Buch lesen: «Mercenary's Woman»

CHAPTER ONE

EBENEZER SCOTT STOOD beside his double-wheeled black pickup truck and stared openly at the young woman across the street while she fiddled under the hood of a dented, rusted hulk of a vehicle. Sally Johnson’s long blond hair was in a ponytail. She was wearing jeans and boots and no hat. He smiled to himself, remembering how many times in the old days he’d chided her about sunstroke. It had been six years since they’d even spoken. She’d been living in Houston until July, when she and her blind aunt and small cousin had moved back, into the decaying old Johnson homestead. He’d seen her several times since her return, but she’d made a point of not speaking to him. He couldn’t really blame her. He’d left her with some painful emotional scars.

She was slender, but her trim figure still made his heartbeat jump. He knew how she looked under that loose blouse. His eyes narrowed with heat as he recalled the shocked pleasure in her pale gray eyes when he’d touched her, kissed her, in those forbidden places. He’d meant to frighten her so that she’d stop teasing him, but his impulsive attempt to discourage her had succeeded all too well. She’d run from him then, and she’d kept running. She was twenty-three now, a woman; probably an experienced woman. He mourned for what might have been if she’d been older and he hadn’t just come back from leading a company of men into the worst bloodbath of his career. A professional soldier of fortune was no match for a young and very innocent girl. But, then, she hadn’t known about his real life—the one behind the facade of cattle ranching. Not many people in this small town did.

It was six years later. She was all grown-up, a schoolteacher here in Jacobsville, Texas. He was…retired, they called it. Actually he was still on the firing line from time to time, but mostly he taught other men in the specialized tactics of covert operations on his ranch. Not that he shared that information. He still had enemies from the old days, and one of them had just been sprung from prison on a technicality—a man out for revenge and with more than enough money to obtain it.

Sally had been almost eighteen the spring day he’d sent her running from him. In a life liberally strewn with regrets, she was his biggest one. The whole situation had been impossible, of course. But he’d never meant to hurt her, and the thought of her sat heavily on his conscience.

He wondered if she knew why he kept to himself and never got involved with the locals. His ranch was a model of sophistication, from its state-of-the-art gym to the small herd of purebred Santa Gertrudis breeding cattle he raised. His men were not only loyal, but tightlipped. Like another Jacobsville, Texas, resident—Cy Parks—Ebenezer was a recluse. The two men shared more than a taste for privacy. But that was something they kept to themselves.

Meanwhile, Sally Johnson was rapidly losing patience with her vehicle. He watched her push at a strand of hair that had escaped from the long ponytail. She kept a beef steer or two herself. It must be a frugal existence for her, supporting not only herself, but her recently blinded aunt, and her six-year-old cousin as well.

He admired her sense of responsibility, even as he felt concern for her situation. She had no idea why her aunt had been blinded in the first place, or that the whole family was in a great deal of danger. It was why Jessica had persuaded Sally to give up her first teaching job in Houston in June and come home with her and Stevie to Jacobsville. It was because they’d be near Ebenezer, and Jessica knew he’d protect them. Sally had never been told what Jessica’s profession actually was, any more than she knew what Jessica’s late husband, Hank Myers, had once done for a living. But even if she had known, wild horses wouldn’t have dragged Sally back here if Jessica hadn’t pleaded with her, he mused bitterly. Sally had every reason in the world to hate him. But he was her best hope of survival. And she didn’t even know it.

In the five months she’d been back in Jacobsville, Sally had managed to avoid Ebenezer. In a town this size, that had been an accomplishment. Inevitably they met from time to time. But Sally avoided eye contact with him. It was the only indication of the painful memory they both shared.

He watched her lean helplessly over the dented fender of the old truck and decided that now was as good a time as any to approach her.

Sally lifted her head just in time to see the tall, lean man in the shepherd’s coat and tan Stetson make his way across the street to her. He hadn’t changed, she thought bitterly. He still walked with elegance and a slow, arrogance of carriage that seemed somehow foreign. Jeans didn’t disguise the muscles in those long, powerful legs as he moved. She hated the ripple of sensation that lifted her heart at his approach. Surely she was over hero worship and infatuation, at her age, especially after what he’d done to her that long-ago spring day. She blushed just remembering it!

He paused at the truck, about an arm’s length away from her, pushed his Stetson back over his thick blond-streaked brown hair and impaled her with green eyes.

She was immediately hostile and it showed in the tautening of her features as she looked up, way up, at him.

He raised an eyebrow and studied her flushed face. “Don’t give me the evil eye,” he said. “I’d have thought you had sense enough not to buy a truck from Turkey Sanders.”

