Straightening her skirt around her legs, Ari took one of those deep breaths he’d learned meant she was struggling for composure. The breath pressed her small breasts up against the cotton of her bodice. It was too easy for Tracker to imagine what they’d look like naked. He wondered if her nipples would be pale or dark, or maybe as red as her lips. He liked the thought of them being red from his attentions.
He mentally shook himself. He was little more than an animal. A woman like Ari would never look twice at a man like him, even before the events of the last two years. And after? Shit. She’d run like hell.
His cock couldn’t care less what his brain said, however. It responded to her in a purely primitive manner, swelling and stretching to life.
Ari motioned to the tray in his lap. “Your food is getting cold.”
“You avoiding my question?”
“What if I am?”
He took a chance that pretending disinterest would make her comfortable. “Then I’ll rein in my curiosity and stop asking.”
For a moment he wasn’t certain it would work. She crossed her ankles left over right. And then right over left. She licked her lips. Checked her bun. Sighed and then said, “I don’t know what happened.”
“You don’t remember?”
She shook her head and looked away. “I had a blow to my skull. I can’t remember anything before I opened my eyes and saw Vincente and Josefina looking down at me.”
That was convenient for the Moraleses. Tracker folded the tortilla around the contents. “Not even your husband?”
He took a bite of the tortilla. She shot him a glare. “I’m not crazy!”
He chewed and swallowed. “I didn’t say you were.”
She frowned and bit her lip. Her teeth were very white against the ruby-red flesh. If she kept biting her lips like that they were going to be raw. “Only a crazy woman couldn’t remember her husband.”
It was just a whisper, but it contained so much pain. He wanted to reach out and hold her, and tell her it was a blessing she couldn’t remember, a gift she should hold on to, because the truth was too horrible to be borne. Instead, he took another bite, chewed and swallowed, before saying, “Head wounds can be tricky.”
“That’s what the doctor said.”
“At least you have your child.”
Her whole expression softened. “Yes.”
Tracker set the tray aside. “How old is your baby?”
“Six months. He’s just beginning to crawl.”
The last of Tracker’s hunger left him. Six months was too old. Ari would have had to have gotten pregnant when she was with the Comancheros.
“What’s wrong? Don’t you like the food?” she asked.
“I’m just feeling a bit off my feed. It was a hot morning for plowing.”
“Pappa is determined we have more garden space.”
“I noticed.”
Ari shifted in the chair, clearly wanting to leave, but just as clearly held in place by another desire.
“Something on your mind?”
She nodded and took one of those betraying breaths. Threading her fingers together, she clenched them until the knuckles showed white. “My parents are going to ask you to leave.”
“I figured that.” Nothing like having your daughter falling into a fit at the sight of the new handyman to clinch a decision.
“I don’t want you to go.”
It was his turn to blink. “Why?”
“I heard my parents talking. I know who you are.”
Who he was seemed to be pretty important to these people. “And who’s that?”
“You’re a Texas Ranger. One of the meanest.”
“I guess that would depend on who you talk to.”
She looked disappointed, and more than a little skeptical. Her gaze lingered on the scar slicing down his cheek. “You’re not mean?”
“Mean enough to get the job done.”
“I need you to be very mean.”
“I’ll ask you again—why?”
“My father is in trouble.”
“He didn’t make any mention of it.”
“He wouldn’t. He likes to think he can handle everything, but he’s old now and he can’t fight the way he used to.” She glanced at Tracker, fear in her eyes. “The men who would hurt him are vicious killers. They have no consciences or souls.”
“How do you know?”
She shook her head as if bewildered. A curl fell loose from her bun, bouncing against her cheek. She shoved it behind her ear. “I just do.”
He bet she did, even if she was talking to him as if he couldn’t trigger a bad memory if he wanted to.
“I know enough to know that if things continue the way they are, those men are going to kill my father. He knows it, too. That’s why he wants the garden bigger. So Mama and I can support ourselves.”
“Would those men be the gringos who came to town last fall?”
“You’ve met them?”
Tracker shook his head. “Haven’t had the pleasure yet.” But he would. It was a bit too coincidental that trouble of that type came to the small town where Ari had taken shelter after the Moraleses had found her. As a matter of fact, a lot of the circumstances surrounding Ari’s rescue were convenient.
She frowned. “If you do, you’d better be good with those guns.”
It’d been a long time since someone had questioned Tracker’s skill. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
She licked her lips again. His cock hardened, pressing painfully against the seam of his pants. He barely bit back a “Stop doing that.”
She stood up so fast her skirts swayed. “I want to hire you.”
He stood, too. Another interesting tidbit. “I’m a Texas Ranger. We’re not for hire.”
She put her hands on her hips, determination giving her a confidence he hadn’t seen before. “We’re not in Texas, though, are we?”
Technically, the area was in dispute. “Close enough not to abandon the principles I serve, no matter how pretty the woman is who asks me.”
She made a slashing motion with her hand before running it over her hair. More tendrils threatened to break loose with the next pass of her palm. “I don’t want you to kill anybody.”
To give his hands something to do besides reach over to let one of those curls entrap his finger, Tracker picked up his gun and began reassembling it. “What do you want me to do?”
Her arm dropped to her side. “I just want to scare those men so they leave my father alone.”
It wasn’t the first time Tracker had been asked to scare somebody, but it was probably the first time he believed the person asking really thought it could be done without anybody getting killed.
“Why do they bother him?”
A tinge of red on her cheeks, a hint of tears in her eyes, and she said, “Because of me.”
“Why?”
The blush of embarrassment deepened and she looked away. “Men