Praise for the reigning queen of romance
DIANA PALMER!

“Palmer’s talent for character development and ability to fuse heartwarming romance with nail-biting suspense shine in Outsider.”

—Booklist

“A gentle escape mixed with real-life menace for fans of Palmer’s more than 100 novels.”

—Publishers Weekly on Night Fever

“The ever-popular and prolific Palmer has penned another sure hit.”

—Booklist on Before Sunrise

“Nobody does it better.”

—New York Times bestselling author Linda Howard

“Palmer knows how to make sparks fly…heartwarming.”

—Publishers Weekly on Renegade

“Sensual and suspenseful.”

—Booklist on Lawless

“Diana Palmer is a mesmerizing storyteller who captures the essence of what a romance should be.”

—Affaire de Coeur

“Nobody tops Diana Palmer when it comes to delivering pure, undiluted romance. I love her stories.”

—New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz

Diana Palmer
Her Kind of Hero

Contents

THE LAST MERCENARY

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

MATT CALDWELL: TEXAS TYCOON

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

THE LAST MERCENARY

1

It had been a jarring encounter.

Callie Kirby felt chilled, and it wasn’t just because it was November in south Texas. She watched the stepbrother she worshiped walk away from her as casually as if he’d moved around an obstacle in his path. In many ways, that was what Callie was to Micah Steele. He hated her. Of course, he hated her mother more. The two Kirby women had alienated him from the father he adored. Jack Steele had found his only son wrapped up in the arms of his young wife—Callie’s mother—and an ugly scene had followed. Callie’s mother, Anna, was sent packing. So was Micah, living mostly at his father’s home while he finished his last year of residency.

That had been six years ago, and the breach still hadn’t healed. Jack Steele rarely spoke of his son. That suited Callie. The very sound of his name was painful to her. Speaking to him took nerve, too. He’d once called her a gold digger like her mother, among other insults. Words could hurt. His always had. But she was twenty-two now, and she could hold her own with him. That didn’t mean that her knees didn’t shake and her heartbeat didn’t do a tango while she was holding her own.

She stood beside her little second-hand yellow VW and watched Micah bend his formidable height to open the door of the black convertible Porsche he drove. His thick, short blond hair caught the sunlight and gleamed like gold. He had eyes so dark they looked black, and he rarely smiled. She didn’t understand why he’d come home to Jacobsville, Texas, in the first place. He lived somewhere in the Bahamas. Jack had said that Micah inherited a trust fund from his late mother, but he’d sounded curious about his son’s luxurious lifestyle. The trust, he told Callie privately, wasn’t nearly enough to keep Micah in the Armani suits he wore and the exotic sports cars he bought new every year.

Perhaps Micah had finished his residency somewhere else and was in private practice somewhere. He’d gone to medical school, but she remembered that there had been some trouble in his last year of his residency over a lawsuit, stemming from a surgical procedure he refused to do. Neither she nor his father knew the details. Even when he’d been living with his father, Micah was a clam. After he left, the silence about his life was complete.

He glanced back at Callie. Even at a distance he looked worried. Her heart jumped in spite of her best efforts to control it. He’d had that effect on her from the beginning, from the first time she’d ever seen him. She’d only been in his arms once, from too much alcohol. He’d been furious, throwing her away from him before she could drag his beautiful, hard mouth down onto hers. The aftermath of her uncharacteristic boldness had been humiliating and painful. It wasn’t a pleasant memory. She wondered why he was so concerned about her. It was probably that he was concerned for his father, and she was his primary caretaker. That had to be it. She turned her attention back to her own car.

With a jerk of his hand, he opened the door of the Porsche, climbed in and shot off like a teenager with his first car. The police would get him for that, she thought, if they saw it. For a few seconds, she smiled at the image of big, tall, sexy Micah being put in a jail cell with a man twice his size who liked blondes. Micah was so immaculate, so sophisticated, that she couldn’t imagine him ruffled nor intimidated. For all his size, he didn’t seem to be a physical man. But he was highly intelligent. He spoke five languages fluently and was a gourmet cook.

She sighed sadly and got into her own little car and started the engine. She didn’t know why Micah was worried that she and his father might be in danger from that drug lord everyone locally was talking about. She knew that Cy Parks and Eb Scott had been instrumental in closing down a big drug distribution center, and that the drug lord, Manuel Lopez, had reputedly targeted them for revenge. But that didn’t explain Micah’s connection. He’d told her that he tipped law enforcement officials to a big drug cargo of Lopez’s that had subsequently been captured, and Lopez was out for blood. She couldn’t picture her so-straitlaced stepbrother doing something so dangerous. Micah wasn’t the sort of man who got involved in violence of any sort. Certainly, he was a far cry from the two mercenaries who’d shut down Lopez’s operation. Maybe he’d given the information to the feds for Cy and Eb. Yes, that could have happened, somehow. She remembered what he’d said about the danger to his family and she felt chilled all over again. She’d load that shotgun when she and Jack got home, she told herself firmly, and she’d shoot it if she had to. She would protect her stepfather with her last breath.

As she turned down the street and drove out of town, toward the adult day care center where Jack Steele stayed following his stroke, she wondered where Micah was going in such a hurry. He didn’t spend a lot of time in the States. He hadn’t for years. He must have been visiting Eb Scott or Cy Parks. She knew they were friends. Odd friends for a tame man like Micah, she pondered. Even if they ran cattle now, they’d been professional mercenaries in the past. She wondered what Micah could possibly have in common with such men.

She was so lost in thought that she didn’t notice that she was being followed by a dark, late model car. It didn’t really occur to her that anyone would think of harming her, despite her brief argument with Micah just now. She was a nonentity. She had short, dark hair and pale blue eyes, and a nice but unremarkable figure. She was simply ordinary. She never attracted attention from men, and Micah had found her totally resistible from the day they met. Why not? He could have any woman he wanted. She’d seen him with really beautiful women when she and her mother had first come to live with Jack Steele. Besides, there was the age thing. Callie was barely twenty-two. Micah was thirty-six. He didn’t like adolescents. He’d said that to Callie, just after that disastrous encounter—among other things. Some of the things he’d said still made her blush. He’d compared her to her mother, and he hadn’t been kind. Afterward, she’d been convinced that he was having an affair with her mother, who didn’t deny it when Callie asked. It had tarnished him in her eyes and made her hostile. She still was. It was something she couldn’t help. She’d idolized Micah until she saw him kissing her mother. It had killed something inside her, made her cold. She wondered if he’d been telling the truth when he said he hadn’t seen her mother recently. It hurt to think of him with Anna.

She stopped at a crossroads, her eyes darting from one stop sign to another, looking for oncoming traffic. While she was engrossed in that activity, the car following her on the deserted road suddenly shot ahead and cut across in front of her, narrowly missing her front bumper.

She gasped and hit the brake, forgetting to depress the clutch at the same time. The engine died. She reached over frantically to lock the passenger door, and at the same time, three slim, dark, formidable-looking men surrounded her car. The taller of the three jerked open the driver’s door and pulled her roughly out of the car.

She fought, but a hand with a handkerchief was clapped over her nose and mouth and she moaned as the chloroform hit her nostrils and knocked her out flat. As she was placed quickly into the backseat of the other car, another man climbed into her little car and moved it onto the side of the road. He joined his colleagues. The dark car turned around and accelerated back the way it had come, with Callie unconscious in the backseat.

Micah Steele roared away from the scene of his latest disagreement with Callie, his chiseled mouth a thin line above his square jaw. His big hands gripped the steering wheel with cold precision as he cursed his own lack of communication skills. He’d put her back up almost at once by being disparaging about the neat beige suit she was wearing with a plain white blouse. She never dressed to be noticed, only to be efficient. She was that, he had to admit. She was so unlike him. He seemed conservative in his dress and manner. It was a deception. He was unconventional to the core, while Callie could have written the book on proper behavior.

She hadn’t believed him, about the danger she and her stepfather—his father—could find themselves in. Manuel Lopez wasn’t the man to cross, and he wanted blood. He was going to go to the easiest target for that. He grimaced, thinking how vulnerable Callie would be in a desperate situation. She hated snakes, but he’d seen her go out of her way not to injure one. She was like that about everything. She was a sucker for a hard-luck story, an easy mark for a con artist. Her heart was as soft as wool, and she was sensitive; overly sensitive. He didn’t like remembering how he’d hurt her in the past.

He did remember that he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. He stopped to have a sandwich at a local fast-food joint. Then he drove himself back to the motel he was staying at. He’d been helping Eb Scott and Cy Parks get rid of Lopez’s fledgling drug distribution center. Just nights ago, they’d shut down the whole operation and sent most of Lopez’s people to jail. Lopez’s high-tech equipment, all his vehicles, even the expensive tract of land they sat on, had been confiscated under the Rico statutes. And that didn’t even include the massive shipment of marijuana that had also been taken away. Micah himself had tipped off the authorities to the largest shipment of cocaine in the history of south Texas, which the Coast Guard, with DEA support, had appropriated before it even got to the Mexican coast. Lopez wouldn’t have to dig too deeply to know that Micah had cost him not only the multimillion-dollar shipment, but the respect of the cartel in Colombia, as well. Lopez was in big trouble with his bosses. Micah Steele was the reason for that. Lopez couldn’t get to Micah, but he could get to Micah’s family because they were vulnerable. The knowledge of that scared him to death.

He took a shower and stretched out on the bed in a towel, his hands under his dampblond hair while he stared at the ceiling and wondered how he could keep an eye on Callie Kirby and Jack Steele without their knowing. A private bodyguard would stick out like a sore thumb in a small Texas community like Jacobsville. On the other hand, Micah couldn’t do it himself without drawing Lopez’s immediate retaliation. It was a difficult determination. He couldn’t make himself go back to the Bahamas while he knew his father and Callie were in danger. On the other hand, he couldn’t stay here. Living in a small town would drive him nuts, even if he had done it in the past, before he went off to medical school.

While he was worrying about what to do next, the telephone rang.

“Steele,” he said on a yawn. He was tired.

“It’s Eb,” came the reply. “I just had a phone call from Rodrigo,” he added, mentioning a Mexican national who’d gone undercover for them in Lopez’s organization. He’d since been discovered and was now hiding out in Aruba.

“What’s happened?” Micah asked with a feeling of dread knotting his stomach.

“He had some news from a friend of his cousin, a woman who knows Lopez. Have you seen Callie Kirby today?” Eb asked hesitantly.

“Yes,” Micah said. “About two hours ago, just as she was leaving her office. Why?”

“Rodrigo said Lopez was going to snatch her. He sounded as if they meant to do it pretty soon. You might want to check on her.”

“I went to see her. I warned her…!”

“You know Lopez,” Eb reminded him somberly. “It won’t do her any good even if she’s armed. Lopez’s men are professionals.”

“I’ll do some telephoning and get back to you,” Micah said quickly, cursing his own lack of haste about safeguarding Callie. He hung up and phoned the adult day care center. Callie would surely be there by now. He could warn her…

But the woman who answered the phone said that Callie hadn’t arrived yet. She was two hours late, and her stepfather was becoming anxious. Did Micah know where she was?

He avoided a direct answer and promised to phone her back. Then, with a feeling of utter dread, he climbed into the Porsche and drove past Kemp’s law office, taking the route Callie would have taken to the adult day care center.

His heart skipped a beat when he reached the first intersection outside the city. At this time of day, there was very little traffic. But there, on the side of the road, was Callie’s yellow VW, parked on the grass with the driver’s door wide-open.

He pulled in behind it and got out, cursing as he noted that the keys were still in the ignition, and her purse was lying on the passenger seat. There was no note, no anything.

He stood there, shell-shocked and cold. Lopez had Callie. Lopez had Callie!

After a minute, he phoned Eb on his car phone.

“What do you want me to do?” Eb asked at once, after Micah had finished speaking.

Micah’s head was spinning. He couldn’t think. He ran a hand through his thick hair. “Nothing. You’re newly married, like Cy. I can’t put any more women in the firing line. Let me handle this.”

“What will you do?” Eb asked.

“Bojo’s in Atlanta visiting his brother, but I’ll have him meet me in Belize tomorrow. If you have a number for Rodrigo, call it, and tell him to meet me in Belize, too, at the Seasurfer’s Bar. Meanwhile, I’ll call in the rest of my team.” He was remembering phone numbers and jotting them down even as he spoke. “They’re taking a holiday, but I can round them up. I’ll go in after her.”

Eb suggested calling the chief of police, Chet Blake, because he had contacts everywhere, including relatives in positions of power—one was even a Texas Ranger. Micah couldn’t argue. If Eb wanted to tell the man, let him. He was going to get to Callie while she was still alive.

“Just remember that somebody in law enforcement is feeding information to Lopez, and act accordingly. I’ve got to make arrangements about Dad before I leave.”

“I’m sorry, Micah.”

“It’s my fault,” Micah ground out furiously. “I shouldn’t have left her alone for a minute! I warned her, but what good did that do?”

“Stop that,” Eb said at once. “You’re no good to Callie unless you can think straight. If you need any sort of help, logistical or otherwise, I have contacts of my own in Mexico.”

“I’ll need ordinance,” Micah said at once. “Can you set it up with your man in Belize and arrange to have him meet us at that border café we used to use for a staging ground?”

“I can. Tell me what you want.”

Micah outlined the equipment he wanted, including an old DC-3 to get them into the Yucatán, from which his men would drop with parachutes at night.

“You can fly in under the radar in that,” Eb cautioned, “but the DEA will assume you’re trying to bring in drugs if they spot you. It’ll be tricky.”

“Damn!” Micah was remembering that someone in federal authority was on Lopez’s payroll. “I had a contact near Lopez, but he left the country. Rodrigo’s cousin might help, but he’d be risking his life after this latest tip he fed Rodrigo. So, basically, we’ve got nobody in Lopez’s organization. And if I use my regular contacts, I risk alerting the DEA. Who can I trust?”

“I know someone,” Eb said after a minute. “I’ll take care of that. Phone me when you’re on the ground in Cancún and make sure you’ve got global positioning equipment with you.”

“Will do. Thanks, Eb.”

“What are friends for? I’ll be in touch. Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

“Want me to call Cy?”

“No. I’ll go by his place on my way out of town and catch him up.” He hung up.

He didn’t want to leave Callie’s car with the door open and her purse in it, but he didn’t want to be accused of tampering with evidence later. He compromised by locking it and closing the door. The police would find it eventually, because they patrolled this way. They’d take it from there, but he didn’t want anyone in authority to know he was going after Callie. Someone had warned Lopez about the recent devastating DEA raid on his property. That person was still around, and Micah didn’t want anyone to guess that he knew about Callie’s kidnapping.

It was hard to think clearly, but he had to. He knew that Callie had a cell phone. He didn’t know if she had it with her. Kemp, her boss, had let that slip to Eb Scott during a casual conversation. If Callie had the phone, and Lopez’s people didn’t know, she might be able to get a call out. He didn’t flatter himself that she’d call him. But she might try to call the adult day care center, if she could. It wasn’t much, but it gave him hope.

He drove to the center. For one mad instant he thought about speaking to his father in person. But that would only complicate matters and upset the old man; they hadn’t spoken in years. He couldn’t risk causing his father to have another stroke or a second heart attack by telling him that Callie had been kidnapped.

He went to the office of the nursing director of the center instead and took her into his confidence. She agreed with him that it might be best if they kept the news from his father, and they formulated a cover story that was convincing. It was easy enough for him to arrange for a nurse to go home with his father to Callie’s apartment every night and to drive him to the center each day. They decided to tell Jack Steele that one of Callie’s elderly aunts had been hurt in a car wreck and she had to go to Houston to see about her. Callie had no elderly aunts, but Jack wouldn’t know that. It would placate him and keep him from worrying. Then Micah would have to arrange for someone to protect him from any attempts by Lopez on his life.

He went back to his motel and spent the rest of the night and part of the next day making international phone calls. He knew that Chet Blake, the police chief, would call in the FBI once Callie’s disappearance was noted, and that wasn’t a bad idea. They would, of course, try to notify Micah, but they wouldn’t be able to find him. That meant that Lopez’s man in law enforcement would think Micah didn’t know that his stepsister had been kidnapped. And that would work to his benefit.

