A fan-favorite contemporary romance from New York Times bestselling author Diana Palmer

“Retired” soldier of fortune Ebenezer Scott was a bad boy to the core. Schoolteacher Sally Johnson was the fresh scrubbed beauty from across the street. When Sally’s life was put in danger, Ebenezer fought to protect her. But this sweet-natured beauty yearned for so much more. She dreamed of a lifetime of love in Ebenezer Scott’s big, strong arms. Could she slip through his ironclad defenses and become this beloved mercenary’s bride?

Previously published.

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Mercenary’s Woman
Diana Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

Cover

Back Cover Text

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

EBENEZER SCOTT STOOD beside his double-wheeled black pickup truck and stared openly at the young woman across the street while she fiddled under the hood of a dented, rusted hulk of a vehicle. Sally Johnson’s long blond hair was in a ponytail. She was wearing jeans and boots and no hat. He smiled to himself, remembering how many times in the old days he’d chided her about sunstroke. It had been six years since they’d even spoken. She’d been living in Houston until July, when she and her blind aunt and small cousin had moved back, into the decaying old Johnson homestead. He’d seen her several times since her return, but she’d made a point of not speaking to him. He couldn’t really blame her. He’d left her with some painful emotional scars.

She was slender, but her trim figure still made his heartbeat jump. He knew how she looked under that loose blouse. His eyes narrowed with heat as he recalled the shocked pleasure in her pale gray eyes when he’d touched her, kissed her, in those forbidden places. He’d meant to frighten her so that she’d stop teasing him, but his impulsive attempt to discourage her had succeeded all too well. She’d run from him then, and she’d kept running. She was twenty-three now, a woman; probably an experienced woman. He mourned for what might have been if she’d been older and he hadn’t just come back from leading a company of men into the worst bloodbath of his career. A professional soldier of fortune was no match for a young and very innocent girl. But, then, she hadn’t known about his real life—the one behind the facade of cattle ranching. Not many people in this small town did.

It was six years later. She was all grown-up, a schoolteacher here in Jacobsville, Texas. He was…retired, they called it. Actually he was still on the firing line from time to time, but mostly he taught other men in the specialized tactics of covert operations on his ranch. Not that he shared that information. He still had enemies from the old days, and one of them had just been sprung from prison on a technicality—a man out for revenge and with more than enough money to obtain it.

Sally had been almost eighteen the spring day he’d sent her running from him. In a life liberally strewn with regrets, she was his biggest one. The whole situation had been impossible, of course. But he’d never meant to hurt her, and the thought of her sat heavily on his conscience.

He wondered if she knew why he kept to himself and never got involved with the locals. His ranch was a model of sophistication, from its state-of-the-art gym to the small herd of purebred Santa Gertrudis breeding cattle he raised. His men were not only loyal, but tightlipped. Like another Jacobsville, Texas, resident—Cy Parks—Ebenezer was a recluse. The two men shared more than a taste for privacy. But that was something they kept to themselves.

Meanwhile, Sally Johnson was rapidly losing patience with her vehicle. He watched her push at a strand of hair that had escaped from the long ponytail. She kept a beef steer or two herself. It must be a frugal existence for her, supporting not only herself, but her recently blinded aunt, and her six-year-old cousin as well.

He admired her sense of responsibility, even as he felt concern for her situation. She had no idea why her aunt had been blinded in the first place, or that the whole family was in a great deal of danger. It was why Jessica had persuaded Sally to give up her first teaching job in Houston in June and come home with her and Stevie to Jacobsville. It was because they’d be near Ebenezer, and Jessica knew he’d protect them. Sally had never been told what Jessica’s profession actually was, any more than she knew what Jessica’s late husband, Hank Myers, had once done for a living. But even if she had known, wild horses wouldn’t have dragged Sally back here if Jessica hadn’t pleaded with her, he mused bitterly. Sally had every reason in the world to hate him. But he was her best hope of survival. And she didn’t even know it.

In the five months she’d been back in Jacobsville, Sally had managed to avoid Ebenezer. In a town this size, that had been an accomplishment. Inevitably they met from time to time. But Sally avoided eye contact with him. It was the only indication of the painful memory they both shared.

He watched her lean helplessly over the dented fender of the old truck and decided that now was as good a time as any to approach her.

Sally lifted her head just in time to see the tall, lean man in the shepherd’s coat and tan Stetson make his way across the street to her. He hadn’t changed, she thought bitterly. He still walked with elegance and a slow, arrogance of carriage that seemed somehow foreign. Jeans didn’t disguise the muscles in those long, powerful legs as he moved. She hated the ripple of sensation that lifted her heart at his approach. Surely she was over hero worship and infatuation, at her age, especially after what he’d done to her that long-ago spring day. She blushed just remembering it!

He paused at the truck, about an arm’s length away from her, pushed his Stetson back over his thick blond-streaked brown hair and impaled her with green eyes.

She was immediately hostile and it showed in the tautening of her features as she looked up, way up, at him.

He raised an eyebrow and studied her flushed face. “Don’t give me the evil eye,” he said. “I’d have thought you had sense enough not to buy a truck from Turkey Sanders.”

“He’s my cousin,” she reminded him.

“He’s the Black Plague with car keys,” he countered. “The Hart boys wiped the floor with him not too many years back. He sold Corrigan Hart’s future wife a car that fell apart when she drove it off the lot. She was lucky at that,” he added with a wicked grin. “He sold old lady Bates a car and told her the engine was optional equipment.”

