by Diana Palmer
“Habit,” she said at once. “And a monstrous appetite for verbal abuse,” she added with a faintly wicked smile.
He burst out laughing, and this time it was genuine. It changed him. It made his eyes sparkle, his face so handsome that it hurt her to see it. He’d been this way with Patricia, his wife, she supposed. Maybe he’d been happy with other women, too, over the years. But he only smiled at Maggie if she teased him. So, through the years, she’d tried to do that. It was one way of getting attention from him, even if the only way.
“You didn’t need to come here and apologize,” she added. “I’m used to having you snarl at me.”
He frowned as he considered that. She spoke as if she expected nothing else. There was so much about her past that he didn’t know, couldn’t know. She volunteered nothing. It was a reminder that she knew far more about him than he knew about her.
“You can come and stay out at the ranch while you look for work,” he said out of the blue.
Her heart skipped, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “No, thanks. I like it where I am.”
He hadn’t expected the refusal. “What’s the matter, scared I’ll lose my temper and throw you out in your nightgown one rainy night?”
She sighed. “It would be in character,” she said with resignation. “You’d make sure it was on a main street, too.”
He grimaced. “I was kidding!”
She looked up. “I wasn’t.”
His jaw clenched. “You don’t know me, Maggie.”
She laughed shortly. She sat up, pushing back the thick waves of her long hair before she leaned forward with her head in her hands, her elbows resting on her drawn-up knees. “My head hurts. I’m not used to traveling so far at one time.”
“You’re jet-lagged,” he said. He knew a lot about overseas travel. He’d done more than his share. “You probably went to sleep the minute you got here. You should have tried to wait until bedtime.”
She gave him a speaking glance. “I had a trying day.”
He sighed and stuck his hands in the pockets of his khaki slacks. “So you did.”
Her eyes lifted to his face, tracing the new cuts and stitches. “It’s a miracle that you didn’t lose your sight,” she said softly.
“It was. And I’m not going to make it public that I haven’t. Note the dark glasses,” he added, indicating them hanging out of one pocket by an earpiece. “I even had one of my boys drive me into town and bring me up on the elevator, just to keep the fiction going.” He didn’t say why. He jingled his car keys in his pocket restlessly. “Watch your back while you’re in town,” he added suddenly. “I’m pretty sure that an old enemy of mine set me up. If I’m right, he’s going to be on my trail pretty soon, to make sure I don’t put him out of business. He wouldn’t stop at attacking anybody close to me.”
“Well, that certainly puts me out of danger,” she said pertly.
He glared at her. “You’re family. If he doesn’t know it, he’ll find it out. You could be in danger. I think he’s involved with people here in Houston.”
“You’ve had plenty of enemies over the years. None of them considered me family, even if you do.”
His gaze was narrow and contemplative. “I don’t know how I think of you,” he said absently. “I’ve never taken time to do an inventory.”
“You could do it between sips of coffee.” She laughed.
“Don’t sell yourself short,” he said unexpectedly.
She met his eyes, and her whole life was suddenly stark and painful in her face. She couldn’t bear the memories sometimes. He knew nothing about her past. She hoped he would never have to know. She couldn’t imagine why he was being so nice to her. He must have a guilty conscience.
“No need for flattery, Cord,” she said with a faint smile. “I know what you think of me.”
He moved back to the bed and sat down beside her. One lean hand went to her cheek and he turned her face up so that he could see it. He felt the tension in her, the choked breath, the wild heartbeat. Her eyes reflected the helpless response that her body betrayed. That, at least, never changed. She might hate the memory of what he’d done to her—no less than he hated it himself—but she was as hopelessly attracted to him as she’d always been. It comforted him on some level to know that.
“Don’t play with me anymore,” she said tautly, her eyes telling him that she hated the hopeless attraction he could see. It was almost physically painful to have him so near, to see the chiseled line of his wide mouth and remember the feel of it, to know the warm strength of that powerful body so very close.