But if Lopez’s men carried Callie down to the Yucatán, near Cancún, which was where the drug lord lived these days, it was going to become a nightmare of diplomacy for any U. S. agency that tried to get her out of his clutches, despite international law enforcement cooperation. Micah didn’t have that problem. He had Bojo, one of his best mercenaries, with him in the States. It took time to track down the rest of his team, but by dawn he’d managed it and arranged to meet them in Belize that night. He hated waiting that long, and he worried about what Callie was going to endure in the meantime. But any sort of assault took planning, especially on a fortress like Lopez’s home. To approach it by sea was impossible. Lopez had several fast boats and guards patrolling the sea wall night and day. It would have to be a land-based attack, which was where the DC-3 came in. The trusty old planes were practically indestructible.

He couldn’t get Callie’s ordeal out of his mind. He’d kept tabs on her for years without her knowledge. She’d dated one out-of-town auditor and a young deputy sheriff, but nothing came of either relationship. She seemed to balk at close contact with men. That was disturbing to him, because he’d made some nasty allegations about her morals being as loose as her mother’s after she’d come on to him under the mistletoe four years ago.

He didn’t think words would be damaging, but perhaps they were. Callie had a reputation locally for being as pure as fresh snow. In a small town, where everybody knew everything about their neighbors, you couldn’t hide a scandal. That made him feel even more guilty, because Callie had been sweet and uninhibited until he’d gone to work on her. It was a shame that he’d taken out his rage on her, when it was her mother who’d caused all the problems in his family. Callie’s innocence was going to cost her dearly, in Lopez’s grasp. Micah groaned aloud as he began to imagine what might happen to her now. And it would be his fault.

He packed his suitcase and checked out of the motel. On the way to the airport, he went by Cy Parks’s place, to tell him what was going on. Eb was doing enough already; Micah hated the thought of putting more on him. Besides, Cy would have been miffed if he was left out of this. He had his own reasons for wanting Lopez brought down. The vengeful drug lord had endangered the life of Cy’s bride, Lisa, and the taciturn rancher wouldn’t rest easy until Lopez got what was coming to him. He sympathized with Micah about Callie’s kidnapping and Jack Steele’s danger. To Micah’s relief, he also volunteered to have one of his men, a former law enforcement officer, keep a covert eye on his father, just in case. That relieved Micah’s troubled mind. He drove to the airport, left the rented Porsche in the parking lot with the attendant, and boarded the plane to Belize. Then he went to work.

Callie came to in a limousine. She was trussed up like a calf in a bulldogging competition, wrists and ankles bound, and a gag in her mouth. The three men who’d kidnapped her were conversing.

They weren’t speaking Spanish. She heard at least one Arabic word that she understood. At once, she knew that they were Manuel Lopez’s men, and that Micah had told the truth about the danger she and Jack were in. It was too late now, though. She’d been careless and she’d been snatched.

She lowered her eyelids when one of the men glanced toward her, pretending to still be groggy, hoping for a chance to escape. Bound as she was, that seemed impossible. She shifted a little, noticing with comfort the feel of the tiny cell phone she’d slipped into her slacks’ pocket before leaving the office. If they didn’t frisk her, she might get a call out. She remembered what she’d heard about Lopez, and her blood ran cold.

She couldn’t drag her wrists out of the bonds. They felt like ropes, not handcuffs. Her arm was sore—she wondered if perhaps they’d given her a shot, a sedative of some sort. She must have been out a very long time. It had been late afternoon when she’d been kidnapped. Now it was almost dawn. She wished she had a drink of water….

The big limousine ate up the miles. She had some vague sensation that she’d been on an airplane. Perhaps they’d flown to an airport and the car had picked them up. If only she could see out the window. There were undefined shadows out there. They looked like trees, alot of trees. Her vision was slightly blurred and she felt as if her limbs were made of iron. It was difficult to concentrate, and more difficult to try to move. What had they given her?

One man spoke urgently to the other and indicated Callie. He smiled and replied with a low, deep chuckle.

Callie noticed then that her blouse had come apart in the struggle. Her bra was visible, and those men were staring at her as if they had every right. She felt sick to her soul. It didn’t take knowing the language to figure out what they were saying. She was completely innocent, but before this ordeal was over, she knew she never would be again. She felt a wave of grief wash over her. If only Micah hadn’t pushed her away that Christmas. Now it was too late. Her first and last experience of men was going to be a nightmarish one, if she even lived through it. That seemed doubtful. Once the drug lord discovered that Micah had no affection for his stepsister, that he actually hated her and wouldn’t soil his hands paying her ransom, she was going to be killed. She knew what happened in kidnappings. Most people knew. It had never occurred to her that she would ever figure in one. How ironic, that she was poor and unattractive, and that hadn’t spared her this experience.

She wondered dimly what Micah would say when he knew she was missing. He’d probably feel well rid of her, but he might pay the ransom for her father’s sake. Someone had to look after Jack Steele, something his only child couldn’t apparently be bothered to do. Callie loved the old man and would have gladly sacrificed her life for him. That made her valuable in at least one way.

The one bright spot in all this was that once word of Callie’s kidnapping got out, Micah would hire a bodyguard for Jack whether he wanted one or not. Jack would be safe.

She wished she knew some sort of self-defense, some way of protecting herself, of getting loose from the ropes and the gag that was slowly strangling her. She hadn’t had time for lunch the day before and she’d been drugged for the whole night and into the next morning. She was sick and weak from hunger and thirst, and she really had to go to the bathroom. It was a bad day all around.

She closed her eyes and wished she’d locked her car doors and sped out of reach of her assailants. If there was a next time, if she lived to repeat her mistakes, she’d never repeat that one.

She shifted because her legs were cramping and she felt even sicker.

Listening to the men converse in Arabic, she realized her abductors weren’t from Mexico. But as she looked out the window now, she could see the long narrow paved ribbon of road running through what looked like rain forest. She’d never been to the Yucatán, but she knew what it looked like from volumes of books she’d collected on Maya relics. Her heart sank. She knew that Manuel Lopez lived near Cancún, and she knew she was in the Yucatán. Her worst fears were realized.

Only minutes later, the car pulled into a long paved driveway through tall steel gates. The gates closed behind them. They sped up to an impressive whitewashed beach house overlooking a rocky bay. It had red ceramic tiles and the grounds were immaculate and full of blooming flowers. Hibiscus in November. She could have laughed hysterically. Back home the trees were bare, and here everything was blooming. She wondered what sort of fertilizer they used to grow those hibiscus flowers so big, and then she remembered Lopez’s recent body count. She wondered if she might end up planted in his garden…

The car stopped. The door was opened by a suited dark man holding an automatic rifle of some sort, one of those little snub-nosed machine guns that crooks on television always seemed to carry.

She winced as the men dragged her out of the car and frog-marched her, bonds and all, into the ceramic tile floored lobby. The tile was black and white, like a chessboard. There was a long, graceful staircase and, overhead, a crystal chandelier that looked like Waterford crystal. It probably cost two or three times the price of her car.

As she searched her surroundings, a small middle-aged man strolled out of the living room with his hands in his pockets. He didn’t smile. He walked around Callie as if she were some sort of curiosity, his full lips pursed, his small dark eyes narrow and smugly gleaming. He jerked her gag down.

“Miss Kirby,” he murmured in accented English. “Welcome to my home. I am Manuel Lopez. You will be my guest until your interfering stepbrother tries to rescue you,” he added, hesitating in front of her. “And when he arrives, I will give him what my men have left of you, before I kill him, too!”

Callie thought that she’d never seen such cruelty in a human being’s eyes in her life. The man made her knees shake. He was looking at her with contempt and possession. He reached out a stubby hand and ripped her blouse down in front, baring her small breasts in their cotton bra.

“I had expected a more attractive woman,” he said. “Sadly you have no attractions with which to bargain, have you? Small breasts and a body that would afford little satisfaction. But Kalid likes women,” he mused, glancing at the small, dark man who’d been sitting across from Callie. “When I need information, he is the man who obtains it for me. And although I need no information from you, Miss Kirby,” he murmured, “it will please Kalid to practice his skills.”

A rapid-fire burst of a guttural language met the statement.

“Español!” Lopez snapped. “You know I do not understand Arabic!”

“The woman,” one of the other men replied in Spanish. “Before you give her to Kalid, let us have her.”

Lopez glanced at the two thin, unshaven men who’d delivered Callie to him and smiled. “Why not? I make you a present of her. It should arouse even more guilt in her stepbrother to find her…used. But not until I tell you,” he added coldly. “For now, take her to the empty servant’s room upstairs. And put the gag back in place,” he added. “I have important guests arriving. I would not want them to be disturbed by any unexpected noise.”

“My stepbrother won’t come to rescue me,” she said hoarsely, shocked. “He isn’t a physical sort of man. Aren’t you going to ask him to pay ransom?”

Lopez looked at her as if she were nuts. “Why do you think Steele will not come after you?”

“He’s a doctor. Or he was studying to be one. He wouldn’t know the first thing about rescuing somebody!”

Lopez seemed to find that amusing.

“Besides that,” she added harshly, “he hates me. He’ll probably laugh his head off when he knows you’ve got me. He can’t stand the sight of me.”

That seemed to disturb Lopez, but after a minute he shrugged. “No importa,” he said lightly. “If he comes, that will be good. If not, it will make him even more concerned for his father. Who will be,” he added with a cold smile, “next to feel my wrath.”

Callie had her mouth open to ask another question, but at a signal from Lopez she was half dragged out of the room, her pale blue eyes as wide as saucers as she shivered with fear.

2

Callie had never been in such danger in her life, although she certainly knew what it was to be manhandled. She’d been in and out of foster care since the age of six. On a rare visit home, one of her mother’s lovers had broken her arm when she was thirteen, after trying to fondle her. She’d run from him in horror, and he’d caught up with her at the staircase. A rough scuffle with the man had sent her tumbling down the steps to lie sprawled at the foot of the staircase.

Her mother had been furious, but not at her boyfriend, who said that Callie had called him names and threatened to tell her mother lies about him. After her broken arm had been set in a cast, Anna had taken Callie right back to her foster home, making her out to be incorrigible and washing her hands of responsibility for her.

Oddly, it had been Jack Steele’s insistence that he wanted the child that had pushed a reluctant Anna into taking her back, at the age of fifteen. Jack had won her over, a day at a time. When Micah was home for holidays, he’d taunted her, made his disapproval of her so noticeable that her first lesson in the Steele home was learning how to avoid Jack’s grown son. She’d had a lot of practice at avoiding men by then, and a lot of emotional scars. Anna had found that amusing. Never much of a mother, she’d ignored Callie to such an extent that the only affection Callie ever got was from Jack.

She closed her eyes. Her own father had ripped her out of his arms when she was six and pushed her away when she begged to stay with him. She was some other man’s bastard, he’d raged, and he wanted no part of her. She could get out with her tramp of a mother—whom he’d just caught in bed with a rich friend—and he never wanted to see either of them again. She’d loved her father. She never understood why he couldn’t love her back. Well, he thought she wasn’t his. She couldn’t really blame him for feeling that way.

She was still sitting in a small bedroom that night, having been given nothing to eat or drink. She was weak with hunger and pain, because the bonds that held her wrists and ankles had chafed and all but cut off the circulation. She heard noise downstairs from time to time. Obviously Lopez’s visitors had stayed a long time, and been quite entertained, from the sound of things. She could hear the soft whisper of the ocean teasing the shore outside the window. She wondered what they would do with her body, after they killed her. Perhaps they’d throw her out there, to be eaten by sharks.

While she was agonizing over her fate, the sky had darkened. Hours more passed, during which she dozed a little. Then suddenly, she was alone no longer. The door opened and closed. She opened her tired eyes and saw the three men who’d kidnapped her, gathered around her like a pack of dogs with a helpless cat. One of them started stripping her while the others watched. Her cell phone fell out of the pocket of her slacks as they were pulled off her long legs. One of the men tossed it up and laughed, speaking to another man in yet a different foreign language.

Callie closed her eyes, shivering with fear, and prayed for strength to bear what was coming. She wished with all her heart that Micah hadn’t pushed her away that last Christmas they’d spent together. Better him than any one of these cold, cruel, mocking strangers.

She heard one of them speaking in rough Spanish, discussing her body, making fun of her small breasts. It was like a playback from one foster home when she was fifteen, where an older son of the family had almost raped her before he was interrupted by the return of his parents. She’d run away afterward, and been sent to another foster home. She’d been saved that time, but she could expect no help now. Micah wouldn’t begin to know how to rescue her, even if he was inclined to save her. He probably wouldn’t consider ransom, either. She was alone in the world, with no one who would care about her fate. Her mother probably wouldn’t even be bothered if she died. Like Micah, she’d blamed Callie for what had happened.

Desperate for some way to endure the ordeal, to block it out, Callie pictured the last time she’d seen her grandmother before she passed away, standing in an arbor of little pink fairy roses, waving. Callie had often stayed with her father’s widowed mother when he and Anna were traveling. It was a haven of love. It hadn’t lasted. Her grandmother had died suddenly when she was five. Everyone she’d ever loved had left her, in one way or the other. Nobody would even miss her. Maybe Jack would. She spared one last thought for the poor old man who was as alone as she was. But with her out of the way, perhaps Micah would go home again…

There was a loud, harsh shout. She heard the door open, and the men leave. With a shivery sigh, she moved backward until she could ease down into a worn wing chair by the fireplace. It wasn’t going to be a long reprieve, she knew. If only she could free herself! But the bonds were cutting into her wrists and ankles. She was left in only a pair of aged white briefs and a tattered white bra, worn for comfort and not for appearance. No one had seen her in her underwear since she was a small child. She felt tears sting her eyes as she sat there, vulnerable and sick and ashamed. Any minute now, those men would be back. They would untie her before they used her. She knew that. She had to try to catch them off guard the instant she was free and run. If she could get into the jungle, she might have a chance. She was a fast sprinter, and she knew woodcraft. It was the last desperate hope she had.

One of the men, the one who’d asked Lopez for her, came back inside for a minute, staring at her. He pulled out a wicked looking little knife and flicked it at one shoulder strap of her bra, cutting right through it.

She called him a foul name in Spanish, making herself understood despite the gag. Her mind raced along. If she could make him angry enough to free her, which he’d have to do if he had rape in mind…She repeated the foul name, with more fervor.

He cursed. But instead of pulling her up to untie her, he caught her by the shoulder and pressed her hard back into the chair, easing the point of the knife against the soft, delicate upper part of her breast.

She moaned hoarsely as the knife lightly grazed her flesh.

“You will learn manners before we finish with you,” he drawled icily, in rough Spanish. “You will do what I tell you!”

He made no move to free her. Instead, he jerked down the side of her bra that had been cut, and stared mockingly at her breast.

The prick from the knife stung. She ground her teeth together. What had she been thinking? He wasn’t going to free her. He was going to torture her! She felt sick unto death with fear as she looked up into his eyes and realized that he was enjoying both her shame and her fear.

In fact, he laughed. He went back and locked the door. “We don’t need to be disturbed, do we?” he purred as he walked back toward her, brandishing the sharp knife. “I have looked forward to this all the way from Texas…”

Her eyes closed. She said a last, silent prayer. She thought of Micah, and of Jack. Her chin lifted as she waited bravely for the impact of the blade.

There was a commotion downstairs and a commotion outside. She’d hoped it might divert the man standing over her with that knife, but he was too intent on her vulnerable state to care what was going on elsewhere. He put one hand on the back of the chair, beside her head, and placed the point of the knife right against her breast.

“Beg me not to do it,” he chuckled. “Come on. Beg me.”

Her terrified eyes met his and she knew that he was going to violate her. It was in his face. He was almost drooling with pleasure. She was cold all over, sick, resigned. She would die, eventually. But in the meantime, she was going to suffer a fate that would make death welcome.

“Beg me!” he demanded, his eyes flashing angrily, and the blade pushed harder.

There was a sudden burst of gunfire from somewhere toward the front of the house. Simultaneously, there was shattering glass behind the man threatening her, and the sudden audible sound of bullets hitting flesh. The man with the knife groaned once and fell into a silent, red-stained heap at her feet.

