Книга - Desperado

Desperado
Diana Palmer


Risking his neck is all in a day's work…Tough and relentless, Cord Romero lives for the adrenaline rush that comes with being a mercenary for hire. But this time the job is personal. Having barely survived a murder attempt from an elusive enemy, Cord is determined to neutralize his foe–the head of a multinational corporation that fronts a child labor ring. In order to get closer to his target, Cord joins forces with the Lassiter Detective Agency, where he's reunited with his childhood friend Maggie Barton. Maggie is no longer the impressionable young woman he once knew. She is now strong, independent and in charge of her own life–and, professionally, Cord's equal. She has one vulnerability: a tragic secret from her past that threatens her relationship with Cord…and sets her up as a pawn for his deadly enemy.Cord cannot afford to be distracted during the most important case of his life. But Maggie plays an indispensable part in unraveling the links to his enemy's crimes. Forced to trust each other for their very survival, Cord and Maggie embark on a lethal game of cat and mouse that can leave only one winner standing.







Risking his neck is all in a day’s work…

Tough and relentless, Cord Romero lives for the adrenaline rush that comes with being a mercenary for hire. But this time the job is personal. Having barely survived a murder attempt from an elusive enemy, Cord is determined to neutralize his foe—the head of a multinational corporation that fronts a child labor ring. In order to get closer to his target, Cord joins forces with the Lassiter Detective Agency, where he’s reunited with his childhood friend Maggie Barton. Maggie is no longer the impressionable young woman he once knew. She is now strong, independent and in charge of her own life—and, professionally, Cord’s equal. She has one vulnerability: a tragic secret from her past that threatens her relationship with Cord…and sets her up as a pawn for his deadly enemy.

Cord cannot afford to be distracted during the most important case of his life. But Maggie plays an indispensable part in unraveling the links to his enemy’s crimes. Forced to trust each other for their very survival, Cord and Maggie embark on a lethal game of cat and mouse that can leave only one winner standing.


Praise for the novels of New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author DIANA PALMER (#ulink_674975a9-5174-5769-a5bb-3a9020b69236)

“Palmer demonstrates, yet again, why she’s the

queen of desperado quests for justice and true love.”

—Publishers Weekly on Dangerous

“A strong mystery intertwines with this romance, which

has plenty of emotional ups and downs and includes

delightful, intriguing and familiar characters.”

—RT Book Reviews on Dangerous

“The popular Palmer has penned another winning

novel, a perfect blend of romance and suspense.”

—Booklist on Lawman

“Sensual and suspenseful.”

—Booklist on Lawless

“Diana Palmer is a mesmerizing storyteller who

captures the essence of what a romance should be.”

—Affaire de Coeur

“This is a fascinating story…

It’s nice to have a hero wise enough to know when

he can’t do things alone and willing to accept help

when he needs it. There is pleasure to be found

in the nice sense of family this tale imparts.”

—RT Book Reviews on Wyoming Bold

“Diana Palmer is one of those authors whose books

are always enjoyable. She throws in romance,

suspense and a good storyline.”

—The Romance Reader on Before Sunrise

“Lots of passion, thrills, and plenty of suspense…

Protector is a top notch read!”

—Romance Reviews Today on Protector


Desperado

Diana Palmer




www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


Dear Reader (#ulink_571bfedd-0994-5446-aac6-15fd6ab90fee),

I started out as a newspaper reporter, at the age of seventeen. By the time I married, at age twenty-five, I was working as a district correspondent for two daily newspapers, and full-time on a local weekly newspaper. At the age of thirty-three, I saw my first novel published and produced my greatest creative work, our son Blayne. Now, as I look back on a career that spans decades, I can see a common thread in the process that led me to being a full-time author—insanity!

Just kidding. But it does help to be a little out of kilter if you want to do this for a living. Example: Cash Grier is featured in my novel Renegade. Now, he started out as a very minor character in a novel called The Texas Ranger. I thought that was the end of it. Imagine my surprise when he suddenly appeared as assistant police chief of Jacobsville, Texas, in Lawless. No, I didn’t put him in the position. He walked into my office, creatively speaking, sat down in my chair, put his big booted feet on my desk and announced that he was taking over my book. This did not sit well. But he proved impossible to evict, so I wrote Renegade, hoping he might take the hint and leave. As you know, if you read my books, this was also an optimistic and futile wish. He has never left. One of my readers, Cinzi, keeps hoping I will toss Tippy under an ice cream truck and give Cash Grier to her. I really can’t. Tippy would start haunting me.

