Desperado Dad. Linda Conrad

farther downstream.

      By the time he reached the car, lying precariously driver’s side down, he’d made an assessment of what he could do, and what the chances were that anyone had survived. The van was submerged a good three feet deep, and the black water still rose against it. Since the roof was all he could see from the bank, he couldn’t be sure, but…

      Manny scrambled up the hood and scaled the front window, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. Slick and slippery, the van rocked gently as the cascading water tore at it, making any assent more than hazardous.

      After too many precious minutes, he made it to the passenger side and knelt, yanking on the front passenger door. It took a supreme effort, but the door finally opened, revealing the murky interior.

      “Hey, can you hear me?” he shouted.

      He bent closer and realized no one sat in the passenger seat. For a second the silence from inside was so complete he wondered if the worst had already happened.

      He began lowering himself into the front toward the spot where a driver should be, when a child’s cry pulled him up short. The baby was still alive! But Manny couldn’t see him for all the darkness and water.

      With another small whimper from the back seat, Manny quickly reached into the murky water where the driver should be and found—nothing. The smuggler that had been driving must have been thrown out as the van went over.

      As fast as he could, Manny dragged himself out of the van and wrestled with the sliding back door. The more he pulled the worse his shoulder throbbed.

      The door eventually gave way to his efforts. Manny saw the kid, still strapped in his child-carrier and hanging sideways as the water rose to meet him.

      Please don’t let him die.

      Manny reached for the carrier’s seat belt and gave it a jerk. Nothing happened. The damn thing was stuck, so Manny lowered himself into the car, sliding past the suddenly too-quiet child and landing in the freezing water.

      Standing upright in the back, waist deep, with his feet resting on the car’s left side window, he reached into his jeans pocket for his knife. As Manny’s fingers grasped the pocket knife, a small hand reached out to touch his face.

      “Hi, baby, are you hurting?” He tried to keep the tension from his voice. “I’ll have you out of here in a minute.”

      The dark-haired child, dressed in nothing but a red sweater and diaper, started to sob. It wasn’t a loud cry, but a soft, heart-wrenching sound that tore into Manny’s soul.

      “Pa…ba?” The baby patted Manny’s face and reached grasping fingers toward his jacket.

      “I’m not your papa, hijo, but there’s no need to be afraid. I won’t let anything else happen to you.”

      A flash of memory passed through Manny’s mind, reminding him that this little one had already lost his father and his mother forever. That was enough. Manny vowed to keep him safe from now on—no matter what it took, and no matter who didn’t care for the idea.

      With more effort than Manny’s shoulder should handle, the seat belt finally gave way to his sharp blade. The baby grabbed him around the neck and hung on desperately.

      Manny flipped the blade closed and jammed it back into his pocket while he experienced the closest thing to sheer panic he’d ever felt. How in the world was he going to lift himself and the boy out of the back seat and onto the car’s side with this injured shoulder?

      “Hand the baby to me.”

      “What the…?” The woman’s voice coming from above startled the hell out of him.

      When he looked up, all he could make out were long slender arms reaching down into the open doorway. Where had she come from? Had she been inside the van and gotten out by herself? Impossible. But then where…and how…?

      “Hurry up. I don’t think we’ve got much time.” The woman’s demand shocked him into movement. He lifted the baby up with his good arm. The seemingly disembodied arms from above grabbed hold of the boy securely.

      The baby gasped and tightened his grip on Manny and wailed.

      “Easy, sweetheart, I’ve got you.” The woman’s voice turned soft and pleading.

      Manny pried the boy’s arms from his neck as gently as he possibly could. Meanwhile the woman made soothing noises, pulling the baby upward. Once they had disappeared from view, Manny used his good arm and his legs to drag himself up and out of the car.

      When he found a steady perch on the car’s side, he looked over to the woman, who had the little boy wrapped securely in her arms. She looked hesitantly over the slippery roof to the ground just beyond reach.

      The rain still pulsated down on them, making every movement difficult. Manny made a quick decision. He slid down the roof and managed to find a fairly solid foothold on top of wet debris and clogged tree branches.

      He reached his good arm up toward the woman and child. “Hand him back to me, then slide down. I’ll steady you.”

      She hesitated. “Your arm’s hurt. Can you hold him?”

      “It’s nothing. Just a bruised shoulder.”

      She looked unsure but lowered the baby to him. The boy grabbed a handful of black leather jacket and held on in a death grip. Meanwhile the mysterious woman eased herself down the roof while Manny steadied her with his body.

      Within seconds they were standing on muddy ground.

      “Is there anyone else in there?” she shouted over the roar of the wind and water.

      Manny shook his head.

      She turned to the car and then swirled back with an undecided glance. For the first time, Manny noticed what their mysterious savior looked like: about half a foot shorter than his six feet, her long soggy hair hung down her back in wet strands. She wore a neon yellow slicker that looked three sizes too big and hung on her slender frame, making her appear younger than the midtwenties he guessed she must be.

      It was her eyes that really grabbed him, though. Wide with questions, Manny couldn’t tell exactly what color they were in the blackness of the night surrounding them. Full of all the emotions that he knew swirled inside her, those eyes made her look sweet and strong, and right this minute, downright scared.

      He spent one precious second considering the slim chance that the baby-stealing minivan driver still lived. It seemed like a tough ending for the man who’d obviously panicked back in Del Rio and had appeared to be headed straight for his boss. Mother Nature hadn’t read him his rights.

      In all the years Manny had been undercover chasing these baby smugglers for Operation Rock-a-Bye, he’d never followed any of them so far from the border. Usually the actual kidnapping happened in Mexico or in Europe and then was funneled through Mexico. And it was in the big, Texas cities where most of the baby selling took place. The thought of murderers and scum living in a safe, small town troubled him.

      It would be impossible to find the body tonight, so he buried his uneasiness. Right now the living needed tending.

      With no hesitation he gathered the woman up next to him and forced his bad shoulder to cradle her, while he tightened his grip on the baby with his good arm. “We need to get out of the rain. Now.”

      “My…my truck.”

      He dragged her toward the roadway. They hadn’t gone more than a few feet when the raging water finally tore the minivan loose and pummeled it farther down the river.

      The sickening sounds of scraping metal against rock forced Manny into action. He picked up their pace and moved the little band of survivors up the incline at the riverbank.

      Farther up the hill, parked in the middle of the pavement, Manny saw what had to be the woman’s truck. A fifteen-year-old, four-wheel-drive Suburban sat idling with its lights on.

      “Are