“I’ve done your bidding. Now get the hell out of my sight.”
Raul bowed slightly from the waist, picked up the telephone, then straightened and walked away, leaving David shaking with a fury that surpassed the pain threatening to bring him to his knees.
His trembling had not subsided when Serena knocked on the door and walked into the room. “Go away,” he ordered, unable to look at her.
A frown creased her smooth forehead. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just need to be alone.”
She couldn’t believe him. He’d asked her to marry him and now he wanted to be alone. “Not a problem, David. You want to be alone? You’ve got it!” Spinning on her heel, she walked out of the room.
Sinking down to the mattress, he covered his mouth with his hand to keep from blurting out how much he loved and needed her. He lost track of time as he lay on the bed, trying to sort out his exchange with Vega and the telephone call to his father. Vega’s threat did not bother him as much as the croaking sounds that his father made when he told him what he needed to do to save his last born.
Then he did what he hadn’t done in years—he prayed. He prayed not for his own life, but for that of Samuel Claridge Cole’s.
Chapter 19
Serena changed her sandals for a pair of running shoes, stopping long enough to inform her father that she was leaving the house.
“Wait, Chica.” He rose from his chair behind the massive desk in his study. A gentle smile softened the harsh lines in his face. “Perhaps we can talk.”
Her gaze swept over the tall, slender, stern man whom she had grown to love despite his gruffness. At sixty-two he was more attractive than he’d been at thirty-two. The weight he’d gained filled out his face, softening the sharp angles of his chin and cheekbones. His hair had grayed, along with his clipped mustache, and the overall effect was one of graceful elegance.
“I’m going for a walk, Poppa.”
“Would you like company?”
She wanted to say no, but couldn’t. What she wanted was to be alone to sort out what had just occurred between her and David. It was apparent something or someone had upset him; what, she didn’t know. But she did not intend to become a scapegoat for his bad moods.
She gave Raul a gentle smile. “Of course.”
They left through the rear of the house, waiting for their eyes to adjust to the brilliance of the tropical sun behind the lenses of their sunglasses.
Raul reached for his stepdaughter’s hand and held it protectively in his larger one. “Her flight hasn’t even left San José, and I already miss her.”
Serena registered the fleeting glimpse of weakness in Interior Minister Raul Cordero-Vega for the first time in her life. She’d wanted to think that Gabriel was his Achilles heel, but he wasn’t. It was his wife. Juanita Morris-Vega held the power that could destroy the man so many feared with a single word.
“She’ll be back, Poppa.”
“I keep telling myself over and over that she’ll be back, but something won’t let me believe it.”
“Who are you afraid for? Yourself or Mother?”
Leading her towards the greenhouse, he wagged his head. “Both of us, Chica. If they don’t let Gabriel go, then Juanita won’t come back. She’ll stay with him until—”
“Don’t say it, Poppa. Don’t bury him.”
Dropping her hand, he curved his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close to his side. “You’re right.”
They wandered through the greenhouse, stopping to examine and inhale the sweetness of the many flowering plants. Serena picked a variety of white and pale pink blooms for the bedrooms and the dinner table, filling a large wicker basket from the dozen or more stacked on a shelf. Before she’d left Costa Rica to attend college, she’d assumed the responsibility of selecting flowers for the house.
It was when they entered the aviary that she decided to bring up the fact that David still resided at La Montaña. “When will you conclude your business with David Cole?” she asked quietly.
Raul stopped suddenly, his eyes narrowing suspiciously as he stared at her. “Why? What has he told you?”
She shrugged a slender shoulder and shifted the basket filled with flowers from one hand to the other. “He mentioned that he’d planned to stay two weeks. But with his injuries I just wondered whether you’ve changed your schedule.”
“Nothing has changed. We will discuss the sale of his banana plantation as planned.”
What he did not reveal was the price he’d set for David Cole’s freedom. A sixth sense also warned him that his daughter’s interest in his houseguest was more than that of a nurse for a patient.
