by Cindy Gerard
It wasn’t the first message Hugh Weber and Wyatt Savage hadn’t gotten during the three-month crash course in Spanish. But those sexy grins were the first of many unmistakable messages they both sent her way …
5
“Sophie?”
Sophie jerked her gaze away from the road and her memories to see Wyatt watching her with concern.
“I’m sorry. Shell-shock moment. Guess I’m having a bit of a delayed reaction. It’s not every day that I get to dodge bullets,” she added, attempting to make light of her lapse in concentration.
There was more than a grain of truth in what she’d said. The incident at the airport had rattled her. Seeing Wyatt’s blood had rattled her.
The abduction was making her crazy.
“You want me to drive, sugar?”
“No. No, I’m fine.” Damn. Tears filled her eyes. She fought them back. “Okay, I’m not fine. But I need to be.” Because she needed to keep it together.
“Maybe we should wait until we get wherever we’re going before you fill me in.”
Again, typical Wyatt, trying to take care of her. The first time she and Hugh had had a fight, she’d run to Wyatt.
“That’s what these shoulders are for,” he’d said, and had let her snivel all over him before he’d sent her back to Hugh.
She was determined not to cry now.
“So, how’s your daughter doing?” he asked.
“Hope is traumatized. Terrorized. Riddled with guilt. Lola is her best friend. Hope knows that she was the target and that the kidnappers took Lola by mistake. Her heart is broken. Ramona, Lola’s mother—God, she’s devastated.”
And so was Sophie.
“Why are you so sure Hope was the target?”
“Hope heard the man behind the wheel instruct the bastard who grabbed Lola to ‘Get the Weber girl.’ With Lola and Hope both wearing the school uniform, he took the wrong girl.
“Besides,” she added, “why would they take Lola? She’s one of my scholarship students. There’s no money, no reason to take her. Ramona was unemployed a year ago. She and Lola were staying with Ramona’s brother until I hired her. Now she and Lola live in my little casita behind the house.”
The little guest cottage had been a perfect fit for the two of them, and Ramona had proven invaluable to Sophie.
“I don’t know what I’d do without Ramona. She manages the house, watches both girls.” She stopped, her breath thick in her chest. “How can I feel so thankful and relieved that Hope is safe when poor little Lola is going through a nightmare?”
“Hope is your child,” he said. “How can you not feel relief?”
Intellectually, she knew he was right, but it didn’t stop the guilt.
“Why abduct your daughter?” Wyatt pressed because he was a smart man. He knew she needed to keep focused, or she’d flounder in guilt and fear for Lola.
“This is El Salvador,” she stated, not even trying to hide her bitterness. “Kidnapping for ransom is a national pastime.”
He nodded with the certainty of a man who had had too much experience with bad, bad men. “What do the police say?”
“They’re useless. Of course, they point fingers at the usual suspects. MS-13 is at the top of their list.”
“MS-13 is always at the top of everyone’s list,” he muttered.
She couldn’t argue with that. The violent street gang, also known as Mara Salvatrucha, had started in El Salvador and spread not only to most of Central America but also to California and several other areas in the States. Its members were violent and vicious and totally void of conscience or remorse. Drugs, tattoos, and kidnapping were their MO.
“They also suspect the GN,” she added, frowning when she thought about the group that was most likely behind the attack at the airport. “They’ve been opposed to my school since I opened it five years ago.”
That drew his interest. “Because?”
“Because they see the school as interfering with their ‘purist’ doctrine. We integrate international as well as national customs into our curriculum. Instead of seeing it as good exposure, they see it as diluting the traditional El Salvadoran culture.”
“So it’s not a stretch to point a finger their way.”
“I just don’t know, Wyatt. It’s true that the GN has never been happy with our cultural interaction. I suppose they could be trying to scare me into shutting down. Or possibly to bring negative attention to the school. Too many incidents like this could make a case for my school not being a safe environment. My grants could be pulled. That would be the end of it.”
“I still hear a ‘but’ in there,” he said.
“But I just don’t think that they’d put this much energy into shutting me down. They’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
“Like the British diplomat,” he concluded.
“Right. I’m actually more inclined to think it’s MS-13. But then the FMLN could be behind the kidnapping, too.”
“Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front?”
She nodded. “They’ve also been behind a number of kidnappings for ransom over the years. It’s their power play of choice.”
“If I remember right, the FMLN was granted legal political-party status more than a decade ago.”
“A thug by any other name is still a thug. And at their grass roots, they’re still a terrorist organization. But the fact is that since they’ve been legitimized, no one has had the guts to stand up to their terrorist tactics, especially not the police force.”
“I take it you suggested the FMLN to the police as a possibility?”
She snorted. “Oh, they concede that it’s possible the kidnappers could be fringe members of the FMLN—many Mara Salvatrucha gang members can even be traced back to the FMLN—but since the policía are scared to death of MS-13, it’s highly unlikely that they’ll do anything at all.”
She braked for another light and finger combed the hair back from her face while Wyatt digested and processed information.
“Talk to me about other possibilities,” he finally said.