She laughed in spite of herself. “It’s not a bad old truck,” she countered. “It just needs a few things…”

He glanced at the rear tire and nodded. “Yes. An overhauled engine, a paint job, reupholstered seats, a tailgate that works. And a rear tire that isn’t bald.” He pointed toward it. “Get that replaced,” he said shortly. “You can afford a tire even on what you make teaching.”

She gaped at him. “Listen here, Mr. Scott…” she began haughtily.

“You know my name, Sally,” he said bluntly, and his eyes were steady, intimidating. “As for the tire, it isn’t a request,” he replied flatly, staring her down. “You’ve got some new neighbors out your way that I don’t like the look of. You can’t afford a breakdown in the middle of the night on that lonely stretch of road.”

She drew herself up to her full height, so that the top of her head came to his chin. He really was ridiculously tall…

“This is the twenty-first century, and women are capable of looking after themselves….” she said heatedly.

“I can do without a current events lecture,” he cut her off again, moving to peer under the hood. He propped one enormous booted foot on the fender and studied the engine, frowned, pulled out a pocketknife and went to work.

“It’s my truck!” she fumed, throwing up her hands in exasperation.

“It’s half a ton of metal without an engine that works.”

She grimaced. She hated not being able to fix it herself, to have to depend on this man, of all people, for help. She wouldn’t let herself think about the cost of having a mechanic make a road service call to get the stupid thing started. Looking at his lean, capable hands brought back painful memories as well. She knew the tenderness of them on concealed skin, and her whole body erupted with sensation.

Less than two minutes later, he repocketed his knife. “Try it now,” he said.

She got in behind the wheel. The engine turned noisily, pouring black smoke out of the tailpipe.

He paused beside the open window of the truck, his pale green eyes piercing her face. “Bad rings and valves,” he pointed out. “Maybe an oil leak. Either way, you’re in for some major repairs. Next time, don’t buy from Turkey Sanders, and I don’t give a damn if he is a relative.”

“Don’t you give me orders,” she said haughtily.

That eyebrow lifted again. “Habit. How’s Jess?”

She frowned. “Do you know my aunt Jessie?”

“Quite well,” he said. “I knew your uncle Hank. He and I served together.”

“In the military?”

He didn’t answer her. “Do you have a gun?”

She was so confused that she stammered. “Wh…what?”

“A gun,” he repeated. “Do you have any sort of weapon and can you use it?”

“I don’t like guns,” she said flatly. “Anyway, I won’t have one in the house with a six-year-old child, so it’s no use telling me to buy one.”

He was thinking. His face tautened. “How about self-defense?”

“I teach second grade,” she pointed out. “Most of my students don’t attack me.”

“I’m not worried about you at school. I told you, I don’t like the look of your neighbors.” He wasn’t adding that he knew who they were and why they were in town.

“Neither do I,” she admitted. “But it’s none of your business…”

“It is,” he returned. “I promised Hank that I’d take care of Jess if he ever bought it overseas. I keep my promises.”

“I can take care of my aunt.”

“Not anymore you can’t,” he returned, unabashed. “I’m coming over tomorrow.”

“I may not be home…”

“Jess will be. Besides, tomorrow is Saturday,” he said. “You came in for supplies this afternoon and you don’t teach on the weekend. You’ll be home.” His tone said she’d better be.

She gave an exasperated sound. “Mr. Scott…”

“I’m only Mr. Scott to my enemies,” he pointed out.

“Yes, well, Mr. Scott…”

He let out an angry sigh and stared her down. “You were so young,” he bit off. “What did you expect me to do, seduce you in the cab of a pickup truck in broad daylight?”

She flushed red as a rose petal. “I wasn’t talking about that!”

“It’s still in your eyes,” he told her quietly. “I’d rather have done it in a way that hadn’t left so many scars, but I had to discourage you. The whole damned thing was impossible, you must have realized that by now!”

She hated the embarrassment she felt. “I don’t have scars!”

“You do.” He studied her oval face, her softly rounded chin, her perfect mouth. “I’ll be over tomorrow. I need to talk to you and Jess. There have been some developments that she doesn’t know about.”

“What sort of developments?”

He closed the hood of the truck and paused by her window. “Drive carefully,” he said, ignoring the question. “And get that tire changed.”

“I am not a charity case,” she said curtly. “I don’t take orders. And I definitely do not need some big, strong man to take care of me!”

He smiled, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile. He turned on his heel and walked back to his own truck with a stride that was peculiarly his own.

Sally was so shaken that she barely managed to get the truck out of town without stripping the gears out of it.

* * *

JESSICA MYERS WAS IN HER BEDROOM listening to the radio and her son, Stevie, was watching a children’s after-school television program when Sally came in. She unloaded the supplies first with the help of her six-year-old cousin.

“You got me that cereal from the TV commercial!” he exclaimed, diving into bags as she put the perishable items into the refrigerator. “Thanks, Aunt Sally!” Although they were cousins, he referred to her as his aunt out of affection and respect.

“You’re very welcome. I got some ice cream, too.”

“Wow! Can I have some now?”

Sally laughed. “Not until after supper, and you have to eat some of everything I fix. Okay?”

“Aw. Okay, I guess,” he muttered, clearly disappointed.

She bent and kissed him between his dark eyes. “That’s my good boy. Here, I brought some nice apples and pears. Wash one off and eat it. Fruit is good for you.”

“Okay. But it’s not as nice as ice cream.”

He washed off a pear and carried it into the living room on a paper towel to watch television.

Sally went into Jessica’s bedroom, hesitating at the foot of the big four-poster bed. Jessica was slight, blond and hazel-eyed. Her eyes stared at nothing, but she smiled as she recognized Sally’s step.