“I trust you and David are getting along?”
Nodding, she smiled. “Well enough. I find him a little arrogant, but then so are you, Poppa.” Much to her surprise Raul threw back his head and laughed. “Well, it’s true,” she confirmed.
He sobered, his eyebrows lowering. “A successful man must possess a bit of arrogance, while David Cole has amassed a monopoly on it. I much preferred conducting business with his older brother. Martin Cole was quiet, but lethal, whereas David is loud like a clanging bell.”
“He is as lethal?”
Raul hesitated, trying to come up with a fitting metaphor for the Cole brothers. “Yes. Martin was like a shark, circling beneath the surface before he struck, while David is a rattlesnake. He sounds a warning, then strikes while he’s still rattling.”
“Wouldn’t you prefer to be warned?”
“Not from someone so young and disrespectful. He wasn’t quite thirty when he came to see me for the first time. I rearranged important meetings to accommodate him, and when I would not agree to his demand that I rescind the additional tariff on his banana crop, he walked out of the meeting. It had taken me three weeks to bring all of my ministers together, and we sat like stunned jackasses staring at one another. I swore from that day that David Cole would pay for his impertinence.”
A flicker of apprehension coursed through Serena. “Pay how, Poppa?”
“I don’t know, Chica. But his time is coming.”
How could she tell her stepfather that she’d slept with his most combative challenger and planned to marry him? That she would eventually make him a grandfather and that his grandchildren would carry the blood of his archenemy?
She stared at Raul, unable to disclose the secret she held close to her heart. She knew the time would come when she would be forced to choose between the two men in her life, and because she knew her destiny the man whom she called Poppa would be the loser in the undeclared war. She jumped when the sound of thunder shook the earth.
“I’m going back to the house to put the flowers in water.”
Leaning over, Raul kissed her cheek. “I’m going to stay here for a while to wait out the storm and talk to my feathered friends.”
Serena stared at Raul as he turned to a cage of toucans, and for a brief second she felt like sobbing. Life had thrown Raul Cordero-Vega a cruel curve. He’d temporarily lost his wife and son, leaving him to grieve in silence.
David stood on the veranda, watching Serena and Raul. He noted the tenderness in the older man’s touch when he wound an arm around his stepdaughter’s shoulders, wondering how one man filled with so much venom could be that gentle. Was it possible that Raul Cordero-Vega was schizophrenic?
Seeing Serena lean against her father while smiling up at him reminded David of his own response to her hypnotic feminine sensuality. They’d argued more than they’d made love, but the one passionate encounter had obliterated all of the acrimony that preceded it. And instead of holding her to his heart he’d sent her away. Her father’s unexpected threat swept away the promise of his taking her for his wife, since his existence was now dependent upon her brother’s freedom.
He stood motionless, watching the dark clouds roll across the sky, obscuring the brilliance of the tropical sun. He listened for the first rumble of thunder, followed by the distant rustl
ing and screams of jungle wildlife scurrying for shelter.
Closing his eyes, he registered the same ancient rhythms in his head and in his veins that he’d experienced when he entered Serena’s body. Why did he connect a tropical thunderstorm, jungle sounds, the pounding rhythms of ancient Africa with making love to her?
What was there about her that reached deep inside of him to make him want her? Just being who she was unlocked his heart and his soul to make him fall in love with a woman for the very first time in his life.
A large drop fell, landing on the tip of his nose. Then another. The heavens opened up, the rain pouring down on his head and soaking his clothes. It cooled his warm flesh and washed away the madness turning his life upside down.
Closing his eyes and raising his arms, he gloried in the wrath of nature’s untamed fury for the span of time it took the rains to sweep over La Montaña. It washed away the stench of evil pervading the enormous structure erected on the mountain overlooking the sea and jungle, and it also cleansed him.
