Blogger Bundle Volume I: Dear Author Selects Unusual Heroines

by Jo Leigh, Kathleen O'Reilly, Kay David

  She let it storm, giving no hint of how she felt. After a few minutes, through the confusion, a thread of understanding began to take form. He’d had everything that was important to him taken away—just as she had. From a woman’s point of view, nothing meant more to her than her children, but a man’s priorities were different, especially a man who didn’t have a family. He judged himself by what he could do with his career, with his ability to make a living.

  Kelman had taken away the very essence of who Raul was. And he’d replaced him with a far different man.

  Emma turned slowly and looked at Raul. The planes of his face, the angles of his body, even the way he held himself—how different was he now? She could only imagine. Not understanding at the time, she’d sensed his former self, sensed a far different man when they’d made love and when they’d visited the orphanage, but the core of who he was no longer existed. It’d been changed forever, lost forever.

  Except for one detail.

  His determination.

  The realization didn’t come to her in a flash. It wasn’t like the movies where all at once the heroine understood. This was completely different. The truth formed itself slowly and opened up only after she examined it closer. He waited patiently, as if he understood what she was dealing with, then finally, when the thought was fully constructed from the pieces he had given her, she spoke. Carefully. Slowly.

  “You came to Santa Cruz because of Kelman. You followed him down here.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And the money in your account…”

  “It’s from a slush fund the State Department manages. The woman who was with me at Candelabra arranged it. She’s…an old friend.”

  Dust motes danced in the tense silence between them. “You’re not an importer.”

  “No. I’m not an importer.”

  “You have no business here, other than tracking down Kelman?”

  “That’s right. Denise knew he would come here, and Wendy told me when he arrived. She had the passports checked.”

  Emma looked at him, her heart locking into place with a click. She knew the answer to the question, but she had to ask it, anyway. She had to hear his reply. “And my role in all this is…?”

  “I came here to stop him. And to do that, I had to get next to the person he’d need the most. That was you.”

  Her heart kept beating, her lungs kept working, her brain kept going, but something inside Emma died. She actually felt the passing and mourned the emotion before she knew what it was.

  After another moment, she understood what was leaving her; it was the hope she’d had, the hope she hadn’t even been able to acknowledge until now, that they might have some kind of future together. That Raul might say, “I love you,” and she would say the same thing. That he’d help her get her children and they might be a family. That her life might start again. All those possibilities were gone forever now.

  Raul’s voice reached her through a fog. “Kelman didn’t pick Reina out of the blue to be his real-estate agent, Emma. He chose her because he knew she was friends with you. He knew when he said he needed a banker, she’d arrange an introduction. He manipulated the situation to get what he wanted—you—just like he always does.” Raul paused as if to gather himself. “You’re the best banker in town, Emma. He knew to come to you. All I had to do was watch and wait.”

  “You son of a bitch.” Lifting her head, she spoke quietly, the fury behind her words almost anticlimactic. “You acted as if you cared for me, and all along you knew he was going to destroy me! How could I have been so dumb?”

  “I didn’t act as if I cared for you. I do care for you,” he said softly. “More than you know. And I wasn’t going to let him destroy you. I did everything I could to protect you. I would have done more if you’d told me what was going on. Please, Emma…” He took a step in her direction, then stopped when she held up her hand.

  “No. No.” She laughed softly, a bitter sound that echoed in the tension-filled room. “Don’t tell me that now. Not now. I might fall for it once, but twice? No way. I’m not that stupid.”

  “None of this is important right now,” he said, interrupting her. “All that matters is stopping Kelman.”

  She held up her hand again, an angry flush burning its way into her cheeks. “Are you crazy? He’s threatened my children! Do you know what that means? Do you have any idea?”

  “Whatever he’s done to you, Emma, I promise I’ll make him pay for it. I promise.”

  “You promise!” She mocked his words then shook her head in disgust. “My God. I trusted you. With my body, with my secrets, with my heart. You wooed me. You told me to believe in you and I did.”

  “I didn’t know you at that point. You were a stranger and I didn’t care. But now I do.” His jaw tightened. “Let me help you, Emma. If we work together, we can stop him.”

  The decision was an easy one. She looked him straight in the eye. “I don’t trust you. I’d never ask for your help.” She held up her hand again to stop him from speaking. “I don’t need it, either.

  I’ll make William Kelman pay for what he’s done by myself, like I’ve done everything else in my life. All I want from you is to leave. Right now.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Oh, yes, you can.” She pointed toward the entryway. “You walk out of here, close the door behind you, and forget you ever knew me. It’s easy.”

  “It’s not easy, and I wouldn’t do it even if it was. Just let me help.”

  She closed the space between them with two angry steps. Energy burned inside her and fueled her anger. She wanted to strike him, but it wouldn’t have done any good. “You’re here to help yourself, Raul, and no one else. You don’t give a damn about me and you never have. All you want is revenge.”

  “Emma, please…”

  Her heart split open, the pain too much for it to hold. She wheeled around and faced the window, her arms wrapped around herself as if to contain the agony. “Get out,” she said thickly, her back to him. “And shut the door behind you.”