On the other hand, Cord Romero, in Desperado, started out also in another book, in my Most Wanted series. He turned up in a few other books, as well. He wasn’t as pushy as Cash, but he did fascinate me. So he got a book of his own, and a happy ending. I’m big on those. Life doesn’t give us many. Fiction should take up the slack, or at least, that’s my own philosophy.

While Cash’s story played out in Jacobsville and New York City (one of my favorite places!), Cord wound his way through Texas and Europe in an effort to save the lives of exploited children. He also found out some interesting and tragic things about his foster sister in the process. A lot of Jacobsville’s mercenaries also turn up in Desperado, including Rodrigo Ramirez, of Fearless, and Bojo, who was featured in Lord of the Desert.

Both these books are epic love stories, with twists and turns and many red herrings. I hope you will enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

I am busy working on other projects, most notably a new Wyoming series beginning with Sara Brandon from Texas Born and a book about Stanton Rourke from Invincible. I am also reworking my science fiction novels in The Morcai Battalion series. The Morcai Battalion: The Recruit, which really is a love story about Dr. Madeline Ruszel and the alien Cehn-Tahr commander Dtimun, has new scenes and will be out from Mills & Boon HQN in both ebook and paperback form in December 2014. I am rewriting its sequel, The Morcai Battalion: Invictus, and it will appear in print in late 2015. There will be other books in the series, notably The Morcai Battalion: Ship’s Surgeon with Dr. Edris Mallory in 2016. In my spare time, I sleep. :)

Thank you so much for all your kindness to me over the years, dear readers. I am your biggest fan!

Love,

Diana Palmer


To the doctors and nurses of

Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Illinois,

who saved my life, and to the wonderful staff,

with thanks from a grateful patient.


Contents

Cover (#u5710459a-722c-577a-bde8-fa8b43abd5d3)

Back Cover Text (#uda39ee24-3504-5d98-8fd0-7b39588d0ac0)

Praise (#ulink_9b1632fe-300e-53e4-9863-dccfc2f4b168)

Title Page (#u693f51df-5814-5675-87c0-aeb67bbe1452)

Dear Reader (#ulink_ef691f73-ce54-5930-936c-60c4daca1633)

Dedication (#ud10f1b4d-7356-514d-8515-562819288e4b)

CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_c960e76b-5afb-5582-97ac-ed8f4791a7b4)

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_fd77d460-3fa0-56e1-8a1e-73310702367a)

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Extract (#u6f21c2a0-690f-5b2f-b097-11ae68b3e93a)

Copyright (#ufde82631-3cf1-51fb-9637-60471d6cb966)


CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_aa614e16-c161-549b-a2f1-bb02bfe70ae4)

THE RANCH OUTSIDE Houston was big and sprawling. It was surrounded by neat white fences, which concealed electrical ones, to keep in the purebred Santa Gertrudis cattle that Cord Romero owned. There was also a bull, a special bull, which had been spared from a corrida—a bullfight—in Spain by Cord’s father, Mejias Romero, one of the most famous bullfighters in Spain just before his untimely death in America. Once Cord grew up and had money of his own, Cord had traveled to his elderly cousin’s ranch in Andalusia to get the bull and have it shipped to Texas. Cord called the old bull Hijito, little boy. The creature was still all muscle, although most of it was in his huge chest. He followed Cord around the ranch like a pet dog.

As Maggie Barton exited the cab with her suitcase, the big bull snorted and tossed his head on the other side of the fence. Maggie barely spared him a glance after she paid the driver. She’d come rushing home from Morocco in a tangle of missed planes, delays, cancellations and other obstacles that had caused her to be three days in transit. Cord, a professional mercenary and her foster brother, had been blinded. Most surprising, he’d asked for her through his friend, Eb Scott. Maggie couldn’t get home fast enough. The delays had been agony.

Perhaps, finally, Cord had realized that he cared for her...!

With her heart pounding, she pressed the doorbell on the spacious front porch with its green swing and glider and rocking chairs. There were pots of ferns and flowers everywhere.

Sharp, quick footsteps sounded on the bare wooden floors in the house and Maggie frowned as she pushed the long, wavy black hair away out of her worried green eyes. Those steps didn’t sound like Cord’s. He had an elegance of movement in his stride that was long and effortless, masculine but gliding. This was a short, staccato step, more like a woman’s. Her heart stopped. Did he have a girlfriend she didn’t know about? Had she misinterpreted Eb Scott’s phone call? Her confidence nosedived.

The door opened and a slight blond woman with dark eyes looked up at her. “Yes?” she asked politely.

“I came to see Cord,” Maggie blurted out. Jet lag was already setting in on her. She didn’t even think to give her name.

“I’m sorry, he isn’t seeing people just yet. He’s been in an accident.”