His lips mouthed the words that the wind tore from his silent tongue: “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”
Serena walked into her bedroom, her bare feet making no sound on the cool, wood floor. She’d returned to the house before the storm broke, filling the vases in the dining room and bedrooms with the freshly-cut flowers. After settling a vase on the table in the sitting area, she opened the French doors. The refreshing scent of rain-washed earth filtered through the space. The soil soaked up the moisture like a thirsty sponge, unwilling to give back a drop. Waiting until the downpour subsided, she stepped out onto the veranda, turning her face skyward. The moisture cooled her face and seeped into the light fabric of her sleeveless dress. Her eyes opened, and at the same time she shifted to her left. Then she saw him.
The sight of him on the veranda, arms raised, sucked the breath from her lungs as she inhaled audibly. The vision of his finely woven, white shirt pasted against his chest was more sensual than if he’d stood completely naked. The rich, deep brown of his wet flesh showing through the fabric elicited a familiar throbbing in the lower portion of her body.
David felt, rather than saw, Serena even before he opened his eyes. An invisible force propelled him from where he stood until he was next to her, a secret smile curving his mobile mouth as he registered her delicate beauty. She did not move when he reached out for her. Burying his face in the hair swept atop her head, he pressed his mouth to the fragrant curls.
“Forgive me, mi amor. I didn’t want to send you away.”
Serena fused herself to him, becoming one with him. She wanted to refuse him, reject him, but she couldn’t. Her life was entwined with a stranger she’d lain with after three days of their meeting. A stranger whom it was prophesied she would marry. A stranger who would fill her womb with his seed. A sensual, passionate stranger she was falling in love with.
Her trembling fingers feathered over his mouth. “Shh-hhh, David. There’s nothing to forgive.”
“Yes, there is,” he insisted. “I sent you away when all I wanted was to hold you to my heart. Everything was perfect until—” His words trailed off.
“Until what?” Her voice was muffled against the solid heat of his chest.
He couldn’t tell her what had transpired between him and her father. She would never believe him. And he did not trust Raul’s mental state not to go through with his proposed threats to mutilate him.
“Until I called my father,” he began, deciding to tell her half the truth. “He’s not doing well.”
Pulling back, Serena stared up at his wet face. “What happened?”
“He suffered a stroke four years ago that left him with limited use of his right side and some speech impairment. Extensive therapy restored his speech so that you can understand him, but when I spoke to him this morning his words weren’t clear. They came out garbled.”
He wanted to say it was because of what he was forced to tell him. That if Samuel Cole didn’t use his money and influence to have her brother released from prison he would lose his own son.
Compassion softened her delicate face. “I’m sorry, David. When are you planning to leave?”
His sweeping eyebrows lifted. “Leave?”
She blinked in bewilderment. “Yes. Aren’t you going back to Florida to be with him?”
I can’t, because your father has made me a prisoner, he replied silently. “No. My family will take care of him. I’ll stay and finish what I have to do here.” His head came down slowly, and he wasn’t disappointed when her lips met his. He drank deeply from her soft, honeyed mouth, and when he pulled back both were breathing heavily. A wild, untamed fire burned in his coal-black eyes, searing her face. “When I leave here, you’re coming with me.”
Serena felt a surge of elation, followed by a shock of despair. “I can’t leave, David.”
“Why not?” The two words sounded like a crack of a whip.
“My mother just left for Florida. I promised her that I’d stay with Poppa.”
What he wanted to shout at her was that her Poppa had threatened his life. That her Poppa had made her an unwilling prisoner so that she had to wait for her mother’s return before she could go back to the States.
His lean jaw hardened. “I’ll wait for you,” he said instead.
Her gaze swept furtively over his face. “It may take a while.”
“I have time.” What he had was a sixty-day reprieve so that Gabriel Vega could be released from prison. He refused to think beyond the sixty days. Cradling her face between his hands, he brushed his mouth over hers. “Lock your door, but leave your window unlocked. I’ll come to you tonight,” he whispered.
