SALLY FOUND THE WORKOUTS easier to do as they progressed from falls to defensive moves. Not only was it exciting to learn such skills, but the constant physical contact with Eb was delightful. She couldn’t really hide that from him. He saw right through her diversionary tactics, grinning when she asked for short breaks.
Stevie was also taking to the exercise with enthusiasm. It wasn’t hard to teach him that such things had no place at school, either. Even at his young age, he seemed to understand that martial arts were for recreation after school and never for the playground.
“It goes with the discipline,” Eb informed her when she told him about it. “Most people who watch martial arts films automatically assume that we teach children to hurt each other. It’s not like that. What we teach is a way to raise self-esteem and self-confidence. If you know you can handle yourself in a bad situation, you’re less likely to go out and try to beat somebody up to prove it. It’s lack of self-confidence, lack of self-esteem, that drives a lot of kids to violence.”
“That, and a very sad lack of attention by the adults around them,” Sally said quietly. “It takes two incomes to run a household these days, but it’s the kids who are suffering for it. Any gang member will tell you the reason he joined a gang was because he wanted to be part of a family. But how do we change things so that parents can earn a living and still have enough free time to raise their children?”
He put both hands on his narrow hips and studied her closely. “If I could answer that question, I’d run for public office.”
She grinned at him. “I can see you now, mopping the floor with the criminal element on the streets.”
He shrugged. “Piece of cake compared to what I used to do for a living.”
Her pale eyes searched his lean, scarred face while Stevie fell from one side of the mat to another practicing his technique. “I rented one of those old mercenary films and watched it. Do you guys really throw grenades and use rocket launchers?”
A dark, odd look came into his pale eyes. “Among other things,” he said.
“Such as?” she prompted.
“High-tech equipment like the stuff you saw in my office. Plastic explosive charges, small arms, whatever we had. But most of what we do now is intelligence-gathering and tactics. And intelligence-gathering,” he told her dryly, “is about as exciting as two-hour-old cereal in milk.”
She was surprised. “I thought it was like war.”
He shrugged. “Only if you get caught gathering intelligence,” he replied on a laugh. “We were good at what we did.”
“Dallas was one of your guys, wasn’t he?”
He nodded. “Dallas, Cy Parks and Callie Kirby’s stepbrother Micah Steele, among others.”
Her mouth fell open. “Cy Parks was a mercenary?!”
His eyebrows levered up. “You didn’t notice that he has a hard time interacting with other people?”
“It’s hard to miss. But in the condition he’s in…”
“I know. That’s one reason that he isn’t in our line of work anymore. He was one of the group that helped put Lopez’s organization away a little over two years ago—so was I. It was Jess who got to the man himself. But Lopez appealed the verdict and only went to prison six months ago. As you can see, he’s out now,’ he added dryly.
“Two years ago—that was about the time Cy came to Jacobsville,” she recalled.
“Yes. After one of Lopez’s goons torched his house in Wyoming. The idea was to kill all three of them, not just Cy’s wife and child,” he added, seeing the horror in her eyes. “But Cy wasn’t asleep, as they’d assumed. He got out.”
She grimaced. “But why would Lopez burn his house down?”
“That’s how he gets even with people who cross him,” he said simply. “He doesn’t take out just the person responsible, but the whole family, if he can get to it. There have been slaughters like you wouldn’t believe down in Mexico when anyone tried to stand against him. He does usually stop short of children, however; his one virtue.”
“I never knew people like him existed,” she said sorrowfully.
“I wish I could say the same,” he told her. “We don’t live in a perfect world. That’s why I want you to learn how to defend yourself.”
“Fat lot of good it would have done me the night I had the flat tire,” she pointed out. “If you hadn’t come along when you did…” She shuddered.
“But I did. Don’t look back. It’s unproductive.”
Her soft, worried eyes searched his scarred face quietly.
“What are you thinking?” he asked with a faint smile.
She shrugged. “I was thinking what a false picture I had of you all those years ago,” she admitted. “I suppose I was living in a dream world.”
“And I was living in a nightmare,” he replied. “That unforgettable spring day six years ago, I’d just come home from a bloodbath in Africa, trying to help an incumbent government fight off a military coup by a very nasty native communist general. I lost most of my unit, including several friends, and the incumbent president’s office was blown up, with him in it. It wasn’t a good time.”
She named the country, to his surprise. “We were studying that in a political science class at the time,” she said. “I had no idea what you did for a living, or that you were involved. But we all thought it was an idealistic resistance,” she added with a smile.
