The day dawned bright against the desert horizon. Stephanie hadn’t slept well, but she so loved the feeling of being in Alex’s arms that she lay awake a long time reveling in the sensation of being wrapped in the protective cocoon of his strong, masculine body. Worried that her fidgeting would needlessly awaken him, she reluctantly left the warmth of the bed and rose to sit beside the window. There she pondered her future in the silence of a heart overflowing with rare self-pity.
Come what may, their little charade was drawing to a close, and life as she knew it as Alexander Kent’s wife would be over. Stephanie twisted the ring on her finger so that it caught the rays of the morning sun and reflected them upon the walls of her gilded cage. Slipping the ring off her finger, she studied the many facets that so reminded her of Alex’s personality and the tears she was determined to keep locked deep inside.
“I want you to keep it.”
Those generous and yet cold words interrupted Stephanie’s solitude. Propped up in bed on one elbow, disheveled and unshaven, Alex looked like an advertisement utilizing the raw elements of sex appeal to shamelessly peddle a product.
“I couldn’t possibly,” she assured him.
Though her voice quivered, the smile she gave him was as calm and steady as the one painted on the Mona Lisa. What was the point of telling him that every time she looked at that ring upon her finger, she felt a fraud. Their mockery of a marriage made a mockery of her feelings for him as well. Whether the offer was inspired by generosity or guilt, such a reminder was destined to bring her only certain misery.
“Come here, sweetheart.” Alex patted the empty spot beside him. “We need to talk.”
“About what?”
“Us.”
Stephanie rose from her lonely, sunrise spot. Behind her, Vegas shimmered like a rosy mirage. Having reached her own conclusions about the impossibility of carrying forth their sham of a relationship beyond the tinsel of a town built upon fantasy, she was not about to lose the last shred of dignity to which she clung. She stood her ground a good arm’s length away from the bed that tempted her to abandon her pride altogether.
“What about us?” she asked in a voice more weary than anything else.
Silhouetted against the red rising sun, Stephanie willed her backbone to keep from collapsing.
“I’ve been thinking that there’s no reason we can’t continue like this after we return home.”
Alex’s deep voice was as thick and sweet as honey straight from the comb. Hope welled up inside Stephanie’s heart and flowed over her lips without giving any consideration to the impact it might have. Her eyes grew luminous. Her voice faltered.
“Are you proposing?”
The look of surprise that crossed Alex’s face told Stephanie all she needed to know. She winced as he backpedaled all over her tender emotions.
“That’s not exactly what I had in mind.”
The echo of those words hung over them like a dying sprig of mistletoe left over from a Christmas holiday past.
As painful as it was to face the truth, Stephanie did not shyly avert her eyes nor choose her words in regard to softening their impact. “Let me get this straight. You want me to keep a ring symbolizing a commitment you’re not ready to make, a ring likely made of glass intended to fool the whole world into believing that we—”
A muscle in Alex’s jaw jumped.
“It’s real enough.”
“The diamond or the fidelity it’s meant to symbolize?”
“Don’t be coy,” Alex snapped, splaying a hand through his hair in a gesture that Stephanie had come to recognize as a sure sign of his frustration. “I’m talking about that rock on your hand. Regardless of how things work out between us, I want you to have it.”
Stephanie wasn’t particularly surprised that Alex would dismiss the possibility of marriage out of hand, but she was hurt that he would lump her into the same category as other women he had known who could be bought with expensive trinkets. Most would jump at the chance of sharing his bed on whatever terms he set forth.
“Without the benefit of marriage, the ring doesn’t mean much, does it?”
“You can hardly expect me to make that kind of commitment!” Alex exclaimed.
Where his words were a loud explosion of anger, Stephanie’s were soft with understanding.
“I never have expected anything from you.”
Looking as if he had just been hit over the head by a bag of wet cement, Alex strained to insert a note of patience into his voice.
“I’ve come to care a great deal for you, Stephanie, and I would very much like to continue seeing you once this job is over.”
“Seeing me on the side, you mean?”
Had Stephanie a tissue in her hand, she would have spit those ugly words into it and disposed of them in the nearest garbage can.
