by Anne Stuart
Maddy smiled sweetly, recognizing the edge of anger there. “I was encouraging him to resist. Girls say yes to boys who say no.”
Jake’s face was very still. “Then it’s a lucky thing I wasn’t going to ask you, isn’t it?” And he left the car.
Maddy pulled her knees up, propping her bare feet on the flat glove compartment. “It didn’t work, dummy,” she whispered to herself. “You didn’t make him jealous, you didn’t challenge him into doing anything. You just made a fool of yourself, and now he hates you.” On that cheery note she pressed her flushed face against the cool cotton of her summer dress and moaned.
She didn’t raise her head when she heard the car door open again, didn’t look up when the light vehicle sagged beneath his weight as he got into the driver’s seat. His hand reached out and caught hers, pressing a huge Styrofoam cup in it, and then she did lift her woebegone face to his.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a muffled tone.
He smiled then, a wry smile, and brushed her tangled hair away from her flushed, miserable face. “Trust me, Maddy,” he said in his husky voice, “it’s hell to be seventeen. And it only gets worse.”
She stared at him, wanting to nuzzle her face against that hard, strong hand of his, still maintaining enough sobriety to keep from doing it. “It can’t be that bad,” she whispered.
“Not for you, I hope. Drink your coffee, Maddy. I’ve got to get you home.”
“Why?”
“Because I have to pack.”
“You’re leaving?” Panic filled her voice. “Jake, you shouldn’t listen to my mother. She’s just a troublemaker—you know Samuel wouldn’t care about your being involved in the massacre, and …” Her voice trailed off at the sudden bleak look in his face.
“She told you about that?”
“Y-yes.”
“Then why don’t you hate me? What are you doing sitting here talking to me?” He sounded so cold, so angry, so filled with hatred that could only be directed at himself.
“I could never hate you, Jake,” Maddy cried with all the desperation of adolescent passion. “I love you.”
The faint smile that lifted the corners of his grim mouth was self-derisive. “And I love you too, kid. Which is why I’d better get you home, fast.”
It was a silent ride. Maddy sat there numbly, sipping on the too-sweet coffee that splashed her skirt and scorched her skin through the thin cotton dress. Jake flicked off the lights a moment before he turned into the driveway, and he was out of the car before she could say anything.
Slowly she followed him. The house was a blaze of lights, cars were parked all along the street, but her own third-floor windows were dark and deserted. Jake went in through the back gate, circling the pool, Maddy a silent shadow behind him. Finally he paused, long enough for her to catch up with him. She could smell the scent of freshly mown grass mixing with the acrid smell of the chlorine from the pool, hear the distant sounds of traffic and the mumble of agitated voices from the living room beyond them.
“I think you’d probably better go straight up to bed,” Jake said, not even turning to look at her, keeping his attention on the house. “I don’t think that coffee was enough to counteract the effects of champagne and Eric Thompson.” He was making an effort at keeping his voice lightly humorous, but Maddy didn’t believe him.
“What’s going on, Jake?”
He did turn to look down at her then. “Your father’s dropping out of the race. Some very unsavory things were done in his name, things that he can’t condone. So he’s withdrawing.”
“And you’ll be leaving?”
He nodded. “Tomorrow morning. With Sam.”
Maddy stood there, absorbing the information with fatalistic calm. “And will you be back? Will I see you again?”
He hesitated, but only for a moment. “No, Maddy,” he said gently.
“I see.” Her voice was calm and still. “Then would you do me a favor?”
“If I can.”
“Would you kiss me good-bye?”
He shook his head. “I can’t, Maddy. Haven’t you had enough of kissing tonight?”
She managed a smile. “Eric wasn’t very exciting. I wanted some basis for comparison. Come on, Jake, it won’t hurt you. No one’s going to get you for statutory rape. One little kiss won’t compromise your virtue.”
“I thought girls only said yes to boys who say no?”
“I’m making an exception.” Her voice was a little desperate. She had this strange, champagne-induced delusion that if she could just get him to kiss her he wouldn’t leave her. He’d said he loved her. If he would only kiss her then he wouldn’t be able to fight it.
