Desperado

by Diana Palmer

  Everyone was somber at the breakfast table. Cord’s eyes were warm and gentle as he greeted her, but there was no opportunity for shared memories. He was there with two strange men, one wearing a hooded djellabah made of oyster-colored silk, the other, a tall Latin, in a conventional suit.

  “This is Bojo,” Cord introduced the silk-clad man who smiled pleasantly at her through an abbreviated mustache and beard, “and that’s Rodrigo,” he added, nodding toward the handsome Latin, who also smiled pleasantly.

  She studied them. “Covert ops 101,” she said finally, nodding. “I can’t wait to see what the lab work involves!”

  It broke them up. Everyone laughed, including Cord and Jorge.

  “I told you she was game,” Cord told the newcomers. He grinned at Maggie. “This is where you get your toy gun and practice dodging bullets.”

  “Lead me to it,” she returned.

  “First things first.” Cord’s eyes narrowed as he outlined the plan for his associates.

  “We leave Peter and Don here, to watch over Jorge and keep things safe,” Cord told the others. “Rodrigo, you’re going to be my valet for the trip. Bojo,” he sighed, shaking his head, “you’re going to be our guide again, I’m afraid.”

  Bojo shrugged and smiled complacently. “If you ask His Highness, the Sheikh of Qawi, he will tell you that I am more than adequate to the task.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Cord told him. He glanced at Maggie. “Micha Steele heads up a group of mercs, of which Bojo is vice commander. I’ve worked in and out of it between government assignments.”

  She was amazed that Cord was sharing these intimate details of his life with her. It must have shown, because he smiled and grasped her hand tightly in his beside her plate.

  “No secrets, remember?” he chided gently. He glanced at Jorge. “You’ll be safe here,” he told his cousin. “Peter won’t let anything go wrong.”

  Jorge chuckled with delight, especially after noticing the close clasp of Cord’s hand in Maggie’s. “I still have my rifle,” he told the younger man, “and I am still a dead shot. One must be, when one has bulls the equal of my own. I also have caballeros who work for me on the finca, most of whom served in the military before they came here. No, I am safe. It is the four of you for whom I worry,” he added with a speaking glance toward Maggie.

  “I’m in very safe hands,” she told him, feeling warm all over at the expression in Cord’s lean face as he looked at her.

  “The safest,” Cord said gently. He lifted her hand to his mouth. “Now,” he said, releasing it. “Let’s get down to logistics.”

  There were weapons, of course. Maggie was going to have to learn to endure them, she told herself, because they were going up against some of the most dangerous men on earth. A multimillion-dollar enterprise would arm itself to the teeth if it were threatened, and Gruber wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone who posed a threat. So when Cord ran her through the motions of loading, locking, and firing a .45 caliber automatic handgun, she paid attention.

  He set up a target in one of the deserted pastures and stood behind her while she mastered the two-handed technique of balancing a heavy automatic weapon and sighting it without closing both eyes.

  “Just relax,” he chided at her ear, moving closer. “It’s not the enemy.”

  She leaned back deliberately with a soft moan. “I can’t concentrate,” she murmured huskily, loving the feel of all that warm strength at her back. “I want to make love.”

  His breath caught and he laughed delightedly. “So do I,” he murmured, kissing her neck fiercely. “But neither of us is in any condition for bedroom gymnastics this morning! Besides, we have a mission. That means no sex.”

  “That’s for football players,” she scoffed.

  He nipped her ear with his teeth. “It’s for mercs, too. You just joined the unit, so pay attention.”

  “Afterward,” she said deliberately, with a twinkling glance over her shoulder into smoldering dark eyes.

  “Afterward,” he agreed huskily.

  She shivered. Her eyes held his and she burned from head to toe.

  He caught her waist firmly and shook her, his lean face evidence of a passion just barely restrained. “If I start kissing you, we’ll have each other on the ground. People will stare. Really.”

  She laughed. “Okay. I’ll behave. Show me again!”

  At the end of an hour, she’d recalled her earlier training with Eb Scott, and was making inroads into the target.

