Desperado

It had taken weeks for her to come near him. She loved Mrs. Barton, but she was uneasy around boys or men. He attributed that to her age. But as she grew older, she began to cling to Cord. He was her source of stability. She anchored herself to him and hid from any sort of social activity. Despite the age difference, she became possessive of him. When he got in trouble at the age of eighteen and was faced with the possibility of going to jail, it was Maggie who sat beside him and held his hand while Mrs. Barton had hysterics and became the voice of doom. Maggie, in her quiet, gentle way, gave him the comfort and strength he needed to face his problems and overcome them.

She’d only been ten years old, but she had a maturity even then that was surprising. She was an introvert by nature, but she seemed to sense that Cord needed someone bright and happy to bring out the best in him. So she developed a sense of humor and picked at Cord and teased him and made him play. Maggie had taught him how to laugh.

He studied her wan, drawn face on the white pillowcase and wondered why he’d always treated her as an outsider. He was alternately hostile and sarcastic, never kind or welcoming. Maggie had done more for him than anyone in his life except their foster parent. Maybe, he pondered, it was because she knew him so well. Despite his spiny outward appearance, Maggie knew him right inside, where he lived. She knew that he had nightmares about the night his parents had died in a hotel fire. She knew that he was haunted by Patricia’s suicide. She knew that when he was being his most sarcastic, he was hiding wounds. He couldn’t hide anything from Maggie.

But she hid her whole life from him. He knew next to nothing about her, really. She’d been a sad, frightened, jumpy child with odd moods and terrors. She’d avoided relationships like the devil, yet she’d married a man she hardly knew, a much-older man, and been married and widowed in weeks. She never spoke of her husband. She was job-oriented and somber as a judge usually. Even a brief engagement to his friend Eb Scott hadn’t really softened her much, long before her marriage to Evans. He’d wondered at the outward distance she seemed to keep from Eb. It hadn’t made sense, until later, when he understood the magnitude of his misconceptions about her.

She looked so fragile, so vulnerable, lying there. Even in sleep, she looked tormented. She looked tired. No wonder. Flying all the way from Morocco without a pause, and then out to his ranch only to be turned away practically at the door. He hadn’t even asked if she had a way back to town. That was harsh. Even for him.

He hesitated for an instant before he reached out and touched her arm through the cotton fabric that concealed it.

* * *

MAGGIE WAS DREAMING. She was walking through a field of wildflowers in the sun. In the distance, a man was laughing, holding out his arms to her—a tall, dark-haired man. She ran toward him, ran as fast as she could, but she never closed the distance. He watched her from afar, like a cat toying with a desperate mouse. Cord, she thought. It was Cord, and he was taunting her as he always had. She could hear his voice, hear it as clearly as if it were in the room with her...

A hand was shaking her, hard. She moaned in protest. She didn’t want to wake up. If she woke up, Cord wouldn’t be there anymore.

“Maggie!” came the deep, insistent voice.

She gasped and opened her eyes. She wasn’t dreaming. Cord was sitting on the edge of her bed, one lean hand beside her head on the pillow supporting his leaning posture.

He studied her face, devoid of makeup, framed by long, wavy dark hair in soft tangles. She was wearing pajamas, a jacket and pants that covered her up completely. It used to puzzle him that Maggie dressed in a luxurious but conventional style to go to work, and she slept in the most unisex clothing she could find. She never wore sexy clothes, even when she’d been a teenager, and she never walked around in her nightclothes, even when she was little and they were living with Mrs. Barton. He wondered why he’d never noticed that before.

She focused on him and her face clenched. “What are you doing here?”

He grimaced. “Field-dressing crow. I’m sure it’ll taste terrible, too.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”

He shrugged one powerful shoulder. He didn’t like admitting his faults, but he owed her. “I didn’t know you were in Morocco. I thought you were right here in Houston, and that you’d waited four days to drive out to see about me.”

Her heart ran wild. Cord had never explained anything to her. Over the years, she’d become accustomed to his barbed remarks, his hostility, his sarcasm. He’d never apologized or shown any signs of caring what she thought about him.

Her eyes drank in his strong, handsome face. “Maybe I’m still asleep,” she murmured.

