by Diana Palmer
He turned to Eb Scott. “I have nothing left to live for,” he said bluntly. “She’s destroyed my life, any chance I might have had for happiness. She’s out there, right now, plotting to take other lives. I’m going to give her a chance at me, to bring her out into the open. I’ve called in markers from three nations. I’ll have all the backup I can get, including a couple of covert federal agencies that I won’t even tell you about. If she kills me, so what?” he added shortly. “It will just stop the pain.”
Eb grimaced. “Listen, I know you didn’t want to put Sara on the firing line. You can tell her when we’ve got Ysera in custody...”
“She will never speak to me again as long as I live,” he said in a haunted tone. His eyes were so full of pain that Eb couldn’t even meet them.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“How? You haven’t had any contact with her...”
“Your men kept a written record of her movements until she went to Wyoming, the week after I saw her at the symphony concert,” he said quietly. “I read it.”
“So?”
Wolf looked down at his unzipped kit with eyes that didn’t see. “She went to a clinic, Eb,” he said in a voice as cold as death. “I was making up to the woman I was with. Sara didn’t know why, and I couldn’t tell her. She thought I didn’t want her anymore, that a baby would complicate everything. So she went to a...clinic.” He had to stop. His voice broke. He dashed at a wetness in his eyes that he hadn’t felt in years.
“Oh, God, I’m sorry!” Eb groaned.
“It will hurt her even more, to have done that. And she was carrying enough scars already, from her past.”
“The baby was yours?” Eb asked slowly.
Wolf’s eyes went dangerous. He moved closer to the other man. “What the hell kind of woman do you think Sara is? Of course it was mine!”
He was sorry about the baby. From what he knew about Sara, she couldn’t even swat a fly. What it would do to her emotions was unthinkable.
“Sorry,” Eb said gently.
Wolf backed down. “Same,” Wolf replied tersely. “This, all of this, from the way I’ve been for years to Sara’s termination, was Ysera’s fault.” His eyes grew cold. Ice-cold. He turned to Eb. “She’s going to pay for what she did. I’m going to make sure of it.”
He turned and zipped up the bag.
* * *
“WHAT THE HELL is going on?” Gabriel asked, aghast at Wolf’s unexpected presence in his camp. “You’re retired!”
“Not anymore,” Wolf said. He looked different. He was different. The rancher who teased his sister unmercifully, made her mad and laughed, was gone. In his place was this cold-eyed mercenary, the man Wolf had been when Gabriel first met him.
“Sara won’t tell me anything,” Gabriel persisted. “She’s gone to live on the ranch in Wyoming, for God’s sake. Sara talked to me, but under it there was a terrible sadness...”
“Don’t,” Wolf said huskily, and averted his eyes.
“All right. Let’s have it!” Gabriel got right in his face. “Now!”
The other man didn’t even react. “You’re the best friend I have in the world. This is going to hurt you.”
“Tell me!”
Wolf looked down at his combat boots. “I don’t know how.”
“You’ve hurt her.”
Wolf nodded. He drew in a breath. “Yes,” he said, lowering his eyes. He closed his eyes and shuddered. “She asked me if I was going to the Beethoven concert, in a text, and I told her I was. She looked...like an angel, so beautiful that she almost blinded me. I was there with a companion, a blonde woman I’d dated. I was making up to her, pretending I cared about her...”
“You what?” Gabriel exploded.
“Ysera had someone in the theater,” he continued, blind to the other man’s sudden stillness. “I couldn’t put Sara in danger. I didn’t dare pay her any attention, show in the least way that I... So I ignored her, treated her like an acquaintance.” He closed his eyes and shivered. “I hurt her so badly. I couldn’t even tell her why. I couldn’t talk to her, contact her, without giving Ysera a second target.” He couldn’t look at Gabriel. “Sara thought I’d turned my back on her. So the next morning...” He had to stop before he could finish it. “She went to a...clinic.”
