by Diana Palmer
His mouth grew more insistent as his hips dragged sensuously against hers, the exquisite hardness of him rubbing against her in a way that made throbbing little waves of pleasure shiver through her. Before she realized it, she was opening her legs to let him closer, into a rhythmic, insistent intimacy of movement that threatened to satisfy her right through her clothing.
He heard a noise, but he was too far gone to identify it. It was insistent. He lifted his head, drowning in the scent and feel of Sarina, in an arousal more powerful than he’d felt in years.
“No,” she whimpered, tugging at his neck. “Colby, no…”
He kissed her again, but tenderly this time, ignoring the painful need of his taut body as he heard the strident ringing of the telephone.
He lifted his head slowly, dragging in a harsh breath. She was his. He could have pulled her down on the sofa and done anything he liked. He cursed as he realized the damned telephone was going to make that impossible.
A groan escaped his tight throat as he moved back, his arm sliding around her waist to pull her with him as he reached for the phone. He couldn’t bear to let her go. His mouth closed on hers again in a brief, hungry kiss.
“Lane,” he bit off into the phone, breathless.
There was a pause. “Colby?”
He cleared his throat, staring at Sarina’s face. “Hunter?”
“Where are you?” Hunter asked. “And where’s Sarina?”
“We’re putting on my prosthesis,” he said, sounding dazed.
“Uh, could you put it on a little faster?” Hunter said, amusement in his tone. “We’re all waiting for you in Ritter’s office.”
“Waiting for me,” he echoed, his eyes lost in Sarina’s.
“The meeting? The ten o’clock meeting?”
“Meeting. Right.” His eyes widened. “The meeting!” He cleared his throat, letting Sarina go all at once. “At ten.” His eyes went to the clock. It was ten past ten. “I’ll be there in five minutes. Sorry!”
He hung up. “That was Hunter,” he said huskily, staring into her misty eyes. “We’re late.”
“Yes. Of course.” She flushed, reaching behind her to find the loose clasp of her bra and refasten it. She straightened her blouse and tucked it in, breathless.
“Here. Help me.” He paused to slip the sock over his stump. Then he put on the harness that held the prosthesis in place and drew her hands to the clasp. They were cold and trembling, but they managed to buckle it in place. He tested the artificial fingers and the grip. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
He tilted her flushed face up to his eyes. “I’ll apologize, if you want me to,” he said softly. “But I won’t mean it,” he added huskily.
She swallowed. “It’s okay.”
He touched her swollen mouth. “I’ve messed your hair up again. There’s a brush in the bathroom.”
“Thanks.”
He let her go with obvious reluctance and finished dressing, his body still poised on the edge of anguish. He hadn’t meant to touch her. They went back to work in a taut silence and parted company at the entrance. He went to his meeting in a fog of emotion, barely aware of Hunter’s amused glances.
CHAPTER SIX
COLBY FELT as if he were in a daze as he listened to the discussion around the boardroom table. His body throbbed painfully from recalling the exquisite taste of Sarina’s mouth.
“I said, where are you monitoring Vance’s car?” Alexander Cobb repeated.
Colby suddenly realized that the DEA agent was speaking to him. He cleared his throat. “Sorry. The unit’s in my office.”
Cobb nodded. “Can you get tape?”
“Of course.”
“There’s one other thing,” Hunter added. “Cy Parks told us that there’s been some activity around his ranch, where Lopez tried to set up that distribution center. The holding company still owns the land.”
Cobb’s eyes narrowed. “It might be worthwhile for one of us to go down there and do a walk-around.”
“I’ll go Saturday,” Colby volunteered.
Cobb nodded. “The sooner the better,” he added.
“Congratulations, by the way,” Hunter told the agent, who looked sheepish.
Colby’s eyebrows arched curiously.
“He married Jodie Clayburn over the weekend,” Hunter informed the other occupants of the table.
“I don’t remember telling anybody,” Cobb said after a minute, frowning.
“I used to be a spy,” Hunter said blandly. “I know everything.”
