The Mercenary and the New Mom

by Merline Lovelace

  McGill’s gaze locked with his. “You’ve been in this business almost as long as I have, Wentworth. What better way to gain someone’s trust than to do them a favor? Or appear to do them one?”

  Jack bit back an instinctive protest. He would have bet everything he had that Sabrina was exactly what she appeared to be, an intelligent, hardworking, damnably seductive brunette with a mouth he would dream about for a long time to come. But he’d already made one mistake today by taking those two cowboys for mere drunks. He’d let Trey run his checks. In the meantime, he’d do a little checking of his own.

  His face tight, McGill flipped his notebook shut. “That’s not much to go on, but I’ll see what I can do. Maybe the system will have something on them.”

  “Maybe.” Flexing his shoulders to ease the ache from one of Sam’s flying punches, Jack strode toward his truck. “I’m stopping at my place in Tulsa to clean up, then I’ll head back to talk to Ms. Jensen.”

  Frowning, Trey followed on his heels. “Why?”

  “It bothers me that I miscued those two characters. I want to make sure I didn’t miss anything else.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “You run your system checks, Trey. I’ve got a more personal one-on-one in mind.”

  McGill’s gray eyes narrowed on Jack’s face. “There’s more to this situation than what you’ve told me, isn’t there?”

  “No. But there could be,” he added under his breath, keying the ignition. “If I get lucky.”

  Trey slapped a hand on the open window frame. “It’s the woman, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe.”

  Disgust rippled across his patrician features. “It’s always a woman with you, Wentworth.”

  Jack could have told him that this one was different. That he sensed a strength and a ready laughter in Sabrina that Heather had never shown during their brief, tragic acquaintance. That the waitress had triggered something deep inside him from the first moment he’d seen her with her feet propped up and her face turned to the sun.

  Trey didn’t need to hear that. Not from him. Not at this point, anyway. Instead, Jack simply nodded a goodbye and put the pickup into drive.

  Chapter 4

  Trey McGill could access government sources. The CEO of Wentworth Oil Works could access a few of his own.

  With his eyes on the light traffic left over from Tulsa’s evening rush, Jack snatched up his mobile phone and punched the direct line to his office. Although it was now well past seven, he didn’t have any doubt that his executive assistant would still be at work. Pete Hastings lived and breathed Wentworth Oil. He had since he’d tried to wheedle twenty bucks off Jack six years ago. Jack had hired him on the spot, seeing through the panhandler’s outer scruffiness to the con artist underneath. No one, but no one, got past Pete unless they carried Jack’s personal stamp of approval.

  Sure enough, his assistant answered the phone on the first ring.

  “I need you to run a background check for me on a Sabrina Jensen,” Jack said without preamble.

  “The usual stuff? Credit check, employment history, driving record?”

  “Right.”

  Gut instinct told Jack the check wouldn’t turn up anything, but he wasn’t taking any more chances Besides, he was curious about her. More than curious.

  “I’ll get on it right away.”

  “Call me back as soon as you can. I’ll be at the apartment for the next hour or so.”

  “Will do.”

  The sun had slipped behind the downtown skyscrapers, leaving the city to bask in a hazy summer twilight by the time Jack turned onto the ramp for the underground garage of The Towers on Riverside Drive. He kept an apartment at the high-rise for those late nights when he didn’t want to drive to the sprawling Wentworth estate on the other side of Tulsa.

  The red pickup rolled to a stop beside his midnight blue Jag. Jack preferred a company vehicle most of the time, particularly on his frequent visits to production sites around the state. Some of the roads hadn’t improved all that much from the early days of the great wildcat strikes. The Jaguar served for those occasions when he had to deal with men impressed by the trappings that came with his position and his background.

  Keying in a code for the private elevator, he used the short ride to tug off his ball cap and whack it against his pant leg. Clouds of red Oklahoma dust swirled around the elevator and settled on the expensive brass fixtures. Moments later, the elevator whirred to a halt at the penthouse level. The doors slid open, and Jack walked into the large, airy apartment he shared with the feisty older woman who styled herself his housekeeper and self-appointed spiritual advisor.