Wide-eyed, terrified, shaking, Callie cried out as she looked up into a face completely covered with a black mask, except for slits that bared a little of his eyes and mouth. He was dressed all in black with a wicked looking little machine gun in one hand and a huge knife suddenly in the other. His eyes went to her nicked breast. He made a rough sound and kicked the man on the floor aside as he pulled Callie up out of the chair and cut the bonds at her ankles and wrists.

Her hands and feet were asleep. She almost fell. He didn’t even stop to unfasten the gag. Without a word, he bent and lifted her over his shoulder in the classic fireman’s carry, and walked straight toward the window. Apparently, he was going out it, with her.

He finished clearing away the broken glass around the window frame and pulled a long black cord toward him. It seemed to be hanging from the roof.

He was huge and very strong. Callie, still in shock from her most recent ordeal, her feet and hands almost numb, didn’t try to talk. She didn’t even protest. If this was a turf war, and she was being stolen by another drug lord, perhaps he’d just hold her for ransom and not let his men torture her. She had little to say about her own fate. She closed her eyes and noticed that there was a familiar smell about the man who was abducting her. Odd. He must be wearing some cologne that reminded her of Jack, or even Mr. Kemp. At least he’d saved her from the knife.

Her wounded breast hurt, where it was pressed against the ribbed fabric of his long-sleeved shirt, and the small cut was bleeding slightly, but that didn’t seem to matter. As long as he got her out of Lopez’s clutches, she didn’t really care what happened to her anymore. She was exhausted.

With her still over his shoulder, he stepped out onto the ledge, grasped a thick black cord in a gloved hand and, with his rifle leveled and facing forward, he rappelled right out the second-story window and down to the ground with Callie on his shoulder. She gasped as she felt the first seconds of free fall, and her hands clung to his shirt, but he didn’t drop her. He seemed quite adept at rappelling.

She’d read about the Australian rappel, where men went down the rope face-front with a weapon in one hand. She’d never seen it done, except on television and in adventure movies. She’d never seen anyone doing it with a hostage over one shoulder. This man was very skillful. She wondered if he really was a rival drug lord, or if perhaps he was one of Eb Scott’s mercenaries. Was it possible that Micah would have cared enough to ask Eb to mount her rescue? Her heart leaped at the possibility.

As they reached the ground, she realized that her rescuer wasn’t alone. As soon as they were on the ground, he made some sort of signal with one hand, and men dressed in black, barely visible in the security lights dotted along the dark estate, scattered to the winds. Men in suits, still firing after them, began to run toward the jungle.

A four-wheel-drive vehicle was sitting in the driveway with its engine running and the backseat door open, waiting.

Her rescuer threw her inside, climbed in beside her and slammed the door. She pulled the gag off.

“Hit it!” he bit off.

The vehicle spun dirt and gravel as it took off toward the gate. The windows were open. Gunfire hit the side of the door, and was returned by the man sitting beside Callie and the man in the front passenger seat. The other armed man had a slight, neatly trimmed beard and mustache and he looked as formidable as his comrade. The man who was driving handled the vehicle expertly, dodging bullets even as his companions returned fire at the pursuing vehicle. Callie had seen other armed men in black running for the jungle. She revised her opinion that these were rival drug dealers. From the look of these men, they were commandos. She assumed that these three men were part of some sort of covert group sent in to rescue her. Only one person would have the money to mount such an expedition, and she’d have bet money that Eb Scott was behind it somehow. Micah must have paid him to hire these men to come after her.

If he had, she was grateful for his intervention, although she wondered what had prompted it. Perhaps his father had persuaded him. God knew, he’d never have spent that sort of money on her rescue for his own sake. Her sudden disappearance out of his life would have delighted him.

She was chilled and embarrassed, sitting in her underwear with three strange men, but her clothing had been ripped beyond repair. In fact, her rescuer hadn’t even stopped to grab it up on his way out of the room where she was being held. She made herself as inconspicuous as possible, grateful that there was no light inside the vehicle, and closed her eyes while the sound of gunfire ricocheted around her. She didn’t say a word. Her companions seemed quite capable of handling this new emergency. She wasn’t going to distract them. If she caught a stray bullet, that was all right, too. Anything, even death, would be preferable to what she would endure if Lopez regained custody of her.

Half a mile down the road, there was a deep curve. The big man who’d rescued Callie told the man in front to stop the vehicle. He grabbed a backpack on the floorboard, jumped out, pulled Callie out, and motioned the driver and the man with the beard and mustache to keep going. The big man carried Callie out of sight of the road and dashed her down in the dark jungle undergrowth, his powerful body lying alongside hers in dead leaves and debris while they waited for the Jeep that had been chasing them to appear. Thorns dug into her bare arms and legs, but she was so afraid that she hardly noticed.

Suddenly, the pursuing Jeep came into sight. It braked for the curve, but it barely slowed down as it shot along after the other vehicle. Its taillights vanished around the bend. So far, so good, Callie thought, feeling oddly safe with the warmth and strength of the man lying so close beside her. But she hoped the man who was driving their vehicle and his bearded companion made a clean getaway. She wouldn’t want them shot, even to save herself.

“That went well,” her companion murmured curtly, rising. He pulled out some sort of electronic gadget and pushed buttons. He turned, sighting along it. “Can you walk?” he asked Callie.

His voice was familiar. Her mind must be playing tricks. She stood up, still in her underwear and barefoot.

“Yes. But I…don’t have any shoes,” she said hoarsely, still half in shock.

He looked down at her, aiming a tiny flashlight at her body, and a curse escaped his mouth as he saw her mangled bra.

“What the hell did they do to you?” he asked through his teeth.

Amazing, how familiar that deep voice was. “Not as much as they planned to, thanks to you,” she said, trying to remain calm. “It’s not a bad cut, just a graze. I’ll have to have some sort of shoes if we’re going to walk. And I…I don’t suppose you have an extra shirt?” she added with painful dignity.

He was holding a backpack. He pulled out a big black T-shirt and stuffed her into it. He had a pair of camouflage pants, too. They had to be rolled up, but they fit uncannily well. His face was solemn as he dug into the bag a second time and pulled out a pair of leather loafers and two pairs of socks.

“They’ll be too big, but the socks will help them fit. They’ll help protect your feet. Hurry. Lopez’s men are everywhere and we have a rendezvous to make.”

She felt more secure in the T-shirt and camouflage pants. Not wanting to hold him up, she slipped quickly into the two pairs of thick socks and rammed her feet into the shoes. It was dark, but her companion had his small light trained ahead. She noticed that huge knife in his left hand as he started ahead of her. She remembered that Micah was left-handed…

The jungle growth was thick, but passable. Her companion shifted his backpack, so dark that it blended in with his dark gear and the jungle.

“Stay close behind me. Don’t speak unless I tell you to. Don’t move unless I move.”

“Okay,” she said in a husky whisper, without argument.

“When we get where we’re going, I’ll take care of that cut.”

She didn’t answer him. She was exhausted. She was also dying of thirst and hunger, but she knew there wasn’t time for the luxury of food. She concentrated on where she was putting her feet, and prayed that she wouldn’t trip over a huge snake. She knew there were snakes and lizards and huge spiders in the jungle. She was afraid, but Lopez was much more terrorizing a threat than a lonesome snake.

She followed her taciturn companion through the jungle growth, her eyes restless, her ears listening for any mechanical sound. The darkness was oddly comforting, because sound traveled so well in it. Once, she heard a quick, sharp rustle of the underbrush and stilled, but her companion quickly trained his light on it. It was only an iguana.

She laughed with delight at the unexpected encounter, bringing a curt jerk of the head from her companion, who seemed to find her amusement odd. He didn’t say anything, though. He glanced at his instrument again, stopped to listen and look, and started off again.

Thorns in some of the undergrowth tore at her bare arms and legs, and her face. She didn’t complain. Remembering where she’d been just before she was rescued made her grateful for any sort of escape, no matter how physically painful it might be.

She began to make a mental list of things she had to do when they reached safety. First on the list was to phone and see if Jack Steele was all right. He must be worried about her sudden disappearance. She didn’t want him to suffer a setback.

Her lack of conversation seemed to puzzle the big man leading her through the jungle. He glanced back at her frequently, presumably to make sure she was behind him, but he didn’t speak. He made odd movements, sometimes doubling back on the trail he made, sometimes deliberately snapping twigs and stepping on grass in directions they didn’t go. Callie just followed along mindlessly.

At least two hours passed before he stopped, near a small stream. “We should be safe enough here for the time being,” he remarked as he put down the backpack and opened it, producing a small bottle of water. He tossed it to Callie. “I imagine you’re thirsty.”

She opened it with trembling hands and swallowed half of it down at once, tears stinging her eyes at the pleasure of the wetness on her tongue, in her dry mouth.

He set up a small, self-contained light source, revealing his companion. He moved closer, frowning at her enthusiastic swallowing as he drew a first aid kit from his backpack. “When did you last have anything to drink?” he asked softly.

“Day…before yesterday,” she choked.

He cursed. In the same instant, he pulled off the mask he’d been wearing, and Callie dropped the water bottle as her eyes encountered the dark ones of her stepbrother, Micah, in the dim light.

He picked up the water bottle and handed it back to her. “I thought it might come as a shock,” he said grimly, noting her expression.

“You came after me yourself?” she asked, aghast. “But, how? Why?”

“Lopez has an agent in one of the federal agencies,” he told her flatly. “I don’t know who it is. I couldn’t risk letting them come down here looking for you and having someone sell you out before I got here. Not that it would have been anytime soon. They’re probably still arguing over jurisdictions as we speak.” He pulled out a foil-sealed package and tossed it to her. “It’s the equivalent of an MRE—a meal ready to eat. Nothing fancy, but if you’re hungry, you won’t mind the taste.”

“Thanks,” she said huskily, tearing into it with urgent fingers that trembled with hunger.

He watched her eat ravenously, and he scowled. “No food, either?”

She shook her head. “You don’t feed people you’re going to kill,” she mumbled through bites of chicken and rice that tasted freshly cooked, if cold.

He was very still. “Excuse me?”

She glanced at him while she chewed a cube of chicken. “He gave me to three of his men and told them to kill me.” She swallowed and averted her eyes. “He said they could do whatever they liked to me first. So they did. At least, they started to, when you showed up. I was briefly alone with a smaller man, Arabic I think, and I tried to make him mad enough to release me so I had one last chance at escape. It made him mad, all right, but instead of untying me, he…put his knife into me.” She chewed another cube of chicken, trying not to break down. “He said it was a…a taste of what to expect if I resisted him again. When you came in through the window, he was just about to violate me.”

“I’m going to take care of that cut right now. Infection sets in fast in tropical areas like this.” He opened the first-aid box and checked through his supplies. He muttered something under his breath.

He took the half-finished meal away from her and stripped her out of the T-shirt. She grimaced and lowered her eyes as her mutilated bra and her bare breast were revealed, but she didn’t protest.

“I know this is going to be hard for you, considering what you’ve just been through. But try to remember that I’m a doctor,” he said curtly. “As near as not, anyway.”

She swallowed, her eyes still closed tight. “At least you won’t make fun of my body while you’re working on it,” she said miserably.

He was opening a small bottle. “What’s that?”

“Nothing,” she said wearily. “Oh God, I’m so tired!”

“I can imagine.”

She felt his big, warm hands reach behind her to unfasten the bra and she caught it involuntarily.

He glanced at her face in the small circle of light from the lantern. “If there was another way, I’d take it.”

She drew in a slow breath and closed her eyes, letting go of the fabric. She bit her lip and didn’t look as he peeled the fabric away from her small, firm breasts.

The sight of the small cut made him furious. She had pretty little breasts, tip-tilted, with dusky nipples. He could feel himself responding to the sight of her, and he had to bite down hard on a wave of desire.

He forced himself to focus on the cut, and nothing else. The bra, he stuffed in his backpack. He didn’t dare leave signs behind them. There wasn’t much chance that they were closely followed, but he had to be careful.

He had to touch her breast to clean the small cut, and she jerked involuntarily.

“I won’t hurt you any more than I have to,” he promised quietly, mistaking her reaction for pain. “Grit your teeth.”

She did, but it didn’t help. She bit almost through her lip as he cleaned the wound. The sight of his big, lean hands on her body was breathtaking, arousing even under the circumstances. The pain was secondary to the hunger she felt for him, a hunger that had lasted for years. He didn’t know, and she couldn’t let him know. He hated her.

She closed her eyes while he put a soft bandage over the cleaned wound, taping it in place.

“God in heaven, I thought I’d seen every kind of lowlife on earth, but the guy who did this to you was a class all by himself,” he growled.

She remembered the man and shuddered. Micah was pulling the shirt down over her bandaged breast. “It probably doesn’t seem like it, but I got off lucky,” she replied.

He looked into her eyes. “It’s just a superficial wound so you won’t need stitches. It probably won’t even leave a scar there.”

“It wouldn’t matter,” she said quietly.

“It would.” He got up, drawing her up with him. “You’re still nervous of me, after all this time.”

She didn’t meet his eyes. “You don’t like me.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” he burst out, letting go of her shoulders. He turned away to deal with the medical kit. “Haven’t you got eyes?”

She wondered what that meant. She was too tired to work it out. She sat down again and picked up her half-eaten meal, finishing it with relish. It was hard to look at him, after he’d seen her like that.

She fingered the rolled-up pair of camouflage pants she was wearing. “These aren’t big enough to be yours,” she remarked.

“They’re Maddie’s. She gave me those for you, and the shoes and socks, on the way out of Texas,” he commented when he noticed her curious exploration of the pants.

He worked with some sort of electronic device.

“What’s that thing?” she asked.

“GPS,” he explained. “Global positioning. I can give my men a fix on our position, so they can get a chopper in here to pick us up and pinpoint our exact location. There’s a clearing just through there where we’ll rendezvous,” he added, nodding toward the jungle.

Suddenly she frowned. “Who’s Maddie?” she asked.

“Maddie’s my scrounger. Anything we need on site that we didn’t bring, Maddie can get. She’s quite a girl. In fact,” he added, “she looks a lot like you. She was mistaken for you at a wedding I went to recently in Washington, D. C.”

That was disturbing. It sounded as though he and this Maddie were in partnership or something. She hated the jealousy she felt, when she had no right to be jealous. Old habits died hard.

“Is she here?” she asked, still puzzled by events and Micah’s strange skills.

“No. We left her back in the States. She’s working on some information I need, about the mole working for the feds, and getting some of your things together to send on to Miami.”

She blinked. “You keep saying ‘we,’” she pointed out.

His chin lifted. He studied her, unsmiling. “Exactly what do you think I do for a living, Callie?” In the dim light, his blond hair shone like muted moonlight. His handsome face was all angles and shadows. Her vision was still a little blurred from whatever the kidnapper had given her. So was her mind.

“Your mother left you a trust,” she pointed out.

“My mother left me ten thousand dollars,” he replied. “That wouldn’t pay to replace the engine on the Ferrari I drive in Nassau.”

Her hands stilled on the fork and tray. Some odd ideas were popping into her head. “You finished your residency?” she fished.

He shook his head. “Medicine wasn’t for me.”

“Then, what…?”

“Use your mind, Callie,” he said finally, irritated. “How many men do you know who could rappel into a drug lord’s lair and spirit out a hostage?”

Her breath caught. “You work for some federal agency?”

“Good God!” He got up, moved to his backpack and started repacking it. “You really don’t have a clue, do you?”

“I don’t know much about you, Micah,” she confided quietly as she finished her meal and handed him the empty tray and fork. “That was the way you always wanted it.”

“In some cases, it doesn’t pay to advertise,” he said carelessly. “I used to work with Eb Scott and Cy Parks, but now I have my own group. We hire out to various world governments for covert ops.” He glanced at her stunned face. “I worked for the justice department for a couple of years, but now I’m a mercenary, Callie.”

She was struck dumb for several long seconds. She swallowed. It explained a lot. “Does your father know?” she asked.

“He does not,” he told her. “And I don’t want him to know. If he still gives a damn about me, it would only upset him.”

“He loves you very much,” she said quietly, avoiding his angry black eyes. “He’d like to mend fences, but he doesn’t know how. He feels guilty, for making you leave and blaming you for what…what my mother did.”

He pulled out a foil sealed meal for himself and opened it before he spoke. “You blamed me, as well.”

