by Diana Palmer
Callie came toward her car, noticed the low slung Porsche and stopped dead in her tracks, staring at it.
Micah climbed out of the car with his usual elegance of movement and went to join her beside her car.
“We need to talk.”
She clutched her purse against her small breasts and looked up at him with faint hauteur. Her heart was racing. He could see her blouse move jerkily above her breasts. He remembered vividly the feel of her in his arms that once…
“We never talk,” she informed him. “You say what you want to, and then you walk away.”
She had a point. He pulled the half-smoked cigar from its holder and lit it.
“That’s illegal in the mall,” she said with unholy glee. “Light up there, and they’ll arrest you.”
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?”
She wasn’t going to be drawn into another verbal firefight with him. She straightened. “I’m tired and I still have to pick up Dad at the senior center. He stays with me now.”
“I know.” He hated the thought of Callie being his father’s nurse and protector. It was one of many things he resented. “Have you heard from your mother?” he added mockingly.
She didn’t flinch. But her eyelids did, just barely perceptibly. “I haven’t heard from my mother since the divorce,” she said calmly. “Have you?” she added with pure venom.
His dark eyes glittered at her.
She decided to cut her losses. “What do you want?” she asked bluntly.
Now that he had her attention, he didn’t know how to put it. She had no idea what he did for a living. Even his father didn’t know. He’d kept his profession secret from both of them. He’d inherited a large trust from his mother, which would never have been enough to furnish him with Porsches and Armani suits. They didn’t seem to realize that, so he left them to draw their own conclusions. Now, with Lopez looming over him, his profession might get them both killed. He had to find a way to protect them. But how?
“I don’t suppose you and Dad would like to come down to Nassau for a vacation?” he asked speculatively.
Her chin lifted proudly. “I’d rather holiday in hell,” she said with a cold smile.
He let out a husky, hollow laugh. “That’s what I thought.”
“Your father is all right,” she said, anticipating what she thought was wrong. “It was just a mild stroke.”
“When did that happen?” he asked abruptly, with concern.
“No one called you?” She shifted her purse. “Sorry. We’ve all watched him carefully since that heart attack. It was two weeks ago, he lost the feeling on the left side of his face and couldn’t move it. As I said, it was mild. It was a light stroke. But they were actually able to clean out the artery that was clogged and put a shunt in it. He’s on blood thinners, and he has a good prognosis. You don’t have to worry about him. I’m taking good care of him.”
“On your salary,” he said flatly, angered.
She stiffened. “I make a decent living and he’s an economical guest. We struggle along together just fine. We don’t need financial help,” she added firmly. “In case you wondered,” she added, reminding him that he’d accused her of being money-hungry just like her mother. It was one of many things he’d said to her that still hurt.
The words went right through him, but he hid his re action. He wished he could forget the accusations he’d made, the hurtful things he’d said to her. But there was no going back. “Did you know your own father?” he asked, curious.
Her face grew taut. “I don’t know who my father was. My mother’s first husband was positive that it wasn’t him. That’s why he didn’t press for custody when she divorced him.”
She said it with savaged pride, and he was sorry he’d forced the admission from her. “So my father’s standing in for him?” he probed gently.
“Jack Steele was kinder to me than anyone else ever was,” she said tightly. “It’s no great burden to look after him. And you still haven’t said why you’re here.”
He fingered the burning cigar and tried to find the words. “I’ve made an enemy,” he said finally. “A very bad man to cross. I think he might target you and my father to get back at me.”
Callie frowned. “Excuse me?”
His dark eyes met hers. “He’s a drug lord. He heads one of the Colombian cartels. I just cost him several million dollars by tipping the DEA about a massive shipment of cocaine he sent over here.”
