by Ann Major
“We talk alone!” Glowering, the smuggler threw himself down on the sofa beside him. “Tequila!”
“All I’ve got is a lousy can of light beer.”
“Light? Forget it then.” Octavio stuffed a pillow behind his glossy, black head and stretched out his dirty cowboy boots across a scarred table.
“Let’s talk,” he snarled as he ran a scarred, brown hand through his hair.
Hart was dizzy with fear.
“You and me—we can accomplish much—if we work together.”
“W—what do you want?”
“I need to clean up my operation. When I was in prison, bad people betray me. They must pay. You have cases you want to make, no? You want to make a big name for yourself up here in Disneylandia, no?”
Hart had been on the border ten years. “I wanted that in the beginning when I was young and idealistic.” He’d given up on it a long time ago.
“If I let you bring these big men in my organization down—” he held up ten fingers “—will you give me Mia Kemble?”
“I need specifics.”
Octavio listed ten men in his operation on both sides of the border he was willing to surrender for Mia.
“An American federal judge? You’re shitting me.”
“I want the woman. Think about it, no? You want to make big name for yourself, no? You want to be somebody?”
Hart said nothing.
“If you give her to me, I give you cops’ names. Big buyers’ names in the States. Judges. Attorneys.”
“If I hand her over, what happens to her?”
“None of your fucking business.”
Murder? He thought about those bodies on the stretchers after Tavio’s prison break. What was one more bloody body? This was war. There were always casualties in war.
Then he thought about her little girl.
The drug war is already lost, asshole. What are you doing?
“I can’t deny it’s what I’ve always wanted,” he said.
When Octavio held out his hand, Hart took it.
“I will make all our dreams come true, no? And next time when I visit you, we drink tequila, no?”
The morning was soft and gray as Mia walked along the beach holding one of Vanilla’s small hands while Lizzy held on to the other. Joanne had declined to come with them because she was driving to the border on a shopping trip. She’d been going to El Paso a lot lately, which seemed odd.
At Cole’s insistence, Kinky had come with them today, since he couldn’t come himself. The ranch’s coastline that edged the bay was remote. Occasionally thieves, vandals or rustlers roared across the water, beached their speedboats and made all sorts of mischief in distant pastures. Mostly they were kids. Still, now more than ever, Cole had said they needed to be cautious.
Thus Kinky stood beside Gus in the shade of the beach house. Both men had guns tucked inside the waistbands of their jeans. Mia was aware of them scanning the crescent-shaped beach, the bay and the road for any sign of strangers.
Not that anyone had bothered them so far. Still, Mia felt tense that such precautions were necessary. She kept worrying about Shanghai, who didn’t have a bodyguard. At least he’d finally called Cole from the road, so she knew he was alive. When Cole had told him to call his friend, Wolf, Shanghai had said he was on his way to Texas—south Texas. That had been two days ago.
“Swim!” Vanilla said, staring out at the waves and then up at Lizzy.
Even now Vanilla still favored Lizzy over Mia, and it hurt.
Understanding her sister’s feelings, Lizzy shook her head. “Mia will take you swimming.”
“Okay, but first I’ve got to take off my jeans,” Mia said gaily.
She kicked off her shoes and then her jeans and tossed them onto the sand. She wore a bikini under her clothes. At the sound of an engine, she looked up. A truck braked at the beach house, and a tall dark man alighted. The light was behind him, so she couldn’t see him all that clearly.
Shanghai? Ever since Cole had said he was on his way here, she’d kept thinking he might turn up any minute. Filled with hope, her heart soared when the man turned and waved at them.
As he ran down the sandy slope toward them, she felt a pang of acute longing. When he got closer, he didn’t look quite as wide across the chest as she’d first imagined.
“Cole!” Vanilla yelled.
Lizzy turned and waved wildly to her husband.
Mia’s chest ached, but she forced a smile as Cole joined them.
“Swim, Cole!” Vanilla held her hands up to him, preferring him now over Mia.
He tugged off his boots and socks and then swooped the little girl high in his arms. Settling her on his shoulders, he stomped out into the waves, not caring when the saltwater soaked his jeans.
The sisters stayed on the beach, watching them.
“I know it’s been hard…coming back,” Lizzy said.
“Yes.”
“It was difficult for me when I left Manhattan. But you’ve had to deal with all the bad publicity, not to mention the real threat that Morales might show up at any moment. What a mess it all is. Cole and Leo already had their hands full trying to run the ranch. There’s been so many family problems. It’ll all settle down. You’ll see.” She paused. “Did I tell you I’m writing a novel?”
“No.”
“It’s hard. Harder than I expected. Stories pop in my head, but when I try to write them down, it’s awkward getting words on a page.”
“You’ll figure it out.” Mia stared at Lizzy. Her face was softer and lovelier than ever before. Maybe because she finally had Cole and had begun writing. “You always loved to write.”
Lizzy nodded. Her platinum hair was tied with a pink ribbon at her nape in a ponytail that blew about in the sea breeze. Strangely today Mia felt no jealousy for her sister’s beauty and happiness. In fact she felt guilt that she’d ever caused her pain.
