Chapter 1
Perhaps he was merely an adventuresome tourist who had drifted into the obscure little Mexican town in search of some action. Perhaps he had wandered into the cantina for the same reason she had: to get a bite to eat and have a bottle of the local beer. Perhaps he was a perfectly innocuous male who, when he realized there was another North American in the cantina, would come over to her table to chat.
Then again, perhaps he was her executioner.
My God, Honor Knight thought bitterly, I’m really getting paranoid. She forced down another swallow of the robust beer she had been nursing for the last hour and deliberately looked away from the line of men who were standing and leaning with varying degrees of casualness against the bar. That was all she needed now, she chastised herself. She mustn’t lose her grip on reality. She must not succumb to genuine paranoia or life would become intolerable. She really would go out of her mind with fear.
But the image of the stranger as he hooked a booted foot over the bottom rung of the bar would not be banished simply because she chose to look away. It was natural that he would stand out in this crowd, Honor assured herself. He was the only other [_gringo _]in the room besides herself. Standing at the bar, even lounging against it on one elbow as he was, he topped the Mexican men around him by several inches in most cases.
And while the other men were dressed in the dusty, loose-fitting trousers and shirts of poor, hard-working farmers, the stranger was dark and hard and lean in a pair of black jeans and a black cotton shirt.
His clothes weren’t the only things that were dark about him and that made him seem a part of the shadowy night outside. In the brief glance she had allowed herself, Honor had been aware of the deep black shade of his hair. There were subtle highlights of iron-gray in the heavy pelt which indicated the stranger at the bar would soon be staring his fortieth birthday in the face.
Even without the iron in his hair Honor would have been able to guess his age from the unforgiving hardness of his features. Uneasily she allowed her eyes to slide once again over his profile.
He had ordered tequila, not beer, she realized, watching from her sheltered table as he sipped the clear liquid in the small glass he held. How much longer before his roving gaze discovered her against the back wall? She hadn’t yet confronted that gaze directly and, based on what she’d seen of the rest of him, Honor didn’t particularly want to do so. There was a ruthless predatory quality about this man, which disturbed her on several levels. It was there in the hawkish nose, the grimly set mouth and the fiercely etched lines of his face. Somehow he seemed aloof and coldly removed from the scene around him, as if he didn’t particularly need human companionship.
Determinedly Honor picked up her fork and took another bite of the corn tamale she had been eating when the newcomer had walked through the door a few minutes earlier. There was nothing to fear, she told herself firmly. After all, she thought on a note of half-hysterical humor, she’d seen plenty of pictures of professional hit men and none of them had ever been wearing jeans and boots! They always seemed to be attired in suits that bulged in the wrong places, and they tended to speak in East Coast accents. Not that she’d heard the stranger when he’d ordered his tequila, but somehow Honor didn’t think he would have an eastern accent. More likely a southwestern drawl.
No, she wasn’t going to give in to the lure of paranoia. She had to keep a realistic perspective on her present situation or she would become a gibbering idiot! Honor swallowed another sip of the warm beer and resolved to keep her head. It was the only way to survive.
The stranger was probably from Texas or Arizona. Perhaps he had business here in this Mexican village or perhaps he’d merely come south looking for some amusement. One way or another he wasn’t a threat to her. He [_couldn’t _]be!
And then she glanced up again and found his night-dark gaze on her.
For an instant everything in the smoky, too-warm cantina seemed to freeze, including Honor’s insides. She had known instinctively that she didn’t want to meet his eyes directly but instinct hadn’t prepared her for the devastating experience when it finally did occur.
She had been half expecting a predatory sensuality in those eyes, Honor realized as her throat went dry. Casual, masculine lust would have fit with the man and the scene in which he found himself. After all, men who wandered into smoke-filled taverns the world over were usually looking for liquor and a willing woman. But there was no sign of even the most superficial desire in his gaze.
If there was no sensuality in his eyes, neither was there any other emotion she could name. No curiosity, no dislike, no anger, no expectation, no friendliness, no resentment, no humor, [_nothing. _]Just the chilling, totally self-contained, nonreflective gleam of a beast of prey. Honor had never seen such a total lack of emotion in another human being in her entire life. In a very real sense it was far more frightening than if the man had simply pulled a gun and aimed it at her.
Then he picked up his glass of tequila and started toward her. In that moment she realized he knew exactly who she was. The panic threatened to choke her. It welled up from the pit of her stomach and literally immobilized her limbs. Desperately she fought to keep it under control. It was one feeling that definitely would not aid her now. Unfortunately she couldn’t think of anything that would help her. She had no choice but to play out her role and pray that the presence of so many local townspeople there in the cantina would lend some protection. Did professional killers have the cold, emotionless eyes of a hawk? It seemed far too likely that they did.
“Honor Knight.” Her name was a statement, an identification, not a question, and there [_was _]a slight southwestern drawl in the low, gravelly intonation of his voice. The dark stranger sat down across from her without bothering with the formality of asking permission. He moved with an easy, smoothly coordinated energy which suggested controlled strength and physical prowess.
When Honor made no response, continuing to sit utterly still staring at him, the man sipped again at his tequila and then asked calmly, “Are you going to make this easy on yourself or are we going to do things the hard way?”
He wasn’t armed, Honor told herself frantically. At least not with a gun. It would have bulged somewhere against the fabric of the sleek-fitting jeans and shirt, wouldn’t it? Perhaps he used a knife? Or perhaps her imagination had truly run amok. Maybe he wasn’t there to kill her. Above all else she must keep her head and not panic.
Knowing that her life depended on staying calm, Honor made herself exchange a level glance with the man across the table. She stifled a shiver as the impenetrable darkness of his gaze met hers. “I’m sorry,” she began stiffly, “but you must have mistaken me for someone else. I don’t know you and I don’t know who it is you think I am but I would appreciate it if you would leave me alone.” She tried to make her voice as cold as his eyes.