by Ann Major
And yet, when Cutter’s lips touched hers, her fear lessened, and an entirely different kind of emotion flamed inside her.
Suddenly she wanted to touch Cutter, to hold him, to taste him. She opened her lips so his tongue could enter and become one with the warm recesses of her mouth.
Desire for him wound her tighter.
And yet—
He positioned himself over her, fumbling to undo his slacks and her clothes, too. In the next instant she felt his hot naked skin against her own.
Then he was urging her thighs apart, and she felt his body pressing toward the very center of her being.
Her own breathing was as harsh and irregular as his. Her fingers were clutching his upper arms, pulling him closer. She wanted him. So much. She was afraid of the dark. Of feeling alone. Of being scared and going through this nightmarish time without him. She loved—
No. No.
This wasn’t love. This was terror and need. She was all mixed up.
How could she be doing this?
Feeling this?
With him?
Now?
“What are you so afraid of?” he demanded, stopping his kisses, and drawing back, his voice rough and harshly constricted with sharp sexual need.
He had asked her what she was so afraid of.
You. This. Everything.
An uncontrollable shudder went through her. But she couldn’t say the words.
Still, he knew and understood.
His mood softened. “Hey, it’s okay,” he whispered. No! It’s not!
“It’s okay,” he repeated.
She squeezed her eyes shut again, not wanting to look at him as he levered his body away from hers and allowed her to disentangle her legs from his.
Blindly she pushed herself off him. Then, clasping her clothes around her body, she ran.
And yet when she had found the safety and solitude of her own room, she found no peace without him. If anything the pulse in her throat beat more wildly.
As she tore off her wrinkled clothes, showered and put on fresh ones, she thought how different it was having Cutter in the house rather than Martin. Even as she regretted what had nearly happened between them and feared that it would happen again, Cutter seemed to belong with her as Martin had never belonged. In all the years of her marriage there had never been one shared moment between herself and Martin. Not one moment when they had cared the same way about the same thing.
There had never been shameless desire, either.
Cutter mattered to her, more than she wanted him to. In this terrible hour, Cutter cared as intensely as she did about finding their son. And he was the only person on earth who did. Maybe she didn’t agree with his methods, but his tenderness and thoughtfulness and protectiveness, even his seductiveness, had touched her deeply.
She knew he was cutting through all her carefully constructed defenses far too easily. Still, because of Cutter, whom she had wanted to hate all these years, she could hold on to her sanity even though she knew that when this was over, no matter what happened—Cutter would win.
Which meant she would lose.
And yet... Now, during this dreadful time, there was no one else she wanted to be with except him.
Her feelings for him were dangerous.
Too dangerous.
She had wanted him inside her.
She still did.
She wanted him with all her heart.
He knew it.
And he would use it.
Five
Cutter Lord had learned the hard way it wasn’t smart to play fair with criminals.
Cutter knew who had taken Jeremy. A great many people knew.
But when Cutter’s men hit the street and started asking questions, nobody talked.
As the long hours of the second day ticked by, and the deadline to pay the ransom drew closer, Cutter knew he had to find another way.
He had done business in dangerous countries all over the world for more than a decade. He had been held up before.
It was bad business to pay ransoms. In South America standard operating procedure among kidnappers was to take the money and kill the victim and, thus, eliminate the chance for identification.
Cutter had paid a ransom once. Big mistake. So huge Cutter had vowed never to pay a ransom again.
Not that he’d told Cheyenne. She didn’t trust him, and she was too naive to understand the reasons behind his tactics. She wouldn’t cooperate.
If Cutter couldn’t find Jeremy soon, Cutter had decided to counterattack.
He’d up the ante and make the bastard sweat, too.
As an international businessman, Cutter knew that international borders were less precise than the neat black lines drawn on maps. Cultures and morals and laws overlapped.
Men who knew how to play the laws of bordering nations against each other could get rich as could men who knew how to satisfy the illegal lusts and unmet financial needs of their neighbors.
Rich men such as these grew very powerful. So powerful they bought lawmakers and became gods who believed themselves above the laws of any land.
José Hernando was such a man and such a lawless god. On his vast ranches in northern Mexico, he bred the finest bulls in the world for the most famous matadors. Hernando spoke three languages, drove race cars in Europe and made love to beautiful movie stars and opera singers. It was said that when he was done with a woman, he always granted her her most heartfelt wish. In his quieter moments he hunted big game or played chess with his nephews and his only daughter.
José was richer and more powerful than many presidents. He bought and sold American politicians, ambassadors, cardinals and, of course, women. Not only did he make millions in his legitimate businesses such as ranching, banking, telecommunications and real estate, he made even more illegally.
As a result Hernando had cash to launder. He had a keen interest in struggling businessmen on both sides of the border. Which is how he had come to invest in Martin’s failing properties.
Through his investigations into Martin’s affairs, Cutter had learned that José had become Martin’s partner after Martin’s much-publicized meteoric rise to wealth. Martin’s businesses had grown too fast; he’d acquired too much credit and lived too high. Then the Texas economy had taken a dip. He’d skipped payments to his bankers; he would have lost everything had Hernando not poured dirty money into Martin’s vacant apartment complexes and office buildings. Large sums of cash had also been dumped into his import-export business.
