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-Ibanez, 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-Ibanez, 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-fiancee, 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 finished her cone and 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 fiancee 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-fiancee 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.
Books By Diana Palmer Page 251
