Sacrifice of Passion (Deadly Legends) (23 page)

Tears shone in her eyes. “You made it.”

“Yeah,” he said, and beamed her a smile. “I did.”

Epilogue

“You really need a pillow with flowers for this couch,” Laney said. She felt Vic watching her as she sat curled up across the room from him, not five days since their ordeal.

His lips quirked into a grin. “You act like you own the place.”

“Let’s just say I’m tight with the owner.”

“You might have to do some convincing to get floral prints in here. He’s a little inflexible. Stubborn even, from what I hear.”

Her stomach fluttered. “I seem to recall that he’s quite flexible. Dexterous, too.”

His eyes darkened. “You remember that, do you?”

“Five nights and no sleepwalking. I can remember everything with startling clarity,” she said, smiling wide. Like the way Vic smelled after a shower, the feel of his skin against hers when they lay together in bed, the way he read the newspaper from cover to cover. The way he smiled at his son.

A rustling sound came from the kitchen, followed by Zach coming into the room, potbelly pig at his side. “I figured out a name for the foal,” Zach said. “I want to name her Milagro. Just like what Esperanza called you, Dad.”

Vic looked satisfied as he nodded his head. “I’d say this whole little family of ours is a miracle.”

A horn honked outside. “That’s Eva,” Vic said. “Ready to spend the night with your cousin and Tío Ray?”

Zach smiled and waved before darting out of the room. A moment later, they heard the slam of a car door.

“He seems to be doing better,” Delaney said.

“A little obsessed with that pig.” Vic’s face softened into a grin. “But, yeah, he’s doing great. Thanks to Jasper.”

She could see him struggling with his emotions. “I don’t blame Jasper,” she said. Derek had pieced together the events, both past and present. They’d been kids. Jasper had trusted his uncle. Had gone to Esperanza with good intentions. The rest was history.

Vic sat lost in thought. Finally, he said, “No. I don’t either. He didn’t know what his uncle had planned that night. He just obeyed the authority in his life, the way his upbringing had taught him. Locke will go to trial. And Zach and you are both okay.” He smiled at her, and she melted inside. He gave her a kiss. “That’s all I care about.”

That’s all she cared about, too. Whether or not Locke found redemption for his sins was between him and God. Delaney knew he’d have plenty of time in prison to contemplate his actions and what he’d truly sacrificed along the way. That knowledge allowed her to let go of her pain.

“I owe you, you know,” she said finally, broaching the subject that had been on her mind for the last few days. She’d been so lost in her relief and Vic had scarcely been without Zach, that they hadn’t had the opportunity. But now…

“For what?”

“I was telling you where to meet me, but the phone dropped.” And he’d known exactly where to go. Seeing him coming hell-bent for leather to rescue her and Zach had been like a beacon of light to her. Her knight in shining armor. “You went to the Chain Tree. How did you know?”

His eyes blazed, looking straight into her soul. “I learn from my mistakes, Laney.”

Vic was so sure. So confidant. Did she learn from her mistakes, too, she wondered?

She saw his love for her written all over his face, and blinked away her doubt. Yes, she’d learned. She was here with Vic Vargas. She was done running. Her therapist had been right—she’d had to face the past to stop the sleepwalking.
Truly
face the past. Coming back to San Julio had only been the first step. She’d had to face the rape. She’d finally told Carmen, and her friend had stood by her.

But mostly, she’d finally had to face the fact that she’d lost Vic all those years ago. Had to face that she’d never stopped loving him. Only then could she heal. But now the past had been pieced together, and she was only looking forward.

“You said you owe me,” he said with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “So how do I get to collect?” Propping his hands on the armrests of the couch, he leaned down, his lips brushing her cheek. “Like this?”

Her body reacted instantaneously, heat spiraling into all every vital nerve ending. However—and whenever—Vic wanted to collect, she was game. Her eyes eased closed as he trailed his kisses along her jaw, finding her ear and nibbling. Could she be this lucky? Could love be this easy?

“Come to think of it,” she murmured, raking her fingers through his hair, breathing him in, “you owe me, too.”

His feathery kiss led the way to her other ear. “Yeah, how’s that?”

Her body tingled from his touch. “Because I came to you that first night,” she breathed. Her pulse flared as she remembered the tail end of that moment. The shrinks had been right—she never had done anything during her sleepwalking events that she wouldn’t have done in real life. Her sleepwalking hadn’t made her do something out of character or against her will—it had allowed her to do something she truly wanted. Needed. She’d wanted to be there, in Vic’s bed that night. Ironically enough, her sleepwalking had started her on a path to a deeper healing.

She wrapped her arms around Vic, pulling him closer, determined to make some new memories that she could remember in their entirety.

