Tempting Fate

by Meryl Sawyer

  "Trust me, babe. Ginger and Benson or Alyx and Tyler are out to get me. Hell, I don't know. Maybe all four of them are in on this together. They're watching right now with night vision binoculars to see what we're doing."

  The moonlight flickered over her hair, glistened softly on her parted lips, and danced in her eyes. He imagined her hair fanned across a pillow. His pillow.

  "What about your father? Do you think he's part of—of whatever is going on?"

  That was a damn good question. "I don't know, possibly."

  "Your father seems sincere, at least to me, he does."

  There was so much evil in the world. She couldn't possibly imagine, and he didn't want her to know. Her jerkoff of a husband had hurt her enough. She didn't need any more heartache. This unexpected surge of protectiveness made him uneasy as hell.

  Don't get involved.

  That was damn near impossible. He was going to marry her—and sleep with her. Night after night.

  "I hope you're not upset that I invited your father to the wedding. He seems so genuinely interested in getting to know you," Kelly said.

  "That's what he told me while you were talking to Jim Cree." Logan had pretended to be interested, but he knew better. The family was a powder keg primed to explode. He didn't want any part of it.

  "It's going to be embarrassing to have them at the reception. Pop and Woody are like oil and water. I'm not sure Pop will even allow Benson Williams on his property. That's how much he hates him."

  "I'll talk to Pop," Logan volunteered as he released her and began walking toward the Cadillac. "When we get into the car, we're going to get hot and heavy for a few minutes for their benefit. During the drive home, don't say anything that will tip them that we're not crazy about each other. Whatever you do, don't mention Venezuela or Rafi. The less they know about our plans the better."

  As he guided her toward the car, his hand on her bare back, his fingertips testing the softness of her skin, she whispered, "Do you think they bugged the car?"

  "It's doubtful since it's your grandfather's car, but I can't rule it out. I'm certain they've bugged Pop's house and our casitas. I can check as soon as we get home, but I can't poke around this car with a flashlight while they're watching."

  "You're right," she said, her voice pitched low as she moved closer to him. Her lips were dangerously close to his. She definitely had a kissable mouth. Very kissable.

  He didn't want to kiss her, did he? No way. Kissing was not his thing.

  * * *

  "What do you see?" Her bare breasts pressed into his back, hot and hard against his skin. "What are they doing?"

  "The same thing they were doing out front. Kissing. His hands are all over her."

  "Let me look." She reached for the binoculars.

  He moved aside, handing her the glasses. He caressed her silky smooth ass with his hand, running his fingers along the cleft. He'd come to her room after that farce of a dinner and with his teeth, ripped off the filmy black lingerie he'd given her. He'd taken her, standing up against the marble wall of the bathroom.

  It had been raw, primitive—the way they both liked to start. Later, they would take their time and spend hours to accomplish what they'd just done in minutes.

  "I can't see anything," she complained.

  "Train the glasses on the dark shadow at the end of the drive. That's the car. Then press the button at the top," He reached over and put her finger on the button. "Night vision picks up all the ambient light. You should be seeing clear as day now."

  She giggled, the throaty sound that always said she was up to something naughty. "If I had breasts like Kelly Taylor's, I'd get silicone."

  "Has Logan pulled down her top?" So far the show had been only mildly interesting. He reached for the binoculars.

  "No. The little prude is still dressed." She elbowed his hand away. "Why do you suppose he keeps kissing her neck and shoulders?"

  "I noticed that too. Maybe he's a vampire." He saw the headlights flick on, cutting a blue-white swath across the emerald green lawn. "Show's over."

  She handed him the binoculars. "Too bad you didn't have your man bug the car instead of just the house. I'd love to know what they think of the family."

  "They despise the family. They're just using good old Woody to help them adopt a child."

  "I couldn't believe it when you told me. I guess I left the table too soon." She giggled again, a little nastier this time. "Kelly's getting what she deserves, a man who can't give her children. Trent Farley won't have any grandchildren to call his own and brag about in that two-bit gossip sheet he likes to call a newspaper."