“I should have talked to you before I asked Cole to marry me. I was so upset about Shanghai, I was selfish. I thought you and he were through, but you weren’t.”
“No. Apparently not.”
“I made you unhappy, didn’t I?”
“In the short run, but you made me realize how I truly felt about him.”
“I’m glad something came out of my idiotic behavior. I feel like I’ve lost so much,” Mia said.
“Did I ever tell you that Sam got a hold of a diary that my mother, I mean…Electra, wrote?”
“Mother said something about that, but I’m eager to hear your slant.”
Lizzy had told her all about Electra, the world-famous photojournalist, being her biological mother and how difficult that had been for her to comprehend at first. It still was. Just like thinking about Uncle Jack as being her own biological father felt strange.
Lizzy was watching Cole in the surf and seemed distracted.
“A diary you say?” Mia prompted.
Lizzy turned to face her again. “A journal, really. Mother…er…Electra must’ve written it during her travels. We think Sam stole it when he murdered her in Nicaragua. He sent a copy of it to Mother to blackmail her. Then he stole it back, but we found the original in his truck. Mother…er, Joanne…gave it to me. I read it, several times. In fact, I read it again not too long ago.”
“And?”
“Electra and Daddy had two other daughters.”
“What?”
“I guess Mother skipped that part. I think she thought you were on overload.”
“If so, she was right.”
“Mia, I’ve got sisters. Twins. They’re a little younger than we are.”
Mia held her breath.
“Electra got into some kind of trouble, and Daddy went and saved her, but he got her pregnant again. And she wrote all about it. Right before I got married, I gave the journal to Leo and asked him to hire a detective to find my sisters.”
“What will that mean for the ranch?”
“Who knows? Still, if I have sisters out there, I
want to find them.”
“But they won’t be my sisters,” Mia said. “Since your father and my father were brothers, we’re cousins.”
“I hadn’t thought it all out. You’ll always feel like a sister.”
“But biologically these twins are my cousins, not my sisters,” Mia said.
Lizzy sighed. “It’s complicated. Apparently Electra regretted giving me away, so she kept them. But then there came a time when she must’ve realized she simply wasn’t cut out to be a full-time mother.”
“And where are they now?”
“Nobody knows. Leo told me recently that his detective has made no progress.”
“Well, it will be exciting when he does.” Mia watched Cole and Vanilla jumping in the waves. “Imagine that.”
“Yes. It’s too incredible, isn’t it?” Lizzy said.
Vanilla turned and smiled at Lizzy as she was held high against Cole’s broad shoulder. Lizzy laughed and blew the little girl kisses with both hands in a dramatic show of affection.
When Cole returned, stomping back through the waves toward them, Lizzy ran out into the water to them. Watching them as she waited alone on the beach, Mia fought the fear that she’d never be first with her daughter.
When Cole reached Mia, he smiled. “I almost forgot…No, hell. To be honest, I’ve just been working up my nerve to tell you.”
“What?”
“Shanghai’s back.”
“You played in the water all this time and didn’t tell—”
“I just had coffee with him in Chaparral. He’s here to see Vanilla. He told me he was going to call you.”
A bittersweet pain twisting her heart, Mia tossed her head and glanced down at the beach. “Well, frankly, I don’t care if he never calls.”
“I think he’s scared to call.”
“I don’t care about your brother, okay! He’s got a girlfriend, remember?”
“He didn’t bring her along.”
Mia made a fist behind her back and dug her fingernails into her palm.
“What if I told you that he got himself thrown and that he broke every bone in his body? Would you care then?”
“What? He’s hurt? Where is he?”
“And that he’s hurting so bad, he’s limpin’ around like an old man twice his age?”
“Dear God! Where is he? You’ve got to tell me!”
“I thought you didn’t care.” Cole grinned. “He’s fine.”
“You mean he didn’t get thrown?” Her throat was still tight with fear.
“I was just fooling.”
“You snake!”
Vanilla wriggled out of Cole’s arms to the ground and began toddling back to play in the surf.
Forgetting Shanghai, Mia chased after her daughter. Catching her, she lifted her into her arms and ran with her into the warm water.
As Vanilla laughed and splashed the water happily, she looked up every second or two to make sure Mia was still watching.
Mia smiled down at her daughter every time. Only the tightness between her shoulder blades told her how tense she was about Shanghai.
Nineteen
Terence raced up the stairs after Joanne. She looked stunning in a blue sundress of such stark simplicity that one noticed only her, her face and her body and not the dress at all.
He unlocked the door to the new apartment he’d rented on the edge of the desert just so he’d have someplace to bring her. Flicking on the light, he then swung her up into his arms and swept her across the threshold as if she were his bride. He was making a total ass of himself, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
“All day I’ve wanted this, to be with you, alone,” he said, his voice low and deep, as he let her go in such a way that her body slid against his on the way down.
“Me, too,” she whispered. “The whole time I was buying Mexican pots and pottery.” When she smiled he noted the rapid pulse in the hollow of her throat.
“I can’t believe you made me go shopping and then to lunch,” he grumbled, “when you knew what I wanted. You even made me tell you all about my suspicions regarding Hart’s sudden fame since Operation Mex-Tex-Zero.”