“Idealistic,” he agreed. “And very costly, as most ideas are when you try to put them into practice.” His eyes were very old as they met hers. “After that, I began to concentrate on intelligence and tactics. War isn’t noble. Only the resolution of it is that.”
She recalled the fresh scars on his face that day, scars that she’d attributed to ranch work. She studied him with obvious interest, smiling sheepishly when one of his eyebrows levered up.
“Sorry,” she murmured.
He moved a step closer to her, forcing her to raise her chin so that she could see his face. The contact, barely perceptible, made her heart race. It wasn’t so much the proximity as the way he was looking at her, as if he’d like to press her against him and kiss her until she couldn’t stand up.
She moved a step back, her gaze going involuntarily to her cousin, who was giving the punching bag a hard time.
“I hadn’t forgotten he was there,” Eb said in a velvety tone. His pale eyes fell to her mouth and lingered. Even without makeup and with her long hair disheveled, she was pretty. “One night soon I’m going to take you out to dinner. Dallas can keep an eye on Jess and Stevie while you’re away.”
Until he said that, she’d actually forgotten the danger for a few delightful minutes. It all came rushing back.
He smoothed out the frown between her thin eyebrows. “Don’t brood. I’ve got everything under control.”
“I hope so,” she said uneasily. “Does Mr. Parks know that Lopez is out of prison?”
“He knows,” Eb replied. He ran a hand through his thick hair. “He’s the one loose cannon I’m going to have to watch. Even in the old days, Cy never had much patience. He and his wife weren’t much of a pair, but he loved that boy to death. He won’t rest until Lopez is caught, and if he gets to him first, we can forget about a trial. You can’t ever afford to act in anger,” he added quietly. “Anger clouds reason. It can get you killed.”
“You can’t really blame him for the way he feels. Poor man,” she sympathized.
“Pity would be wasted on him,” he murmured with a smile. “Even crippled, he’s more man than most.”
“I don’t think of him as crippled,” she said genuinely. “He’s very attractive.”
He glared down at her. “You’re off-limits.”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“I’m not property,” she began.
“Neither am I, but don’t start thinking about Cy, nevertheless. You can concentrate on me.” He took one of her hands in his and looked at it, turning it over gently to study it. “Nice hands,” he said. “Short nails, well-kept. No rings.”
“I have several of them, mostly silver and turquoise, but I don’t wear them very much.”
His lean fingers rubbed gently over her ring finger and he looked thoughtful, absorbed.
Her own fingers went to the onyx-and-gold signet ring on the little finger of his left hand with the letter S in gold script embossed in the onyx.
“It was my father’s,” Eb told her solemnly. “He was a hell of a soldier, even if he wasn’t the best father in the world.”
“Do you miss him?” she asked gently.
He nodded. “I suppose I do, from time to time.” He touched the ring. “This will go to my son, if I ever have one.”
The thought of having children with Eb made Sally’s knees weak, but she didn’t speak. Eb seemed about to, when they were interrupted.
“Hey, Sally, look what I can do!” Stevie called, and executed a kick that sent the bag reeling.
“Very nice!” Eb said, grinning. “You’re a quick study, young man.”
“I got to learn to do it real fast,” he murmured, sending another kick at the bag.
“Why?” Eb asked curiously.
“So I can hit that big blond man who makes my mama cry,” he said, oblivious to the shocked and then amused looks on the faces of the adults near him.
“Dallas?” Sally asked.
“That’s him,” Stevie agreed, and his dark eyes glimmered. “Mama was crying last night and I asked her why, and she said that man hates her.”
Eb joined the young boy at the bag and went on one knee beside him, his eyes very solemn. “Your mother and Dallas knew each other a long time ago,” he told him in an adult way. “They had a fight, and they never made up. That’s why she cried. They’re both good people, Stevie, but sometimes even good people have arguments.”
“Why are they mad at each other?”
“I don’t know,” Eb replied not quite factually. “That’s for them to say, if they want you to know. Dallas isn’t a bad man, though.”
“He’s all banged up,” Stevie replied solemnly.
“Yes, he is. He was shot.”
“Shot? Really?” Stevie moved closer to Eb and put a small hand on his shoulder. “Who shot him?”
“Some very bad men,” Eb told him. “He almost died. That’s why he has to use a walking stick now. It’s why he has all those scars.”
Stevie touched Eb’s face. “You got scars, too.”
“Yes, I have.”
“You ever been shot?” he wanted to know.