“I know that,” Maggie said impatiently. She softened the words with a smile. “Tell him it’s Maggie. Please.”

The other woman, who must have been all of nineteen, grimaced. “He’ll kill me if I let you in! He said he didn’t want to see anybody. I’m really sorry...”

Jet lag and irritability combined to break the bonds of Maggie’s temper. “Listen, I’ve just come over three thousand miles—oh, the hell with it! Cord?” she yelled past the girl, who grimaced again. “Cord!”

There was a pause, then a cold, short, “Let her in, June!”

June stepped aside at once. Maggie was made uneasy by the harsh note in Cord’s deep voice. She left her suitcase on the porch. June gave it a curious glance before she closed the door.

Cord was standing at the fireplace in the spacious living room. Just the sight of him fed Maggie’s heart. He was tall and lean, powerfully built for all his slimness, a tiger of a man who feared nothing in this world. He made his living as a professional soldier, and he had few peers. He was handsome, with light olive skin and jet-black hair that had a slight wave. His eyes were large, deep-set, dark brown. His eyebrows were drawn into a scowl as Maggie walked in, and except for the red wounds around his eyes and cheeks, he actually looked normal. He looked as if he could see her. Ridiculous, of course. A bomb he’d tried to defuse had gone off right in his face. Eb said he was blind.

She stared at him. This man was the love of her life. There had never been anyone but him in her heart. She was amazed that he’d never noticed, in the eighteen years their lives had been connected. Even his brief, tragic marriage hadn’t altered those feelings. Like him, she was widowed—but she didn’t grieve for her husband the way he’d grieved for Patricia.

Her gaze fell helplessly to his wide, chiseled mouth. She remembered, oh, so well, the feel of it on hers in the darkness. It had been heaven to be held by him, kissed by him, after years of anguished longing. But very quickly, the pleasure had become pain. Cord hadn’t known she was innocent, and he was too drunk to notice at the time. It was just after his wife committed suicide, the night their foster mother had died...

“How are you?” Maggie blurted out, hesitating just beyond the doorway, suddenly tongue-tied.

His square jaw seemed to tighten, but he smiled coldly. “A bomb exploded in my face four days ago. How the hell do you think I am?” he drawled sarcastically.

He was anything but welcoming. So much for fantasies. He didn’t need her. He didn’t want her around. It was just like old times. And she’d come running. What a joke.

“It amazes me that even a bomb could faze you,” she remarked with her old self-possession. She even smiled. “Mr. Cold Steel repels bullets, bombs, and especially, me!”

He didn’t react. “Nice of you to stop by. And so promptly,” he added.

She didn’t understand the remark. He seemed to feel she’d procrastinated about visiting. “Eb Scott phoned and said you’d been hurt. He said...” She hesitated, uncertain whether or not to tell him everything Eb had said to her. She went for broke, but she laughed to camouflage her raw emotions. “He said you wanted me to come nurse you. Funny, huh?”

He didn’t laugh. “Hilarious.”

She felt the familiar whip of his sarcasm with pain she didn’t try to hide. After all, he couldn’t see it. “That’s our Eb,” she agreed. “A real kidder. I guess you have—what was her name?—June to take care of you?” she added with forced lightness.

“That’s right. I have June. She’s been here since I got home.” He emphasized the pronoun, for reasons of his own. He smiled deliberately. “June is all I need. She’s sweet and kindhearted, and she really cares about me.”

She forced a smile. “She’s pretty, too.”

He nodded. “Isn’t she, though? Pretty, smart, and a good cook. And she’s blond,” he added in a cold, soft voice that made chills run down her spine.

She didn’t have to puzzle out the remark. He was partial to blondes. His late wife, Patricia, had been a blonde. He’d loved Patricia...

She rubbed her fingers over the strap of her shoulder bag and realized with a start how tired she was. Airport after airport, dragging her suitcase, agonizing over Cord’s true state of health for three long days, just trying to get home to him—and he acted as if she’d pushed her way in. Perhaps she had. Eb should have told her the truth, that Cord still didn’t want her in his life, even when he was injured.

She gave him a long, anguished look and moved one shoulder restlessly. “Well, that puts me in my place,” she said pleasantly. “I’m sure not blond. Nice to see you’re still on your feet. But I’m sorry about your eyes,” she added.

“What about my eyes?” he asked curtly, scowling fiercely.

“Eb said you were blinded,” she replied.

“Temporarily blinded,” he corrected. “It’s not a permanent condition. I can see fairly well now, and the ophthalmologist expects a complete recovery.”

Her heart jumped. He could see? She realized then that he was watching her, not just staring into a void. It came as a shock. She hadn’t been guarding her expressions. She felt uncomfortable, knowing he’d been able to glimpse the misery and worry on her face.

