Mercenary's Woman (3 page)

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MERCENARY'S
WOMAN

fidant of his wanted to give me information,
names and documents that would warrant arresting Lopez on charges of drug
trafficking. But I wasn't careful enough. I overlooked one little thing, and
Lopez's attorneys used it in a petition for a retrial. They got him out. He's
on the loose
pending retrial and out for vengeance against his comrade.
He'll do anything to
get the name of the person who sold
him out. Anything at all."

Sally let her breath
out through pursed lips. "So we're
all under the gun."

"Exactly. I used
to be a crack shot, but without my vision, I'm useless. Eb will have a plan by
tomorrow."
Her face was solemn as she stared in the general direction
of her niece's voice.
"Listen to him, Sally. Do exactly
what he says. He's our only hope of protecting
Stevie."

"I'll do anything
I have to, to protect you and Stevie,"
Sally agreed at once.

"I knew you would."

She toyed with her
nails again. "Jess, has Ebenezer ever
been serious about anyone?"

"Yes. There was a
woman in Houston, in fact, several
years ago. He cared for her very much, but she
dropped
him
flat when she found out what he did for a living. She married a much-older bank
executive." She shifted on the
bed. "I hear that she's widowed now. But
I don't imagine
he still has
any feelings for her. After all, she dropped him,
not the reverse."

Sally, who knew
something about helpless unrequited
love, wasn't so quick to agree. After all,
she still had secret
feelings for Ebenezer..,

"Deep thoughts, dear?" Jessica asked softly.

"I was
remembering the reruns we used to see of that
old TV series,
The A-Team,"
she
recalled with an audible

DIANA
PALMER

laugh. "I loved it when they had to knock out that character Mr. T
played to get him on an airplane."

"It was a good
show. Not lifelike, of course," Jessica
added.

"What part?"

"All of it."

Jessica would
probably know, Sally figured. "Why
didn't you ever tell me what you did for a
living?"

"Need to
know," came the dry reply. "You didn't, until
now."

"If you knew
Ebenezer when he was still working as a mercenary, I guess you learned a lot
about the business,"
she
ventured.

Jessica's face closed
up. "I learned too much," she said
coldly. "Far too much. Men like
that are incapable of last
ing relationships. They don't know the meaning of love or
fidelity."

She seemed to know
that, and Sally wondered how.
"Was Uncle Hank a mercenary, too?"

"Yes, just
briefly," she said. "Hank was never one to rush in and risk killing
himself. It was so ironic that he died overseas in his sleep, of a heart
condition nobody even knew he had."

That was a surprise, along with all the
others that Jessica
was getting. Uncle Hank
had been very handsome, but not assertive or particularly tough.

"But Ebenezer said he served with Uncle Hank."

"Yes. In basic
training, before they joined the Green
Berets," Jessica said. "Hank didn't
pass the training
course.
Ebenezer did. In fact," she added amusedly, "he
was able to do the Fan Dance."

"Fan Dance?"

"It's a
specialized course they put the British commandos, the Special Air Service,
guys through. Not many sol-

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MERCENARY'S
WOMAN

DIANA PALMER

23

diers, even career soldiers, are able to
finish it, much less
able to pass it on the first try. Eb did. He was briefly
'loaned' to them while he was in army
intelligence, for some top secret assignment."

Sally had never
thought very much about Ebenezer's profession, except that she'd guessed he was
once in the
military. She wasn't sure how she felt about it A man
who'd been in the military might still
have a soft spot or
two inside. She was
almost certain that a commando, a
soldier
for hire, wouldn't have any.

"You're very quiet," Jessica said.

"I never
thought of Ebenezer in such a profession," she
replied, moving to
look out the window at the November
landscape. "I guess it was right there in
front of me, and
I didn't see it. No wonder he kept to himself."

"He still
does," she replied. "And only a few people
know about his past. His men do, of
course," she added,
and there was an
inflection in her tone that was suddenly
different.

"Do you know any of his men?"

Jessica's face tautened. "One or two.
I believe Dallas
Kirk still works for him.
And Micah Steele does consulting
work
when Eb asks him to," she added and smiled. "Mi-
cah's a good guy. He's the only one of Eb's old
colleagues who still works in the trade. He lives in Nassau, but he
spends
an occasional week helping Ebenezer train men
when
he's needed."

"And Dallas Kirk?"

Jessica's soft face
went very hard. At her side, one of
her small hands clenched. "Dallas was badly wounded in
a firefight a year ago. He came home shot to
pieces and
Eb found something for
him to teach in the tactics courses.
He
doesn't speak to me, of course. We had a difficult part
ing some years ago."

That was intriguing,
and Sally was going to find out
about it one day. But she didn't press her
luck. "How
about fajitas for supper?" she asked.

Jessica's glower
dissolved into a smile. "Sounds
lovely!"

"I'll get right
on them." Sally went back into the
kitchen, her head spinning with the things
she'd learned about people she thought she knew. Life, she considered, was
always full of surprises.

DIANA PALMER

Chapter Two

Ebenezer was a man of his word. He
showed up early
the next
morning as Sally was out by the corral fence watching her two beef cattle
graze. She'd bought them to
raise with the
idea of stocking her freezer. Now they had
names. The white-faced Black Angus mixed steer was
called Bob, the white-faced red-coated Hereford
she called
Andy. They were pets. She
couldn't face the thought of
sitting
down to a plate of either one of them.