“He’s my cousin,” she reminded him.

“He’s the Black Plague with car keys,” he countered. “The Hart boys wiped the floor with him not too many years back. He sold Corrigan Hart’s future wife a car that fell apart when she drove it off the lot. She was lucky at that,” he added with a wicked grin. “He sold old lady Bates a car and told her the engine was optional equipment.”

She laughed in spite of herself. “It’s not a bad old truck,” she countered. “It just needs a few things…”

He glanced at the rear tire and nodded. “Yes. An overhauled engine, a paint job, reupholstered seats, a tailgate that works. And a rear tire that isn’t bald.” He pointed toward it. “Get that replaced,” he said shortly. “You can afford a tire even on what you make teaching.”

She gaped at him. “Listen here, Mr. Scott…” she began haughtily.

“You know my name, Sally,” he said bluntly, and his eyes were steady, intimidating. “As for the tire, it isn’t a request,” he replied flatly, staring her down. “You’ve got some new neighbors out your way that I don’t like the look of. You can’t afford a breakdown in the middle of the night on that lonely stretch of road.”

She drew herself up to her full height, so that the top of her head came to his chin. He really was ridiculously tall…

“This is the twenty-first century, and women are capable of looking after themselves….” she said heatedly.

“I can do without a current events lecture,” he cut her off again, moving to peer under the hood. He propped one enormous booted foot on the fender and studied the engine, frowned, pulled out a pocketknife and went to work.

“It’s my truck!” she fumed, throwing up her hands in exasperation.

“It’s half a ton of metal without an engine that works.”

She grimaced. She hated not being able to fix it herself, to have to depend on this man, of all people, for help. She wouldn’t let herself think about the cost of having a mechanic make a road service call to get the stupid thing started. Looking at his lean, capable hands brought back painful memories as well. She knew the tenderness of them on concealed skin, and her whole body erupted with sensation.

Less than two minutes later, he repocketed his knife. “Try it now,” he said.

She got in behind the wheel. The engine turned noisily, pouring black smoke out of the tailpipe.

He paused beside the open window of the truck, his pale green eyes piercing her face. “Bad rings and valves,” he pointed out. “Maybe an oil leak. Either way, you’re in for some major repairs. Next time, don’t buy from Turkey Sanders, and I don’t give a damn if he is a relative.”

“Don’t you give me orders,” she said haughtily.

That eyebrow lifted again. “Habit. How’s Jess?”

She frowned. “Do you know my aunt Jessie?”

“Quite well,” he said. “I knew your uncle Hank. He and I served together.”

“In the military?”

He didn’t answer her. “Do you have a gun?”

She was so confused that she stammered. “Wh…what?”

“A gun,” he repeated. “Do you have any sort of weapon and can you use it?”

“I don’t like guns,” she said flatly. “Anyway, I won’t have one in the house with a six-year-old child, so it’s no use telling me to buy one.”

He was thinking. His face tautened. “How about self-defense?”

“I teach second grade,” she pointed out. “Most of my students don’t attack me.”

“I’m not worried about you at school. I told you, I don’t like the look of your neighbors.” He wasn’t adding that he knew who they were and why they were in town.

“Neither do I,” she admitted. “But it’s none of your business…”

“It is,” he returned. “I promised Hank that I’d take care of Jess if he ever bought it overseas. I keep my promises.”

“I can take care of my aunt.”

“Not anymore you can’t,” he returned, unabashed. “I’m coming over tomorrow.”

“I may not be home…”

“Jess will be. Besides, tomorrow is Saturday,” he said. “You came in for supplies this afternoon and you don’t teach on the weekend. You’ll be home.” His tone said she’d better be.

She gave an exasperated sound. “Mr. Scott…”

“I’m only Mr. Scott to my enemies,” he pointed out.

“Yes, well, Mr. Scott…”

He let out an angry sigh and stared her down. “You were so young,” he bit off. “What did you expect me to do, seduce you in the cab of a pickup truck in broad daylight?”

She flushed red as a rose petal. “I wasn’t talking about that!”

“It’s still in your eyes,” he told her quietly. “I’d rather have done it in a way that hadn’t left so many scars, but I had to discourage you. The whole damned thing was impossible, you must have realized that by now!”

She hated the embarrassment she felt. “I don’t have scars!”

“You do.” He studied her oval face, her softly rounded chin, her perfect mouth. “I’ll be over tomorrow. I need to talk to you and Jess. There have been some developments that she doesn’t know about.”

“What sort of developments?”

He closed the hood of the truck and paused by her window. “Drive carefully,” he said, ignoring the question. “And get that tire changed.”