There was a sneer on Alex’s face as he posed the question, “I suppose you were expecting a mutually exclusive relationship?”
“I already told you I’m not expecting anything from you—other than that you treat me with some dignity until we accomplish what we set out to do here.”
It came as no shock that Alex wouldn’t want to give up the carefree lifestyle he’d enjoyed before he’d known her. Stephanie was surprised, however, that he wanted to continue seeing her when their mission was completed and he was under no obligation to pretend. If she were the kind of woman who was into playing mind games, she might have tried pressing her advantage. But Stephanie was as straightforward as the arrow Cupid had shot from his bow to cleave her poor heart in two.
Unlike Alex, she was ready to give up the best thing that had ever happened to her without a protest. If he would only allow her to hold on to her pride, she could come out of this relationship with something far more valuable than a fabulous diamond ring. In exchange for her heart, Alex had given her a sense of self-respect and belief in herself that had been missing from her previous life. Whatever obstacles life put in front of her in the future, she could always fall back on her memories of the time they’d spent together.
She lifted her proud chin in the air. A woman who could transform herself into a femme fatale in less than two weeks surely was entitled to more than the bread crumbs at life’s banquet. As tempting as it was to accept any terms he offered, she would not be his mistress.
“I think it would be best if we went our separate ways once this is over,” she told him. “You have to know that it’s not going to be easy for me to pick up the threads of a life that’s so very dull in comparison to the one you’ve introduced me to. It’ll be hard enough explaining to my students, not to mention the school board and my principal, why I faked a marriage to the most notorious playboy in Texas without further jeopardizing my virtue by continuing a dead-end relationship that is ultimately just going to leave me feeling bad about myself.”
“To hell with what people think!” he snapped. “You never have to work another day in your life if you don’t want to.”
On a certain level, Stephanie was flattered that Alex wanted to keep on seeing her. On another, it was purely insulting. He reminded her of a spoiled child being denied a toy. Wishing there was some way she could make him understand how offensive his proposition was, Stephanie sat on the edge of the bed. She reached out and cupped his chin in one hand.
His morning stubble pricked her skin, making her feel soft and feminine by comparison. She placed a kiss upon his cheek, trying to memorize his natural scent.
“I can pretend to be your wife for a few days because our cause is so very worthy, but I could never agree to becoming your mistress. Surely you understand why.”
The thunderous look on Alex’s face told her that he wasn’t interested in her reasoning. It occurred to Stephanie that this was probably the closest he had ever come to offering any woman a commitment. She had never seen him so angry. Or so vulnerable.
“Because you think you can get more out of me as my wife than my lover?” he demanded. “So you can hamstring me financially and blackmail me emotionally if I were stupid enough to be the kind of man my father was—one so desperate to fill the hole that my mother left in our lives that he let a string of gold diggers try to fill it?”
Rather than drawing away from that terrible outburst, Stephanie took Alex’s magnificent head into her lap. Never before had she glimpsed the hurt little boy peeking out from behind those sharp green eyes. It had never occurred to her that Alex avoided commitment because he had been deeply wounded in the past. She had been so worried that he would discard her without a second thought that she had accepted his playboy facade at face value.
“I’m sorry,” she said, pressing for no more than he was willing to give of his own volition.
“My mother left both of us behind with less compunction than most people would abandon a couple of stray cats,” Alex told her.
After all these years, the pain was still raw in his voice. Stephanie suspected it was the first time he’d ever bared his soul like that to another human being, and it was a tribute to his faith in her that he allowed her to continue holding him.
Soft light filtered into the room, casting a halo around the man who had just asked her to do something totally against her character. That he was flawed did not compromise her love for him. His hair was dark silk beneath her fingers. His heart a broken plaything.
“Not all women are like that,” she murmured.
Stephanie couldn’t imagine a mother abandoning her child. The fact that Alexander would make such a fine father himself made her grieve for lost opportunity.
“Some women would rather die than to give up a child,” she added.
Her thoughts went to Natalie Perez. How incredibly brave she had been to steal her baby back from the dangerous men who they themselves were here to catch.
“I know you don’t want to hear it again, but it bears repeating,” Stephanie said, continuing to caress his hair. “I love you completely. I don’t have any trouble telling you that. You’re the one who can’t seem to bring yourself to tell me the same.”