Her blood ran cold. She worked in legal circles. She knew about drugs, not only their dangers, but also the penalties for using or selling them. She also knew about the Colombian cartels, because they were on the news most every night. They were graphic about how drug dealers got even with people who cost them money. She couldn’t even shoot a gun, and Jack Steele, Micah’s father, was practically an invalid despite his remarkable recovery. The two of them together would never be able to protect themselves from such an adversary, and she couldn’t afford to hire a bodyguard.
She stared at Micah blankly. “Would he be that ruthless?” she had to ask.
“Yes.”
Her chest rose and fell heavily. “Okay. What do we do?”
Straightforward. No accusations, no rage, no exaggerated fear. She simply asked, trusting that he’d know. And he did.
“I’m going to send someone over here to watch you and Dad,” he replied. “Someone trustworthy.”
“And what are you going to do?” she wanted to know.
“That’s my business.”
He looked, and sounded, harder than nails. She felt exposed, vulnerable. She was eighteen again, hearing him accuse her of setting him up with his father. He’d already been angry at her for what had happened when they’d been alone that last Christmas they’d all lived together. He’d given in to temptation and it had taken all his willpower to get away from her at all. He’d lectured her about being so free with her kisses, so wanton and forward. He’d left her in tears. It had only dawned on him much later that she’d had something alcoholic to drink. He’d walked out into the hall, where her mother had seen him in a state of unmistakable arousal and had made a blatant play for him, thinking she’d aroused him in her low-cut dress.
In the seconds it took his dimmed brain to react, his father had come out of the study and found him in the hall with Callie’s mother, in a compromising position. Micah and his father had almost come to blows. Callie and her mother were summarily booted out the door and Micah had accused Callie of sending her father out there to catch him with his stepmother, out of revenge because he wouldn’t kiss her. It had broken Callie’s heart. Now, she withdrew from Micah Steele as if he were molten lava. She had no wish to repeat the lesson he’d taught her.
“Very well,” she said demurely. “I’ll look after Dad while you do…whatever you’re going to do. I’ve got my grandfather’s shotgun and some shells. I’ll protect him at night.”
He looked at her in a different way. “Can you shoot it?”
“If I have to,” she replied. Her face was very pale, but she wasn’t flinching. “Was there anything else?”
His dark eyes slid down her slender, graceful body and he remembered Callie in bathing suits, in flimsy gowns, in her one fancy dress at her birthday party—her eighteenth birthday party. She’d been wearing deep green velvet, cut low and sensuous, and he’d refused her invitation to attend the celebration. Like so many other things he’d said and done, he’d hurt her that day. She still looked impossibly young. She was barely twenty-two, and he was thirty-six, over a decade her senior.
He wanted to prolong the meeting. That was unlike him. He shrugged one shoulder indifferently instead. “Nothing important. Just watch your step. I’ll make sure nobody gets close enough to hurt either of you.”
She gave him one slow, eloquent look before she turned to her small car and unlocked it. She got in and drove off, without another word. And she didn’t look back.
Chapter Twelve
Cy and Lisa were h
aving a late supper at the kitchen table. They watched each other hungrily with every bite as they discussed the changes the baby would mean in their lives. They were delightful changes, and they spoke in low murmurs, smiling at each other between bites. The loud squeal of tires out front caught them un aware and made them tense. Surely it wasn’t another at tack by Lopez or his men…!
Cy was out of the chair and heading for the front door seconds later, his hand going automatically to the phone table drawer where the loaded .45 automatic was kept. He made a mental note to himself to keep his gun locked up once the baby arrived. He motioned Lisa back and moved cautiously out onto the porch. Seconds later, he lowered the weapon. It was Micah Steele, but he was hardly recognizable.
His thick blond hair was disheveled, and he needed a shave. He looked as if he hadn’t slept.
Cy didn’t waste time asking questions. He caught the taller man by the arm and pulled him inside. “Coffee first. Then you can tell whatever you need to.”
“I’ll bring it to the study,” Lisa offered.