“Several times,” Eb replied honestly. “Guns can be very dangerous. I suppose you know that.”
“I know it,” Stevie said. “One of my friends shot himself with his dad’s pistol playing war out in the yard. He was hurt pretty bad, but he’s okay now. Mama told me that children should never touch a gun, even if they think it’s not loaded.”
“Good for your mom!”
“That man doesn’t like my mama,” he continued worriedly. “He frowns and frowns at her. She can’t see it, but I see it.”
“He wouldn’t ever hurt her,” Eb said firmly. “He’s there to protect her when you’re away from home,” he added wryly.
“That’s right, I protect her at home. I’m very strong. See what I did to the bag?”
“I sure did!” Eb grinned at him. “Those were nice kicks, but you need to snap them out from the knee. Here—” he got to his feet “—let me show you.”
Sally watched them with lazy pleasure, smiling at the born rapport between them. It was a pity that Stevie didn’t like Dallas. That would matter one day. But she had enough problems of her own to worry about.
EB STOPPED BY THE LOCAL sandwich shop and bought frozen yogurt cones for all three of them, a reward for the physical punishment, he told them dryly.
While the two adults sat at a table and ate their yogurt cones, Stevie became engrossed in some knickknacks on sale in the same store.
“He’s a natural at this,” Eb remarked.
“I’ll bet I’m not,” she mused, having had to repeat several of the moves quite a number of times before she did them well enough to suit her companion.
“You’re not his age, either,” he pointed out. “Most children learn things faster than adults. That’s why they teach foreign languages so early these days.”
“Do you speak any other languages?” she asked suddenly.
“Only a handful,” he replied. “The romance languages, several dialects of African languages, and Russian.”
“My goodness.”
“Languages will get you far in intelligence work these days,” he told her. “If you’re going to work in foreign countries, it’s stupid not to speak the language. It can get you killed.”
“I had to have a foreign language series as part of my degree,” she said. “I chose Spanish, because that’s pretty necessary around here, with such a large Hispanic population. I hated it at first, and then I learned how to read in it.” Her eyes brightened. “It’s the most exciting thing in the world to read something in the language the author created it in. I never dreamed how delightful it would be to read Don Quixote as Cervantes actually wrote it!”
“I know what you mean. But the older the novel, the more difficult the translation. Words change meaning. And a good number of the more modern novels are written in the various dialects of Spanish provinces.”
She grinned. “Like Blasco-Ibañez, who used a regional dialect for his matador hero, Juan Gallardo, in dialogue.”
“Yes.”
She finished her cone and wiped her hands. “I became really fascinated with bullfighting after I read the book, so I found a Web site that had biographies of all the matadors. I found the ones mentioned in the book, who fought in the corridas of Spain around the turn of the century.”
“Until you read Blasco-Ibañez, you have no idea how dangerous bullfighting really is,” Eb agreed. “He must have seen some of the corridas.”
“A number of Spanish authors did. Lorca, for example, wrote a famous poem about the death of his friend Sanchez Mejias in the bullring.”
He brushed back a strand of gold-streaked brown hair and smiled. “I’ve missed conversations like this, although a good many of the men I train are well-educated. In fact, Micah Steele, who does consulting work for me, was a resident doctor at one of the bigger Eastern hospitals when he joined my unit.”
“Why did he give up a profession that he must have studied very hard for?”
“Nobody knows, and he won’t talk. Mostly what we know about him we found out from his father, who used to be a bank president until his heart attack. Micah’s stepsister, Callie, looks after old man Steele these days. He and Micah haven’t spoken for years, not since he and Callie’s mother divorced.”
“Do you know why they did?”
He shrugged. “Local gossip had it that Micah’s father caught Micah and his stepmother in a compromising position and threw them both out of the house.”
“Poor man.”
“Poor Callie. She worshiped the ground Micah walked on, but he won’t even speak to her these days.”
“That name sounds familiar,” she commented.
“It should. Callie’s a paralegal. She works for Barnes and Kemp, the trial lawyers here in town.”
“It’s so nice to have a lazy day like this,” she murmured, watching Stevie browse among the party decorations on a shelf. “It makes me forget the danger.”
“I’m surprised that Lopez hasn’t made any more moves lately,” he said. “And a little disturbed. It isn’t like him to back off.”
“Maybe he was afraid those two men who attacked me would be arrested and they’d tell on him,” she said.
He laughed mirthlessly. “Dream on. Lopez would have them disposed of before they had time to rat on him.” He pursed his lips. “That could be what happened to them. You don’t make a mistake when you belong to that particular cartel. No second chances. Ever.”
