of relief. Having him along eased her fears. “Fine, go with me, then.” Her words tinged with a note of defiance. Not that she would let Austin know she was glad he was along.

He leaned toward her, his tone a little teasing and sarcastic. “I think I will.”

Kylie pulled out onto the road and drove through the darkness toward the El Paso neighborhood where she hoped Mercedes was tucked away safely.

After passing several abandoned buildings, Kylie pulled into a gas station. The last thing she wanted to do was run out of gas out there. As she filled the gas tank, the glow of lights in the station and the soft breeze on her skin calmed her. She knew it was a false sense of security. She touched her gun in its holster. She was trained to deal with violence and the unexpected. But this time, a baby’s safety was at stake.

Austin rolled down the window. “You want me to do the driving? One less thing you got to think about.”

The tension coiling through her chest eased up a bit. Austin’s presence and solid instincts had that effect on her when they were working together. But this wasn’t work. The mission was personal. And he was still here to support her. That made her like him even more. “That sounds like a great idea.” She tossed him the keys.

She slipped into the passenger seat and gave him Valentina’s address. Kylie had never been to Valentina’s place. That would have been too risky. When Valentina had information for her, they met in busy public places. But this was the plan they had discussed for the worst-case scenario. Valentina wanted this plan in place almost from the time she had approached Kylie about being an informant. Kylie’s heart ached over the loss of her friend.

“Lot of gang activity in that part of town,” he said as they pulled into traffic.

She nodded. Not everyone there was a criminal, though. Like Valentina, so many were just people trying to get by and raise their families, unable to afford anything safer.

They passed city streets where men and women spilled out from bars, some of them standing around, some of them fighting. The glow of neon lights flashed across the windshield. Tension knotted through her as gunfire sounded in the distance. She couldn’t have done this alone. “Thank you for coming with me.”

“How did you meet your informant?”

A heaviness settled into her chest as the memories flooded through her mind. “At church.”

He nodded. “Do you both sing in the choir?”

“How did you know I sing in the choir?” It was Kylie’s turn to do a double take. “We go to the same church?”

“I sit in the back. I leave right when the service is over.” He grinned as he stared straight ahead. “Yeah, I’m one of those guys.” Austin was a serious man who rarely smiled. His whole face lit up when he did. “The back-bench dweller, that’s me.”

“The important thing is that you go,” Kylie said. This side of Austin was a surprise. At work, he came across as a confident man who knew his job and did it well, but he never talked about personal matters. She hadn’t even realized he was a believer. So they’d been going to the same church all this time. Maybe in social settings he was a much shyer man.

“Guess I feel a little out of place at church.” He leaned closer to the windshield, probably looking for a street name. “You sit in the same seat every Sunday though, after you’re done singing. Creature of habit.”

So he had noticed her at church. She wanted to ask him why he felt out of place, but as private as he was, it would probably be too probing a question. “You should say hi to me sometime instead of just staring at the back of my head.”

Austin nodded and let out a one-syllable laugh.

They passed several buildings with murals painted on them—something this part of town was famous for.

Austin turned down a street that had no streetlights. The pavement changed to dirt road. The area consisted of rundown adobe houses and two apartment buildings that looked badly in need of repair. Some of the windows were boarded up, shot out or had gang symbols graffiti all over them. One man came to the door and watched them as they rolled by, his gaze as cold as steel. Most people probably hid inside at this hour, doors bolted against the violence.

Kylie pointed. “It must be the apartment building at the end of the street.”

Loud music with an intense bass beat erupted from a side street. Austin eased the car off the road, turned off the ignition and killed the lights.

“Stay down,” he said. “This could be fine, but let’s not take any chances.”

THREE

Kylie crouched down below the dashboard. Driving the border patrol vehicle only made them a bigger target in this neighborhood. Her hand brushed over her gun as her pulse thudded in her eardrums. If they were faced with gang activity, they would not have the firepower to get out alive.

Austin kept his head low, as well. The music swelled to full volume. The whole street seemed to be pounding. The vibrations shook their car. Through the open window, she heard the dissonant harmony of men verbally jousting with each other in Spanish. A single gunshot echoed along the street.

Austin rolled the window up. The windows had wire mesh on them to protect them when people threw rocks at them, which happened a lot. But that wouldn’t prevent them from being dragged out into the street and shot.

Kylie flinched at the gunshot but maintained her composure.

Austin peered above the dashboard. “Just shooting in the air.” His voice never lost that calming tone. “Showing off their machismo.”

They waited for what seemed like forever until the music and the drunken conversation died away altogether. The men must have gone inside one of the buildings.

Austin sat back up and drove the car forward toward the building where little Mercedes was being kept safe...she hoped.

He shifted into Park. “Let’s make this fast.” They got out of the car. They were so close to the border, Kylie could hear the traffic rushing by on the Cesar Chavez Highway.

“She’s on the second floor. Apartment twenty-seven.” Valentina had an arrangement with an older woman named Doris to watch the baby while she was at classes. Hopefully, that was who was with the baby now.

They hurried into the building past the debris of old newspapers, heaping plastic bags, broken toys. Kylie’s heart raced as she took the stairs two at a time. Austin came up behind her. She stood in front of apartment twenty-seven. She knocked twice. No answer.

She turned the knob and called inside as fear gripped her heart. She dared not cry out, just in case someone with ill intent waited inside. What if they were too late? What if the same people who killed Valentina had already gone after her baby?