“Pity,” he said, studying her drowsy face with a faint smile. “I don’t apologize very often.”

She watched him. “You didn’t tell Eb you wanted me to come at all, did you?”

He hated to admit that. She looked as cynical as he usually did. But he wasn’t accustomed to lies. “No,” he replied honestly.

She laughed ruefully. “I should have known that.”

“Why were you going to work in Qawi?” he asked abruptly.

“I was in a rut,” she said simply. “I needed a change. I wanted adventure.”

“You lost your job because of me,” he persisted, frowning.

“Big deal! There are jobs everywhere, and I have a good background in investments. I’ll find something. Preferably,” she added teasingly, “in a multinational corporation, so that I can work overseas and never get in your hair again.”

“Why do you want to leave the country?” he asked irritably.

“What is there for me here?” she countered simply. “I’m twenty-six, Cord. If I don’t do something, I’ll dry up and blow away. I don’t want to spend the best years of my life commuting to downtown Houston to play with numbers. I’m not a baby anymore. If I have to work, at least I can choose something in an exotic location. Preferably something adventurous, and exciting,” she said as an afterthought.

He frowned. “Why do you have to work?” he asked suddenly. “Amy left us both a little money. Besides, Bart Evans had an extensive stock portfolio and you were his widow.”

Her face hardened. “I didn’t take one penny of his money. Not property, not stocks, not savings. Nothing!”

That was surprising. “Why not?”

She lowered her eyes to the coverlet and closed them briefly under a wave of pain she didn’t want him to see. “He cost me the most precious thing in my life,” she said in a husky, throbbing tone.

That was an enigmatic statement. He didn’t understand it. “Nobody forced you to marry him,” he pointed out, and with more bitterness than he realized.

That’s what you think, she thought to herself, but she didn’t say it aloud. She crumpled the coverlet under her bright pink fingernails and looked up at him bravely. “I had his estate divided between his two ex-wives.”

He laughed shortly in surprise. “You did what?”

“You heard me,” she remarked with a shrug. She let go of her grip on the bedspread. “I thought they deserved the money more than I did. They lived with him longer than I did. He had no living relatives.”

His dark eyes narrowed. He’d been curious about her marriage for a long time. He’d never mentioned it to her, because she closed up like a clam when her husband’s name came up. She never discussed it. But it had left scars on her emotions that were obvious to anyone with a grain of sensitivity.

“Not a happy marriage, Maggie?” he asked quietly.

“No.” She met his eyes evenly. “And that’s the only thing I’ll ever say about it,” she added firmly. “Digging up the past solves nothing.”

He studied her wan face. “I used to think that way, too. But the past shapes the future. I never got over Patricia’s death.”

“I know.”

She said it in an odd sort of way. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“You aren’t exactly Don Juan these days,” she pointed out.

He bristled with stung pride. It was true that he didn’t have affairs, or spend a lot of time living the life of a playboy, but he didn’t like her knowing it. His dark eyes flashed. “You know nothing about that side of my life,” he said coldly. “And you never will.”

There was a brief, incredulous look on her face, and he could have bitten his tongue. They’d slept together, once, even if it wasn’t a memory she liked. She knew him in a way few women ever had. It was a thoughtless remark.

“On second thought,” he began abruptly.

She held up a hand. “You said it yourself, digging up the past doesn’t solve anything.”

He drew in a long, slow breath. “I hurt you.”

Her face flamed. She wasn’t going to get trapped into that conversation. “Let it go, Cord. It all happened a long time ago. Now I have to get up and start job-hunting. If you don’t mind going out of here so I can get dressed...?”

But he wouldn’t leave it alone. “You’re twenty-six and a widow,” he said shortly, irritated by her embarrassment. “And I know every inch of you. So stop acting coy.”

Her teeth clenched so hard she thought she might chip them. Her eyes were furious. “You have no idea how much I hate the memory of that night,” she said spitefully.

The words stung, as she meant them to. He got to his feet abruptly and noticed how she dragged the covers up to her chin, as if she couldn’t bear him to look at her body at all.

“You must have noticed that I was drunk,” he said curtly. “If I hadn’t been, I’d never have touched you!”

“I drank too much myself,” she shot back. “Or I’d never have let you touch me!”