The light turned, and she hit the gas. “I’ve racked my brain trying to come up with an answer. It could be anyone. The police force’s antikidnapping task force is a joke. I wouldn’t even be surprised if they were involved. The entire force is noted for its corruption—right up to the higher-ranking police officials—and the task force has never been effective in finding abduction victims. They’re in bed with the local drug cartel, which is rampant in certain sections of the city. Hugh’s been more effective lately at recovering kidnapping victims than anything the policía have done.”
But Hugh wasn’t here.
“We can’t discount the possibility that the abduction was intended to hurt Hugh. He has to have made a lot of enemies over the years,” Wyatt said quietly.
“I know. I’ve thought of that.”
“Have you heard anything from him?”
She shook her head, biting back her frustration. “Not yet.”
She felt sick to her stomach thinking about Lola in the hands of ruthless, heartless men. God, the things they could do to her.
“Okay, who else could be responsible?” Wyatt’s voice snapped her away from her grisly thoughts. “What about competition? Would another school have a reason to cause trouble?”
“No,” she said, and forced herself to focus on something useful. “I can’t see that. Schools are overcrowded. Baylor is actually taking some of the heat off the public education system.”
“Has there been a ransom demand yet?”
She’d been waiting for this question. Dreading it. “No.” She felt tears well up again. “And bottom line, I don’t have the money to pay one.”
Wyatt was silent for a moment. This didn’t compute. He’d made a conscious decision to keep his distance from Sophie and Hugh after they’d gotten married. Yeah, it had been the coward’s way out, but it was what he’d needed to get over losing her. Still, he’d heard things over the years. CIA a
nd post military circles were tight. He’d known Hugh had started his own private contracting business several years ago after he’d parted ways with Uncle. If Hugh had experienced half the success that Nate had with Black Ops, Inc., then raising ransom money shouldn’t be an issue.
He wanted to ask Sophie about that but decided to respect her silence—for now—and hope she would eventually bring up the subject.
“What about your parents?” he asked instead. “Could they help?”
A strange look came over her face before she said quietly, “I … I can’t ask them. I can’t involve them in this.”
Again, her response prompted questions he might have to explore later. The lady had some secrets she didn’t want to risk sharing with him, secrets that he hoped had no relevance to Lola’s abduction. Okay, fine. For now, he’d take his cues from her.
“But someone might assume you would ask them for help,” Wyatt said, instead of asking why she was being so evasive. “Someone could find out enough about you to be aware of your family’s finances, figure you would tap them for the cash. Not that it narrows the pool of suspects. Anyone with access to the Web could find out damn near anything about anybody. Case in point, you found me.”
“I got lucky,” she admitted, using his example to veer away from the subject of her parents as she turned off the main thoroughfare onto a quiet side street. “I remembered that your parents lived in Georgia, remembered their names, and yes, I did a Google search of the Georgia white pages. Found them on the first try. I was stunned when you were actually there.”
She was stunned? He wasn’t a fatalist. Wasn’t much on “signs.” But what were the odds of him being at his parents’ at the exact time she had needed him? Slim and slimmer. He decided not to question it. Besides, his dad always knew how to reach him in an emergency. If Wyatt hadn’t been home in Georgia, Sophie would have persuaded Ben to contact him. Still, the timing, with Hugh out of touch, made a man wonder about kismet and karma and forces of nature. And cruel twists of fate, because, damn, with Hugh temporarily out of the picture, it was too frickin’ easy to imagine painting himself in.
“I’ll figure something out on the ransom.”
The tension in her voice cut into his thoughts and slammed him back to the immediacy of the moment. “Let’s hope it won’t come to that.”
“It always comes to that,” she said with a fatalism that broke his heart.
“How about beefs with your neighbors?” he continued, getting back on track. “Other parents? Maybe parents of kids who wanted into your school but didn’t make the cut?”
“No. Nothing like that. At least, not that I know of.” She slowed down, then turned onto a cul-de-sac in a quiet, affluent-looking neighborhood and pulled into the first driveway. Red and pink hibiscus, squat pineapple palms, and low-growing waxy green ground cover were all neatly manicured in beds surrounding a white single-story house topped with a terra-cotta tiled roof.
“As for the school,” she continued after shutting off the motor, “except for the students on financial scholarship, most of the kids attending Baylor are locals and a mix of children of U.S. embassy and military personnel, so I think you’re heading down a dead end there.”
She sounded weary and frustrated. And very much alone. Wyatt felt a surge of anger toward his old friend. Hugh should be here, damn it. Hugh, not he, should be here, getting a handle on the situation and taking care of his wife and family.
“Come on, let’s get inside,” she said, looking across the seat at him. “Hope’s next door with Carmen, my neighbor and one of the school security guards I hired to watch over them until I got back. Thank God for Carmen,” she added with feeling. “She’s always been like a surrogate grandma to both Hope and Lola. And as upset as she’s been over Lola’s abduction, she’s held it together for Hope’s sake.”
She stopped abruptly. “God, I’m rambling. Sorry.”
“Deep breath, Sophe,” he said, sympathizing.