When he bucked in her arms, she put her index finger to his lips and bade him hear her out.
“It would be wrong of me to ask you to say something you don’t mean, so I won’t. No one expects someone as glamorous and worldly as you to commit to someone as down-to-earth and old-fashioned as me. I can respect that.”
Alex sputtered at her choice of words, but the unshed tears in Stephanie’s eyes demanded no less of him than he allow her to finish her thoughts without interruption.
“In return, I need you to respect me. Just because other women might be happy with any arrangement you set up, you can’t expect me to jump in and out of your bed at your convenience. I know it’s an old line, but it’s true. I’m not that kind of a girl. Trust me on this, darling,” she said, pausing to place a feather-light kiss upon his forehead. “In the long run, it wouldn’t be good for either of us.”
Alex sighed in exasperation. One could hardly argue against the virtue that set Stephanie apart from every other woman who had ever tried to use him. Her lack of tears and recriminations left him at a loss to rouse the kind of righteous indignation that had served him so well in past breakups. His voice was flat and unemotional when he finally responded.
“Have it your way then. The ring is yours regardless. A souvenir, so to speak.”
Stephanie wasn’t up for arguing. She was too drained to tell him that she didn’t need anything so flashy to remind her of their time together. What she really needed was something to help her forget it. Not sure if her heart would allow her to continue living and breathing without him, she wondered if she’d just made the biggest mistake of her life.
“For what it’s worth,” Alex told her, “I’ve let a lot of women into my bed, but you’re the first one I’ve ever let into my heart.”
Stephanie turned her head away so that he would not see her tears. The admission was as close to a declaration of love as she ever expected to hear from him. It was a sweet balm for a heart left battered and bruised upon the shores of loneliness.
The sound of the telephone ringing gave Stephanie the opportunity to wipe away her tears as Alex left the bed to answer the call of duty. As he predicted, it was Larry.
“Here in the hotel lobby is perfect, but seven o’clock works better for us than six.”
Stephanie was amazed at how casual the conversation sounded. Anyone just walking into the room would think Alex was discussing the details of some legitimate business contract rather than the exchange of a baby stolen from its rightful mother and sold to the highest bidder.
“I’ll have one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars wired to me today. I understand your need to have that amount in cash. Will a briefcase suffice?”
A long pause left Stephanie wondering why fate had conspired to cast her in such a nefarious plot. Shakespeare himself would have been challenged to come up with a more twisted scheme to throw two more opposite people together.
“Since I doubt babies are allowed inside the casino, I suggest that we sign the paperwork in the hotel restaurant.”
There was another pause before Alex clarified. “Yes, the Eureka. I’ll make a reservation there for seven o’clock under my name. Will anyone else be accompanying you?”
During yet another pause, Stephanie forgot to breathe. Although this was the moment they had been so desperately hoping for, it was hard to believe it was upon them.
“All right, I’ll look for both of you then.”
With that, Alex hung up the phone. He turned to Stephanie and filled her in on the details.
“We give them the money. They give us some paperwork and hand over the baby. It’s that simple.”
Stephanie couldn’t bite back the bitter laugh that rose in her throat. “Simple,” she repeated, feeling utterly hollow.
She stared at the ring on her finger. Nothing in that phone call was any more frightening than knowing that Alex didn’t love her enough to make any but a sexual commitment to her. She offered him her heart upon a silver platter, and in return he offered nothing but baubles. That she saw the ring on her finger as nothing more than an attempt to buy her off and assuage his guilt should make it that much easier to give it up when the time came. Despite his insistence that she keep the ring, Stephanie didn’t want it.
Bullets lost their edge to hurt her any more than Alex already had. If death were to come from this ill-fated mission, Stephanie couldn’t help but feel it would be a blessing.
