Desperado

Maggie laughed with pure delight. “If there’s a job going, I’d love to interview. Actually I sort of had in mind a position that would get me out of the country. But perhaps I can take the job temporarily, while your husband looks for someone permanent and I look for something international...”

“That would work,” Kit said with a grin. “Come on!”

* * *

MAGGIE WENT TO interview. Logan Deverell was a huge man with dark hair, not overweight, but tall and muscular. He obviously doted on his wife, and vice versa.

“You’re the answer to a prayer,” he said after they shook hands and the three of them were seated in Logan’s spacious office, his long oak desk covered with photos of Kit and a mischievous-looking little boy of about two years of age. “Tom Walker and I were partners, until he moved to Jacobsville. Then I took on another partner. He married several months ago, but he just quit and moved to Victoria, where his wife has family. She’s expecting their first child. So here I am, empty-handed and up to my neck in clients.”

Maggie chuckled. “I’m glad I happened along, then. I gave up a lucrative position to rush back here, because I heard that Cord was blinded.” She sighed and smiled self-consciously. “I had hoped to find something permanent overseas.”

“We’ll keep our ears open,” Logan promised, “if you’re serious. But meantime, how about signing on with me? You can even have your own office,” he added with a chuckle. “We acquired the suite next door. Lassiter and his people have the whole third floor. We went in together and bought the building. What we don’t use ourselves, we rent out. It pays for itself.”

“And,” Maggie pointed out, “it’s a good investment.”

He laughed out loud. “So it is.”

He outlined her duties, and her salary, and she was delighted to take the job on a temporary basis. She still wanted to get out of Houston. Living near Cord was painful now that she’d decided to burn her bridges. She’d spent enough of her life aching for a man who didn’t care about her.

Although, just for a few seconds in her hotel bedroom, his eyes had burned with desire. He’d wanted her. But that had never been enough for Maggie. She wanted his love. Just as she knew that she’d never have it. She could close her eyes and taste his breath on her mouth, feel the strength of his arms warm and comforting around her. If only she could have that, just for herself, for the rest of her life. It would have been worth more than the most luxurious lifestyle imaginable.

Presumably Cord wanted to live and die alone. Maggie didn’t. Perhaps she might even meet a man she could settle for. She might actually get over Cord. Anything was possible. Even with her past.

* * *

SHE STARTED WORK at Deverell’s the next morning. It was complicated business, but she liked his spin on stocks and bonds, and she liked the mutual funds he recommended. He had a state-of-the-art computer system and an expert who did nothing but scan the Internet for stock prices and update information. Logan was honest, straightforward, and he didn’t pretend that he knew everything. He had a built-in sense of diplomacy that Kit told her privately was a hoot—Logan had a temper and he wasn’t shy about showing it. He was only diplomatic when it suited him.

Her fifth day on the job, she and Kit went out to lunch together with Dane Lassiter’s wife, Tess. Dane and Tess had a little boy and a little girl, and Tess seemed to regard both children as miracles. Later, Kit told her that Dane had been convinced that he couldn’t have a child. Tess had loved him helplessly, obsessively, for years. It had taken an unexpected pregnancy and a near-tragedy to convince Dane that love was worth taking a chance on. Despite their stormy beginnings, the Lassiters were quite an item around town. It was rare to see one without the other, and they usually traveled as a family unit off the job.

Maggie got to meet Dane Lassiter that same day. The former Texas Ranger was tall and dark, not really a handsome man, but with an authority and self-confidence that were striking. There was just enough arrogance with it to make him attractive. He’d started out with the Houston Police, where he still had contacts and from which he’d garnered his first operatives when he opened the detective agency. One of his men and Cord had been police officers together in Houston.

When they got back to Logan’s offices, Kit told Maggie that the Lassiters were working on a very hot and dangerous assignment—trying to shut down an international agency that was really a smuggler of human cargo. They didn’t stop with illegal immigrants in the United States, either. The agency dealt in child slave labor in west Africa and South America, procuring young children to work in mines and on huge farms and ranches. They even dabbled in child pornography, with a branch office in Amsterdam. They literally sold children to a shady global corporation through the agency. Rumor had it that Raoul Gruber was the chief executive officer of the corporation—but it had been impossible to link him to it.

