by Diana Palmer
Mrs. Harcourt whistled. “Yes, I do. The very next week, he pulled every dime he had out of that bank and opened a new account with a competitor. They say the president’s still crying.”
“Serves him right. Mr. Reeves won’t treat me that way, I guarantee it,” Gracie said.
SHE WAS RIGHT. When Mr. Reeves, the president of the Jacobsville Municipal Bank, heard why she needed to cash in her CDs, he went right to work on helping her out.
“You’re sure this is the way you want to do it?” he asked as they were closeted in his office while the head teller counted hundred dollar bills out and put them in the briefcase Gracie had brought from home. “Without calling in the FBI?”
“Mr. Reeves, I know one of the kidnappers personally. He’s an honorable man. If he says he’ll hand over Jason when he has the money, you could bet your life on it.”
“If he’s so honorable, why did he kidnap your husband?” the head teller, Marge, asked worriedly.
“It’s complicated,” Gracie told her gently. “He didn’t actually kidnap Jason, he took him away from the men who did. But it isn’t to fund drug running or anything like that. He lost his country to a man who’s torturing and killing innocent people. He wants to stop the terror. He can do it with the ransom money.”
Marge smiled, her red hair gleaming in the light overhead. “He doesn’t sound like your average kidnapper.”
Gracie smiled tiredly. “He’s not.” She sipped the coffee Mr. Reeves had brought her. She hadn’t slept.
Marge finished counting and had Mr. Reeves himself confirm her count. The papers were signed, the penalty for early withdrawal waived under the circumstances.
“You don’t have to do that,” Gracie said quickly, because she knew the bank president meant to pay it out of his own pocket.
“Jason is our best customer,” he said firmly. “The kidnapper may be honorable, but he’ll expect the full amount.”
She got up and hugged the old man. “You’re just the best person I know.”
He hugged her back and laughed. “We’re cousins, you know,” he reminded her. “Family takes care of family.”
“Then could you give Cousin Marge a raise?” Marge asked with a grin.
He made a face at her and they both laughed.
Gracie took the briefcase. It was heavy. “I’ll let you know what happens,” she told Mr. Reeves.
He nodded. “We’ll say a prayer for you both.”
“Thanks. I really mean that.”
She walked out of the bank, nervous to be carrying so much cash, and almost walked right over Kilraven. He was wearing street clothing, not the police uniform she was used to seeing him in. She knew all too well that his brother, Jon, was an FBI agent in San Antonio. Both had been involved with her own ransom.
She stopped dead with a comical expression on her face.
“Don’t bother making up stories. I know everything,” he added with twinkling black eyes. “I’m in an unmarked car. I’m going to drive behind you most of the way to Mala Suerte, just in case anybody overheard the conversation you had with the General and decides to liberate the ransom money before you can hand it over.”
Gracie was aghast. “How…?”
He held up a big hand. “Some secrets have to be kept. We’re not going to interfere,” he added quickly when he saw her concern. “We’re just going to keep an eye on you, from a distance. I won’t even follow you into Mala Suerte.”
“But you have somebody in Mala Suerte already,” she guessed.
His face went bland. “Why would we want to do that?”
“God help us if he’s a fed trying to blend in a town of two hundred souls!”
He glowered at her. “He lives there,” he returned.
She relaxed. “Okay.”
“Let’s go.”
She climbed in behind the wheel of Jason’s oldest ranch truck, with a battered fender where one of the cowboys had hit a fence trying to avoid an escaping young bull. She thought it would look less suspicious than a newer vehicle.
Kilraven was somewhere behind her, and she felt safer. The money was so big an amount that she despaired about having it taken from her before she could get to Machado. She’d never be able to replace it in time to save Jason, especially if the Fuentes boys were going to get a cut of the kidnapping money. The General might have to cut them in to get Jason to Gracie.
She’d had great concerns about going such a distance alone with a king’s ransom in her truck. She didn’t know how Kilraven knew what was happening, but she was glad to have him nearby. If only the General didn’t spot him and blow the deal!