As hard as Alex pretended to be blasé about her decision to break off their relationship, he was secretly furious. In the past, he had treated his romantic relationships as expendable. With Stephanie it was an entirely different matter. Over the past few days his feelings for her had grown right along with his respect—exponentially. The truth was, he’d never met a more courageous, intelligent woman in his life. Her unique sense of humor could coax genuine belly laughs from him, her sincerity was as refreshing as drinking from the fountain of youth, and her sweetness both in and out of the bedroom was nothing short of addictive. Above all, Alex liked the way he felt when he was around her. Seeing himself reflected in those soft doe eyes of hers made him feel like the most wonderful man alive.
Giving up that feeling wasn’t going to be easy.
That he couldn’t convince Stephanie to accept their relationship on his terms didn’t lessen his resolve to protect her as they entered the most precarious stage of their mission. If anything, it reinforced it. It was going to be twice as hard safeguarding a woman of virtue. Alex’s FBI experience taught him that idealists were unpredictable creatures who were far more likely to take stupid risks in the name of principle than people who had the good sense to make their own welfare a top priority.
An earlier conversation with Sheikh Darin ibn Shakir left little doubt in his mind that Dr. Birkenfeld was growing more and more desperate by the minute. Since desperate men were known to take desperate measures, Alex’s concern about Stephanie’s safety was well founded. The thought of anything happening to her made his stomach ball up into a tight fist. He wondered if it was possible that his loss of objectivity might jeopardize their mission.
He proceeded to lay out the plan for the rest of the day with a precision designed to bolster Stephanie’s nerves—if not his own.
“First we go downtown and pick up the money that Darin’s wiring us from the Club.”
Alex smiled bleakly.
“I hope you enjoy the irony as much as I do, knowing that the cool five hundred thousand dollars stashed away in the Cattlemen’s safe for just this very purpose is the same money that Natalie stole from the very people with whom we’re about to do business.”
Stephanie nodded, taking grim satisfaction in the news before offering up her own thoughts on the subject.
“Hopefully that money can eventually be used to ensure that all the stolen babies are reunited with their grieving mothers as well as to help facilitate proper adoptions for any couple who unknowingly played a part in this shady operation.”
“First things first,” Alex reminded her.
Having played the part of a doting husband who wanted to give his wife a child at any cost gave him a broader perspective on such a couple’s despair as well. Still, just because Stephanie’s big heart went out to everyone involved in this sticky web didn’t mean they could afford to get ahead of themselves.
“I moved our meeting with Larry to seven o’clock specifically because I want every employee in the adoption agency out of the building when we break into it.”
Stephanie offered no protest to this revelation beyond a wry observation. “What’s breaking and entering added to my growing list of criminal activities?”
Since her heart itself had just been broken into and vandalized at will, she was, at the moment feeling too numb to worry about a little thing like her own personal safety.
Alex gave her an encouraging smile.
“I knew I could count on you. Quitting time should be no later than five o’clock this afternoon. That gives us less than two hours to gain entry to the office and gather the documentation that will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Dr. Birkenfeld is illegally supplying the agency with stolen babies.”
“Piece of cake.”
Though Alex thought it said a great deal about Stephanie’s character that she could be so flippant in the face of grave personal danger, he rued the day he’d talked her into participating in such a perilous scheme. The kind of people who stole babies from defenseless young women wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone who got in their way. And as much as he despised the thought of putting Stephanie in the line of fire, he also knew it was too late to back out now without risking the entire outcome of their mission.
When Alex had signed on as a member of the Texas Cattleman’s Club he had taken an oath to uphold their motto of “Leadership, Justice and Peace.” He truly believed that the words emblazoned upon the iron-studded sign hanging over the entryway of their sanctum were worth risking his life for in the line of duty. He did not believe, however, that Stephanie should be subject to the same level of risk.
He reached under the bed and pulled out a black carrying case that was approximately the size of a school lunch box. Sliding the fasteners on each side of the handle open, Alex set the container upon his lap. Noting Stephanie’s gasp as he opened the lid, he gave her an apologetic smile.
“No point in taking any unnecessary chances,” he said. “As the Boy Scouts like to say, one should always be prepared.”
Nestled inside the container upon a bed of egg crate-shaped black foam were a small black gun and two clips. No bigger than the extension of Alex’s hand, the pistol looked more like a toy than an actual weapon. The Glock .40 weighed no more than a couple of pounds. He checked to make sure the gun and all the clips were fully loaded, then pointed the pistol at the wall. A tiny red dot appeared upon the white textured surface.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Stephanie demanded to know.