She wrapped her arms around herself. It was cold in the jungle at night, just like they said in the movies. “Not really. My mother is very beautiful,” she said, recalling the older woman’s wavy jet-black hair and vivid blue eyes and pale skin. “She was a model just briefly, before she married my…her first husband.”

He frowned. “You were going to say, your father.”

She shivered. “He said I wasn’t his child. He caught her in bed with some rich man when I was six. I didn’t understand at the time, but he pushed me away pretty brutally and said not to come near him again. He said he didn’t know whose child I was. That was when she put me in foster care.”

Micah stared at her, unspeaking, for several long seconds. “Put you in what?”

She swallowed. “She gave me up for adoption on the grounds that she couldn’t support me. I went into a juvenile home, and from there to half a dozen foster homes. I only saw her once in all those years, when she took me home for Christmas. It didn’t last long.” She stared down at the jungle floor. “When she married your father, he wanted me, so she told him I’d been staying with my grandmother. I was in a foster home, but she got me out so she could convince your father that she was a good mother.” She laughed hollowly. “I hadn’t seen her or heard from her in two years by then. She told me I’d better make a good job of pretending affection, or she’d tell the authorities I’d stolen something valuable—and instead of going back into foster care for two more years, I’d go to jail.”

3

Micah didn’t say a word. He repacked the first-aid kit into his backpack with quick, angry movements. He didn’t look at Callie.

“I guess you know how to use that gun,” she said quietly. “If we’re found, or if it looks like Lopez is going to catch us, I want you to shoot me. I’d rather die than face what you saved me from.”

She said it in such a calm, quiet tone that it made all the more impact.

He looked up, scanning her drawn, white face in the soft light from the lantern. “He won’t get you. I promise.”

She drew a slow breath. “Thanks.” She traced a fingernail over the camouflage pants. “And thanks for coming to get me. Lopez said he didn’t have any plans to ransom me. He was going to let his men kill me because he thought it would make you suffer.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That you were my worst enemy and you wouldn’t care if he killed me,” she said carelessly. “But he said you did care about your father, and he was the next victim. I hope you’ve got someone watching Dad,” she added fervently. “If anything happens to him…!”

“You really love him, don’t you?” he asked in an odd tone.

“He’s the only person in my whole life who ever loved me,” she said in a strained whisper.

A harsh sound broke from his lips. He got up and started getting things together. He pulled out what looked like a modified cell phone and spoke into it. A minute later, he put it back into the backpack.

“They’re on the way in.” He stood over her, his face grim as he picked up the small lantern and extinguished the light. “I know you must be cold. I’m sorry. I planned a quick airlift, so I didn’t pack for a prolonged trek.”

“It’s all right,” she said at once. “Cold is better than tortured.”

He cursed under his breath as he hefted the backpack. “We have to get to that small clearing on the other side of the stream. It isn’t deep, but I can carry you…”

“I’ll walk,” she said with quiet dignity, standing up. It was still painful to move, because she’d been tied up for so long, but she didn’t let on. “You’ve done enough already.”

“I’ve done nothing,” he spat. He turned on his heel and led the way to the bank of the small stream, offering a hand.

She didn’t take it. She knew he found her repulsive. He’d even told her mother that. She’d enjoyed taunting Callie with it. Callie had never understood why her mother hated her so much. Perhaps it was because she wasn’t pretty.

“Walk where I do,” he bit off as he dropped his hand. “The rocks will be slippery. Go around them, not over them.”

“Okay.”

He glanced over his shoulder as they started over the shallow stream. “You’re damned calm for someone who’s been through what you have in the past two days.”

She only smiled. “You have no idea what I’ve been through in my life.”

He averted his eyes. It was as if he couldn’t bear to look at her anymore. He picked his way across to the other bank. Callie followed obediently, her feet cold and wet, her body shivering. Only a little longer, she told herself, and she would be home with Jack. She would be completely safe. Except…Lopez was still out there. She shivered again.

“Cold?” he asked when they were across.

“I’ll be fine,” she assured him.

He led her through one final tangle of brush, which he cut out of the way with the knife. She could see the silver ripple of the long blade in the dim light of the small flashlight he carried. She put one foot in front of the other and tried to blank out what would happen if Lopez’s men caught up with them. It was terrifying.

They made it to the clearing just as a dark, noisy silhouette dropped from the sky and a door opened.

“They spotted us on radar!” came a loud voice from the chopper. “They’ll be here in two minutes. Run!”

“Run as if your life depended on it!” Micah told Callie, giving her a push.

She did run, her mind so affected by what she’d already endured that she almost kept up with her long-legged stepbrother. He leaped right up into the chopper and gave her a hand up. She landed in a heap on the dirty floor, and laughed with relief.

The door closed and the chopper lifted. Outside, there were sounds like firecrackers in the wake of the noise the propellers made. Gunfire, Callie knew.

“It always sounds like firecrackers in real life,” she murmured. “It doesn’t sound that way in the movies.”

“They augment the sound in movies, mademoiselle.” A gentle hand eased her into a seat on the edge of the firing line Micah and two other men made at the door.

She looked up. There was barely any light in the helicopter, but she could make out a beard and a mustache on a long, lean face. “You made it, too!” she exclaimed with visible relief. “Oh, I’m glad. I felt bad that you and the other man had to be decoys, just to get me out.”

“It was no trouble, mademoiselle,” the man said gently, smiling at her. “Rest now. They won’t catch us. This is an Apache helicopter, one of the finest pieces of equipment your country makes. It has some age, but we find it quite reliable in tight situations.”

“Is it yours?” she asked.

He laughed. “You might say that we have access to it, and various other aircraft, when we need them.”

“Don’t bore her to death, Bojo,” a younger voice chuckled.

“Listen to him!” Bojo exclaimed. “And do you not drone on eternally about that small computer you carry, Peter, and its divine functions?”

A dark-haired, dark-eyed young man with white teeth came into view, a rifle slung over his shoulder. “Computers are my specialty,” he said with a grin. “You’re Callie? I’m Peter Stone. I’m from Brooklyn. That’s Bojo, he’s from Morocco. I guess you know Micah. And Smith over there—” he indicated a huge dark-eyed man “—runs a seafood restaurant in Charleston, along with our Maddie and a couple of guys we seem to have misplaced…”

“We haven’t misplaced them,” Micah said curtly. “They’ve gone ahead to get the DC-3 gassed up.”

Bojo grinned. “Lopez will have men waiting at the airport for us.”

“While we’re taking off where we landed—at Laremos’s private airstrip,” Micah replied calmly. “And Laremos will have a small army at his airstrip, just in case Lopez does try anything.”

“But what about customs?” Callie voiced.

Everybody laughed.

She flushed, realizing now that her captors hadn’t gone through customs, and neither had these men. “Okay, I get it, but what about getting back into the States from here? I don’t have a passport…”

“You have a birth certificate,” Micah reminded her. “It’ll be waiting in Miami, along with a small bag containing some of your own clothes and shoes. That’s why Maddie didn’t come with us,” he added smugly.

“Miami?” she exclaimed, recalling belatedly that he’d mentioned that before. “Why not Texas?”

“You’re coming back to the Bahamas with me, Callie,” Micah replied. “You’ll be Lopez’s priority now. He’ll be out for revenge, and it will take all of us to keep you safe.”

She gaped at him. “But, Dad…” she groaned.

“Dad is in good hands. So are you. Now try not to worry. I know what I’m doing.”

She bit her lower lip. None of this was making sense, and she was still scared, every time she thought about Lopez. But all these men surrounding her looked tough and battle-hardened, and she knew they wouldn’t let her be recaptured.

“Who’s Laremos?” Callie asked curiously, a minute later.

“He’s retired now,” Micah said, coming away from the door. “But he and ‘Dutch’ van Meer and J. D. Brettman were the guys who taught us the trade. They were the best. Laremos lives outside Cancún on a plantation with his wife and kids, and he’s got the equivalent of a small army around him. Even the drug lords avoid his place. We’ll get out all right, even if Lopez has his men tracking us.”

She averted her eyes and folded her arms tightly around her body.

“You are shivering,” Bojo said gently. “Here.” He found a blanket and wrapped it around her.

That one simple act of compassion brought all her repressed fear and anguish to the surface. She bawled. Not a sound touched her lips. But tears poured from her eyes, draping themselves hot and wet across her pale cheeks and down to the corner of her pretty bow mouth.

Micah saw them and his face hardened like rock.

She turned her face toward the other side of the helicopter. She was used to hiding her tears. They mostly angered people, made them more hostile. Or they showed a weakness that was readily exploited. It was always better not to let people know they had the power to hurt you.

She wrapped the blanket closer and didn’t speak the rest of the way. She closed her eyes, wiping at them with the blanket. Micah spoke in low tones to the other men, and although she couldn’t understand what he was saying, she understood that rough, angry tone. She’d heard it enough at home.

For now, all she wanted to do was get to safety, to a place where Lopez and the animals who worked for him couldn’t find her, couldn’t hurt her. She was more afraid now than she had been on the way out of Texas, because now she knew what recapture would mean. The darkness was a friend in which she could hide her fear, conceal her terror. The sound of the propellers became suddenly like a mechanical lullaby in her ears, lulling her, like the whispers of the deep voices around her, into a brief, fitful sleep.

She felt an odd lightness in her stomach and opened her eyes to find the helicopter landing at what looked like a small airstrip on private land.

A big airplane, with scars and faded lettering, was waiting with its twin prop engines already running. Half a dozen armed men in camouflage uniforms stood with their guns ready to fire. A tall, imposing man with a mustache came forward. He had a Latin look about him, dark eyes and graceful movement.

He shook hands with Micah and spoke to him quietly, so that his voice didn’t carry. Micah listened, and then nodded. They shook hands again. The man glanced at Callie curiously, and smiled in her direction.

She smiled back, her whole young face drawn and fatigued.

Micah motioned to her. “We have to get air borne before Lopez’s menge there. Climb aboard. Thanks, Diego!” he called to the man.

“No es nada,” came the grinning reply.

“Was that the man you know, with the plantation?” Callie asked when they were inside and the door was closed.

“That was Laremos,” he agreed.

“He and his family won’t be hurt on our account, will they?” she persisted.

He glanced down at her. “No,” he said slowly. His eyes searched hers until she looked away, made uneasy and shivery by the way he was looking at her.

He turned and made his way down the aisle to the cockpit. Two men poked their heads out of it, grinning, and after he spoke to them, they revved up the engines.

The passengers strapped themselves into their seats. Callie started to sit by herself, but Micah took her arm and guided her into the seat beside his. It surprised her, but she didn’t protest. He reached across her to fasten her seat belt, bringing his hard, muscular chest pressing gently against her breasts.

She gasped as the pressure made the cut painful.

“God, I’m sorry! I forgot,” he said, his hand going naturally, protectively, to her breast, to cup it gently. “Is it bad?”

She went scarlet. Of course, nobody was near enough to see what was going on, but it embarrassed her to have him touch her with such familiarity. And then she remembered that he’d had her nude from the waist up on one side while he cleaned and bandaged that cut.

Her eyes searched his while she tried to speak. Her tongue felt swollen. Her breath came jerkily into her throat and her lips parted under its force. She felt winded, as if she’d fallen from a height.

His thumb soothed the soft flesh around the cut. “When we get to Miami, I’ll take you to a friend of mine who’s in private practice. We’ll get you checked out before we fly out to the Bahamas.”

His other arm, muscular and warm, was under her head. She could feel his breath, mint-scented and warm, on her lips as he searched her eyes.

His free hand left her breast and gently cupped her softly rounded chin. “Soft skin,” he whispered deeply. “Soft heart. Sweet, soft mouth…”

His lips pressed the words against hers, probing tenderly. He caught her upper lip in both of his and tasted it with his tongue. Then he lifted away to look down into her shocked, curious eyes.

“You should hate me,” he whispered. “I hurt you, and you did nothing, nothing at all to deserve it.”

She winced, remembering how it had been when he’d lived with his father. “I understood. You resented me. My mother and I were interlopers.”

“Your mother, maybe. Never you.” He looked formidable, angry and bitter. But his black eyes were unreadable. “I’ve hesitated to ask. Maybe I don’t really want to know. When Lopez had you,” he began with uncharacteristic hesitation, “were you raped?”

“No,” she said quietly. “But I was about to be. I remember thinking that if it hadn’t all gone wrong that Christmas…” Her voice stopped. She was horrified at what she was about to say.

“I know,” he interrupted, and he didn’t smile. “I thought about it, too. What Lopez’s damned henchmen did to you at least wouldn’t have been your first experience of intimacy, if I hadn’t acted like a prize heel with you!”

He seemed maddened by the knowledge. His hand on her face was hard and the pressure stung.

“Please,” she whispered, tugging at his fingers.

He relaxed them at once. “I’m sorry,” he bit off. “I’m still on edge. This whole thing has been a nightmare.”

“Yes.” She searched his black eyes, wishing she knew what he was thinking.

His thumb brushed softly over her swollen mouth. “Lopez will never get the chance to hurt you again,” he said quietly. “I give you my word.”

She bit her lower lip when his hand lifted away, shy of him. “Do you really think he’ll come after me again?”

“I think he’ll try,” he said honestly.

She shivered, averting her eyes to the aisle beside them. “I hate remembering how helpless I was.”

“I’ve been in similar situations,” he said surprisingly. “Once I was captured on a mission and held for execution. I was tied up and tortured. I know how it feels.”

She gaped at him, horrified. “How did you escape?”

“Bojo and the others came in after me,” he said simply. “Under impossible odds, too.” He smiled, and it was the first genuine smile he’d ever given her. “I guess they missed being yelled at.”

She smiled back, hesitantly. It was new to relax with Micah, not to be on her guard against antagonistic and sarcastic comments.

He touched her face with a curious intensity in his eyes. “You must have been terrified when you were kidnapped. You’ve never known violence.”

She didn’t tell him, but she had, even if not as traumatically as she had at Lopez’s. She lowered her gaze to his hard, disciplined mouth. “I never expected to be rescued at all, least of all by you. I wasn’t even sure you’d agree to pay a ransom if they’d asked for one.”

He scowled. “Why not?”

“You don’t like me,” she returned simply. “You never did.”

He seemed disturbed. “It’s a little more complicated than that, Callie.”

“All the same, thank you for saving me,” she continued. “You risked your own life to get me out.”

“I’ve been risking it for years,” he said absently while he studied her upturned face. She was too pale, and the fatigue she felt was visible. “Why don’t you try to sleep? It’s going to be a long flight.”

Obviously he didn’t want to talk. But she didn’t mind. She was worn-out. “Okay,” she agreed with a smile.

He moved back and she leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and the tension of the past two days caught up with her all at once. She fell asleep almost at once and didn’t wake up until they were landing.

She opened her eyes to find a hard, warm pillow under her head. To her amazement, she was lying across Micah’s lap, with her cheek on his chest.

“Wakey, wakey,” he teased gently. “We’re on the ground.”

“Where?” she asked, rubbing her eyes like a sleepy child.

“Miami.”

“Oh. At the airport.”

He chuckled. “An airport,” he corrected. “But this one isn’t on any map.”

He lifted her gently back into her own seat and got to his feet, stretching hugely. He grinned down at her. “Come on, pilgrim. We’ve got a lot to do, and not much time.”

She let him lead her off the plane. The other men had all preceded them, leaving behind automatic weapons, pistols and other paraphernalia.

“Aren’t you forgetting your equipment?” she asked Micah.

He smiled and put a long finger against her mouth. His eyes were full of mischief. He’d never joked with her, not in all the years they’d known each other.

“It isn’t ours,” he said in a stage whisper. “And see that building, and those guys coming out of it?”

“Yes.”

“No,” he corrected. “There’s no building, and those guys don’t exist. All of this is a figment of your imagination, especially the airplane.” “My gosh!” she exclaimed with wide eyes. “We’re working for the CIA?”

He burst out laughing. “Don’t even ask me who they are. I swore I’d never tell. And I never will. Now let’s go, before they get here.”

He and the others moved rapidly toward a big sport utility vehicle sitting just off the apron where they’d left the plane.

“Are you sure you cleared this with, uh—” Peter gave a quick glance at Callie “—the man who runs this place?”

“Eb did,” Micah told him. “But just in case, let’s get the hell out of Dodge, boys!”