  "There's something strange going on. I'm not sure I buy Logan's story."

  "The bugs will tell us what's really happening so we can make our plans."

  "True, and the little scene tonight with the food should have convinced Logan we're nitwits not worth worrying about."

  She picked up what was left of her black panties and brushed the swatch of silk across his penis. "Why would Logan be suspicious?"

  "Since he's so mum about where he was all those years, I'm certain he knows more than he's telling."

  "He was barely five, for God's sake."

  He shrugged, anxious to finish the discussion and hop in bed. "Someone found him. They might have seen something or … who knows?"

  "I'm not worried," she assured him. "It's Woody that I'm concerned about. He's taken with Logan, and mark my words, Logan doesn't just want help with an adoption. He'll hit Woody's wallet next. I say we murder Logan McCord, and frame Kelly Taylor."

  "If we kill him now, Logan will die a hero."

  She clamped her hand around his cock, stroking it through the silk. "I can't help myself. Murder is the ultimate high especially when—like last time—everyone is too stupid to even suspect a crime has been committed."

  * * *

  "You were right," Kelly told Logan. "While we were having dinner with the Stanfields, someone bugged the house. Uma leaves right after supper, and Pop goes to his room. He never locks the doors unless he's going away on a vacation or something. This isn't L.A. We don't expect people to sneak into our homes."

  "You followed directions perfectly. Whoever is listening will assume we're out making love under the stars. I've never gone in for screwing al fresco myself, but I could be talked into it."

  They were sitting on a flat boulder the size of a park bench beyond the main house and the casitas. Above them was an ebony sky emblazoned with stars, some mere pinpricks of light, others the size of a nickel. In the distance, Oak Creek rushed and rumbled over the river rocks. A symphony of crickets were courting in the underbrush accompanied by full-throated bullfrogs.

  The gleam of desire in his eyes unsettled her. "Al fresco? How can you joke at a time like this?"

  "Easy. Now we know what we're dealing with. We control the information they'll have about us."

  She nodded, still a little stunned at the tiny chrome chips he'd discovered in every telephone receiver in Pop's home except for the one in his room. They assumed that Pop's room was clean because he was asleep inside.

  "Whoever planted those bugs must have been very quiet," she said. "Jasper didn't bark. Not that he barks easily. Guide dogs are encouraged not to bark unless it's very serious. Constant barking would be frightening to someone who is blind."

  Logan said, his voice low, "Whoever planted them knew exactly what he was doing. He wouldn't have made any noise."

  "You're sure they can't hear us out here?"

  "No. Infinity transmitters are electronically activated whenever there is noise in the room, but they don't have the range to pick up sounds this far away."

  "Isn't a tape recorder hidden around the property somewhere?"

  A gruff chuckle rumbled from his throat. He was not amused. "No. The old tape systems ran all the time often leaving miles of blank space when nothing was being recorded. Infinity transmitters record only when there is sound. Then the conversation is transmitted ov
er the telephone lines to a laser disk-receiver. It could be anywhere."

  He was sitting next to her on the flat rock, his hands, palms down on the rock. He looked at her when she spoke, but he'd made no attempt to touch her. Still, the sensuous undertone in his voice found its way into her body.

  She was becoming more intrigued by him with each passing day. She had readily admitted the Stanfields would be perched like vultures eager to attack Logan the moment they had the opportunity. But she'd thought he was being a bit paranoid, expecting listening devices to be planted at Pop's house.

  Typical CIA mentality, she'd privately decided, having done several articles on the agency. They'd turn over the White House to space aliens rather than let anyone peek at their files. Cobras, being a counter-terrorist unit under the CIA umbrella, indicated the same anal, secretive mentality where every activity was clandestine and every person suspect.

  Boy, oh, boy, had she been mistaken.

