by Diana Palmer
He nodded.
“Can you take care of my mommy, too?” she asked. “So that she doesn’t get hurt?”
He searched her eyes. “Yes, I can. I won’t let anything happen to your mother,” he assured her in a calm, confident tone. “I promise.”
She swallowed. “Thanks,” she said shyly, laying a soft hand tentatively on his broad shoulder.
Her touch made him feel odd inside. He shrugged. “You’re welcome.”
“You don’t like me,” Bernadette said suddenly.
He felt guilty all over again. He frowned. “It isn’t that,” he said hesitantly. “I’m not used to kids. And besides that, I don’t…share my life with people,” he tried to explain.
She nodded, as if she actually understood. “Me, neither,” she said, sounding much more adult than her six years would allow. “The other kids think I’m spooky. Or they pick on me on account of I’m…” She hesitated, remembering that she wasn’t supposed to tell him she was Apache. “Different,” she added after a short pause.
“Even the Chicanos?” he asked with a smile.
She smiled back. “No. Not them. They get picked on, too, just like me.”
He knew how she felt. He had no special gifts, but he’d been an outsider all his life, in one way or another. First from his people, then from his father, then from society itself. Maureen had taught him never to trust a woman. The world had taught him never to trust people. He was locked up inside himself. He couldn’t get out.
“Hunter says that you sing,” he said after an awkward silence.
She nodded. “I’m going to sing tonight at our play.”
“I’m coming to the play with Hunter and Jennifer,” he said.
“You are?” Her eyes were wide and soft, and she reminded him suddenly of his own mother, whom he remembered with love and sadness. It was something about the expression…
She made him uncomfortable. In many ways, she was a potent reminder of all that he’d missed out on in life, of his flaws, his inadequacies. He got to his feet, vaguely uneasy, aware of an odd sensation, as if he were being watched.
He turned, and there was Sarina in the doorway, her face troubled and curious.
Discovered, she wiped the expression from her face and tried not to show how much Colby’s tenderness with her child had disturbed her.
“Time to go, pumpkin,” she told her daughter with a warm smile.
“Okay, Mommy. Look what he got me!” she exclaimed, opening the bag.
“Art supplies?” She looked at Colby with open curiosity.
He stuck his hands in his pockets. His expression gave away nothing. “If she’s going to draw, she should have proper equipment,” he said gruffly.
Sarina pursed her lips and peered in the bag again. “At least it doesn’t tick,” she murmured. “Are you sure you didn’t slip any poison into the pencil points?”
“That wasn’t nice, Mommy,” Bernadette told her. “You said we must always be polite to people.”
“Yes, we should,” Colby replied with a mischievous smile. “Your daughter needs to teach you some manners.”
Sarina glared at him. “Sometimes we can choose which people we want to be polite to,” she hedged.
“Is that any way to treat a person who was hired to keep you safe?” he asked, tongue-in-cheek.
She grimaced. “All right, I’ll be polite,” she said curtly. She wasn’t comfortable with his changed attitude toward Bernadette. He’d been eloquent about her in recent days. There were good reasons why he couldn’t spend too much time around the child.
“Thank you,” Bernadette told Colby as she took her mother’s hand, after putting her drawing and pencils in the bag he’d given her.
He shrugged. “You’re welcome.”
Sarina nodded, uncertain of what to say. She turned and let Bernadette out of the canteen.
Bernadette’s excited voice floated back to him as they walked away. “He’s coming to hear me sing tonight!” Bernadette told her mother excitedly. “And he said I could draw very well! He isn’t a bad man at all, Mommy!”
It was like being hit in the stomach. The child’s enthusiastic response to him was disturbing. He felt a warm glow inside, like nothing he’d ever known. He felt as if he knew her, and he didn’t understand why.
It made him feel even guiltier that she was so receptive to him, after he’d been cruel to her.
Sarina, listening to the child, was concerned, more than ever. If Colby got too close to the child, he might learn things she didn’t want him to know. Bernadette was obviously fascinated by him, and it seemed that Colby was discovering feelings for her as well. It was going to complicate things.
