Blogger Bundle Volume I: Dear Author Selects Unusual Heroines

by Jo Leigh, Kathleen O'Reilly, Kay David

  “No, I don’t,” he lied. “But I agree completely with you. I’m sure there’s a simple explanation. In fact, I’d be willing to bet it’s been cleared up and we don’t even know it. Let’s stop by your office and find out.”

  She looked nonplussed by his suggestion. “The branch in El Paso is closed now. It’s too late to talk to anyone there.”

  “Are you telling me everything shuts down at night?” He laughed easily. “Come on, Emma. I know how the system works.”

  Her gaze turned cautious. “Funds are posted after hours,” she conceded, “but I verified the account just before I left the office. The block was still there. It wouldn’t have changed since then because—”

  “It has,” he interrupted confidently. “Believe me, it has.”

  She stopped on the sidewalk and slowly disentangled her hand from his. They were standing in front of a store, and the light from the window display was all the illumination he had. But he needed nothing else. She didn’t believe him, and that much was very clear.

  “I don’t think you understand the depth of this problem,” she said slowly. “Your bank in El Paso is refusing to pay on your check. They’re saying there are no funds in that account. I think—”

  “I know exactly what you think.” He paused.

  “But you’re wrong.”

  They stared at each other in the darkness. In the silence.

  He took a step closer to her. In her expression he saw the need to increase the space between them, but she held herself still. He moved even nearer.

  “You don’t trust me at all, do you?” he asked softly.

  “Trust has nothing to do with this. It’s business.”

  “Everything involves trust, Emma. It doesn’t matter if it’s between banker and client, parent and child…or two new lovers.” He raised his hand and drew a finger down her throat. The skin beneath his touch was as silken and soft as it had been the last time he’d caressed her. “We all depend on trust. Our instincts are made out of it, and yours are telling you to run right now. But you’d be wrong if you did.”

  She stood frozen on the sidewalk, a look of confusion on her face that pulled at his sympathies, even as he told himself it shouldn’t. Betting he’d made the right guess about Kelman’s earlier visit, Raul steeled himself and baited the trap.

  “I want to be your friend.” His voice was a whisper in the darkness. “Couldn’t you use one?”

  Her eyes jerked to his.

  Bingo, he thought.

  “Wh-what do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I don’t think I do.”

  “I can help you, Emma.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t need any help.”

  She was going to make it difficult, and he wasn’t surprised. “Let’s go to your office,” he answered. “I’ll prove to you the money is there. And then we’ll talk.”

  She wanted to say no to his suggestion. He could read her answer as clearly as he’d read her tension a moment before. She couldn’t refuse him, though, and if she tried to, he would have to do something. And it wouldn’t be something she’d like.

  She looked into his eyes and interpreted the unspoken warning.

  “All right,” she said faintly. “Let’s go.”

  THEY WALKED QUICKLY down the sidewalk until they came to Raul’s rented SUV. The wind had picked up since they’d left the bar, and it raged around the corner, greedily snatching at Emma’s skirt as she climbed inside. Straight off the Andean foothills, the gust was hot and gritty.

  Still, the feeling it left wasn’t nearly as searing as the lingering trace of Raul’s hand on her skin. Her reaction to the simple caress far outweighed what it deserved, and she knew why. It was her anticipation of what might come next.

  For God’s sake, what on earth was she doing? Things were spinning out of control, and she was thinking about kissing—No, tell the truth. She was thinking about making love with a man who was practically a stranger, and a dangerous one at that. She should have been worried about the problem at the bank, but instead, the thoughts flooding her mind were purely sensual. The light on his skin, the look in his eyes, the heat in her body…

  I want to be your friend, Emma.

  There was no way he could know about Kelman’s offer. Absolutely no way. If she’d ever needed a friend, though, it was now. She thought back to the argument she’d heard between the two men. The fight had been over a woman, but there could have been more to it than Raul had told her. If he really knew Kelman, knew the kind of man he was, Raul could help her. She wouldn’t have to do this all by herself…. The idea was so tempting she turned to study him, to see if she could somehow read the truth she sought so badly in his expression.

