by Diana Palmer
He chuckled. “Well, it kept you diverted so that you didn’t rush back upstairs, didn’t it?”
She sighed angrily. “Honest to God, if Amy could see you now.” She shook her head.
“She’d probably be laughing her head off in the hereafter,” he finished for her, his dark eyes twinkling.
June glanced from one to the other and smiled. She’d never heard Cord Romero laugh until Maggie came back into his life. When she and her father had first come to work for him, he was a little intimidating, and he never seemed to smile. He was all business, and there were some wary, tough-looking men going in and out of the house at odd hours. June had been nervous around him most of the time. But now, with Maggie, he was like a different person. She got a glimpse of the man he had been, perhaps, before his line of work made him hard and cold. She wondered if he realized how much Maggie had changed him already.
“Barefoot and in shorts,” Maggie scoffed, sipping coffee. “If any of my clients had seen me…!”
“You’d be doing more business than you could handle,” Cord mused. “I know—” he held up his hand “—that was a sexist remark. But, honey, you do look enchanting in a pair of shorts and with your hair down.”
Maggie looked flustered. She couldn’t even come up with a snappy reply. She finished her coffee instead.
Later, they went into the living room to watch television, but Maggie was uneasy.
“You don’t really think Gruber will come after both of us, do you?” she asked.
Cord smiled. “Of course he will,” he replied. “I’m going to see Lassiter in the morning and we’re going to talk about strategies. I’ll drop you off at your office on the way. I’ll come with Davis to pick you up after work, too.”
She started to protest. Her mouth was open. But all at once, she closed it. This was his business. He made his living anticipating dark threats, danger, violence. If the man did have evil in mind, there wasn’t anybody better than Cord to deal with it.
“What? No protests?” Cord exclaimed.
She shifted on the sofa. “You’re very good at what you do,” she replied softly. Her eyes touched his face. “I know you can deal with anything that comes up.”
He was pleasantly surprised at the remark. He smiled. “Thank you,” said softly.
“I’m not flattering you,” she returned. “I mean it.”
His eyes searched hers. “You feel safe with me.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far,” she proclaimed with a gleam in her eyes.
He chuckled. “Now, that really is flattery,” he told her. He switched channels. “Remember this?” he asked, turning to a TV station that aired episodes of classic TV shows. They were running a police drama that Cord and Maggie shared a love for many years back.
“Yes!” she exclaimed. “I used to sit and watch it with you, on the rare occasions when you came home for weekends.”
“I still watch it.”
She smiled shyly. “So do I.”
“At least,” he said, almost to himself, “some of the memories are good ones.”
Maggie slept soundly for the first time in years, cocooned in the soft bed in the room that Cord had decorated just for her. She still could hardly believe that he’d gone to that much trouble. Especially with the difficulties they’d had being civil to each other in the recent past.
But it was different, now. There was a tenderness between them that delighted her, surprised her. She felt as if she had, truly, come home. Cord was gentle, teasing, relaxed. Despite the turbulent physical passion they shared, they could sit and watch television like friends, or talk about politics and current news events without quarreling. They had more in common than they ever had before.
Cord hadn’t touched her again after the passion they’d shared in her bedroom. But he’d walked her to her door and touched her hair in the ponytail, and smiled down at her before he went to his own room. She felt cherished. Whatever came of their new relationship, it was a wonderful glimpse into a world she’d never known.
Maggie dressed in a neat navy blue business suit for work the next morning, arriving for breakfast with her purse and laptop in hand.
Cord was wearing slacks and a rib-necked silk shirt with a sports coat. He looked powerful and very sexy. Maggie’s hands itched to smooth over that shirtfront that revealed every muscular inch of his broad chest.
“You look nice,” he remarked with a smile. “Very neat and professional.”
“I’m a corporate woman,” she informed him with a grin. “I have to project a classy image.”
“You project a classy image in shorts,” he said, knowing it would prick her temper.
It did. She glared at him over bacon and eggs. “I don’t have to use sex to get clients.”
“I don’t remember insinuating that.”
She ate a forkful of eggs with attitude. “I’ve seen women do it.”
“Not you. Never you.” He leaned back, his breakfast finished, with his coffee mug in his hand and just looked at her. “You do nothing suggestive. You don’t wear clothes that even hint at the curves underneath. You walk in a businesslike way. You don’t flirt. You don’t entice.” He sighed, frowning. “It’s a good business image. But you’re denying your sex appeal entirely.”
“Business demands that,” she replied quietly.
“A woman doesn’t become a man just because she wears a pin-striped pantsuit and a blouse with a tie,” he replied. “But it makes her look like a hybrid. Men work in previously feminine job slots, like florists and fabric salesmen, but they haven’t started wearing skirts. I think a woman should be able to take pride in her femininity without being accused of using it to further her career. But that’s not the problem with you, is it, Maggie? Your prickly hang-ups show even in the way you dress,” he said gently. “It amazes me that it took me almost eighteen years to see it.”
She didn’t know how to handle the conversation. He was getting into uncomfortably personal areas. He was a gifted interrogator, and he knew people very well, right down to their bones. She didn’t want him delving too deeply into her past.