“I am not a charity case,” she said curtly. “I don’t take orders. And I definitely do not need some big, strong man to take care of me!”

He smiled, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile. He turned on his heel and walked back to his own truck with a stride that was peculiarly his own.

Sally was so shaken that she barely managed to get the truck out of town without stripping the gears out of it.

* * *

JESSICA MYERS WAS IN HER BEDROOM listening to the radio and her son, Stevie, was watching a children’s after-school television program when Sally came in. She unloaded the supplies first with the help of her six-year-old cousin.

“You got me that cereal from the TV commercial!” he exclaimed, diving into bags as she put the perishable items into the refrigerator. “Thanks, Aunt Sally!” Although they were cousins, he referred to her as his aunt out of affection and respect.

“You’re very welcome. I got some ice cream, too.”

“Wow! Can I have some now?”

Sally laughed. “Not until after supper, and you have to eat some of everything I fix. Okay?”

“Aw. Okay, I guess,” he muttered, clearly disappointed.

She bent and kissed him between his dark eyes. “That’s my good boy. Here, I brought some nice apples and pears. Wash one off and eat it. Fruit is good for you.”

“Okay. But it’s not as nice as ice cream.”

He washed off a pear and carried it into the living room on a paper towel to watch television.

Sally went into Jessica’s bedroom, hesitating at the foot of the big four-poster bed. Jessica was slight, blond and hazel-eyed. Her eyes stared at nothing, but she smiled as she recognized Sally’s step.

“I heard the truck,” she said. “I’m sorry you had to go to town for supplies after working all day and bringing Stevie home first.”

“I never mind shopping,” Sally said with genuine affection. “You doing all right?”

Jessica shifted on the pillows. She was dressed in sweats, but she looked bad. “I still have some pain from the wreck. I’ve taken a couple of aspirins for my hip. I thought I’d lie down and give them a chance to work.”

Sally came in and sat down in the wing chair beside the bed. “Jess, Ebenezer Scott asked about you and said he was coming over tomorrow to see you.”

Jessica didn’t seem at all surprised. She only nodded. “I thought he might,” Jessica said quietly. “I had a call from a former colleague about what’s going on. I’m afraid I may have landed you in some major trouble, Sally.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Didn’t you wonder why I insisted on moving down here so suddenly?”

“Now that you mention it—”

“It was because Ebenezer is here, and we’re safer than we would be in Houston.”

“Now you’re scaring me.”

Jessica smiled sadly. “I wouldn’t have had this happen for the world. It isn’t something that comes up, usually. But these are odd circumstances. A man I helped put in prison is out pending retrial, and he’s coming after me.”

“You…helped put a man in prison? How?” Sally asked, perplexed.

“You knew that I worked for a government agency?”

“Well, of course. As a clerk.”

Jessica took a deep breath. “No, dear. Not as a clerk.” She took a deep breath. “I was a special agent for an agency we don’t mention publicly. Through Eb and his contacts, I managed to find one of the confidants of drug lord Manuel Lopez, who was head of an international drug cartel. I was given enough hard evidence to send Lopez to prison for drug dealing. I even had copies of his ledgers. But there was one small loophole in the chain of evidence, and the drug lord’s attorneys jumped on it. Lopez is now out of prison and he wants the person responsible for helping me put him away. Since I’m the only one who knows the person’s identity, I’m the one he’ll be coming after.”

Sally just sat there, dumbfounded. Things like this only happened in movies. They certainly didn’t happen in real life. Her beloved aunt surely wasn’t involved in espionage!

“You’re kidding, right?” Sally asked hopefully.

Jessica shook her head slowly. She was still an attractive woman, in her middle thirties. She was slender and she had a sweet face. Stevie, blond and dark-eyed, didn’t favor her. Of course, he didn’t favor his father, either. Hank had had black hair and light blue eyes.

“I’m sorry, dear,” Jessica said heavily. “I’m not kidding. I’m not able to protect myself or you and Stevie anymore, so I had to come home for help. Ebenezer will keep us safe until we can get the drug lord back on ice.”

“Is Ebenezer a government agent?” Sally asked, astounded.

“No.” Jessica took a deep breath. “I don’t like telling you this, and he won’t like it, either. It’s deeply private. You must swear not to tell another soul.”

“I swear.” She sat patiently, almost vibrating with curiosity.

“Eb was a professional mercenary,” she said. “What they used to call a soldier of fortune. He’s led groups of highly trained men in covert operations all over the world. He’s retired from that now, but he’s still much in demand with our government and foreign governments as a training instructor. His ranch is well-known in covert circles as an academy of tactics and intelligence-gathering.”

