Men Made in America Mega-Bundle

by Gayle Wilson, Marie Ferrarella, Jennifer Greene, Annette Broadrick, Judith Arnold, Rita Herron, Anne Stuart, Diana Palmer, Elizabeth Bevarly, Patricia Rosemoor, Emilie Richards

  “What are we going to do?” Becki asked.

  “Wait for night,” Deke said. The only shot he’d have, but he didn’t tell her that. It was enough that he knew. The only shot.

  HE HADN’T COUNTED ON the generator.

  They had moved back from the edge of the ridge to eat the food he’d carried up in the backpack he’d bought. He hadn’t been sure at the time he’d made those purchases that they’d be spending the night up here, but he’d come prepared for the possibility. He had bought a sleeping bag, which they could lay open, and the light silver space blanket, for warmth against the desert chill.

  He had cautioned Becki against unnecessary conversation, knowing how far sound carried in the thin air, in the starlit silence. He was aware, however, that her eyes would occasionally shift to the shadows where he had chosen to sit, steadily eating the cold provisions. She had barely touched the food, until he’d reminded her that she would need the energy later on. His warning had been enough that she’d gotten down most of the meal, unappetizing as it was.

  He fought the desire to hold her. To feel her body under his, warm and alive. Instead, he leaned back against the slowly fading warmth of the rock outcropping and watched her from the darkness. The sun was setting behind her, already far below the horizon, so that her slenderness was silhouetted against the streaked purple of descending night. The first stars were out, spangled like diamonds against the velvet darkness.

  “You’re going down there,” she said, her voice very soft, remembering his warning. It was not a question.

  “After they’ve had time to get settled,” he acknowledged.

  “To do what? The tent’s guarded, Deke. How are you planning to get around that?”

  “Improvise,” he suggested. He was only a shadow in the dusk, his voice disembodied, his tone as quiet as hers had been. “Take advantage of whatever chance I’m given.”

  “And if there is no chance?”

  “There’s always a chance,” he said.

  She turned away, looking out into the void beyond the rim of the rock face, toward the clearing where her son slept. So near and yet, surrounded by Deke’s enemies, so far away. Almost as far as he’d ever been, she thought.

  Deke watched as she got up, approaching the edge without the caution of the afternoon, unnecessary now with the backdrop of darkness behind them. She stood on the front of the ridge looking down into the clearing below. He knew she was thinking of Josh. Maybe of how near he was. Nearer to him now than they had been during this entire journey. So close.

  “Deke,” Becki said. Her voice was very soft, but there was something in her tone, something that had not been there before.

  “What is it?” he asked, already moving in response.

  “Look,” she breathed, her eyes still focused below.

  He joined her on the rim, looking down on the destruction of whatever he’d hoped to accomplish tonight. The clearing below was as clearly illuminated as it had been in the heat and light of the afternoon. He could even hear the small hum of the generator that provided power to the floodlights they’d rigged. He wondered briefly how he’d been unaware of its noise before. So much for improvisation. So much for making a move under cover of darkness. There was not a shred of shadow in the glare of light that bathed the circled tents below.

  “No place to hide,” Deke said softly.

  At what was in his tone, she turned toward him, pulling her gaze away from the brightly lit scene spread out at the foot of the ridge. His face was still and set, the tension in his jaw obvious even in the darkness.

  “It’s all right,” she whispered, putting her hand on his arm. “We’ll think of something.”

  At her touch, the line of his mouth moved slightly, and then she felt the clenched muscle that rested under her fingers relax.

  “We’ll think of something,” he agreed, and he smiled at her.

  She couldn’t see his eyes in the shadows, but she shivered at the coldness of his tone.