“I heard the truck,” she said. “I’m sorry you had to go to town for supplies after working all day and bringing Stevie home first.”

“I never mind shopping,” Sally said with genuine affection. “You doing all right?”

Jessica shifted on the pillows. She was dressed in sweats, but she looked bad. “I still have some pain from the wreck. I’ve taken a couple of aspirins for my hip. I thought I’d lie down and give them a chance to work.”

Sally came in and sat down in the wing chair beside the bed. “Jess, Ebenezer Scott asked about you and said he was coming over tomorrow to see you.”

Jessica didn’t seem at all surprised. She only nodded. “I thought he might,” Jessica said quietly. “I had a call from a former colleague about what’s going on. I’m afraid I may have landed you in some major trouble, Sally.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Didn’t you wonder why I insisted on moving down here so suddenly?”

“Now that you mention it—”

“It was because Ebenezer is here, and we’re safer than we would be in Houston.”

“Now you’re scaring me.”

Jessica smiled sadly. “I wouldn’t have had this happen for the world. It isn’t something that comes up, usually. But these are odd circumstances. A man I helped put in prison is out pending retrial, and he’s coming after me.”

“You…helped put a man in prison? How?” Sally asked, perplexed.

“You knew that I worked for a government agency?”

“Well, of course. As a clerk.”

Jessica took a deep breath. “No, dear. Not as a clerk.” She took a deep breath. “I was a special agent for an agency we don’t mention publicly. Through Eb and his contacts, I managed to find one of the confidants of drug lord Manuel Lopez, who was head of an international drug cartel. I was given enough hard evidence to send Lopez to prison for drug dealing. I even had copies of his ledgers. But there was one small loophole in the chain of evidence, and the drug lord’s attorneys jumped on it. Lopez is now out of prison and he wants the person responsible for helping me put him away. Since I’m the only one who knows the person’s identity, I’m the one he’ll be coming after.”

Sally just sat there, dumbfounded. Things like this only happened in movies. They certainly didn’t happen in real life. Her beloved aunt surely wasn’t involved in espionage!

“You’re kidding, right?” Sally asked hopefully.

Jessica shook her head slowly. She was still an attractive woman, in her middle thirties. She was slender and she had a sweet face. Stevie, blond and dark-eyed, didn’t favor her. Of course, he didn’t favor his father, either. Hank had had black hair and light blue eyes.

“I’m sorry, dear,” Jessica said heavily. “I’m not kidding. I’m not able to protect myself or you and Stevie anymore, so I had to come home for help. Ebenezer will keep us safe until we can get the drug lord back on ice.”

“Is Ebenezer a government agent?” Sally asked, astounded.

“No.” Jessica took a deep breath. “I don’t like telling you this, and he won’t like it, either. It’s deeply private. You must swear not to tell another soul.”

“I swear.” She sat patiently, almost vibrating with curiosity.

“Eb was a professional mercenary,” she said. “What they used to call a soldier of fortune. He’s led groups of highly trained men in covert operations all over the world. He’s retired from that now, but he’s still much in demand with our government and foreign governments as a training instructor. His ranch is well-known in covert circles as an academy of tactics and intelligence-gathering.”

Sally didn’t say a word. She was absolutely speechless. No wonder Ebenezer had been so secretive, so reluctant to let her get close to him. She remembered the tiny white scars on his lean, tanned face, and knew instinctively that there would be more of them under his clothing. No wonder he kept to himself!

“I hope I haven’t shattered any illusions, Sally,” her aunt said worriedly. “I know how you felt about him.”

Sally gaped at her. “You…know?”

Jessica nodded. “Eb told me about that, and about what happened just before you came to live with Hank and me in Houston.”

Her face flamed. The shame! She felt sick with humiliation that Ebenezer had known how she felt all the time, and she thought she was doing such a good job of hiding it! She should have realized that it was obvious, when she found excuse after excuse to waylay him in town, when she brazenly climbed into his pickup truck one lovely spring afternoon and pleaded to be taken for a ride. He’d given in to that request, to her surprise. But barely half an hour later, she’d erupted from the passenger seat and run almost all the half-mile down the road to her home. Too ashamed to let anyone see the state she was in, she’d sneaked in the back door and gone straight to her room. She’d never told her parents or anyone else what had happened. Now she wondered if Jessica knew that, too.

“He didn’t divulge any secrets, if that’s why you’re so quiet, Sally,” the older woman said gently. “He only said that you had a king-size crush on him and he’d shot you down. He was pretty upset.”

That was news. “I wouldn’t ever have guessed that he could be upset.”

“Neither would I,” Jessica said with a smile. “It came as something of a surprise. He told me to keep an eye on you, and check out who you went out with. He could have saved himself the trouble, of course, since you never went out with anyone. He was bitter about that.”

Sally averted her face to the window. “He frightened me.”

“He knew that. It’s why he was bitter.”

Sally drew in a steadying breath. “I was very young,” she said finally, “and I suppose he did the only thing he could. But I was leaving Jacobsville anyway, when my parents divorced. I only had a week of school before graduation before I went to live with you. He didn’t have to go to such lengths.”

“My brother still feels like an idiot for the way he behaved with that college girl he left your mother for,” Jessica said curtly, meaning Sally’s father, who was Jessica’s only living relative besides Sally. “It didn’t help that your mother remarried barely six months later. He was stuck with Beverly the Beauty.”

“How are my parents?” Sally asked. It was the first time she’d mentioned either of her parents in a long while, She’d lost touch with them since the divorce that had shattered her life.

“Your father spends most of his time at work while Beverly goes the party route every night and spends every penny he makes. Your mother is separated from her second husband and living in Nassau.” Jessica shifted on the bed. “You don’t ever hear from your parents, do you?”