“Making sure the laser sight is functional.”
Though horror was evident in her eyes, she did her best to make light of a situation over which she no longer had any control.
“I’ll never be able to use a laser light in a library lecture again,” she said. Up until now she had only considered them a nuisance in the hands of mischievous children.
“How did that get in here?” she asked.
“I didn’t smuggle it on board the airplane if that’s what you’re thinking. Suffice it to say, the Cattleman’s Club is very well connected. It helps to have friends all over the country.”
Though Alex had hoped to put his partner’s mind at ease by letting her see how well protected she was, his efforts appeared to have the opposite effect upon her.
Her legs went suddenly wobbly beneath her, and Stephanie reached for the edge of the bed. She looked at Alex as if she were trapped with a madman in some surreal dream.
“Do you really think a gun is necessary?”
The expression on Alex’s face spoke for itself. Dead serious about the task at hand, he strapped on a shoulder harness and put the pistol next to his heart. Then he slipped a jacket on. Had Stephanie not known what was beneath it, she would never have guessed he was packing heat.
“Don’t forget to grab the list,” he told her, trying to take her mind off his firearm.
He was referring, of course, to the record of names that Natalie had cross-referenced back when she had worked for Dr. Birkenfeld—before she surmised what a monster he really was. As mindlessly as a robot, Stephanie did as she was told.
“It’ll all be over soon,” Alex reassured her.
He longed to take her in his arms and make her forget the ugliness of their situation by kissing her completely senseless, but he restrained himself. She had made it perfectly clear that once their mission was over, so was their relationship. He refused to be blackmailed into marriage. His old man had taught him that particular lesson all too well before passing on and leaving four ex-wives clamoring over the estate he’d left entirely to his only son.
“Very soon,” Stephanie repeated dully, reaching for the tiny microphone that she would wear at tonight’s final rendezvous with fate.
Hearing that, Alex couldn’t help but assume she was eager to get back to a life that wasn’t fraught with the dangers of tracking underworld criminals—or laying her heart on the line for a man who didn’t deserve to kiss her feet. What he didn’t know was that her brave facade hid the dread of returning to a life that would be empty without him.
After picking up the money that the Texas Cattleman’s Club wired them, they proceeded to stake out the office where Larry was busily typing up false adoption papers and thinking about how he was going to spend his share of the cash he’d be collecting in a short couple of hours. A couple wearing earnest faces was leaving just as Stephanie and Alex pulled up. They parked a safe distance away to avoid detection.
“You know, if we’re successful, couples just like us will be forced to give up babies they’ve come to love as their own.”
Alex sighed. Stephanie’s words carried a weight of responsibility that he refused to accept.
“It’s not up to us to play God, Steph. Our job is to right a great wrong. You can take some consolation from the fact that Natalie made off with over half a million dollars from these scoundrels that can be used to reunite babies with their rightful mothers and also to help couples like us use means to adopt a child legally.”
Stephanie took what comfort she could from his words. Both of them were surprised and aggravated by the work ethic that had Larry locking up the place a half hour after the end of a regularly scheduled workday. At 5:33, he left the building with a blond bombshell hanging on his elbow. Alex scoped the twosome out using a diminutive pair of high-powered binoculars. The woman had some dry cleaning draped over her free arm. When she hung it up in the back of Larry’s gray Lexus, it revealed itself to be a white uniform.
“What do you want to bet she’s playing the part of the nurse Larry promised to bring along to tonight’s meeting?”
“Bad casting,” Stephanie muttered, turning a critical eye to the woman she secretly dubbed Nurse Goodbody. If memory served her right, this was the same receptionist who had made her feel so transparent during their first visit to this office.
They waited only long enough to make sure the place was deserted before Alex suggested they take a walk around to the back of the building. Stephanie felt as if she should be wearing a black ski mask and matching cat-burglar suit instead of a pair of dark slacks and a blazer. Taking a small case from his pocket, Alex proceeded to pick the lock with the kind of quick precision that led Stephanie to believe this wasn’t his first attempt at breaking and entering. A moment later the door swung open.