He ran for the SUV, pushing Callie along. The others broke into a run, as well, laughing as they went.

There was a shout behind them, but it was still hanging on the air when the driver, one of the guys in the cockpit, burned rubber taking off.

“He’ll see the license plate!” Callie squeaked as she saw a suited man with a notepad looking after them.

“That’s the idea,” the young man named Peter told her with a grin. “It’s a really neat plate, too. So is this vehicle. It belongs to the local director of the—” he hesitated “—of an agency we know. We, uh, had a friend borrow it from his house last night.”

“We’ll go to prison for years!” Callie exclaimed, horrified.

“Not really,” the driver said, pulling quickly into a parking spot at a local supermarket. “Everybody out.”

Callie’s head was spinning. They got out of the SUV and into a beige sedan sitting next to it, with keys in the ignition. She was crowded into the back with Micah and young Peter, while the two pilots, one a Hispanic and the other almost as blond as Micah, crowded Bojo on either side in the front. The driver took off at a sedate pace and pulled out into Miami traffic.

That was when she noticed that all the men were wearing gloves. She wasn’t. “Oh, that’s lovely,” she muttered. “That’s just lovely! Everybody’s wearing gloves but me. My fingerprints will be the only ones they find, and I’ll go to prison for years. I guess you’ll all come and visit me Sundays, right?” she added accusingly.

Micah chuckled with pure delight. “The guy who owns the SUV is a friend of Eb’s, and even though he doesn’t show it, he has a sense of humor. He’ll double up laughing when he runs your prints and realizes who had his four-wheel drive. I’ll explain it to you later. Take us straight to Dr. Candler’s office, Don,” he told the blond guy at the wheel. “You know where it is.”

“You bet, boss,” came the reply.

“I’m not going to prison?” Callie asked again, just to be sure.

Micah pursed his lips. “Well, that depends on whether or not the guy at customs recognizes us. I was kidding!” he added immediately when she looked ready to cry.

She moved her shoulder and grimaced. “I’ll laugh enthusiastically when I get checked out,” she promised.

“He’ll take good care of you,” Micah assured her. “He and I were at medical school together.”

“Is he, I mean, does he do what you do?”

“Not Jerry,” he told her. “He specializes in trauma medicine. He’s chief of staff at a small hospital here.”

“I see,” she said, nodding. “He’s a normal person.”

Micah gave her a speaking glance while the others chuckled.

The hospital where Micah’s friend worked was only a few minutes from the airport. Micah took Callie inside while the others waited in the car. Micah had a private word with the receptionist, who nodded and left her desk for a minute. She came back with a tall, dark-headed man about Micah’s age. He motioned to Micah.

Callie was led back into an examination room. Micah sank into a chair by the desk.

“Are you going to sit there the whole time?” Callie asked Micah, aghast, when the doctor asked her to remove the shirt she was wearing so he could examine her.

“You haven’t got anything that I haven’t seen, and I need to explain to Jerry what I did to treat your wound.” He proceeded to do that while Callie, uncomfortable and shy, turned her shoulder to him and removed the shirt.

After checking her vital signs, Dr. Candler took the bandage off and examined the small red cut with a scowling face. “How did this happen?” he asked curtly.

“One of Lopez’s goons had a knife and liked to play games with helpless women,” Micah said coldly.

“I hope he won’t be doing it again,” the physician murmured as he cleaned and redressed the superficial wound.

“That’s classified,” Micah said simply.

Callie glanced at him, surprised. His black eyes met hers, but he didn’t say anything else.

“I’m going to give you a tetanus shot as a precaution,” Dr. Candler said with a professional smile. “But I can almost guarantee that the cut won’t leave a scar when it heals. I imagine it stings.”

“A little,” Callie agreed.

“I need to give her a full examination,” Dr. Candler told him after giving Callie the shot. “Why don’t you go outside and smoke one of those contraband Cuban cigars I’m not supposed to know you have?”

“They aren’t contraband,” Micah told him. “It isn’t illegal if you get given one that someone has purchased in Cuba. Cobb was down there last month and he brought me back several.”

“Leave it to you to find a legal way to do something illegal,” Candler chuckled.

“Speaking of which, I’d better give a mutual acquaintance a quick call and thank him for the loan of his equipment.” He glanced at Callie and smiled softly. “Then maybe Callie can relax while you finish here.”

She didn’t reply. He went out and closed the door behind him. She let out an audible sigh of relief.

“Now,” Dr. Candler said as he continued to examine her. “Tell me what happened.”

She did, still shaken and frightened by what she’d experienced in the last two days. He listened while he worked, his face giving nothing away.

“What happened to the man who did it?” he persisted.

She gave him an innocent smile. “I really don’t know,” she lied.

He sighed. “You and Micah.” He shook his head. “Have you known him long?”

“Since I was fifteen,” she told him. “His father and my mother were briefly married.”

“You’re Callie!” the doctor said at once.

4

The look on Callie’s face was priceless. “How did you know?” she asked.

He smiled. “Micah talks about you a lot.”

That was a shocker. “I didn’t think he wanted anybody to know I even existed,” she pointed out.

He pursed his lips. “Well, let’s just say that he has ambiguous feelings about you.”

Ambiguous. Right. Plainly stated, he couldn’t stand her. But if that was true, why had he come himself to rescue her, instead of just sending his men?

She drew in a breath as he tended to her. “Am I going to be okay?”

“You’re going to be good as new in a few days.” He smiled at her. “Trust me.”

“Micah seems to.”

“He should. I taught him everything he knows about surgery,” he chuckled. “I was a year a head of him when we were in graduate school, and I took classes for one of the professors occasionally.”

She smiled. “You’re very good.”

“So was he,” he replied grimly.

She hesitated, but curiosity prodded her on. “If it wouldn’t be breaking any solemn oath, could you tell me why he didn’t finish his residency?”

He did, without going into details. “He realized medicine wasn’t his true calling.”

She nodded in understanding.

“But you didn’t hear that from me,” he added firmly.

“Oh, I never tell people things I know,” she replied easily, smiling. “I work for a lawyer.”

He chuckled. “Do tell?”

“He’s something of a fire-eater, but he’s nice to me. He practices criminal law back in Jacobsville, Texas.”

He put the medical equipment to one side and told her she could get dressed.

“I’m going to put you on some antibiotics to fight off infection.” He studied her with narrowed eyes. “What you’ve been through is traumatic,” he added as he handed her the prescription bottle. “I’d advise counseling.”

“Right now,” she said on a long breath, “I’m occupied with just trying to stay alive. The drug dealer is still after me, you see.”

His jaw tautened. “Micah will take care of you.”

“I know that.” She stood up and smiled, extending her hand. “Thanks.”

He shook her hand and shrugged. “Think nothing of it. We brilliant medical types feel obliged to minister to the masses…”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Micah groaned as he entered the room, overhearing his friend.

Dr. Candler gave him a look full of frowning mock-hauteur. “And aren’t you lucky that I don’t have to examine you today?” he drawled.

“We’re leaving. Right now.” He took Callie by the hand and gave the other man a grin. “Thanks.”

“Anytime. You take care.”

“You do the same.”

Callie was herded out the door.

“But, the bill,” she protested as he put her out a side door and drew her into the vehicle that was waiting for them with the engine running.

“Already taken care of. Let’s get to the airport.”

Callie settled into the seat, still worrying. “I don’t have anything with me,” she said miserably. “No papers, no clothes, no shoes…”

“I told you, Maddie got all that together. It will be waiting for us at the airport, along with tickets and boarding passes.”

“What if Lopez has people there waiting for us?” she worried aloud.

“We also have people waiting there for us,” Bojo said from the front seat. “Miami is our safest domestic port.”

“Okay,” she said, and smiled at him.

He smiled back.

Micah and Bojo exchanged a complicated glance. Bojo turned his attention back to the road and didn’t say another word all the way to the airport. Callie understood. Micah didn’t want her getting too friendly with his people. She didn’t take offense. She was used to rejection, after so many years in foster care. She only shrugged and looked out the window, watching palm trees and colorful buildings slide past as they wove through side streets and back onto the expressway.

The airport was crowded. Micah caught her by the arm and guided her past the ticket counter on the way to the concourses.

“But…” she protested.

“Don’t argue. Just walk through the metal detector.”

He followed close behind her. Neither of them was carrying anything metallic, but Micah was stopped when a security woman passed a wand over the two of them and her detector picked up the residual gunpowder on his hands and clothing. The woman looked at her instrument and then at him, with a wary, suspicious stare.

He smiled lazily at the uniformed woman holding the wand. “I’m on my way to a regional skeet shooting tournament,” he lied glibly. “I sent my guns on ahead by express, unassembled. Can’t be too careful these days, where firearms are concerned,” he added, catching Callie’s hand in his. “Right, honey?” he murmured softly, drawing her close.

To Callie’s credit, she didn’t faint at the unexpected feel of Micah’s arm around her, but she tingled from head to toe and her heart went wild.

The airport security woman seemed to relax, and she smiled back. She assumed, as Micah had intended, that he and Callie were involved. “Indeed you can’t. Have a good trip.”

Micah kept that long, muscular arm around Callie as they walked slowly down the concourse. He looked down, noting the erratic rhythm of her heartbeat at her neck, and he smiled to himself.

“You have lightning-quick reflexes,” he remarked after a minute. “I noticed that in Cancún. You didn’t argue, you didn’t question anything I told you to do, and you moved almost as fast as I did. You’re good company in tight corners.”

She shrugged. “When you came in through the window, I didn’t know who you were, because of that face mask. Actually,” she confessed with a sheepish smile, “at first, I figured you were a rival drug dealer, but I had high hopes that you might be kind enough to just kill me and not torture me first if I didn’t resist.”

He drew in a sharp breath and the arm holding her contracted with a jerk. “Strange attitude, Callie,” he remarked.

“Not at the time. Not to me, anyway.” She shivered at the memory and felt his arm tighten almost protectively. They were well out of earshot and sight of the security guard. “Micah, what was that wand she was checking us with?”

“It detects nitrates,” he replied. “With it, they can tell if a passenger has had any recent contact with weapons or explosives.”

She was keenly aware of his arm still holding her close against his warm, powerful body. “You can, uh, let go now. She’s out of sight.”

He didn’t relent. “Don’t look, but there’s a security guard with a two-way radio about fifteen feet to your right.” He smiled down at her. “And I’ll give you three guesses who’s on the other end of it.”

She smiled back, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “The lady with the nitrate wand? We’re psyching them out, right?”

He searched her eyes and for a few seconds he stopped walking. “Psyching them out,” he murmured. His gaze fell to her soft, full mouth. “Exactly.”

She couldn’t quite get her breath. His expression was unreadable, but his black eyes were glittering. He watched her blouse shake with the frantic rate of her heartbeats. He was remembering mistletoe and harsh words, and that same look in Callie’s soft eyes, that aching need to be kissed that made her look so very vulnerable.

“What the hell,” he murmured roughly as his head bent to hers. “It’s an airport. People are saying hello and goodbye everywhere…”

His warm, hard mouth covered hers very gently while the sounds of people in transit all around them faded to a dull roar. His heavy brows drew together in something close to anguish as he began to kiss her. Fascinated by his expression, by the warm, ardent pressure of his mouth on hers, she closed her eyes tight, and fantasized that he meant it, that he wasn’t pretending for the benefit of security guards, that he was enjoying the soft, tremulous response of her lips to the teasing, expert pressure of his own.

“Boss?”

They didn’t hear the gruff whisper.

It was followed by the loud clearing of a throat and a cough.

They didn’t hear that, either. Callie was on tiptoe now, her short nails digging into the hard muscles of his upper arms, hanging on Micah’s slow, tender kiss with little more than willpower, so afraid that he was going to pull away…!

“Micah!” the voice said shortly.

Micah’s head jerked up, and for a few seconds he seemed as disoriented as Callie. He stared blankly at the dark-headed man in front of him.

The man was extending a small case toward him. “Her papers and clothes and shoes and stuff,” the man said, nodding toward Callie and clearing his throat again. “Maddie had me fly them over here.”

“Thanks, Pogo.”

The big, dark man nodded. He stared with open curiosity at Callie, and then he smiled gently. “It was my pleasure,” he said, glancing again at Micah and making an odd little gesture with his head in Callie’s direction.

“This is Callie Kirby,” Micah said shortly, adding, “my…stepsister.”

The big man’s eyebrows levered up. “Oh! I mean, I was hoping she wasn’t a real sister. I mean, the way you were kissing her and all.” He flushed, and laughed self-consciously when Micah glared at him. Callie was scarlet, looking everywhere except at the newcomer.

“You’ll miss your flight out of here,” Micah said pointedly.

“What? Oh. Yeah.” He grinned at Callie. “I’m Pogo. I’m from Saint Augustine. I used to wrestle alligators until Micah here gave me a job. I’m sort of a bodyguard, you know…”

“You’re going to be an unemployed bodyguard in twenty seconds if you don’t merge with the crowd,” Micah said curtly.

“Oh. Well…sure. Bye, now,” he told Callie with an ear-to-ear smile.

She smiled back. He was like a big teddy bear. She was sorry they wouldn’t get to know each other.

Pogo almost fell over his own feet as he turned, jerking both busy eyebrows at his boss, before he melted into the crowd and vanished.

“Stop doing that,” Micah said coldly.

She looked up at him blankly. “Doing what?”

“Smiling at my men like that. These men aren’t used to it. Don’t encourage them.”

Her lips parted on a shaken breath. She looked at him as if she feared for his sanity. “Them?” she echoed, dazed.

“Bojo and Peter and Pogo,” he said, moving restlessly. He was jealous, God knew why. It irritated him. “Come on.”

He moved away from her, catching her hand tightly and pulling her along with him.

“And don’t read anything into what just happened,” he added coldly, without looking at her.

“Why would I?” she asked honestly. “You said it was just for appearances. I haven’t forgotten how you feel about me, Micah.”

He stopped and stared intently down into her eyes. His own were narrow, angry, impatient. She wore her heart where anyone could see it. Her vulnerability made him protective. Odd, that, when she was tough enough to survive captivity by Lopez and still keep her nerve during a bloody breakout.

“You don’t have a clue how I feel about you,” he said involuntarily. His fingers locked closer into hers. “I’m thirty-six. You’re barely twenty-two. The sort of woman I prefer is sophisticated and street-smart and has no qualms about sex. You’re still at the kissing-in-parked-cars stage.”

She flushed and searched his eyes. “I don’t kiss people in parked cars because I don’t date anybody,” she told him with blunt honesty. “I can’t leave Dad alone in the evenings. Besides, too many men around Jacobsville remember my mother, and think I’m like her.” Her face stiffened and she looked away. “Including you.”

He didn’t speak. There was little softness left in him after all the violent years, but she was able to touch some last, sensitive place with her sweet voice. Waves of guilt ran over him. Yes, he’d compared her to her mother that Christmas. He’d said harsh, cruel things. He regretted them, but there was no going back. His feelings about Callie unnerved him. She was the only weak spot in his armor that he’d ever known. And what a good thing that she didn’t know that, he told himself.

“You don’t know what was really going on that night, Callie,” he said after a minute.

She looked up at him. “Don’t you think it’s time I did?” she asked softly.

He toyed with her fingers, causing ripples of pleasure to run along her spine. “Why not? You’re old enough to hear it now.” He glanced around them cautiously before he looked at her again. “You were wearing an emerald velvet dress that night, the same one you’d worn to your eighteenth birthday party. They were watching a movie while you finished decorating the Christmas tree,” he continued absently. “You’d just bent over to pick up an ornament when I came into the room. The dress had a deep neckline. You weren’t wearing a bra under it, and your breasts were visible in that position, right to the nipples. You looked up at me and your nipples were suddenly hard.”

She gaped at him. The comment about her nipples was disturbing, but she had no idea what he meant by emphasizing them. “I had no idea I was showing like that!”

“I didn’t realize that. Not at first.” He held her fingers tighter. “You saw me and came right up against me, drowning me in that floral perfume you wore. You stood on tiptoe, like you did a minute ago, trying to tempt me into kissing you.”