“No kidding? That’s great news!” she said, and forced a convincing smile. She was getting the hang of this. Her face would be permanently gleeful, like a piece of fired sculpture. She could hire it out for celebrations. This wasn’t one.

“Isn’t it?” he agreed, but his returned smile wasn’t pleasant at all.

She shifted the strap of her bag again, feeling weak at the knees and embarrassed by her headlong rush to his side. She’d given up her new job and come running home to take care of Cord. But he didn’t need her, or want her here. Now she had no job, no place to live, and only her savings to get her through the time until she could find employment. She never learned.

He was barely courteous, and his expression was hostile. “Thanks for coming. I’m sorry you have to leave so soon,” he added. “I’ll be glad to walk you to the door.”

She lifted an eyebrow, and gave him a sardonic look. “No need to give me the bum’s rush,” she said. “I got the message, loud and clear. I’m not welcome. Fine. I’ll leave skid marks going out the door. You can have June scrub them off later.”

“Everything’s a joke with you,” he accused coldly.

“It beats crying,” she replied pleasantly. “I need my head read for coming out here in the first place. I don’t know why I bothered!”

“Neither do I,” he agreed with soft venom. “A day late and a dollar short, at that.”

That was enigmatic, but she was too angry to question his phrasing. “You don’t have to belabor the point. I’m going,” she assured him. “In fact, it’s just a matter of another few interviews and I can arrange things so that you’ll never have to see me again.”

“That would be a real pleasure,” he said with a bite in his deep voice. He was still glaring at her. “I’ll give a party.”

He was laying it on thick. It was as if he were furious with her, for some reason. Perhaps just her presence was enough to set him off. That was nothing new.

She only laughed. She’d had years to perfect her emotional camouflage. It was dangerous to give Cord an opening. He had no compunction about sticking the knife in. They were old adversaries.

“I won’t expect an invitation,” she told him complacently. “Ever thought of taking early retirement, while you still have a head that can be blown off?” she added.

He didn’t answer.

She shrugged and sighed. “I must be in demand somewhere,” she told the room at large. “I’ll have myself paged at the airport and find out.”

She gave him one long, last look, certain that it would be the last time her eyes would see that handsome face. There was some old saying about divine punishment in the form of showing paradise to a victim and then tossing him back into reality. It was like that with Maggie, having known the utter delight of Cord’s lovemaking only once. Despite the pain and embarrassment, and his fury afterward, she’d never been able to forget the wonder of his mouth on her body for the first time. The rejection she felt now was almost palpable, and she had to hide it. It wasn’t easy.

“Thanks for the caring concern,” he drawled.

“Oh, anytime,” she replied merrily. “But you can phone me yourself next time you stick your face in a bomb and want tending. And just for the record, you can tell Eb his sense of humor stinks!”

“Tell him yourself,” he shot back. “You were engaged to him, weren’t you?”

Only because I couldn’t have you, she thought, and your marriage was killing me. But she didn’t say another word. She smiled carelessly, dragged her eyes away from him, turned neatly on her heel and started back out the door.

She’d just gone through the doorway when he called to her suddenly, reluctantly, in a husky tone, “Maggie!”

She didn’t hesitate for a second. She was angry now, too, angry that she’d come three thousand miles, that she’d been stupid enough to care about a man who’d never returned her feelings, that she’d believed Eb Scott when he said Cord had asked for her.

June was in the hall, frowning. The frown deepened when she saw Maggie’s face, saw the hurt the woman was trying valiantly to hide.

“Are you all right?” she asked in a quick whisper.

Maggie couldn’t manage many words at that point. June was Cord’s new love interest. Maggie couldn’t bear to look at her. She just nodded, a curt jerk of her head. “Thanks,” she bit off, and kept walking.

She went out the front door and closed it behind her. Despite that faint call, Cord hadn’t pursued her. Maybe he felt momentarily guilty for being so unwelcoming. His sense of hospitality was probably outraged, but she knew from the past that he didn’t dwell on his conscience. Meanwhile, she wanted nothing more than to get her long fingernails into Eb Scott. He was happily married now, and she knew he hadn’t phoned her to be malicious, but he’d caused her untold misery by upsetting her about Cord’s condition. Why?

She stood on the front porch for a moment, trying to get herself together again. Houston was about twenty minutes miles away, and she’d sent the cab off, expecting to stay with Cord and take care of him. She laughed out loud.

She looked toward the highway. Oh, well. As they said, walking was great exercise. She was glad that she’d worn sneakers instead of high heels with her nice gray pantsuit. She could spend the time it took walking to Houston thinking about her stupidity. She noticed that Cord didn’t strain his sense of hospitality offering her a ride, either.