THE SCHOOL PLAY was a new experience for Colby. He’d never seen one, except when he was a child. They were doing something called a Harvest Celebration. Apparently it was politically incorrect to mention Halloween these days. There were no spooky decorations like the ones they’d had at his school when he was a child, no Halloween carnivals with children all dressed up going from room to room to explore haunted places or fish for prizes or play games. He was amazed at how much an outsider he felt.
The children were dressed in regular, but nice, school clothes. They told about the harvest of the first Thanksgiving, and how people had gathered crops in the fall, and they recited poems about autumn. There were pumpkins on the stage, but they weren’t carved, and they didn’t have candles in them.
Nikki Hunter recited a poem about apples being gathered in an orchard. Then Bernadette came up to the microphone, looking very nervous. A large woman sat down at the piano and began to play an introduction. Bernadette, her dark hair straight and shiny around her face, wearing a pretty brown dress with a white collar, searched the audience until she found her mother and then Colby and the Hunters. She smiled.
The pianist nodded, and Bernadette sang “Bless this House.” Colby felt chills run down his spine. The child was incredibly gifted. Her voice was high and clear as a bell. It was painfully familiar. He closed his eyes. He could hear his mother singing to him in the late evening, smiling as she tucked him gently into bed.
The last of the song faded away and there was applause. Colby came back to the present and joined in, smiling at Bernadette. She saw him and smiled back.
The curtain closed. Apparently the play was over. The Hunters moved forward into the crowd to look for Nikki. Bernadette was already running down the aisle to be swung up against a broad shoulder. Rodrigo Ramirez! Colby’s teeth clenched. He hadn’t seen the man, or Sarina, for that matter. They’d been a few rows ahead of him and on the other side of the auditorium.
He hesitated, but he couldn’t see any reason not to tell the child how beautifully she sang. If Ramirez didn’t like it, tough.
He walked up to the couple. Bernadette saw him and beamed.
“You did come!” she exclaimed.
He smiled, ignoring Rodrigo. “Hunter was right,” he said gently. “You do sing like an angel.”
“Thanks,” she replied shyly.
“Where are the carved pumpkins and ghosts and witches and black cats?” he wondered, looking around.
“Be quiet or you’ll get us thrown out,” Sarina said in an undertone. “It’s controversial to celebrate Halloween these days.”
He made a sound under his breath. He glanced at Rodrigo. “Not in your country, it isn’t,” he mused. “Of course, there it’s the first day of November when you celebrate El Dia de Los Muertos.”
Rodrigo’s dark brows shot up. “Indeed we do. How would you know that?”
“I get around.”
“I’m surprised to see you here,” he commented.
“He got me lots of pencils and stuff,” Bernadette told Rodrigo. “He’s not a bad man after all.”
“Have you checked the wall at the post office?” Rodrigo asked under his breath, with a cold glare at Colby, who returned it with interest.
“We should probably go,” Sarina said, feeling the tension grow. “R
odrigo’s had a long day.”
“Oh, I can see that being a liaison officer would wear a man out, all right,” Colby replied blithely. “All that hard labor…”
Rodrigo’s black eyes flashed. “Yes, it must be as tiring as doing security work. Checking all those doors to make sure they’re locked…?”
Colby took a step forward and Sarina moved between the two men to grasp her daughter’s small hand and Rodrigo’s arm.
“Time to go. Good night, Colby,” Sarina said at once, almost dragging Rodrigo along with her.
Bernadette clung to Rodrigo’s neck, smiling back at Colby. “Good night,” she called.
He nodded, glaring at the other man. He shoved his hands into his pockets and stood there, glowering. Hunter had to speak twice before he realized they were leaving.
Jennifer, blond and gorgeous, smiled to herself as Colby drove away from their house. Nikki was in her room, finishing up her homework before going to bed.
“He and Rodrigo are going to bump heads at some point,” she told her husband.
Hunter smiled down at her. “They just did,” he reminded her. He gathered her close in his arms. “But that’s his problem, not ours.”
She smiled back, tugging his head down so that she could kiss him. “I’m two months along today,” she whispered.