She smiled. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up before you meet them. I don’t want Hope and Carmen to see the blood.”
She glanced at his forehead. “And please, don’t mention the attack at the airport. Hope is frightened enough. I don’t want her worrying that something could have happened to me, too. If either of them hears about the incident on the news, I’ll just say we were already gone when it happened, okay?”
Mother Bear, Wyatt thought. Protecting her cub and those who were important to her. “You got it.” He opened his door and stepped out of the air-conditioned car and into the wet El Salvadoran heat.
He’d been in the country for roughly two hours. So far, he’d gotten caught in the middle of a terrorist attack, killed two men, saved a mother and a child, and bled all over one of his favorite shirts. And it was still more than an hour until noon.
A typical day in the life of Wyatt Savage. Jesus. Not for the first time, it occurred to him that he really needed a new line of work.
“You can leave your bag in there,” Sophie said after she’d led Wyatt quickly through a large living room that opened to an airy kitchen.
He’d caught brief flashes of vibrant colors, large arched windows, and soft, stylish furnishings before she’d hooked a left down a wide hallway with a floor covered in travertine tile the color of eggshells and walls painted a rich terra-cotta. High ceilings and the slow rotation of ceiling fans stirred the air and helped what he figured was a central air-conditioning unit cut both the heat and the humidity.
As instructed, he tossed his go bag onto the floor of what he assumed was a guest bedroom, then joined her across the hall in a tiled bathroom. She was busy setting first-aid supplies on the vanity.
“Sit,” she ordered, pointing absently to the closed lid on the toilet.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said smartly.
That brought her head up. Red flamed in her cheeks. “Oh, God, I’m ordering you around like you’re one of my students. I’m sorry,” she added as he sat. “I’m just …”
“Upset?” he suggested to put her at ease. “A little shocky from the fiasco at the airport? Exhausted, maybe? Have you even slept since the girl was taken, sugar?”
Her shoulders sagged, and for the first time, Wyatt could see just how big a toll the abduction had taken on her.
“I grant you absolution,” he said with a soft smile. “So, order away, Teacher Lady, if it makes you feel better. And I promise to be a good Southern boy and grin and bear it.”
Her deep breath and the slow smile that followed told him he’d managed to ease some of her tension. “Like you were a good boy in my Spanish class?”
“I was a very good boy. I never missed a class.”
She snorted and ripped open a package of antiseptic cleansing wipes. “You never missed an opportunity to give me grief, either.”
“Darlin’,” he said as she started dabbing at the blood on his forehead, “I missed a lot of opportunities with you.”
One in particular, he thought with regret.
When her hand momentarily stilled, he wondered if she was thinking about that day, too. That sweet, sunny Sunday when things had gotten out of hand between them.
The bathroom became very quiet. And very small. He’d been trying hard not to think about where she was standing—which was directly in front of him, her breasts at eye level, her scent surrounding him. The hand she’d used to hold his head still so she could clean him up was an intimate and tactile reminder of everything female about her.
Her right leg was wedged between his thighs, where his hands, clenched into tight fists, rested. A fractional shift forward, and his hands could be encircling her waist, his breath could be warming her nipples.
He closed his eyes, willed himself to get it the hell together. Not happening. He was angry. Angry that he was here. Angry that the one thing he’d wanted for most of his adult life was within his grasp, and he still had no right to take it. Couldn’t take it.
Neither could he stop himself from asking the que
stion that had been burning in his gut since she’d called him. “Sophie, why can’t you reach Hugh?” A husband left his wife a contingency plan for emergencies. “Where the hell is he?”
She expelled a fractured breath, as if she, too, had to struggle to come back to a reality that existed far outside the confines of this moment. With renewed vigor, she went back to work cleaning the blood off his face.
“Hugh is where he always is,” she said, her tone thick with resentment. “Off in some Third World corner of the globe, protecting some high-ranking official from a coup or training someone how to do it or something equally dangerous.”
Her face grim, she continued working on his head. “Why do head wounds have to bleed so much?” she muttered rhetorically. “It’s just a little cut.”
“I told you, sugar, I’m fine,” he reminded her, then winced when she took out some of her frustration at Hugh by scrubbing a little harder.
“Take off your shirt,” she ordered, apparently satisfied that she’d done what she could on the head wound. “I want to look at your arm.”
He slowly undid the buttons, then shrugged out of his shirt, wondering at the wisdom of getting half naked in front of her.
What? You think she’ll attack you?
The troubled look on her face dashed those hopes and, thank God, the distinct possibility of a major hard-on. She glanced at him, then quickly looked away.
“What?” he asked, sensing that she had something on her mind that had nothing to do with close quarters and his stupid fantasies.
“Hugh’s changed, Wyatt,” she said, sounding sad and resigned. “I’m not sure you’d know him anymore, much less like him.”
He was still processing the acrimony in her words when she dropped her next bomb.
“We’ve been divorced for almost two years now.”
6
It took several heartbeats for Wyatt to process what she’d said. Several heartbeats where he couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Could barely breathe.
Divorced. Sophie and Hugh were divorced.