Sally didn’t say a word. She was absolutely speechless. No wonder Ebenezer had been so secretive, so reluctant to let her get close to him. She remembered the tiny white scars on his lean, tanned face, and knew instinctively that there would be more of them under his clothing. No wonder he kept to himself!

“I hope I haven’t shattered any illusions, Sally,” her aunt said worriedly. “I know how you felt about him.”

Sally gaped at her. “You…know?”

Jessica nodded. “Eb told me about that, and about what happened just before you came to live with Hank and me in Houston.”

Her face flamed. The shame! She felt sick with humiliation that Ebenezer had known how she felt all the time, and she thought she was doing such a good job of hiding it! She should have realized that it was obvious, when she found excuse after excuse to waylay him in town, when she brazenly climbed into his pickup truck one lovely spring afternoon and pleaded to be taken for a ride. He’d given in to that request, to her surprise. But barely half an hour later, she’d erupted from the passenger seat and run almost all the half-mile down the road to her home. Too ashamed to let anyone see the state she was in, she’d sneaked in the back door and gone straight to her room. She’d never told her parents or anyone else what had happened. Now she wondered if Jessica knew that, too.

“He didn’t divulge any secrets, if that’s why you’re so quiet, Sally,” the older woman said gently. “He only said that you had a king-size crush on him and he’d shot you down. He was pretty upset.”

That was news. “I wouldn’t ever have guessed that he could be upset.”

“Neither would I,” Jessica said with a smile. “It came as something of a surprise. He told me to keep an eye on you, and check out who you went out with. He could have saved himself the trouble, of course, since you never went out with anyone. He was bitter about that.”

Sally averted her face to the window. “He frightened me.”

“He knew that. It’s why he was bitter.”

Sally drew in a steadying breath. “I was very young,” she said finally, “and I suppose he did the only thing he could. But I was leaving Jacobsville anyway, when my parents divorced. I only had a week of school before graduation before I went to live with you. He didn’t have to go to such lengths.”

“My brother still feels like an idiot for the way he behaved with that college girl he left your mother for,” Jessica said curtly, meaning Sally’s father, who was Jessica’s only living relative besides Sally. “It didn’t help that your mother remarried barely six months later. He was stuck with Beverly the Beauty.”

“How are my parents?” Sally asked. It was the first time she’d mentioned either of her parents in a long while, She’d lost touch with them since the divorce that had shattered her life.

“Your father spends most of his time at work while Beverly goes the party route every night and spends every penny he makes. Your mother is separated from her second husband and living in Nassau.” Jessica shifted on the bed. “You don’t ever hear from your parents, do you?”

“I don’t resent them as much as I did. But I never felt that they loved me,” she said abruptly. “That’s why I felt it was better we went our separate ways.”

“They were children when they married and had you,” the other woman said. “Not really mature enough for the responsibility. They resented it, too. That’s why you spent so much time with me during the first five years you were alive.” Jessica smiled. “I hated it when you went back home.”

“Why did you and Hank wait so long to have a child of your own?” Sally asked.

Jessica flushed. “It wasn’t…convenient, with Hank overseas so much. Did you get that tire replaced?” she added, almost as if she were desperate to change the subject.

“You and Mr. Scott!” Sally exploded, diverted. “How did you know it was bald?”

“Because Eb phoned me before you got home and told me to remind you to get it replaced,” Jessica chuckled.

“I suppose he has a cell phone in his truck.”

“Among other things,” Jessica replied with a smile. “He isn’t like the men you knew in college or even when you started teaching. Eb is an alpha male,” she said quietly. “He isn’t politically correct, and he doesn’t even pretend to conform. In some ways, he’s very old-fashioned.”

“I don’t feel that way about him anymore,” Sally said firmly.

“I’m sorry,” Jessica replied gently. “He’s been alone most of his life. He needs to be loved.”

Sally picked at a cuticle, chipping the clear varnish on her short, neat fingernails. “Does he have family?”

“Not anymore. His mother died when he was very young, and his father was career military. He grew up in the army, you might say. His father was not a gentle sort of man. He died in combat when Eb was in his twenties. There wasn’t any other family.”

“You said once that you always saw Ebenezer with beautiful women at social events,” Sally recalled with a touch of envy.

“He pays for dressing, and he attracts women. But he’s careful about his infrequent liaisons. He told me once that he guessed he’d never find a woman who could share the life he leads. He still has enemies who’d like to see him dead,” she added.

“Like this drug lord?”