“Children being bought and sold like animals? You have got to be kidding!” Maggie exclaimed. “This is the twenty-first century!”

“I know,” Kit said sadly. “But some horrible things happen in the world. While the news media harps on the latest political sex scandal, little children no older than six and seven are being peddled like raw meat. They’re forced to work down mine shafts, in agricultural fields, on cattle ranches, doing dangerous work sometimes twelve and fourteen hours a day. There are no child labor laws in these rural places, and the children are considered expendable.”

Maggie felt homicidal. “It’s barbaric,” she said with husky fury.

“I agree. That’s why I’m so glad Dane took the case. He’s coordinating with a whole shipload of federal agencies, including the INS, the NEA, Customs, the State Department and Interpol. The case has ties everywhere in the country, with a corporate network of field offices in several states.” She hesitated. “One of them is in Miami,” she added. “And Dane said that Cord’s accident wasn’t an accident at all. The man who’s involved with the slave trafficking is an old enemy of Cord’s who’s newly linked to this labor operation. Cord knows things about him that he doesn’t want uncovered.”

Maggie’s heart jumped. “Cord mentioned that I should watch my back,” she said slowly. “He said an old enemy might even target me, but I didn’t think much about it at the time.”

“You’d better,” Kit said. “You might tell Cord what we’re investigating,” she added. “Dane and his operatives will help keep an eye on you, just as they’re watching me. If we can get enough evidence on this rat, we can put him away forever. But it’s going to take time and patience. And a lot of caution.”

“I won’t see Cord to tell him anything,” she replied in a subdued tone. “We aren’t speaking right now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Is there anything I can do to help you with the case?” Maggie asked. “My life is so dull and boring that even surveillance would be exciting right now.”

The other woman laughed. “You wouldn’t think so, if you’d ever had to do it. But I’ll keep you in mind.” She checked her watch. “Oops. Got to run or I’ll be late for work. If I don’t see you before you get off, have a nice weekend. Logan’s very pleased with you. I guess you know that, though.”

Maggie smiled. “I’m glad to hear it. I like my job a lot. I’m sorry I won’t be permanent.”

“That makes three of us,” Kit said, and meant it.

* * *

WHEN MAGGIE GOT to her hotel, there was a message waiting for her to phone Cord. She hesitated about doing it. She wasn’t up to any more angry encounters with him. But she was still worried about him, now more than ever, since he’d told her about his old enemy deliberately targeting him. He could be in great danger. She couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to him. She was nervous about returning his phone call but she couldn’t really resist it. He must have gotten over his anger at her.

She phoned the ranch. A man answered and a couple of minutes later, Cord came on the line.

“You left me a message to call you,” she said formally.

He hesitated uncharacteristically. “Come out here for supper tonight,” he replied.

The eyes he couldn’t see, twinkled. She was surprised at his words. “Is that an invitation, or a royal command?”

He chuckled. “It’s an invitation. We’re having cherry pie for dessert,” he added.

She sighed. “Hit me in my weak spot, why don’t you?”

“I just did. Can’t resist it, can you?”

She was tired and hungry but she did want to see him, so badly. “Okay. I’ll get a cab out...”

“The hell you will. I’ll drive in and get you. Fifteen minutes.”

He hung up before she could argue any further.

* * *

SHE GOT OUT of her business suit and put on jeans and a neat short-sleeved red-and-white-striped shirt with a gray vest. It wasn’t couture, but it looked good on her, outlining her slender body in a nice way.

She left her hair long, for Cord, and picked up a light sweater in case it got cool later in the evening. There was a cold front on the way and Texas could be cool in the evenings, even in spring.

While she waited for Cord, she thought about what Kit had told her, about Gruber and his interests, especially the remark about child pornography. She hated the very thought of children being exploited sexually. She hated people who would use innocence in such a way, only for profit. It made her furious out of all proportion.

Cord knocked on her door exactly fifteen minutes later. She went out to meet him and locked the door behind her.