He pulled away, brushing the backs of his fingers across her cheek. “Welcome home, Laney.”

She grinned up at him, emblazoning this moment as the first of her new memories. As long as she was with Vic, she was home. It was as simple as that.

Acknowledgments

A huge jumbo-sized thank you to the a-mazing Rochelle French. The time and effort you put into this book was above and beyond, and I can’t thank you enough. I love your “tingle” notes and your smiley faces. Also, big shout outs to Nina Bruhns for her wicked eleventh hour editing, again to Rochelle for her eleventh and three quarters hour reading, and to Vicki Wilkerson and the Dead Sexy team for loving the Deadly Legends trilogy.

A giant thank you to Kim Weber for reading such an early version of this book and making me stick with Esperanza and her lisp, to Kym Roberts for helping come up with the titles, to Wendy Lyn Watson for her continual guidance as we walk around the lake, and to the Lit Girls, just because they’re the Lit Girls. As always, hugs and love to my family, for everything.

About the Author

Melissa Bourbon, who sometimes answers to her Latina-by-marriage name Misa Ramirez, gave up teaching middle and high school kids in Northern California to write full-time amidst horses and Longhorns in North Texas. She fantasizes about spending summers writing in quaint, cozy locales, has a love/hate relationship with yoga and chocolate, is devoted to her family, and can’t believe she’s lucky enough to be living the life of her dreams.

She is the author of the Lola Cruz Mystery series with St. Martin’s Minotaur and Entangled Publishing, and A Magical Dressmaking Mystery series with NAL, and is the co-author of The Tricked-out Toolbox, a nonfiction marketing book for writers.

Visit Melissa’s website at http://melissabourbon.com

LIKE her on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/AuthorMelissaBourbon.MisaRamirez

Follow her on Twitter: @MisaRamirez a
nd @MelissaBourbon

If you loved SACRIFICE OF PASSION, be sure to check out Melissa Bourbon Ramirez’s BARE-NAKED LOLA.
Going undercover has never been hotter!

Going undercover is second nature for Private Investigator Lola Cruz, but she’s out of her league when the case of a murdered Royals Courtside Dancer leads her to a local nudist resort. Parading around the sidelines of Sacramento’s professional basketball scene in a barely-there cheerleading outfit is one thing—but parading around in nothing but a smile? If she has any chance of hiding this from her traditional family and on-again/off-again boyfriend Jack, she’s going to have a lot more than her duct tape bra and killer dance moves to keep under wraps…

Read on for a sneak peek at Melissa Bourbon Ramirez’s BARE-NAKED LOLA…

Chapter One

Abundantly flowing locks, perfectly tanned bodies, and perky breasts with enticingly rounded cleavage—these were not the things I’d expected to see walking into the Camacho & Associates private investigation office on a Wednesday morning.
Pero, Dios mío
, that’s exactly what I
did
see. Two women lounging at the conference table, each exhibiting their own take on “aloof,” stopped me dead with their blinding beauty. I was afraid I’d be scarred for life.

I could hate them on the spot, except, super-detective that I am, I knew they had to be clients. And clients meant that I remained employed as a detective. Hating them for their otherworldly beauty? Not allowed.

Manny Camacho, owner of the small investigative firm in Sacramento, ex-cop, and super-P.I., stood in the doorway of his office quietly talking with yet another attractive woman. It might as well have been the Miss America pageant—there was no escaping them. This one was older than the others by a good fifteen years or so, but she had the body of a twenty-year-old. She had a long neck, nary a wrinkle in sight, and a tall, gazellelike body. Her hair shone like black velvet and was pulled back into a severe bun. Her angular face and chiseled cheekbones intensified her exotic appearance.

Dancer
. Had to be.

Reilly Fuller, part-time clerk for the agency, scowled from her desk.

“
¿Qué pasó?
” I asked, stopping to get the 4-1-1.

Her Spanish was limited—and often amounted to adding a strategic
O
to the end of a word—but she understood me and liked to use what she knew.

“
No se
,” she said, sounding very disgruntled that she didn’t know anything.

Reilly made a strangled noise that left me wondering if all the colorful dye she used on her hair had finally done some deeper damage, perhaps affecting her vocal cords. Reilly
lived
for gossip, though at the moment she was oddly silent.

I heard the
zip-zip
of the surveillance camera bracketed to the wall in the top corner of the room. Ah, so that was the source of Reilly’s grief. Neil, a caveman detective who could scarcely string words together in a sentence, but who was a master of technology—and Reilly’s bed buddy—was in his lair watching the Barbie show.

“Remember our motto,” I said, patting my thigh and speaking softly so only she could hear. “More to love.”