  THEY HAD LAIN DOWN together, opening the big sleeping bag and sharing the covering of the light blanket. Deke had again crossed his hands under his head, looking up at the panorama of stars, clearer here in the desert darkness than anywhere else on earth. She had turned on her side, her head pillowed by her arm, so that she could watch him. He hadn’t mentioned going down into the encampment again, because they had both known the hopelessness of that. They still had time. Several hours until they were supposed to be back in town, patiently waiting for their instructions. She knew Deke was thinking about what he could do tomorrow.

  “We have to call somebody,” she said.

  There was no movement from the man beside her.

  “We have to get help. You’ll have to trust someone,” she argued, wondering if what she was saying was having any effect on the man Deke Summers had become. She had accused him before of paranoia, but she knew that the danger of the dark forces he fled was real and terrifying. Now they had Josh. And her brothers. This wasn’t something they could handle themselves, no matter what Deke thought.

  “Deke?” she whispered, wanting some sign that he was at least thinking about what she’d suggested.

  He turned his head. She wondered if her features were as hidden by the darkness as his. Changed into something—someone—unfamiliar by the play of light and shadow, touching the hard planes of his face with mystery.

  He lifted on his elbow, leaning slowly toward her, giving her an opportunity to stop him. To tell him that this was not the time and place. That she was too concerned with the fact that Josh was sleeping, hostage, a few hundred yards away. Not the time for lovemaking. The time, instead, for something else. For fear or caution.

  But that was not what was in her heart. She needed his warmth. She needed, as much as she ever had before, the alive solidness of his body over hers.

  “Yes,” she breathed into his waiting stillness and watched his mouth lower to cover hers, his tongue moving inside. There could be nothing, she thought, more life affirming. Nothing closer to the act of creation. Procreation. And the thought of Deke’s child was suddenly in her mind. A child who would be as beloved to her as Josh. There were many reasons why that child should never be conceived, but none of them was as compelling as the thought, half memory and half fantasy, of carrying Deke Summers’s baby.

  He let his fingers touch her throat. She was so warm, and the coldness had already begun to grow outward from the hard center where he had kept it contained for four years. The knot of black ice, created by guilt and regret, by the horror of all the deaths, had once begun to melt in the heat of what they had shared. Of what she had given him. He put his lips against the pulse that his fingers had found and closed his eyes, blocking everything but the warmth of her body moving under him. Welcoming.

  They had not had to deal with the awkwardness of clothing before. Her fingers too slow over the buttons of the borrowed shirt and then against those of his jeans. His hands struggling with the soft knit of her shorts, distracted by her mouth. Distracted by memory. By the remembrance of the welcoming heat of her body closing around him. Taking him. Pulling him into her hot wetness. Hot and wet because she wanted him. There was no cold darkness in Becki Travers’s soul. Warmth and light and joy. Welcoming. Making him believe, at least for a time, that this was possible. As he had always known it was not.

  But he fought to hold the coldness at bay tonight, pushing hard into the heat of her passion, her body lifting to meet him, to enclose him. His palm was under the full curve of her breast, and his lips had found the softness at her temple. Her hair still smelled of flowers. Despite all that he had dragged her through, the warmth and sweetness were still there. And this was the memory he had wanted. Her body entwined willingly with his. No coldness and no shadows. No aching darkness. Only the pulsing intensity of her hips arching to meet the driving thrust of his.

  He felt her response begin, and this time he rode on the same wave that surged with shivering force through her frame. No need to w
ait. No need to restrain his response. Meeting hers. Joining it. Deliberately allowing it to overwhelm his control. Lost in sensation. All other knowledge destroyed, buried, forgotten in what it meant to make love to her.

  No noise. Some fragment of rational thought intruded. He bit his tongue, tasting the copper-salt tang of his own blood. The hard convulsions rocked his resolve. He wanted to scream against what he knew. What he had always known. But that was too dangerous. For Josh, he reasoned silently. His head lowered, his lips finding the sweating dampness of her neck. Her hair, still flowers, drifted against his cheek, catching in the stubbled beard. He could hear his own breathing. Panting. Aching lungs gasping thin air. Too loud in the desert stillness. Too loud.