“No, Maddy.” His voice was very firm, his face set and unreadable in the midnight darkness.
She held her ground for a moment longer, and when she spoke her voice broke slightly. “All right.” And then she turned and ran.
He caught her by the kitchen doorway, those strong, ungentle hands hard on her arms, spinning her around to face him, and his expression was no longer cold and distant. Before she had time to read it she was in his arms, his hard, demanding mouth on hers, kissing her with a violent desperation that both frightened and exulted her. She whimpered slightly, sliding her arms up around his neck, and the kiss gentled abruptly, his mouth teasing hers apart, his tongue slipping through to taste her. The intrusion of that tongue was a surprise, one that jolted her directly at the base of her stomach, and she shivered uncontrollably, clinging to him for dear life. One of his strong, hard hands had reached up to cradle her chin as his other arm held her close to his lean body, and she could feel the soothing stroke of his thumb beneath her jaw, the fingers stroking her fragile neck, as he continued to kiss her, caressing the soft contours of her mouth.
Slowly, shyly she reached out the tip of her tongue to touch his, and the intimacy was almost unbearable. She wanted to cry with the wonder of it, wanted to crawl inside him and hide there, wanted to feel that strong, muscled body that strangely enough trembled in her arms, wanted to feel the warmth of his skin beneath her fingers. She wanted him, all of him, under the summer moonlight, she wanted to lie beneath him and feel him around her, in her, taking her and making her the woman she longed to be, only for him.
His hand slid up her rib cage, brushing the underside of her small, soft breast, lingering there for a moment, until she thought she would explode with wanting. And then it drew away, the hand cupping her chin slowly released her, and he broke the kiss, his mouth still hovering inches above her own, and she could feel the rapid puffs of breath from that mouth that had just explored hers so thoroughly.
“Go to bed, Maddy,” he said roughly.
“I don’t want to,” she whispered. “Please, Jake …”
“For heaven sake, Maddy, go to bed!” His voice was as ragged as his breathing. “If you don’t go now I won’t be able to let you go.”
“But I don’t want to. …”
“Please, Maddy,” he said on a note of desperation. “Don’t do this to me. I’ll hate myself, more than I do already.”
There was nothing she could say to that. The despair was clear in his eyes and face, and much as she wanted to cradle him against her, to soothe that anguish, she believed him. He would hate himself if he made love to her that night. And as much as she loved him, the only way she could show it was to leave him alone.
She stood very still, within the circle of his arms, fighting against the warmth of desire that still tingled the surface of her skin. And then she leaned forward, brushing her lips against his, softly, sweetly. “Good night, Jake,” she whispered, slipping away from him like a shadow in the night.
But he wasn’t going to get away so easily, she told herself as she climbed the flights to her bedroom. He wasn’t going to leave tomorrow morning. She was going to be up hours before he was planning to be gone, and they’d talk then.
But her body had other ideas. Champagne and emotion took their toll, and she slept till ten the nex
t morning. And he was gone.
Jake Murphy had left, with Samuel Eddison Lambert, and she had seen neither of them in the past fourteen years. She had almost forgotten about Jake, had him filed away in the same category as Eric Thompson—a childhood infatuation with no relationship to the future.
But as Maddy looked up at the man stalking through this overgrown tropical garden with all his tightly leashed energy, she suddenly felt seventeen again and just as bewitched.
For a tall woman she sure as hell had fragile bones. He could feel the delicacy of her wrist beneath his hard fingers, had felt her flinch when he’d been too rough with her earlier. But she hadn’t said a word, she’d shut that soft, angry mouth of hers and not complained.
Another woman would have whined. Another woman would have wept. He’d seen enough of Soledad’s tears to last a lifetime, heard enough of her incessant demands to have developed a healthy disregard for such things.
But the woman who paced along beside him, her huge eyes shadowed, hadn’t complained for a moment. She’d railed at him, pleaded with him, but she’d kept her dignity. He could admire that, even as he cursed the events and the damnable chance that had brought her, claiming to all and sundry that she was Sam’s daughter.