“Having made ourselves clear on that point,” he added, turning away from her. “I’m sorry about what happened.”

He sounded as if he was about to choke on the words. She noticed that his face was clenched as tightly as her fingers.

“Two apologies in one day,” she said with mock surprise. “Do you have something fatal and you’re trying to win points with God while there’s still time?”

He laughed faintly. “You could be forgiven for thinking so, I suppose.” He turned and looked at her for a long time, as if he needed to reconcile his memory of her with the reality. “You were eight when we came to live with Mrs. Barton. That means you’ve been part of my life for eighteen years.” His eyes grew contemplative. “I’ve given you nothing but hostility, all that time. But the minute I get in trouble or get hurt, you come running. Why?”

“Habit,” she said at once. “And a monstrous appetite for verbal abuse,” she added with a faintly wicked smile.

He burst out laughing, and this time it was genuine. It changed him. It made his eyes sparkle, his face so handsome that it hurt her to see it. He’d been this way with Patricia, his wife, she supposed. Maybe he’d been happy with other women, too, over the years. But he only smiled at Maggie if she teased him. So, through the years, she’d tried to do that. It was one way of getting attention from him, even if the only way.

“You didn’t need to come here and apologize,” she added. “I’m used to having you snarl at me.”

He frowned as he considered that. She spoke as if she expected nothing else. There was so much about her past that he didn’t know, couldn’t know. She volunteered nothing. It was a reminder that she knew far more about him than he knew about her.

“You can come and stay out at the ranch while you look for work,” he said out of the blue.

Her heart skipped, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “No, thanks. I like it where I am.”

He hadn’t expected the refusal. “What’s the matter, scared I’ll lose my temper and throw you out in your nightgown one rainy night?”

She sighed. “It would be in character,” she said with resignation. “You’d make sure it was on a main street, too.”

He grimaced. “I was kidding!”

She looked up. “I wasn’t.”

His jaw clenched. “You don’t know me, Maggie.”

She laughed shortly. She sat up, pushing back the thick waves of her long hair before she leaned forward with her head in her hands, her elbows resting on her drawn-up knees. “My head hurts. I’m not used to traveling so far at one time.”

“You’re jet-lagged,” he said. He knew a lot about overseas travel. He’d done more than his share. “You probably went to sleep the minute you got here. You should have tried to wait until bedtime.”

She gave him a speaking glance. “I had a trying day.”

He sighed and stuck his hands in the pockets of his khaki slacks. “So you did.”

Her eyes lifted to his face, tracing the new cuts and stitches. “It’s a miracle that you didn’t lose your sight,” she said softly.

“It was. And I’m not going to make it public that I haven’t. Note the dark glasses,” he added, indicating them hanging out of one pocket by an earpiece. “I even had one of my boys drive me into town and bring me up on the elevator, just to keep the fiction going.” He didn’t say why. He jingled his car keys in his pocket restlessly. “Watch your back while you’re in town,” he added suddenly. “I’m pretty sure that an old enemy of mine set me up. If I’m right, he’s going to be on my trail pretty soon, to make sure I don’t put him out of business. He wouldn’t stop at attacking anybody close to me.”

“Well, that certainly puts me out of danger,” she said pertly.

He glared at her. “You’re family. If he doesn’t know it, he’ll find it out. You could be in danger. I think he’s involved with people here in Houston.”

“You’ve had plenty of enemies over the years. None of them considered me family, even if you do.”

His gaze was narrow and contemplative. “I don’t know how I think of you,” he said absently. “I’ve never taken time to do an inventory.”

“You could do it between sips of coffee.” She laughed.

“Don’t sell yourself short,” he said unexpectedly.

She met his eyes, and her whole life was suddenly stark and painful in her face. She couldn’t bear the memories sometimes. He knew nothing about her past. She hoped he would never have to know. She couldn’t imagine why he was being so nice to her. He must have a guilty conscience.

“No need for flattery, Cord,” she said with a faint smile. “I know what you think of me.”

