The Mercenary and the New Mom

by Merline Lovelace

  “I’m saying them now. I love you. I think I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you snoozing like a lazy cat in the sun. I knew for sure when that damned roof fell in on you. I’ve never been so scared, then or since, even in that black hole.”

  It was the moment Sabrina had dreamed about. Cried over. Never thought she’d have. He was saying the words she never thought she’d hear from him, except in her silent, aching heart.

  “I love you, too. I suspected it during that damned elevator ride. I couldn’t breathe all the way home that night.”

  “Neither could I.” Something that could have been a groan or a laugh rumbled in his chest. “So, when did you know for sure?”

  “Maybe when we made love the first time. Or when I walked into the diner later and saw you juggling platters of pork chops. I just know it was a done deal when you massaged my feet.”

  “That did it for you, huh?” He brought his forehead down until it rested against hers. “Did I mention at the time that feet aren’t my only talent?”

  She gave a little hiccup of laughter. “I seem to recall words to that effect.”

  “You don’t know how many hours I spent thinking about your feet. And your knees. And your sweet, tight little tush...among other parts.”

  “You don’t know how many hours I spent thinking about your various parts, too.” Sighing, she drew back. “I should have told you that night, Jack! All these months, I’ve wished that I had told you!”

  A smile started in his eyes. “You didn’t have to. I knew how you felt, Sabrina. I never doubted it, not for a minute.”

  “I didn’t either, at first,” she said slowly. “Then Trey told me about Heather, and I began to doubt not only your feelings, but my own.”

  The smile in his eyes froze. “Trey told you about Heather?”

  “He came to see me after you...after the explosion. He told me he’d been with you right before you left for Qatar, that you’d talked about me. He said you...you cared for me, far more than you cared about Heather.”

  Jack’s low, vicious oath shattered the few moments of peace they’d found in each other’s touch.

  “Cared for you? Is that what the bastard said?”

  Fury tore through him, ripping apart the calm he’d fought so hard to achieve in the shower.

  “He was so sincere, Jack, so anxious to assure me that his very sincerity started me doubting. I couldn’t help questioning your true feelings, or my own.”

  Her green eyes pleaded with him to understand. He understood, all right. He understood exactly what Trey had done. Soon, he swore, he’d know why.

  “The doubts were awful enough,” Sabrina told him, “but when I called and told him about the baby, he frightened me. Badly.”

  “How?”

  “He said your grandfather would stop at nothing to take my baby.”

  It was close enough to the truth to terrorize anyone, Jack admitted bitterly. Anyone who’d ever picked up a Tulsa newspaper knew that Joseph Wentworth had steamrollered his way to the top in a brutal, backbreaking industry. Once he’d learned about Sabrina and the baby, he would have put all his considerable energies and financial resources into finding her. It was a miracle that Sabrina could bring herself to trust the old man at all.

  He didn’t realize his thoughts showed so plainly on his face until she answered them.

  “I had to turn to your grandfather at the end, Jack. I didn’t have any place else to run. He showed up at the hospital the day Beth was born. At that point, I was ready to give her to him. I would’ve handed her over right then, signed any legal document he put before me, just to keep her safe.”

  “Sabrina...”

  “That’s why we’re here,” she concluded in a rush. “That’s why I haven’t left the grounds since Joseph brought Beth and me here. She’s safe here.”

  For now, Jack thought savagely. He wrapped his hands around her upper arms.

  “Listen to me, Sabrina. Ali and I left Qatar in the middle of the night on his private jet. We had to stop twice to refuel, then flew straight into Tulsa. I wanted to break the news of my return from the grave to my grandfather myself. I was afraid the shock might bring on another stroke if it wasn’t handled right. I also—”

  “You what, Jack?”

  He wouldn’t lie to her, or try to shield her. Not after all she’d been through.

  “I also wanted the home court advantage when word leaked that I was alive.”

  The knowledge that he’d unwittingly led Trey to Sabrina cut into him like a knife. When he realized how little time they had left, the blade twisted. Urgency added a rough edge to his voice.

