Texas…Now and Forever

by Merline Lovelace

  Her mouth opened under his. Warm. Willing. So incredibly erotic that the ache in his groin speared up, into his belly, and down, right to his boots. He’d had his share of women—more than his share, Tyler and Flynt and Spence often groused. He’d also developed one or two sophisticated techniques for finessing a woman out of her clothes over the years.

  There wasn’t anything sophisticated about the need that rose up now and kicked him square in the gut. Taking his cue from the way her fingers dug into his shoulders, he widened his stance, dragged her hard against him and drank his fill.

  Or tried to.

  The more he took, the more she gave, until Luke couldn’t tell whose need kept them locked together, their bodies straining. All he knew was that he wanted this woman with a fire that burned clear through him. With a low growl, he fumbled the clip from the back of her head, thrust his fingers through the thick silk of her hair and anchored her head for his kiss.

  All too soon, the mating of their mouths and tongues wasn’t enough. For either of them. Bending, he scooped her up. They landed on the bed in a tangle of arms and legs and wild, searching hands. Shedding their clothes completely took more time and restraint than either of them possessed at that moment. Luke did manage to get her slacks and bikini pants down to her knees and her sweater off one arm. Gasping, she writhed under the skillful play of his hands and tongue and teeth on her breast.

  He was full and heavy and pushing hard against his zipper when she went to work on his shirt buttons with frantic fingers. Suddenly she frowned. Panting and dewed with a fine sheen of perspiration, she fingered the raw, puckered scar in his left shoulder.

  “What is this?”

  “Just a scratch,” he replied, swooping down to nip at her throat.

  “Some scratch.” She wiggled to one side and tried to get another angle on the wound. “Is that from a bullet?”

  The last thing Luke cared about right now was the souvenir he’d brought home from the breakaway Russian republic.

  “I dodged when I should have ducked,” he admitted, raking his teeth lightly along the underside of her jaw.

  “But what…? When…?”

  He cut off the the questions he couldn’t answer with a hard, hungry kiss. At the same time he hooked an ankle over hers and spread her legs. His hand slid down her belly.

  Haley almost came apart when Luke slipped a finger inside her. He wasn’t her first. She’d dated a good deal in college and indulged in a brief fling with a stockbroker in Dallas.

  No man had ever claimed her heart, though. That had always belonged to Luke. And none had ever stirred such wild, white-hot sensations with his mere touch.

  “Luke!” Gasping, she arched under his hand. The slow, deliberate strokes had her primed and poised on the edge. “I can’t hold back much longer.”

  “Good,” he growled, replacing his hand with the tip of his shaft. “Neither can I.”

  They made love most of the night. The first time was hard and fast and sweaty. The second, slower and sweeter, with Luke plying a cool washcloth over her body in ways she was sure were illegal in most South Texas counties.

  The third was just before dawn, when he roused her from an exhausted doze and rolled her over, sleepy-eyed and protesting. She didn’t protest for long.

  The fourth came with the sun. She kept her eyes open this time, memorizing the curve of his shoulder. The short, wiry hair at the nape of his neck. The muscular slope of his back and buttocks.

  When they finished, she barely had the strength to drag the spread over her sweat-sheened body and to aim a quick glance at the clock radio on the nightstand. It was late. Past eight. She’d have to hustle to get the car back to Corpus Christi and catch a flight to Dallas that would connect with the London direct.

  “You want first dibs on the shower?”

  “What?” Blinking, she dragged her gaze back to Luke.

  “The shower. Do you want to hit it before I do?”

  “It’s all yours.”

  “There is another option, of course.” Hooking a finger in the spread, he tugged it down an inch or two and dropped a kiss on her breast. “We could conserve water and soap each other down. I’ve still got a few washcloth tricks up my sleeve.”

  Haley summoned a smile. “Any more of your tricks and I won’t be able to walk for a week. Better save them for next time.”

  He looked up then. His blue eyes narrowed. Behind the teasing gleam, they were keen and sharp. Too sharp.

  “Will there be a next time?”

  “Who knows?” Haley tossed back lightly.