“What’s that?” Her voice broke through his abstraction, and he halted, keeping the loose grip on her wrist, telling himself that he had to keep a hold on her, knowing he was lying to himself.
She was pointing toward the third floor of the seedy old hacienda, the outer stone stairway leading up the side of the adobe building.
He allowed himself a cynical smile. “That is where your so-called father is,” he replied.
“And those steps lead up to his rooms?”
“Not very subtle, Allison. I would have thought your friend Ortega would have trained you better.” He loved to watch the way she flared up when he mentioned Ortega.
“Don’t call me Allison,” she snapped.
“Look, lady, I don’t care who the hell you say you are. I’ll call you whatever I please. And those steps are so broken and crumbled by the weather that no one uses them any more. Not to mention the very real danger of sniper fire.”
Her eyes widened in unfeigned nervousness. “Sniper fire?” she echoed in a hollow voice, looking around with sudden uneasiness. “What am I, target practice?”
“There’s no danger now. It’s more likely to happen at dusk, or after dark. I would suggest you not even consider trying to sneak up to Sam’s rooms this way.”
He could tell by the line of her jaw that she didn’t believe him. He’d have to remember to warn Ramon to be doubly careful when he watched her. He was so damned tired. It must have been weeks since he’d had more than four hours’ sleep. Why in heaven’s name did he have to be saddled with this new problem, just as things were disintegrating?
Jake glanced up at the top floor, at the figure barely discernible at the shaded window. The woman at his side was looking up, curiosity and something more devious filling her thoughts. He should have distracted her, but her angle gave a good view of her face to the third-floor watchers above. He waited, patiently enough, until she turned with a cold little smile that he had seen once before in his life. It was with a start that he realized he’d seen it on Sam Lambert’s first wife.
“Do you think he’s had a good enough look at me by now?” she said in a silken tone.
He shouldn’t have underestimated her. God willing, he wouldn’t again.
“I expect so,” he replied, controlling the start her words had given him. “Maybe you could just turn to the left for a few moments?”
“Go to hell.”
Jake smiled faintly. “Then let’s walk some more.” Not that his hand on her wrist gave her much choice, he thought.
“Why? Didn’t you bring me out here so that Sam could get a look at me and see whether I’m his daughter or some San Pablan Mata Hari?”
“Of course I did. We’re just waiting for word from him.” A displeased expression crossed his face. “And I think this is it.”
Maddy lifted her head, staring at the figure coming across the tangled garden with a fine disregard for the remnants of walkways and the profusion of roses and wild gardenias beneath his booted feet. “Lizard Eyes,” she said under her breath.
Jake snorted in amusement. “That’s a good name for him. But he’s better known as Carlos, with real or imagined connection to his idol, Carlos the Jackal.”
“Charming,” she muttered under her breath.
Carlos stopped before them, sweeping Maddy a mocking bow, but the look in his lizard’s eyes as he met Jake’s was distinctly challenging. “El Patrón has a message for you, amigo,” he said amiably enough.
Jake controlled the start of irritation, the very real anger that had swept over him as Carlos’s leer glanced off the set face of the woman beside him. Carlos fancied himself a ladies’ man, and there were few ladies who disputed him. Would the still, set face of the woman beside him hide a reluctant admiration for Carlos’s swagger? At least she stood a full inch taller than he—Carlos wouldn’t like that.
Carlos made no effort to deliver the message, continuing to practice his leer on his companion. Jake had the strong feeling that she didn’t like it, or Carlos, but that might be only wishful thinking on his part.
“A message, Carlos?” Jake prompted dryly.
Carlos roused himself. “Dispenseme, compadre. He said to tell you that the gringa is”—he paused for dramatic effect, and Jake could feel the muscles tighten beneath his loose grip—“in no way his daughter, or any kin to him.” Carlos shrugged.
The swift intake of breath beside him sounded like an animal in pain. “He was sure?” Jake persisted.