“I don’t resent them as much as I did. But I never felt that they loved me,” she said abruptly. “That’s why I felt it was better we went our separate ways.”

“They were children when they married and had you,” the other woman said. “Not really mature enough for the responsibility. They resented it, too. That’s why you spent so much time with me during the first five years you were alive.” Jessica smiled. “I hated it when you went back home.”

“Why did you and Hank wait so long to have a child of your own?” Sally asked.

Jessica flushed. “It wasn’t…convenient, with Hank overseas so much. Did you get that tire replaced?” she added, almost as if she were desperate to change the subject.

“You and Mr. Scott!” Sally exploded, diverted. “How did you know it was bald?”

“Because Eb phoned me before you got home and told me to remind you to get it replaced,” Jessica chuckled.

“I suppose he has a cell phone in his truck.”

“Among other things,” Jessica replied with a smile. “He isn’t like the men you knew in college or even when you started teaching. Eb is an alpha male,” she said quietly. “He isn’t politically correct, and he doesn’t even pretend to conform. In some ways, he’s very old-fashioned.”

“I don’t feel that way about him anymore,” Sally said firmly.

“I’m sorry,” Jessica replied gently. “He’s been alone most of his life. He needs to be loved.”

Sally picked at a cuticle, chipping the clear varnish on her short, neat fingernails. “Does he have family?”

“Not anymore. His mother died when he was very young, and his father was career military. He grew up in the army, you might say. His father was not a gentle sort of man. He died in combat when Eb was in his twenties. There wasn’t any other family.”

“You said once that you always saw Ebenezer with beautiful women at social events,” Sally recalled with a touch of envy.

“He pays for dressing, and he attracts women. But he’s careful about his infrequent liaisons. He told me once that he guessed he’d never find a woman who could share the life he leads. He still has enemies who’d like to see him dead,” she added.

“Like this drug lord?”

“Yes. Manuel Lopez is a law unto himself. He has millions, and he owns politicians, law enforcement people, even judges,” Jessica said irritably. “That’s why we were never able to shut him down. Then I was told that a confidant 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 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 lasting 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 soldiers, 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. “Micah’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 parting 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.

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 Ebenezer 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 eloquent 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 amusement. “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 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 narrowed 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 staring 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 seventeen. 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 blew out a cloud of smoke. “I’m not sure that I wanted you to know.”

“Secrets are dangerous.”

He glanced down at her, brooding. “More dangerous than you realize. I’ve kept mine for a long time, like your aunt.”

“I had no idea what she did for a living, either.” She glared up at him. “Thanks to the two of you, now I know how a mushroom feels, sitting in the dark.”

He chuckled. “She wanted it that way. She felt you’d be safer if she kept you uninvolved.”

She wanted to ask him about what Jessica had told her, that he’d phoned her about Sally before the painful move to Houston. But she didn’t quite know how. She was shy with him.

He looked down at her again, his eyes intent on her softly flushed cheeks, her swollen mouth, her bright eyes. She lifted his heart. Just the sight of her made him feel welcome, comforted, cared for. He’d missed that. In all his life, Sally had been the first and only person who could thwart his black moods. She made him feel as if he belonged somewhere after a life of wandering. Even during the time she was in Houston, he kept in touch with Jessica, to get news of Sally, of where she was, what she was doing, of her plans. He’d always expected that she’d come back to him one day, or that he’d go to her, despite the way they’d parted. Love, if it existed, was surely a powerful force, immune to harsh words and distance. And time.

Sally’s face was watchful, her eyes brimming over with excitement. She couldn’t hide what she was feeling, and he loved being able to see it. Her hero worship had first irritated and then elated him. Women had wanted him since his teens, although some loved him for the danger that clung to him. One had rejected him because of it and savaged his pride. But, even so, it was Sally who made him ache inside.

He touched her soft mouth with his fingers, liking the faint swell where he’d kissed it so thoroughly. “We’ll have to practice more,” he murmured wickedly.

She opened her mouth to protest that assumption when a laughing Stevie came running out the door like a little blond whirlwind, only to be caught up abruptly in Ebenezer’s hard arms and lifted.

“Uncle Eb!” he cried, laughing delightedly, making Sally realize that if she hadn’t been around Ebenezer since their move from Houston, Jessica and Stevie certainly had.

“Hello, tiger,” came the deep, pleasant reply. He put the boy back down on his feet. “Want to go to my place with Sally and learn karate?”

“Like the ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ in the movies? Radical!” he exclaimed.

“Karate?” Sally asked, hesitating.

“Just a few moves, and only for self-defense,” he assured her. “You’ll enjoy it. It’s necessary,” he added when she seemed to hesitate.

“Okay,” she capitulated.

He led the way back into the house to where Jessica was sitting in the living room, listening to the news on the television.

“All this mess in the Balkans,” she said sadly. “Just when we think we’ve got peace, everything erupts all over again. Those poor people!”

“Fortunes of war,” Eb said with a smile. “How’s it going, Jess?”

“I can’t complain, I guess, except that they won’t let me drive anymore,” she said, tongue-in-cheek.

“Wait until they get that virtual reality vision perfected,” he said easily. “You’ll be able to do anything.”

“Optimist,” she said, grinning.

“Always. I’m taking these two over to the ranch for a little course in elementary self-defense,” he added quietly.

“Good idea,” Jessica said at once.

“I don’t like leaving you here alone,” Sally ventured, remembering what she’d been told about the danger.

“She won’t be,” Eb replied. He looked at Jessica and one eye narrowed before he added, “I’m sending Dallas Kirk over to keep her company.”