Gabriel stared at him. “A clinic?” He suddenly realized what Wolf was saying. His mind almost exploded with the realization that his sister, who couldn’t tolerate a man’s lightest touch, had become pregnant by his best friend. “A clinic?”
Wolf nodded. His eyes had a fine mist. He turned his head. His face was pale, tormented. “She can’t hurt anything,” he said dully. “Not anything. To do that, to have it on her conscience...” He turned back to his friend. “Shoot me,” he said. “It would be a mercy.”
“Dear God.” Gabriel saw it all, saw what the other man felt, saw what Sara felt. “Dear God,” he repeated, almost reverently. “She loves you,” he said slowly.
“I know,” the other man said in a strangled tone. He averted his eyes. His high cheekbones were flushed. “I had plans. All sorts of plans. And then Ysera decided to get even. I told Sara that I wouldn’t be able to contact her for a few weeks. She knew about Ysera. But she didn’t know what I was going to have to do to protect her. That I was going to have to be seen with a parade of women, so that Ysera didn’t realize there was one that I couldn’t...live without.” His eyes closed. “Sara had my baby under her heart, and she thought I was involved with someone else, that I didn’t want her. She thought...the baby would be in my way. I can’t...live with it!”
“God, I’m sorry,” Gabriel said heavily.
Wolf straightened, his eyes terrible to look into. “No. I’m sorry, for the mess I made of her life.” He took a minute to get his emotions back under control. “To my credit, I did get her into therapy.”
“Therapy? Sara? You did? How?” Gabriel asked, aghast. He’d tried for years to accomplish that.
“You remember Emma Cain?”
Gabriel shuddered. “She keeps snakes.”
Wolf nodded. “But she’s good at her job. As to how I got Sara to do it, I...talked to Cain, too.”
Gabriel was stunned. “You never...”
“I never would agree to it,” he said, nodding. “But Sara and I, well...” He paused. He couldn’t talk about it to his best friend, not when it was about Gabriel’s sister. He colored. “We sort of had an encounter. Sort of. There shouldn’t have been a baby. But there was.”
Gabriel read between the lines. “Sara had to love you, for that to happen...”
“Yes.” He lowered his head with an unsteady intake of breath. “She must be in hell now, because of me. I hate having her alone...!”
“She isn’t,” Gabriel said. “She advertised for a companion when she went up to the ranch, so I had made sure that the woman she hired was someone I trust to take care of her. She’ll be all right.”
“Someone you know?”
“Never mind who. I would call Sara,” Gabriel said, miserable, “but we’ve got orders to maintain radio silence. I can’t even tell her where I am or what’s going on.”
Wolf’s face was like stone. “Ysera is the reason Sara went to the clinic. She made me hurt Sara, in order to protect her. She cost me our child. And I’m going to make her pay for it, if it’s the last thing I ever do in this life!”
“You care about Sara,” Gabriel said slowly.
“Care!” He laughed hollowly. “My God!” His face was a study in anguish. He drew in another breath. “I need a few things,” he said after a minute, trying to erase the pain from his hard features.
But Gabriel saw. He understood. He put a big hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Whatever you need. I’ll get it.”
“Thanks.”
“She’ll get over it,” Gabriel said haltingly. “When she knows the truth, she’ll get over it.”
Wolf looked him right in the eye. “No,” he said. “She
won’t.”
* * *
YSERA HAD BOUGHT a nightclub, right in the marketplace. Called El Maroc, it featured authentic Moroccan dishes and it had belly dancers imported from Spain, because no decent Arab woman would dream of showing her body to men. But the real purpose of the establishment was a cover for what went on inside. It was a den for thieves who dealt in kidnapping, prostitution, drugs and worse.
Wolf looked around with cold, pale eyes. He had a .45 automatic hidden in a holster under the black jacket he was wearing. He had a Ka-Bar in a sheath on his belt, a hide gun in a big boot. He was ready for anything she could throw at him.
In the shadows he recognized a contact, a fed who worked in black ops in the region. He pretended not to see the man, who returned the favor.