Her hands were sweaty where they gripped the steering wheel. Her mouth felt as if she’d been chewing cotton. Jason might be angry with her, but it didn’t matter. She loved him more than her own life. She’d have done anything to get him back, sacrificed anything. Her mind went racing back over the past months, to that first anguished kiss in the rain, to his engagement to Kittie, to her own kidnapping and the horror in Jason’s eyes as he’d rushed to her side and gathered her up so close that she could feel his heart beating right into hers. The endless weeks in between Kittie’s appearance and the long, exquisite night with Jason at the ranch, when she’d realized that her mother’s words were false—that sex wasn’t a nightmare of pain and injury, but a beautiful sharing of souls and bodies that approximated paradise. The joy of that first intimacy would remain with her forever.
As she drove, she recalled something else, something that made her feel warm and bursting with happiness; they’d never used any sort of protection. She could be pregnant even now with Jason’s child. Her heart soared. What a glorious gift that would be, with Mrs. Harcourt to spoil her first grandchild and Jason’s strong arms carrying a baby around. He’d be a wonderful father.
She heard a screech of brakes and looked in her rearview mirror in time to see a pursuing vehicle suddenly cut off by another car. While she’d been daydreaming about the future, somebody had been rushing up behind her—most probably not some motorist in a hurry, either. She saw Kilraven jump out of the second car and rush to the first one, jerking the door open and manhandling the driver up against his own vehicle.
She put the accelerator pedal down hard. It was only a mile to Mala Suerte. She knew she’d make it now, thanks to Kilraven’s vigilance. It didn’t do to think what might have happened if she’d tried to do this alone.
She drove through the small town, looking for the Chinese restaurant and found it, finally, on a side street just past the single flashing yellow light in the center of the sleepy little border town.
She pulled the truck into the parking lot with fear and hope equally mingled, looking for the General. But the parking lot held only two old cars. One of them was parked in the only reserved spot—probably the owner’s—and another sat beside it, but nobody was in the car.
Her heart sank. Had the pursuing vehicle back on the highway sensed trouble and phoned ahead to alert the General? Or had the pursuing vehicle been a double-cross of some sort, an attempt to take the money without giving Jason back? What if Jason was dead?
Tears stung her eyes as she put the truck into Park and cut off the engine. If Jason was dead, she had nothing left. Her new job, her independence, nothing would make up for his loss. The world would end for her.
But while she was agonizing over a future without Jason, a beat-up old truck pulled into the parking lot and drove up beside her. She turned her head and looked straight into Jason’s black eyes in the passenger seat.
“Jason!” she exclaimed, fumbling her way out of the truck. “Oh, Jason!” She jerked at his door, felt it open and she jumped up onto the running board. Throwing her arms around him, she kissed his mouth, his cheek, his eyes, everywhere she could reach, mumbling endearments while tears soaked her flushed face.
She realized at some point that his hands were bound and that he was kissing her back.
“Uh, you two know each other, eh?” came an amused drawl fro
m the driver’s seat.
She lifted her head and blank eyes met the General’s. “General Machado!” she exclaimed breathlessly. “Sorry. I was just so happy to see him alive and well…” Her eyes went over Jason like hands, seeing a black eye and bruises on his face, and when she looked down past his dirty, torn shirt she saw that his knuckles were raw. “Alive, at least,” she revised.
“I had a slight altercation with some of Fuentes’s men,” Jason said, managing a grin.
“To their discredit,” the General mused. His dark eyes narrowed as he looked at Gracie with helpless delight. “Fuentes, the rat, sent one of his men to appropriate the money before you could get to me. I couldn’t warn you.”
“He’s in a ditch a mile out of town wearing handcuffs,” Gracie murmured jovially.
“Kilraven?” Jason asked with a short laugh.
She grinned. “Kilraven. He promised not to interfere, but I guess he anticipated trouble. Not from you,” she added to the General.