“No!” Jessica said furiously. She actually stood up, vibrating. “No, Eb! I don’t want him within a mile of me! I’d rather be shot to pieces!”

“This isn’t multiple choice,” came a deep, drawling voice from the general direction of the hall.

As Sally turned from Jessica’s white face, a slender blond man with dark eyes came into the room. He walked with the help of a fancy-looking cane. He was dressed like Eb, in casual clothes, khaki slacks and a bush jacket. He looked like something right out of Africa.

“This is Dallas Kirk,” Eb introduced him to Sally. “He was born in Texas. His real name is Jon, but we’ve always called him Dallas. This is Sally Johnson,” he told the blond man.

Dallas nodded. “Nice to meet you,” he said formally.

“You know Jess,” Eb added.

“Yes. I…know her,” he said with the faintest emphasis in that lazy Western drawl, during which Jess’s face went from white to scarlet and she averted her eyes.

“Surely you can get along for an hour,” Eb said impatiently. “I really can’t leave you here by yourself, Jess.”

Dallas glared at her. “Mind telling me why?” he asked Eb. “She’s a better shot than I am.”

Jessica stood rigidly by her chair. “He doesn’t know?” she asked Eb.

Eb’s face was rigid. “He wouldn’t talk about you, and the subject didn’t come up until he was away on assignment. No. He doesn’t know.”

“Know what?” Dallas demanded.

Jessica’s chin lifted. “I’m blind,” she said matter-of-factly, almost with satisfaction, as if she knew it would hurt him.

The look on the newcomer’s face was a revelation. Sally only wished she knew of what. He shifted as if he’d sustained a physical blow. He walked slowly up to her and waved a hand in front of her face.

“Blind!” he said huskily. “For how long?”

“Six months,” she said, feeling for the arms of the chair. She sat back down a little clumsily. “I was in a wreck. An accident,” she added abruptly.

“It was no accident,” Eb countered coldly. “She was run off the road by two of Lopez’s men. They got away before the police came.”

Sally gasped. This was a new explanation. She’d just heard about the wreck—not about the cause of it. Dallas’s hand on the cane went white from the pressure he was exerting on it. “What about Stevie?” he asked coldly. “Is he all right? Was he injured?”

“He wasn’t with me at the time. And he’s fine. Sally lives with us and helps take care of him,” Jess replied, her voice unusually tense. “We share the chores. She’s my niece,” she added abruptly, almost as if to warn him of something.

Dallas looked preoccupied. But when Stevie came running back into the room, he turned abruptly and his eyes widened as he stared at the little boy.

“I’m ready!” Stevie announced, holding out his arms to show the gray sweats he was wearing. His dark eyes were shimmering with joy. “This is how they look on television when they practice. Is it okay?”

“It’s fine,” Eb replied with a smile.

“Who’s he?” Stevie asked, big-eyed, as he looked at the blond man with the cane who was staring at him, as if mesmerized.

“That’s Dallas,” Eb said easily. “He works for me.”

“Hi,” Stevie said, naturally outgoing. He stared at the cane. “I guess you’re from Texas with a name like that, huh? I’m sorry about your leg, Mr. Dallas. Does it hurt much?”

Dallas took a slow breath before he answered. “When it rains.”

“My mama’s hip hurts when it rains, too,” he said. “Are you coming with us to learn karate?”

“He’s already forgotten more than I know,” Eb said in a dry tone. “No, he’s going to take care of your mother while we’re gone.”

“Why?” Stevie asked, frowning.

“Because her hip hurts,” Sally lied through her teeth. “Ready to go?”

“Sure! Bye, Mom.” He ran to kiss her cheek and be hugged warmly. He moved back, smiling up at the blond man who hadn’t cracked a smile yet. “See you.”

Dallas nodded.

Sally was staggered by the resemblance of the boy to the man, and almost remarked on it. But before she could, Eb caught her eyes. There was a look in them that she couldn’t decipher, but it stopped her at once.

“We’d better go,” he said. He took Sally by the arm. “Come on, Stevie. We won’t be long, Jess,” he called back.

“I’ll count the seconds,” she said under her breath as they left the room.

Dallas didn’t say anything, and it was just as well that she couldn’t see the look in his eyes.

* * *

IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO TALK in front of Stevie as they drove through the massive electronic gates at the Scott ranch. He, like Sally, was fascinated by the layout, which included a helipad, a landing strip with a hangar, a swimming pool and a ranch house that looked capable of sleeping thirty people. There were also target ranges and guest cabins and a formidable state-of-the-art gym housed in what looked like a gigantic Quonset hut like those used during the Second World War in the Pacific theater. There were several satellite dishes as well, and security cameras seemingly on every available edifice.

“This is incredible,” Sally said as they got out of the truck and went with him toward the gym.

“Maintaining it is incredible,” Eb said with a chuckle. “You wouldn’t believe the level of technology required to keep it all functioning.”

Stevie had found the thick blue plastic-covered mat on the wood floor and was already rolling around on it and trying the punching bag suspended from one of the steel beams that supported other training equipment.

“Stevie looks like that man, Dallas,” she said abruptly.

He grimaced. “Haven’t you and Jess ever talked?”

“I didn’t know anything about Dallas and my aunt until you told me,” she said simply.

“This is something she needs to tell you, in her own good time.”

She studied the youngster having fun on the mat. “He isn’t my uncle’s child, is he?”

There was a rough sound from the man beside her. “What makes you think so?”

“For one thing, because he’s the image of Dallas. But also because Uncle Hank and Aunt Jessie were married for years with no kids, and suddenly she got pregnant just before he died overseas,” she replied. “Stevie was like a miracle.”