“Yes. Manuel Lopez is a law unto himself. He has millions, and he owns politicians, law enforcement people, even judges,” Jessica said irritably. “That’s why we were never able to shut him down. Then I was told that a confidant of his wanted to give me information, names and documents that would warrant arresting Lopez on charges of drug trafficking. But I wasn’t careful enough. I overlooked one little thing, and Lopez’s attorneys used it in a petition for a retrial. They got him out. He’s on the loose pending retrial and out for vengeance against his comrade. He’ll do anything to get the name of the person who sold him out. Anything at all.”

Sally let her breath out through pursed lips. “So we’re all under the gun.”

“Exactly. I used to be a crack shot, but without my vision, I’m useless. Eb will have a plan by tomorrow.” Her face was solemn as she stared in the general direction of her niece’s voice. “Listen to him, Sally. Do exactly what he says. He’s our only hope of protecting Stevie.”

“I’ll do anything I have to, to protect you and Stevie,” Sally agreed at once.

“I knew you would.”

She toyed with her nails again. “Jess, has Ebenezer ever been serious about anyone?”

“Yes. There was a woman in Houston, in fact, several years ago. He cared for her very much, but she dropped him flat when she found out what he did for a living. She married a much-older bank executive.” She shifted on the bed. “I hear that she’s widowed now. But I don’t imagine he still has any feelings for her. After all, she dropped him, not the reverse.”

Sally, who knew something about helpless unrequited love, wasn’t so quick to agree. After all, she still had secret feelings for Ebenezer…

“Deep thoughts, dear?” Jessica asked softly.

“I was remembering the reruns we used to see of that old TV series, The A-Team,” she recalled with an audible laugh. “I loved it when they had to knock out that character Mr. T played to get him on an airplane.”

“It was a good show. Not lifelike, of course,” Jessica added.

“What part?”

“All of it.”

Jessica would probably know, Sally figured. “Why didn’t you ever tell me what you did for a living?”

“Need to know,” came the dry reply. “You didn’t, until now.”

“If you knew Ebenezer when he was still working as a mercenary, I guess you learned a lot about the business,” she ventured.

Jessica’s face closed up. “I learned too much,” she said coldly. “Far too much. Men like that are incapable of lasting relationships. They don’t know the meaning of love or fidelity.”

She seemed to know that, and Sally wondered how. “Was Uncle Hank a mercenary, too?”

“Yes, just briefly,” she said. “Hank was never one to rush in and risk killing himself. It was so ironic that he died overseas in his sleep, of a heart condition nobody even knew he had.”

That was a surprise, along with all the others that Jessica was getting. Uncle Hank had been very handsome, but not assertive or particularly tough.

“But Ebenezer said he served with Uncle Hank.”

“Yes. In basic training, before they joined the Green Berets,” Jessica said. “Hank didn’t pass the training course. Ebenezer did. In fact,” she added amusedly, “he was able to do the Fan Dance.”

“Fan Dance?”

“It’s a specialized course they put the British commandos, the Special Air Service, guys through. Not many soldiers, even career soldiers, are able to finish it, much less able to pass it on the first try. Eb did. He was briefly ‘loaned’ to them while he was in army intelligence, for some top secret assignment.”

Sally had never thought very much about Ebenezer’s profession, except that she’d guessed he was once in the military. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. A man who’d been in the military might still have a soft spot or two inside. She was almost certain that a commando, a soldier for hire, wouldn’t have any.

“You’re very quiet,” Jessica said.

“I never thought of Ebenezer in such a profession,” she replied, moving to look out the window at the November landscape. “I guess it was right there in front of me, and I didn’t see it. No wonder he kept to himself.”

“He still does,” she replied. “And only a few people know about his past. His men do, of course,” she added, and there was an inflection in her tone that was suddenly different.

“Do you know any of his men?”

Jessica’s face tautened. “One or two. I believe Dallas Kirk still works for him. And Micah Steele does consulting work when Eb asks him to,” she added and smiled. “Micah’s a good guy. He’s the only one of Eb’s old colleagues who still works in the trade. He lives in Nassau, but he spends an occasional week helping Ebenezer train men when he’s needed.”

“And Dallas Kirk?”

Jessica’s soft face went very hard. At her side, one of her small hands clenched. “Dallas was badly wounded in a firefight a year ago. He came home shot to pieces and Eb found something for him to teach in the tactics courses. He doesn’t speak to me, of course. We had a difficult parting some years ago.”

That was intriguing, and Sally was going to find out about it one day. But she didn’t press her luck. “How about fajitas for supper?” she asked.

Jessica’s glower dissolved into a smile. “Sounds lovely!”

“I’ll get right on them.” Sally went back into the kitchen, her head spinning with the things she’d learned about people she thought she knew. Life, she considered, was always full of surprises.