  “Very nice,” he murmured. “You’re a quick study.”

  “I never told you, but Eb showed me how to shoot,” she said without thinking. “Cord!”

  He released his suddenly bruising hold on her waist abruptly. “Sorry,” he said at once.

  She turned, her eyes apologetic as she lifted them. “I didn’t mean to bring it up. But while we’re on the subject,” she added gently, “you must surely know by now that I’m in love with you. I have been since I was barely twelve.”

  He scowled, surprised by the blunt statement.

  “Eb will tell you that I broke things off because he couldn’t give up working as a mercenary,” she continued bravely. “But the real reason was because I couldn’t bear for him to touch me.” She smiled sadly. “I wanted you…”

  He caught her up in his arms and kissed her with slow, fierce passion, feeling his taut body rivet itself to every inch of hers. With a husky moan, she reached up to him and clung, her feet off the ground as he lifted her. For those few seconds, they were alone in the world, bound by forces stronger than either of them had realized. Time passed by in a heated fervor.

  “I hope the safety is on,” an amused voice murmured close by.

  They drew apart at once. Cord looked at Bojo with his mind in limbo, and Maggie stared at him with equal blankness.

  “The pistol?” he prompted, nodding toward Maggie’s hand curled so tightly around Cord’s neck.

  “Pistol. Right.” She cleared her throat and abruptly moved back from Cord, handing him the gun, handle first.

  “Safety,” he murmured. His hands were unsteady as he put it on.

  Bojo laughed wickedly. “This is going to be the most interesting covert mission of my life,” he remarked dryly, and walked off while they were still trying to regain their poise.

  During a lull in the preparations, Cord led Maggie out to the barn and the large corral that surrounded it. He gestured across the hills toward the grazing cattle in the distance.

  “The bulls that Jorge raises for the bullring,” he pointed out. “He doesn’t raise many these days. I think he’s lost heart. In the old days, when things were different, there was almost a religion built around the art—notice I didn’t say sport—of the corrida. My grandfather would stand, they said, in the center of the ring with the fighting cape and wait for the bull. Consider,” he added with bright eyes, “that the bull weighs half a ton and is bred for aggression and stamina. My grandfather would wait for the charge and move not a muscle, not an eyelash, as the animal lowered its horns and came straight for him! Then, with a flick of the cape, he would distract the bull at the last instant and the audience would gasp as the huge animal brushed right against him in its furious charge.” He sighed. “A brave bull would be spared, its life demanded by the spectators. While the losers would be fed to the community.” He glanced down at her with a curious smile. “How would it be for you,” he asked softly, “if you had to watch me dress in the traje de luces, the golden ‘suit of lights’ worn by a matador, and know that I went into the ring with only my cape and my courage to protect me from horns as sharp as spears?”

  She drew in a slow breath and shivered in the hot sun.

  He caught her gently by her nape and pulled her into his body, held her, comforted her against a phantom thought that he was ashamed for voicing. His hand soothed her neck. “My mother and my grandmother faced that agony most of their married lives. My mother was American. She had a brave heart, much courage, b
ut she went white and threw up every time my father signed a new contract and went the rounds of the ferias.” He sighed. “I don’t think I could do that to you,” he said in a soft, absent tone.

  She slid her arms around him and pressed tight into his arms with a soft moan. He belonged to her now. She wondered if he even realized it. Her heart almost burst with joy. She put all thoughts of tomorrow out of her mind and felt his arms close with wonder. She drank in the clean smell of his powerful body, the warmth of him so close. She closed her eyes with a smile, listening contentedly to his steady heartbeat under her ear while his deep voice continued about the old days of the bullfight. It was one of those few moments in a lifetime when everything is, for a space of minutes, absolutely ethereal, joy hanging like a drop of rain from a trembling dry leaf, the very hesitation pregnant with anticipation. She knew that she would remember it all her life, no matter what happened.

