Saint

An Excerpt From: SAINT

Copyright © T.L. GRAY, 2008

All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.

Maria shifted in the seat, stretching her aching muscles. "Tell me again why we´re driving through the hills of Kentucky and why I´m dressed like Oliver Twist. Ever hear of K-Mart?"

Will smiled wryly. "I´m taking you to a safe place. And the more pitiful you look, the better our chances of eliciting a favorable response. Seth´s a sucker for pitiful creatures in need."

Safe. Right. "There is no safe place. I know, I´ve been to all of them. You could lock me in Fort Knox and I wouldn´t feel safe."

He glanced over his shoulder before switching lanes. "Lucky for you we´re not going to Fort Knox. At this point I´m not sure I trust the Marines. Juarez is getting impatient and dangerous."

"He´s always been dangerous-I was just too stupid to see it." Maria gazed out the window at the passing scenery, watching as the fog set in on the hilltops, their wooded tips barely discernable through the evening mist. Will Skaggs was the one person she trusted with her life. He was open, honest and genuinely cared about what she was trying to do. What she would do, if she could manage to stay alive long enough.

"How´s your head?" he asked.

"It hurts."

"I know. I´m sorry. Thank God you managed to crawl into one of those vacant houses and keep out of sight ´til I got there. Jesus, I almost passed a gallstone when I called and...I thought for sure one of Juarez´s goons had gotten to you first." He slapped the steering wheel, lips thinned in anger. "I don´t how that bastard keeps doing it! I was careful, Maria."

"Who knew I was there?"

"Just me and my supervisor. He hand-picked Buck and Ray after the last time."

The last time. A safehouse in North Carolina. Simon, the agent assigned to her, shot dead through the window. A shiver ran through her.

"Cold?" he asked.

"No."

"I can turn up the heat. It tends to get a little chilly up in these hills in the evening. We´ll stop and check into a hotel so you can rest before heading up to Harris´ mountain."

"Are you sure about this, Will?"

He cast her a sideways glance. "I´m sure. Seth Harris is the best-trained military man the government ever let loose. I´ve trusted him with my life a time or two, so yes, I trust him with yours. He was Special Forces. Did some recon missions for the CIA after that, bodyguard to the President and various members of the Senate for a couple of years. You name it, he´s done it. Now he teaches literature at Murray State and takes a hiatus on his mountain in Western Kentucky for the summer."

One man was going to solve all her problems? Didn´t she wish. "You´re hiring Indiana Jones to hide me from Juarez?"

He pursed his lips and thought for a moment. "Seth has...special skills. He´s dealt with Juarez before. Not Benito, his father. I´m only telling you this because I want you to understand the, er, situation will open an old wound for him. These days he´s about as approachable as a grizzly. But," he added before she could interrupt, "he´s the only one I trust at this stage of the game. I swear, Harris is really a good guy on the inside, you just have to get past the crust to find that out."

Like she had a lot of choices. "It won´t hurt to meet with him, I guess. What did he say when you called him?"

She didn´t care for the grimace he just managed to control. "Seth likes the simple life. No phones, no television, generator for electricity. You´d think a man who´s crawled through practically every jungle in the world would crave concrete under his feet. Go figure."

Maria let her head sink back against the headrest and closed her eyes. Her skull was pounding. She was stiff and sore, and all she wanted at the moment was a hot shower and a bed. "So, what you´re saying is that we might have made the trip for nothing. He could say no."

"He´s not going to say no. I won´t let him."