  “I didn’t know you were here. I didn’t know about the baby. If I had, I wouldn’t have come here. I would’ve flown into D.C. and baited the trap there.”

  She paled. “What trap?”

  “It took me a while, but I figured out who was behind the attacks on me...and on you. I’m still shaky on why, but I’ll know that soon.”

  “What are you planning?” She curled both hands on his shirt. “Oh, God, you’re going to offer yourself as bait, aren’t you?”

  “I’m going to spring a trap. There’s a difference.”

  Her fingers dug into the wrinkled white cotton. “How long do we have before this trap springs?”

  “A few hours. A day at the most. The FAA has probably already notified the State Department that an aircraft belonging to the Royal House of Qatar landed in Tulsa an hour ago. Someone’s going to ask who was aboard damned soon, if they haven’t already. It won’t take long for the information to reach the right desk and the wrong man.”

  “Trey?” she whispered.

  “Trey.”

  His jaw tight, Jack pried her hands loose and speared a glance at the bassinet.

  “Get your things together, yours and Beth’s. I’ll call up to the big house to let my grandfather know that I’m taking you both out of here.”

  “To where?”

  “To my sister’s. Your sister’s. Anywhere but here. McGill knows this is where I’ll come first.”

  He spun around, his mind racing and his chest hammering with the need to protect her and his child.

  “It won’t take more than fifteen minutes to roll out the helo and preflight it. We can decide the safest destination when we’re in the air.”

  Sabrina followed him into the living room and grabbed his arm. He swung back, impatient, worried, coiled tight and hard.

  “I won’t run anymore!” she said fiercely. “And I won’t let you take that bastard on alone.”

  “Dammit, this isn’t the time for heroics. I need you safe. I need the baby safe. Then I need to focus everything I’ve got on McGill.”

  Anger blazed in her eyes, green and searing in its intensity.

  “You can’t shake it, can you, Jack? Whatever it was that pulled you into your shadowy double life still has you in its thrall. You still think you have to go after the bad guys single-handed, guns blazing, like some damned rogue mercenary.”

  When this was over, Jack decided, he’d have to explain the fine distinctions of covert operations. Mercenaries got paid for their work. He’d never been in the game for money. Nor was he in it anymore. Sabrina didn’t give him the chance to say so, however.

  “Now you listen to me, Jack Wentworth. I won’t let you go after the bad guys, single-handed or otherwise. If you’re serious about us, you’re out of the danger business. I lost you once, and I won’t lose you again!”

  Despite the urgency rippling through his body like small electric currents, Jack had to fight a smile. A few moments ago, she’d suggested that they exercise caution. Take it slow. He didn’t read caution in her eyes now. He read anger and determination and a fierce, possessive love that fired his own.

  “I’m not going after McGill,” he told her. “He’ll track me down here, and I’ll be waiting for him.”

  He stilled her protest with a quick, hard kiss.

  “I won’t be waiting alone. I pro
mise you. Now go gather whatever you need for you and the baby and let’s get out of here.”

  Chapter 15

  Edgy and anxious, Jack stood beside Sabrina while she tucked the baby into a plastic carrier with such curves and bends and complicated parts that it looked like something right off the space shuttle. He was so astonished by the amount of materiel and complex logistics involved in transporting one small infant that he almost missed the faint tinkle. It sounded like glass breaking, and it came from the kitchen.

  His every sense kicked into overdrive. Instinctively, he filtered out the sounds of Sabrina’s soft cooing and the crackling fire in the stone hearth. If he hadn’t spent so many months with nothing to do except think and listen to the darkness around him, he might not have picked up the soft, almost inaudible crunch. Cursing himself all over again for flying straight back to Oklahoma instead of confronting McGill in D.C., Jack clapped a hand over Sabrina’s mouth.

  “Take the baby and get out the front door,” he whispered in her ear. “Now!”

  She threw a single, frightened glance at him over her shoulder. Whatever she saw in his face stilled any questions, any argument she might have formed. She snatched up the plastic carrier and headed for the front door. The door had swung open to the night when suddenly she spun around.