She blinked heavily and patted down her green color-washed hair. “Right. More to love, and Neil does love this,” she said, doing a subtle chair shimmy. I swallowed my laugh. Reilly was a JLO wannabe—only not Latina,
pero
more full-figured, and monolingual.

But otherwise, hey, they were like twins.

I noticed Sadie, fellow detective and my own personal nemesis, fidgeting uncomfortably at the table, client intake form clasped in a brown folder in front of her. Her spiky, red-tipped blond hair seemed to inch up every time one of the two women at the table moved the slightest muscle.

I’d recently surmised that Sadie and Manny had an on-again/off-again thing that defied explanation. Sadie wasn’t the lovable type. Neither was Manny, for that matter. He was tall and dark; she was petite and fair. He was bitter coffee and clipped sentences; she was Spicy Hot V8 with attitude and too much lime. He was
un poquito
intense and brooding, and she was, well, a shrew. What kept bringing them back together was a mystery to me, but some things were just better left unsolved.

From my vantage point at Reilly’s desk, I took a closer gander at the two women at the table. They seemed familiar somehow. I searched the recesses of my brain for answers. Were they in a breast-enhancement ad? Poster girls for plastic surgery? As much as I wanted to pull the information out of my mind, I couldn’t quite manage it.

Manny walked to the table, his barely perceptible limp altering his gait just enough to make a girl curious about what had caused it. I was plenty curious, but I had no idea. War wound from his time on the police force was my guess. His gaze caught mine. “Dolores.”

He flicked his cleft chin toward the table and I threw up my hand in an all-encompassing greeting. “Hello.”

It was my afternoon to man the agency so the other detectives—Manny, Sadie, and Neil—could be in the field. We rotated, though with my junior detective status, the ink on my California private investigator’s license barely dry, I usually pulled bonus shifts for more pay. My docket wasn’t as full as any of the three senior associates, though after my recent successes in solving several local crimes I was hoping
that
would change. I’d worked my behind off. Time to reap the benefits.

The exotic gazelle girl whispered into Manny’s ear. His arms were crossed over his chest and his biceps bulged under his black T-shirt. There was something peculiar about the way he was acting. He was almost, er, pleasantly attentive. Very unlike him. He subscribed to the same school of communication Neil Lashby did: cut to the chase.
Punto
.

“Dolores,” he barked.

I jumped. Busted for staring. Damn, not a good P.I. move. “Yes?”

He crooked a finger.
“Ven aquí.”

Apparently his pleasant attentiveness didn’t extend to me. His words hadn’t sounded like a friendly “come here.” I ran through all the things Manny could have a beef with me about. My outfit topped the list. October usually had decent weather, but Sacramento was in the midst of an Indian summer and the air was heavy with uncommon humidity. I’d caught a glimpse of my reflection in the glass as I’d entered the agency: my salmon-colored blouse clung to me like plastic wrap. In the right situation—say in the privacy of Jack Callaghan’s bedroom—this could be a good thing. At work? Not so much.

But I held my chin high and walked over to Manny and the gazelle. “Yes?”

“Turn around.”

“
¿Cómo?
” My astonishment at the order pinballed through my mind and I slipped out of my dominant English and into my native Spanish.

“
Por favor
,” he added as an afterthought. Speaking Spanish and being detectives were probably the only two things Manny and I had in common. He was my mentor and damn good at his job. I worked hard to impress him and still stay true to myself—not always easy, since I was Dolores Cruz to him (and to
mi familia
), but Lola Cruz to my friends. In my mind, I was a combination, but I didn’t think anyone really knew both sides of me.

Except maybe Jack Callaghan. He’d gotten a few glimpses of both Dolores and Lola. And he seemed to like them both.

“It’s about our new case,” he said. “Turn around.”

I heard the faint
zip
of the surveillance camera and I knew my Neanderthal coworker wasn’t missing a single beat from the lair, his personal high-tech office, just waiting to see what I’d do. A solid but basic roundhouse kick, perhaps? Or maybe I’d go airborne kicking both legs, one at a time, with a double whammy. Not a bad idea. I weighed my options, in case it came to that. Which it just might.

In the end, I did neither. If it was for a case, I could only assume Manny had a reason for wanting to check out my backside. I just wasn’t convinced it was a
good
reason. My black capris were probably just as clingy as my blouse, but I couldn’t help that and I was not going to let sticky skin stop me from doing my job. Sucking in a bolstering breath and straightening my spine, I turned around in a slow circle, hands on hips. I turned to Manny and the gazelle again and waited. She was so familiar, but where did I know her from?

Her back was as straight as a two-by-four. She had one arm across her chest, the other bent at the elbow, her fingers tapping her puckered lips. “Good bones. Nice shape. Could be taller, but I guess she’ll do,” she finally said, dropping both arms to her sides.

What was I, a horse?