He was in beige slacks and a sports shirt with a beige-and-brown patterned sports coat. He looked trendy and very handsome.

“I’m glad you didn’t dress up,” he said as they entered the elevator. He pushed the ground floor button and turned to study her in the deserted elevator. “We’re just having chili and Mexican corn bread.”

“And cherry pie.” She wanted to make sure he didn’t forget.

He held her eyes and smiled slowly. “Amy always made one for your birthday, from scratch,” he recalled. “It was one of the few times you really smiled. Amy said she didn’t think you’d ever had a real birthday party in your whole young life.”

“I hadn’t.” She clutched her purse and sweater close to her chest, and her eyes reflected the old sadness. “When my father died, all the laughter went out of my life. Then Mama let pneumonia take her out only two years later.”

He scowled. This was news. “When you were eight,” he guessed.

She lifted her face. “Why...no. When I was six.”

“Then where did you go until Amy fostered you? Did you have grandparents?”

She shivered. “A stepfather.” Her voice was low and soft and full of pain.

He started to ask another question when the elevator stopped. She got off ahead of him and headed toward the front, where the car was parked. He knew he wasn’t being tailed, so he wasn’t being cautious.

He followed along behind her. A stepfather. She’d apparently lived with him for two years before she’d come to Amy Barton’s house. He was full of questions, but she’d closed up like a flower. It didn’t take a mind reader to know that she wasn’t going to answer any more questions right now. Her sharp glance told him so.

“How’s the job hunt going?” he asked as they reached the expensive black sports car he drove.

“I’m working already,” she said. “Logan Deverell hired me to work for his investment firm, just temporarily. His wife, Kit, works for the Lassiter Detective Agency, in the same building. They say you know Dane.”

“I do,” he replied abruptly. He opened her door and helped her inside, before he went around and climbed in under the wheel.

But he didn’t start the car immediately. He put an arm across the back of her seat and looked at her. “Lassiter deals in dangerous cases,” he pointed out. “I don’t like the idea of your working so close to him.”

“You don’t imagine that I care what you like?” she replied with a pleasant smile.

His jaw tautened as he stared at her, his thick eyebrows drawn together at the bridge of his nose. “I’m serious. Lassiter and his wife were involved in a shoot-out not too many years ago, right in his office. It’s well-known that he takes on cases other detectives won’t touch.”

“I’m going to be in the same building with him, not in his office,” she pointed out. “I do investment counseling, not detective work. Although, a change of careers is pretty tempting right now,” she added to irritate him.

He was overreacting. He knew it, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. Maggie’s abrupt departure from the country had shaken him more than he’d realized at first. The thought of never seeing her again was unsettling. Involuntarily he reached out a lean hand and caught a strand of her long, dark hair between his fingers, testing its silkiness.

“Just being in Houston right now is dangerous for you,” he said quietly. “You’re walking into something I can’t even tell you about.”

Which she knew already, thanks to Kit. She didn’t let on.

“I’m twenty-six,” she pointed out, trying not to react to the feel of those sensuous fingers in her hair.

His eyes flashed up to meet hers. They were stormy, intimidating, full of secrets. “In some ways, you’re unbelievably naive,” he countered. “The world is a bad place. You’ve never seen how dark it can be.”

She laughed without humor. “Do you think so?” she murmured with a strange look in her eyes.

He didn’t understand her response to the statement. Maggie kept secrets. He wondered just how terrible they were. The two of them had never been confidants, because he wouldn’t let her near him emotionally. He’d pushed her away, kept her at bay, all the long, lonely years. For the first time, he regretted it. Maggie had been the one person in the world who really cared about him. Because he was afraid of loss, he resisted close contact. But soon she could be half a world away, and there would never be another human being who shared his memories, his pain, his loneliness.

“You look sad,” she remarked involuntarily.

He grimaced. “You’re the only other person alive who remembers our time with Amy,” he said slowly, “my brush with the law, Patricia’s suicide, Amy’s illness and death.”

“All the bad memories,” she remarked.