“Logan gave Kit hell yesterday about that photo,” he remarked.
“They have a little boy,” she recalled. “I guess he was upset that she’d done something potentially dangerous.”
“He wasn’t the only one,” he replied solemnly. “I’m the risk-taker in this family. I’ve handled dangerous situations most of my adult life, and I’m damned good at it. You stick to your stock quotes and leave detective work to the experts.”
He was right, but she didn’t like admitting it. “Oh, right, let’s keep fragile little women out of the line of fire!”
“Fragile, hell,” he said with an amused glance. “You’re exactly the sort of companion I’d want in a firefight. You’ve got nerve, and you don’t back away, ever.”
That surprised her. She stared at him with evident confusion.
“But this isn’t a firefight, it’s a covert covering action,” he continued. “And you’re outgunned. Gruber has hired thugs in his organization who have a genius for getting into and out of protected places. I’ve had to call in markers from half a dozen colleagues just to keep the ranch safe.”
“Huh?”
He just smiled. “Ready to go to work?” he asked, checking his watch.
“Sure. Anytime you are.”
She got her laptop and her purse and followed him out. He paused to speak to June on the way, cautioning her about keeping doors locked and windows shut. He put on his dark glasses before they went outside.
They moved to the garage just in time to see a tall man in dark clothing carrying some sort of electronic device leading a huge black-and-brown German shepherd out of the building. He gave Cord a curt nod, but didn’t stop to speak.
“Thanks, Wilson,” Cord called. The other man threw up a hand.
“What was he doing?” Maggie asked warily when Cord walked to the driver’s side of the black sports car he drove.
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“He was checking for nitrates,” he said.
She frowned. “Fertilizer?”
He pursed his lips and looked amused. “Something like that.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t know anything about that electronic device he had, but I do know that they use a wand like the one he was carrying at the airport. They aren’t checking for fertilizer, either.”
“You’re too sharp for me, honey,” he drawled, without even realizing he’d used the endearment. But he noted her soft flush with pleasure. “He was checking for a bomb.”
Her gasp was loud in the silence.
“I won’t hide things from you,” he said. “You’re a grown woman. You can handle this. Gruber is the sort who wouldn’t think twice about setting a bomb here, and he wouldn’t mind killing innocent people to get to me, or to you. From now on, until I settle with Gruber, I’ll have to have the cars and the machinery, the outbuildings and especially the house, swept for bombs and bugs constantly.”
The danger came home to her in that instant. She looked at Cord and remembered the bomb that had almost killed him. The fresh wounds were stark against his olive tan. They weren’t disfiguring. In fact, they gave him a roguish look.
Her hands clenched. “I’ve been very naive,” she confessed.
“You aren’t used to this sort of thing. I am,” he said. “And because I am,” he added, tossing her the car keys as he slipped a pair of dark glasses on, “you’re driving and I’m blind.”
“You’ve never offered to let me drive you before,” she remarked, her eyes on the keys.
“Trust takes a little work. And a little time,” he said gently.
She looked up at him worriedly. “I’m not used to trusting people.”
“Neither am I,” he remarked. “But we can learn. Can’t we?”
Hesitating, she nodded. Then she smiled and got in behind the wheel.
She loved driving the sports car. She’d have loved one of her own, but she’d never been able to afford such luxury. She almost laughed at the irony of her position, driving the one man in her life who was more than capable of taking care of himself and everyone around him. But, as he said, the fiction of his injury had to be maintained if he was going to get the best of Gruber.
She glanced at his profile when she stopped to turn onto the main highway. She’d never let herself think too deeply about his work. They’d lived separate lives for a long time. She’d never seen him in action, although she heard from Eb Scott, among others, about the chances he took, the cases he worked. She remembered when he’d been shot, when Patricia had committed suicide. It had been Maggie who had stayed in the hospital waiting room day and night, for the three days when he was in intensive care. She’d tried to phone his wife, but Patricia hadn’t answered the phone, and Maggie had assumed she was out of town. She hadn’t been able to find anyone who knew where she was. The tragedy didn’t reveal itself until Cord was released from the hospital, and he’d found her body. It had changed him terribly. After that, he quit the FBI and took freelance jobs that most other mercenaries wouldn’t have touched—mostly involving demolitions. He was an expert at defusing bombs.
He felt her inner turmoil. “You don’t like what I do for a living, do you?” he asked.
“No,” she said honestly.
She stopped for a red light and he studied her stoic expression. “I’ve never thought seriously about giving it up. Those adrenaline rushes are addictive. The greater the danger, the bigger the rush.”
“I noticed that myself.” She laughed shortly. “But you’ve never been family-man material.”
He frowned. “Why do you say that?”
“I can see it now, you, with a wife and baby, rushing off to defuse a ticking bomb somewhere,” she said with no real mirth. “I don’t think there’s a sane woman on earth who could live with that sort of uncertainty. It would kill a marriage at the outset.”
He was silent while they waited for the light to change. His lean, strong fingers traced the dash absently. “I’ve never thought about my job in that light.”
“No reason to,” she said easily. “You have no one to consider except yourself. You can do what you please without worrying about anyone else’s reactions.”