  Her fingers drifted over his shoulder, downward, caressing.

  “Shh,” she whispered, her mouth opened against his face, the warm sweetness of her breath over his skin. “Shh. It’s all right. It’s okay.” Comforting him.

  He pushed upward enough to see her face. The fragile bones relaxed, softened. Her clear skin translucent with the flush of passion. Dark eyes reflecting the silvered desert sky above them. He had wanted this memory. This image.

  “I love you,” she said again. His face didn’t change. There was no response to what she had said in the cold, stone-set features. Nothing in his eyes, but they held hers a long time before, again, slowly, his mouth began to lower.

  WHEN SHE AWOKE the next morning, the first hint of dawn was beginning to crimson the darkness. She turned, aware of hardness beneath her body, which was stiff and aching, not only from the rocks. She looked for Deke and found him, fully dressed once more, lying prone at the edge of the ridge, the binoculars again trained on the camp below.

  She shivered suddenly in the chill of the desert morning, a cold she had not been aware of before. Without throwing off the light blanket, she found her clothing and began to dress, her movements hidden and awkward. She stole glances at the figure of the man who had slept last night entwined with her. So distant now. Out of her reach. Deliberately distant, she found herself thinking.

  When she was dressed, she slipped out of the disordered nest of blanket and sleeping bag and stretched out beside Deke at the lip of the rim, looking, as he was, at the scene below. There was as yet no movement in the clearing. The guards were different, she thought, but nothing had changed in their vigilance. Nothing had changed at all.

  “Now what?” she whispered. She allowed her eyes to move to the figure beside her. The strong brown hands were fastened competently around the glasses. She had first been attracted to his hands. To the sunlight glinting in the crisp hair that covered the tanned forearm. Nothing had changed.

  Deke lowered the glasses, his eyes still focused before him for a few seconds, and then he turned to face her. His features were as carefully controlled as when, long ago, he had been only her neighbor. There was nothing in his face of what had happened again between them during the night. Nothing of the long hours they had made love. Nothing but cold, pale blue.

  Deke had finally allowed himself to look at her. Her hair was disordered and there was a smear of dust on her cheek, but the dark eyes were still trusting. Trusting him to do what he’d promised. Not to let anything happen to Josh.

  “We’re going to need some help,” he said softly, his voice relaxed. “I think it’s time to call in the cavalry.” He forced his smile, still watching the dark eyes, waiting for her reaction.

  She was surprised by his admission. She had known this was not something Deke could handle on his own. There were too many of them, the precious hostages too heavily guarded. She nodded, feeling relief sweep through her that he had finally decided they had to trust someone. If they were going to get her brothers and the boys out of this, they were going to need help. Thank God Deke had realized that, too.

  “So what do we do?” she asked.

  “Not we,” he said. “I have to stay here in case they decide for some reason to move them. In case anything unexpected happens.”

  “Then…?”

  He fingered a folded slip of paper out of the breast pocket of the borrowed shirt. “This is the number of my former partner. His name is Luke. He knows a little about what’s going on.”

  “That’s who you called? And he agreed to—”

  “I didn’t ask him for anything but information.”

  “What do I tell him?”

  “That he was right about their location. Describe the hostage setup to him, tell him we need help to get them out safely, and then let him take it from there. It’s his job, his profession. He has access to the resources that will allow him to carry this off.”

  She nodded, and then she knew she had to ask.

  “It won’t be like before?” she whispered, remembering what he’d told her about the botched raid and the other children.

  “Not like before,” Deke promised. “Luke won’t let it be. I won’t. There won’t be any mistakes, Becki, I swear to you.”

  She nodded again.

  “Can you find the car?” he asked, thinking of the long walk they had made the day before in the gathering darkness.

  “Of course I can find the car.”

  “Then you better get started,” he said, smiling at her. “And come back with the cavalry.”