  She was gone when Luke came out of the shower.

  He’d figured she would be. He hadn’t missed the worried glance she’d aimed at the clock radio. Or the strained edginess to her smile.

  He’d find her. He had the resources of a high-tech, covert agency at his disposal. When he did, he might just unlock a few of the mysterious stranger’s secrets. That was his intent, anyway, until he drove home, logged onto his laptop and found a blinking light indicating a secure transmission from OP-12.

  An hour later he climbed into the private, twin-engine jet he kept fueled and ready at the Mission Ridge airport and set a course for an isolated airstrip high in the Andes.

  When he returned after six exhausting weeks, the beautiful stranger’s trail had gone stone cold.

  Six

  Isadora Mercado died of heart failure three days after Haley returned to London. A devastated Carl Bridges delivered the news.

  “She died peacefully,” the judge related hoarsely. “In her sleep.”

  Shattered, Haley gave a small, animal moan and slumped against the wall behind her. His voice raw with his own pain, the judge tried to ease hers.

  “I visited your mama the day she went. She was happier than I’d ever seen her. Knowing you were alive, that you were safe from Frank… It made all the difference to her, missy. Thank God you got to be with her when you did.”

  Still Haley couldn’t speak. Her knees folded. She slid down the wall to the floor. Blindly she stared at the windows opposite her. A hard rain hit the panes, crying the tears that burned behind Haley’s lids.

  “Your father’s made all the arrangements. She’s going to be buried at St. Mary’s, Haley. Beside you.”

  “Oh, Judge!”

  “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking you should come home and be with your father and Ricky during their time of grief. Well, you can’t. Your mother died with joy in her heart because she knew you were safe. You’ll desecrate her memory if you put yourself right back in Frank’s clutches.”

  Blinded by the tears that stung her eyes, Haley stared sightlessly at the window. She kept visualizing her mother’s face as she’d last seen it, so bruised and battered.

  “Mother told me she was convinced Frank was behind her beating. She was bitter at Daddy for still trying to straddle the fence. Playing Mr. Nice Guy even though his hands were dirty.”

  “He’s always done that,” Carl said in disgust.

  “The trauma of that beating probably contributed to Mom’s heart attack.” Her fingers gripping the phone, Haley swore vengeance with a fervor that would have done her uncle Carmine proud. “Frank’s going to pay for that beating. Someday he’s going to pay!”

  A month went by. Six weeks. London steamed in the July heat. August rolled in on waves of choking exhaust fumes. Services practically shut down as shopkeepers and government workers all took their annual holiday and jammed subways, trains and motorways.

  Haley drifted through the jostling crowds. She took the tube to work, came home, avoided her friends. She felt as though she was living in a small, dark cocoon woven from grief, regret and bitter, corrosive anger. She couldn’t seem to break the shell, couldn’t find the energy to try. The heat drained her. Thoughts of her home and family haunted her.

  All that saved her from complete despair was the memory of her stolen hours with Isadora.

  And with Luke. The night Haley had spent i
n his arms would remain etched in her heart forever. She didn’t realize how deeply until the first week in September, when the reason for her continuing lethargy finally sank in.

  She was pregnant.

  It took two trips to the pharmacy and three home-pregnancy kits before she could bring herself to accept the possibility. A visit to a women’s clinic converted probability into fact.

  She was pregnant.

  Haley walked out of the clinic into bright September sunshine. Dazed, she made her way to the small park a few blocks from her flat. Pigeons fluttered and cooed from the statue of some forgotten general on his rearing charger. Leaves rustled in the oaks fringing the park. Bit by bit, the hard shell around Haley’s heart cracked and fell away.

  She was pregnant!

  With a joyous whoop that earned her curious stares from passersby, she hugged her middle. She wouldn’t be alone anymore. She wasn’t cut off from her family any longer. She hadn’t left Luke Callaghan behind forever.

  She’d have his baby. Their baby. A new life to fill the void of her old. For the first time since Frank Del Brio had shoved that diamond on her finger, Haley’s spirits soared high and free.