“In some ways, I suppose he was. But it led to Hank asking for a combat assignment, and even though he died of a heart condition, Jess has had nightmares ever since out of guilt.” He looked down at her. “You can’t tell her that you know.”

“Fair enough. Tell me the rest.”

“She and Dallas were working together on an assignment. It was one of those lightning attractions that overcome the best moral obstacles. They were alone too much and finally the inevitable happened. Jess turned up pregnant. When Dallas found out, he went crazy. He demanded that Jess divorce Hank and marry him, but she wouldn’t. She swore that Dallas wasn’t the father of her child, Hank was, and she had no intention of divorcing her husband.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Hank knew that she’d been with another man, of course, because he’d always been sterile. Dallas didn’t know that. And Hank hadn’t told Jessica until she announced that she was expecting a child.” He shrugged. “He wouldn’t forgive her. Neither would Dallas. When Hank died, Dallas didn’t even try to get in touch with Jess. He really believed that Stevie was Hank’s child. Until about ten minutes ago, that is,” he added with a wry smile. “It didn’t take much guesswork for him to see the resemblance. I think we won’t go back for a couple of hours. I don’t want to walk into the firefight he’s probably having with Jess even as we speak.”

She bit her lower lip. “Poor Jess.”

“Poor Dallas,” he countered. “After the fight with Jessie, he took every damned dangerous assignment he could find, the more dangerous the better. Last year in Africa, Dallas was shot to pieces. They sent him home with wounds that would have killed a lesser man.”

“No wonder he looks so bitter.”

“He’s bitter because he loved Jess and though she felt the same, she wasn’t willing to hurt Hank by leaving him. But in the end, she still hurt him. He couldn’t live with the idea that she was having some other man’s child. It destroyed their marriage.”

She grimaced. “What a tragedy, for all of them.”

“Yes.”

She looked toward Stevie, smiling. “He’s a great kid,” she said. “I’d love him even if he wasn’t my first cousin.”

“He’s got grit and personality to boot.”

“You wouldn’t think so at midnight when you’re still trying to get him to sleep.”

He smiled as he studied her. “You love kids, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” she said fervently. “I love teaching.”

“Don’t you want some of your own?” he asked with a quizzical smile.

She flushed and wouldn’t look at him. “Sure. One day.”

“Why not now?”

“Because I’ve already got more responsibilities than I can manage. Pregnancy would be a complication I couldn’t handle, especially now.”

“You sound as if you’re planning to do it all alone.”

She shrugged. “There is such a thing as artificial insemination.”

He turned her toward him, looking very solemn and adult. “How would it feel, carrying the child of a man you didn’t even know, having it grow inside your body?”

She bit her lower lip. She hadn’t considered the intimacy of what he was suggesting. She felt, and looked, confused.

“A baby should be made out of love, the natural way, not in a test tube,” he said very softly, searching her shocked eyes. “Well, not unless it’s the only way two people can have a child,” he added. “But that’s an entirely different circumstance.”

Her lips parted on the surge of emotion that made her heart race. “I don’t know…that I want to get that close to anyone, ever.”

He seemed even more remote. “Sally, you can’t let the past lock you into solitude forever. I frightened you because I wanted to keep you at bay. If I didn’t discourage you somehow I was afraid that the temptation might prove too much for me. You were such a baby.” He scowled bitterly. “What happened wouldn’t have been so devastating if you’d had even a little experience with men. For God’s sake, didn’t they ever let you date anyone?”

She shook her head, her teeth clenched tightly together. “My mother was certain that I’d get pregnant or catch some horrible disease. She talked about it all the time. She made boys who came to the house so uncomfortable that they never came back.”

“I didn’t know that,” he said tautly.

“Would it have made any difference?” she asked miserably.

He touched her face with cool, firm fingers. “Yes. I wouldn’t have gone nearly as far as I did, if I’d known.”

“You wanted to get rid of me…”

He put his thumb over her soft mouth. “I wanted you,” he whispered huskily. “But a seventeen-year-old isn’t mature enough for a love affair. And that would have been impossible in Jacobsville, even if I’d been crazy enough to go all the way with you that day. You were almost thirteen years my junior.”

She was beginning to see things from his point of view. She hadn’t tried before. There had been so much resentment, so much bitterness, so much hurt. She looked at him and saw, for the first time, the pain of the memory in his face.

“I was desperate,” she said, speaking softly. “They told me out of the blue that they were divorcing each other. They were selling the house and moving out of town. Dad was going to marry Beverly, this girl he’d met at the college where he taught. Mom couldn’t live in the same town with everybody knowing that Dad had thrown her over for someone younger. She married a man she hardly knew shortly afterward, just to save her pride.” She stared at his mouth with more hunger than she realized. “I knew that I’d never see you again. I only wanted you to kiss me.” She swallowed, averting her eyes. “I must have been crazy.”

“We both were.” He cupped her face in his hands and lifted it to his quiet eyes. “For what it’s worth, I never meant it to go further than a kiss. A very chaste kiss, at that.” His eyes drifted down involuntarily to the soft thrust of her breasts almost touching his shirt. He raised an eyebrow at the obvious points. “That’s why it wasn’t chaste.”

She didn’t understand. “What is?”

He looked absolutely exasperated. “How can you be that old and know nothing?” he asked. He glanced over her shoulder at Stevie, who was facing the other way and giving the punching bag hell. He took Sally’s own finger and drew it across her taut breast. He looked straight into her eyes as he said softly, “That’s why.”