Stephanie produced a list of names and dates from her purse as Alex switched on the computer. While he attempted to break into the electronic files, she started rifling through a metal file cabinet. That process took far less time than one would anticipate. The number of files on hand was surprisingly small, but if any of the infants’ footprints upon the birth certificates Stephanie collected matched those on the death certificate given to Natalie Perez when she was told her baby had not survived its birth, it would provide the concrete evidence the authorities needed to shut down the ring for good and put the perpetrators behind bars for the rest of their natural lives. The fact that Alex was having trouble getting into the system led them both to believe that was where the goods were.
“Check the desk drawers and look for anything that might be a log-in and password,” Alex said, checking his watch.
Could the answer be staring her right in the face? Stephanie studied the only photograph in the room that didn’t prominently feature Larry’s family. In it, he had his arm around the shoulders of a smiling buddy who had apparently liked the picture so much that he had signed and dated it in the corner.
“Didn’t you say that Birkenfeld’s first name was Roman?”
“Uh-huh,” Alex replied, still intent on his quest.
A queasy feeling came over Stephanie as she studied the boat in front of which the picture had been taken. Could anyone really be so callous that they would actually brag about purchasing a luxury sailboat from the proceeds of stolen babies? The arrogance of such a subliminal boast indicated just how sick a man Roman Birkenfeld was.
“Try R.B.’s Baby,” she suggested, offering him the name painted on the boat.
“Bingo!”
Stephanie couldn’t draw her gaze away from that disturbing photograph. “If we don’t come up with something concrete soon, I’m afraid the good doctor will be out of the office indefinitely—and hard to reach once he sets sail for the high seas and world-class luxury ports of call.”
The sound of computer keys tapping at a frenzied clip beneath Alex’s fingers reiterated his sense of urgency. Unfortunately, none of the names on Natalie’s list were leading anywhere but to frustration. Alex ran a hand through his dark hair and checked his watch for the fourth time in five minutes.
“Unfortunately, their files are more complicated than their back door,” Alex muttered. He pierced Stephanie with his gaze. “We can’t take a chance on being late to tonight’s appointment. If they smell a skunk, the whole operation could be jeopardized.”
“That leaves us only two options,” she responded with the kind of logic and grit that Alex had come to expect of her. “Either you go back to the hotel and meet with Larry and his nurse and stall until I can get there with the goods, or I do. What’s your preference?”
I’d prefer to turn back the hands of time and nullify anything I had to do with involving you in this whole ugly mess, he thought miserably.
His decision ultimately had nothing to do with whom he thought was the better actor. Alex simply would not consider leaving Stephanie alone with Larry under any circumstances. Thinking she would be far safer interfacing with a computer than with known criminals, he chose the former of her two suggestions.
“I’ll go back to the hotel restaurant and tell them you’re out shopping for last minute baby items to make the trip home as comfortable as possible. At a quarter to seven, there will be a cab waiting to meet you at the stoplight at the end of the block. Whether you’ve located anything incriminating or not, you will be in that cab and headed back to the hotel. Hopefully Larry’ll be excited enough about receiving a briefcase with over a hundred thousand in cool cash that he won’t worry if you show up a little late.”
Stephanie urged Alex to give up his seat in front of the screen before time betrayed them both. “As a librarian, I know a few things about computers myself. In seedier circles, I’m known as the scourge of interlibrary loans.”
Alex balked. “I don’t have a good feeling about this. I hate leaving you alone and—”
“Go on,” Stephanie told him. “While I’m copying the files, you can be signing the paperwork that should put these SOB’s behind bars for life, which is what we’re here to do. Don’t waste another minute of precious time worrying about me. I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll leave my cell phone on in case anything goes wrong. You do the same,” he insisted, unwilling to cut off all communication completely.
Stephanie’s courage was enough to bring Alex to his knees. Why he ever thought he could live the rest of his life without this woman was as silly as thinking one could make a computer work without electricity. He had every intention of telling her that, of setting the record straight and having it out with his own heart—just as soon as this nasty business was behind them.
Now, however, was not the time to tarry. Not when a baby’s life was on the line and time was quickly running out.