by Ann Logan
“I think we keep it simple,” Wulf said, a frown creasing his forehead. “Maybe hold hands?” He shrugged, looking at Hazel. “Ms. Prendergast?”
“That’s probably enough. Otherwise, just act as you normally would,” Hazel responded.
Mercy turned to Wulf. “I’m sure Hazel told you that I’m not one of her regular employees, just a good friend doing her a big favor.”
Hazel inclined her head like royalty.
“Yes, Ms. Prendergast told me the circumstances and that you are the daughter of Pedro Fuentes. I think you are excellent for the job.”
“Thank you,” she said, smiling.
Wulf stroked his chin and nodded at her, his eyes gleaming with an unfamiliar look. “Yes. I think you are much better than a professional because of your, your…” He shook his head. “Naturlichkeit.”
“My naturalness?” If it was one thing Mercy wasn’t feeling it was natural. “Thank you. I’ll do my best.”
In spite of his height and breadth, his sheer masculinity, he didn’t daunt her as much as he had when he’d first walked in. Actually, he didn’t frighten her at all now. He appeared to be just a nice guy, maybe a little too intense, but harmless.
“I’m sure Wulf understands your misgivings,” Hazel told her. “I’ve already explained to him that you’re just a graduate student, not an actress.”
Wulf nodded as Hazel talked, smiling at Mercy as though she was the answer to his prayers.
“Shouldn’t we have some kind of story about how we met?” Mercy faltered, blushing again. He hadn’t mentioned anything about how they were supposed to have met or where or… Why was she the one trying to concoct a story? It wasn’t her problem, but he didn’t seem any better at pretense than she. She groaned. How were they going to ever pull this charade off?
“I will be filling in Mr. Rheinhart on anything more he should know.” Helen volunteered. “By the way, my policy is for clients to meet here. Is nine in the morning okay?”
“That’s fine,” Mercy agreed.
Wulf smiled and nodded. “I will wait in the parking lot for you.”
Hazel made quick work of the contracts and stood to signal the meeting was over.
“Until tomorrow then,” Mercy said as she stood to leave. She wondered how this could be happening to her and when the panic would set in. Walking toward the door she tried to look self-assured, yet she felt as awkward as a newborn colt. She waved goodbye and left before she did anything klutzy.
* * *
As the door closed behind Mercy, Wulf turned to Hazel giving her a wordless glare. Hazel arched her brows, saying nothing. He let the chilling moment of silence stretch out before he stood and strode to the floor-to-ceiling windows.
He finally saw Mercy several stories down, walking to an old, shabby Mercedes coupe, no doubt a cast-off of Hazel’s.
“She knows nothing, does she?” he demanded, dropping the accent and nervous gestures with relief. He was anything but nervous now. In fact, his growing sense of guilt added itself to the frustration at being coerced into Aunt Hazel’s newest scheme.
He hated intrigue and Hazel’s dealings with the Organization had always seemed a bit cloak and dagger. He watched Mercy back the Mercedes out of its parking space, missing the fire hydrant by inches, and lurch out into the street. Mercedes Fuentes had a figure meant for a man’s exploring hands. She had eyes of such an unusual shade of green that a man could easily lose his soul in them.
“How can I say anything when I’m not sure what the information will do to her?” Hazel shook her head. “Don’t get me wrong. She has her strengths, too. If she’s anything like her mother, she’s a lot stronger than she looks.”
“I thought innocence went out with the Dark Ages. Is she really that naive?” he asked, walking back and sitting down with a sigh. He didn’t really expect an answer and Hazel didn’t offer one. “Go ahead. Fill me in,” he said. “I know you can’t wait.”
Wulf held back a chuckle as Hazel made a big production of bringing out a large manila envelope and pulling a file from it. Old photographs and loose bits of paper added to the hodge-podge appearance.
“Mercy’s grandfather is former SS General Erich Stratton, alias der Buchhalter,” she began. “He disappeared from Germany before the end of the war with an enormous cache of stolen gold, resurfacing in Mexico in the late 1950s under the name Suarte. The Organization traced him to his brother, Adolph Suarte, who still lives there. Unfortunately, we lost track of Stratton in the early 1970s, not long after his wife died.”