  “The Beretta!” she whispered in panic. “It’s in my—Oh!”

  Her gasp spiraled into a small, choked shriek as the swinging door from the kitchen crashed inward against the wall.

  If Jack had been alone at that moment, he would have lunged for the lamp beside the sofa and sent it smashing to the floor, leaving the living room illuminated only by low, leaping flames. He would have used the shadows and his familiarity with the guest house to his advantage. He would have taken down the bastard who stood frozen in the doorway.

  With Sabrina and the baby in the line of fire of Trey McGill’s silenced weapon, he opted instantly for Plan B. Calmly, deliberately, he took two steps sideways and put himself between them and his former partner. His only hope was to buy a few, precious seconds.

  The State Department bureaucrat didn’t try to disguise the hate that spit from his gray eyes. “I thought I’d taken care of you, Wentworth.”

  “You tried.”

  “I didn’t know they’d pulled you out of the sea! All these months, I didn’t know!”

  “Or you would have had them kill me.”

  “Yes!”

  Hate and desperation made McGill’s face a haggard mask. If Jack had passed his former partner on the street, he might not have recognized him. Trey had lost weight in the past months. Not as much as Jack, but enough to give his eyes a hollow, haunted look.

  “I couldn’t believe it when my informant in the consulate called to tell me the prince’s private plane had just taken off...with him and a friend aboard.”

  Jack’s mouth twisted. “So, now we know the source of the leaks.”

  “The knowledge won’t do you any good, Wentworth. Damn you, why couldn’t you just stay dead!” A muscle ticked in his cheek. The hand that held the gun shook.

  That tremor raised the hairs on the back of Jack’s neck. He’d suspected McGill had gone over the edge. When Sabrina added her pieces of the puzzle to his a little while ago, he’d been sure. Now, he saw the physical proof.

  “Get out of here, Sabrina,” he said, keeping his voice flat and calm. “This is between me and McGill.”

  “No! Don’t move! Either of you!”

  “I’m the one you want.” Jack kept Trey’s gaze trained on him. “I’m the one you set up.”

  Get out, Sabrina. Take the baby and run!

  He shouted the order in his mind. Every second, with every breath, he strained to hear a whisper of retreating footsteps. With every ounce of his being, he willed her to use the cover his body provided.

  Get out!

  “You don’t want to hurt her.” He held Trey’s eyes. “You can’t want to hurt an innocent child.”

  “Innocent!”

  The once smooth bureaucrat lost it then. His lips pulled back. His hand shook even more. His words were a snarl, a cry of pain.

  “Who are you to talk about innocence, Wentworth? Heather was innocent, and you killed her. She died in my arms.”

  Jack caught the faint, almost inaudible movement behind him and could have wept with relief. He didn’t turn, didn’t take his eyes from McGill. He had to give Sabrina time to get away, to get the baby to safety. Without seeming to move a muscle, he edged closer to Trey. He was taller, broader than his one-time partner, even with all the pounds he’d shed. He blocked McGill’s view of the room behind his back and spoke faster, louder, to cover Sabrina’s escape.

  “I couldn’t give Heather what she wanted, Trey, and I never promised what I couldn’t give.”

  “No, you couldn’t love her! But I did, Wentworth. I loved her so much I died, too, that night. I swore you’d pay for what you did to her. It took me two years, but I made sure you paid.”

  Jack judged the distance between them. He couldn’t make it, not with the gun pointed at his chest.

  “I thought I’d settled the score when that offshore rig went up in flames,” Trey raved. “You killed Heather, and you died for it. Then there was only one more bit of business to take care of. I had to visit your last victim. I had to convince her that you cared for her, just as you cared for Heather. Destroying her illusions was my last revenge on the late, great Jack Wentworth.” His face twisted. “Until the bitch told me she was pregnant.”

  He jerked to one side, searching the shadows feathering the far side of the room. Jack moved with him, blocking the view, forcing his attention back to him.