  The headlights of a passing car illuminated his profile as she stared. His cheekbone was a blade, high and prominent, his jaw a dark shadow with a midnight stubble. Above his brow, a single lock of thick black hair fell heavily across his forehead. She wanted to touch him, to lay her fingers on his face and feel its roughness and contours. She could almost imagine the strength there, the energy, the intensity. Abruptly she forced herself to look the other way. She was acting insane, absolutely nuts. This man was not the kind she needed anywhere in her life, much less in her bed.

  They reached the bank a few minutes later, and with the wind building to a crescendo around them, they hurried from the truck to the porte cochere beside her office. The angry drafts whipped against her as she found her keys in the bottom of her purse. With trembling fingers, she finally managed to unlock the door.

  They were swallowed instantly by darkness and a tomblike silence.

  “I need to catch the alarm.” Emma shook out her hair, the strands tangled and twisted from the wind’s touch. “Wait here.”

  He nodded as she walked quickly to a closet on the other side of Felicity’s desk. The panel to the security system was hidden inside. Opening the door, she punched the number into the keypad. The code was a personal one, and in the morning, Christopher would know she’d been in. He teased her a lot when she worked odd hours; he’d think nothing of seeing her name on the printout.

  By the time she finished and stepped out of the closet, the bank’s security guard was at the door that separated the main lobby from hers. She crossed to the window set in the center of the mahogany panel. “Everything’s fine, Jorge,” she said. “It’s just me.”

  Through the beveled glass, the older man looked sleepy, and unhappy that she’d disturbed his rest. Adjusting his uniform, he ambled off, back to the chair where he spent his nights. Security here was not what it would have been in the States. At home, depending on the bank, she might not have even been allowed to come in like this, especially with a client at her side.

  Unlocking the inner door to her office, Emma crossed the marble floor and switched on the desk lamp. She turned to call Raul only to find him already there; he’d slipped inside behind her, a silent shadow.

  In a matter of minutes she had her computer booted up and had logged on to the bank’s database. Opening the center drawer of her desk, she consulted a small notebook and figured out the daily code. She tapped it in and looked up at Raul as the system processed the numbers.

  “I’m very doubtful that anything has changed.”

  “I understand.”

  The screen in front of her flickered, the terminal bright in the otherwise dark office. Typing quickly, she opened the file that recorded money transfers, and at the bottom of the screen, a new figure had been posted. Surprise rippled over her in an unexpected wave.

  “It’s there, isn’t it?”

  She raised her gaze to his. “Yes, it is.”

  “I told you to trust me.” Rising from the chair, he walked slowly around her desk to look down at the screen. She started to stop him, then realized it didn’t matter. It was his account. If he wanted to see the numbers, he could.

  He leaned over her shoulder and began to trail his finger over t
he monitor as he followed the figures. She stopped breathing at his closeness, but she reacted too late. His aftershave reached her, the same one she’d smelled earlier. Her stomach tightened at the masculine fragrance, and she tried to concentrate on something else. Her eyes went to his right hand as it rested on the screen. One of his knuckles on his ring finger was misshapen. It’d obviously been broken and never set years before.

  “What happened to your finger?” The words slipped out before she could hold them back.

  He glanced at her, then at his hand, his gaze switching back to her as he spoke. “I had a summer job one year in a canning plant. I caught my high-school ring on a piece of machinery. It kept going and my finger didn’t. My dad popped it back in place, but I never saw a doctor and it healed like that.”

  “A cannery sounds like a dangerous place for a teenager to work.”

  “It was. But where I came from, a job was a job and I felt lucky to have it. My parents were migrant workers along the border between Mexico and Texas. We went from town to town and they picked vegetables for a living. My steady job was a real step up.”