“Don’t you want to check my teeth?” I asked as Sadie snickered and the Stepford women at the table shifted positions and eyeballed me.

The gazelle didn’t crack a smile, and neither did Manny. Instead, he gestured with his hand. “Dolores Cruz, meet our new client, Victoria Wolfe.”

I grudgingly held out my hand. Victoria shook it with a firm but bony grip. “Pleasure,” she said just as a man materialized from inside Manny’s office.

“She’ll more than do,” he said.

Sadie’s snicker turned into a disbelieving gasp.

“
Con permiso
,” I said under my breath. “What, exactly, are you talking about?” But then realization hit me and I gasped. Him, I recognized. Lance Wolfe, owner of the Courtside Dancers, Sacramento’s answer to the Laker Girls. Now I knew where I recognized Victoria from! She and Lance, along with the Courtside Dancers, cheerleaders for the Sacramento Royals basketball team, had done a reality TV show:
Living the Royal Life
. Their high-profile effort to combat the drug, sex, and steroid scandals that had plagued the basketball team for a few years. They were local celebrities, probably recognized everywhere they went. I hadn’t been a fan, but my cousin Chely had never missed an episode.

Victoria’s face had hardened when the man stepped out of the shadows. Now she gave me another once-over. “Yes, she’ll more than do. You were right,” she said to Manny. “She’s curvy but athletic. Fit.”

That’s how Manny had described me? Oh no. The heat of embarrassment crept up my neck.

“She definitely has presence,” Victoria continued. “How about energy?”

“I can answer that,” Lance said. He sounded calm, and to look at him, you’d think he was Mr. Businessman, all buttoned-up in his periwinkle blue shirt with thin white stripes, his brown hair brushed to the right and neatly gelled into place. But I knew from local sports lore that he was a hothead on the court. He walked around me like he had his detective radar out and was gauging my effectiveness. “She’s got it in spades. If anyone can get to the bottom of this stupid mess, it’s this girl.”

Manny’s eyes bored into me. “I agree. She’s got it.”

¡Híjole!
That was as close to a compliment as Manny ever came. I had
it
, whatever
it
was. But really, it didn’t matter as long as I had active cases to investigate.

I waved a hand in front of them. Despite the praise, they still had
huevos
, talking about me as if I were the lone artificial plant in Camacho’s lobby entrance. “Excuse me,” I said again. “What am I perfect for?” I asked, although knowing that Lance Wolfe was involved could only mean one thing.

“Do you dance?” Victoria was clearly used to being in charge, asking her own questions rather than answering someone else’s.

“If she doesn’t,” Lance said, “she can learn.”

“She can’t learn to dance in a day,” Victoria snapped. “No, she has to be able to dance or it won’t work.”

Her husband threw up his hands. “Fine,” he said, then turned to me. “Well?”

What he didn’t say was that I better not disappoint him.

I twined two of my fingers together. “Me and salsa dancing, we’re like this.” Throw some Juanes on the iPod and I’d dance circles around Victoria, the twig. “And I can do a mean
merengue
.”

Victoria clapped three times,
muy rapido
. “Jennifer. Selma.”

They rose in unison like perfect specimen robots.

Victoria directed, telling the women where to stand. “Do the beginning of the new routine,” she ordered. Jennifer, a tall, languid beauty, glided, while Selma, who was a bit shorter and seemed more eager to please, hurried into position. Once Jennifer was ready, Victoria clapped and counted. “And one, and two, and three, and four…”

The two women launched into a professional cheerleading routine, stepping wide with their legs, dipping their torsos, moving their arms in exact rhythm.
¡Ay, caramba!
They were like sex puppets tied together with invisible string.

After a series of risque moves, they stopped abruptly, both ending with their right feet extended, toes arched and knees bent in a hip jazz dance stance.

Victoria rolled her hand at me. “Okay, your turn.”

¿Está loca?
Where was the salsa music? Where were Ricky Martin and Menudo?
¡Ay, ay, ay!

Sadie inhaled sharply, then broke into a coughing spasm.
Pobracita
. She’d swallowed her laughter and now had thrown herself into a tizzy.

I knew exactly what she was feeling, but I glared at her for a beat before turning my stare to Victoria. “You want
me
to do
that
?”

Manny took a step forward. “Dolores,” he said, pronouncing my name with a perfect Spanish accent.
Do-LOR-es.
It echoed in my mind. I was smart. Educated. A licensed P.I. Did he understand what he was asking me to do?

From his steady gaze, it was clear that he did. I shook my insecurities away—after all, I’d solved two murder cases in the recent past; surely I could pull off a few dance moves—and mimicked the jazz pose Jennifer and Selma Stepford had ended with. So what if I had to pretend to be a dancing sexpot? It was for a good cause. I hoped.