He read those reactions with textbook accuracy. His proud head lifted. His eyes narrowed. His lean hand spread against her cheek and his thumb suddenly swept hard over her soft lips, dragging a gasp from them.
His other hand caught in her thick hair and he pulled her, lifted her, until she was lying across his body with her head in the crook of his arm.
Her breasts were flattened against his broad, hair-roughened chest over the thin cotton shirt he wore. She looked up at him with helpless desire. He gently smoothed his hand up and down her throat, caressing, tantalizing, while his head bent and his hard lips hovered maddeningly just above her mouth.
“What makes you think I’m playing?” he murmured roughly.
Her nails dug into his shoulder as she hung there, vulnerable, aching for him to bend those scant inches and crush his mouth down hard on her parted lips. She could smell the coffee he’d had for breakfast on his breath. She could smell the clean, spicy scent of his skin. Where his sports shirt was open at the throat, she could see the thick press of curling dark hair that covered his broad, muscular chest. She remembered unwillingly the way it had felt against her bare breasts that one time in their lives when she’d thought he really wanted her. Even the memory of pain and embarrassed shame that came afterward didn’t diminish her reactions to him. They were eternal. He touched her and she melted into him. She belonged to him, just as she had at the age of eight. And he knew it. He’d always known.
Involuntarily her cold fingers went trembling to his cheek, up into the thick darkness of his hair at his temple, where that slight wave gave it definition. He always felt clean to the touch. He always smelled good. She felt safe when she was with him, despite his hostility. He was the first male thing in her young life that had ever given her a feeling of security. He was the only man she’d ever trusted.
He caught her hand and held it tightly while he looked into her wide eyes. Abruptly he dragged her palm to his mouth and kissed it with something like desperation, burying his mouth in it. His eyes closed as he savored the softness of it.
She felt the fever in him, but didn’t understand it. He didn’t want her, not really. He never had. But he looked…tormented, somehow.
He drew her hand back to her cheek and looked at her with passion. “I hurt you every time I touch you,” he whispered harshly. “Don’t you think I know it?”
She couldn’t drag her eyes away from his. “You have nothing to give me. I know. I’ve always known.” She laughed painfully. “It doesn’t seem to matter.”
He drew her close and held her, his arms strong around her, his mouth against her hair. He took a deep breath and felt all the anger and misery of the past few years drain out of him. He laid his cheek against her dark, soft hair and closed his eyes. It was like coming home.
She held him, too, drinking in the clean, spicy scent of his muscular body as she tried valiantly to ignore the fever of passion his touch kindled. It gave her comfort, as it did him. He wasn’t an emotional person. He kept his deepest feelings hidden carefully inside. Maggie knew all about that, because she did the same thing. If people could get close to you, they could hurt you. It was a lesson Maggie and Cord had learned early in their lives. It had made them cautious about involvement.
His hand brushed the length of her hair and he smiled lazily. “I love long hair,” he murmured.
She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to
. He knew she kept it long because of him.
“We’re poison to each other. Maybe,” he began slowly, “it would be for the best if you did start over somewhere else, somewhere…far away.”
“Better for me, certainly,” she murmured huskily. Her fingers caressed his hair at the temple. “But who would take care of you if I did?” she added, her voice teasing to disguise her hunger for him.
His indrawn breath was audible, and his arms loosened, freeing her abruptly. “I don’t need taking care of!” he said shortly.
The truce was over. Just that quickly. She smiled sadly as she watched him get to his feet and move away from the bed. “Don’t pop any blood vessels over a figure of speech,” she chided. She searched his hard face quietly, savoring its nooks and crannies. Soon, she thought, it would be out of her sight forever.
“I’m through with what passes for love,” he said with cold sarcasm. “Just in case you start seeing me as a long-range project.”
“Does June know?” she asked wickedly.
He glared at her. “June is none of your business!”
Her eyebrows arched. “Excuse me! We can just forget that I barged into your hotel room and started making passionate advances toward you!” she added facetiously.
His eyes were smoldering now. “I’m leaving.”
“I noticed,” she agreed.