She shivered. “We do keep all the doors locked,” she said. “And we’re very careful about what we say. Well, Jessica is,” she amended sheepishly. “Until you taught me about surveillance equipment, I didn’t know that a whisper could be heard half a mile away.”
“Never forget it,” he told her. “Never drop your guard, either. I’ll always have someone close enough to run interference if you get into trouble, but you have to do your part to keep the house secure.”
“And let you know when and where I’m going,” she agreed. “I won’t forget again.”
He reached across the table and folded his fingers into hers, liking the way they clung. His thumb smoothed over the soft, moist palm while he searched her eyes.
“You haven’t had an easy time of it, have you?” he asked conversationally. “In some ways, your whole life has been in turmoil since you were seventeen.”
“In transition, at least,” she corrected, smiling gently. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that everything changes.”
“I suppose so.” His fingers tightened on hers and the look in his eyes was suddenly dark and mysterious and a little threatening. “I’ve learned a few things myself,” he said quietly.
“Such as?” she whispered daringly.
He glanced down at their entwined fingers. “Such as never taking things for granted.”
She frowned, puzzled.
He laughed and let go of her fingers. “I told you that I was engaged once, didn’t I?” he asked.
She nodded.
“I never told her what I did for a living. She never questioned where my money came from. In fact, when I tried to tell her, she stopped me, saying it wouldn’t matter, that she loved me and she’d go wherever my job took me.” He leaned back in his chair, his expression reflective and solemn. “Her parents were dead. She and an older boy were fostered at the same time to a wealthy woman. They spent years together, but he and Maggie weren’t close, so I made all the wedding arrangements and paid for her gown and the rings, everything.” His eyes darkened with remembered pain. “I still felt uncomfortable about having secrets between us, though, so the night before the wedding, I told her what I did for a living. She put the rings on the coffee table, got her stuff, and left town that same night. She married two months later…a man twice her age.”
She knew about his ex-fiancée, but not how much he’d cared about the woman. The expression in his eyes told her that the pain hadn’t gone away. “Didn’t she send you a letter, or phone you after she’d had time to think it over?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Until I ran into her in Houston a week ago, I had no idea where she was. Her adoptive mother died just after we broke up. Tough break.”
Her heart stopped in her chest. “You…saw her…in Houston?”
He nodded, oblivious to the shock in her eyes. “As luck would have it, she’s a new junior partner in an investment firm I use, and widowed.”
He stared at her until she looked up, and he wasn’t smiling. “You’re in a precarious situation, and we’ve been thrown together in a rather unconventional way. We’re friends, but you don’t have to live with what I do.”
All her hopes and dreams and wild expectations crumbled to dust in her mind. Friends. Good friends. Of course they were! He was teaching her martial arts, he was helping her to survive a potential attack by a ruthless drug lord. That didn’t mean he wanted her to share his life. Quite the opposite, it seemed now.
“If a woman cared enough, surely she could give it a chance?” she asked, terrified that her anguish might show.
Apparently it didn’t. He leaned back in his chair with a long sigh, reflective and moody. “No. She said she wanted a career, anyway,” he replied. “It suited her to have her own money and be independent.”
“My parents never shared their paychecks, or anything else,” she said carelessly. She glanced at Stevie. “Stevie, we’d better go, sweetheart.”
He came running, smiling as he leaned against her and looked across at Eb, who was still brooding. “Can we take Mama a cone?”
“Of course we can,” Sally said gently. She dug out two dollars. “Here. Get her a cup of that fat-free Dutch chocolate, okay? And make sure it has a lid.”
“Okay!”
He ran off with his grubstake, feeling very adult. Sally watched him, smiling.
“I could have done that,” Eb commented.
“Yes, you could, but it wouldn’t help teach him responsibility. Six isn’t too young to start learning independence. He’s going to be a fine man,” she added, her voice softer as she watched him.
He didn’t comment. He was feeling claustrophobic and he didn’t know why. He got up and dealt with the used napkins. By the time he was finished, Stevie came back carrying a small white sack with Jessica’s treat inside.
There wasn’t much conversation on the way back to the Johnson house, and even then it was completely impersonal. Sally realized that it must have hurt Eb to recall how abruptly his fiancée had rejected him. She might have loved him, but the constant danger of his profession must have been more than she could handle. Now that he was retired from the danger, it might not be such an obstacle.