  “And now you have this.” Emma tilted her head to the terminal. “You’ve come a long way.”

  “Yes, I have,” he said. He waited a moment, then leaned back and stared at her. “How far have you come?”

  He’d asked about her past before, and she’d avoided the question. Now, in the darkened office with the wind howling outside, she was too exhausted and drained to think up another lie. Even more importantly, though, something was happening between them. Something that was drawing them closer and closer. She had fought the sensation as long as she could. But no more.

  “Not that far,” she said, glancing at the screen.

  “I grew up in Louisiana in a little place called Kenner. My parents divorced when I was just a kid, and I never saw my dad again. My mom raised me.”

  “And sent you to LSU, where you earned a degree.” He raised his eyes to her diploma hanging on the wall.

  “I got a scholarship, or it would never have happened. I majored in finance.”

  “Then you got married…”

  She nodded slowly and stayed quiet. What was there to say about that that mattered?

  He went on, “…and then you divorced.”

  She nodded again.

  He waited a few seconds. “But you didn’t have any children,” he said finally. Quietly. “So that photograph you’re hiding in your desk drawer means nothing to you. The one of that beautiful little girl, and the boy who looks exactly like you.”

  Catching her breath, Emma followed his gaze. In the corner of the drawer the picture of her children seemed to glow. With accusation.

  “Are they yours?”

  She waited two heartbeats, then nodded. “Yes,” she whispered. “They’re mine.”

  The silence that built felt like a living thing, breathing and waiting between them.

  “Why did you lie to me the other night?” he finally asked.

  “I don’t know.” She swallowed hard, then shook her head slowly. “Yes, I do. It’s because I don’t have them. They live with their father, and sometimes it’s just too hard to…to talk about them.”

  She waited for the next painful question, the one that always hurt the most. Why does he have them and not you?

  When it didn’t come, she answered, anyway, something compelling her to speak—the same thing that was drawing them closer, she suspected. “The divorce was…ugly. There were accusations made. Against me. He got full custody.”

  “Did you fight him?”

  “As much as I could.” Her low voice contained regret, but not the oceans of it she usually carried around, the horrible, heavy burden that she never put down. “His family is very powerful in Louisiana, and money isn’t a problem. Until I can afford an attorney who isn’t afraid of them, the things Todd said about me won’t go away.” She dropped her gaze and stared at her babies’ faces.

  “What did he say?”

  When she didn’t answer, Raul lifted her chin with one finger.

  She spoke, knowing he’d never relent until he knew the truth. “He told everyone who would listen that I was a dreadful mother and a horrible person.” A cramp seized her heart. She had to wait for it to pass before she could speak again. “The judge believed him and I lost all right to see my children.”

  “He must have had a reason to do something that drastic.”

  She looked up into the black well of his eyes. “He did,” she said hoarsely. “I was addicted to pain pills and alcohol.”

  The confession hung in the stillness between them. Raul’s expression didn’t change, didn’t move. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

  “I…I had a car accident right after Sarah was born. It was a really bad accident, and I injured my back severely. The pain just wouldn’t go away. I couldn’t pick her up, I couldn’t nurse her, I couldn’t do anything. And poor Jake got ignored completely. I was a bad mother. When the doctor gave me something that made the pain a little easier to bear, I was ecstatic. It let me take care of the children again, be the kind of mother I wanted to be. My only complaint was that it didn’t last long enough. I had a drink one night because I was so depressed about it all, and I realized the alcohol worked with the pills. It made the pain stay away longer.”

  “A bad combination.”