He got as far as the bedroom door, and then he remembered Gruber. He’d almost lost his eyes, if not his life, to the man’s vengeance. Maggie was alone and vulnerable, and Gruber had contacts here.
“I still want you out at the ranch,” he said curtly.
“Save your breath,” she said pleasantly. “I’m not going.”
“If anything should happen to you…” he began tightly, and was amazed at the fear that clenched his heart. If anything happened to her, he’d be alone in the world. He’d have no one at all.
“My, my, wouldn’t that uncomplicate your life?” she inserted pertly.
“That isn’t true,” he snapped.
“Yes, it is,” she replied. “You just don’t like admitting it. I can call the police anytime I need help, they said so on television just last night. Meanwhile, I’ll find a job as quickly as I can and light a fire out of Houston.” She smiled deliberately. “Won’t that give you a whole new lease on life? I won’t even ask you to send me a Christmas card!”
He started to speak, and he couldn’t. He just glared.
She struck a seductive pose, knowing it would infuriate him. There was no danger in enticing Cord, he was impervious. She tugged the pajama top lightly away from her long neck. “Want to ravish me before you go?” she offered with mischievous eyes. “I can call room service and get them to send up an emergency condom,” she added, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.
“Damn you!” he bit off furiously. He turned abruptly and slammed out of the door without a backward glance.
Maggie watched him go with sparkling eyes. She could always throw him off balance like that, from their earliest acquaintance. It made her proud, because even his precious Patricia had never been able to do that. It was the one weapon in her arsenal, and a great pride-saver. It was all bluff, of course. She tingled from head to toe just thinking about how it might have been if he’d taken her up on it.
3
Cord’s visit unsettled Maggie. It was several minutes before she could get herself together enough to shower and dress and go downstairs for breakfast. She had a light meal and looked up the addresses of several employment agencies in the phone book. Then she started making the rounds.
She’d just come out of the third office on her list, with no results, when she walked straight into a tall brunette she hadn’t noticed rounding a nearby corner.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” Maggie exclaimed, steadying the taller woman. “I wasn’t even looking where I was…” She hesitated. The other woman was familiar. “You’re Kit Deverell!” she exclaimed, smiling broadly. “I met you and your husband at an investment seminar year before last. We’ve seen each other at several seminars since. I’m Maggie Barton.”
Kit Deverell’s eyes lit up with recognition. “Of course! You’re Cord’s foster sister.”
Maggie’s face closed up at once, defensively.
Kit grimaced. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have blurted that out. You see, my boss is Dane Lassiter, who founded the Lassiter Detective Agency here in town. He met Cord some years ago after he started the detective agency—one of his operatives was a rookie when Cord was, and knew him!”
“Yes. I’ve…heard Cord mention him once or twice, at odd times when we were speaking to each other,” she added with a grin.
“You don’t get along well, do you?” Kit asked sympathetically. “I shouldn’t have mentioned Cord. What are you doing at an employment agency, for heaven’s sake?” she added. “You’re vice president at Kemp’s Investment Agency, aren’t you?”
Maggie nodded. “I was. I gave it up to take a job in Qawi. But it didn’t pan out,” she summarized, avoiding the reason. “Now I’m out of work.”
“But Logan’s got an opening in his investment firm,” Kit continued, chuckling. “Isn’t that fate at work? Really, his partner quit and went to work over in Victoria. He’s pulling out his hair trying to manage all the accounts by himself. Please come and interview,” she added, tugging at Maggie’s arm. “He’s got me doing stock research in my spare time, and I hate it! I work for Lassiter as a skip tracer, you see. I had to fight Logan, but it’s not dangerous work and we have a really good babysitter for our son, Bryce. Logan’s brother’s wife, Della, is pregnant and unable to work because of complications. You’d be saving my life if you could take some of the strain off. Would you? Please?”
Maggie laughed with pure delight. “If there’s a job going, I’d love to interview. Actually I sort of had in mind a position that would get me out of the country. But perhaps I can take the job temporarily, while your husband looks for someone permanent and I look for something international…”
“That would work,” Kit said with a grin. “Come on!”