His eyes narrowed as he looked at her averted face. She was speaking conversationally, but her body was giving away secrets. She was rigid. Her hands were tightly clenched in her lap, the nails biting into her palms. It occurred to him that she’d known about some of his more dangerous exploits, and that she’d worried about him—worried a lot. He thought he didn’t have to consider her feelings, but if she cared about him, certainly she’d brood on the dangerous chances he took. He reversed their positions and thought how he’d react if Maggie defused bombs and took mercenary jobs in high-risk cases. Amazing, how sick it made him.
He noticed that the light had changed. She stepped on the gas a little too heavily, jerking the car. He was thrown off balance by his worried thoughts and barely kept from pitching forward against the seat belt.
“Sorry,” she said tersely.
Cord never made ungraceful movements. She wondered what he’d been thinking to unsettle him. Probably about Patricia, she thought miserably. Poor Patricia, who’d loved him, too.
When they got to the Lassiter-Deverell Building, Cord walked beside Maggie into the elevator, sunglasses in place and holding her arm as if he needed it to guide him. He stood beside her without speaking as they rode up to her floor. His lack of conversation made her uneasy. He was brooding.
They got off on her floor and walked down the deserted hall to the wooden door with a brass plate announcing that this was the office of Deverell Investments.
“Thanks for coming in with me,” she began.
He touched her cheek gently. “There’s an old saying, about not judging people until we’ve walked in their shoes,” he said out of the blue. “I’ve gone through life without considering how I affected other people’s lives with my actions.”
“We just agreed that you didn’t need to,” she pointed out.
His face was drawn. “How many sleepless nights have you spent over the years, worrying about me?”
Her eyebrows shot up. “I’ll have to check my diary,” she said lightly.
His fingertips went to her mouth and traced the upper lip. “I wish you wouldn’t wear red lipstick,” he murmured quietly. “If I kiss you, they’ll think I landed the lead in Cabaret.”
Her heart skipped wildly. “What did you drink for breakfast?” she asked wryly.
“Coffee, just like you.” His fingers didn’t move. He scowled at her mouth with visible curiosity, with a growing hunger to bend and catch her lips under his. He felt his breath choking him as he recalled unwanted memories of her soft breast under his lips, her faint moans like music to his ears…
He jerked his hand back and looked more formidable than ever. “I could retire on what I’ve got in the bank,” he said absently. “Demolition work isn’t much more than a hobby these days. I like breeding purebred bulls.”
“Are we having the same conversation?” she asked. “We were talking about coffee, as I recall?” she prompted.
He smiled at her, with genuine warmth. It made his eyes soft, crinkly at the corners. It made his hard mouth look sensuous.
“You look elegant with your hair in a braid,” he remarked, “but I like it long and soft around your shoulders.”
“I work here,” she pointed out. “I don’t want to divert the clients by flaunting my sexy hair. Think of the complications if I had to toss someone out the window for getting fresh over AT&T preferred!”
He chuckled deeply. “You don’t resort to those methods with me.”
She shrugged. “You’re special.”
The smile faded. His eyes darkened, as if the glib remark touched a sensitive spot. “So are you,” he said in a rough, husky tone. “More special than I ever knew.”
“Stop it,” she chided, trying to ward off more complic
ations. “You’ll make me blush.”
He bent unexpectedly and brushed his lips tenderly over her eyelids, closing them in a flutter of long lashes. “You don’t leave the office unless someone goes with you,” he whispered. “You wait for me to come and get you when you get off work. I’ll have Davis drive me, to make it look good. If anything happens in between that worries you, you call Lassiter’s office or you call me. Or else.”
“Or else what?” she asked huskily.
“Or I’ll carry you down to the car and take you home right now.” He lifted his head to search her misty eyes. “Considering the state I’m in just at the moment, that might not be my best idea to date.”
“The state you’re in?” she murmured drowsily.
He glanced up and down the hall, found it deserted, took her by the waist and gently pulled her against him. “This state.” He smiled ruefully.
She jerked her hips back from his and a film of color lay along her high cheekbones.
He shrugged. “Think of it as an unavoidable response to an attractive woman,” he murmured with helpless pride.
“More likely, it’s a response to enforced abstinence!” she shot back.
His eyebrows lifted. “How do you know I’ve abstained?”
She colored even more. “Your private life is none of my business!” she muttered, glaring up at him. “I don’t care how many women you have sex with! You can sleep with every woman in the building for all I care, from the cleaning lady up!”
He was suddenly looking over her shoulder with unholy amusement.
She groaned inwardly and turned. Logan Deverell was standing in the open office door with a speaking glance.
Logan cleared his throat. “The, uh, cleaning lady is fifty-two, twice married,” he remarked, “and she only has three teeth…”
“Lead me to her,” Cord enthused. “Experienced women turn me on!”
Maggie choked back laughter, dashed past Logan and shot into her own office with a speed that left Cord chuckling merrily.
Cord was shown into Lassiter’s office by the secretary. Dark-eyed, dark-headed Dane Lassiter rose from behind his desk and moved around it with traces of a limp to shake hands.