  “The worst,” she agreed. “Before I knew what was happening, I couldn’t function on my own. And then…I couldn’t function at all. It was just what Todd needed. He’d wanted the divorce, anyway, and was looking for a reason. When we’d met, he’d thought I was someone he could manipulate and control, but I wasn’t. I had a mind of my own and ambitions of my own, and he didn’t want that in a wife.” She shook her head and tightened her mouth. “Actually, he hadn’t wanted a wife, he’d wanted a trophy, and he fell in love with my looks, not me. I was a pretty blonde and seemed to be everything he wished for, but on the inside I wasn’t the sweet little woman he’d thought. My problems gave him all the ammunition he needed. In one fell swoop, I lost my job, my children, my home and my husband.”

  Emma stopped as a gust of wind rattled the windows and pulled her gaze to them. She caught her breath. The Indian woman was outside on the sidewalk, trudging forward into the steady blast as if it didn’t exist. On her back, wrapped in the aguayo, she carried her child.

  Raul followed Emma’s gaze. Together they watched the woman until she disappeared around the corner. For a moment they were quiet, then Emma spoke again, her eyes still on the window.

  “Our relationship had already fallen by the wayside, and the house never mattered. I didn’t give a damn about any of it except my kids. They were my life. They are my life. And I’m going to get them back,” she said. “If it’s the last thing I do on this earth, I’m going to get my children back.”

  SHE LOOKED UP at him with defiant eyes as she made her pronouncement. There was so much pain in her expression—and so much determination—Raul felt a chill sweep over him.

  Without another word, she turned to face her computer again and tapped the keys rapidly, shutting it down. The hard drive whirred as it responded to her commands, then the terminal blinked into darkness.

  She rose in one fluid movement. “I guess I owe you an apology,” she said. “Obviously our system didn’t catch the deposit when it should have. I’m sorry for the trouble.”

  Telling him her history had taken its toll. The shadows beneath her eyes were darker than they’d been when he’d first spotted her at the bar. She looked wrung out, vulnerable—and more beautiful than he would have thought possible.

  It made him feel like the complete and utter bastard he was. The upside was obvious, though. If she trusted him enough to tell him this, then maybe she’d trust him enough to tell him when Kelman made his move. It was the perfect setup, Raul thought regretfully. Kelman himself couldn’t have dreamed a better scenario.

  Emma started around the corner of her desk, and Raul reached
out a hand to stop her. She’d removed her jacket when they’d entered the office, and beneath his fingers, under the silk sleeve of her blouse, he could feel her tense.

  He met her questioning look. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For telling me the truth.”

  Without taking his hand from her arm, he moved around the edge of the desk to stand closer to her. The glow from the lamp made her blond hair gleam. Her skin looked as pale and luminescent as the light itself. Just like the first time he’d seen her, the only color in her face came from her mouth. Her lips were full and red.

  “You know why you finally told me, don’t you?” He didn’t wait for her answer. “I do. It’s simple.”

  She smiled regretfully. “Nothing in life is simple.”

  “This is.” He waited a moment, then continued, “You trust me now.”

  She didn’t say anything, but he could see her thinking. If she denied his statement, their business relationship might suffer. If she agreed, she gave away even more of herself. It was a classic dilemma, and all she could do was acknowledge it.

  “You’re very clever, aren’t you?”

  He lifted his hands to her face and cradled it gently. The air was still and expectant around them, a complete contrast to the howling gusts outside. “No, I don’t think so,” he said slowly. “If I were clever, I wouldn’t do this.” He leaned over and pressed his mouth to hers. This time in a real kiss. A kiss neither of them could ignore when it was over.

  She resisted for a heartbeat, then she gave in, her mouth melding to his. Her luscious lips were soft and forgiving. She tasted sweet, too, and for some unexplained reason, he flashed back to his very first kiss. Martina Garcia. Behind the bleachers when they’d both been in the sixth grade. He’d kissed a lot of women since Martina, but none of them had rekindled that initial flash of heat and pure desire. Until now.

  After a moment, Emma’s hands pushed gently at his chest, and he pulled back reluctantly. She stared into his eyes. “You’re right,” she said quietly. “That wasn’t a very smart thing to do. But I’m glad you did.”