Maggie went to interview. Logan Deverell was a huge man with dark hair, not overweight, but tall and muscular. He obviously doted on his wife, and vice versa.
“You’re the answer to a prayer,” he said after they shook hands and the three of them were seated in Logan’s spacious office, his long oak desk covered with photos of Kit and a mischievous-looking little boy of about two years of age. “Tom Walker and I were partners, until he moved to Jacobsville. Then I took on another partner. He married several months ago, but he just quit and moved to Victoria, where his wife has family. She’s expecting their first child. So here I am, empty-handed and up to my neck in clients.”
Maggie chuckled. “I’m glad I happened along, then. I gave up a lucrative position to rush back here, because I heard that Cord was blinded.” She sighed and smiled self-consciously. “I had hoped to find something permanent overseas.”
“We’ll keep our ears open,” Logan promised, “if you’re serious. But meantime, how about signing on with me? You can even have your own office,” he added with a chuckle. “We acquired the suite next door. Lassiter and his people have the whole third floor. We went in together and bought the building. What we don’t use ourselves, we rent out. It pays for itself.”
“And,” Maggie pointed out, “it’s a good investment.”
He laughed out loud. “So it is.”
He outlined her duties, and her salary, and she was delighted to take the job on a temporary basis. She still wanted to get out of Houston. Living near Cord was painful now that she’d decided to burn her bridges. She’d spent enough of her life aching for a man who didn’t care about her.
Although, just for a few seconds in her hotel bedroom, his eyes had burned with desire. He’d wanted her. But that had never been enough for Maggie. She wanted his love. Just as she knew that she’d never have it. She could close her eyes and taste his breath on her mouth, feel the strength of his arms wa
rm and comforting around her. If only she could have that, just for herself, for the rest of her life. It would have been worth more than the most luxurious lifestyle imaginable.
Presumably Cord wanted to live and die alone. Maggie didn’t. Perhaps she might even meet a man she could settle for. She might actually get over Cord. Anything was possible. Even with her past.
She started work at Deverell’s the next morning. It was complicated business, but she liked his spin on stocks and bonds, and she liked the mutual funds he recommended. He had a state-of-the-art computer system and an expert who did nothing but scan the Internet for stock prices and update information. Logan was honest, straightforward, and he didn’t pretend that he knew everything. He had a built-in sense of diplomacy that Kit told her privately was a hoot—Logan had a temper and he wasn’t shy about showing it. He was only diplomatic when it suited him.
Her fifth day on the job, she and Kit went out to lunch together with Dane Lassiter’s wife, Tess. Dane and Tess had a little boy and a little girl, and Tess seemed to regard both children as miracles. Later, Kit told her that Dane had been convinced that he couldn’t have a child. Tess had loved him helplessly, obsessively, for years. It had taken an unexpected pregnancy and a near-tragedy to convince Dane that love was worth taking a chance on. Despite their stormy beginnings, the Lassiters were quite an item around town. It was rare to see one without the other, and they usually traveled as a family unit off the job.
Maggie got to meet Dane Lassiter that same day. The former Texas Ranger was tall and dark, not really a handsome man, but with an authority and self-confidence that were striking. There was just enough arrogance with it to make him attractive. He’d started out with the Houston Police, where he still had contacts and from which he’d garnered his first operatives when he opened the detective agency. One of his men and Cord had been police officers together in Houston.
When they got back to Logan’s offices, Kit told Maggie that the Lassiters were working on a very hot and dangerous assignment—trying to shut down an international agency that was really a smuggler of human cargo. They didn’t stop with illegal immigrants in the United States, either. The agency dealt in child slave labor in west Africa and South America, procuring young children to work in mines and on huge farms and ranches. They even dabbled in child pornography, with a branch office in Amsterdam. They literally sold children to a shady global corporation through the agency. Rumor had it that Raoul Gruber was the chief executive officer of the corporation—but it had been impossible to link him to it.