All had gone well until Martin had begun to skim. Hernando had cut him off and demanded payment. So had his bankers. That was when Martin had begged Cutter to release his hold on his private fortune.
Cutter had refused. When he’d discovered that Martin’s life was at stake, it had been too late.
Cutter would never forgive himself for stalling. It was partly his fault that Martin was dead, and Hernando had Jeremy.
Guilt and bitterness and jealousy and all the other dark emotions Cutter had buried on that sweltering afternoon nearly seven years ago in an Indonesian jungle when he’d tearned of Martin’s and Cheyenne’s betrayal suddenly threatened to overwhelm him.
Cutter had left Cheyenne’s bed on Lord Island to jog on the beach, only to find Paul O’Connor and several men who’d just arrived by boat on the Lord dock. They had brought news of a refinery fire in Malaysia and had told Cutter he had to leave immediately for Singapore. There hadn’t been time to say goodbye to Cheyenne.
Martin had been waiting for him at the airport. He hadn’t seemed at all upset to learn that Cutter wanted to marry Cheyenne. He had even shaken Cutter’s hand.
Leaving Martin in charge, Cutter had boarded his jet. But when he’d gotten to Singapore and called home, he’d been unable to reach Cheyenne. He’d asked Martin to find her.
Martin hadn’t called back for several weeks. Finally when he did call on that steamy afternoon, Cutter had been exhausted from working day and night with the dead and
dying of the refinery explosion.
The jungle heat had been fierce, and Cutter hadn’t slept for three days. Martin had sounded jaunty and well rested.
“So—did you find Cheyenne?” Cutter had demanded, cutting short the pleasantries.
There had been an awkward pause. “Yes.”
“Well?”
“She and I are getting married....”
“What—”
“And, for once, there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.”
“What the hell are you—”
“She was my girl. Not yours. And I’m marrying her.”
“You’re what?”
“All our lives, you were the genius. You pushed me around. You controlled the family, the business, our parents, my money, my women—everything. You always set me up to take the fall and made me look like I was a failure.”
“Get back to Cheyenne—”
“She’s marrying me Saturday. I’d ask you to be best man, but, there’s no way in hell you can get back in two days.”
“I’ll be there.”
Cutter had walked out on his Malaysian responsibilities to try to get home in time to stop the wedding.
The ensuing lawsuits had nearly destroyed Lord Enterprise. And for what?
Martin had beaten him up at the wedding. Cheyenne had coldly rejected him. Not once had she come to see him in the hospital. Cutter had fired Martin and seized control of his money. According to their father’s will, Cutter had had the right to act as he had. Still, Cutter might have relented if he hadn’t gone ballistic after he’d seen Jeremy in the hospital and realized Martin had taken his son.
A case could be made that it was Cutter’s fault Jeremy had been kidnapped. Martin would never have had to borrow money if Cutter hadn’t seized his fortune.
Hell.
Nobody could change the past. It was better to bury it and deal with the present.
Cutter had lived all over the world—in primitive countries with primitive cultures. His experiences had changed him, hardened him. He was no longer the sophisticated, law-abiding citizen of the United States a great many less-than-insightful people who had known him for years thought him to be.
Cutter believed in a more primitive code of honor than that currently fashionable in the United States. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth.
It was time somebody taught José Hernando a lesson.
It would mean crossing the line as far as U.S. laws were concerned. Maybe even as far as his own conscience was concerned.
It would mean fighting fire with gasoline.
It would mean making a mortal enemy of the extremely dangerous man.
If his men made the smallest slip, Cutter could be indicted on international conspiracy and kidnapping charges. Still, it was his only chance to get Jeremy back alive.
Though a killer, Hernando was a man of surface geniality and charm. Since his wife’s death, he had become a legendary ladies’ man.
But he had an Achilles’ heel.
There was one person he loved—his beautiful sixteen-year-old daughter who had been born to the only woman Hernando had ever loved enough to marry.
It was said that this angelic girl was an exact look-alike of her beloved mother who had died in childbirth. ,
Even now Cutter’s men were storming the mountain stronghold deep in the interior of Mexico where the girl lived on one of Hernando’s ranches under the tightest security.
When Cutter’s men telephoned with the news that they had the girl, Cutter would call Hernando and demand Jeremy.
If Cutter’s men didn’t call, Jeremy would die.
And he, Cutter, would lose not only his son, but Cheyenne. If his men did get the girl, he could end up in jail. Or be murdered by one of Hernando’s thugs. Cutter, who prized winning above all things, was very much afraid he couldn’t win this one.
He remembered Cheyenne’s passionate response to him that morning.
She had been hot and tender.
As sweetly responsive to every nuance of his physical and emotional needs as before.
It wasn’t over between them.
He didn’t want to lose her.
But he would—if he didn’t get Jeremy back.
The temperature hit one hundred degrees. It was a record.
Cheyenne was running on raw nerves.