  HE TOLD HIMSELF it didn’t matter. Moving down Emma’s walkway, Raul ignored the ache in his chest. All that was important was Kelman, he repeated. Nothing counted but him.

  He passed through the broken gate, the words of staunch determination fueling his departure. If she wanted to fight the devil on her own, then by God, let her.

  Raul would spend the rest of his life tracking down Kelman, and if he wasn’t able to stop him here, then he’d stop him somewhere else. It didn’t matter where. Raul wouldn’t quit until he’d visited the same pain on Kelman that the other man had visited on him.

  Emma Toussaint was disposable. When he’d used her up, Kelman would move on to his next victim, and she’d join the list of people he’d screwed. Raul couldn’t care less.

  Nothing mattered. She didn’t matter, and everything they’d shared didn’t matter. She’d been a chance he played, and it hadn’t worked out. He strode down the sidewalk without looking right or left, his anger contained within the tiny kernel where he kept all the rest of his emotions.

  By the time he climbed into the truck and started the engine, he knew how badly he was lying to himself. By the time he got to the end of the block, he knew he could go no farther.

  He did care. He cared so much it scared the hell out of him. And he was a bigger bastard than he thought if he left Emma to face Kelman on her own.

  Raul pulled up to the stop sign and sat, the truck idling beneath him in the hot sunlight. A sweep of anger came over him, a sweep so intense, so powerful, that it blinded him, and he began to pound the steering wheel in frustration.

  It was happening all over again! Kelman was taking away the only thing Raul cared about.

  The warm hazel eyes, the silky blond hair, the skin so soft and tender. Couldn’t Kelman see what kind of woman Emma was? Didn’t he know how much her kids meant to her? Or her job, her friends? She was the woman every man spent his life searching for, and sh
e deserved much more than she’d gotten so far. If Raul had had half an idea of the kind of woman she was, he would never—never—have let this happen as he had. He hadn’t known, though. Now things were different.

  He’d held her in his arms and made love to her. He knew who she was and what she represented. And it was up to him to keep her safe from Kelman, even if she didn’t want his help. Even if she hated him and never wanted to see him again.

  He loved her, he realized with a jolt. And love meant so much more than revenge….

  EMMA WENT UPSTAIRS and straight to her desk. Raul’s revelation had sliced her like a razor, but the fierce pain brought with it a sudden clarity. She knew exactly what she had to do. She couldn’t allow herself to think about anything else, but most of all she couldn’t think about the fact that she’d let him into her heart when he’d only been using her. She simply couldn’t face it. Not now.

  She picked up the phone and punched out the numbers to bring up an overseas line. When she heard the familiar buzz, she dialed the rest of the digits. Todd answered almost immediately.

  “I’ve got something to tell you.” She spoke with no preliminary when he said hello. “Don’t ask any questions—just listen to me carefully and do exactly what I say.”

  He sputtered something, but she ignored it. “I’m in trouble down here. There’s a man who’s trying to blackmail me, and he knows about you and the children. You have to take Sarah and Jake away from there. Today.”

  As she gave voice to the words, the enormity of what she was doing hit her. She should have been crying, should have been hysterical, but there were no more tears and no more emotions left in her heart. She’d just handed Todd a loaded gun and pointed it at her head.

  To protect her children, she had to destroy any chance she might have in the future of getting them back.

  “What kinda crap are you pulling now?”

  She cut through his drawl. “I’m serious, Todd. This guy is for real, and he’s dangerous. He has photos of the kids, photos he had taken this week. I want you to leave and get them somewhere safe.” Her heart cramped. “I don’t want to know where you’re going, either. I…I can’t know.”

  “Are you drinkin’ again, Emma Lou? This is crazy talk!”

  “I’m telling you the truth! The kids are in danger. You have to leave, Todd.”

  “What’d you do?”

  She started to explain, then stopped. He’d never believe her, and what did it matter, anyway? “I didn’t do anything, but it’s not important,” she said. “Nothing is but getting those kids hidden, okay?”

  “Emma, honey, get a grip. We can’t just up and leave here. Jake’s got a ridin’ lesson this afternoon, and Sarah’s goin’ to a birthday party….”

  “Todd.” Emma said his name, then waited until he stopped talking. “I am not crazy. I am not kidding. And I am definitely not drunk. If you don’t believe me, then you’re putting yourself and the children in jeopardy.” Understanding she’d have to tell him more to get him to comply, she explained what Kelman wanted as quickly as possible. “This guy is ex-DEA, and he knows how to work the system,” she said when she’d finished.

  “He’ll make it look like an accident, but something will happen, okay? Something very bad. Believe me—I’ve had a taste of it already, and you do not want to go through that.”

  In a subdued voice, Todd asked her several more questions, and she answered them, praying the whole time he would believe her. Finally she heard his chair squeak as he tilted it upright—a sure sign he was beginning to take her seriously.

  “Why don’t you just call the police?”

  “That’s not how it works down here.”

  “Well, there’s got to be someone who could help you. Your boss, a friend…somebody, surely.”

  Raul’s black gaze flashed in front of Emma’s face, but she closed her eyes—and her heart. “There’s no one,” she answered. “I’m in this alone. I can handle it, though, if I know the kids are safe. That’s all I care about.”