That was a depressing thought. His ex-fiancée was a widow and he was in a secure profession, and they’d recently seen each other. It was enough to get Sally out of the truck with Stevie and off into the house with only a quick thank-you and a forced smile.
Eb, driving away down the road, felt a vague regret for the loss of the rapport he and Sally had seemed to share. He couldn’t understand what had made her so distant this afternoon.
Eb had already contacted a man he knew in the Drug Enforcement Administration on a secure channel and told him what he knew about Lopez and his plans for Jacobsville. He’d also asked about the possibility of having a man go undercover to infiltrate the operation and was told only that the DEA was aware of Lopez’s construction project. He wouldn’t tell Eb anything more than that.
Understanding government work very well, Eb had assumed that the undercover operation was already underway. He wasn’t about to mention that to anyone he knew. Not even Cy.
He had Dallas monitoring some sensitive equipment that gave them direct audio and visual information from Sally’s house. Nobody would sneak up on it without being noticed. He’d also had Dallas bug the telephone. That night, he was glad he had.
In the early hours of the morning, Sally was brought wide-awake by the insistent ringing of the telephone. The number was unlisted, but that didn’t stop telemarketers. Ordinarily, though, they didn’t call at this hour. It wasn’t a good marketing strategy, especially in Sally’s case. She’d hardly slept after the discussion with Eb in the yogurt shop. She wasn’t in the mood to talk to strangers.
“Hello?” she asked belligerently.
“You’ll never see us coming,” a slow, ice-cold voice said in her ear. “But unless Jessica gives up the name by midnight Saturday, there will be serious repercussions.”
Sally was so shocked that she fumbled with the phone and cut off the caller. She stood holding the receiver, blinking in astonishment. That softly accented tone had chilled her to the bone, despite the flannel gown she was wearing.
No sooner had she righted the telephone than it rang again. This time, she hesitated. Her heart was pounding like mad. She was almost shaking with the force of it. Her mouth was dry. Her palms began to sweat. There was an uncomfortable knot in the pit of her stomach.
She wanted to ignore it. She didn’t dare. Quickly, before she lost her nerve, she lifted it.
“She has one last chance,” the voice continued, as if the connection hadn’t been cut. “She must phone this number Saturday night at midnight exactly and give a name. One minute after midnight, you will all suffer the consequences.” He gave the number and hung up. This time the connection was cut even more rapidly. Sally dropped the receiver back into the cradle with icy fingers. She stared down at it with growing horror. Surely Eb and Dallas and the others would be watching. But were they listening as well?
The phone rang a third time, but now she was angry and she didn’t hesitate. She jerked it up. “Hello…?”
“We couldn’t get a trace,” Eb said angrily. “Are you all right?”
She swallowed, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and swallowed again. “Yes,” she said calmly. “I’m all right. You heard what he said?”
“I heard. Don’t worry.”
“Don’t worry?” she parroted. “When a man’s just threatened to kill everyone in my house?”
“He won’t kill anybody,” he assured her. “And he’s through making threats for tonight. I’m going to find out where that phone is. Go to sleep. It’s all right.”
The receiver went dead. “I am sick and tired of men throwing out orders and hanging up on me!” she told the telephone earpiece.
It did no good, of course, except that voicing her irritation made her feel a little better. She climbed back into bed and lay awake, wide-eyed and nervous, until dawn. Just before she and Stevie left for school, out of the child’s hearing range, she told Jessica what had happened.
“Eb and the others are watching us,” Sally assured her quickly. “But be careful about answering the door.”
“No need,” Jessica said. “Lopez may be certifiable, but he’s predictable. He never takes action until his demands haven’t been met. We have until midnight Saturday to think of something.”
“Wonderful,” Sally said on a sigh. “We have today and tomorrow. I’m sure we’ll have Lopez and all his cohorts in jail by then.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, dear,” Jessica said with a smile. “Go to work. I’ll be fine.”
“I wish I could guarantee that all of us would be fine,” Sally murmured to herself as she went out the door behind Stevie.
Somehow she knew that life would never be the same again. It had been bad enough hearing Eb talk about the woman he’d loved who had rejected him at the altar, and knowing from the way he spoke of it that he hadn’t gotten over her. But now, she had drug dealers threatening to kill Jessica and Stevie as well as herself. She wondered how in the world she’d ended up in such a nightmare.
It didn’t help when Eb phoned again and told her that the phone number she’d been given was that of a stolen cell phone, untraceable until it was answered, and it rang and rang unnoticed now. There would be no time to run a trace precisely at midnight. It was the most disheartening news Sally had received in a long time.