Finding Cutter’s dark mood and the house oppressive, she had gone outside to water her garden. Before the kidnapping when she worked in the garden, Jeremy used to follow her. He would play beside her, batting bushes with pointed sticks, pointing out weird bugs. Or he would climb the nearest tree and read a book up there or holler down at her.
Today, no matter how long she aimed her hose at the ground in front of a plant, the earth remained as dry and parched as a desert. She could almost feel the leaves shriveling and turning brown in the fierce, unseasonable heat, and finally, since she knew all this to be a bad sign, her pain and terror became so great she coiled her hose beside a clump of withering day lilies next to the house and went back inside.
The long, hot day wore on until the hour to pay the ransom was almost upon them. Cutter and she had kept to themselves since their lovemaking session—she in her bedroom while Cutter just sat in the library downstairs, his black head in his hands as he waited by the telephone.
Why did he just sit down there—waiting, doing nothing? She could do that. Anybody could.
She glanced at her watch. He had thirty minutes.
Why wouldn’t he tell her something?
Or do something? Or order her to do something?
She, who never bit her nails, had torn them to the quick. She was going mad. Mad.
The minutes dragged by. Condensation misted the windows. A feeling of suffocation began to close in on her, choking her, filling her with mindless panic. Her throat felt as dry as the dust in her garden. Her fingertips grew numb. She began to breathe at a shallow, rapid pace. Suddenly she couldn’t stand it a second longer. Cutter had told her to rest, to stay in her bedroom till he came up to her.
But she couldn’t. Not when the pink walls seemed to be closing in on her. Not when Jeremy was in danger and her emotions shrilled at a fever pitch.
The phone rang once and was answered somewhere else in the house.
She sat up on her bed.
Cutter had ordered her to leave him alone in the library.
He had ordered her to wait until he came to her.
Who was he to order her about in her own house? When her baby was gone and her garden was dying? When she was desperate and afraid and feeling so alone? When she needed to know everything that was going on? When she needed him.
White-faced, she stormed out of her bedroom, down the stairs and into the library.
He didn’t look up when she came in.
His broad back was to her. He was sitting in the dark, hunched over the phone as he spoke, and his voice was so low and hard, she shivered. There was a flat, hostile quality in it she had never heard before.
She caught his words very clearly, “You play chess, don’t you. I have your queen. So, it’s checkmate, mi amigo.”
Cutter hung up the phone.
She made a sound and he turned and looked at her.
Then he stood up and stared past her coldly, out the long window to the parched lawn and withering garden and to the driveway as if he hadn’t seen her. As if he were indifferent to her presence, he frowned as he watched a squirrel race across the sidewalk and then up a tree.
How could Cutter take the slightest interest in anything other than Jeremy?
She felt the gap of the lost years between them, the gap of this terrible lack of understanding between them.
Who was he? Why had she turned to this cold man, of all people, in her time of crisis?
She saw a tall, well-built, raven-haired man with deep black eyes and a devastatingly handsome, unshaved face. Gone was the gentle lover who had come so close to seducing her. This man was a stranger whose expression was
so ruthless she felt chilled.
Still she cried, “Who were you talking to? How can you talk about playing chess—a mere game—when our son’s life is at stake? Why don’t you do something? Why don’t you go out and find him? Why do you just sit here—hour after hour? I could have done that by myself.”
“So, is that what you think?” he asked quietly, wearily. Again there was something dead and horrible in his voice. His dark gaze pleaded for something she couldn’t put into words.
“I want you to go. I’m sorry I ever called you about Jeremy. I’m sorry ... about last night.”
He made a frustrated sound deep in his throat. “So am I, honey.”
She sucked in a deep, hurt breath, and turned away, embarrassed.
Then the phone rang, increasing their tension.
Cutter seized it instantly. “Yes?”
His face went very gray as he listened.
She hung on that single word that he’d uttered. On the hard expression in his eyes. On the grim set of his mouth.
After a second or two he slammed the phone down.
The silence between them was electric.
“What is it?” she whispered. “Was that him?”
Cutter nodded. “I’m leaving now,” he said to her, without anger. Without fear. Without any visible emotion.
And yet...there was a difference in him.
“To pay the ransom? To get Jeremy?”
He hesitated.
“Yes,” he finally answered.
“You’re lying! I know it!”
Her eyes filled with helpless tears when he picked up his jacket, slung it over his shoulder, and strode silently past her.
She chased after him. “I—I don’t believe you! Where are you really going? Is Jeremy dead or alive? What did you do with all those guns? What do you know that you aren’t telling me?” She paused. “Tell me! How can you just calmly walk out like—”
He turned, and his eyes were deep and dark and yet faintly sympathetic now.
“I want to go with you!” she cried.
“No. It’s too dangerous.” He brushed the tip of her nose and then her cheek with his fingertip. In another man it might have been a gesture of affection. “This isn’t an easy situation. Trust me,” he whispered tightly, his dark face like stone. “Please. Just a little while longer. This is almost over. Jeremy’s alive. I won’t come back without him. I swear. Trust me.”