Cy smiled at her and bent to kiss her cheek. “I’ll bring it to the study,” he corrected tenderly. “Growing mamas need their rest. Go watch TV.”
“Okay.” She kissed him back, sparing a curious and sympathetic glance for Micah, who nodded politely be fore he preceded Cy into the kitchen.
When Lisa was out of earshot, Cy poured coffee into two mugs and put them on the table.
“Would you rather talk in the study?” Cy asked him.
“This is fine.” Micah cupped the mug in both hands and leaned over it in a slumped posture that said all too much about his mental condition.
Cy straddled a chair across from him. “Okay. What’s wrong.”
“Lopez has Callie,” he said in a husky, tortured voice.
Cy sat stock-still. “When? And how?” he exploded.
“Yesterday, not five minutes after I spoke to her outside her office building,” he said dully. “We had a brief conversation. I warned her that someone I knew might possibly target her or my father. She listened, but she didn’t pay much attention. I told her I was going to have someone watch them for their own safety. But I’d barely gotten back to my motel when Eb phoned and said he’d had an urgent message from Rodrigo that Callie was going to be snatched. I phoned the adult day care where she leaves Dad every day and they said she hadn’t picked him up.” He looked absolutely devastated. “You can set your watch by Callie. She’s always early, if she isn’t right on time. I went looking for her, and I found her car about a block from the senior center on a side street. The driver’s door was standing wide-open and her purse was still in it.”
Cy cursed roundly. “Did you call the police?”
Micah shook his head. He ran a big hand through his hair restlessly. “I didn’t know what to do.” He looked at Cy in anguish. “Do you know what that snake will do to her? She’s untouched, Cy. Absolutely untouched!”
He had a pretty good idea what Lopez would do, and it made him sick to consider it. Judging by Micah’s behavior, his stepsister meant a lot more to him than he’d ever admitted; possibly, more than he’d realized him self.
“The first thing we do is call Chet Blake.”
“A lot of good a local police chief is going to do us,” Micah said miserably. “By now, Lopez has her out of the state, if not out of the country.”
“Chet is a distant relation of our state attorney general, Simon Hart,” Cy interrupted, “and he has a cousin who’s a Texas Ranger. Lopez’s men left some sort of trail, even if it’s just a paper one. Chet has connections. He’ll find out where Lopez has taken her. If she’s in Mexico, we can contact the Mexican authorities and Interpol…”
Micah’s steely glare interrupted him. “All I need to know is where she is,” he said tautly. “Then I’ll pack up Bojo and Rodrigo, and we’ll play cowboys and drug dealers.”
Cy wanted to try to reason with him, but the man was too far gone. He’d seen Micah in this mood before, and he knew there was nothing he could say or do to stop him. He spared a thought for Callie, who was probably terrified, not to mention Micah’s father. The old man had already had a major heart attack and a stroke, and the news might easily be too much for him. Micah would have to make up a story and tell it to whoever was nursing him. He said as much.
“I’ve already taken care of that,” Micah said heavily. “One of the freelance homebound nurses who sometimes visits him at the center went home with him. I’ve arranged for her to stay there until I come back—or until Callie does. I told her to say that Callie had an emergency out of town, a cousin in a car wreck. He doesn’t know that she has no cousins. He’ll believe it, and he won’t have to be upset.”
“Good thinking,” Cy said. “What can I do?”
Micah finished his coffee. “You can keep an eye on Dad for me while I’m out of the country. You and Eb,” he added. “If you don’t mind.”
“Certainly I don’t mind,” Cy told him. “We’ll have somebody watch him constantly. I promise.”
“Thanks,” Micah said simply. He stood up. “I’ll let you know when I’ve got her safe.”
“If there’s anything else you need, all you have to do is ask,” Cy told him.
Micah smiled wanly. “Remember that old saying, that we don’t appreciate what we’ve got until we lose it?”
“She’ll be all right.”
“I hope so. See you.”
“Good luck.”