“Absolutely. The gringa is not his daughter. Therefore”—Carlos grinned, an essentially evil grin—“she is a spy.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Maddy had spent more comfortable evenings. Carlos’s pronouncement had become the accepted fact. Even Ramon no longer looked on her with quite such deference. The churchwomen kept their distance, albeit a sympathetic one, and the good doctor kept on drinking.
Jake had taken her back to the communal room in the basement of the old hacienda, leaving her there to Enrique’s reluctant attention, his glowering face at odds with the benign ET T-shirt. She could only guess that Luis had taken his place at the gates, and she couldn’t decide which one was worse. At least Luis hadn’t been partial to using his rifle barrel as a cattle prod.
So there she sat, in miserable, confused silence, thinking that she would have given ten years of her life to have someone to talk to. Someone who could help her deal with the fact that her father, the man who had once been the center of her universe, the man who had abandoned her when she was at her most vulnerable age, had once again denied her.
Not that she should be surprised. He’d made no effort to contact her in the ensuing years, no effort to respond to the few letters she’d sent him. Of course it was a matter of debate whether he’d received those letters. In the first few years of his self-imposed exile he’d moved around quite a bit. It wasn’t until the mid-seventies that he’d finally allied himself with San Pablo and all its problems.
If only one, just one of those damned, suspicious people would believe her, would even give her the benefit of the doubt, she thought. Ramon had been inclined to at first, but not since Lizard Eyes’s pronouncement, and the embarrassed, sidelong glances of the motley group were more infuriating than reassuring.
It didn’t help that Carlos the Jackal sat across from her, dividing his attention between a leering regard for El Patrón’s smugly flirtatious wife and a cold-eyed sneer at her stepdaughter. As Maddy caught the cold, lizardy gaze she felt a little frisson of horror run down her backbone. If the eyes were the window of the soul, then there was nobody home with Carlos the Jackal. She had the fanciful, horrifying feeling that he could kill without blinking that basilisk gaze, and that no one else would blink, either.
And for some re
ason it didn’t help that there was no sign of Jake. Of all people, he was the one who had betrayed her, he whose memory was like a sieve and whose sense of morality was limited indeed, she thought savagely. So why in heaven’s name did she wish he were there, as buffer between the ill-assorted group with their condemning expressions and her lacerated soul?
No one spoke to her through the uncomfortable meal of flour tortillas and some bland bean paste. The two churchwomen conversed quietly between themselves, Carlos and Soledad flirted, and the doctor stared into his whiskey glass and ignored his tasteless meal. Richard Feldman—El Nabo, Luis had called him—sat in the corner with Ramon and Enrique. Luis was nowhere to be seen, and that lone consolation was not enough to give Maddy any sense of comfort. One by one they drifted away, some with an apologetic glance in her direction, some with contempt, some didn’t even look her way at all. Until, praise be, she was left alone with Ramon. Even Enrique was gone.
“It’s a warm night,” she said after a long moment.
Ramon jerked nervously, managing a wary smile. “It always is, this time of year.”
Maddy pushed the sleeves of her loose cotton shirt up to her elbows, then ran a tired hand through her tangled mop of dark brown curls. “I think I would give anything for a breath of fresh air.” It wouldn’t do any harm to try it, she thought, gauging Ramon’s reaction out of the corner of her eye.
It wasn’t promising. “I’m sorry, señorita,” he muttered. “But Murphy said you were to wait here until he came for you.”
“I’ve been waiting here for hours,” she said with an attempt at reasonableness. “It must be night already.”
“It is almost ten o’clock,” Ramon agreed.
Maddy sighed. “A short walk in the garden is out of the question?”
“Completely.”
Maddy leaned back against the rough wall, closing her eyes. If she really were a San Pablan Mata Hari, sent to dispatch Samuel Eddison Lambert to his ancestors, would she be sitting there so meekly, with only a teenage boy guarding her? Granted, he did have a rather nasty-looking gun tucked in his ragged jeans. And granted, she had little doubt that even a boy of seventeen or eighteen had killed in this war-torn country. But killing another soldier was a great deal different from shooting an unarmed female.