“No!” He met her eyes. “There were other things. Picnics. Birthday parties. The time she brought home a model train set for Christmas—one we knew she had to have made sacrifices to buy because she didn’t have much of her fortune left by then—and the shock on her face when you loved it as much as I did. We spent hours lying on the rug in the dark, watching the lighted train go around.”

She smiled with memory. “Yes. And I helped you make the little scale buildings that went with it. You were out of school and in college then, just before you dropped out and went with the Houston Police. Amy was devastated. So was I,” she added, dropping her eyes.

“You both thought I’d end up in a coffin after my first week,” he scoffed.

“We should have known better. You were always thorough and methodical.”

His eyes narrowed. “Except once. The night Amy died.”

She jerked back away from him, her scalp stinging as he was forced to let go of her hair or risk hurting her more. She massaged the hurt place with her fingers, avoiding his eyes. “That was a long time ago.”

“Did you ever sleep with your husband?” he asked unexpectedly.

She actually gasped. The question was so blunt that she couldn’t believe what he’d just asked.

He studied her shocked face, rigid with distaste, for a long moment. “I didn’t think so,” he said after a minute. “His second wife in the divorce decree accused him of being impotent and abusive. He pretended to be an invalid, but there wasn’t anything much wrong with him. Except extreme alcoholism, and a violent temper.”

Maggie knew her face was white. “How...?”

“I went down to the courthouse and researched him,” he said. His expression grew hard. “He had a history of arrests for drunkenness and at least two for domestic abuse. Did you know that when you married him?”

Her jaw clenched, but her lips were trembling. She averted her gaze to the windshield. Memories flooded her mind, sickening memories. “Please, don’t,” she choked.

“Did he hit you, Maggie?” he demanded.

Her hand reached for the door handle automatically. She was halfway out when he pulled her gently back inside and closed the door again. The position he was in, his body close to hers, his chest at an angle above her, made her tremble.

He looked down into her wide eyes at such proximity that she could see the black rims around his very dark brown corneas. She could see the thick, straight, short lashes on his eyelids. She could smell the coffee on his breath and the clean scent of his body and clothes.

“I never understood why you married him,” he continued, his eyes narrowing as they searched hers. “You had nothing in common and he was twenty years your senior. It was quick, too—less than a month after Amy’s death, and one of your coworkers said you barely knew him. Everybody thought it was for his money. He was rich.”

“I can’t...I won’t...talk about him,” she choked. “Cord, please...!”

He felt her hand pushing against his chest, but he ignored it. “You said he cost you something precious. What?”

Her gaze fell to his wide, hard mouth, to the chiseled look of it with perfect white teeth barely visible in its parting. She remembered the feel of it on hers. Even the memory of pain and embarrassment didn’t ease the hunger for it. She wondered if he knew?

He did. He felt the quick rush of her breath at his mouth. He could see the hammer of her pulse at the collar of her shirt. He could feel the coldness of her perfectly manicured fingers through his shirt. She wanted him. That, at least, had never ebbed.

His fingers went to her chin and traced the skin next to her lips. “And here we are again,” he whispered. He bent, his mouth poised above her parted lips. He hung there, his fingers maddening on the corner of her mouth, on her lower lip, where they touched in sensuous little tracings.

She moaned helplessly. She bit the sound off almost as it exited her throat, but she knew he heard it.

His nose brushed against hers as he felt the softness of her lips under his fingertips. She was still perfect to him, the most perfect woman he’d ever known, physically, mentally, emotionally. He couldn’t get within two feet of her without having her draw him like a magnet. He was helpless. He hated it.

“Cord,” she groaned, stretching up toward him, enticing his mouth. Her fingers went into the thick hair above his ears and dug into his scalp, pleading for more than the sensual torture he was offering her. The clean, spicy scent of him was in her nostrils, the soft warm whip of his breath teasing her parted lips. She ached to have that hard mouth crush down on hers and drive her mad with pleasure!

He moved closer. His chest pressed down against hers involuntarily. He could feel her full breasts against him, feel the hard tips biting into his chest even through two layers of fabric. Her mouth taunted his, followed it, lifted to tempt it into coming closer. He drank in the fragrance of roses that clung to her and felt himself caving in. He needed to hold her. He needed to kiss her. He couldn’t help it. He had to...!