He moved back to the bed and sat down beside her. One lean hand went to her cheek and he turned her face up so that he could see it. He felt the tension in her, the choked breath, the wild heartbeat. Her eyes reflected the helpless response that her body betrayed. That, at least, never changed. She might hate the memory of what he’d done to her—no less than he hated it himself—but she was as hopelessly attracted to him as she’d always been. It comforted him on some level to know that.

“Don’t play with me anymore,” she said tautly, her eyes telling him that she hated the hopeless attraction he could see. It was almost physically painful to have him so near, to see the chiseled line of his wide mouth and remember the feel of it, to know the warm strength of that powerful body so very close.

He read those reactions with textbook accuracy. His proud head lifted. His eyes narrowed. His lean hand spread against her cheek and his thumb suddenly swept hard over her soft lips, dragging a gasp from them.

His other hand caught in her thick hair and he pulled her, lifted her, until she was lying across his body with her head in the crook of his arm.

Her breasts were flattened against his broad, hair-roughened chest over the thin cotton shirt he wore. She looked up at him with helpless desire. He gently smoothed his hand up and down her throat, caressing, tantalizing, while his head bent and his hard lips hovered maddeningly just above her mouth.

“What makes you think I’m playing?” he murmured roughly.

Her nails dug into his shoulder as she hung there, vulnerable, aching for him to bend those scant inches and crush his mouth down hard on her parted lips. She could smell the coffee he’d had for breakfast on his breath. She could smell the clean, spicy scent of his skin. Where his sports shirt was open at the throat, she could see the thick press of curling dark hair that covered his broad, muscular chest. She remembered unwillingly the way it had felt against her bare breasts that one time in their lives when she’d thought he really wanted her. Even the memory of pain and embarrassed shame that came afterward didn’t diminish her reactions to him. They were eternal. He touched her and she melted into him. She belonged to him, just as she had at the age of eight. And he knew it. He’d always known.

Involuntarily her cold fingers went trembling to his cheek, up into the thick darkness of his hair at his temple, where that slight wave gave it definition. He always felt clean to the touch. He always smelled good. She felt safe when she was with him, despite his hostility. He was the first male thing in her young life that had ever given her a feeling of security. He was the only man she’d ever trusted.

He caught her hand and held it tightly while he looked into her wide eyes. Abruptly he dragged her palm to his mouth and kissed it with something like desperation, burying his mouth in it. His eyes closed as he savored the softness of it.

She felt the fever in him, but didn’t understand it. He didn’t want her, not really. He never had. But he looked...tormented, somehow.

He drew her hand back to her cheek and looked at her with passion. “I hurt you every time I touch you,” he whispered harshly. “Don’t you think I know it?”

She couldn’t drag her eyes away from his. “You have nothing to give me. I know. I’ve always known.” She laughed painfully. “It doesn’t seem to matter.”

He drew her close and held her, his arms strong around her, his mouth against her hair. He took a deep breath and felt all the anger and misery of the past few years drain out of him. He laid his cheek against her dark, soft hair and closed his eyes. It was like coming home.

She held him, too, drinking in the clean, spicy scent of his muscular body as she tried valiantly to ignore the fever of passion his touch kindled. It gave her comfort, as it did him. He wasn’t an emotional person. He kept his deepest feelings hidden carefully inside. Maggie knew all about that, because she did the same thing. If people could get close to you, they could hurt you. It was a lesson Maggie and Cord had learned early in their lives. It had made them cautious about involvement.

His hand brushed the length of her hair and he smiled lazily. “I love long hair,” he murmured.

She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. He knew she kept it long because of him.

“We’re poison to each other. Maybe,” he began slowly, “it would be for the best if you did start over somewhere else, somewhere...far away.”

“Better for me, certainly,” she murmured huskily. Her fingers caressed his hair at the temple. “But who would take care of you if I did?” she added, her voice teasing to disguise her hunger for him.

His indrawn breath was audible, and his arms loosened, freeing her abruptly. “I don’t need taking care of!” he said shortly.

The truce was over. Just that quickly. She smiled sadly as she watched him get to his feet and move away from the bed. “Don’t pop any blood vessels over a figure of speech,” she chided. She searched his hard face quietly, savoring its nooks and crannies. Soon, she thought, it would be out of her sight forever.

“I’m through with what passes for love,” he said with cold sarcasm. “Just in case you start seeing me as a long-range project.”

