The Mercenary and the New Mom

by Merline Lovelace

  “You damned idiots,” Jack snarled, dusting himself off. “You almost killed us.”

  The shorter of the two drew himself up. “Hey, who you callin‘ idiots? We wasn’t the ones who walked in front of a movin’ pickup.”

  The taller of the two men hooked his thumbs in his jeans and rocked back on his boot heels, measuring Jack from head to toe. Evidently he didn’t like what he saw. His lip curled at one corner, and a malicious gleam entered his watery blue eyes.

  “It looked to me like you danced outta the way easy enough, pretty boy.”

  “It looks to me,” Al ground out, his black eyes furious as he, too, dusted himself off, “that you are both most drunk and irresponsible.”

  “Listen to him!” The shorter man gave a snort that was part giggle, part belch. “He sure talks prissy, don’t he, Sam?”

  “He sure does, Digger.”

  Sabrina groaned. These two were drunk and spoiling for a fight. She’d seen their kind often enough, which was one of the reasons she’d finally convinced Hank to stop serving beer at the diner. She started forward, intending to defuse the situation, when a wide grin split the one called Digger’s face, showing an empty space where his two lower front teeth had been.

  “They’re all duded up like cowboys or riggers, but I bet they never sat no bull or wrestled no pipe.”

  “Oh, you could be wrong there,” his buddy drawled, rocking back on his worn boot heels once more. “That one there, he’s Jack Wentworth.”

  Jack Wentworth!

  Sabrina stopped short, her peace-making intentions forgotten. Incredulous, she swung around to stare at the rigger in the black ball cap. He didn’t work for Wentworth Oil Works. He was Wentworth Oil Works! And Wentworth Shipping International. And Wentworth Bank and Trust...which just happened to be reviewing her preloan application package.

  Her gasp brought Jack’s head around, but only for a moment. The tall one, the one called Sam, pulled his attention back.

  “I saw pretty boy and old Joe Wentworth workin‘ a rig down Ardmore way a few years ago,” he said with a sneer. “They was both up to their elbows in grease. Course, some artsy-fartsy photographer was followin’ them around at the time, takin’ pictures for Life or something, so’s it was probably all a pose.”

  Another snigger from the shorter man took the tense situation and made it a whole lot worse.

  “What do you say, Jackie boy? You want to pose for us? You and your Arab friend here? We know a couple of Texicans down ‘round San Antonio who would surely enjoy some pictures of you two doin’ the two-step, if you know what I mean.”

  “Tell you what,” Jack drawled. “We’ll take some pictures for those Texicans... of you two planted head down and ass up in that alfalfa field.”

  “No, no, my friend.” Al twirled one end of his mustache, his face bland as he looked the other two over. “We must not despoil the earth with such foulness. We shall merely—how do you say?—grind them up and toss their ashes to the winds.”

  Things were fast getting out of hand. Sabrina shook herself out of her immobility and pushed forward.

  “Now just wait a minute. This is ridiculous. No one’s going to grind anyone into...”

  Her protest went unheeded as Jack flashed his friend a wide grin. “Sounds good to me. You take the runt. I’ve got the ugly one.”

  Before Sabrina could get out another word, Jack and Al launched themselves at the two troublemakers. All four went down in a chorus of grunts and a flurry of pummeling fists.

  “Oh, for...!”

  Sabrina threw up her hands. Men! She’d never met one yet who could walk away from an insult or a taunt. Okay, so maybe she couldn’t respect a man who did, but there were other ways to settle disputes than rolling in the dust, pummeling each other. She glanced around, searching for some way to break up the free-for-all. At the side of the diner she spotted the hose Hank used to wash down the dusty parking lot whenever he remembered to get around to it. She was headed for the hose when the diner’s front door thudded open. Customers piled out, one almost atop the other, drawn by the sounds of the fight.

  “What’s going on?” Hank demanded.

  “A couple of drunks almost ran over Jack and Al. The four of them are discussing the matter now,” Sabrina added dryly.

  To her disgust, the diners cheered the combatants on. With a shake of her head, she marched over to the hose and twisted the spigot all the way to the right. Placing her thumb over the mouth to add to the water’s force, Sabrina turned.