Serena nodded, pulled out of his embrace, and reentered her bedroom. She glanced briefly at the flowers on the table, a secret smile touching her face. Everything was going to be all right. The voice in her head confirmed that fact.
Chapter 20
West Palm Beach, Florida
Martin Cole leaned in closer to hear what his father was saying, his deeply tanned, golden brown face darkening with the rush of blood from the twin emotions of rage and fear. Samuel Cole’s garbled telephone message, David’s in trouble, had sent him racing up from Fort Lauderdale to West Palm Beach, exceeding the state’s speed limit by more than twenty miles.
He stared at his father’s deeply lined forehead. “Does my mother know about this?”
Samuel raised a partially withered right hand, waving it slowly. “No. I can’t tell her,” he replied slowly. “I don’t want any of the women to know.”
Martin nodded, wondering how his mother and sisters would react to the news that David Cole was being held hostage in Costa Rica by a madman. His midnight gaze shifted to the vaulted ceiling of the loggia of his childhood West Palm Beach home. Closing his eyes, he recalled the madness sweeping through the Cole family nine years before. There had been another kidnapping—that of his own daughter.
Ten-year-old Regina Cole had been kidnapped from her grandparents’ home by a man who needed the money to pay off his gambling debts. Regina was rescued, unharmed, but not without the lingering effects of a fear of close, dark spaces. For six long, anxious days the child had been locked in a closet. Her captors let her out only to eat and to relieve herself.
What had pained Martin most was that his own father had been indirectly responsible for his daughter’s captivity. He’d contracted with a hit man to kill Martin’s wife. When his many attempts were thwarted the hit man decided to take the child. What the kidnapper wanted was an exchange: the mother for the daughter.
It had taken years before Martin’s heart softened enough to forgive Samuel Cole for his loathsome behavior. An adulterous affair with a young woman more than forty years before had left the elder Cole with enough guilt to swallow him whole, and he’d confused Martin’s wife with the woman he’d seduced.
The affair resulted in a son, a son Samuel refused to accept or acknowledge; a son who hated his father as much as his fat
her hated him; a son who finally forgave his father, but only when the older man begged forgiveness as he lay dangerously ill.
It had taken the Cole family forty years to reconcile; forty years to sweep away the remnants of their dirty family secrets, only to be faced with another crisis now. However, this crisis did not start from within. It was from an outsider with a vendetta.
Martin combed his fingers through his steely-gray, curly hair before his gaze shifted to his father’s face. The stroke had aged Samuel, making him appear much older than seventy-seven. It had taken the healthy color from his sienna-brown face, the shine from his once-thick white hair, and most of all his vibrant spirit. The bluster that had made Samuel Claridge Cole one of the most feared African-American businessmen was gone. His quick mind, his business acumen, and his uncanny instinct for turning a profit in a failing enterprise had also vanished. He appeared to be a broken man who lived each day to interact with his children, grandchildren, and now great-grandchildren.
However, age was more than kind to Martin Diaz Cole. At forty-nine he was a man in his prime. His tall, large body bore no evidence of softening. Laps in a pool, twice daily, helped him retain the muscle he’d acquired in his mid-twenties. He’d married at thirty-nine, fathered three children, and spent his time managing his own investments with his half brother.
Lacing his fingers together, he smiled at his father. “I’ll take over, Dad. I’ll call the governor’s office and Senator Epstein and Velasquez.”
Samuel nodded slowly. “You do that. But there’s someone else I want involved.”
“Who?”
“Joshua.”
A slight frown creased Martin’s forehead. “He’s retired, Dad. He no longer has security clearance. You can’t ask him to leave his family and go back into intelligence again.”
Sighing heavily and pressing his head back against the chaise cushion, Samuel closed his eyes. “I’m not asking him to come out of retirement. I just want him to help his brother.”
Martin stared at his father, seeing a glimpse of what had made him who he’d been. He recognized the determination of a half-dozen men, and he recognized that Samuel would do anything to protect his family, including going outside of the law.
Heaven Sent Page 17