  That afternoon, they were dressed in their various disguises, with the exception of Bojo and Maggie. Cord had acquired a wig that looked remarkably like Jorge’s wavy white hair, along with one of Jorge’s suits—fortunately they were of a similar height—and his silver-headed wolf’s head cane. He also had a nice stoop that Jorge chided him for, although it was accurate. Jorge had crippling arthritis of the spine.

  Rodrigo, the Latin, was wearing the elegant suit of a valet and hovering near Cord. Bojo put on his dark glasses and pulled the hood over his short black hair. Maggie, in a neat white pantsuit with low-heeled shoes, a lacy scarf over her long hair, which was loose down her back, and dark glasses covering her eyes, clung to Cord’s arm. Wearing a dressy hat as Jorge did, with dark glasses over his eyes to help the disguise, Cord stooped and walked along beside Maggie toward the car.

  Minutes later, they were down the long paved driveway, through the wrought-iron gate that closed and locked behind them, and on the road to the Costa del Sol and Gibraltar, and the ferry that would take them to Tangier.

  After passing through passport control twice—once arriving at Gibraltar and then again for entrance to Morocco—Rodrigo, with Bojo in the front seat beside him, drove them into the city of Tangier. It wasn’t Maggie’s first glimpse of the exotic place, having been there with Gretchen Brannon only weeks before. She’d lost touch with her friend, and she hoped that the job she’d given up in Qawi was working out for Gretchen. Like everyone else, she’d maintained the fiction of Cord’s blindness. If Gretchen knew anything of them, she’d been told that Cord hadn’t regained his sight. Hopefully Maggie would get to correct that false impression in the months ahead, if everything went well.

  She glanced at Cord beside her in the back seat, getting a good idea of how he would look as an old man. She would have given anything to share her life with him, to grow old with him. She loved him more than her life. She always would. But if her sins were disclosed, Cord wouldn’t want her anymore, she was certain of it. She’d best pay attention to what she was learning of firearms and covert ops, so that she could do as she threatened, and beg Lassiter for a job as a private investigator when this was all over. If she could stay in Houston, she added miserably. It might be too painful, if the truth came out. There were other cities, she consoled herself. But none of them would contain Cord.

  They came into sight of a pretty little villa with a wrought-iron gate reminiscent of the entrance to Jorge’s finca in Spain. There were flowers everywhere once they got inside it. The house itself was two stories high, white adobe, with red tiles on its roof. The entrance led down a hallway through a wooden door and opened to inside balconies, dripping flowers, and a courtyard where a fountain pulsed with watery music, in a patio of blue and white ceramic tiles in elegant patterns. The tiles went halfway up the walls, as well. Everywhere in Tangier was the sweet scent of musk.

  A tall, elegant young man came out to meet them. “Cousin Jorge!” he said loudly, taking the “old man’s” hand in both of his. “How wonderful that you could come to visit! And this must be Maggie, of whom you have spoken, who accompanied poor Cord to Spain. Welcome, welcome!”

  “Thank you for your hospitality, Cousin Ahmed,” Cord said in a nice approximation of Jorge’s husky deep voice, speaking loudly enough that the servants could hear him without straining. “Cord thought it might be good for Maggie to see something of Tangier, while he rested for a day or so. I think he craved some solitude. His lack of vision troubles him greatly. This is my valet, Rodrigo,” he introduced their companion, who bowed, “and our guide, Bojo.”

  “They are both welcome, also. Come, let me show you to your rooms! Carmen! Come and meet our guests,” he called as they entered the open door of the living room, a spacious expanse of polished wood floors and antique furniture with brocade draperies.

  A pretty young woman came forward with a baby in her arms. She greeted Maggie effusively, and the men with a somewhat subdued manner.

  “Carmen and our son, Mohammed,” Ahmed introduced his family. “She is on her way to her sister’s house for a visit, but she wanted to meet you before she left.”

  As they spoke conversationally, it was very obvious to Maggie why the young woman was being moved, with her child, from the premises. It would take her out of the line of fire, if there was trouble.