  In her joy and eagerness, she welcomed the minor inconveniences and major physical changes that came with pregnancy. She also reestablished contacts with the small circle of friends she’d begun to make in London.

  The days and weeks sped by. She spent hours converting the spare bedroom in her flat to a nursery. More hours with one of her married coworkers, shopping for the astonishing number of items a newborn evidently required. October brought gray skies. November, icy drizzle. December blew in cold and snowy, but Haley hardly noticed the weather. Happy and by now well-rounded, she thrilled at every twinge or kick that gave evidence of the life growing inside her.

  January brought the first small indications that the nest she’d built for herself and her child might not be as safe and cozy as she thought. She let herself into her building, her cheeks rosy and her breath steaming from the cold, and noticed what looked like scratches around her mailbox lock. Frowning, she ran her gloved fingers over the faint marks. When she inquired of the doorman, however, he shrugged.

  “Can’t say how those scratches got there. Might a been workmen. We had a crew working in the lobby a few days ago. I’ll check on it for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  When the doorman’s inquiries returned no information about the marks, Haley shrugged them off, until a week later when she retrieved her mail and could have sworn that one of her letters had been opened. It was only a form letter, reminding her of her next dental appointment, but the joyous cloud she’d been floating on for months began to dissipate.

  The hang-ups and wrong numbers began in late February, just weeks before her projected delivery date. The first two or three annoyed her. By the fourth or fifth, she had begun to feel distinctly nervous.

  She didn’t dare go to the police. She’d entered the country on a false passport, was living with forged identity papers. Nor could she contact her one rock. Carl Bridges didn’t answer either his phone or the e-mails an increasingly worried Haley fired off. He’d told her he had some business to attend to and might be incommunicado for a while. But why did it have to be now? Just when she needed him.

  In March, worry sent her into labor a week early, but she delivered a healthy, beautiful baby girl. She had her father’s silky black curls and, Haley saw with a sob, his eyes. They were the color of a summer Texas sky. She named her Lena, after her mother’s mother, Helena.

  The next day she brought her baby home to the nursery she’d decorated so lovingly and prayed she’d be safe there.

  Eight weeks later the taxi carrying Haley and Lena to the baby’s two-month checkup took a wrong turn.

  “This isn’t the way,” she informed the turbaned Sikh driver. “You should have turned right on Hyde Street, not left.”

  The driver stared straight ahead and whizzed down a broad street lined with leafless chestnut trees. Frowning, Haley leaned forward to rap on the Plexiglas partition separating the front seat from the back.

  “Excuse me. You’re heading in the wrong direction.”

  The driver didn’t so much as blink.

  Haley stared at the back of his head, ice forming in her veins. “Stop here,” she ordered. “Let us out.”

  In reply, he flicked a switch. All four door locks clicked down.

  Panic raced through Haley, swift and all-consuming. She wasn’t afraid for herself, but for her baby. Dear God, her baby!

  Snatching Lena from the carryall, she cradled the newborn against her chest. A dozen frantic schemes jumped into her mind. She’d roll the windows down at the next traffic stop. Scream for help. Pass Lena out the window to a pedestrian. Tell him or her to run like hell.

  She never got the opportunity to implement any of her wild schemes. Mere moments later the cab swerved onto a side street. Halfway down the block, a blue painted garage door rumbled up. The cab slowed, swerved again and rattled into the garage. The blue door dropped down with a clank.

  After the bright sunshine outside, the gloom of the windowless garage was impenetrable. Haley clutched Lena to her shoulder, almost frantic with fear for her child. Suddenly dazzling white light flooded the garage. She couldn’t see a thing, but she could hear.

  The door locks clicked.

  The driver climbed out and opened the rear passenger door.

  Footsteps sounded on concrete.

  Blinking furiously to clear her vision, Haley made out two figures approaching the cab. One she didn’t recognize. The other had her gasping.

  “Judge!”

  Giddy with relief, she started to scramble out of the cab. The jurist’s haggard expression halted her. He looked defeated, utterly, completely defeated. His shoulders slumped. His white hair lay lank and disordered, as though he hadn’t combed it in days. Behind his black-framed glasses, his faded blue eyes held pain.