She tugged her wheeled suitcase along with her down the steps and started down the driveway with growing amusement at the absurdity of her predicament. She glanced down at the suitcase with a whimsical smile. “I don’t even have a horse to ride off into the sunset on. Well, it’s just you and me, old paint,” she said, reaching down to pat the suitcase. “Let’s mosey!”

* * *

BACK IN THE living room, Cord Romero was standing where Maggie had left him, frozen with anger by the fireplace.

June looked in, worried. “She seemed concerned about you,” she began.

“Sure,” he said on a cold laugh. “It’s twenty minutes from Houston and she couldn’t drive out here any sooner than this. Some concern!”

“But she had a—!” she began, about to tell him about the suitcase Maggie had left on the porch.

He held up a big, lean hand. “Not another word,” he said firmly. “I don’t want to hear one more thing about her. Bring me a cup of coffee, would you? Then send Red Davis in here.”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“And tell your father I want to see him when he’s through overseeing the loading of those cattle we’ve culled,” he added, because her father was the livestock foreman.

“Yes, sir,” she said again, and left.

Cord cursed under his breath. He hadn’t seen Maggie in weeks. It was as if she’d vanished off the face of the earth. He’d actually gone by her apartment once, although she’d refused to answer the doorbell, even after he’d spent five minutes ringing it. She wouldn’t answer her damned telephone, either. He didn’t want to admit that he’d missed her, or that it hurt like hell that she’d waited four days to come and see about him.

Their lives had been entwined since he was sixteen and she was eight when they’d been taken in by Mrs. Amy Barton, a socialite whose sister was an employee at the juvenile detention center. Cord’s parents had died in a fire while they were all visiting Houston on a rare vacation. Maggie had been abandoned by her family about the same time, and both were held at the juvenile center. Mrs. Barton, childless and lonely, had impulsively decided to be a foster parent to the two children. Eventually she’d adopted Maggie.

Cord had been in trouble with the law at eighteen, and Maggie had been his mainstay. At the age of ten, she was so mature with her advice and loyalty for him that Mrs. Barton had laughed even through her agony at his predicament. Maggie was fiercely protective of her older foster brother. He remembered her holding his hand so tightly when his case was called before the judge, her whispered assurances that everything would be all right. Maggie had always taken care of him. When his wife, Patricia, had killed herself, Maggie had stayed right with him through the inquest and the funeral. When Mrs. Barton had died, Maggie had given him loving comfort, and he’d repaid her with pain...

He couldn’t bear to think about that night. It was one of the worst memories of his life. He stared blankly out the window at the pasture where his big bull Hijito roamed, and grimaced as he recalled Maggie’s face only minutes before. Her life had been no bed of roses, either. He knew nothing of her childhood, or why she’d been taken away from her stepfather. Mrs. Barton had refused to discuss it, and Maggie had avoided the question ever since he’d known her.

Maggie had inexplicably married, less than a month after Mrs. Barton’s death, and to a man she’d only known briefly. It hadn’t been a happy relationship. The man she married, a wealthy banker, was twenty years older than she was and divorced. Cord recalled hearing that she’d had some sort of accident at home, and that her husband had been killed in a car crash while she was still in the hospital.

Cord had come home from Africa when he’d heard, just to see about her. She’d been at home when he came, too sick even to go to her husband’s funeral for reasons nobody told him. She hadn’t wanted Cord there. She’d refused to talk to him, even to look at him. It had hurt, because he knew why. The night Mrs. Barton had died, he’d taken Maggie to bed. He’d been drinking, one of only two times in his life he’d ever had too much to drink, and he’d hurt her. Incredibly she’d been a virgin. He didn’t remember much of what had happened, only her tears and harsh sobs, and his shocked realization that she wasn’t the experienced woman he’d imagined her. His anger at himself had translated itself into harsh accusations at her for what had happened. Even through the haze of time, he could still see her anguished tears, her shivering body wrapped in a sheet, her eyes avoiding the sight of his powerful body without clothing as he stood over her and raged.

They’d seen each other very few times since then, and Maggie’s discomfort in his presence had been obvious. After she was widowed, she’d taken back her maiden name, thrown herself into her work as vice president of an investment firm and avoided Cord totally. It should have pleased him. He’d avoided her for years before Amy Barton’s death. She didn’t know that he’d married Patricia in a vain effort to head off his inexplicable obsession with Maggie. He’d spent so many years trying not to let her get close to him. He’d loved his pretty little American mother, worshipped his Spanish father. Their tragic deaths, in a fire that had spared him, had warped his emotions at an early age. He knew the danger of loving that led to the agony of loss. Patricia’s suicide had compounded his misery. When Mrs. Barton died, it was the last straw. Everything he loved, everyone he loved, was taken from him. It was easier, much easier, to stop feeling deeply.