  Strolling through the foyer, he hooked his cap on the stag antlers that framed a massive mirror. His boots echoed on the polished oak flooring that gave onto the plush, gray-carpeted living room. Directly ahead, a floor-to-ceiling glass wall afforded an eye-popping view. The Arkansas River meandered south like a wide, silver ribbon cutting through the twilight. Lights from the exclusive homes all along the river twinkled like early stars.

  The living room was sparsely furnished in hand-wrought native oak pieces and decorated with only a few of the Frederic Remington bronzes the Wentworths had collected over the years. It had an uncluttered air that suited Jack perfectly and made it easy for Hannah to keep dust-free and shiny. A rattle of pans in the kitchen pinpointed her location.

  “Hey, Hannah.”

  A pixie face framed by a riot of carroty orange curls that defiantly belied her sixty-plus years poked through the kitchen door.

  “Jack? You’re home earlier than—” She broke off, her raisin black eyes rounding as she took in his bloodied shirt. “Who’d you get crosswise with, boy?”

  “A couple of guys who took exception to my pretty face,” he returned dryly.

  “Pretty?” She hooted. “What were they, blind drunk?”

  “To all appearances.”

  The swinging kitchen door whooshed behind her. Crossing to his side, she squinted up at the cut above his eye. Jack had been trying to convince her to wear glasses for years with minimal results.

  “I better put some antiseptic on that cut.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “You and your granddaddy are two of a kind,” she scolded, shaking her orangey red curls. “Neither one of you could ever stand any fussing.”

  Since Hannah and Joseph Wentworth had shared one blazing summer of passion five or six years ago, Jack figured she knew what she was talking about. After Hannah and Old Joe parted company, she’d taken up residence with Jack.

  The arrangement worked wonderfully. Jack was gone more than he was home, and Hannah had plenty of room to host her frequent gatherings. So far, thank goodness, none of the palmists or tarot card readers she invited in had stumbled upon Jack’s double life. Hannah wouldn’t have approved...any more than she approved of the fact that he was still unmarried at thirty-five.

  She did approve of the fact that he was going right out again, though. She positively beamed when he told her he’d just come home to change.

  “Good! My Second Life group is meeting here tonight. We can meditate better without you clumping through the place.”

  Humming, she palmed the kitchen door and returned to her pots and pans. Jack sniffed the air as he made his way to the master bath. Apparently the meditators were getting one of Hannah’s eighty-proof chocolate rum cakes. With luck, he might be able to wheedle a piece for himself before he left.

  The return call from Peter came just as he was toweling himself off after a quick, steaming shower. Slinging the towel around his neck, he took the call on the extension in the man-size bathroom.

  “I don’t know what you were looking for, boss, but this Sabrina Jensen is clean, squeaky clean.”

  “I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. Just give me the details.”

  “Born, Amarillo, Texas. Moved to Oklahoma at age thirteen. Current age, twenty-four. Five foot six. Brown hair
. Green eyes. One hundred nineteen and a half pounds according to her last driver’s license.”

  Jack smiled at the mist-covered mirror. Wherever Sabrina packed that half pound, it looked good on her. Damn good.

  “I got one of our friends at the police department to check their computers. She has no traffic history, no prior arrests, no outstanding warrants, not even a citation for jaywalking.”

  “What about family?”

  “Her student loan application at OSU shows she has a twin sister living in Oklahoma City and a father who owns his own rig and pulls cross-country hauls. Evidently she doesn’t receive any income from either of them. She’s worked a list of part-time jobs two pages long since she turned fifteen. Most of her income these days goes for rent and for her tuition and books at Oklahoma State.”

  Everything fit with the impression Jack had formed of Sabrina Jensen and with the information he’d already obtained at the diner. The woman certainly wasn’t afraid of hard work.