One of his lean hands went to the slight swell of her stomach. “I can hardly wait,” he said softly. “You’ve brightened all my dark corners, just by being in my life. I never dreamed I could be so happy.”
She grinned at him. “And you spent all those years glowering at me and pretending to hate me.”
He shrugged. “I finally had the good sense to look twice.”
She chuckled. “Sure, after I got shot.”
He hugged her close. “Don’t remind me,” he bit off. “That was a near thing. If the marksman had slipped, you’d have been dead. There we were, in the Arizona desert, miles from a doctor or a clinic. Good thing it was only a flesh wound. But it scared the hell out of me. I knew then how I felt about you,” he confessed in a deep, husky tone. “That’s why I lied about how I felt and ran.”
“Didn’t do a bit of good, did it?” she teased. “You came back.”
“My life was empty.” He bent and kissed her tenderly. “I was so afraid I’d lost you. Eugene almost sent me back to Arizona, did he ever tell you? He thought I’d hurt you enough.”
“He told me. But he was happy with the way things turned out.” She stared up at him in the light from the front porch. “I miss my cousin Danetta.”
“I know. We can go back to Tucson when I get Colby properly settled, if you like.”
She hesitated. “You know, Houston really isn’t so bad. Nikki loves this school, and she and Bernadette seem to really fit in, for the first time.”
He frowned. “You’d like to stay here?”
She gnawed her lower lip. “Let’s wait another month or two before we make a final decision, can we?”
He smiled slowly. “Whatever you like. Colby may not be too happy, having to play second banana to me.”
“Colby’s not like that, and you know it. He was perfectly happy working under Tate Winthrop in Washington, D.C.”
“I suppose he was at that. Well, we’ll wait a bit and see what happens.”
She smiled and kissed him again.
THE NEXT DAY, Colby was walking past Hunter’s office when he saw Ramirez strolling beside an old friend whom he hadn’t seen in years, Cy Parks. He grinned and his eyes sparkled.
“Cy! Long time no see,” he said at once, reaching out to shake Cy’s hand.
“That’s your fault,” Cy chuckled. “I tried to keep in touch. I didn’t know you were working here until Alexander Cobb phoned me. How’s it going?”
Colby shrugged. “I’ll get used to civilian life eventually.” He glared at Ramirez. “What are you now, the official greeter for the company?” he drawled. “Of course, they usually are older people…?”
Rodrigo’s dark eyes flashed. “If you’d care to step out back with me, I’ll show you how old I am!”
“It would be a pleasure,” Colby agreed, black eyes flashing.
Cy stepped between them. “Sorry, but I’m pressed for time,” he said with a speaking glance at Rodrigo. He caught Colby’s good arm. “Come on, Colby. Cobb asked me to stop by. I’ve got some information for Hunter.”
“How do you know each other?” Rodrigo asked, curious.
Cy gave him a blank stare. Colby caught Cy’s eyes and gave a silent warning. He didn’t want Ramirez knowing about his past. He didn’t want anyone knowing, especially Sarina.
“Colby’s an old friend of Micah Steele, who lives in Jacobsville now,” Cy hedged. “They used to work together years ago, with Hunter, in an unrelated field,” he added, to throw Rodrigo off the track. “I met Colby in Washington, D.C., when Micah worked there,” without adding where Colby had been working at the time.
“Micah’s good people,” Colby drawled. “I owe him my life.” It was true. Micah had amputated his destroyed arm.
Hunter came down the hall, having spotted the small group.
“Parks!” Hunter chuckled, joining them. “Good to see you.”
“Good to see all of you, too. It’s been a long time,” he added, wincing inside as he realized what he’d just said. He didn’t dare let on that he and Rodrigo were old acquaintances, too.
“Why, exactly, are you here?” Colby asked suddenly, frowning at Cy.
“I had Cobb ask him up,” Hunter explained. “He knows more about Lopez’s old operation than anyone.”
“Well, not more than…” Cy began.
“Loose lips sink ships,” Hunter interrupted with a firm stare.