  Belatedly, it occurred to Haley that Frank might have had the judge kidnapped. Maybe he’d been tortured. Or fed drugs. Forced to disclose his role in the supposed death of Haley Mercado. She shrank back against the seat, Lena clutched to her shoulder.

  “It’s okay, Haley.” Desolation wreathed the judge’s face as he coaxed her from the vehicle. “Please. Come out. We have to talk to you.”

  She emerged slowly, warily. Her glance darted to the man beside Carl. Short and stocky, with hair a bright shade of copper, he wore a nondescript gray suit and a bulldog expression.

  Behind him, three others moved out of the gloom, watching her with dark, intent eyes.

  “Who are these people?” she asked the judge, her heart pumping hard and fast.

  “This is Sean Collins. He’s a special agent from the New York office of the FBI.”

  Oh, no! All Haley could think of at that moment was that the FBI had busted Carl for procuring her fake passport and identity papers. Depositing the sleeping Lena in the carryall still resting on the back seat, she whirled and launched into a passionate defense.

  “Judge Bridges isn’t the one to blame for any wrongdoing. He was acting as my agent when he obtained that forged passport. I’m the one responsible. I had to get out of Texas, out of the States.”

  “We’re not here to talk to you about a forged passport,” the agent identified as Sean Collins replied.

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Because we have reason to believe your mother didn’t die of natural causes.”

  Shocked and confused, Haley turned to the judge. “What’s he talking about? You told me Mom had a heart attack.”

  “She did,” Collins answered for him. “But based on evidence only recently uncovered, we obtained a court order to have her body exhumed. The medical examiner performed an autopsy and discovered traces of potassium chloride in her body. We think someone slipped the drug into her IV and deliberately caused her heart to fail.”

  “Frank,” Haley whispered hoarsely. “Frank must have d
one it to keep her from talking.”

  “Actually,” Collins explained, “our guess is that Del Brio killed her because she wouldn’t talk. Word is, he was hot to know the identity of the nun who visited her right before her death. He’s been asking a lot of questions about the Sisters of Good Hope. Questions that led us to theorize Isadora’s daughter might still be alive.”

  Pain splintered through Haley, cutting into her heart like a thousand needle-pointed shards. Her face now as haggard as the judge’s, she stared at the agent through a haze of despair.

  “I killed her. My visit. That disguise. I killed my mother.”

  “No, you didn’t!” Snapping out of his near stupor, Carl grasped her arm. “You listen to me, missy. Your visit filled your mama with profound peace. Knowing you’d escaped made up for what she’d had to endure all these years.”

  “But—”

  “No buts!” he said fiercely. “Isadora and I talked for years about taking you kids and leaving Mission Creek. She never forgave Johnny for dragging all of you into the morass with him. But he was her husband, and you and Ricky needed your father and—”

  “And she was a devout Catholic,” Haley finished for him. “She didn’t believe in divorce.”

  Nodding, he let out a ragged sigh. “God knows, I tried my damnedest to talk her into one. I loved her, Haley. I’ve loved her for as long as I can remember.”

  “I know, Judge.”

  She sank back against the taxi fender, her thoughts whirling. Shock and pain gradually sharpened into fear. If Frank Del Brio had grown so suspicious that he was trying to track the nun who’d visited Isadora, he could be closing in on her. That would explain the scratches on her mailbox and sudden spate of hang-ups.

  Nausea rolled around in Haley’s stomach. As sickening as it was, she had to face the truth. She couldn’t run far enough to escape Frank Del Brio. As long as she lived—as long as he lived—she’d never be safe.

  Nor would Lena.

  Agent Collins apparently agreed. “We’re only a few steps ahead of Del Brio, Miss Mercado. We’re just lucky that we were able to convince Judge Bridges to tell us what he knew of Isadora Mercado’s mysterious visitor. He brought us to you because he now realizes the life you’ve so carefully constructed for yourself in London is about to come tumbling down around your ears. We need to get you and your baby away from here and to provide you both with protection.”