She averted her embarrassed eyes. “You said terrible things…”

“The sight of you like that had aroused me passionately,” he said frankly, nodding when her shocked eyes jumped to his face. “That’s right. And I couldn’t let you know it. I had to make you keep your distance, not an easy accomplishment after the alcohol you’d had. For which,” he added coldly, “your mother should have been shot! It was illegal for her to let you drink, even at home. Anyway, I read you the riot act, pushed you away and walked down the hall, right into your mother. She recognized immediately what you hadn’t even noticed about my body, and she thought it was the sight of her in that slinky silver dress that had caused it. So she buried herself against me and started kissing me.” He let out an angry breath. “Your father saw us like that before I could push her away. And I couldn’t tell him the truth, because you were just barely eighteen. I was already thirty-two.”

The bitterness in his deep voice was blatant. She didn’t feel herself breathing. She’d only been eighteen, but he’d wanted her. She’d never realized it. Everything that didn’t make sense was suddenly crystal clear—except that comment about his body. She wondered what her mother had seen and recognized about him that she hadn’t.

“You never told me.”

“You were a child, Callie,” he said tautly. “In some ways, you still are. I was never low enough to take advantage of your innocence.”

She was almost vibrating with the turmoil of her emotions. She didn’t know what to do or say.

He drew in a long, slow breath as he studied her. “Come on,” he said, tugging her along. “We have to move or we’ll miss our flight.” He handed her the case and indicated the ladies’ room. “Get changed. I’ll wait right here.”

She nodded. Her mind was in such turmoil that she changed into jeans and a long-sleeved knit shirt, socks and sneakers, without paying much attention to what was in the small travel case. She didn’t take time to look in any of the compartments, because he’d said to hurry. She glanced at herself in the mirror and was glad she had short hair that could do without a brush. Despite all she’d been through, it didn’t look too bad. She’d have to buy a brush when they got where they were going, along with makeup and other toiletries. But that could wait.

Micah was propping up the wall when she came out. He nodded, approving what Maddie had packed for her, and took the case. “Here,” he said, passing her a small plastic bag.

Inside were makeup, a brush, a toothbrush, toothpaste and deodorant. She almost cried at the thoughtful gift.

“Thanks,” she said huskily.

Micah pulled the tickets and boarding passes out of his shirt pocket. “Get out your driver’s license and birth certificate,” he said. “We have to have a photo ID to board.”

She felt momentary panic. “My birth certificate is in my file at home, and my driver’s license is still in my purse, in my car…!”

He laid a lean forefinger across her pretty mouth, slightly swollen from the hard contact with his. “Your car is at your house, and your purse is inside it, and it’s locked up tight. I told Maddie to put your birth certificate and your driver’s license in the case. Have you looked for them?”

“No. I didn’t think…”

She paused, putting the case down on the carpeted concourse floor to open it. Sure enough, her driver’s license was in the zipped compartment that she hadn’t looked in when she was in the bathroom. Besides that, the unknown Maddie had actually put her makeup and toiletries inside, as well, in a plastic bag. She could have wept at the woman’s thoughtfulness, but she wasn’t going to tell Micah and make him feel uncomfortable that he’d already bought her those items. She closed it quickly and stuck her license in her jeans pocket.

“Does Maddie really look like me?” she asked on the way to the ticket counter, trying not to sound as if she minded. He’d said they resembled one another earlier.

“At a distance,” he affirmed. “Her hair is shorter than yours, and she’s more muscular. She was a karate instructor when she signed on with me. She’s twenty-six.”

“Karate.”

“Black belt,” he added.

“She seems to be very efficient,” she murmured a little stiffly.

He gave her a knowing glance that she didn’t see and chuckled softly. “She’s in love with Colby Lane, a guy I used to work with at the justice department,” he told her. “She signed on with us because she thought he was going to.”

“He didn’t?”

He shook his head. “He’s working for Pierce Hutton’s outfit, as a security chief, along with Tate Winthrop, an acquaintance of mine.”

“Oh.”

They were at the ticket counter now. He held out his hand for her driver’s license and birth certificate, and presented them along with his driver’s license and passport and the tickets to the agent on duty.

She put the tickets in a neat folder with the boarding passes in a slot on the outside, checked the ID, and handed them back.

“Have a nice trip,” she told them. “We’ll be boarding in just a minute.”

Callie hadn’t looked at her boarding pass. She was too busy trying to spot Bojo and Peter and the others.

“They’re already en route,” Micah told her nonchalantly, having guessed why she was looking around her.

“They aren’t going with us?”

He gave her a wry glance. “Somebody had to bring my boat back. I left it here in the marina when I flew out to Jacobsville to help Eb Scott and Cy Parks shut down Lopez’s drug operation. It’s still there.”

“Why couldn’t we have gone on the boat, too?”

“You get seasick,” he said before he thought.

Her lips fell open. She’d only been on a boat once, with him and her mother and stepfather, when she was sixteen. They’d gone to San Antonio and sailed down the river on a tour boat. She’d gotten very sick and thrown up. It had been Micah who’d looked after her, to his father’s amusement.

She hadn’t even remembered the episode until he’d said that. She didn’t get seasick now, but she kept quiet.

“Besides,” he added, avoiding her persistent stare, “if Lopez does try anything, it won’t be on an international flight out of the U. S. He’s in enough trouble with the higher-ups in his organization without making an assault on a commercial plane just to get even for losing a prisoner.”

She relaxed a little, because that had been on her mind.

He took her arm and drew her toward a small door, where a uniformed man was holding a microphone. He announced that they were boarding first-class passengers first, and Micah ushered her right down the ramp and into the plane.

“First class,” she said, dazed, as he eased her into a wide, comfortable seat with plenty of leg room. Even for a man of his height, there was enough of it.

“Always,” he murmured, amused at her fascination. “I don’t like cramped places.”

She fastened her seat belt with a wry smile. “Considering the size of you, I can understand that. Micah, what about Dad?” she added, ashamed that she was still belaboring the point.

“Maddie’s got him under surveillance. When Pogo goes back, he’ll work a split shift with her at your apartment to safeguard him. Eb and Cy are keeping their eyes out, as well. I promise you, Dad’s going to be safe.” He hesitated, searching her wide, pale blue eyes. “But you’re the one in danger.”

“Because I got away,” she agreed, nodding.

He seemed worried. His dark eyes narrowed on her face. “Lopez doesn’t lose prisoners, ever. You’re the first. Someone is going to pay for that. He’ll make an example of the people who didn’t watch you closely enough. Then he’ll make an example of you and me, if he can, to make sure his reputation doesn’t suffer.”

She shivered involuntarily. It was a nightmare that would haunt her forever. She remembered what she’d suffered already and her eyes closed on a helpless wave of real terror.

“You’re going to be safe, Callie. Listen,” he said, reading her expression, “I live on a small island in the Bahamas chain, not too far from New Providence. I have state-of-the-art surveillance equipment and a small force of mercenaries that even Lopez would hesitate to confront. Lopez isn’t the only one who has a reputation in terrorist circles. Before I put together my team and hired out as a professional soldier, I worked for the CIA.”

Her eyes widened. She hadn’t known that. She hadn’t known anything about him.

“They approached me while I was in college, before I changed my course of study to medicine. I was already fluent in French and Dutch, and I picked up German in my sophomore year. I couldn’t blend in very well in an Arabic country, but I could pass for German or Dutch, and I did. During holidays and vacations, I did a lot of traveling for the company.” He smiled, reminiscing. “It was dangerous work, and exciting. By the time I was in my last year of residency, I knew for a fact that I wouldn’t be able to settle down into a medical practice. I couldn’t live without the danger. That’s when I left school for good.”

She was hanging on every word. It was amazing to have him speak to her as an equal, as an adult. They’d never really talked before.

“I wondered,” she said, “why you gave it up.”

He stretched his long legs out in front of him and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “I had the skills, but as I grew older, the less I wanted roots or anything that hinted at permanence. I don’t want marriage or children, so a steady, secure profession seemed superfluous. On the other hand, being a mercenary is right up my alley. I live for those surges of adrenaline.”

“None of us ever knew about that,” she said absently, trying not to let him see how much it hurt to know that he couldn’t see a future as a husband and father. Now that she knew what he really did for a living, she could understand why. He was never going to be a family man. “We thought it was the trust your mother left you that kept you in Armani suits,” she added in a subdued tone.

“No, it wasn’t. I like my lifestyle,” he added with a pointed glance in her direction. He stretched lazily, pulling the silk shirt he was wearing taut across the muscles of his chest. A flight attendant actually hesitated as she started down the aisle, helplessly drinking in the sight of him. He was a dish, all right. Callie didn’t blame the other woman for staring, but the flight attendant had blond hair and blue eyes and she was lovely. Her beauty was like a knife in the ribs to Callie, pointing out all the physical attributes she herself lacked. If only she’d been pretty, she told herself miserably, maybe Micah would have wanted more than an occasional kiss from her.

“Would you care for anything to drink, sir?” the flight attendant asked, smiling joyfully as she paused by Micah’s side.

“Scotch and soda,” he told her. He smiled ruefully. “It’s been a long day.”

“Coming right up,” the woman said, and went at once to get the order.

Callie noticed that she hadn’t been asked if she wanted anything. She wondered what Micah would say if she asked for a neat whiskey. Probably nothing, she told herself miserably. He might have kissed her in the airport, but he only seemed irritated by her now.

The flight attendant was back with his drink. She glanced belatedly at Callie and grimaced. “Sorry,” she told the other woman. “I didn’t think to ask if you’d like something, too?”

Callie shook her head and smiled. “No, I don’t want anything, thanks.”

“Are you stopping in Nassau or just passing through?” the woman asked Micah boldly.

He gave her a lingering appraisal, from her long, elegant legs to her full breasts and lovely face. He smiled. “I live there.”

“Really!” Her eyes lit as if they’d concealed fires. “So do I!”

“Then you must know Lisette Dubonnet,” he said.

“Dubonnet,” the uniformed woman repeated, frowning. “Isn’t her father Jacques Dubonnet, the French ambassador?”

“Yes,” he said. “Lisette and I have known each other for several years. We’re…very good friends.”

The flight attendant looked suddenly uncomfortable, and a little flushed. Micah was telling her, in a nice way, that she’d overstepped her introduction. He smiled to soften the rejection, but it was a rejection, just the same.

“Miss Dubonnet is very lovely,” the flight attendant said with a pleasant, if more formal, smile. “If you need anything else, just ring.”

“I will.”

She went on down the aisle. Beside him, Callie was staring out the window at the ocean below without any real enthusiasm. She hated her own reaction to the news that Micah was involved with some beautiful woman in Nassau. And not only a beautiful woman, but a poised sophisticate, as well.

“You’ll like Lisse,” he said carelessly. “I’ll ask her to go shopping with you. You’ll have to have a few clothes. She has excellent taste.”

Implying that Callie had none at all. Her heart felt like iron in her chest, heavy and cold. “That would be nice,” she said, lying through her teeth. “I won’t need much, though,” she added, thinking about her small savings account.

“You may be there longer than a day or two,” he said in a carefully neutral voice. “You can’t wear the same clothes day in and day out. Besides,” he added curtly, “it’s about time you learned how to dress like a young woman instead of an elderly recluse!”

5

Callie felt the anger boil out of her in waves. “Oh, that’s nice, coming from you,” she said icily. “When you’re the one who started me wearing that sort of thing in the first place!”

“Me?” he replied, his eyebrows arching.

“You said I dressed like a tramp,” she began, and her eyes were anguished as she remembered the harsh, hateful words. “Like my mother,” she added huskily. “You said that I flaunted my body…” She stopped suddenly and wrapped her arms around herself. She stared out the porthole while she recovered her self-control. “Sorry,” she said stiffly. “I’ve been through a lot. It’s catching up with me. I didn’t mean to say that.”

He felt as if he’d been slapped. Maybe he deserved it, too. Callie had been beautiful in that green velvet dress. The sight of her in it had made him ache. She had the grace and poise of a model, even if she lacked the necessary height. But he’d never realized that his own anger had made her ashamed of her body, and at such an impressionable age. Good God, no wonder she dressed like a dowager! Then he remembered what she’d hinted in the jungle about the foster homes she’d stayed in, and he wondered with real anguish what she’d endured before she came to live in his father’s house. There had to be more to her repression than just a few regretted words from him.

“Callie,” he said huskily, catching her soft chin and turning her flushed face toward him. “Something happened to you at one of those foster homes, didn’t it?”

She bit her lower lip and for a few seconds, there was torment in her eyes.

He drew in a sharp breath.

She turned her face away again, embarrassed.

“Can you talk about it?” he asked.

She shook her head jerkily.

His dark eyes narrowed. And her mother—her own mother—had deserted her, had placed her in danger with pure indifference. “Damn your mother,” he said in a gruff whisper.

She didn’t look at him again. At least, she thought mistakenly, he was remembering the breakup of his father’s marriage, and not her childhood anymore. She didn’t like remembering the past.

He leaned back in his seat and stretched, folding his arms over his broad chest. One day, he promised himself, there was going to be a reckoning for Callie’s mother. He hoped the woman got just a fraction of what she deserved, for all the grief and pain she’d caused. Although, he had to admit, she had changed in the past year or so.

He wondered if her mother’s first husband, Kane Kirby, had contacted Callie recently. Poor kid, he thought. She really had gone through a lot, even before Lopez had her kidnapped. He thought about what she’d suffered at Lopez’s hands, and he ached to avenge her. The drug lord was almost certain to make a grab for her again. But this time, he promised himself, Lopez was going to pay up his account in full. He owed Callie that much for the damage he’d done.

It was dark when the plane landed in Nassau at the international airport, and Micah let Callie go ahead of him down the ramp to the pavement. The moist heat was almost smothering, after the air-conditioned plane. Micah took her arm and escorted her to passport control. He glanced with amusement at the passengers waiting around baggage claim for their bags to be unloaded. Even when he traveled routinely, he never took more than a duffel bag that he could carry into the airplane with him. It saved time waiting for luggage to be off-loaded.

After they checked through, he moved her outside again and hailed a cab to take them to the marina, where the boat was waiting.

Another small round of formalities and they boarded the sleek, powerful boat that already contained Micah’s men. Callie went below and sat quietly on a comfortable built-in sofa, watching out the porthole as the boat flew out of Prince George Wharf and around the bay. From there, it went out to sea.

“Comfortable?” Micah asked, joining her below.

She nodded. “It’s so beautiful out there. I love the way the ships light up at night. I knew cruise ships did, but I didn’t realize that smaller ones did, too.” She glanced at him in the subdued light of the cabin. “You don’t light yours, do you?”

He chuckled. “In my line of work, it wouldn’t be too smart, would it?”

“Sorry,” she said with a sheepish smile. “I wasn’t thinking.”

He poured himself a Scotch and water and added ice cubes. “Want something to drink? If you don’t want anything alcoholic, I’ve got soft drinks or fruit juice.”

She shook her head. “I’m fine.” She laughed. Her eyes caught and held on a vessel near the lighted dock. “Look! There’s a white ship with black sails flying a skull and crossbones Jolly Roger flag!”

He chuckled. “That would be Fred Spence. He’s something of a local eccentric. Nice boat, though.”

She glanced at him. “This one is nice, too.”

“It’s comfortable on long hauls,” he said noncommittally. He dropped down onto the sofa beside her and crossed his long legs. “We need to talk.”

“About what?”

“Lopez. I’m putting you under twenty-four-hour surveillance,” he said somberly. “If I’m not within yelling distance, one of my men will be. Even when you go shopping with Lisse, Bojo or Peter will go along. You aren’t to walk on the beach alone, ever.”

“But surely that would be safe…?”

He sat forward abruptly, and his black eyes glittered. “Callie, he has weapons that could pinpoint your body heat and send a missile after it from a distance of half a mile,” he said curtly.

She actually gasped. That brought to mind another worry. She frowned. “I’m putting you in jeopardy by being with you,” she said suddenly.

“You’ve got that backward, honey,” he said, the endearment coming so naturally that he wasn’t even aware he’d used it until he watched Callie’s soft complexion flush. “You were in jeopardy in the first place because of me. Why does it make you blush when I call you honey?” he added immediately, the question quick enough to rattle her.

“I’m not used to it.”

“From me,” he drawled softly. “Or from any man?”

She shifted. “From Dad, maybe.”

“Dad doesn’t count. I mean single, datable bachelors.”

She shook her head. “I don’t date.”

