The Complete Mackenzies Collection

by Linda Howard

  Barrie knew she should be worried and upset about this unplanned pregnancy, but it was the only thing in her life right now that made her happy. She was intensely lonely; the kidnapping and the long hours alone with Zane had set her apart from the other people in her life. She had memories they couldn’t share, thoughts and needs no one could understand. Zane had been there with her; he would have understood her occasional pensiveness, her reticence in talking about it. It wasn’t that she was secretive, for she would have liked to talk to someone who understood. But what she had shared with Zane was like a combat experience, forming a unique bond between the people who had lived it.

  She wouldn’t be able to keep her pregnancy secret much longer; she had to arrange prenatal care, and all telephone calls were now recorded. She supposed she could sneak out again and set up a doctor’s appointment from a pay phone, but she would be damned if she would.

  Enough was enough. She was an adult, and soon to be a mother. She hated the fact that her relationship with her father had deteriorated to the point where they barely spoke, but she couldn’t find a way to mend it. As long as the possibility of his involvement in treasonous activities remained, she was helpless. She wanted him to explain, to give her a plausible reason why she had been kidnapped. She wanted to stop looking over her shoulder every time she went out; she didn’t want to feel as if she truly needed to be guarded. She wanted to live a normal life. She didn’t want to raise her baby in an atmosphere of fear.

  But that was exactly the atmosphere that permeated the house. It was stifling her. She had to get away, had to remove herself from the haunting fear that, as long as her father was involved in whatever had given him such a guilty expression, she could be kidnapped again. The very thought made her want to vomit, and she didn’t have just herself to worry about now. She had her baby to protect.

  The fatigue of early pregnancy had gotten her into the habit of sleeping late, but one morning she woke early, disturbed by a pair of raucous birds fighting for territory in the tree outside her window. Once she was awake, nausea soon followed, and she made her usual morning dash to the bathroom. Also as usual, when the bout of morning sickness had passed, she felt fine. She looked out the window at the bright morning and realized she was inordinately hungry, the first time in weeks that the idea of food was appealing.

  It was barely six o’clock, too early for Adele, the cook, to have arrived. Breakfast was normally at eight, and she had been sleeping past that. Her stomach growled. She couldn’t wait another two hours for something to eat.

  She put on her robe and slippers and quietly left her room; her father’s bedroom was at the top of the stairs, and she didn’t want to disturb him. Even more, she didn’t want him to join her for an awkward tête-àè-tête. He tried so hard to carry on as if nothing had happened, and she couldn’t respond as she had before.

  He should still be asleep, she thought, but when she reached the top of the stairs she heard him saying something she couldn’t understand. She paused, wondering if he’d heard her after all and had been calling out to her. Then she heard him say Mack in a sharp tone, and she froze.

  A chill roughened her entire body, and the bottom dropped out of her stomach. The only Mack she knew was Mack Prewett, but why would her father be talking to him? Mack Prewett was still stationed in Athens, as far as she knew, and since her father had resigned, he shouldn’t have had any reason to be talking to him.

  Then her heart leaped wildly as another possibility occurred to her. Perhaps he had been saying Mackenzie and she’d heard only the first syllable. Maybe he was talking about Zane. If she listened, she might find out where he was, or at least how he was. With no additional information about his condition, it had been hard to believe Admiral Lindley’s assurance that he would fully recover. Belief required trust, and she no longer trusted the admiral, or her father.

  She crept closer to his door and put her ear against it.

  “—finished soon,” he was saying sharply, then he was silent for a moment. “I didn’t bargain on this. Barrie wasn’t supposed to be involved. Get it wrapped up, Mack.”

  Barrie closed her eyes in despair. The chill was back, even colder than before. She shook with it, and swallowed hard against the return of nausea. So he was involved, he and Mack Prewett both. Mack was CIA. Was he a double agent, and if so, for whom? The world situation wasn’t like it had been back in the old days of the Cold War, when the lines had been clearly drawn. Nations had died since then, and new ones taken their place. Religion or money seemed to be the driving force behind most differences these days; how would her father and Mack Prewett fit into that? What information would her father have that Mack wouldn’t?

  The answer eluded her. It could be anything. Her father had friends in every country in Europe, and any variety of confidential information could come his way. What didn’t make sense was why he would sell that information; he was already a wealthy man. But money, to some people, was as addictive as a narcotic. No amount was ever enough; they had to have more, then still more, always looking for the next hit in the form of cash and the power that went with it.

  Could she have been so wrong in her judgment of him? Had she still been looking at him with a child’s eyes, seeing only her father, the man who had been the security in her life, instead of a man whose ambitions had tainted his honor?

  Blindly she stumbled to her bedroom, not caring if he heard her. He must still have been engrossed in his conversation, though, or she didn’t make as much noise as she thought she had, because his door remained closed.

  She curled up on the bed, protectively folding herself around the tiny embryo in her womb.

  What was it he hadn’t bargained on? The kidnapping? That was over two months in the past. Had there been a new threat to use her as a means of ensuring he did something?