  “Her credit rating looked good at first pass,” his assistant continued, “but I’ll do some more digging tomorrow when I can get into the financial databases.”

  “Thanks, Pete. You’ve done good. As usual.”

  “Remember that when I talk to you about my next raise.”

  “As if you’d let me forget,” Jack returned, smiling.

  He hung up a few moments later, thinking through the information Pete had fed him. Unless Trey turned up something startling through his own sources, he was satisfied. More than satisfied.

  He was also, he discovered, impatient as hell to see Sabrina again. Just thinking of the way her mouth had fit under his pushed him to a state of near arousal. The memory of her body pressed against his brought him even closer to the edge.

  Shoving his shirttails into the waistband of a clean pair of jeans, he rolled the sleeves, then snatched up his wallet and keys. A moment later, he settled a summer straw Resistol on his still damp hair and left with a shouted goodbye to Hannah. Opting for the company truck again instead of the flashy Jag, Jack wheeled out of the garage into a soft, purple night.

  By the time he pulled into the driveway of a modest bungalow in Dunford, his state of semiarousal had edged dangerously close to rock hardness. He couldn’t believe that he felt so much like a pimply-faced teenager on his first date...until he remembered Sabrina’s breathlessness when they broke off that shattering kiss this afternoon. Anticipation zinged through Jack’s veins. He checked his watch.

  Nine-twenty-two.

  Close enough.

  He cut across the tiny yard toward the front door, his step eager. He didn’t exactly have deliberate seduction in mind, but he certainly had high expectations of taking another taste of that soft, full mouth home with him tonight. Or tomorrow. Or whenever Sabrina decided to send him on his way.

  What he didn’t expect was the distinct lack of welcome in her face when she opened the door.

  “Hello, Sabrina.”

  “Jack.”

  In one swift glance, he took in every detail of her appearance. She’d released her hair from its loose knot. The mink dark mass fell in silky waves to her collarbone. She’d exchanged the white knit top for a tunic in a bright cherry red that made her skin look creamy and so soft that Jack’s fingers itched to stroke it. She’d even traded her jeans and sneakers for skirty little canvas shorts and sandals.

  He might have taken that long length of bare leg as a signal of great things to come if not for Sabrina’s closed, unsmiling face. She didn’t invite him in. She didn’t release her grip on the doorknob.

  Pulling off his straw Resistol, he smiled down at her. “Am I too early? Or too late?”

  Okay, Sabrina told herself. All right. She could do this. Ignoring the sudden pinging in her rib cage directly attributable to Jack’s crooked smile, she took a steadying breath.

  “I tried to call you,” she told him with a touch of coolness. “Your home phone is unlisted, and the folks on the Wentworth Oil switchboard said they weren’t authorized to give out the number.”

  He cocked his head, clearly surprised at her tone. The light from the porch lamps picked up the damp gleam in his short, dark hair. He’d showered, Sabrina saw, and slapped on an expensive aftershave. She’d sniffed that rich, tangy scent before—at one of Tulsa’s most expensive department stores.

  Perversely, the idea that Jack had gussied up for her stiffened Sabrina’s resolve to send him right back to his truck. She’d had plenty of time to regret her uninhibited response to his kiss. Just because the Wentworths owned half of Oklahoma and she slung chicken-fried steak for a living didn’t mean he could play games with her. Loan or no loan, kiss or no kiss, her prickly pride stung her every time she remembered how he’d let her think he was some down-and-out rigger...and how she’d let him sweep her into his arms after she’d learned his real identity. She could just imagine what spin he’d put on that.

  “Sorry,” he said m answer to her stiff little speech. “I’ll give you a number where I can be contacted, night or day.”

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  He couldn’t mistake her message this time. His brow arched, but he gave it one more shot.

  “It may not be necessary, but I’m hoping you’ll use the number, Sabrina, whenever you want.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Did I miss something this afternoon? I thought you invited me out here tonight?”

  “I did.” Impatiently, she hooked her hair behind her left ear. “Look, I’m sorry you drove all the way out here, but it’s late and...”