  She began to doubt her initial analysis of the situation just after she'd spoken to Jim Cree. Something was terribly wrong. The present must be linked to the past, to Logan's kidnapping as a child.

  A niggling thought that had been with her all night demanded she review the file on the kidnapping, not just the articles but the original reporter's notes. They were Pop's notes, for he'd been the one who'd gathered the information for the article.

  Luz Tallchief could be the key, Kelly reflected. The nanny who had raised the twins, then ten years later returned to raise Logan, might very well have the information Kelly needed. She had no intention of sharing any of this with Logan until she knew more.

  "Did your work with the Cobras call for using sophisticated surveillance equipment like this?"

  "Sophisticated?" He made it sound like a four-letter word. "This is high-end civilian stuff. The military has the truly cutting edge equipment. If this was a military operation we wouldn't be having this conversation. They have bugs that can pick up the sound of a hummingbird two miles away."

  "Awesome. Our tax dollars at work."

  He didn't respond to her lame joke. Instead he gazed at her mouth until her lower lip trembled and she had to clamp it between her teeth. Criminy! He was getting to her.

  "Did you use a lot of that type of equipment?" she asked, eager to make him talk about himself.

  "Sometimes. Counter-terrorist units are specialized. Agents specialize in an area of the world. I'm considered the ranking expert on South America. I'd be worthless in, say, Iran. I don't know the language or the customs or—"

  "But you said you were in Bosnia. CNN was there to greet you," she reminded him.

  "That was an emergency. So much sh—" He smiled an adorable, little boy smile. "So much was happening so quickly, they flew in a few of us to help. I was only there a short while."

  He was silent again and she was upset with herself for interrupting him. This was the first time he'd opened up and even given her more than a glimpse of his life.

  "Counter-terrorist forces specialize in areas of the world and, ah, things like explosives or what?" she prodded.

  "I don't know what my new assignment will be. It probably won't be the same, so it won't matter if I tell you. I was a kidnapping expert."

  "I know it happens in South America once in a while, but you don't read about it very often."

  "If you read about it, I haven't done my job. The kidnapping of Americans is tricky to handle. We try to negotiate. If that doesn't work, we go in and get the person."

  "The Cobras must be very successful. If a kidnapped American died, it would make the news."

  "Not necessarily. Oil and timber companies in the Amazon have had employees kidnapped and killed. They persuade the families to keep quiet to ensure the safety of other workers."

  "How does that make the others safer?"

  "It sends a message to terrorist groups. We're not playing your game."

  "Did you ever participate in a mission where the hostage was killed?"

  "I've been lucky. My missions have been successful."

  There was a note of pride in his voice, faint but unmistakable. How odd, Kelly reflected, a man who had been kidnapped as a child now specialized in kidnappings.

  Another thought occurred to her. "You knew someone would ask you why we were adopting so quickly after being married, didn't you?" Kelly was ashamed of herself for not having had a quick response to such an obvious question.

  "Of course. It's something people instantly wonder about. Most of them won't be a jerk like Tyler and bluntly ask. But they'll be curious."

  "Can't you?" She faltered, then rephrased the question. "I mean are you…"

  "Shooting blanks?"

  "Well … yes."

  He leaned closer, and his eyes boldly raked over her, the meaning of his gaze obvious. "There's only one way to tell."

  * * *

  Chapter 18

  « ^ »

  There's only one way to find out.

  Logan had laughed as if he'd been joking, but there had been … something in the way he'd said it, Kelly thought the next morning as she drove toward Indian Gardens. He was a perplexing man who sent conflicting messages. He insisted they were on a mission and physical contact was necessary to convince everyone that love was the reason they were getting married. Yet there were times when she was convinced that he was attracted to her.

  How did she feel about him, she asked herself as she guided her car south toward Luz Tallchief's home. She didn't want to become involved with him—emotionally or physically. Daniel's betrayal had severed a piece of her heart—with a hacksaw.