“Does June know?” she asked wickedly.

He glared at her. “June is none of your business!”

Her eyebrows arched. “Excuse me! We can just forget that I barged into your hotel room and started making passionate advances toward you!” she added facetiously.

His eyes were smoldering now. “I’m leaving.”

“I noticed,” she agreed.

He got as far as the bedroom door, and then he remembered Gruber. He’d almost lost his eyes, if not his life, to the man’s vengeance. Maggie was alone and vulnerable, and Gruber had contacts here.

“I still want you out at the ranch,” he said curtly.

“Save your breath,” she said pleasantly. “I’m not going.”

“If anything should happen to you...” he began tightly, and was amazed at the fear that clenched his heart. If anything happened to her, he’d be alone in the world. He’d have no one at all.

“My, my, wouldn’t that uncomplicate your life?” she inserted pertly.

“That isn’t true,” he snapped.

“Yes, it is,” she replied. “You just don’t like admitting it. I can call the police anytime I need help, they said so on television just last night. Meanwhile, I’ll find a job as quickly as I can and light a fire out of Houston.” She smiled deliberately. “Won’t that give you a whole new lease on life? I won’t even ask you to send me a Christmas card!”

He started to speak, and he couldn’t. He just glared.

She struck a seductive pose, knowing it would infuriate him. There was no danger in enticing Cord, he was impervious. She tugged the pajama top lightly away from her long neck. “Want to ravish me before you go?” she offered with mischievous eyes. “I can call room service and get them to send up an emergency condom,” she added, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.

“Damn you!” he bit off furiously. He turned abruptly and slammed out of the door without a backward glance.

Maggie watched him go with sparkling eyes. She could always throw him off balance like that, from their earliest acquaintance. It made her proud, because even his precious Patricia had never been able to do that. It was the one weapon in her arsenal, and a great pride-saver. It was all bluff, of course. She tingled from head to toe just thinking about how it might have been if he’d taken her up on it.

CHAPTER THREE

CORD’S VISIT UNSETTLED Maggie. It was several minutes before she could get herself together enough to shower and dress and go downstairs for breakfast. She had a light meal and looked up the addresses of several employment agencies in the phone book. Then she started making the rounds.

She’d just come out of the third office on her list, with no results, when she walked straight into a tall brunette she hadn’t noticed rounding a nearby corner.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Maggie exclaimed, steadying the taller woman. “I wasn’t even looking where I was...” She hesitated. The other woman was familiar. “You’re Kit Deverell!” she exclaimed, smiling broadly. “I met you and your husband at an investment seminar year before last. We’ve seen each other at several seminars since. I’m Maggie Barton.”

Kit Deverell’s eyes lit up with recognition. “Of course! You’re Cord’s foster sister.”

Maggie’s face closed up at once, defensively.

Kit grimaced. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have blurted that out. You see, my boss is Dane Lassiter, who founded the Lassiter Detective Agency here in town. He met Cord some years ago after he started the detective agency—one of his operatives was a rookie when Cord was, and knew him!”

“Yes. I’ve...heard Cord mention him once or twice, at odd times when we were speaking to each other,” she added with a grin.

“You don’t get along well, do you?” Kit asked sympathetically. “I shouldn’t have mentioned Cord. What are you doing at an employment agency, for heaven’s sake?” she added. “You’re vice president at Kemp’s Investment Agency, aren’t you?”

Maggie nodded. “I was. I gave it up to take a job in Qawi. But it didn’t pan out,” she summarized, avoiding the reason. “Now I’m out of work.”

“But Logan’s got an opening in his investment firm,” Kit continued, chuckling. “Isn’t that fate at work? Really, his partner quit and went to work over in Victoria. He’s pulling out his hair trying to manage all the accounts by himself. Please come and interview,” she added, tugging at Maggie’s arm. “He’s got me doing stock research in my spare time, and I hate it! I work for Lassiter as a skip tracer, you see. I had to fight Logan, but it’s not dangerous work and we have a really good babysitter for our son, Bryce. Logan’s brother’s wife, Della, is pregnant and unable to work because of complications. You’d be saving my life if you could take some of the strain off. Would you? Please?”