  “And?”

  She pulled in another deep breath. She might as well get the matter out in the open.

  “And I’m too tired to indulge you in any more slumming.”

  “What?”

  “I must have given you both a real chuckle,” she said, shaking her head in disgust. “I practically fell all over you this afternoon. Trust me, I don’t make a practice of that kind of behavior.”

  “I didn’t think you did.”

  Her chin lifted. “Particularly not with oil baron’s grandsons and playboy princes who get their kicks by passing themselves off as down-at-the-heel riggers.”

  Jack went still. The sudden, swift look he gave her from narrowed eyes told Sabrina it was time to end this farce.

  “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an accounting test to study for.”

  She shut the door in his face.

  Or tried to.

  The man who quietly but forcefully caught the door’s edge sent a ripple of unease down her spine. He wasn’t the same blue-eyed charmer who’d teased her out of her sleepy doze earlier this afternoon. Certainly not the laughing rigger who’d swept her into his arms.

  She held her ground, but it took some doing. His eyes lasered into hers with an intensity that raised the hairs on the back of her neck.

  “Just to set the record straight,” he said slowly, “you’re the one who assumed we were riggers.”

  She conceded the point with something less than grace. “You’re right. I’ll think twice before I associate someone in a Wentworth truck and ball cap with a shrieking oil pump in the future!”

  Ignoring her biting sarcasm, he held her eyes with his own. “I don’t remember either Al or I mentioning that he was a prince.”

  “Oh, really?” Her hands went to her hips. “As I recall, he offered to whisk me away to Qatar in his private jet and drape me in emeralds and pearls. If he doesn’t want people to assume he’s a prince or a sultan or something, he needs to come up with another approach.”

  Jack stared down at her, his mind racing. Trey’s suspicions had come rushing back with a vengeance. Neither the U.S. nor Qatar had leaked the prince’s short, unscheduled visit to the press or the public. The endowment of the petroleum research facility at OSU—the ostensible reason for his visit—wouldn’t be announced until later this month. By then, the secret accord Ali was carrying back to his country would have been acted upon by the Gulf Coop
eration Council. It was to maintain that low profile that Jack had suggested they both don comfortable jeans and work shirts for the impromptu detour through Oklahoma’s back roads en route to the airport.

  Even at the Route 66 Diner, they’d been careful to give no hints as to Ali’s royal status. Despite his extravagant gallantry and outrageous offers to Sabrina, Ali had never said his full name or his rank. Evidently, he hadn’t needed to. She’d reached her own conclusions.

  Looking down into her indignant green eyes, Jack couldn’t bring himself to believe it was anything other than a guess. Nor did he believe she’d had anything to do with the attack by Sam and his buddy, Digger. Relaxing muscles that had gone taut and still, he shoved a hand through his hair. It was time to mend a few bridges.

  “I guess I need to come up with another approach, too. I’m sorry I misled you, Sabrina. Do you want the truth?”

  “That would be a nice change,” she tossed back.

  “I let you think I’d lost my wallet because it was a handy excuse to come back and see you tonight.” A rueful smile tugged at his mouth. “I still owe you for the hamburger and Al’s pie, remember?”

  Instead of softening her tight, wary expression, his confession seemed to stiffen her up even more.

  “I told you it was on the house.”

  “I always pay for what I want.”

  “Is that right?” Her head went back. Green sparks flashed in her eyes. “I hope you’re not expecting anything more for your money than an onion burger and some pie, Wentworth.”

  “Whoa! You don’t believe in stepping lightly over rough ground, do you?”

  “No, I don’t. Nor do I believe in deliberately misleading people.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “You do that,” she muttered, less belligerent now, but still stiff.

  Jack hadn’t moved in diplomatic circles for years without learning when to advance and when to retreat. This particular situation called for a little bit of both.

  “Why don’t we start over?” He held out his hand. “I’m Jack Wentworth, onetime tool pusher and now full-time paper pusher.”