He’d never connected her solitary existence with himself. Now, he was forced to. He drew his breath in sharply, and got up from the sofa. He took a long sip from his drink, walking slowly over to stare out the porthole at the distant lights of the marina as they left it behind. “I honestly didn’t realize how much damage I did to your ego, Callie. I’m really sorry about it.”

“I was just as much at fault as you were,” she replied evenly. “I shouldn’t have thrown myself at you like some drunk prostitute…”

“Callie!” he exclaimed, horrified at her wording.

She averted her eyes and her hands clenched in her lap. “Well, I did.”

He put his drink on the bar and knelt just in front of her. He was so tall that his black eyes were even with soft blue ones in the position. His lean hands went to her waist and he shook her very gently.

“I pushed you away because I wanted you, not because I thought you were throwing yourself at me,” he said bluntly. “I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to resist you if I didn’t do something very fast. I would have explained it to you eventually, if your mother hadn’t stepped in and split the family apart, damn her cold heart!”

Her hands rested hesitantly on his broad shoulders, lifted and then rested again while she waited to see if she was allowed to touch him.

He seemed to realize that, because he smiled very slowly and his thumbs edged out against her flat belly in a sensuous stroking motion. “I like being touched,” he murmured. “It’s all right.”

She smiled nervously. “I’m not used to doing it.”

“I noticed.” He stood up and drew her up with him. The top of her head only came to his nose. He framed her face in his warm, strong hands and lifted it gently. “Want to kiss me?” he asked in a husky whisper, and his eyes fell to her own soft mouth.

She wasn’t sure about that. Her hands were on his chest now, touching lightly over the silky fabric. Under it, she could feel thick hair. She was hopelessly curious about what he looked like bare-chested. She’d never seen Micah without a shirt in all the time she’d lived in his house with his father.

“No pressure,” he promised, bending. “And I won’t make fun of you.”

“Make fun of me?” she asked curiously.

“Never mind.” He bent and his lips closed tenderly on her upper lip while he tasted the moist inside of it with his tongue. His lips moved to her lower lip and repeated the arousing little caress. His hands were at her waist, but they began to move up and down with a lazy, sensual pressure that made her body go rigid in his arms.

He lifted his mouth from her face and looked down at her with affectionate amusement. “ Relax! Why are you afraid of me?” he asked gently. “I wouldn’t hurt you, Callie. Not for any reason.”

“I know. It’s just that…”

“What?” he asked.

Her eyes met his plaintively. “Don’t…tease me,” she asked with dignity. “I’m not experienced enough to play that sort of game.”

The amusement left his face. “Is that what it seems like to you?” he asked. He searched her worried eyes. “Even if I were into game-playing, you’d never be a target. I do have some idea now of what you’ve been through, in the past and just recently.”

She let out the breath she’d been holding. “This Lisette you mentioned. Is she…important to you?”

“We’re good friends,” he said, and there was a new remoteness in his expression. “You’ll like her. She’s outgoing and she loves people. She’ll help you get outfitted.”

Now she was really worried. “I have my credit card, but I can’t afford expensive shops,” she emphasized. “Could you tell her that, so I won’t have to?”

“I can tell her.” He smiled quizzically. “But why won’t you let me buy you some clothes?”

“I’m not your responsibility, even if you have been landed with me, Micah,” she replied. “I pay my own way.”

He wondered if she had any idea how few of his female acquaintances would ever have made such a statement to him? It occurred to him that he’d never had a woman refuse a wardrobe.

He scowled. “You could pay me back, if you have to.”

She smiled. “Thanks. But I’ll buy my own clothes.”

His black eyes narrowed on her face. “You were always independent,” he recalled.

“I’ve had to be. I’ve been basically on my own for a long time,” she said matter-of-factly. “Since I was a kid, really, and my father—I mean, Mother’s first husband—threw us out. Mother didn’t want the responsibility for me by herself and Kane Kirby didn’t want me at all.”

“If your father didn’t think you were his, why didn’t he have a DNA profile run?” he asked with a watchful look.

She drew away from him. “There was no such thing fifteen years ago.”

“You could insist that he have it done now, couldn’t you?” He gave her an odd look. “Have you spoken to him?”

“He phoned me recently. But I didn’t call him back,” she said unwillingly. She’d seen her mother’s first husband once or twice, during his rare visits to his Jacobsville home. He’d actually phoned her apartment a few weeks ago and left a strange, tentative message asking her to call him back. She never had. His rejection of her still hurt. She didn’t see him often. He lived mostly in Miami these days.

“Why not talk to him and suggest the DNA test?” he persisted.

She looked up at him with tired, sad eyes. “Because it would probably prove what my mother said, that I’m not related to him at all.” She smiled faintly. “I don’t know whose child I am. And it really doesn’t matter anymore. Please, just…leave it alone.”

He sighed with irritation, as if he knew more than he was telling her. She wondered why he was so interested in her relationship with the man who was supposed to be her own father.

He saw that curiosity in her eyes, and he closed up. He could see years of torment in that sad little face. It infuriated him. “Your mother should be horsewhipped for what she did to you,” he said flatly.

She folded her arms across her chest, remembering the loneliness of her young life reluctantly. New homes, new faces, new terrors. She turned back to the porthole. “I used to wish I had someplace to belong,” she confessed. “I was always the outsider, in any home where I lived. Until my mother married your father,” she added, smiling. “I thought he’d be like all the others, that he’d either ignore me or be too familiar, but he just sort of belonged to me, from the very beginning. He really cared about me. He hugged me, coming and going.” She drew in a soft breath. “You can’t imagine what it feels like, to have someone hug you, when you’ve hardly been touched in your whole life except in bad ways. He was forever teasing me, bringing me presents. He became my family. He even made up for my mother. I couldn’t help loving him.” She turned, surprised to see an odd look of self-contempt on Micah’s strong face. “I guess you resented us…”

“I resented your mother, Callie,” he interrupted, feeling icy-cold inside. “What I felt for you was a lot more complicated than that.”

She gave him a surprised little smile. “But, I’m still my mother’s daughter, right? Don’t they say, look at the mother and you’ll see the daughter in twenty years or so?”

His face hardened. “You’ll never be like her. Not in your worst nightmares.”

She sighed. “I wish I could be sure of that.”

He felt like hitting something. “Do you know where she is?”

“Somewhere in Europe with her new husband, I suppose,” she said indifferently. “Dad’s lawyer heard from her year before last. She wanted a copy of the final divorce decree, because she was getting married again, to some British nobleman, the lawyer said.”

He remembered his own mother, a gentle little brown-eyed woman with a ready smile and open arms. She’d died when he was ten, and from that day on, he and his father had been best friends. Until Anna showed up, with her introverted, nervous teenage daughter. The difference between Anna and his own mother was incredible. Anna was selfish, vain, greedy…he could have laid all seven deadly sins at her feet with ease. But Callie was nothing like her, except, perhaps, her exact opposite.

“You’re the sort of woman who would love a big family,” he murmured thoughtfully.

She laughed. “What do I know about families?” she responded. “I’d be terrified of bringing an innocent child into this sort of world, knowing what I know about the uncertainties of life.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets. Children. He’d never thought about them. But he could picture Callie with a baby in her arms, and it seemed perfectly natural. She’d had some bad breaks, but she’d love her own child. It was sad that she didn’t want kids.

“Anyway, marriage is dead last on my list of things to do,” she added, uncomfortable because he wasn’t saying anything.

“That makes two of us,” he murmured. It was the sort of thing he always said, but it didn’t feel as comfortable suddenly as it used to. He wondered why.

She turned away from the porthole. “How long will it take us to get to your place?” she asked.

He shrugged. “About twenty more minutes, at this speed,” he said, smiling. “I think you’ll like it. It’s old, and rambling, and it has a history. According to the legend, a local pirate owned it back in the eighteenth century. He kidnapped a highborn Spanish lady and married her out of hand. They had six children together and lived a long and happy life, or so the legend goes.” He studied her curiously. “Isn’t there Spanish in your ancestry somewhere?”

Her face closed up. “Don’t ask me. My mother always said she descended from what they call ‘black Irish,’ from when the Spanish armada was shipwrecked off the coast of Ireland. I know her hair was jet-black when she was younger, and she has an olive complexion. But I don’t really know her well enough to say whether or not it was the truth.”

He bit off a comment on her mother’s penchant for lying. “Your complexion isn’t olive,” he remarked quietly. “It’s creamy. Soft.”

He embarrassed her. She averted her eyes. “I’m just ordinary.”

He shook his head. His eyes narrowed on her pretty bow of a mouth. “You always were unique, Callie.” He hesitated. “Callie. What’s it short for?” he asked, suddenly curious.

She drew in a slow breath. “Colleen,” she replied reluctantly. “But nobody ever calls me that. It’s been Callie since I was old enough to talk.”

“Colleen what?”

“Colleen Mary,” she replied.

He smiled. “Yes. That suits you.”

He was acting very strangely. In fact, he had been ever since he rescued her. She wondered if he was still trying to take her mind off Lopez. If he was, it wasn’t working. The nightmarish memories were too fresh to forget.

She looked at him worriedly. “Lopez will be looking for me,” she said suddenly.

He tautened. “Let him look,” he said shortly. “If he comes close enough to make a target, I’ll solve all his problems. He isn’t getting his hands on you again, Callie.”

She relaxed a little. He sounded very confident. It made her feel better. She moved back into the center of the room, wrapping her arms around herself. “How can people like that exist in a civilized world?” she wanted to know.

“Because governments still can’t fight that kind of wealth,” he said bluntly. “Money and power make criminals too formidable. But we’ve got the Rico statutes which help us take away some of that illegal money,” he added. “and we’ve got dedicated people enforcing the law. We win more than we lose these days.”

“You sound like a government agent,” she teased.

He chuckled. “I do, don’t I? I spent several years being one. It sticks.” He moved forward, taking his hands out of his pockets to wrap them gently around her upper arms. “I give you my word that I won’t let Lopez get you. In case you were worrying about that.”

She grimaced. “Does it show?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I can read your mind these days,” he added, trying to make light of it.

“You’re sure? About Dad being safe, I mean?”

“I’m sure about Dad,” he returned at once. “Gator may look dumb, but he’s got a mind like a steel trap, and he’s quick on the draw. Nobody’s going to get past him—certainly nobody’s going to get past him and Maddie at the same time.”

“You like her a lot, I guess?”

He chuckled. “Yes, I do. She’s hell on two legs, and one of the best scroungers I’ve ever had.”

“What does Bojo do?”

He gave her a wary appraisal, and it seemed as if he didn’t like the question. “Bojo is a small arms expert,” he replied. “He also has relatives in most of the Muslim nations, so he’s a great source of information, as well. Peter, you met him on the plane, is new with the group. He’s a linguist and he’s able to pass for an Arab or an Israeli. He’s usually undercover in any foreign operation we’re hired to undertake. You haven’t met Rodrigo yet—he was the pilot of the DC-3 we flew back to Miami. He does undercover work, as well. Don, the blond copilot, is a small arms expert. We have another operative, Cord Romero, who does demolition work for us, but he had an accident and he’s out of commission for a while.”

“What you and your men do—it’s dangerous work.”

“Living is dangerous work,” he said flatly. “I like the job. I don’t have any plans to give it up.”

Her eyebrows arched and her pale blue eyes twinkled. “My goodness, did I propose marriage just now and get instant amnesia afterward? Excuse me!”

He gaped at her. “Propose marriage…?”

She held up both hands. “Now, don’t get ruffled. I understand how men feel about these things. I haven’t asked you out, or sent you flowers, or even bought you a nice pair of earrings. Naturally you’re miffed because I put the cart before the horse and asked you to give up an exciting job you love for marriage to a boring paralegal.”

He blinked. “Callie?” he murmured, obviously fearing for her sanity.

“We’ll just forget the proposal,” she offered generously.

“You didn’t propose!” he gritted.

“See? You’ve already forgotten. Isn’t that just like a man?” she muttered, as she went back to the sofa and sat down. “Now you’ll pout for an hour because I rejected you.”

He burst out laughing when he realized what she was doing. It took the tension away from their earlier discussion and brought them back to normal. He dropped down into an armchair across from her and folded his arms over his chest.

“Just when I think I’ve got you figured out, you throw me another curve,” he said appreciatively.

“Believe me, if I didn’t have a sense of humor, I’d already have smeared Mr. Kemp with honey and locked him in a closet with a grizzly bear.”

“Ouch!”

“I thought you lived in Nassau?” She changed the subject.

He shrugged. “I did. This place came on the market three years ago and I bought it. I like the idea of having a defendable property. You’ll see what I mean when we get there. It’s like a walled city.”

“I’ll bet there are lots of flowers,” she murmured hopefully.

“Millions,” he confirmed. “Hibiscus and orchids and bougainvillea. You’ll love it.” He smiled gently. “You were always planting things when I lived at home.”

“I didn’t think you noticed anything I did,” she replied before she thought.

He watched her quietly. “Your mother spent most of that time ordering you around,” he recalled. “If she wanted a soft drink, or a scarf, or a sandwich, she always sent you after it. I don’t recall that she ever touched a vacuum cleaner or a frying pan the whole time she was around.”

“I learned to cook in the last foster home I stayed in,” she said with a smile. “It was the best of the lot. Mrs. Toms liked me. She had five little kids and she had arthritis real bad. She was so sweet that it was a joy to help her. She was always surprised that anyone would want to do things for her.”

“Most giving people are,” he replied. “Ironically they’re usually the last ones people give to.”

“That’s true.”

“What else did she teach you?” he asked.

“How to crochet,” she recalled. She sighed. “I can’t make sweaters and stuff, but I taught myself how to make hats. I give them to children and old people in our neighborhood. I work on them when I’m waiting for appointments with Dad. I get through a lot.”

It was another reminder that she was taking care of his father, something he should have been doing himself—something he would be doing, if Callie’s mother hadn’t made it impossible for him to be near his parent.

“You’re still bitter about Dad,” she said, surprising him. “I can tell. You get this terrible haunted look in your eyes when I talk about him.”

It surprised him that at her age she could read him so well, when his own men couldn’t. He wasn’t sure he liked it.

“I miss him,” he confessed gruffly. “I’m sorry he won’t let me make peace.”

She gaped at him. “Whoever told you that?”

He hesitated. “I haven’t tried to talk to him in years. So I phoned him a few days ago, before you were kidnapped. He listened for a minute and hung up without saying a word.”

“What day was it?”

“It was Saturday. What difference does that make?”

“What time was it?” she repeated.

“Noon.”

She smiled gently. “I go to get groceries at noon on Saturdays, because Mrs. Ruiz, who lives next door, comes home for lunch and makes it for herself and Dad and stays with him while I’m away.” “So?”

“So, Mrs. Ruiz doesn’t speak English yet, she’s still learning. The telephone inhibits her. She’ll answer it, but if it’s not me, she’ll put it right down again.” She smiled. “That’s why I asked when you called.”

“Then, Dad might talk to me, if I tried again,” he said after a minute.

“Micah, he loves you,” she said softly. “You’re the only child he has. Of course he’ll talk to you. He doesn’t know what really happened with my mother, no more than I did, until you told me the truth. But he realizes now that if it hadn’t been you, it would have been some other younger man. He said that, after the divorce was final, she even told him so.”

“He didn’t try to get in touch with me.”

“He was upset for a long time after it happened. So was I. We blamed you both. But that’s in the past. He’d love to hear from you now,” she assured him. “He didn’t think you’d want to talk to him, after so much time had passed and after what he’d said to you. He feels bad about that.”

He leaned forward. “If that’s so, when he had the heart attack, why wasn’t I told?”

“I called the only number I had for you,” she said. “I never got an answer. The hospital said they’d try to track you down, but I guess they didn’t.”

Could it really be that simple? he wondered. “That was at the old house, in Nassau. It was disconnected three years ago. The number I have now is unlisted.”

“Oh.”

“Why didn’t you ask Eb Scott or Cy Parks?”

“I don’t know them,” she said hesitantly. “And until very recently, when this Lopez thing made the headlines, I didn’t know they were mercenaries.” She averted her eyes. “I knew you were acquainted with them, but I certainly didn’t know that you were one of them.”

He took a slow breath. No, he remembered, she didn’t know. He’d never shared that bit of information with either her or Jack Steele.