Cobb only laughed. He went back to his office and phoned Cy Parks, to make sure he and a couple of guests would be welcome Saturday. They were.
COLBY STOPPED by Sarina’s office at lunchtime. “I’m going down to Jacobsville to see a friend this weekend,” he told her without elaborating, having just made the decision. “He owns a ranch. Would you and Bernadette like to come along? She loves horses. We could go riding.”
She looked up at him with wide, soft eyes that still held the excitement of the morning. “Uh, well, yes. When?”
“Saturday. We’ll leave early.”
She nodded slowly. “Okay.”
He leaned against the doorjamb and looked at her, his dark eyes glittering with emotion.
Her face colored. “Was there anything else?”
He shook his head. “I like you in pink,” he said softly. “But I like your hair down.”
The force of her unsteady breathing parted her lips. She felt flustered.
His own breathing was rough. He wanted her. The years rolled away and she was young again, vulnerable again.
“Have lunch with me,” he said huskily.
She swallowed, hard. “I…well, that is…”
Rodrigo walked in, smiling at her. “Ready to go?” he asked gently.
Colby’s eyes blazed with anger. “Do you hang from the ceiling, waiting to drop on people?”
Rodrigo gave him a cold glance. “Don’t you have doors to check or something?”
“I was asking Sarina to lunch,” Colby replied coldly.
Rodrigo smiled icily. “She’s having lunch with me.” He caught her hand in his, noting its sudden coldness.
That action made Colby tense like a spring. His eyes began to glitter dangerously.
“Colby, I’m sorry.” She managed to get between the two men, both of whom towered over her, without seeming to interfere. “I promised Rodrigo.”
He was breathing through his nose. His mouth was a thin line. He was suddenly violently jealous of the other man and barely able to contain a physical response to that insolent smile.
“Sure,” he bit off. “Some other time.”
He turned and walked out. Sarina gave Rodrigo a speaking glance.
He shifted, puzzled by her expression. “Surely you didn’t want to go out with him, after the way he’s treated Bernadette?”
“He rescued us from the flood this morning and took Bernadette to school,” she said huskily.
His dark eyes narrowed. “He has a drinking problem,” he said abruptly.
“He had one,” she corrected.
“Do you know anything about his background?” he persisted. “He was…”
“A spy,” she interrupted. “I know that, Rodrigo.”
He hesitated. “I think he’s hiding something,” he said worriedly. “We need to check him out.”
She cocked her head and looked up at him curiously. “Do you have something against him?” she wondered aloud.
Oddly he averted his eyes. “Nothing personal.”
“We’re both regulation types,” she pointed out. “Maybe we wouldn’t work out as secret agents, considering some of the things they’re expected to do in the field, but there are people without our brand of scruples, you know. It’s not a black mark, exactly, is it?”
He frowned, as if worried about something he didn’t want to put into words. “No, of course not.” His eyes narrowed. “You’re not going soft on hi
m? He’s a total stranger, Sarina.”
She sighed. “Not really. I was married to him.”
He looked absolutely shocked.
“It was a long time ago. The marriage was annulled,” she added quickly. “He guarded my father, when I was still in school.”
“When, exactly, were you married to him?” he asked pointedly.
She glanced at her watch. “We’re running out of time for lunch. We should probably go.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
She smiled. “Yes, I am. Nice of you to notice. Come on, before the phone rings and I get trapped!”
He followed her out of her office with a dark, cold suspicion that he couldn’t overcome.
SATURDAY MORNING, Colby helped Bernadette into the back seat of the SUV and buckled her in. She was wearing old boots and older jeans, with a red checked shirt. Her eyes were bubbly with excitement.
“I love to ride horses! It’s nice of you to let us go with you! Is it a big ranch?”
He chuckled, feeling more relaxed than he had in years. “Yes, it is. He runs cattle as well as horses. I think you’ll like it.”