She realized that it must have something to do with being aroused, but no one had ever told her blatantly that it was a visible sign of desire. She went scarlet.

“You greenhorn,” he murmured indulgently. “What a babe in arms.”

“I don’t read those sort of books,” she said haughtily.

“You should. In fact, I’ll buy you a set of them. Maybe a few videos, too,” he murmured absently, watching the expressions come and go on her face.

“You varmint…!”

He caught her top lip in both of his and ran his tongue lazily under it. She stiffened, but her hands were clinging to him, not pushing.

“You remember that, don’t you, Sally?” he murmured with a smile. “Do you remember what comes next?”

She jerked back from him, staggering. Her eyes found Stevie, still oblivious to the adults.

Eb’s eyes were blatant on the thrust of her breasts and he was smiling.

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared up at him. “You just stop that,” she gritted. “I’ll bet you weren’t born knowing everything!”

He chuckled. “No, I wasn’t. But I didn’t have a mother to keep my nose clean, either,” he said. “My old man was military down to his toenails, and he didn’t believe in gentle handling or delicacy. He used women until the day he died.” He laughed coldly. “He told me that there was no such thing as a good woman, that they were to be enjoyed and put aside.”

She was appalled. “Didn’t he love your mother?”

“He wanted her, and she wouldn’t be with him until they got married,” he said simply. “So they got married. She died having me. They were living in a small town outside the military base where he was stationed. He was overseas on assignment and she lived alone, isolated. She went into labor and there were complications. There was nothing that could have been done for her by the time she was found. If a neighbor hadn’t come to look in on us, I’d have died with her.”

“It must have been a shock for your father,” she said.

“If it was, it never showed. He left me with a cousin until I was old enough to obey orders, then I went to live with him. I learned a lot from him, but he wasn’t a loving man.” His eyes narrowed on her soft face. “I followed his example and joined the army. I was lucky enough to get into the Green Berets. Then when I was due for discharge, a man approached me about a top secret assignment and told me what it would pay.” He shrugged. “Money is a great temptation for a young man with a domineering father. I said yes and he never spoke to me again. He said that what I was doing was a perversion of the military, and that I wasn’t fit to be any officer’s son. He disowned me on the spot. I didn’t hear from him again. A few years later, I got a letter from his post commander, stating that he’d died in combat. He had a military funeral with full honors.”

The pain of those years was in his lean, hard face. Impulsively she put a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry,” she told him quietly. “He must have been the sort of man who only sees one side of any argument.”

He was surprised by her compassion. “Don’t you think mercenaries are evil, Miss Purity?” he asked sarcastically.

CHAPTER THREE

SALLY LOOKED UP INTO PAIN-LACED green eyes and without thinking, she lifted her hand from his arm and raised it toward his hard cheek. But when she realized what she was doing, she drew it back at once.

“No, I don’t think mercenaries are evil,” she said quickly, embarrassed by the impulsive gesture that, thankfully, he didn’t seem to notice. “There are a lot of countries where atrocities are committed, whose governments don’t have the manpower or resources to protect their people. So, someone else gets hired to do it. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, when there’s a legitimate cause.”

He was surprised by her matter-of-fact manner. He’d wondered for years how she might react when she learned about what he did for a living. He’d expected everything from revulsion to shock, especially when he remembered how his former fiancée had reacted to the news. But Sally wasn’t squeamish or judgmental.

He’d seen her hand jerk back and it had wounded him. But now, on hearing her opinion of his work, his heart lifted. “I didn’t expect you to credit me with noble motives.”

“They are, though, aren’t they?” she asked confidently.

“As a matter of fact, in my case, they are,” he replied. “Even in my green days, I never did it just for the money. I had to believe in what I was risking my life for.”

She grinned. “I thought maybe it was like on television,” she confessed. “But Jess said it was nothing like fiction.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he mused. “Parts of it are.”

“Such as?”

“We had a guy like ‘B.A. Barrabas’ in one unit I led,” he said. “We really did have to knock him out to get him on a plane. But he quit the group before we got inventive.”

She laughed. “Too bad. You’d have had plenty of stories to tell about him.”

He was quiet for a moment, studying her.

“Do I have a zit on my nose?” she asked pleasantly.

He reached out and caught the hand she’d started to lift toward him earlier and kissed its soft palm. “Let’s get to work,” he said, pulling her along to the mat. “I’ll change into my sweats and we’ll cover the basics. We won’t have a lot of time,” he added dryly. “I expect Jess to call very soon with an ultimatum about Dallas.”

* * *

JESS AND DALLAS HAD SQUARED OFF, in fact, the minute they heard the truck crank and pull out of the yard.

Dallas glared at her from his superior height, leaning heavily on his cane. He wished she could see him, because his eyes were full of anger and bitterness.

“Did you think I wouldn’t see that Stevie is the living image of me? My son,” he growled at her. “You had my son! And you lied to me about it and wouldn’t ask Hank for a divorce!”

“I couldn’t!” she exclaimed. “For heaven’s sake, he adored me. He’d never have cheated on me. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I’d had an affair with his best friend!”

“I could have told him,” he returned furiously. “He was no angel, Jess, despite the wings you’re trying to paint on him. Or do you think he never strayed on those overseas jaunts?” he chided.

She stiffened. “That’s not true!”

“It is true!” he replied angrily. “He knew he couldn’t get anybody pregnant, and he was sure you’d never find out.”

She put a hand to her head. She’d never dreamed that Hank had cheated on her. She’d felt so guilty, when all the time, he was doing the same thing—and then judging her brutally for what she’d done. “I didn’t know,” she said miserably.