He walked slowly down the aisle and seated himself at a table near the open area where the belly dancers were doing their thing to the rhythm of an imported Moroccan band. He ordered a whiskey and settled back to watch the dancers. He knew without being told that he was also being watched, by the not-so-concealed surveillance cameras mounted near the ceiling.
Sure enough, he’d had just one sip of the drink when he caught a whiff of a very familiar perfume.
He turned his head, just barely, and a tall brunette wearing a slinky black dress, dripping with diamonds, came toward him. Her long black hair was flowing down her back. Her black eyes were amused, as they’d always been amused every time she looked at him. Under the amusement was utter contempt.
“Hello, Ysera,” he said in a conversational tone.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SARA DROVE HERSELF to the obstetrician’s office, having lied to Grayson about needing a few things from town and just wanting to get some fresh air. It was spring, and everything was blooming and beautiful.
Dr. Hansen was tall and lanky, with an easy smile and a good personality. He examined her while the nurse stood by. He poked and prodded, frowned and then ordered lab work. When he came back, he was frowning.
“Oh, please, there can’t be anything wrong with my baby,” she cried.
“No, no, the baby is fine!” he said at once.
“Thank God!”
“There’s a slight problem. It’s nothing major.” His eyes narrowed. “You have a heart condition.”
She bit her lower lip. “It’s not a bad one. It’s a birth defect...”
“Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome,” he said, nodding. “It shouldn’t cause problems, but it can. You have to be monitored. I want to send you to a local cardiologist, just to make sure there aren’t any complications when you deliver.”
“Okay,” she said.
“He can talk to you about the hypertension, as well.”
“All right.” She was puzzled. Dr. Medlin had mentioned that term. “It’s something to do with stress, yes?”
“It can be. Just keep taking the tablets,” he said, grinning, assuming that Dr. Medlin would have told her all about the hypertension. “Nothing to worry about there. Honest.”
She was relieved. She held a soft hand over her belly. She didn’t even show yet. That hard little lump, however, was beloved to her.
“You really want this child,” he said, fascinated.
“More than anything in the world.”
He hesitated. “Does the father know?”
She paused. She shook her head. “He doesn’t want me. I...can’t tell him. I will,” she promised. “I’ll have to. But not right now. Okay?”
“I don’t pry,” he said. “But a man has a right to know.”
She nodded. “I agree.”
He smiled. “Okay, then. Joan will make the appointment for you and call to tell you when it is. I’ll want to see you again in about a month.”
“Thanks,” she said.
“All in a day’s work.” He chuckled.
* * *
WOLF GLARED INTO Ysera’s eyes as she slid a long-fingered hand across the table and teasingly drew it over the back of his hand.
He didn’t move it, as he once might have done because she aroused him that way in the past. He just looked at her.
She was startled. But she hid it quickly. “I’m surprised to see you here,” she said. Her smile turned to pure sarcasm. “Wasn’t destroying my business revenge enough for you? Have you come to pay me back? I don’t see why. All I did was teach you pleasure,” she purred.
“No. You taught me subjugation and humiliation,” he returned blandly. “I was a good student.”
“You wanted me more than any other.” She laughed. “Once we did it on the floor of the bar, behind the counter, with people all around because you couldn’t wait.”
The humiliation of that encounter made him sick. But he didn’t react. This was another way she’d controlled him, with embarrassing memories. He just stared at her.
“You’re...different,” she said slowly. Her dark eyes narrowed, and she smiled with vengeance. “I knew there had to be a woman, somewhere. I’ve got men digging. They’ll find out who she is. When they do—” she leaned forward, almost purring “—I’ll kill her, lover. I’ll have them rape her...”
“You aren’t killing anyone. Ever again.” He cocked the pistol under the table. His smile was so cold that she shivered.
She hadn’t seen that coming. She would never have expected it of her old lover. She looked around.
“Your men are being rounded up as we speak,” he said, still smiling. “Your records have been confiscated by the appropriate agency, your business associates are being questioned. And you are headed for a very long prison sentence, if not capital murder charges.”
“You’ll go down with me!” she said furiously. “You killed that man and his family...!”