  She leaned toward him, soft lips parted. Waiting for his kiss, for some sort of acknowledgment of all that lay between them. There were so many things that he wanted to say, but he had never been good at that. Another of his many failures. Again he could find no words to tell the woman he loved what he was feeling. There was nothing he could tell her—at least not with words.

  His mouth met hers instead, his hand over the curve of her cheek, the line of bone fitting again into his palm. He didn’t allow his tongue to invade, only the soft brush of his lips against hers. Old, married kiss. Memories. Her body beneath his. Warm and welcoming.

  “Be careful,” he whispered, withdrawing.

  She nodded, her throat tight with so many things that were unsaid. He didn’t want to hear them. She knew that. He was thinking about other things now. About Josh. The situation. There would be time for the other when this was over. It was encouraging that he was willing to make contact with his partner. A return to normality, so maybe…

  “Go on,” he ordered, his mouth still near enough that she felt the breath of the command.

  She eased back from the edge of the escarpment they had been looking over, careful, as he had taught her, not to become a silhouette against the dawn sky.

  When she was a safe distance away from the edge where he lay, the glasses once again raised to his eyes, she turned and began to move faster down the rocky slope, pebbles rolling and tumbling under her hurrying feet. Back to where they had left the car. And she didn’t allow herself to look back.

  Chapter Twelve

  Becki stopped on the outskirts of the small town, pulling the car up in a spray of dust next to the first pay phone she found. She held the receiver to her ear with her shoulder, right hand inserting the coin into the slot while the fingers of her left struggled to unfold, without dropping it, the paper Deke had given her.

  The significance that it was blank didn’t register for a second, and she turned it over, still searching for the number, the dial tone in her ear demanding. Puzzled, she turned the paper back over, holding it at a different angle to the clear morning light, thinking she must have missed the penciled markings.

  Nothing. The small scrap of white held no telephone number, she finally realized. No one to call.

  Still, it took a moment before the realization of what Deke had done sank in. He had never intended for her to call in the cavalry. Whatever plan Deke Summers had for dealing with the situation was already being put into effect as she stood here in the early-morning quietness of this tiny New Mexico community, safely out of the way of whatever was happening.

  She put her forehead against the cool metal of the phone box, closing her eyes tightly, but there were no tears. Instead the
re was a cold, black numbness because she knew what he intended. To carry out the only promises he’d ever made to her. Not like before. No more dead children. And no one else’s life sacrificed for his.

  Suddenly she threw the receiver as hard as she could into one of the scarred Plexiglas panels surrounding the telephone.

  “No,” she said, her useless protest almost a scream. “No, damn it. No.” The receiver bounced harmlessly and then fell to dangle, swinging, from its silver umbilical cord.

  There was no response to her cry from the sleeping town, untouched by whatever was happening in the rugged beauty of the nearby mesas. As ordinary as the little Alabama town where she had once lived, watching violence through the distorted, distant kaleidoscope of the nightly news.

  Turning, she ran back to the car, knowing that whatever she did, it was probably already too late.

  AGAIN DEKE HAD CHOSEN his position carefully, depending on his long years in law enforcement, his military training. This was too important to screw up. A promise.

  He watched the figures in the encampment, much closer now. He wanted to deal only with the man he had recognized instinctively as the leader. The man in charge. It would be safer that way, negotiating with someone who was in a position to make the decisions. Fewer things could go wrong, fewer people to make mistakes.

  He could see the shadowed outlines moving within the central tent. The smaller stature of the boys was obvious even through the canvas. He wondered briefly which of the small shapes represented Josh, and then he blocked the thought, knowing that it didn’t matter.

  Suddenly there was something on the periphery of his vision, and moving only his eyes, he tracked across the clearing the path of the man he had been waiting for. The commander walked with a sure, quick military stride, his step full of confidence. And why shouldn’t it be, Deke thought. He had planned for every contingency, the hostages as professionally guarded as Deke himself could have arranged.