She stepped across the threshold. Austin had already drawn his weapon. The kitchen was run-down but neat. Clean dishes were stacked in the cupboards with no doors. The worn linoleum floor was mopped. There was something poignant about the Thanksgiving centerpiece in the middle of the table. Sorrow washed over Kylie. Valentina had really tried to make a nice home for her baby.

Kylie drew her attention to a pattern of holes on the wall, a spray of bullets. Her throat went tight.

Austin cupped her shoulder. “Those bullet holes could have been there for years.”

How was he able to pick up on her distress like that?

She turned a slow half circle, looking for hiding places.

Please, God, let that little girl be here and safe.

The apartment was small. She saw a closed door off to the right that must be a bedroom. She pulled her gun as she made her way toward it. Austin stayed close.

She eased the door open. The room consisted of a mat and blankets on the floor next to a stack of textbooks. There was no sign of a crib or basket for a baby.

“We have to find that little girl. I’m not going to break my promise to Valentina.”

“Sometimes in dangerous neighborhoods, people have hiding places.” Austin paced the perimeter of the room, stopping to stare at the closet. He tapped on the walls until the sound changed inside the closet. He leaned in, pulling a thin panel out of place.

Kylie saw what was probably a hot water heater. She pulled her flashlight from her belt just as a baby’s cry erupted in the darkness. Her heart surged with joy at the sound. She shone the light on a gray-haired woman holding a bundle wrapped in a pink blanket.

Kylie spoke in Spanish. “Doris, right? Valentina told me about you. I’m Kylie.”

The woman still looked frightened. She replied, speaking so rapidly in Spanish her words seemed to be stacked on top of each other. She said something about men banging on the door looking for Valentina.

Kylie leaned in and held out her arms. “It’s okay now.”

Doris rose to her feet, still holding the baby. “Valentina?”

Kylie shook her head. “She didn’t make it.” The pain of the loss hit Kylie all over again. Her stomach tied into knots.

Though clearly upset, Doris placed the bundle in Kylie’s arms. Kylie stared down at deep brown eyes and rosebud lips. She felt as though warm honey were dripping over her. Those eyes. So filled with trust. Would she be able to take care of someone so helpless?

The baby brushed her fingers under Kylie’s chin. Mercedes knew Kylie. Valentina had brought her to their meetings when she couldn’t get a sitter, and Kylie watched her in early service when she had nursery duty.

Not taking her eyes off of Mercedes, Kylie stepped back so Doris could get out.

The woman continued to talk, waving her hands, telling more about how the men had frightened her. She gathered a bag up off the floor and placed it in Austin’s hands saying a single word. “Papa?”

Kylie felt her cheeks flush. For some reason, Doris had thought she and Austin were a couple. “No, he’s just a friend.” She locked Austin in her gaze. He looked equally embarrassed. Just a very good friend.

Austin examined the contents of the bag. “It looks like baby clothes and paperwork giving you legal custody of the baby. A judge probably has to sign off on it.”

Kylie held Mercedes close to her chest. The child’s silky smooth cheek rubbed against her own as Kylie felt the warmth of the little body. She breathed in a prayer that she would be able to take care of Mercedes.

Doris pointed at a baby bag with ducks carrying umbrellas on it. Austin picked the second bag up, carrying both bags in one hand. Doris, who was probably not more than four feet tall, hurried over to Kylie.

She stood on tiptoe to kiss Mercedes’s forehead. “Mi dulce bebé. God will take care of you.”

Through the open window, another car playing loud music trolled the neighborhood. Doris’s features grew tight with fear as she hurried toward the door and out into the hallway.

“I’m with her. Let’s get out of here. This place makes me nervous,” said Austin, drawing his gun.

They ran toward the door, down the stairs and out into the night. A gunshot resounded, knocking plaster off the fence wall in front of them. Austin stepped close to Kylie. His gun was at the ready as he searched the roofs of the apartment buildings.

“I want to believe that was random. But if men came looking for Valentina, we can’t take any chances. Maybe they want to hurt her kid too.”

Clutching a crying Mercedes, Kylie raced to the car. Even before they got to the curb, Kylie could see that the car’s tires had been flattened.

Holding Mercedes even tighter, she pushed past her fear. She had a baby to think about. “What are we going to do?”

Austin paced three strides in one direction and three strides in the other. “Let’s just keep walking. Standing around makes us look too vulnerable. I’ll call one of the other rangers to meet us as soon as he can.”

Kylie tried to ignore the rising panic that made it hard to breath. Heart pounding, fear raging, she started walking. No matter what threat of violence was out there, she had to get this baby to a safe place.

* * *

Adrenaline flooded through Austin, making him alert and ready to act. Just as he was putting the bags down to reach for his phone another shot whizzed past them and embedded in the metal of the car. Austin edged closer to Kylie and the baby, directing them toward the shelter of a building with an overhang.

Austin glanced all around. Where were those shots coming from, anyway? “I don’t think that shot was random.”

“You think they are targeting us?”

He stared at Kylie holding the bundled baby. Maybe it was because they were law enforcement or maybe it all connected back to Kylie’s informant. Either way, they were in danger.

They didn’t have a lot of options. “Yes. Let’s keep moving.” Austin felt like he couldn’t get a deep breath. What had they gotten themselves into? “I’m going to phone in what has happened, make arrangements for this car to be brought back before it’s stripped for parts and see if I can get someone to meet us.”

Resting the bag handles in his elbow, Austin maintained pace with her while calling his supervisor, Major Thomas Vance. As he explained their situation, he felt a heaviness he didn’t understand. He was responsible for Kylie and the little life she held in her arms. He could handle a firefight no problem, but a woman and a baby depending on him made him weak in the knees.