They read the report Etienne had compiled for her. Jules and Louis had left their home in France and traveled back to Venezuela. From what Etienne could ascertain from a quiet investigation, they had heard someone was making inquiries about a woman with Meiling’s description, or at least a vague or close description to hers. The people looking for her were willing to pay a great deal of money for any information that might lead to her whereabouts. Jules and Louis knew she had friends who lived on a farm in the area.
Beside him, Meiling stiffened. A single sound escaped her.
Gedeon wanted to yank the phone from her hand. Damn these relentless, cruel bastards who would never stop hunting her because she had gifts they feared. Now they really had someone to fear. They had a reason. Had they simply left her alone, everyone would have been fine, but they just wouldn’t stop coming after her. Gedeon wasn’t going to allow it to continue.
The phone was shaking. He removed it from her hand to steady it so they could both finish reading. The farm was burned to the ground. Those residing there were tortured. Etienne described the way the tortures had been conducted and Gedeon recognized them. They were very distinctive and had been used on his father. They had also been used to make a point on some of the women who wouldn’t cooperate when they were trafficking them. Etienne’s conclusion was that the men seeking Meiling now knew her name and everything her friends at the farm knew about her. He advised she move immediately and go into hiding. He had tracked down his nephews and dispensed justice to them. He owed her more than he could ever repay.
Gedeon watched as the document slowly destructed, blackening first around the edges, and then black holes appeared throughout until it was entirely gone, as if it had never been. Meiling didn’t say a word. She sat staring at the river, watching the water rush past. He doubted she knew tears were on her face. He knew they weren’t for her.
“Tell me about them.”
She turned her face up to his. He brushed at the tracks of wet with his thumb as gently as possible. She broke his heart.
“Your friends on the farm, Lotus Blossom. Tell me about them. Give them to me.”
Her tongue moistened her lower lip and her hand slipped onto his thigh. She did that sometimes when she sought comfort. He knew she was unaware of that very small gesture, but he loved it. Meiling was a woman: confident andindependent. It wasn’t often that she admitted to herself or anyone else she needed comfort or help.
“Bridget and her husband, Esteban, own the farm. Esteban went to school to become a better farmer and understand how to keep the soil rich and producing. Their farm has done so well, producing enough food to feed the neighboring farms and ranches. Most of those are run by the reigning crime family and harvested for drugs, not food. So Bridget and Esteban provide an enormous amount of the vegetables for the workers on those farms. They were always left alone.” Her voice broke.
He caught her chin. “Tell me aboutthem, Lotus. Not their farm. What they were like as people. You aren’t to blame for this any more than my father was to blame for what his best friend did to our family. We can’t shoulder those responsibilities, as much as our brains would like us to take them on. We make too many mistakes of our own. Tell me about Bridget, your friend, and Esteban, her husband.”
Her fingers dug into the muscle of his thigh, but she turned her face up to his again and he got a genuine Meiling smile. It was a bit watery and melancholy, but he would take it.
“Bridget is the sweetest, kindest woman on planet Earth. I’ve never seen her without a happy smile on her face. She’s kind of like the sun coming out in the morning. You can’t be grumpy around her. Her laugh is contagious. All the while she’s talking to you, she’s working. She can’t be still. She’s cleaning, or cooking, or baking or gardening. She loves her garden.” She fell silent abruptly as she realized she was speaking about Bridget as if she were still alive.
“And her husband? Esteban?”
“Esteban adored her. He was brilliant and he was going to provide whatever Bridget needed. If she wanted a farm that would produce enough food to feed all theirneighbors, he would find a way to get that done. He developed this automatic watering system that used the minimum amount of water each type of plant needed and provided only that much. Some of the plants had cages over them. He used old wire from boxes to weave covers over plants birds and other wildlife would attempt to eat. He didn’t start out with tons of money, so he got inventive with how he put things together. He’d gather old parts from junkyards or wherever they could get them and build whatever they needed.”
“Now they have money?” he prompted.
“I don’t honestly know,” Meiling admitted. “I just assumed so because each time I saw them, they had so much more equipment, expensive equipment, like tractors. I didn’t ask, that would have been rude, and frankly, I didn’t care.”
The tears had stopped. Meiling seemed steadier. He turned on the bench and pressed his forehead tight against hers, staring directly into her liquid-chocolate eyes. “Meiling, listen to me. I can handle this on my own. It might be better that I do it alone anyway. We’ll walk on back to the house and you can go nap for the afternoon. I’ll take care of McGregor and come right back to you. When we finish this, we’ll go after the ones who murdered your friends.”
She gave a little shake of her head. To his shock, her eyes brightened, and she lifted her hand to cup his jaw. “I can’t help but fall harder and deeper every day for you, Gedeon. It doesn’t matter if you’re being sweet like this or bossy and arrogant to the point that I want to kick you into the river. You’re always going to be the one.”
“You say that shit to me and we’re alone in the swamp, things are going to get intense between us,” he whispered. Because they were.
“What does that mean?” There was a trace of amusement in her voice.
His thumb swept over the curve of her lower lip, and in between their bodies his other thumb swept over her left nipple. “That means you might be riding through the swamp naked or on your knees between my thighs. It means I’m going to be inspecting those bruises and bite marks you haven’t shown me this morning.Allof them.”
“Let’s go, Gedeon. Prepare for inspections and whatever else you have in mind because I’m going to keep saying those kinds of things to you for the rest of your life.”
That was his woman, squaring her shoulders and getting on with it. They had a job, and she was going to see it through. More, if he turned things sexual between them, she was ready for him. She was always ready for him, no matter what.
***
WHATare you doing?” Meiling asked, backing away from Gedeon as he stalked her across the very short distance between the cabin walls.
The island Gedeon had chosen to lure McGregor Handler to was small and covered in trees, so much so that it looked like a small jungle. This wasn’t a good thing because spiders built incredible webs in those trees and all sorts of birds made their nests in the canopies. The ground was spongy, which meant there wasn’t a tremendous amount of soil to support them as they walked across it. Gedeon cautioned her several times to step where he stepped.
The hunting cabin was built on stilts, as many of the cabins were, to keep the floodwaters from washing them away or, at the least, ruining them. This cabin was very small, no more than six hundred square feet. It was one room. There was a counter and a woodstove that served the dual purpose of heating the cabin and cooking. The crude cupboards held flattened plates and a few spices in jars. The drawers revealed old silverware, a roll of paper towels and a bar of soap.
Meiling held up her hand to Gedeon. “Seriously, stop right now. You look like Slayer when he’s stalking Whisper.”
“That’s because I feel like Slayer right now. I’ve been too long without you.”