“And where does Mercy fit into all this?”
“I’m getting to that. Stratton’s daughter, Lisa, eloped with Pedro Fuentes. Stratton didn’t approve and disowned her. He didn’t know until now they had a child.”
“Go on,” Wulf said impatiently.
“Mercy’s father, Pedro Fuentes, a remarkably handsome man, as you might remember, was on the pro golf circuit and played for several years. Lisa and he eloped when he came back from his last winning tour. He had a lot of money and a good job in Dallas by then.”
“Why is that important?”
“Everything is important. If you—”
“Leave it,” he interrupted. “Just finish the story.”
Hazel cleared her throat. “They named Mercy after her grandmother. Lisa always said she got to know her mother better through Mercy.”
“Why did she say that?”
“As Mercy grew older, it became obvious she could almost pass for her grandmother’s twin.” Hazel shook her head. “This is Mercy’s grandmother, Merci Bisieux. Here.” She shoved an old black and white photo at him depicting a woman with dark hair like Mercy’s done up in a 1940s pompadour.
“I understand she even had green eyes like Mercy’s,” Hazel continued. “The similarity is incredible. Your mother and I looked a lot alike, but not like this.”
“Didn’t Mercy’s mother work for you for more than ten years? Did you just now connect her with Stratton?”
“Lisa was like a second sister to me after all those years.” Hazel shook her head. “But I had no idea of her relation to Erich Stratton when I hired her. When she died three years ago I helped Mercy with all the arrangements for the funeral. I nearly had a stroke when I saw Lisa’s birth certificate. Do you know how long we’ve been hunting Stratton? It absolutely boggles the mind, particularly since I was so close to her.”
“Why didn’t you just go after him then?”
“It took this long to find him.”
Wulf took a deep breath. “Why do you need me and how does this affect Mercy?”
“Stratton demands to see his granddaughter before he’ll give us any information about the gold. At least with Mercy looking so much like his late wife, there’ll be no doubt of her identity.”
“So, after Texas we head for Germany—why Germany? Didn’t you say you found him in Mexico?”
“Have you ever tried to work with the Mexican government?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “Worse than an Arab sultanate.”
“You can see then how expensive it would be to pay all those bribes. Germany was willing to handle Stratton without cost. Besides,” Hazel continued. “Mercy has family in Mexico, if you can call them that. There’s only two decent people in the whole lot, and one of them is working for us.”
“Okay, so what’s a few thousand miles? But why the charade? Why didn’t you just ask her to meet her grandfather in Germany and convince him to say where the gold is?”
“Her grandfather is a notorious criminal, you know. Why would she go? And what would we do if she refused? Kidnap her?” Hazel shook her head. “You must get her to fall in love with you, then take her to Germany to meet her relatives and voila. The Organization does the rest.”
“So,” he said, growing tired of Hazel’s intrigues, “you lie to her and get me to go along with it! …What?” he asked, noting the odd look on her face.
Hazel sighed. “Mercy has been struggling to complete her doct
orate, even taking part-time jobs and laying out a semester or two to make money. I wanted to do it this way so I could help her out and not make her feel as though it was charity.”
“How’s she going to react when she finds out you used her? She may never forgive you.”
Hazel was silent for a moment as she blinked up at him. “I guess I’ll just have to take that chance. Some things are worth a sacrifice.” She paused. “I’ve done it before.” He remained silent, unimpressed.
“Well,” she said, shrugging, “if you can think of a better way to do it, I’m open to suggestions. Now it’s up to you to smooth the way between Stratton and Mercy so we can get that money.”
Wulf took his time going over the scheme in his head.
He took a deep breath, got up, and walked over to the plate-glass windows again. “I can’t think of a better way either. I get my oil deal and the Organization gets its gold.” He paused, turning back to Hazel and frowning.