Micah nodded and went out as quietly as he’d come in. Cy poured himself another cup of coffee, took out a glass and filled it with milk for Lisa before he closed up the kitchen and went to join her in the living room.
Her eyes lit up when he sat down on the sofa beside her, put the drinks down and slid his arm behind her to watch her knit.
“What was wrong with him?”
“Lopez got Callie,” he said.
She grimaced and groaned. “Oh, poor Callie! Can he rescue her, do you think?”
“As soon as we find out where she is. I’ve got to make some phone calls in the study. Go on to bed when your program goes off. I’ll be there in a little while.”
She put her hand on his cheek and caressed it softly. “I love going to bed with you,” she said softly.
He smiled at her, bending to kiss her lips tenderly. “I love doing everything with you,” he said.
“Will it be enough for you, me and the baby?” she asked solemnly. “Will it make up for what you’ve lost?”
He drew her close and hugged her. “I’ll always miss Alex,” he replied, naming his five-year-old son who died in the Wyoming fire. “And I’ll always blame myself for not being able to save him. But I love you, and I want our baby very much.” He lifted his head and looked down into her dark eyes hungrily. “You’ll be enough, Lisa.”
She smiled again, and kissed him hungrily before he got up from the sofa. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” He ruffled her long hair and grinned at her. “You’ve changed my whole life. I look forward to waking up every morning. I have such a pretty view in my bed.”
She chuckled. “I have a very nice one of my own.” She sobered. “Will Lopez hurt Callie?”
“I wish I knew. We’ll do what we can to help Micah find her.”
“Even when Lopez is not here, he’s still here,” she said. “One of these days, he’s going to be called to account for all the evil things he’s done.”
“And he’ll pay the price,” Cy assured her.
He went to make his phone calls. He paused in the doorway to take one long look at his wife. Despite his sympathy for Micah Steele, he was grateful that he hadn’t lost Lisa to Lopez’s violence. His life was new again, fresh, full of promise and joy. After the storm, the rainbow. He smiled. The winter soldier had found a warm, loving home at last.
CATTLEMAN’S PRIDE
To Amy in Alabama
Chapter One
Libby Collins couldn’t figure out why her stepmother, Janet, had call
ed a real estate agent out to the house. Her father had only been dead for a few weeks. The funeral was so fresh in her mind that she cried herself to sleep at night. Her brother, Curt, was equally devastated. Riddle Collins had been a strong, happy, intelligent man who’d never had a serious illness. He had no history of heart trouble. So his death of a massive heart attack had been a real shock. In fact, the Collinses’ nearest neighbor, rancher Jordan Powell, said it was suspicious. But then, Jordan thought everything was suspicious. He thought the government was building cloned soldiers in some underground lab.
Libby ran a small hand through her wavy black hair, her light green eyes scanning the horizon for a sight of her brother. But Curt was probably up to his ears in watching over the births of early spring cattle, far in the northern pasture of the Powell ranch. It was just barely April and the heifers, the two-year-old first-time mothers, were beginning to drop their calves right on schedule. There was little hope that Curt would show up before the real estate agent left.
Around the corner of the house, Libby heard the real estate agent speaking. She moved closer, careful to keep out of sight, to see what was going on. Her father had loved his small ranch, as his children did. It had been in their family almost as long as Jordan Powell’s family had owned the Bar P.
“How long will it take to find a buyer?” Janet was asking.
“I can’t really say, Mrs. Collins,” the man replied. “But Jacobsville is growing by leaps and bounds. There are plenty of new families looking for reasonable housing. I think a subdivision here would be perfectly situated and I can guarantee you that any developer would pay top dollar for it.”
Subdivision? Surely she must be hearing things!
But Janet’s next statement put an end to any such suspicion. “I want to sell it as soon as possible,” Janet continued firmly. “I have the insurance money in hand. As soon as this sale is made, I’m moving out of the country.”