His stint in the Houston Police Department, interrupted by service with the army in Operation Desert Storm, had given him a taste for danger that had led him into the FBI. After Patricia’s suicide, for which he felt guilt because of reasons he’d never shared with another living soul, he’d gone into work as a professional mercenary. His specialty was demolition, and he was good at it. Or he had been, until he’d let himself be lured into a trap by an old adversary in Miami. His instincts had saved him from certain death, only to learn that the whole thing had been a setup. Maggie didn’t know that, and he had no reason to tell her. She was obviously unconcerned with his health, showing up so late after the fact. He knew that his adversary was going to come after him again. But he wasn’t going to let himself be surprised a second time.

He turned away from the window with a sigh and regretted, deeply, his treatment of Maggie. He was responsible for her distaste for him, for the indifference that had brought her to his side four days after the accident instead of hours afterward. If she’d still cared for him at all, she wouldn’t have waited. She’d have been frantic to see him. He laughed at his own idiocy. He’d hurt her, been icy cold to her, pushed her out of his life at every turn for years, and now he was resentful because she didn’t care very much that he’d been injured. He was only reaping the harvest of his abuse. It wasn’t Maggie’s fault.

For one vulnerable moment, he’d called her name and tried to find the words for an apology. But his pride had stopped him from following her when she ignored him. She’d go away and probably never come back. And he deserved it.

* * *

MAGGIE WAS HALFWAY down the long, paved driveway between neat white fences when the sound of a pickup truck coming up fast from behind made her step off the pavement.

But instead of passing her, the truck stopped and the passenger door was pushed open.

Red Davis, one of Cord’s ranch foremen, leaned forward, his wide-brimmed straw hat pulled down over his red hair and blue eyes. He smiled. “It’s too hot to walk a suitcase to Houston. Get in,” he said. “I’ll drive you.”

She chuckled, even as she was touched by an act of kindness she hadn’t expected. She hesitated for just a minute. “Cord didn’t send you, did he?” she asked abruptly. If he had, she wasn’t taking one step into that double-cabbed, six-wheeled truck!

“No, ma’am, he didn’t,” he replied. “He didn’t know you brought the suitcase. And I wouldn’t tell him even if he tortured me,” he swore with a hand over his heart and a twinkle in his eyes.

She laughed. “Okay, then. Thanks!” She slid her suitcase into the backseat and jumped up into the cab beside Davis, closing the door and fastening her seat belt.

He started up the engine again and roared down the driveway. “I guess you didn’t come from town?” he probed.

“Leave it alone, Red,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”

“You brought a suitcase,” he persisted. “Why?”

“You’re a pest, Davis!”

“And I don’t respond to insecticide, either,” he grinned. “Come on, Maggie. Tell Uncle Red why you turned up with that trunk on wheels.”

“All right, I came from Morocco,” she replied finally when he just grinned at her scowl. “Straight from Morocco, at that, despite delays and layovers and flight cancellations. I haven’t slept in thirty-six hours. I expected to find him blind and helpless.” She laughed. “I should have known better. He laid into me the minute I walked into the house and booted me out the door.” She shook her head. “Just like old times. Nothing ever changes. Just the sight of me rubs him the wrong way.”

“What were you doing in Morocco?” he asked, startled.

“Having a vacation before I took up my new job in Qawi,” she confessed. “My best friend is taking it instead. So here I am with everything I own in a suitcase, no place to live, no job, no nothing.” She shot him a half-amused glance. “If I weren’t such a tough nut, I’d bawl my head off.”

“Cord didn’t offer you a room?” he exclaimed, horrified.

“Cord doesn’t know I came from Morocco,” she said stiffly. “He doesn’t even know I was in Morocco in the first place. I didn’t tell him I was leaving Houston. Not that he would have cared, even if he’d noticed.” She leaned her head back against the leather headrest with a sigh and closed her eyes. “You’d think I’d stop bashing my head against stone walls, wouldn’t you?”

The thinly veiled reference to her feelings for her foster brother wasn’t lost on the man beside her. He wasn’t close to Cord Romero, but he recognized unrequited love when he saw it. He was sorry for this pretty, strong woman who looked as if she was at the end of her rope. He wondered why his boss couldn’t see how much she cared about him. He was supremely indifferent to her, and had been ever since Davis had come to work for him.