  Before she could aim and shoot, the battle was over. Although the two drunks fought surprisingly well for men whose movements should have been impeded by the liquor they’d consumed, they both went down. A brutal right to the stomach from Al doubled over the one called Digger. He crumpled to the dirt. The taller one took a hard fist to the face and spun away from Jack. He crashed into his battered pickup. Flinging an arm over the side of the truck bed to steady himself, he hung there, panting and glaring. Blood gushed from his nose. A bruise was already forming on the side of his jaw.

  Jack unclenched his fists and flexed his bruised knuckles. “You two better sober up before you hit the road...and before you decide to shoot your mouths off anymore.”

  The glare in Sam’s eyes turned murderous. He grappled in the truck bed for a moment, then pushed himself away. This time, he didn’t come at Jack with bare fists and bruised knuckles. This time, he clutched a length of steel pipe. Hank shouted a warning to Jack as the pipe swung in a deadly arc.

  Without conscious thought, Sabrina whipped up the hose and aimed it. The pulsing stream hit Sam full in the face, throwing his swing off just enough to allow his intended victim to duck under the pipe. Jack sprang back up on a rush of what looked like pure adrenaline. Planting a blow to the ribs that gusted Sam’s breath out on a whooshing grunt, he followed with a swift upper cut. His target staggered back one pace, then two. Then his knees buckled and he folded to the ground, wheezing like an old, anguished accordion.

  Chest heaving, Jack kicked the pipe away and stood over him. A silence settled over the dusty parking lot. When Sam showed no inclination to continue the battle, the coiled tension in Jack’s shoulders eased a fraction. A moment later, he spun on his heel. Striding over to where Sabrina stood, he swept an arm around her waist and brought her up against him, gushing hose and all.

  “Thanks, sweetheart.”

  His face wore a coating of dust and sweat. Blood splattered his blue denim shirt. His heart still hammered with a force so fast and strong Sabrina could feel its erratic beat against her breasts. His blue eyes gleamed with the sheer thrill of a male who’d just claimed a neat and perfectly senseless victory.

  Despite herself, Sabrina had to smile. “You’re welcome.”

  Then he bent his head and kissed her. She saw it coming. Knew she could pull away. Told herself that was just what she should do. Irrationally, illogically, she leaned right into the kiss. She went up on her toes to meet his mouth with hers. Her body molded to his. Her arms came up to lock around his neck. In the process, the still spouting garden hose sprayed the assembled crowd indiscriminately, producing yelps from the customers and a startled squawk from Hank.

  Sabrina hardly heard their shouts. Barely noticed when her disgusted boss yanked the hose out of her hand.

  “Give me that,” he muttered. “Those two fools need a dunkin’ more’n we do.”

  She relinquished the hose without a murmur. Wet and on fire at the same time, she lost herself in Jack’s kiss. Her knees turned to dishwater. Her hips canted into his. Her heart pounded, and the low-angled sun blazed on her closed eyelids. By the time Jack raised his head, she’d forgotten how to breathe.

  “I’ll be back,” he whispered hoarsely. “Later.”

  “I get off early tonight,” she answered, her voice as low and ragged as his.

  “How early?”

  “Nine.”

  He stared down at her a moment longer. Sabrina could see the silver flecks in his b
lue eyes. Detect the promise in his slow, toe-curling grin.

  “Nine. Right.”

  “Make it nine-thirty. My place.”

  Still breathless, she murmured her address in Dunford, where she’d rented a tiny, boxlike house from one of Peg’s cousins. The sleepy little town was only a few miles from the diner.

  It was only after Jack had herded Al to the red pickup that Sabrina came hurtling back to earth. All it took to bring her down was one glimpse of the Wentworth Oil Works logo on the door panel. She landed with a thump as Jack drove off.

  Smart, she told herself in gathering dismay and self-disgust. Real smart. Fall right into the man’s arms, why don’t you? Billionaire Joseph Wentworth’s grandson decides to go slumming for a few hours, and the ditzy waitress drapes herself all over him.

  She could just imagine what Jack Wentworth thought he was coming back to at nine-thirty tonight!