“Sent by you, on a tip,” he said. “The incident was investigated, and my men and I were cleared. But you weren’t. It’s why you ran. But your number’s up, honey,” he added. “You aren’t running. Never again.”
“Let them arrest me,” she said angrily, reaching into her pocket unobtrusively. She pushed a button and prayed that it would work, that the man who held the receiver wasn’t yet in custody. “I can work from prison,” she said. She smiled. “I can find your woman and have her killed, from the deepest, darkest jail cell they can put me in! You’ll never be safe! She’ll never be safe!”
While she was raging at him, a man ducked out from behind a curtain and took aim.
Wolf saw the intent, the triumph in her eyes, a split second too late to save himself. But even as the bullet sang through his chest from behind, his finger on the trigger, the safety off, he sent another bullet under the table, right into Ysera’s body. As he lost consciousness, he saw the utter shock in her eyes and the tiniest trail of blood running out of her perfect red lips...
* * *
SARA DROVE BACK toward the house, but she was unsettled by Dr. Hansen wanting to send her to a cardiologist. Surely he didn’t think her little heart defect would be dangerous to the baby? And what had he said about hypertension? She knew she’d been under a lot of stress lately, so maybe that was the reason for the capsules he’d prescribed. Stress could cause a lot of problems.
She touched her belly, smiling to herself as she drove. The baby would be fine. It only hurt that she couldn’t tell Wolf. But he didn’t want her. He’d made that perfectly clear. A baby would only complicate his life, so it was better to say nothing.
She was so busy with her thoughts that she missed her turn. Instead of going to her ranch, she was on the road to Rancho Real. It belonged to the Kirk brothers, Mallory and Dalton and Cane. But Mallory’s wife was her friend. She and Morie Brannt Kirk had been friends for many years, having met at a society function in San Antonio when Morie was still living in Branntville with her father, mother and brother.
Sara smiled, remembering that Morie had been a tireless worker when it came to the huge ranch sales that King Brannt was famous for. He ran purebred Santa Gertrudis cattle, and his young bull crop was sold out every single year. In fact, the Kirks
had purchased a new seed bull from him over a year ago.
It had been a rocky road to the altar for Morie and her husband, Mallory Kirk. Morie, sick of men wanting her for her father’s money, had run away to Wyoming and signed on at the Rancho Real as a cowgirl. King had never allowed her to become involved in any way with ranch work, so she’d learned it with the help of Darby Hanes, the Kirks’ foreman.
She’d been doing quite well at it, too, until Mallory’s evil girlfriend had planted evidence and accused her of stealing a priceless objet d’art from a curio cabinet in the Kirk home.
Morie had gone home heartbroken that Mallory hadn’t believed her protestations of innocence.
Then Mallory had gone to the production sale at Skylance, King Brannt’s ranch in Texas, and come face-to-face with a beautiful young debutante dripping diamonds—Morie.
King had almost had Mallory for supper.
Morie still laughed when she told the story. Mallory’s ex-girlfriend, who’d accused Morie of the theft, had been speechless and terrified when she’d discovered her victim wasn’t some poor cowgirl, after all.
Then Mallory was kidnapped by an escaped criminal. Morie had gone to save him, despite protests from her father, because she knew the man who’d threatened him. She’d managed to get the criminal to tell her where Mallory was. It had been a very brave thing to do, but Morie had loved Mallory too much to sit by and let him die.
Remembering how King and Mallory had made peace afterward, Sara smiled. From enemies to good friends. King had even been at the ranch just after Morie’s son was born to go trout fishing with Mallory.
Sara pulled up at the front door and got out. Morie must have seen her drive up, because she came to the door with the baby in her arms, her eyes wide with surprise when she saw her old friend.
“Come in and have coffee!” Morie said, hugging her. “I was going to come over to see you in a day or two. I only just heard that you were back on the ranch.” The last comment was almost an accusation.
“Sorry, I didn’t let anyone know I was coming,” Sara said softly. “I’ve had...a few problems.”