Cy was quick. He realized that he wasn’t supposed to let anything slip about Rodrigo’s undercover work in Lopez’s organization. He wondered why Hunter was keeping that secret from his coworker, but he let it drop.
“I might have some helpful information,” Cy conceded, smiling. He deliberately didn’t look at Rodrigo, who managed to seem disinterested and excused himself abruptly.
HUNTER LED CY and Colby into his office and closed the door. He was grateful that he’d been in time to stop Rodrigo from questioning how Cy knew Colby. It was going to be tricky now, keeping the two men from making awkward connections about the past. He couldn’t blow Rodrigo’s cover, no matter what he had to do. While Rodrigo hadn’t actually been with them during the time Colby lost his arm, he had been in on a related operation with Micah Steele. He and Colby had seen each other in a staging area, but no names had been exchanged and they got no more than a glimpse of each other. That was a lucky break for Hunter. Rodrigo obviously didn’t recognize Colby, and vice versa.
Cy had his foreman, Harley Fowler, watching the warehouse on the edge of Cy’s property, which late drug lord Manuel Lopez had built to use as a distribution center for his cocaine shipments. Just recently, there was some new activity there. He was going to enlist another ex-merc, Eb Scott, to help with the surveillance. Eb had a state-of-the-art facility in Jacobsville where he taught tactics and combat and interrogation counterterrorism techniques to military personnel from all over the world. Two years earlier, Cy and Eb Scott and Micah Steele had shut down Lopez’s operation, along with local law enforcement and DEA agent Cobb’s inter-agency drug unit. There had been a firefight, but many of Lopez’s people went to prison. Lopez subsequently snatched Micah Steele’s stepsister and took her to Cancún; Micah had mounted a commando unit of mercenaries to rescue her. Rodrigo had been one of them, having worked undercover to help bring down Lopez. The drug lord had died in a mysterious explosion near Nassau. Colby didn’t know about Rodrigo’s part in it, and he couldn’t be told. Cobb had been insistent.
But what Cy Parks was able to tell Hunter and Colby about the organization of Lopez’s former empire gave them more leads to run down. Colby was still curious about the apparent rapport between Cy Parks and Rodrigo, but he was diverted enough by the new i
nformation not to pursue it. Perhaps the Mexican was just good with strangers. After all, Colby reminded himself, the man did work as a liaison officer. He had to have good communication skills. Of a sort.
Before Cy left, he invited Colby down to his ranch. “You still ride, don’t you?” Cy asked, “In spite of that?” He indicated the prosthesis.
Colby didn’t take offense. Cy’s left arm was badly burned from the fire that had killed his first wife and his son years ago. He smiled. “I mount offside, but I can ride anything you can saddle. I miss having horses.”
“You ran quarter horses in the old days,” Cy recalled.
“I had to give them up when I went freelance,” he said, knowing Cy would understand he meant his mercenary work. “Thanks for the invitation. I’d love to get on a horse again.”
“Any Saturday you’re free will do,” Cy said, smiling. “Just give me a call. You can meet Lisa. We’re expecting our first child in a few weeks. Lisa lost our first one.”
“You landed on your feet, though,” Colby remarked.
“And how! See you.”
ONE OF THE LEADS he and Hunter got from Cy Parks were the names of two Ritter personnel who had ties to Cancún. It didn’t make them guilty, but it was suspicious that both of them would be new employees. Gary Ordonez was assistant supply clerk for the corporation and had a father with a shady background. Daniel Morris was an equipment operator whose background included jail time for distributing drugs—Ritter was gung-ho about helping rehabilitate ex-cons.
Colby wondered if the two had anything in their files that would point to a connection with Cara Dominguez. The obvious place to find that out was in the personnel office. So he dropped by Brody Vance’s office to make enquiries.
He expected it to be easy. After all, he was assistant security chief and he had a legitimate right to search the files if any employee was suspected of having criminal ties. He also wanted to see how Vance reacted to the names, both of which he was certain had a connection to the local drug trafficking.
Brody Vance, however, balked at even the thought of disclosing confidential information about anyone who worked for the company.