  Sucking on the split knuckle of his right hand, Jack gripped the steering wheel with his left. His blood still pounded from the brawl...and from that astonishing kiss. He couldn’t wait to dump Ali at the airport, get himself cleaned up, and retrace his tracks to Dunford...and Sabrina.

  He wheeled onto I-44 and let the accelerator inch up to the speed limit. Hot concrete whirred under the truck’s tires. A mix of gentle hills, green pastures and woodland went past in a blur. Fat rolls of new-cut hay shimmered red gold in the rays of the slowly descending sun, and the scent of fresh-mown Bermuda grass blew in through the open windows.

  The exit for Glenpool sped by, then the off-ramp for Sapulpa. A few minutes later, Tulsa’s distinctive skyline loomed in the distance. The tall skyscrapers gleamed a liquid gold in the reflection of the low-hanging sun. Without the least difficulty, Jack picked out Wentworth Oil’s corporate headquarters, a slash of granite and glass cutting into the hazy blue sky. His grandfather had laid the cornerstone for that building, as he was so fond of reminding Jack and his younger sister and brother. The old man damn well expected his grandchildren to live up to his name and his building.

  Every day for almost forty years Joseph had driven from the sprawling stone mansion he’d built in the Oklahoma hills halfway between Stillwater and Tulsa to oversee his growing financial empire. Even after Jack took over the corporate reins, the eighteenth floor presidential suite remained Joseph’s and Joseph’s alone. His stroke had slowed him down some, but he was still enough of a crusty old bastard that men like that drunk back at the diner would recall him after just one meeting.

  Although...

  Jack’s brow creased in a frown. Now that his blood had cooled, the whole encounter outside the diner began to strike him as a little off.

  “Do you remember what the mean one...Sam... said?” he asked Ali slowly. “About seeing me and my grandfather in Ardmore?”

  The prince cocked his head. Stroking his mustache, he thought baek. “He said he saw you and Joseph a few years ago in this place you speak of, when someone took pictures.”

  Jack’s fist tightened on the steering wheel. “That photo shoot for Life took place almost a decade ago, and now that I think about it, it didn’t take place in Ardmore.”

  “Perhaps this so ugly one confused the place and the time.”

  “Perhaps. He sure didn’t have any trouble placing me, though. Or you.”

  Across the leather seat, his gaze caught Ali’s. He knew without asking that the prince was now running the same set of questions through his mind.

  Why would the man lie about seeing him and his grandfather? If he had, how did he really know Jack’s identity? And how had the little runt picked up that Ali was from the Middle East? The prince had an accent, sure, but not one that most people would immediately place. In his jeans and borrowed Stetson, he could have easily been taken for a Hispanic American, or a Latino.

  What was more, Jack thought grimly, the two combatants had wielded their fists with a whole lot more accuracy than their inebriated status should have allowed. Doubt hardening into suspicion, he snatched up his mobile phone. One press of a button patched him through to his office. A moment later, his efficient assistant forwarded his call to the Route 66 Diner.

  “Yeah?”

  He couldn’t mistake Hank’s grumble. “This is Jack Wentworth. Are those two drunks still there?”

  “Nah. They slunk off right after you left. I don’t ‘spect they’ll be back this way anytime soon.”

  “Right. Thanks.”

  Still frowning, Jack flipped the phone shut. He should have gotten their license number. Nailed down their names and the reason behind their belligerence. Some undercover operative he was!

  Trey McGill echoed that sentiment a few moments later. He was pacing the ramp when Jack brought the pickup to a squealing stop beside a sleek, two-engine jet parked on a controlled access apron at the Tulsa International Airport. The white-and-black flag of Qatar gleamed on the jet’s tail. A glimpse through the open hatch and lowered stairs showed the gleam of polished teak and deep, plush carpets.

  Trey took one look at Jack’s face and Ali’s bloodied shirt, and his careful State Department demeanor came apart at the seams. “What the hell happened to you two?”

  “I’ll tell you later,” Jack said grimly. “Let’s get the prince in the air first.”

  Brushing past the gray-suited bureaucrat, he accompanied Ali to the jet’s staircase. Trey followed, his face tight with anxiety.

  “Dammit, Wentworth, what’s going on?”