  He didn’t speak; he was thinking about it, she realized. She pushed him. “It won’t be for long. The committee meets next week. I can have everything in place by then.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  She lied. “I’m not sure yet, but I can’t do anything unless Sarah and Jake are hidden. I have to know they’re all right.”

  “I guess Mother would take them for a while—”

  “No! Not there!” Todd’s parents were very well-known, their bayou house, Belle Rive, a showcase. Kelman’s man could ask anyone in town, and they’d point the way—or even worse, take him straight to the place. Emma gripped the edge of her desk. “He could find them there, Todd. That’s too easy. You’ll have to hide them. You’ll have to take them somewhere unexpected.”

  “But Belle Rive has great security! No one can get through those gates—”

  “Todd. Todd! You aren’t listening to me. This man has people who can do anything. He’s got cops in his pocket, okay? The children would not be safe at Belle Rive. Trust me on that.”

  Another pause, this one longer, then he spoke. “Well, then how about the place where—”

  “Don’t tell me,” she interrupted, the shreds of what was left of her heart turning to ashes. “I don’t want to know, okay? It’s better that way. Just make sure it’s safe—really safe—then take them and hide them. If everything works out, I’ll call you when it’s over. If I don’t call…well, I guess you’ll figure it out.”

  “Emma, I…I don’t know what to say. Isn’t there anything I can do to help you?”

  For a second, his offer sounded genuine, and she wanted to believe him, wanted to desperately. Then she realized he wasn’t the man she wanted to believe in. She wanted to hear those words—and trust them—from Raul.

  She shook her head and closed her throat to the tears that were building inside. “There’s only one thing you can do,” she answered thickly. “Kiss the kids for me and tell them I love them.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE NEXT WEEK was torture. Every time the phone rang, every time her office door opened, every time Emma saw a gray-haired man walking down the sidewalk, she’d go weak. She stopped eating and stopped sleeping. By Friday morning, she’d aged five years and lost ten pounds.

  The currency committee met early. As the clock struck ten, the report was delivered to the bank, the new rate set and ready to be announced. She waited for Chris to step away from his desk and head for the men’s room as he did every day before lunch, then Emma slipped into his office. With trembling fingers, she picked up the committee’s bulletin and scanned it rapidly.

  It should have been harder, she thought, returning to her own office several minutes later. Breaking the law, ruining her life, giving up everything she’d worked for the past two-plus years, should have been more difficult. With just a few keystrokes, though, it was all over, the irrevocable plan set into motion as she deposited Kelman’s money into an open account.

  The enormity of her actions soaked in a few minutes later. She raced to the bathroom and threw up the only thing she’d put in her stomach for days—the cup of tea she’d had for breakfast—retching and coughing until there was nothing left inside her. Sitting weakly on the floor of the bathroom, she rested her forehead against the cold porcelain edge of the toilet. Needing more strength than she would have ever dreamed necessary, she finally rose up and staggered to the basin.

  She looked worse than the Quechua on the corner, she thought, staring in the bathroom mirror. Who was the tormented woman reflected in the glass, her eyes so empty and flat?

  Emma turned away from the reflection and began to scrub her hands. She couldn’t wash away her thoughts, though. Reaching for a towel, she dried her fingers and brought the damp cloth to her forehead, patting it feebly.

  She’d just sacrificed her future to keep her children safe. It was the ultimate irony, she thought, shaking her head. To protect them, she’d had to give away any chance she�
��d ever have to be with them again. To have a normal life, to be their mother. She’d flushed it all away, and no one would ever understand why. No one but Raul.

  She gripped the edge of the counter and swayed slightly. His life was at stake, too, and even though she knew she should hate him for what he’d done, she couldn’t. She actually understood. But that didn’t mean she could forgive him. He’d used her and nothing would ever make that right.

  Nothing.

  She made one more swipe across her face with the towel, then dropped it on the counter and reached into her pocket for the tube of lipstick she’d brought with her. The slash of color she applied to her lips looked garish and overdone under the harsh fluorescence. She wiped some of it off, then tried again, but the result was the same. A made-up corpse would have looked better.

  What did it matter? She left the bathroom, thinking the look was actually pretty appropriate. After all, that was what she was, wasn’t she? A walking dead woman?

  She went straight to her desk, collected her purse, then told Felicity she was leaving.

  “See you Monday,” the receptionist said.

  Emma stared at the woman for a few seconds, then turned and walked out of the lobby without saying a word. See you Monday? She didn’t think so.

  In a nauseous daze, she flagged down the first cab she could. When she reached her house, she went inside and headed for the living room. She made only one stop—at the chest just inside the room. She opened the top drawer and reached inside, her shaking hands gripping the package she’d hidden there a few days before.

  Taking the first chair she came to, she sat down to wait. It wouldn’t take long, she was sure.

  SLOUCHED BEHIND the wheel of a beat-up red Passport outside the bank, Raul straightened as he saw Emma leave. He glanced at his watch in surprise. It was early—barely lunchtime. Emma never left before six. Was it finally going down?