“It’ll be better since we waited,” she said.
“Hunger being the best sauce?”
“Something like that,” she replied breathlessly.
When he was sure she was standing on both feet and had her balance, he crushed her lips with his mouth. At the same moment, he shoved his hands under her thin silk sweater.
“You damn sure took your time eating lunch,” he muttered. “Two glasses of wine.”
“The merlot was excellent, you must admit,” she teased.
“Dessert even?”
She laughed. “I thought we should get acquainted. You know—converse.”
“I felt I was going to go wild every time you smiled and flirted and touched my leg or thigh under the table. Then you unzipped me…but only halfway. You knew what you were doing, didn’t you?”
Again she laughed. “I’m not sure I’ve ever had more fun.”
She was braless, which he’d known by her jiggle when she’d walked ahead of him through the flea markets of El Paso.
She didn’t do a thing to stop him when he cupped her breasts and caressed her nipples until they peaked between his fingers.
Several, long, wet kisses later, her hose and panties were on the flax carpet. He clasped her around the waist and lifted her higher. She wrapped her legs around his hips, and he walked with her toward his dining-room table. With a single swipe of his arm, he sent papers and books flying. With infinite care he laid her down on the smooth, ebony surface and rubbed his swollen penis against the soft dampness between her thighs, making sure she was ready.
“How come you didn’t wear a bra today?”
“I did. But on the outskirts of El Paso, I thought about you and ripped it off and threw it out on the highway.”
It was his turn to laugh.
He kissed her throat and caught her musky scent, which sent him over some edge. When she arched into him, he drove inside her with a fierceness that had been beyond him, until her. Moaning, she clung. As always the first time was too fast.
When they made love in the shower, he took his time until she was screaming and pounding the tiles as her climaxes went on and on.
“You can’t get enough,” he said afterward. “As a small boy I used to fantasize about meeting a nymphomaniac.”
“I have a lifetime of doing without to make up for.”
Terence didn’t want to ruin the few hours they had together by asking about her loveless marriage to Caesar. Later. Still, he was curious. She seemed so untouched in some ways, like an innocent young girl. She was as thrilled with him as a virgin having her first affair.
He knew it wouldn’t last.
But he intended to enjoy every minute of it.
He bound her to the bed with ribbons, and when she struggled frantically against them, he turned her over on her back and took her. Afterward when they were exhausted, they slept for hours.
When she got up, she dressed again and redid her makeup in his bathroom. Once again, she looked regal and untouched in a simple blue sundress—cold even. Then, like a queen, she began wandering about his apartment, looking at everything. She thumbed through a stack of newspapers on his coffee table, sifted through the papers he’d pitched off his table. He felt on edge, as if his privacy were being invaded.
“I see John Hart is making more headlines,” she mused.
“All that hoopla about Operation Mex-Tex-Zero?”
“They make it sound like he alone is responsible for the seizure of those two thousand kilograms of cocaine at the border,” she said.
“Worth umpteen millions. What I want to know is where’s he getting his information. It just seems…”
“What?”
“Too pat. Odd. He’s had a fairly average career until now.”
“What are you saying?” she asked.
“Nothing. I’m talking out of hand. All I know is that lots of bodies have been turning up in Ciudad Juarez lately. They’ve all been tortured. Rumor has it Morales is on a rampage. I’m glad Mia has a bodyguard.”
She laid the newspaper down.
“Life is tough for a lot of people here in El Paso, but it’s ten times worse in Ciudad Juarez,” he said.
She sighed. “I never imagined you in a cozy apartment like this.”
He saw no reason to inform her he’d rented it just for her.
When she pushed the door to his office open, a prickle of alarm shot through him.
“Joanne—”
Ignoring him, she slipped inside his office.
“There’s nothing of you in the rest of the apartment,” she said as she fingered his computer, his books and then the pictures of Abby and Becky. “The furniture is so new, it reminds me of a hotel room.”
She lifted the photograph of Abby on her golden horse and set it down. Then she picked up the picture of the twins when they were three and still in pigtails. For a long moment she held the photograph up to the light. Despite the fact that it wasn’t heavy, her hand began to shake.
He thought he heard her whisper, “Oh, no.”
Then he could do nothing but stand paralyzed for several more long seconds, willing her to put the picture back down. Did she know? Had she somehow learned about the twins? Electra’s girls? His? Had Caesar known?
No. She couldn’t know any more than Caesar could have known. Electra had been very specific on that point. She’d told him she’d taken great pains to insure the adoption arrangements between them would be totally confidential.
Finally Joanne put the picture down, and he was able to breathe again. Without looking at him, she said, “They are lovely. Children are so much fun, especially little girls, aren’t they?” Her tone was perfectly neutral.
He nodded and was glad when she came out of the room.
Quickly he shut the door.
“I’m thirsty,” she said, moving past him, careful to avoid his touch.
He dashed into the kitchen and found her a bottle of water.
She took it. “I have to go,” she said without opening the bottle.
“I thought you were going to spend the night.”
“I’m feeling tired all of a sudden. It’s a long drive.”