“Besides,” she added in a voice that betrayed more than she realized, “he’s got June to take care of him, now, hasn’t he?”

He shot her an odd glance. “Not in the way you’re thinking,” he volunteered.

She was suddenly interested. “Excuse me?”

“June is Darren Travis’s daughter,” he explained. “He’s Cord’s cattle foreman, looks after the purebred Santa Gertrudis herd. June’s taken over the housekeeping and cooking just temporarily, because Cord’s regular woman remarried and left. But June’s sweet on a Houston police officer, and vice versa. She’s scared of Cord. Most people are. He isn’t the easiest boss in the world, and he has moods.”

She was really confused now. “But he said...! I mean—” she lowered her voice “—he insinuated that he and June were involved.”

He chuckled. “She has to be forced to go to him with problems. She usually tells her father and has him relay any requests. She thinks Cord’s a holy terror. She told me once she couldn’t imagine a woman brave enough to take him on. It really amazed her that he’d been married at all.”

“It amazed all of us, at the time,” Maggie recalled reluctantly. His marriage had hurt her terribly. It was a whirlwind courtship at that. Maggie had wanted to die when he walked in the front door with Patricia. Their foster mother, Amy Barton, had been equally shocked. Cord didn’t strike anyone as a marrying man.

“He hasn’t had women around in years,” Davis said thoughtfully. “He goes out occasionally, but he never brings anybody home, and he’s never out late. Funny, that. He’s a good-looking man, only in his thirties, in a dangerous profession and rich. You’d think he’d have pretty women tripping over him. He’s something of a recluse.”

She glanced at him. “That dangerous profession is probably why. He knows every assignment could be his last. I don’t imagine he’d want to wish that on a woman.”

“Danger draws women, though, doesn’t it?”

She laughed. “Not this woman,” she confessed, stifling a yawn and lying through her teeth. “I’d rather marry a guy who worked the drive-in window at a fast-food joint than a professional demolition expert. Not much risk of being blown up handling hamburgers and fries,” she added drolly, and was rewarded by a chuckle.

Maggie had been briefly engaged to Eb Scott just after Cord married Patricia. Now, she could admit that it had only been an engagement of friends, one of so many futile attempts to get over Cord. She and Eb had never been really attracted to each other physically. Cord had assumed that they were sleeping together, which explained his stark horror at Maggie’s innocence years later, on the night Mrs. Barton died. But Maggie had never been able to think of any man except Cord intimately—at least, until they were intimate. Now her older, more frightening memories of things sexual were intermixed with new ones of discomfort and embarrassment. Why, oh, why, couldn’t she get him out of her heart, her mind?

“You’ve known Cord a long time, haven’t you?” Red mused.

“Since I was eight and he was sixteen,” she murmured, getting drowsy, lulled by the soft motion of the truck on the smooth pavement of the highway that led into Houston. “That old saying that brothers and sisters fight like cats and dogs isn’t so far off, you know,” she murmured. “Even foster ones.”

“Really?” he said, almost to himself.

“Really.” She yawned and his next comment fell on deaf ears. She drifted off into a brief oblivion.

* * *

IT WASN’T A long drive, but it felt as if they’d just left the ranch when Maggie was brought awake by a tap from Davis’s hand. She opened her eyes and noticed that they’d already reached the city limits of Houston.

“Sorry to wake you, but we’re in town now. Do you have any idea where you want me to take you?” Davis asked gently.

“To a nice, comfortable, cheap hotel,” she murmured dryly. “I’m living on my savings until I get another job, and they don’t amount to much.”

He grimaced. “You should have told him.”

“Oh, no!” she disagreed. She smoothed her pink-tipped fingernails over her white purse. “I’m not his responsibility. I only wanted to take care of him. Funny, isn’t it? He doesn’t need anybody. He never has.” She turned her eyes out the window. She wasn’t a weepy sort of person. She was strong and spirited and independent. The hard knocks of her life had made her strong. But she was tired and sleepy and she felt Cord’s cold rejection deeply. She was momentarily weak and she didn’t want Davis to see it.

Davis mumbled something under his breath. It sounded like “damned idiot,” but Maggie wasn’t rising to the bait.

“It isn’t right,” he said angrily. “Letting you out the door without even knowing if you had a way back to town.”

“Don’t you dare tell him about the suitcase or the trip,” she said impatiently when she saw the look on his face. “Don’t you dare, Red!”

“I won’t tell him about the suitcase,” he agreed, mentally crossing his fingers. “There’s a good hotel downtown, not expensive, where my mother stays when she comes to see me,” he added quickly. “You’ll like it.”