He opened the passenger door for Sarina, who was dressed similarly to her daughter, except that her long blond hair was in a braid hanging down her back. He had on jeans and boots, too, with a chambray shirt. Sarina’s was lightweight denim, with embroidered pink roses on it. She looked trim in those tight jeans, very feminine, and she made him ache in all the wrong places.
He got in beside her, buckling his seat belt. “Do you ride, too?” he asked her.
She nodded, smiling. “Rodrigo taught me.”
His face closed up like a clam shell under siege. He started the engine and pulled out of her parking lot with muted violence.
Sarina wondered at the force of his anger. It had been the same way when Rodrigo had taken her to lunch. He couldn’t possibly be jealous of her…
“How much do you know about your liaison officer buddy?” he asked curtly.
She didn’t dare answer that. She cleared her throat. “He’s been a good friend to us, Colby.”
He hadn’t. It ate at him like acid. He hated knowing how much she’d suffered since their brief marriage. It wasn’t his fault, not really, but it hurt him just the same. If he’d been around, he’d have done what he could for her, despite the way they’d parted.
“You used to have horses, didn’t you?” she asked, trying to divert him.
“Yes, some years ago I bred quarter horses on a ranch in north Texas and had a man who showed them for me. We won ribbons,” he said. “My father raised them in Arizona when I was a boy. He wasn’t keen on quarter horses. He had a herd of Appaloosas. He bought and sold them to put me through school.” He didn’t like speaking of the old man. He had some regrets about the distance that had separated them.
Bernadette started to speak, but a quick look from her mother made her keep quiet.
“You still ride?” she asked carelessly.
He glanced at her coolly. “I have to mount offside, but yes, I still ride.”
She flushed. “You know I didn’t mean it that way.”
He grimaced. His eyes went back to the highway ahead of them. “I’m sensitive about it.”
She glanced at the prosthesis. It was the one she’d helped him put on earlier in the week. She blushed as she recalled what had happened in his apartment.
He saw it, and began to relax. He liked her response to him. It was surprising, considering how badly he’d hurt her. Impulsively his right hand slid over hers where it lay in her lap. He felt it jerk with surprise as he linked his fingers into hers. He pressed them hungrily and felt, delighted, the returning pressure of her own hand. She looked at him, her eyes faintly hungry, her lips parted. He looked back, aching to do more than hold her hand.
“Look out!” Bernadette called from the backseat.
Colby’s eyes went back to the road and he swerved to avoid running off the road. “Thanks, tidbit,” he said, laughing as he met her eyes in the rearview mirror. “I got distracted.”
She grinned back. “Is it far? Are we almost there?”
“Almost,” he lied. It was another half hour. He didn’t let go of Sarina’s hand, though. In fact, he held it even tighter as he drove, the wheel held quite easily in the prosthetic hand.
Bernadette gasped when he pulled up in Cy Parks’s yard. “But, this is where Rodrigo brings us!” she exclaimed. “Mr. Parks has a pretty pinto horse that he lets me ride!”
He scowled, meeting Sarina’s surprised gaze. “Ramirez knows Cy?”
She swallowed, choosing her words carefully. “They met a few months ago and made friends,” she lied. She’d have to get Cy to one side and caution him not to tell Colby what he knew about Rodrigo.
“I thought Ramirez was from Mexico.”
“He, uh, worked in Jacobsville briefly,” she lied.
She was hiding something. He stared at her for a long moment until he glimpsed Cy coming down the steps to meet them.
“Glad you could come,” Cy said, greeting them. “So this is who your guests are! As it happens, this isn’t their first time on the place.” He grinned at Bernadette. “Long time no see, sprout,” he teased, ruffling her thick hair. “I’ll have Harley saddle Bean for you.”
“Bean?” Colby wondered aloud.
“She’s a pinto,” Cy drawled, grinning. He looked over his shoulder. “Hey, Harley, how about saddling Bean and Twig for these two, and Dusty and King for Colby and me? I need to talk to Colby for a minute.”
“Sure thing,” Harley called back. “Hey, Bernie, come on and I’ll show you how to do that diamond hitch again.”
“Can I?” she asked her mother.