  The knife edge of pain had dulled a little, eased by tears and sleepless nights. It was a throbbing ache now accompanied by a hollow, desolate sensation that went beyond tears. She did not have the stamina for any more heartache.

  And Logan McCord was heartbreak just waiting to happen. She wished she could have found someone else to help her adopt Rafi, but it was too late now.

  "Ben," she slowed her car and called out her open window to an elderly man who was opening his apple stand next to the highway that ran parallel to Oak Creek. "How's it going?"

  "Danged if I haven't had the best harvest in years," Ben Hoyt told her with unmistakable pride. Above the baskets of apples hung bright crimson strands of dried chiles. Ben had strung the ristas himself, and they were immediately snapped up by the locals to be used in cooking during the winter.

  Kelly congratulated him and drove on. Apples were ripening quickly in the orchards around town and needed to be sold or stored properly. When she'd left the house, Kelly had heard Logan and Pop making arrangements to pick the apples from the small grove near the house and store them in the root cellar for Uma.

  Logan volunteering to pick apples. Pretty amazing. She didn't want to think about him doing things like an ordinary man. It was better to concentrate on his mysterious past. She tried to unravel the tale as she drove the short distance from Sedona to Indian Gardens.

  "Hello, Tom," Kelly waved to the man who owned the old-fashioned gas station and General Store in Indian Gardens.

  Across the street was the historical marker. It explained the canyon's early farmers, including Pop's grandparents, had arrived in the late 1800s and planted apple trees all along the Oak Creek Canyon. Although Sedona was better known worldwide for its scenery and vortexes, apple orchards still produced fruit that was shipped out of state or sold from roadside stands.

  Kelly gazed up at the red sandstone ramparts towering over Indian Gardens, its vermilion color a sharp contrast to the radiant gold fall foliage skirting its base. She turned off the main road onto a gravel road marked Pendley Lane

  .

  She braked hard, almost missing the battered metal mailbox on a wooden post. Behind it was an even smaller road and she drove more slowly down it. Aspens flanked the dirt lane, their fallen leaves scattered like golden doubloons on the red earth.

  The road became dirt ruts, then stopped entirely at a semicircular pad of di
rt where a green pickup with a rusty dent in the rear fender was parked. She pulled her Toyota in beside it.

  The small wood-frame bungalow was almost concealed by overgrown apple trees heavy with fruit. A stone well with a new aluminum bucket stood off to one side. Nearby, a propane tank supplied fuel to the house.

  Kelly knocked on the screen door and waited, but there was no answer. She peered through the screen into the dark living room. Beyond the house was a small patio where a young girl about sixteen was tossing apples into an apple press to make cider. Her gloss-black hair was coiled around her ears like the wings of a butterfly.

  Luz Tallchief was Navajo. Kelly remembered. Her maternal clan, the "born to" clan was the Stone River Clan, but she had attended the Indian School in Santa Fe. There she'd met and married a Hopi man.

  This young girl must be Luz's granddaughter, yet she wore her hair in the traditional Hopi fashion. Maternal clans dominated the Navajo culture. The first thing a person told you was his mother's clan, but obviously, this family valued their Hopi roots as well.

  A waxy smell hit Kelly, and she craned her head to one side. On the stove was a huge vat of bubbling liquid. They were boiling yucca roots to make soap. Evidently they were very poor, but unless Kelly was mistaken, a priceless yei rug hung on the wall. The crisp red and white pattern made the gray vinyl sofa appear even more shabby.

  "Yaa' eh t'eeh," she called, using the Navajo greeting.

  The girl turned, saw Kelly and came into the house. "Yes," she said, but she didn't open the screen door.

  "I'm looking for Luz Tallchief."

  "She's not here."

  "Will she be back soon? I'm Kelly Taylor. I—"

  "I know who you are." There was a note of hostility in the girl's voice.

  "Really?" Kelly couldn't recall having seen her around Sedona. The town was so small that the locals usually recognized each other even if they didn't know everyone by name.