  She was helplessly fumbling around in the dark with these wild conjectures, and she hated it. It was like being in alien territory, with no signs to guide her. What was she supposed to do? Take her suspicions to the FBI? She had nothing concrete to go on, and over the years her father had made a lot of contacts in the FBI; who could she trust there?

  Even more important, if she stayed here, was she in danger? Maybe her wild conjectures weren’t wild at all. She had seen a lot during her father’s years in foreign service and noticed even more when she had started working at the embassy. Things happened, skulduggery went on, dangerous situations developed. Given the kidnapping, her father’s reaction and now his unreasonable attitude about her safety, she didn’t think she could afford to assume everything would be okay.

  She had to leave.

  Feverishly she began trying to think of someplace she could go where it wouldn’t be easy to find her, and how she could get there without leaving a paper trail that would lead a halfway competent terrorist straight to her. Mean-while, Mack Prewett wasn’t a halfway competent bureaucrat, he was frighteningly efficient; he was like a spider, with webs of contacts spreading out in all directions. If she booked a flight using her real name, or paid for it with a credit card, he would know.

  To truly hide, she had to have cash, a lot of it. That meant emptying her bank account, but how could she get there without her father knowing? It had reached the point where she would have to climb out the window and walk to the nearest pay phone to call a cab.

  Maybe the house was already being watched.

  She moaned and covered her face with her hands. Oh, God, this was making her paranoid, but did she dare not suspect anything? As some wit had observed, even paranoids had enemies.

  She had to think of the baby. No matter how paranoid an action seemed, she had to err on the side of safety. If she had to dress in dark clothing, slither out a window in the wee hours of the morning and crawl across the ground until she was well away from this house…as ridiculous as it sounded, she would do it. Tonight? The sooner she got away, the better.

  Tonight.

  That decision made, she took a deep breath and
tried to think of the details. She would have to carry some clothing. She would take her checkbook and bank book, so she could close out both her checking and savings accounts. She would take her credit cards and get as much cash as she could on them; everything together would give her a hefty amount, close to half a million dollars. How would she carry that much money? She would need an empty bag.

  This was beginning to sound ludicrous, even to her. How was she supposed to crawl across the lawn in the darkness, dragging two suitcases behind her?

  Think! she fiercely admonished herself. Okay, she wouldn’t have to carry either clothes or suitcases with her. All she would need to carry was her available cash, which was several hundred dollars, her checkbook and savings account book, and her credit cards, which she would destroy after they had served their purpose. She could buy new clothes and makeup, as well as what luggage she would immediately need, as soon as a discount store opened. She could buy do-it-yourself hair coloring and dye her red hair brown, though not until after she had been to the bank. She didn’t want the teller to be able to describe her disguise.

  With cash in her possession, she would have several options. She could hop on Amtrak and go in any direction, then get off the train before her ticketed destination. Then she could buy a cheap used car, pay cash for it, and no one would know where she went from there. To be on the safe side, she would drive that car for only one day, then trade it in on a better car, again paying cash.

  These were drastic measures, but doable. She still wasn’t certain she wasn’t being ridiculous, but did she dare bet that way, when her life, and that of her child, could hang in the balance? Desperate times call for desperate measures. Who had said that? Perhaps an eighteenth-century revolutionary; if so, she knew how he had felt. She had to disappear as completely as possible. She would mail her father a postcard before she left town, letting him know that she was all right but that she thought it would be better to get away for a while, otherwise he would think she had indeed been kidnapped again, and he would go mad with grief and terror. She couldn’t do that to him. She still loved him very much, even after all he had done. Again a wave of disbelief and uncertainty hit her. It seemed so impossible that he would sell information to terrorists, so opposite to the man she had always known him to be. She was aware that he wasn’t universally well liked, but the worst accusation she had ever heard leveled against him was that he was a snob, which even she admitted was accurate. He was very effective as a diplomat and ambassador, working with the CIA, which was of course set up in every embassy, using his social standing and contacts to smooth the way whenever a problem cropped up. He had personally been acquainted with the last six presidents, and prime ministers called him a friend. This man was a traitor?

  It couldn’t be. If she had only herself to consider, she would give him the benefit of the doubt.

  But there was the baby, the tiny presence undetectable to any but herself. She could feel it in her breasts, which had become so tender she was always aware of them, and in the increased sensitivity and pressure low down in her abdomen, as her womb began to swell with amniotic fluid and increased blood flow. It was almost a hot feeling, as if the new life forming within her was generating heat with the effort of development.

  Zane’s baby.

  She would do anything, no matter how Draconian, to keep it safe. She had to find some secure place where she could get the prenatal care she needed. She would have to change her name, get a new driver’s license and a new social security card; she didn’t know how these last two would be accomplished, but she would find out. There were always shady characters who could tell her. The driver’s license could be forged, but the social security card would have to come through the regular administration. Even though social security was being phased out, until it was completely gone, everyone still had to have a number in order to get a legitimate job.