  “So, you went after Sabrina?”

  “The knowledge that you’d left her pregnant ate at me. I had to kill her, too, before she could spawn another Wentworth. I knew she was here. I was biding my time to get at her. Then you came back from the dead and forced my hand!”

  “How did you get onto the grounds, Trey? How did you get past security?”

  McGill was soaring now, high on adrenaline and his own cleverness. So high, he didn’t notice Jack edge forward an inch, then another

  “Hey, I’m in the same game you were, remember? I didn’t spend as many years in field as you did, but I know how to bypass a damned security system when I have to.”

  Jack didn’t think so. He’d overseen the installation of the latest modification to this system himself. Alarms had to be flashing in the big house. Someone would be coming to check, would meet Sabrina and the baby on their way across the yard, would shield them.

  Time had just about run out for Trey McGill.

  He didn’t realize it, though. His pale gray eyes now blazed with the blood lust of a predator who’d cornered a wounded prey at last.

  “I don’t know how you returned from the dead like some damned ghoul, and right now I don’t care. This time, I’ll make sure you die.”

  “McGill...”

  “I’m going to shoot the woman first, then the brat. You can watch them both die. I only hope to hell you suffer as much as I suffered before I kill you, too.”

  Deliberately, he stepped to the side and swung the gun toward the shadows. Jack knew he wouldn’t get another chance. He launched himself through the air.

  A pop sounded right beside his ear.

  He saw a streak of red fire.

  Someone screamed.

  Not McGill, he realized in an instant of sheer panic. Oh, God! Not McGill!

  Jack crashed into the other man with the echo of that scream knifing into his gut. His fists closed on McGill’s wrist. He jerked Trey’s arm upward just as the silenced weapon spit another tongue of fire. Slammed his arm down with everything in him. Heard the crunch of bone against hard, unyielding wood.

  Months of deprivation had taken their toll. Before he went to Qatar, Jack could have wrestled the gun out of Trey’s hand in two seconds flat and crushed his windpipe with a single, hard-edged chop. Now he gritted his tee
th and rolled across the floor, grappling with the flailing, fighting, desperate man.

  Suddenly, another shot exploded, deafening him. Jack felt McGill jerk under him. His ears ringing, he tore the gun from the writhing man’s grasp. With complete disregard for the red stain blossoming on McGill’s left shoulder, he crashed his fist into the bastard’s jaw. McGill jerked again, then lay still.

  Panting, Jack got one foot under him and pushed himself up.

  “Jack!”

  She was safe! The message hammered into his brain at the same instant Sabrina dropped the Beretta onto the sofa. Sobbing, shaking, she fell to her knees beside him.

  “Are you all right?” Her hands frantic, she patted his chest, his face, his shoulders. “Are you hurt? Were you hit?”

  He caught her hands in a hard grip. “I’m okay. What about you? Where’s the baby?”

  “She’s outside,” Sabrina panted. “I had to get her out of the line of fire, but I couldn’t leave you, Jack. I couldn’t lose you a second time. I couldn’t run away again.”

  He swallowed twice, forcing down a lethal combination of cold fear and hot anger at the risks she’d taken.

  She speared a glance at the unmoving McGill.

  “Is he dead?”

  “Not unless a shoulder wound and a fist to the chin prove fatal.”

  Reluctant relief and fierce disappointment battled on her face for a moment. Relief won out. She was a fighter, Jack acknowledged with silent admiration, but no killer. He pushed to his feet, bringing Sabrina with him.

  “Go get the baby. I’ll take care of McGill.”

  She’d just retrieved the fretting baby and was trying to soothe her when the sound of running footsteps brought her head up with a jerk.

  “Oh, God!”

  Jack dived for the Beretta. His instincts told him Trey had hunted his prey alone, but he’d gone well beyond taking any chances.

  “Cover the baby!”

  Sabrina. flew across the living room and snatched up the baby’s carrier, startling a mewling cry out of the infant. She barely had time to throw herself behind a bend of the wall before the front door burst open.