“Go ahead,” Sarina said with a soft smile.
Bernadette ran to join Harley in the barn.
“We’ve got a situation here,” Cy began. “The old Lopez warehouse is still in operation. I had Eb Scott put a surveillance camera out there. I’ve got some interesting tape.” He noticed Colby’s sudden glance at Sarina, and added, “Sarina, Lisa’s making coffee in the kitchen. Would you like to go and talk to her until we’re ready to go?”
Sarina had to hide a smile. Cy was trying not to blow her cover. “Okay, partner,” she drawled, “I’ll go hide out with the womenfolk. If any varmints come growling around, you just let me know and I’ll chase ’em off with my petticoat.”
“Sassy,” Colby murmured in a deep, sensuous tone, his dark eyes twinkling at her.
She grinned back. “Just being helpful,” she replied, giving Cy a speaking glance about being relegated to the sidelines, with her history. Cy knew, but she didn’t dare let Colby know. Not yet.
CY TOOK COLBY into the office where his surveillance equipment was kept. He moved switches and indicated a computer screen. Several men, and a woman, were speaking Spanish in what looked like a heated encounter.
Colby’s eyes narrowed as he translated mentally. “They’re talking about a big cocaine shipment that they’ve got concealed. It’s still in Houston. They want to bring it here, but they can’t figure out how to.”
“They’re also considering trucking it down, but one of the others thinks that’s too conspicuous. He wants to do it in old, beat-up vans with lots of kids inside.” Cy’s face hardened. “That’s sick.”
“It’s just business, to them,” Colby replied.
“I’m going to keep the tape running and have some of Eb’s men monitor it around the clock,” the older man mused. “No way am I going to allow drug smugglers to find a safe haven right beside my own land!”
“I’ve got one of their colleagues wired,” Colby told him. “And I’m getting data of my own. I’ll share, if there’s anything of value.” His eyes narrowed. “How is it that you know Rodrigo?”
Cy’s eyebrows lifted. “I met him in Houston,” he said with a straight face. “I know Eugene Ritter. He was in the office one day. We started talking and found we had a lot in common. He asked if he could
bring Sarina and Bernadette down with him to ride horses and I said, sure.”
Colby had been in covert ops for a long time, and he knew Cy from the old days. He knew when he was being conned.
“Just accept what I’m telling you,” Cy said firmly. “Everything will become clear down the road.”
Colby glowered at him. “I feel like a damned mushroom.”
“It’s nice in the dark,” Cy mused. “I’ve been there several times myself.”
Colby shook his head.
They rode down the same wooded path that Colby and Cy had ridden weeks earlier. The foliage was turning to reds and golds and oranges.
“I love autumn,” Colby murmured aloud.
“It’s my favorite season, too,” Sarina confessed.
“Rein him in a little, baby,” Colby called to Bernadette. “You don’t want him to run away with you.”
“Yes, I do,” she teased, grinning. “If he tries to run away, I’ll bend him.”
Colby pulled in his mount and smiled delightedly at the child. “You know how to do that?”
“Sure. I pull him around with one hand and one leg, and bend him when he tries to take off unexpectedly and run away with me. I learned it from one of Cy’s men, who used to train horses.”
He grinned back. “And what do you do if he rears?”
“Hold on to his mane with my hands and his back with my knees until he comes down again. Gravity is our friend,” she teased, laughing with her dark eyes as well as her mouth.
“Daredevil,” he accused.
Sarina, watching them, was so aware of the similarities between the man and the child that she had to fight tears. It was acutely painful to see what Bernadette had missed in her young life. Rodrigo was kind to them, and Bernadette loved him. But he wasn’t her father. She wondered if Colby realized what a changed man he was when he was around Bernadette. He laughed, he teased, he played. The man she remembered did those things rarely. In the past few weeks, since he’d come back into her life, he’d been a cold, unfeeling stranger. But here, with the child, he was very different.
Colby saw her watching him and frowned. “Something wrong?” he asked.
She forced a smile. “Nothing.” She turned her attention back to the trail.