“Is she really as naive and innocent as she looks?” He knew how to handle women, but felt distinctly uncomfortable around such a babe-in-the-woods, even such an attractive one. His fingers itched to run through that dark, curly hair and see it spread out on a pillow. Even the glasses she pulled out when they signed the documents didn’t detract from her beauty, but served to frame her exotic green eyes.
“Some man hurt or frightened her,” Hazel said, a bitter edge in her voice. “If I ever find the bastard, I swear I’ll kill him.”
Wulf frowned. Although he hardly knew Mercy, he didn’t like thinking of her as injured or hurt. “Are you sure this will work out the way you planned?”
“I was unsure right up until the time you walked into the office.” She clicked her tongue and smiled. “Were you faking that reaction?”
“What reaction?” he asked.
She dipped her head. “Nothing, I must’ve been mistaken. But Wulf,” she said, still smiling at him. “That accent?”
“You should know the first thing you do with an opponent is disarm him. I’ve already adopted the accent for my negotiations with Ryder. There’s nothing better to take away her fear of me than my needing her. Hell, if nothing else, I’ll let her translate for me.”
“But what about later, in Germany?”
He snorted. “Hazel, we’ll be speaking German in Germany.”
“Can you keep that accent going for a whole week?”
He shrugged. “I’ve done it for longer periods of time. I’m good at languages. You know that.”
His gift for languages had already helped Steiger Oil more than once. In business a lot of people dealt their cards from the bottom of the deck, it was just part of the game. But this was different. He wasn’t proud of his abilities at the moment; he felt manipulative and calculating.
Wulf stood and paced back to the window. If he and Anton didn’t need this venture with Reveille Oil, he’d tell Hazel to go to hell. No, that’s not entirely true. Anton wanted the deal with Reveille Oil, but he was really doing it for his father. Jacob worshiped the state of Israel, and if the Organization could accomplish its goals, they would see that the money fell into the right hands. With his help, of course. Help that Jacob couldn’t avoid acknowledging. For as long as Wulf could remember, he’d striven for his father’s praise and approval. This time he might get it. He just had to ignore his gut reaction when he thought about deceiving an innocent like Mercy.
Besides, Mercy wasn’t as innocent and naive as she seemed. She was a woman, and Wulf hadn’t trusted women since he found out how his mother had lied to his father. Was he any better, though? At least his mother had deceived his father because she loved him.
He took a deep breath, praying for the first time in years that God would forgive him for the lies he’d already told, and for the ones he’d be telling in the future.
Chapter 2
* * *
Mercy decided to look on the coming week as an unexpected vacation. The Ryders’ nine-hole golf course was an intriguing prospect. She made a solemn vow not be scared, awkward, or uncomfortable during the next week. Unfortunately, she had no idea how to go about doing that. The attraction she felt toward Wulf was not only confusing but annoying and alarming. What would it be like to pretend to be his fiancée?
She recognized all the signs of anxiety—the fluttering hands, the rapid erratic pulse, but most of all the breathlessness. In spite of all that, she couldn’t wait to see him. No logic to it at all, but since when had she ever been good at logic?
Wulf’s fumbling with the language barrier—heavy accent, bad grammar, and laughable pronunciation—was almost as endearing as it was comical. He reminded her of a child trying to play the violin with a hacksaw. He needed her, and she needed to be needed. Hadn’t she worked with German students for just that reason?
Taking deep breaths through her nostrils, her pulse raced as she scrambled to finish her packing. In spite of the incipient panic, only the thought that this must be difficult for him, too, propelled her as she tossed the final items into her suitcase.
As Mercy pulled into the parking lot, she spied Wulf leaning against a car, his arms folded casually over his chest. He wore khaki slacks, a long-sleeved plaid shirt rolled up to his elbows, and wire-rimmed aviator’s sunglasses. She stopped the car and watched spellbound as he unfolded his long length and walked over to greet her. The sheer physical awareness of his masculinity made her breath catch and her skin tingle with alarm.