  Ignoring him, Jack gripped Ali’s hand. “Better get moving. I don’t know who those characters were, but I’ll find out, I promise you.”

  “What characters?” McGill demanded.

  “Have a safe journey home, my friend.”

  Ali clapped his free hand on Jack’s forearm. His fingers dug deep. “May Allah watch over you until we meet again.”

  “And you.”

  Halfway up the jet’s stairs, the prince turned to give Jack a thumbs-up. “It was a good fight, was it not? And unless I mistake the matter, you have won a most precious prize.”

  The moment Ali stepped inside, the stairs whirred up and into the compartment below the hatchway. The door slammed shut

  “What fight?” McGill thrust a hand through his short, sandy hair. “What prize?”

  At the low, warning whir of the jet’s twin engines, Jack pulled the State Department rep back to a safe distance. The cadre of plainclothes security men Trey had posted around the plane retreated as well.

  The whir rose to a shrill whine, then a deafening roar. A cloud of engine exhaust and fuel-scented heat enveloped the small group of watchers. The jet rolled down the taxiway, looking like a small, sharp bird of prey amid the larger passenger jets.

  Trey’s handheld radio stuttered. His mouth still tight, he lifted it and issued the necessary instructions to give the private jet priority for takeoff. Moments later, the aircraft lifted into the sky and banked to the east with the soaring grace of a gull. McGill waited only until the noise died enough for him to be heard. Planting himself squarely before Jack, he demanded an explanation.

  “Okay, Wentworth, what’s going on.”

  “I’m not sure,” Jack replied grimly.

  Paring the extended stop at the diner down to its bare essentials, he briefed Trey on the near accident and brawl with the two supposed drunks.

  McGill’s gray eyes narrowed on Jack’s face. “But you don’t think it was an accident?”

  “Looking back, I can see that the whole incident was too damned pat.” He rubbed a hand across his neck. “The truck peeled off the road and into the parking lot the exact moment Ali and I stepped out of the diner. It was almost as if they were waiting for us.”

  “Dammit!” Trey slapped the radio against the palm of his other hand. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you and the prince go wandering off through the countryside like that!”

  Jack didn’t comment on that. Both he and McGill knew that there was no “let” about it. Jack was a private citizen. He performed secre
t, often dangerous missions for his country out of a sense of patriotism... and a restlessness his corporate responsibilities couldn’t quite satisfy. Although he and Trey had worked together for years now, the government bureaucrat didn’t have the authority to dictate the oil executive’s movements. Trey’s responsibility was to support them.

  Tight-jawed, Trey dug a leather-bound notebook and gold ballpoint pen out of his suit pocket. “Give me what details you can on those two hoods. I’ll run them by the FBI and CIA.”

  Succinctly, Jack described the tall, thin Sam and shorter Digger. Trey’s pen scribbled furiously.

  “What about their vehicle?”

  “A black Ford pickup, ‘88 or ’89, with a dented right rear fender and two long scrapes along the truck bed. It carried Oklahoma plates, but I didn’t get the number.”

  That was the last time he’d make that mistake, Jack vowed silently.

  “And the others at this diner?”

  He shot McGill a quick look.

  “Someone had to have coordinated the attack,” the State Department rep said grimly. “Maybe that someone followed you into the restaurant and handed you off to the two outside when you stepped out the door.”

  Frowning, Jack ran the other occupants of the diner through his mind. “I don’t think so. I don’t remember seeing anyone act in a suspicious manner.”

  Trey tapped his notebook with his pen, his eyes hard. “Yeah, well, you didn’t suspect Sam and his buddy of anything more than drunken belligerence at first, either.”

  “Not at first,” he conceded, rubbing a palm across his sore knuckles.

  The gold pen tapped on the notebook. “Who else was at the diner? I’ll check them out.”

  “Three truckers,” Jack replied slowly. “One of whom was driving a TransAmerica eighteen-wheeler with Texas plates and a green-and-silver cab. Two men who looked like locals. The owner, a former sailor called Hank Donovan. And the waitresses, a Peg Something and a Sabrina Jensen.”

  “Any one of them could have been in on it,” Trey muttered.

  “Not Sabrina Jensen. She saved my butt with a water hose.”