She nodded. “Okay. That’ll do. I think I could sleep for a week.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Tomorrow, I’ll get a newspaper and find a job.” She yawned again. “Things will look bright tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry you had such a rough day,” he told her as he pulled up in front of a nice, but nondescript hotel downtown.

“They’re all rough days, lately,” she murmured with a smile. “Life is trial by fire, didn’t you know? It’s an obstacle course. If you survive it, you get to wear wings and float around feeling sorry for the living!”

“Think so?” he teased.

“Of course, when I think about Cord, I want to come back as a stump and trip him twice a day,” she commented drily. She turned toward him. “Thanks for the ride, Red. Thanks a lot. It would have been a long walk.”

“No problem.”

He went around and got her suitcase out for her. She walked into the hotel dragging it behind her. Davis thought he’d never seen such poise, and the thought “grace under fire” came unwillingly to his mind. And Cord Romero could turn his back on a woman like that! The man had to be nuts.

Maggie checked in, went up to her room, locked the door, took off her pantsuit and fell into the bed. She put Cord’s handsome face out of her mind firmly and closed her eyes. She was asleep seconds later.

* * *

BACK AT THE ranch, Cord was sipping coffee and going over ledgers on his computer. He’d spent a lot of time away in recent months, and it was tough catching up on business.

He wondered sometimes why he didn’t just sell the ranch and move into an apartment. He was all on his own, and he never planned to marry again. Life would be less complicated if he lived out of a suitcase, as he’d done most of his adult life except during his brief marriage. But he loved his cattle, and the pair of Andalusian horses he’d purchased on his last visit to his cousin in Andalusia, in the south of Spain not too long a drive from the Rock of Gibraltar.

He leaned back and stared blankly at the black type on the computer screen. He couldn’t get Maggie’s eyes out of his thoughts. When she’d first seen him, before he spoke, those green eyes had been alive with concern, with pleasure, with tentative affection, with joy. So soon, they’d faded to dullness and the joy in them had eclipsed into a sadness that was painful to recall, although she’d quickly hidden it.

It didn’t take good eyesight to recognize her unrequited love for him. At some level, he’d known about it for years. He simply ignored it. She’d grown up, become engaged to his best friend, but married someone else, been widowed—her life had been more of thorns than roses. He’d offered her pain in return for those years of fierce loyalty and affection.

When she’d gone out of his life, he’d expected to have peace, finally. But the loneliness had worn him down until he became careless. In the past, it would have taken far more than a simple electronic bomb to damage him.

In past weeks, for reasons he didn’t really understand, she’d avoided him completely. That had hurt. He’d taken a case in Florida, wounded because Maggie didn’t want to see him. He’d let down his guard and had almost been killed, by an old enemy whose livelihood had been threatened by Cord’s investigation of an employment agency with which he was somehow connected. He’d planted a bomb and Cord had walked into a trap because his mind had been on Maggie instead of the job.

At least she’d finally come to see about him! He’d known that Eb was going to get in touch with her. But he’d stopped just short of telling the man to ask her to come and see about him. He’d expected—no, he’d hoped—that she cared enough to come running the minute he got home. But she hadn’t. It had shaken him.

He’d become accustomed to Maggie on the fringes of his life, always laughing, making him laugh, making him feel safe. She was always there, always waiting for him to...

He cursed under his breath and ran an angry hand through his thick, dark hair. Maggie had finally given up on him. She’d decided that he was never going to turn to her with anything more than sarcasm or indifference. She’d removed herself from the periphery of his life and cut him out of hers. That was what had hurt the most. Having her wait days to acknowledge his injury had only added fuel to the fire.

Well, he’d chased her away for the last time and he wasn’t going to sit around counting his regrets. He couldn’t blame her for not caring, when her place in his life had always been a reluctant one, a remote one, barely tolerated, and totally unappreciated. He couldn’t remember a single time when he’d admitted how much it mattered that she was concerned for him. He’d never told her the comfort it gave him when Patricia died, when he was wounded, when he was in trouble, to have her hold his big hand in her small one so tightly and never let go.

She was a rock in hard times. He hadn’t realized how much he counted on her presence for comfort, for security. Now that comfort was removed, perhaps forever, and her absence was like a hole inside him that nothing could ever fill again. He forced his attention back to the computer screen, grateful that he still had his vision, even if he lost everything else. Not that he was going to advertise his recovery. Not yet.

Impulsively he closed down the spreadsheet and logged on to the Internet. He wanted to know where his nemesis was and what illegal activities might have prompted the attack on Cord in Miami. With a smile of pure arrogance, he walked into the back door of a government agency and right into the protected files on one Raoul Gruber, who had connections in the Cote d’Ivoire of Africa, in Madrid, and in Amsterdam....





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