The familiar black
pickup stopped at the fence and Ebe
nezer got out. He was wearing jeans and a
blue checked
shirt with boots and a light-colored straw Stetson. No
chaps, so he wasn't
working cattle today.

He joined Sally at the
fence. "Don't tell me. They're
table beef."

She spared him a resentful glance. "Right."

"And you're going to put them in the freezer."

She swallowed. "Sure."

He only chuckled. He paused to light a
cigar, with one

big booted foot propped on the lower rung of the fence.
"What are their names?"

"That's Andy and that's...Bob." She flushed.

He didn't say a
word, but his raised eyebrow was elo
quent through the haze of expelled smoke.

"They're watch-cattle," she improvised.

His eyes twinkled. "I beg your pardon?"

"They're attack steers," she
said with a reluctant grin.
"At the
first sign of trouble, they'll come right through
the fence to protect me. Of course, if they get
shot in the
line of duty," she
added, "I'll eat them!"

He pushed his Stetson
back over clean blond-streaked
brown hair and looked down at her with lingering amuse
ment. "You haven't
changed much in six years."

"Neither have
you," she retorted shyly. "You're still
smoking those awful things."

He glanced at the big
cigar and shrugged. "A man has to have a vice or two to round him
out," he pointed out.
"Besides, I only have the occasional one, and never
inside.
I
have read the studies on smoking," he added dryly.

"Lots of people who smoke read those
studies," she
agreed. "And then
they quit!"

He smiled. "You
can't reform me," he told her. "It's
a waste of time to try. I'm
thirty-six and very set in my
ways."

"I noticed."

He took a puff from
the cigar and studied her steers. "I
suppose they follow you around like
dogs."

"When I go inside
the fence with them," she agreed. She felt odd with him; safe and nervous
and excited, all at once. She could smell the fresh scent of the soap he
used, and over it a
whiff of expensive cologne. He was
close at her side, muscular and vibrating
with sensuality.
She wanted to move closer, to feel that strength all around

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MERCENARY'S WOMAN

DIANA PALMER

27

her. It made her self-conscious.
After six years, surely the
attraction
should have lessened a little.

He glanced down at
her, noticing how she picked at her
cuticles and nibbled on her lower lip. His
green eyes nar
rowed and there was a faint glitter in them.

She felt the heat of
his gaze and refused to lift her face.
She wondered if it looked as hot as it felt.

"You haven't forgotten a thing," he said suddenly, the
cigar in his hand
absently falling to his side, whirls of
smoke climbing into the air beside him.
"About what?" she choked.

He caught her long, blond ponytail and
tugged her
closer, so that she was standing right up against him. The
scent of him, the
heat of him, the muscular ripple of his
body combined to make her shiver with
repressed feelings.
He shifted, coaxing her into the curve of his body, his
eyes catching hers
and holding them relentlessly. He could feel her faint trembling, hear the
excited whip of her breath
as she tried valiantly to hide it from him. But he could
see
her heartbeat jerking the
fabric over her small breasts.

It was a relief to find her as helplessly
attracted to him
as she once had been. It
made him arrogant with pride. He let go of the ponytail and drew his hand
against her cheek,
letting his thumb
slide down to her mouth and over her chin to lift her eyes to his.

"To everything, there is a
season," he said quietly.
She felt the impact of his steady, unblinking gaze in
the
most
secret places of her body. She didn't have the experience to hide it, to
protect herself. She only stood star
ing up at him, with all her insecurities and
fears lying
naked in her soft
gray eyes.

His head bent and he drew his nose against
hers in the
sudden silence of the yard. His
smoky breath whispered

over her lips as he murmured, "Six years
is a long time
to go hungry."

She didn't understand
what he was saying. Her eyes
were on his hard, long, thin mouth. Her hands had
flattened
against
his broad chest. Under it she could feel thick, soft hair and the beat of his
heart. His breath smelled of cigar
smoke and when his mouth gently covered
hers, she wondered if she was going to faint with the unexpected delight
of it. It had been so
long!

He felt her
immediate, helpless submission. His free arm
went around her shoulders and drew her
lazily against his
muscular
body while his hard mouth moved lightly over
her
lips, tasting her, assessing her experience. His mouth became insistent and she
stiffened a little, unused to the
tender probing of his tongue against
her teeth.

She felt his smile before he lifted his head.

"You still taste of lemonade and
cotton candy," he
murmured with
unconcealed pleasure.

"What do you mean?" she
murmured, mesmerized by the hovering threat of his mouth.

"I mean, you
still don't know how to do this." He
searched her eyes quietly and then the smile
left his face.
"I did more damage than I ever meant to. You were sev
enteen. I had to hurt
you to save you," He traced her
mouth with his thumb and scowled down at her.
"You
don't
know what my life was like in those days," he said
solemnly, and for
once his eyes were unguarded. The pain
in them was visible for the first time Sally
could remember.

"Aunt Jessica told me," she said slowly.

His eyes darkened. His face hardened. "All of it?"

She nodded.

He was still scowling. He released her to
gaze off into
the distance, absently lifting
the cigar to his mouth. He