  There was something else to consider. It would be stupid of her to live off her cash until it was all gone. She would need a job, anything that paid enough to keep a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. She had degrees in art and history, but she wouldn’t be able to use her own name, so she wouldn’t be able to use those degrees to get a teaching job.

  She didn’t know what the job situation would be wherever she settled; she would simply have to wait and see. It didn’t matter what she did, waiting tables or office work, she would take whatever was available.

  She glanced at the clock: seven-thirty. Nerves notwithstanding, she was acutely hungry now, to the point of being sick with it. Her pregnant body had its own agenda, ignoring upset emotions and concentrating only on the business at hand.

  The thought brought a smile to her face. It was almost as if the baby was already stomping a tiny foot and demanding what it wanted.

  Tenderly she pressed her hand over her belly, feeling a slight firmness that surely hadn’t been there before. “All right,” she whispered to it. “I’ll feed you.”

  She showered and dressed, mentally preparing herself to face her father without giving anything away. When she entered the breakfast room, he looked up with an expression of delight, quickly tempered by caution. “Well, it’s a pleasure to have your company,” he said, folding the newspaper and laying it aside.

  “Some birds woke me up,” she said, going to the buffet to help herself to toast and eggs. She fought a brief spell of nausea at the sight of sausage and changed her mind about the eggs, settling on toast and fruit. She hoped that would be enough to satisfy the demanding little creature.

  “Coffee?” her father asked as she sat down. He already had the silver carafe in his hand, poised to pour.

  “No, not today,” she said hastily, as her stomach again clenched warningly. “I’ve been drinking too much caffeine lately, so I’m trying to cut down.” That was a direct lie. She had stopped drinking anything with caffeine in it as soon as she suspected she might be pregnant, but it was as if her system was still warning her against it. “I’ll drink orange juice.” So far, that hadn’t turned her stomach.

  She applied herself to her food, replying civilly to his conversational gambits, but she couldn’t bring herself to wholeheartedly enter into a discussion with him the way she once would have done. She could barely look at him, afraid her feelings would be plain on her face. She didn’t want him any more alert than he already was.

  “I’m having lunch with Congressman Garth,” he told her. “What are your plans for the day?”

  “None,” she replied. Her plans were all for the night.

  He looked relieved. “I’ll see you this afternoon, then. I’ll drive myself, so Poole will be available to drive you if you do decide to go anywhere.”

  “All right,” she said, agreeing with him because she wasn’t going anywhere.

  Once he’d left the house, she spent the day reading and occasionally napping. Now that she had made up her mind to go, she felt more peaceful. Tomorrow would be an exhausting day, so she needed to rest while she could.

  Her father returned in the middle of the afternoon. Barrie was sitting in the living room, curled up with a book. She looked up as he entered and immediately noticed how the drawn look of worry eased when he saw her. “Did you have a nice lunch?” she asked, because that was what she would have done before.

  “You know how these political things are,” he said. Once he would have sat down and told her all about it, but this time he smoothly evaded talking specifics. Senator Garth was on several important committees concerning national security and foreign affairs. Before she could ask any more questions, he went into his study, closing the door behind him. Before, he had always kept it open as an invitation to her to visit whenever she wanted. Sadly Barrie looked at the closed door, then returned to her book.

  The doorbell startled her. She put the book aside and went to answer it, cautiously looking through the peephole before opening the door. A tall, black-haired man was standing there.

  Her heart jumped wildly, and a wave of
dizziness swept over her. Behind her, she heard her father coming out of his study. “Who is it?” he asked sharply. “Let me get it.”

  Barrie didn’t reply. She jerked the door open and stared up into Zane’s cool, blue gray eyes. Her heart was pounding so hard she could barely breathe.

  That sharp gaze swept down her body, then came up to her face. “Are you pregnant?” he asked quietly, his voice pitched low so her father couldn’t hear, even though he was rapidly approaching.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  He nodded, a terse movement of his head as if that settled that. “Then we’ll get married.”

  Chapter 9

  Her father reached them then, and shouldered Barrie aside. “Who are you?” he demanded, still in that sharp tone.

  Zane coolly surveyed the man who would be his father-in-law. “Zane Mackenzie,” he finally replied, when he had finished his appraisal. His darkly tanned face was impassive, but there was a piercing quality to his pale eyes that made Barrie suddenly aware of how dangerous this man could be. It didn’t frighten her; under the circumstances, this quality was exactly what she needed.

  William Lovejoy had been alarmed, but now his complexion turned pasty, and his expression froze. He said stiffly, “I’m sure you realize it isn’t good for Barrie to see you again. She’s trying to put that episode behind her—”

  Zane looked past Lovejoy to where Barrie stood, visibly trembling as she stared at him with pleading green eyes. He hadn’t realized how green her eyes were, a deep forest green, or how expressive. He got the impression that she wasn’t pleading for him to be nice to her father, but rather that she was asking for help in some way, with some thing. His battle instincts stirred, his senses lifting to the next level of acuity. He didn’t know exactly what she was asking of him, but he would find out, as soon as he dealt with the present situation. It was time to let the former ambassador know exactly where he stood.