He chuckled. “Not from me. I want very badly to get my country back. I am sorry to have to do it this way,” he said solemnly. “But in all honesty, it was not my idea, this kidnapping. It was Fuentes’s. I only took advantage of it by stepping in before he could act.”
“I hope you blow his head off,” Gracie said shortly.
“Bloodthirsty girl,” the General teased.
“Fuentes deserves everything he gets! Maybe his henchman will spill his guts.”
“If Kilraven interrogated me, I’d spill mine,” Jason offered.
Gracie laughed. “So would I.” She moved reluctantly away from Jason, dived back into the ranch pickup and pulled the briefcase out, glancing around to make sure the parking lot was secure. She pushed the briefcase into the General’s hands. “Mr. Reeves, the president of the bank, counted it himself, while I watched. I can assure you that the bills are unmarked and there’s no booby trap in there.”
The General looked at the neat rows of bills. “Booby trap?” he asked, frowning.
“Banks sometimes put explosive containers of ink in stacks of money to thwart robbers.”
“Ah. I see.” He lifted one of the stacks of bills and looked at it long and hard. “Amigo,” he told Jason, “I will erect a statue of you when I regain my office. And we will name a street for your lovely wife.”
He pulled out a knife and cut the rawhide bonds on Jason’s wrists. “I am sorry for your condition, but you know it was not my doing or my wish that you were harmed.”
“I do know,” Jason assured him. “I hope you succeed.”
“So do certain members of your government,” he chuckled. “We will see. Gracie,” he added, smiling at her, “it took great courage to do what you did, coming here alone. I will not forget your part in my success when I achieve it. And I promise you on my soul that I will repay every penny of this money when I am back in power.”
She flushed; she hadn’t expected that. “I didn’t ask you to do that,” she reminded him.
“It is a point of honor.” He looked at Jason. “Go home. You could use a bath, señor, and I am certain Gracie will enjoy patching up those cuts,” he added with a wicked grin.
“So will I,” Jason said, smiling. “Buena suerte.”
“And good luck to you both, as well. Vayan con Dios.”
“Y tu,” Gracie replied, using also the familiar tense, because the man felt like family now.
He winked at her.
Jason got out of his truck, went around and slid in beside Gracie with a heavy sigh.
“You’re going to let me drive?” Gracie asked, shocked. “You never let me drive.”
“Honey, you rescued me all by yourself,” he reminded her with soft, loving eyes. “You made a plan, looted your inheritance, drove up here mostly by yourself and got me out of Mexico without firing a single shot. Hell, they ought to employ you at the FBI. You’re a wonder!”
“And I could absolutely put in a word for her with my brother,” came a deep murmur from right in the cab of the truck.
“Kilraven?” Gracie exclaimed. She looked around. “Where are you?”
“Not in the truck,” Kilraven replied. “I’m in your purse. So to speak.”
“You bugged me!” she exclaimed.
“Had to. We had word that Fuentes had been foiled in his kidnapping attempt by your friend the General, and he was going to send men after you to intercept the ransom. We had to keep tabs on you. Safest way to do that was bug your purse. Paid off, too. I got both Fuentes’s men in custody and they’re spilling their little guts in exchange for immunity.” He chuckled. “Merry Christmas.”
Gracie and Jason exchanged amused looks. “Merry Christmas to you, too. And thanks!” she said.
He chuckled again. “No problem. I’m cutting off the receiver, by the way. Just in case you two want to park along the way and get reacquainted. I wouldn’t advise it, though. Fuentes may try again.”
“We’ll watch for him.”
“You won’t need to,” came the reply. “You won’t see us, but we’re watching you just the same. If anybody tries to stop you, they’ll regret it. So long.”
The line went dead and there was a minute’s static, and then silence.
Gracie looked at Jason hungrily. “I was scared to death. So was your mother.”
“I’m okay, thanks to you,” he said, smiling ruefully. “I’m sorry I was such an idiot,” he added gruffly. “It was a shock, finding out that my mother was my housekeeper. You gave your word to her and kept it. I shouldn’t have expected you to break it, even for me. That loyalty is one of your best traits.”