“Would it have made a difference?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it would have.” She smoothed the dress over her legs. “You thought Stevie was yours from the beginning, didn’t you?”

“No. I didn’t know Hank was sterile until later on. You told me the child was Hank’s and I believed you. Hell, by then, I couldn’t even be sure that it was his.”

“You didn’t think—” She stopped abruptly. “Oh, dear God, you thought you were one in a line?” she exploded, horrified. “You thought I ran around on Hank with any man who asked me?”

“I knew very little about you except that you knocked me sideways,” he said flatly. “I knew Hank ran around on you. I assumed you were allowed the same freedom.” He turned away and walked to the window, staring out at the flat horizon. “I asked you to divorce Hank just to see what you’d say. It was exactly what I expected. You had it made—a husband who tolerated your unfaithfulness, and no danger of falling in love.”

“I thought I had a good marriage until you came along,” she said bitterly.

He turned, his eyes blazing. “Don’t make it sound cheap, Jess,” he said harshly. “Neither of us could stop that night. Neither of us tried.”

She put her face in her hands and shivered. The memory of how it had been could still reduce her to tears. She’d been in love for the first time in her life, but not with her husband. This man had haunted her ever since. Stevie was the mirror image of him.

“I was so ashamed,” she choked. “I betrayed Hank. I betrayed everything I believed in about loyalty and duty and honor. I felt like a Saturday night special at the bordello afterward.”

He scowled. “I never treated you that way,” he said harshly.

“Of course you didn’t!” she said miserably, wiping at tears. “But I was raised to believe that people got married and never cheated on each other. I was a virgin when I married Hank, and nobody in my whole family was ever divorced until Sally’s father, my brother, was.” She shook her head, oblivious to the expression that washed over Dallas’s hard, lean face. “My parents were happily married for fifty years before they died.”

“Sometimes it doesn’t work,” he said flatly, but in a less hostile tone. “That’s nobody’s fault.”

She smoothed back her short hair and quickly wiped away the tears. “Maybe not.”

He moved back toward her and sat down in a chair across from hers, putting the cane down on the floor. He leaned forward with a hard sigh and looked at Jessica’s pale, wan face with bitterness while he tried to find the words.

She heard the cane as he placed it on the floor. “Eb said you were badly hurt overseas,” she said softly, wishing with all her heart that she could see him. “Are you all right?”

That husky softness in her tone, that exquisite concern, was almost too much for him. He grasped her slender hands in his and held them tightly. “I’m better off than you seem to be,” he said heavily. “What a hell of a price we paid for that night, Jess.”

She felt the hot sting of tears. “It was very high,” she had to admit. She reached out hesitantly to find his face. Her fingers traced it gently, finding the new scars, the new hardness of its elegant lines. “Stevie looks like you,” she said softly, her unseeing eyes so full of emotion that he couldn’t bear to look into them.

“Yes.”

She searched her darkness with anguish for a face she would never see again. “Don’t be bitter,” she pleaded. “Please don’t hate me.”

He pulled her hand away as if it scalded him. “I’ve done little else for the past five years,” he said flatly. “But maybe you’re right. All the rage in the world won’t change the past.” He let go of her hand. “We have to pick up the pieces and go on.”

She hesitated. “Can we at least be friends?”

He laughed coldly. “Is that what you want?”

She nodded. “Eb says you’ve given up overseas assignments and that you’re working for him. I want you to get to know Stevie,” she added quietly. “Just in case…”

“Oh, for God’s sake, stop it!” he exploded, rising awkwardly from the chair with the help of the cane. “Lopez won’t get you. We aren’t going to let anything happen to you.”

She leaned back in her chair without replying. They both knew that Lopez had contacts everywhere and that he never gave up. If he wanted her dead, he could get her. She didn’t want her child left alone in the world.

“I’m going to make some coffee,” Dallas said tautly, refusing to think about the possibility of a world without her in it. “What do you take in yours?”

“I don’t care,” she said indifferently.

He didn’t say another word. He went into the kitchen and made a pot of coffee while Jessica sat stiffly in her own living room and contemplated the direction her life had taken.

* * *

“YOU HAVE GOT…TO BE KIDDING!” Sally choked as she dragged herself up from the mat for the twentieth time. “You mean I’m going to spend two hours falling down? I thought you were going to teach me self-defense!”

“I am,” Eb replied easily. He, too, was wearing sweats now, and he’d been teaching her side breakfalls, first left and then right. “First you learn how to fall properly, so you don’t hurt yourself landing. Then we move on to stances, hand positions and kicks. One step at a time.”

She swept her arm past her hip and threw herself down on her side, falling with a loud thud but landing neatly. Beside her, Stevie was going at it with a vengeance and laughing gleefully.

“Am I doing it right?” she puffed, already perspiring. She was very much out of condition, despite the work she did around the house.

He nodded. “Very nice. Be careful about falling too close to the edge of the mat, though. The floor’s hard.”

She moved further onto the mat and did it again.

“If you think these are fun,” he mused, “wait until we do forward breakfalls.”

She gaped at him. “You mean I’m going to have to fall deliberately on my face? I’ll break my nose!”

“No, you won’t,” he said, moving her aside. “Watch.”

He executed the movement to perfection, catching his weight neatly on his hands and forearms. He jumped up again. “See? Simple.”

“For you,” she agreed, her eyes on the muscular body that was as fit as that of a man half his age. “Do you train all the time?”

“I have to,” he said. “If I let myself get out of shape, I won’t be of any use to my students. Great job, Stevie,” he called to the boy, who beamed at him.

“Of course he’s doing a great job,” she muttered. “He’s so close to the ground already that he doesn’t have far to fall!”

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