“I wrote to you, too, about the heart attack, at the last address you left us.”

“That would have been forwarded. I never got it.”

“I sent it,” she said.

“I’m not doubting that you did. I’m telling you that it never got to me.”

“I’m really sorry,” she told him. “I did try, even if it doesn’t look like it. I always hoped that you’d eventually phone someone and I’d be able to contact you. When you didn’t, well, I guess Dad and I both figured that you weren’t interested in what happened back here. And he did say that he’d been very cruel in what he said to you when you left.”

“He was. But I understood,” he added.

She smiled sadly. “He loves you. When this is over, you should make peace with him. I think you’ll find that he’ll more than meet you halfway. He’s missed you terribly.”

“I’ve missed him, too.” He could have added that he’d missed her, as well, but she wasn’t likely to believe him.

He started to speak, but he felt the boat slowing. He smiled. “We must be coming up to the pier. Come on. It will be nice to have a comfortable bed to sleep in tonight.”

She nodded, and followed him up to the deck.

Her eyes caught sight of the house, on a small rise in the distance, long and low and lighted. She could see arches and flowers, even in the darkness, because of the solar-powered lights that lined the walkway from the pier up to the walled estate. She caught her breath. It was like a house she’d once seen in a magazine and daydreamed about as a child. She had the oddest feeling that she was coming home…

6

“What do you think?” Micah asked as he helped her onto the ramp that led down to the pier.

“It’s beautiful,” she said honestly. “I expect it’s even more impressive in the daylight.”

“It is.” He hesitated, turning back toward the men who were still on the boat. “Bojo! Make sure we’ve got at least two guards on the boat before you come up to the house,” he called to his associate, who grinned and replied that he would. “Peter can help you,” he added involuntarily.

Callie didn’t seem to notice that he’d jettisoned both men who’d been friendly with her. Micah did. He didn’t like the idea of his men getting close to her. It wasn’t jealousy. Of course it wasn’t. He was…protecting her from complications.

She looked around as they went up the wide graveled path to the house, frowning as she became aware of odd noises. “What’s that sound?” she asked Micah.

He smiled lazily. “My early warning radar.”

“Huh?”

He chuckled. “I keep a flock of geese,” he explained, nodding toward a fenced area where a group of big white birds walked around and swam in a huge pool of water. “Believe it or not, they’re better than guard dogs.”

“Wouldn’t a guard dog or two be a better idea?”

“Nope. I’ve got a Mac inside.”

Before she could ask any more questions, the solid wood front door opened and a tall, imposing man in khakis with gray-sprinkled black wavy hair stood in their path. He was holding an automatic weapon in one big hand.

“Welcome home, boss,” he said in deep, crisply accented British. He grinned briefly and raised two bushy eyebrows at the sight of Callie. “Got her, did you?”

“Got her, and with no casualties,” Micah replied, returning the grin. “How’s it going, Mac?”

“No worries. But it’ll rain soon.” He shifted his weight, grimacing a little.

“At least you’re wearing the prosthesis, now,” Micah muttered as he herded Callie into the house.

Mac rubbed his hip after he closed the door and followed them. “Damned thing feels funny,” he said. “And I can’t run.” He glowered at Micah as if the whole thing was his fault.

“Hey,” Micah told him, “didn’t I say ‘duck’? In fact, didn’t I say it twice?”

“You said it, but I had my earphones in!”

“Excuses, excuses. We even took up a collection for your funeral, then you had to go mess everything up by living!” Micah grumbled.

“Oh, sure, after you lot had divided up all my possessions! Bojo’s still got my favorite shirt and he won’t give it back! And he doesn’t even wear shirts!”

“He’s using it to polish his gun,” Micah explained. “Says it’s the best shine he’s ever put on it.”

Callie was openly gaping at them.

Micah’s black eyes twinkled. “We’re joking,” he told her gently. “It’s the way we let off steam, so that we don’t get bogged down in worry. What we do is hard work, and dangerous. We have to have safety valves.”

“I’ll blow Bojo’s safety valve for him if he doesn’t give back my shirt!” Mac assured his boss. “And you haven’t even introduced us.”

Callie smiled and held out her hand. “Hi! I’m Callie Kirby.”

“I’m MacPherson,” he replied, shaking it. “I took a mortar hit on our last mission, so I’ve got KP until I get used to this damned prosthesis,” he added, lifting his right leg and grimacing.

“You’d better get used to it pretty soon, or you’re going to be permanent in that kitchen,” Micah assured him. “Now I’d like to get Callie settled. She’s been through a lot.”

The other man became somber all at once. “She’s not what I expected,” Mac said reluctantly as he studied her.

“I can imagine,” she said with a sad little smile. “You were expecting a woman who was blond and as good-looking as Micah. I know I don’t look like him…”

Before she could add that they weren’t related, the older man interrupted her. “That isn’t what I meant,” Mac replied at once.

She shrugged and smiled carelessly. “Of course not. I really am tired,” she added.

“Come on,” Micah said. “Have you got something for sandwiches?” Micah asked Mac. “We didn’t stop for food.”

“Sure,” Mac replied, visibly uncomfortable. “I’ll get right to it.”

Micah led Callie down the long hall and turned her into a large, airy room with a picture window overlooking the ocean. Except for the iron bars, it looked very touristy.

“Mac does most of the cooking. We used to take turns, but after he was wounded, and we found out that his father once owned a French restaurant, we gave him permanent KP.” He glanced at her with a wry smile. “We thought it might encourage him to put on the prosthesis and try to be rehabilitated. Apparently it’s working.”

“He’s very nice.”

He closed the door and turned to her, his face somber. “He meant that the sort of woman I usually bring here is blond and long-legged and buxom, and that they usually ignore the hired help.”

She flushed. “You didn’t have to explain.”

“Didn’t I?” His eyes narrowed on her face as a potential complication presented itself when he thought about having Lisette take Callie on that shopping trip. The woman was extremely jealous, and Callie had been through enough turmoil already. “I haven’t told Mac or Lisette that we aren’t related. It might be as well to let them continue thinking we are, for the time being.”

She wondered why, but she wasn’t going to lower her pride by asking. “Sure,” she said with careful indifference. “No problem.” Presumably this Lisette would be jealous of a stepsister, but not of a real one. Micah obviously didn’t want to cause waves. She smiled drowsily. “I think I could sleep the clock around.”

“If Maddie’s her usual efficient self, she should have packed a nightgown for you.”

“I don’t have a gown,” she murmured absently, glancing at the case he’d put down beside the bed.

“Pajamas, then.”

“Uh, I don’t wear those, either.”

He stood up and looked at her pointedly. “What do you sleep in?”

She cleared her throat. “Never mind.”

His eyebrows arched. “Well, well. No wonder you locked your bedroom door when you lived with us.”

“That wasn’t the only reason,” she said before she thought.

His black eyes narrowed. “You’ve had a hell of a life, haven’t you? And now this, on top of the past.”

She bit her lower lip. “This door does have a lock?” she persisted. “I’m sorry. I’ve spent my life behind locked doors. It’s a hard habit to break, and not because of the way I sleep.”

“The door has a lock, and you can use it. But I hope you know that you’re safe with me,” he replied quietly. “Seducing innocents isn’t a habit with me, and my men are trustworthy.”

“It’s not that.”

“If you’re nervous about being the only woman here, I could get Lisette to come over and spend the night in this room with you,” he added.

“No,” she said, reluctant to meet his paramour. “I’ll be fine.”

“You haven’t been alone since it happened,” he reminded her. “It may be more traumatic than you think, especially in the dark.”

“I’ll be all right, Micah,” she said firmly.

He drew in an irritated breath. “All right. But if you’re frightened, I’m next door, through the bathroom.”

She gave him a curious look.

“I’ll wear pajama bottoms while you’re in residence,” he said dryly, reading her mind accurately.

She cleared her throat. “Thanks.”

“Don’t you want to eat something before you go to bed?”

She shook her head. “I’m too tired. Micah, thanks for saving me. I didn’t expect it, but I’m very grateful.”

He shrugged. “You’re family,” he said flatly, and she grimaced when he wasn’t looking. He turned and went out, hesitating before he closed the door. “Someone will be within shouting distance, night or day.”

Her heart ached. He still didn’t see her as a woman. Probably, he never would. “Okay,” she replied. “Thanks.”

He closed the door.

She was so tired that she was sure she’d be asleep almost as soon as her head connected with the pillow. But that wasn’t the case. Dressed only in her cotton briefs, she lay awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling, absorbing the shock of the past two days. It seemed unreal now, here where she was safe. As her strung muscles began to relax, she tugged the cool, expensive designer sheet in a yellow rose pattern over her and felt her mind begin to drift slowly into peaceful oblivion.

“Callie? Callie!”

The deep forceful voice combined with steely fingers on her upper arms to shake her out of the nightmare she’d been having. She was hoarse from the scream that had dragged Micah from sleep and sent him running to the connecting door with a skeleton key.

She was sitting up, both her wrists in one of his lean, warm hands, her eyes wide with terror. She was shaking all over, and not from the air-conditioning.

He leaned over and turned on the bedside lamp. His eyes went helplessly to the full, high thrust of her tip-tilted little breasts, their nipples relaxed from sleep. She was so shaken that she didn’t even feel embarrassment. Her pale blue eyes were wild with horror.

“You’re safe, baby,” he said gently. “It’s all right.”

“Micah!” came a shout from outside the bedroom door. It was Bojo, alert as usual to any odd noise.

“Callie just had a nightmare, Bojo. It’s okay. Go back to bed!”

“Sure thing, boss.”

Footsteps faded down the corridor.

“I was back in the chair, at Lopez’s house. That man had the knife again, and he was cutting me,” she choked. Her wild, frightened eyes met Micah’s. “You’ll shoot me, if they try to take me and you can’t stop them, right?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.

“Nobody is going to take you away from here by force,” he said gently. “I promise. I can protect you on this island. It’s why I brought you here in the first place.”

She sighed and relaxed a little. “I’m being silly. It was the dream. It was so real, and I was scared to death, Micah! It all came back the minute I fell asleep!” She shivered. “Can’t you hold me?” she asked huskily, her eyes on his muscular, hair-roughened chest. Looking at it made her whole body tingle. “Just for a minute?”

“Are you out of your mind?” he ground out.

She searched his eyes. He looked odd. “Why not?”

“Because…” His gaze fell to her breasts. They were hard-tipped now, visibly taut with desire. His jaw clenched. His hands on her wrists tightened roughly.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. I forgot! Sorry.” She tried to cover herself, but his hands were relentless. She cleared her throat and grimaced. “That hurts,” she complained on a nervous laugh, tugging at his hands. They loosened, but only a fraction.

“Did you take those pills I gave you to make you sleep?” he asked suddenly.

“Yes. But they didn’t keep me asleep.” She blinked. She smiled drowsily. She felt very uninhibited. He was looking at her breasts and she liked it. Her head fell back, because he hadn’t turned her loose. His hands weren’t bruising anymore, but they were holding her wrists firmly. She arched her back sensuously and watched the way his eyes narrowed and glittered on her breasts. She saw his body tense, and she gave a husky, wicked little laugh.

“You like looking at me there, don’t you?” she asked, vaguely aware that she was being reckless.

He made a rough sound and met her eyes again. “Yes,” he said flatly. “I like it.”

“I wanted to take my clothes off for you when I was just sixteen,” she confided absently as her tongue ran away with her. “I wanted you to see me. I ached all over when you looked at me that last Christmas. I wanted you to kiss me so hard that it would bruise my mouth. I wanted to unbutton your shirt and pull my dress down and let you hold me like that.” She shivered helplessly at the images that rushed into her reeling mind. “You’re so sexy, Micah,” she whispered huskily. “So handsome. And I was just plain and my breasts were small, nothing like those beautiful, buxom women you always dated. I knew you’d never want me the way I wanted you.”

He shook her gently. “Callie, for God’s sake, hush!” he grated, his whole body tensing with desire at the imagery she was creating.

She was too relaxed from the sleeping pills to listen to warnings. She smiled lazily. “I never wanted anybody to touch me until then,” she said softly. “Men always seemed repulsive to me. Did I ever tell you that my mother’s last lover tried to seduce me? I ran from him and he knocked me down the stairs. I broke my arm. My mother said it was my fault. She took me back to the foster home. She said I was a troublemaker, and told lies about what happened.”

“Dear God!” he exclaimed.

“So after that, I wore floppy old clothes and no makeup and pulled my hair back so I looked like the plainest old maid on earth, and I acted real tough. They left me alone. Then my mother married your dad,” she added. “And I didn’t have to be afraid anymore. Except it was worse,” she murmured drowsily, “because I wanted you to touch me. But you didn’t like me that way. You said I was a tramp, like my mother…”

“I didn’t mean it,” he ground out. “I was only trying to spare you more heartache. You were just a baby, and I was old enough to know better. It was the only way I knew to keep you at arm’s length.”

“You wanted my mother,” she accused miserably.

“Never!” he said, and sounded utterly disgusted. “She was hard as nails, and her idea of femininity was complete control. She was the most mercenary human being I ever met.”

Her pale blue eyes blinked as she searched his black ones curiously. “You said I was, too.”

“You’re not mercenary, honey,” he replied quietly. “You never were.”

She sighed, and her breasts rose and fell, drawing his attention again. “I feel so funny, Micah,” she murmured.

“Funny, how?” he asked without thinking.

She laughed softly. “I don’t know how to describe it. I feel…like I’m throbbing. I feel swollen.”

She was describing sexual arousal, and he was fighting it like mad. He drew in a long, slow breath and forced himself to let go of her wrists. Her arms fell to her sides and he stared helplessly at the thrust of her small, firm breasts.

“It’s so sad,” she sighed. “The only time you’ve ever looked at me or touched me was because I was hurt and needed medical attention.” She laughed involuntarily.

“You have to stop this. Right now,” he said firmly.

“Stop what?” she asked with genuine curiosity.

He lifted the sheet and placed it over her breasts, pulling one of her hands up to hold it there.

She glowered at him as he got to his feet. “That’s great,” she muttered. “That’s just great. Are you the guy at a striptease who yells ‘put it back on’?”

He chuckled helplessly. “Not usually, no. I’ll leave the door between our rooms and the bathroom open. You can sing out if you get scared again.”

“Gosh, you’re brave,” she said. “Aren’t you afraid to leave your door unlocked? I might sneak in and ravish you in your sleep.”

“I wear a chastity belt,” he said with a perfectly straight face.

Her eyes widened and suddenly she burst out laughing.

He grinned. “That’s more like it. Now lie back down and stop trying to seduce me. When you wake up and remember the things you’ve said and done tonight, you’ll blush every time you look at me.”

She shrugged. “I guess I will.” She frowned. “What was in those pills?”

“A sedative. Obviously it has an unpredictable reaction on you,” he commented with a long, amused look. “Either that or I’ve discovered a brand-new aphrodisiac. It makes retiring virgins wanton, apparently.”

She glared up at him. “I am not wanton, and it wasn’t my fault, anyway. I was very scared and you came running in here to flaunt your bare chest at me,” she pointed out.

“You were the one doing the flaunting,” he countered. “I’m going to have Lisette buy you some gowns, and while you’re here, you’ll wear them. I don’t keep condoms handy anymore,” he added bluntly.

She flushed and gasped audibly. “Micah Steele!” she burst out, horrified at the crude remark.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what one is. You’re not that naive. But that’s the only way I’d ever have sex with you, even if I lost my head long enough to stifle my conscience,” he added bluntly. “Because I don’t want kids, or a wife, ever.”

“I’ve already told you that I’m not proposing marriage!”

“You tried to seduce me,” he accused.

“You tempted me! In fact, you drugged me!”

He was trying valiantly not to laugh. “I never!” he defended himself. “I gave you a mild sedative. A very mild sedative!”

“It was probably Spanish Fly,” she taunted. “I’ve read about what it’s supposed to do to women. You gave it to me deliberately so that I’d flash my breasts at you and make suggestive remarks, no doubt!”

He pursed his lips and lifted his chin, muffling laughter. “For the record, you’ve got gorgeous breasts,” he told her. “But I’ve never seen myself as a tutor for a sensuous virgin. In case you were thinking along those lines.”

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