“Good morning,” she said, a little too cheerfully, stumbling out of her car and then cringing when she noticed she’d parked between the lines. “Oh, dear! Just a minute, I have to straighten this out.”
Mercy jumped back in her car and rearranged it, her heart pounding. How would she ever make it through the week? She got out of the car again and opened the door to drag her suitcase and golf clubs out of the back seat.
As he walked closer, her mind suddenly went blank. After “hello,” she hadn’t the slightest idea what to say. Following her yoga instructions, she took a deep, calming breath, swallowing to wet her vocal chords. Maybe, snatching at the first subject she could think of, they could talk about German literature.
“Good morning,” Wulf said, taking her luggage and golf clubs out of her hands with an ease that made them seem weightless. “Are you afraid of small planes?”
“Planes? What do planes have to do with German literature?” she asked, blinking up at him in surprise.
“German literature?” he echoed in a puzzled tone.
“I–I’m sorry. My mind was thinking of something else. What did you say?” She swept her hair back from her face. How in the world would she manage a whole week with this man?
“Small planes,” he mumbled, a frown marring his forehead. “Single engine, turbo-charged, pressurized.”
What was he talking about?
Wulf shook his head, a fleeting impression of frustration on his face. “Are you afraid to fly in small planes?”
“Oh! No, I don’t think so.” Should small planes scare her? She didn’t know. “I’ve never been in one,” Mercy said, lifting her shoulders in a shrug. “A small plane, I mean.”
“Would you like to fly instead of drive? I am commercial and instrument rated. I’m a very safe pilot.”
His solemn, little-boy look won her confidence better than all the honeyed persuasion in the world. She smiled at him, feeling her face flush. “All right, yes.”
“Good!” He beamed from ear to ear. “We will fly.” He threw her luggage and clubs into the back seat of his car and held the door for her. As he started the car he dialed his cell phone and talked rapidly to someone in German. Wulf smiled as he hung up the phone. “We have a Bonanza. Good plane. I fly Bonanza in Germany,” he assured her, as if that should relieve her mind.
“That sounds great,” Mercy said, her earlier enthusiasm fading almost as fast as it had arisen. What if she didn’t like flying after all?
“We will take off from Love Field. Are you sure this is okay wit
h you?”
“Sure,” she said, suppressing a nervous giggle. Giggling destroyed the grave image of herself she wished to portray to the world.
He smiled broadly. “Almost forgot,” he said, and dug in his pocket and brought out a small jeweler’s box containing the largest diamond solitaire ring Mercy had ever seen. He held out his large hand. “Give me your left hand.”
She gave him her hand and tried not to pull it back when a tingle skittered up her arm. The ring slid down to her knuckle, then it stopped. Wulf frowned. “Hazel gave me the measurement.”
“Don’t worry.” She jammed it over her knuckle. “There.” She smiled at him, holding up her hand and meeting his grin of approval. Why did his look give her such a funny feeling in her stomach?
He took her hand again. “We must agree on how we met.”
Mercy tried to ignore how warm his hand felt holding hers. “I thought we’d just say we were introduced by a mutual friend. That way it wouldn’t exactly be a lie.” Any kind of deception made her nervous, but was it their particular deception that made her nervous, or the way he kept holding her hand? Studying his hand, she could see the strength in it. It appealed to a hitherto hidden, unknown, feminine part of her.
“This is like the first date, nicht wahr?” Wulf asked, interrupting her thoughts. Playfully he shook her hand, reminding her of an overgrown, St. Bernard puppy.
“Is this the first time you’ve ever been in Dallas?” she asked. Should she tell him he was holding her hand too long?
“No, I am in Dallas last year when I planned this venture.”
“That’s nice.” She gently slipped her hand out of his.
“Okay then,” she said. “So, we met last year. That just about covers time for us to have fallen in love and gotten engaged. Love at first sight?” That was safe to assume. Any normal woman would be immediately attracted to him.
“Love at first sight,” Wulf repeated, as though testing the thought. “I like that.” He nodded and his smile wrapped her in a warm blanket of approval.