“Thanks,” she said emotionally. “Shouldn’t we go by the hospital and let them check you out?”
“I’m just bruised and dirty,” he replied, smiling. “I want a bath and a big bed. And you in the middle of it,” he added in a deep, soft tone that made her toes curl in her shoes.
“Me, too,” she replied. She smiled and pushed down on the accelerator. “I’ll, uh, wash your back for you,” she mused, blushing.
He threw his head back and laughed with pure joy.
16
MRS. HARCOURT WAS CRYING when they got to the house. Gracie had phoned her at once and told her that Jason had been ransomed and was okay. She’d called everybody else, including Glory and Rodrigo, who were shocked and relieved at the same time because they’d had no idea what was happening. Glory had thought about rushing over to the ranch, but she giggled when Mrs. Harcourt said tactfully that Gracie and Jason just might want a few minutes alone after the horror of the night. Glory said she’d come over for supper. Mrs. Harcourt said that would be good, because she had an announcement to make. She hung up, leaving Glory still in the dark.
The minute they walked into the house, Mrs. Harcourt threw herself into Jason’s arms and hugged him tight. “We were scared to death!” she sobbed.
He hugged her close, smiling over her gray hair at Gracie. “All of us were. But I’m fine. Just a few skinned knuckles, and a bruise or two, that’s all.”
She pulled back. “Skinned knuckles.”
He displayed them. “Some of Fuentes’s men got a little too disrespectful and I gave them an attitude adjustment,” he said drily.
She laughed and clutched him again.
“I need a bath,” he said ruefully.
“Yes, you do,” Mrs. Harcourt said. “I have to go into town and get milk and eggs and potatoes and beef steak or there’ll be no lunch,” she added, pulling off her apron. “I expect you’re both starving. I know Miss Gracie…Gracie,” she corrected when the younger woman glared at her, “must be hungry, she didn’t have a bite to eat before she left for the bank.”
“Remind me to put some more money in Reeves’s bank,” Jason told Gracie.
“I certainly will.”
“I won’t be too long,” Mrs. Harcourt called as she went out the door with her car keys.
Jason looked down at Gracie and smiled. “In that case, hadn’t we better hurry?” h
e asked in a low, suggestive tone.
IT WAS THE STORMIEST coming together of their relationship. He tried to make it to the bathroom to shower first, but Gracie wouldn’t stop kissing him. They ended up on the patchwork coverlet, ripping off clothes in between frantic, hungry kisses.
He pushed her down and possessed her fiercely, his eyes black as diamonds as he lifted himself above her in an arch, watching her face as he joined himself intimately to her.
“Wrap your legs around mine,” he whispered roughly.
She did, moaning when the change of positions brought a stab of intense pleasure.
“Yes, just like that,” he said, and his hips lifted and pushed.
She gasped.
“If you could see your eyes,” he breathed, flushing as the whip of pleasure made him shudder.
“If you could…see…yours,” she replied, moaning again as he found the very place that started building a sweet, almost painful tension. “Yes, like that, like…that, like…that, Jason!”
Her nails dug into his lean hips as he shifted and began to drive into her with passionate urgency. He rested on his elbows, kissing her rapt face as he moved deeper and deeper into her arched, aching body.
“I’ll die,” she managed in a high-pitched wail as the pleasure soared toward some high, anguished goal.
“We’ll both die,” he whispered raggedly as he increased the rhythm.
It was so fast. So fast. One minute she was reaching, reaching, almost touching the center of ecstasy itself. The next she was convulsing with something so hot with throbbing pleasure that it was almost pain. An inhuman cry tore out of her throat as she went up like a Chinese rocket and exploded into a million flaming pieces of pure joy.
She felt him stiffen and heard him cry out even as she was shivering in the aftermath, curling up with every movement of his powerful body on hers. Echoes of satisfaction pulsated through her. She moaned yet again as his own harsh fulfillment triggered yet another wave of ecstasy in herself. She clung to him, drowning in pleasure. It was so intense that she thought she might pass out.