The sudden opening of car doors close by jerked him back from Maggie. He saw three men getting out of a sedan a few parking spaces away, giving them amused looks.

He got back under the steering wheel without looking at her again. He started the car and put it into gear, ignoring the glances of the three men on their way toward the hotel.

Maggie’s hands were shaking. She wanted to scream and throw things. This was the second time she’d let him torment her physically. And had she fought, protested, dragged herself away, dared him to touch her? Of course not. She’d melted into him the minute he touched her. Great self-control, girl, she told herself with silent contempt. Really great!

He didn’t look at her until they were out of town on the road that led to his ranch. She was more composed now, but she still looked devastated. He couldn’t blame her. He felt the same way. He didn’t want to be attracted to her, but he was. He always had been. But the older he got, the more uncontrollable it was.

“Don’t beat yourself to death over it,” he said carelessly. “Maybe we’ve both spent too much time alone lately.”

“June will be shocked to hear that!”

He chuckled at the sting in her tone. He gave her a wry glance. “She’s dating a corporal with the police department,” he drawled. “Her father likes him, but he thinks she’s too young to marry. She doesn’t agree.”

She raised both eyebrows. She didn’t say a word.

He grimaced. “I was furious because you waited four days to come and see me, to see if the blindness was permanent,” he said.

It wasn’t much of an explanation, but she understood. June was a cutting tool he’d used on her heart. He wasn’t certain that she was jealous of him, but he thought she’d be hurt if he threw another woman in her face. She was. It was chilling that he knew her that well. On the other hand, he’d admitted that she could hurt him, as well. It was a milestone in their stormy relationship.

He glanced at her as he turned down the long driveway with painted white fences on both sides.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” he mused. “I never have to explain anything to you.”

“That works both ways.” She turned her eyes toward the old fighting bull in the pasture on her side of the car. “Maybe it’s some sort of mental shorthand.”

“Maybe it’s ESP,” he murmured dryly.

“Someday we’ll have to find out if it works across oceans,” she replied smartly.

That stung. She probably knew it. “Why do you have to leave the country?” he asked quietly.

“I told you. I’m twenty-six. I want to do something adventurous while I can do it without leaning on a cane.”

“Adventure isn’t what it’s cut out to be,” he told her.

“Davy Crockett wouldn’t agree with you,” she informed him. “Neither would Jim Bowie, or George Custer, or Crazy Horse or Pancho Villa or Genghis Khan.”

He pursed his lips. “You certainly covered all walks of life with that group.”

She chuckled.

“Why don’t you move out here with me?” he asked out of the blue. “You can learn the cattle business. We could play with the train sets in our spare time. I’ve got a whole room dedicated to them, complete with buildings and tunnels, mountains and even running water for trestles to go over.”

She turned her purse in her hands and hated the invitation. He was inviting his foster sister to move in. Nothing more.

He pulled up in the driveway that circled at the front door and cut off the engine. He turned to her with narrowed eyes. “You want me,” he said bluntly. “I know it. I want you. You know that, too. But nothing will ever come of it unless you want it to. I made a vicious mistake with you once because I was out of my mind with grief and alcohol. I never make the same mistake twice. You’ll be safe here.”

“That’s an interesting choice of words,” she replied slowly. “Safe from your old enemy, you mean.”

His chin lifted. “From him, and from me, Maggie,” he replied. “I won’t make you afraid of me. Not in any way.”

She laughed mirthlessly. “I’ve been afraid of you for years, in between attacks of helpless attraction,” she said matter-of-factly. “There has to be a cure somewhere. If I go far enough, maybe I can find it.”

It was a confession, of sorts. He rested one arm over the steering wheel and studied her sadly. “All we have left,” he said softly, “is each other.”

Her eyes flew to his. She was pale, confused, uneasy. She frowned. “Don’t do that,” she said irritably. “Don’t make it sound like you need me. You never have and you never will. I’m a memory adjunct. That’s all I’ll ever be.”