  Carmen was escorted out by her husband to a waiting limousine, put into it, and waved goodbye. The servants, a woman and a man, both small and dark and apparently not Muslim by their apparel, led Maggie to an upstairs bedroom next door to the one that would be occupied by Cord and Rodrigo. Bojo was down the hall. Maggie was rather sad about the arrangements, because she wanted to be in Cord’s arms in the darkness, as she had the night before.

  They had a light lunch and went to sit in the enclosed patio and drink hot chocolate and talk. It was a lazy, pleasant afternoon. Soon afterward, Ahmed announced that he would have to make an appearance at his office, where he worked in the import/export business, since he’d taken off half the day to spend with his arriving guests. He left his visitors in the care of the servants, who were obviously not in on the masquerade, so Cord and Maggie had to be very careful not to give the game away.

  Later, when Ahmed had returned, supper was served, and it was time to retire, Cord went into Maggie’s bedroom to caution her about talking to the servants.

  “We can’t trust anyone,” he said gently. “It has nothing to do with credentials. This city was always known for international intrigue, and it still is. There are conclaves of people from all over Europe here, and some of them are shady characters. We can’t possibly know these people who work for Ahmed. He doesn’t trust them, either, for what it’s worth.”

  She traced a pattern on the front of his white shirt. “So we can’t sleep together,” she agreed.

  His big hands spanned her waist. “You don’t regret that any more than I do,” he said gently. “I can’t think of anything I want more than you in my arms all night, close and safe.” He bent and kissed her tenderly. “It isn’t just sex, either,” he whispered, “although it’s great between us.”

  “I understand,” she said, and she did. There was a need to be with him all the time. It was overpowering, breathtaking. She searched his dark eyes. “I feel odd today,” she said huskily. Her fingers reached up to touch his mouth. “I hate being away from you, at all.”

  He bent and brushed his mouth over her eyelids. “It’s very natural when people become lovers,” he told her. “Or even when they don’t. Feelings, emotions, like this become irresistible. I tingle all over every time I look at you. All I want to do right now, in fact, is ease you down on that bed and kiss you until my mouth hurts.” He smiled ruefully.

  She pressed close, but not too close, and laid her cheek against his broad chest with a sigh. “I just want to hold you,” she said, her voice choked with emotion she couldn’t contain.

  He moaned softly and lifted her close, carrying her to an armchair in the corner. He cuddled her against him and kissed her face with breathless tenderness while he cradled her in the warm d
arkness.

  “We have to stop,” he said after a minute. “God forbid that one of the servants should snoop around here and wonder why you’re kissing a man old enough to be your grandfather.”

  She chuckled softly, tracing the white wig on his head. “Why not, when he’s so sexy?”

  He kissed her one last time and, regretfully, got to his feet, setting her firmly on hers. “Keep both doors locked, the one onto the balcony as well as the one leading into the hall. Here.” He pressed something small into her hand. “It’s a listening device, disguised as a button. Put it on the bedside table. If anything happens, talk loud.”

  “I’m not armed,” she pointed out.

  “And you won’t be, at night,” he replied. “I almost shot Bojo one dark night when he came in unexpectedly, and I’ve been handling a gun most of my adult life.”

  She grimaced. “I get the point.”

  He tilted her chin up and studied her flushed face with appreciation. “You look loved.”

  “So do you,” she chided softly.

  He chuckled. “I’m going to bed with Rodrigo.”

  “My God!”

  He glared at her. “Not like that!”

  She sighed. “Thank goodness.”

  He laughed, shaking his head. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

  “Don’t even joke about it,” she said. She stared up at him solemnly, as she had when she was ten and he was eighteen, and he was in trouble. “You have to be careful. I wouldn’t want to live, if anything happened to you,” she added with a simplicity that was profound in its lack of emphasis.

  His face tautened as he looked at her. He felt again, that unwelcome sense of aching fear that he could lose her, the knowledge that this woman was all he had in the world. His fingers brushed her cheek lightly and he fought for self-control.

  “I’m not reckless,” he said softly. “And even when I take chances, they’re weighed and calculated. You’re my loose cannon. You have to do exactly what I tell you, no hesitation.”